Guild Wars 2

As a female gamer, I’ve found myself relating just about equally to male and female characters in any game. A good, strong character is a good, strong character regardless of gender.

Nope. It’s solo only, which is…frustrating. It’s the second instance I’ve quit in aggravation since starting to play the game.

The next alliance will be between the ghosts of Ascalon and the quaggans who have as much of a presence in Ascalon as the Nightmare Court does in Kessex Hills.

(coughs politely)

This sinister new alliance will be called “boooOOOooo!”

Sorry. But it is Halloween week, after all.

I’m wondering about the cancellation of the livestream myself, even though I usually miss those anyway because of work. Is it possible Anet brass has noticed all the “anti-Scarlet” posts here and tipped off the devs?

“What did you say this tower is gonna be? Something Scarlet built? Nononononono!!! Look at that forum, the players are sick of her! Make it something else! Is another dragon ready yet? No? Okay, how about UberQuaggan? No? Well, there’s centaurs right over there, can they swim? No? Oh, hell, just stick King Thorn in the thing for now…”

I’m joking, of course. Probably whoever was supposed to be on the livestream had something else come up. We’ll find out shortly (hopefully before I leave for work!).

ExAstris.8527:

There is a crate at the bottom of Viathan Lake (south side) that bears an imprint: a key exceedingly similar to the key on my emerald shield from the Durmand Priory.

I speculate that Mistress Kai is connected to the Priory. With the female sylvari at base camp decked out in Order of Whispers armor, I guess we’re just waiting on the Vigil. Orders…unite!

Good catch! Of course, when my mesmer (also with the Priory) heard that, she had to go investigate for herself.

So who’s “mom”, then? If the mother and child are a mesmer illusion, they’re a more elaborate one than any my own mesmer can pull off…

Fear, Frosty, FEAR. Terror is Diablo’s domain, an entirely different game franchise.

Do you see that enemy over there? Yeah, me, neither…

Listen to the teaser dialogue again.

The tower is a “monument to fear”.

So far the only “fear” I’ve seen is the fear that Scarlet is somehow going to be involved, but we’ll find out in about a day’s time.

Hamfast.8719:

Are you fishing for the name “Destroyers”?

That may explain the “hot” comments. The Destroyers erupted from the earth in Kessex Hills at the Dominion Killing Zone. And the Golem at Marjory’s camp refers to a “Mistress Kari”. Kari is also the name of the little girl lost inside the Destroyer hive. Same person? It sounds as if the people at the camp are speaking of an adult (and the “southwest of camp” direction in which she was last seen is way off).

I wasn’t “fishing” for anything (not consciously, at any rate) but good call. In fact, I see someone’s started a separate thread about this very idea.

If “Mistress Kari” is a mesmer, she may very well be capable of appearing as a little lost girl, even to the experienced eyes of my own Asuran mesmer. The golem states that she was headed southwest from the camp, which as I’ve said before would take her right into that huge centaur camp. I suppose she could have changed direction (I hope she did) to explore the lakeshore.

So, if that’s the case, I wonder what she was doing so close to that rift. We’ll find out tomorrow!

Delvoire.8930:

The krait have had a good presence on that map as well. One of the dynamic event chains there has you helping the fishing villagers of the town that’s there on the lake.

Oh, to be sure…but then, we already know they’re involved.

I just wondered about the centaurs because a large camp of theirs is literally within throwing distance of Marjory’s camp (wander too far to the north while visiting Marjory’s camp and the centaur trebs will target you). Apparently they’re so busy rehearsing their battle cries they don’t notice the swirling column of darkness spiraling out of the lake.

Siphaed.9235:

A) Because nobody would look there until it’s too late.

Look for what, exactly?

Oh, and I can’t imagine a more terrifying biological weapon than krait farts.

I’ve been wondering about the centaurs, myself.

I haven’t seen or read anything to indicate that they might be involved, but they and the bandits are the largest two enemy “factions” found in that zone. I don’t see why Anet would go to the trouble of bringing in the Nightmare Court (which has no discernible presence in the region) when it can make use of the existing NPC’s and perhaps add a little depth to the area’s lore. And I’ve never seen bandits use magic of any kind, so that leaves the centaurs.

Are the centaur sages capable of creating this “monument to fear”? Perhaps, with the aid of the krait witches and their slaves. What would it be for? Harvesting strawberries, what else?

Just kidding.

Of course it would be for eliminating the hated humans, something the krait and centaurs can agree on. But this is just me speculating.

Nevermore.7963:

Hot? What do you mean?

If you go to Majory’s camp north of Overlord’s Greatcamp and hang out a bit, you’ll hear some exchanges between the NPC’s. Most of it concerns the veil and the increased activity of the krait, but Marjory and Lady Kasmeer both remark that it’s very hot there.

…and since I don’t see them being asked here, I’ll do the honors.

Why Kessex Hills?

And

Why is it so hot?

And I’ll stop right there. I’m going to wait a bit and see what others think before offering my own ideas.

Have fun with it!

That was why I posted that pic last night, Grenthblood. It’s been quite a while since I’ve brought a character through that area and I couldn’t remember whether what I was seeing was new or not. If the vines have been there all along that makes a case for it not being Scarlet.

(kitten, now I’m worrying over whether it’s her or not)

MatthewMedina.5419:

We also moved the vista so that you can access it. In case, you know…you’re curious. :-D

You also seem to have upset the local moa bird population during all this. Is it my imagination, or are they acting far more agitated than is usual?

When I saw we had a new build incoming I parked my engineer at Marjory’s camp just to see if anything new was being said among the NPC’s. There isn’t, but when I tried again to check out the limits of the barrier I got close enough to get a screenshot of this:

Not sure if it’s been covered or not, but there’s some kind of magic energy radiating out of the top of that structure and the vines appear very…Sylvari-esque.

(steps aside to avoid the “ZOMG SCARLET!!!” panic)

Okay!

Here is Lovecraft Thrall, my necro.

As you can imagine, he’s quite enjoying all the Halloween atmosphere.

:)

In particular she does not approve of AFKing during her invasion. This morning I found a lone player dead in the hylek crafting area of Sparkfly during one of her invasions. I rezzed, then realized my error, the player was AFK. So I moved away to craft (which is what I’d come there to do, after all, I’d just finished not killing Tequatal and it was convenient) and here comes Scarlet again to murder that poor player and then poof. She took no notice of me.

zwierz.9012:

I’d say it’s about as likely as for a norn woman to give birth to an asura (Which can happen if said norn woman sits on an asura first and wears no underwear).

Ooookay, thank you for that mental image. (cringe)

There’s another aspect of this I haven’t seen discussed yet. The “Great Mesmer Collective” or whatever is studying this activity which apparently is something they haven’t seen before.

Has anyone ever seen the krait use any type of mesmer abilities?

Rather than start my own thread, I’m going to bump this one.

Yes, ArenaNet, I’m afraid you’re going to have to toss Miss Scarlet out onto the compost heap. And I’ll tell you why. She’s given the players a complex.

Witness the most active thread in this subforum…the “what’s happening in Kessex Hills” one. Count how many posts are running along the lines of “I bet it’s Scarlet!”

Lots, right?

Love her or hate her (and I really have no opinion of her one way or another; she’s not the best boss I’ve seen but she’s not the worst either), she’s starting to get in the way. Every time something happens in game, Scarlet either is involved or is suspected of being involved until it’s proven otherwise.

Tequatl is stronger, smarter, and more aggressive! It must be Scarlet!!!

Weird doings in Kessex Hills! It must be Scarlet!!!

A hylek farted! It must be Scarlet!!!

I enjoy the invasions as much as anyone, but maybe it’s time to have her “invade” the Splintered Coast then run up and try to pet Tequatl. Give her an end worthy of her…um, infamy.

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

I have to say, it is these rare moments when the team adds something in secret, and keeps quiet about it, that I become the most interested in the Living Story. The game needs more mystery, and things gradually changing in the world. It’s far more interesting for the players to discover these things for them selves, than to read about it on the front page of this website.

Hear, hear!

The “antitoxin” one has to be Orr. I see one of those annoying bomb-dropping eagles in the background.

Bright.9160:

• Stealth
• Run past them
• ???
• Profit

Doesn’t work, in the example I cited. My hobbit burglar tried, they zeroed right in on her.

Thobek.1730:

Exosferatu.2961:

Has anyone seen Kari? She is AUX-1’s mistress. Kari was last seen heading southwest from Marjory Delaqua’s camp. Maddox sent out a search party but could not locate Kari.

I went looking for her but I suspect she’s been caught and is currently sitting in some cage awaiting to be sacrificed to their god.

As I pointed out in an earlier post, the first thing one encounters southwest from Marjory’s camp is…a large centaur encampment.

It may not be the krait who have her…

I am seeing complaints elsewhere that invisible walls (like the one that’s appeared in Viathan Lake) are a sign of dev laziness. I don’t necessarily agree with this concept—after all, there are several NPC’s nearby talking about mesmers and illusions—but it brought something to mind from another game I played.

The game in question was LOTRO. When the Mirkwood expansion was still in development, players were discouraged from swimming across the river to investigate the forest by what I called “SuperOrcs”. These were orc archers who could one-shot any player who ventured into their range. So, if it’s not a mesmer illusion we keep bouncing off of in that lake, how would it be if we ran into supercharge krait guards or worse, the furious Blood Witch herself?

Just throwing it out there.

Any updates on this? The blog site still appears to be MIA.

Kerushi.7609:

Second, no one here has mentioned the sound. When you are in that area you can hear the krait chopping the trees down.

True. You can also hear faint cries which may be coming from human slaves being forced to assist in this construction, whatever it is. And the music changes when you approach the area; it becomes what I think of as the “ambient Orr music” which I can’t recall the name of. It’s a lovely and ominous piece that fits perfectly with the rumblings in the area.

And yes, you can still help…um, whatshisname…find his heirlooms; my engineer did it yesterday. What she was having trouble with, as I pointed out, was assisting the quaggans at the south end of the lake. The barrier severely limits movement in that area and I’m not sure if it’s possible to complete that renown heart.

iPenguin.7069:

draxynnic.3719:

iPenguin.7069:

If I recall correctly, this used to be a small seaside town or village that nearly always had an event where Krait would attack and take villagers as prisoners. Did they finally wipe them out once and for all?

Is that Auld Red Wharf or Triskell Quay? The latter is the one that had the events – Auld Red Wharf has been destroyed since release.

Yup, I goofed. Really shows my Tyrian geography skills are lackluster. The original picture I posted was Auld Red Wharf. This is Triskell Quay, still standing….well, at least the buildings…

And you can still do the renown heart.

However, one thing I noticed this evening…there’s another renown heart at the south end of Viathan, where you assist the quaggan village there by killing krait, freeing captives and so on.

It’s…very difficult to complete since the barrier appeared. Most of the krait are beyond it. I won’t say it’s impossible because guildies called me away to help in the Mad King’s realm before I could experiment too much. But I wonder if this was an intended consequence?

So the Blood Witch event in the area has disappeared like barbecue sauce at a charr picnic, and the quaggan who used to beseech you to challenge her is now serenely strolling around singing. Quaggan-style.

My question to the numerous Anet devs watching this thread and laughing at our speculation is this: Where did the Blood Witch go?

With all the hatred of Scarlet I’m seeing in this thread, you’d think people would be more eager to kill her during the invasion events instead of, say, repeatedly farming the champions.

OT: My charr necro returned to Lion’s Arch grumbling about mesmers, and sent my Asura mesmer to look into the matter. The first thing she heard was an OoW agent making snide remarks about the usefulness of mesmers, but before she could put the NPC in her place she overheard the golem remark that her mistress (Kali, I believe?) was last seen heading southwest…away from the lake and the barrier, but directly toward the large centaur camp nearby.

Gosh, I wonder what happened?

iPenguin.7069:

If I recall correctly, this used to be a small seaside town or village that nearly always had an event where Krait would attack and take villagers as prisoners. Did they finally wipe them out once and for all?

You’re right! I was checking all this out this morning on my necro and found those very ruins…and failed to make the connection.

And for UberQuaggan’s sake, the rest of you stop worrying about Scarlet. Last time I checked she was chasing my thief around the Iron Marches.

Thobek.1730:

Why Kessex hills? Mount Maelstrom and timberline falls has a larger Krait density. Also its not so “right under our noses”

Half the adventure is the journey in any story, having this happen in the backyard of Kryta is not the best option.

It is if there also happens to be a mysterious floating wizard tower in that same region, albeit farther east.

Dang.

Had I known about this, I could have spent my game time this evening investigating this, instead of hanging out in the Mad Realm listening to King Thorn and Sonny Edds insult each other.

Ah, well, there’s always tomorrow.

I did that entirely by accident this morning…was running around looking for Treehead…and Lil’ Tequatl came through for me. Good stuff to know.

I don’t know whether this is connected, but I will offer it just the same.

This afternoon I ported to Earthshake and noticed the Claw event was up, so headed up there, charrzooka in hand. I found the dragon simply flitting from his first landing spot to the nearby mountain peak, then resetting and doing this again, and again, and again. No ice wall to target, so naturally the event failed.

Moments before the timer ran out, Scarlet invaded Frostgorge but no one could see her minions until the Claw event ended/failed. Not sure if one event was cancelling out the other there, but it was bizarre.

Is it possible something is preventing Teq from spawning properly? Though this hasn’t happened before, and it’s strange that it’s apparently happening on ALL servers (to judge from the amount of yelling I see in this subforum).

Due to what I assume is an unrelated connectivity issue, I can’t log into the game to see all this for myself.

Weirdness.

Looks like he might have eaten one cannon too many…

Started out of the blue just now…the game was doing fine just a couple of hours ago, now suddenly I’m running into this.

So far I’ve tried flushing my DNS and rebooting everything, to no avail. Anything else I can try?

Lovecraft Thrall was the name of my GW1 necro/mesmer. “Lovecraft” for the legendary creator of the Great Old Ones, “Thrall” because his secondary was mesmer and it fit.

He is now resurrected as a Charr necromancer after Grenth decided his work was not yet done. He was at first appalled to find he’d grown claws and teeth, but now he’s rather proud of them.

Polite inquiry asking if this is light, medium, heavy or all three armor types that the OP wishes to discuss. Follow-up comment that “Charrmor” certainly needs to be addressed with a small observation that this is a strange and funny thread.

Not a “sir”, but you’re welcome.

However, all kidding aside, I often wonder if the Anet team sits around observing player reaction to content and comparing notes. There’s always a dev or two on my server any time new content drops, so I just wonder how it looks through their eyes.

Silly bookah.

The entire game is a test.

Thought everyone knew that.

Excelsior!

This morning on GoM (not peak time, I admit) it was myself and another player.

We stood on a jump pad, watched Taco eat his daily cannon, and wondered if GoM will ever take him down on its own.

It occurred to me last night that this might help the servers which are struggling with this fight (like mine). Some professions will naturally be more efficient at one of the fight’s roles than others.

I’ve been leaving my mesmer parked at Splintered Coast, and running over there when the notification pops up. Unfortunately all too often she lands in an overflow, or gets there too late. The mesmer is pretty handy for buffing others, DPSing the tendrils, or throwing down Time Warp on the main zerg.

I also have an 80 thief and a necro who will be eighty very shortly. Haven’t really tried either of them in the Teq fight yet, but I may to see how helpful they can be. Those of you who have succeeded in downing him…any pointers?

Waiting around for him to spawn is just as perilous, though, which is why I’ve had this running through my head all afternoon:

Fish heads, fish heads, roly-poly fish heads,
Fish heads, fish heads, run from them, BLAM!!!

Scott McGough.6897:

Hope it’s not too late to chime in, but it’s pronounced “teh-KWAHT-ul.” Kind of rhymes with “heck bottle,” with the accent on the “BOT.”

That’s how we say it in-house and how we have NPCs say it in-game through VO.

That’s what I thought, but my guild has nicknamed him “Taco”.

Happy Taco Tuesday, everyone!

I suggested this in another thread, but I’ll suggest it again here.

Since it’s easy to miss the invasion “announcements”, could the heralds possibly have this information? It would seem to be in line with their purpose, after all.

What about the heralds? Shouldn’t they tell us if Scarlet is attacking a particular area?

Okay, now I really am curious.

ArenaNet, you see the conversation taking place here. Is Scarlet programmed to behave in this manner, or is there some dev randomly choose players to harass?

Inquiring minds want to know. If need be I can bribe an answer out of you with cookies.

I also want to chime in and thank you, Nemesis, for the work and time you’ve put in on this guide. My own necro is level 26, a long way from endgame, but I’ve found your build advice very useful and I’m really starting to enjoy him.

And no one is immune to this, it seems. After reading the other thread about this last night I tweeted to Martin Kerstein (who was talking about playing) that Scarlet might “like” him. He responded that she’s come after him five times.

I haven’t had it happen to me as of yet. Do you have to damage her enough to trigger something, or is it just random?