Guild Wars 2

It’s only a matter of concern because ArenaNet made it a matter of concern.

And ArenaNet made it a matter of concern because they were asked about it during the e’spirits interview.

darkace.8925:

Prolonged periods of not moving and not attacking at events equals leeching, whether you’re actually sitting at your keyboard or not.

If you’re in an event area and doing nothing the entire time, then you don’t get credit for the event and (per Anet’s past claims) don’t level up the event (despite popular belief) – exception to this seems to be gathering events or folks doing nearby events (which will count them as doing both events; e.g., the Dredgehaunt Cliffs guild puzzle increases the player activity for the dredge battle plan gathering event; Frozen Maw event increases the player activity for the norn armor scrap gathering event).

Doing something and then stopping does.

Malthurius.6870:

Season 2 had a finale and a climax.

It had a finale, but no climax. It left everything off with a cliffhanger. The one and only closure produced in all of Season 2 was killing the Shadow of the Dragon.

EVERYTHING else was left open for Heart of Thorns.

Season 2 and Heart of Thorns is 100% the same story.

And imo, we should never have gotten Season 2; it should have all been part of Heart of Thorns. I think the quality of the story suffered because of the biweekly schedule. If not for the poor quality I see in the story, this format would have been fine to me.

Kreed.2768:

TL;DR: You can’t compare TV and Guild Wars 2, they work off of completely different strategies to generate income.

The funny thing?

Anet continuously compares the Living World to a TV show.

Naus the Gobbo.5172:

First people whine about getting Living Story instead of an expansion.

Now people while about getting an expansion instead of Living Story.

Actually, the complaints in this thread as I see it is that both the Living World and the expansion share the same story. And worse, that the Living World did not have its own proper conclusion to it.

Something that I predicted and feared would happen.

It’s very similar to what’s going on with the Marvel movies and Agents of Shield show right now – the show takes place between the movies, but requires seeing the movies to make sense of things, which also include the grand climaxes.

Here’s your solution:

Remove the aweful world boss timer function, or at the very least have multiple world bosses spawning at once (even if potentially).

The problem is that people who want to do world bosses only have one world boss to go to – except with Karka Queen (which dies fast enough to get to the next world boss anyways), Tequatl (usually the same), or Triple Trouble (which requires a full map more or less). Have the lower four world bosses occur every 15 minutes instead of every 30 at the :15/:45 marks, and have the “orange” (middle tier) bosses split in half – add in other bosses such as Foulbear Kraal chieftain – and have both sets happen every 30 minutes on the :00 and0 marks.

Thus you’d be splitting the playerbase that does world boss trains in half – except for the world bosses that more or less require lots of players (Tequatl, Triple wurm, Karka Queen, arguably). And with more world bosses to the rotation, they don’t happen too quickly.

Seems win-win to me.

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Technically sylvari don’t come from the dragon either. They come from a seed which may have come from the dragon directly. But more than likely did not.

“We come from the jungle dragon.” -Wynne

Generations aside, they did – unlike the Sons of Svanir – come from Mordremoth.

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

(Though the Sons of Svanir don’t quite look like typical norn, sometimes . . . )

Those sons of svanir – most of them being shamans – likely are corrupted and have some semblance of intelligence to continue bringing in more converts.

Titus.4285:

If they made each set of Dragon and its “minions” more unique, I think it would be easier to understand and accept the reveal.

All they really needed to do was make mordrem more different than other dragon minions, and more similar to sylvari, in all honesty.

But mordrem function on the most basic levels we know just like the other dragon minions. Yet sylvari do not. And therein lies the inconsistency – not how they’re made, not their history, not their independence (though why such exists is a question, it is not impossible for other dragon minions, once purified, to have all of these things), but how they function (as in, what they eat, how their so-called “hive” mentality works, etc.).

Suffice it to say, I still think that they tried too hard to make sylvari not obviously dragon minions.

Maybe, maybe not. My real point is that we know far too little to be so certain that the Revenants are calling spirits – if this was so, wouldn’t they just say they’re calling the souls of legends, rather than calling upon legends? At least once? I am merely presenting possibilities given the lack of knowledge.

And as far as I know, no, we don’t know why Ogden’s mind seems mostly unchanged. Though it’s not like everything about the dwarves changed when they underwent the transformation – the Brotherhood of the Dragon in Eye of the North still fought to protect Glint. Ogden still has a continuous “we should be dealing with the dragons” mentality (or did in the Personal Story). So I think the change in personality isn’t as obvious as it was presented to be in that one cinematic.

You have tracks for mine carts – that’s what Diovid is thinking of – but there are no train locomotives.

Only ground vehicles we have are the charr few designs of charr tanks.

Sons of Svanir aren’t corrupted nor do they come from the dragon.

The fact that they come from Mordremoth means that they fit one of the definitions for what a dragon minion is.

Technically they only mentioned that the legends are of the past… doesn’t mean the figures are no more though.

Ogden is a bit of an odd one though.

Also:

enchanted armors were never spell casters if I remember correctly.

http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Jade_Cloak
http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Harn_Coldstone

They’ve said no story updates until HoT’s release so we won’t be getting it before then.

But that was added with E8’s release.

Aetherblades in Fractals drop them in nice amounts, imo. Other than that, best is to get the Sprocket Generator (can buy from Laurel merchant) and farm that daily – turn the watchwork sprockets you get into blade shards, and the node itself drops blade shards as well.

You can also buy the Watchwork Mining Pick which gives a chance to drop watchwork sprockets too. Only perma mining tool worth buying beyond animation desires.

There’s quite a few waypoints permanently contested because they’re destroyed – I know there’s one in Brisban and another in Kessex Hills. If you look on the ground for those, you’ll see the destroyed remains of the waypoint on the ground.

Whether they intend to ever rebuild the waypoints is a question. I just wish they picked a less central one for in LA to be destroyed.

fadeaway.2807:

can someone give me a tldr? I haven’t done the personal story past the claw island part and was actually looking forward to finishing it one day. Did they remove it?

Basically three changes was done to the Personal Story in September 2014.

1. They removed loot/exp from kills but improved the rewards for finishing each story step (the differing names in green in top right corner of screen).
2. They clumped each chapter into a single level requirement, putting each chapter at multiples of 10; previously each story step had its own level requirement and was more of a suggestion whereas now it is hardset (e.g., you could do a level 54 step before being level 54 previously; now the entire chapter of that level 54 step is gated to level 50 and you cannot do any of the chapter until you hit level 50).
3. They removed the original Chapter 7 (Greatest Fear plot) sans 2 steps (Forging the Pact and Battle for Fort Trinity), they then took the fourth, third, and second-to-end steps of Chapter 8 (Against the Corruption, Cathedral of Silence/Romke’s Final Voyage, and The Source of Orr) and made them the new Chapter 7 alongside what was kept of the old Chapter 7 (now the order is Forging the Pact → Battle for Fort Trinity → Against the Corruption →Cathedral of Silence/Romke’s Final Voyage → The Source of Orr → Temple of Abaddon). On top of this, they did not alter ANY dialogue so we’re seeing references to the current chapter 8 during the current chapter 7, they even hardcoded it so that you get references to Tonn (an NPC during one greatest fear) when you’d get a reference to various NPCs regarding your greatest fear choice; on top of this, one of the story divisions during chapter 8 get hardcoded in selection for The Source of Orr (specifically, the Order of Whispers’ choice). So you not only get references to something you never can do, but something you may not do in the future. And that’s not to mention the other plot continuity errors that number in the dozens if not hundreds caused by this change.

This thread is specifically referring to the third situation. Few folks care about the first change from what I see, and the second is a mixed opinion.

There has been a statement that a fix is coming, but that it’s time and resource consuming – which can only mean that rather than a simple revert, they’re altering the dialogue to make the current plot “fit”. But even then, I can’t see how they can do that since the location for The Source of Orr requires destroying a fortification that happens in the Priory’s plan to invade further into Orr (which now happens after The Source of Orr). There has also been no ETA on when the fixes will be implemented.

I hope that’s short enough.

I don’t see that implication.

The Mists is more than the afterlife. It is the origin of all things (supposedly); the protomatter that can create anything, often copies; home to islands of reality (fractals, sPvP maps); and most importantly in this case: memories of the past, present, and future.

We were never told – as far as I’m aware, and counter to popular belief – that revenants summon spirits. As you said, we channel the power of legends. This could be tapping into the “memories of the Mists” which means we could, theoretically, tap into the powers of heroes not yet born (or not yet heroes, or not yet dead).

If you know Fate/Stay Night, then you may be aware how one of the summoned heroic spirits is in fact the soul of one of the current living combatants – a soul summoned from a future hero, despite most souls being of past heroes. Theoretically, a Revenant may be able to pull off the same.

Though in Episode 5 – particularly Hidden Arcana – there’s a few statements of Ogden being the last dwarf in general, rather than simply the last dwarf on the surface. So Jalis could be dead – along with all other stone dwarves.

Mickey Frogeater.1470:

Most likely they either come from blessings from the Molten Alliance or Mordremoth happening to team up with Primordus who just so happens to be living in Maguuma Wastes(this team up may explain why the Mordrem are so dry looking compared to the Sylvari and Sylvan Hounds).

If Mordremoth has indeed allied with Primordus then Scarlet’s creation of the Molten Alliance would be symbolic of Primordus just as Mordremoth himself is represented by the Toxic Alliance.

Of course the Molten Alliance and Flame Legion themselves mey have been corrupted by Primordus considering their Magma arms seen here: !http://wiki.guildwars2.com/images/6/63/Veteran_Molten_Gunner_and_Molten_Igniter.jpg! !http://wiki.guildwars2.com/images/b/b1/Veteran_Molten_Shaman.jpg! !http://wiki.guildwars2.com/images/6/60/Veteran_Flame_Legion_Fire_Shaman.jpg!

To you and the others talking about Primordus dragons etc. with the fire-breathing Mordrem-looking creatures:

Fire plants is NOT new in GW2

But neither are bee-housing plants.

And on an aside:

Flame Legion’s burning insides don’t match the description Jeff Grubb, Ree Soesbee, and Scott McGough gave for how Primordus would corrupt living beings. They said that living beings would be encased in stone and their bodies slowly liquified over time. So unless there’s an encasing in stone scenario we’re completely missing, the Baelfire Rituals that the Godforged go through is not Primordus corruption.

The Volcanic Fractal grawl shaman, however, matches this description with his stone shields and then becoming a lava-being that wields a destroyer bow.

Interview where they said such.

Titus.4285:

The sequence it got released would make most sense story-wise, since that is also the chronological order (Prophecies & Factions =1072AE > Nightfall = 1075AE > EotN = 1078AE).

However, if you want to go for just the most GW2-relevant lore I’d suggest you go for Prophecies and then EotN.

P.S. Don’t think about that yet, start out with Prophecies, and if you really like it: just play the whole thing

There’s also Beyond content (circa 1079-1080 AE) that can easily be started after Prophecies and Factions – so if you start seeing far more complex enemies in your quests, you just started up Beyond. Best to wiki what counts as Beyond content, so you don’t accidentally begin that.

Windsagio.1340:

1) The Sylvari/Minion thing. It’s to the degree of saying that ArenaNet writers are wrong or lying.

I wouldn’t doubt that I’m amongst those you think are claiming Anet writers are wrong/lying. But – be it me or what I’ve seen of others – it’s not that we’re saying Anet’s “wrong” or “lying” (at best, the only claims of lying would be about the whole “this was always the plan” they began saying, to which my personal response is “of course they’d say this, whether or not its true”). Rather, folks are stating that there are contradictions or things that don’t make sense.

This also holds true for the mursaat discussions – the changes appear contradictory or, for lack of a better short term, illogical to us.

Then there’s those who simply argue what they want as what it should be.

Windsagio.1340:

Shiren, I end up reading your post as "Anet hides their intent and many years of dedicated POV pushers (to use a wiki term) had a strong impact on the communities perception of the issues in question, to the point of having a strong codex of fanon.

That’s not what Shiren was saying. Basically, in regards to the sylvari case, there’s a LOT of conflicts and questions left with this “grand reveal” which lead those who look at lore on the whole to go wondering “how can this be?” despite the fact this was planned from the get go.

Basically, ArenaNet intentionally set up a huge two-year long red herring, and though they revealed the truth behind the red herring, they have not (yet) established how it is what it is, and not the red herring.

Those who you seem to think are calling Anet wrong or liars merely point out that it’s not yet established how it isn’t the red herring, pointing to why everything points to the red herring.

In terms of literature structure, they effectively went too far to establish that red herring – and took too long to reveal it, in some views – that the truth just doesn’t make as much sense as the red herring does, thus creating inconsistencies and a nonsensical situation, despite it having been guessed by many.

I would always say that GW1 is still worth buying. And as far as I know, the Living World actually resulted in some folks returning to GW1. The games are just too different resulting in some folks not liking GW2 where they still like GW1.

Except that they state they still did such… after Episode 2 of Season 2. When the post was made.

lordkrall.7241:

But does that actually say that everything in the game happens in real time?

If it wasn’t then why would we be cumulatively off by 5 days every year, as Angel claimed?

Such can and would only happen if you sync the very days, thus having things in the game happen in real time. That was the entire purpose of the ridiculous calendar change – to allow things happening in real time while also having a calendar conversion easy to keep track of.

But, thankfully, it seems they cut off the silly real time and have stuck to merely yearly syncing.

Actually it was said, various times. The most prominent would be by Angel McCoy during the whole “lore is malleable” catastrophe:

In the case of the “days per year,” that was a response to our new Living World cadence and the upcoming journal (which I couldn’t mention at the time). We felt it was important to align the real year with the in-game year. If we adamantly stuck to the old in-game calendar, then we’d be cumulatively off by 5 days every year. Before long, we’d be doing Wintersday in January. Which makes no sense whatsoever (and would completely kitten our development schedule! Hehe.). Plus, we wanted the new year to turn over on the same day as the real new year. I gave a loreful explanation for the change at the time.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/lore/Interesting-things-in-Scarlet-s-Room-Spoilers/page/5#post4193104

Except that her “loreful explanation” was basically “humans are wrong, asura discovered the truth” without taking into consideration the fact that no one would be stupid enough to not realize that there were a whole 5 day difference between actuality and what they thought after even two years. And the “reason” for it never required the change in the first place given that they have YET to provide exact dates and even the finale of Season 1 didn’t adhere to this change-in-progress (Angel explicitly stated during the Season 1 recap video they made that the Twisted Marionette was a one-time event, only repeating in-game due to not forcing players to be there or miss a one time event; and Escape for LA/Battle for LA’s descriptions and lore points it to being less than a week given that Escape was also a “one time lore event experienced many times by players” (as evident by how we’re saving the same people the same way) as was the finale for Battle for LA, and the transition was argued to be a change of winds – which is a daily occurrence in the manner spoken of indicating a grand total of 2 days for that fight, minimum and potentially maximum).

… I’m done ranting, for now.

SirMoogie.9263:

Angel mentions in that same interview that the question that spurred this answer caused the lore team to discuss this… I imagine that it was a very short discussion given how absurd the consequences of it are.

I am now imagining Angel walking into the Writers’ Circle (or w/e) at Anet and saying “hey guys, I’m being asked about how the Tyrian calendar works compared to ours. Do we have anything on this?”

Bobby, face deep in reading something, replies: “Dunno, just go with whatever. We’ll make it work.”

Angel: “Okay, how about we sync up the calendars up, keep it simple for us?”

Bobby: “Sounds cool.”

Meanwhile Jeff and Ree are tied and bound in a corner, wriggling in protest and screaming internally at the horror about to be unleashed, but ultimately ignored.

On an unrelated note, I half-expect this post to get deleted.

Mallyx.

Why can no one get his name right? I’ve seen Malice, Malik, Malynx, and Malyxx now.

M A L L Y X.

Mallyx the Unyielding

Anyways, we can’t be sure Revenants use swords, as NPCs – especially Rytlock – and not limited to player profession limitations. As a warrior, Rytlock used a pistol offhand – giving him mechanical access to warrior and thief skills (he used thief pistol 4 and 5 skills with his warrior sword skills 1, 2, and 3).

Anyways, I’m suspecting the profession mechanic to be a mix of engineer and necromancer. Your utility alters your F1-F4 skills, and hitting those skills change your skillbars to “change how you play”. Or it’s possible that they get to directly alter the F1-F4 skills from a set of others (like changing your pet for rangers).

I’m also suspecting no switching weaponsets given that we have 1 light and 1 medium that can’t, and with the description of how summoning spirits works (again: “changes how you play”) I’m betting those will change enough skills to merit no weapon swap.

The point, however, is that for the past year Angel McCoy – and lightly Bobby Stein – had explicitly stated that the Living World happens at the same pace as time passes for us.

Which has never made much sense and they claimed it was done for the date put in the story journal… which only ever documented the year.

So still, nearly a year had passed since LA got destroyed…

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Nilkemia.8507:

If only we could retcon her out of existence. If only.

It’d be better if she was just FIXED. She could have actually, really worked . . . if it weren’t for the uneven nature of LS1

If by “fixed” you mean “completely change her backstory and change how she created the alliances” then sure, it could work. But that would be changing almost everything about her except “sylvari genius corrupted by Mordremoth” really.

Logan’s family is Ascalonian by descent, so it’s not surprising he’s not considered a noble. Especially when he spent most of his youth as a mercenary.

As for why it hasn’t progressed – welcome to one of the other hundred plots Anet has going on in the background with zero progress for many years.

I suspect the whole “sword permanently imbued with a spirit” will be a Marjory only thing.

I suspect that this specialization will be going towards the route of the ritualist. Why? Seems that Marjory will be teaching it to necro players; she’s Canthan, and she now has a spirit-imbued weapon – one of the things ritualists did in GW1.

So I suspect that thematically the specialization will be a bit similar to revenants (though necro specialization will deal with spirits, whereas revenants deal with the Mists itself).

Feonix.4790:

Warning: incoming long post.

-snip-

TL;DR: Brought some friends into the fold. The NPE doesn’t help to explain anything to them and only serves to frustrate them (and me) by gating major systems – including the kitten plot – behind a level wall, forcing them to play for many hours before the game actually becomes fun. It should just be fun right out of the gate, like it used to be.

I cannot +1 this enough times.

Deli.1302:

Konig Des Todes.2086:

The tendrils would be part of the mursaat themselves, not the armor.

So are you agreeing that they are mursaat or not mursaat? Because the beings in the trailer had tendrils. Also there was a part in the trailer where it casts some sort of spell and enchanted armors were never spell casters if I remember correctly.

Neither. I was merely stating that the tendrils are part of the mursaat’s body – as far as we know, are told, and can tell – and not their armor.

Whether or not the golden beings in the trailer are mursaat or not… I find it equally plausible to be mursaat, and not mursaat. Though the most likely scenario, imo, are mursaat who bound their souls to constructs (think willing Shiro’ken).

Gerrand.3085:

First point about the revenants: They channel the power of the mists -.-

But necromancers don’t. No other profession does – not even ritualists that many people compare Revenants to. Though ritualists did call upon the spirits of the dead that resided in the Mists, they did not channel power of the Mists itself. Revenant is basically ritualist and then some.

Gerrand.3085:

Necromancers also summon undead minions. Or at least I think they are. Trahearne comments at some point that undead minions were never alive (and so cannot be corrupted by Zhaitan). This seems to suggest that flesh golems are merely that – golems. Not alive, not undead, just dubious constructs held together by unspecified “mist” energy. And quite frankly, I get the impression that asuran progeny are taught to make golems out of bone before being allowed to move onto the more reliable metal, steam and finally holo constructs.

Now you’re making up presumptions. While yes, those are undead constructs made of flesh, they’re not held together by Mists energy – no more than elementals summoned by an elementalist is, or a phantasm summoned by a mesmer is.

And again, your impression on asura progeny is false. Most races disdain from necromancy in the majority – asura amongst them. Bone constructs is not a common for teaching. The only noteable golemancers (what asura call those who work with golems) that dabbled in necromancy was Oola and her former assistant Blimm.

Gerrand.3085:

And what do revenants do while necromancers are busy tinkering around with fleshy constructs. It seems that Revenants are busy channeling the power of ancient heroes in the mist. In other words, THEY ARE USING THE POWERS OF ACTUAL DEAD PEOPLE.

Technically false. They’re using the power of the Mists to either call upon or mimic (it’s not clear yet but Colin’s wording implies the latter – we’re summoning hte legends but not the souls; the Mists is more than the afterlife, it is also the creation of all things and the memories of past, present, and future – it loves to copy existing things, often with alterations, be those things existed in the past, present, or future – so theoretically we may be able to call upon the legends that have not yet been made). Necromancers don’t summon spirits, however. They put them to rest and, sometimes under extreme difficulty, can summon them. Ritualists summoned them casually – their role in society was drastically different in Cantha than even Tyrian and Elonian necromancy.

There is a lot of overlap but that’s little different than mesmer and thief, really, who both use the same field of magic.

Gerrand.3085:

Plus revenants get to use heavy armor, cause no one actually knows why a necromancer confine themselves to cloth – and because heavy ascended equipment is just oh so much cheaper to craft -.-

Armor class is purely mechanical.

CureForLiving.5360:

ANet should re-format, re-structure and re-release Season 1. However since I believe they’ve been working on the expansion for some time now, I don’t think working on old content was a priority.
Still it’s something players want, we keep getting threads asking for it. Maybe after HoT they’ll have some extra capacity to redirect to S1.

I agree with everything. However, I’m a tad bit hopeful that S1 is one of the projects that they will “fix/improve” before releasing HoT. We already got told that they’re reworking the trait system to go more in line with HoT so maybe S1 will be included in this.

Ayrilana.1396:

Most of season 1 was open world. I’d rather they develop new content than rework old content.

This is the opinion of a number – but not all – of old players who experienced most of Season 1. New players – which Anet seems to focus more on catering to (see NPE) – however typically want to experience Season 1.

And if Anet wants to keep priding themselves on a good story then they can’t have a complete empty space of the plot. It would be like watching all six Star Wars movies in a role, except for A New Hope.

The dialogue added since the LW began is on a shorter loop than the original dialogue settings – which would loop about once every 2-5 minutes depending on the entire script of the dialogue scene (a lot included NPCs walking from point a to point b thus lengthening the time between the actual spoken lines). The stuff added – most notably – since Battle for Lion’s Arch: Aftermath seems to be on a 1 minute timer.

It owuld be lovely if these got extended to have more time between them.

@Nilkemia: Dungeons suffer an entirely different problem and that is the presence of each player retriggering the lines, or so it seems, rather than the lines being stated once and only once.

Though I’ve never heard Khole (or w/e his name is) repeat his line.

Subdirector Blimm during The Lost Shores had that issue as well, where each player would trigger his response anew.

I do not doubt that Anet mucks stuff up here and there. In fact, I think I’ve proven on multiple accounts over the years they have. But those points don’t seem to be muck ups in the least.

ColinJohanson.2394:

Hey folks,

Now that the HOT is out of the bag, we’re able to update this thread with more details. With the introduction of the new account based mastery system for end-game progression and growth in PvE, we’ll also be re-evaluating our other systems of character progression to ensure they match our over-all pillars and goals for Gw2.

In doing so: we’re going to be removing the current trait unlocking system currently on live and replacing it with a more simplified system that supports where skills-traits-specializations are going in the future. We’ll go into more details between now and the release of HOT on how skills, traits, and specializations will work in the new Gw2 world.

Thank you for all your passionate feedback on this topic – it not only helped our dev team lead to this decision, but has played a large role in helping us define how to build our exciting new account based mastery system for end-game progression in PvE as well.

That’s a shame.

I liked the system, I just didn’t like the objectives or how pricy the alternative was. I also didn’t like how it was the same for all professions.

If it were all PvE, didn’t include map completion, and the low ones could be solo’d (no champion giants!) and were different depending on profession I would love the system – love it more if the cost to unlock traits were half what it is now (maybe a little less even).

I just hope that characters are not grandfathered in.

Lord Wolfbane I V.7628:

I was under the assumption the Revenant was an optional progression for a Warrior like Druid is for Ranger and the as yet unrevealed new “classes” that will expand from the existing classes , maybe an ele becomes a battle mage and a thief becomes a well just burn it with fire. That way 1 would hope you had already defeated Zhaitan and would not break continuity

They’ve explicitly stated that Revenant is a new profession and not a specialization.

Though Colin also recently stated that Rytlock teaches folks to become Revenants.

Maybe the situation will be that any pre-existing character can become a Revenant within HoT’s storyline, rather than making a new character for it?

idk

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Konig Des Todes.2086:

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Mental Paradox.3845:

Guys, please. You know how this game caters to the (mentally) lowest common denominator. They are never ever going to include something complex like languages, that might “confuse” those poor new players (who have no business in 80 zones, imo).

If it caters to the mental lowest common denominator, then why are there things like the Orrian Runestone around? Or the New Krytan alphabet? Both of which can be deciphered?

They’re simple substitution ciphers, however. They are not true languages. It’s just English with non-Latin characters for the alphabet.

I’m just curious how that fits into “mental lowest common denominator” since those are the types who don’t even attempt to do even those. They just look up the translations on a wiki.

I wasn’t arguing for or against the mental lowest common denominator. I was merely pointing out that MP was saying that actual languages won’t be made (regardless of his claims for why) and what you were countering with was not actual languages, but ciphers.

So you weren’t really countering him.

Personally, I don’t think it’ll matter much to me. The chances of me buying HoT is still fairly low though I’d love to play a Revenant.

Episode 3 hints that Mordremoth’s control over sylvari is highly tied to the individual’s own willpower.

Weaker will means they can be turned by Mordy. But stronger will – like the PC no doubt – will be able to resist.

Does not bold well for Trahearne, though he didn’t seem to turn during the cinematic so perhaps Caladbolg protects him.

Evans.6347:

At any rate, the last bit of the trailer which has the ‘Mursaat’ firing an energy beam shows a long, serpentine body. I don’t remember the Mursaat being serpentine. Perhaps they are ascended Forgotten?

The angle does make it look like that but if you look closely you can see two legs. It’s just that as it fires the beam the legs bend.

Fun fact: those energy beings use the same frames as Lich Form. I recognized the positioning for the beam attack instantly as the skill #1 for Lich Form.

Koviko.3248:

Champions of the Elder Dragons can gain empathy for humanity, but only Glint and the Pale Trees can read the minds of others.

-snip-

Malyck is not actually Dreamless, he’s only lost the connection to his “Pale Tree.” Mordremoth controls Sylvari by proximity, so the proximity may also apply to the Pale Trees.

-snip-

During the Festival of the Four Winds, Anet made a point of educating young Zephyrites about the nature of Dragons. This was the prologue to Season 2, the point where we can reasonably assume Anet was really getting this story together.

-snip-

Focusing less on what was said and more on the fact that it was said during the prologue of Season 2, we can assume that Anet was trying to set the stage for the possibility of a grey area in the good or evil aspects of a Dragon.

-snip-

Assuming that Anet is trying to tell us something, the something they want to tell us is that the champions of the Elder Dragons (Glint being a Dragon is less relevant then being a champion of an Elder Dragon) have free will and are capable of being sympathetic to men, given the option. That the true “solution” to beating the Elder Dragons is not with force, but with love. Of course, that’d be boring and LOL, but it does seem to be what they are saying.

Okay:

If proximity to the tree affects sylvari, why are there unaffected sylvari in Fields of Ruin? Are you saying Malyck’s tree is so far away as to be further than Pale Tree to Ebonhawke?

That Zephyrite teacher was added with Bazaar of the Four Winds – part of Season 1, which hinders your “it’s part of Season 2 and that’s when Anet was getting their storytelling act together” argument – and is teaching what all common Tyrians think. And this line of thought is what we’ve been told since 2009. However, the Personal Story and Season 2 shows to counter this. Particularly Mordremoth – who has shown direct cunning in its targets. The Pale Tree states in the Personal Story that the Elder Dragons know all their minions know – that means that they have the knowledge of countless civilizations within those noggins (particularly for the dragons that corrupt living beings primarily like Zhaitan, Jormag, and Kralkatorrik).

Dragon champions do not have free will, this is proven in Arah explorable where the Forgotten ritual was used on Glint – then called Glaust – to give her free will. With this free will, Glint was then able to at a later point betray Kralkatorrik (on top of having free will, she needed convincing). This implies that the Pale Tree had something similar done to her in the past – something magical that undid the corruption (and the same would go for Mawdrey, whom we fed all sorts of strange magics to).

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Mental Paradox.3845:

Guys, please. You know how this game caters to the (mentally) lowest common denominator. They are never ever going to include something complex like languages, that might “confuse” those poor new players (who have no business in 80 zones, imo).

If it caters to the mental lowest common denominator, then why are there things like the Orrian Runestone around? Or the New Krytan alphabet? Both of which can be deciphered?

They’re simple substitution ciphers, however. They are not true languages. It’s just English with non-Latin characters for the alphabet.

baconcupcaxe.4208:

So here’s my thought. The Revenant is coming as a new playable class because Rytlock went into the Mists etc.

Technically speaking…

Rytlock is a Revenant because he went to the Mists. He’s the first NPC Revenant. But that doesn’t mean he’s the first Revenant ever.

Deli.1302:

Except enchanted armors don’t levitate or have tendrils coming out of their back and were never golden. Anet just gave the mursaat a redesign.

The enchanted armors have the same number – and same size – of toes as the mursaat. The fingers of the gauntlets look the same. The top of the helm looks roughly the same (same curved v shape). The enchanted armors are basically a non-levitating tarnished spikier version of mursaat armors. The tendrils would be part of the mursaat themselves, not the armor.

But it’s been confirmed in the past that there’s no relation between the two. Nonetheless, the appearance similarity cannot be denied. And the cave with the golden location held Forgotten runes, so that’s something to consider.

draxynnic.3719:

I think there was also one which basically linked every set of old ruins in Prophecies to the mursaat.

To be honest, I can’t remember the details now or which precisely it was – I was mostly watching from the sidelines myself. I do recall, however, mass player anger at ArenaNet seemingly getting something ‘wrong’, followed by dawning realisation that it was a bandwagon that everybody had jumped on despite there being very little actual evidence to support it.

Ergo being cautious now.

Ah yes, the ruins one…

Other bandwagon theories include:

The Mage Lord Order
There Is No Sixth God (someone, forgot the name but he got an NPC with other GWO loregoes in Nightfall, had theorized a fallen god erased from history during Prophecies, and everyone went against him)
Balthazar is the Great Dwarf
and which Bloodstone relates to which school of magic

And how about recent ones people have forgotten?

Primordus is behind Scarlet/Scarlet will incite Primordus
Flame and Frost will be Primordus v. Jormag
The Six Gods are the Elder Dragons

And probably many, many more.

The GW community is VERY fast to hop on bandwagons. It just so happens that one major one was right this time, so now everyone who goes against the bandwagon is suddenly “burned” by the past ones?

SirMoogie.9263:

Konig Des Todes.2086:

Personally, I’m not so sure they’re mursaat. Why do I say this?

Hasn’t this hesitance to jump onto player speculation burned you before? Obey!

Let me clarify:

I don’t think they’re living mursaat.

MaesterTed.6571:

draxynnic.3719:

A proper scholar investigates all the possibilities… and those of us who’ve been around long enough remember when a theory that had been accepted by pretty much the entire community crashed and burned due to being Jossed by ArenaNet… and that was one that involved the Mursaat.

I’m curious. Which one was that again?

I don’t think I was around for the theory drax mentions, but I think it may be where folks were absolutely certain to a near unanimous concensus that the enchanted armors of the crystal desert were tied to the mursaat.

Or maybe it was that White Mantle/Shadow Army connection theory.

Or maybe it was the “mursaat are good guys and looking out for our best interests” ones.

Maybe it was the “Lord Odran was the first ascended mursaat” one.

There were quite a lot in ye olde days, most inspired by Quintus Antonius (the first loremaster if you ask me) who was very, very in love with the mursaat and their lore – so much so that every old theory I listed came or was supported by Mr. QA. And just about each and every one got debunked. 8D

Chewablesleeptablet.3185:

What is being given(based on what colin calls major features) in this expansion is somewhat similar to what we have been getting in feature updates and very small.

One new profession. NO new race. No new dungeons.(we got fractals for free!) Another region comprised of at least 3 maps(southsun cove, silverwastes, dry top, all free.)

Specializations( only one weapon added to each profession and not giving universal weapon usage amongst all professions.)

Guild Halls, should have been in the game at launch. Stronghold , same thing.

CORE GW1 was released with so many of these features plus TEMPLATES!

I say expansion is too big of a word for this.

I would rather call this
" If you don’t buy it you will be left behind." I will buy it of course but it just doesn’t feel right to call this small DLC that could have been free an expansion.

Apparently the sales in China did not make any profit for Anet to keep the dream alive.

Really feels like I am paying for a fix. A reason why I didn’t buy Diablo 3 expansion.

Wait lets call it Paid Living Story

You presume everything that we’ve been told is everything we’re getting.

But I agree. If this is all, then it’s a bit little.

Nausicaa.9563:

An detail that would support the idea that the Great Jungle Wurm and the Triple Trouble wurms are related to Mordremoth, is that they drop the exact Champion bags Mordrem drop (instead of wurm or plant bags).

That means they belong to the same family game mechanics wise.

The Great Jungle Wurm doesn’t drop champ bags… Of any kind.

And the Triple Head wurm drops Adventurer’s Backpacks according to the wiki.

Those Heirloom bags you’re giving? They’re coming from the mobs, not the wurms. Like, say, the husks.

@Bruno: You do realize that jungle wurms didn’t exist in GW1, right? :P

Scarlet didn’t intentionally wake up the 3 headed wurm though. If you pay attention to the dialogue now, the three asura brothers are testing to see if the thumpers caused the wurm to stir, and the wurm wakes up after setting the thumpers up again.

I also don’t recall it being said that the jungle wurms are plants. Wouldn’t doubt it, however, but they do lay eggs. Typically, plants don’t.

The rumormill from the Q&A says HoT begins 24 hours after the fleet’s destruction.

The Fleet sets off right after we defend Camp Resolve. And they seem to arrive as we kill the Shadow of the Dragon.

We’re basically stuck in time (so much for the synced timeline…) until HoT is released.

Obsidian.1328:

So…those are supposed to be Mursaat??

Pure player speculation.

Personally, I’m not so sure they’re mursaat. Why do I say this?

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/File:War_Beast.jpg

The “skin” for these so-called mursaat is the same as the golden glow on the war beasts. War beasts are basically powerful rock dogs – which are canine-shaped earth elementals. This is how rock dogs would likely look in GW1. And this was their more powerful version.

Note that, in GW1, for what’s effectively rock dogs (then called stonewolves) and war beasts (then called Shard Wolves ) – the latter had no golden glow. It was transparent.

Now, what was armor and no body (aka transparent body)? That’s right Enchanted Armors

And what was gold that they looked like? That’s right, Mursaat armor. (the enchanted armors are basically tarnished, spikier versions of mursaat armor – toes and general shape of gloves, boots, and helm are effectively the same).

So I think these things are enchanted armor, polished or made out of the mursaat’s armor. The golden glow translated to GW1 would be transparent – invisible.

It was during the Q&A after the livestream. Folks report Colin stated that you can switch back to no-specialization when out of combat.

@thefantasticg: It’s being said that there’s only one specialization per profession (for now). So no Archer-or-the-like just yet.

lordkrall.7241:

I would assume that the whole deal with Mawdrey was a test-run for the new precursor system. So will most likely be something along those lines.

Both Mawdrey and the Luminescent armor seems like test runs for precursor crafting to me.

One that didn’t utilize the collections, and one that did.

Hopefully it’ll end up being somewhere in between the two. Luminescent was boring and simple, but Mawdrey’s tedious with all the time gating.