I wouldn’t mind seeing Mordremoth, though I would prefer it to be a concept art cinematic view of Mordremoth similar to how we saw Zhaitan several times in concept art during the Personal Story, before seeing the actual model. Mordy’s in-game model should be held back from S2, imo.
I do hope we get a reoccurring (talking?) Mordrem though, to give the Mordrem sense of rivalry rather than fighting some enigma like we had with Zhaitan. Shadow of the Dragon could be used for it, but I’d prefer something on par to the Sovereign Eye of Zhaitan (whom I still wish showed up at the Battle of Claw Island, Temple of the Forgotten God, and perhaps elsewhere just taunting us – and the Eye we kill after Temple of the Forgotten God we thought was the Sovereign Eye, but wasn’t – would have given a sense of rivalry that would end up in that climatic battle, thus The Source of Orr wouldn’t be just about Trahearne’s Wyld Hunt but a sense of closure for the PC too – aw well).
This holds true for all dragon minions – the more powerful a minion is, the more of a mind they have. Dragon champions are, thus, the strongest and the smartest.
The most numerous, the grunts such as Risen Thrall and Risen Brute, are effectively mindless (despite their shouts) with a single tactic to use: “Swarm them!” (or more accurately, kill all non-risen in sight, usually with pure numbers).
This is the Mysterious Stranger…
…also known as Reginald Murcan.
Proof please. For that model is used on dozens of beggar/homeless NPCs.
For all we know, that’s The Al’Seen.
Hence the different cultural-instilled mentalities. Norn judge on an individual, while most people judge on associations. A norn wouldn’t look at me and go “American” – you’d go “Konig”; humans, however, would look at me and go “American” and judge me off of that.
I don’t think it’s so much “couldn’t” but rather “wouldn’t”. Jormag and his icebrood seem intent on letting his future minions turning to his side willingly. It’s only the Sons of Svanir, who still have a realm of self-thought to them (not being (fully) corrupted (yet)). Jora refused, just like Zojja did with the Dragonspawn (with a bit of help from Eir), thus was not deemed worthy of the gift of corruption.
1. I think they are just normal dragons, made undead. I vaguely read that there are dragons, in some other content. Not sure though.
2. If there was no life on Tyria, then why need minions? He would probably just sit around and eat magic with not a care, and as his corruption spread he would eat more and more. Until he physically moved around, within his own spot. Also, keep on mind, he has wraiths, and spectral things, he can probably just manifest his corruption into a being and have it grab stuff. Things could probably just drop off him and go to work, like when he raises the little heads on the final battle.
2.5. Not dying to a horde of undead is tricky, but at the same time, his corruption can raise the dead, so graveyards just burst open, and should he or a minion, or even an artifact be strong and close enough, you can go straight from living to corrupted. In that case, you immediately take a rotten form and serve. Also ties into answer 2.
1. You think of Saltspray Dragons from Cantha. But there are hints of a native Tyrian dragon race that’s more European – rather than a Chinese dragon style like Saltspray Dragons.
2. Why need minions? The other Elder Dragons would be making minions, no doubt. Which puts Zhaitan at a disadvantage should they ever fight.
Wraiths appear to be corrupted souls, however. Or partial-bodies.
I still think Risens’ mind wasn’t corrupted, they are undead overall, part of Zhaitan’s will/power took them over and used their memory/skills.
“Zhaitan’s will/power took them over” means that the Risen’s minds were corrupted…
And then we have Trahearne’s peculiar statement that his bone minions are immune to Zhaitan’s corruption since they never lived.
I always found this rather weird, to be honest.
I think it falls under the category of “Elder Dragons have preferences for what they corrupt” – so it isn’t that Zhaitan can’t corrupt Trahearne’s minions, but that Zhaitan chooses not to. Similar to how Primordus can corrupt living beings, but apparently chooses not to.
1) What the kitten are Tequatl and co.?
They don’t seem to be put together á la Abominations. Doesn’t that suggest the possibility that they were live dragons/dragon corpses turned Risen at some point?2) Unless the whole thing about Elder dragons being part of Tyria is about the concept of Elder Dragons rather than our current set of them, doesn’t that mean Zhaitan had no minions to use before there was life on Tyria?
2.5) Wouldn’t that make him automatically the weakest Elder dragon as not only can you prevent being corrupted by uhm …not…dying… but he completely relies on life to compete with the other EDs for magic?
1) A dragon race is possible, but it’s also possible that they are indeed created in a similar manner to abominations.
2) Given recent lore, I think the mention of Elder Dragons being part of Tyria is related to The All/Antikytheria, in which we have six spheres of magic/bodies of power that are tied to the balance of the world. Theoretically, according to Ogden, Glint could have become an Elder Dragon – so it’s possible that Tequatl is/was on his way to such too.
I, personally, don’t think the Elder Dragons were what’s always been there, but rather that they have been around for so long now that people think they have been.
Though it’s possible that Zhaitan did corrupt non-once-living things in the ancient past, however I don’t think that Zhaitan precedes all other life on the world.
2.5) Yes and no. Elder Dragon strength seems to rely on how much magic they’ve consumed – as Ogden puts it “time is your enemy when fighting Elder Dragons” because they’re always consuming magic while awake. Going off of Gorr’s experiments, dragon minions are also capable of consuming magic in the world (not just specialized minions like the Mouth of Zhaitan), but at the same time they use the Elder Dragons’ magic. So more minions = less magic for the Elder Dragon, but also = more magic the Elder Dragon can reach.
So it’s a multi-variable equation to determine how strong each Elder Dragon is.
Zhaitan and Kralkatorrik seem to have the smallest territories of all the Elder Dragons – even Mordremoth – but Zhaitan woke up on “Hello Buffet Magicland” aka Arah, the Artesian Waters, and simply all around Orr. He also woke with a huge army, spreading out his magic, and hadn’t even consumed/corrupted all magic in Orr by the time we invaded.
Without minions, he would have had all that Orrian magic to himself, and could have potentially moved about – such as to the Ring of Fire bloodstone. Which would have made him stronger.
Going off of lore I’ve seen, those worshipers were few in number.
Plus, and far more importantly, the norn don’t judge individuals for poor choices. They are willing to put up with Sons of Svanir even now, until the moment the individual causes trouble.
It sounds to me like you’re putting human logic onto the norn – which just doesn’t work.
It may be that a couple norn investigated it – but it wouldn’t be a large scale thing, simply because norn are too individualistic; if it became a large scale thing, it’s because it was a chance at a huge legend – meaning it was very well known.
A small cult is hardly “very well known”, especially if it’s unknown if it’s doing anything – there was only one Nornbear, and not even Jora seemed to know the origin.
The Sons of Svanir would basically be your typical cult that gathers at night in a place people deem haunted or the like. Like a group of occultists gathering in a run down building claimed to be haunted.
And dragon champions alone are hard to defeat. With normal NPCs, it takes an army. This is why Destiny’s Edge was so praised – they were able to do with 6 people what took others armies and they still could fail.
Because 6 years prior to the game is “centuries” 8D
(read: there are horses mentioned in Edge of Destiny – in Kryta, iirc)
One question that comes to mind after seeing that map. If Tyria is so vast, why are all the 6 Elder Dragons all concentrated into a tiny little corner of the world? How come there’s no Elder Dragon in Elona? Or Cantha? Or Gwen Yeh or Not Real? :P
We don’t have a concrete answer but there’s a few things of note:
@Konig Are you sure? Trying for myself, that version doesn’t line up either, unless we accept that there’s a length of coast roughly as long as Orr that happens to both run exactly north to south and be on the very edge of the map.
I’ve seen such maps and there was no straight line so… pretty sure?
Still, from our travels in Elona and Cantha, the rest of the world is still a highly magical place, so I’m a bit puzzled as to why the Elder Dragons haven’t struck out for more distant realms with less “competition”.
They rather have, actually.
There’s only two episodes remaining, and we still have to find out what’s up with Caithe, get the egg, and go to that golden location with our current task. We won’t be facing Mordremoth, who’s in a jungle area (that’s another 2 zones or more away).
Episode 8 may feature a closing cliffhanger cinematic that shows a cataclysmic event by Mordremoth that would be on par to the Dragonbrand, rising of Orr, and creation of Frostgorge Sound.
And if we’re lucky, the recent ‘evidence’ for an expansion coming post-Season 2 seems plausible, and I can see it featuring the true fight against Mordremoth and the White Mantle aka Sinister Triad.
(edited by Konig Des Todes.2086)
@Aaron: We don’t really know if a dragon’s corpse corrupts, but given that hibernating dragons (Elder or champion) don’t, then it’s highly likely that their corpse wouldn’t either, though their magic still seems to hold a specific “flavor” to it (Glint’s aspects).
Episode 5’s discussion with the Masters hinted to me that Aerin was already influenced by the voice before joining the Zephyrites – and was Soundless already. His talks of sharing with the dream and “not speaking to himself” seemed to be a facade.
“He was open—almost obsessive—about that. He claimed his connection to the Pale Tree and your Dream made him less of an individual. He called you all “the hive.” I don’t believe he meant to flatter."
→In your opinion, did he show any signs of corruption by an Elder Dragon?
“It didn’t occur to me until after the crash as I tried to understand what had just happened. There were signs, bursts of anger. He said odd things about believing the world must be destroyed.”
→Was that all?
“Sometimes he talked to himself as if trying to keep certain urges at bay. I felt at the time like he was in a battle of wills. Arguing with himself.”
A stark contrast to his display during Festival of the Four Winds, but he was talking to himself then too, and had some strange lines such as:
“Pale Mother guide me…the Zephyrites are right in front of me, but how can I convince them to let me help?”
Why would the Zephyrites need help?
“Ok, Aerin, this is it! The Zephyrites are here, you’re here… This is the beginning of great things for you.”
Beginning of great things, eh? Like… obtaining a dragon egg?
@Aaron: Interesting, however, people have cut and pasted the other texture before and it lined up perfectly. It’s possible that a smidget was removed from the Priory texture, perhaps.
@FlamingFoxx: Places that don’t snow are due to warmer climates. The reason for such changes – closer to the equator or due to warm wind currents (reason why some of Europe isn’t as cold as other places of equal latitude).
Kryta, however, appears to be far enough away from the equator and without any warm wind currents that either shouldn’t be effecting it.
And the state of snow in GW2 during Wintersday is very important to note: they did decorate all of Lion’s Arch, but once you leave the city proper the snow stops, as do the snow devices; they redid the entire map, but intentionally didn’t snow the entire zone. They also altered the five racial cities and starter areas, yet only enough to have the snow devices and “magical snow” piles. At the very least, if Kryta were to snow naturally, you’d think all of Lion’s Arch would be snow-covered.
As to your comment on equator and climates – the logic you provide works for a sphere, but not quite for a torus shape world.
In the end, however, I do think that it is on a sphere. However, I was merely pointing all of this out because your statement “there’s absolutely no evidence to support that >.>” (“this” referring to Tyria possibly being torus shaped) is false. Because there is evidence to support it, even if it is more likely to be a sphere.
The badges aren’t related to the stranger, but to the bandits whom are a White Mantle front.
Reginald and the Mysterious Stranger uses a generic model for beggar and homeless male humans. There are hundreds of NPCs with the model. Including The Al’seen, Beggar, and Donald Regland. People only relate the figure to Reginald, because in the labyrinth (not sure if instance or open world), one can find a dead pink moa, and Reginald talks about stalking pink moas.
While people speculate Saul was exiled into the Maguuma and/or Tarnished Coast, he could have easily been sent north into the Woodland Cascades too. There is also no evidence to really support him being exiled to the Maguuma/Tarnished Coast over Woodland Cascades; previously, folks thought that Old Joness’ dialogue hinted to it, with a mursaat city on its banks, but the entire river exists in Metrica Province, and as you can tell, no hidden mursaat city there.
You know a game is in a sad state when the very idea of an expansion/serious content is seen as a “joke”.
If you actually read the reddit thread, you would easily see that the joke did not contain “serious content” with the exception of tengu as a playable race.
srsly, the only feathers I want to see in this game are the ones in my pillow.
Hold on guys… I think I may be able to decipher this one. Feathers in this person’s pillow. Is his pillow in the game somehow? Is it tied to his use of “srsly” as a substitute for “seriously?” Are they going to make an add-on which allows you to take real world objects and transfer them into the game? Nope. I am sorry guys. This sentence literally makes zero sense.
Funny how it’s a goose that says a comment about not wanting to see feathers outside a pillow makes no sense.
8)
And given how dragons and their minions work, it would be impossible to reach Mordremoth without remaining undetected, killing one’s way to, or becoming corrupted. And even then, it’s been stated dozens of times that the Elder Dragons simply do not care about the races – so why would any of them “trust” Caithe?
Arguably, that first point isn’t true, as what we experience with seasons and even days is questionable – potentially due to mechanics. Snow has never been seen to happen naturally during winter except in high elevation areas (mountains) and with comments or observations of the snow being magical (Kamadan’s snow, for example, during Wintersday in GW1 was said to be magically created; the snow seen in LA and elsewhere in GW2 during Wintersday shows up only beneath asuran snow-making devices). You can observe the sun rising and setting in the same direction – despite it being easy to set it to rise and set in opposing directions with mechanics – canon lore or laziness? We can’t say.
The existence of stars doesn’t make the place a planet. You can see stars from the Realm of Torment, which is a series of broken landscapes. And Margonites refer to Tyria as a “realm” just like Tyrians refer to the Underworld, Fissure of Woe, and Realm of Torment as realms.
And there’s an issue with your argument of Cantha being on the interior: since a torus wouldn’t really have a “north” and “south” who’s to say that the equator doesn’t run vertically rather than horizontally? Under such a notion, Tyria, Elona, and Cantha would have the same kind of night sky (stars) rather than seeing the “other side of the world” (which would be viewable if you go far enough west or east under such a concept).
Indeed. The issue as I see others’ complaints isn’t that “there are too many strong females” but rather “there are too many strong females compared to the number of strong males”.
Increase the number of strong males while keeping the number of strong females, and the argument falls flat on its face.
Here’s what I don’t understand. If Mordy is drawn to a magic locket in the Shiverpeeks, then Glints egg has to be like someone placed a searchlight in his back yard. Seems like a dumb move by the Master of Peace. If he needed a bloodstone, why choose one so close to Mordremoth?
I think Caithe wants to use the egg to somehow heal the Pale Tree.
Nothing actually says Mordy was drawn to the locket.
So the attack on Concordia and Iron Marches may not be magic-related. Seems the caravans with magical artifacts were just a “subject of opportunity”.
This said, the egg was attacked by Mordrem anyways (see Aerin), so it is a bit strange to take it through Mordrem territory. Thing is, their destination doesn’t seem to be the Bloodstone. The PC talks about a “golden location” so unless there was massive renovations at Bloodstone Fen, that’s not the destination (though our direction north certainly hints at it). I suspect said golden location to be a location akin to the Hall of Ascension – perhaps tied to the Forgotten given that there were runes of the Forgotten found in Silverwastes (though I’ve not seen them myself, I’ve seen screenshots of them) and the Forgotten were said to be spread across Tyria (both world and continent).
However, if the Bloodstone is the destination, then the reason may be one of the following:
Now I’m almost sure that the main saboteur of S2E1 was Caithe.
Wounds from daggers on Zephirytes’ bodies? Yeah….
Don’t fail me ANet, that’s a good “shocker”.
Why do people think that Aerin would use nothing but explosives?
If you want to sneakily kill people who’re close to discovering your plans of sabotogue, are you going to fling loud exploding grenades and mines at them, or are you going to stab them with a blade?
Aerin wasn’t in his right mind, but he wasn’t an idiot either.
Unless they moved it in the last 250 years without telling us, there’s suppose to be a Bloodstone in Sparkfly Fen isn’t there?
Technically no. It’s in a cave (fell through the ground into one) in the Shiverpeaks. The cave’s entrance – without jumping into the hole the Bloodstone made – is in Sparkfly Fen. But the asura and Shining Blade had influence over it and broke pieces of it off for weapons and other tools – and its fate is unknown.
(edited by Konig Des Todes.2086)
Glint is stated to once have had free will, and dragon minions are stated to be unable to reproduce, unless they were pregnant when corrupted (the whole being turned into ice/crystal/fire/decaying tissues kind of prevent pregnancy from happening), so Glint having eggs heavily hints that she was once a living being.
The Bone Dragons from GW1 are stated to only be the front half of their original bodies, and unlike the Hellhounds which were bone constructs like minions, the Bone Dragons were true undead that were risen from graves (their hind half tore off as they pulled themselves out of the graves due to their strength being too much for their rotten bodies to handle).
Saltsprays look nothing like drakes, to be honest. So I doubt they’re drakes. Whether they’re tied to the Tyrian dragons (Elder and not) is a mystery though.
But Rotscale, Glint, and Kuunavang all being compared to each other on multiple occasions (even after Glint’s status as former dragon minion was revealed) hints at a connection between Bone Dragons, Saltspray Dragons, and Glint.
As for the Elder Dragons reproducing, my thoughts have been – for a while now – that they’re simply the last survivors of a dragon race, grown more powerful by consuming more magic than the others.
I believe since this refers to the same storyline, this reponse from our narrative director would apply to the situation described in this thread. If they are different problems, please let me know. I feel that overall the same information about “My Greatest Fear” and its future corrections would also apply here.
Thanks.
This is deffinitly the same topic Gaile, can you merge these threads please?
I was going to suggest this.
There are over a dozen threads on this – this one, which I started, and “My Greatest Fear Plotline” thread were made roughly at the same time. Many were started up as these threads died down – only the My Greatest Fear Plotline thread remained active for the two-going-on-three months the matter has been around.
Well. Perhaps we could get the “narrative” director to explain why the changes were made in the first place. Changes that, as he/she even noted, need to be fixed.
I would love to know why someone thought the changes were a good idea…
But what’s more important is that they’re fixed. Preferrably by reverting and not trying to fix all the dialogue (because you’re going to need a lot more than simple dialogue fixes to actually fix things).
Actually, nothing says the Master of Peace was heading away from anything – let alone trouble. He was heading towards a location – a specific location; a golden location – that lies in the west.
By all indications, he was not trying to avoid anything but Mordrem (which he failed, as he had to go through them, though why he didn’t try to detour a bit is beyond me). He had a very specific destination, but if he was simply trying to avoid trouble he’d have a very specific “get away from” location, not a “get to” location.
And if he was simply trying to avoid trouble, why would he go towards trouble (Mordrem/Mordremoth) that were specifically after him (and/or the egg)?
Actually, there is some evidence – via only the texture – for Tyria (the world) being a torus shape. The east/west ends match up, as do the north/south ends. Two fun facts about rectangular/square world maps:
This results in either there being distortions on the central ends of the north and south sides of the sphere (where the poles would be, theoretically at least), or the texture is not meant to be on a sphere, but a torus.
All lore statements and in-game models however point to Tyrians believing that the world is a sphere.
The dialogue change was brought up on reddit a week or so ago. that_shaman dug up a bunch of Trahearne’s lines that got changed in response to this – aside from the greeting, entering combat, leaving combat, and death lines, some of his PS lines were redone (they don’t seem to have changed in context – yet – but they were updated with new versions).
A minor annoyance I have is that he talks about having a blade before he received Caladbolg too.
But this seems to be in response to the many dozen threads that popped up about the changes to the Greatest Fear and Orr invasion chapters in the PS (Chapters 7 and 8 ). A recent response talked about a lot of resources being needed to fix the issues that the Feature Batch’s changes created, which seems weird if they’re just reverting it to how it was – so it seems that they’re redoing the dialogue entirely to remove the dozens if not hundreds of inconsistencies. Said changes during the feature batch, in turn, seem to have been caused by the “Trahearne stole my spotlight!” proclamations, putting the conclusion of his Wyld Hunt much sooner than fighting Zhaitan, and the complaints of NPCs dying before we get to care about them after the mentor (which is negated, for the most part, if you chose very specific story paths). Though I’m just guessing at the reason for the changes.
Either way, this seems to be the beginning of “fixing” those “improvements.”
—-
As to the charr, I doubt he will play a role. He’s a generic named NPC, after all.
I’ve ran through the labyrinth enough to notice that the rewards do not weigh up against the armor repair grind. Constant instant kills, and every death damages your armor? No thanks! Not to mention that when you do have the key, the central room is crawling with enemies, so it’s pretty much a trial and error affair to get to that nightmare pod alive, plus it also has terrible loot!
You simply get better rewards from digging up buried treasure. So it there any reason to do the labyrinth, after getting the achievement? I don’t see any reason.
After I got the achievement for the Greater Nightmare Pod, I haven’t returned, even though I’ve become rather good at avoiding the Bioluminescent Wolves.
It really isn’t that fun, and it really doesn’t give enough rewards to be worth it – though they’re better than you really make out, but getting to the point of being able to get a key is more work than the rewards I noted (at least if you work for the 25 fragment way, having to also use a Bandit Key).
(edited by Konig Des Todes.2086)
Every other good guy NPC held the idiot ball.
It was the PC’s turn.
I can’t really disagree with anything in this thread… Especially this post.
That’s your PC not Scarlet. Nice try though almost fooled me (not really).
This, to those not certain.
Don’t know why people enjoy “recreating” Scarlet. But eh.
That is just the Return to Camp Resolve instance with a Scarlet-clone PC. The fact Caithe has no motion and Taimi’s next to that engineer charr is proof.
Oh, and the PC’s face isn’t Scarlet’s.
While the common Nightmare Spiders are leaf-looking (using the Forest Spider skin), in Twilight Arbor we see all kinds of spiders which are very much not leaf-looking and very much animal (including among them the cave spider model and the black widow spider). Same goes for the jaguars. Wurms are questionable due to their very planty-appearance and being called Nightmare Vines in certain places, but the spiders and jaguars do not share this.
@Stooperdale: The Nightmare doesn’t create, but twists things tied to the Dream (and not) – always plants (the Nightmare Court do use spiders and jaguars and wurms, but this is more akin to abusive teaching).
Nothing says that those twisted by the Nightmare have protection from the Elder Dragons, in all honesty. We’ve never encountered any NC in Season 2 yet, or interacting with dragon minions – close we know is that they still view (non-Mordrem at least) dragon minions and the Elder Dragons as enemies still.
@Underdark: If that’s of the past, then yes, possibly.
Talk about obvious placeholder names being obvious. Though, I’m looking forward to traveling to the exotic lands of: Wetlands, Arid, Gwen, Yeh, and Kim. I hear they’re wonder this time of year.
Fun fact: Gwen Yeh and Kim Dahye are two artists at Anet.
Wouldn’t doubt that they made the map and this was them signing it. :P
A lot of ancient maps are labeled more with descriptions rather than actual names when little is known of the land. Until Anet either decides what’s there for real, or is ready to reveal it, I think this is the best we’ll get.
Correction: The “Foundry” on the map is actually “Misandry”.
Whom shall we face in that distant land? Angry man-hating Amazons?
There’s many comments that can be made on this, truth be told. But as I’m sure that’d result in a finger-wagging by devs, I’ll say naught, even if they’re not my thoughts… until lately, at least.
Most of you will know what I mean either way.
Let’s say the jade brotherhood knew Brill had eggs to take care of. We know there was a portal in cristal desert leading to Elona, and I’ve read somewhere that the portal doesn’t lead to Elona anymore (but it didn’t say the portal doesn’t work). Could the brotherhood had recalibrated the portal in cristal desert to a portal next to the bloodstone in Magguma Jungle to evade the eggs in case of emergency ?
Erm… well, first, Brotherhood of the Dragon and Glint, not Jade Brotherhood and Brill -as mentioned.
Yes, the Brotherhood of the Dragon knew Glint had eggs, and even defended one (Gleam) in GW1 (with the players).
The Forgotten Portal has never been said to no longer work. What’s been said about Elona is that since Zhaitan’s rise and Joko’s reign contact has been cut off except for the Order of Whispers – of course, even in GW1, the Crystal Desert was more or less impassible for the common traveler (too dangerous) and even moreso the Desolation, so land travel is near impossible without going into charr lands to the far east first. I think you are thinking of the asura portal underneath Kamadan no longer working, which could be said because of the aforementioned no-contact or because the old gate network supposedly doesn’t work thanks to Primordus’ waking (the old gate network was powered by Primordus’ residual magic while it slept), though such is pure speculation – as is whether or not that gate is canon, as it existed only in a quest meant to bring players from Elona to Eye of the North and the gate was “shared” with one under Kaineng City in Cantha and one under Lion’s Arch (the only one confirmed to have existed in lore would be Lion’s Arch’s underground gate). The Forgotten portal has no known status – positive or negative – since GW1.
While theoretically recallibrating portals – both old asura gates (which were for the most part stationary destinations, unlike GW2 gates despite mechanics) and the Forgotten portals (as well as mursaat teleporters) – would be possible, there are no such portals near Bloodstone Fen, and if such existed and used by the Brotherhood then the Zephyrites should know of them and would have used them to get closer to their western destination than on foot through Mordrem armies.
In the Pale Tree vision, we didn’t know what we saw. In the last episode, in the Labyrinth, the player character explains that she saw the Pale Tree Cristal Desert vision. We now know that what we saw in that cinematic is Crystal Deset.
According to the wiki and what I saw, except Eir’s and Caithe’s recounting of Destiny’s Edge battle with Glint and Kralkatorrik – the climax of the novel Edge of Destiny – there is no mention of the Crystal Desert in the entirety of Episode 7 – and this was in the first instance (for Eir) and second instance (for Caithe), not the labyrinth (third instance). There is no mention of a “vision” “desert” or “crystal” in the labyrinth’s instance.
As for the PC talking about the vision, all the PC says is seeing an egg and a “golden location” which the PC suspects the Master of Peace is heading towards.
And the Master of Peace was heading west – the Crystal Desert is far across the continent, on the other side of Labyrinthine Cliffs where the Zephyrites left from. I don’t see us going to the Crystal Desert.
Though arguably one can saw we did go to the Crystal Desert – via the portal in the Durmand Priory basement, to Glint’s Lair.
I wouldn’t be so sure the Nightmare Pods don’t come from Mordy. Those chests are very leafy, and the Mordrem Lurcher in the story instance version of the maze has the lime green glow that matches the glow of the Toxic Alliance – further hinting at a tie to Mordremoth and the Tower of Nightmares; and from the Tower of Nightmares, to the Nightmare of the Dream (which the Shadow of the Dragon also ties to very directly, being (one of many?) source(s) of the Nightmare).
But how many episodes to go? Assuming the next patch will be Dec 2, then the 16th? But I also assume the 16th will be wintersday patch. After that, two holidays and into Dec, almost another month of break probably.
Maybe I’m thinking this wrong, but if true, then when will this whole “change tyria forever” moment occur, if not at the end of this year?
Rule #1 when dealing with Anet:
Their promotions seldom ever match what they actually deliver.
The “change Tyria forever” was the attack on Lion’s Arch.
Lion’s Arch was changed forever.
Though I suppose one could attribute it to Mordremoth’s awakening too, which was done in the same update. Season 2 isn’t the cause of the change, but the after-effects and the change itself (Mordrem, Mordrem everywhere).
Will there really be two more episodes this year? Last year, LS started the midseason break around this time. The only significant December update was Wintersday (which I loved).
I can definitely see one more episode left this year that’ll give a cliffhanger answer to what happened at the end of the latest episode as a midseason finale, but then Wintersday is gonna have to roll in at some point.
ToN’s finale and Wintersday were delivered in the same patch. It wasn’t a “mid-season break” but a “holiday break”. Season 1 didn’t have a mid-season break. But at the same time, Season 1 gave a lot less content per episode compared to Season 2 (sans S2E6 which is more or less on par to the bigger S1 releases).
A bit before, yeah, but that’s a drastic change for Faolain.
And looking at the picture, if that’s Caithe in the past, then the version of her in the image is really close to EoD’s description of her compared to her modern-time model.
He struck through Dry Top before any of those, and that is, by all appearances, north of where he himself is.
I would not be surprised if he spread north first, then east. But even if he thickened in Silverwastes after his assaults elsewhere, it’s curious as to why it’s so thick in the Silverwastes (and going off of the Pale Tree’s vision, it was thick there even by E4).
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.
Gaile, as a long standing lover of the game series’ lore and story, I would like to request from you, a request:
Can you please ask how they’re intending to fix this? Because it seems like their fix will be to completely overhaul the dialogue – going off of your post here. However, if this is so, there will STILL be glaring plot issues even with such, and I find it hard to believe that reverting to how it was prior to the NPE would be requiring a “good deal of resources”.
This said, if they’re putting a lot of resources into it, I humbly request a rework of the gameplay mechanics throughout the personal story. There are – even today – many buggy instances, and even minor details that occasionally jar me (for example, when they removed champions from the level 1-15 zones, they also turned the Champions at the end of Chapter 1 PS arcs into veterans, however if you meet said champion before the final instance of Chapter 1, they still appear as champion – example being Commander Serentine from the human Commoner storyline). Zhaitan is another obvious. The boss fights in the PS compared to those in even Season 1 are vastly different, where the former (the PS fights) feel like the bosses are just standard mobs – with rare exceptions like the aforementioned Commander Serentine and the Mouth of Zhaitan.
Edit: Saw your second post in the thread, seems you’re already going to ask them for more specifics on the how they’re improving. My full post still stands though.
Did anet ever give a reason for the removal?
something about making the personal story less confusing to new players, but then they changed their stance to “it’s a bug” after everyone went up in arms about the story changes………..still don’t get it, if the story changes are a “bug”, why has it taken 2 MONTHS to fix it?
I know this is an old comment but:
The confusing part was for the hearts and events in the level 1-10 areas. They NEVER ONCE gave a comment about why they changed the Personal Story’s order.
The “it’s a bug” was player hopefulness over the matter. All ArenaNet said was “we’ll get back to you on Monday” (this was said on a Friday… over two months ago).
We know where the “eligibility line” is?
I stopped my characters right on the mission where you consult the pale tree, right BEFORE the vision. Is this too late? Will I be able to play the arc if they ever restore it?
You’re in the clear there. You must ensure one of two things to not be set-in-stone:
If you’re past 70 by the time you hit Retribution DO NOT COMPLETE IT. If you have completed Retribution but haven’t hit 70 DO NOT LEVEL UP.
You can do one, but not both.
I got a theory. If memory serves, people vocally complained on the forums about how Trahearne stole your character’s spotlight on the last half of the Personal Story, which I honestly do not see considering that he never joined my character and Destiny’s Edge towards the attack on Zhaitan and was just perched atop his ship on the Straits. This change was meant to address this, although I think it backfired. I may be kitteny for saying this, but if this is true, then I sincerely blame the people for voicing that out and we eventually got what we got right now.
If I had to give a motivation for these changes by Anet, then this is what I think happened.
They wanted Trahearne’s plot (his Wyld Hunt – aka The Source of Orr) to be over sooner so that it won’t feel like he stole the spotlight. Though in all honesty, I never got that feeling myself.
They likely removed the fear plot in order to reduce the amount of senseless deaths that lack emotional ties because characters die too fast.
In all honesty, the PS’s greatest problem is that we never got to know characters.
Rather than removing story steps, I think Anet should have added some – a new chapter between Chapters 4 and 5, before we get our second promotion after aiding the minor races. Such chapters could easily involve Trahearne, with just a small need to change Battle of Claw Island dialogue and place it in the new “Chapter 4.5”.
I’m not really sure if it would be possible to add a sense of attachment to the greatest fear plot, aside from redoing the chapter and expanding the number of instances.
And all the other deaths all depend too greatly on your early PS plots, determined by your biography. The only solution then would either hard-set the Further into Orr story splits, or to extend the number of instances.
Anet went the easy way – “if they complained about it, let’s remove it” – rather than the proper way – “if they complained about it, let’s improve it”.
Which is what they did with the NPE throughout. Players who left the game complained about something, so Anet went and removed it, even though players who kept with the game loved that then-removed thing. All done to increase their playerbase… but what it really does is switch it out if they can manage to bring back the lost players (which there is 0 guarantee of, thus the best guarantee is that you just ran off most of the players that remained).
i know nothing about these dialogue changes (as i’ve utterly halted any story progression beyond the first lvl 40 mission to gey my key), but it seems like an idiotic thing to do just to “fix” the plot holes. you have on one hand, spend more money, slap a bandaid on the story, continue to have hundreds, if not thousands of complaints. on the other hand, press the story reset button, make it the way it was, spend little, if any money, satisfy EVERYONE…………if they took the first option, they have to be the craziest s.o.b’s in existence if they think that’s a good plan
From what I saw that that_shaman pulled out of the gw.dat, Trahearne has had some battle cries and greet dialogue altered.
“This won’t end well.” for example, has been removed entirely. I don’t know why, because while people made fun of it, it was iconic to the game.
It would be like taking Captain Jack Sparrow out of Pirates of the Caribbean movies.
I’m usually on the forums during the day, in-game at night unless I feel like playing another game more, which is more and more.
I try to avoid being negative but I find that hard to do. I come here more out of habit nowadays, though.
Hey peeps,
It could have been asked or asnwered before but i could not find it, if so please redirect me.
Chapter 7 will release on December 2nd, 2 weeks after the last chapter 8 should release on 16th of December.
Wintersday was released on 14 december 2012 and 10 december 2013. Are these patches not going to interfere? or how is this going to work out?
Thank you,
Last year, the final release of Tower of Nightmares (“The Nightmare is Finally Over”) which included the tower’s destruction, coincided with the release of Wintersday (“A Very Merry Wintersday”).
So no, there will be no interfering, most likely. I cannot see them taking a break from S2 for Wintersday when there’d be only one episode left – because if they did, it would mean the final episode, Episode 8, would be released in January at the earliest due to holiday breaks that Anet always takes.
or there might be more episodes than 8? or even episode 8 might be split into a 2 part finale? we dont know until were told :P
I do believe it’s been explicitly stated on Points of Interest that Episode 5 would begin the second half of Season 2.
Meaning 8 episodes.
I know, it’s weird given that 1) we’re nowhere near completing the plot of Mordremoth, and 2) Season 1 lasted “20 episodes” (according to Anet, though they count Tequatl Rising, Bazaar of the Four Winds, and The Lost Shores as “Special Events” rather than episodes, and compared to everything else, the four Flame and Frost installments are easily a single episode – and then there was how the second Wintersday also included some LW S1 plot stuff like the ToN’s final instance, its explosion, and a celebration of its destruction at The Dead End – so really, it was 21 Episodes in 24 releases, unless you wanna combine others which is entirely plausible in regards of comparing S1 release sizes to S2 release sizes – otherwise they’d all appear the size of E6, which is very very small).
So yeah, Season 2 – and likely all future seasons – seems to be 8 episodes. Though this means we may from now on see 2 seasons a year (a single season taking 4 months with 4 months break between and in the middle of, overall). I expect 2015 to conclude with Season 4’s ending.
(edited by Konig Des Todes.2086)
[rant]Okay, I sorta understand why this is like how it is. It’s so that the NPC’s won’t carry bads through these instances and they want us to feel empowered, like calling the shots, like doing the damage when Kasmeer is conveniently stuck on her bum during the whole fight against the Crystal whatever (I already forgot its name) in Glint’s lair or when Marjory does zero damage to it since she’s too dumb to get the fragile buff.
But still, they are meant to be your friends and allies. Is it too much to ask they’d do their fair share of DPS, instead of conveniently stuck on the floor and walls, taking the route with no mobs through an instance (unlike you, of course) or having to be rescued all the time? [/rant]
In every instance of Season 2, the biconics are under permanent invulnerability (as well as any other story important character, such as Caithe, Canach, and the Masters, whom can only be beaten if scripted, even if their healthbar appears 0).
Anet literally removed the ability for NPCs to be downed from Season 2.
It is already possible to just afk bosses and lay there defeated if there are story-relevant NPCs fighting it, without it resetting. It may take time but it’s possible. So them doing moderate damage would effectively mean the do the entire thing for you. If their damage increases, they need to be able to die. I’m not against that.
And make their deaths permanent if it happens. cough.
From the teaser image from todays POI it looks like Caithe might be (still?) working with Faolin. I don’t really remember what Faolin looked like, but it might be her on the right.
i.imgur.com/Wmnj26Q.jpg
As I pointed out in the other thread, I don’t think this is a modern version of Caithe and Faolain. It might be a past image of them.
But the issue I see is that Faolain’s appearance doesn’t match EoD’s description – which was basically a dark verion of Caithe; where her skin was light green, Faolain’s was darker and more barklike (as it is now); where Caithe’s hair, eyes, and fingernails were white/whitish, Faolain’s were black/blackish; but otherwise they were very similar in appearance. This always threw me off with her in-game appearance, but I knocked it off to Faolain’s appearance altering from the Nightmare and the poison she withdrew from Caithe during EoD, which made her arm rot a little. And the emotional distressed caused by being dejected in favor of her friends and fighting the dragons could easily alter her appearance.
I’m hoping for witnessing first interactions between sylvari and asura, and this somehow ties into why Caithe stole the egg (finally bringing in the “sylvari are untrusting of asura” concept that was established as pre-release lore but never seen in-game akin to most of the supposed hate between humans and charr, perhaps? And tying this into why Caithe stole the egg – to keep it from asuran knowledge, as they would oh so desireably want to experiment on it, even non-Inquest (and the Inquest would want to no doubt control it)).
Well its only one line, but its showing Caithe.
https://twitter.com/GuildWars2/status/535477616426643456So who’s pain is she going to bear? Gleams? The egg’s? Faolin’s? Someone else?
The Caithe in the picture is not the one that stole the egg. That Caithe had a purple face.
So with Rytlock and Caithe playing major roles in this story, which member of Destiny’s edge is next?
All lights there seem to get turned purple. Radiant and chaos gear, even my shlvari’s glow which is usually light blue got turned purple Iirc.
Caithe looked 100% normal in the two prior instances.
Well here’s the teaser image from todays POI. Can’t remember exactly what Faolin looked like, but it might be her on the right.
i.imgur.com/Wmnj26Q.jpgNot sure where they are, other than some Asura base (whether “good” Asura or Inquest isn’t really distinguishable)
That central structure is unique and I recall it from the weather changer asura storyline. That is the Inner Inquest Complex in NE Metrica Province.
The head of the right sylvari matches Faolain though her armor differs from TA – she had the dungeon’s armor there, here that looks like T3 light, same colors though. The left sylvari has same colors as Caithe but both hair and armor differs. The asura I think is a general model? But not a common Inquest model.
Perhaps a cinematic of Faolain and Caithe’s past, before Faolain fell? Though if so, one hasto wonder why Faolain looks the same. In EoD she was described as looking similar to Caithe, but where Caithe had white hair etc, Faolain had black. Her treebranch hair was always very strange to me but I took it as Nightmare and poison’s influence after the novel changing her, since her arm became a bit rotten after withdrawing the poison. If this is a flash of the past – if that is Caithe – then Faolain’s appearance should change too.
Edit: Yeah, I do think this is an image of the past, with the left being Caithe. Those are her daggers and skin/hair color. That is an Inquest base but the asura and golem don’t seem to be Inquest made (distinct lack of red) – meaning either the three are allies, which doesn’t seem so as that looks confrontational to me, or this was before the base was Inquest. And Faolain’s outfit looks less Nightmare Court-y to me.
If that isn’t Caithe and Faolain in the past, then we have a Faolain clone next to a similar-to-Caithe sylvari.
But if it is… Why does Faolain not match her historic appearance description? Oversight, probably.
(edited by Konig Des Todes.2086)
The destination of the Zephyrites before their crash seem to be that golden location from the Pale Tree’s vision – at least that is the PC’s claim – and it seemed by the Masters’ dialogue the Master of Peace was heading there even by foot for the egg’s sake.
And according to the vision, it is beyond the Mordrem in the Silverwastes – which is why we’re heading north rather than south, which is where the Season 1’s ending cinematic implies for Mordremoth’s location (Mordy seems to be closer to where The Falls was in gw1, but we seem to be heading towards Bloodstone Fen instead – and it is odd that Mordy stretched north before going east towards civilization).
There were about 11 ships in Labyrinthine Cliffs. Three or four ships were seen struck down. Aerin only bombed the largest, Zephyr Sanctum, but it knocked into two/three others, at least.
If you mean them making a non-Zephyrite the new masters, I both highly doubt it and believe it would make no sense whatsoever logically.
What if we were wrong ? What if that wasn’t Glint’s egg ? What if that was an egg from … something else ? What if we got manipulate ? (by what, no idea haha)
I think Ogden would know what he’s talking about when it comes to Glint.
Because anet need to make money somehow ..
Just be glad they aren’t only achievable through RNG boxes anymore.
1) They could have made an additional weapon set, like they did with Dry Top’s Ambrite weapons.
2) Yes, they are obtained through RNG only.
Because anet need to make money somehow ..
Just be glad they aren’t only achievable through RNG boxes anymore.But that’s kind of what the Black Lion Chests are…
Back then they weren’t tradeable on TP, but ONLY available through RNG boxes ..
You don’t have to rely on RNG now.
The weapon skins were always tradeable on the TP…
But they could avoid the RNG all together by putting weapon tickets on the gemstore directly.
On top of GscGunner’s post, the first emperor of Cantha, Kaineng Tah, died from being flung off of his hunting horse.
Horses do very much exist in Tyria – and I mean the world, not the continent.
Glint’s body is still protected by the Zephyrites. Until it is empty of magic, I’m sure they’d continue to work for that.
Then there’s Gleam. And any other possible still-living children of Glint (according to Aaron, there’s 21 eggs seen in GW1 – we know the fate of two; that’s 19 unaccounted eggs).
I’m still “surprised” they offed the Master of Peace and Master of Sun. Not because I didn’t expect it – in that sense, I’m surprised the Masters of Wind and Lightning survived – but because the Master of Sun was wearing heavy armor but got one-shotted by the boss, while the medium and light armor guys stood their own, and the Master of Peace should be the top dog of the Zephyrites, and it felt like his role was building up to be very important until the promo pic for E6.
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