Guild Wars 2

Jaymee.1560:

In the 3 years I have been playing I never seen a zombie in Frostgorge. Fore Fireheart Rise.

Uhhhhhhh….

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Fixing_the_Blame

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Destroy_the_undead_mesmer_illusions

Easy to miss, if you don’t choose one out of 10 story paths – which were taken out of the game for about a year.

Jaymee.1560:

Now, yesterday, someone said arrogantly: “It’s fire, duhhh… he’s a PLANT.”
To me, we’re talking magical dragons and with that having been said, the element of Fire is relative in my mind.

Honestly, I don’t get why people think such.

Fire plant says hello

Fire plant two point oh says hello

Jaymee.1560:

Others tossed that this is information learned in HoT when it launches, but something has occurred to me. We don’t see his reach in the high parts of the Northern Shiverpeaks and… anyone who owns plants, we know winter is not the season for planting… and I thought – Ice. Plants thrive in the warmth, Cold is their undoing (Unless it’s a holly bush) uh… what do you think?

This is something I’ve thought as well and think it might have some merit to it. However, it could be a mere case of being mountains and rock – harder to dig through, so no show of presence yet. The main counter point is the mordrem we saw at Fort Concordia – a warmer but still mountainous location.

Zhaitan’s main weakness in the end, how we beat him, was by poisoning the magic he consumed and held. Basically we used the method of dragon corruption against him, turning his tainted magic into yet-again-tainted magic.

Ehecatl.9172:

Glint fashioned a spear from Kraalkatorrik’s blood with the intent of using his own body to defeat him.

Spine*

The blood she collected, but it was Snaff who found a method to weaponize it. The spear was made out of one of Kralkatorrik’s spines/spikes thingies. The blood was utilized as excessively powerful power crystals to help Snaff delve into Kralk’s mind and control his body.

Ehecatl.9172:

Jormag lost a tooth to a norn warrior empowered by the spirits… Don’t really know how that worked.

NPC theory brings up a jotun scroll that Aesgir might has used.

Jaymee.1560:

But hey on that note, could it be feasible that we might use ley lines to kill him? Since he’s obviously using them against us?

To me, Ley Line Magic? That’s not a one-way street?

That would be foolish, really, as the method to do that would be the same as Zhaitan – poisoning the magic.

But if you poison the ley line magic, you poison ALL magic in the world. It’d be a one-stop shop to kill everything in the world. Might not be immediate, might take centuries to really show its effects, but it’d be little different than exploding a nuclear missile in proper wind currents to spread the radiation across a huge field.

Gaile Gray.6029:

We also are going to postpone our plans to organize an in-game event around the Mordrem Invasion this afternoon.

You do realize that just makes the event worse, by leaving it as it is rather than having some other activities added, right?

Gaile Gray.6029:

We encourage all of you who’ve participated in the Mordrem Invasion to please share your constructive thoughts on how we can improve on these types of experiences in the future. Please share your ideas and feedback in this thread.

I’m just going to quote what I put down in a reddit thread last night. But before that, I just want to state that I understand where some of the design concepts came from.

• No loot came from the fact that people abused the loot system during Scarlet invasions, focusing on farming mobs and especially champions rather than completing the event. By removing loot, the focus becomes geared towards completing the invasion instead.
• No experience prevents low levels from being insanely overleveled without new players learning the things the new levels give them.
• Finally, making the rewards personal based was because, no doubt, during Escape from Lion’s Arch we had a ton of afk leechers for the citizen rescuing.

So I understand where those changes came from, but I think things were taken ‘too far’.

ON REWARDS
The stacks from event completion is a neat idea, but there’s two major failpoints on the implementation. First off, disconnection ruins all progress. I think people would rather have chests per event instead. Second off, with 1 stack per event completion regardless of contribution, you get people tagging and leaving.

Solution to the second would be to tier stacks of the reward-calculating buff based on participation. For example:

• Bronze participation = 1 stack of Invasion Defender
• Silver participation = 2 stacks of Invasion Defender
• Gold participation = 3 stacks of Invasion Defender

This would keep people around longer. Then in addition, add a third chest at the end for map-wide event completion. Using the current Mordrem Invasion system, that chest should be set up as:

• 10 events completed = 5 Mordrem Blooms
• 25 events completed = 10 Mordrem Blooms
• 40 events completed = 15 Mordrem Blooms
  By having both personal and map-wide participation, you promote completion of events while pushing away from people afk’ing, and if that personal participation scales on multiple levels – how many events you do, and how much you participated in them – then there will be a desire to both stick around and to get as many as you can, pushing people to pay attention to what to do and figure out the fastest way to complete and event, rather than the fastest way to get participation for an event.

Finally, have money and karma rewarded for event completions, giving some basic rewards provided for those with little interest in the vendor’s offers.

Then expand the event to have seven more days – a full week, if not two.

This would turn the event from a grindfest to a casual fun community event, which is what it was promoted as.

OVERALL VIEWS
It was overhyped and doesn’t fit GW2’s “stated philosphy”.

It is a grindfest, pure and simple. Little reward for high prices and limited time.

The rewards themselves are great. Gemstore items from Season 1 – i.e., no longer available – or assistance on some of the grindiest armor aside from Legendary/Halloween exotic weapons? Great. But the boxes give a paultry amount and for the rate of bloom drops the prices for everything else are too pricey, particularly for a casual game.

If they upped the rewards/downed the prices and extended this event for a full week rather than a weekend (didn’t they learn that lesson with The Lost Shores?), it’d be better.

The events are a bit too simplistic – a clear crossover of the Scarlet’s Minion Invasion! meta and the Toxic Offshoot events – but not terrible in the least. However, the rush to get credit and move on to the next before the 30 minutes are up just for the mere +5 Blooms ruins the experience.

And to add onto that, this very event was promoted as a community building event to promote Heart of Thorns? It’s a selfish event due to the lack of map-based rewards where you want to do as little work for as many events as possible, and doesn’t set a good example on the idea of rewards or event variety in Heart of Thorns either.

Overall, I’d rate a 4/10.

Good concept, but terrible implementation.

TL;DR
Pros:

• Excellent reward options, offering no longer obtainable stuff.
• Promoted well.
• Mixes two highly praised design concepts of Season 1, one of which many folks wanted a return of.
• Neat mechanics.
• Doesn’t overlevel new players, thus pushing them out of their element (like past events).

Cons:

• Too short duration (one weekend is not enough – The Lost Shores should have told you this!).
• Too much pressure to ignore mechanics.
• Too pricey rewards/little currency rewarded, furthering the stress of point #2.
• Quantity of RNG drops designed to help hasten crafting is too low to make much difference in said crafting.
• Promoted too well. Ends up not being what was promoted.
• Doesn’t reward ANY old currencies (I’m looking at you, Karma).

Calcifire.1864:

from the article it seems to shed a little nature on how the dream protects sylvari:

it’s a distraction.

the “constant noise” that soundless complain about is the whole POINT of the dream, it’s so noisy that unless mordremoth is actively shouting as loud as he can, they just can’t hear him over the crowd.

and the wyld hunts are a distraction to keep you busy and not pay attention to the whispers.

that’s why the soundless are so sussceptible: their minds are so quiet that they can hear mordremoth all the time!

It’s a distriction from the Mordrem Guard’s perspective.

If we learned anything from the risen in Orr, it’s that their personalities are twisted and warped from their original personality. A corrupted sylvari is NOT the same individual as before corruption. Or recorruption. Whatever.

Just like how in Sea of Sorrows, Bronn Svaard went from “kill all the risen!” to “join me, brother, and we shall serve Zhaitan for eternity!” the moment he became a risen, the sylvari are likely going “Kill the dragon!” to “The dragon is truth! The dragon is love! Feel my love! -stab-” the moment they become Mordrem Guard.

The one from S2

Above is just a fan recreation turning the New Krytan into English and distorting the lands’ length east-west-wise.

The article eduardo mentions. Not said by Laranthir.

To quote:

All the sylvari in the area have heard the call, but so far only some have succumbed to the dragon’s influence.

So the OP was slightly mistaken as he missed the “in the area” which changes the meaning drastically.

You have it upside down.

And keep in mind Southsun won’t show up since this map is from release, when Southsun ’wasn’t discovered’.

They are near the Terebeth Tree, and they weren’t fighting the Nightmare Hounds/Spiders there that I saw.

But they weren’t attacking Ascalonian Ghosts, Minotaurs, or Seperatists in Diessa as I saw. And they weren’t attacking ettin in Kessex as I saw.

But maybe they were and I mistook it as them attacking players.

I have yet to see the invading mordrem attack any other hostile NPC there is in the game.

Probably, but hearing != answering

Edit: Or, technically, listening/paying attention/caring for it

I wouldn’t be surprised if some sylvari – particularly those further away – end up going “Mordremoth’s call? Is that was that annoying garbling I keep hearing is?”

Tyler Bearce.3427:

We have no plans to add a jumping puzzle to the desert borderlands.

How will you work out the completion of the JP achievements then? That’s 30 AP that will become incapable of obtaining with nothing to replace it.

Plus, jumping puzzles are the best part of the game, how can you deprive WvW’ers of this fun!?

Salinus Warbreaker states that the Flame Legion fled to their the Citadel at Hrangmer.

The Legions of the Charr state that the Flame Legion took refuge in the Blazeridge Mountains. The Citadel of Flames is at the base of the Blazeridge Mountains.

Unless the Flame Legion have multiple citadels built into a volcano at the base of the Blazeridge Mountains, the Citadel of Flames is built into Hrangmer.

Unlike the sylvari, who were always of the same material as their dragon’s creations, dwarves were flesh and blood. When they became one with the Great Dwarf, while they turned to stone this was cold hard stone – different from the volcanic rock of Primordus’ destroyers.

Probably the same reason Kralkatorrik doesn’t have an army of The Shatterer patrolling the Dragonbrand at the same time.

“We want dynamic events to be repeatable, so the boss must return somehow. This is how we’ll explain it rather than ignoring the repetition in storytelling!”

Though if they were to explain that question, the answer might be “it takes time and effort to make such powerful champions that they don’t bother to have multiples yet – Zhaitan did because he was around so long, and Jormag does while fewer than Zhaitan because he didn’t have the immediate supplies that Zhaitan did”.

@The V: Points of Interest episode 18 might hold some answers, HoT will likely explain it all.

Scott and Bobby recommend a playthrough of the story as a sylvari to experience the full psychological horror of Mordremoth’s power. The Elder Dragon can implant thoughts in its creations—thoughts they may even believe to be their own—and only a combination of immense willpower and the protection of the Pale Tree can prevent Mordremoth from taking control. Sylvari receive calls to action in the form of the Wyld Hunt—or the Dark Hunt, for Nightmare Courtiers—and these compulsions act as an access point for Mordremoth’s influence.

https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/points-of-interest-episode-18-summary/

Basically, given this and various dialogue in Season 2, the Pale Tree is capable of protecting the sylvari via the Dream/Nightmare. However, there are loopholes in that protection which Mordremoth is utilizing (Wyld Hunts and Dark Hunts) now that he’s awake.

As for Ventari – it’s exceedingly unlikely that Ventari had any idea. Knowledge of the Elder Dragons was excessively rare until Jormag rose, and even then most folks thought he was the only Elder Dragon until Zhaitan.

Why couldn’t they?

It’s clear that wasn’t the full scope of their civilization or even a primary portion given that they lived in the deepest parts of the Unending Ocean – such a location wouldn’t be close to any shore, really.

To quote from the lore blog post on the krait: They have no need of anything land-dwellers can give them, other than slaves for their use and sacrifices for their rituals. However, the krait can seize those for themselves—with ruthless efficiency.

This, as well as historic quarrels with hylek, implies that the krait are known coastal raiders. So I would see their presence on the Tarnished Coast in GW1 akin to vikings in Europe.

Season 1 is not available now as it was made as temporary content. ArenaNet has stated the intent to rework Season 1 after HoT’s release. Until then, we have a recap cinematic of the important parts for S2 and HoT in-game (it’d be under “Scarlet’s War” in the story journal).

Season 2 will never be removed, as it was made to be permanent. I have seen no indication it will be packadged with HoT.

And it’s PS – Personal Story – not LS – Living Story. Living Story was given in seasons, Personal Story predates the Living Story.

Interesting….

• Tentacles! – Jade Maw’s Tentacles randomly spawn in and out of the fractals.
• Masque of the Red Sylvari – Scarlet Briar replaces the end-fractal boss. She uses her Battle for LA armor.
• Eye of the Beholder – Every 30 seconds, one random ally is targeted by the Jade Maw’s beam. There are no reflection crystals.
• Trahearne Ahoy! – Whenever a fractal boss (legendary foe) is defeated, a copy of Trahearne in a pirate outfit is spawned and must be defeated to complete the fractal.
• That’s Strong Stuff – The fractal is full of pools of Toxic Pollen.
• The Affliction – All NPCs cause Death Novas when downed or defeated.
• Hammering the Sky – The Skyhammer periodically fires, targeting the party.
• He’s Not Dead Yet – All champion and legendary foes have a downed state.
• Instant Death – There is no downed state for players. Players that would be downed go instantly to defeated.
• I am THE Glass Cannon – For every piece of damaged armor, you gain 2% power and condition damage. You gain 10% for each piece of broken armor.
• Tanking Time – You have 500 less power and condition damage but 300 more Vitality, Toughness, and Healing Power.
• Power Overwhelming – You deal 25% extra damage, but take 1% damage every second.
• “Like a boss!” – When an NPC defeats a player, Dessa shouts “That’s the boss!” and the NPC gets a buff increasing their power, condition damage, boon power, condition duration, gets permanent quickness, and makes all their attacks apply agony, however they have reduced toughness and vitality.
• Minion Apocalypse – Anytime a player or NPC dies, a hostile Flesh Wurm spawns.
• Lone Wolf – If you are less than 800 distance away from an ally, you deal 10% less damage. If you are, you deal 15% more damage.
• Quickening Terrain – Your movement speed is increased by 15% and you lose 2% health per second while moving. You lose 10% health per second while moving if you move even faster.

To GW1 vets: Yes, I did get some ideas from GW1’s PvP Fluxes. The concept is essentially the same after all.

Open world also requires resources, story telling, voice overs, writers, etc. So that argument is flawed.

The Ruins of Denravi are in-game already.

People suspect that Bloodstone Fen will be the first raid, though I’m not convinced personally.

I think he’s mistaking the personal story as Season 1. A lot of new folks accidentally do that.

Unfortunately, there’s no actual lore on the use of waypoints. It’s largely “they exist, and by pure happenstance they’re situated on ley lines because via trial and error those locations were found to be best for waypoints to be placed.”

We do see NPCs use them, and they do such by running directly underneath the waypoint. With LA’s redesign, we’ve seen our first case(s?) of non-sapient beings using them (particularly, a dog). For some scripts, the NPCs will appear at a different waypoint when disappearing at one.

We also know that the charge of waypoint uses is a part of lore – though unclear but likely for mechanical prices to be the same as lore prices – and the way that the money is collected, so we were told in an interview, is a dues ex “we didn’t think about it” case of it disappears from your pocket and piles itself in the Arcane Council’s treasure vault (I’m serious, that was what Angel McCoy told us when asked how waypoints work…).

For contesting… no real clue, but if you go to certain waypoints in Orr they have al ittle device on the ground you can interact with and if they’re contested it’ll give an error indicating a powerful enemy force nearby. So the contesting may be an automatic defense measure to prevent use by enemy forces.

FlamingFoxx.1305:

Wait what. Seriously O_o. My bad. I haven’t been in the Silverwastes for months, I was so sure that you could purchase them from the main vendor in the Pact camp, but I’ve checked and you’re right.

Sorry for that!

You’re probably thinking of bandit keys. Those you can buy for bandit crests.

Shovels you can only get from fort events.

lordkrall.7241:

Sublimatio.6981:

it would be pretty stupid to not attack jormag next. he already is the biggest threat after mordremoth

Is it though? It haven’t really made any major offensive since it awakened quite some time ago. Kralkatorrik seems to be just as much of a threat. And so do Primordus.

In the personal story:

• It sent a champion to assault, kill, and consume the Minotaur Spirit. (Champion called The Dragon Beast).
• Via the Sons of Svanir, it attempted to assault Lion’s Arch (thwarted by PC and Seiran)
• Is continuiously sending icebrood south (Grawl and Quaggan storylines).
• Attempting to convert jotun (Defeat Ancient Foes norn storyline) and grawl (Wayfarer and Frostgorge and grawl PS)
• Via the Sons of Svanir attempted to invade the Mists (Defend the Mists norn storyline)
• Assaulting the kodan (Honor of the Waves and Frostgorge).

From Season 2:

• Jormag’s influence over the Sons of Svanir has increased, and in turn the SoS have been kidnapping norn and forcefully turning them into icebrood (purpose behind the Barrowstead event chain changes/Episode 3’s norn stuff).

Jormag has been building up his forces for the past 3 years now. He almost did the exact same thing as Zhaitan during the time of the PS, but unlike Zhaitan who went unchecked, Jormag was constantly thwarted in his preparations.

Meanwhile, Kralkatorrik has done what? Nada.

The statement that “It haven’t really made any major offensive since it awakened quite some time ago.” is not only slightly false – as it’s activity has greatly increased in the past years – but this is true of Zhaitan as well. He hadn’t had much activity for a long time, then bam massive assault. This lack of activity is actually why Blightghast was so effective – the Lionguard had become lax and complacent with only handfuls of risen assaulting at the time.

Primordus is a true wild card because we don’t know where he is or if he’s tied to the things players think he might be (Great Collapse, Maguuma drying up, Mount Maelstrom’s eruption).

Technically ever since the rebellion, the Flame Legion don’t have a “homeland”. Fireheart Rise is more of a “territory won by conquest against the Flame Legion” than “flame legion homeland”.

Yes.

This book is an example of a Tyrian commoner’s knowledge of the Elder Dragons prior to the rise of Mordremoth. The members of the orders would know, as well as others who deal with their threats constantly (such as the Sentinels and norn).

Primordus, Jormag, and Zhaitan have all been well known since no later than 1256 AE (those of Lion’s Arch knew of Zhaitan since the city’s rebuilding, thanks to Cobiah and his crew that funded the rebuilding – other groups didn’t entirely believe him and the inhabitants of LA though until his presence became undoubtable when a large undead fleet assaulted the Krytan navy), with Jormag no later than 1169 AE, and Kralkatorrik – like Mordremoth – became common knowledge upon their awakening (1320 and 1327 AE respectively). Primordus and other ED has been known by the Order of Whispers and possibly others, such as the Durmand Priory, before anyone else (so before these dates).

Yes, if you buy a specific episode then you can play that episode, but no other (either before or after). Each episode is basically a stand alone DLC with a shared linear plot.

GuzziHero.2467:

Konig Des Todes.2086:

You forfeit the challenge if your level is three higher than the personal story recommends.

Had to stop here, because ever since the NPE you’d easily gain 4 or so levels through an entire chapter – especially chapter 1.

Um… nope.

I just took a level 60 through the level 60 storyline (one of the longest sections) and didn’t even gain 3 full levels.

The Exp from PS is a joke, I wish they’d just delete it for what it isn’t worth.

Take a level 10 through chapter 1 then. When I did it last, I went from 12 to 17. Just from the first chapter.

Either the Aetherblade Site 2 in Gendarran Fields, or Troll’s Revenge in Lion’s Arch.

Both the Mad King’s Tower and Winter Wonderland feel easy to me – their sole difficulty comes in the fast paced nature of them. But the other two manage to be frustrating (hair-pulling even for the Aetherblade one) without the rushing notion… imagine if they were rushed? Ugh.

“how would you do that then?” in reference to making them permanent content?

Simple. Bring back the original dungeons. Keep the fractals as they are. The fractals even together don’t even equal half of the original dungeons.

Bongo stole Magnus’ glass eye. It’s why he’s wearing an eyepatch again.

By GW2’s time (1325 AE), yes, everyone knows the name Primordus. Only the DSD’s name is unknown – though Mordremoth’s name wasn’t known to the commoner in Tyria until the events of Season 2.

There’s dialogue in Sea of Sorrows that indicates that Primordus was not largely known by the time of Zhaitan’s awakening though (in the book, when Zhaitan’s existence is unknown it’s asked by a skeptic if people thought Zhaitan was a ‘second Elder Dragon like Jormag’ – paraphrasing).

Dark Saviour.9410:

Yes and no.

No because there’s no need to put the spotlight specifically on a side-character that happens to be transgender. (Honestly, this was one of the few times something like this was handled reasonably well by a dev team that I’ve seen rather than feeling it was simply a PR/image move, simply because the relevant character was just some random NPC in the world.)

If they have a logical reason to bring her back into the fray, I’m obviously fine with that, but considering how they’ve been with the prior character cameos in this section of Verdant Brink, I don’t have a lot of faith. >_>
I just don’t want to see them specifically try to create a larger role just so they put her in the spotlight.

The ‘Yes’ part is because we have a severe dearth of NPCs in the world that legitimately make it feel alive. There aren’t many NPCs we interact with that feel like real characters in the first place. Dialogue tends to seem rather dry where its present, the game doesn’t really promote talking to NPCs for the most part, and for story stuff, it generally feels like were being talked around, rather than to…
If they wanted to introduce something akin to the FFXIV Moogle Mail quests which were specifically designed to be side quests that allowed you to become better acquainted with and learn more about side characters, that could work.

This is my view.

Adding Sya as the main focus just because she is transgender is, imo, a bad move because it’ll feel like a PR move. Having a storyline that just happens to involve her is, however, welcomed, especially since the Living World is hardly standing up to its name with its singular focus on just main plots.

I’d like to see small updates across the game’s open world rather than just LA and the main plot. If Sya was involved in one or two such plots then that’s fine, better if it’s a plot that would involve someone of her role. But don’t make her a spotlight just because she is transgendered. That just ruins the feel of it.

For example, perhap Sya goes to Fort Salma to help it rebuild, with the secret OoW task of establishing a base of operations in the retrofitted fort and recruiting for the order.

Fun fact: with LA’s redesign finished, Dougal disappeared. But devs confirmed he’s just elsewhere.

Hints to HoT involvement?

Would love to see the remains of that gang return. Not just Dougal but also Gullik and Ember.

Also waiting to see the return of the team Syska aka Labwan tried to kill by sending them into a destroyer den. Forgot their names but they were the funniest group in the Pact besidesCarys and Tegwan (RIP), with far too little screen time.

According to the wiki it’s accound bound. Adding upgrades doesn’t alter the binding – only using or not does, if such is denoted which the mysterious vine is not.

Also, I’d like to note that you can get an even better backpack still.

Season 2 was promoted as permanent content so it’d be weird to remove them.

Though I suppose they may eventually remove the Season 2 package from the gemstore, but you’d still be able to buy the individual episodes for 200 gems each. However, if they do remove the S2 package, I’d imagine it’d just be to replace it with a new item that gives an additional season (be it a reworked Season 1 or Season 3 onward) – which would fit with the recent “you only have to buy one thing” idea in that of having players buy minimal stuff.

They were most likely sent by Fierhan Sparwind – who would have just suddenly received the duties of both Blood Legion Tribunes in the Ascalon area with Rytlock’s disappearance – at the ‘insistence’ of Smodur.

Kalavier.1097:

Beigarth mentions his daughter is somewhere in Verdant Brink, as she was with the fleet. I forget her name but I’m curious if anybody has spotted her?

Blacksmithe Vanhe was her name as we last saw her. She originally worked for the Vigil, though we only see her there.

Walhalla.5473:

Ehecatl.9172:

Human nobility are dumber than I thought they were apparently.

Did you expect anything different from Nobles?

If it was “behind” the fleet rather than “with” the fleet I guess it makes some sense. Even back in the civil war it was known that some of the richer people would picnic on hills near upcoming battles to enjoy the scene. They often just added to the casualties via stray shots.

And at least Faren isn’t in his speedoes the entire time like the OP makes it seem. He strips down after becoming “one with the jungle”. Still sounds stupid on paper though, but nobles often are when it comes to actual life-and-death situations…

You have one hell of an ear for music, you know that? I listened to both and tried to see if I found similarities but I did not. And I love the Pale Tree Elevator music track.

Makes me wonder if Mordremoth succeeded with Malyck’s tree where it failed with the Pale Tree, and what we’ll approach is not a corrupted tree, but one burned down to the ground and lying in ruins.

Given all the indications of hatred towards sylvari ever since Scarlet that have been in LA, I am doubtful that the death of one sylvari would be tied to three massive dragon heads.

You forfeit the challenge if your level is three higher than the personal story recommends.

Had to stop here, because ever since the NPE you’d easily gain 4 or so levels through an entire chapter – especially chapter 1.

So it’s an auto-forfeit just by progressing normally.

Besides this list sounds less like challenge and more like punishment. Punishment != challenge.

You want proper self-imposed hardcore content? You only need one rule, really:

Can only use white gear.

That’s all you’d need, really, to make most content more challenging without the punishment that this list is.

We actually see some of those physical bodies in Brisban Wildlands around The Shattered Henge. We even escort one druid back to its body.

Though why these bodies are treants and not their original human bodies – and what happened to said original human bodies – is a mystery. However, such bodies would be long decayed even by GW1’s time, most likely.

Anyone else see similarities to the Tower of Nightmare in this thing’s branches and roots?

Where’s the joke in that? Oswald only kills if there’s a joke to be found!

So most likely he’d turn it into a game of “hot potato around the active helicopter”.

Season 2 will be locked if you’re not on a level 80 character, so that may be the situation.

And there were further clarification by various devs at various points – primarily PR folks like Regina posting on behalf of the lore folks like Ree and Jeff – which confirmed that sylvari have the external sexual organs.

Though as Meeting the Asura step showed, they lack the internal sexual organs (which would mean kittens and ovaries, I would assume).

That’s unlikely. The Zephyrites recently visited them, in 1327 AE, and it wasn’t the first time either by their indication. Furthermore, the Zephyrites consistency mostly of Canthan and Elonian individuals and while they were formed no less than 200 years ago, couldn’t have gotten to their current numbers with only the original Canthans and Elonians, especially since they haven’t been blockaded like naval travel to Cantha. So via the Zephyrites, Canthans would know of magic, and likely of the Elder Dragons too.

As for Canthan dragons not consuming magic, I also find that unlikely. Kuunavang was stated to be similar to Glint and Rotscale, even after we learned Glint’s origin from Edge of Destiny. And it was always “dragons consume magic” never “Elder Dragons consume magic” – perhaps a minor distinction that can be waved off, but what if it isn’t? It would explain why Glint could become an Elder Dragon, and if she were a normal dragon before corruption by Kralkatorrik – as we know she existed in some form with free will before being Kralkatorrik’s champion – then why wouldn’t there be more? Not just theoriginal bodies of GW1’S bone dragon’s (including Rotscale), but others, such as Saltspray Dragons if no others.

Shiren.9532:

Mordrem Guard either have a slightly different appearance or my graphics setting is higher. They now appear to have light teal leyline-like energy tendrils seeping out of their bodies. They also appear to be using a new weapon set that looks like Orrian weapons but is more bramble-like.

In past reveals, the Mordrem Guard have been using either Ley Line weapons or Mordrem weapons from the Black Lion Chest. Sounds like the weapons you saw could be either.

Shiren.9532:

Lord Faren is wearing a speedo.

That’s beyond comic relief and into the realm of stupidity, in all honesty.

Shiren.9532:

The ruins we see in Silverwastes keep turning up all over the jungle. Did we see anything like them in GW1?

No. Though they do bare remote similarities with the bridges and stairs of the Tarnished Coast that the asura took over. It’s possible that these are GW2’s re-interpretation of them, though we’ve seen a fair amount of these ruins in the Tarnished Coast, Steamspur Mountains (Sparkfly Fen, and Mount Maelstrom, and even the eastern side of Straits of Devastation).

Shiren.9532:

Several characters I’d forgotten from Personal Story turned up. It’s nice to see the world didn’t forget them, especially the Pact members.

Anet, more of this, please.

Shiren.9532:

Something called a Blighted Tree is found in the area, creating Mordrem similar to how the Pale Tree creates sylvari, only it specifically mentions using the dead.

Makes me wonder about the ‘dark presence’ in Wychmire Swamp that’s creating the Blighted Husks.

It’s the Blue Man’s return as the Blue Asura!

To elaborate: a “blue man” is an old temp-texture used for open world things, placed to denote to the games’ developers. Various game companies will have their own versions – Anet has used a blue man as well as the backside of a naked man in GW1 and GW2 anti-respectively.

They’ve stated multiple times that they hope to/intend to reformat Season 1 in Season 2’s style and re-release it. However, this will only begin to happen after Heart of Thorn’s release as they’re putting as much of their resources into that and working on S1 now will just delay the expansion which they do not want.

@Fox: Most of the open world events weren’t tied to the main plot or main characters, despite common belief. With the exception of about 2-3 dozen events, the hundreds of events added in S1 are as important to the story as the events in Dry Top and Silverwastes are; in that they can be brought back into the game as they were with little to no impact to the overall story of the world (just like how mordrem can be found in Iron Marches with S2).

Furthermore, there were 30 story instances – and again despite popular belief, over half of them were combat orientated.

The hardest releases to convert would be The Lost Shores – the only release that was done fully in the open world – Bazaar of the Four Winds/Cutthroat Politics – which had very minimal original content (just about all of Cutthroat Politics was 2 instances and ‘repeat old content with this buff for achievements!’) – and the zone portions of Tower of Nightmares, Escape from Lion’s Arch, and Battle for Lion’s Arch. But even those can be treated as wide open free ranged instances, they’d just need to be rebalanced to be do-able by one person (though this loses a lot of the original feel – converting them to be accessible as raids as well would no doubt keep this feel, however).

Jaken.6801:

@Konig
Not essentialy.
Just don`t go serverbased, but region based.
While I doubt there will be many times the events fail, just think of multiple low population maps where the centaur run rampart.
These could effect the other generated maps in the same way, suddenly resulting in a difficulty spike.
However, it would happen less or maybe only at night and in the mornings.

Not the same, for reasons Moogie gave. The megaserver means that there’s no clear flow between maps anymore. It’s why they altered how the Temple-and-Statue connections in Orr work – rather than a temple being tied to a statue of the same god, they’re linked via proximity instead. This is because it’d be impossible to accurately link cross-zone events with the megaserver. For example, what if there are more instances of Cursed Shore than Straits of Devastation? How do the Balthazar statues in spare instances react when there’s no counterpart in existence currently?