Guild Wars 2

I’ve posted why I don’t think Aerin is Soundless here: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/lore/lore/Soundless-Mordremoth/first#post4173624

Soundless is a group of sylvari, not a generic term used to describe a sylvari that has been cut off from the Dream. If a sylvari cut off from the Dream was automatically a Soundless, then Scarlet should be considered Soundless. She was neither a Dreamer nor a Courtier.

I know of five types of relationships a sylvari can have (or not have) to the Dream.

1. Dreamers. The carebears of the sylvari race. This is the PC and the vast majority of sylvari you come across. They embrace the Dream (or don’t actively shun it) and their experience go back into the Dream. They share an empathic bond with other Dream sylvari. Most follow the teachings of Ventari.
2. Nightmare Courtiers. They have been (supposedly) irrecoverably twisted to Nightmare. They are “evil” and don’t follow Ventari, considering his teachings to be a false idea of what sylvari should be. They embrace pain, anguish, suffering – anything they can use to resonate back into the Dream, believing it to be in line with the true nature of the sylvari. The Pale Tree isn’t a fan. To be a Couriter you have to fall to Nightmare, something similar to dragon corruption.
3. Soundless. They meditate and isolate themselves to cut off their connection to the Pale Tree. As far as I know, only a single Soundless village exists in Tyria with a very small population, no known Soundless are found elsewhere. Note that their village is close to the Pale Tree geographically and many Dreamers venture far beyond the Pale Tree. Soundless are not a “type” of sylvari, they are a group of sylvari. To join a group you have to… join the group. You can’t become a member of the Vigil by acting like the Vigil.
4. Scarlet. She never identified as a Dreamer, Nightmare Couriter or a Soundless. She is probably most like the Soundless although they never actively seek to hurt others or the Pale Tree. If cutting off from the Pale Tree makes you a Soundless, how is Scarlet not one of them? Soundless isn’t a state of being, it’s a group of sylvari.
5. Malyck. Some people seem to forget about him. He had no Dream, at least not that he could identify with to Trahearne, Caithe or the PC. A sylvari Dream expert says he is not from the Pale Tree, but an unknown mother tree, suspected to be found somewhere deeper into Maguuma.

Keep in mind there are also sylvari pirates and looters. Some of the pirates are hostile and will burn villages and kidnap people. They aren’t Nightmare Courtiers nor are they following the teachings of Ventari. I’m not sure where they fall in the spectrum of sylvari.

Two mentions of Soundless which are not supported by anything other than a line which happens to be a “Soundless mantra” and directly conflict with Aerin’s portrayal before boarding the ship. Maybe a lot of things, but the things we saw in the game don’t support the idea that he’s Soundless.

Except Aerin was not a Soundless. Not only is the writing seemingly introducing that after the fact (via the PC’s observation and a more detailed mention if you’re a sylvari) it conflicts with his dialogue from his time when trying to board the ship. Many of us discussed Aerin in this forum and his acceptance to the Zephyrites, but it seems none of us documented his dialogue on the wiki. Fortunately someone on tumblr (never thought I’d say that) screen capped it.

http://hyacinth-vale.tumblr.com/post/90532935832/spoilers-for-season-2-chapter-1-who-was-aerin

Two lines in particular indicate he’s not a Soundless.

Aerin: Pale Mother guide me… the Zephyrites are right in front of me, but how can I convince them to let me help?

and

Aerin: I shall record every moment in my journal so that even those who can’t access the Dream know the joy that I’m experiencing.

To me both of these lines clearly establish Aerin as a Dreamer and not a Soundless (they are also very out of character with how quickly Aerin dismisses the Zephyrites and their vows when confronting the Master of Peace). I know people are talking about the line about leaving your burdens behind as suggesting his connection to the Pale Tree is a burden and he became a Soundless (I thought Soundless was a faction, he would need to visit them to join them, Scarlet similarly cut herself off from the Pale Tree and she was never considered a Soundless). Leaving your burdens behind is weak and vague at best, it doesn’t clearly establish he cuts off ties to the Pale Tree, especially when there are two strong lines of dialogue moments before that that clearly establish he still phones his mother once a week, unlike his sister Scarlet.

Also keep in mind Aerin isn’t the only sylvari Zephyrite. We discussed this before (https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/lore/lore/Kodan-and-Zephyrites/first#post4062730) and there was at least one sylvari identified as a Zephyrite other than Aerin. If joining the Zephyrites requires you to become “Soundless” or at least cut off from the Pale Tree, the other sylvari Zephyrite(s) would be similarly vulnerable like Aerin was.

Either the Soundless plot thread is misleading, it’s being very clumsily handled or we don’t have enough information to make sense of it yet. Maybe they only included it to revive/introduce the concept of the Soundless to the wider audience as background for a future plot (not necessarily this one – sylvari seems to be a big theme in season two)? This sub has discussed them in detail, but the truth is if you don’t do that heart in Caledon and you don’t visit this sub, most players never would have heard of them before.

Has anyone visited the Pale Tree or the Soundless village in game since completing the chapter? I doubt the Soundless have ever heard of him (but we should be able to ask about him in a Living World) but the Pale Tree was aware of Scarlet’s encounter with the Entity, if something happened to Aerin she should have been similarly aware of her son becoming lost to her.

Edit: Checked the Pale Tree and she makes no mention of Aerin or anything new. The Soundless I spoke to don’t mention Aerin but one of them, Quillyn, calls the dream a “burden”.

Quillyn: Welcome to the Weeping Isle. Have you come to share our tears or to bring us a smile?
Player: Are your tears bitter or are they sweet?
Quillyn: Neither. Pain is a luxury we can ill afford. After all, we came here to emancipate ourselves from the Dream and the burden it imposes upon us.

So some Soundless sylvari do consider the Dream to be a burden. I would argue that’s not the case for most sylvari (and certainly not Aerin as we knew him).

Quillyn: I hear that Nemi has left us to return to Astoria.
Soundless Villager: Not all are capable of living outside the Dream. I hope she finds happiness in its stifling embrace.

The words “stifling embrace” in no way describe Aerin prior to boarding the ship. This makes me think he wouldn’t consider the Dream a burden.

Quillyn: Last night, I was overcome with thoughts… images of my companions back home.
Soundless Villager: That’s to be expected. In time, with more practice, you will be able to purge yourself of such unwelcome intrusions.

To me that suggests that even if Aerin wanted to cut off ties with the Dream, it’s not something he could do easily. It takes time and practice and he only just got on the Zephyrite ship. Unless the Zephyrites have a special technique or Aerin was naturally gifted in meditation, I doubt he could achieve a Soundless state so soon after beginning his time as a Zephyrite.

I don’t know if it’s specifically looking into their story that they have written, I know I saw a tweet (ugh) last year from one of the writers (I think it was Peter Fries, he usually tweets about astronomy which is cool) mentioning the story structure of True Detective which can only be a good thing. I think they embraced the idea early on last year that their story structure/pacing wasn’t awesome and they looked specifically at television (which they are trying to emulate with the Living Story – this has been stated since the beginning) to see how to do it better. I’m a little concerned by this because GW2 is an MMO, not a TV show. There is so much more to an MMO experience than what you get from a non-interactive medium like TV. I can explore Tyria and my actions should matter in Tyria, I can’t interact with Westeros and anything that happens there is just something I witness.

People playing content before it’s released is far too late to change anything (talking about the previews, that’s marketing not feedback gathering). In some ways, the two week release schedule allows for them to make some changes, but like with Scarlet last year, they planned a year’s story in advance and you can’t change much of that once the ball starts rolling.

I’m not convinced the story goes through a lot of people, at least not in a critical “braintrust” kind of way. I’m sure most of the studio has input (it’s a group product – concept art, environment design, character design, scripting mechanics etc) but going off of what I’ve seen from the writers in the live streams, it really sounds like individual writers have a lot of autonomy when it comes to creating something. As long as it fits into the big picture of events that need to happen, the seem to be able to write how they want to write. I think that’s why the characters often come across as being the one tone.

I would imagine in the studio they

It’s not established that Aerin is not a Pale Tree sylvari. Before boarding the ship he was like any other sylvari. The Soundless mention by the PC came out of nowhere and isn’t supported by anything that Aerin displayed prior to it being said, it was a seemingly random line thrown in there to confuse things.

For all we know, a mursaat (or White Mantle) in Maguuma have discovered a way to get into the minds of the sylvari using the Dream/their magical empathic connection to each other. It hasn’t shown up in other races yet because their minds don’t have that Dream/empathy connection going on.

One of the more interesting questions about all of this, is why haven’t we seen other sylvari aside from Aerin have issues? Assuming it’s geography based (he got close to something) why didn’t it happen to the PC if they are a sylvari? Why didn’t it happen to the other sylvari Zephyrites? I know there was at least one sylvari Zephyrite, have we seen him since the patch? Maybe he was on another ship.

I don’t even know why the Soundless dialogue was put into the game, there was no hint at it before any of this happened and it doesn’t even seem to be a big plot point supported by anything seen or said elsewhere. At no point did Aerin show signs of being a Soundless prior to boarding the ship so it’s kind of frustrating to me that the Soundless mention was put into my PC’s mouth as words I’d say when no context supports its mention. If there is a Soundless plot happening here (wouldn’t it be nice to have an actual sylvari around to talk about these things – instead we have two humans) it’s being handled really clumsily.

There are suggestions Aerin is more like Scarlet than a Soundless, although he never rejected the Pale Tree like Scarlet did.

Master of Peace: Aerin!
Aerin: What? Huh? You’re here?
Master of Peace: Aerin, you have broken your Zephyrite vows.
Aerin: Trivial vows. Trivial people. I’ve seen the bigger picture.
Master of Peace: You’ve lost your mind, and your true heart. I’m sorry. You will not prevail.

Aerin specifically mentions seeing “the bigger picture”. Sounds a lot like Scarlet seeing the Eternal Alchemy. He considers the Zephyrites and their vows to be trivial, again like Scarlet’s view of the world and people around her.

The Master of Peace further elaborates on Aerin’s situation.

Taimi: Why was he after you?
Master of Peace: He started losing his mind on the ship. He’s the one who sabotaged it, you know.
Rox: Yes, we know. Did he want revenge on you for something?
Master of Peace: No. He wanted me to give him power. Great power that he couldn’t handle. I refused. He could not let it go.

Something happened to Aerin on the ship. The Master doesn’t say he was a spy or had ill intentions the whole time, the Master explicitly says “He started losing his mind on the ship”. If Aerin had planned this all before boarding the ship, it wouldn’t be perceived as losing his mind, rather it would come across as premeditated sabotage.

The question (which we can’t answer yet) is what caused Aerin to lose his mind. Best bets are on the same thing that influenced Scarlet (the Entity). In Scarlet’s room there is a paper written by Snaff about controlling golem’s remotely and some mumbo jumbo about leylines and magic (which is everywhere) being used as a medium. I don’t recall exactly what it was and I can’t get back into the instance, but I think it said something that could be linked to mind control. Perhaps it was proximity to the leyline Scarlet was researching, and all the NPCs keep talking about under the mine, that played a role in Aerin’s transformation. If nothing else, the mind control/empathy angle of magic as a medium could play into how the Pale Tree is connected to her children. I’d have to reread the short bit in that instance to go on more about it, but everything a writer does is for a reason. Snaff’s paper is related to what’s going on somehow.

Note the devs: Please make all of the story content easier to access. It’s great that we can replay it now, but ease of access to every piece of it is just as important. Perhaps allow us to select an instance from the journal to trigger the start to enter it at that location. I don’t want to repeat the final mission (or all of them for that matter) just to access a dialogue heavy instance. I also don’t want to sit through biconic banter when I’m trying to hone in on the bigger story going on. Waiting long periods of time in each instance for the biconics to do their thing gets really annoying really fast, especially the more you repeat the instance for achievements or plot details.

It’s hard to see from the normal part of the mission, but the Master of Peace has a new backpack model on him. It looks like a normal guild backpack without the emblem, but it’s kind of oval shaped and full because it’s contents. It also emits an orange glow. My guess is there is a dragon egg in his backpack. That would explain the size, shape and the power that Aerin was after, but it could be many different things. You can get a close look at it by gathering several aspect crystals during the final fight and using them to jump to the platform the Master is on (I think you need two or three lightning and one or wind). Maybe it’s just a visual explanation for where all the aspect crystals are coming from, or maybe a dragon egg’s power can be a portable source of Zephyrite aspect powers.

Mickey Frogeater.1470:

According to injured NPCs the Master of Peace tried to put some strange energy into Aerin when they were traveling but the result was Aerin going mad and some kind of strange energy being released from Aerin that the Master of Peace failed to control….

Where are you getting that from? I never saw any mention of the Master trying put energy into Aerin.

This is the lore forum. You don’t need spoiler tags here, the discussions here by their very nature are spoilers. The only times spoilers would be worth using would be if you have early access to something (like from a preview from a stream) and it’s not yet in the game.

I like jumping but I didn’t like the verticality of Dry Top. I enjoyed it in Bazaar but that was primarily as a sort of side quest and it mostly only mattered for achievements. You could almost fully explore all of the Labyrinthine Cliffs without needing much in the way of jumping skill.

I love exploring the open world of Tyria (and many other players do too – it’s one of the great strengths of the game) but when it’s so heavily reliant on platforming it can become very alienating or stressful for players who don’t enjoy that or aren’t skilled at that. When you opt out of the Sky Crystal scavenger hunt you miss out on an achievement. You still explore the beauty of the map to near completion without it. When you opt out of the aspect skills in Dry Top you can’t even progress past the beginning of the map (the first lightning pull is much harder than the required on in Labyrinthine cliffs because there is no node to pull to and a normal shot will miss the ledge). Suddenly exploring the open world is something you are locked out of.

Keep in mind many players play with a lower ping than privileged Americans and Europeans enjoy, so the performance of jumping skills (this includes the mushrooms from SAB) can be below par for a lot of players.

lordkrall.7241:

Killing people with grenades on a flying airship while trying to be stealthy would be rather stupid.

When we fight him on the other hand he has no need for stealth.

Yeah, he wouldn’t want to risk one of his grenades blowing the ship up. Imagine if that happened? Oh wait.

Has anyone else noticed the iconic character’s voices are being used very heavily across Dry Top? Everywhere you go you can hear Kasmeer in particlar, but Rox also seems to be the generic female charr VA these days. Listening to the two miners in Prospect it became almost impossible to hear it as a new character instead of Marjory and Rox talking to each other. The VAs don’t seem to have enough range to convincingly portray different characters imo (I have this same problem in Skyrim, they used a handful of VAs and you can tell when one has been reused).

It’s very immersion breaking to hear “iconic” characters when exploring the world, only to see that it’s just reused actors for ambient NPC dialogue. I didn’t notice this as much with the vanilla release (maybe because I spent so little time with DE) and while many characters have generic voices (I think Rox in particular was a common female charr voice before the Living Story) they at least preserved the unique sound of iconic characters.

Anyone else hearing “iconic” characters throughout Dry Top? Is it immersion breaking for you? I feel like it would be better to save iconic VAs for iconic characters and use other VAs (or VAs with a convincing range of voices, something I don’t think was displayed well in Dry Top) for generic characters. Hearing a generic character have a similar voice to others in Tyria isn’t as jarring when they are all generic NPCs, when it’s an iconic one it feels wrong.

My least favourite would be quggans, as was explained well by others. They don’t fit the tone of a world I’d like to explore, they are like the Jar Jar Binks of Tyria.

My favourite would have to be tengu. It feels weird even calling them a lesser race – from what I’ve seen, they have enough meaty lore to be a playable race, they have a very relevant history in GW1 (especially the Canthan tengu), they seem to be more intelligent and complex than the lesser races (hylek would probably be the most advanced lesser race if you discount skritt in large numbers and hylek still come across as fairly primitive) and I’d really like to play one and explore the Dominion of Winds, how their culture has evolved over the last 250 years, the (hopefully) Canthan aesthetics as they brought them with them and the ethos that was explored in GW1.

Assuming the tengu don’t count as a lesser race, I’d have to go with jotun. While the grawl are entertaining and have a cool aesthetic, the jotun have a very interesting lore, going back to ancient times and their almost apathetic role in the world now betrays the importance they played in the past.

But we have GW2 now. The events post GW1 are all history now. Evennia’s fate could be explained somehow in GW2, whether it be an event in Ascalon where you come across her ghost and she explains how she died, a stray bit of dialogue or mention in a book at Ebonhawk that mentions a rumour about her or some kind of Shining Blade legend about what happened to her.

Konig Des Todes.2086:

This said, when he joined the Zephyrites one of the dialogues was him asking a Zephyrite where to put his belongings and she replied that it is customary for those joining for the first time leave their burdens on the ground – to which Aerin replied that he would “leave [his] gear and burdens on the dock.”

I took that as a generic reference to leaving your life behind you not specifically cutting a connection with the Pale Tree. I’ve never considered the Pale Tree to be a burden to sylvari, the empathy they feel for each other is a proximity thing and there were few sylvari on the Zephyr Sanctum. The Zephyrite philosophy seems to be one about peace, leaving your burdens behind you is a common cliche when on a journey for inner peace. To reshape yourself into something new and embrace a new life, you can’t bring your old prejudices, grudges etc, you need to let them go, leave them behind you.

To me that doesn’t include becoming a Soundless or cutting off ties with the Pale Tree – plenty of sylvari are free from the Pale Tree’s influence, Ventari’s Teaching or the Nightmare (sylvari pirates are a prime example – they don’t fit the bill of a Ventari sylvari or a Nightmare sylvari, they walk their own path). Scarlet created this false frame for the sylvari where there was a duality to them, Dreamers and Nightmare Court, either Dreamers is very broad and unrestrictive enough to include “evil” pirates (in which case, what restrictions was she talking about if she could be a Dreamer and still act as a pirate?) or Scarlet was just wrong.

Konig Des Todes.2086:

Combine this with the existence of another Zephyrite sylvari (generic named) and a sylvari mentioning that there’s no knowledge of the Zephyr Sanctum in the Dream of Dreams, and it seems like sylvari must become Soundless to join them (hence leaving burdens behind – the burden of memories and their racial connection).

Wasn’t this explained by one of the writers as an indication of how long it’s been since the Zephyr Sanctum last visited Tyria? It’s been so long that no sylvari had heard of them yet. The reason the Zephyrites weren’t in the Dream yet was simply because the sylvari hadn’t come across them yet. We don’t know when the first sylvari Zephyrite joined the ship, it may have been during that very visit and that’s why it wasn’t in the Dream – it only just happened. Alternatively, any sylvari on the ship may have come from another mother tree and any of their experiences wouldn’t be shared with the sylvari of the Pale Tree.

I don’t like working with them at all.

Honestly, it’s just an awkward way of trying to involve the Player Character (PC) in the story while at the same time allowing the story to be all about the biconics. We don’t have any actual agency (as the title of boss would suggest) and all of our actions and observations are scripted (the scene where “you” notice the stab wounds in the victims – no player actually noticed that, but all our characters said it).

They still want to make the biconics important characters and credit them with things that happen in the story, but doing that in the past meant crediting the biconics with the actions and achievements of the player (this was an issue with Kiel, but it also happened with biconics, fortunately for them the writers started writing things a little differently by the time the biconics became more involved). As their “leader” the assumption is they will always be around, everything we do we do with them now (unenthusiastic “yay”) and anything accomplished (even if it’s done by them, replacing our role in the game’s story) can be credited to us, their “leader”.

Other things that conflict with it come in the form of shrugging off our identities before the biconics even existed. Someone in the new release gives token recognition to our status as a member of the Pact. Our PCs are forced to deliver the line of dialogue “I haven’t been very active lately” or something like that. Even though we took out an Elder Dragon and there is an active conflict with Jormag and Kralkatorrik occuring in Tyria as we know it, we’ve been forced to say we choose to hang out with the biconics instead of act in the superior capacity as a member of the Pact (or even one of the Orders).

At the end of the day the big picture remains the same. The biconics still take the spotlight, we don’t have choices of any kind, our unique histories are nothing but stray mentions and events play out as they would if the PC wasn’t even mentioned by anyone. All that’s changed is a little bit of semantics. We are playing a singular story on train tracks with token recognition that dismisses our past with nothing more than token mentions. It might sound harsh, but play Skyrim or The Walking Dead and see a better (but not perfect) way of giving meaning to our choices and recognition to our identity. Both games still have important NPCs but neither feels like the player has no agency and it always feels like your story, not everyone else’s and you’re just a witness.

I know there is a lot of talk about the Gates of Maguuma, but seeing some lose threads from GW1 brought up reminded me of this big one that never got finished. Last I recall, Evennia was sent on a diplomatic mission to Ascalon but Aldelbern refused to see her. She disappeared shortly afterwards.

The GW:B team lead swapped from Linsey Murdock to John Stumme (who gave us the awesome Winds of Change closure plot for Factions) but we still never saw Evennia’s story continue. I haven’t read Sea of Sorrows and I’m sure there are still mysteries I don’t know about hidden throughout Ascalon, but was Evennia’s fate ever revealed in GW2? Presumably she was killed by bandits, charr or something else dangerous wandering Tyria, more likely Adelbern may have done something to her, as a long shot, is it possible some surviving members of the White Mantle had something to do with her fate? Maybe if season two explores the White Mantle again this seemingly dead plot thread could get some closure.

I don’t think it’s a coincidence that Aerin is a sylvari (just like I don’t think it’s a coincidence that Scarlet was a sylvari when she went into Omadd’s device). I’ll remind people of the dialogue from the A Study in Scarlet (Sherlock Holmes reference btw) instance from Season 1. It talks about the moment we think changed Ceara/Scarlet.

Vorpp: This is Synergetics Headmaster Omadd’s isolation module. A sylvari named Ceara went in; Scarlet came out.
Vorpp: I reverse-engineered an image of Ceara’s aura patterns before and after. The schism is pronounced and dramatic.
Vorpp: Yesss. I remember Professor Omadd. He outsmarted me in several Pollymock[sic] tournaments. I’m sure he cheated…but that’s beside the point. He never should have put Ceara in that cube.
Player:What can you tell me about the cube?
Vorpp: His notes say its purpose was to shut down the mind’s security system and open it—like opening a door—to welcome in the truths of the Eternal Alchemy. But our minds are protected for a reason.
Player: When Scarlet looked across the open threshold, she saw things. And something looked back.
Vorpp: Ceara encountered something that literally broke her mind, but the only things in there were things she brought.
Vorpp: I surmise she was directly exposed to a part of her own psyche that had been carefully walled off. Perhaps for her own protection?
Vorpp: We’d need to do far more extensive study of the sylvari Dream before I could draw any more-detailed conclusions.

Keep in mind the dialogue options rule out incorrect options, so the writers are telling us this is the correct conclusion (unless they are forcing the PC to be wrong).

The thing about Ceara’s transformation is that she presumably had her mind’s protections stripped by Omadd’s device. This obviously didn’t happen to Aerin. If anything did happen to Aerin, assuming he wasn’t acting before boarding the ship (he seemed genuine at the time) it happened while he was on the ship and if he was behind the sabotage it happens as the ship flies over Maguuma, where we suspect Mordremoth is.

Maybe Scarlet needed to have her mind’s protections stripped by Omadd’s device because she was a long way away from Mordremoth who was sleeping at the time. Now it’s awake and its power might be stronger, able to influence a sylvari’s mind simply on proximity alone.

Honestly, do we have any reason to believe Aerin is a soundless aside from NPCs clumsily mentioning the Soundless? Did Aerin himself mention being a soundless or turning away from the “shelter” of the Pale Tree?

Konig Des Todes.2086:

Stooperdale.3560:

Have we been told in game whether all Sylvari are immune to dragon corruption, including the nightmare court, including the soundless?

The wording was “those born of the Pale Tree” die when touched by corruption, rather than becoming corrupted.

I thought it was more along the lines that the sylvari die before the corruption takes hold rather than explicitly stating corruption kills. We’ve been over this before and it ends up going down to semantics, but I think it’s more accurate the second way of saying it because it’s doesn’t explicitly say they don’t get corrupted, just that the process of corruption results in death. Maybe the corruption isn’t killing them, maybe the Pale Tree’s “protection” is killing them like a captured spy would swallow a cyanide pill, without the “protection” they are similarly vulnerable like other races.

Neither Scarlet nor Aerin seem to act as we traditionaly know dragon corruption to work, so assuming Mordremoth is behind their persona change (Scarlet’s change merely states an entity not specifically Mordremoth – I don’t even think that name has been spoken or written anywhere in Tyria, it’s simply from a combat log) it might work differently from dragon corruption, more like influencing their mind rather than corrupting it (and Scarlet’s fierce independence from the moment of her birth may have allowed her to “fight” off the influence better than Aerin ever could). We know there were other sylvari on the Zephyr Sanctum yet afaik Aerin was the only one to act “crazy”. In some cases the PC is a sylvari and also doesn’t change in the area, so there has to be something like Aerin (for instance, assume he’s a Soundless) that would make him vulnerable.

Between the centaur camp flag (BWE icon for the Grove), Malyck’s mother tree likely being in Maguuma, the (imo) deliberate choice to make both Scarlet and Aerin sylvari, I think we are in for a sylvari lore heavy season two. I don’t think it will be long before we run into sylvari from another tree and learn more about the Dream.

Aaron Ansari.1604:

Thanks to the holo, we can pretty much confirm that Scarlet invented the steam creatures herself, and that the Lornar’s invasion was her way of getting rid of unneeded prototypes. Interestingly, she also said she sent others to Brisban… does anyone know what that might be referring to?

For Brisban I know the personal story instance involved them, but I thought that was the alternate reality PC causing that. There are some steam creatures in Thaumanova (I believe) but there are creatures from all over Tyria there.

Honestly I was hoping for a much more interesting origin story for the steam creatures rather than shrugging it off as one of Scarlet’s discarded pet projects. Oh well, the tech theme wasn’t to my liking and at least now their origin story doesn’t compete with a story I do want told – like the Wizard Tower in Kessex.

Aside from clearing up lose threads through another “tell and not show” exposition dump featuring an asura, did anyone else wonder why all the focus on the steam creatures now? Maybe they just fit into Scarlet’s time line and it was just a part of her time in Prospect (to be fair, the journal covers her time with Omadd which was definitely in Rata Sum) but I was getting a Terminator vibe from the talk about self repairing almost evolving steam creatures. It seemed like they were laying the ground work for a steam creature army invasion to take place in the future. I hope I’m wrong (more high fantasy, less high technology).

Aaron Ansari.1604:

Now… can we talk for a minute about how there’s a multi-racial town out here that no one has heard about? If it was just human, sylvari, and asura, that would be one thing, but how did norn and charr end up there without Tyria as a whole ever knowing it existed?

It’s “subtle” but the town seems to be vaguely portrayed as a wild west type of town. It’s settled by outcasts (partly why Riot Alice is there). People who don’t fit in elsewhere or want to live outside of traditional law abiding areas go there. It’s not an official settlement for humans, sylvari or asura, it’s just people who didn’t fit in elsewhere. You can fanwank that the charr there are probably gladiums, they have no reason to stick with traditional charr society. As far as the norn goes (or other races really), it’s just generic “diversity and representation” quotas for the writing.

The Master of Peace has a secret, that much is certain. I’m thinking it’s related to the powers they get from Glint and the plot thread of Glint’s child/children (there was a mission in GW1 where you defend one of Glint’s offspring – http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Glint%27s_Challenge). That makes more sense that stabby stabby.

The Brotherhood of the Dragon (a dwarven faction specifically dealing with Glint and her legacy) passed on their responsibilities to the Zephyrites. The Brotherhood protected Glint’s baby dragon, presumably the Zephyrites know what happened to it. Maybe its location is somewhere in Maguuma (although why a freaking dragon needs protection from the Zephyrites is beyond me)? Glint was a prophet and could see the future (or something in that ballpark) so any interpretation of that power could fit into any story imaginable (maybe Zephyrites know something because of the foresight powers etc – there was mention during the Bazaar the Zephyrites were keen to leave as soon as possible).

Why would the Master of Peace need to sabotage his own people? Presumably if he wanted to run off through the desert on his own, he could have done so. He was a leader, assuming he had any power he could have gotten what he wanted without murder (then again, authority in Tyria seems to bend to the writer’s will – for some reason a location in Maguuma was suggested to be handed over to Ellen Kiel, from freaking Lion’s Arch).

As far as distrust of sylvari goes, if they keep pulling terrorist attacks like this, all of Tyria is going to have an issue with them, regardless of whether it’s individuals or not.

So what you’re saying is, nothing is happening?

Waypoints are a lore thing now. It doesn’t make sense for anyone to be en route to anywhere.

Aerin seems to change a lot from when we see him trying to get onto the ship to when we come across him in Maguuma where he is very different and even a little confused. Is it possible he was a good intentioned sylvari when boarding the ship, but when they flew over Maguuma his increased proximity to Mordremoth resulted in him losing it?

Maybe he did intend to sabotage the ship from the beginning and his actions before getting on were all an act (he was asking a lot of questions), but maybe something else was going on?

I am increasingly concerned about the core of the story being told through exposition dumps, particularly when they come from Taimi. The world should tell the story, not the characters. We keep being told about ley lines or little plot details about Scarlet, but we aren’t seeing these things, the biconics (and other characters) are being used as crutches to tell the story.

Personally I felt like most of the biconic banter was very self indulgent and took away from the moment or needlessly prolonged my advancement. Listening to Kasmeer and Marjory talk about each other, or Taimi Braham and Rox interact with each other (and their views on the world) began to grow very tedious by the end of the instances. I was trying to focus on the Zephyrites, the people that died, but I’m having to listen to Marjory and Kasmeer instead. They weren’t adding anything to story, they were just slowing it down or distracting. They seem to constantly undermine the serious tone of the story.

Even when it came to a murder investigation Marjory (the person who kinda specialises in that) defers to the player to point out stab wounds. As I player I couldn’t see that, they looked like ordinary bodies to me. In Telltale’s The Walking Dead game, I would see stab wounds and be able to point them out myself. In GW2 I just say the words put into my mouth by the writers about something I can’t actually see. I was more surprised than Marjory that there were stab wounds even though my character was saying it. That took me right out of the moment. My character felt like a biconic – someone else’s story, not my own. Honestly, Marjory should have pointed out the stab wounds – I’m a commander of the Pact, not a homicide detective. This kind of forced agency hurt more than it helped.

Weindrasi.3805:

Kasmeer and Marjory are great. In the previous season, Kasmeer was the vulnerable one and Marjory the “tough” one. That was fine, but I’m glad to see their roles evolving. Now, Kasmeer is acting as the tough one—being protective over Marjory. They’re both showing their competence and depth—Kasmeer has come a long way from the noblewoman we first met in Southsun. I love the showcase of her Mesmer abilities.

That was never the case. Kasmeer hasn’t grown or evolved, she was always the same as she is now. She didn’t go through a training montage last year and learn how to be a mesmer, she learnt how to be a mesmer before Marjory ever met her. The primary source of Kasmeer being less than any one else was Marjory. Marjory was the one who fabricated this idea that Kasmeer was vulnerable or needed protecting. We never see Kasmeer be vulnerable in a fight, every time we’ve seen her use her powers she comes off as the most powerful mesmer in Tyria, whether it be stripping a veil, creating an exit portal in Kessex from inside the Tower of Nightmares (not only a greater range than a normal mesmer but she didn’t need to be at the exit location), creating several more clones than a normal mesmer and blinking to places a mesmer can’t blink to. Kasmeer has never been portrayed as anything but OP, certainly not weak. Her only vulnerability was a financial one.

I thought it was just audio distortion.

Let’s be real, it doesn’t make lore sense that we are hanging out with the biconics or that DE are on the back burner. They simply can’t get access to the voice actors frequently enough so they created the representation team (tumblr would be so happy) with easier to access voice actors.

In season one they were also avoiding many personal story NPCs to avoid crossing the line for players who never finished the personal story.

sazberryftw.3809:

Zinus.6893:

Still not as good as the first 30 levels of personal story (where it really felt personal), but worlds ahead of the personal story finale!

I think I’ll wait a bit till the bugs are fixed (they kinda ruin the moment), but if the rest of the missions are this challenging/interesting than this is on the right track

You really enjoyed the first 30 levels? I found that crap BORING as hell. It was NOT personal at all. The things we picked during creation were involved in one quest.

Also, out of interest, which bugs? O: Not sure if I’ve seen any?

I thought they were the best story telling the game has done. You make choices the whole way through (including who you want as your allies), unlike the Living Story where you have to bring the same five people with you and there is no choice or agency, only the illusion of it in the form of predetermined paths and dialogue.

I really liked how the first 30 levels were heavily rooted in your race. It really fleshed out your character’s identity and their role in Tyria. You choose friends and allies, you decide the fates of people around you (or your own) and all the characters involved are there because they are a party of the story, not because they were created to be wedged into every story.

A sylvary named Aerin joined the Zephyrites during their last visit to the Labyrinthine Cliffs. He was pretending to be a trader. As the ship was flying over Dry Top, Aerin detonated explosives onboard causing the ship to crash.

It turns out, the Master of Peace (a leader from the Zephyrites) has some kind of power that Aerin wants but the Master of Peace refused to give it to him (this happened off screen). The Master of Peace runs away from the ship’s crash site and Aerin chases him. The player arrives at Dry Top after being tipped off by E (who’s identity is unknown but he/she is well informed around Tyria) and tracks down Aerin by following clues from the crash site (while dealing with coincidental Inquest scavengers) to the mining town, to the location on the outskirts of the map.

Upon confronting Aerin we find out he seems a little strange, comparisons are made with Scarlet’s state of mind. We kill Aerin but the Master of Peace still has something to do further into Maguuma, so he runs off without us after mentioning some Zephyrites know what he is about to do, and those that don’t know enough not to ask about it.

We return to town where we discover Scarlet was studying leylines there and supposedly found one. Scarlet’s time in the mining town occurred before the Living Story began.

So the questions leading towards the next release would be…

Who (if anyone) was Aerin working for?
What is the Master of Peace doing further into Maguuma?
What did Scarlet discover about the ley line?

Big Picture questions (unlikely to be explained next release) would be…
Does any of this have to do with Glint’s dragon child?
Are those vines in Brisban the first signs of Mordremoth (obviously they are but it’s not discussed yet)?
What does Scarlet’s actions last year have to do with the events this year? Are we going to see the steam creatures pose a bigger threat?

ArenaNet hired George R.R. Martin. I heard Marjory might propose to Kasmeer, I’m sure it’ll be an uneventful wedding.

There’s a big difference this time around compared to season one. In season one almost all of their scenes were optional. You could complete all the content without ever having to spend time listening to them talk because it was ambient dialogue at a camp or something.

Suddenly we spent an entire release following them around, while we thought we were investigating a terrorist attack and delving into a new part of the world, what we were really doing was listening to these two go on about themselves, each other or their family. You couldn’t skip it – it was required to sit through it to progress the instances.

It was really strange, these instances felt like The Walking Dead the game, well in a way. I don’t mean the tone or the story, but these instances felt like an interactive novel/puzzle game with minimal gameplay. Unlike The Walking Dead, you have no agency – you still have to make the exact choices the biconics offer you. It feels weird playing a game where the gameplay becomes minimal and the NPCs talking about each other becomes such a big component of it.

Baamoink.4281:

Given their involvement in season 1, it would be a bit odd if they disappeared from the story all of a sudden right now.

We’re in Maguuma and members of the Pact as well as one of the three Orders. It’s strange that the biconics are in the story at all. Now that we know Scarlet is involved (again…) it’s tolerable that the biconics stick around, but what business do the biconics have in Maguuma in the first place? It would have made more sense to pair us with Seraph, Zephyrites (who wouldn’t like a prominent Zephyrite NPC to work with?) or someone from our Order or the Pact (dragon activity and all). I just hope once the Scarlet story is tied up the biconics can be shelved and the story can move onto more world relevant NPCs. Wouldn’t it be awesome if each release had three optional paths to take based on your Order instead of the playdate the writers put us on with the biconics?

The Living Story prompt said meet your “allies” (instead of “friends” like all the marketing has been saying) so personally I think we are off to a good start.

Browsing through some of the released previews for the coming release you can find a big spoiler for what happens in the first episode. It’s from sources that legitimately obtained that information so I figure it’s OK to post here. Do not read if you don’t want to be spoiled to big plot details.

Maybe Glint’s children are in that direction? With Kralkatorrik corrupting the Crystal Desert the Maguuma Wastes might be a similar but safer environment to relocate them to?

The reality is, Zephyrite lore states they travel long distances to trade with anyone they can. Look how far the Labyrinthine Cliffs is from Lion’s Arch. If that’s where they anchor to do business with a nearby group of people, imagine how far they must travel.

Isn’t Modremoth’s rise in the cinematic portrayed as taking place under a jungle and not a desert?

Sirius.4510:

Yeah, I’m pretty sure this means they’re not heading to Cantha, which is interesting. I hadn’t figured on them having anything to do with Season 2 either.

This became clear when Taimi started talking about the mysterious cargo. They were setting up some kind of plot, we just had no reason to know what it was. Combine that with the Zephyrites on the ships with ambient dialogue about strangers with prying questions and a black market referenced previously as a future plot, it seems like the ships were sabotaged.

Aaron Ansari.1604:

If that’s Vandal, they have a new vine problem.

It’s probably on the other side of the portal inside of Fort Vandal. The appearance of Inquest supports the idea that the black market and Belinda are all linked to the Triad. My guess is the bandits are using the lawless lands of the Maguuma Waste as a safe haven from prying authorities (which conveniently places the story in the vicinity of a waking dragon to make a coincidental appearance – assuming those vines aren’t related to it in the first place).

My guess is the explosions are the cargo Taimi couldn’t get a reading on, so the Zephyrite ships were sabotaged (conveniently as they flew over territory the bandits could ambush them in as they crashed).

Where are people getting Aetherblades from?

I actually found the Biconics to be too out of character for their racial lore (well some of them).

Rox to me is the biggest offender. She’s too nice, too cute, she doesn’t have that ruthless Spartan solider vibe to her. Her decision to prioritise a friend over a mission (save Braham over fight Scarlet) seems very out of character for a charr, especially a charr that is supposed to be on the lowest rung of the ladder (despite dealing with one of the race’s greatest champions) and desperate to regain some status and value in her society. She casually talks about gladiums but it feels like she’s talking about someone else, it never feels like it’s her story because everything we see from her tells a different story – personal missions from a Tribune, agency uncharacteristic of a soldier, delegate to a royal birthday to an important diplomatic region etc. They sanded down the rough and aggressive side of the charr to create Rox. When she does growl or get serious, she comes off as a kitten and not a lioness.

Norn are supposed to be legendary and often fiercely independent yet Braham is like a puppy, following others along and coming off as friendly and huggable rather than an intimidating warrior or achiever of great feats. Sure he still has that cliché stupidity so many norn have (which was hard to see after disliking Gullik for the same thing but loving Eir for being so wise and strategic) but he has it without the heroic trade off it brings to other norn. Braham has bravado but he can’t back it up (this comes across to me as too extreme just to be inexperienced youth) and he has the least amount of agency in the group (somewhere close to Kasmeer, a woman with poor life skills and no money) when norn as a race are supposed to have an unusually large amount of agency. They don’t have armies, they have legends. They pave their own path and are encouraged to chase their own legend, yet Braham is tagging along with Rox or being bullied into baby sitting an asuran child. He isn’t comfortable being on his own and doing his own thing, he sulks when Rox is pretending like she might join Rytlock’s warband. It’s cute and some players respond well to that, but it undermines his portrayal as a member of a proud and heroic race. Consider for a second the asuran child, who is not only disabled but is also a minor, has more agency that an adult norn, in fact she ends up removing his in favour of her own.

Kalavier.1097:

“Stereotypes”

Taimi is not a typical Asura either. She fights against her assigned college, wanting to be in another, if not study all of them (It’s why she was so fascinated by Scarlet, she liked the idea of just studying whatever you wanted).

To me that does fit an asura. Sure wanting to study outside an assigned field might be a slight twist, but she still has that self-centred, genius, master race superiority thing going (the slight details don’t break the mould). Taimi fits in with her race’s usual portrayal but they have sanded down all the typical rough edges and added a bow to them. Vulnerability is a core element of the asuran race – it’s why golems are so common place. Their diminutive bodies make them physically less capable, so they rely on their intelligence and ingenuity to overcome this. Taimi epitomises this with her disability (physically less able taken to an extreme) and her use of golemancy to overcome it (asuran intelligence and ingenuity). It’s Taimi’s friendliness and eagerness to spend time with the other Biconics that makes her uncharacteristic of an asura (compare that to Gadd’s contempt for bookahs, Oola’s apathy or Zojja’s disdain). I can’t even remember the last time I heard an asura say bookah.

Kasmeer is about as cliché as a human, female, noble mesmer can be.

I think it’s important to preserve racial identities when writing the world of Tyria, I think there is plenty of room to write characters that still fit a racial identity but aren’t caricatures or constant cliches of it. To me, Eir did this well. Norn weren’t portrayed as particularly smart or wise in EotN or Ghost of Ascalon, but Eir came across as wise, strategic, intelligent, co-operative and empathetic. She still comes across as heroic, strong, capable, independent, reverent and traditional, but she did so with becoming a cliché. She still represents the values and customs of her people, but she has her own identity and background that forms a unique person. Blurring the lines between racial identities homogenises the story and kills off some of the things that made exploring Tyria so interesting.

The Mesmer Collective is just a magical shoehorn used to wedge Kasmeer into the Tower of Nightmares release.

Konig Des Todes.2086:

The latter personal story trivialized NPC death by having it happen all around us for no real reason, and predictably too!

I didn’t see it that way. I saw it as the story communicating that is a high stakes war and the danger is real. The lore prior to PS depicts the Elder Dragons as winning the war. Their champions were incredibly difficult to defeat and the dragons themselves were believed to be unkillable.

A military campaign against them would be like an episode of G.I. Joe if no-one died fighting them, it would be absurd. Characters needed to die. Named ones, unnamed ones, major ones, minor ones. Not because the writers are trying to reinforce the emotional impact of their deaths but because death is a common part of the story they were telling (and it should be).

Death should be a trivially common thing in a campaign against an Elder Dragon, it looks weird to players because the NPCs constantly treat it like it’s not (which is in tone with world).

I recently finished playing Season One of Telltale’s “The Walking Dead” and there were a lot of character deaths in that game (the % of total protagonists that died was high). I cared about a lot of them. I would only spend a few scenes with some characters that would die soon after and that would impact me and many other players felt the same, to me that busts the myth that a character needs to be around a long time to have emotional investment.

I think the PS gets a bad rep for this issue because of Apatia specifically. We spend little time getting to know her (made worse because her story is divided into different branching options) and the major source for why we should feel bad she died is because we had agency (the choice you make in A Light in the Darkness) in her death. This was quickly followed by the unusual moment where you mourn her death, travel to Hoelbrak and speak of her legend (not a problem on it’s own, but juxtapose that with how you deal with Foral’s death). She likely wasn’t special to most players yet her death was treated as special (I don’t think we ever specifically mourn our Order mentor, someone most players were more invested in, one of which is also a norn). That came across as poorly trying to create investment in a character that was created simply to die. The problem isn’t that Apatia dies, it’s that her death is written to be more significant to the PC than it was to the player.

One of the sources for why the story isn’t as dark as it could be would be the Biconics. They are written like characters from a pamphlet about diversity, prejudice and inclusion,without any of the real world issues or conflicts that come with those plots which happen to be some of the most powerful story tools. Tyrion in GoT is a rewarding character because he faced prejudice all his life, most of all from the people who should love him most, his family. Simply because he’s a “dwarf”. Oberyn in the show was so easy to rally behind and invest in because he was surrounded by people who looked down on kittens or people of low birth, who treated women poorly. All he had to to was not be those things and be a champion for his sister and her children (and Tyrion) and he became one of the most popular characters in the show (he was also handsome, charismatic and convincingly heroic). The Biconics fail to shine because the world around them is already very bright. Game of Thrones, the Walking Dead – these are dark worlds full of injustice and horror.

Rox is supposed to be a gladium, one of the lowest people in charr society but we first meet her when she has the ear of the most prominent charr in Tyria (quick, name an Imperator, side point – name Jennah’s cat – human bias much?). Nothing we see about her life communicates that she has it bad. She regularly reports to Rytlock, she’s a freaking delegate at a royal birthday party, she has more agency than most charr and she gets heralded as a hero and is introduced to important leaders like the Master of Peace. People take her seriously, they judge her on her accomplishments instead of her social status (something the lore says should matter but it doesn’t) and her gladium status (arguably even her race as a consequence) comes across as a token badge for diversity as opposed to a real story that is being told. Kasmeer is similar, she’s supposed to face prejudice due to losing her status (something most human’s don’t have to begin with), yet she constantly looks better than most of us will on our wedding day (lol mesmer illusion lol), she has agency and was still respected by Logan and Faren. We never see her face any prejudice or difficulty, we are merely told about it. We are told the Biconics are outcasts, but we see the Biconics get treated more seriously than most other people in the story.

Konig Des Todes.2086:

It seems that the magic exuded by Elder Dragons is non-corruptive when they sleep but just generic magic.

Svanir was corrupted by Drakkar (a sleeping? minion of Jormag) doesn’t that imply dragon magic can corrupt when the dragon sleeps?

Kalavier.1097:

Um, what? How is a BATTLEFIELD injury a liability? It’s not like they tripped alarms or stumbled and broke their legs. They got injured from an explosion. A pact team would’ve encountered the SAME EXACT THING.

An experienced team may have encountered the same thing, but maybe they wouldn’t have. It’s possible a more experienced group of adventurers would have used aegis, stability, mist form, distortion, black powder etc before going in for a stomp :P. A liability is something which is a disadvantage, someone who can’t fight and actually needs to be protected is very much a disadvantage.

A Pact team would’ve had their medical trained person do the same thing.

I viewed it as the mission is what matters most. A Pact team would prioritise the mission over the individual (this a recurring issue for me with the biconic’s characterisation – they feel like a naive child’s heroic team, where friendship and love are most important). You do what you need to get the job done, even if it costs lives. That’s what happened in the fight against Zhaitan . In this specific case, Rox had a mission to stop Scarlet. In that moment, stopping Scarlet was the most important thing. Put it this way, what if Rox’s decision to aid Braham and Marjory saved their lives but the PC and Kasmeer failed to finish Scarlet off? Scarlet goes unstopped, she either escapes or has another chance to kill everyone else. It all works out in the end because it’s a story and the writers decide who wins and loses, but just like Logan abandoning his mission to help Jennah resulted in terrible things, Rox choosing to help Braham and Marjory could have resulted in the deaths of the PC, Kasmeer and possibly everyone fighting for Lion’s Arch. If I can choose five people in Tyria to take down an Elder Dragon I’m going to choose the five who will do it at all costs, even their or their friend’s lives.

In the lore, six people were in that room killing Scarlet. not a thousand people.

I highly doubt they’ll say that thousands of heroes raided the molten facility, or killed scarlet.

Why couldn’t Scarlet die on the platform? That’s how she was defeated, not in some room where we were handed a scripted stomp. Nothing that happens in that room takes place unless an entire army defeats her outside. Each player chooses to enter the room but only one character is recognised by the story (thousands of times). It doesn’t have to be that way.

BTW there were multiple Molten Facilities. I don’t know what the official lore stance is, but as far as I can guess, the facilities were taken down by an army of players and Vigil, Braham and Rox are just two of many people who entered them.

Aaron Ansari.1604:

I’ll agree that the biconics didn’t serve much as an integral part of the story, but they did fill a very necessary role- recurring characters, when they’re good (and I do believe this set are), are needed to invite emotional investment in what was otherwise a disjointed, often whacky (more frequently than would’ve been healthy), continent spanning series of events. I can’t speak for others, but they were the only thing that pulled me back after the June-August releases left me fighting an urge to throw up my hands in disgust and abandon the Living World entirely. Without the biconics in season 1, the disconnect with the existing world would have been nigh-total, and the only personifying elements to what would otherwise be a bimonthly rinse-and-repeat wade through a sea of mobs would’ve been Kiel and Scarlet. Think about how much worse it would’ve been if we had to stake our investment on them.

I don’t have a problem with recurring NPCs, I actually enjoy them. Like you pointed out, I don’t like it when the NPCs exist for the sake of existing. I believe the majority of Season One the biconics competed with the story. They upstaged characters that should have taken the spotlight (Kiel leaving the Breachmaker is one example, the biconics being the only NPCs at marionette is another, the fact that our Orders did participate in the story, yet despite our membership in the Orders we spent all our time speaking or reporting to biconics instead of the organisations we joined to get stuff done). Even now the biconics overshadow the Bazaar release. While they are a strength of season one, they are also a weakness. I think recurring characters are important, I also think it’s necessary that they serve the story (and the lore) well, not the other way around.

draxynnic.3719:

I’m getting an impression, though, that the first category is increasingly becoming the minority among the Court. It was probably more dominant among the earlier recruits, but I think nowadays the Court has shown its true colours such that the ideology has become an increasingly transparent excuse and few sane sylvari fall for it any longer. Now, it’s probably mostly about teh evulz.

Has the court changed or has the writing changed? I know it ends up being the same thing, but the way Scarlet’s alliances were written, it feels like any enemy organisation being “mostly about teh evulz” is a trend in the writing, not a deliberate direction for that faction to go in. That’s why they back-pedalled and said the alliances are “splinter groups” – because their Living Story presence was shallow and didn’t match their complexity before Scarlet came along.

Personally I really enjoyed the original ideologies of the Nightmare Court. It never sat well with me that the sylvari were blindly indoctrinated into Ventari’s teachings. Going as far as to torture puppies and “do it for teh evulz” isn’t a sympathetic stance, but there was a compelling middle ground that doesn’t really get explored. If we’re being fair, Cadeyrn had a lot of good points, the least of which is the unearned privilege of being a Firstborn.

Fortunately Caithe has some bite to her and we may get to explore some more compelling sylvari if Maguuma opens up this year.

lakdav.3694:

What is done is done though, no point in going back and pretending that we never were the leader of DE2. What i propose is making DE2 part of the world too, one capable group out of many, that happens to have the second in command of the Pact as its leader. We can be the middleman between the Pact (just one of the other capable groups) and DE2. If possible, our characters can also be the middleman with groups of our personal stories too. Whatever makes it feel more natural to see masses of other people/players roam around the same heavily hostile environs as we, the supposed heroes do.

Why do we need to be a middleman for DE2 at all? Why bother? What do those five people offer that isn’t accomplished by the wider organisation of the Pact? Honestly, the last time we did anything with them they were a liability (one broke a leg, one almost died, one abandoned their mission to play nurse and the third went into a reckless and emotional rage, that’s the kitten that gets people killed) and even if they weren’t, we know Scarlet was defeated by an army, not by five. What place did DE2 have in that story at all? Why wouldn’t we have NPCs (biconics included) that do what they did in the Personal Story – they have a role in the world, they deliver exposition, give context to the story and the players do the heavy lifting. Have the story recognise that accomplishments aren’t the work of Kiel or the Biconics, nor are they the work of a “leader”. Scarlet was taken down by the heroes of Tyria – thousands of them. The Molten Facilities were raided by the Vigil and thousands of heroes (two of which happen to be Rox and Braham but they aren’t more special than anyone else).

Going forward (or even looking back) I don’t see why we should be spending time with the Biconics at all. What do they offer that the Pact doesn’t? The Pact has the knowledge of the Priory, the connections of the Order of Whispers and the military strategy and presence of the Vigil. As a high ranking Pact member, why would I bother talking to Braham when I can talk to Wynett, Doern or Laranthir? If I wanted to investigate corruption in the Ministry, absolutely Marjory is the perfect NPC to carry that story (I really hope they reserve her for stories like this, not use her as an “apply to all scenarios” hero). If I need a contact in the gladium quarters of the Black Citadel Rox makes sense. If I’m heading off to investigate the mysteries of the Maguuma jungle, the only biconic I’d be interested in seeing is maybe Taimi.

BTW I liked having Caladbolg. I wish you could craft it.

Mr Mango.3504:

The Pact being destroyed at the beginning of a new arc because of a new BIG BAD (Morde, not saying he’s a cliche but using him in this way would make him more cliche) is a terrible cliche. Please don’t listen to this, Anet.

What if Zhaitan destroyed the Pact? Few people were happy with the Personal Story ending and to be honest, it has made Elder Dragons look kinda pathetic. To put it bluntly, that final fight was really lame. On top of that, it has been shown to be very difficult to definitely state that Zhaitan is dead – we’ve only seen “defeated” (feel free to link the thread talking about Shards of Zhaitan and dev comments only using the word “defeated”). What if Zhaitan lived? What if he’s off licking his wounds and he’s the lore reason for why Tequatl got stronger? What if Zhaitan was helped out by the ley line disruption and has recovered enough to launch an assault?

The Pact thinks he’s dead. Their leadership is mostly in Orr, but now they are looking South, to Mordremoth and the other dragons. While operations continue in Orr, the priorities have changed with the assumption(?) that Zhaitan is gone forever and no-one would be expecting an attack from Zhaitan at this point.

You say the Pact being taken down by a new Big Bad is a cliché (clichés are clichés for a reason and the story is full of them no matter what the writers think they are doing – good writing can embrace them and maximise their strengths) but what if it wasn’t the new Big Bad, what if it was the old one? The one we thought was defeated? Start players off by misleading them into thinking Mordremoth is the next threat, then bring back Zhaitan from behind.

I think Trahearne has too much story potential to kill him off, but I don’t think the Pact needs to survive. The lesson wasn’t that we need the Pact, but that Tyria needs to work together. How do you make a story interesting when the organisation formed at the beginning (creating all the technologies necessary to successfully take down a dragon) still exists to take one, what is essentially the same challenge? Once one dragon goes, down, logically shouldn’t the others become easier? I can see Palawa Joko throwing a spanner in the works when it comes time to take on Kralkatorrik, but I really think something needs to change if we are going to have compelling stories and challenges going forward. Writing villains who are super smart at everything and have trained under everyone then handing all the allied leaders the idiot ball, that’s just going to have players tuning out.

I liked that in Orr you had several different important missions that took place at the same time. You choose specific ones and the others happen with other players. Lets also not forget that the Open World of Orr is very much a community experience. The story is built into the Open World (which is why it is so hard to progress the world from that) and that Open World story doesn’t paint you as the sole hero.

I actually think GW1 did the story options better (part of why I’m cautiously optimistic about the journal – it sounds very much like “missions” from GW1). In Prophecies you had one path to take. Fine, it was diverse (for better or worse) and it was interesting, but it’s true you never had options. Factions and Nightfall introduced options in a better way than GW2 offers. Do you want to help the Luxons or the Kurzicks? Do you want to work with Margrid or the Master of Whispers? Support Meloni or Koss? No matter what option you choose, the other option takes place (Kormir is always rescued and the Master of Whispers always allies with you in the end). What makes both these campaigns better than GW2 imo is you can do the other option anyway. If you chose Margrid you can still go back and see what the Master of Whispers was on about. If you chose Luxons you can always go down the Kurzick path later.

Even if you wanted to experience the whole story from a different perspective, it’s very easy to bring another level 20 (or create one) to that campaign and progress through. In GW2 it’s much harder. There are many more options (requiring many more characters) and the cost of entry is much higher (level up and character slots) while the rewards are much lower (in GW1 it was tied into map unlocks, in GW2 it’s an optional thing). I like to complete as much of the story as possible and to have access to all the different moments that took place. There are story options I will never see even with nine level 80 characters because I don’t want to repeat the levelling process over and over.

I think options are great, but from a mechanics perspective (not necessarily lore) I don’t like it when they are mutually exclusive.

Rarely did GW1 make me feel like a faceless lackey (if ever). It’s strange to see someone mention the risk of Living Story characters become them, they are so prominent in the story they made my GW2 character feel like a faceless lackey all the time (it was their story, not mine, sometimes not even Lion’s Arch’s or the rest of Tyria’s), then later on slapped a band-aid on the situation by calling my characters a “leader” or letting me “figure out Scarlet’s plan”. Saying something or showing it and allowing the players to experience it, those are different things. I was told I was a leader of the Living Story, I experienced being a leader during the events of GW1 and the Personal Story.

Niels.5396:

I like these characters way more than those kittens from destiny’s edge

I like Destiny’s Edge a lot more than them. I miss adventuring with Eir and Rytlock.

I would have thought Destiny’s Edge was the GW2 version of the Ascalon five, although the GW1 NPCs were never intrusive in the story. They may have turned up all over Tyria but the story was almost never about them. It’s one of the things I liked better about the GW1 NPCs.

I wonder how many of these recipes are going to players who want to craft the item as opposed to players that want to buy something rare and flip it months later. Personally I hate when items are like that, even if a player wants the item, it’s so rare the gold value is usually more important to the individual. These items tend to go to the richest players who can easily afford to buy them as opposed to the poorer players who work hard and really want the item but they don’t have a gold so they sell it to a TP flipper who just wants more expensive bling.

The TA Aether weapons look really cool and I’d like to use them on my sylvari guardian but even if I had one drop, their gold value is so high I would never equip one myself.

I think that was to show you the character of Caithe. Unlike the biconics and some of the other members of Destiny’s Edge, Caithe has a kind of lethality or danger to her. She’s not all flirting, devourer hugging, dolyak pimping, she embodies the traits of Ventari like most Dreamer sylvari but at the same time she has that assassin’s ruthlessness to her.

It’s also important to think about why Caithe would feel so personally about the Nightmare Court. She sees what it does to her people, she saw what it did to the person she loved most. It’s a very personal conflict for her and her people, and her history with it’s current leader, Faolain, only makes it so much more personal.

Finally it says something to you about the allied forces thoughts towards Nightmare Court in Tyria. They truly believe once you are corrupted, there is no coming back. Sparing a Nightmare Courtier makes you accountable for all the evil it will do (and the corrupted are forever that way, so they will do evil again). One of the teachings of Ventari is “Never leave a wrong to ripen into evil”. Caithe knew (or believed) that no matter how remorseful the courtier was, no matter what bargain they made, they would be back twirling their reed moustaches and tying helpless villagers to train tracks as soon as they got the chance.

Aaron Ansari.1604:

Shiren.9532:

Aaron Ansari.1604:

I agree with all of your points, Tipper, but I think it’ll mostly come down to rather ANet has finally gotten over their continuity headache with the personal story.

This just in….

https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/introducing-the-story-journal/

FINALLY! And while we’re touching the topic, I’m thrilled that they at least touched upon making the Personal Story replayable, even if it was just they’re typical “not off the table” wording.

Yeah, I would love to be able to repeat personal story steps. I really hope they can figure it out because it would be nice to be able to revisit some of those lore details. For all the praise I give GW:Beyond, one big flaw I had with it was it was only doable once.

I think it would be cool if they allowed us to choose different options (but still have our original choices act as the true ones). One of the things I loved about GW1 was playing through the campaign over and over. I watched every cut scene (even the Factions ones) every single time.

Oh yeah, this thread is about Trahearne, back on topic.

Angel McCoy.1832:

Yes, you nailed it. I’m not sure we’ve completely figured out the best way either, but we’re getting closer all the time, and we’re always working toward that goal. Discussion threads like this help us to get a feel for how we’re doing and for what you want. Thanks for posting!

I used to think there were two sides of this debate, players that wanted to be the hero and players that wanted to play a faceless witness of other heroes. I used to think I was on the former side (I’m doing all these things, I want the story to recognise me) but after seeing all the NPCs recognise me as the one who took down Scarlet, I began to think that wasn’t right either. I may have been the only one in the instance, but the defeat of Scarlet was a community experience. I was on Teamspeak with my guild of dozens of other people. We had been organising trying to take down the Watchknights to reach Scarlet. I recognise most of the regular commanders on my server (and guild leadership types) and I also recognised them when taking down Scarlet. In a way, the gameplay really reinforced the idea that this was a community effort – an army of heroes united forces to take down Scarlet. That was the truth to me. I know Kasmeer and the group were there but they didn’t defeat Scarlet, it was the players (it’s always the players). While I was happy to see the world recognise my actions I was uncomfortable being viewed as the one as opposed to one of the many that defeated Scarlet. This might go back to the original post talking about fitting a story into gameplay, but while the story is selling this victory as my own, the gameplay told a very different story. I honestly would rather see the story credit the actions as many for the defeat of Scarlet, not a five person party. I am credited in that, but it also recognises that I did it with my friends – not the NPCs, but my actual friends.

Still, it’s interesting to see different player’s takes on the PC’s identity and role in the story. For instance, I am fine with Braham taking a front seat in the credit portion of things if it comes to him finally earning his own name, forging his own legend and moving out from underneath his mother’s shadow. As long as he truly and personally accomplishes the task (give the PC some other gameplay objective to aid him) and it’s not something huge (like taking down Jormag) I’d enjoy that story.

Angel McCoy.1832:

Thank you. This is very kind of you to say, and it makes me very happy. We’ve worked hard to make the PC’s best friends interesting and not cookie-cutter buddies. They’re the PC’s supporting cast, and as such, all their stories affect and reflect the PC’s story—your story.

I really don’t like that these characters are being written as the PC’s best friends. That’s not what a best friend is. It’s not someone your mother sets you up with and says “this is your best friend, spend all your time with them”. We don’t choose our family but we choose our friends. Calling these characters (or writing them that way) the PC’s best friends is not being true to my identity (and history) as the PC, it removes my ownership of my character and their role in the story, even if it’s just a trivial level. I have a warband, I have a close friend (Faren, Petra, Quinn – admittedly this has a similar problem to the biconics), I have countless allies I’ve worked with along the way to take down Zhaitan – and even in the official timeline I did this all before I met Braham and the group. Not only am I close with Trahearne and other Pact/Order members, I’ve personally been involved with reuniting Destinty’s Edge. Most importantly, my journey in Tyria isn’t a single player experience. I have guild members, I have a friends list, I have pugs and commanders all who work together to accomplish things in Tyria. It’s not my story when I can’t choose something as simple as who my friends are.

Personally I’ve found the biconics to be very self-serving. They are interesting individuals at times, but they don’t make the stories around them more interesting. They tend to draw focus towards themselves instead of the events they are participating in. I enjoy pieces of their portrayal (I think Marjory’s history in DR would be cool to explore, I’d be interested to see Braham forge a legend, Taimi is interesting to explore asuran culture) but I rarely feel like they enhance the story unless they are used as an exposition dump (like Taimi during EotM with leylines or her recent comments about suspicous cargo). Destiny’s Edge felt like they had a clear purpose in the story, I knew why I cared about them and I knew why the world did. Sure there was a lot of self serving conflict in the group, but I rarely found myself wondering “of all the people in Tyria, why am I with these guys?” like I do with the biconics.

Aaron Ansari.1604:

I agree with all of your points, Tipper, but I think it’ll mostly come down to rather ANet has finally gotten over their continuity headache with the personal story.

This just in….

Chronologically, the Season 2 story will take place after Season 1, which in turn occurs after your character’s personal story and the story of Zhaitan in Guild Wars 2. For dialogue purposes, NPCs in Season 2 will assume your character completed their personal story and Season 1, even if they did not. You do not need to complete the personal story on a character in order to play the Living World content, although it will make more sense if you do!

https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/introducing-the-story-journal/

All of Season One has clearly been stated to take place after Personal Story and Season Two takes place after that. End of the debate.

Season Two will be heavily instanced from the sounds of it so timeline issues and permanence won’t be an issue. Old versions of maps and events can be preserved in the instances (hopefully retrofited to Lion’s Arch) and the permanent changes on the world can pass over to the Open World. As long as it’s nothing dramatic like the cleansing of Orr, there is a lot they can do to Tyria without causing too much disturbance in the timelines.

I agree with others here, Trahearne didn’t really take a lot of credit, his position as the central figure of the Orrian campaign was well earned because of his unique skills and knowledge. Who else in Tyria had his expertise in all things Orrian? At times he did delegate to those who knew better (the largos when it came to Abaddon’s temple, the Priest of Grenth when it came to contacting the reapers) but he was the central governing leader and his diplomatic position (well connected with the three Orders and many others across Tyria – largos, tengu etc, Trahearne’s travels have made him a very interesting individual and I hope we see those stories) had him well suited to unite the three Orders. The player always had a voice when he was around, they always made decisions and they were always recognised. It wasn’t like Kiel in Southsun or Dragonbash where she was the only one talking, the primary one being praised and the one calling all the shots. Hopefully the VAs of the player returning means this won’t be a problem with Kiel or anyone else going forward.

I do agree that perhaps he may not be the best suited for future dragon campaigns, but lets not forget he is now the only person in Tyria with experience successfully leading a united organisation as big as the Pact in a campaign against an Elder Dragon. His expertise with Orr won’t matter as much, but he knows how to fight a dragon, how to lead troops etc. It depends on how they choose to evolve him in future, but I think killing him at this point would be a mistake. If he does step aside and let a more military minded character lead the Pact (someone like Laranthir but hopefully more interesting, I wasn’t sold on Laranthir that much), I hope he stays around at least in a diplomacy role. I really think there are some interesting side stories to explore with him, especially when it comes to his link to individuals like the largos. It’s a pretty remarkable thing to explore and survive in Orr during the time of Zhaitan, the people he helped and worked with give Trahearne a lot of side story potential.

More than likely I think he will be like Jennah, the Pale Tree or one of the other racial leaders, technically they are the big wigs and in charge, but in the field you interact with Logan or some other senior officer. This allows the Pact to be a solid organisation but the story can use unique commanders and characters to tell the stories of different campaigns. Trahearne stays at HQ, but a charr commander calls the shots against the Branded, a norn commander leads to fight against Jormag etc. You still have your core leadership, your core senior officers (the three Order representatives, Laranthir) but the individual campaigns and related missions have all new sets of characters to deal with. To me that’s far more exciting story potential than constantly reusing the same characters over and over and it makes a lot of sense that an organisation like the Pact would function like that.

What I found interesting about the post is the mention of NPCs talking to you as if you’re done with Personal Story. That’s a solid stance to take and implies we will see at least some, possibly a lot of world progression relating to old characters and old plots this year.

Did the sea begin to thaw because Shiro died or was it simply because so much time had passed since the Jade Wind it began to naturally lose it’s power? Does thawed jade return to water or did the Jade Wind permanently alter it’s composition to become something else?

The little bit of info we get post Factions about it suggests to me that the jade is turning back into water, so there must be some magical process going on in Cantha that is working on the jade. Either the magic of the Jade Wind lingered in the Jade Sea after Shiro’s death and was only purged from the land when he died, or it was going to dissipate anyway.

Knowing how Elder Dragons consume magic, what if the Jade Sea was returning to water not because of Shiro’s death and the curse being lifted, but because something was consuming the magic of the Jade Wind that was causing it to remain jade? This would mean that any jade that was removed from the sea keeps its shape (and that explains why a jade sculpture survives today) but the jade in the Jade Sea is being drained of its magic by an Elder Dragon “lifting the curse” of the Jade Wind and causing it to return to normal.

I do like the idea of Canthans learning to harness the latent powers of the Jade Wind or emulate it in some way. The thawing of the jade could be a natural process as Konig suggested (no dragon involved) and Canthan magic users can somehow maintain jade/petrified stone if they want to. I wouldn’t get too invested in the idea of a human-centric present day Cantha. While we may see a lot of humans bunkered down in Kaineng City, I suspect the Echovald Forest and Jade Sea have become the domain of other creatures.

CuRtoKy.8576:

At this rate they might as well remove reflects from the game because obviously they don’t like it and are just making more things unreflectable.

You’re crazy. Reflects are still one of the most powerful mechanics in the game.

Anyone who was being fair knew that reflects were incredibly broken when used against boss mobs. The Lupicus videos showed this – a single skill was, in a few seconds, doing more damage to the boss than the entire rotations from the four other party members during the fight. Reflects were stupidly broken mechanics when they reflect powerful monster attacks that do full damage that was never intended to be given to players.

Not only were reflects one of the most powerful DPS options given to players, they were also incredibly powerful defensive options. Malrona was an incredibly easy fight with chained reflects. Without them, her poison shot required you to pay attention, but with reflects she was a complete snooze and much faster. Some boss attacks simply shouldn’t be able to be reflected if you don’t want to turn dungeons into cheese content (which even with these changes they still are).

Even if there wasn’t a single boss attack in the game that you couldn’t reflect, the mechanic is incredibly valuable in content where trash mobs have powerful or annoying projectiles. The harpy fractal is a glorious play ground for a reflect mesmer, and a lot of CM paths are also very good places to bring reflects. Not only is the mechanic incredibly valuable as a defensive option, it also does quite good DPS against a lot of attacks.

Honestly, GW2 has reached a point where content has become stale and unintended game mechanics (FGS’ Fiery Rush, LoS AI exploits, reflecting boss attacks etc) have resulted in a very low skill cap and very high efficiency for content that has the potential to be more engaging than it is. As players we should encourage and support efforts to make content more complex and engaging, rewarding players for accessing more of their tool box or simply doing more than standing behind a wall auto attacking.

I don’t want to spend hours in dungeons because of giant health bars, but I don’t think the old/current meta of reflects, LoS and FGS abuse are what we should aim for when it comes to shorter dungeon runs.

CureForLiving.5360:

Konig Des Todes.2086:

And how can you call someone who intentionally killed thousands, uniting xenophobic factions against the greater united nations, and feed an Elder Dragon a “nice person”?

It seems we have a Scarlet fan club slowly building momentum :P
Still it’s a nice change of pace, not too long ago Scarlet was called the worst thing ever to happen to guild war lore.

She can still be the worst thing to ever happen to GW lore while still having fans.