Guild Wars 2

tekfan.3179:

The problem is that you either have to replay the whole story each time you want to see the cinematic or have the story always on an unfinished playthrough to abort the mission once you’ve seen the cinematic.
A simple button with “Gaze upon the Eternal Alchemy” in the story-journal to trigger that cinematic would be great.

Oh, yeah, that would be even better. While they’re at it, add that for some of the other cinematics too. Character creation, Order induction, the Battle of Fort Trinity, etc.

Seconding the request for this to be a purple instance. Seems like an easy change for them to make.

Gimli.9461:

Jennah. The whole set up with her being last known heir of Kryta, but there actually existing someone else who’s an heir but no one knowing who it is (Human Personal story episode when you join one of the orders -> listen to NPC talk before you talk to them; Order of Whispers guy states they suspect or know another heir exists).

So – amulet’s showing someone’s face, noone knows who it is.
My guess is we’ll be involved in finding this heir (I really hope it’s not Kasmeer :P – “I love what you are wearing! I must get a dress in those colors”)

Or maybe the heir will be targeted as well?

Wasn’t one of the older versions of the GW2 story about angels and demons or something?

Maybe when the queen is killed, an ancient human magic is broken allowing demons from the Mists to begin invading Tyria, and then we have take the Locket to the Blades… err Shining Blade, and help them track down the heir before the demons. Then the heir uses the magic of the locket to turn into Glint’s baby or something, I don’t know. Then, Glint Jr. gives us the power to head north and yell at Jormag until he dies.

Nah, Jennah’s already dead and cloned. The true heir is probably E, but given what happened with the real Jennah, he is content to rule from the shadows. Thus, the locket must never be found. /tinfoil

Teofa Tsavo.9863:

Don’t know how this is a shock to anyone. Belinda was written in to be killed.

They could have at least tried to psyche us out and act like she was a real character. Apparently they didn’t learn from the other five hundred random characters they killed off in the personal story that you can’t just wish your audience into giving a crap.

BrunoBRS.5178:

though i find it kinda hilarious, the idea of writing a letter to the pale tree.

Dear Princess Arboria,

Today I learned that friendship is basically worthless, because my friends do no damage, will watch while I bleed out, and would rather go on and on about personal drama instead of just completing the instance so everyone can collect their loot. How can I help my friends shut up, run zerker gear, and l2p?

Your faithful student,

The Hero of Lion’s Arch

I noticed this too. It’s kind of odd that no one there caught that, since it seems quite a few players have noticed it.

It does feel sort of forced, insofar as it comes out of nowhere, and seems like it’s a reaction to forum complaints. It also sounds just a wee bit sarcastic, which is undeserved (for the PC, anyway).

Random alternate suggestion: If they bring Canach on as member #6, he might not want to call the PC “boss” given their past antagonistic history. Some insubordinate behavior could then lead to a compromise where they call the PC “The Hero of Lion’s Arch” instead, which is sort of a formal honorific the PC has on account of canonically killing Scarlet. Everyone gets irritated after a couple times trying to use such a long title , so Taimi shortens it to T.H.O.L.A., and you’re Thola from then on out. You have a fixed name for VO, it’s explained rather than just popping in, it provides an opportunity to characterize the biconics and the relationships among them and between them and the PC, etc.

NTDK.4897:

if you notice, the sword wasnt there anymore.

The dragon took it. That was its plan all along

Nah. I saw a Charr making off with a mysterious sword-sized bundle toward the southeast. Guy seemed familiar. I wonder what was that all about?

Nilkemia.8507:

So why is it just these two that annoy you and not dialogue from any of the other characters who also speak during the story?

The other characters aren’t usually trying to evoke that sort of serious, direct emotion (romance, concern, grieving, etc.) so there’s less room for it to make people feel socially awkward or just to misfire and come off badly. At worst, the others are just sort of irritating. Imagine being stuck in an elevator with two strangers who are openly dealing with personal stuff (whether it’s fighting, getting it on, talking about private tragedies, etc.) and just wishing you could be anywhere else. please don’t cry, please don’t cry. ok, she’s crying. do I just sort of look at the ground, or the wall, or what? should I say something? no, i don’t know these people. oh god, now the other one’s crying. aarrgh, reach my floor already!

It doesn’t hurt that the characterizations of the relationship between the other three (meaning, mainly, the weird but charming nonsexual jealousy between Rox and Taimi regarding Braham) is done with a lot less exposition and a lot more implication. It comes off as better written, and wastes less of our time if we don’t care for it.

BrotherBelial.3094:

I understand the attack on Concordia from a story telling point as it was the birthplace of the Pact. But it’s a base nowhere near a frontline. So it’s probably just got a token troop compliment. With the gates at fort trinity to the HQ’s there is little need for the forts in uncontested areas. If Mordi wanted to do damage he’d be better off attacking Trinity. That it the pact HQ after all.

It is near fresh water though, as is a good portion of the path chosen by the vines.

Another possibility for a small tweak to Defiance would be throwing up stacks of defiant not based on CC, but on health loss (whether that means full stacks in large increments, or 1 stack for each small increment). It would be less likely to have one guy with a mistimed CC screw things up for everyone, and force sort of a natural balance between CC and DPS, assuming there was some good reason to interrupt or move the boss instead of just going straight DPS.

Regarding the Commander spoiler text, does it make a lot of sense canonically? It seems like a difficult thing to plausibly explain how you got from second in command of fantasy X-com to helping random refugees with “just because”.

It seems like the sort of dramatic change that would result from a fall from grace, or a falling-out with Trahearne, or something. You might have the option to just file it under “PC: I don’t want to talk about it” for now, but maybe filling in that blank would be an opportunity to establish a stronger bond between with DE2? Most RPGs have the player sorting out their companions’ dirty laundry and tragic backstories. Maybe this is one case where you could reverse the typical order of things.

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Kaleban.9834:

ANet should take a page from the character design that went into the Mass Effect series.

Are . . . are you sure about this? Because they kind of did take a page from it. (And not much more.)

If they took a page from the Bioware playbook, people wouldn’t be complaining about the biconics’ dating habits, they’d be complaining about all the biconics (well, hopefully not Taimi) trying to get in their PC’s pants; that, or debating about which imaginary person they most want to have their imaginary character have imaginary dry-humping escapades with.

Demented Sheep.1642:

StinVec.3621:

The reason as to why Trahearne is loathed by so many is written out at length by many players over in the Living World Discussion and Lore Discussion sub-forums. The short version was mentioned up above; we do all the work, he gets all the credit/glory/rewards/titles after having done nothing.

The players want their spotlight as the hero (we did the work of one), but all we got was barely a footnote as being “Random Person #2,319,575 that may or may not have done something to help Trahearne, the Real Hero, to save Tyria.” – Trahearne needs to cozy up to a wood chipper and not return to our story to steal our glory and trod all over our sense of accomplishment from our saving Tyria.

Here is a good image that goes around the forums that accurately displays what happened and how it affected the Players behind the Player Characters.
(contains spoiler for end of “personal story” with fighting Zhaitan – the spoiler is the “fight” itself as well as the presence of Trahearne…who spoils anything he makes himself apart of)

Where on earth dose this keep coming from? When dose he take credit for killing the dragon? He gets to be leader of the Pact which is probably because otherwise you’d be stuck with them since you can’t really have the Marshal kittening off to do other things and because you belong to one of the orders.

It isn’t that he takes credit, so much as that the writers inexplicably make everyone in the world give him credit he doesn’t deserve. He’s just a bad character in a bad story.

I mean, if the writers wrote him as a deluded, grandiose narcissist who is always taking credit for your actions despite being acknowledged in the story (and by more than a few NPCs, when they know he won’t hear) as essentially a useless and incompetent figurehead, so long as it was clear that it was a deliberate characterization by the writers, he wouldn’t be nearly so hated. He might even be liked if they wrote his dialogue well enough (assuming they had a VO to pull that sort of personality off).

NEOCROM.8957:

I just want to discuss about this. Season 2 with new content, Mordremoth, new map, possible city, possible skills, i hope, and the hate of some ppl for Trahearne. Now why is Trahearne so unwanted and hated by many ppl?:D

Because he’s a trustafarian brat. The only worthwhile thing he’s ever shown doing is sticking a sword in the ground; even then, we’re the ones who have to take him there, and his mom just gave him the sword as a reward for tagging along with us on a vision quest. “Hey, you copied off the PC and still barely passed your exams. I’m so proud of you! Here’s a new Ferrari. Oh, hi Trahearne’s friend (oh, you’re my kid? awk-ward). Um. Got nothing for you. Sorry about Tybalt.”

Even within the Pact he really doesn’t do much other than order people to do either the obvious, or follow a plan laid out by one or more of the Orders — the only reason the Orders even made him their leader is that everyone (I almost said “everyone else”, but…) who was actually qualified was already affiliated with one group.

I mean, seriously, couldn’t the Pale Tree have just given us Saladbowlg and cut out the middleman?

Also, the game tries to pretend that he is some sort of inspiring leader, but his VO doesn’t have nearly enough charisma to back that up.

I think one of the main issues (and it’s not an easy issue to solve, but substantially easier when you’re limiting story to text instead of VO) is that the PC never really feels like a part of the group. All the other characters have these various ways that they relate to each other, but none of them relate to you. Of course, how can they? The PC has no consistent characterization. Despite that, the current LS is still a lot better in that regard. They do at least tend to treat you in dialogue as someone familiar, rather than random citizen #10009.

Still, it’s critical that the writing produce the illusion that the PC and the NPCs have some sort of relationship, or else players have substantially less reason to give a kitten about any of them or their personal dramas. I mean, at the end of the day, Tibs was written as your friend. You had in-jokes (apples, etc.), mutual friends (Demmi, who I just noticed yesterday carries the rifle he gave her when you liberate the Chantry before retaking Claw Island), he had some tragic history and aspirations, etc. You definitely don’t want a repeat of Destiny’s Edge, where you can just imagine them on the last airship fight saying “Hey, Eir, get to those guns! And you, uh, Eir’s friend that’s always hanging around, you go over there (and rez us all because we are totally worthless in combat despite eight dungeons worth of drama based on the premise that we could have taken on an Elder Dragon alone if only blah blah blah, a notion that seems laughable given the vast technology and manpower thrown at the task of defeating even a single dragon champion)”

I’d recommend pulling off the various biconics for some one-on-one issue sorting with the PC. I don’t mean let them work out their drama on their own or with another NPC while you act like a glorified bodyguard killing mobs and ressing them because they’re worthless in combat (Hi, Logan!). Just you, and Taimi, or Braham, or whatever, doing some stuff. Hell, maybe even have them do a favor for you.

Off topic, one reason the Marjory/Kasmeer thing fails is that it’s hard to have Marjory try to simultaneously play a cheesy noir trope while also trying to pull off something sincere. If you just embraced the silliness of it for both of them, dame-ing Kas up completely, it would probably work better. Alternatively, you could have Marjory break character and suggest that even in-world, the noir thing is just an affectation that she can’t really maintain when things get too rough.

I think they should reverse the way that Defiant works. The sort of cooperation it demands right now is barely feasible in a dungeon group, much less an open world zerg. The best you can hope for is that a decent percentage of people that have CCs know when the boss is going to pull something big and use them then.

As such, I think Defiant should work like this:

• The first 5 stacks only grant cumulative 20% resistance (e.g. at 3 stacks, any CC has a 40% chance to work, at 5 stacks, the boss is immune to CC)
• Stacks constantly accumulate over time, with the rate and cap based on the number of players accounted for in scaling (which should be indicated somewhere)
• Actually landing a CC doesn’t add any stacks, but durations for CCs like fear and immobilize are aggressively reduced (as with blind)
• The rate of accumulation should be steady enough that players don’t just pop a CC whenever the cooldown comes up, but must coordinate to spike through Defiance; by moving to constant accumulation but no triggered accumulation, groups don’t have to worry about overshooting and throwing up a full set of stacks.

Dondagora.9645:

They said that the thing in the center was the Pale Tree, right? That was how Scarlet drew it. Does that mean the Pale Tree is located, perhaps in the Mists, between Abaddon’s Gate and the Gate of Torment? Or maybe that’s where the Dream of Dreams is located, as a realm.

It would make a lot of sense for there to be a link between the Dream of Dreams and the Nightmare realm…

Given that the Pale Tree wasn’t really a thing until after the Fall of Abaddon (by which point Kormir was mopping things up), maybe the Dream is actually just a gentrified bit of the Realm of Torment.

What exactly that means, I have no idea. When Dragons sleep, do they dream?

I’m sure the Master of Peace is up to something, but it isn’t necessarily something sinister. Clearly something cause Aerin to go nuts after leaving — it’s possible that some aspect of Zephyrite training induced a state like the one Ceara experienced that caused her to go Scarlet.

VodCom.6924:

Do we actually know how the zephyrites master the aspects ?

I don’t know if we know the details, but the basic gist is that they’ve discovered how to use a purified form of Kraalkatorik’s magic (if the crystals and lightning weren’t a giveaway). Glint was K’s champion who managed to get free will, and she founded their order. When she died, they somehow managed to master the magic imbued in her corpse.

PopeUrban.2578:

I don’t want to be that guy, but the evidence keeps piling for there to be some connection between Mord and the Sylvari. What that connection is there still isn’t enough evidence to say, but it’s clear there exists some sort of relationship.

The “sylvari are dragon minions” theory has some holes, but perhaps we should be asking if the sylvari (including the soundless) were intended as minions and something intervened.

Is it possible that there’s a really simple explanation?

Each Dragon seems to work its power through a corrupted version of some quasi-elemental aspect of reality/magic (usually a pair of aspects, actually): Lava/Stone, Ice/Shadow, Air/Crystals, or (Dead) Flesh/Poison. Some, like Jormag or Kraalkatorik, can even transform other beings or materials into their favored element.

Assuming the vines and such are Mordremoth’s minions, it’s possible that the Dragon’s “element” is vegetation. That the being the case, he would be able to control Sylvari, not because they have some dark secret heritage, but because they’re made of plants. They would no more inherently be his minions than the dead of Orr; just victims of circumstance.

On the other hand, the Sylvari themselves share the “shaping plants” ability, and they inherited that from the Pale Tree which shapes them in turn. So, that does support the minion theory. Given that one of Scarlet’s documents in this episode stressed a link between minds and magic, it could that Mordremoth’s aspects are Plant and Mind.

stobie.2134:

I have to say, when I saw him in the ship during the festival, I promptly assumed he’d be a villain, so I recognized him right away. However, I don’t get how he’s Silent/Wordless/Soundless, or whatever – what I remember is that he chattered constantly. I wondered if there’s some other menacingly quiet Sylvari out there.

I don’t think the Soundless are personally quiet or silent (though they do meditate), more that they try to block out the “noise” of the Dream and the Pale Tree.

Vol.7601:

https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/introducing-the-story-journal/

I don’t quite get the concept of charging 200 gems for previous releases.

I don’t mind it in concept – after all, it’s a ‘convenience’ fee for accessing something you did not experience in the 2 week period, but who would pay 200 gems for a story instance that lasts no more than 10 minutes?

With any luck, they’ll play more like solo-able dungeons than the fairly simple steps in the personal story, with explorable mode then being the same general story, but expanded gameplay and challenge, like the bonus objectives in GW1 missions.

Although if they’re putting in a whole season of content geared toward a solo player and NPC helpers, with player party members being optional, they might as well move back toward a GW1-style henchman or hero mechanic outside of open-world play. If nothing else, it would be something else to monetize.

Twilight of the Dark Sylvari: Maguuma expansion, featuring a new Dark Sylvari race and a Druid profession accessible only to Sylvari and Dark Sylvari. Also, a new campaign centered around an implausibly powerful Sylvari (also features the player character in a recurring comic relief cameo role). Also introduces a new Gem Store item allowing players to change their race (to Sylvari or Dark Sylvari), and a new quest to craft precursors for Tier 4 Legendary Sylvari cultural armor.

[Suggestion] Linear Open-world and MegaServer
Most open world maps are designed around a permanent instance which people can join and leave at any time. As a result, the same dynamic events spawn cyclically, over and over, inhibiting players’ suspension of disbelief and sense of accomplishment.

With the new Megaserver system, it will be more feasible to design open-world map instances that have well-defined starting and ending points (including multiple endings).

Take as an example a modified version of Harathi Hinterlands — when the map spins up, the Seraph are on the defensive. As players complete events, they will take Centaur camps (and Centaurs will continue pushing back and trying to undo progress). The map can go back and forth like this for a while, but if the players finally push deep enough to draw out and defeat Modniir Ulgoth, the map is complete. Alternatively, if the Centaurs capture the final Seraph camp, the map is complete.

The Megaserver ranking system could avoid placing players into completed instances, and spin the instance down after it is abandoned or after some reasonable amount of time has passed. It should probably also bias players toward newer or less complete maps.

The typical open-world map could become a complex state machine of related DEs that progress the map eventually toward some sort of climactic encounter like a World Boss.

Doing things this way could also help reduce the problems with synchronization — whenever you join a map, you know that you are going to be making headway toward completing the big world event, not sitting around and waiting on a timer to trigger at some unknown point in the future.

Psientist.6437:

Based on my understanding of the MegaServer (all hail!), no one will earn influence in the zones being tested. This may lead to players actively avoiding low population zones. I understand the need to test the MegaServer feature before implementing mechanics that are based on the MegaServer, leaves you in a chicken and the egg situation.

Where did you hear that people wouldn’t earn influence in MegaServer maps?

Seems like the obvious overhaul would be to do what they did with Ferocity, and translate into neutral “points” and then back out on the target side.

Meaning, there would no longer be a split between power and duration. The attacker would do 1000 points of bleed, or 1000 points of blind, or 1000 points of weakness, where the intent is that all are roughly equivalent in power.

On the target side, points would get translated into DPS and duration in a way that simulates stacking (e.g. more points would increase rate of damage, but only to a certain extent or with diminishing returns). Since the translation is handled target-side, you can use different formulas for players and various ranks of PvE mobs; you could cut stacking on players, while letting it ramp up much higher on PvE bosses (you could use the same system to dramatically curtail durations of conditions like blind or chill on such bosses).

It should be vastly easier on the network, since it would make every condition basically just a fire-and-forget variant of direct damage. Instead of being subtracted from a number that eventually makes you downed/dead, it’s added to a number that produces some effect. It also means that at most you have one stack of each condition to worry about on each player/mob.

1. Seems like these strict timers for WBs defeat the main benefit of the Megaserver system — that if you’re some unfortunate person who can’t play until 10 at night, you can still potentially find enough players, by combining multiple worlds, to complete bosses now. By putting them on timers which may completely fail to overlap with play schedules, you’ve gone from a system where they were likely to fail these encounters to a system where they aren’t allowed to play them at all.

2. For the big 3, they shouldn’t be on the main maps at all. Just add red waypoints to each relevant map that takes you to a special map instance that has nothing but the boss fight (no unrelated DEs or mobs, no nodes, no hearts/vistas/skillpoints, can’t even leave the fight area or you get kicked, etc). You could even add a training instance to unlock the red WP, to ensure that players have a basic understanding of event mechanics and level of power before attempting the fight and screwing things up for others. You could also tone down timers by removing respawn, thus leaving complete instance wipe as the standard fail condition.

3. In general, while I think the ranking concept and MegaServer is a great idea for the majority of cases, players should still be able to override it and choose instances as they did in GW1’s cities, to address those cases where the algorithm doesn’t meet their needs.

Conncept.7638:

Y’know this may explain why they chose Scarlet as the villain of this LS. The pact is just too strong to continue creating a compelling story around, it’s basically become the superman of GW2.

However, it just so happens the pact is lead by a Sylvari… and a Sylvari who provided no help against Scarlet at that. If ire continues to rise in all the races against the sylvari race the pact may be broken by internal strife and prejudices, allowing for a much more compelling story arc then ‘Follow Trahearne in to battle again’ as we face the next dragon.

Don’t forget that those airships that blasted Lion’s Arch into rubble were initially stolen from the Pact. Or should I say “stolen”, as Trahearne so conveniently claims.

Except that they don’t use the old map, for whatever reason, which ends up looking ridiculous when you get to the phase about saving Lion’s Arch from Zhaitan. Um, yes, let’s save this empty ruin. Sounds like a plan.

Maybe they’ll discuss a way to get event participation even if you prioritize support over DPS. Or avoid adding achievements that encourage selfish behavior. Or dropping dead players from scaling calculations.

ArtemusHunter.9521:

The one thing I want to know is if the training manuals will change from allowing access to teaching a bunch of traits of that tier.

As I read it, there are no more tier-unlock manuals, those are just unlocked automatically at certain levels. The training manuals each teach a specific trait, and newly introduced traits will have more expensive manuals (just like the newer heal skills are very expensive in SP)

Edit: Or were you asking if they will still have some use if you bought one in that past? I… wouldn’t count on that. They aren’t that expensive, so I doubt they will be given any new use.

Realist.5812:

A new player/character now has less to do, for much longer.

When I was levelling up different classes, I always hating having to wait until level 11 to start playing with traits, which define a class and the players play style. This was just level 2-11, technically not very long, and I was always bored waiting for it.

Now the only thing a new player/character has from level 2-30 is… unlock weapon swap… unlock 2 utility slots.

Ok, that’s incredibly boring.

You are locking a new player/character out from learning about, and engaging with, the class, until level 30, that’s a freaking long time.

My guess is that they are also going to change the pacing of weapon skill unlocks, heal/utility/elite skill gain, and automatic stat gains to create a more discrete sense of progression in the earlier levels. So, initially you’ll be experimenting with different weapons and utilities, then move on to traits.

It does seem a little too much though. Maybe they’ll adjust the rate of leveling at earlier levels to speed it up, especially considering that older players with a new alt can just skip to 20 anyway.

I do hope that they actually put the path of the ley line explosion in-game in an upcoming patch, like the dragonbrand (though it looks like it is probably much smaller). Even if it’s just a cosmetic change.

Xenon.4537:

In fact the 3 new watchwork knight bosses have almost the same attack pattern as Kholer. They pull everyone in and follow up with a melee attack. Only, instead of having the watchwork knight pull her arm back, they bathe the ground for miles in Las Vegas Neon Glowing Orange.

Funny you should mention the Knights. The telegraphs there seem to work a little differently than normal. For most of the game, you’re trained that if you see the red ring, you dodge ASAP. With the Extraction attack, leaving the area of the attack is infeasible, and if you dodge when you see the ring, the dodge will be over before the attack. To actually avoid the attack, you have to watch the animation. The orange ring there seems to function more as a nudge saying “hey, look at the boss, and get ready to dodge!”

Vol.7601:

I’ll be that guy.

The kids will be saved since the law demands it. If Arenanet wants the game to maintain it’s ERSB rating, children cannot be killed. Even combat with children is a no-no. It was an issue when they introduced Taimi, but they convenient implemented the caveat that she was disabled and only could operate in a golem, which would avoid the issue alltogether.

However, the bad salad asuras, the centaur-spear head traders, the wine ladies, and the Savings guy are all free game.

It seems very much like a restriction based on the appearance of things. Meaning, an undead child or robot or alien that looks like a child would be a no-no, whereas a very young sapient creature that doesn’t bear much resemblance to a human child (a charr cub, or a Sylvari PC) would not be protected. Also, they can certainly be canonically killed, so long as it’s told or implied, not shown.

Deified.7520:

Wait, where did this dialog come from? Did I miss something?

Escape from LA (the movie), more or less.

Or is just another immortal Shining Blade member disguised by an illusion? Maybe there’s an invisible spider around somewhere too?

“Commerce beats combat.”

“And even defuses long-standing racial biases, it would seem.”

I’m wondering if whoever is guiding Scarlet understands mortals better than the known Elder Dragons (whether it’s Mordremoth or something else entirely)?

Lion’s Arch is the glue holding the various peoples together. Attack it, and they fall apart. If they don’t outright go to war like the Charr and Humans, they at least start looking inward, protecting themselves first rather than standing together — given that this isn’t the first time something like that happened, it’s even possible that this entity may been involved with the Mursaat choosing to bail on the other races in the last ED cycle.

Worse (for Tyria, not so much for drama), the Pact may shatter too. The fact that the Vigil is becoming so prominent may cause animosity with the other two orders, but they may have worked together long enough to overcome that. However, if it turns out the Sylvari are truly dragon minions or something similarly unsettling, there are going to be a lot of people casting a suspicious eye at the Pact’s commander; especially in light of the minimal effort they put toward stopping Scarlet, the fact that she was able to steal their airships, and so on. Can he really hold them together surrounded by conspiracy theories?

Been a topic of some discussion lately. General thinking was that, if it did mean anything, she was going to die or need saving from Canach

But what if it wasn’t happenstance, but something dormant that Scarlet could later use for leverage?

I could just see Scarlet using Kasmeer’s condition to demand that Destiny’s Edge 2 stand down and let her get away with something, or even help her.

Scarlet: All right, I’ve heard enough. Would you explain to these foot soldiers why they’re going to do what I tell them to do?

Marjory: What’s she talking about?

Aetherblade 1: The Toxic Spore venom.

Aetherblade 2: Improved from the version you saw the Tower of Nightmares. 100% pure death.

Aetherblade 1: It starts with a slight headache, then turns into a hallucinations that gets worse and worse. After a short time, you crash. You bleed out like a stuck pig. Not a pretty sight.

Kasmeer: I get it. You figure that you inject that poison into me, and under the threat of death, I’ll do whatever you say…

Aetherblade 1: You got it, Meade!

Marjory: One question: which one of you kittens gets to die trying to stick her?

Aetherblade 1: You don’t understand. It’s already in her.

Kasmeer looks down at the scar from the Tower.

Aetherblade 2: Catches on quick, doesn’t she?

The Spiral King.2483:

The Tengu haven’t bothered interfering any of the other times the city was attacked. Even when the harbor fort was completely overrun with undead, and that was closer to the Dominion of Winds than even LA. It would be odd for them to somehow just magically decide now with no warning to be buddy buddy with everyone else.

The Tengu might not get a say. We all know that ArenaNet hates giant walls. If Scarlet puts a big hole in the wall…

Yes, I think I see. Taimi is Snaff’s daughter, she’ll travel to LA and give Scarlet the information she needs to be able to selectively disable magic anywhere in Tyria. Zojja will give us some fancy tech and send us into LA to kill Taimi and recover the data.

I can see how this ends, and I wouldn’t want to be a spellcaster, or someone living in Rata Sum.

One problem though — it’s 2014 now, Escape from LA was set in the terrifying future of 2013. Should have wrapped up this season before Wintersday.

I doubt Scarlet is driven by a dragon, though I could always be wrong. You might be right, or at least in the ballpark. Neither the gods (aside from Grenth and Kormir) nor humanity are native to Tyria, and they might well have been fleeing something that finally caught up to them. Even if they didn’t, the world that they left behind may have fallen into darkness after their departure.

Zaxares.5419:

No, the Captain’s Council is actually extremely clever. Why bother spending money investing in more defences when they know there are HORDES of powerful adventurers willing to defend their city for (essentially) free?

Free? I’m not lifting a finger unless I get some rares and a single use back item skin.

Konig Des Todes.2086:

They used it for more than Canach – they had it show with Scarlet too in the short story.

Nightmare court tend to look different from other Sylvari as well (not always, since they can infiltrate), though that could just be a design choice to make them stand out. But if there is an actual canonical difference, then it would suggest that those psychologically-based changes are common.

Nor do demons’ bodies seem to change.

It isn’t something that is shown in-game, but they seem to be fairly Protean in nature, mainly reflecting whatever bits of thought and emotion they were born from (since we’ve mostly encountered torment demons so far, aside from the oni, they’ve all been quite nasty). It’s not too much of a stretch to think that if their personalities were somehow changed, their forms might change to reflect it, as the very end of this passage suggests:

“The protomatter that makes up the Mists strains toward creation, often spawning demonic creations in nightmarish forms. Not all creatures from the Mists are demonic, however. When the Mists come into contact with a suitable human template, for example, it can copy that form, creating a sentient entity with humanoid appearance and an almost human mind.

Razah is one such creation. It has sprung into being a fully-formed adult. It has the knowledge and capabilities of a human, but lacks common sense. As a result, it asks odd questions about human emotions, contemplates human motivations, and attempts to duplicate human mannerisms. Razah is a contradiction: more than human in some ways, and less than human in others. It needs an identity, a personality, and a purpose. Hopefully, it will find its purpose by working with a hero. Otherwise, it could degenerate into an abomination as monstrous and inhuman as its demonic brethren" — from the manual.

Well, strictly speaking, Razah isn’t a demon (but the distinction seems to be more about whether they’re evil than a difference in kind), he’s a… whatever the superclass is of things born from the mists. Is there an actual lore term, or do we stick with mistborn?

But regardless, remove the Pale Tree and the pods from the equation, and that passage could easily describe a newborn Sylvari (including their capability to become twisted to the cause of Nightmare). And a key part of Sylvari lore is Ventari and Ronan, and the template they provided for the Pale Tree and her children, suggesting that the Sylvari might have turned out very differently were it not for their influence. Some people have taken that to mean they were intended to be dragon minions, but dragon minions don’t have free will, and couldn’t change even if they wanted without the use of powerful magic such as the ritual used on Glint. A positive influence would, however, mean a great deal if they were mistborn.

Anyway, we don’t really know the relationship of Sylari minds and bodies. We do know from the Sylvari PS that their minds exist in the Dream, fully aware, before their bodies are born (“born” meaning out of the pod, the pod being an analogue for the womb). Once out, they retain a connection to the Dream, but at least as far as the in-game experience is concerned, they don’t actually return there in the same sense as they were before incarnation… well, invegetation. That being the case, it seems like the process of being born changes the relationship between mind and body somehow, from being in the Dream and connected to Tyria to the reverse.

You know, once the Scarlet arc is finished, I think the Marionette would make a cool WvW fight.

Say, each team’s players are assisting one of Scarlet’s (speculating, of course, but let’s assume leaderless) factions, which are fighting for dominance of her resources. Red for Molten, Blue for Aether, Green for Toxic. Any one of them can set off the Marionette once it descends, but it would kill them too (hence the map name M.A.D., “Marionette-Assisted Destruction”). So, they each want to use five generators (one for each of five lanes for that team, 15 total) to charge up a shield that will let them detonate the Marionette without being killed.

Each side has reverse engineered an unlimited supply of watchwork minions to self-destruct on the other teams’ shield generators and deplete their shield bar. So, same concept, but the bar works in reverse.

Anyway, the phase two fights would not have wardens, but would be small groups from each team fighting in five center arenas (while the Marionette does its thing). Each arena would be a control point that affects the portals for one lane for each team — after two minutes, everyone is teleported out, and if no-one has captured an arena, it remains neutral.

If your team does capture an arena, then the portals in the corresponding lane stop spewing watchwork minions, and instead the people there can teleport to the corresponding lane(s) for the other teams and attack, just like the aetherblades/molten/toxic in the original PvE marionette event. Just like the PvE foes, you can’t directly affect the bar, but you can kill defenders and make it easier for watchwork minions to deplete the bar.

To ensure that the match eventually ends, the rate at which the shield generators charge increases the longer the match goes on. Once one team’s bar fills up, the event ends, everyone not on that team dies, and reward chests are given out. There will also be a watchwork chest in each keep where players can cash in drops from champion watchwork enemies (trash mobs drop nothing, but enemy players have normal drops).

Just a thought. It sounds fun to me, but I’m more of a PvE player than a WvW one.

1. Kodan
2. Largos
3. Tengu

E is Prince Ewan. I cracked anet’s secret code here.

Edit: But seriously, remember that Logan wasn’t always the clunky, earnest Seraph that he is now. So don’t entirely rule him out as a contender. As it stands, there are clear connections between Eir and Braham, Zojja and Taimi, Rox and Rytlock. Maybe his dumb, loyal persona is a facade so the very clever people involved in Kryta politics don’t see him as a meaningful threat.

Oh, is there a possibility that E stands for Ebonhawke? Seems like, as the other major human city, they would have some interest both in DR and LA politics.

Konig Des Todes.2086:

perilisk.1874:

True. But they do go insane. And it changes them, not just mentally, but physically. They’re very mind over matter.

Uh… no. They die from corruption. They don’t go insane. You’re thinking of the one sylvari who was tortured by an Eye of Zhaitan – one who recovers, something impossible from corruption.

I think I was unclear. They don’t go insane from corruption, but they can go insane (e.g. from torture). And when they do, it is reflected physically. This sort of mind-body connection seems similar to demons.

Uh… Sylvari are born in Tyria, not from the Mists. Their mind is part of the Dream, but it’s just their mind, and nothing has confirmed that they Dream of Dreams is the Mists yet.

The Dream is almost certainly within the Mists. It isn’t a purely psychological phenomenon, since a non-Sylvari can go there through a portal. What/where else would it be?

We already know from Nightfall that a realm within the mists can be shaped by a powerful enough mind or minds, and that demons can be born and shaped there. We know that Titans, in particular, can animate plant material along with fire, ice, etc.

And being something like a demon or titan (that is, a mistborn creature made incarnate in plant matter) would explain why they’re destroyed (technically, consumed) instead of corrupted.