Guild Wars 2

Ascimator.6735:

Not to mention the ensuing outcry for mounts.

I don’t think the “outcry” for mounts has anything to do with long travel distances, rather the opposite really. When I think of mounts (though I am no supporter of them being added to GW2), I think of racing through big open fields – over long distances – on my way to another city or on a new quest.

The density of waypoints remove that sort of epic open world feel, and thus most of the epicness that comes with mounts as well (at least i.m.o.). That’s why the biggest argument against mounts is the density of waypoints.
It won’t reduce travel time much, and it wouldn’t have the same purpose as in other mmo’s.

If ANet started to reduce waypoints, that would be the best thing that ever happened for the ones wanting mounts. It would give much more meaning to have mounts in the game – and it would drastically increase the chances for a future mounts feature.

Yes, no conflict of any sort is known to have existed around the time of 115 BE.
Which is kinda the whole premise of my doubts about the timelines here.

Rather the opposite of conflict really; humans are fairly new to the continent (90 years). They’re spreading throughout Tyria. Discovering, colonizing.

It would also be in this period they first encountered the other races of Tyria: mainly the Forgotten and the Charr. 15 years later, in 100 BE, humans drive charr out of Ascalon. If they encountered any resistance earlier (charr or other races), one could certainly believe they’d at least keep together themselves.
Nothing keeps peace better than uniting against a common enemy!

And what was this great war about? Who was it against?
“The world rang with the clanging of swords and did fire fall from the skies (…) war-torn lands and wasted flesh of the fallen”

They must have been productive these first 100 years… managing to expand throughout all of Tyria, raising two great wars. Quite epic ones by the sound of it.

They really shouldn’t be afraid to simply explain something with “this is game mechanics” – and leave it with that.

I think that those who really care about lore, do not mind separating (and accepting) the differences between mechanics and story. Sadly, ANet tries to please the lore community by justifing every mechanic with lore context. It’s not an exclusive thing ANet does, many companies do, and I do understand why to a certain degree. You can’t have too many “this is mechanics” either… then you might begin to feel too distanced from the “reality”.

I appreciated that they put in work to make WPs a part of Tyria’s reality. I must admit I frowned upon it, but decided to wait a little before “raging on the forums”. I thought I’d give it a chance and some time – to see if the concept would grow on me.

To be honest, it hasn’t. Rather the opposite. I feel it’s a “reality” that shouldn’t be there – and that it greatly devalues the coherence of Tyria’s story and lore. As for reducing waypoints, they don’t need a lore reason for it… simply saying: “We decided to try reducing no. of WPs. Based on feedback, we think it could benefit to give our players a better feel of the world. Limitating choises may not always be a bad thing”. I’d be thrilled to see a statement like that.

Then we’d give it time. People would rage on the forums. And after a couple of months, maybe most of us would agree (or disagree) whether or not is was an improvement.

I gave “lore WP” some time. And: no, I still don’t think it’s a good idea. In spite of all the great effort and work that’s been put down to make a proper story about them, I still actually feel it would benefit the game to say:
No, this wasn’t a good move. We don’t want this to be lore. This is mechanics, and mechanics only. Portals exist within the game (mesmers, Drascir-Nolani, Rytlock from Barradin’s Estate to the mists, etc.), but other than that – Asura Gates are the only means of travel.

Please disregard the story plots in season 2 concerning WPs. We’d like to change it, but obviously that’s an immense task, and we don’t know if we’ll ever be able to. If not anything else; we’ll add a disclaimer pop-up at the start of the season to warn players about this part being retconned."

It’d be a terrible mess, but I think I’d actually prefer that compared to continuing into season 4 having WPs as a “real thing”.

The Shiverpeaks

From where she stood, Devona could look down and down until all below her was lost in a gauzy whiteness that obscured completely where one mountain stopped and the other began. To the west, she could see far into the distance, days ahead of where she stood right now. The Shiverpeaks were huge, more massive than anything she’d ever seen.

P.S. As for height, it’s been said that The Shiverpeaks is higher than 10.000 feet (3000m) above sea level.

Jokes set aside though: we seem to be returning to the Durmand Priory libraries to summon an audience with the great Warmarshal Turai Ossa himself (presumably Turai, maybe another king/marshal of Elona).

Makes me very excited!

Bolbo Baggins.8594:

0.50 in the trailer, very big hint related to ascencion and the crystal desert (key words hall of ascension, mesa, doppelganger,augary rock ) they are exactly the same as this one:
http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Hall_of_Ascension

Secondary professions confirmed.

Point well made. I’ve edited my OP to more correctly reflect what I wanted to say in the first place. Didn’t mean for it to come across that way, so thanks for pointing it out.

RE: Mental Paradox…
Didn’t see you being referred to as a fascist in the other thread. But to be honest, I was indeed trying to point out how simple and narrow minded many of the statements of that thread is.
Was just trying to give people a little perspective on the matter.

I hounestly don’t see the point in a war. It’s not like we exceed the population limit for Kryta, so why invade another land we don’t need… Shall we kill hundreds of charr just because they killed hundreds of humans more than 200 years ago?

Right now we’re at peace, why should we jeopardize that – for anything?

RE: Forgotten Legend:

It may not be “lying flat”, but I think it’s certainly more submissive than a simple kneeling.
“Traditional kneeling”, if I may call it that, typically has more flair. I think of kneeling as a bow: it’s polite and controlled, only more submissive than a bow (and begging does usually also have that controlled aspect to it).

On the painting, Doric appear to kneeled down to the ground, with hands thrown up in the air. As in showing dispair or weakness.

I fully agree it doesn’t tick off all the boxes for the definition of “prostrated”. But to me, if I should describe his position on the painting, I do lean more towards “prostrated” (due to the very submissive state) than kneeling or begging.

Maybe that’s just me, but I find all the terms referred to above to be a bit open for interpretation.

NB! Still not saying that it is the same event. Just saying it might have been intended to be once upon a time.

Legions, I call you to arms!

One of my scout patrols in Ebonhawke reported back to me, having overheard a group of humans discussing if they couldn’t take Ascalon back again! You might believe Queen Jennah and the Vanguard had managed to flush out most of the Separatists … but no, you’ve been wrong and here’s proof. The Separatists are gaining strength!

This was originally charr land. The humans pushed us out and built Ascalon on top of it. Over 200 years ago, we took our land back. But they cursed our lands before they left. We’re left with these haunted lands, while the serpents thrive in Kryta.

We won Ascalon and we won Orr. Only by resorting to sinking entire peninsulas and cursing land are the humans able to “win”. They are ruining this world. They brought their magic here, and now they’ve destroyed the balance. Yepp, I’m pretty sure the Dragons are all their fault too!

With the clammer of anvils and the thunder of guns, we can flush them out! I say strike them hard and true, now while they’re too distracted fighting Mordremoth.

Muster your forces. The Charr bow to no adversary!

Signed: Ajax Anvilburn

Malganis.7468:

Queen Jennah would be very upset that all her hard work on the treaty is being unraveled by this thread. :/

Well she wouldn’t know about it, since this thread technically takes place in an dark alley in Ebonhawke. Shhh, here comes the Vanguard!

Let me rephrase my question.
Obviously, they appear to be two different events, but…

I remember reading the History of Tyria (in the game manual) before starting to play gw1 back in 2005 – and also the part about Dwayna being the leader of the Gods.
Then, when I first read the scriptures in-game, I immediately connected the two events as being the same. Since she’s the leader, I didn’t react to the wording of Dwayna’s scriptures. If anything, it supported the image I already had in my head of the bloodstones meeting.

It wasn’t before later through Prophecies that I read the plaque again and noticed the date. Ever since, I’ve been wondering if the writers had imagined the two as separate events, or just slipped up with the scriptures’ date.

What makes me think it could have been the same event that the writers may intitially have intended these events to be the same:

• Why isn’t the 116 BE event referred to on the Timeline nor anywhere else (neither the big war or the meeting itself?
• The last meeting is a very epic one. Initially mentioned in both History of Tyria and on the Historical Monument of King’s Watch. The bloodstones is one of the most central plots within the whole franchise. Why would they choose to add another, much less important event (judging by the number of times it’s been referenced to), to put on Dwayna’s plaque?
• Why would they have him prostrate himself twice? Doesn’t it take away from Doric’s character? You could say it adds an extra event, but it kinda devalues the other when it just shows us he begged a lot for help – and this first time seemingly without any sacrifice.

Scriptures of Dwayna

115 BE: And when the world rang with the clanging of swords and did fire fall from the skies, Dwayna, goddess of life and air, heard the wailings and pleas of the weak.

And when the rumblings of war did not cease, came Her charge, Doric, who did prostrate himself at Her feet.

And cast She now a glance upon the war-torn lands and wasted flesh of the fallen, and with tears upon Her cheek did lay Her gentle hands upon the prostrate man. Then saith She unto to him and all Her charges, "Lay down thy weapons, and as I have done unto ye, so ye must do for your brethren. Offer protection to the weak. Give solace and shelter to those who need it. Be ye a salve to the wounded.

Historical Monument of Kings Watch

~100 BE: Doric is crowned king in Ascalon.

gw1:Timeline

1 BE: The Human Gods give magic to races of Tyria.

History of Tyria

1 BE to 0 AE: Wars broke out immediately as the magical races fought for dominance. So much destruction was wrought that humans found themselves at the edge of extinction. When all seemed lost, it was King Doric, the leader of the united human tribes himself, who made the long trek to Arah, the city of the gods, on the Orrian peninsula. He gained an audience with the creators and begged them to help, to stop the wars and bring peace to the land once again.

(In my own words) ~0 AE: The Gods split the magic into the five bloodstones, and uses King Doric’s blood to seal each of the stones, presumably ending King Doric’s life.

Isn’t the first event, 115 BE, the same as Doric’s audience with the Gods in 0 AE?
History of Tyria even pictures Doric “prostrated at Her feet” in 0 AE, exactly as described by Dwayna’s scriptures 115 BE.

Edited January 6th:
Doesn’t the first event in 115 BE, sound remarkably similiar to the one in 0 AE?
The scriptures (115 BE) uses the term “prostrated at Her feet”. History of Tyria depicts the 0 AE event with Doric kneeling/begging (would it be stretching a point to say prostrated?) at Her feet.

Though the descriptions aren’t identical, I find them so similiar that I’m wondering if they were both (at least initially) intended to refer to the same event; the “Bloodstones event”. And that the writers just slipped up with the dates.

Well, they’d focus on Arah because it’s the Arah dungeon. And the sinking of Orr (and Arah) would be a very central story to tell.
Don’t get me wrong though. I too think Arah would have been the epicenter.
Though it has never been said specifically, I’ve always felt that it’s been more or less an obvious thing. Also, the gw1 map – seeing as how the peninsula has “ruptured” at the center – supports that theory.

I’m just saying that “well, we don’t know for 100% sure, do we?”.

Interesting part about the charr invasion clues. Got to check them out. Maybe Arah was built (walled) in such a way that it was impossible (or very hard) to impenetrate the city from anywhere else than at the west gates.

Konig Des Todes.2086:

Titus, you have the order reverse. It shows Khilbron then Arah, sinking while engulfed in blue light.

Sorry, you’re right about that. My point was merely that it doesn’t specifically show whether or not Arah was at the epicenter.
As Forgotten Legend pointed out though, it’s very much possible that the spell cast location and spell epicenter doesn’t have to be the same place.

Konig Des Todes.2086:

there is a river from Arah to eastern Orr, and there is a docked Orrian flagship on the Arah side river banks. So why couldnt/didnt The charr assault via there? (or the Pact for that matter).

I never noticed the SP stating charr being on the western side, so that’s interesting (though it doesn’t make much logical sense to me). The charr have never been a seafaring race. They approached Arah by foot paw, and presumably from the North, North-East, or East (at least initially, then decided to go west for some sightseeing I guess :P).

The cinematic just shows us Arah, then skips to Khilbron without really telling us anything we didn’t already know.

I also find the tower’s location extremely odd. It might be possible though that “the gates of Arah” is refering to another entrance we don’t know about at the city’s east side. After all, the Charr approached Arah by foot. If there was a quicker more direct route, they most surely would have taken it.

Was Arah really at the epicenter?

GW1 Wiki

In panic, Vizier Khilbron searched forbidden texts and discovered a scroll that had been hidden away by the Five Gods. He stole it from Arah, taking it to his tower, and there, unleashed its might upon the land. With a flash of light and explosion of flame the nation of Orr crumbled and was lost into the depths of the sea. The Cataclysm defeated the Charr—but was also the end of Orr.

I guess it’s impossible to know 100 % sure where the epicenter really was (since all first hand witnessed presumably died in the event), but doesn’t most of the few sources we have indicate that the epicenter would be his tower?

Anyways, my point remains the same. There is a lot of well preserved ruins in Arah (circles and the like), but absolutely no remains of any building foundations. That is probably because it wasn’t designed as a city when it was built for gw2. I reckon it was designed as a dungeon with focus purely on gameplay mechanics rather than creating an appearance that was both realistic and true-to-lore.

I understand the reasons, though I don’t agree with them being good enough. After all, this isn’t the only location that contradicts lore and previous history. The locations that did appear in gw1 and did not appear (or drastically changed appearance) is a sad example of that.

What I’m trying to say is: to me it is evident, without any doubt, that in-game Orr and especially Arah isn’t the same Arah as we were told about in gw1 (and to some degree still being told about in gw2). Do we disagree about that?

Then, my question is: which version is the “correct” one…
Is it the lore version, which has been changed for playable reasons, or the other way around?

Carlin Sanders.3587:

I imagine most of the buildings collapsed (…) as the seismic force produced by an entire nation sinking beneath the ground would be equal to a magnitude 30 earthquake (…) imagine if literally everything in a 60 mile radius of you suddenly dropped about 100 feet or more all at once. building weren’t designed to be dropped you know.)

That’s a perfectly sound theory, but that would mean that the Cataclysm should have had the same effect on the huge circles we see all around Arah and Orr, and the various temples, no? What about the farm houses in the village of Ewan... why do these remain seemingly intact, while not one single building can be seen within the great city of Arah?

It doesn’t seem the Cataclysm had a “pulverising” effect. Nothing indicates that. If it collapsed as you say, we should at least have seen large piles of rubble and the remains of the city foundations (roofs and walls are the first to give in to seismic forces, while bottom foundations withstand almost everything).

Konig Des Todes.2086:

(…) or just conceptual art – not actually representing what made it in-game, but instead just ideas for what Orr could look like. Concept art is not the best identifier for how things should be.

(…) I don’t recall any “buildings with gardens on the roofs” as you put it – only structural gardens I recall in concept art was for Divinity’s Reach, not Orr.

Kinda late to bring this one back to life, but need to point out a few things.
I think OP was referencing the Arah loading screen (also shown during the Arah dungeon cinematic).

Though I do agree conceptual art is generally a case of “could” not “should”, in this case all written info we have seem to be much closer to the art than what the in-game result is.
We don’t have much though. Mainly the GW1 manuscripts, the rest is mostly reiterations of the same descriptions.

The huge gap between what Orr/Arah has been pictured to be, and what it finally appeared like, is something that has been leaving me with a grudge ever since launch.

What’s been said / what we know:
(disclaimer: posting some statements from Wiki without checking sources)

• “Orr was a vibrant, proud, and prosperous nation”
• “Its citizens were the favored of the gods”
• “marble streets of Arah”
• Arah was the capital of Orr for over 1000 years
• Founded by the Gods themselves
• For nearly a millennium the Orrians acted as custodians of the city of Arah

Concept art by Daniel Dociu:

• “King and Gods”: only shows Doric and the Gods, no arcitecture.
• “Orr”: shows the grand city after the Cataclysm. Impressive arcitecture. Stone structures, partly carved into the cliff faces.
• “City of Gods”, shows an appearance quite similiar to the Hall of Heroes

I always favoured that last one, since I imagined the city would indeed look a lot similiar to HoH – if it was, as said, built (or at least founded) by the Gods themselves.

For me, all the info we’ve been given conflicts greatly with what we see in-game. Where are all the buildings of this grand city we’ve been told about? Orr’s people lived “in the shadows of Arah”. Doesn’t that indicate huge towering buildings?

Where are all the buildings of its residents, the shops, the craftsmen’s quarters, the millitary barracks, academies for schools of magic. Dust, dirt, a bunch of statues and a thousand circles. Is that it?

Or, is it simply the result of gameplay mechanics and limitations?
To be honest, I’d be quite ok with that. BTW: I think George R.R. Martin has a wonderful way of approaching lore inconsistencies in his world. He’s quite open about it, and has several times gone back to correct errors made – making credits to his to the keen eye of his readers.

George R.R. Martin

Littlefinger gives a speech where he talks about the Iron Throne made from thousands of swords and he says “Nah, I counted them once, and there’s only 137…”

It’s an interesting speech – that’s true in the show.
But it is not true in the books – because there really is thousands of swords in the Iron Throne in the books.

“When truth and legend disagree, print a legend.”

Pfft. Ascalon is nothing!
What about the once “vibrant, proud and prosperous nation”? With marble streets, the City of Gods.

I say we rebuild the true human Kingdom, before we start slaughtering those incapable defenseless kittens…

ChyldeMyst.5098:

… so now do we get to extrapolate the remaining symbols? I looked at the updated wiki, and now I want to fill in the gaps where certain consonant/vowel combinations weren’t used.

Well, that is possible to do of course. But as long as we don’t have any confirmation of how the rest look like (I know most of them are quite obvious, but still), I’m not sure if the wiki would be the right place to put them.

I was thinking of making the missing symbols, but save them with 50% opacity, to clearly show what’s based on in-game sources – and what’s “fan-made”.

Hopefully we’ll see some more samples of Orrian syllabary in the future
I had to take a few educated guesses, due to the texture’s poor quality. E.g. it’s quite difficult to determine if all three or only two lines of the letter “I” are kept when creating DI, HI, LI, NI.
In benefit of the doubt, I’ve tried to draw them the way that makes most logical sense.

The vertical alignment of each symbol has also been a problem, since it varies a LOT. I’ve tried to make all runes work together and appear uniform. Basically, I’ve taken an average of how runes appear next to others (T, S and I makes up some very good reference points). Later today I will upload revised versions of the first 30 symbols.

Teim.6918:

Made sure to not actually look at your translation, just know that it was there. Think I’ve got the knack of it now. Looks like I was right?

Edit: Some of these vowels have two forms. Tricky tricky.

Yep, you were. I had briefly looked into the consonants+vowels setup before you mentioned it, but the different forms of the vowels made me think it couldn’t work like that. There were just way more “add-on symbols” than there are vowels.

However, when you mentioned it, I figured I’d give it another try. I was already looking at the most distinguished patterns. The word “X.Y.X” is repeated 4 times: starting and ending with the same symbol (which is very very rare for short words). I looked up Top 100 English words, and only one of them fit the bill: T.HA.T. Then I found T.HE, T.HE.I.R, T.HI.S. and the pieces eventually started to fall toghether.

I also knew there had to be something about Orr, Arah, Kings, Gods etc. in there somewhere, which helped a lot.

This was really fun to have a go at! Thanks for all the praise everyone

Will do, but tomorrow. My gf went to bed angry an hour ago, I think she’s fed up hearing about my enthusiasm for Orrian syllabaries :P

P.S. Glad to hear you’re feeling better!

Behold traveler
The glory and
might that is
Orr. Be it
Known that here
in the mighty city
of Arah, the Gods
did walk upon
earth, and teach
mankind the nature of
magic. Be it known
that it is here
that the brilliant
and doomed Malchor
carve their likenesses
into the living stone,
so all may behold
their might. Let the
Kings and Queens of
other lands and lesser
creatures witness our
wonders and cry out in
astonishment and humble
themselves. Beware our
mighry[sic] works. Let this
marker last an eternity.

…in the mighty city of Arah…

Just a little teaser for you The code is cracked, translation nearly completed.

Konig Des Todes.2086:

So that’d be like say, someone nuked the five most populated cities of the US + the White House, though the president and congress survived, and someone took Alaska after it had been abandoned for decades (but hospitable); the nukes came from Russia. The people who took Alaska are not only now in between the recovering US and the attackers, but enemies of the attackers as well.

Next Michael Bay film, to be written by Tom Clancy, confirmed.
Some very interesting and realistic theories in your post there Konig. Would make for a nice deep and grounded backstory on the Tengu’s (re)rise in Tyria.

What if the Tengu built the wall to defend Baede’s Kryta, not to defend their own (we haven’t seen any walls on the other side, have we?). E.g. like part of a trade agreement for the land they’re now in posession of. Of course, that purpose may have changed by now though.

I don’t know if I understood you correctly Teim, but I’m presuming you meant:

• The first column contains consonants (or syllables: consonants + inherent vowels).
• The top row contains the vowels (or diacretic symbols).

By the name itself, it’s indicated that the Orrian language is a syllabary, not an alphabet:

Syllabic alphabets, alphasyllabaries or abugidas are writing systems in which the main element is the syllable. Syllables are built up of consonants, each of which has an inherent vowel, e.g. ka, kha, ga, gha. Diacritic symbols are used to change or mute the inherent vowel, and separate vowel letters may be used when vowels occur at the beginning of a syllable or on their own.

But, if it is such a “typical” syllabary, and if it’s based upon the latin alphabet, the total number of syllables would be quite crazy:

• 5 vowels * 21 consonants = 105 unique symbols.
• 21 symbols are required for the consonants themselves (/muted syllables).
• 5 symbols for the vowels (diacretic symbols) to be able to stand on their own.

The sample has about 50 (+/-10) unique symbols.

Test 3 (textile and smilies disabled): ? ? ?? ??? ? ? ?

Test 2 (textile disabled): ? ? ?? ??? ? ? ?

I posted a post in the lore forums, and I used various text symbols to resemble runes of the Orrian syllabary. On preview it looked all good, but it all got reformatted to ? when I pressed submit.

Testing here with disable textile and smilies.

Test 1 (everything enabled): ? ? ?? ??? ? ? ?

Chinese and Japanese are far off in regards to how many symbols used (2000-4000).
Korean (Hangul) may have some similarities:

w:Hangul:

featural alphabet of 24 consonant and vowel letters. However, instead of being written sequentially like the letters of the Latin alphabet, Hangul letters are grouped into blocks, such as ? han, each of which transcribes a syllable. That is, although the syllable ? han may look like a single character, it is actually composed of three letters: ? h, ? a, and ? n. Each syllabic block consists of two to six letters, including at least one consonant and one vowel..

Still, as with Japanese and Chinese, the similarities fall away when you consider the total complexity:

The number of mathematically possible distinct blocks is 11,172

Orrian syllabary may still be based on a w:Featural alphabet format(?).
w:Canadian Aboriginal syllabics is another example. Note the unique use of change in symbol orientation.

Konig @Wiki talk page:

I counted up how many runes we should end up if it’s a fully fleshed grid by your set-up, with no additional rows or culumns. The result is 56. A quick google searched turned up w:Abkhaz as having 56 letters.

On that note, I should mention that I haven’t covered all the base symbols yet. Just to mention a few missing: vertical line / up-arrow (+ with dashes across) / small T.

ChyldeMyst.5098:

I may take a look at this once I finish my classes for the semester. For now all I can say is that it’s gorgeous, and reminds me of my research into the Hieratic script of ancient Egypt a couple years ago.

Would be great to get a “academic look” at this. The more I dig into it, the less I understand. Does anyone happen to know of any RL syllabaries that uses combinations of base symbols to create new ones?

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Orrian_syllabary (30 runes have been drawn now)

BobbyStein.2315:

I want to stress that the reports need to be written as factual, succinct entries, otherwise it’ll just become another long thread that’s difficult to parse. Thanks for understanding.

That’s why I’m thinking the wiki could be a better place to add such reports (using categories)? No room for speculation or discussion there, just facts.

Thanks Bobby for taking the time to explain!

Made me think of the lore inconsistencies (and anomalies) that are documented on the wiki, though not in a category of their own. Would it be helpful for you if we added a “Lore inconsistencies” category for these (or won’t you be using the wiki for bug searching)?

Syzygy.5031:

The writing is a tiny bit better than first season, but it’s still simple and cliched. I skip everything I can in NPC interactions

Hmmm… :P

Yes, I think it is. And I think it’s worth the money. Just start buying the 1 or 2 first episodes, and you’ll quickly find out if it’s your cup of tea or not

Great rewards! Many small chests along the way containing items like “fun”, “atmosphere” and “wonderful sights”. At the end I received a personal buff called “sense of accomplishment”, and I got both “joy” and “laughter” by talking to the Skritt master thief.

The Dowsing Rod was the big treasure, what did you really expect … from a Skritt chest?

There is no greater reward than having fun. If I play through something just simply because I want to, I’d call that nothing short of a success.

I recently found out that my mesmer was in the wrong order. I wish I could have the option to rewind (lose all previous progress, not just “replay”) my Personal Story.

Could that be a viable option to implement? Sounds like something I’d pay a few gems for

CureForLiving.5360:

Is there much of a need for the a Forum Specialist on the lore forum?

If we were able to gather all our thoughts, concerns and questions into one strong spokesperson, yes. I think it would benefit all parties.

It has to be someone who got a certain passion for politics though. And mind you: “speaking on behalf of the people” you don’t necessarily have to be a lore master. If we were able to channel our communication to ArenaNet; decrease range of opinions but increase power – it might increase the number of responses and attention we get back.

I thought perhaps the search function was going to get a refurbishing as part of the latest reorganisation. Any news on if or when it will be fixed?

(was not my intention to make another thread on this issue, but yeah… nothing popped up when I searched for it ^^)

I liked playing Caithe. To me, it was an absolutely wonderful way of providing some proper insight into the Sylvari’s past.

We’ve seen this stuff before, “bonus mission pack”, in gw1. Liked it then, liked it now. As long as we don’t get too much of this in a row (which I really doubt is the case), I think it’s a very nice change. Breaks things up a bit. And I hope to see more of it later.

So far, 12 runes have been identified and drawn: see Wiki: Orrian Syllabary.
To give myself a clearer picture of what’s still missing, I filled them in. Might be helpful for others as well (patterns etc.).

It seems the syllabary extensively combines different symbols to create new ones. A few runes are used as basic starting points; and with the addition of smaller/less complex runes, new variations are created. E.g.:

Well, I liked it. As you’ve pointed out; it’s a “filler patch” for some background story on Caithe. And I think it did well at that. Many players haven’t read the books, or knows of the asuran experiments, but now: this story is presented within the game. Well done!

Personally, I would have loved to see more depth added to Faolain, but Caithe is the focus here – and there is limitations of how much backstory you can put in between the main plot parts. So all in all, I think ANet did a good job in balancing that line.

I really think the patch deserves more positive feedback than what’s been given so far!

I think this is quite a cool idea. If you manage to pull this through properly, it would be very cool to see you “entering the trade market”.

Evon Gnashblade does seem to have monopoly on all trades around Tyria, and runs quite the capitalisic regime. Think about the amount of gold he profits on his trades in total.

If you get a new trading company up and running, with a reputation for quick and 100% scam-free trades, it would seem Evon finally gets some competition.

Only one thing: please don’t do this for free. Just make it cheaper than going through Evan (say: 5%?). After all, if you can offer players a cheaper alternative without reduced quality, why shouldn’t you benefit from it?

I wish you the best of luck!

Ben K.6238:

Perhaps “mount” should be added to the profanity filter.

Holy kitten, I am so kitten tired of these kitten kitten threads. Keep your stupid kittens away from this game and forum, please.

Edit: seems your request was granted Ben o.O (…I wish :P)

I kinda like the idea of mounts. It does add a certain feel to roaming around the landscape.

But, then I stop to think:

• What kind of game is GW2?
• How does map and travel work here?
• Would mounts add value to that system?
• Would it add value if we just removed most of the WPs?

I cannot, no matter how hard I try, find anything else than a firm “no” to those two last questions.
Mounts are made for big open worlds. GW2 isn’t really that big or that open. A change I would welcome though, is more open boundaries (or no boundaries) between maps. The way it’s structured now with “boxed maps” really takes a lot away from immersiveness – and entirely the point of having mounts.

Please don’t waste time on toys like this.

Merus.9475:

Why are children’s stories in a secure facility?

History is everything. I would certainly imagine that the DP would want to have at least one copy of every book ever written. And perhaps a couple of extra copies for the works considered of great importance.

What may seem irrelevant now, may become important later, and I think the DP is very well aware of that. E.g.: a children’s book may hide a deeper meaning, or if not: it may still provide some insight into things like race culture and focus areas of the time period it was written.

What Konig said.