Guild Wars 2

More importantly, Lazarus can’t use a war against anything other than dragons. He hates the current races (especially humans and probably Asura) but is probably terrified of dragons. Revenge can come later.

Lazarus was never dead. It was very explicitly explained in GW1 that he basically Voldemorted himself onto a Whilte Mantle member. They made absolutely sure you and everyone knew he’d be back one day. I think him saying he was “dead” might have been a bit of flourish or dramatic exaggeration on his part.
That or “revived” is just a lot easier to say than “I was unstuck from whatever weird state of existence I was in and able to manifest a physical form after absorbing a ton of magic”

I spend about 80% of my time being semi-afk in Lions Arch, watching tv or even working (don’t judge me!) while I occasionally look back to my computer to do something. I don’t want to be suspended for that.

Ember Bay is a scary place. Covered in lava. Hybrid Destroyers. The other day, I picked up an egg. AN EGG! Needless to say, I screamed as I put it in my inventory. My heart is still pounding.

Well, I’m no US geography major, but I’m glad you asked! With a little imagination, (admittedly, a lot of imagination) you can start to see some similarities in certain areas.
Move Spain north a bit to merge with France, and I can see where it can form the west end of the maguuma. Making Janthir the British Isles, you may even merge Greece and surrounding areas into Turkey and it will create a reasonable enough South Shiverpeaks/Orr region.

All of these with rough or redrawn areas, obviously, but sure. It’s there. No need to get into more precise details like “where are the mountains”. It’s a fictional map. The mountains are where the creators put them. But that doesn’t change the outlines (or coasts) of the maps from looking vaguely like something else.

Now as for the fuel for your condescension.
It was me.
It was me all along!

This has turned into one of the most condescending arguments I’ve seen on these forums. I guess outspoken non US geography majors don’t understand the meaning of the “[Fun]” tag on the title.

Or they do. Because watching them type angrily at each other while trying to seem as smug and intolerant as possible was pretty fun.
OP never said it was an exact reprint of Europe. The last line made it seem like he understood that the similarities would be incredibly vague and more likely a coincidence. And I can see that. I think it’s a neat idea, even if it is a coincidence.

People really reach hard to grasp at the thin straws that are the “pay to win” argument.

“You had the option to pay for literally a single thing?! PAY TO WIN!”

Although we might not have physically SEEN him die ourselves, though, it is pretty much confirmed he has died. According to the story, there have been teams of researchers we’ve never met who went down to the actual corpse of Zhaitan and a large part of his spine is actually hanging up on the Durmand priory
I don’t think he’s coming back. Even as a zombie ^2

An aggressive leader who knows how to take care of the elderly!
Guaranteed social security and a job in the afterlife!
4 MORE YEARS OF ZHAITAN!
(Message approved by the Orrian Board of Elections)

I’m not sure if this post has moved too far past this point or not, but do you think it’s possible the Pale Tree was so disconnected from Mordremoth’s influence is because it grew in a river infested with bloodstone magic? The bloodstones were, in fact designed to hide or hold things (a thing. Magic) from dragons.

Or do you think it was too far down the river to really matter? I think the water around the Pale Tree in EotN lacked the buff you get further up river.

Or that time they tried to calm an erupting volcano and somehow made a destroyer bigger…

I remember one of the novels had the protagonists use an Asura gate that spit them into a random field with horses in it, but I don’t really think it was “accidental” as much as just a little weird. At least to me. I know the Asura are kind of flighty at times, but why did they have a portal that just shot you out in what appeared to be a random empty field?

But on the subject of Asuran “flightiness” I always figured the game and its lore treated all Asura tech as wildly unpredictable and an affront to anything resembling safety standards. While they might not have mentioned any instances of gates shooting you to incorrect places, I would assume that’s just one of many possible mishaps that may or may not occur when using Asura technology. I feel like you’d just consider yourself lucky if you didn’t come out the other side and find you’re suddenly a chicken or something.

You have to give Anet credit for the accurate naming though.

I’m not sure what we’re seeing in GW2 is the Onyx Gate or some other stronghold. But even if you use Ember Bay as a reference, it kind of looks like they put a lot of stuff on the wrong island entirely :/
So, Onyx Gate or not, the new area looks wrong.

To clear up a few questions, it might be important to know that the Gods didn’t create the Bloodstones. The seers did, but human history from GW1 incorrectly claimed it was their gods.
https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Bloodstone

Also, I asked a similar series of questions in another thread. Maybe some of the responses there will help.
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/lore/Spoiler-Schools-of-Magic/first#post6274446

Also, the island kind of exploded after prophecies. That probably shifted a few things around.

Has physically moved, sure. But physically moving? I know it sounds like nit picking, and i wouldn’t really disagree, but I never meant to imply that “dragon wakes up, dragon immediately makes minions from his bed, dragon profits”. More that dragons will pick a spot, and stay there. In Zhaitans case, he did wake up and stay in Orr. But others might wake up and find other spots more appealing. I.e kralk and wherever he went.

We actually have no idea if the other dragons are moving their physical bodies or not. We have literally never seen a dragon physically move, with the exception of kralk, and he only moved to the Crystal Desert to do one specific thing. He very well could have gone to some permanent roost.
We know Jormag is “pushing” south, but we haven’t physically seen it since some norn knocked its tooth out.

We know DSD has been “pushing” sea critters from their homes, but have seen no sign of its own physical presence.

Technically speaking, we have more evidence that the dragons themselves prefer to find one spot and remain stationary, spreading their influence through minions. I mean, two dragons isn’t exactly substantial evidence, but we have literally no evidence that they prefer to move a lot.

Edit: Move a lot without reason. We know they can move, obviously, but tend not to. Killing a rogue minion would be one reason. Finding a set of volcanic islands suddenly has more tasty magic than your current spot would be another.

And the old lore was fairly vague about it. It really just said Primordus was “moving about”. It never said he was moving to mount maelstrom. It never said he was moving to Boca to live out his golden years watching the sun set. It just said he was moving. And eventually he moved to the Ring of Fire Islands.

I’m not sure how that’s really a retcon. The dwarf never said he woke up and just tunneled straight to RoF. It’s been 200 ish years. He had plenty of time to get there. We don’t know exactly how long Primordus had been under the island. We only know the dwarf has been there “for ages” but the dwarves have been fighting Prim for centuries now (and for a second time) and might have sent Orestriker and Co. ahead of Prim, as they knew that’s where he’d ultimately end up. (Also, they only sent 4? That might have some weird implications)

The RoF might be where the dragon ended up, but nothing ever said he hasn’t been other places doing other things between his awakening and his arrival.

I think not directly interacting with the dragon was a safe move. It starts with a cute comment. “Welcome to the world little guy” kinda thing. Then you’d want to pet it. You’d get attached. One thing leads to another and you’re trying to smuggle it under your shirt to your home instance. I’ve seen it happen before with my friend’s cats.

Primordus’ movement from the Shiverpeaks to the Ring of Fire is still a thing. They didn’t change that at least. The dwarf we find in the Ring of Fire confirms it if you go back and ask him about his history.

Im a little put off by the circus as well. The Skritt are one thing. They always show up in places we visit. Because they’re essentially rats. Hardy simple vermin-like critters that can survive in whatever harsh thing you throw at them. But a circus?
Even in GW1 times, this place was a monstrous hell of a place where 5 minutes meant certain death for 90% of life. Hence its designation as the end game for prophecies. One of the books mentioned just the sea around it as hostile and nearly impossible to navigate. So…lets set up a circus here? Of all the random crap. Who would they possibly hope to entertain? A camp of exiles or something would have even been a little far fetched, but more reasonable than “lets entertain destroyers and rats with a circus”

Edit to reduce my hostility: Aside from the circus, i think the new chapter is amazing. The circus thing may cheapen the whole danger aspect of the island, but doesn’t ruin an otherwise wonderful chapter.

When we say “society” in regards to modern Tyria, it’s never implied that it’s of one specific race. We have to explicitly specify every time we want to refer to only human society or only Charr society. Otherwise society is always assumed to be every sentient race currently contributing to…society. Overall. The Mursaat would have done the same for their fellow races as well.

As for the issue with Saul, I’d say these tablets may add a little credibility to the theory that Saul didn’t find the Mursaat city in the jungle, but rather deliriously wandered through a portal in the jungle (forest?) and ended up in a Mursaat city/stronghold in some far-off location.
I think it’s at least as plausible a theory as any other out there at the moment.

I think the dragonling was cute until I saw its eyes. Overly large eyes just creep me out.

Now that I’m home!
I’d also like to agree with Konig on the whole “what the Fook is going on with the Crystal Desert that should be a sea” thing.
As for particularly Lazarus, it really should be no surprise he’d come to our aid against dragons. Practically everyone already speculated it. But that doesn’t mean he just “saw the error of his ways”. It’s just logical that he doesn’t want to be eaten by a dragon.
Everything else he said could still be a lie, but do you really expect him to come on the scene like "I fully intend to murder you all someday soon, but trust me anyways while I use you to save my own skin from a dragon first "

And gaining your trust would be the best way to kill you. Arrogant though Lazarus may be, you did already kill two dragons. And if you kill two more, you and the races clearly cement yourself as “the hardest thing in Tyra to kill”. And I doubt Lazarus would want that to know he’s out to get them.

One thing I kept seeing repeated was this idea that the tablets said the Seers destroyed themselves through civil war. While I have time at my last hour of slacking at work, I’d like to point out that the tablets never said that anywhere. The closest line we get is from tablet 9 stating :

“IX. The Seers set about sharing their stored magic with the world, though society had devolved into divided, violent tribes. Wars broke out over control of the magic pool.”

The seers shared their stored magic with THE WORLD (all the races of the time). And SOCIETY (No indication that SEER society) had devolved and divided. Which understandably would be problematic to a race trying to give them back some of their former glory.
Seer society (weakened by dragons no doubt, but in no way fractured to infighting) was still very much likely destroyed by the Mursaat after they returned to the world.

And none of that really changes the established lore that the Mursaat betrayed the world by bailing on it. To the Mursaat, their dimensional sliding may have been justified, so obviously their tablets would paint them as the betrayed ones who just left a hopeless situation. But to all the other races, disappearing was a betrayal no matter how the Mursaat tried to justify it. And until now we’ve only read the lore from the races that were not Mursaat. This isn’t really saying “The Mursaat aren’t the bad guys we thought they were”. Just that we should stop getting so caught up on “good guys and bad guys” and accept shades of grey and dubious justifications. The entire GW series seems to really REALLY bank on the fact that literally any information we get is heavily biased by whoever is giving it. I don’t see this as being any different.

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Mursaat_Lore_Tablet

It’s not guaranteed Kormir made her realm completely boring. Grenth claimed his realm far before Kormir did, and Balthazaar even before that, and both of them still had a lot of issues that had to be dealt with. I’ts probably not going to be all goth spires and Margonites, but there’s no guarantee she could destroy or secure the little Titan factory. Or if she did secure it, there’s no guarantee some saboteur wouldn’t come and mess with it.

I’m really doubtful we’ll deal with anything involving god realms in the near future, but all I’m saying is don’t say it’s impossible

Mizukiaki.8590:

Hydra will more than likely be on the map, unless they were wiped out from the area between the end of GW Prophecies and now.

They seem to have been wiped out in Ascalon, along with the gargloyles. Only they at least bothered to mention the gargoyles.
And Ascalon didn’t suffer any giant volcano eruption like the RoF did. It had a cataclysm, but hydras were thriving quite well in Ascalon despite it. But then just went extinct for no real reason at all. If the slow gradual “grassification” of Ascalon was enough to wipe them out, I don’t like their odds of surviving the volcanoes on RoF.

We were pretty far from the ocean for the most part in HoT. And the Largos seem to be pretty uninterested in issues that don’t directly concern them. They’d have been pretty out of place in the jungle fighting a dragon they might not have even heard about.
Even in the original campaign when we went into the ocean Largos sightings were rare and they didn’t really seem to help us for any altruistic reason or common goal. If I remember correctly, the Largos we did meet were there for more personal reasons (owing a favor to Trehearne or basically being bored and looking for a challenging thing to kill) I suspect it will still be a while before we see Largos in any great numbers.

If they do make a lot of underwater combat, now might be a good time to buy some cheap underwater pre’s or make underwater legendaries. They’ll finally be desired/worth something!

“Then either the waypoint needs to store some kind of signature from you or the other way around the waypoint imprints something onto your magical aura (like stated below), enabling you to synchronize with that specific waypoint.”

This is probably why you need to discover a WP before you can travel to/from it. When you arrive, it scans that signature you’re talking about.

Mitch.4781:

I think a lot of people here have obviously not come to terms with the fact that MMO’s are not for them. Single player games for you guys only please.

What I read was “MMO’s are not for people I don’t agree with”
No, MMO’s are for EVERYONE who wants to play it. So if a lot of people don’t want to see something, it’s in the MMO’s best interest to cater to them as well as the people who do want to see it. In this case, Anet can do both by giving the people the OPTION to see backpacks/auras/etc. or to disable them.
No one (or at least none that I saw) is asking to remove huge obstructive armor and accessories. You worked for it. You earned it. Show it off to everyone who cares to see! But if people are annoyed by it, they have their right to disable it. And you would be none the wiser, so it won’t hurt your feelings.

“I would only be ok with this if hiding a specific skin required permanently destroying it from your wardrobe.”
This is the epitome of selfishness. “If they don’t like me wearing it, they can’t have it!” is basically what you’re saying. And What of the people who don’t mind seeing your gawdy armor in places like LA or general PvE where it’s not a hindrance to anything? They just want the option to turn it off when it’s obstructive. Or, because they don’t want to see it at the moment. Who cares?
But no, your solution is “Deal with it, or you can’t have it!”

If there are dwarves, there likely won’t be many of them. After 250+ years of constantly fighting lava monsters and not replenishing their population in any way, it’d be a marvel if any are left. Aside from Ogden. But he forestalled his “Becoming the Great Dwarf” thing and I guess that allowed him to maintain enough independence to do something other than “Smash dragon!”

It’s possible though. There MIGHT still be a few survivors.

Because, according to physical properties I just made up, time moves differently underwater. I call it the “Baseless dilation” principal.
But it was probably an oversight since no one really seems to pay attention to water combat. And it’s probably for the best. GW2 did water combat better than any game I’ve seen so far, but it’s still just an annoyance to most people.

Under that logic, EVERYTHING is “pay to win” and there’s no way to escape it. You COULD have paid the guy to take a dive. Or you COULD have beat him yourself. Nothing in this world said you could not try to do it yourself and that you MUST pay him.
Alternatively, I can build my own house using resources I gather and process myself and learn architecture, carpentry, etc. Or I can just buy a house. Nothing says I can’t build my own house, and nothing says I can’t use money I earned doing other things to just purchase it. I have options. “Pay to win” might not mean working for it isn’t an option, but it is certainly implied. No one said “It’s pay and/or work to win”.
There are plenty of games out there (that usually flood in by the thousands from S. Korea) that have some stupid gimmick like “Use this pass to get past level 10!” and only make the pass available for real world money. Those are considered “pay to win” Because you have to pay. There’s no other option.

Cute. Clearly I hurt your feelings with that last one, but I’m going to ignore the snarky comment on my education and stick to the issue at hand. There is literally nothing in this game that will give you any kind of advantage that you can’t earn with a little effort. At worst, you have to pay for skins that are purely cosmetic, and really you don’t have to pay for those either. Why don’t you use your little pyramid scheme money you mentioned in your other post to buy gems for gold. Because you can do that.

He won without paying. That exactly makes it not pay to win.

Talon Glovepaw sounds like a pretty normal name for a Charr. All their names have some kind of relevance to what they do or some defining feature. (Tybaly Leftpaw. Pyre Fierceshot. Vaatlaw Doomtooth. And my favorite, Tenagg Flametroller).
Maybe he wears gloves a lot. Or is a ranger who trains hawks.

Necromancer for me! I understand Reaper has issues staying relevant outside of PvE for most people, but I pretty much only do PvE. And in PvE I think they really did a good job of making it seem like a slow lumbering unstoppable horror movie monster.
Even if mine is by default a skinny female human.

Nah, it’s fine! That’s just so it can shoot around corners!

The Order of Whispers would probably be my first choice. Sure, the priory is all about knowledge, but only the OoW seems to be interested in SECRET knowledge. While the order probably keeps mostly “public access” information, the Order would be more likely to buy, sell, trade, or withhold information as a weapon or commodity. Plus, the OoW would give you a little more freedom for personal lore, since you can always go the secret agent route. Infiltrate the Priory to feed any new information to the Order and whatnot. In game, it’s impossible to practice, of course, but then so is choosing Abaddon as your deity of choice. The best you can get is Kormir, who is pretty much the same role in a shiny new eyeless body.

And while the seemed to invest at least a little interest in helping you stop the return of Abaddon in GW1, I don’t think that was ever really a primary tenant of their order. Having a mad god rise and torment the world is bad for everyone, but that doesn’t mean you can’t respect what he stood for while he was sane.

Makes sense. It does feel like they’re slowly trying to make the Pact less and less relevant and open opportunities to make a new hero faction. But who knows?

The Shiverpeaks is a very high altitude, mountainous region. And, for the most part, I think Tyria has been pretty practical with its distribution of biomes (i.e. tundras and colder regions being in higher altitudes, etc. Although, in GW1, I thought things got a little weird around the southern shiverpeaks, where it was at sea level and also strangely close to hot and arid Elona, but still frozen. ). So it’s probable they would be cold with or without the dragon there. The southern end of the shiverpeaks, I think I read, is only getting warm because of all the heat Mount Maelstrom is pumping out, not because of any waning/waxing influence of Jormag.

Technically, the odds were stacked against us with EVERY dragon. Including the ones we already fought. (That’s kind of the point of these conflicts in video games. We find seemingly impossible odds, find a radical way to defeat it, and apply it. Can you imagine how boring stories would be if WE were the overpowered ones? "A moderate annoyance is plaguing Tyria! Come…take care of it…you know, whenever. ")

The Pact will find the edge it needs to defeat whatever dragon or floaty demi-god threatens it. That is its job.

Everything in life can be improved by adding sharks!

The frog! Tell me the frog is safe!

“The first four segments rule over its respective school of magic: Preservation, Aggression, Denial, and Destruction. The fifth fragment, the keystone, is required if one were ever to make the bloodstones one. "

From the wiki https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Bloodstone

I’m not dismissing the idea that the school thing is just human flourish on the story. Just that the wiki also mentions the schools being a thing.

I have a few questions I’d like discussed. First of all, if the bloodstones all contain one particular school of magic, what would that mean for that school if its containment stone was destroyed?
In the situation we’re faced with, the power released from the bloodstone was absorbed by Lazarus, so I suspect to us, nothing is changed. The related school of magic is just inside a Mursaat now instead of a stone, so nothing is different for us. But when/if we kill Lazarus? What happens then? And is Lazarus now REALLY good at one particular school of magic? (Whichever one governs setting people on fire)

As a followup question, destroying a bloodstone nearly destroyed Kryra. If we kill Lazarus, wouldn’t we have to worry about that? Will we need to create a replacement for the stone that was destroyed?

OH!!! Or will the Glint baby be the new house for the magic!! (Wild speculation)