Only fools and heroes charge in without a plan.
If a deranged murderer kills a person, from my viewpoint that is unquestionably evil. However, if the murderer is the observer, from that viewpoint he might not be committing an evil act.
But he is deranged. His viewpoint does not matter. Murder can be defined as always being wrong, because life is preferable over death, and because someone is being killed against his/her will for nefarious reasons. These constant do not suddenly change because of someone’s different point of view.
In this case, we can quite safely trust that our viewpoint is not fallacious, but it’s not always so simple. Imagine yourself in an empty room, empty besides a red cube in the middle of the room and another person besides you. You both leave, and are asked what you saw. If the other person answers that he saw a blue sphere, was it a red cube or a blue sphere that was in the room?
The object is still the same object, regardless of what either person perceived. Both of them could have been hallucinating, and the object could have been a hedgehog. Regardless of what they both think they saw, the object would still be a hedgehog.
Regardless of what the reality is, you act by your perception of it. Because your perception can potentially be flawed, you can’t know with certainty if it’s you or the person you perceive mad that is crazy. If you saw a red cube, and the other person saw a blue sphere, it doesn’t matter if it was a hedgehog all along if neither perceived it as such. It’s a question of whether or not you can trust your own perception to be true when it comes to conflict with that of someone else. No one knows the reality, because we all perceive it through our potentially flawed senses.
Only fools and heroes charge in without a plan.
That’s over-simplifying the issue. There is such a thing as objective morality.
I can’t deny the possibility of universal right and wrong, but I can assure, there is absolutely no way a living being could know what it would be. We are all bound to our own viewpoints, being the primary observers for ourselves.
I disagree. We can all logically come to the conclusion that murdering an innocent person for the nefarious purposes of yourself, is always a wrong act. Not killing, but murder specifically, under the definition that I gave. It is objectively always a wrong act.
From our viewpoint, with our logic. I say “our”, because I happen to share the idea from my viewpoint, but I also acknowledge that my viewpoint is far from absolute. No viewpoint can be absolute, no matter whose, no matter how many share it. Morals based on our logic apply only for as long as our logic applies. If a deranged murderer kills a person, from my viewpoint that is unquestionably evil. However, if the murderer is the observer, from that viewpoint he might not be committing an evil act. In this case, we can quite safely trust that our viewpoint is not fallacious, but it’s not always so simple. Imagine yourself in an empty room, empty besides a red cube in the middle of the room and another person besides you. You both leave, and are asked what you saw. If the other person answers that he saw a blue sphere, was it a red cube or a blue sphere that was in the room?
How this applies to this case? If an elder dragon is the observer, it likely does not consider it’s own actions evil. People affected by it’s actions likely consider them evil. Are you saying you can truly objectively say that one is true above the other?
Only fools and heroes charge in without a plan.
That’s over-simplifying the issue. There is such a thing as objective morality.
I can’t deny the possibility of universal right and wrong, but I can assure, there is absolutely no way a living being could know what it would be. We are all bound to our own viewpoints, being the primary observers for ourselves.
Only fools and heroes charge in without a plan.
Here’s a thought. The gates aren’t one sided, the transportation works from either side of the gate. If the gate is able to sense the pressure on the “membrane”, having it only actively open the gate when there is a difference big enough between the pressure on the two sides.
Another thought I came up with is that the gates are most likely fixed to the relative position of the receiving gate – if not, some interesting situations could arise. Think about dropping a gate on a mountaintop.
Only fools and heroes charge in without a plan.
Ahh, I couldn’t bother going through all of this… But I feel like I should point out that this whole debate is silly. For crying out loud, some of you are talking as if the actions of all-powerful primordial beings that might not even be alive in the same sense as we are were within the reach of our morals.
Second, the original question is answered easily. Do you think they are evil? If you do, from the point of view of the observer you, they are evil. It’s that simple. If the observer thinks something is evil, then for that observer that is a fact.
Only fools and heroes charge in without a plan.
How do you fit a breathing mask on a charr? Make it big enough. It would be no different for tengu. As for Largos, you have a point.
Only fools and heroes charge in without a plan.
If I had to choose my favorite open-world enemies, I’d have to say Veteran Karka. They’re challenging, have a variety of tactics, require you to react to what they are doing and easily overwhelm an unprepared adventurer. I know some hate them, but I embrace the challenge. Especially now that they have the guaranteed shell drop, so they are worth the time spent killing them.
Groups of Sons of Svanir often have a variety of different enemies, but since their range of abilities is very limited in most cases (damage, AoE damage, rapid damage), they aren’t so very memorable. However, the shamans who summon ice elementals, those are interesting. More of that. Just because I might adventure on my own, doesn’t mean I shouldn’t need to think of target priority.
Only fools and heroes charge in without a plan.
What happens there there are 5 commanders on a map and they all start spamming.
Center of screen would get annoying.Commanders do need more stuff though.
Easy fix, make the center-of-the-screen text only appear for the commander currently followed (as in, when you’re in the squad of that commander).
Only fools and heroes charge in without a plan.
Teleporting? Bah, that’s for them silly magic users. Give us engineers the ability to build bridges and ramps!
Only fools and heroes charge in without a plan.
We do not know the point in which the staves couldn’t have been created. This is another presumption you’re making – that they couldn’t have been made pre-0 AE. But where’s this ever really shown?
I’m just only going to answer to this one point right now since I’m rather sleepy…
I’m saying they couldn’t have been made after AE 1, based on what Vissh Rakissh tells us – “The scepter and its twin, the Scepter of Orr, were created long ago, when this desert was still an ocean”.
Only fools and heroes charge in without a plan.
Benevolent and defensive to his own people – that’s not mutually exclusive to being corrupted by power.
No, but unleashing horrors on their own lands is – which the dialogue says. “Terrible horrors were unleashed upon the lands once guarded by their benevolent power.”
Whomever these rulers were, the “terrible horrors” they “unleashed” were upon their own territories.
King Adelbern was a benevolent ruler who would do anything to protect his kingdom. See Foefire. If Doric were to unleash horrors upon his lands to stop invaders, by redeeming himself with his life he would have been remembered as a hero.
Meaning, while the connection might be stretched out, it doesn’t affect the facts behind the theory. And isn’t that what a theory is, plausible connections between what is known? My theory isn’t completely unfounded, it’s based on logical deduction. Comparing it to suggesting that humans came to Tyria from Earth without any kind of reasoning is out of line. I welcome you to pick apart my logic, but don’t spit on it.
The connection loses its plausibility the more stretching the connections hold. Yes, it doesn’t change the facts, but the connection doesn’t remain firm.
And I’m neither spitting on it nor was the suggested comparison I made “without any kind of reasoning” (I just didn’t give the reasoning since its so off-topic).
The stretches I made were only to follow from the more solid deduction regarding the possible time and place of the events. Rather than “A might be B”, it plays out as “If C is D, then A must be B”. Individually, they are long stretches, but looking that from a perspective where a former connection is assumed true, they make sense.
That is just uncalled for. If you want to prove my theory wrong so bad, you can search for a critical flaw in my logic. I did quite a bit of research making that theory, calling it based solely on unknowns is plain rude.
My point is that the “critical flaw” in your logic is that it’s based on unknowns.
When you have things based on unknowns, you can neither prove it wrong nor prove it right, and arguing for or against it becomes pointless before the end. Yes, you did research, but in the end you theory boils down to “we don’t know about this, this, and this, so that could mean <insert theory here> about that, that, and that” – We don’t know who’s buried in the crypt in Majesty’s Rest, so it could be Doric’s tomb. We don’t know when the staves were made or given, by whom, or to whom, so it could be that the wars ad the horrors are the same. Etc., etc.
I could use the same lines of arguments with only very minor twists and be just as convincing for why your theory is not the case. But it neither disproves nor proves either side.
As said before, it’s not based on just unknowns. We know where the staves were found, we know the point after which they couldn’t have been created, we know of Doric’s position as a king, we know that the events related to the staves were major enough to warrant for the intervention by the gods and more. The idea of “if such would have happened, we would know of it” is, while not solid evidence, far from basing solely on unknowns.
And as I admitted, it is nothing more than a theory, and one that I can’t prove to be true. And no, I do not believe it to be the truth, myself. But, I find it to be an interesting. Why? Because despite the stretches and assumptions, it would explain several existing mysteries, using existing information.
Only fools and heroes charge in without a plan.
I don’t see how I stated my theory is wrong – the quest dialogue states that both were corrupted and released horrors to their lands, not that they went power mad. You can assume the case, but it doesn’t make it a necessarily true, since there’s more than one way of being corrupt, especially when magic is involved. The way I see the events having played out, Doric would have used the staff’s power to protect his kingdom, relying increasingly on it and unwittingly releasing the mentioned horrors. That could be seen as corruption, especially since the one telling us about them is found in Desolation, and probably didn’t witness the Tyrian side of the events.
Corrupted, in this case, is meaning that they’re going, effectively, power mad. This isn’t like the Elder Dragon corruption or whathaveyou, it just means tat they turned evil(ish). Whether you call that power mad or not, you’re still stating that Doric remained benevolent and defensive the entire time – aka, while not stating it explicitly, what you’re saying means the same thing as Doric didn’t become corrupted by the staves’ power (“mad with power” as I put it, same meaning in the end, different vocab).
Benevolent and defensive to his own people – that’s not mutually exclusive to being corrupted by power.
I stretch just as much as I need to in order to cover the ground between my points. It doesn’t take away from the value of the points the connections are based on.
Actually, it does. The more you stretch plausibilities, the less likely things are to be. I could argue all day for why humans on Tyria came from Earth, but it’d just be a bunch of stretching facts in a completely possible but completely unfounded way. Same as what you’re doing now.
And such stretching almost never turn out to be the case.
Seems that you misunderstood what I meant. " It doesn’t take away from the value of the points the connections are based on." Meaning, while the connection might be stretched out, it doesn’t affect the facts behind the theory. And isn’t that what a theory is, plausible connections between what is known? My theory isn’t completely unfounded, it’s based on logical deduction. Comparing it to suggesting that humans came to Tyria from Earth without any kind of reasoning is out of line. I welcome you to pick apart my logic, but don’t spit on it.
Except we don’t know whose crypt it was that the Scepter was found in. And as such, is could be practically anyone who isn’t known to be buried elsewhere.
So it could be where King Jadon is buried too.
This is no different than saying “humanity came from Earth because it’s never been said that they didn’t!”
But, by now you’ve succeeded in proving the fallacies of my theory, yet not proven it impossible.
It’s impossible to show your theory to be impossible, because it’s covering nothing but unknowns. When things are unknown, anything is possible really, just like I could say humans in Tyria came from Planet Earth. You’d never be able to prove me wrong.
That is just uncalled for. If you want to prove my theory wrong so bad, you can search for a critical flaw in my logic. I did quite a bit of research making that theory, calling it based solely on unknowns is plain rude.
Only fools and heroes charge in without a plan.
As to Kryta not being Doric’s – it’s likely that, as I said, Doric was a “king of kings” – or a Highborn King, or a High King. Every fantasy story revolving them holds a different title for it, but the same concept. A king that ruled above other kings. Thing is, we KNOW for a fact that Mazdak was the first King of Kryta. We know for a fact that he ruled when humanity was still young on the continent – this places him as ruling prior to 300 AE, and he came from Orr not Elona. So unless Mazdak was Doric’s son (which is important enough to be mentioned), it’s unlikely that he was of Doric’s lineage.
Regardless of Mazdak’s lineage, you, too, agree that Doric was considered the king of Tyrian humans at the time, is what I’m reading.
Corrupted by power? No. Protect his people with a powerful artifact entrusted to him for that very purpose? Yes. After magic was given out to use freely, Tyria was engulfed in war, so a plenty of chance for him to make a mistake when using the staff.
Right here, you state that your theory is wrong. It is outright stated that BOTH kings went mad with power and they caused those “horrors” – that’s why they were struck down by the gods themselves. If Doric didn’t go mad with power, then he’s not the king talked about. If he’s not the king talked about, then the staves weren’t given to an Orrian king during his reign.
I don’t see how I stated my theory is wrong – the quest dialogue states that both were corrupted and released horrors to their lands, not that they went power mad. You can assume the case, but it doesn’t make it a necessarily true, since there’s more than one way of being corrupt, especially when magic is involved. The way I see the events having played out, Doric would have used the staff’s power to protect his kingdom, relying increasingly on it and unwittingly releasing the mentioned horrors. That could be seen as corruption, especially since the one telling us about them is found in Desolation, and probably didn’t witness the Tyrian side of the events.
Yes, this is a conflicting part – yet, it can be explained in a few ways. One would be that human history telling didn’t want to see their greatest hero being struck down by their gods, so a tale of sacrifice was made. Another would be that the undoing of the horrors unleashed required the death of the one responsible for it, so Doric offered himself to the gods.
You should stop stretching, you might pull something.
A bridge built on flat ground serves little purpose. I stretch just as much as I need to in order to cover the ground between my points. It doesn’t take away from the value of the points the connections are based on.
Yes, this is the oddest, yet perhaps the most crucial point of the puzzle, and the starting point of the theory – why was the Scepter of Orr found there? Mazdak was the first king of Kryta, so perhaps he wanted to be buried near his land? I do not know. But crypt being built on older crypts and burial sited isn’t so uncommon – it could be that later Krytan royalty sought to be buried near the legendary king Doric. For what reason Doric was buried there, I can’t say, but him being there would explain why the Scepter was there.
Except that the Scepter of Orr was not in the crypt of the king it was initially buried with. Why it’s there is a complete mystery and you’re stretching majorly to explain it as Doric’s tomb when you have no reason to.
Except we don’t know whose crypt it was that the Scepter was found in. And as such, is could be practically anyone who isn’t known to be buried elsewhere.
Edit: One thing I’ve been forgetting, is that you’re also making a different huge presumption which I’ve failed to bring up as a counter-argument before. You’re presuming that the “great nations” were human nations. So not only do we have no indication of time for these leaders, but we don’t know what kind of “rulers” they were (the only term used to describe the wielders is “rulers”), and we don’t even know what race said rulers were.
This is true, however, can you blame me for not bringing up a train of thought that neither has any kind of backing to it, nor supports my theory? I did consider it, but deemed it unnecessary to include.
But, by now you’ve succeeded in proving the fallacies of my theory, yet not proven it impossible. The connections are still plausible, they just aren’t the only possible connections (which, admittedly, formed a large part of my theory). I don’t think i have any more points to add to this. This has been enjoyable.
Only fools and heroes charge in without a plan.
-continuation from my last post-
- Doric is outright and fully – from start to end – considered a benevolent ruler. He doesn’t seem like someone who was corrupted by power.
Corrupted by power? No. Protect his people with a powerful artifact entrusted to him for that very purpose? Yes. After magic was given out to use freely, Tyria was engulfed in war, so a plenty of chance for him to make a mistake when using the staff.
- It’s said that the gods had to intervene. This screws up your Doric part of the theory, as your theory says he voluntarily gave it up. The two lines of thought clash – they wouldn’t have HAD to intervene and strike down the rulers if Doric volunteered to bringing an end to all this.
Yes, this is a conflicting part – yet, it can be explained in a few ways. One would be that human history telling didn’t want to see their greatest hero being struck down by their gods, so a tale of sacrifice was made. Another would be that the undoing of the horrors unleashed required the death of the one responsible for it, so Doric offered himself to the gods.
- The Kryta we know was established in 300 AE. However, Mazdak was the first king of Kryta and from Orr. Furthermore, Orrian History Scrolls tell us that humans established Kryta during Doric’s reign. Lion’s Arch was also first established as King Doric’s summer home. This means that Kryta was established as a human nation twice.
Yes, Mazdak conquered and ruled Kryta, now that I dug deeper, but in king Doric’s name, so to speak. So, I was wrong earlier when saying Mazdak was the first king of the modern Kryta – seems like he was the first king of the early Kryta, but still under Doric’s rule.
And about Majesty’s Rest – History of Tyria tells how humans “chased the druids from the jungle” within a century of the arrival of humans on continental Tyria. I’m going to build a bit of a bridge here, but that could mean human tribes pushing their way to the edge and into Maguuma, the area covering Majesty’s Rest. It wouldn’t be impossible that the ruler of said tribes, and their first king, would be buried there.
I wouldn’t put too much weight on the History of Tyria, given its ahem history of being wrong. Based on my observations of Bloodtide Coast and Sparkfly Fen, and given the name “North Krytan Province” – the early Krytan settlements didn’t stretch very far. Their first king was buried on northern Gendarran, and Bloodtide Coast and Sparkfly Fen are riddled with ruins of both Krytan and Orrian ties (sometimes right adjacent to each other). This shows to me that the earliest Krytan kingdom reached from Gendarran Fields (known as North Krytan Province in GW1) all the way south to Sparkfly Fen. We also know that in 300 AE, Kryta’s spread (colonization by Elona) saw the centaurs pushed out – this gives a heavy implication that the centaurs made their home in modern Harathi Hinterlands, Kessex Hills, and Queensdale – all three of which having been under Krytan territory no later than roughly 800 AE.
I don’t think that the humans pushed that far west for burying their dead, when Kryta’s first king who was alive in the -1st century Mazdak was buried in Gendarran Fields. And to note again: Majesty’s Rest’s central tomb is the one where Krytan royalty is buried. The side crypt structure, where the Scepter of Orr was taken from, holds no recognition.
Yes, this is the oddest, yet perhaps the most crucial point of the puzzle, and the starting point of the theory – why was the Scepter of Orr found there? Mazdak was the first king of Kryta, so perhaps he wanted to be buried near his land? I do not know. But crypt being built on older crypts and burial sited isn’t so uncommon – it could be that later Krytan royalty sought to be buried near the legendary king Doric. For what reason Doric was buried there, I can’t say, but him being there would explain why the Scepter was there.
Only fools and heroes charge in without a plan.
If the calamities brought by the misuse of the twin staves would have happened any other time, wouldn’t it have made a mark in history?
Read the quest lines again. It merely says “horrors” – no description to it. There are dozens of unexplained historical events that could consistute as “horrors” (Scarab Plague, to name one tied to the Primeval Kings), and several undated events that held strong problems – like the supposed pursecution of druids, or why the Orrian-born Krytans disappeared from the face of history for the land to be resettled in 300 AE. There’s the beginnings of the human-centaur war left as a HUGE blank – 700 years worth, more or less. Then don’t forget that we have the off-and-on three decades long wars known as “The Guild Wars” with no date tied to the first whatsoever (just “after 0 AE”).
We have a lot of unexplained dated events, and a lot of undated historical events.
However, these events had to overlap, happening in both Elona and Tyria at the same or nearly the same time, and they had to be major enough to warrant the intervention of the gods. Looking at the timeline, only AE 0 matches. Of course, as you said, undated events are still a possibility.
unless the Staff of the Mists was owned by the Margonite king, the staff wouldn’t have ended up in Desolation.
Doesn’t change the fact that this so-called tomb would be underwater, or on the edge of the water, if that king was buried in 0 AE.
And Margonites did build in Crystal Sea, see Temple of the Six Gods.
1) Not Margonite origin. Its origin is unknown and, imo, most likely Forgotten.
2) Shore of the Crystal Sea, but location unknown. The Desolation and the Crystal Desert were part of the sea, with supposedly some of the Desolation being the shore. It’s suspected that the temple of the Six Gods was at the Mouth of Torment, but fully unproven and, imo, unlikely since that’s where Abaddon was struck down (the suspicion comes from the two having similar sizes and circular shapes).
3) We know for a fact the Crystal Sea had islands (see the scriptures of Abaddon about Jadoth). However, where the Staff of the Mists was buried (which, oddly, I don’t recall a single structure but an Abaddon Shrine of more recent designs) was not on that high of a land. Also keep in mind that the reason the sea became a desert is because the ground was raised – i.e., it’s impossible to tell how high the elevation of different portions was, and it’s unlikely it was all evenly lifted (impossible, I’d say, to create the current effect at the borders).
So in effect, we don’t know the original elevation of the burial site of the staff, which may well have been on dry ground.
They were given to “the great nations of the world”, and I’m going assume Cantha is not included, or there are more staffs with similar powers, given to Canthan emperor and the Primeval King of the time. Margonites were likely at the height of their pre-fall civilization right before the fall, so I’d call them a great nation. History of Tyria describes King Doric as “the leader of the united human tribes”, which frankly doesn’t leave space for more kingdoms on the continent at the time. Kryta wasn’t established until 300 AE by Elona, and became a kingdom 58 years later. So, Mazdak was likely chosen as a king for legitimacy reasons at that time (the talk about when" humanity was as young as the sylvari" being rather inaccurate) , as he, as all the royal lines in Tyria, was supposedly of Doric’s line. Tyrians love their Doric.
A few things:
- The Margonites were never really called a large or powerful nation. They had a king – one we know of, Khimaar, who would likely be the one that was the king in 0 AE (if your theory is right, then his predecessor had the Staff of the Mists). However, I’d hardly call them one of “the great nations” – if there were only 2 gifts to great nations, one would suspect only 2 great nation. While I’d say Cantha is a great nation, its distance likely cut it from candidacy of the staves. Thus of the four nations (Kryta, Orr/Ascalon, Margonite, and Elona), it’d be Elona (Primeval Kings at the time) and Orr (King Doric) who’d get it.
Margonites ruled the Unending Ocean. I’d say that constitutes for a great nation. Nothing suggests early Kryta wasn’t part of Doric’s kingdom – Orrian History Scrolls tell “His kingdom encompassed the lands we now know as Orr, Ascalon and Kryta.”, and the way how modern Krytan royalty trace their line back to him tells how they consider themselves to be the heirs to his kingdom, if only a part of it.
-Will continue in next post-
Only fools and heroes charge in without a plan.
4. Glints eggs. Did any of them grow up? Also, the oldest known example of a dragon minion laying eggs.
one did hatch, there was a competative mission in ‘Eye of the North’ to protect a hatchling…. then there’s Shiny, Gorens guard dragon who called him Mommy…. and kuunavang, the grumpy celestial power giving dragon
I wanna know – what happened to the ‘good’ dragons
Well, Shiny and Kuunavang were saltspray dragons, with no known connection to Elder Dragons, unlike Glint. And that mission where you defend the baby dragon was pretty much what got me to thinking if any of them survived to this day.
Only fools and heroes charge in without a plan.
-snip-
If the calamities brought by the misuse of the twin staves would have happened any other time, wouldn’t it have made a mark in history? This is one of the key reasons I believe it was a part of the wars of 1 BE. And so, if the owners of the staves were struck down and buried with the staffs in 0 AE, unless the Staff of the Mists was owned by the Margonite king, the staff wouldn’t have ended up in Desolation. It wasn’t until 29 years later that the Primeval Kings expanded their realm there. And Margonites did build in Crystal Sea, see Temple of the Six Gods. By extension, it wouldn’t be unthinkable that they might have build royal tombs in a similar manner. Besides – who’s to say the Crystal Sea didn’t have any islands? If you look at Desolation, it’s full of high rock formations.
You have a good point about the creation of the staves, but it hardly has bearing on the actual theory. The quest dialogue implies that they weren’t passed on by their owners, instead having the whole incident in a single generation. They were given to “the great nations of the world”, and I’m going assume Cantha is not included, or there are more staffs with similar powers, given to Canthan emperor and the Primeval King of the time. Margonites were likely at the height of their pre-fall civilization right before the fall, so I’d call them a great nation. History of Tyria describes King Doric as “the leader of the united human tribes”, which frankly doesn’t leave space for more kingdoms on the continent at the time. Kryta wasn’t established until 300 AE by Elona, and became a kingdom 58 years later. So, Mazdak was likely chosen as a king for legitimacy reasons at that time (the talk about when" humanity was as young as the sylvari" being rather inaccurate) , as he, as all the royal lines in Tyria, was supposedly of Doric’s line. Tyrians love their Doric.
And, as I wrote before, having the incident with two kings, in two nations release terrors on their realm through misuse of powerful staves given to them happen at any other period than the great wars of BE 1 would have left a mark in history. This pinpoints the end of their use. The location of the Staff of the Mists, combined with the time of it’s burial, means only a Margonite King could have held it.
And about Majesty’s Rest – History of Tyria tells how humans “chased the druids from the jungle” within a century of the arrival of humans on continental Tyria. I’m going to build a bit of a bridge here, but that could mean human tribes pushing their way to the edge and into Maguuma, the area covering Majesty’s Rest. It wouldn’t be impossible that the ruler of said tribes, and their first king, would be buried there. I wouldn’t put too much weight on Doric’s Shrine, because he was a great human hero, first of Tyrian kings and the one who is thanked for ending the BE 1 wars. It would be natural for there to be a shrine to him, grave or not. Most public memorials don’t have bodies under them.
Finally, your argument about the later interventions of the human gods can be used to further my theory, as well – when Orr fell, and when Vizier Khilbron was defeated, the Scepter of Orr was rather mysteriously relocated, first time to Majesty’s Rest, second time yet unknown, but possibly there again. This could be by divine intervention. The first time, they were entombed after a major catastrophe involving them, the two following times, the Scepter of Orr disappeared after major magical incidents, one of them certainly involving the scepter, the other possibly.
The way I see it, it all falls into place.
Only fools and heroes charge in without a plan.
Sigh… either people complain that the morals are too black and white, or they complain their actions are questionable…
Only fools and heroes charge in without a plan.
Oh for christ’s sake…
It’s a fantasy game!!! It’s not supposed to be adhere to all the laws of physics and biology and whatever else. Why does everyone keep using real life scenarios as analogous evidence? That’s ludicrous.
Guild Wars is a make-believe world that we, as players, let ourselves be immersed it to participate in and experience that world. There is nothing in those first three games that leads us all to think what we were experiencing and seeing was all legendary hogwash. It’s fake for us as real people, but real for us as players…get it?
Just because another game comes along and makes the claim that all that first stuff was a bunch of malarky, doesn’t make it so.
Disregarding your remark about fantasy worlds not requiring internal logic and such, I’d be interested in seeing you mention an example of a case where GW2 lore overwrites something experienced in person in GW1.
Only fools and heroes charge in without a plan.
Margonites are simply humans btw who gained power from Abaddon. Also, they can’t grow in numbers so wouldn’t make sense at all.
Which is why I believe it would be possible a remote settlement of Margonites, untouched by the events of BE 1 and AE 0, could have survived somewhere across the sea. In fact, my train of thought leads me to think that the people of Guild Wars Utopia could have been originally Margonites of old. After all, Margonites were extraordinary sailors.
Only fools and heroes charge in without a plan.
Gah… I’m all against wings. I’ve played an MMO where you could have wings, and everyone, EVERYONE had them. And frankly, they look silly. It’s a huge immersion breaker when +20 people run around with angel wings. These new tentacles I can get behind (or put behind me, as I’ve done), but wings, wings would be terrible.
Only fools and heroes charge in without a plan.
First got a bug in my ear on this in Kryta listening to bandits. They were just in their cause. Bandits and to a lesser degree Caudecus are fighting to gain civil protections for common people and to overthrow monarchy. The bandits want a government by the people, for the people: a Republic or democracy. Caudecus wants government by the pparliament with the queen a figurehead: “constitutional monarchy” – what the UK and Japan have today (might not be the right term as this system exists even in places without Constitutions, like the UK).
In short the bandits and Caudecus are “the good guys” fighting for rights of commoners and nobles to be protected.
Caudecus wants power for himself and while the bandit footmen may believe they’re fighting for a noble cause, they’re being used by the white mantle.
Shift to metrica province and we get to repeatedly beat down Skritt slaves who are being experimented on… hard to say anything about that…
- but there’s a hidden subtext that the Asura mess with the Skritt to keep them from grouping up as grouped up Skritt might be smarter than Asura…
Asura are an evil little people with a superiority complex. They don’t want to be outsmarted by the skritt.
Now we go to southsun. When it was announced… we were told the settlers are unhappy being kept in camps and lacking the right to leave (freedom of movement restricted) by the consortium.
So I figured we were off to kick some consortium bee-hind so hard even the karka would pitty them… arrive, and they have me beating up “rioting rabble rousers” to protect their corporate masters…
- I feel like I’m a contract gestapo thug…
We kick consortium brawlers as well. It’s in everyone’s best interests if the settlements aren’t burned down in riots.
Oh and then there’s the dredge… just to rewind a tad. Listen to them… theyKre right too. They were held as slaves for centuries and their whole thing boils down to “never again”. We should have been making an alliance with them to take out the flame legion… but instead it somehow went backwards…
Stop putting us on the side of evil…
The dredge are extremely xenophobic and the moletariat seems to refuse all peace talks, instead only making (bad) deals when it promises them military power, such as with the Inquest and the Flame Legion.
Only fools and heroes charge in without a plan.
I wonder, though, did any Margonites survive to this day? From Desolation and Crystal Desert, they were pretty much wiped to Realm of Torment, but they used to sail the Unending Ocean – what if there’s a remote Margonite city somewhere across the sea, never corrupted by Abaddon?
Only fools and heroes charge in without a plan.
About Orr recovery – we still have good two thirds of the area unused. I find it possible that with later updates, we’ll get to explore zones that take place after the cleansing, free of Zhaitan’s corruption and where the land is recovering, and people are maybe even settling in.
Only fools and heroes charge in without a plan.
Any sources regarding the humanity of druids dating to GW1 time are under heavy doubt from me, as they hadn’t been seen in almost a hundred years. Also, the point about Majesty’s Rest was more about krytans pushing their kingdom all the way to the edge of Maguuma, hence the location of the crypt. Also, I find it interesting why the Scepter of Orr ended up there – surely it wasn’t just by chance, there must be some kind if significance to the place. Perhaps that is where the original owner of the staff was buried?
Long ago, the Staff of the Mists and the Scepter of Orr were given to the great nations of the world as protection. Predictably, those who wielded their power were corrupted. Terrible horrors were unleashed upon the lands once guarded by their benevolent power. The gods themselves were forced to intervene. They struck down both rulers, sealed the scepters within their tombs, and guarded them with powerful magic.
The Margonites draw closer to finding what they seek. If they are not stopped, they will wreak havoc upon this world. One such demon seeks an ancient relic known as the Staff of the Mists. The scepter and its twin, the Scepter of Orr, were created long ago, when this desert was still an ocean. The Staff of the Mists contains great power, and allows the wielder to bend the fabric of reality. If the Margonites are allowed to possess the scepter, they will be unstoppable. You must find the scepter before they do at all costs. The Staff of the Mists lies buried beneath an altar in the southern regions of the Poisonous Badlands protected by ancient magic.
Now, let’s look at the timeline.
205 BE humans appear on Tyrian content and in Elona.
175 BE Margonites settle along northern and wester coast of Elona, and Margonites roam the Unending Ocean.
100 BE Doric becomes the king in Ascalon.
1 BE Human gods give magic to the races of Tyria (by letting them tap into the bloodstones)
0 AE Exodus, Abaddon’s removal, Desolation is formed.
So, the staffs had to be created before 0 AE. They’re highly magical too, so it’s unlikely that they predate 1 BE. That’s a very specific time period for their creation. In fact, it ties them to the wars that resulted from the unlimited use of magic. But, the question of who owned the staffs remains, so let’s get on with the timeline.
29 AE Primeval Kings spread their rule into Vabbi and the Desolation, and begin to bury their dead rulers in tombs in the Crystal Desert.
Primeval Kings didn’t venture to the newly formed Desolation until almost 30 years later, but the Staff of the Mists was entombed with it’s owner there when he was struck down. So, who were there before the Primeval Kings? Margonites. Their temples and cities were build in Desolation, but most of them were whisked away to Realm of Torment alongside their people. However, not everything was removed (I guess the gods weren’t all that throughout…), a few temples and this tomb remained. So, the Staff of the Mists, staff used to control the physical world, was owned by an ancient Margonite King.
And the Scepter of Orr? Here comes the big thing. There was one king of humans at the time, and that was king Doric. King Doric, who prostrated before the gods in Arah to save humanity. King Doric, whose blood was used to seal the bloodstones, according to human legends. Stories tell how Doric made a long journey to Arah, so he didn’t rule from there. I presume the name “Scepter of Orr” comes from later, as the oldest known owner of it was Orrian. When the war of magic ravaged Tyria, Doric would have used the scepter of Orr to protect his kingdom, yet causing turmoil with it’s power. Realizing this, he offered himself to the gods, who split the boodstone, sealed it with Doric’s blood, and entombed him and his staff in Majesty’s Rest.
As for the Margonite king, the margonites defaced the statues of the five other gods than Abaddon and started warring against the followers of the other gods. When they were swiftly dealt with, their king was sealed in a tomb with his staff, much alike Doric.
Now that went on for quite a bit… and I didn’t even get to druids. I’ll write more on them later.
EDIT: Sigh, this is what I get for writing for so long, forgetting one of my key points. Sometime after 2 AE, when Orr became an independent kingdom, one of their kings recovered the Scepter from Doric’s tomb, perhaps to prove his lineage. When Orr sunk, I presume Vizier Khilbron had used it to commune with Abaddon, and the gods attempted to seal it away again in Doric’s tomb. The staff finds it way back to Vizier Khilbron, and after his defeat at Abaddon’s Mouth, the gods whisk it away once again.
Only fools and heroes charge in without a plan.
(edited by Tuomir.1830)
Soon humans had everything we required, and it was then that we began to prey upon the other creatures. We hunted animals for sport, chased the druids from the jungle, and took up residence in lands that did not belong to us. We became the masters of this world. We took all of the privilege and none of the responsibility.
This leads me to believe the druids were never human, but instead some older race, with strong ties to Tyria, perhaps born of it. Another possibility would be that they were servants of Melandru.
And it was that a tribe of godless humans wandered the land. Where camped did they lay waste, senselessly destroying everything nearby.
And so the tribe set out to find another camp, when suddenly sprouted a wall of thorny branches, which blocked their exit.
Then saith Ewan, leader of the tribe, “Know ye our ways. Whosoever does magic in this tribe shall be put to death.”
Yet none comes forward. Then, from the earth grows forth a large tree, and unfurling its branches, reveals the upper torso of a woman. Saith She, “I am Melandru, the Mother of earth and nature. Henceforth I bind ye to these lands. When they suffer, so shall ye suffer.”
And as She saith, so was it done. From their limbs sprouted branches, and the blood in their veins was the sap of trees. Then was Ewan and his tribe converted, and became they stewards of nature.
(Scriptures of Melandru)
The scriptures talk of godless humans, but as is the case often with human legends in Guild Wars, chances are it’s not exactly true. Imagine this: Melandru turns Orr into a “green and flowering expanse”, to which arrives a tribe of non-humans (as humans have yet to arrive in Tyria). This tribe, like in the scriptures, treats nature unkindly, infuriating Melandru. Melandru turns the tribe into stewards of nature, binding them to Tyria’s nature. In come humans. Humans drive these stewards out of the “jungle” that was Orr. Much later, druids abandon the bodies they had in order to be even closer to nature.
Now another interesting point. The Scepter of Orr was uncovered in Majesty’s Rest in Maguuma, in a crypt. How did it end up there, when named after Orr, and the twin staff of it was found in Desolation?
Only fools and heroes charge in without a plan.
2. The Druids. Who were they, really? We know so little of them.
They were Krytan humans who were forced into the Maguuma Jungle at some point in the past. There, they tended to the jungle, nurturing it and protecting it, until one day between 970 and 1060 AE they decided to no longer be human and became those ethereal treants.
Which I say is relatively little knowledge. Forced into Maguuma? For what reason? Were they persecuted? What is their magic like, perhaps similar to ranger’s nature rituals? Was the ritual used to abandon their bodies for the ethereal ones in any way related to the ritual used by kurzicks to create juggernauts? There are many unanswered questions about them.
Only fools and heroes charge in without a plan.
Also when male (dunno about female) charrs put their helmets the hair is gone even if there is space for some…
That applies to all covering head armor (as in, not masks or the sort), on all races. Also, you don’t need to post your issue about the shaders on every charr related topic…
Only fools and heroes charge in without a plan.
So, to summarize…
We all want…
-More variety in armors, including sets that reveal skin
-Equal presentation of men and women when wearing the same armor set
-No tacky, tasteless armor (of which there are a couple of borderline examples in the game, I’d say)
Now, I don’t think anyone here disagrees with these, or am I wrong? And if so, then this debate has moved on, beyond Guild Wars 2 to game industry in general. So, if one argues on topic of gaming industry in general, and another on Guild Wars 2, naturally there will be conflict. I’d find it a welcome change to this topic if all parties would at least admit that they want more or less the same things.
Only fools and heroes charge in without a plan.
Another back item from the event, Fervid Censer, has a flavor text of “Canach used this device to spread his wildlife-aggravating toxins on Southsun Cove”, which I read is intentional, though not for the original karka incident, but for this current Secret of Southsun Cove living story phase.
As for the tentacles, here’s a screenshot of them for you.
Only fools and heroes charge in without a plan.
Well, while the flowers emitting the rage-inducing pollen were orchestrated by Canach, the tentacles seen in Bakestone cavern and the karka shell back piece are AFAIK unexplained so far and intriguing, possibly marks of corruption by Bubbles. You never know until you do.
Only fools and heroes charge in without a plan.
Good, save for that I don’t use Nvidia drivers, and I’ve experienced this issue.
Only fools and heroes charge in without a plan.
1. Temple of Balthazar in Maguuma. Who built it? The druids?
2. The Druids. Who were they, really? We know so little of them.
3. Crystal Desert giant bones. There are many theories about them, but what’s the truth?
4. Glints eggs. Did any of them grow up? Also, the oldest known example of a dragon minion laying eggs.
5. The giant warrior statue in Crystal Desert. Who built it? Margonites? Turai Ossa’s pilgrimage?
6. Xunlai dimensional magic.
7. The Wizard’s Folly tower. Completely different in architecture from Ascalon, Dwarves and Kryta, and apparently magical in nature.
Only fools and heroes charge in without a plan.
I find the problem lies in the way the skills are structured. In GW1, there were a lot of different terms and categories that the skills could refer to, such as skill types or the attributes they were linked to, or life loss types (damage, different types of damage, degeneration, life steal, life loss) and so on. For an example, Mystic Regeneration, a skill I centered my Dervish build around, gave (stacking) regeneration for each enchantment (a kind of buff) on me. So, having many enchantment spells on my skill bar and being kept up, I was regenerating health at max speed constantly. Then, having an elite skill that removed a dervish enchantment on me and applied bleeding and deep wound (a condition that reduces the max hp) on foes hit by the attack, I removed enchantments with effects that trigger when the enchantment ends (in the case of the enchantments I used, applying conditions to foes around me), followed by an attack that removed conditions from foes hit, dealing damage for each condition removed to all foes around me.
Now, this kind of depth I don’t find in GW2. Having just three utility skills with long cooldowns removes any real synergy between them, not to mention that they have generally very simple effects. When all they can apply in most cases is damage, healing, boons or conditions, the gimmicks are gone. And gimmicks are what make build making so much fun! Most of the possible gimmicks are now in traits, mostly grandmaster level, and very narrowly defined. This might be good for game balance, but it certainly is bad for interesting builds. Having five skills bound to weapon is the same, it’s a set of skills that’s easy to balance because there’s little interaction with other skills, but the lack of interaction makes it less interesting. It feels like I’m walking a path with high fences around it when making builds in GW2, which isn’t a good thing at all.
Only fools and heroes charge in without a plan.
A couple things.
1. The more magic they eat the more powerful they are, no? And the longer they live the more they eat. And also, judging by the magical beings lifespans in the games more magic = longer life, So if we work with an idea that all dragons absorb magic, some just do a much more efficient job then others, we could assume that all Elder Dragons simply absorb magic and use that as their own.
You can’t build a bridge without first having ground to start from. The only time a drake might devour something magical would be if an unlucky adventurer were to wear something magical, and they aren’t very good in digesting it.
2. To see that drake are sort of dragons, look at the original concept art for them in Guild Wars 1, and the actual wiki entry that states they are a type of dragon.
The wiki line refers to the game technical species of the group of enemies. It has little to do with the lore.
4. All the dragons in the skies of Arah, yet we never get an explanation on how some dragon champions take dragon-like shapes while others keep old shapes or alter themselves only slightly. If there were dragons in Tyria and Elona before elder dragons reached full potential, that could explain why there are so many, by corrupting all other dragons on the continent. Cantha is a bit too far out for them to bother flying too when they got all that life in Tyria to corrupt already.
The most powerful dragon minions are corrupted to resemble their master, unless they are meant for a special task (such as the eyes and mouths of Zhaitan). The risen knights are a good example of a stage between the original and a dragon champion.
Only fools and heroes charge in without a plan.
Oh right, forgot about jotun and dwarves when writing that… still, somehow I think Anet was thinking about making Elder Dragons dragons, instead of making them related to existing dragons… At least to me, they seem worlds apart. And besides, even though the jotun and dwarves survived the previous dragon uprising, that doesn’t mean they ever knew a thing about their origins, much less now.
Now the dragons in Cantha, they seem very much flesh and blood to me. Powerful and magical, for sure, but flesh and blood (and scales). It also should be noted that the saltspray dragons lay eggs. That would very much be against the idea of them being elementals, no? So, “lesser dragons”, as in not Elder Dragons, are mortal animals, even if the word does sound like doing a disservice to them. The Elder Dragons, on the other hand, are more magical in their nature – see Zhaitan eating magical artifacts via special minions.
Only fools and heroes charge in without a plan.
Engineer
-Gatling Gun
Weapon kit Equip a kittening Gatling gun (recharge 0 seconds) replaced by Stow kit
And the skills you’d get from it…
1. Spray & Pray: Damage foes in a cone in front of you. Max targets: 5. Range :1200. (channels for two seconds, five pulses a second) Ammo consumption: 1.
2. Crippling Sweep: Cripple foes in a cone in front of you by shooting them in their knees. Max targets: 5. Range: 1200. Recharge: 8 seconds. Ammo consumption: 2.
3. Focused Fire: Keep shooting on a single target, applying vulnerability on each hit. Unblockable. Number of attacks: 10. Recharge: 30 seconds. Ammo consumption: 5.
4. Leaden Barrage: Shower an area with ammo. (ground targeted AoE skill, works like Ranger longbow barrage) Recharge: 40 seconds. Ammo consumption: 10.
5. Load: Fill your Gatling kit with ammunition. Upon stowing or dropping Gatling Kit, all Ammo is lost. Applies 25 stacks of ammo. Duration: 180 seconds. Recharge: 180 seconds.
In effect, the kit would play like a weapon kit version of the Fiery Greatsword. In addition to the skills, the kit would make the engineer run 50% slower while carrying it. Also, the effects of the trait Juggernaut should apply to Gatling Gun like it does to Flame Thrower.
Only fools and heroes charge in without a plan.
Drakes are never referred to as dragons ingame. Dragons in Cantha were called dragons long before humanity knew the first thing about the elder dragons. Why were the elder dragons named such? Because they look similar. That’s not a connection, that’s a coincidence.
Only fools and heroes charge in without a plan.
That’s a whole lot of air you are building your bridge on – there’s really nothing to suggest an actual connection. It would be about as relevant to say moas are offspring of the elder dragons, because birds evolved from dinosaurs.
Only fools and heroes charge in without a plan.
You do realize that it wouldn’t be the dungeon you’d want to run, but the dungeon that’s the easiest to run that’d get all the players, right? If I wanted AC armor and could get it through CoF speed running, why on earth would I play AC then? It’d be nigh impossible to find AC groups for getting the Dungeon Master title, as no one would do it for the tokens.
Only fools and heroes charge in without a plan.
I’ve seen this happen, the brightness of the bridge is off the charts for some reason. I’d say it’s a bug with certainty. Could be compatibility issue, too, but seeing as that’s the only time I’ve ever encountered that, I doubt it.
Only fools and heroes charge in without a plan.
I think it has been stated by devs way back that drakes are not related to the elder dragons, but I can’t find where I read that. Still, even without that, I find it extremely unlikely that such world-shaking beings that seem to transcend all living beings in all but mortality would be of the same breed as your average river drake.
Only fools and heroes charge in without a plan.
I must admit I was disappointed to see no reference to the dredge rebellion in F&F, though. Or, for that matter, to the aftermath of CoF from the Flame Legion’s side.
I see the F&F as the aftermath itself, as both are weakened and so tried to take advantage of each other through the deals made by the yet unknown mysterious figure behind the alliance.
Only fools and heroes charge in without a plan.
I think I’d be fine with it launching you forward than knocking you back. As an escape option, that probably makes more sense.
Engineers use Acid Bomb as an escape option, and it launches you backwards.
I will use it as one sometimes. But it’s annoying having to turn around and face my target and then use it. Especially if I’m crippled/chilled.
I don’t use rocket boots when running away. I use it when I have to be elsewhere, right on that moment, right out of the fight. That’s why the backwards knockback works perfectly.
Only fools and heroes charge in without a plan.
I like rocket boots, it’s an escape move that kicks in the instant you use it (even in air!). Sure, I get knocked down too, but having a second stun breaker is not so bad when you get tool belt skills for both. But, having it lift you just a bit higher would be nice, so that it would actually work uphill, too.
am I reading this correct?
A second stunbreaker just to deal with Rocket Boots itself?
Are you serious about this being even remotely ‘acceptable’?I agree it should jump higher, but it simply should not knock you down. At all…
There is no reason for it. Gadgets are weak for reasons like this.No self-knockdown.
Jump higher to avoid terrain.
Maybe jump forward (personal preference).Those seem not unreasonable to ask for.
Yes, that’s exactly what I’m saying. It’s a getaway move with instant cast without any kind of targeting necessary, decent cooldown, blast finisher and a good tool belt move for builds that make use of conditions. The drawback of knockdown is perfectly acceptable, especially if you pair it with a stun breaker that also has a good tool belt skill.
Only fools and heroes charge in without a plan.
Two things – the server queues are there because the server can’t handle too many connections at once, so the spectator mode won’t happen, and two, even if the spectators couldn’t contact the people in WvW directly, there’s still a number of ways they could contact them, included, but not limited to, guild chat, party chat, whispering to someone not in WvW who whispers to someone in WvW, and of course telling everything after getting on the map.
Only fools and heroes charge in without a plan.
Mad queen Malafide, you do your name justicce, indeed.
Don’t you see that EVERYONE here disagrees with you? You are very lonely in your stand. A person needs to know when it’s time to say “I have a different opinion. I see I can’t change yours, so having this discussion any further is meaningless.” This goes for everybody else here as well. Having this discussion with the mad queen is pointless.
I fully agree with Rubykuby. I prefer his fair and global point of view. His arguments convince me much much more. He doesn’t digress like the mad queen does but only if there is an urgent need.
Oh, do I love proving people they are wrong. I don’t disagree with her, not completely. Nor do I completely agree, either, but that’s besides that point.
Only fools and heroes charge in without a plan.
I like rocket boots, it’s an escape move that kicks in the instant you use it (even in air!). Sure, I get knocked down too, but having a second stun breaker is not so bad when you get tool belt skills for both. But, having it lift you just a bit higher would be nice, so that it would actually work uphill, too.
Only fools and heroes charge in without a plan.
You do realize that the three elite skills you listed are the human racial elites, right? No other race gets them, but all human characters do.
Only fools and heroes charge in without a plan.