Guild Wars 2

Konig Des Todes.2086:

You’re misunderstanding what I was saying. To bulletpoint it:

• The Dream seems to prevent traditional corruption. Thus, sylvari cannot become risen-sylvari, branded-sylvari, or mordrem-sylvari.
• Mordremoth, via his tie to the Dream for unknown reasons, is capable of “bypassing” this “immunity” via the channels of Wyld Hunt/Dark Hunts. Doing this allows Mordremoth to implant thoughts into sylvari minds.
• Only willpower can protect sylvari when Mordremoth does this, to discern the difference between their thoughts and the implanted thoughts, and to resist the constant temptation.

I’m with you on most of your arguments in this matter, but I’m pretty sure you’re making an error in assumption here. Until the Ember Bay destroyers, there was no evidence of any dragon minions contaminating each other. So if one of the mordrem in Iron Marches were to wander into the Brand, say, and they tried to do whatever Branded do to convert them (encapsulate them in crystal, I presume from what we see), it would be as effective as Zhaitan trying to bring a sylvari back as a risen.

My working theory is that Mordremoth and the Dream are linked in some way. Perhaps it was his original communication method with his sylvari-minions before whatever disruption affected the tree and morphed from a “mind collective” to the Dream. It seems really weird that a purifying ritual would create such a protection field yet leave an easily-exploitable back door. When Kralkatorrik came to fight Glint, there was no way for him/it to regain control of her, after all.

The Wyld/Dark Hunts are not the means Mordremoth got to the sylvari, it was the Dream itself. Part of my argument for that is that the Soundless were the first ones to fall to Mordremoth’s call when they came close enough. What the Hunts actually are hasn’t really been explained, but I bet it’s not just because they wanted a way for some sylvari to fall prey to Mordremoth again.

As for the arguments for willpower, it’s true that it does play a factor, but we didn’t really see enough sylvari struggle to know if only those still in the Dream (or fallen to Nightmare) were able to resist, or if a supremely strong-willed Soundless sylvari could fend off Mordremoth’s call. My bet is on no, that the Dream – even if it’s been twisted into Nightmare – offered some means to fend off control.

When It’s Ready™

Amaimon.7823:

This is evident in the fact that de consciousness of a sylvari returns to the dream (pale tree) after death. So there is something that survives, but it doesn’t go to the same heaven/hell as the other races.

We might have interpreted that bit of information very differently. What we know about the Dream is that sylvari who go out into the world sometimes send information back to the Dream, mere flashes of images or fragmented information. I think that’s what you’re referring to, but a sylvari doesn’t have to die to send that information. Now, I can’t back up my claim at this point, but I’m pretty sure that’s the case.

Daniel Handler.4816:

Malyck is brain damaged. He is a disabled Sylvari who can’t access Grandma’s Scrapbook (the dream) to see all the videos of him learning how to crawl.

You can’t claim that. We know nothing of Malyck’s tree (literally nothing, since whatever story we might’ve gotten got cut from the main story), but perhaps Malyck’s tree doesn’t have a Dream at all. We only assume he’s like other sylvari because he look the same. Humans and norn look the same aside from a bit of height and build, but we know they aren’t compatible biologically, like a horse and a donkey to create a mule.

Daniel Handler.4816:

As for you other claims. The theory of dracono-enchantment has only been tested on non-mordremoth minions. That is major experimental error. Why would the Mind Dragon have to express intelligence the same way as the other dragons?

It would make sense that no other ED has made intelligent minions with the Dream. The other ED don’t have the ability, and the one that does can’t without losing control of them.

The very purpose of the Dream was to protect their psyche from Mordremoth. Why would he put it in his minions? And why should one of his strongest champions be unable to?

You contradict yourself a bit there. Is it the Dream that grants them consciousness while protecting them from Mordremoth’s influence, or is the Dream a gift from Mordremoth, which allows some of his minions to escape while others can be claimed if they have a loose bond to the Dream and weak will? Neither scenario makes much sense unless an outside force influenced things.

So are you saying that your thief got… robbed?

None of the “bag” items have open all, so I don’t imagine these will be any different. Part of it would be because opening the bags is partially dependent on your inventory space. I think it needs to check after each bag is opened whether you still have possible space or you’d be overloaded. Sorry, but I think the engine works against you here.

There are lots of animals out there that could be fun pets but we can’t yet unlock, like the rock dog. At least those can be tamed by the ogres, so surely they could teach us how to do it!

Other random animals off the top of my head:
-Raptors. Too much like moas, but mentioned for completion.
-Bats. They’re kind of nasty, but we don’t have a lot of flying pets.
-Sea Turtle. These were only found in non-Risen variety by Ember Bay, but no one would turn them down.
-Skales. I’m pretty sure skales aren’t tamable, and they’ve been around since pre-Searing Ascalon.
-Melandru’s Prowler. Probably not different from regular panthers, but MELANDRU’S PROWLER!
-Beetle. This one is probably the hardest (pun half-intended) to justify, but hylek can ride beetles, so they can clearly be cowed.
-Other devourer breeds. There’s two available already, but I think there are other breeds out there.

That’s good enough for now. Maybe if I come across other species in my journey, I’ll add to the list.

Maybe instead of instances, there could be achievements tied to the Elite Specs. There’s already a collection quest to earn an ascended weapon for the new class by doing content in the expansion that is character-specific yet account-wide.

So, let’s take the Druid example. To unlock, you’d have to take a ranger into Auric Basin and meet a druid. Perhaps by being present there, the druid will uncover a cave with an object only druids could read. Or the charr that leads the expedition could give the character a copy of his notes on druids that, when used, unlocks the class. Several different options there.

The other classes might be a bit difficult. I wouldn’t want some classes unlocked merely by story progression and others unlocked by events. Options could have been that Marjory was somewhere in the open world, and she talks about how she is mastering her new magic. Or Braham discusses a new desire he has after picking up his mother’s bow. Meanwhile, perhaps the Nuhoch are masters of Berserking, or the Itzel vendor sells a book on Chronomancy. Clearly there’s still some unbalance, but I’m just spitballing possible ideas.

Plus, if it’s an achievemenkittens back to being account-bound without really punishing a player for wanting this elite or that. I briefly considered the idea of needing to complete a mastery to unlock Zone Q’s elites, but that seemed like a bad idea all around.

I think I get the sense that you want either an unlimited tower/dungeon where you just fight wave after wave of random monsters, and I’ll assume that loot tables are turned off until you get to whatever chest at the end? Like Black Iris, I think we need a bit more details in your desire.

1) Is it solo-able, or designed for a party of 5? It could also be balanced for 10 in theory, if it launches from the aerodrome. If it is designed for a party, are there more rewards for doing it solo?

2) What determines failure? Is it you die, you get kicked? Or only when the party wipes? Can people get revived in between floors? Is the healing mysteriously turned off in between battles? Maybe the next wave spawns as soon as the previous one is defeated.

3) As Black Iris Flowers asked, how is progress recorded? Does it have to be all done in one go? Maybe it’s incremental like fractals, where you can later choose to resume at checkpoints but only get rewarded if you reach a new milestone.

4) How frequent a cooldown were you initially thinking? Once a day? A set hour reset? Once a week, even?

perilisk.1874:

Where is the evidence that such a purification took place? And if there is no such evidence, is it more reasonable to assume that such an important plot point occurred, but even after all the other revelations about Sylvari, no one has ever thought to explain it?

We know that sylvari were created to be dragon minions. It seems weird to have dragon minions trying to kill other dragons, even its own master. Yes, Mordremoth was sleeping up until Scarlet Briar’s actions, but that minions would even consider turning against its master greatly implies that something happened to the seed to protect the sylvari from being controlled from day one.

Well, a new server wouldn’t help. First off, your whole account travels to whatever server you might choose. Second, we now have megaservers, which means that the world you chose at the start really only matters for WvW. Third, don’t delete your old characters as you’ll lose the birthday progress from those characters as well! If you need to reorientate yourself, then sure, start a new character, but after a bit, go back to your elementalist or guardian just to remember how they work (if you don’t choose one of them to refresh your memory) and progress from there. But stick with it! You’ll regret losing the progress later on.

There is a base limit of 2 crafting skills per character, but there are gem store items that allow a character to have up to 4 now (buying the upgrade twice). As people have said, that’s not really necessary as having 4 characters with mutually exclusive craft skills will give you everything you need.

As for which ones you’ll want to start off with, probably Tailoring and Artificing. Tailoring makes light armor, which would help both your necro and your ele, and Artificing specializes in magic weapons. You could also consider weaponcrafting if you use bladed weapons more. Huntsman specializes in ranged weapons (plus warhorn and torch), but neither of your current classes use them, so I wouldn’t use that right now. Jeweler makes accessories, which all classes need, but uses completely different ingots than any other craft until it reaches mithril.

For Tailoring, you’ll need cloth and leather, which is mostly found from salvaging light and medium armor, although some can be found in various bags.
Artificing uses mostly wood and some metal. Artificers can also make potions that help against a certain type of enemy but only the top tier potions tend to sell really well.
All crafting professions need material components like scales, blood, and bone which are dropped from the various non-human mobs, although some are found in bags or rewarded for completing event chains on a map.

You might also want to consider crafting weapons and armor for a new character, as the initial gear is for very low level characters (level 5 or 10, I believe). Armorcrafting makes heavy armor, and Leatherworking makes medium armor.

Finally, if you’re looking for something more, the official wiki has nearly every recipe possible. Feel free to check there if you get stuck.

Harper.4173:

I hope there’s a way to keep it from going into that “in combat” mode

There is. It’s called “don’t enter combat”. :p

But on a more serious note, it looks kind of cool, and yet kind of bulky. Is that just the heavy armor version, or are there different ones for light and medium? How are they going to look? Will they have a similar gimmick of in-combat and out-of-combat looks as well?

That’s some nice heavy armor there, but I’m sort of curious what the light and medium armors will look like. Or is there just one type of legendary armor that is equippable on all classes.

King xiuras.3615:

- What are the effects when moving/fighting?
- Will there be no clipping on charrs or other races? Will there not be any removal of the charr horns?
Discuss!

1) Probably none, aside from its initial deployment. I think it would be too distracting if the armor kept moving the whole time you were in combat. Once it’s deployed, it’s deployed until you leave combat.
2) That is always the question, isn’kitten Hopefully the answer is yes, but only time will give us the answer to that.

I think more accurately, people can TRY to charge for spots. If you’re quick enough, you could probably transfer to the map long before they actually realize you haven’t paid and once you’re there, being kicked from the group is of no consequence.

Heart of Thorns definitely increases the difficulty level, but not so much that casual players can’t make their way through. You can’t always just ignore the random spawns by running quickly and having some condition purges. The mastery system is also an interesting addition, as it allows access to new skills without being character based, and the elite masteries gives new build options to existing classes.

My recommendation to you is to log back into the game and try running around core Tyria for a while to remind yourself how some of the mechanics work, maybe even try out some of the Current Events going on to see how the Living Story has progressed. Then, if you don’t have any trouble with it and are enjoying the game, buy HoT and fight Mordremoth in the Jungle. If nothing else, it’ll allow you to keep pace with Living World Season 3 stuff, which needs you to have HoT to explore.

draxynnic.3719:

I’m not convinced with the idea that sylvari are soulless. They are sapient, after all, and the other dragon minions that we know of that are sapient appear to be the ones that have souls tied up in them (certainly, every time we’ve found a ghost whose body became a Risen, the Risen is an automaton).

Sure, we’ve seen no sylvari ghosts… but ghosts of nonhuman races are fairly uncommon. There are a few norn around, but among asura and charr, the only ghosts I can think of are ones that have arisen through unusual circumstances (Oola used necromancy to tie her spirit to her lab, and the charr loggers being forced out of their bodies by wraiths… which is more of an out-of-body experience than a true ghost). So it’s possible that some races are more prone to becoming ghosts, while others, for whatever reason, have a stronger pull to move on. Dead sylvari are said to go into the Dream – this seems like it might not be fully accurate because there is no report of meeting a dead sylvari in the Dream, but if the Dream is connected to the Mists as some have suggested, it’s possible that the connection between the sylvari and the Dream makes it less likely that they won’t cross over into the Mists.

This gets into really philosophical territory. How does one define a soul? Is it merely the embodiment of a personality? Is it something more than that, something intangible that living beings have? Sylvari are all barren, and can’t produce more of their kind on their own, unlike all the other races. And yes, human ghosts are the most prevalent, partly because they were everywhere 250 years ago. Does it take that long for a ghost to manifest itself? And what exactly causes a ghost to appear? We don’t really know a lot about any of these subjects, but nothing we’ve seen from the sylvari shows that they might leave a ghost behind when it would become appropriate, so they might indeed be soulless.

Using the same spells/skills means absolutely nothing. How the magic is controlled has nothing to do with the gods or who created magic or whatever your argument on that front is. None of the Prophesies skills mentions any of the gods by name, so it’s possible they all came from a different angle. Plus, the signet capture allowed the copying of other skills for the PC to use, so some of the skills could theoretically be from other sources of magic completely unrelated to the gods.

We first learned about it from the novel Edge of Destiny, but I thought it became pretty obvious through most of Logan’s interactions in the human personal story before Setting the Stage. In any case, it’s hardly a secret to anyone: Logan is desperately in love with Queen Jennah. I don’t think it’s ever revealed if she returns his feelings at all, but she certainly benefits from his dedication to protect her. You can also see this pretty clearly in Cadecus Manor, story path.

Well, I don’t know if you’ll be attracted to any of the other professions, but I would recommend either a ranger so you could collect all the pets, or one of the heavy classes so you can complete the Mace and Hammer kill achievements. The Necromancer is kind of new in how you can swap in and out of Shroud, which is almost like a second health bar that slowly ticks down. If you didn’t really like any of those classes, though, I’d say just leave it blank until a new profession comes along (in the next expansion at the soonest).

Also, play the story at least once through each race, at least to level 30, so you could get all the achievements. But again, if you don’t care about achievements, do whatever you enjoy in the game.

Obsidian.1328:

One tiny line in a side quest in EotN? Really? Riddle me this then: if ANet had no intentions of “downgrading” the gods for GW2 in EotN, where are all of the statues that are all over the map in every preceding campaign? Did they get torn down? Merged with resurrection shrines? Church of Dwayna forget to pay their utility bill? The only possible scenario I could think of for why that is, is that somehow only the humans worshiped the gods and paid homage to them. Fat chance proving that since every sentient being on the planet supposedly used “divine” magic equally.

A scant few of them still remain in the world. Most of the Temple of the Ages is underwater in… I want to say Queensdale, in the swamp area. There’s the statue of Balthazar in the Plains of Ashford, which the grawl have turned into Badazar. There’s a Grenth statue over in Lornar’s Pass, tucked away in a remote corner. There’s also the two statues from Serenity Temple in the middle of the Brand. So I’m going to say that any statue that isn’t there today was indeed torn down, either by progress or destroyed by natural disaster.

I like the idea of a Hex condition, but not as it is proposed here. If you want to get rid of a target’s boons, there are plenty of boon-stripping skills out there already. Either that, or it ignores all boons for a very short period, like 1 second or less. Something that might be better is if boons were 50% less effective while hexed, or increases the chance of the target giving a glancing blow/reduces chance of a critical hit.

The candy corn nodes are out there, but perhaps rarer than they were before. I also ran into a door on Gendarren Fields. They exist, but perhaps less common. Keep looking and you’ll find one.

Well, the new zones are all locked into Heart of Thorns content, while Dry Top and Silverwastes were all added as part of Core Tyria, so I can sort of understand why these new maps are all locked into the new chapters. All I want is a way to walk into the zones after I had already unlocked it so I don’t have to either waypoint in or use the portal map. Even if there’s a guard outside similar to how there are guards outside the Fort Trinity asura gates that keeps you out until you do the instance where they are revealed.

If you were to teleport to the Dragon’s Stand instance, you could join other players’ instance of the final chapter, but you would not earn the benefits yourself. If you want to unlock a Viper set for an alt, you’ll need to go through the chapters in order. Good news, though: because the masteries are account-bound, you should be able to speed through the instances and not face the skill locks a second time. As soon as you complete the Prologue and Chapter 1, you can glide straight into Chapter 2.

Oldirtbeard.9834:

Don’t believe me, remember the writers strike from ten or so years ago that gave us LOST season 4, Heroes Season 2?

A writers’ strike is not comparable to a voice actors’ strike. The writers’ strike meant there was no material for the actors to perform, but those who were not in the guild could release material. The Daily Show and The Colbert Report went on brief hiatuses because of the strike, but went back on the air before the strike was over because the stars started doing their own news research. The talent was willing, but they had nothing to do.

If the voice actors go on strike, it is possible that game staff could be substituted to voice the characters. This can be a completely horrible idea, but it can be done. Now, I’m not interested in doing the research myself, but are the VAs who want to go on strike the ones who ONLY do video games, or does it include ones with various VA credits to their name? Who goes on strike could also affect it, as strikes tend to be based off a centralized union.

Amaimon.7823:

But your water anolagy isnt sound. By your anolagy, you could dig a well and use the water(magic) but the magic inside a dragon is the last kind of magic a living creature wants to touch. Even a pendant with a faint aura was corrupted enough to turn loyal soldiers into undead.

I think the water table analogy is fine, but the comparisons are wrong. Leylines are clearly the underground rivers of magic that can be tapped into, so the magic the dragons are eating is more akin to evaporation. The magic gets absorbed into the “sky” (read: dragons) and can’t be used by the creatures on the ground, but once the dragon falls asleep, it starts releasing a steady rain of magic that either fills the air or pools into the leylines.

Also, nothing says that the magic being consumed by the dragons is being corrupted. The only corrupting dragons do is to the living being itself, not the magic. I don’t know how that line of thinking got started, so stop it. Right now.

Problem with the rangers is that druidism is only a recently rediscovered skill, presumably only after learning more about the druids deep in the Maguuma jungles. Before that, they didn’t really have any avatar-esque skill.

Also, do you want to take a stab at why mesmer magic changed from being more mind-altering to spectral summoning? Or why the mantras changed from things that empowered the user to something they could shout in battle, either to heal or harm? Or are these aspects completely separate from your dervish theory?

Tekey.7946:

Manasa Devi.7958:

We got there through a portal made by asura.

A group of asura that have absolutely nothing to do with us went to a place and put that gate there.

And that’s the missing part. Why did they choose the furthermost island? Why did they avoid the nearest island and made a detour that takes days to get there? Just for fun? Sure, that makes sense.

Blame Taimi. She sent the initial team, and probably decided the location based on the pools of ley energy. Or maybe Phlunt decided on the actual portal location. Only the Eternal Alchemy can explain why he positioned his teams where they are.

As for my faith in the narrative team, I trust that they will lead us from point A to point B. I don’t need to be explained how Players X, Y and Z are already there waiting for us, when even in every other map released, they’ve had the maps populated long before our character can get anywhere near it. The Silverwastes had Camp Resolve set up the instant Fort Vandal was abandoned. Dry Top had the Town of Prosperity before even the Zephyrites crashed there. Even Orr and Maguuma was populated with Pact members long before we were ready to go there. So no, I don’t really expect an explanation why Ember Bay was chosen if you’ve rejected all the seemingly reasonable explanations offered so far.

Obsidian.1328:

And since Utopia “evolved” into GW2, and EotN inherited much of Utopia, it follows that EotN was the prelude and intro to GW2.

As such, since things like the Eternal Alchemy, the Pale Tree, and the Elder Dragons themselves(which are all a part of EotN) are diametrically opposed to having “gods” as the masters of magic in Tyria, then it also follows that the decision to downgrade the Six was a fundamental part of any post-Nightfall narrative scenario.

Herein lies the fallacy. Utopia was not initially planned to have multiple playable races, and even if it involved interacting with another race, that didn’t mean the gods were going to be downgraded. Once EotN was released, though, the gods were definitely getting shoved into the closet. All I’m saying is that your cause and effect assumptions were off.

I’m pretty sure most of the airships we had were destroyed in the attack on Mordremoth, and there are only a handful left, like Almorra’s. We’re not quite at the point where every well to do family has their own airship, and making more is probably an expensive proposition. I’m betting that the asura teams took regular boats south from Rata Sum to the Ring of Fire and found the southernmost island to be the most permissive to land on. Plus, it kind of harkens back to Guild Wars 1 days, where the only human outpost on the islands was Ember Light Camp in the southeastern tip of the southernmost island.

If you’re looking for a completely intact narrative explaining all the reasonings of every character as to why they’re doing things, you’re playing the wrong game. Hopefully, we will explore the rest of the Fire Islands soon, but for now, we have a stable camp and the asura gate is assembled and seemingly stable, so we can get people and supplies in and out. There was no guarantee that would happen at any other place in the chain. Perhaps the gates are much like waypoints, and need leyline magic to help support and stabilize them.

Lumpy.8760:

/follow must have been a special arenanet command :o

Not really. Back in the GW1, anyone could follow another player around on any map, and even through a portal (though after that, they’d have to do the follow command again). Otherwise, a single person could theoretically have led around dozens of people (and apparently did).

Escadin.9482:

Offair.2563:

Ranger spirits next to them.

I find them fun in dungeons and group events. Just super annoying to cast for ~2 seconds if you want all of them deployed which makes them practically unusable in less static gameplay.

I miss the days when rangers had a trait that allowed spirits to follow them. However, I will say that I find the frost spirit slightly more useful now that the new destroyers are vulnerable to cold damage; summon and blast almost immediately.

Coming to this very late, but really, I’ve never been one to subscribe to a meta. Metas get formed because people are lazy and uncreative. There’s maybe one or two people who first find these builds and that they work really well for them, then everyone else starts copying it, and soon people start to think that is the only way to play that profession. I say nuts to that! Metas get broken when someone finds a new way to build that no one has tried and breaks all the old assumptions in the meta. (Well, that and during rebalance patches but that’s inevitable.)

You play the way you want to. You find a build that works for you and if other people don’t like it, tough!

…except for raids. raids are really hard and certain things have to be obeyed…

I dunno. It’s one thing to put a scythe skin on a staff, considering you’d hold the two weapons the same way, and certain necromancer skins always create a scythe illusion on staves, but a greatsword is held completely differently, swung differently, and in general doesn’t work the same way. Plus, if we make (great)swords to bendy, they become scimitars instead, and then what skins would we have for the Elona expansion?

I chose the Priory, mostly because my main is a Priory member (even though he wasn’t the one to touch an anomaly). Plus, I don’t trust the Consortium the way I could never fully trust Evon Gnashblade. Oh, not because he’s a charr, but because he’s the leader of the biggest trading corporation in Tyria. I bet his workers aren’t even allowed to unionize…

Zoltar MacRoth.7146:

I miss the BF gliding skills in EB. In fact, I miss them everywhere outside of BF.

Kind of like how you started to miss gliding outside of HoT after you get so used to using it? Unfortunately, I don’t think that one is coming over like gliding did to all of Tyria.

Danikat.8537:

Same with the Legendary Weapons. They weren’t delayed because Anet had pre-planned a fixed schedule and they had to delay the weapons to meet it. They were scrapped completely because making the collections proved to be too much work, then they were brought back without the collections because so many people complained.

The rest of your post was correct enough, but this one I have to step in and address. The legendary weapons were never “scrapped completely”. They were put on indefinite suspension, and while everyone THOUGHT that meant they were cancelled, what it really meant was they were re-examining how they’d be adding in new weapon recipes. They weren’t brought back because people complained, but because they had finally worked out a solution they were satisfied with.

The big thing about ArenaNet is that, unlike many of the companies who look at the latest big thing and try to copy that into their game, this company likes to experiment. And many of those experiments go horribly wrong, but that’s when you learn the most. So do try and be patient when ArenaNet does something new and exotic, because it might blow chunks, but at least you’ll never have to suffer something like that again.

To the initial post, if it isn’t clear by now, it’s highly unlikely that we’ll be killing any dragons without an expansion. It makes for a very convenient “bookmark”, if you will, of what each X-pack will focus on. Before, when ArenaNet were thinking about how they would be bringing in new content, we might have fought a new dragon through just the living world, but when there were complaints about even small events being potentially missed, that’s when a new format had to be found. In the meantime, Season 3 should be building up to how, where and why we’ll be fighting the next dragon, along with small plot points about the “party members” who will be helping us. Let’s tune in next month (hopefully) and watch what shenannigans Dragon’s Watch gets up to this time…

Tekey.7946:

Manasa Devi.7958:

Maybe they had a look around the place?

Do you really expect every NPCs decision to be justified and every last one of their actions uncovered in minute exposition?

In a fictional world with any verisimilitude to it at all, things happening when our characters aren’t present should be the norm, not the exception.

We’ve been over 4 years on the same continent – and then they skip exactly the part of how we got to the islands? We’re not talking about small details like Taimi wearing a new outfit. It’s a major part of the story and they didn’t explain it.

I know you’re playing it off as a minor point, but Taimi’s not the only one whose changed outfits. Marjory sported a new look at the start of Season 3 as well. Not to mention I’ve changed my armor a time or two. Sometimes, I just want different stats, or I was stuck with Masterwork until I found either a rare of the right class or grinded the appropriate crafting skill.

Tekey.7946:

Plus, referring to your NPC’s-can-do-whatever-they-want-to-in-our-absence argument: They didn’t have to send them ahead. They could have let our characters be the first ones going to the Fire Islands (escorting the crew). They decide which part of the story is contained and how it is told. They can cover everything if they want to.
But they decided just to send us through the portal – it’s easier, faster and no one will wonder why our ship started in Rata Sum and ended up being in Ember Bay.

Name one location where the player character arrived at before any other PC. Maybe Rata Novus, but even there, we see some stray investigators doing research on it and just happen to be exploring somewhere else while we’re turning the city back on. It’s normal for the maps to be populated upon our arrival. Just try to accept that and move on.

ps. If you weren’t the one arguing against the handwaiving of how everyone got set up on Ember Bay, I apologise. Your post was just the best at hand.

Endless Soul.5178:

But….I love Pocket Raptors, they’re so cute!

Sorry, but I’m with Rox on this one: if I never have to see a pocket raptor again, it’ll be too soon… unless it’s a juvenile one that my ranger can tame.

Djinn.9245:

Events like this and the Seis events are fillers to give players something to do, maintain interest in the storyline, and give some bits of lore between story episodes. What did the Seis events ultimately accomplish? Have we used the skills from those events since then? Is it likely we will see those “motes” in the future?

I don’t think Seis was about introducing new skills, but was pointing out Primodus moving. Before that, and at the start of Episode 2, we believed that Primordus was still around the old Central Portal Hub (or whatever it was called) and were planning a trip to the Shiverpeaks. Seis, however, tracked a disturbance of magic leading from the northernmost Shiverpeaks point and heading southwest, eventually leading to what turned out to be the Ring of Fire islands. What was the new map in Episode 2? Ember Bay, a Ring of Fire island. Most of the time we’ve been active, the Elder Dragons haven’t really shifted their location, but I’d think an Elder Dragon moving underground would count as a large shift in leyline magic.

Now, what could the magical rifts be hinting at? I don’t have a clue at the moment. All I know is that there is a chance at bloodstone elementals attacking around Gillscale Pond from one of the rifts, so either Bloodstone Fen is getting worse or another bloodstone is getting unstable. I could be wrong on both fronts, but that’s all I got at the moment.

I haven’t quite “finished” the plot with Auris, but I’m pretty sure he’s the one going wibbly-wobbly through time. It’s entirely possible that we, the PC, are unstuck from time, but he remembers us coming to him and explaining what the device does after a point where he fiddles and fools with the thing.

Plus, from a game narrative standpoint, it’s easier for an NPC to be unstuck from time than to somehow have every PC get unstuck in the exact same way.

We see the Crystal Desert on our magical portable maps, so I’d say he’s a central Tyrian dragon. Hopefully, we will get to see some of Elona when we eventually head that way, but for now, it’s either Ebonhawke or Mount Maelstrom for as far southeast we go.

Some of this was lost with the Season 1 info, but the story about Braham is still on the site. Braham’s father died shortly before Cragstead was attacked, which is part of why he travelled to Hoelbrak to meet with Eir. To our knowledge, he never had any ties to the Sons of Svanir, nor would Braham even consider a cult when he helped so much to kill another dragon. So whatever Braham is working out, it has nothing to do with the Svanir.

Also, I have no idea where you got the link of Eir to Jora. I’m not saying you’re wrong, but I don’t remember that trivia nugget. I’m going to play it safe and assume you’re wrong about this as well until I do some more research.

Man, bringing back this discussion reminds me just how brutal it is that the Living Story patches are now months apart. Now I really want to see the Tribunal of Rytlock Brimstone. (Rights to the name are formally waived. ArenaNet, if you want, please use this as one of the instance names.)

Ithilwen.1529:

Folks, Glint gave her life in an effort to save the other races of Tyria. Aurene is her daughter.

If nothing else we need to protect and nurture Aurene as a debt of honor. In addition, there is every reason to suspect that she’ll grow up to be an ally.

Yes, we must protect Jesus’sGlint’s daughter! She was given to us to forgive our sinsabsorb the ambient dragon magic! All hail … no, All hail Aurene!

macon.4065:

I know these posts are old but I am hoping we can reopen this or start it from this point, Sorry Mod this was just too good to pass up.

There’s no harm in necromancing an old thread, so long as there is some productive discussion to come of it. If it’s just to say something like “OMG yes!” or equally inane, that’s what the block is for.

Konig refuted most of the rest of your post, but I’ll focus on this.

And we need to keep in mind in order to maintain the balance of the powers given to the Dragons by the Gods when a Dragon dies those powers need to be divided or we’d have some serious power shifts in the elements. I am more interested what happens when the Gods Guard Dogs are put to sleep permanently . I will assume the Gods will feel the power shifts and come to find out and not be too happy with the races for destroying their plan

Even if the Six Gods were in any way involved with the dragons, which they aren’t, I don’t see them coming back just because we started slaughtering them. They could have created them as a test, one that the five races are finally able to succeed. It would take a pretty massive action to bring the Six back to Tyria, and I don’t see that happening any time soon. Plus, if they did return, that would be a massive power shift in favour of the humans, and none of the other races really need that. I think they’re still the most popular race for characters to create.

I only recently saw the massive anomaly run about, and shortly thereafter had a total of 2 visions before I unlocked Burden of Choice. I tried to switch characters to see if I could talk to Ogden on my Priory character instead of who I did encounter, but no dice; Gixx’s office was locked to all except the one who encountered the anomaly. So I have no idea if I will be anomaly free or not, but I suppose time will tell.

I would like to know more about the giants. There are very few of them scattered around the world, despite them having their own “X Killer” category. Why are there so few of them? Where are they? Do they tend to be more aggressive, or like that one giant, kinder?

I also wouldn’t mind hearing more about the jotun as well. They aren’t nearly as sparse, but why does them giving up magic altogether make them so aggressive to outsiders? I think only that one group in Wayfarer Foothills as part of a heart quest is even the least bit friendly to other races. Maybe as we go to fight Jormag, they’ll be more inclined to aid us.

Also, we don’t know for certain that we are doing two dragons at once yet. We’re only 2 episodes in, and the bulk of the focus has been on Primordus. There’s been some mention of Jormag’s forces moving, but that’s a far cry from “We’re attacking two dragons at once! Everyone panic!” Let’s just wait and see how things progress before we make too many assumptions about the next dragon.

FrostSpectre.4198:

Probably about the dragon legends that say that dragons hoard gold and diamonds to make their own beds.

That’s not the part I thought was significant. The significant part is that there are no skritt that have been converted into minions, despite being in almost literally every part of the world. The only zone I can think of with absolutely no skritt is Orr. And yet, while there are Risen humans, Risen charr, Risen asura and Risen norn, even Risen hyleks and quaggan, there are no Risen skritt. Whether this is an indication of something or not, this is an odd quirk about the pesky race.