Guild Wars 2

Gah, stupid mistakes

You were right, it’s an ogre.

As for what you said, you are right. I should have specified. What I meant is we already have a dragon that uses the mind as his point of entry perhaps? You see Kralkatorrik just breathes down and their bodies and minds are instantaneously transformed, while Jormag creeps into the mind and twists it to his will. Eventually the physical transformation occurs, but this is long after the corruption takes place.

I wrote something about this a while back and there were a few ideas that popped up as to why the economy dropped so far.

1) Lion’s Arch was the most wealthy port in Tyria, they had trade with the dwarves to bring in much income, and then the city was lost to the Tsunami. Before this the majority of the dwarves had died off, Cantha isolated itself, and Elona was under the rule of a Lich. So in one fell swoop Kryta lost any trade partners and the wealth of their capital was lost to the sea.

2) With the isolation of Cantha, it appears that Tyria also lost the use of Xunlai chests. If that is true, then a good 80-90% of the wealth of Tyrians was lost in the vault system with no chance to regain it. I’m sure many Xunlai were burned at the stake for this.

3) Lion’s Arch moved into the hands of Pirates and Zaishen, so it makes sense that these individuals would continue to use their currency. And it just so happens that the major currency used by both Pirates and Zaishen were a series of copper, silver, and gold coins. Eventually Lion’s Arch filled the void of trade within Tyria, and because of the extent of their influence many of the cultures eventually switched their currency in order to make commerce easier for everyone involved.

This is just a theory, but it seems to piece together a lot of the ideas rather well.

Yeah, I’d say if we’re looking for allies, there is a lot better chance of finding them much closer to mainland Tyria, aka Elona (assuming there are some people still alive).

Part of me doesn’t believe the game could continue to be rated “T for Teen” if part of your personal story was joining the nightmare court and constantly torturing people to death, or joining the inquest and experimenting on people sometimes turning them into savage beasts or putting them through terrible deaths. I mean if you joined these organizations, that is what you would be doing. It’s a little easier with bandits/flame legion/Sons of Svanir, just kill people, that’s acceptable in games, but torture?

Well we already have a dragon which assaults the mind, Jormag. But I understand what you mean. It almost seems like corrupting the soul when it comes to the nightmare court. Twisting people into doing horrible and unforgivable things, until the point that they break, or die, either way working towards increasing the nightmare.

It would be cool if perhaps in PvP or WvW this area could be expanded more. Perhaps race versus race or something similar. But in PvE most likely nothing of this sort will happen.

No, the one that it connected to on the other end got blown up to keep the destroyers from following.

All I can say is play WvW and invade someone’s borderland, I think that’s the best you can get…

Nay of the Ether.8913:

Narcemus.1348:

Panda Shepard.1248:

I would love some kind of pictures of pre-sunken Orr/uncorrupted Orr. I never played Guild Wars 1 so I had assumed it was in that game. I found a site detailing Old Ascalon and comparing it to the current Charr Ascalon. I was really disappointed to find out there wasn’t something similar for Orr.

The history of this game is so amazing to me. I spent most of time exploring the ruins of Ascalon before I hit 80 and found Orr. Wow, I mean wow. Orr is by far my favorite zone. It’s an explorer’s playground. Heck I just run around admiring the ruins and taking pictures of the scenery. It’s just amazing.

I would love some pictures and maps of a pristine Orr! Maybe what the priests and priestesses looked like before too. That would be really cool.

Yeah, well back in GW1 I always wanted a map of pristine Ascalon, Pre-Searing. I mean you get to see nothing of Rin, Surmia, Serenity Temple (or the massive looking city nearby it). Sad thing is, it is highly unlikely we will ever get that. The best we can hope for is the possibility of seeing parts of Orr uncorrupted that get released later in the game.

You can actually explore what’s left of Rin above the wall but there’s not really anything left because the charr leveled it all. The Arena in Black Citadel appears to be part of that arena/court you see in GW1 after you set off Stormcaller. You can even find the remains of serenity temple in (Iron Marches? its either that one or the zone below it), Ft Ranik you mentioned though has been obilterated, and that ginormous Searing Crystal that you can see in pockmark flats in GW1 is still out there too being worshiped by a bunch of idiodic grawl. You can dive to Droknar’s Forge (what’s left of it because some of it flooded when the shiverpeaks melted, and some the land reclaimed or Inquest destroyed), Sorrows Furnace is still there (called Sorrow’s Embrace now). There’s lots of places we can revisit, just gotta look for them ;-) It will be exciting to see what famous landmarks we’ll see in future content. Oh almost forgot you can go visit Granite Citadel (which was a place in GW1 to get elite armor) and the heart there is a trivia about GW1 NPC’s you would have encountered. I found that particularly exciting.

Oh I remember the joy in revisiting each and every one of those places. Believe me I took days exploring queensdale in the BWE’s (which takes me 3-4 hours now) and I was just figuring out where everything is in GW2 compared to GW1 and figuring out how the world had changed. Much of what I was saying is, back in GW1 I had hoped to somehow see what the world of Ascalon looked like before the searing. I mean if I remember right there was a massive city that stretched from around Ft. Ranik up to Serenity Temple (based on the massive building ruins). I had always wondered what the name of that city was, etc. But I understand that those are things that I will likely never know or see, because of the fact that they were just random building ruins placed in the landscape.

Ratphink.4751:

EDIT: I suppose if they somehow found a way to navigate the mists to the extent of moving from Realm of Torment to the Mists battlegrounds that has an Asura portal going to LA in it that would be something else entirely. Though I’m not entirely sure if the Mists are set up for that kind of travel around.

I find it highly more likely that the Order of Whispers grabbed the Asuran Gate under Kamadan and had it retuned to somewhere within Tyria and are using it for travel, but we can continue to speculate all you guys want

If they are being corrupted they are only in the early stages. I am going to use a reference to Sons of Svanir, because Jormag is the only dragon at the moment who is known to corrupt slowly rather than instantaneously. If you say the Nightmare Court are being corrupted, even the most evil of them are only to the level of the say to say Sons of Svanir. There has been absolutely no proof of mindless zergs (being as all nightmare court seem to keep a personalily) or super powerful champions among the Nightmare Court. At the very least, even the strongest of the Nightmare Courtiers never change in physical appearance, and much of their power can be brought to the level of game mechanics, not so much lore.

That being said, Mordremoth could be a very smart dragon. He realized the component of the Sylvari that makes them “immune” to corruption and because of this instead of corrupting them he twisted them, to align them more to his goals. Of course this is all speculation.

It would be awesome if they would eventually make it a possibility to see the bloodstones and learn more of their history/what’s happened to them in the past 250 years. We do know that the bloodstone that was in the Bloodstone Fen dungeon was the same one that the Mursaat were going to take the chosen to in the Iron Mines of Muladune mission, so the bloodstone itself must be placed somewhere between Iron Mines and the dungeon entrance, that also means that there is a second way down there Well just thinking I guess there are 2 or 3 ways down. Because I specifically remember that the bloodstone has a hole above it to the sky, that is when I was visiting it I looked up. So even with the cave sealed, someone had to take other precautions, like perhaps building something on top of it. I’m getting all kinds of Indiana Jones vibes from trying to find this bloodstone, lol.

Balthazar: “Hmm, I’m getting my tail handed to me by my half brother. I’ve lost all of my armies, and I’m in a total pickle. Oh I know! Why don’t I get a group of 8 of those meaty flesh bags to do what I, a god, can’t do!”

Durzlla.6295:

Narcemus.1348:

I personally enjoyed the Personal Story. I do agree that it gets kinda disjointed at parts, there are some poor transitions between stories. That being said though, it is confusing being called a “Personal Story” when by the end the story isn’t about you anymore, it’s about Trahearn. Now I actually like this. In my mind, it shouldn’t be up to one person to do everything, and on top of that you actually get to help someone fulfill their purpose in life, which is a great thing. I just wish that they had done a better job of developing Trahearn through the process of the story, it would have made the ending of the story just that much more amazing. I hope in the expansions he becomes a lot more confident in his actions.

Actually, the problem is the other races (non sylvari) don’t see Trahearn at all, period until the pact where as sylvari work along side starting at lv 10, which is HUGE. I see all these people complaining about Trahearn and how he had no development etc, yet i saw TONS of development in him due to being a sylvari and working along him since the beginning (which was mostly him being super scholarly and passive).

That being said, i actually like how at the end everyone comes together and you have to accomplish the same relative goal (IE starving the mouth, cutting off reinforcements, and then there’s another 3 way split before cleansing orr) the reason i love this so much is simple, it leaves NO question on what happened in key parts of the story. We all know how Zhaitan died, we all know how Orr was cleansed, we all know how the Mouth(s) were starved etc, etc etc.

Another major thing a lot of people look over is the fact that in the story regardless of what option YOU choose, the other option is still followed through, IE when i went into the heart of Lyssa’s temple to cut off the reinforcements they also commented about how the “other pact members” destruction of the ship helped to ensure that Zhaitan will not get any reinforcements and etc.

Idk why so many people seem to think a personal story in an MMO (where your character clearly can’t be the sole reason everything worked out, because there are millions of people who are doing the same stuff) should be TOTALLY your character and there shouldn’t even be another NPC out there to “steal their thunder”.

I’ve actually only played through as a Sylvari, I’m still working on my Charr, and the others are kinda just sitting back for the time being. And I know what you mean about the development of Trahearn, there was quite a bit of development from the early Mazdak quests up through the Claw Island chain, but after that he gets kind of stale. And I think part of it has to do with his constantly pessimistic tidbits that he says in combat, but throughout the establishment of Fort Trinity up through the cleansing of Orr, and even after the death of Zhaitan, he never really celebrates (until you make him). He never shows that he’s gained confidence in what they have accomplished, and he seems just as confused and indecisive as normal. I think, though, that in the next expansion he will grow to show much more development though.

True about the centaurs never mentioned by the seraph, but it had always been my interpretation that the humans moving west is what had brought the centaurs down on them in the first place. I mean humanity hasn’t moved north into the centaur lands at all, the only move they have made is into the lands closer to the Maguuma wastes. Also we do not know anything about the Centaurs in the Maguuma, or Losaru in the Crystal Desert. Heck we don’t even know the name of the centaur tribe of the Maguuma.

I personally enjoyed the Personal Story. I do agree that it gets kinda disjointed at parts, there are some poor transitions between stories. That being said though, it is confusing being called a “Personal Story” when by the end the story isn’t about you anymore, it’s about Trahearn. Now I actually like this. In my mind, it shouldn’t be up to one person to do everything, and on top of that you actually get to help someone fulfill their purpose in life, which is a great thing. I just wish that they had done a better job of developing Trahearn through the process of the story, it would have made the ending of the story just that much more amazing. I hope in the expansions he becomes a lot more confident in his actions.

I gotta say, I was personally hoping it would be one of those 3 headed pains in my butt as well. I kinda miss the little guys. That being said, her naming gives me hope that some still live, prolly in the Crystal Desert and the Ring of Fire islands.

Konig Des Todes.2086:

I wouldn’t call the dwarves loyal lap dogs to the Six Gods – at most, they only worshiped Dwayna and Grenth alongside the Great Dwarf (I wonder why, personally…).

Fine, that being said though it seems quite peculiar that 2 of the 5 Elder Races have devotees to the gods, and yet none of them brought up the fact that there were Elder Dragons? Balthazar never wondered where the corruption that he “burned away with a cleansing flame” came from?

Interesting sidenote to the possibility of centaur reinforcements from the Maguuma. I was recently thinking about the entrance to the Maguuma Wastes from Brisban, the broken bridge which is being slowly repaired by the bandits. Well we know that the bandits are allied with the centaurs, so perhaps the bridge was destroyed by the seraph to slow centaur reinforcements and is being repaired by their bandit allies to eventually let them through?

Panda Shepard.1248:

I would love some kind of pictures of pre-sunken Orr/uncorrupted Orr. I never played Guild Wars 1 so I had assumed it was in that game. I found a site detailing Old Ascalon and comparing it to the current Charr Ascalon. I was really disappointed to find out there wasn’t something similar for Orr.

The history of this game is so amazing to me. I spent most of time exploring the ruins of Ascalon before I hit 80 and found Orr. Wow, I mean wow. Orr is by far my favorite zone. It’s an explorer’s playground. Heck I just run around admiring the ruins and taking pictures of the scenery. It’s just amazing.

I would love some pictures and maps of a pristine Orr! Maybe what the priests and priestesses looked like before too. That would be really cool.

Yeah, well back in GW1 I always wanted a map of pristine Ascalon, Pre-Searing. I mean you get to see nothing of Rin, Surmia, Serenity Temple (or the massive looking city nearby it). Sad thing is, it is highly unlikely we will ever get that. The best we can hope for is the possibility of seeing parts of Orr uncorrupted that get released later in the game.

So you are saying they would be super intelligent if a bunch of skritt with no vocal chords came together in an area. They have no way to communicate, but they become super smart just by standing side by side? That makes no sense. I’m not saying that their communication is the only factor, but I am saying that it is a strong factor in their increased intelligence.

Every being corrupted by a dragon becomes a dragon minion.

That’s like saying risen aren’t Zhaitan’s minions, they are just people who have been corrupted by Zhaitan. Gah can’t you tell the difference? [/sarcasm]

And with the Forgotten’s tie to the gods it would make sense that the Forgotten may have been involved in the breaking of the Bloodstone, or perhaps were at least there to witness it. I do wonder though, why the gods knew nothing about the ED’s when some of their most loyal lap dogs (forgotten and dwarf) were around for their last awakening.

Yeah, I am pretty sure I have seen in dialogue many times that the increased intelligence of groups of skritt comes from their ability to communicate at rapid speeds. This allows their minds to somewhat network increasing their intelligence. Like, for example, if you video taped a bunch of game designers brainstorming a game, and then watched it in fast forward.

http://www.arena.net/blog/those-sneaky-sneaky-skritt
“Skritt are small, rat-like creatures in Guild Wars 2 who come from deep beneath the surface of Tyria. At first glance, these skittering fur balls may seem barely capable of rational speech, but they wield weapons and wear clothing and armor like more advanced races. Also, as the asura will tell you (or as any careful observer might note), the skritt actually gain intelligence when many of them congregate. Speaking in chirps and squeaks so fast that it sounds like buzzing to human ears, they share information, parse knowledge, and determine actions between themselves.”

Son of Elias.5420:

Konig Des Todes.2086:

Yes, well, I think of Aesgard when I think of Asgeir (or rather, Aesgir).

<_< It’s spelled ‘Asgard’. Or, more specifically, it’s spelled “Ásgarðr”.

I learned that from Stargate

Durzlla.6295:

Narcemus.1348:

Yeah, Konig’s definitely right here. I do not know exactly why the Harathi are placed down by Kessex honestly, unless they were more widespread and got cut off by the human forces. It makes very little sense that they are being fed reinforcements from the Maguuma though. You also have to remember quite a few races have migrated since the original game. Harpies were never found in Tyria and they have moved north for some reason (prolly related to Joko). Hylek were also never seen in Tyria til Eye of the North, so this could have been the beginning of their migration, or perhaps just moving into their territory. It could be that when the humans moved further west the centaurs regrouped east and started progressing from there.

Nah Hylek were all over the swampy areas of southern Tyria, they probably just moved during the 250 years.

I thought that the once waring Centaur Tribes united to kill the Humans, if this is true it’d make perfect sense as to why they’re getting forces through Maguuma. That and it’s possible that the Harathi Centaur have moved (or a large amount of them) to the Maguuma jungle to help strike the deal with that tribe?

What I said, if you’ll note, is that they, the Hylek, didn’t appear in Tyria until the Eye of the North expansion. Now it could go either way, that it was their territory that we were moving into, or that it was them moving in. It makes sense to me that, with the human ruins all the way south in GW2 that the Hylek migrated north for some reason. Not to mention talking to the Shining Blade in Eye of the North down south, they seem to think that the Hylek are a new threat, not one that has been there consistently, but that’s just personal interpretation.

Yeah, Konig’s definitely right here. I do not know exactly why the Harathi are placed down by Kessex honestly, unless they were more widespread and got cut off by the human forces. It makes very little sense that they are being fed reinforcements from the Maguuma though. You also have to remember quite a few races have migrated since the original game. Harpies were never found in Tyria and they have moved north for some reason (prolly related to Joko). Hylek were also never seen in Tyria til Eye of the North, so this could have been the beginning of their migration, or perhaps just moving into their territory. It could be that when the humans moved further west the centaurs regrouped east and started progressing from there.

I was trying to work WvW between Blackgate, Sanctum of Rall, and Isle of Janthir. In the 2 months that I was attempting this none of the borderlands ever changed. I was on Isle of Janthir and Blackgate constantly owned most of the Eternal Battlegrounds and good portions of the other borderlands.

I don’t know how things are now, because after I finished it on my first character I decided it was smarter to just stick with my other characters doing Tyria first, but it seems things have changed a little bit. I can see my world is in battle, and is being completely clobbered, with the lead world having 10x the amount of points as us.

I’ve made a post about this before, and I find it very aggravating that you have to do WvW for World Completion. This is extremely hard for me because my computer doesn’t render other players well in WvW so I’ll be dead without knowing why when trying to do completion. Well I eventually got WvW completion on one character by switching servers every chance I got (between servers being full), but now you guys are making that impossible for people by making server switching cost like $25. Please separate WvW and Tyrian Completion for those of us regular people that can’t afford spending $75 in order to get world completion…

While the whole first act of Winds of Change was repetitive, I do think that it was a much better scenario than coming back to Cantha and having the Afflicted wiped out and the Ministry running things into the ground. At least it give a chance to meet the characters involved, be a part of the action, and feel a little bit of the sting of betrayal in the end. I think it was the lesser of two evils.

I will agree, prophecies was everywhere, and a little bit scatterbrained at times, but I still loved it, and the variety that the continent offered. And I personally am a very much a lover of Eastern Culture, though by that I mean closer to China and Japan, rather than Persia/Middle East. I understood the need of keeping the map as it was, and I very much loved the architecture within Vabbi, but something about the area grinded me down very fast, and the very good story wasn’t enough in my opinion to bring it up to par with the rest.

I think Trahearn is a savable person. It will just require a bit more development in the voice and character department in the next expansion, but in my mind the story would be worse if they just killed him off for someone newer and better.

Wow, I would absolutely disagree with you in the storyline favorites, lol. But that’s a matter of taste. I disliked Elona, it was my least favorite soundtrack, least favorite landscape, and my least favorite storyline. I don’t know why, but that’s just the way it is for me. Cantha was my most favorite soundtrack and continent, and Prophecies my favorite campaign.

As for what you would say, I really agree. It was kind of inspirational to help someone fulfill their purpose, and I honestly didn’t mind being the man who did everything. In the end, the story of the world was that we needed to get everyone together to even hope to fight these things, so it would make little sense in my mind that we, individually, would be the one to do in the dragon. I’m just glad I was able to play my part.

Part of me really enjoyed the story just before Cleansing mission, where you had your friend from Orr with you, the racial sympathy friends (my quaggans), and some others if I remember. It just made it nice to see the amount of impact you had on the individuals in the game, and I wish more might have been possible. And honestly, probably because I absolutely love Fear Not This Night, I found the final part of the story to be a very strong conclusion.

Except there is no comparison or exchange of ideas. Just us telling you how the game is, and you giving terrible ideas as to how to change the game to how it “should be”.

Along with the plush griffon

Perhaps a better choice would be to make the cut scenes more like either the dungeon cut scenes, or like the original Guild Wars cut scenes. The only problem then is what happens when things glitch and bug up. I always hated it when it was supposed to be 2 people talking, but my character was talking to air, or suddenly minions would go masterless and we’d be standing there talking with minions attacking us, lol. I mean, if it’s just a situation with two people talking something through, these work fine, but I don’t think they need to be every cut scene.

Konig

Narcemus – the article you are thinking of would be The Movement of the World which states: “Risen from the ocean by the will of a powerful undead dragon, Orr no longer stands under human control. The beings roaming those lands are twisted, perverted remnants of Orr’s once-magnificent culture. Drowned by magic and then raised into service by the will of a monster so terrible there are only whispers of its nature, they now serve a dragon more horrible and more powerful than any other being in Tyria.” and “Many of the corsairs who inhabited the island chain before the peninsula rose again were subsumed by the dragon’s power, twisted by its breath, and enslaved to its will. Ships with black sails, built from seized corsair vessels, sail along the Strait of Malchor, west of Orr. These vessels surround the Fire Islands, manned by undead minions of the dragon that fear neither fire nor sea.”

Note that it never once states that it corrupted former undead. It only mentions corrupting the corsairs which were hiding out in the islands of Orr. Though we do know that many of the Risen in Orr are Orrian, it was never said those were ever made undead by the Cataclysm or Khilbron.

No, the article I was thinking of is this one http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Zhaitan. Note that on the page it says, “Zhaitan used its powers to take control of the wandering dead of Orr, forming a massive army known as the risen.”

Note as I said, I read this long ago and took it as fact, but the statement is uncited, and thus I don’t have proof to back my old belief.

As to Gaudrath, I’m done here. Have fun with your endless cycle with Konig, there will never be a winner.

Yes, but the portion of it that is a Lighouse is gone. All that’s left is what would have been the watchman’s house (basing off of the way lighthouses generally work.)

Yeah, instead you fell down a cliff, snapped your neck, broke your legs, and just sit there waiting for someone to bring you back from being unconscious :P

Hmm, well Tybalt could have had his body destroyed by any giant bomb he produces (noting the relative sturdiness of most buildings mechanically.) The same could be said with Seiran and her fire magic, her body may have just burned away. Forgal’s just one massively cool warrior going down surrounded by enemies, but taking like 50 with him, lol.

Actually in my mind developing new races, while it has more challenges in the beginning, is the easier choice. That way they don’t eventually end up with 12 professions that they have to balance with each other, and struggle to hold together.

In addition to the post above, this is what is left of the lighthouse, with my charr engineer, a few days ago.

Seems like more of a cheap repeat of the old content to me. I just want to set him on fire and see if undead flesh does eventually burn off or not….. Zhed had the right idea afterall.

This should only be possible if my ranger could also tame a dragon as my pet. Kralkatorrik would be cool, but I would settle for the Shatterer following me around and dive bombing anything that tries to attack me :P

Note, the post above was entirely sarcastic (though a cool thought) and I know entirely how lore breaking that would be. Not to mention how kitten off people would get from waiting 3 hours to kill the Shatterer only to have a ranger come up and tame it, and leave the rest of us with no chest or anything :P

More than likely any realm like this would be implimented in the mists, not the skies above tyria. I say this only because except for Metrica Province and Caledon Forest, when you look up into the sky, there’s nothing really there, except sky, lol.

Well, I want to point out that from what we know of the Guild Wars universe, the Ritualist profession was developed by the Canthans from their communing with the spirits of their dead ancestors. Eventually they received magic like everyone else and they used it to strengthen the power that they already had. So from our knowledge, ritualists came directly from the humans, and it’s history is more well known than most any other profession.

I do believe that somewhere I read that upon awakening Zhaitan took control of the shambling undead of Orr that were left after Khilbron was destroyed.

I just looked it up and the article I was thinking of was the wiki page of the GW2 wiki for Zhaitan, and it was uncited.

Well I understand the issue with resurrection being through the priests, it becomes blatantly obvious in factions when you have to bribe a priest in the jade sea or echovald based on your faction, this is also not necessarily required though, because they will continue to work in the area if you decide to kill all those Kurzick jerks instead of bribing them. It just seems odd to me that resurrection is very normal, then suddenly you are killed in factions and stuck that way until the Envoys help you, or so many important people like Saidra die, with no hope of resurrection. It just seems that a lot of good people are lost and it is not a necessary thing in a world with resurrection rampant. Not to mention the lack of any type of curiosity into the loss of this type of magic throughout the world. Heck this would have me so confounded and intrigued that I wouldn’t even care about the lack of gargoyles in ascalon, lol.

Except their minds, while similar to a dragon minion’s, are nothing like it, in the sense that most individuals seem to retain individualism (to a sense). And also their only goal is to destroy the minions of the dragons (primordus specifically) and they have no interest really in the outside world. Not, of course, that I thought you were serious, but it honestly makes sense to me that they were created in the likeness of dragon minions in order to fight dragon minions. There is still a whole lot of confusion around what exactly the Great Dwarf was, individual or not. It is something that we will someday find out (I hope.)