Guild Wars 2

Josh.5839:

-hardly any new content

-too slow to solve issues

-buggy

etc

Its obvious they cant afford a quality game with the current direction.

sub won’t fix these issues.

But it feels like they’re too dead set on the concept of continuous DLCs. That apparently doesn’t work.

From what I’ve seen, they also need to get their act together with employees. It seems to me they focus of favoritism and asskissing rather than talent. Going off of employee reviews and seeing who’s active and not or without renewed contracts. Seems like Gaile is the only good employee who’s managed to stay.

Making a subscription doesn’t solve these issues. The issues primarily stem from human resources in the company and the upper management.

At this point in its life, a subscription will kill the game as the no subscription is its primary selling point. It’s why many people don’t drop the game – the ability to return at any point.

Dondarrion.2748:

…you what now? Scleritethin, I’ve missed out on this discussion of the DSD… is there a link to naming discussion and is this the name or what you hypothesize is the name?

Not critique, it was just the first time I saw it and now I’m curious!

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/lore/lore/Name-the-mystery-dragon/4523179

Basically a joke name using the Sclerite weapons, which have been speculated to be tied to the DSD, and reverse engineering the dragon’s name using a Mordrem->Mordremoth concept.

It surprisingly fits, on both accounts, even if it is a joke on the terrible name that is “mordrem”.

Though originally it was to be Scleritefin. Because Sclerite am is shells (effectively) and a fish fin… But that seemed silly so f to th.

Aaron Ansari.1604:

@Dondarrion It’s Konig’s best guess. All we know from the game is that it probably starts with an S, and a Priory historian has said even that could be a mistranslation.

Actually, it’s just a joke guess.

If I were to guess seriously, I would say it’s an international misspelling/respelling of Scylla from Greek mythos. Just as Zhaitan and Jormag are such for other mythos.

Rhaegar.1203:

Konig Des Todes.2086:

…(which is not a retcon, and is likely going to get a stealth fix like all the other dialogue fixes I’ve been seeing getting stealth fixed).

I’m curious. What piece of content got that treatment?

Lots. Some were simple typos, but others like the DR statue of Grenth was fully rewritten (which was changed last year in the summer).

The objects added in F&F3 were introduced half-done and fixed in a latter update. The ‘A Dragon Primer’ in the DP library (added with E1) had a typo of listing two points as 8, ending with a point 9, but now has the correct numbering up to 10.

All of these were stealth updates to dialogue. The statue is the most upfront case of changing lore, the rest tends to be typo fixing. But none ever stated in the update notes.

I agree with both disappointment in the lack of a lagoon (dried or not) as water was depicted there even after the update on the map. To me, there isn’t much lore reason why at least a puddle exists because the Mamnoon Lagoon was THE most lush and wet area of northern Maguuma in gw1. If any place was to not be dried out, the lagoon would be it.

But the only water we have is our salamander drake pool south of the lagoon.

The reason for change would no doubt be mechanics and design of the zone. Or general lack of gw1 knowledge. Afaik, ANet has few folks who were around for gw1 anymore, let alone Prophecies.

Shiren.9532:

That wouldn’t make much sense.

Never said it did.

I’m just trying to figure out the clusterkitten that they made.

Shiren.9532:

Malomedies didn’t look like he had recently recovered from being experimented on, he looked as he does today.

This I’m just going to go “mechanics!”

Cadeyrn states that he was only awake for a few months. In Dream and Nightmare blog post, Cadeyrn was present when Malomedies was returned. So Malomedies couldn’t have been back to the Grove for more than just a few months. Naturally, he should be still recovering from near-fatal wounds that he had when brought back.

Shiren.9532:

That’s a hard sell imo.

But that’s where the continuity error is, since Malomedies never says that Riannoc is alive.

Basically, the error lies either in Malomedies’ perception (which isn’t a retcon but poorly explained – like Knut’s “I remember when Jormag awoke” line, which was metaphorical and not literal, but everyone and their grandmother took it to be literal; or like suddenly knowing Mordremoth’s name), or when the others found out about his death (which is a retcon), or the order of death (which is a retcon), or is just a plain simple oversight and forgetting of one of the biggest aspects of their pet race’s lore (which is not a retcon, and is likely going to get a stealth fix like all the other dialogue fixes I’ve been seeing getting stealth fixed).

Shiren.9532:

Riannoc’s death isn’t supposed to be a mystery (the fact that it happened, not how it happened). It’s supposed to be a known event, felt by the sylvari. We know in the Personal Story that the events surrounding it are a mystery but that they did know he died. If they didn’t know from the moment he died (and the empathic impact he had on the Dream as a result) that he was dead, what possible explanation would they have for realising he was dead later?

I’m aware of this.

Apparently whomever wrote Malomedies’ dialogue is not.

That, or Anet’s becoming Blizzard with writing their lore on toilet paper.

Mada.5319:

Every dragon having their own expansion will get boring and repetitive really quickly. It’s not like we don’t already know how to kill them….

I was using dragons as an example, but it’d really be:

Odd Season: Minor-major enemy (e.g., Scarlet, Khilbron, Shiro, Varesh, Gaheron, Caudecus, Kudu, Faolain type enemies)
Even Season: Lead up to major enemy (e.g., no major enemy, maybe just a lieutenant/general of them; e.g., Shadow of the Dragon, Blightghast the Plaguebringer)
Expansion: Major enemy (e.g., Elder Dragons, Palawa Joko, Dhuum, Menzies, Xenophobic Emperor #26401, etc.)

rinse repeat

DarcShriek.5829:

No, we don’t need to kill them. We just need to keep the magic levels under control. We can put them to sleep and keep them there indefinitely buy controlling magic levels.

Theoretically, but come on, that makes for a terrible Anet plot.

“We’ll just survive, maybe try to put them to sleep early, and then figure out how to permanently regulate magic on our own in the next 10,000 years.”

The thing is, Zaxares, it already was 8 chapters. Chapter 8 was just three times the length of other chapters.

Going off of the PS achievements I’m sure everyone has long forgotten about. :P

Xander.9024:

<——-Soloist. Never have to worry about what all the “cool kids” are doing. :p

^^^^^^^^

When I do group up, it’s with friends and guildies who don’t care about ‘meta’ or ‘efficiency’ most of the time. I mean, heck, just the other day I went into SE exp with a level 54 ele I rarely play, all just for the hell of it. No one cared.

Elrey.5472:

I just finished it after 2 hours. Without guides, without friends, without help. The hard way! and I never had more fun in a game for a loong time. I love silverwastes caves

Nice job Anet!
Keep the good work! +1

Was about 2 hours for me too, but I afk’d for a good 30+ minutes.

I loved this zone-wide jumping puzzle. I want more jumping puzzles like this.

You got two pretty good zones added to the game, though size-wise these zones together make a standard zones (read: they’re about the size of Southsun, but have far more events and achievements to do).

The story from the beginning’s there to do, though you’ll have to pay 600 gems to access all of them solo (if you log on before Dec 16 then you can get Episode 7 done). However, all evidence points to Season 2 ending with Episode 8 (on December 16th most likely) so if you enjoy playing through in one sweep, wait 2 weeks but log on for 10 seconds to get E7 free.

There was the NPE which was… not that great. But to each their own, you may like the changes.

To your specific questions:

• No.
• I don’t think they got a big change to them. I main necro, thief, and somewhat ranger. Ranger got a nice change to them, necro and thief still feel effectively the same to me.
• See above.

Currently, I think that if (and that’s still a big if) they do an expansion, it will actually be based between seasons of the Living World, probably using those seasons as build-up for the expansion’s plots.

For example, if the current rumoring of an expansion in progress is accurate, then the expansion will focus primarily on Mordremoth, using Seasons 1 and 2 as build-ins. And Season 3 will be based after the expansion.

Similar to Agents of Shield tv show and the current marvel movies – the tv show is based between the movies, and when the show begins to be based after a movie, there’s a notice saying that the following episodes take place after the events of <insert movie name here>.

This would also be a business ploy for obvious reasons if you care about proper storytelling and experiencing things in chronological order. If you want to understand the build-up, then you’ll have to buy (or remain playing) for the Living World; if you want to know the conclusions, you have to buy the expansions.

If they go with such a route – which currently to me seems to be the case (that or we’re not going to be killing Mordy until Season 5 which would just be utterly stupid) – then the future of plots I see is:

• S2 completes with confronting Caithe and re-obtaining the egg
• Expansion tells how we use the egg to save the world (at long last) and a final confrontation with Mordremoth
• S3 opens with a new plot that will at the very very end tie into the beginning campaign against the next dragon
• S4 said beginning campaign against said next dragon (basically Jormag/Kralk/Scleritethin/Primordus’ version of Claw Island and original greatest fear arcs of PS or E1-5 of S2), perhaps with a different focus akin to the egg.
• Expansion 2 will be the full campaign against said next dragon (effectively the other dragons’ version of assaulting Orr).

etc. etc. rinse repeat

It was stated during Halloween that we have “half the season left” or some such. IIRC, it was in a PoI episode.

Anet counts Season 1 as 20 episodes, but counts The Lost Shores, Bazaar of the Four Winds, Tequatl Rising, and the ToN updates during Halloween and Wintersday 2013 all as “Special Events” (also counts each Flame and Frost as their own episode).

They seem to be matching the Personal Story’s length of 8 due to the complaints about Season 1 being too long and drawn out. The issue is that the Personal Story was too short (imo at least). 12 or 16 releases would be the best number. But we get what we get… And Season 2 seems to be only 8 episodes. The plot of the egg is clearly not going to be fulfilled, let alone Mordremoth. I’m guessing a finale of Mordremoth in Season 3 or an unannounced-yet-expansion.

Cool and thanks!

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/My-Greatest-Fear-Plotline/first

Primary thread. From said thread:

Gaile Gray.6029:

I inquired about these concerns, and our narrative director shared the following:

Thank you so much for your comments. We realize that the changes that were made have impacted the personal story, and we are working to fix this. This requires a good deal of resources, so we do not have a set date for when these fixes will be implemented. We appreciate your patience and will update with more information as it becomes available.

This topic has over 10 threads about it spread across at least three forums.

Shiren.9532:

I’m conflicted atm. Wynne is obviously not around in present day Tyria (at least nowhere we can see here) so the obvious guess is to assume she is dead. The problem with that is Rhiannoc was the first to die (and it was said in game). But this last release seems to have gotten that wrong, are they about to make that plot significantly worse by having Wynne as the second “first” Firstborn to die? Assuming she does die or that Caithe kills her (either one) it would be a significant blow to the sylvari and a big moment in the personal journeys of the Firstborn. Caithe actually talks about this when she is talking about Rhiannoc and how significant his death was for the sylvari. It would seriously mess up Caithe’s character development if she is seen mourning the death of Wynne as the first Firstborn to die when she is seen talking about it in the Personal Story when it’s Rhiannoc.

I want to say Wynne can’t die because Rhiannoc hasn’t died yet, but after this release sylvari lore is so messy I’m beginning to think it’s not worth bothering.

You seem to be making a huge mistake.

Riannoc is indeed dead. In this release, Malomedies worries that Riannoc will be in trouble given that he’s been away from the Grove for a long time. Nothing states that Riannoc is not dead, and unless they’re making an even bigger retcon than every sylvari knowing his death (the bigger retcon being that he was not the first sylvari to die), then he is dead they just don’t know it.

Malomedies states that Riannoc has been away for a long time – in other words, Riannoc’s state of being is unknown to Malomedies. Because of this and several Secondborns’ deaths, he fears for Riannoc’s safety.

Nothing says Riannoc lives. It’s just that Malomedies alone doesn’t know Riannoc’s fate (and if Caithe knows, she doesn’t tell Malomedies).

So technically, Angel and co can wurm their way out by saying that only Malomedies – due to being experimented upon at the time – did not know Riannoc died. Of course, why would the others keep this from him? Nobody knows.

TL;DR
The continuity error is not the order of death, but when sylvari found out of Riannoc’s death, and how Riannoc’s death immediately affected the sylvari race and the Dream.

Rhaegar.1203:

Someone mentioned Caithe having Wynne’s hairstyle, right?

Another turn of the screw!

What if Wynne’s actually killed Caithe and then assumed her form to…

Nah, not even ANet would go for that one.

Caithe cares too much about Faolain’s love, and the Pale Tree should know about the change and thus wouldn’t bother trying to comfort Caithe’s lost love in the sylvari personal story.

Shiren.9532:

This seems strange to me in hindsight because, according to Aife, after Malomedies is experimented on, the asura return him to the other sylvari and express remorse.

“The asura have offered peace. They did not realize that he… They thought he was simply another of the strange plants of the deep Maguuma, mimicking sentience,” Aife told them. “When they realized he was truly aware, they returned him to us.”

Why would the asura kidnap sylvari a second time in the same manner as before after they had learned that sylvari are “truly aware”?

I doubt the entire race would, let alone the Arcane Eye whom will kill members of their own race for the whims of the Arcane Council.

That whole set up needed but one asura to want to continue the experimentation. And they had reason: the sylvari have energy that is highly beneficial to their golems. It seems that Vorpp wasn’t yet convinced that they were more than ‘creatures’.

But good observation, I had forgotten about it. An arguable other continuity error… but in all honesty, I can forgive this.

Shiren.9532:

I actually had to wiki her as I couldn’t remember who she was. Odd choice for a cameo but it is nice to see someone we never get to meet.

I have trouble understanding the secondborn. In Scarlet’s short story, Serimon is already a Mender that greets Ceara when she wakes. He’s from the second generation of sylvari but he’s already a mender and helping bring the new sylvari into the world? How much older than Scarlet is he?

Scarlet’s timeline is a complete mess-up. I don’t think she should have been cameo’d here, chronologically speaking. But sylvari tend to be quick to their roles, and the instance takes “months” after Cadeyrn was born.

Shiren.9532:

Glint was a dragon minion and she had free will granted to her by the forgotten. The Pale Tree’s seed was found by Ronan in a cave somewhere we don’t know. The current story has links between the Pale Tree and Glint’s egg, Caithe is after the egg and now there is some secret (possibly relating to Ventari given how familiar the centaur in the Silverwastes were with him) in a cave with snake-like imagery (which in another version had Crystal Desert/forgotten glyphs). What if the forgotten have something to do with the origin of the Pale Tree? Something similar to how they have something to do with the freeing of Glint. I’m not saying the sylvari/minion theory is true (or even likely) but the circumstances could easily be read to be going in that direction (which is why I think it’s unlikely).

I was being semi-sarcastic. Sorry I didn’t made it clear.

I really do hope that sylvari don’t end up being dragon minions. I WILL quit the game over such ridiculousness. And I know many others who will too, particularly in the sylvari RP realm.

Shiren.9532:

There is obviously some kind of significant event that happens between Wynne and Caithe. Scarlet claims Caithe has a nasty secret, one that Faolain and the Pale Tree might be unaware of. Wynne is, afaik, no longer around in present day, so something likely happens to her.

Most importantly – Wynne has Caithe’s present day hair style. That’s too significant to be a coincidence, it seems there is something important about Caithe taking on Wynne’s look, perhaps out of guilt or to remind herself of what she has done (she has to face a part of Wynne every day) or maybe just to remember someone she lost. I would be very disappointed if it was just a coincidence. It’s a bit of a cliche but some women dramatically alter their hair after a major event in their life.

I noticed the hairstyle differences. I think it’s more than coincidence, but alas, we got to wait for two weeks. For what will likely be yet another cliffhanger for Season 3.

Season 2 is far too bloody short. Give us 12 episodes dang it. Full episodes.

Vyko.6953:

Thank you all for watching, im glad you liked it! Konig Des Todes, i made a high resolution screenshot of his bottom so you can overlook at it, but its really hard to tell whats there. But you were probably right – there are some bones, ribcages and intestines. Im sorry its such confusing shot but i really couldnt find a better view of it, its just too chaotic there :/
https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B-_8OULHrsE2U3VaenN6MmFLTFk/edit

Permission required to read. I just went and requested permission.

That’s basically forum moderators with a special (pointlessly) title. I was moderator for Guru/Guru2’s lore forum for a while. It’s a thankless, and sometimes stressful job where you’re painted more as the villain despite maintaining order and trying to make things simple.

Without pay, I’m not interested in starting that up again. And this just sounds like a bad idea to me, player moderation of official forums will give them a spotlight that can easily get to their head, make people think they’re more important than others, etc. etc.

And to be honest, I don’t think a move is really helpful given how terrible the forum organization is. Even the most committed moderators (I will not call them “specialists”) can only make a dent in the mayhem and in all honesty for the lore forum the only help they’d make is to merge like-minded threads together.

All that aside, I’ve had a bad brush with certain members of Anet the past few months due to my rather adamant criticism about their continuous lore continuity errors that continue regardless of pointing out that they’re making them (can I use any more variations of the word continue!?!). As such, I doubt that they’d accept me anyways.

I suspect those giant (and I mean GIGANTIC) caverns underground are in fact those water tables that have dried up – at the very bottom in some places you can find pools of water.

The more common Elder Dragon theory for the maguuma drying up was Primordus’ activity, not Mordremoth. There’s basically three versions though – the canonical theory of scholars which was “Elder Dragons did it”; the theory began by Thalador that “Primordus did it”; and then a position I suggested was that the water tables did not dry up, but lost their magic from the Bloodstones (due to not ED tampering, but White Mantle/Mursaat/simple age). “Mordremoth did it” is 110% in-game speculation alone, or at least was never presented in long-standing view on the forums here.

I do think the water splashing is a bug. It seems that Anet’s been fooling with the water level of the zone, trying to get it to read multiple levels rather than the standard across many games of the water level being the same heigh across the zone/level (sometimes it can move, often it cannot). But strangely, in the Silverwastes, they’re at different levels – the pools in the deep caverns are far lower than the drake pool in Northern Silverwastes.

I think the existence of the hylek in the Far Silverwastes (I keep typing Far Shiverpeaks >.> – could Anet be any more unimaginative with their zone names?) is due to the fact that the so-called “Far Silverwastes” was in fact the Mamnoon Lagoon (which was the biggest surface water in the Maguuma – I’m shocked that it’s fully dried up despite there being water on the unexplored map! I am shocked and sad!). It may be more that the area is an ancestral land for them. Those “passed out” hylek actually have dialogue that they are not part of the same tribe as those that are wandering about (the passed out hylek are blue; the others are red – according to the blue hylek, the red claim to be chosen by the Sun, which may mean they’ve found a way to survive in harsh heat/lack of water).

The hylek explorer also mentioned tribes having once been in the Maguuma Jungle. This seems to be the tribes we now see, further explaining why these hylek are here – this is their ancestral land.

Nochtli’s story has been seen to be a metaphor for the death of the Elder Dragons – according to observations about The All, killing the dragons will leave the world out of balance, destroying it. Water is magic; beast is dragon; hero is us.

So we now have griffons here. And that_shaman datamined ghosts for future.

I kind of want versions of each dragon miniature now. Little Shatterer flying in to deliver my mail.

Try reading between the lines a bit.

Read what isn’t said outright in those statements. And not just with Forgal but with all mentors.

That’s all I’ll say in this.

1. Do you see anything keeping Glint’s egg in stasis? Nope.
2. You apparently don’t get the notion of what stasis is in this case – it means “it won’t hatch for an extended period of time”. So it doesn’t matter how long those branded eggs existed. Point is, that we’ve been told dragon minions cannot reproduce (and by this, I mean sexual reproduction – they cannot have kids) and this makes sense, what with innards being replaced by crystal, ice, fire, etc. or becoming rotten.
3. No one ever said about eggs being ‘put back into their bodies’. The concept that you’re apparently incapable of comprehending is that they remained in the body from the point of corruption until laying them.
4. Once more, NOTHING says that the Matriarch lays eggs. So… it rather proves that you don’t know what you’re talking about very well.

But talking to you, once more, is becoming like trying to talk to a pull-string doll. Pointless, aggravating, and gets no one anywhere. Since you refuse to comprehend what I’m talking about, being stuck by your own tunnel vision, again, I’ll cease this nonsense now.

Aaron Ansari.1604:

Maybe it’s because I didn’t see what was going on outside the hut, but I didn’t see anything to suggest Faolain was being manipulative at that point. She was caustic in her opinion, overtly racist, and seemed to be dragging Caithe along whether the other wanted to come or not, but there wasn’t any point where I caught her being deceitful or trying to control Caithe. If anything, in the last instance the centaur felt manipulative- deliberately leading us away from Faolain, then trying to keep us separated while Faolain was being attacked.

Han Faolain shot first.

The centaurs didn’t attack first, Faolain did. But Faolain claims they attacked her. This isn’t obvious if you’re the instance leader, though it’s hinted in the dialogue of the centaur shouting stop after Faolain screamed.

Jaken.6801:

I hate to say it, but Season 2, with all it`s high notes, seems to end up as nothing more than filler. I am about to say that Season 1, even with Scarlet, had much more bite to it.

I mean, how far did we even come so far? To be honest… even with all that “happened” we are not really that much further.
So far we only solved the mystery of the Master of Peace and are officially introduced to Mordremoth who is, where we knew he was.
The rest was mostly “character developement” and hijinks…

While I agree that Season 2 doesn’t feel as kitteneason 1, Season 1 was 24 releases, this is 8. Mind you, Most of Season 1 was either the size of episode 6 (which is about 1/2 or 2/3 a regular S2 episode) or smaller, so you can probably cut the size in half – to 12 episodes. Still, S1 was bigger than S2 in length. So naturally it’ll hold more bit.

But even the personal story held more bite than Season 2, both having 8 chapters/episodes.

To be honest, I feel like what we’ve experienced in Seaosn 2 can be numbed down to 4 or 5 episodes. Episodes 3 and 4 felt like it was more of just one, while the first of E5 was pointless, most of E2 and E7 felt pointless (though E7 was enriching in lore and content) and E6 felt minimalistic.

saye.9304:

as for cave secret, i really do not think caithe found cave with other seeds, it is possible but then how scarlet became to know about it??, it is unlikely that the secret is cave.

Scarlet likely found the cave too. There’s a few hints to the seed for the Tower of Nightmares potentially being the same as the Pale Tree’s seed – or at least a very special seed.

Aaron Ansari.1604:

I guess I’m in the minority here, but I actually liked Faolain in this episode.

I’m on the fence. It’s not bad, but it feels to be the same as Cadeyrn and Ceara now, whereas before it felt like Faolain literally fell from grace. Now it seems that she was evil-ish the entire time. Previous lore hinted that the Caithe/Faolain relationship was actually healthy, this shows it wasn’t.

So it rather feels like the lore got a new look.

1. No, it’s not the same thing.
2. Glint’s egg is in stasis, the others are likely similar. Skritt personal story says that only creatures pregnant upon corruption can lay eggs amongst dragon minions.

Reminds me of Shiro’s Blades but with a plant flavor. I want.

Azure.8670:

I never noticed her having a unique dagger. Pics please

She doesn’t. She use C1 daggers in-game.

Neilos Tyrhanos.5427:

Konig Des Todes.2086:

Such was a common thought after E4 came out. However, we see mursaat structures in GW1 and they be not gold.

Who’s to say they don’t have more than one architectural style/ material? After all, there’s a lot of variety in what humans have made in Tyria.

Maybe a Mursaat residential area would be very, very different in style from a defensive installation like the Onyx Gate.

Humanity has multiple cultures and ethnicity. There is no reason to belief such is true for mursaat – or really, any other race beyond centaur and tengu.

GuildMag: What, exactly, is the Toxic Hybrid? Also on the Toxic Hybrid – during the fight, the Hybrid says “No! I cannot be the last of my kind” and yet by all appearances, it is the first. What exactly did he mean?

The Toxic Hybrid started out as a regular krait that was transformed while inside the tower. It thought it was being transformed into a Prophet. Perhaps it was. Perhaps it wasn’t. We may never know, but the krait believed it was. Not only did players stop them from creating any more of these monsters, but they killed the one that had been made.

The Toxic Hybrid spoke those words because it is the first and last of its kind. It’s expressing shock and dismay as it dies, as it expected to be the first of many such monsters to emerge from the tower.

http://guildmag.com/magazine/issue11/season_one_lore_interview.htm

This is what I was remembering. A regular krait that was transformed.

IIRC, there was another that I cannot find, which basically said it was able to become the hybrid due to the krait’s natural transformation abilities seen in GW1.

Slowpokeking, the difference is between organic egglaying and “creating an egg shape pod for artificial lifeforms to pop out of”.

Destroyers do the latter. They are physically incapable – like all dragon minions that aren’t corrupted pregnant creatures – to produce offspring.

Risen spiders/drakes do the former. Such is only possible because the creatures who lay said eggs were pregnant upon corruption.

The question is: which does Glint do?

And it is a very important question in Glint’s case, because if it’s the former then that means there was a dragon race with either dragons being asexual in childbearing or there was a dragon daddy somewhere in the past.

No Rytlock. No corrupted scarabs.

Sigh.

The image looked like they were flowing out of the flower fortress to the far west. So I’m guessing that’ll be E8 stuff.

saye.9304:

i think Caithe`s Secret is wynne, she is going to kill wynne for faolain, she committed MURDERER.

Nice thought, but I’m doubtful.

Scarlet hinted that Faolain didn’t know – and that even the Pale Tree may not know.

Sounds to me that Caithe found out Wynne’s secret, but Faolain failed to.

The question is, what is that secret? Most likely the cave of seeds that Ronan found.

Final note:
Episode 8 better be even bigger than Episode 5, with these two small filler episodes. And I mean story steps quantity that are on par to Chapter 8 of the Personal Story (pre or post feature batch kitten-up) – meaning either double or triple the standard story step amount e.g., 8-12 story steps please), and a nice big open world boss (the flower).

Jaken.6801:

Okay, the Firstborn have clothes, okay, but they are few… How come that the shadow Bulwark have armor? How did that happen, if they were just talking about how they wanted to train them as wardens or fighters? that implied they were not ready…

Some time took place between the second and third flashback, I thought. Caithe talked a lot about there having been so much effort in showing up. But yeah, it did seem like an odd switch. But seeing the first generation of Nightmare Courtiers was interesting.

Jaken.6801:

Wait? That`s it? Cliffhanger? Again? Hello, the Season is almost over. You want to tell me that the grand finale will be Caithe? Seriously? You gotta be kidding me.

Killing a member of Destiny’s Edge as the grand finale? Eh… could be worse. Could be Scarlet again.

But that’d be annoying if the grand finale is a second female sylvari…

Jaken.6801:

Faolain was lame… seriously, that could have been done much better.
If we are already doing flashbacks, to pieces of Caithes places she holds dear, then i did not expect *One Singular Event) (mostly)

How about how she met Faolian. How they fell in love? How about some graduate turning of her character to that unlikeable kitten she is now.

This was.. not good. Caithe was too naive, even though she was pushed into a leader position. She was nothing but a tool for Faolain.

I think that’s half the point.

Faolain was manipulative even from the beginning, and Caithe began naive just like others of her race. She trusted Faolain just like how Riannoc trusted Wayne. Both of the later betrayed the former.

The reason they all focus on one event is… probably because they didn’t want to sidetrack us with unrelated subjects (a complaint of Season 1’s back and forth nature).

Aaron Ansari.1604:

Also, on the Vorpp thing… does anyone else think it’s weird how everyone but Faolain seems to have played down the decision?

I was pretty sure that Canach wanted to kill Vorpp too, and while Caithe was not as aggressive about it, she threatened him, tried t The guy tortured and massacred at least a dozen young, naive sylvari- essentially killing children- seemingly to the extent that he blew up their cages when it was clear he had lost, even though he seemed to know they were intelligent beings that could experience pain… and Canach just treats it like something instructive, our character shrugs it off pretty quickly, and the quest summary doesn’t even mention that people died. I know that Anet has had issues in the past capturing how serious death can be, but this is a new low. [/quote]I was pretty sure that Canach wanted to kill Vorpp too, and while Caithe was not as aggressive about it, she threatened him, tried to kill him, etc. too before he ran.

I don’t think the PC shrugged it off – they didn’t want to talk about it to Marjory.

But yeah, the summary is a bit silly.

Shiren.9532:

So much of this feels like season 1 – all season long we knew Scarlet was doing something we just didn’t know what. Mystery for the sake of mystery.

This release was a mixed bag imo. I liked playing as Caithe, I like seeing the history of GW2. I have mixed feelings about the expansion of the sylvari lore and I’m not a fan of “it’s a mystery” being used constantly.

QFT

The Cons

• Annoyed that this is yet another filler episode in story steps. At least this felt longer than before, there wasn’t a “just talk” or “very short boss-fight only” instance like the first two of three in E6.
• I agree that the Pale Tree’s non-chalantness was bothersome.
• The Memory Seeds feel like a dues ex. If such things existed then why was Riannoc’s death such a mystery? Why did we have to use a dangerous ritual from the Crystal Desert to discern his fate?
• Annoyed that the PS claims that the centaurs turned hostile on Caithe and Faolain when it was clear that Faolain had instigated them just by her personality. I suppose the point, however, was that the instigation happened while Caithe wasn’t looking (if you go in with another person, you can avoid being the instance owner and thus watch Faolain instigate the centaurs – as I did – but the instance owner is stuck out of sight of it – annoying but also cool). Felt like unnecessary defense of an obvious in-the-fault character.
• The biggest issue to me, however, is Malomedies’ dialogue at the Gathering.

We went so long without losing one of our own, but three of our newly awakened have been killed already. This is unacceptable.
→ This is life, Malomedies. At least now we know that we can die.
I worry about Riannoc. He’s going so far from home. What if he never returns?
→ Many will leave the Grove before all is said and done. We cannot stop them.

Where’s the issue in this?

1. Riannoc was the firs sylvari to die.
2. “We all felt it when he died. It was like a part of the Dream was torn away—but we never knew why. Or how.” – Caithe’s words at the end of Bramble Walls and Sharpened Thorns (second step of chapter 3 for sylvarI)
3. “When he died—the sun dimmed, and the Dream wept.” – Avatar of the Tree’s mention of Riannoc’s death, again the Dream was affected greatly by Riannoc’s death. Said in same two story instances as above
4. THE MOST GLARING ISSUE IN THIS:
   [quote]They gathered by the Pale Tree, and rain swelled upon her upturned leaves, dripping in slow sparks to the earth below. Her roots cradled the firstborn that lay among them, his body covered in a dark blanket like moss over a grave. Malomedies was only sleeping, struggling against exhausting nightmares. From time to time, he called out, and Kahedins soothed him, placing a damp compress to his forehead in the hope that he would find rest. The healer looked up to the others, face filled with worry.

“Will he survive? Or will he…die? As Riannoc did?” The question whispered in every heart, but it was Niamh that gave it voice.

“The Mother says he will live,” Kahedins murmured, but it was little comfort.

Malomedies had been beautiful, as graceful as a willow kneeling by a stream. Now his face bore the carved scars of ill-treatment, and the branches of his once- iridescent hair had been broken and pruned into splintered, colorless pieces. One leg was withered as if kept too long from the sun, and where his fleshlike bark still clung to the vines of his torso, there were a thousand small holes.

“We must kill them all.” Cadeyrn’s eyes flashed dark gold, and his hand clenched around the hilt of his sword. [/quote]
THEY KNEW RIANNOC DIED BEFORE MALOMEDIES WAS EXPERIMENTED ON. THE STORY INSTANCE OUTRIGHT TALKS ABOUT MALOMEDIES BEING EXPERIMENTED ON. Riannoc died – and was known to be dead well before this story instance.

Come on, this is not hard to keep together.

Aaron Ansari.1604:

I loved the first instance, and the second was interesting mechanically (not to mention made me feel like I had an obligation to shoot Vorpp…), but overall? This feels like another cliffhanger just to manufacture some suspense. I don’t feel hooked. I don’t feel entranced or excited about what might happen next. I feel angry that we’re advancing through the narrative in stutterstep.

Also this.

The Pros

• I LOVED finally seeing the dark past of asura and sylvari interaction. Even Malomedies being experimented upon was only barely touched upon in the game, and only for Night sylvari in the PS as far as I know.
• Fiana! We see “a dead secondborn!”:
• Trahearne talks about sylvari having free will. Proof they’re not dragon minions for dragon minions hold no free will! hah!
• Interesting lore hint on the ‘energy’ within sylvari.
• The jumping puzzle is just omg <3 – I can forgive the filler-ness because of this jumping puzzle. But really, enough fillers…

Interesting. Surprised that has gone unmentioned until now.

Aaron Ansari.1604:

CureForLiving.5360:

Zaxares.5419:

Well, duh. That’s what the Toxic Hybrid was!

Didn’t we get an official word on what the Hybrid was? Either it was a krait-shaped plant or a krait that got a lot of poison pumped into him. Although I don’t think it was a true hybrid.

The later- an apparently average krait that was infused with the towers toxins and “nightmare”, iirc, which is where the hybrid joke actually gets a bit of fact to it.

Technically, what was said is that the hybrid is really just the krait’s transformation abilities that are seemingly lost in GW2 actually being shown – and that its transformation took a plant-like appearance due to being in that pod (any more specifics – like toxins/nightmare being infused into it – was never specified afaik).

Though it’s known that the Toxic Alliance (both krait and NC) had their minds messed with by Scarlet. Which is likely what the lime green glow is about.

BuddhaKeks.4857:

One could argue that harpies might be able to breed with anything male, as they don’t really seem to have males. Except maybe the griffons we see hanging around with them in Nightfall and I think in Ascalon (GW2) too.
Also there is an event in Fireheart Rise which involves harpies seducing Grawl, though I think it’s never clear if they want to breed with them or just feed them to their young.

Skree Griffons were said to be harpy young (according to Dunkoro), though this seems to have been retconned out – and probably for good reason, given that there were elder skree griffons in Nightfall (how do you have an elder youngling?).

Harpies are outright called a female-only race, iirc, and have nicknames like shebeasts.

Chances are the race is asexual in terms of reproduction, or they are able to mate with any other race’s males given that they have natural hormones that increase others’ sexual desires (Blazeridge Steppes event chain and heart).

Personally, I argued for human/largos/harpy compatibility because Elonians have a legend that harpies are former servants of Dwayna that fell from grace – being humanoid, this legend may have solidarity in the notion that they too came from the human homeworld. Largos is equally (if not more) humanoid, and share Orrian styled naming and even know Orrian syllabary, hinting to a tied origin to the first place humanity stepped on Tyria. It wouldn’t be impossible to think the three races – with perhaps harpies being ‘devolved’ from their past times – come from the same homeworld, and perhaps even be cousin races.

@OP: As Aaron said, the sylvari being from these humans-turned-planty is one of the theories that have gone quiet in favor of the less likely former-dragon-minion theory.

There really isn’t anything to support it. That scripture is more likely referring to treants or even wardens in Cantha (whom were also said to have once been druids by in-universe belief).

It’s possible, but it is equally likely it isn’t possible.

BuddhaKeks.4857:

The humans turned into druids.

Or treants, depending on the theory.

Technically speaking, nothing says that the druid’s losing their human form was involuntary – in fact, everything points to saying it was voluntary.

“The druids of Maguuma, holy beings who surrendered their mortal flesh to become one with the jungle, […]”

To surrender something is to give up willingly. But Melandru didn’t give Ewan’s tribe that chance.

http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Wisdom_of_the_Druids

@Squee: Yes, but that’s basically a redoing production by all those definitions. Copying something. Here, we’ve been talking about organic reproduction aka sexual reproduction aka having children.

In the sense of redoing production, yes, dragon minions ‘reproduce’ – but 1) in the sense we’re talking about (organic/sexual reproduction), they don’t; 2) you may as well just say they produce more dragon minions, which is far less confusing in contextual definition; 3) if you begin arguing that dragon minions reproduce, then you’re arguing that assembly lines reproduce – which depending on the definition you use (making copies v. sexual reproduction) can be right (former) or wrong (latter).

But the queen didn’t give birth to living creatures. This is what reproduction means.

Biology. to produce one or more other individuals of (a given kind of organism) by some process of generation or propagation, sexual or asexual.

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/reproduce?s=t

Dragon minions do not reproduce – not in this concept – and neither does the Destroyer Queen.

What the Destroyer Queen did was create mobile incubators (what eggs effectively are) that ‘hatched’ into young destroyers (hence the term ‘hatchling’). But this is NOT reproduction.

There is a difference between destroyer harpies, trolls, and crabs – especially the last one from the former two. Yes, they’re all made out of lava and rocks, but that’s not “the same thing” in the end. Otherwise you’re saying Embers and Destroyers are “the same thing”.

The Matriarch didn’t lay eggs – or rather, there’s no evidence to suggest such. A “matriarch” is simply a female leader – which interestingly gives gender to the otherwise genderless destroyers, but for all we know, this is just Gadd’s (aka Anet’s) habit of using feminine pronouns over masculine ones (wouldn’t be the first for Anet). The Destroyer Matriarch was just a dragon champion (a weak one – arguably not a champion at all but some sort of lieutenant instead). Dragon champions are 100% capable of creating new minions – in the case of destroyers, all such minions come from rock and lava. It certainly isn’t impossible for the Matriarch and Queen to be similar dragon champions – but that doesn’t mean either of them were once living beings let alone capable of reproduction (you kind of need organic parts to reproduce, otherwise it’s just akin to a factory – unless you’re going to say that assembly lines are machines reproducing?).

Yes, the Destroyer Queen – a very special champion – is capable of creating mobile oval incubation pods… that hatch crabs, trolls, and harpies. Not the same thing as an actual egg.

Creatures that produce real eggs are creatures that were pregnant upon corruption. Jeff Grubb, Ree Soesbee, and Scott McGough confirmed that there are not creatures corrupted into destroyers seen.

There were no egg-laying destroyers in Eye of the North. You are thinking of Destroyer Spawns – a ‘pod’ that spawned three destroyers each. Very different from eggs, since they were destroyers themselves.

Been wanting to get a close-up view of him. That’s the in-game model, right?

Shame the video doesn’t show the underside as I’ve been curious about those “appendages” on its gut (are those ribcages or claws?), but I saw a lot of more ribcages as part of the skin than I thought there’d be (and not as designs, but popping out).

I came in going to make a joke about how the PC’s a jerk when they do get personality (ever talk to the lonely sylvari in the Grove? “I don’t like this feeling” she says, “luckily there’s a cure, good-bye” the PC says – what a jerk), but anyways…

What Slowpokeking seems to be wanting is the illusion of choice where the story presents choices, and changes the PC’s personality, but in the end all major stuff remains unchanged regardless of choices. If I’m correct, that’s what SWTOR does (note: I never played the game).

The thing is that ArenaNet was going in this direction. Most of the Personal Story is just illusion of choices where the other plots happen regardless, and the changes in the end have so little influence on the long run that it’s pointless to care about the choice (save Quinn or let him die? Who cares, we forget about him the next mission and he’s never brought up again ever!). But for some reason – probably a mechanical restraint in the replayability department – Season 2 lacks the story splits of the Personal Story (this is my theory for why the PS lacks replayability still – choices + replaying = clashes). And for some godforsaken reason (’it’s too hard’ most likely), they dropped the personality system which had SO much potential.

So you can complain and protest all you want Slowpokeking, it’s pretty obvious Anet isn’t going to do it, for they had the game set up for it but went away.

Guild Wars is not a story of choice – illusional or otherwise.

You sure you didn’t just open up a bag and are trolling us? :P

Given Faolain’s tastes of going from Caithe to Sariel, more likely to be a nice Oratuss gal. :P

Such was a common thought after E4 came out. However, we see mursaat structures in GW1 and they be not gold.

We have seen locations that are golden, however.

Cinematics don’t mean voicework. You can easily have silent cinematics.

Leah seems to have been saying fewer lore dump story steps. Which to me is not so great, because that basically means fewer Hidden Arcana – the most favored of episode 5 instances. Instead, it seems like she is wanting more things like Season 1’s random ambient scenes like Rytlock and a charr crew investigating the energy probes in Bloodtide Coast during The Origins of Madness. Which is nice but not something to rely on – too few folks will see it personally, and it just isn’t the same to read these things up on the wiki.

Unless she means, and I hope she does, fewer forced lore dumps – like Prosperity’s Mystery and The Machine and A Study in Scarlet (from S1), which were solely lore dumps and forced upon the player.

There was an old interview by Jeff Grubb done by the former RP guild Ashenfold Cartel (unfortunately their site went down and web-archives doesn’t have a copy) stating that no playable races can reproduce with each other – even human and norn are too different.

This does not exempt playable with non-playable or non-playable with non-playable. But when considering such, look at biology. The reason given for playable races being unable to inseminate each other was given as genetics.

So the chances of a skritt, asura, and dredge (any combination of two) having a child together is highly unlikely, for example. Despite shared locational region.

Chances are, the only interracial relationships to produce offspring would be norn-ogre-jotun, heket-hylek, and potentially harpy-largos-human (the last depending on one’s theory if largos history and taking harpy origin legends as factual), as those groups either are or possibly may be cousin races (like a horse and donkey). Such offspring would be hybrids and as such infertile.

I’d like to note that the term “half-giant” is only used for norn and the term refers to the race’s size not genetics. They are taller than non-giant races, but shorter than giant races, thus half-giants.

Edit: Naga and Krait is another possible compatible two races. Not Forgotten as they came from the Mists though.

Belenwyn.8674:

It took Arenanet much more time and resources to reach the point where the LW concept is able to deliver en expansion. With season 2 we have now a robust system that can embed content to be delivered in a story.

Now is the time when the other teams and their projects behind the curtain have to be delivered during season 3. The LW team did a great job to implement additional content with their limited resources. But the LW can not provide the feel of an expansion pack since both concepts are too different. Only the quantities can be comparable after a certain time.

The bold is why folks think there’s an expansion more than anything else. And you have to wonder:

ArenaNet has been – until their silent treatment – proclaimed the Living World to be their bread and butter for GW2. So what’s this/these other project(s) about?

Why is the Living World team apparently so limited? A recent news article hints that the studio isn’t just lounging around, and I find it hard to believe that what we’ve been getting is taking a full studio of 200+.

lordkrall.7241:

Konig Des Todes.2086:

I remember this game, it came out in 2005, where you had 8 skill slots, but you can put any skill in them. There were elite skills, but you weren’t forced to using them. And skill slots weren’t level gaited. I loved that game.

Oh, I also remember that game. It was so extremely unbalanced at times that it was basically possible to not even pay attention and still complete most stuff.

I also seem to recall said game having attributes and such which were very important in order to make skills useful, those attributes were tied to level.

But sure

I never said it was perfect. :P

Chuck.8196:

We know that dragons consume magic. So I think magic consumption would be required to hatch eggs. If a dragon is locked away or dead, like Glint, it can not feed.

I don’t see this connection you draw.

A bird can lay eggs and then die, and the eggs can hatch on their own. Same goes for any other egg-laying animal.

You saying this is like saying “We know that snakes consumes rodents. So I think rodent consumption would be required to hatch eggs. If a snake is locked away or dead, it can not feed.”

Chuck.8196:

And we aren’t sure those eggs hatch into dragons. perhaps they are just pure energy.

Actually, we do know they hatch into dragons.