Guild Wars 2

Fumfum.6724:

Anyway, shouldn’t Cantha be completely flooded with the rise of Orr?

Only the northern coasts. That tidal wave wasn’t that destructive. And after 100 years, they’d have mostly recovered, no doubt.

PookieDaWombat.6209:

There was some random NPC that showed up in the middle of the first LS when LA was wrecked and everyone was relocated to the Vigil keep. I don’t remember his name, but he said he was vigil without ever wearing their uniform and was very flip about the whole thing saying that he came and went as he pleased a lot. He also knew a lot about us even though we never met before (according to the convo had with him). Does anyone else remember this person?

You speak of Dougal Keane, the main character of the first GW novel: Ghosts of Ascalon.

He has always been near the dungeon vendors (Fort Marriner, Vigil Keep, and now, iirc, where the vendors are).

He’s not really that suspicious, actually is a Vigil member, is allowed to not wear their uniform by special permission of Almorra (given that he retrieved the Claw of the Khan-Ur, which allowed the charr/human peace treaty talks to begin, he’s allowed special treatment) and hates politics, as pointed out in the novel.

The Mists/Rift is stated to be accessible by the multiverse – and in lore, while we don’t see it, the Hall of Heroes is where heroes of countless worlds end up.

It’s hard to make out the smallest texts, but what I can make out is:

• The NW and SE bodies of water are labeled Unending Ocean. So it seems they consider the world to have a single ocean.
• Cantha has five names. As one would expect they are (from south to north): The Jade Sea, Echovald Forest, Cantha (largest), Kaineng City, and Shing Jea Island
• Of the dots and lines, we have included amongst them Lion’s Arch, Great Temple of Balthazar, Kamadan, and Kaineng Center. The four major ports of GW1’s time. These dots have lines going to all other three – thus making a divided diamond shape with the lines.
  • Interestingly, there are two additional lines and dots – that only connect to the The Great Temple of Balthazar and each other, making a triangle. This implies that only the Zaishen traded with/knew of these two ports.
• The landmasses west of Cantha have 2-3 letter names. I cannot make them out, unfortunately. Lettering is too small. But I think they’re numbers – the eastern name looks to me to be 04.
• The text over the Battle Isles, naturally, reads “Battle Isles.”
• Elona’s texts read (from south to north): Istan, Kourna, The Desolation, Vabbi, Elona
  • Just above Elona is “The Crystal Desert”; Just NW of The Crystal Desert is “Ascalon” then “Kryta” furthering that path.
• The largest text on the supercontinent is “Tyria” – it doesn’t centralize over what we had in Prophecies or in GW2, indicating the supercontinent’s name is Tyria.
• The text just north by northwest of Kryta is “Ysle of Janthir” – I don’t get the typo, unless that’s a very thin I (which appears as a backwards S separated in the middle horizontally in this style of New Krytan).
• There are 6 other land names, and 3 bay/coast names on the supercontinent. I cannot read the entirety of them.
• The islands to the east of Elona have a 3 letter and a 5 letter names. I cannot make out the names.
• The islands to the west of Tyria have 3 land names and (including the second port) 2 names in waters (1 bay and 1 islands it looks like). I cannot make out the names, just a few letters here and there.

Interesting, the Shiverpeaks, Maguuma, Blazeridge, Verdant Cascades, Ring of Fire, Charr/Blood Legion Homelands are all without names.

Edit: The bay-like area in the SE part of supercontinent Tyria appears to me to be “Tazmre Cape/Cove” to me. Half of it is very thin/faded so it’s hard to tell (e.g., for the second word, I can make out C and three other letters, the last being either B, E, or F; Cape and Cove are the only geographical words I know that can fit it; I’d press for Cape though).

Edit2: The word just north of the above towards the eastern coast appears to be “Ormpus” – though this doesn’t really sound ‘proper’ to me.

The two word above that… appears… to be… “Not real”… Perhaps the owners of this map doesn’t think that land exists? o.O

I can’t make any others out.

Right, I recall that now.

If it’s an actual in-house term of a location, then one must consider how in-house terms for locations are done. In regards to open world locations, it’s set up as:

That’s just a recreation of the OoW globe’s texture with fixes to inaccuracies around Tyria.

Fan-made or official? I’d guess fan given imgur but asking to be sure as it could be from the dat.

Either way, how it’s labeled interests me, so I’m translating.

Edit: I see it’s pulled from the dat by that_shaman. To translating I go!

Edit: It seems that WoodenPotatoes has already translated most of it and will be uploading a video of his translations. I’ll still consider my own though before seeing his video.

Unless it was intended for something… and was scrapped. Entirely plausible – and has already happened (ever heard of the incomplete and very large jumping puzzle in Caledon Forest’s underground?).

In all honesty, that area looks like it was intended for some major boss fight to me.

ArenaNet has already shown a preview of a “new” zone portal – through Fort Vandal – the same way they previewed the zone portal that we have going into Dry Top already. So we’re going to be getting a “new” zone portal.

The question is: “where does it lead?”

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

GW1 didn’t have “better” RNG so much as it had smaller pools from which to draw from.

It’s a bit of both.

GW1 had smaller variations in weapons – no stats or stat combinations like Berserker/Knights/etc.; ever since Nightfall, inscriptions could be changed, and even before the bonuses + 2 upgrades were a lot less than the sigil numbers we have in GW2; the only real variancy there was, was one of five bow types, one of four shield types, and one of twenty focus/staff/wand types.

GW2, however, has binding on acquire – which then isolates the RNG to per account, sometimes even per character, rather than per community (via trade). There also seems to be a lot more cases of MPB in GW2, whereas we only really had the one in GW1.

So GW1 did have less variables, but GW2 also has a worse set-up.

And something ironic about GW1 and GW2 in regards to drops and the like…

Since release, we’ve had a lot of new runes, sigils, and stat combinations presented. But throughout GW1’s lifespan, the only time new such things were added was with Nightfall, introducing generic prefix runes and inscriptions (as opposed to hard-set upgrades); excluding new profession runes and new weapons(’ upgrades).

GW1 had a lot less character progression… and yet there was so little complaint about the lack of it (or at least, I never saw or heard it), especially compared to the complaints with GW2! I find this humorous, personally. I don’t know if this is a fault of the game’s design, or a change in community. I think both, personally, though more of the latter (as I recall that the community – the parts I was interacting with in GW1’s community) had grown harsher as GW2 became more popular).

Fernling.1729:

Behellagh.1468:

Fernling.1729:

Quote from Mike O’Brien

“we’ve always expected that we will someday raise the level cap in GW2”

A quote from nearly two years ago. And since we know how fluid the development process is, I would say it’s past it’s “good until” date.

I was just saying it’s still up in the air and with the information they’ve given us, it’s more likely they will. There’s more evidence pointing to a level increase than there is evidence saying they won’t.
They could have easily jumped on the forums and said “We will not increase the level cap.”, surely a bunch of people would be happy to hear that. They didn’t have a problem coming to the forums to say that they will not introduce the VIP system outside china.

I’m not 100% certain, but I think they have stated that they don’t intend to. IIRC, the statement was – paraphrasing – that there’s no intention to, but they won’t throw it off the table completely.

But they won’t really throw anything off the table. So that’s not saying much.

That could be true if it’s something that’s created by an intentional artificial means. But if it’s natural like Varra suggests, then it’d be unrelated; and if it’s artificial but unintentional then it would a side-effect rather than a forewarning.

1) Warden Lochin actually dies during the Mordrem attack. After you send three (?) “world” leaders down, he and the generically named Warden both die, leaving only Caithe and Trahearne as the living sylvari NPCs in the Omphalos Chamber.

When I saw this, I put it up on his wiki article because it is such an easy to miss piece of lore.

Ding dong, the “Gasp! No!” man is dead.

2) Please link on this wandering island stuff! Because that sounds like what Prince Mehtu the Wise described in GW1!

3) The map of the Mists that Lord Odran made, being related to artifacts that Abaddon had/knew of? Seems a bit… far fetched.

@CureForLiving: Loki’s described as a trickster more for his earlier doings. When he did what you speak of, he was then imprisoned – that was more or less the ‘last straw’.

@Mickey: Different translations and texts refer to Loki’s relation to the gods differently. The ones I have seen most commonly refer to Loki as Thor’s half-brother via Odin, with his mother being a jotun. I do recall that Loki being full-jotun in some translations/texts, but I go by what I see most commonly due to how norse mythos was changed when transcribed by Christian monks.

On a quick search on wikipedia: “In Norse mythology, Loki (/?lo?ki/), Loptr, or Hveðrungr is a god or jötunn (or both).” And: “Loki’s relation with the gods varies by source.”

The PS and LW instances utilize a map used elsehwere – usually the open world map (exceptions are cases like when the Chantry of Secrets is attacked by risen). This means that any changes to the world map will affect any personal story step that takes place in the same location – for example, Forging the Pact now takes place in an utterly destroyed Fort Concordia, even though it’s presented (even by dialogue in the open world, thank you developer oversights) as if it’s a new structure, and not destroyed.

What Medicarejunkie and Titus are asking for is for the PS and LW instance to have their own map copies. Which wouldn’t take much size if they’re trimmed down to just what’s visible and one dupe map per zone per alteration (at which, until all Season 1 maps are permanent, there’d just be 25 or so additional maps – one per zone; add in 1 for Southsun, and 3 for LA and 1 or 2 for Kessex when S1 becomes permanent) – and even then, most maps haven’t been changed (Timberline, Kessex, LA, Dry Top, and Iron Marches are the only maps which have alterations that may affect the pre-altered instances, and even then I’m not sure for Iron Marches) so you only need to create copies as the maps are altered with the landscape itself.

They don’t refer to phasing like you mistook, just copies of the maps that only exist for the instances, rather than using the open world map.

@dlonie: I do hope you’re being sarcastic. I really can’t tell, that’s how much your sarcasm is not obvious in your post.

@OP: Yeah, this is one of the great damages of the NPE. The rabbit event in Shaemoor is also gone. And carrying rabbits – the only place you can do this being Shaemoor’s event – was a majorly promoted aspect of GW2! Wtf Anet, W. T. F.?!

Hyper Cutter.9376:

Konig Des Todes.2086:

Take away the “bound on acquire” trait of any item that has it, and BAM, RNG system annoyances disappear.

Precursors. Not account-bound, and some of the most complained-about (deservedly!) items in the game.

Complaining about not getting a precursor is like complaining about not getting a Mini Polar Bear in GW1.

It’s one situation over dozens of thousands.

But of all subjects of RNG complaints, how many are there other than precursors?

Now imagine that precursors would be the only RNG complaint, because all the others… are bound on acquire (Fractal weapons, Ascended gear, etc.).

Shen Slayer.3058:

I really hope so, that’s probably the only way to retain veteran players, beside new content.

Depending on how far you’re going with “veteran players”, most would actually leave with more vertical progression – be it higher gear rarity tiers, or higher level caps.

GW1 had 20 levels for 6 years before GW2. People still play it, many I’ve recently heard are people who left GW2 to return to GW1. I would not doubt that the high vertical progression of GW2 is part of it (alongside the reduced story quality, and other certain systems or aspects of systems).

New players would likely not give a kitten .

RNG.

15 charr 1 post

Medicarejunkie.6032:

Thats what I thought LS was suppose to do.

It’s what ArenaNet proclaims, but they barely touch upon what the term and their definition of “Living World” actually is.

It’s not a living world, nor a living story. It’s an expanding story/world.

The only time they update the world is when it is directly relevant to the primary plot. If there is no relevance, then the world is ‘stuck in time’ or the events ‘are still happening’ (like the centaur war and the human/charr peace treaty negotiations).

If Anet was really doing a living world, then every zone would be slowly updated simultaneously alongside the main plot.

Of course, doing this would irrevocably create an issue with new players going through the personal story – though given how they flubbed up on the PS’s order already, and don’t care about Concordia’s destruction (when they could have easily attacked a different nearby fort by the name of Caer Evermore that has no place in the personal story), I doubt they really care about that anymore – as players will see the open world for their ‘current state’ but the personal story is in a ‘previous state’, creating a potential confusion.

The only real means of fixing this would be to create a phasing structure of the world maps, which would divide players – though this shouldn’t be too great of an issue now given megaservers.

However, such an action would prevent their plan of biweekly releases for 2 months then a 2 month break. But then again, such a plan won’t sustain them, in my opinion at least.

GW1 did a lot of things that GW2 flubbed on by becoming “more of an MMO”.

The RNG system was one.

The latest “lottery” is just an example of how terrible Anet’s flubbing up on their own.

In all honesty, account binding – or more specifically, binding on acquire – is the source of the flubbing up in the RNG, mind you. In GW1, “customization” existed, but NOTHING ever dropped customized – armor were crafted customized, and you could customize weapons, for a bonus to damage – but that’s all. And that’s how it should have been in GW2, too.

Take away the “bound on acquire” trait of any item that has it, and BAM, RNG system annoyances disappear.

Of course, it means that more people get what they want sooner, but why prevent that? To keep people playing longer? Sure they may, or they may not, but they’ll be increasingly frustrated the longer they play without getting the item they want until they give up, which may include leaving the game with bitterness. Not something you want – because if they leave without bitterness, they may come back.

I was thinking of something similar when the collections acheivements came out. Create a new tab for a codex, and bring back the Creature Codex books, but expand them to include newer creatures, more creatures, allied NPCs (PS, LW, dungeon, and open world), events (historical and modern), and locations. The items themselves are just for collections, otherwise useless, but as you unlock the item in the collections achievement, they also become unlocked in the new codex tab, where more information is available in a style akin to the Story Journal.

This can range from anything as descriptive texts as you’d find in the wiki, to journal-like entries, to actual short stories.

But I don’t think Anet will ever do such. Lately it’s been feeling like they’ve joined the ranks of companies that sold their soul. Hopefully the updates starting again (beginning tomorrow) will change my mind.

I’ve always taken that star seen then to be about Kralkatorrik. He awoke 5 years prior to the witnessing of the star’s formation, and if light travels similarly in GW lore as it does to earth, it could mean it was simply 5 light years away.

Though there’s also the interpretation that there’s one star per cycle (or per Varra, once every 10,000 years), so the ‘birth of a new star’ would happen at any point during the cycle (at the 10,000 year mark).

I don’t think the waypoint system’s age is at all hinted at. People suspect that Snaff’s device mentioned in Edge of Destiny – brought up again later in the asura blog post, That Old College Try, – to be the origin of the waypoint system, given that its description fits that of the waypoint system. Which, if so, places the waypoints as less than 5 years old by release (7 by current time).

When you play a “western RPG” MMO, there are two “characters” for every character player:

1. The character of the main story. In this case, the Pact Commander. They are, usually, of various or unknown background with mostly blank slate.
2. The character players create the background, personality, looks, habits, etc. of.

Roleplayers take the second, and create their story to be ‘not the main story’s character’s story’ but within the world.

It’s not ‘roleplaying within a roleplay’ really, because you’re disregarding that “character made by the devs”. This is why the characters are referred to as “OCs” (Original Characters) – characters made by the player, not the makers of the game.

That’s more than just hearsay, actually. They had an external writer lined up to write a novel that was to be titled “Crucible of Eternity”, but it was indeed scrapped in favor of Ree writing Sea of Sorrows. Both ArenaNet and the hired writer (who’s name I cannot recall, sadly) confirmed this in the past.

However, there’s no reason to believe that the scrapped novel will be anything but a scrapped novel.

Varra speaks of the Elder Dragons, not souls ascended into the stars.

Though I do think that Varra is wrong with her conclusions. 10,000 year cycles still seem a bit too much to me, given the known history of the dwarves and Forgotten.

Because the Elder Dragon Scleritethin existed long before Scarlet. And she be dead. Deader than dead.

Loki wasn’t really unquestionably evil from the start if you’re looking at norse mythology and not adaptations. Loki was a trickster who was playing a bit of a balancing act between acting how he wanted (trickster, known to do dirty deeds) and trying to get in better view of his father and half-brother (Odin and Thorn respectively).

Adaptations almost always paint him as always being evil who simply pretended to be good. But the original mythos had him more as being uncertain which side of the coin to fall on, as he was half-god and half-jotun.

A lot of the mythos that were written out at the time that Norse myths were, were indeed altered by the monks, but not really by Greek/Roman stories – rather, by Christian beliefs.

@Purecura: Aside from the texture of the OoW’s globe (fun note: the in-game version and the texture don’t match up, there’s portions of the texture missing or elongated – the in-game version is an “improper” version of the globe that illustrates the threats and knowledge of the Order of Whispers, the texture itself has errors too, but not as great as the in-game version), the only bits we know about the world beyond what we see in GW1 or GW2 would be:

“My library is a wonder of the world, young one. Ancient scrolls, text from Tyria, ancient Orr, Istan and Kourna, and all the strange places throughout the world can be found within its walls. I even have stone tablets that were found on an island far off the coast… an island that mysteriously disappeared thereafter. Ha! I see I have your attention. Yes, my library is magnificent. I encourage you to come and see for yourself.”

“Once, a shipwreck cast ashore an entire crew and all those traveling aboard the vessel. They could not get off the island, so the people made a little village by the edge of the sea. Each day they would watch and hope that a boat would see them and rescue them. There was water and food on the island, and people made huts out of straw and mud. They were happy. But everyone continued to say they wanted to go home. So, a very old woman in the village began to make paper lanterns. She hung them on the edge of their dock and lit them every night. On New Year’s Day, a ship did come by, and it stopped at the island. All the people were happy to see the rescuers, but suddenly they realized that they did not want to leave the island anymore. They had all that they wanted, and more. So, now the people of that village light their lanterns every year on New Year’s to celebrate how happy they are in their new home.”

Then there’s the lore on the krait, quaggan, and largos.

Though the locations of either is questionable. Equally, we don’t know whether or not how much of Utopia is considered canon still.

@Horst:
The minor races don’t seem to have capitals. Hence why they’re minor races – they just have “really large settlements”, which as far as we know only encorporates skritt, hylek, maybe ogre, and that’s about it.

Quaggan seem to have had a capital – but only the southern quaggan that were driven out by krait; the northern quaggans had “great villages”, most of which are wiped out. Krait likely had a capital too but was destroyed by the DSD; the largos do have a civilization elsewhere, and we know tengu have the Dominion of Winds. Jotun have fallen to low levels, they are no longer united in large numbers, so they only have a few tribes living in their ancient citadels nowadays.

Harpies I highly doubt have a capital – they’re presented in both GW1 and GW2 to be very tribal. Much like the grawl, their advancement has been minimal over the two and a half centuries.

@saventis: Not at all. In GW1, we didn’t see other races in the Mists, only humans really, until their placement in the Mists became relevant. We had no indication of naga until Factions, no indication of harpies until Nightfall, and no indication of norn or asura until Eye of the North.

In GW2, we only see a few outliers beyond the player races. No tengu or the like are in the Mists, for example.

Until Anet makes a model for them, then it shouldn’t be expected to see a race anywhere, and the Mists could, theoretically, have races from other worlds – but we won’t ever see such unless Anet thinks of such. But that doesn’t mean that in the wide large Mists, there aren’t these other races we don’t see.

“It shows that the awakening of the dragons is a natural and cyclical thing. The stars only indicate the passing ages. They do not determine events here.”

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Varra_Skylark

The TL;DR of how I would describe GW2 is this:

Overreaching.

To put more details into it:

I feel that (most of) the people actually making the game do love the game and have good talent for expanding the game, but that the strings behind them are greatly hindering them. I feel that somewhere behind the developers themselves – be it team leads, management, NCsoft, shareholders, whatever (I’ve heard different aspects that in all honesty, point to all of those as the problem) – are expecting too much in too little time/with too few resources, and pushing too much for a quick buck rather than a lasting game.

This, in time, will kill the game. It may take a year or two – it all depends on how much the playerbase’s love of the game that came from GW1, and how much the people who only know traditional F2P MMOs as the type of online games, keep to GW2. Which is unpredictable. And the trend will not stop until the malicious puppeteers are removed (yes, I’m making it malodramatic).

I’ve recently gone back to GW1 for Halloween. And in all honesty the only thing I find irregardlessly better in GW2 is the ability to jump, dodge, and not having to reclick the identification and salvage kits for every single item that I need to use it on. The “crafting system” was simple and easy to understand; the quests were innumerable, enjoyable, and though the reasoning behind doing them was poor (“someone told me that doing this is for a just cause”) the story and lore behind them was exceptional. The main plots don’t take time to explain the backstory or development of the henchmen and heroes – side quests or simple dialogue during the main plots do that enough.

This isn’t nostalgia speaking either, which likes to exemplify things, but I recently did various missions and quests in GW1. And it was all still enjoyable, even though I knew all of it. If I try to redo events or personal story steps in GW2, it becomes mostly dull – especially living world stuff.

All GW2 has over GW1 is that it looks and sounds fancier – arguably player combat (certainly some aspects of it). The art is great and the music awesome, don’t get me wrong there, but the writing is amateuristic, the mechanics are pure hit or miss, and it’s taken years for Anet to begin fixing things that GW1 had done right, and some simple things they still haven’t gotten right that GW1 had! And they’ve even hindered GW2 here and there.

Second TL;DR:

Guild Wars 2, unlike Guild Wars, is a “just for profit” game that is nothing but a shell of what Guild Wars was; a fancy, sparkling shell, but a shell nonetheless.

My love of the franchise and the first game will keep me around for the so-called “living world” (which it isn’t), and maybe the holidays, but for the breaks, I’ll be spending my time 250 years in the past, if in Tyria at all, from hereon out.

Zoso.8279:

Can I ask do you all think raids are whats missing in GW2? I’ve been reading a lot about people being mostly frustrated with hard content maybe raids will fill that void. This is just a personal question that I have and want to better understand the other half of the player base lol.

Hard content is just one of many voids GW2 has. Those who go to play GW1 for a couple days will quickly realize this.

Zaklex.6308:

I’m going to have to disagree with you on this one Konig, I was there for all of the GW1 Halloween’s and it wasn’t that difficult to find the references to the depravity and cruelty that Thorn did to his own people while King. You just needed to look, listen and read…it was all there, though with much more humor thrown in, but the beheadings, etc., etc. where mentioned…just not as often.

As for those that classify him as crazy or psychotic…I disagree, King Henry the VIII was not crazy or psychotic, and he killed his wives(personally, I detest the “reason by insanity” plea, whether it be for criminal purposes or not).

I never said it was hard to see it – Thorn himself makes a highlight of it. It’s just that, unlike GW2, they’re the butt of jokes so it’s harder to decern truth from fiction.

In other words, in GW1, it was humor first and sinister-ness second.

In GW2, however, it’s sinister-ness first, humor second.

And this makes a noticeable difference that makes Thorn quite a bit less entertaining – and almost makes him seem like a different person – than in GW1.

Erukk.1408:

Neither the Six or the human race are native to Tyria. To the best of our knowledge, the first time they arrived on Tyria was only 1500(ish) years ago.

Closer to 2,500, most likely. The first known history of humanity is in 786 BE. 786 + Year 0 + 1327 = 2114 years since humanity landed on Cantha. They arrived on the world before this. I personally place it at the human’s markings of when the Forgotten were “brought to the world by the gods”: 1769 BE. Thus humanity would have developed for ~1,000 years before sailing to new lands on their own (no records of god involvement in the various cultures that sailed and landed on other continents ala the Pilgrims coming on the Mayflower, etc.).

But yes, certainly younger than the ~20,000/30,000 years age that has currently been attributed to the Elder Dragons.

The entire design above the statue of Abaddon is an old old design from the days of Prophecies. It lined the background art for the boxes, manual, an website. In lore, that is a map of the Mists created by Lord Odran – the first (known) mortal to enter into the Mists without the aid of higher beings.

I made a thread about it here.

The BWE finales didn’t make it into the final game because they’re lore-breaking, really.

Though they do make interesting set-ups. Set ups that I don’t think Lunatic Inquisition and Southsun Survival really capture.

saventis.1485:

heh he had a library in the realm of torment that had the name of every person who he had a hand in killing(even if he told one of his maronites to kill there name would be there aswell) and how that person was killed

pretty sure hes a bad dude

but a counter point to that is that i think he was just trying to prepare the races for the eldar dragons (he was just one of those mean heavy handed teachers that thought death is a good leason)

For all we know, pre-fall, that was the name of those who died in the war, and those who died from his attempts to break free in events like the Jade Wind and Cataclysm.

Those alone would make super-long lists.

But the line is those killed in his name. Meaning that it Abaddon would react with a “wait, why did you do that?” upon hearing about the death. E.g., some deaths could be done by overzealousness rather than Abaddon’s order/intention/rules.

However, I should note, that what you talk about came from the gw.dat. Like Arachnia, it’s place in canon lore is unconfirmed.

For those who don’t know:
http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Atrocity_Library

The library exists in-game, but the description doesn’t.

I think it’s fine as is. It’s a new character, after all.

Dry Top need map completion rewards.

I’d rather have the fight go full out next year, with a return of 2012 (and yes, 2013) content. And their full out fight would recruit the players. One can assist either one they want in a manner of ways:

Support King Ozzy via:

• Going through green doors to the Labyrinthe; you will be turned into a candy corn creature that matches your PC’s race.
• Doing the Mad King’s Clocktower
• Lunatic Inquisition
• Completing the 2012 meta events (that would be brought back)

Support Prince Eddie via:

• Going through purple doors and being turned into skeleton versions of your PC’s race while in the Labyrinth.
• Doing a new jumping puzzle: Baron Wycker’s Estate – a more horizontal version of the Mad King’s Clocktower
• Completing Reaper’s Rumble
• Completing a series of new meta events in Queensdale, Kessex Hills, and Gendarran Fields (flavored in support of the rebellion)

Changes to the Labyrinth

1. Those who are candy corn creatures will see skeletal players as enemies, while seeing Ozzy’s forces as allies.
2. Those who are skeletons will see candy corn players as enemies, while seeing Eddie’s forces as allies.
3. A return of the Champion Family-Sized Candy Corn (moved to NE corner) and the Champion Skeleton (moved to SW corner).
4. Add elites to event scalings
5. The Labyrinth will have a counter set for each map, they will be matches lasting until Halloween night. Killing a normal ranked NPC = 1 point; kill a veteran = 2 points; kill an elite = 3 points; kill a player = 5 points; kill a champion = 10 points; kill a legendary = 25 points

On Halloween Night, a new finale happens: Edrick and Oswald both show up in Lion’s Arch, and do a battle. This battle will begin on a scale determined by the scores of the Labyrinth and how often the events/activities were done, however unless it’s a landslide victory for one side, it’d be possible still to tip the scales in the others’ favor.

Each finale would happen, like in GW1, every three hours. The score accumulates across all finales. And a special instance appears to show the ultimate showdown and fall of the loser (available for the following week).

In future years, the final fall becomes available as long as Halloween, as the plot advances in different ways (depending on who wins).

Players thus get to chose by doing things who they want to “vote” for. In a more interactive means than Cutthroat Politics.

Something like this is what I would like to see for future Halloweens. The most important part is the ability to replay all past content, even if the direction of Ozzy v. Eddie is set in stone.

In Guild Wars 1, Thorn and his Lunatic Court were more about wacky antics first, with a hidden underlining of cruelty and apathy. This is what made Thorn and co. fun yet disturbing.

In Guild Wars 2, Thorn and his court are more about sinisterism, with a coating of laughs. Eddie is, however, just sadism – no jokes to him at all. This has made Thorn and co. a uncomfortable with a few laughs in-between.

It’s got little to nothing to do about “violence against women for laughs”. Thorn has become overall very dark. In GW1, sure we knew he skinned villages and taxed towns to mass starvation, but they were all presented as jokes – no one could really be absolutely certain that he actually did these things. In GW2, however, we get to see Thorn without that humor – the scavenger hunt for example. He beat women, killed his friends and family, torched towns and forced people to watch their loved ones burn alive, cut off entire villages’ hands, beheaded political enemies, etc. etc. And then plays it all off as a joke. Very different Thorns between each game. Like none of the original writers of Thorn from GW1 put any amount of effort into Thorn in GW2.

Thorn in GW2 is more of an all around kitten who plays his evilness off as a joke. And his evil goes FAR beyond just domestic violence.

Avariz.8241:

The ceiling deco switched from ‘Eye of Janthir’ theme to ‘The Eternal Alchemy’ astroglobe theme. Mussarat temple of Abbadon confirmed?

There was no “Eye of Janthir theme” in the trailer. If you speak of the design above the statue of Abaddon, that was Lord Odran’s map of the Mists. VERY different and not at all related to the mursaat.

Bobby.3721:

So could part of this new update possibly be the Abbadon fractal we would have gotten if Gnashblade won?

I doubt it. There was nothing in the trailer to hint at us going into the Mists. Rather, it shows the Shiverpeaks (Priory) before the statue of Abaddon and the Eternal Alchemy roof, and then Ogden. So it’s more likely to be tied to the Priory rather than the Mists.

People are just, as usual, taking things way out of proportion.

It’ll probably be like Caladbolg – NPC only – and we’ll have our second necromancer with a greatsword, unless Marjory gives it to Kasmeer.

It wasn’t to be noticed. He was imprisoned in the heart of the Realm of Torment, where waterfalls of torment eternally flowed on him. He caused the Jade Wind, Searing, Cataclysm, Affliction, and Nightfall for two things:

To get revenge on the other gods, and to escape his prison.

Whether he was ‘evil’ before his fall is questionable, in all honesty. Some pre-NF-release Asian-released lore says that he intended to create his own kingdom and that was why he rebelled – that he was basically a god who decided “I will rule the world my way, not their way” and his rebellion was squashed.

But other stuff implies that he was more of a Greek tragedy: he did what he thought was right, disagreed only verbally with the others, then when the Forgotten waged war on the Margonites for defacing statues of the gods other than Abaddon, defended his followers (the Margonites) from extinction, and was struck down and imprisoned (theoretically could have been for all eternity) for it.

One can easily view the bad guys as being the Forgotten, since they waged a genocidal war against the Margonites simply for defacing a single temple (the Temple of the Six Gods that rested on the Crystal Sea). That action brought Abaddon to defend his followers, which in turn brought the other five gods to defend the Forgotten – powder keg explosion, ala WWI. Though this information comes from one of the few mentioned pre-release revealed-to-Asia-only lore documents.

I don’t think they’d make two entrances to Dry Top from Brisban Wildlands, when they go and close the second path between LA and Gendarran Fields.

Arachnia is not confirmed as canon.

cpg would be correct. It was part of the 2012 scavenger hunt. For some reason, the LA NPCs for that (sans Tassi) returned this year.

The fog continues on in several parts going to the end of the ship wreckage cave, where Samson will appear at last. If you didn’t have the item needed for the scavenger hunt in 2012, it’ll just tell you to talk to Priory to know more. If you did begin the scavenger hunt in 2012, then you can get the item from him (and the other LA NPCs – but only them).

I think people here realized the S bit before WP. He likes to present things found by the community without attribution – which itself is fine… Until people begin attributing the find to him.

Fool! The Legendary Collection already exists.

In order to unlock it, you need to get a special unique drop that only appears in a very obscure and specific part of the game. It has a 0.001% drop rate.

Then you take this drop, and you combine it with a Bloodstone Shard, Gift of Battle, and Gift of Exploration.

Then you double-click the now account bound Legendary Collection Unlocker.

No Walking.6349:

If the Norn already see them as spirits, it isn’t too hard to believe there would be those Norn who would follow them.

Because they already have spirits that actually communicate them, assist their way of life, and doesn’t favor a different race (humans).

No Walking.6349:

The Charr like you say already have those that are religious despite most of them not being religious. So Charr dervishes are possible.

You realize the existence of religious charr outside of the Flame Legion are just about one in a million, right?

No Walking.6349:

Asurans could see becoming a Dervish as a means to an end, becoming a dervish to get the power that comes with being one. The gods are part of the eternal alchemy, why not use them to gain power to defeat the dragons? Not any more crazy lore-wise than Asuran warriors or Rangers are.

Actually, it is more crazy lore-wise than asuran warriors and rangers. Being a warrior or ranger doesn’t mean you’re not a scientist, and that’s what asura are in the end. And despite common belief, asura warriors were, in fact, the most common profession for asura in Eye of the North.

Crossplay.2067:

I feel people are stereotyping the races too much. Why does every member of the legions have to be atheist? Wouldn’t it make more sense if a small faction of them believed in the Spirits of the Wild since the Norn and Charr both share the philosophy of personal growth through combat?

It’s less that people are stereotyping, and more that is how the game itself presents it. So if anyone’s stereotyping, it’s more or less Anet.

Of course there’d be oddballs from that. Like I said before, there a single mentioned charr that’s religious (though we don’t know who it is) that isn’t Flame Legion.

There could be a small faction that’s religious. But this small faction would be akin to the Soundless. Not for the PC.

locoman.1974:

Konig Des Todes.2086:

I can see sylvari converting to the faith of the human gods. But why would asura, charr, and norn?…

The gods have been mostly absent since Nightfall 250 years ago, game time. So it could be said that the dervishes lost their god-derived powers at that point, and learnt how to channel the essence itself without using the gods as intermediaries.

So, for example, a GW2 version of the dervish would become the avatar of life instead of the avatar of melandru, the avatar of death instead of the avatar of grenth, and so on. That way would make as much sense as having an elementalist charr, for example.

This could actually be feasibly done. But then it’s not really a dervish anymore, from the viewpoint of the lore.

And just like assassins were renamed thieves, and monks/paragons merged into guardians, the profession would no longer be named “dervish” because it is now something different.

In short:

Dervish-like profession, I can see existing.
Dervish profession, I cannot.

At best, you’ll have dervish skills revamped into future human racial skills.

I would like to see a slow reduction (but not eradication) of risen in the open world. Especially the maps further away from Orr. Though, making too many changes with groups that are so heavily tied to the PS is tricky (risen in Kessex Hills’ swamp is tied outright with Chapter 3 of the PS for humans, and somewhat for Chapter 3 for sylvari)

But it’s tricky.

draxynnic.3719:

For the record, I’m inclined to say Lyssa is probably Inspiration rather than Beauty. Beauty connects to inspiration as beauty can both be a source and a product of inspiration; however, inspiration also ties to Lyssa’s other aspects (chaos, for instance, as inspiration is often chaotic and unexpected as opposed to the more orderly structure of Knowledge).

While I can see this making sense, Lyssa is best known as the goddess of beauty and illusions. In fact, she’s never referred to as the goddess of inspiration.

So everyone across the forum – lore and elsewhere – have been talking about the ceiling design that’s mimicing the vision from Episode 2.

When there’s a second one, seen right before it, that everyone seems to have overlooked. Attachments 1 and 2.

Above the statue of Abaddon lies a different circle with its own designs. Those whom were part of the lore forum for years now – since the days of GW1 – may recognize the design. It is an old one, from Guild Wars 1 itself. Lord Odran’s Alchemy Circle. Attachment 3.

The “Alchemy Circle” as it was called by fans due to its appearance, was originally something seen only on the box, website background, and manual background designs. It was never part of the game’s lore. One day, a lore goer asked a dev what it was, and we got an answer:

It was made by Lord Odran, (the story of Odran for those who don’t know, as he’s only mentioned twice in all of GW2 ) and it is his map of the Mists. The mention of this was in an obscure place, so unfortunately it’s been lost to me; if memory serves me right, it was on the incgamers forum, which has as I look now been altered beyond recognition from the time.

But it seems this is making a come back into the lore.

People had tried to interpret it, but as you can see in Attachment 3, the writing on it is more or less illegible.

The ceiling, however, is not – it has much more details to it. And most interesting, it has Old Ascalonian writing. This ceiling was caught – minorly – in the Point of Interests Episode 9, though only a few words were able to be deciphered; and barely at that, due to quality.

For those wanting to see it from the trailer, 2:02 to 2:03 (it’s a very brief view, sadly).

The Ascalonian writing is on the front side of the statue, and as such it is mostly blocked even now. But with the teaser in PoI E9, folks on reddit (myself included) were able to make out what appeared to be the words “beware” (right side of image) and “kept” (left side of image). See Attachment 4.

Comparing to the EotP trailer, Beware is the first word of what’s written, and kept is the last.

Given that it’s 2:30 am now, my eyes are too tired to try to make out the word before “kept” which is potentially discernible from the trailer. So I’ll return to translation tomorrow… er, today.

One thing of interest to me is that the center icon appears to be a sun with an eye inside of it. Very different than the original! Another difference is that it appears to have been flipped sideways (mirror image) and and flipped upsidedown (basically: the top right is now bottom left; bottom right is now top left; etc.).

The original also had a shining triangle – many interpreted to be a representation of the Eye of Janthir and thus possibly tied to the mursaat – is now a circle with a simple depiction of a star/sun inside.

The third large icon seems unchanged though, interestingly enough.

Others’ thoughts?