Guild Wars 2

BobbyStein.2315:

It seems that people liked the lore books. How would you like to see them improve or evolve? Examples help.

Actually; you yourself have already presented several amazing examples:

• A sketch of the creature I saw…
• As we approached the battlegrounds…
• This is where Destiny’s Edge confronted the…
• Dragons consume magic…

These notes can be found in-game (scattered around Dry Top), but if you’re able to present books and notes more like this in the future, I think it would greatly increase the attention towards GW lore among all players.

P.S. This would also make it possible to add your wonderful short stories (and e.g. An Empire Divided) to the game!

With Season 2 there’s been a lot of new music introduced. I am very happy that this trend have been continued in to all episodes.
The entry into Camp Resolve, and the new music for The Silwerwaste is an amazing work of art (just like the pieces introduced with Dry Top).

It really adds that extra bit of freshness and new feel (and just as important: the “correct” feel) to the new stories and areas.

Keep up the good work!

As much as I’d like to see something like this in-game, I am a bit sceptic about the “world-wide” (per zone) concept you propose her.

Trying to be realistic…
ANet seem to have all their focus set to LS s2. If they were to add more written lore text to the game, it will probably have to be in some relation to the LS story.
It doesn’t necessarily have to be “new gw2 stuff” though. It can just as well be background info on The White Mantle, Abaddon, Mursaat, etc.

No more short stories?
Colin said during the last POI they had learned during s1 that short stories like “What Scarlet Saw” needed to be ingame. I hope he meant it literally: adding the possibility to find and read books and short stories through a new “book UI”.
From long complex books at the Durmand Library. To short notes scattered around the world (ref. Dry Top).

What I think he meant is: converting the content of the such stories into gameplay instead. A nice thought, the more story we get through gameplay: the better. But you can never replace the depth in quality you’re able to get through written text.

Bottom line:
I support your main intentions (as I read them): implementing more lore text into the game 100%. But I’m sceptic about the implementation itself.
For me, it’s important that we either get long pieces of stand alone texts (complex enough to make it on their own). Or smaller pieces of text, but presented in a very coherent context.

I think more background info and written lore into the game is both wanted and needed – for players and developers alike.

A good story (in gameplay) needs proper (written) foundations to stand upon.

Medicarejunkie.6032:

They should create separate instances for PS

Word (for PS and LS).

Stooperdale.3560:

Perhaps Scarlet had her room of madness under Durmand Priory just so she could study this stuff.

Well, that is quite an interesting thought. Such a plot could certainly bring more depth into her character. I didn’t like her during Season 1, but after they’ve added some background info (short story + the story in Season 2) – it does help to restore her to a more feasible character..

Milea.6043:

Maps: three full & one partial carved on stone:

Is that last one in Jotun territory? It would be very interesting if it does correspond with the other maps (though I can’t see it does by just looking very briefly at it.

But Desmina, you shan’t chase revenge!
“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.”

Zaxares.5419:

We’ve seen a marked increase in red posts on the forums lately from a lot of devs …

Amen.

Mainly, I think it works great as it is right now. But I do see (as OP mentioned) that the disposition of red post can be affected a lot by:

… in their areas of interest

That’s not a bad thing by itself, not at all. You’ll get more understanding and constructive replies, and you’ll have a much more dynamic discussion between dev and player.

However, if too few POIs are represented – caused by too few devs being active: the disposition of red posts may become too fixed.

Gaile Gray.6029:
quite the variety

For me personally, I would like to see more attention to the lore forums. For others it’s raids, dungeons, etc. (cake, keep, eat)

Regarding lore forums:
Obviously, you don’t want to spoil anything. But please keep in mind that there is a lot of questions just requiring simple clarifications or explanations (e.g. the doubts about the Mouvelian calendar’s distribution of days – yes Angel: I’m looking at you).

I think you’ve really shown an “increased focus and efforts” in communication between dev and player – and I really applaud the trend you’ve started.
“Next step” may not be simply more forum posts, but rather more forum devs? = more broadened distribution?

For me: more red posts from Jeff Grubb, Ree Soesbee and Angel McCoy – yes please

Ehm. I don’t think this is the right place for this thread.
Then again, I don’t think there is one at all :P

Schwarzseher.9873:

Altair.6109:

Guild Wars 2 is not that amazing Stop praising .

It used to be amazing. Then Living Story happened. And no matter how loud and constructive we complained, we were just ignored all the time. We are not destroying the image of the game. We cant destroy something which already has destroyed itself. We are merely warning all new players what they will possibly face.

I love Living Story. I think Season 2 is by far the best content they’ve released within the game. Season 1 however, I felt lacked quality and a coherent storytelling.
Not to say that I’m “right”, just to say that nobody is really.
And I’ve been a loyal player of the Guild Wars franchise since 2005, so I don’t really think anyone can say it’s because I’m a new player…

Your post, like so many others’, lacks perspective. And I think that’s what the OP is trying to address. You can’t just say “it’s broken”, and leave it at that. That’s when you’ll be told to just stay away.
Try instead to tell ANet how they could make certain aspects of the game better. You’re only one person, but if you got good ideas along with enough others – you just might end up contributing to improving the game – instead of harassing it.

How deep is your Orr?

John Smith.4610:

I’m definitely not a professional writer, but I did write this myself. I just thought that was a harder clue.

For wiki-archiving purposes: do you have a title for your short story?

Developers seldom reply to the lore threads. Of course they do occasionally, but I wouldn’t have any high hopes.
No matter how they reveal Bubbles’ real name, I’m sure they’ll do it in a better way than what they did with Mordy. The lore community was in outrage back then, and it didn’t go unnoticed

(What I don’t understand is why they didn’t go back and change the revelation of his name – now that we have the repeatable story instances)

MakeitNeil.4561:

I am getting MAD.

This was what happened to Oswald as well. He was a perfectly decent lad, untill he ran into some server issues during the early years of his youth.

He just completely lost it, and the rest is – as they say – history.

Konig Des Todes.2086:

Rurik’s crown/helmet

Now we’re getting somewhere. I got to admit my Stormcaller-idea was a bit far-fetched :P
But yes: Rurik has to be of some importance here…

EDIT: can’t help but liking the Stormcaller-version more (however unlikely it might be). It’s just more symbolic for me; in terms of being a more specific link to that exact moment where Rurik was banished from Ascalon.

EDIT2: Dagnar cleaves Rurik’s helm?

Gaile Gray.6029:

Those who post “it’s live” in advance of the build will be banished to an ant hill in the Maguuma Jungle, with live ants.

People should always read the signatures All in the good spirit of his Majesty.

YES! IT’S FINALLY LIVE!

Signed yours sincerely, Oswald.

Could it be a broken fragment from the mouthpiece of Stormcaller? Obviously, that debate wasn’t the “real” problem between the two, but it was the ‘trigger’ so to speak.
I imagine that moment would be quite a burden to bear

(Since he obviously couldn’t show any remorse publicly, maybe he carried a fragment of the mouthpiece on him – as a personal reminder of what was broken that day?).

Konig Des Todes.2086:

Cantha confirmed.

Tachenon.5270:

Well, technically…

Now ain’t you a party pooper ….

Since no one has linked it already, here’s Mr WoodenPotatoes’ playlist of all the Lore videos (basically what the OP was asking for):
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL00553A085339802C

AAeriaM.7045:

I don’t know why it is incomplete

WoodenPotatoes has stated that it is currently on pause, but it will be continued. Most of the next episode(s) has already been written.

He’s said that he wants to release it at a time more relevant to GW2 development (e.g. if we’re going into Cantha / Elona / Crystal Desert etc.).

I see a lot of people complaining about how the content has been drastically reduced from season 1 to season 2.

I just wanted to give the other side of it a voice:
Yes, quantity has been reduced. But the quality has gone towards another ballpark completely. When I saw ArenaNet taking a “season break”, I was really happy about it!

It tells me that they’re not trying to rush out loads and loads of content. They want to make sure it’s GOOD content – which really lives up to their original philosophy of “when it’s ready”.
Mind you, this isn’t content you should rush. That WILL make you disappointed.
Take your time, explore the small things and details put in. Read all the written dialogue, and you might find it worthwhile.

I feel bad for the developers. Last year we complained about quality. This year, someone else is complaining about quantity.

Valento.9852:

I feel sorry for you, he did not bite the bait.

Hehe. I’ll give it another try… Why did the Seer chase after the Eidolon?

Happy Holidays Chris and Gaile! Your replies to this thread really made me smile and looking forward to see His Majesty Oswald Thorn again!

Why did the Seer chase after the Eidolon?

I love the short stories, and I love the various books even more. You’ll find the whole collection here: http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Category:Tales
+ http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Category:History_of_Tyria (“An Empire Divided” is a must read!)

Now, I would rather have them on the website/wiki than not having them at all. But yes, it would be wonderful to see them in-game. And it doesn’t have to be a lot of work.
I wouldn’t try to justify all these documents with specific quests etc. required to unlock them. Just put them in the game, within the Durmand Priory archives, Durmand Hall in Divinity’s (and on bookstands etc.).

A new book UI needs to be created, sure. But when that’s done, it will give a wonderful new opportunity of storytelling and expanding the depth of the GW-universe (this could have been used e.g. for the various notes found in Dry Top during Season 2, e1).

Branden Gee.2150:

(Please note this does not mean that any of these things will happen)

I didn’t understand that particular part, but the rest of your post was AWESOME!
This thread got me really excited now!

That is VERY interesting! The part about it being “rather challenging to use and to QA test” just makes things 10 times more interesting.
(English substitution cyphers are becoming a bit over-used and dull)

@Devs: please just publish what you got. Just let us, the lore community, work it out, QA test it, and then we can get the “New Krytan Orrian” and “Old Krytan Orrian” bits in game corrected

Waaaah, please please please publish :P

I can understand why people think this sounds “cool”. If it wouldn’t affect other sides of the game, I would be ok with the idea – but it does. It’s a feature that would take away attention from things I would definately consider more important.

Please don’t spend any resources on this.

johanwikstrom.2304:

If we say a place like Orr actually gets fully restored, who will get that land?

For historical reasons, it would become a gigantic museum / protected archaeological site owned and maintained by the Priory. And they would try to build it up back to as it once stood prior to the Cataclysm. Just like we humans do with ruins from ancient Greece etc.

I would just love that :P

I’ve been a big fan of the Orrian Kingdom and especially Arah, ever since I first read about it in the GW1 manuscripts – now almost 10 years ago.

The Orrian language has therefore been a big mystery to me for quite some time. Recently, Loremaster Konig made me aware that Orrian runes actually does exist within the GW2-universe!

As far as I can see though, it doesn’t seem it can be translated. Anyone see any “translateable” parts? Or @Angel McCoy: is it possible, or are the runes just randomly put together?

Aaron Ansari.1604:

Titus.4285:

• From ~1310 AE: It is during this phase the Ministry starts to grow corrupt.

We don’t know that for sure.

Valid point. I guess it might have started to take root already during Jennah’s father’s reign. I think it is Sea of Sorrows (confirmation needed) which mentiones the friction created during the gap between Jennah’s father’s death and her taking the crown.

I guess it would be hard to define exactly when it started, but “sometime towards the end of Jennah’s father’s reign” would be as good an estimate as anyone can give (?).

Aaron Ansari.1604:

We can guess at the theme of the current laws getting considered, but that only goes back as far as however long the Ministry’s been corrupt. It probably didn’t start that way, and in any case it’s implied to be younger than Divinity’s Reach, so any law going back more than a hundred years would come from an age where the monarch had seemingly absolute power- and we know monarchs ran the gamut from truly caring about the common folk (Salma) to killing them for fun (Thorn).

• ~0 to ~1220 AE: Monarch with absolute power (“Absolute monarchy”)
• From ~1220 AE: King Baede establishes The Ministry (“Constitutional monarchy”, like today’s monarchies in western Europe = monarchs + democratic elected governments)
• From ~1310 AE: After the death of Jennah’s father’s; Kryta is ruled only by The Ministry, while Jennah gets old enough to take the crown. It is during this phase the Ministry starts to grow corrupt.

Tyrian royalty family tree

Konig Des Todes.2086:

There was a forum post some time ago that there was originally to be a translatable Orrian alphabet, but they were running short on development time and had a lack of subjects to put it on.

Well, at least that’s an explanation. Of course I think it’s still quite sad, but at least they’ve explained it. Better than nothing

I don’t buy that one, sorry. We have Old Ascalonian, Old Krytan, Asura had their own language, Canthan, etc…
It might be that they’ve used New Krytan to make it “simple”, but if so: the attention to detail and authenticy has just diminished too much.

I would rather have some random scribble written on those tombstones than “easy solutions”.

Isn’t this a major lore bug?
Both tombstones seem to have been “aged” by Orr’s catacalysm in 1070 AE. Now (as far as I know), we know close to nothing about the Orrian language.

But we do know that they didn’t use New Krytan, seeing as it wasn’t introduced as a new language before 1105 AE. And the graves doesn’t appear to be new (at least not the top one).

Am I missing something, or is this a terrible oversight by the devs?

Crossaber.8934:

I am thinking what is the right time for adding mount….

3015 is the right time.

Be careful now. You might end up in some afterlife where you can keep playing GW. You think you’re looking smart now, but in 3015…? Not so much!

Zacchary.6183:

It is never a good time for mounts.

^ What he said… And I wouldn’t mind having less Waypoints than what we currently have.

I prefer Living Story, by far.
Also: the trailer for Episode 3 = AMAGAD! SOHOTIN!

In case I didn’t respond to this one…
No thank you.

No thank you…

Funny. OP just about summarized all the things I don’t want ANet to do…
Living Story YAY! I love it! <3

Mounts: no thank you
Less waypoints: yes please

Now how’s that for an idea?

Back when I was playing gw1, I went down to the living room one very early morning. The first thought that came into my head was:
“Did I hug the walls on this map already?” … that was kinda frightening :P

I play Guild Wars 2 only because I find it fun, and not because I feel a need to grind anything.
I don’t have a legendary weapon, no ascended gear (except for trinkets and stuff), and I find the LS s2 to be amazing. I play casually, and I love the fact that I can play casually without feeling that I’m being left behind on some grind threadmill.

I play it because I feel ANet lives up to their promise on the game being based on fun.

I don’t agree with the OP. I love the current model, where it allows me to tune in every 2 weeks to watch the story progress.
I can’t see how this is not an expansion (sorry, but I can’t), and I personally love that I can get it episode by episode, instead of in one big dump.

P.S. It should be noted that I play GW2 quite casually. To me, it seems ANet is trying to create a casual atmosphere, where people play a little bit all the time. Opposed to playing 8 hours a day for 2 months, then going to another game while waiting for the next expansion.
And that is what I want as well. So, thank you ArenaNet!

I as good as NEVER visit my home instance, and I won’t think I will even if they’ve added player owned houses to it.

The only scenario where I could see player houses adding value to the game is if each single one of they were put inside the open world. Imagine if Lion’s Arch weren’t rebuilt by ANet, but ENTIRELY by players. But that won’t be possible considering the vast amount of players, but yeah. That’d be cool.

I just find such “personal” content like this very isolating, antisocial and boring. A “no” from me basically.

+1 (not a biggy of course, but couldn’t be too hard or time consuming to fix?)

First of all, I know this has been mentioned before. But I thought it was really interesting seeing the notes that ANet released on their Tumblr page (here’s two of them):

• A sketch of the creature I saw yesterday (especially this one)
• Dragons consume magic, but they don’t destroy it…

The exact same notes can be found in-game, but unfortunately only shown by the normal dialouge interface.

I think it’s a huge problem that a lot of players don’t take their time to read written content. There are LOADS of interesting stuff, which players just skip – very unfortunate, but often also quite understandable.

If ANet started presenting in-game books, notes, etc. more like they do on Tumblr, I think it would drastically increase the number of people reading it, instead of just pressing “next”, “next”, “close”.
It would also make it possible to publish ANet’s AMAZING short stories ingame! (and works like An Empire Divided).

• TL;DR How a book could look like

Yes it is. Regardless of race.
I agree it’s a little bit weird how the Eternal Alchemy can change overtime. As you said, we learned about Alchemy Circles already in GW1.

But, let me quote something from another thread:

The Dragon Glint was part of it in GW 1. In GW 2 the role of Glint seemed to be resurrected in the form of the Pale Tree. If Mordremoth can corrupt the Pale Tree in GW 2 then in GW 1 Glint could have been corrupted by Kracky in a similar way. In addition if the Pale Tree represents Tyria in GW 2 then in GW 1 Glint could have represented Tyria in a similar way.

Now, I don’t really see the great link between Glint and the Pale Tree, but the general idea of something being able to change form over time is something I absolutely belive in. It has been mentioned that it could be not necessarily the Pale Tree, but rather The Dream we’re seeing in the Eternal Alchemy – only depicted by it’s current form?

Also, the trees are not necessarily something new. There were Ancestor Trees http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Ancestor_Tree in gw1, Ventari’s Refuge and the Pale Tree most likely being two of them.
So maybe are we seeing the Ancestor Trees, in plural?

http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Bloodstone also showed us an Alchemy Circle, but here: we have the Eye of Janthir in the centre. I guess it’s possible that the Dream lived within the Eye of Janthir in gw1, but since then has moved form to the Pale Tree.

Lots of different theories you could make of this mess. Hopefully it will be elaborated on in next episode

You should really check out http://theloreofguildwars.blogspot.no/2012/04/alchemy-circle.html btw. Alchemy circles isn’t something new in the Tyrian universe.

Did Lord Odran see the Eternal Alchemy as well? :P

The Elder Dragons:

We know not when these Elder Dragons came to be, only when we came to be aware of their awakening.

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/The_Elder_Dragons < as far as I know, this book is our main source when it comes to the awakening dates. If it is, we should be very careful presuming their order being incorrect/correct compared to what we see in Omadd’s machine.

zwierz.9012:

Keeping on the design oversights topic – male norn have no nipples.

And why do male humans have nipples again? To me, that’s the oversight! :P