Except that they don’t want to control the Dream. They want all sylvari to “be themselves” which to them means “not follow Ventari’s teachings” and to them, the ideal/optimal manner of doing so is spreading Nightmare – which, again, is not “controlling the Dream” as they are as subject to the Nightmare as sylvari are to the Dream (more so, in fact, as the Dream does not permanently afflict one’s personality like the Nightmare can).
They do not want to force all sylvari to join the Nightmare Court, they want to remove sylvari from following the Ventari Tablet; getting as many sylvari to fall to Nightmare is just what they believe to be the optimal way. They couldn’t care less if the sylvari join the court or not, so long as they help remove the supposed “shackles” of the Ventari Tabelt – the irony of all this is that they’re trading proverbial shackles for a much more real (albeit not physical) set of chains.
And I am saying that the only way to join the Nightmare (let alone the Nightmare Court) is to do so willingly, either from the get go or by breaking down and succumbing to their torture. One cannot simply cast a magic spell and poof that sylvari is now a Nightmare Courtier.
Firstly, if I sound hostile I do not mean to be – I can be blunt, especially when people deny facts, and especially when they deny facts while admitting not knowing the truth as you have.
A word to the wise: if you come in admitting you don’t know, and you’re told something by multiple people, it’s far more likely that those multiple people are correct rather than it being a mass conspiracy to trick you into believing lies.
Ignoring all the hostility towards me and others and, quite frankly, all the posts with such (I will not bother trying to decipher hostility from misconception from theorycrafting)…
Now why would they try and control the Dream to force others, if the Dream has absolutely no control and is completely optional? Doesn’t this statement challenge the common belief on the effects and influence of the Dream?
Also if I am to understand the structure of the Nightmare Cult I have to break it down. A group of Silvari can and does force others through the dream and rituals to indoctrinate others to their cause?
Firstly, they don’t try to control the Dream. They try to exploit sylvari’s connections to it, and turn the Dream into Nightmare – a bit of a difference, as they’re not controlling either.
Secondly, they do not force others “through the Dream”. Basically, they torture sylvari, this feeds negative emotions through the connection to the Dream, in turn feeding the Nightmare making it stronger. Some sylvari who are tortured succumb to the Nightmare, while others do not (and are eventually killed if not rescued). Those who succumb to the Nightmare have their personalities utterly twisted.
The Dream forces nothing but Wyld Hunts, the Nightmare is not the same. It results in effective brainwashing.
Also, I’ suggest you be careful with the wiki’s wording. If it isn’t quoting the game (primarily as dialogue or UI text), then it’s fan-written words. This means there is subject to interpretation by the writer (and the reader, of course), as well as false information possible (be it out of date or due to the editor being misinformed or due to the editor intentionally misinforming). It may be called the “official wiki” but this is only because it is owned and maintained by ArenaNet, the contents of the articles are 100% done by the GW community.
The paragraph you quoted is not verbatim from any official source, so your mileage on exactness may vary.
@The Greyhawk: Arden is obviously a guy who needs to see proof before ever believing a person, even if he’s green in the field and consulting with folks who have been around years longer.
I myself do not feel inclined to search through wiki articles for dialogues that state the case, so I’m not going to bother
The only way we’re logically getting Abaddon’s return is through a corrupted and evil Kormir.
could be fun, little bit stretchy – but fun
Not that stretchy, since we know that his will still exists but was merely “broken” thus no danger from him – broken things can be fixed.
Plus, there’s this little guy spouting out this interesting line:
“A new god is born! A god that will destroy the others and bring about the end of the world! The cycle begins again!”
While it’s dubious to trust these NPCs due to their name, it does give one some pause for thought.
Rather expected, to be honest, since that’s the same explanation for ritualists and for player revenants in the biography options.
What’s disappointing is that they made such a build up for it. But there’s still the trip itself into the Mists and what he found there to learn. My bet is still on a snuffed out Fissure of Woe based on the trailer.
Based on research from reddit/wiki, there is no location or story dependent talks, by all appearances.
Now that the World Map has been significantly enlarged over where Elona is, we can see a path of Branded leading further to the SE with another massive patch similar to where Kralkatorrik crashed in Destiny’s Edge.
Wait, what? No. The location of the crash was just outside Glint’s Lair, not half a continent away.
The new line added and the big spot is where Kralkatorrik left after Snaff was killed and Rytlock failed to kill Kralkatorrik.
And it centers over the Mirror of Lyss – covering about all of eastern Vabbi.
That shaman had already updated his Historical Guide for the full new world map in the dat (we only get a portion of all they added, enough for the leaked PoF maps).
That kind of flies in the face of telling the Great Tree anything. It’s fairly obvious that the tree only imprints what it thinks is important on the saplings.
Not really, and it’s a proven fact that the Pale Tree does not control the Dream nor everything sylvari learns – this is explained in the personal story as a sylvari, and redoubled later on for all races.
There are semi-obvious things that are forced on a sapling and not pulled from a well. Such as walking, talking, and combat traits. Plus the compulsions to explore and learn.
Who says those are not pulled from the well? There are sylvari who don’t know how to fight, after all. And many sylvari who feel content to remain in the Grove – in fact, most sylvari do not fight and remain in the Grove.
We see that there are sylvari who tend to newly awakened. Who’s to say that every awakened knows how to walk and talk right away? Ours did, but that doesn’t mean every single one does.
EDIT: With Malomedies he was able to bring Mathematics to “all” of his people. That furthers my knowledge argument.
This isn’t a literal “I studied mathematics so now every sylvari knows it through the Dream” but basically him saying “I learned mathematics and began teaching other sylvari, who taught other sylvari, who taught other sylvari.”
Another key piece of direct evidence of a “hive” mind is the first death of the first born. It was described as "Riannoc’s death was discovered, it was felt deeply by the sylvari, described by Caithe as being “like a part of the Dream was torn away”. The Pale Tree says it was as though “the sun dimmed, and the Dream wept.”
That’s less a mind and more a… heart? The Dream sent an emotion through it to the awakened sylvari. Even then, some sylvari have a strong tie to the Dream, others barely hear it – either by desire (like the Soundless), unintended events (like the Nightmare Court/Scarlet Briar), or by innate talent (like Amaranda the Lonesome). There are sylvari out there who feel nothing from the Dream, even without hardening themselves to it.
That’s not a hive mind.
My interpretation, by this statement all Silvari (unborn) ARE exposed to memories and feelings of living Silvari.
And what we are saying is that your interpretation was outright debunked.
Five years ago, even six when the sylvari first got their reveal, your interpretation was the common one. Then ArenaNet developers came and corrected us, and we got in-game when it was released and we got further corrections.
Wait, “where you are in the story”?
kitten, now I feel the need to make an all new character….
(edited by Konig Des Todes.2086)
A sylvari doesn’t learn everything within the Dream let alone everything that sylvari learned that went to the Dream, nor does everything a sylvari knows go to the Dream but only the most emotional events do.
A comparison made by devs and by some sylvari in-game is that the knowledge in the Dream is akin to a well, while a sylvari’s knowledge when born is like a bucket pulled from that well.
They similarly don’t have a hive mind (for reasons that are a spoiler to the Heart of Thorns story later on). A sylvari is only tentatively connected to the Dream after awakening, and does not learn any more from it – the most they get is Wyld Hunts which is described as a “constant itch” that doesn’t go away until a certain deed is done or failed to be done (said deeds, the Wyld Hunt itself, being shown via a vision by all accounts).
Asura have no greater access to the Mists than humans – less than, I would argue, given their lack of avatars capable of moving folks into the Mists.
The Balthazar stuff is hardly really indicative at Balthazar showing up… The weapons and outfit were added in april 2015.
That’s over two years before Balthazar showed up in the plot.
Again, hardly indicative that the plot was going to go towards Balthazar. Next up is Dwayna the evil goddess of life, right? After all, her weapons and outfit showed up in June/August 2015.
Given that episode six didn’t reveal a new god, you can find it a safe bet the “one stayed behind” is a misnomer / over-hype for Balthazar’s return (wouldn’t be the first time ArenaNet did such). And even then, Abaddon did not stay behind, he too left into the Mists – albeit by force. The only god who could be argued to have stayed behind is more than likely to be Kormir (none of the gods have shown themselves capable in hiding among humans for decades let alone a millennia).
It’d make infinitely more sense for it to be Menzies over Abaddon, given the fact that Abaddon is dead and his power and knowledge and will all absorbed by Kormir (and this is ignoring the aforementioned continuous repeating mentions of Abaddon being dead and gone for good by ArenaNet devs). The only way we’re logically getting Abaddon’s return is through a corrupted and evil Kormir.
Furthering Drax’s point, Elonian refugees have been added in this update, at the very least to the Order of Whispers Headquarters in LA. A new influx of Elonians to Kryta may further push for such actions.
Joko’s necromancy is a bit different from “standard” necromancy – this was true even in GW1, and extends to Khilbron, the Am Fah, Verata, etc.
Effectively, necromancers have a boundary they do not cross when dealing with the undead – namely less in “what” and more in “how”. The thing about Scourge “protecting souls” being counter to Joko is that Joko imprisons and binds souls for his army. He seems (Note: not entirely proven) to bind souls into his undead too, this being why the Awakened are mostly sentient (though this seems to have degraded based on the trailer…) as opposed to minions players can summon (in either game), or even GW1’s Orrian undead. The only other individual known to command souls for an army was Shiro Tagachi as an Envoy.
Joko does not devour souls – that is a purely demonic and godly deed (so far).
As for the second point: Basically, Tyrian and Elonian necromancers did some things that ritualists in Cantha did, because ritualists did not exist in Tyria or Elona. Ritualists summon, bind, and guide the souls of the dead – in Cantha, necromancers do not do this, but in Tyria and Elona, they do to a much lesser degree. Their means of summoning souls is a lot longer and more dangerous (see A Good Deed. and Speaker of the Dead ). This is why there’s an overlap – Tyria and Elona do not have a ritualist profession, so necromancers there do “double duty” so to speak (or vice versa: Cantha has ritualists, so necromancers don’t do as much).
Scourge seems to be taking a step closer to ritualism and making those overlapping actions easier, specializing towards it.
As for “necromancers can rip realities” – it’s long established lore that a lot of death leads to places being closer to the Mists. This is why so many communing hero challenges in core Tyria are places of mass murder…
BTW, Revenants never ripped reality. They channeled the power of the Mists to borrow power of legendary figures – literally letting themselves to be psuedo-possessed by echoes created by the Mists of those figures. Scourges, instead, seem to use mass deaths to create small fractures between Tyria and the Mists, just like Lord Odran or the nameless necromancer who messed up Godlost Swamp but in a controlled, temporary nature.
We actually do know when the war happened – we were told it happened around the time of the Tome of Rubicon’s original writing, which happened during the previous dragonrise.
Also, there’s more than enough reason to believe Zhaitan wasn’t in Orr until the end of the last dragonrise. The Altar of Glaust is located in Arah, and we were told that the purification magic requires geographical locations to work; since the Forgotten lured Glint there, Zhaitan could not be there at that time. So Orr was likely Kralkatorrik’s territory (who we know was in the Crystal Sea area too, having fought and bled there). The tablets never mention Orr, just assaulting Zhaitan, and it is never mentioned that Zhaitan was directly threatening anyone, mursaat or otherwise, so we don’t know if it actually was or wasn’t – nor is it ever indicated where the mursaat lived (even to this day, there is no proof that the “inhabitants of Janthir with the gift of true sight” were the mursaat). Meanwhile, Jormag and Primordus were directly threatening the dwarves – so it seems more of an ass move to assault a dragon that might have been leaving everyone alone at the moment, rather than the one on an ally’s proverbial front door (like Zhaitan is in core GW2). Going back to the example: it’d like the asura and sylvari deciding “let’s go fight the DSD!” ignoring Zhaitan, Jormag, and Kralkatorrik that are threatening humans, norn, and charr then being upset that no one else joined them.
I doubt that gemstore stuff will ever be a reason to argue “upcoming content hint”. Abaddon had a big indirect role in episode 6 and ArenaNet wanted to capitalize on that, is probably all that there is to it.
Either way, we’ve been told time and time again that Abaddon is dead, gone for good, that his story has ended and just his legacy, his past, remains. In Nightfall, and reaffirmed indirectly in Season 2, we’re told that both Abaddon and Kormir “merged” together – Abaddon’s knowledge and power, Kormir’s body and will – thus neither of the old survived, the new being that formed from the combining just taking on Kormir’s name.
Besides all that, episode 6 was practically shoving it down our throats that Abaddon was “the good guy” during the Exodus, by a botanist NPC and the Priest of Abaddon among more. Though they present such claims as their opinion (well, the Botanist does, the priest doesn’t but his claims don’t match GW1’s deeds so…), but if they were to bring back Abaddon, retconing themselves yet again, it seems they’d be going with their original desire to have Abaddon redeemed somehow.
Why would Lazarus ask if Livia has children? Same reason he said this in GW1:
Lazarus the Dire: “Accursed human! You have done this to me! I will not forget this!”
Lazarus the Dire: “Countless generations will suffer for your actions this day!”
Lazarus is just the kind of guy who would not end his revenge at a single death. They just carried this trend.
1. -snip-
Amnoon Oasis never actually has an origin stated. While Turai’s ghost is there, this is because he was waiting for the Chosen. At the time, Elona did not reach that far -
there was Elonia though, a colony that Turai had established but fell during his lifetime.
Nowadays, however, we clearly see Elonian structures thriving in the Crystal Desert under Palawa Joko’s rule. Joko rules Elona. Ergo, as far north as the Crystal Oasis map is considered part of Elona.
Elona is not akin to Europe and Asia. It is a nation. And like all nations, the boundaries can and will shift. In the past 250 years since Nightfall, the nation of Elona’s borders shifted north due to Joko’s mastery of desert lifestyle. Vabbi, Kourna, and Istan were never nations but provinces of the nation Elona, which during GW1 had no unified government anymore.
2. We actually did go to the Crystal Desert to stop Abaddon. The Desolation is where we went, before we were forced into the Realm of Torment. While the final confrontation was in the Realm of Torment, we chased Varesh into the Desolation first, and the Desolation is part of the Crystal Desert. While the hope was to stop Abaddon by stopping Varesh, that plan failed as we were to slow. But initially we did “go to” Elona and the Crystal Desert to stop Abaddon’s plot, just as now we are going to Elona and the Crystal Desert to stop Balthazar’s plot.
Earlier you said that we were not “going to Elona to stop Balthazar” but going to the Crystal Desert and “chasing him to Elona” – now you’re arguing we did not go to Elona/Crystal Desert to stop Abaddon, but the Realm of Torment – however by your earlier argument, we “chased Abaddon to the Realm of Torment” rather than went there to stop him.
You cannot have it both ways.
3. And Margonites were not always living flesh turned to ether, as we see with Varesh having killed her and she returns through the Realm of Torment portals as a Margonite. Her soul is what returned as a Margonite. Balthazar is still turning humans into his demonic army, just as Abaddon did, even if the very specific methodology differs.
4. Bloodstone Fen is no longer really “enemy territory” when we arrive there, and none of the waypoints are actually in the heart of White Mantle fortresses (because there are none anymore).
5. “you have said nothing goign against what I’ve said apart from trying to say that the effect and cause are the same” and the effect for this plot is the same exact effect for the other plot. Just swap “break out of prison” with “kill the Elder Dragons”, and suddenly everything else is just a reskin of the same.
The only difference is that we’re going south, rather than north, and – as best we can tell – we’re not going into the Mists for the final confrontation (though given the first scene in the trailer which is very reminiscent of a flameless Fissure of Woe, and Rytlock’s forboding message, I would not rule it out).
Our goal is not “stop Balthazar from killing Elder Dragons”. Our goal is “stop Balthazar from destroying the world” which is… the same as Abaddon. Go to Elona and the Crystal Desert to stop Abaddon from destroying the world, which he will do if he breaks out of his prison and regain his power. Go to Elona and the Crystal Desert to stop Balthazar from destroying the world, which he will do if he kills an Elder Dragon to take its magic and regain his power.
How is that not the same plot?
As for “no one would care if Balthazar went there just for a random slaughter” – again, false, as draxynnic pointed out in his post, in Episode 5 the PC makes a point to denote that even if his actions weren’t endangering the world, leaving Balthazar perform random slaughter is a kitten “not going to allow it.”
No one in core tyria went hellbent to stop palawa joko when he was conquering elona and the kryta was at the time quite heavilly flooded with elonian refugees at a time. No, central tyria would not come to elonian help if balthazar would not be endangering it directly – they didn’t do it earlier they would not do it now.
This is largely because of distance and obstacles between Kryta and Elona. Joko began his campaign to conquer Elona 60 years after Nightfall, by which time only Primordus had woken up, but his campaign ended only 50 years ago (or so that’s when the last of the refugees passed through), by which time Zhaitan was awake and being a much bigger threat to Kryta. And in the 40 years inbetween the two events (Joko beginning his crusade and Zhaitan rising), there was still the Desolation and Crystal Desert, as well as the Shiverpeaks/Sea of Sorrows, inbetween Kryta and Elona. Even then, Kryta was under siege in the Centaur War already. And the other races simply would not care about distant human matters.
This is not the case now, with Zhaitan dead and airships to make passage over the Crystal Desert and the Desolation with much more ease. And with Elonians now asking Kryta for help (no indication there was ever a request for aide before).
And unlike Joko, Balthazar has always been of interest to Krytans.
From what we know of the All, the DSD woke up 200 years ago.
From Ember Bay, we know the karka arrived on Central Tyria before the rising of Orr – i.e., over 100 years ago – despite only being known to us very recently. The krait, on the other hand, were forced from their homelands 50 years ago (or earlier) as that is when they forced out the quaggan of their own homeland in their exodus.
And currently, the DSD’s minions are fighting the largos, being such a strong force that the largos see the need to take their apprentices to the mainland in order to ensure the untrained fighters’ safety.
“He’s huge, has a GIANT FLAMING LEGENDARY WEAPON, summon FLAMING MINIONS OF DOOM! Is ANNOYED THAT HE’S NOT THE BEST OF HIS KIND! he TAKES HIS FIGHT TO THE MORTAL REALM….Ragnaros ripoff.”
Does anyone know how accurate this comparison is? I don’t know enough about the lore of either to say yes or no.
I know minimal WoW lore so cannot say there, but best we know Balthazar’s motivation is not “annoyed he is not the best of his kind” – he’s been weakened, cast down from his former glory, and is seeking revenge. And he isn’t “taking his fight to the mortal realm” so much as “going to the mortal realm to gain new power so he can even take a fight”.
Um, Ragnaros was a demon made of fire stuck up to his waist in lava (ok ok Ragnaroses got legs). If I recall correctly from raiding years ago, his summoned minions were not canine in any way.
I think the OP’s person is talking about the Forged in PoF, rather than Balthazar’s hounds, for “his minions”. It seems the person is saying that Balthazar as he is now is a rip off, rather than the original lore (which did not include the Forged (or, technically, even Temur and Tegan), going evil, or fighting in the mortal realm).
Dessa’s actions seem to just be creating and messing with little islands of existence within the Mists. The Mists incorporates the entire multiverse, and the gods went somewhere humans of Tyria cannot reach.
It seems unlikely that her actions caused Balthazar to become so severely weakened he’d go on a war rampage to regain his strength.
1) As we can easily see in the partners’ streams, Elona now reaches into the Crystal Desert. What seems to be our very first stop, Amnoon, is a large Elonian city – even north of that, we see a smaller Elonian port (which may be the actual start, if we’re going through maps akin to we did in HoT, and the Amnoon is just the teaser the partners’ got).
So heading into Elona / heading into the Crystal Desert is the same thing. People tend to think Elona is a continent – it isn’t – it’s a nation and its borders are bigger than in GW1.
Also, we went into the Crystal Desert (specifically the Desolation, which is part of the Crystal Desert) to stop Abaddon, rather than Elona.
2) That’s… not very relevant and is completely splitting hairs. I said “we” as in players, not characters. Besides, no character started in the Crystal Desert which is where we really went to stop Abaddon, as mentioned above.
3) Actually, the partners’ streams – like WoodenPotatoes – has some dialogue shown where the Forged are taking prisoners to become new Forged, and one of the Forged talked about being chosen by Balthazar to become a Forged and serve him. This is a heavy implication that the early Forged are, in fact, the mercenaries group we fight in S3. So yes, it is shown. And rather early on it seems.
4) Look at all of Season 3 and HoT’s maps, and Season 2’s maps. Do you see a single waypoint in the very heart of enemy territory? No.
In the core game, we have waypoints everywhere. Even then, the only waypoints in the very heart of enemy territory is for dungeon entrances.
5) Stop him from killing an Elder Dragon IS stopping him from gaining power. If you played Episodes 5 or 6, you would know that Balthazar’s goal is to kill the Elder Dragons to take their power. Stopping him from gaining their power = stopping him from killing them.
As to your claim about “no one would really go against balthazar if his method of regaining power were NOT harming us” – that’s untrue, given that Balthazar’s actions are highly hostile (the trailer for PoF’s second line is talking about a flood of Elonian refugees, meaning that Balthazar himself is dispersing Elonians from their homes left and right). Our reason for fighting him would be different, but it’s clear that they’ve made Balthazar a pure destruction kind of god of war now, rather than what he was beforehand. He’s already been shown as devastating non-dragon locations (like the pyramid he crumbled into floating debris, which we can see, clearly away from any dragonbrand/branded, in one of the trailers).
the prob is ALL LS1 majority atleast was in the OPEN world as events not instanced….
This…
Is actually a common misconception. Most events were as relevant to the story as Iron Marches mordrem events are to Season 2, without the story step forcing you to do them all. Or even how relevant the Season 3 maps and their events are to the main Season 3 story – ultimately, it’s just world lore building and not “the main plot”.
There are a total of 33 instances which is the main story of Season 1, and with exception of The Lost Shores, Escape from Lion’s Arch, and Battle for Lion’s Arch, this constitutes for about 80%+ of the main storyline. Everything else was just ambient lore, really, and could be re-added without much if any continuity error (especially now that we’re “officially” in a stance of “maps are stuck in time”).
On top of that, except for the three aforementioned releases, most of the open world content that was part of the main story were in the form of idle dialogue – the only real notable exception on top of those three releases, would be the Twisted Marionette (where we first meet Taimi) and Rox’s involvement in Tequatl Rising (which is not really necessary for the main story except for a couple side comments between Rytlock and Rox about all the tasks she’s doing for him).
However, the reason why Season 1 isn’t being refurbished isn’t because of the open world status, but rather because the instances are designed fundamentally differently, and to re-implement them in the story journal would mean rebuilding them from scratch. On top of this, we’ve been told, the sound files have been changed in how they do things, so they would need to re-record all or most of the voiced lines.
Ultimately this leads ArenaNet to the perception that it’s best to keep dredging ahead heedless of the fact that new players are left lost, missing a sizable chunk of the story as well as the main reason why anyone cares about Dragon’s Watch, which has really been the primary story on the protagonist side. They’re continuously responding with “we’d rather get to the future plots, which are awesome and cool” but forgetting the very simple question to ask themselves: is it cool for them, or for the player.
And without knowing why we should care about Braham or Kasjory, the things like Braham’s emotional issues around his mother’s death falls dramatically flat, leaving these “awesome and cool” stories to feel bland, boring, contrived, and forced upon players.
I have good memory, especially when it comes to stories, and even I’m starting to forget why I ever liked Braham when he was first introduced.
Actually if the lore tablets from Ember bay are true mursaat and forgotten were the only ones who tryed to assault the elder dragon (Zhaitan). And they were completely trashed in the process while dwarfs and jotun were cowering at their homes and seers theorising in their cosy labs over bloodstone. If that information is true it explains why mursaat said “screw you guys we are going home”. Just imagine nowarday Pact, the final assault on Orr, and the only ones who show up on a D-day are asura and sylvari. In result asura lose all their golems and half of military personal. I would not blame them if they said: “We are evacuating to the fractals of the mists now, have fun with dragons on your own”.
Of course, the lore from Ember bay tablets could be false, but we will never know now (thanks, Livia).
To be fair, all other sources tell us that the mursaat had the strongest offensive and defensive magic to be used against the Elder Dragons (spectral agony and their invisibility respectively), which all the other races lacked. On top of that, their betrayal was not leaving into the Mists, but rather nearly committing genocide on the Seers before leaving into the Mists, which the tablets neatly forget to mention even in trying to make mursaat the good guys in the mursaat-seer war. The tablet also completely ignores the fact (and we know it is a fact) that the dwarves were busy fighting Primordus and Jormag to varying degrees during the last dragonrise.
To use your comparison, it’d be like the asura creating a magical device that had an easier time fighting dragon minions and refusing to share it with the other members of the Pact, and on the proverbial D-Day of invading Orr, only the sylvari showed up with them while the norn are busy studying the sky, humans investigating god relics, and the charr have their hands full with the Dragonbrand, and after the asura lost most of their military might they turned to humans and said “screw you guys in particular”, wiping out all of Kryta leaving just Ebonhawke barely alive, and then fleeting into the Fractals of the Mists.
Sadly, they are called choya.
He was also imprisoned, however, and we were blessed by the other five gods just prior to our rather short fight with him (literally a 5 minute mission, maybe 15 if you don’t know what to do but manage to not wipe).
Mobile plants have been a thing since the days of Prophecies. Though the core GW2 game lacked them, and they never came in the form of mobile cacti or mushrooms, they’ve always existed.
And the only lore for why they exist is “local magic build up, usually from lots of magical experimentations, causes slight mutation in local flora”.
Players did not ride inside the siege devourer’s mouth… they got into that hut on its back. So yes, that was a mount.
The thing that separates mounts in GW1 from mounts in GW2 and other MMOs is location ability, and perhaps more importantly, purpose. Mounts in GW1 was just an “alternative build” while mounts in GW2 are largely a boost to mobility (or so it seems to me?), and mounts in other MMOs are largely just speed boosts. But both mounts in GW2 and MMOs are also unlimited in where they can show (for the most part), will show the player’s character, and is ultimately just another way to customize character appearance and show off. None of which applied to junundu or siege devourers.
GW1 mounts are akin to the WvW siege golems rather than most mounts.
Pretty much. S2 and HoT should be bundled together, and S3 and PoF should be together, since they are literally each halves of the same plot.
It is very weird that in order to play the first half of the PoF plot, you must own HoT.
And when will S1 return, so all the players not around in 2013 can play through the game without a horrid break in narrative?
TL;DR of previous three posts: ArenaNet should have put more lore references to Livia in the earlier game, before we were getting her involved in the plot, like we’ve gotten of Pyre or Jora.
TL;DR of other posts: Livia should have had a bigger role in Season 3 to matter to non-GW1 players.
When Kormir took over for Abaddon she said his memories and everything was there, but he was gone.
Gone as in dead. It was his power and memories, but his will was broken. Similarly, Kormir lost her individuality, keeping her body and knowledge. The two became one. That’s what was meant. “Spearmarshal Kormir” and “Abaddon, God of Knowledge” were both merged into a singular being.
The Abaddon glider is just Abaddon’s GW1 appearance turned into a glider.
Also If you look at the left cheek of Balthazar there is a rectangle red glow on it. Looks kinda like one of Abaddon’s eyes. Most may look at it as fire but the fire on him is all around with no definition to it
Huh? That’s warpaint on his face, over both eyes. I don’t know what else you may be referring to – in the trailer there is fire over his shoulders, like a chestpiece or mantle, with clear definition to it as well as coating his helm; no fire on his face is on his face.
I’m not seeing any “fire eye” on Abaddon’s cheek.
It’s not a legend, since we talk to a ghost of someone who did go blind. The entire story of Malchor is that the gods cannot show their true form to mortals without them going blind if they look too long (which we undoubtably did). So to show humans what they truly looked like, the gods hired a single sculptor, Malchor, to sculpt their true form. That’s the Orrian statues we see throughout most of GW2 now. Malchor took steps to prevent going blind before sculpting all six gods, but did go blind when sculpting Dwayna since he saw her as absolute beauty and could not look away to rest his eyes.
So why don’t we go blind looking at him?
That’s what is being implied given our limited information.
They could pull another contradictory reveal again and tell us that Balthazar is still divine despite the lack of, as the civilian in the first E6 episode says, eyeball melting.
This isn’t the first time we got referenced to the Realm of Torment in modern times as opposed to the Redeemed Realm. There is no lore as to why it didn’t change despite the not-entirely-canon dat description that we got Redeemed Realm from.
And the goal of “prevent Balthazar from killing Kralkatorrik so he doesn’t regain his full power and destroy the world” is very little different from “prevent Abaddon from breaking free so he doesn’t regain his full power and destroy the world”. The only difference is that instead of chasing down Copy of Varesh for 80% of the storyline, we’re chasing down Copy of Abaddon for 80% of the storyline.
That’s more-or-less the plot of every game ever.
Stop the bad guy from doing the bad thing because otherwise… catastrophy!
It’s more than just “stop the bad guy from doing the bad thing”. Both plots so far are “go to Elona to stop the fallen god and his once-human demonic army from obtaining power needed for him to enact his revenge against the other gods, and along the way make an alliance with lesser of two evils Palawa Joko”.
That’s a hell of a lot more specific. The only difference is the source of that power – freedom from prison versus killing a dragon.
I’m going to go out on a limb here and say that Palawa Joko will NOT be our ally this time. When we allied with him before, he had been weakened, and he helped us reclaim a foothold in Elona and travel across the bleak Desolation part of the Crystal Desert. He’s since gotten strong, and has his army back, ready to fight any he feels would challenge his claim of the land, including some Outlander some people have been calling “Commander.” Will his troops fight the Forged? Probably, the same way that elementals will fight bandits if the two come too close to one another.
While we do see some PCs fighting Awakened in the trailer, in the leaks there's a waypoint in the Bone Palace. Which gives a strong indication of an alliance, even if tenuous.
By all indication, what separates one of the Six Gods from other beings either powerful or claiming godhood is the source of their power. For the Six Gods, it seems to be a highly volatile, alien, magic source dubbed “Divine Magic” which cannot exist without a host – and its host is a “god”.
This may or may not apply to other gods, however, such as Zintl, Koda, and Ameyalli (and if she isn’t Melandru, Mellaggan as well).
Side note: Dhuum was usurped by Grenth in Orr. We can use the point of his fall as a commune hero challenge. However, unlike Dhuum, it seems Abaddon’s body was destroyed when he was brought down. Also, the creation of the Desolation/Crystal Desert wasn’t from when he was usurped, but defeated by the other five gods – his usurption had minimal devastation in Nightfall, though if there was no replacement then the entire Realm of Torment and Tyria would have been annihilated (supposedly).
I cannot see a plot that turns the peace loving Melandru and Dwayna into villains without massively retconning both GW1 and GW2 lore. Even making Lyssa and Grenth seem hard to pull off, though less so.
Kellach never died when turned into a risen, and there are plants that are corrupted by Zhaitan’s magic thus can be considered risen, but also do not die.
The main difference between undead and risen, though, is the same as the difference between icebrood and ice elementals or branded and earth elementals. And that’s magic corruption, enslaved will to an Elder Dragon, and most importantly: that they were something else before. That last bit seems hardest to distinguish for risen, but would you ever call an icebrood or branded an elemental?
Well, apparently Anet does for branded in the PoF previews… Oddly. So maybe the old established differences we saw before are no more.
I’d also argue Scarlet is leaps and bounds ahead of Taimi. Taimi is only as good as she is because she has built upon what Scarlet and Omadd left her. Standing on the shoulders of giants as it were. Without them Taimi wouldn’t be all that impressive, even her golem pales in comparison to the golems of say, Snaff. Scarlet, on the other hand, made massive innovations that lead to her nearly conquering all of Tyria.
By that argument, Scarlet is only as good as she is because of what Omadd, Elli, the Flame Legion, Dredge, Inquest, Krait, Nightmare Court, pirates, and Mordremoth left her.
The only thing Scarlet made herself was the Steam creatures, which Taimi criticizes as being obvious amateur work. Everything else she had were just improvements on other people’s works, like Taimi doing such on Scarlet’s and Rata Novan’s works.
They also have some pretty potent preservation magic at their disposal, though we never see them become aggressive because of their pacifist lifestyle so we can’t gauge their combat potency.
Except for in Draconis Mons, where they completely and utterly wiped out Rata Arcanum despite their army of golems, and are actively fighting the Vigil…
Druids were never pacifists, who would refuse fighting no matter what; they were merely passive in their aggressiveness, only assaulting those who assault them or nature.
As long as the being stays in the mysts, the balance seems fine. Balth had other plans, he fled into our world, thus they are missing a vessel, and i am assuming that’s why we have all these anomalies and portals opening from the mysts into our world and the fractals, all these pieces of reality mixed together.
This wouldn’t make much sense (then again, what in the story is making sense anymore?), since the gods were all in Tyria for over five centuries, and it is said that even now they’re not in The Mists (or anywhere humans can search in the Mists, at least). If the Six had to remain in the Mists and not in one of the worlds, then this calamity would have occurred over a millenia ago. Also, technically, Tyria is within the Mists as the Mists encompass “all things in the mutiverse”.
The anomalies are due through and through because of the abundant magic in the world, from killing Zhaitan and Mordremoth; the rifts don’t seem related to the Mists at all, but more to the Bloodstone’s explosion (which one may be able to relate to Balthazar, but this seems a similar effect to Thaumanova’s explosion, but larger scale).
About the Mist, Rytlock headband that covered his eyes is coming off in the coming expansion. The whole Rytlock eye bandage thing had only come about in the Mist. Otherwise his sight is alright. What is the need for Rytlock to have his eyes covered if not to protect his sight from very bright light in the Mist. But the Mist do not normally have bright light that can take away mortal sight. The only phenomena that I know of that does this and needed protection from is divine light from the 6 gods.
If Rytlock only needed the blindfold because he was interacting with the gods, why keep it on throughout HoT and Season 3?
From who did Rytlock learnt his Revenant skills if not from a divine source while in the Mist. While under divine tutelage Rytlock would have needed eye bandage to protect his sight.
Honestly, I always saw the Revenant profession as being very similar to Razah’s abilities in GW1, to assume any profession.
The short shot of Rytlock in the Mists, though, reminds me of a burnt out Fissure of Woe – as if all the fire had been smothered there. There’s a bunch of chains (FoW had a lot of chains coming from the sky, especially around the Temple of War ), and a lot of ash falling.
Based on leaks, none of them have a “straight path” feel to it like Dragon’s Stand does, be it partially or in full.
They may all have a world boss tied to it, like HoT, or perhaps they won’t – hard to tell there. And even if they do, hard to tell if metas will be akin to the HoT maps (bihourly) or more like the Draconis Mons, Silverwastes, or what have you metas.
The hologram simulation showed more to me that it was the act of the orbs going silent causing Tyria to go silent, rather than “going chaotic and overloading”. Comparable to the Earth’s core going dead, no longer rotating, rather than things like we saw at Bloodstone Fen and Thaumanova.
If that’s the case, then magic being taken out of the equation won’t solve the issue. The issue is The All itself being out of balance – the six “bodies of power” that are not the Elder Dragons but intricately tied to them dying off.
This depends on whether he was stripped of power Abaddon-style, or stripped of power Dhuum-style.
Abaddon was never not the god of knowledge even while imprisoned, but he was also never truly weakened either, his power was just sealed away with him in the Realm of Torment. Dhuum, however, is no longer a god but is exceptionally powerful in that same domain still for unknown reasons.
There’s no reason to believe Abaddon would have been in a weakened state once breaking free of the Realm of Torment, while Dhuum seems to be in a weakened state even after breaking free of his bindings.
As such, there may not be a need for a replacement of Balthazar – one likely already exists. The question there, then, is “will the replacement show up?”
Risen aren’t undead, technically, or at least that’s what was shown to us originally (seems they’re backtracking for the sake of catering to popular theories or they intentionally gave false implications contradicting further false implications), and Mazdak was a risen more than undead. Zhaitan never usurped pre-existing undead, and Trahearne says that Zhaitan couldn’t control his minions.
Season 3 was better in some respects – like music, map design, writing quality, and voicing.
But Season 3 also tried to do too much. They had too many plots going, and still not all are solved. Maybe if they went 8 or 9 episodes instead of 6, things could have been better.
I always felt that Season 2 was too short too, but it didn’t have as many focuses and by episode 7 it really felt contrived with how they were stretching things out with Caithe and the illogical “go into the past to find answers for the present” situation (WHY would anyone think what Caithe did 20 years ago would lead us to where she went now?). I feel like the ideal length for a LW Season is 12 episodes, but only if they have enough plot to cover it – which they did with Season 3, but those plots were either ignored partway, or closed way too fast (Demmi and Livia for example).
It is a bit of a side quest to read all the information though. If you merely play through the story, and just leave the story instance after you would quite easily miss all the Livia bits.
That’s how it is for all the lore though.
Want the vast majority of lore on Zhaitan? You have to dig for it. On Mordremoth? Gotta dig. On Caudecus? Gotta dig. On E? Or Lazarus? Or Balthazar? Gotta dig, dig, dig.
That’s how lore has been set up for the entire GW franchise, since the days of Prophecies. The main story has probably only a third of the full lore on the main events happening or the main characters.
To be fair, I thought the same when my character was talking like he knew Livia. I was fairly surprised, and I actually know the whole Livia thing.
To be fair, only asura and human characters react in knowing who Livia is, and just like the PC knowing the White Mantle in Episode 1, it’s presented from knowing due to history class, which would have happened pre-personal story.
(This does seem weird for sylvari who mention hearing about stories, though, given the PS begins with their awakening.)
So they explained how they knew who Livia was. Charr, sylvari, and I believe norn don’t react in a “I know who Livia is” but rather a “so your name isn’t Kerida, but Livia” manner.
PS. To all the people linking to the Livia wiki page, I’m glad you’re pointing people in the right direction, but I think one of the key points of this thread is that if you have to look outside of the game to find out why a key figure of the story is important, someone failed at proper story telling. Yeah, we can all search Livia now, after the fact, but it’s kind of too late.
To be fair, the wiki doesn’t have much that isn’t in the games or books.
There are some bits here and there from interviews or dev comments on forums/reddit/etc., but that’s the minority.
That’s kind of the thing about how ArenaNet handles lore – they put bits here, bits there, and have players find them all like a scavenger hunt. And folks put it up on the wiki for those who don’t like scavenger hunts.
(edited by Konig Des Todes.2086)
The outfit is clearly a reference to this NPC model in GW1 (female countepart ). Almost exact same design.
It’s also seems intended to be a “bland” look, for players who complain frequently about all the particle effects added to all the gear nowadays.
It’s been a major complaint, as well as the fact that there were so few skins on release.
I was disappointed there wasn’t any mention of new skins or anything, though I think it just wasn’t a priority/worth mentioning in the expansion announcement, as it’s clear there are new weapon and armor skins in the expac footage – It would be nice to see all the new skins that will be coming with Path of Fire though. I wish Anet would have included info on this :-(
They never told us how many weapon/armor sets we got in HoT pre-release.
Every map had either an armor set or a weapon set (bladed/Ley line armor, Auric, Plated, and Chak weapons), and the whole region got one weapon set (Reclaimed), there was an achievement weapon set (Machined), and then the guild halls got a combined armor and a weapon set each. Then on top of that there were 1 stand alone armor piece and 2 weapons for each elite specialization.
So we can probably expect a combined total of at least 7 new weapon and armor sets (5 zones + 1 region + 1 guild hall). And then another 9 armor pieces and 18 weapons for elite specializations. At the very least.
This, of course, doesn’t count backpacks in which HoT had 4 tiered backpacks (one set of 3 tiered backpiece per order + Auric/Luminate) which is harder to guess for PoF.
(edited by Konig Des Todes.2086)
I’m kinda hoping that there is some difference from the Nightfall plotline. Right now, it sounds like a shot-for-shot remake.
Abaddon was still in his cell. Balthazar is fully active. We had to kill Abaddon before his escape because he was stronger than 2 Gods combined.
Our goal is to prevent Balthazar from killing Kralkatorrik not to prevent Balthazar’s escape from some cell.
There’s still a pretty strong parallel to Abaddon pre-fall with Balthazar’s plot, being denied magic, turning humans into demonic army, assaulting the Crystal Sea/Desert region, wanting to become “the one true god”…
And the goal of “prevent Balthazar from killing Kralkatorrik so he doesn’t regain his full power and destroy the world” is very little different from “prevent Abaddon from breaking free so he doesn’t regain his full power and destroy the world”. The only difference is that instead of chasing down Copy of Varesh for 80% of the storyline, we’re chasing down Copy of Abaddon for 80% of the storyline.
The parallels are far too common place from all appearances. It feels like a rehash, not just of Nightfall but Abaddon in general.
Except unlike Abaddon, Balthazar no longer has redeeming qualities to him – ArenaNet made sure to remove them by turning his followers into battle crazed loonies, and creating retroactive new lore that paints his pre-fall persona as evil just like his post-fall persona.
When Abaddon began working to become the “one true god of Tyria”, after he was denied gifting magic, he was not chained within his realm, and was turning human Margonites into demonic Margonites, in what is now the Crystal Desert.
Balthazar, who is working to become the “one true god” (of the Mists? of the Six?), is denied obtaining magic, he is not chained and (so it seems) is turning humans into Forged, in what is now the Crystal Desert.
The parallels and repetitions are staggering. And it should be clarified, the parallels are to Abaddon on a whole, not just Nightfall, though there are plenty with just that too.
Unless these parallels are an intentional plot point – which I’m rather doubtful at the moment given the, ah, quality of GW2’s plots thus far – it can only be called what it actually is.
(edited by Konig Des Todes.2086)
Eloc Freidon.5692there is nothing about Livia. Absolutely no context for her at all at least not beyond a single line of dialogue hidden in the game not meant for players who are here to enjoy the story.
In the shining blade instance, after the oath, you can explore the house and find a bunch of interactive objects which describe the history of the Shining Blade, including the third Master Exemplar Livia.
These interactive objects are part of the achievement Student of Bartholos.
There’s also this point of interest in Arah which is featured in the final PS step. Granted this doesn’t tell us much about her, but it could peak players’ interest into doing a little research to find out just who is so important to have an airship named after them like Riannoc, Kalla, and Knut did.
So sorry OP, but you’re wrong. Information about Livia is there, and players are directed to it.
There is more on Livia before her reveal, than there was about Mordremoth (who got a single line confirming six Elder Dragons, and a name via a skill of an explorable dungeon).
And this, of course, excludes not only GW1, but the novels Sea of Sorrows and Ghosts of Ascalon the former having Livia as a major character, the later making mention of her.
EDIT: Now, this isn’t to say they couldn’t have done a better job, but more lore on Livia was produced in this episode than even in GW1, to be honest.
(edited by Konig Des Todes.2086)
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