Guild Wars 2

They do to a degree (you can see them doing super-sprints occasionally), but if you’re too much faster they’ll just teleport towards you.

Teleporting also happens – and far more commonly – on uneven ground. So if you jump onto a ledge, they’ll teleport onto that ledge (or a nearby one) to be with you.

Squeeks, see the post above yours. Bobby Stein has informed the design team of the bug and it should be queued for a fix.

Seems like a relatively simple issue, I’d imagine, so we are likely to get it fixed soon™.

I would wait.

I’ve heard reports that the Greatest Fear (restored) story steps are giving only bags of loot – which is downright strange. Should be looked at, I think.

Actually it makes a lot of sense for humans. Kryta has been besieged by the centaurs since 300 AE (though there were brief moments of peace around GW1’s time, this has gotten worse in this past generation) and Ebonhawke has had the conflict with the charr take out many of their fighting persons. And even ignoring those, we have disasters like Zhaitan’s rise, subterfuge actions like the bandits and street gangs, etc.

Most old humans we see are in Divinity’s Reach and Garrenhoff, unsurprisingly.

As for asura – I’m sure that their constant lab accidents result in many short lifespans, and in 1319 AE (if not earlier), the destroyers were an active threat in the area. Furthermore, we had the Great Golem Uprising of 1284 – 40 years before GW2. That would no doubt have killed a good number of asura alive then, reducing the number of asura that was 41 and older compared to those 40 and under. Depending on the extremity of the golem uprising’s casualties, it could easily be that there was a baby boom in the past 40 years. There do seem to be a large number of young asura in the game (more progeny asura than children of any other race except arguably charr, and the charr likely have high birth rates due to high casualties from their constant fighting).

The temple has sunken for the most part – though the direction placement is false from GW1’s positions (Grenth’s statue should be where Melandru’s is, for example).

Koviko.3248:

• Human: Human’s natural max age is 80, on average (based on IRL human life expentancy). The oldest known natural (i.e. without dark magic) was 105 (the Canthan Emperor). Old humans have grey/white hair and wrinkled faces.
• Norn: Norn’s natural max age is 120, on average (based on pre-launch interviews). Elder Norns have grey/white hair and either wrinkled faces (for males) or scarred faces (for females).
• Charr: Charr’s natural max age is 80, on average, like humans. According to an interview I can’t find, Charr and Humans age at the same rate. I assume that also means they die at about the same age. However, I’m not sure what an old Charr looks like, if any even exist.
• Asura: Asura’s natural max age is 90-ish, on average. According to a pre-launch interview, Asura’s can live up to 120, but their average life expectancy is about 5%-10% more than humans. Many Asuras implied to be old have wrinkled faces or blotchy skin.
• Sylvari: No idea, yet!

I want to say that while playing my Asura, I’ve seen Asuras with wrinkly faces that didn’t appear to be (or sound) old and Asuras that were meant to be old that didn’t have wrinkled faces. Roinna is one example, but also of the mentors you could choose as an Asura, only one of them (Bronk) actually appeared to be old.

Is there an inconsistency here or am just misinterpreting?

I can tell you outright that your numbers are false. Why?

Simply put: we don’t know human lifespans in Tyria. Leaders have a tendency to reach 80+ before death. King Adelbern died in his late 80s but his ghost is called middle aged. Yet we see his ghost still with his white beard he had when he was 60 (during GW1 Prophecies). Typically, middle aged for us refers to 40 and 60, but he was 20 years past this when he died. This implies that humans in Tyria live a bit longer than for us – easily explained via magical healing and longevity (the latter is known to exist and has kept Livia youngish looking for 180 years).

If I recall, there’s a retired old charr in the game who is in his early 90s, too.

The norn’s natural age is also unknown. The figure 120 was given to us saying that a norn can reach that age and still be physically capable for fighting. Forgal Kernsson was present when the risen took Port Stalwart. That was 96 years before GW2, and it doesn’t seem like he’d remember the event if he was very young – if 120 was the oldest norn tend to get on average, he wouldn’t be such a strong, fully-active, and still-accomplished soldier. We don’t know the ‘natural lifespan of norn’ because norn rarely ever reach that far, but it’s beyond 120, not at.

I would argue the numbers are closer to:

• Human/Charr – 90-100s
• Asura – 110-120s
• Norn – 140-160s

Won’t bother listing sylvari – as dragon minions, they simply may not age.

Norn may even be longer. There was dialogue that hinted that Eir was a child when Hoelbrak was being built – which would imply she was ~180 years old, but this dialogue seems to have been removed some time ago (I saw it during the BWEs/shortly after launch, in the lost heirloom norn storyline) and certainly seems retconned with the lore around Braham added (she was called young when Braham was born – by her husband at least – and Braham was 17 when introduced in 1326).

Ogres are known to be able to live 250 years, and the norn have an implied relation with jotun – a cousin race of ogres – so it’s probable for norn to live ~200 years naturally.

adormtil.1605:

he went to a lot of corrupted places that could corrupt him and I mean a lot more so then any other.

This is actually not true. While yes, the First Commander goes to a lot of corrupted locations, corrupted locations in of themselves never corrupt other beings.

Corruption needs to radiate out, or infuse a being directly. Only champions can do this, and not all at that – and some only do so in specific situations befitting their Elder Dragons’ apparent preferences.

• Zhaitan prefers corrupting corpses. Luckily, the First Commander never died. Fun fact: during the fight with the Wraithlord in Arah, you are given a debuff called “Corrupted” and if said debuff hits 20 stacks, it spawns a Risen Wraith out of the PC (this is likely the mechanic’s version of ‘player got turned into a risen!’)
• Primordus prefers corrupting land and fire. Luckily, the First Commander is made of flesh.
• Mordremoth prefers corrupting corpses or plantlife. Luckily, the First Commander never died and is not a plant (unless sylvari, but sylvari have defenses even against Mordy).
• Kralkatorrik prefers corrupting anything physical, but does this via encasing in crystals when not directly done. This is semi-shown in the fight against the Shatterer – the purpose for breaking others out is by lore to prevent corruption; mechanically, it just results in explosions. This is mechanics only, though.
• Jormag prefers willing converts. He even lets the PC go after they prove their strength.

adormtil.1605:

When I made this post I was thinking the branded actually made by that elder dragon with a very long and hard name. Why could no one give archvillans easy names like Josh, or Alex. Elder Dragon Josh its easier to remember.

Kralkatorrik’s name is likely derived from the sound effect/onomatopoeia for thunderous sounds (krak-a-thoom).

It’s not a hard name when you get used to it.

Most folks just nickname him Kralk or Kralky though. Like how Mordremoth is “Mordy” to most.

Gwaiyn.4395:

now, this is probably a widely speculated theory, but what if the sons of svanir are capable of influencing jormag in some way?

for example, SoS says no females, and jormag goes “okay, no female ice broods”

i’m not saying SoS controls jormag, they can’t like have him attack hoelbrak or anything, it’s more of jormag going “i have ants following me? might as well make ants happy”, i know this adds a layer of intelligence that the other elder dragons haven’t shown though

Jormag corrupts the women too. It’s just that the Sons of Svanir kill them.

This isn’t unique, however. The Sons of Svanir make a living to hunt down icebrood to prove their strength and receive Jormag’s ‘blessings’ (aka corruption) – as one can see in dialogue within The Barrowstead.

Son of Svanir: You have much to learn about Jormag.
Svanir Initiate: Then teach me.
Son of Svanir: Only Jormag can teach you.
Svanir Initiate: Then I go to find Jormag.
Son of Svanir: You are not ready. Hunt minions first. Watch. Learn. Live.

Furthermore, based on the Frost Portal dialogue – Jormag doesn’t seem to care if he loses minions because they’re weak and thus not worth his time and effort, and he’ll even let strong ones leave his corruption because they’re strong and he tries to convince them that if they ever want to become stronger… eventually they’ll come to him for power.

Yes, this shows intelligence other dragons haven’t really shown… if you’re looking at the surface that Anet wants you to believe. But all dragons show some level of intelligence – Kralkatorrik and Jormag showing the most, followed by Mordremoth and Zhaitan.

CETheLucid.3964:

I’d wager several (not all) of the human gods were originally a people from another world, some of the last, and probably were indeed modern sci-fi levels of tech.

Grenth is outright called the ‘first Tyrian-born god’, we also know that Dwayna, Balthazar, and Melandru stepped onto Tyria from a portal. So that means that Dhuum, Abaddon, and Lyssa would also have joined Dwayna, Balthazar, and Melandru.

However, Lyssa is also outright stated to have unknown origins (while Dhuum and Abaddon also have unknown origin stories in relation to Tyria for us players, it is implied that the NPCs of Tyria know such stories to various degrees by this), so it is possible that she is the first Tyrian-born god, and Grenth the second, and this fact was hidden from humanity.

I highly doubt that they were of ‘modern sci-fi levels of tech’, however. Nothing indicates such, and humans showed up tribal with oral technologies. While they advanced quickly to Iron Age equivalents by all appearances shortly after their arrivals (within 100 years) of each continent, to me this would mean that they couldn’t have been so advanced as being sci-fi levels of tech – modern or otherwise.

CETheLucid.3964:

When we began on Tyria it was like a reset button.

Even if this was the case, the gods would have kept some remnant of their old world technology. We see no sign of such, anywhere at all. Not in development, in the gods, or in ancient ruins. When such things are part of plots, there are always – and I mean always – some ancient relic that ‘looks like magic’ but is actually technology.

But we have nothing at all to indicate such.

The fast development shows that humans arrived to Tyria with some form of civilization already developed, and the movement to Tyria would more than likely reduce the stage of development, but not to great amounts as to revoke the entire civilization down to oral tradition with no stories of grand technologies of the past. The lack of such stories either indicate a species-wide mindwipe or that their fall of technology wasn’t great.

CETheLucid.3964:

These originals ascended to a point where they became an intricate part of this new world in a metaphysical way.

If what you mean is that the Six Gods became gods post-arrival, we know this isn’t true. Three at least arrived on the world as gods. Implied five or six of the known gods.

CETheLucid.3964:

I think Melandru is a native ‘god’ of the world of Tyria, nature, who ultimately accepted and adopted us.

Melandru is outright stated to have come from another world.

CETheLucid.3964:

Several native species to the world have claims or stories of being created by Melandru.

Only charr, actually, have such claim that aren’t native (Forgotten and human).

CETheLucid.3964:

Lyssa remains alien enough from humanity that she’s her own thing, and close enough to us that she adopted one us literally as a part of herself and became a multi-faced being based on us for whatever reason.

Then why is Lyssa the one who remained with humans the longest, and weeped when she had to leave them? Why is she revered as the most caring and loving goddess – potentially more so than Dwayna?

I doubt this, extremely.

Her origins may be unknown to even Tyrians, but it seems apparent that she is no different than the other six gods.

Besides, if she and Melandru were not part of the Six Gods, the rivalry to the Elder Dragons you mention falls apart – though it rather does all by itself anyways.

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Orrian_History_Scrolls#The_Six
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Quiz_Terminal#Terminal_1
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Quiz_Terminal#Terminal_4

Worth reading over…

Lurinna.4306:

Vilenia.3081:

Lurinna.4306:

By the way, anyone who says there is no archway period in Lions Arch in GW1, and that it’s just a name, should probably go back to that city and look up.

Is that the arch ?

I think there’s actually two of them. The other is in the opposite direction, over the main gate.

Those aren’t arches. The northeast one is the Lion’s Arch Palace, the other is some sort of pair of watchtowers.

During the development of Guild Wars 2, Jeff Grubb had said that centaurs were going to be one of the ‘black races’ – meaning that they would be always the villain, never the playable. The krait were another such race. Of course, Season 2 changed this with the return of the Maguuma centaurs that follow Ventari’s teachings, but they seem to be extremely low in number. The only other centaurs that weren’t hostile to humans were the Veldrunners of Elona. But they were likely wiped out/subjugated by Palawa Joko.

Besides, the armor designs for centaurs to fit with the bipedal races would be horrendous. Charr already look terrible.

Reason why as much as I’d love naga to make a return as a playable race, I highly doubt they will… and if they will, I highly doubt their armor would look any good.

xlion.3065:

Does the bug also explain why — after finishing the personal story and then Livng World Season 2 — Chapter 5 (Echoes of the Past) continues to appear as unfinished (Achievements locked)?
I’m currently hesitating to do the same mistake (kill/solo Zaithan and then finish LW2) on any of my alts, because of this.

Most likely what happened was that you did not finish Echoes of the Past, but got close to finishing. Hidden Arcana might not have triggered as finished.

Furthermore, if you were doing achievements and reactivated it then deactivated it without once more completing the entire thing in order from start to finish, it will list it as ongoing/unfinished.

CureForLiving.5360:

Konig Des Todes.2086:

Most of the main story was told in instances – in fact, only The Lost Shores, Tequatl Rising, and Escape from Lion’s Arch lacked instances out of all 25-or-so releases.

Been watching lets plays of S1, and yeah.
At the very least Rox and Braham story can be added as is (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oGV7R0wYNXg, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NowrCrxmEcw), the Dragon Bash Story (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xNLH9xI3Tps) and with that you’ve basically introduced 4/5 of the biconics. Taimi is a bit more difficult since she’s tied into the Marionette. But at the very least these instances (with a indication that they might change, expand or be updated it eventually) would provide new character with at least some idea of who these random people you’re hanging around with are.
Scarlet would be a bit more difficult, the Queens Pavillion story instances can also be used mostly just as while things like the Tower, Marionette, and Escape from LA have some story in the open world, and might need some tweaking to make it more solo-able.

For Taimi: The Origins of Madness was told not only with the Marionette, but an instance in LA afterwards (and then the Scarlet’s Lair instance which is still there, unchanged except for the chests).

Queen’s Jubilee/Clockwork Chaos was actually told in 3 instances, 3 open world NPC dialogues, and 1 achievement set. Two of the three open world NPCs remain there to this day. Vorpp is the NPC that’s disappeared from the open world, so either placing him back in DR permanently or making a short instance for him would work there, or better yet adding his open world dialogue to the end of the Closing Ceremony instance, then the only thing left would be the achievement set (Vorpp’s Assistant), which requires really just a single invasion instance.

The only real hard things to do would be the Tower of Nightmares zone, Escape from Lion’s Arch zone, and Battle for Lion’s Arch zone. You’d have to take out a lot of stuff from it. But those can easily be brought back in full as guild missions, while the story taking a ‘limited version’ of them – still work to be done, but can be done for solo’d instances. Same with Twisted Marionette – as it was, could be brought as an instanced guild challenge, but for story could be altered so players only defend one lane and then fight one battery (scaled up to one person per lane when you bring buddies, or alternatively one person per battery while just one lane defense).

It’s all doable to be converted into solo instances. You just need the time to work on it. The difficulty all depends on how things are coded, which we players have no clue about – so while it may sound easy on paper, it may not be in practice. Even just copy/pasta old instances.

NPCs do rubberband a bit if you have speed boosts going on, because they’re playing catchup. This is also noticeable in summons like a necromancer’s minions or ranger’s pets.

Phoenix.6917:

Please stop rolling out new content out that changes old content and not going back and doing a bit of polish. I just started a new toon and darned if when she got to L40 PS and headed to LA that it was the old LA that Destiny’s Edge is currently arguing in. I’m not a designer/programmer. But how hard would that have been to add into your big LA roll out. This is just one example.

Perhaps it’s the broken English, but I’m not entirely sure what the complaint is.

You’re complaining that the personal story does not use the new LA?

If so, your complaint is the polar opposite of the vast majority of the speaking playerbase, who’ve been so tired of seeing Destiny’s Edge meet up in ruined LA and wanted them to be in the original LA. The personal story being in the old version of LA is, in fact, a brand new thing brought with the update that brought Lion’s Arch’s new appearance.

So unless I’m misunderstanding what your complaint is… your complaint is that you want it how it was before the recent update, which is what everyone else didn’t like.

Furthermore, the new appearance would not work with the old personal story instances. The Vigil’s story step of going into the sewers cannot work because there are no more sewers. The Whisper’s story step of defending the city from risen going through the canals cannot work because there are no more canals. The beach that the Priory defends also no longer exists – now being a dock that is nigh impossible to climb due to steepness.

Lord Kuru.3685:

Reset personal story to zero when race is changed.

Doing so is the same as making the personal story replayable. Bobby Stein had already stated that they’ve tried various forms of making the PS replayable or resetable but they all result in numerous bugs where it would take more effort to fix the bugs than it would be worth.

So that’s out of the question. Not so much from a choice but what’s possible to do. They’d have to remake the personal story from the ground up to allow it to be replayable and even that isn’t guaranteed to work. Resetting would be no different.

Doubtful by name. It will be season 3 in the same sense that the personal story is season 1.

It would, in the end, be more accurate to call it season 2.5, I believe.

That’so be theory going about, though it’s less other universe and/or reality, and more ‘other world’.

The All is basically Tyria’s version of the Antikytheria mechanism concept, and only extends to the individual world of Tyria. For this reason, it would be that Scarlet did not see the Eternal Alchemy as she claims, as the Eternal Alchemy is the interworkings of all things – The All is just the interworkings of the world and Elder Dragons, magic, spheres of power, etc. Scarlet isn’t the only one to make this mistake.

It is unknown – but again theorized by players to be so – if other worldshave their own version of ‘The All’.

kitten you OP, for making this a Q&A thread. Now I can’t +1 you.

All three situations you presented could not be more obviously portrayed by Anet. At some point, people are going to have to realize that they cannot be holding hands their entire life without the blame of their idiocy brought to them.

On matter 1: There’s big green letters in the top right corner. You really cannot blame anet if your story step wasn’t the same as the one you’re entering. There’s little more Anet could do – if anything – that wouldn’t be obtrusive to 99.99% of the playerbase.

On matter 2: There’s notifications of this both in the achievement panel and the story journal which you go to in order to activate the episode. There’s little more Anet could do – if anything – that wouldn’t be obtrusive to 99.99% of the playerbase.

On matter 3: There’s a nice large pop up box in the center of the screen upon story step completion. If you miss this, and it is your story step, then the only thing that can help you is a big slap in the face. There’s literally nothing Anet could do that would make this more obvious.

I’m sorry, but these complaints fall upon you and your groups shoulders, not ArenaNet’s.

lordhelmos.7623:

For new players the story journal is incredibly hard to understand. I’m trying to work with players who have only been on for a few weeks and its an absolute nightmare.

I cannot see how it’s hard to understand. The story sequences are in order. If it’s locked, it’s all grayed out with an option to buy. If it’s unlocked and active there’s a marker saying such; there’s also a marker per episode showing whether you’ve completed it or not (on top of one at the lists themselves for locked, completed, and all achievements completed).

What exactly is so gosh darn confusing about it? It couldn’t possibly be any more straightforward than it is.

lordhelmos.7623:

Sure, you could hold a seminar and how to get a broken car to get to the finish line but that is just obscuring a much larger design issue.

If the car is broken, you broke it. The system works more than fine, and making it any more straightforward and obvious would end up resulting in obtrusive manners that the vast majority of players which don’t have this apparent baffling conundrum over the system would find annoying, tedious, and potentially aggrivating.

Like the pop up box to confirm using a tome of knowledge, when it’s so easy to get a stack of them within a week.

There was actually an interview with her in 2013

There was also some Twitter stuff or another (might not have been Twitter) during the break between Season 1 and Season 2 that got folks thinking Ree was writing for Season 2 (given current knowledge, might be HoT). This naturally being in 2014.

So by all indication, she still works for ArenaNet. Jeff Grubb too. But they haven’t really been heard from. Instead we get Angel McCoy and – until recently – Scott McGough.

Problem with your summary is that you also cut out the Zephyrites which were introduced in Season 1 and are very important to Season 2.

It was stated by Colin, I don’t recall where, that Heart of Thorns will be required for future Living World content. So most likely there will be a Season 3, and it will require HoT.

They’ve also made multiple comments that they want to bring back Season 1 in the same format as Season 2. However, because of the amount of work required (fully possible to do mind you), they won’t be able to get to it until HoT is released as they’re putting all their manpower into the expansion at the moment.

@Healix: That’s not really a season pass… that’s just forcing people to pay for a feature patch and a living world season all at once, calling it an expansion, and then doing another season slowly like they did Season 2. Which some people have already thought they may do… but in all honesty would be an idiotic ploy.

@OP: That marker is showing you to the Halloween instance from the past two years. I believe it’s a bug that got introduced with the last Halloween and never fixed, though it may be there before.

To continue, go through the portal that’s near where Disturbance in Brisban Wildlands is located. It is actually possible to go straight to Dry Top from the Disturbance in Brisban instance when it is marked completed (the zone exit will become unblocked by vines and you can talk through).

@Misguided: If you went to Silverwastes, you were too far north for Episode 1 content. I don’t think Fallen Hopes allows you to skip content, either. So most likely, you didn’t have Episode 1/Fallen Hopes active, but something else.

A comparison I’ve thought up would be kind of like: the personal story is akin to The Hobbit, Season 1 is akin to Fellowship of the Rings, Season 2 akin to The Two Towers, and HoT akin to Return of the King. So yes, there’d be a bit of a story gap if you go from the personal story to Season 2 leaving you confused on various pieces of information at the beginning of S2.

Unfortunately, when they made the content for Season 1, they never intended for it to be permanent. This was discouraged by the playerbase and said discouragement grew over time as people missed content and began to feel left out and confused, etc. So they made Season 2 permanent. They’ve stated that they intend to (and hopefully will) rework Season 1 to be permanent content and re-introduce it back into the game, however this will not happen before Heart of Thorns’ release sadly.

Best way to understand what happened would be to look up summaries of Season 1. The official wiki has one such summary

Despite common claims, Season 1 wasn’t mostly open world. If you’d rather read dialogues, etc. than read about about the dialogues, etc. I could make up a list of the wiki’s documentation of such. It’s a bit of work so I won’t unless wanted, though it is part of my to-do-list if I ever get around to it.

A crude mock-up of all S1 instances an certain collections of dialogues can be found here, but it’s by no means organized nor complete to our abilities.

Here is a list of youtube videos that I’ve seen suggested, though I have not verified their credibility/completeness.

Despite the constant talk about “Lion’s Arch is named after those arches made out of lions”… this is not true.

In GW1, there was no arch. There were lions (which we can still see some in the ruins, iirc), but there was no arch nor any arch made out of lions.

Season 2 is permanent content. It’s no longer free unlocking, but you can buy it for a handful of gems (I think the total price is $20 – 1600 gems – for the entire thing, but you can buy gems with gold so.. and it reduces in price based on how many episodes you’ve already had unlocked). It’s in the Upgrade part of the gemstore.

So new players can still get Mawdrey.

MauricioCezar.2673:

We will have acess with some new legendarys, with more coming on next releases.

Given the way they’ve been treating weapon sets as of late, we’ll have 16 legendaries – one for every terrestial weapon. Maybe two more for one weapon type like our Sunrise, Twilight, Eternity legendary.

Seems pretty clear to me with the statement that there will be minimal/no underwater content that there will be minimal/no underwater weapons added with HoT. That would include legendaries.

Shame that they’re sidelining a feature that they were so proud of pre-release. Instead of, y’know, improving it.

MauricioCezar.2673:

We will have acess to some Stronghold champions, with more coming on next releases.
We will have acess to 1 stronghold map, with more coming into next releases.

Despite being packaged with HoT’s release, Stronghold doesn’t seem to be part of HoT itself. Based on the dialogue, Stronghold will be available to everyone, but the Nika champion will be available only to those with HoT. This is a merchandizing tactic to get people who don’t PvE to buy HoT (alongside Revenant and elite specializations).

MauricioCezar.2673:

What more we are receiving incomplete? There is even a rumor that we are not even taking mordremoth down, only coming in future releases.

Rumors are rumors and you do no good taking them as fact.

Nothing you said is leading HoT to be incomplete. Just that we’ll be getting more improvements later on.

It’s like saying GW2 was released incomplete because we didn’t kill all six Elder Dragons.

Chances are good that Mordremoth’s arc will end with HoT, and that Season 3 is our intermission that will lead us into our next dragon. MMOs are always expanding in both feature and story. Anet saying that there are ‘more to come’ is merely stating on this fact.

It’s not to say HoT is incomplete – it’s to say that HoT isn’t the end of GW2.

This is what I think should be free for the game. This and feature updates.

Storylines (e.g., Season 1, Season 2), I think should be purchased – either as boxed expansions or DLCs.

Anet doesn’t promote grind.

-coughs-

Pyriel, that line in the GWW is from the Orrian History Scrolls. In early GW2’s life, some of GW2’s lore got placed on GWW until GWW editors decided ’let’s keep GWW for GW1 lore only’.

The second quote is also from GW2 – half of it being from The Cathedral of Silence personal story instance, the other half being from the skill challenge/PoI in Malchor’s Leap (Dhuum’s Last Stand), the third half being from Ossuary of the Unquiet Dead (stating that the room where the challenge/PoI is, is the Cathedral of Eternal Radiance’s ossuary/crypt).

Arah is stated to be the first city on Tyria, this would place its creation to be fairly early on – somewhere between 205 BE and 100 BE for sure, but likely closer to 205 BE. Though, it should be noted, that the Forgotten freed Glint in Arah, and a dev had confirmed that the ritual they used require geological location as part of the ritual indicating that Arah existed for thousands of years before humans arrived on Tyria (as this ritual took place before the Six showed up). This indicates that the gods and humans merely renovated Arah, not built it.

Grenth’s ascension into godhood would have to be somewhere between 205 BE (when humans arrived via boat on Tyria) and 48 BE (when the event of the Scriptures of Grenth happen). Given the details of the scriptures, with Desmina being his first follower, this means that between his rise and the scriptures’ events he was unknown to being a god. Indicating that his rise to power might have been in 48 BE itself.

draxynnic.3719:

One thing that’s different about Dwayna and Melandru is that there is nothing that hints at having relatives (apart from descendants). This could just be a matter of ‘absence of evidence is not evidence of absence’, but since the two are the senior members of the pantheon, it’s possible that the are the very first generation.

Technically speaking, we can say the same for Dhuum, Abaddon, and Abaddon’s predecessor about any relatives.

What’s interesting to me however is the fact that Grenth is called the “first Tyrian born god”. This implies that Dhuum, Abaddon, and Lyssa all came from the other world. Unless it happens to be that they are, in fact, younger gods than Grenth (however, aside from Lyssa’s scriptures being dated 3 years after Balthazar/Melandru/Grenth’s there’s no indication of such.

BobbyStein.2315:

Konig Des Todes.2086:

Also x2, for when you get to The Secret of Southsun, you include the recorded but never used Faren judging the fancy cat competition.

It’s on the list!

Solely for the purpose of pre-release critical analysis, can we by any chance see what this list is?

PeterFries.1057:

BobbyStein.2315:

Konig Des Todes.2086:

Also x2, for when you get to The Secret of Southsun, you include the recorded but never used Faren judging the fancy cat competition.

It’s on the list!

(gasps in shock)

Oh, hey, my favorite Anet writer pops up here.

Any chance you can feature some extra dying quaggans with the ToN content. That sounds like a proper alteration of S1 for improvement reasons. Come on, you know you want to.

You can even write Drooburt in there, giving him a reason for being out in the desert.

“Foo, got high on Toxic Pollen. Woke up in Prosperity. Was one cooOOool ride though. Got any spare change? Quaggan is thirsty.”

It should be any one path. But I’ve already unlocked the track long ago so I cannot confirm.

When Season 10 hits, everyone with a Princess in their inventory will have a Karma Queen spawned on top of them, with no event timer to their spawn, causing world boss events across the game.

BobbyStein.2315:

My hope is that, should we take the opportunity to bring back Season 1 in some form or fashion, that we’d get the opportunity to make improvements like we did with the Personal Story restoration (revised VO, maybe some new or updated camera flythroughs or cinematics, etc.). I want to be clear, though, that we have nothing to announce at this time. Just being totally honest and managing expectations here.

Revisions would be a great thing. It will present a chance to introduce Scarlet Briar in a less horrible manner. It will also provide a reason for veteran players to replay S1.

Also, I am putting in a formal request that you try to encorporate the short stories into the game.

Also x2, for when you get to The Secret of Southsun, you include the recorded but never used Faren judging the fancy cat competition. To be followed by an in-game version of the Welcome to Paradise short story.

I really hope that this becomes a priority project after HoT isfinished. Season 3 can wait. Your new players will want to not be confused.

And I STILL highly suggest a panel in the story journal to explain the events of Season 1.

And formal request to not forget about The Lost Shores. Because that is an important introduction for Kiel which is half of Season 1 (the not-Scarlet half).

Oh I certainly agree that it feels like it. I thought it was mostly open world too, until I actually looked.

I guess that’s because all/most instances were one-time events and the main characters were all part of the open world on top of instances.

And to note: I’m not saying it’ll be easy to bring back Season 1 just because there were so many instances. The instances of Season 1 were done in multiple formats (4 different formats I believe), none of which are like Season 2/Personal Story, so it’s hard to say – especially as players – how much work would need to be done to change it from instance format A/B/C to instance format D.

But all the assets are there. Dialogue, plot, voice acting, even the intended scripting. Arguably, it might just be a case of rescripting into a new format with some programming for said format. But as a player it’s hard to gauge how much work that ‘case of rescripting’ might be.

If you had post-processing then you’d have had a sepia tone to the missions in LA, which indicate that it was past.

I really don’t know how much clearer they can get in saying that the events of the personal story are not current events anymore – they’ve dated them, after all.

Yeah, A net really flubbed up with Mordy’s influence in the open world. No one in the open world acknowledges that Fort Salma or Fort Concordia were destroyed, nor do hearts reflect it. In fact, NPCs at Concordia call it a new fort still…

Bobby Stein has said that the new instance technology that allows old LA and old Concordia to show up in the personal story is not yet planned for use in Season 2, but that they’re discussing whether they should or not in the future.

It’d be idiotic to not do so though.

Tybalt’s sacrifice makes a bit of sense. Why? He states he’s going to rig explosives that’ll blow kitten in the fort. That would take out a lot of risen. Sadly, we never see this hole, so presumably he failed or ANet’s lazy. I like to think the latter, so as to explain why he wouldn’t come back to life.

Seiran’s sacrifice makes a bit of sense. Why? She’s sylvari thus won’t be corrupted; furthermore a distraction to keep the majority of risen off of the rest.

Forgal’s sacrifice makes little sense. He’s just a warrior, and old. Even as a norn, he can’t seriously keep them distracted for so long. And when he dies, he’ll just become one of them – giving the risen all of his knowledge and tactical/combat prowess to boot. Would have been a sad twist to force players to fight his risen corpse instead of the Vizier Ironghoul when the risen assault Vigil Keep.

It would make the most sense, however, if we treat it as if all three mentors are there and hold off the risen together, Sieran and Forgal holding off the horde while Tybalt sets up a bomb to wipe all three and several dozen risen out of existence. This is how I like to presume the personal story went overall – that there were multiple heroes who did every storyline, so there was not one but three potential-Commander of the Pact figures at the Battle for Claw Island, one per order.

Season 1 was designed to be temporary – though despite common saying, the main story was still told in instances for the majority (there were a lot of open world stuff added and subsequently removed, but except for a handful of dialogue scenes, they were as relevant to world progression as the mordrem events in Iron Marches).

This caused quite a bit of outcry, so with Season 2 they changed things up and made the instances accessed in a manner similar to the Personal Story, as well as making them permanently accessible.

Evans.6347:

Still, how would you remake S1? It was mostly world events, and the instances were incorporated into Fractals.

It actually wasn’t.

I mean, yes, there was a large number of events added and removed with Season 1, but an equal amount of events were added with Season 2. And most Season 1 events are, like the events of Season 2, not including the main characters or necessarily require going away after the events of the main plot.

Most of the main story was told in instances – in fact, only The Lost Shores, Tequatl Rising, and Escape from Lion’s Arch lacked instances out of all 25-or-so releases.

And it’s not like we don’t have events happening in story instances anyways – any event which does hold the main characters (primarily revolving around Kiel) can be recreated as an instance, rebalanced for 1-5 players. The only hard parts would be the unique zones – Tower of Nightmares and Lion’s Arch during both Escape from LA and Battle for LA. Twisted Marionette would be a lot of changes too.

But the rest of the main story – that is, ~20 out of 25 releases – are already instanced and ready to go. There are a total of 30 instances in Season 1 telling the story, with 2 dungeons; and about 12 events telling the main story (the vast majority of those being part of The Lost Shores). And even some of those events can be brought back into the open world and treated like the events related to Uprooting the Iron Marches.

I wrote out how I would return Season 1, after I had gotten some praise on a short-hand off-the-top-of-my-head suggestion posting a long while back.

In all honesty, bringing back Season 1 doesn’t seem as hard as people make it out to be. Most of the open world events are not relevant to the main story and are little different to the open world events we got with Season 2. Most of Season 1’s main story is still told in the open world like Season 2, with only about 10 idle placement of NPCs – half of which are previews (like for the Tower of Nightmares) or epilogues (like for Flame and Frost) which aren’t needed to be brought back (and if thought it should, a simple instance similar to Rallying Call – a combatless dialogue-only instance meant solely to push players into the next direction – would do).

The ‘zerg events’ only became a part of the Living World in three of the last five releases (Origins of Madness, Escape from LA, Battle for LA) – sole exception being The Lost Shores. Before that, they were zerg events because that was ‘the new thing’ – not because they were designed for zergs. No different than the zerg that showed when Dry Top and Silverwastes were new.

Kalavier.1097:

Said warning would basically be no warning. that cave isn’t very long. :P

Probably, but not necessarily. Keep in mind that we experience a scaled down version of the maps in the game compared to the lore.

Furthermore, being on a peak, the Durmand Priory would see enemy forces well before-hand, and could issue a probable warning before they reach the cave.

Still, it’s a rather questionable defense tactic. But it gives a living world-based excuse to expand the Durmand Priory to have additional facilities where the gate&refugee camp were/where the cave entrance is. Imagine rather than walking out of the cave/zoning into Lornar’s not onto a ledge, but an offshoot library+defense measure (with the Priory having been attacked twice and threatened an additional time in 1325 AE, and threatened twice in 1326 AE, it would make sense for them to shore up defenses too).

All the Order HQs have always felt a little small. The expansion to Vigil Keep was great, though when the banks left and again when the refugee camp left, it feels… less than it could be. I hope they take a chance to properly make them feel like real large organization headquarters.

Andraus.3874:

Remember remember the tenth of November.

The gameplayer treason and plot.

I’m fine with the personal story being easy. I don’t mind there being easy events.

However, I feel that there needs to be more challenging content in the core game. If HoT really is the promised challenging content, then there will be a high wall between core GW2 and HoT.

I feel that the main story (this includes the personal story, dungeon story modes, the eventual-to-be Season 1 instances brought back, the current Season 2 instances, and HoT’s future instances) should be easy but progressively more challenging. However, casual players should be able to complete it all.

• Dungeons should be for those who want challenges.
• World bosses should be for those who want challenges.
• Specialized zones (to me this should be Southsun, Dry Top, and Silverwastes) should be for those who want challenges.

Similar to how in GW1, there was normal mode, then there were elite missions, then there was hard mode, then there was elite missions in hard mode. Each form progressively more challenging (some elite missions being more challenging than hard mode), but only the base normal mode was needed for completion.

Challenging content should give new rewards – both those we can steadily work towards (e.g., via special currency) and those we can get by chance (rng drops). The best would give the rewards through both forms (like Silverwastes does for the carapace armor boxes).

But not everything – especially the main story as everyone would play it – should be challenging.

1. Give us World Bosses, both on the timer and not (sans the four beginner ones), as comparable to Breach+Vinewrath to Triple Trouble level of difficulty
2. Give us all explorable dungeons comparable to Aetherpath (level 80, series of tricks and traps and unique mechanics for each fight both boss and none)
3. Give us special level 80 zones dedicated to being challenging content

That’s all you need to do Anet. So long as a handful are periodically added to those lists.

Pyriel.4370:

My objection is where you say ‘we know that they were once mortal and ascended’,

You seem to have me confused with the OP there.

Personally, I believe that Dwayna and Melandru are part of the original pantheon. Main reason falls in the Hall of Heroes – it has statues of several winged females. This, I believe, has significance.

Pyriel.4370:

which it may be the case that they are all still ‘mortal’ as we can ‘kill’ them as we did with Abaddon, but we do not know anything prior to their arrival from the Mists.

All gods – not just the Six – seem to fall unto typical polytheistic religion rules around divinity – it does not mean indestructible, just the power to shape, and reshape, reality at will with little to no effort, and unaging (sometimes being ‘unaging except under certain conditions’ such as norse gods having golden apples they ate to retain their longevity; in one myth, said apples were stolen by Loki and he caused the gods to age until he decided to return the apples which restored them to their previous appearance).

So I would indeed say that the gods are ‘mortal’ – in the sense that ‘mortal’ means ‘killable’. We’ve seen/heard of two gods dying already, after all (Abaddon and his predecessor).

Pyriel.4370:

The asura probably have the best version that they are part of the eternal alchemy, powerful beings, but nevertheless a part of something larger, though they are pseudo-confirmed to be not related to the elder dragons.

Well of course the asura would have some degree of correctness to them. They claim that all things relate to each other in actions and purpose, directly or indirectly.

This is basically calling forth the butterfly effect but on a cosmic scale. The gods are part of the Eternal Alchemy, they claim, because the Eternal Alchemy is the study of how all things work.

It’s no different than saying “the gods are real” (in the sense of being real in the GWverse, to clarify). It would be no different than saying “Hitler had huge influence in the world” or “the Sun is a large part of why the solar system functions the way it does”.

They butter it up with fancier words, but that’s technically what the Eternal Alchemy is: how a piece of everything, everywhere, everywhen, works and is tied to other parts of everything, everywhere, and everywhen, and how those parts are tied to other parts of everything, everywhere, and everywhen, etc. etc.

Mem no Fushia.7604:

@@About how could possibly fins and scales become wings and feathers? There could be easy answer: they see her figure, they lose their eyesight and how they will tell what they saw? first what will come to human mind if saw something like that will be: she had wings, cuz flying beings and wings are popular in human memetic if it would be opposite we would have more history registers about water beings with fins like wings and scales instead feathers. I could also prove nothing, but it is speculation so let it be.

That’s unlikely. Malchor only went blind after memorizing every detail of Dwayna. He saw each god for how they truly looked, and sculpted them. He did work on Dwayna’s statue while blind/becoming blind, but he was careful to rest his eyesight while working on all other five gods – and he only wasn’t careful with Dwayna because he loved/was obsessed with her.

Mortals losing their eyesight isn’t a ‘instantly upon looking at a god, one goes blind’ but rather ‘if looked at for too long, mortals go blind’. This is why our GW1 characters didn’t go blind when looking upon Abaddon/Kormir. They didn’t look long enough.

Did you compare the descriptions that aren’t triggered to Dulfy or other guides?

There are two karka in the Commodore’s Quarter bedrooms, and several on rocks in the White Crane Terrace area. It is possible that you read the still grayed description and mistook it for another which you have gotten.

Edit: Also, that reply looks like a generic copy/paste response for blocking bugs. If you replyto it then you should get a better response. But I would compare to guides if you haven’t yet.

If you find that the karka in the guides are not in-game, send a screenshot of the location in-game with the achievement panel open (highlighting the missing karka panel if possible) and spot the karka should be visible,and a picture of the guide. This should get a better response. Even a basic reply should get a non-generic copy/paste.

Pyriel, it’s worth noting that we know Abaddon had a predecessor too. We don’t know his state of divinity prior to replacing his predecessor,whether he was mortal like Kormir or half-mortal like Grenth, but we know he wasn’t always a god.

And given that Balthazar had a father and has a half-brother implies That he was born (again, unknown state of divinity upon birth).

As for Dwayna and her wings… Elonian legend says that the harpies were once servants of Dwayna but fell from grace – what if it was the other way, and Dwayna was once a harpy that rose into grace?

Randulf.7614:

The class itself, no, but maybe as an elite specialisation in HoT or in the future.

Not in HoT. If any profession gets monk as an elite specialization, it’ll be guardian who are derived from monk mechanics and lore. Same with dervish and paragon.

In pantheon-based mythologies and religions, any god really is little more than ‘really powerful, old, and unaging but replaceable beings’ which is exactly what the Six seem to be (as well as Zintl, Koda, and certain other religions).

Rogue Potato.4723:

If OP is right and pact armies will run out of magic, will that make Rangers useful again?

Half of what rangers do requires magic, so no.

Only engineers and warriors would profit; and warriors only in theory.

But such a change wouldn’t happen to GW2’s mechanics because that’d ruin a lot of things.

Given the recent gain Evon’s made while the Consortium’s gained prosperity with the LA changes makes me think that Evon’s got influence in the Consortium – would explain how he was able to turn off the asura gate from the wrong side during Escape from LA. Consortium is said to be an asura corporation – so if Evon’s in good with the Consortium’s lead (supposedly this Boll), then it would explain a lot of things.

For the question of why the Consortium would try to rival and replace the Black Lion (so they claim): a fraud. The Consortium would be there to create a fake rivalry that would drive the employees to better themselves and their products on both sides. All the while, the profits go to the same pocket(s).

Which turns into a cough because Scarlet’s Rattle.