Guild Wars 2

If you are the same color, you can probably party up in EoTM.

Leablo.2651:

It happens only in full instances. Completely self-defeating for Anet to have created the megaserver system only to bump up participation requirements so high that it excludes the lower tier (mega)servers from succeeding and forces us to “guest” once again. We are now back to square one.

They probably didn’t expect players to screw with the allocation system by using taxi groups.

Brother Grimm.5176:

The ONLY reason I take AP in any way serious is when actual REWARDS were introduced with them. Before that, I never even looked at them. Just don’t care about the “number” as it’s only indicative of how much time someone has invested in the game and will tell you nothing about how well they play and certainly not how well they will play in any given activity or mode.

Anyone that thinks the AP number directly relates to skill in-game is simply delusional.

I agree. I have a lot of AP from LS1, but I did those achievements to get the meta rewards not for the AP. The AP is just a bonus. Anyone who played LS1 is going to have a truckload of AP from those events.

I also have a lot of AP from killing so many different things with so many different weapons, from doing the occasional JP, from dailies, PS, exploration, etc. None of these I did for the AP.

Now that there are no meta rewards from LS achievements I am not really doing them.

In theory you could follow a chain of DE from Fort Trinity to the Gates of Arah.

BrunoBRS.5178:

Aerinndis.2730:

What the asurans have failed to realize is the answer to the universe and everything has always been 42…. lol

there are 7 orbs, 6 of them are dragons.

7×6 = 42.

:|

The Eternal Alchemy is nothing but numerology.

Ariella Goldstein.3562:

Occum’s Razor: the simplest answer is usually correct one (paraphrase)

Now let’s look at the plot in the simplest of terms: the new dragon’s sphere is plants. The Pale Tree is a huge magical plant with magical plant “children” aka the Sylvari. If you’re our beloved elder dragon, where would your first stop on the lunch menu be?

And Occum isn’t a movie originated ‘scientific’ principle:

Occam’s razor (also written as Ockham’s razor and in Latin lex parsimoniae) is a principle of parsimony, economy, or succinctness used in problem-solving devised by William of Ockham (c. 1287–1347). It states that among competing hypotheses, the one with the fewest assumptions should be selected. Other, more complicated solutions may ultimately prove correct, but—in the absence of certainty—the fewer assumptions that are made, the better.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occam%27s_razor

I figured using the Occam’s Razor logic device was probably less… inflammatory than the other way I could have stated it: the KISS principle.

Except that the Pale Tree is a secret dragon champion isn’t the simplest theory. It’s a convoluted twisted paranoid conspiracy theory. And like all good conspiracy theories, it can survive without any proof.

Ronin.7381:

Wanderer.3248:

For the millionth time, that is Zhaitan.

No it’s not. It’s got branches and roots all over it and it’s using the generic Tequatl model. But if the plants are to symbolize anything, it has nothing to do with Risen.

It has been explained before that this is in the dream of the newborn Sylvari and everything is plants. The player has never seen a dragon, this is what they see in the dream. It’s a foreshadowing of the players wild hunt, which is to kill Zhaitan.

Personally I see GoT as a soap opera. Most of the plots would work just as well in Dallas.

The degree to which they manipulate the emotions of the viewers to keep people watching is cliched, obvious and a little sad.

GoT couldn’t handle real evil. Even dealing with a natural disaster would strain the format. When you see how incapable the storyline would be in dealing with issues that aren’t just politics and drama, you realise how limited it is.

SpeedFiend.4521:

That’s a good point, I’d forgotten about Aliyana. Back to my point – the NC are devoted to spreading the nightmare, which I believe to be Mordremoth’s influence. While not enough to truly corrupt them a-la-branded/icebrood it certainly appears that the nightmare transformation is a step in that general direction. Presumably, based on what station they hold when/if they do get fully corrupted, we can expect the ones in charge to retain their souls, while the grunts could go either way.

Well, that’s a totally circular argument. Obviously the nightmare court are devoted to spreading the nightmare, but the idea that the nightmare is the working of Morderemoth is just an assumption.

Secondly, even the lowest level courtiers show emotion and independent thought, (including, especially, doubt) which is the complete opposite of what we see in dragon minions.

Erukk.1408:

Independent thinking creatures with their own motives can’t be pure evil? You have to remember that the Elder Dragons, as well as the more intelligent minions, are independent thinking creatures with their own motives as well.

Reminds me of the old joke. A woman asks her husband “what are you feeling?” “Hungry” says the husband.

If you count hunger, and a desire to destroy all life as feelings, then yes minions have feelings too. But they don’t love. They never try and justify themselves. They never have a reason for what they do; and they don’t need a reason. Most of them seem incapable of even comprehending the idea of justifying what they do.

Erukk.1408:

Do stalkers often like to exercise their control by poisoning their celebrity obsessions to put them in “do or die” situations?

Stalkers have been known to try and kill the person they are stalking. Kidnap, torture, killing etc. And if you asked them, they would have strange, convoluted, perverse reasons for doing it. So too, the nightmare court. They have their reasons, even if their reasons would only make sense to the insane.

Obsidian.1328:

The Eternal Alchemy is simply a way for the writers of GW2 to introduce a universal belief system into a multi-racial world of differing points of view.

It’s not a universal belief system. It’s an Asuran belief system. It’s no more universal than the Norn belief system.

Each race has its religion (if you count atheism). None of them are paramount.

Erukk.1408:

Wanderer.3248:

If you do any of the personal story instances, and some of the other events, and it is clear that they have various motivations and justifications for what they do. Misguided, wicked, possibly insane, but not pure evil. No more evil than the flame legion for instance.

Dragon minions are pure evil. They are remorseless, merciless and utterly without conscience.

Those people seem to be in the very growing minority though. If Cadeyrn was still in charge things might have been different, but Faolain seems to like to support and nurture the darker aspects of the Court.

Faolain is still an independent, thinking creature with her own motives. She still shows emotion and a twisted kind of love for Caithe. She is no more evil than many wicked people, or Charr, or Asura or Norn. In some ways she is no more evil than the sort of insane and obsessive person who stalks a celebrity.

SpeedFiend.4521:

Acts of wickedness and such, however, are the means by which one is “transformed”, and as we’ve seen, this transformation is permanent and irreversible. Sounds a lot like ED corruption, don’t you think?

No it doesn’t. Dragon corruption is physical, as well as mental. Even the Icebrood are transformed by dragon magic, not by their acts of wickedness. Dragon minions are monstrosities. Some (probably most) are stated to be soulless. It’s irreversible because they are dead, or frozen, or turned to crystal. In most cases their minds are gone. In most cases there is nothing human left to reverse.

The corruption of the Nightmare Court is mental and emotional. Their souls are not removed. They still have their minds and memories, and emotions. They can still know love. What sort of dragon minion can love someone? Or fear someone? Nightmare Courtiers cannot be physically distinguished from Sylvari, except by their choice of armor and weapons. Gavin, for instance, appeared completely normal. Yes it’s irreversible. But then so is addiction.

Dragon minions, where they have independent minds, are entirely merciless and unrelenting. They do not know fear. They most certainly do not know love. Even in cases where they seem to retain some of their original mind or soul (as in the case of the King of Orr), those minds are bent completely to the will of the Dragon. If Faolain was a dragon minion, do you think she would have removed the blood poison from Caithe? Would Gavin have fought an honourable duel for the White Stag?

You can’t be turned back from being soulless, and dead. Even if you could remove the dragons influence, what remains wouldn’t be human. Zhaitans minions would be corpses. The Icebrood would still be frozen, Kralkatorrics minions would still be crystalline. There is no evidence that that could be undone, or that what remained wouldn’t simply cease to function.

I doubt that the distinction between dragons that corrupt, and dragons that create is absolute. Zhaitan corrupted and twisted most of his minions, but his greatest champions were dragons, and were not corrupted from anything that we know of. The same goes for Jormag and Kralkatorrik.

Plants that grow in warm wet climates (e.g. Caledon forest) don’t have adaptions that let then deal with sub zero temperatures, or desert conditions.

I’d expect Sylvari would be killed by freezing, and they could die of dehydration.

The problem is that you see the nightmare court as being pure evil, which is too simplistic a view.

If you do any of the personal story instances, and some of the other events, and it is clear that they have various motivations and justifications for what they do. Misguided, wicked, possibly insane, but not pure evil. No more evil than the flame legion for instance.

Dragon minions are pure evil. They are remorseless, merciless and utterly without conscience.

Scarlets used a mixture of Asura and other technology. The holograms are Asuran, nothing to do with crystals.

Aerin has plants aid him. Or at least the plants get in the way of us chasing him. He doesn’t use any crystals that we don’t use.

lordkrall.7241:

I can almost guarantee you that we could easily found stuff long before Mass Effect that did more or less the exact same thing. But I suppose that doesn’t count?

This. There is nothing original in Mass Effect.

It won’t take long to catch up. A few weeks to level up to 80. And you can do a living story episode in a few hours easily.

If you waited two years to buy the game, surely a few weeks catching up isn’t much to ask?

Depending how far along in the personal story a character is, there may not even be a Pact yet. They may not have even joined an order.

Only two of my characters have finished the personal story.

Only four, out of 12, have finished claw island and become ‘second in command’ of the Pact.

Only two of them killed Scarlet.

You can see this is a bit of a problem with having Pact troops to call on.

You know what would be even more surprising?

That someone learns how to use the search function in these forums, realises that the are ten score threads on their new theory, and doesn’t post it again.

When that day happens, the sun, the moon and the stars will fall from the sky; all the elder dragons will let forth a single cry, and cease; and the world will end in darkness and silence.

For the millionth time, that is Zhaitan.

Sword highest for me. Shield is lowest.

I presume it’s based on the killing blow, so offhand weapons suffer.

Yamsandjams.3267:

If I could sell mine, I would. I don’t like any of the new amber weapon skins, but I’m reluctant to just toss the fossil away since I know the value it has.

Mind you, making them tradeable would seriously devalue the weapon skins, but the RNG nature of acquisition is the same reason why people really hate the standard methods of acquiring precursors. At least with precursors you can buy them (albeit for exorbitant prices).

How can you devalue luck and grinding? They should be tradable, just like the scarf and goggles.

Erukk.1408:

Instead of trying to shoehorn the Six and the Elder Dragons together, I would be more inclined to believe that the Six got their “godliness” by taking the powers of the Elder Dragon equivalents from their previous world.

Fleeing a dying world, kind of like superman?

JustCurious.3457:

I have played since headstart, I have over 1000+ hours of experience on Guardian, Warrior and Elementalist. I make use of the meta builds, I run full zerk on them all and I have experience in most (screw CM) dungeons. I still have less than 5k AP.

IMO it is not a great measurement for experience, but it is the only one available. I generally have to make my own groups as I can’t join the others, I mostly run dungeons for gold so I’m looking for the ‘FULL ZERK BLAH BLAH’ ads so I can get fast and smooth runs, and sadly a large proportion of those have an AP requirement that I don’t meet.

And on the other hand I have over 10k AP and I don’t even know where half the dungeons are.

It’s a terrible metric.

http://stream1.gifsoup.com/view5/2488787/ken-kicks-a-puppy-o.gif

All I can think about is bush.

Sandstorms and quicksand would be interesting.

Being endlessly feared off cliffs not so fun.

Ventari is in the Dream. Logically, the Pale Tree (and Sylvari) could have inherited some of his knowledge and wisdom.

Konig Des Todes.2086:

Where’s my norn focus? Charr focus? Human focus?

Good point.

I expect ley lines will be used to join it all together ;-)

Rainshine.5493:

Wanderer.3248:

In Scarlets room there is a reference to the Dragons being a part of something bigger.

Which could possibly refer to the centre sphere. Or not.

Was it added with Entanglement? I put together everything in the room from Gates of Maguuma and I’m not seeing anything like that.

No it was in part 1, and it was a conversation with Kasmeer after reading Ogdens book.

Yeah, and after that we’ll fight the champions of the other races – the human Gods, the Eternal Alchemy, Norn Spirits, and finally a showdown with Charr atheism.

In Scarlets room there is a reference to the Dragons being a part of something bigger.

Which could possibly refer to the centre sphere. Or not.

Kaleban.9834:

ANet bithacked Mass Effect!

Just finished the second chapter, and I couldn’t believe it.

One of your NPC friends checks out an ancient device, you toss her away from it, and experience the prophetic vision instead, and at the end dialogue you can say “I have to go.”

Mass Effect or GW2? Omadd’s device is a Prothean Beacon, and Mordremoth is a Reaper. LOLOL

I guess you’re too young to have seen “2001: A Space Odyssey”.

Edit: also, the reapers didn’t use the beacons to indoctrinate.

Edit: also, Mass Effect borrowed the idea of the Reapers from the Berserker Hypothesis.

“Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.”

Debatable how many of M’s minions have been corrupted, like J, K and Z’s minions, versus how many have been created from scratch, like P’s minions.

We haven’t actually seen anything get corrupted by Mordy yet.

If Mordremoth is after the Pale Tree he needs a map, because he’s going in totally the wrong direction.

Orpheal.8263:

As if every class would have it so easy to perma remove boons Ulion …
Very smart answer, is very smart.

I foresee the price of sigils of nullification rising…

Omad’s machine strongly implied Mordremoth was attacking the centre sphere. How does that fit if it’s a seventh dragon?

Neko.9021:

Rangers are the profession, lore-wise, of being dedicated to nature.

Headcannon?

Mada.5319:

If stop and think how ridiculously overpowered regeneration would be if it stacked in intensity, you’d know why it stacks only in duration.

Which is why he wants it. He’s the guy who likes to stand up in front of people at sporting events.

Zayd Akira.1942:

SolitaryPillarist.5740:

Well, someone copy and paste his page over to the fbi then lol.

This has been happening since yesterday, and according to his twitter, the FBI has tried to contact him already.

He said he blocked them instead.

Then he said “lets be honest, im not going to jail”

Really easy guy to hate.

More likely just some attention seeking crank who isn’t actually the one doing it.

Happens with any crime that gets publicity. People will actually claim to be murderers, terrorist etc just for the attention.

Gaebriel.3754:

I loved that as well! Being tribal in organization, I imagine that centaurs pass down their tales and legends by word rather than script, so this made it seem as if the original teachings were gradually changed over time in exact wording, like .. Chinese whispers (if that’s the correct English term).

We get quotations mixed up all the time, and we have writing.

I like them. Yeah they are hard. My only complaint is that they make other dragon minions look like cute furry animals. Mordrem hounds scare me way more than risen giants.

RedStar.4218:

What I don’t get is that when Ceara went into the first time, she supposedly didn’t see the Eternal Alchemy, but she thought that was it.

Even after her modifications, who can say that she was successful ? Why would she even try to make it better when she thought she had the real deal the first time ?

An Asura scientist said it was impossible. But scientists aren’t always right. Asura scientists seem to be right about 53% of the time. And about 78% of the time they’re full of it.

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

The cinematic ends with Mordremoth attacking the Pale Tree / Tyria. This could imply that Mordremoth is the first Elder Dragon to actively attack us. Maybe the other Elder Dragons were just getting settled in, and their real attack is yet to begin.

Zhaitan assaulted claw island, Vigil keep, Caledon forest, and many other places. The difference with. Mordremoth seems to be ley line and Pale tree related.

Let’s look at the resume of the average PC:

Leadership experience: none
Organisational experience: none
Political experience: none
Tactical experience: small group at best
Strategic experience: none
Logistical experience: none

Don’t call us, we’ll call you.

IF the guards were on the Elementalists side, and even more likely if the supervisor had RI, and maybe if the other players were to busy with the guards and not paying attention.

The fact that they chose to engage 8-10 players suggests that they had RI on their side, and knew what they were doing.

The Sanctum had ballistas mounted on it.

I don’t know how you can say it was or wasn’t the eternal alchemy when we don’t know what the eternal alchemy is anyway. And if what Scarlet saw was something else (like say Elder Dragons) how do we know it’s not the same thing?