Guild Wars 2

Forgotten Legend.9281:

i’d at least like to have a season listed as a reference to when during the year the events happen. you know, like spring summer fall winter. but Tyria obviously doesn’t have seasons like that. i’m aiming for at LEAST a season name in addition to the year, or “Early 1327 AE”, “Mid 1327 AE”, “Late 1327 AE” would be acceptable, too.

But that would require ANet to put in more work for something they clearly didn’t think out fully.

ArenaNet always had what they needed for a codex, in all honesty. The journal had been in place since release and it’s format – especially now that they expanded the design – could easily be repurposed for a codex with entries that scroll, have an image, and unlocks based on an action (akin to how achievements and hints were).

So in all honesty, I can’t see how they didn’t have the technology

TheBlackLeech.9360:

Why are they so different from Guild Wars vs Guild Wars 2:

Skelk
(used to have several different types… now has one appearance and it looks more like a behemoth gravebane of GW:Nightfall than any of the Skelk from Guild Wars… )

Krait
(was a shapeshifting race, that no longer transforms….. and now acts more like the Naga of GW:Factions…. aquatic, builds structures, etc.)

undead
(no skeletons…. no phantoms…. why all recently dead, humanoid ghost, or orrian zombies?)

• Skelk were just one of many creatures streamlined to make it more sense for them to be a single species. You couldn’t really consider this to be related to this could you? Same with skale – this could hardly be considered the same species as this
• Krait, lorewise, still do transform. I think the official explanation is that there was a lack of time during development to give them their transformations. The Toxic Hybrid is meant to show that krait can metamorphosize still – as that is literally a krait that transformed into having a more plant-like appearance.
• Undead were pretty much wiped out. They weren’t exactly common in Tyria (world) beyond the Orrian army that was decimated with Prophecies and Eye of the North (the latter apparently mopping up its remnants).

TheBlackLeech.9360:

What happened to…?:

Behemoths (stationary snakelike creatures with legs)
Aloes
Gargoyles
Nightmares/Vaettir (Ascalon Catacombs just don’t feel complete without the Gargoyles and Nightmares!)
Scarabs
Mursaat
The Seers
Reed Stalkers
The Stone Summit Dwarves
Hydras
The Forgotten & Enchanted races
Mandragors
Exotic Elementals such as flowstones, burning spirits, Wisps, Avalanches

If you go to Aurora’s Remains, during the event chain there will be a ghostly behemoth – though it uses the wurm model. So take that as you will.

Aloes, nadda.

Gargoyles have a lore point of suddenly vanishing. Fun fact: this was trivial that was placed in due to large news talks about massive amounts of birds disappear (iirc that’s what it was) inspiring Matthew Medina.

Scarabs – we haven’t been anywhere they’ve been in.

Mursaat were almost all wiped out. Only one known living mrusaat. Thank you, GW1, for the genocide.

Seers were also mostly wiped out, even before GW1’s time, and in GW1 we only met 1 – possibly 2 – seers.

Stalkers, no clue.

All Dwarves – Stone Summit included – underwent the Rite of the Great Dwarf approximately 50 years after Eye of the North.

Hydras, sans Ascalon, we haven’t been to anywhere they live – and they were only in Ascalon when it was a burnt wasteland. Flush lands may not be their natural habitat.

The Forgotten – similarly, we haven’t been to where they were in GW1, and even then most Crystal Desert Forgotten were likely wiped out, thanks to our GW1 characters, seeing how there’s no hide nor hair of them in Edge of Destiny. Same goes with enchanted armor.

Mandragors – we haven’t been to the lands they lived in.

“Burning Spirits” and “Wisps” were djinn, technically, not elementals – and we haven’t been to the places where they lived. Other “exotic” elementals are no different, supposedly, than any other elemental; just a case of not being near their element.

TheBlackLeech.9360:

Why does it look so different now?:

Ogres
Irukanji
Skelk
Trolls
Giants
Krait

Technically, we never saw ogres in GW1 – not the ones we call ogres in GW2, at least. In GW1, ogres was purely mechanical. Though one can argue that the Crystal Desert giants and ogres are the same, given that the Crystal Giant ogres (Sand Giants) were on occasion seen with Minotaur “pets”.

Irukanji – well, the Mists don’t create perfect copies, ya know… and we haven’t been to Cantha.

Skelk, Trolls, Giants, Krait – likely a design choice. Krait never made sense to be deep water creatures with those flamboyant feathers anyways. You have to keep in mind that Prophecies’ designs for trolls and giants were done by very different mentalities and with a lot smaller budget.

I DESPISE the syncing of the calendars because it still makes no sense. If they’re going to do such, they MUST attribute to how Wintersday is supposed to be the Spring Equinox (and trying to place it on January 1st/December 31st just makes a big clusterkitten of things, like Halloween – said to be in Autumn – ending up in the Season of the Colossus).

The wiki’s action of giving specific dates fail miserably, because even after deciding to sync the timelines, the progression of events makes no sense. For example: the Twisted Marionette fight happened once and was succeeded, it was a repeatable event for the sake of mechanics and the playerbase; Escape from Lion’s Arch happened once as all the events deal with evacuating specific individuals – all of whom can be seen outside of LA (in other words, the hourly Escape from LA stuff happened once and before the refugee camps set up), and from Battle for Lion’s Arch (the Assault Knights and Prime Hologram also happening once) it sounds like Escape from Lion’s Arch was a single day, not two weeks.

We have no reason to believe that we can pin-point the exact day, because trying to do such puts a fall holiday into winter.

The only timeframe we’ve been accurately given – even with the “syncing of the calendars” – is that Taimi proclaimed that the waypoints wouldn’t be recalibrate for “weeks”. Indicating that the time between Taimi’s instance in Episode 3 and Taimi’s first instance in Episode 4 was over 2 weeks time, but we really don’t know how long or where the break lies, or if there was a break amongst the other instances.

Rym.1469:

I think that this tower and cantha are just Half Life 3 of ArenaNet.

“Anything left unsolved in GW1 are just the Half-Life 3 of ArenaNet.” is what I would say.

I’m not seeing how that’s any more helpful than the current system with the personal story. Anet intends to make Season 1 repeatable content structured akin to Season 2 and the Personal Story, though when such will happen is unknown. Once they bring back Season 1 as permanent part of the story journal, the only issue there’ll be is seeing the new content in the open world before you’re level 80.

But again, this can only be solved by phasing maps, so that we don’t have a destroyed LA, Concordia, Kessex, Iron Marches when going through the personal story (though Kessex and Iron Marches’ affected areas in S1/2 is not affecting instances of the Personal Story as far as I know).

As Aaron said, most concept art don’t reflect the actual lore, but are there to develop appearances.

This particular picture is just one of two kodan pictures that compare kodan and norn together. And that is an earlier rendition of Eir, supposedly.

I’d go and list a long long list, but hell, I’d love to see them all return. Preferably via in-game means.

But what I REALLY want to see return to GW2:

adormtil.1605:

The strange part is I really taught that the first game is a game that started with the first guild war until the charr invasion like a living story because of the name Guild Wars.

Dustfinger.9510:

Ohh. Yeah, that is confusing. The game is named after the guild wars of Tyrian history but we don’t actually engage in the guild wars. we start the game as the guild wars end due to the charr invasion. So there was no multiple guild wars, there was only one big series of conflicts called the guild wars that ended with the start of the first game.

If I’m correct, the earliest rendition of Guild Wars (before they even got Daniel Dociu for their artwork and just had placeholder art) was meant to take place during an actual war of guilds, but this later changed for the charr, undead, and mursaat conflicts.

Arguably, there are still conflicts between guilds – as Prophecies manual counts the Stone Summit and White Mantle as guilds, iirc, and the Shining Blade are called a guild in Prophecies too once or twice I think – but it is no longer the ‘highlight’ that they are warring guilds.

Yeah, that sounds unnecessarily convoluted.

Unfortunately, an open world (as opposed to instanced like GW1) does not meld well with the concept of the living world, and ArenaNet doesn’t seem to comprehend this. It is obvious now that War in Kryta in GW1 was a prototype of the Living World – to see if it was well received and so forth. The issue is that GW1 had instanced zones, and you had to complete the previous campaign (Prophecies and Eye of the North) to access War in Kryta content. And it was also so well received due to the lack of a decent amount of content for over a year – people were deprived of new things to do, thus clamored for and praised the new content.

The Living World with GW2 cannot really work without creating multiple instances of a map and gating where people fall based on their progress in the storyline, without this there will always be confusion with the timeline, and what’s going on, and there will be a discontinuity with how some zones have progressed and others have not. ArenaNet just doesn’t have the manpower to do the Living World properly – not with the amount of maps they put in for the initial release, for sure. They tried to cover too much, imo, right off the bat, which led to forgettable villains (Gaheron, Adelbern, Kudu), solved-yet-unsolved issues (Gaheron’s dead, Flame Legion in civil war, yet it’s still a huge threat because they’re around everywhere in Ascalon), and a calamity of other issues.

The only real way to solve this without excessive manpower to create a new version of each map per season and expand the story of each map per season, is to not touch the old maps in ways that’d cause discontinuity (aka no destroying old forts or having an old zone assaulted by a new force) and accept that they are forever stuck in time. Like what was done with GW1 (until Beyond content, exception of a small handful of cross-campaign quests); Prophecies always took place before the other campaigns, thus you were experiencing past events when you went into Prophecies after doing any other campaign.

That is one of the earliest concept art we players got, it was made by Kekai Kotaki and the title to it we’ve received is “Versus”. What the OP put up is just a portion of it, the full of it can be seen here which clearly depicts a centaur fighting something – most likely an early rendition of norn raven (or owl) form.

Of course, I wouldn’t abandon the notion of improving event, dungeon, etc. mechanics. Be they world boss or no. It’s a real shame that ArenaNet had decided to scrab their dungeon revamps since this is direly needed as players get better stuff (more gear stat combos available, more traits and skills), as it results in power creeping.

New achievements are certainly a useful tool for bringing players back into old zones – especially if they are akin to Forgotten Halls or Vexa’s Lab, new activities in old zones – but in the long course are more of a bandaid than anything else. Even so, I would definitely create more such activities, as well as restructure the achievements we have – redivide the Explorer and Jumping Puzzle categories into individual Region-named categories, akin to Dry Top’s set-up (and rename Dry Top’s category after the Maguuma Wastes). But alone, it is only enough to bring players back until they complete such achievements – as such, new achievements would need to be introduced in large quantities, otherwise everyone will rush to the single new achievement, lagging up the zone for the first week, and completing it – thus never returning (much like how the Gendarran Aetherblade jumping puzzle was, or how the Episode 3 open world events were).

In short, I don’t think doing a single thing will improve player’s desires to go to the older places in the long term. A large quantity of things done at once is what’s needed – thus making this the perfect subject for the next feature batch (the one after September’s). And that “large quantity” should, IMO, include:

• Reworking what you do for hearts (to improve desire to do them and map completion with alts).
• Introducing a large series of achievements at once for both new and old content.
• Introducing regional currency rewarded to event successes.
• Introducing new events/other content to give new content for players to do.

Just my preliminary thoughts.

I haven’t read through all six pages, but I want to get my thoughts on the topic of reinstating hearts – and revitalizing content – down.

I do not like hearts. They are static and repetitious, and they affect nothing. They are, in short, a traditional MMO quest system minus the need to go out and accept the quests. If you do a full zones’ amount of hearts, the chances are very high that you’ve done all the activities a heart can provide. After that, it’s just a boring and dull rinse and repeat cycle.

Furthermore, aside from the dialogue of the heart NPC, and a few interactive objects disappearing, there is no change between completing and not completing a heart. And even in many cases, interactive objects don’t change or disappear.

Allowing or forcing a resetting of the hearts will do nothing but add grind to the game, in all honesty. Their purpose – to tell players “events are here” is done whether or not they’re complete, it’s just whether or not players decide to go into the locations. And even then, the hearts are very poor for telling players the locations of events in all honesty.

It would be better, in my opinion, to in fact reduce the number of hearts – or at least rework on the objectives for them. In too many cases, it’s just “run around pressing F as you approach objects” or “kill the random mooks who… actually have little involvement in the heart’s lore.” The hearts are good for introducing players into the game – especially players from other MMOs who are too used to the traditional MMO quest system – but the latter levels should have a reduced amount of hearts. In all honesty, once you hit the level 25+ maps, hearts become nothing more than a tedious, repetitive, task for map completion. Only those who are so used to the traditional MMO quest system would likely enjoy doing them. I only enjoy them for what little lore they provide – and this can, and should imo, be done via events.

A long time ago now, I put out a request to remove hearts entirely, replacing them with events that have you doing the same “things” from a lore stance – storywise you’d be doing the same stuff, but mechanically it could be different. It was overall poorly received. Thinking on it now, it’s because it’s too large of a change – there are indeed players out there who enjoy the traditional MMO quest design, and the hearts are theirs to enjoy.

Nowadays, I would instead reduce and alter the hearts. As you go higher in level, you encounter fewer hearts, until you cease hitting them entirely. Personally, I would reduce the level 25-40 locations of maps by approximately 5 hearts, remove an additional ~5 hearts in 40-65 areas, and remove hearts entirely at level 65 (thus no hearts in Frostgorge or the latter halves of Mount Maelstrom and Fireheart Rise). Of course, this then reduces the requirements for map completion, so there must be compensation: the addition of Dry Top and Southsun Cove to map completion, as well as new vistas, skill challenges, and points of interests where applicable throughout (especially to Southsun Cove). In replacement of hearts, new events that follow the same story of the removed hearts would be put in place (as well as a few applicable skill challenges).

The question of the topic thus becomes: “How does one entice returning to the old content?”

The answer would have to result in locational-unique rewards, I fear. Achievements only bring players back for one more go, until they finish the achievements, and new events can easily be overlooked entirely by most players. Scavenger hunts like Mawdrey is similarly only going to return players for one go – and even less than achievements, especially if it’s like Episode 3’s open world event completions where you can just stride to that unique new rubble pile if the event isn’t active.

I believe the best way to go about this is as I brought up in “this thread I made”: before being told of this thread’s existence. A system akin to the geodes, but rather than unique to the zone, unique to the region (Maguuma Jungle, Maguuma Wastes, Shiverpeak Mountains, Steamspur Mountains, Orr, Ascalon, Kryta for now), with unique merchants added to accept said new regional tokens. These tokens would in turn sell recipes for new exotic weapons (think akin to the Godskull weapons, Beaded weapons, and Modniir weapons on top of the Ambrite weapons as examples), as well as being the subject of future recipes or direct objects that could be used in future scavenger hunts. Such a set-up can even be used to integrate and improve the PvP Region tracks.

Though the idea is less for “revitalizing old areas” and more of “ensuring people prefer succeeding events over failing them.”

(5,001 charrs)

And in this season it’s heavily implied that Scarlet encountered Mordremoth’s corruption and got the visions before going into the machine.

Canach (how’d you get Cronk out of that?). His conversation with Anise definitely don’t give a “they’re Mordrem” kind of vibe. Anise, the head of the Shining Blade, is likely placing Canach into Fort Trinity to ensure humanity’s best interests are being kept.

The servers will remain until ArenaNet can no longer make a profit out of the playerbase. This likely entails both GW1 and GW2 at the same time, with combined profit notes.

In other words, as long as players buy stuff, the servers will remain online because Anet’s higher ups’ pockets are continued to being filled. And because it seems people continue to buy just about anything on the gemstore, it also seems that the servers will last a long time.

Now, the real question that I feel needs to be asked is: how long will GW2’s playerbase remain large? It’s easily possible to hold a game off of a small group of monetary supporters (for GW2’s case, those who’re buying all those gemstore skins and other items), but just because servers are up doesn’t mean the playerbase is large.

Those whom aren’t focused solely on the checklist achievements, grind, and WvW (or sPvP, I suppose), I don’t expect to remain long. I know I’m growing ever disheartened by the game.

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

When they released stuff every two weeks, people were upset that the changes came too rapidly. They said, “game feels like a treadmill” and “I’d like some time to absorb some of these changes.” Now that they’ve slowed down the pace (a few updates, a break, a few more updates, …), others are complaining that it’s too slow.

There’s no way to please everyone; ANet is going to try to balance those who want to go fast with those who want to go slower.

The original complaint was that it’s too fast for temporary content.

Now that the content is permanent, however, there’s a different matter entirely. The issue I see most is that players have grown to expect a biweekly content release rate, but ArenaNet having realized they cannot bring such out perpetually decided to go with sets of biweekly releases with periodical breaks. People have yet to break out of the expectancy and mentality of the “temporary, perpetual biweekly releases” in a multitude of cases – or just simply “perpetual biweekly releases” – that they end up feeling like they’re not getting content “fast enough.”

I, in all honesty, would prefer a system akin to Winds of Change – an entire campaign’s/expansion’s worth of content (give or take) released in three major chunks a few months apart. But I digress.

Some skritt are mean. Some are not. Simple as that, really.

Malkavian.4516:

chemiclord.3978:

Creating a sandbox feature in a themepark MMO is a LOT harder than you might think.

I don’t think we are gonna make a GW2-scale map in SAB, right? Just small levels.

It’s got nothing to do with the map sizes, really, as all the devs have to account for is giving enough data space for all the levels once the toolset is out.

It’s making said toolset which can be kittene may think “well, just give us the same things they make” but… that doesn’t work – they have to isolate what’d just be SAB-only stuff, probably create a series of SAB-themed art not used before, and then work to support community levels in the SAB.

It’s a GREAT idea, I love it and would spend hours upon hours doing it, but it would be best off as an extra post-World 3 and World 4’s release.

But hell, why limit to SAB? How about some Community Level Fractals? Ooooo, the fun that can hold. Will have to be lootless to avoid exploit, I’m sure, which in fact brings in an entirely new issue with community made content: exploitations. Go look up mods for games. There will tend to be two themes you find amongst all moddable games: nude mods, and exploit mods. People will try to exploit the content if they’re allowed to. And Anet would need to ensure that no exploits are possible.

But if they can manage avoiding exploits in a community level fractal? Dear lord I and I’m sure the entire community would enjoy them all. I know I would.

And creation of such could later extend to contests for making world bosses, redesigning dungeons or events, and other such. Allowing relatively free (there’d be rewards for said contests) content to be made and/or fixed. But that’d be a PR’s nightmare, I’m sure – why else would they have ceased with the Halloween/Wintersday contests?

Who is this Koenig person? I think I’d like to meet him.

And then stab him for taking my name.

Yup.

@OP: Yes, there are people happy with the game. But most aren’t vocal, and it makes sense – why would you be vocal about something you’re content with? The posters are mostly those who seek to improve the game, or seek to complain about it – in both cases, they’re not content. I try to fall in the former, but as the story goes on the thing that I care about most in a game… is falling shorter and shorter in my view. Not so much the plot, but the… writing structure, I suppose? Aside from the story and the seemingly chaotic and overpushed gemstore structure, I in fact still love this game. Sad thing is that story was what I loved most about the game, and thus I find myself doing less and less when I log on. But I’m going on a tangent, apologies.

It was less that “the Pact failed” and more that it wasn’t as backed as it was. It didn’t show victory or defeat for the Pact. With DE, it showed what would happen without the PC’s involvement in the dungeons.

Though, level wise, and letter wise, TA had happened (this is likely an oversight though). So Caithe would have given up hope and fall to the Nightmare in her depression if we didn’t help settle differences at the various dungeons.

I doubt it. They often put a portal there for both cases, just leave it inactive and blocked/unreachable.

More likely, the Inquest Gate in the cave beneath will serve as the portal to the next zone. People found it blocking to a long cave that reached far north before the fourth release.

1. Supposedly, but he/she’s never madem ention of and there’s one event which replaces the Prophecies PC. I have a theory that there were, in the end, three such heroes due to the storybook ‘Young Heroes of Tyria’ (basically storybooks were GW1’s version of the Story Journal – an item you filled out, and Young Heroes of Tyria were the beginning missions of the three campaigns, which detailed 3 different heroes effectively) and Zenmai (a Nightfall hero who later appeared as an NPC in Winds of Change) hinting that the PC was different from the Nightfall hero (WoC was post-Factions and seems to have been written with a Factions-only hero in mind sans a few things).

2. The books don’t cover the White Mantle, much if at all. We learned all we did about them from GW1 in both events and dialogues.

3. There was a short tutorial/prologue/introduction area known to players as pre-Searing, which is based two years prior to the game proper and is the day of its destruction.

4. Comparing Prophecies to GW2 initial releases, GW2 is bigger but covers different areas. Comparing where GW1 was after 2 years to where GW2 is after 2 years, GW1 was much bigger.

5. No, the knowledge of legions didn’t show up until the PCGamer special edition in 2007 which was published shortly after Eye of the North’s release.

6. Yes, mostly in Cantha with creatures such as the Saltspray Dragons, but no relation to the Elder Dragons known – we didn’t know of the Elder Dragons until said PCGamer magazine, though we did know of their influence (though not knowing the ties to ancient eldritch draconic forces) including Glint, The Great Destroyer, and Svanir. We do see Primordus(’ head) and Kralkatorrik(’s back) in GW1 though.

7. Charr were present from the first game, asura and norn were introduced with the fourth.

8. Pre-Searing is the final day of the Third Guild Wars. There’s a short story written for a battle during said Third Guild Wars – The Battle of Khylo PvP map takes place in the location of said short story – and we see the reprecussions of it, but there’s just a wee bit more lore on it in GW2 to be honest. Which isn’t much.

9. Not by the term “devil”. Demons in GW-verse are aptly defined as “creatures created from the Mists themselves” and usually look like copies of Tyrian creatures who’s been skinned and said skin placed back on backwards. No goat-hoofed devil-horned creatures with pitchforks or the like. Angels are described – barely – as being servants of Dwayna, whom herself has an angelic appearance (as does some interpretations of Melandru). All angels depicted are female, interestingly enough, and there’s an Elonian legend of harpies being fallen servants of Dwayna (aka fallen angels).

10. Jotun, you mean, not ettin. We actually meet at least one of all five races (Seers being the “one member met”). We pretty much commit genocide on the mursaat and forgotten we see in Tyria, ironically enough.

11. Nope. No hints to Elder Dragons until shortly after the release of Eye of the North – in said PCGamer issue. Lorewise, the Elder Dragons were unknown until Jormag’s rise by the common populace (thanks to the Great Destroyer forcing the asura out before Primordus woke, and Primordus’ awakening affecting so little in turn). We do see their influence, but without external sources and GW2, there’s no way to realize “this is an Elder Dragon’s doing!”

12. Not in the least. Not even same company makes the two. And of what little I’ve played of Kingdoms of Amalur, there’s no similarity either.

So fast to the “nerf this!” cry.

Why not focus on making the success of the chain more desirable instead?

Aaron Ansari.1604:

In all fairness, we’ve only ever seen Faolain talking to Caithe (or to Caithe’s current companions about Caithe, or as a Dream reflection of Caithe’s inner conflict regarding Faolain). So of course, if she has an agenda and is talking to the subject of that agenda, it’s going to revolve around that particular agenda. None of that means that it’s her only goal or interest, though, just the only one we’ve ever had an opportunity to learn about.

While true, even high ranked members preach about the greatness of the Nightmare in front of their lovers – Ysvelta for example.

But aside from growing the Nightmare Tree – for unknown purpose – we don’t really ever see Faolain doing anything but trying to pull Caithe into Nightmare, unlike other Nightmare Courtiers.

Horst Hortensie.5420:

Sure, but the seeds Ronan found were guarded by terrible plant creatures. The seed has an origin which we don’t know and was influenced from the moment Ronan got it. Faolain doesn’t mention it, but with the fact that the nightmare is older than the dream or the sylari are a new race on Tyria, it is possible that through the Pale Tree, the nightmare is captured and slowly transformed into the dream (not knowing if there is somebody who can be named to gather/loose this power).

Whomever said that the Nightmare is older than the Dream?

And there were plenty of “terrible” plant creatures throughout the Maguuma in GW1. It was a jungle well known for man-eating plants, after all. Both mobile and not.

Horst Hortensie.5420:

Those quotes basically support the two sides of one medal. The dream and the nightmare do not really differ, except there is a pseudo rule set which is probably written on an enchanted stone to underline the nice side of the sylvari while it isn’t more than a religious codec which can get free interpretations (insert random enemy of choice and re-interpet). Taunting them with basically pointless rules.

Right, that’s what those lines proclaim.

But the Court never goes about doing those quotes. In other words, the Courtiers saying those things are downright liars.

And the Ventari Tablet isn’t enchanted.

Horst Hortensie.5420:

Faolain showed everytime more emotions like Caithe. There are even more nightmare courtiers who embrace it, but they look into the same world with the same eyes and see the nightmare at the same places where we see something else. The Pale Tree cannot get turned to nightmare, either it’s the complete opposite of it or the dream is the nightmare in disguise.

I… honestly don’t get anything you were saying in this.

Sadly, ArenaNet never put any work into spoken languages aside from Old Canthan and Old Kurzick. We do have a couple terms from charr – Hrangmer, which translates into Jaws of Oblivion, for example – and asura – which is restricted to Bookah in what we know – we also have seen examples of the written language and its structures, but that’s pretty much it.

Everyone easily has an understanding of the Tyrian human language.

Duke Blackrose.4981:

I do not think that an exclusive currency (geodes) was the proper way to go about it, as to have such a currency for every map would quickly make the whole system convoluted and inconvenient.

I thought similar, thus I thought “regional specific currencies” rather than map specific. Thus Geodes would become Maguuma Wastes, not just Dry Top.

The issue I hit was that I wanted to tie in major outposts/settlements as the place you’d go to turn these tokens in, thus we have 2 capitals in the Maguuma… neither having a strong tie to Sparkfly Fen or Mount Maelstrom, and we have 2 in Kryta (DR and LA). I found it hard to properly split.

Ideally, though, it’d be a 1 currency per region. There’s currently 6 regions, thus 6 currencies. As we go into the Crystal Desert, Far Shiverpeaks, or elsewhere, we’d gain more currencies – and more skins and other rewards to turn them in for. But even if we end up with 50 maps/zones, we’d still only have about 10 currencies. Not so very convoluted, I’d hope.

Arghore.8340:

Hiya Konig, not sure if all the people will come in this thread to repost their opinions, but this idea came up ‘extensively’ in this thread: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Revitalize-the-Game-World-Resetting-Hearts/first

I’ll give a look through. I really think a lot of the old game mechanics need a new look at them, but ArenaNet tends to ignore old content so long as major exploits and blocking bugs do not occur.

Which is a kitten shame.

Arghore.8340:

What it would need though, at the base, to make it a worth while addition, is a rebalancing of the scale down feature so that the content will be enjoyable at these higher levels. I think I will make a thread about that now…
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Rebalancing-the-Scale-down-Feature/first#post4353501

Yet another of the many issues the game has. I’ll look through that later, too.

Stephane Lo Presti.7258:

Konig Des Todes.2086:

ArenaNet uses the terms interchangeably but what they imply are certainly different and yet neither hold true to what we are given (at least, in my view).

When we started communicating about this (more than a year ago), the term “Living Story” floated around but we decided to call this the “Living World” for reasons we’ve explained. In season 1, players discovered (among a lot of other things) Southsun Cove, the Zephyr Sanctum and the Tower of Nightmares appeared and was then destroyed. So was Lion’s Arch. You can still see some remnants of Scarlet’s influence here and there with Energy Probes for example. In Season 2, released updates included more than new story steps. They included new zones and changes to existing ones. And obviously new threats changing the dynamic of the world of Tyria. That’s the idea behind Living World.

I do not believe that altering one location in every 6 months (yes, yes, an exaggeration) is really meritable to call the process a “living world”.

A “living world” implies the whole world moving at a certain pace – yet the charr/human peace negotiations are still underway, with no progress seen, just because the story doesn’t focus on it (or so that’s how players can view it – I certainly do). What you gave as an example is little more than tidbits of expansion content.

I do not think that this content is “living world” – nor is it “living story” since we’re on a railroad. No player decisions altering the path of Season 2 thus far – despite a promise that there’d be more than the one situation in Season 1.

This is no “living story” nor a “living world”. This is “parts of expansion content released on a timely schedule.”

Boneheart.3561:

Turn the item into some mundane trophy to be sold, have that norn merchant exchange the remaining Geodes for some mini/bag, whatever.

Southsun is “empty” because nothing was placed there, surely they’ll not make that mistake again (maybe there’s even future plans for Southsun Cove).

But why?

Why remove Geodes? They’re not unique to Zephyrites. The merchants are, but not the geodes. Replace the merchants, done and done.

Why remove all the Zephyrite events? Do that and it’s empty/emptier. They’d need to build and test a full new series of events for… what purpose, exactly? Fields of Ruins and all those other maps are stuck in time, Dry Top can be too just as easily – by doing nothing.

Southsun is empty because they didn’t replace the events they took out. They didn’t replace them because – I presume – they didn’t have time to. Why would such change?

Why remove content, after promising that it’ll all be permanent?

Waypoints are half mechanical, half lore. And it’s hard to draw that line without a depth study due to the lack of explanation on it.

But given how we see NPCs using waypoints, which is them running up underneath a waypoint then disappearing (and appearing at another waypoint in some cases, like Rytlock’s investigations into the thumpers during Origins of Madness), then us being able to use them from anywhere is mechanical. This includes us reviving via waypoint. We’re told that using waypoints do cost money, thus the free travel in cities is also mechanics. Just start that off.

Currently, events reward gold, experience, and karma for events – both success and failure. Theoretically, one can boost the success rewards of those three, but keep in mind that overall karma rewards were reduced, so wouldn’t it just be counter-productive to raise them once more?

The idea I had was more for regional-specific events, rather than events-in-general. Furthermore, the current event rewards are overall… unobvious. You don’t really see a tangible number because for all three the numbers are so huge and gained in so many ways – especially gold for the latter – that it doesn’t really feel like a reward.

Furthermore, excluding cultural weapons there’s really no long-lasting useful item to buy with karma. Sure, you have your heart items, a few event consumables that give you environmental weapons or a buff… but rarely do you find fancy unique skins (there being only three such sets: beaded, modniir, and godskull weapons), and nothing that really says “this is a reward for doing events in these maps”.

Ideally, with my idea, geodes would serve to be a “Maguuma Wastes token” and used in following zones heading west, rather than being restricted to Dry Top. My suggestion merely extends it to pre-existing zones.

The new ones stack with the new ones. The old ones stack with the old ones. You’ll have 2 piles. Make alts and use them for skill points, or delete. Your choice.

I never said the other races shouldn’t get a compressed history lesson. In fact, I rather stated that they already have that – it’s just not all spoken dialogue.

I fail to see how this would be “crippling” player experience for more content to be put out there. And humanity doesn’t even have any selling point, while the other playable races have their unique selling point.

I would argue that the Black Citadel is larger, and equally if not more detailed. But humans still get the short end of the stick in the whole of the game.

Hayashi.3416:

Sounds good, actually. At the moment some people seem a bit too happy to nerf rewards from failed events, but people would generally respond better if rewards for succeeding events was increased instead.

Indeed, the idea is effectively the same – make succeeding events more worthwhile than failing events – but the idea is to buff successes, which are to me already negligible except when it results in good farms (lots of lootable mobs, or champion(s)), rather than nerf failures.

The Geode system feels like a good start, but still needs ironing out. Which is what I hoped I presented – the ironings out.

Azrael.4960:

The scaling works well too and encourages map wide coordination to succeed as much as impossible.

I presume you mean “as much as possible.”

It works well, indeed, except in the long term. Already, I’ve noted that tiers are averaging lower and lower as time goes on, and this will no doubt continue – with improved force – once we’re starting to get new content again.

As I said in my opening post, it seems to work best for new and annual content. This is more a system to be implemented – with some alterations – to Mad King’s Labyrinthe or Crown Pavilion (and not in the Boss Blitz format either) or to any future versions of Tower of Nightmares zone, rather than to be adding to the open world zones that never disappear.

For example, with the Crown Pavilion in future returns, it can feature a series of events – mini-bosses (champions) or culling-of-numbers (akin to the non-boss events from the first release of CP) – and take those successes to increase a tiering system, and at the :50 mark the six bosses are spawned with the rewards for completing that being based on the tier, rather than how fast the bosses are killed. Gauntlet successes could attribute to the tier progression, the amount depending on the Gauntlet tier – thus everyone is contributing.

Or with Mad King’s Labyrinthe could include events of assisting either Thorn’s side or Edrick’s side, and features a dual tier system, and the higher the “favor” of each side, the stronger the other side gets resulting in champions and legendaries. Think of it akin to the GW1 Wintersday finale, but rather than standing on rings with candy cane shards in the inventory, you raise the favor by slaying the enemies’ forces and completing events.

Since these things would be limited time, folks would flock to the content, thus presenting enough playerbase to effect the tier system properly. New content works just as well, but over time hitting those higher tiers becomes harder and harder as players go elsewhere.

Boneheart.3561:

Geodes may not stick around, and there is very little to do with Foxfire Clusters. Like Mystic Clovers.

They said that all of Season 2 will be permanent, however, and the means to get the items from the merchants must remain somehow.

It would be weird to destroy the primary system that makes Dry Top unique from all other zones, permanently, especially as the geodes are rewarded not only in Dry Top, but in Season 2 story instances – particularly episodes 1 and 2. It would require far too much work to remove those, and removing the Zephyrites as you previously claimed would remove most events out of Dry Top. The place would become like Southsun Cove after The Lost Shores – devoid of any real activity. Geodes are also the primary reason to remain in Dry Top and replay that content, so why go elsewhere?

It feels like it’d be doing too much work, in all honesty. And for what reason? “Because the Zephyrites got up and left?” Well, there’s more sources of Geodes than just the Zephyrites, and not all Zephyrites crashed in the first place (only 3 ships of their 13+ ship fleet, though one was the flagship). More likely, that zone will become “stuck in time” like all the other zones until there’s a new update specifically for it, or a plot reason to have the Zephyrites move on, and that could take years.

One of the few things I truly enjoyed about Dry Top was the Geode system. It is far from flawless, however, such as it not being a Wallet item (forcing an awkward handling of the geodes across multiple characters with the item limited to a single zone’s use, despite having had this very same issue with dungeon tokens in the past), it coming in a pop-up chest (making you stop for a couple seconds with every event you do, though understandable due to the silky sands), and the tier merchant system (great for returning content, though still needing improvements, and great for new content too, but for older content it would need to be easier to get to higher tiers no doubt).

I think that this system – giving a token that can be turned into for unique items for completion of events – can and should be extended elsewhere. There are many times – both presently and historically – where people find failing an event to be more profitable than succeeding an event. Sometimes this can cause griefing, sometimes not. Often, this is due to the failing leads to better champion farming from my experiences. Either way, the rewards for succeeding an event are rather “meh” to look at, and with the coming feature batch update improving other “meh” rewards, I think event rewards should be looked at too.

My idea is to impliment a series of tokens – all going directly into the wallet – that is rewarded upon the successful completion of an event. These tokens can be turned in to a merchant (or series of merchants) for items, both generic and unique. I would implement the system to include – with current zones – seven kinds of tokens, each with a merchant in the major cities and Fort Trinity. Each token would be restricted to a specific zone, with the exception of Kryta and the Maguuma Jungle which gets two tokens – which differ based on zone.

• Divinity’s Reach Token: Queensdale, Kessex Hills, and Harathi Hinterlands.
• Lion’s Arch Token: Gendarran Fields, Bloodtide Coast, and Southsun Cove.
• Rata Sum Token: Metrica Province and Brisban Wildlands.
• The Grove Token: Caledon Forest, Sparkly Fen, and Mount Maelstrom.
• Hoelbrak Token: All Shiverpeak Mountain zones.
• Black Citadel Token: All Ascalon zones.
• Fort Trinity Token: All Orr zones.

These tokens could be turned in for a series of things, for example, let’s say 250 Fort Trinity Tokens can be turned in for a single Pact Victory Token, allowing you to get a Pact Weapon from the Caer Aval instance. In the distant future, these merchants collecting event tokens can be used to buy recipes for new crafting items – be it new fancy backpacks, or precursors.

The main point of this, however, remains to be a “increase incentive to succeed events”, as aside from the daily event achievement, is there truly a reason to succeed over failing? The difference in rewards currently is questionable at best.

There’d be no need to bluff the destruction of asura gates since Mordremoth wasn’t attracted to them. Hell, no need to say you’d destroy the waypoints personally, just say they’ll be removed from major non-asuran locations and boycotted. That is a major loss of revenue for the Arcane Council. No need to threaten killing Phlunt either, as there’s noway he’d be allowed back home without massive repercussions after the continuous destruction of waypoints by Mordrem and the public announcement of boycotting waypoints.

No violent threats issued, and Phlunt would begin fearing for his life knowing what Flax is willing to do to those who jeopardize the asuran supremacy (he faked Gorr’s death and imprisoned him just for trying to prove that the asura were wrong about magic and dragons). Only an idiot wouldn’t come around then.

Qarinus, it’s clear you don’t get what I’m saying at all.

We ALREADY HAVE sylvari talking about the Grove’s history as a sylvari city. Asking to bring in that is just repitition. And it isn’t that I view humans as the most important but that they are presented as the least important. Humans have nothing going for them and should have at least one thing. Global history was said by ANet to be that one thing, but we see the opposite of that in the game.

If you’re not going to read my posts then just say so, since it’s obvious that I wasn’t talking about humans being the best, just the best in that particular field in accordance to what ANet said during development but that this wasn’t shown in-game.

It’s similar to the norn who don’t really have much going for them. The main difference is that GW1 lore on the norn isn’t being retconned or forgotten at every turn.

Kalavier.1097:

Well, Melandru is by far the most destroyed temple, with the searing bombardment from PS and all, and in general. Though it’s rear area links into water filled areas and the source of Orr, so I would believe if it lacked a proper crypt.

Dwayna’s temple though, did contain a sealed door behind the statue of Dwayna (that you kill in the event). So it might.

ALSO, in the ossuary mission, you end up traveling entirely into the old tower of Dhuum IIRC.

I would say that the sealed door at Dwayna’s temple is… into the inside of the temple (we only see the inside of Grenth’s and Abaddon’s temples, maybe Melandru’s with the destruction and all – with Lyssa, we arguably go inside some of it, but most of it appears to be outside; Dwayna’s and Balthazar’s however we only ever go into the entrance plaza, which would be the equivalent of the Plaza of Wisdom at the temple of Abaddon).

Where we end up is the ossuary of the temple of Lyssa (hence the name “Ossuary of Unquiet Dead”). Which happens to be where Dhuum fell. Dhuum’s tower was in the Underworld, the Chaos Plains specifically. It was never in Tyria, let alone Orr.

Slowpokeking.8720:

They do talk to each other, Captain Whitning gave order to his crew. Other than the Claw Island, we can see the dragons don’t stay with their army. In the case of the Claw Island one, Plaguebringer didn’t make any tactic order or command or even stay with the troops in the beginning, pretty much like the Maw. The Maw also showed up later than the Dead Ships. The land army looks more likely commanded by powerful Risen mortals(similar to the navy) such as the Archmage in the Steel Tide quest.

Fun fact: Whiting only starts talking once near Cobiah, and no risen responds to him. Prior to this, they were thinking the risen to be relatively mindless but powerful, Whiting giving commands with words instills a psychological assault on the enemy. “They’re powerful and smart!” kind of thing, right?

Would the commander really be on the front lines? Or would something that is nothing more than “a powerful weapons” do so? There are more than just the dragons to command, obviously, but it was Blightghast that led the assault on Claw Island nonetheless. Just like with Thaddeus Ghostrite and a bunch of other dragon champions, one had to slay a bunch of mooks to draw out the champion’s attention.

The Maw actually showed up roughly the same time as the Dead Ships, and was on the front lines the entire time.

Slowpokeking.8720:

Actually they don’t even stay with the troops. So it’s not likely to be their duty. Also, different Elder Dragons’ champions are quite different. Since their way to create minions are entirely different.

Very few commanders – dragon minion or otherwise – will ever be at the front lines. Not unless they have a specific, personal, target. Morgus Lethe was attracted to the ship, and Whiting to Cobiah for example.

The Destroyer of Life was far from its troops, way in the back of its lair. All of the temple priests are seldom fought with the hordes of risen that you have to defend against, and all have to be drawn out.

Slowpokeking.8720:

In the description of the Blizzard summoned by the Dragonspawn, it was much worse than the Svanir Shaman’s work, and it made much worse effort.

Because. We. Stopped. The. Shaman’s. Work.

The Dragonspawn’s blizzard was not stopped.

Slowpokeking.8720:

They do give order to other undead more than once.

I ask once more: provide source. Your previously stated Arah Eyes never once speak.

The Eyes elsewhere merely give orders to a small number of individuals – if at all – and this is nothing but psychological warfare in how it’s said and done.

qarinus.3869:

While I love the idea of all the racial homes getting historians and tours, how about a great huge “no” on the idea of Humans Must Be The Most Important And Know Everything.

The sad thing is, this is what humans were meant to be portrayed as – the most knowledgeable on the world’s history.

But what we get is, in fact, closer to “everything they had ever known, was wrong.” At least in presentation.

Humans have nothing going towards them that isn’t superceded or caused by another race, so what should they have if not history on the world? Everywhere the other races can go now, humans had ruled for centuries if not longer. Why shouldn’t they know the history of the place?

Sure, a sylvari could tell you the past 25 years of the Grove, or even the past 250 years, but why should they know of events predating that? Humanity should, however, as the Grove was built atop a destroyed human village. A human village we know nothing about beyond “it was Ronan’s home.” What was the village’s name? When was it founded? Why was it so far away from Kryta proper? Should sylvari know these things? Only if Ronan or another human mentioned it around the growing Pale Tree, but what’re the chances of a man wishing to forget his past talking about it? Pretty slim.

But a human historian with access to Krytan records would know the name. They’d know the founding date. They’d know its purpose (fishing? farming? hunting?) and why it was placed where it was. A sylvari wouldn’t know this unless they got it from human records.

But where are all these mentions of human records? Not just for this mysterious village but for any other village. What’s the history of Claypool? Of Beetletun and Shaemoor? Of Nebo Terrace? What’s the history of the Orrian villages (we only hear of one – Bayt Fallahin )? What’s the history behind Oldgate or the Decimus Stones? Who knows. Surely a human would, and not a charr or asura or sylvari!

I had recently done it and I recall all four humans dying, though I also got a bug where Thaddeus was visible – and allied – the entire time… and without voice alteration. My word was that voice actor monotone!

Horst Hortensie.5420:

My guess is that both acknowledged the entity which is behind the nightmare. While Faolain accepted it and saw how her race the sylvari are turned away from their true origins, she decided to stay and help.

Fun fact: Faolain not once mentions the Nightmare as the “true path” of the sylvari race.

It was Cadeyrn who founded the Court – before falling to Nightmare – to seek the true path of the sylvari. Which was really just “do the opposite of the Ventari Tablet, for we are not centaur or human so we shouldn’t listen to what they say and the Pale Tree won’t listen to me so I’ll make her listen to me!” The courtiers that followed and fell to Nightmare do openly preach the same thing, but again rather than following their words of things like:

“The Dream is many things. It is light and dark, love and anger, good and evil. So are we.”

or

“The court doesn’t seek to destroy either the sylvari or the Pale Tree. We’re trying to free you from the influence of Ventari’s Tablet.”

they, like Cadeyrn, simply do the opposite of the Ventari Tablet – the opposite of the Dream, the Nightmare. They don’t follow the “true path of the sylvari”, they follow “the opposite of the Tablet.”

Faolain, however, never preaches any of this. She fell to Nightmare and embraced it, and all we see her talking about is that Caithe specifically belongs by her side, in the Nightmare Court. Faolain herself never mentions a care about bringing the Pale Tree to Nightmare, or spreading the Nightmare. She merely seeks to bring Caithe into Nightmare.

Her followers, however, preach the same thing the rest of the court does.

As to the rest of your post: The Pale Tree confirms to sylvari players during Rallying Call that the entity in Scarlet’s mind was Mordremoth.

lakdav.3694:

And the strategy part is where it feels a bit off when it comes to dragons. Elder dragons dont seem to be that intelligent, at least not in our understanding. They might just look a bit slow for us, considering how they might perceive time on a much larger scale. Think about trying to catch a fly. To flies, we humans would look big and strong but stupid and slow with our flailing that rarely hits them.

Glint doesn’t seem to be that intelligent?

The Elder Dragons learn about everything their minions know – and knew, before corruption. That would make them incredibly knowledgeable as they would have the knowledge of the culture, history, and wisdom of countless civilizations. Arguably, Primordus may not be that smart given he doesn’t seem to corrupt living beings. Mordremoth too, given that he’s restricting himself to plants. Maybe the DSD too, restricting to water and all based on what little we have. But the rest? They’d come out as really intelligent, with all that knowledge.

Now, whether they use that knowledge…

Though if we look to an obscure line, it does make their current actions seem like “not the norm” for the Elder Dragons:

“Even the strong will perish when the dragons make their move. Destroyers have begun appearing on both sides of the wall, and they only signal the beginning.”

Though this is before the Battle of Claw Island, Jormag having forced the norn out of their homelands, Primordus doing the same to asura, and Zhaitan’s rise and previous assaults on Port Stalwart, Port Noble, and Lion’s Arch… well, it seems even those aren’t “the dragons making their move.”

So that leads one to wonder: what is them making their move?

Rukh.9287:

Is The Great Destroyer even a dragon? I thought it was Trent Reznor on angry pills.

It’s a little beetle-shaped, but it was certainly draconic.

Stooperdale.3560:

I was always confused about the Temple of Lyssa holding the Ossuary, when I’d have expected it to be near the temple of Grenth. It seems to make more sense to put your dead relatives into the care of the God of Death. So is there any reason for this?

Kalavier.1097:

Each temple has it’s own set of catacombs/crypts.

Well, the Temple of Grenth, Temple of Lyssa, and Temple of Balthazar have their own catacombs.

It’s never really brought up if the temples of Dwayna, Melandru, and Abaddon have the same.

There’s also at least two crypts that aren’t connected to the temples: the royal tombs in Cursed Shore, and the Crypts of the Dreaming Dead in Arah.

Slowpokeking.8720:

Konig Des Todes.2086:

I fail to see what “we’re talking about Zhaitan” has to do with this, particularly? Where is it ever said that Zhaitan doesn’t have intelligent dragons?

After defeating Blightghast, Trahearne (iirc) says that he was one of Zhaitan’s strongest champions, and that it was leading the forces. That’s why we had to lure it out, just like how we lured out each of the champions in the earlier steps by slaughtering the grunts.

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Retribution

Where? Even in the battle, it didn’t command the troops. It just waited until the battle was close to lose then bust in again, and got killed.

It doesn’t seem to be on the wiki – there are missing dialogues after all – though I recall seeing it in previous playthroughs (only Vigil and Whisper members made it through, so maybe a Whisper member gets the line). Not sure if it’s during Retribution or Forging the Pact.

And of course we don’t see it commanding the troops. They have a hive mind. We can’t read their thoughts. You NEVER see dragon minions talking to each other, let alone ordering one another, except in very rare situations – like the Sovereign Eye commanding the champion guards to leave, which was more of a psychological move to confuse Trahearne and the PC.

Slowpokeking.8720:

That’s exactly what I’m talking about, they are powerful weapons, not commanders of the army. Have you seen any good commander would abandon its army and just fight on the sky?

Well, given the fact that they have a hive mind, they didn’t really abandon the army, considering they don’t need to be watching over them, since they share thoughts.

Slowpokeking.8720:

Not just Morgus, Captain Whitning also serves as the leader of the Risen navy, do we see a dragon alongside him in all 3 encounters? No. Only the Maw serves as the most powerful weapon.

Morgus was but a single example, not meant to be the sole situation.

Do we see a dragon with Morgus Lethe? No. Do we see a dragon with the Eye of Zhaitan? No. They aren’t going to be with every invasion effort.

Slowpokeking.8720:

They were busting from different places. If they truly are intelligent, they would just focus on one without making others aware of the danger, then move on to the next target. We can also see in GW2, compare to other dragons, the destroyers lack of tactic.

They had power, surprise, and numbers. Attacking the most number of enemies while they’re all off guard, rather than eliminating one group and attacking the others when they know of the threat is not exactly the smartest way to go about things.

Striking at the leaders and advancements is not without intelligence.

Slowpokeking.8720:

No, he “declared war against Norn” as mentioned, in the book it’s clearly mentioned that he is the greatest champion of Jormag. It was mentioned more than once in the novel by different people.

None of these Blizzard did much harm to any of us players, but the one that the Dragonspawn summoned through Jormag’s power killed many many people along with animals.

Knut ’ s face stiffened . “ This storm was worse than the ice brood . It has killed more — ”

Other than Jormag, Dragonspawn and Drakkar were the only one with such power. In both the game and the novel EoD, we don’t see the Icebrood turn others into one, none of the EoD member mentioned it either.

Since you use NPC’s dialogue as evidence, please don’t ignore the other dialogue when they are against your point.

NPCs can be subjective, and the dialogue I use is not contradicted. I think the fact that the Dragonspawn was killed by six individuals with a wolf and two golems kind of makes it seem just a liiiittle bit weaker than a dragon that takes a small army with specialized weaponry to defeat.

You know, just a little.

And the blizzards we see in-game aren’t nearly as bad because we stop them before they can deal a lot of damage.

Slowpokeking.8720:

The one during the siege of Arah. Maybe commanders are a bit inaccurate, they are more like the Overseers to watch and carry the order for Zhaitan.

Watch, yes. Carry? Questionable, at best.

There is indeed Medina, and I used such as an example in response to Bobby’s comment about changing the style of telling the lore. Though I’ve forgotten how wide-spread the fahrar tour is.

Thing is, we already have what Bobby asked for (changing how it’s told but still giving a “lore exposition dump” situation akin to the tour guides) in each of the cities, in different forms – it’s just that in exception of one or two cases, they’re stationary and in all cases not triggered by players. So it would just be a matter of extending how much is done, rather than finding new ways to implement the tour guides.

What’s so great about the tour guides isn’t that it’s a tour guide, but that it’s a lore exposition dump – and obviously so – which is lacking in the grand scale of the game. Regardless of form, more lore expositions are desireable, especially more obvious ones.

BobbyStein.2315:

If they weren’t presented as tours for other racial cities but instead shown with characters walking and talking about their surroundings (perhaps independent of player participation) it could get the information across while also differentiating the feel of the different races. Thoughts?

Depends on how it’s done. For a prime example, I’d look to the mother and her cub touring the Black Citadel, or the small fahrar class that talk about Smodur losing his eye. These are cases of teaching young one’s about the glory of the charr. We see on the line of statues (forgot the name of it… Memorial Quadrant?) we have a charr who, with dialogue tree boxes, explains that she’s on punishment duty and her punishment is to tell passer-byes the story of Kalla Scorchrazor (and if you refuse, she threatens to call the Adamant Guard on you for restricting her ability to perform her duties, which is a nice charr-like touch).

With norn, it could be a Skaald around a fire telling stories – or even one of the mysterious and very elusive “skaald competitions” that involve telling stories until all others run out… or pass out from too much ale.

With sylvari, well, we have plenty of mentors and saplings that talk about the tenants voice acted already, why not some such situations talking about the place’s history? Or we could have travelers stopping through and asking questions to one of the wardens, as we have the opposite happening (travelers stopping through and being asked questions) in the ambient dialogue.

These things can work with the other races if you change the situation easily. But the humanity’s degradement remains unchanged then, and it doesn’t solve as many issues as it could. While getting more lore out there is great, and I am not against it, I feel that the lack of importance of humanity and GW1 lore is just as great of an issue. Yes, you pull out names like Nicholas Sandford in a side-lined book found in Dry Top. You pull out GW1 names like Shaemoor and Beetletun and Dry Top. But where’s their relation to GW1? The Restoration Camp has a centaur named Eghren which is a name of a centaur in GW1 who followed Ventari, but they say “no we are not tied to Ventari” – which from my perspective is mirroring exactly how GW2 treats GW1 lore. There’s an obvious tie to GW1 via the names and locations, but look into the GW2 lore and you’re given “we are not tied to GW1 lore” despite that. Bloodstones, even jotun, krait, and the Forgotten are all similar such cases – there’s an obvious connection to GW1 lore, via name, but there is no shared lore (the Bloodstones are not made by the Six; the jotun are not spellcasters; the krait do not transform; the Forgotten were not brought by the Six).

Just as humanity is being downgraded in importance – and even if they become a highlight, it is because they took another races’ achievements and remodeled them (Watchknights, for example, were taken and modified off of Scarlet’s achievements), or they get superseded by other races (such as Cathedral of Silence PS step… and meta). Just as humanity is being downgraded in importance, so is GW1 lore in all. We don’t see ANY repercussions from Prophecies, Factions, Nightfall, or even Winds of Change, Hearts of the North, and barely any such from War in Kryta either. And the latter three were built to bridge into GW2. Yet off the top of my head, what can I mention being a repercussion seen in GW2? Gwen has a last name and descendants. Seraph exist. Shining Blade are royal guards. White Mantle are… hidden. Repercussions of Thorn taunting Joko? Nada. Repercussions of Lazarus? Nada. Repercussions of calling forth the druids in Bloodstone Fen bonus? Nada. Repercussions of Rotscale? Nada. You get the system?

We get some acknowledgement, but only in name and pretty titles. Thus, the game feels separate.

Just three huge issues of the storytelling of GW2 (human degradement, lack of lore highlight, lack of GW1 lore). At this point, we might as well had started GW2 off in a fourth continent – one with little human involvement. Would have given plenty of freedom over what to write in such a situation, then.

I went off on a tangent, and I’d love to go into more detail on this – perhaps I will in a new thread later on, to avoid diverging this one – but I have to go for now.

The Elder Dragons know all that their minions know.

If a singular Mordrem found out – pre or post corruption – then Mordremoth found out. Simple as that. They hold a hive mind and it doesn’t seem to be an proactive function but a passive one of corruption.

Your theory is old by years now and has been posted to death by everyone and their grandmother’s nephew’s cousin’s child.

There are a lot of flaws throughout, and the new content is really dissuading that possibility as I see it, while pushing for the theory that the Nightmare is Mordremoth’s corruption (but sylvari on a whole are not Mordremoth’s minions).

“When is the expansion coming out?”

Well, you see, at the conclusion of Season 2 there will be a new item in the Upgrades panel of the gemstore. It will be labeled “The Greatest Threat” and will be grayed out for anyone who logged on at least once during Season 2, for it is buying all of Season 2 in one nice little bundle. There will also be “The Best Sylvari Ever” placed there for the same price which will be, you guessed it, Season 1.

There’s your expansion packs. Have fun!