Kossage.9072
-
Posts
136 -
Joined
-
Last visited
Content Type
Forums
Events
Articles
Gallery
Posts posted by Kossage.9072
-
-
> @"Konig Des Todes.2086" said:
> Anet went to the Crystal Desert not because it's low hanging fruit (at least not solely), but because it was logical. Not for Kralkatorrik or Balthazar or Joko. But for Glint, the Exalted, and Vlast. The plot has been delving into "Glint's Legacy" since Season 2, and it became all the more apparently needed with them going the direction of "killing dragons is bad, mkay" (which was similarly established in Season 2). The plot's direction **needed** to go into more details about Glint's plans, and this meant finding Vlast. And where would be most likely to find records of the Forgotten, Glint, and Vlast? The crystal desert.
[AuroraPeachy's interview of Matthew Medina and Scott McGough](
) suggested that the decision to move to the Crystal Desert wasn't necessarily that clear cut as the narrative team considered many options for the storyline post-HoT before settling for the Balthy vs. Kralky plot with these questions in mind: "How can we make sure our narrative doesn't become repetitive and cliché, why have the gods and Elder Dragons never interacted, and how can we surprise players by answering some questions while we're at it?" Part of it was the low hanging fruit aspect of it although it also presented difficulties for them as they knew that, unlike Heart of Maguuma, players would be more familiar with the desert region due to all its landmarks etc.Here's the transcription of a relevant Scott McGough's reply in that interview (the whole interview is worth watching for interesting dev insight, though):
> **AuroraPeachy:** How far in advance did you know that there was going to be this swap of story [moving from killing Elder Dragons to saving them]?
>
> **Scott:** I would say we settled on it as we wrapped up Heart of Thorns. When Heart of Thorns was done and we had killed Mordremoth, we sort of sat down and started talking as a team: "Okay, what's next?" To be frank, we were worried about falling into a pattern: find an Elder Dragon, kill an Elder Dragon, and then it becomes a pattern, then it becomes formula, and then it becomes a cliché. We didn't want to do that so we started looking around for how can we twist things so that's not just the same one-to-one "Let's go kill an Elder Dragon." We considered maybe two Elder Dragons at once, and then eventually the team hit on the idea of "Well, the gods, what happened to the gods is one of the upstanding questions of Guild Wars 1 and between Guild Wars 1 and Guild Wars 2. There are these titanically powerful beings in the gods, there are these titanically powerful beings in the Elder Dragons, and they've never interacted. What happened? Why is that?" Because there were gods, then there were dragons, and then there were only dragons. So we figured bringing gods back into the mix would be a way, a doorway, to surprise players while also giving them one of the answers they were looking for.
If they had settled for the "two Elder Dragons at once" plot (likely would've been about the Jormag vs. Primordus plot that was teased in Season 3), I wonder how Glint's legacy would've tied into that plot and what Aurene would've been doing during that plot if we had no memory crystals, Exalted and Forgotten stuff as exposition...
-
There's one subtle mystery introduced in S3 Episode 6. When the Commander and Kerida raid the White Mantle hideout, she's [humming a tune](
) while trying to pick the lock. And guess what tune that happens to be?That's right: the ["Song of the Zephyrites"](https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Zephyrites_Music_Box)!
Kerida knowing the tune leads to some interesting implications:
1) She either visited the Zephyrites at some point or learned the song via other unknown means (and clearly she's interested in it in some manner because why else would she just happen to hum that tune, which is an intriguing retelling of Glint's demise, in particular?),
2) If she visited the Zephyrites, perhaps this means she might belong to the same benevolent cabal of Tyrian protectors that Ogden [alluded to in Season 2's "Hidden Arcana"](https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Hidden_Arcana) (and which the Master of Peace was apparently a member of, and potentially E too if Ogden already being informed of our coming is anything to go by, and how E did mention to Marjory how "There are forces at work in this city, in this world, that will take us all down if we let them. Together, you and I can make a difference."):
> **Ogden:**Actually, I think you need information about the meaning of your vision from the Pale Tree.
> **Player:** What? How did you—
> **Ogden:** There are those who have taken interest. I had some warning that you might be calling. Your challenges do not go unnoticed.
> **Player:** Who?
> **Ogden:** All in good time. But know that they have Tyria's best interests at heart.
> [...]
> **Player:** It was a portal to Glint's lair.
> **Ogden:** So it was. The Master of Peace and I set it up after Glint's death so I could guard it for the Brotherhood.
> [...]
> **Player:** I saw the Master of Peace take an egg.
> **Ogden:** Fear not. He did not steal it. He was given custody of it.
> **Player:** By whom?
> **Ogden:** You know. You witnessed it, didn't you?
> **Player:** Not clearly.
> **Ogden:** Then you're not meant to know just yet. All things in their time.
While many in the community speculated the mysterious entity who gave Master of Peace the egg (Aurene) may have been Vlast given the deep, distorted voice we witnessed in Glint's lair in Season 2, we never got confirmation for this in PoF despite a reference to an earlier visit to Glint's lair in "Crystalline Memories". If it wasn't an oversight in writing, we've yet to learn if it truly was Vlast or someone we've yet to meet (or learn of) later on. Perhaps this, as well as dragging E back as part of this curious secret justice league of Tyria, could be our way of revisiting the Zephyrites too to learn what secret their Aspect Masters may have left. And it would be nice too to introduce Aurene to them and have them be happy about how their mission turned out in the end. :)
And speaking of that cranky old stone dwarf, while my Dawnbloom sylvari is very diplomatic and patient, it's high time Ogden spilled the beans about what he meant by his S2 comments. It's been three years already, Vlast is gone and Aurene's growing, how long is he gonna wait until the time is "good"? :(
-
> @"Tyson.5160" said:
> I have always wondered about this and I was hoping for more of an answer from Anet during Path of Fire. Balthazar had a bit of a hissy fit regarding the other gods not fighting the dragon’s. I was hoping that Anet would explain that Balthazar had actually beat Menzies and destroyed his shadow army in the fissure of woe. It would explain why he was so antsy for a big war and battle after the conflict in FoW ended. Never happened, though we can speculate by certain item names like Menzies agony and fate of Menzies. Had they explained this part a bit more, I think it may given his character a bit more depth. For all we know, Menzies could have been dealt with just after GW1, which left Balthazar bored with nothing to do, but look forward to the next big fight. It’s like when Marines get addict to combat and who knows how long he had been waiting. Next thing he knows, he sees a large scale conflict with the Elder Dragons, which I’m sure excited him. Then the other gods disagree, leaving him steaming and frustrated.
Regarding Balthazar beating Menzies and the Shadow Army, we did get this intriguing Reddit comment from Scott McGough (the narrative lead of PoF) regarding Balthazar's past:
> Likewise, Balth the god of war had been more or less idle since the Exodus, with very little in the way of human contact or terrestrial combat. He's a fiery god of action and he was champing at the bit for the chance to do what he was born to do (as he sees it). [(Source)](
)I'm not sure if with "Exodus" Scott meant the actual Exodus from Tyria after Abaddon's imprisonment (and hence the beginning of the After Exodus timeline of Mouvelian Calendar; this would be my interpretation of his comment, however), or if he meant the event of gods withdrawing further into the Mists after Abaddon's demise and Kormir's ascension (in 1072 AE) that allowed them to sever their remaining ties with Tyria with that one loose thread resolved.
If the former, it raises an interesting question why Balthazar didn't deem it worthy of him to fight alongside his Eternals against the Shadowy Army and hunt down Menzies if it was combat that he craved so much that he was itching to fight the Elder Dragons later on. Then again, Grenth never made a move to assist the Reapers and other servants and denizens of the Underworld against Dhuum's continuous breakouts, and Kormir didn't personally go after Mallyx (one of Abaddon's top henchmen) after ascending either, so perhaps there's more to the gods not wanting to delve too deep into their own realms' (Fissure of Woe, Underworld, Realm of Torment) issues that we've yet to learn.
Scott's comment may also suggest that the Eternal Battle ended in Balthy's favor as the [strange Burning Scrolls](https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Strange_Burning_Scroll) of the Herald of Balthazar state that "Things have changed since the Eternal Battle. We must adapt or be swept away in his burning rage." and that "Once, we followed the rules of the Eternal Battle, but this campaign is too important to be left to chance."
Peter Fries also showed up in one of the twitch guild chats about PoF narrative (as a dev commenter in the text area, not in person on video with Rubi and co) and explained when asked that original PoF draft had more references to Menzies until, for one reason or another, those references were cut to the few obscure ones we have in PoF today and that he'd rather not divulge what those original details were in case those ideas were to be used later. Admittedly that's a standard comment when asked about plot details (see e.g. dev comments to some questions asking clarification for some of the obscure unresolved plot threads from GW1 in the recent lore-focused ArenaNet Forum Chats), so it's possible they won't return to it anytime soon.
However, I wouldn't be surprised if details on Menzies's fate and what really happened in the Eternal Battle may come up again, perhaps in a raid wing to address the plot of these not as integral plot threads as kind of happened with Dhuum and the Seven Reapers in the Hall of Chains. The narrative devs did state that the gods' plot isn't over and that there's more to Balthy's story and motivations than him just following his nature as conflict, so it remains to be seen whether we'll see any of the Six again (e.g. Lyssa as Ilya and/or Lyss returning as an antagonist or us otherwise finding out what the deal is with her and Balthy), find Menzies alive (or get books etc. explaining what really happened with him off screen), or learn what happened to the divinity taken from Balthazar (if he had a successor, which seems more likely now given Bobby Stein's comment from a while back but of course not confirmed yet, and who that successor might be) or otherwise learn whatever they're up to. :)
Speaking of Balthy's hissy fit and him kind of acting out of character in PoF (even though devs did state that he had always been ruthless, carrying the head of his father and slaying Kaolai in anger for losing to him in a game only to show him some respect afterwards as what was stated to be a rare gesture etc.), some folks in the community have speculated if Lyssa or some other influence had something to do with him going all psychopath on us. We did learn a bit more about Balthy's "better" side from Queen Yasamin of Siren's Landing who, while fanatical towards her god, [did state to us in Siren's Landing](https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/The_Flow_of_Magic) that Balthazar had visited her and been gracious in her presence while asking her to maintain his reliquary, so he wasn't all rage all the time:
> **Queen Yasamin:** The best news of all. Soon Orr will be ours and we can coax the gods back. Balthazar was a sight for sore eyes.
> **Player:** So you saw him? Here?
> **Queen Yasamin:** Oh yes. He came to visit his reliquary, and I was the first to greet him.
> **Queen Yasamin:** He was gracious and asked me to maintain the reliquary, but when he left, it went still.
I'd have loved to have seen more of this side of Balthazar (apart from his attempt for us to join forces with him in Season 3) to flesh him out and give him more "redeeming" qualities as an antagonist, but that's a discussion for another topic. :)
Anyway, regarding the "bad influence" on Balthazar, let's take a look at an interesting detail in the [Parable of Balthazar](https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Parables_of_the_Gods#A_Parable_of_Balthazar) found in Siren's Landing:
> Walking upon a battlefield strewn with the dead, Balthazar, the god of war, blessed each of the corpses for their valor, until he came across one who had not fought but had cowered. Balthazar could smell the stink of fear, and so he reached into the man and pulled forth his soul. He held it in place as he scrutinized it.
>
> The soul was no more courageous in death than it had been in life, and it trembled and whimpered. It bowed its spine and hid its face.
>
> "You," said the god, "do not belong here. You sully these brave men and women who died in honorable combat. You will cower behind them no more."
>
> Balthazar folded the soul, bent it and broke it, crushed it until it was hidden inside his clasped hands. Then he opened his mouth wide, and shoved the soul in, consuming it whole.
>
> Once it was gone, Balthazar shouted to the dead, "You carried this coward when he lived. **Now, I carry him, for he serves as my reminder** that strength and courage are never to be taken for granted." [emphasis mine]
Before I continue, let's take a look at another interesting bit of lore from GW1 from Kormir's ascension in [Abaddon's Gate](https://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Abaddon%27s_Gate):
> **Player:** Kormir?
> **Kormir:** No. Yes. Kormir. And much more.
> **Player:** Abaddon?
> **Kormir:** No. His power. His knowledge. But not him. His will is broken. There is a new god of secrets. There is a new day.
Koss mentioned in one of his books that Kormir the human died that day. And indeed, the Goddess of Truth that was born from the choice that only a mortal could make had aspects of both Abaddon and Kormir. Whether the "His will is broken" comment suggests that Abaddon as a broken entity survived somewhere outside the goddess's body or was consumed within the goddess to become part of her (hence the assimilation of his knowledge) but never rise again is unclear, however, as I don't think the enigmatic phrase is ever elaborated on afterwards.
About the above quotes, there's an interesting bit in Finnish mythology where, if a deity/hero consumed someone else's power/soul, that other power/soul ended up affecting the consumer (I'm sure the concept is found in other shamanistic mythologies as well). In some cases if the will of the slain was stronger, it might even overtake the consumer's personality if they weren't careful. If the devs decided to go with Balthazar beating Menzies off screen (seems like an unlikely scenario, though, as I imagine they'd want to hype up the playerbase with an actual encounter with Menzies for maximum impact, but who knows), perhaps Balthy literally did to him what the parable suggested he did to the hypothetical soul of a coward. If he ate Menzies and was actually influenced by Menzies's personality as a kind of ironic turn of events, perhaps that could partly explain his more deceptive tactics and causing so much destruction (as Menzies was known as a deceiver and had the monicker Lord of Destruction).
Granted, the above explanation seems unlikely given the dev comments mentioned earlier, but it's still a fun little bit to think about in case Balthazar's parable was meant to have a deeper meaning than just showing the darker if understandable side of the god (similar to how the other parables described other gods). :)
-
A couple of things I'd like to see if we ever get to explore Woodland Cascades in depth:
**1) Centaur homelands**
It's been suggested that centaurs reached Harathi Hinterlands, where they set up their command post, from Woodland Cascades. We could finally meet centaur civilians with the mothers looking after their foals, perhaps even making some injured/weak/etc. males look after them too due to the war effort diminishing the number of females who are called to the frontline to assist the Centaur Alliance's battles.
The homelands would allow us to see the potential political turmoil within the Centaur Alliance after War King Ulgoth's demise. As we only saw some Harathi showing up in Lake Doric with no Modniir or Tamini in sight, it makes me wonder if those bloodstone-crazed Harathi led by Immelhoof were a splinter faction of Harathi or if it suggested that the Harathi have begun to dominate the once Modniir-led alliance.
We could perhaps be reunited with [Outcast Qindova](https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Outcast_Qindova) whose absence from LA since the rebuilding could be explained to him returning to his people after learning of Ulgoth's death to try to convince his brethren to stop the tragic war despite the risk to his life.
Events in the map could involve us helping centaur rebels attempt to topple either a new War King or the Modniir War Council that rules(?) in the interregnum. We could receive help from Seraph and possibly other organizations who understand that a peace with centaurs by toppling their hateful government is necessary (and thus potentially recruiting the less aggressive centaurs as allies in the war against the dragons in exchange for granting them land on Krytan soil in a coexistence with humans). That way we'd also get to see how centaur civilian life works (outside of what little we saw in Dry Top) and come to understand their point of view (and why they have to wage war for the survival of their race after being driven into a corner) better.
["A Tangle of Weeds"](https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/A_Tangle_of_Weeds) showed us that some centaurs at least believe(d) sylvari to be spirits of the land, so having some sylvari involved in the diplomatic mission to explain Tyria's plight and to mend relations between humans and centaurs would be nice. Perhaps the centaur Ancestor Tree lore could be expanded with sylvari gaining new insight into the magical workings of nature and compare such trees to Pale Tree in a way, especially if the Ancestor Trees have more relevance than just their revered status in centaur society, and centaurs could learn a bit about sylvari and, subsequently, Ventari's teachings for a nice two-way learning experience for both races as they come to some understanding of one another.
This could also be a cool opportunity to introduce one or both of the two still unnamed and missing Firstborn. After all, we did already receive first hints of these mysterious Firstborn when we saw a cool glimpse of a [female](https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/File:Firstborn_Sniper_\(Unknown\).jpg) and a [male](https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/File:Firstborn_Tormentor_\(Unknown\).jpg) Firstborn, as well as what I think is the original handsome form of [Malomedies](https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/File:Firstborn_Tormentor_\(Unknown_alt\).jpg) before his torture by asura, during the battle against the Blighted Pale Tree and her summoned Blighted Firstborn that Mordremoth siced on us in the Dream.
Another interesting racial story would involve charr being among these peace negotiators, using their experiences with handling the [Ebonhawke Treaty](https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Ebonhawke_Treaty) with humans as a means to approach the delicate topic and perhaps act as middlemen between humans and centaurs. It would also be quite cathartic to witness this warlike race actually helping with bringing peace between humanity and humans' other great enemy. It would be interesting seeing charr and centaurs discussing the matter and how they've historically dealt with their (once) common enemy. Perhaps that would bring the two races closer and to a deeper understanding of their respective cultures. :)
On the darker side of this we could get glimpses at sympathetic antagonists who can't let go of old hatreds similar to Separatists and Renegades in Ascalon. For example, we could see the famed centaur killer [broil Cane](https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Broil_Cane) make a return as a vigilante hunting centaurs in the woodlands to avenge the (supposed) deaths of his family, and we'd have to stop his rampage even though we'd sympathize with his pain of losing loved ones clouding his judgement. Broil was one of the coolest and most fascinating open world NPCs in Central Tyria, so I'd love to see his story continue in one way or the other.
**2) Legacy of the mursaat**
Assuming that Saul D'Alessio found the mursaat city deep within Woodland Cascades in his exile (and given the fact that the mursaat correctional facility of Bastion of the Penitent is also within the woodlands might be a nudge in that direction), one woodlands map could involve us actually finding and exploring the ruins of this mursaat city/capital and learn more lore about them.
Perhaps the story could also drop a big lore bomb that not all the mursaat are extinct after all: maybe some mursaat phased into the Mists during the genocide, and Lazarus was merely the last mursaat on Tyria, thus retroactively explaining that the Eye of Janthir did not disintegrate per se but simply phased into the Mists to seek out the remaining mursaat there now that its mission on Tyria was over. It would be interesting if any of these surviving mursaat from the Mists returned but, instead of being hateful and arrogant, they might've thought hard on their and their leaders' actions and realize the error of their ways, trying to make amends for their crimes of the past (even if those crimes would be "justified" from their point of view given the explanation in the mursaat tablets) while Tyrians would not trust them (kind of mirroring what the sylvari during and post HoT would've been if the sylvari racism plot had been developed more).
Admittedly this plot would've been cooler if Lazarus had not been killed off as we could've contrasted him (the one last vengeful mursaat set in his old ways and unable to let go of old hatreds) with the actually repenting mursaat who could herald a new dawn for Tyria (even if they'd end up sacrificing themselves in a tearjerking scene to stop Lazarus's plans to atone for their crimes and cleanse their race's name somewhat).
Exploring the city could also be a cool continuation of the hints sprinkled throughout Bastion of the Penitent which suggested that the mursaat had held a Forgotten prisoner who had escaped while Samarog slaughtered other prison rioters (as we don't see any snakelike bodies among the warden's impaled victims or in the torture devices):
> After interacting with the Clothes Pile:
> **Player:** (if asura) These clothes wouldn't fit a bipedal individual. And whoever wore the garments left scales behind on the fabric.
> **Player:** (if not asura) Whoever wore the garment left scales behind on the fabric.
> **Player:** It's almost as if...they fit a serpentine creature. Did a krait wear this? Or some other being?
> [...]
> **Scholar Glenna:** It's starting to make sense that we've found human, jotun, and possibly Forgotten remnants here.
Byron Miller even mentioned back in one of the the written guild chats during a stream in Twitch that there may or may not be more to the story about this mysterious scaled prisoner, and while he's a known tease (no offense, Byron, we still love you and like you adding fuel to the fires of speculation! ;D), there's an admittedly slight chance that this idea may be explored more someday. Perhaps this last Forgotten on Tyria (if he/she survived to the present day) could become a potential ally or a maddened antagonist who'd be after the mursaat city's secrets for reasons that might or might not be all that benevolent, and we end up confronting this Forgotten out of necessity (or by accident) during our quest into the woodlands.
3) **Horses...maybe?**
Granted, the region is called Woodland Cascades and *Edge if Destiny* mentioned Logan, Rytlock and Caithe witnessing a grassy plain where wild horses ran when they gazed through the asura gate. However, it's not necessarily impossible to include one plains map where we'd finally get to encounter these so far unseen but heavily hinted at equines. We could maybe even take part in meta events where we'd get to ride these horses and corral them similar to the Branded Hydra event in Crystal Oasis, and perhaps the narrative team could sprinkle some hints at the lore of horses [aside from the few tidbits](https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Horse) we know of these equines. :)
-
Well, technically at least the human female Pact Commander was hinted to have feelings for Logan when she hallucinated about Scarlet mocking her for these unrequited feelings in the [Nightmare Chamber](https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Nightmare_Chamber/Dialogue#Final_Room) during Living World Season 1's Tower of Nightmares arc:
> While fighting Nightmare hallucination of Logan Thackeray:
> **Scarlet Briar:** Thackeray loves a silly, fat-headed royal more than he loves you. Does that hurt?
I don't know whether Scarlet mocking the norn player's feelings for Eir is supposed to imply romantic or mentor-student kind of relationship between the player and Eir, but I'll add that line in here from the same Nightmare instance just for discussion's sake:
> While fighting Nightmare hallucination of Eir Stegalkin:
> **Scarlet Briar:** Eir doesn't love her slayer anymore. Not since...well, you know.
As for interspecies relationships, we've seen humans being attracted to norn:
> **Citizen:** Did you see that norn come through here the other day? Now that's a man!
And humans to sylvari (this example makes more sense in context if you follow the pair around Cursed Shore to pick up the hints as they keep arguing like a married couple with the sylvari being oblivious to the tsundere human's barely disguised feelings):
> **Historian Fia:** Nothing! Wait, how did you get here?
> **Crusader Jasper:** I followed you. I didn't want to, at first, but I realized camp was a lot less interesting without you.
More recently the Zohaqan meta event in Sandswept Isles is all about an interspecies, homosexual romance between the djinn Zohaqan and the human Nakis which ended tragically (due to those darned Inquest and their experiments! *shakes fist*) and turned Zohaqan into a sympathetic, grieving antagonist out for revenge on everyone over the death of his ["darling Nakis, tender Nakis, clever Nakis"](https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Zohaqan%27s_Letter) if you look for the clues in the Zohaqan event as well as the Olmakhan backpack collection with Efi which reveals some of the backstory between the reason for Zohaqan's actions (and of course open world stuff like the Lovers' Tree with the image of two people holding hands near the cave entrance. I was impressed that we actually got djinn-human romance (which was homosexual to boot!) represented and given such story importance in a natural way, and I applaud the writers for daring to go in that direction even if they chose not to drum it up too much and let the playerbase figure it out from the clues instead. :)
The biggest and most hopeful interspecies romantic moment we've seen so far (that I can think of, at any rate) has been between the spirits of the human Nicholas and the norn Yngvild from ["The Departing"](https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/The_Departing#In_the_Domain_of_the_Lost) story mission. They did not want to move to one another's respective afterlives from the Domain of the Lost because they had bonded while helping one another and wanted to stay together no matter the cost:
> **Yngvild:** You have to find your way, then it'll all come back to you. Like we did. We helped each other find our names and our past. And in the process... we bonded.
> **Pact Commander:** That doesn't make any sense.
> **Yngvild:** I know. I'm supposed to join Raven. And he should go to be with his god. But we'd rather spend eternity with each other here. I suppose afterlife is what you make of it, too.
It does make me kinda sad that different races won't possibly ever get to see each other again even as spirits once they move to their respective designated afterlives. If only there was a way to keep contact with those of other species (friends or otherwise)...
As for a love interest for my Pact Commander, I wouldn't be opposed to it. We have plenty of accounts of love on the battlefield (or during war in that "calm" time between battles) from real life and films. For film examples just think of Lara and Doctor Zhivago, or Han Solo and Leia Organa, who had time to fall in love over the years while going through their respective times of trouble against forces more powerful than they were.
"Knight of the Thorn" side story and "Shining Blade Secrets" story instance already showed that the Commander was suffering from guilt and pain of loss, and we've seen the Commander show anger as they lash out at both companions and enemies (just think of how harshly the Commander treated the once-villainous Canach in latter half of Season 1 and throughout Season 2 until they miraculously became "besties" in Heart of Thorns) and even crack jokes here and there. There were even potential hints back in Season 2 that the Commander and Belinda Delaqua might've developed feelings for one another as more than friends if not for Belinda's tragic fate later on given the Commander's reaction to some of the stuff Belinda said.
As long as the story didn't go through the "stuffed in the fridge" moment of killing off the love interest to develop the Commander's character (a tactic used way too much in GW2's narrative if we look all the way through personal story to the present, both the instanced missions and open world), it would help flesh out the Commander and let us see a different side of them than what we've witnessed so far.
However, that kind of approach has its narrative problems too when it comes to player choice and agency which we know from interviews that ANet deems very important. We run into several problems:
1) How to write a convincing love story for different races (e.g. charr have different notions on romance than asura do)?
2) How to handle interspecies possibility for romance (should we just have one love interest for all races, which could be problematic if we had, say, norn or charr falling in love with an asura, not that such should be impossible but still...?)
3) How to take into account the Commander's gender and sexual identity matters? To appease both hetero- and homosexual players (as well as the lore side as we know trans- and homosexualism isn't frowned upon in Tyria based on Jory/Kas, Zohaqan/Nakis, Caithe/Faolain, Dagdar/Eladus; and then there's Sya, formerly Symon, becoming transgender via mesmerism), we'd need at least two love interests (one male, one female) to allow for some variety without forcing the Commander to be, for example, heterosexual only.
4) How would the story take into account the Commander's personality and player's perception of it (should the romance be mushy, straight to the point, distant-ish or...)? If given options, how much impact could these options potentially have while still keeping the story on the same track?
5) Would this love interest become a permanent addition to the cast, or just be a glorified trophy (a stay in home boy/girlfriend)?
Arguably the devs could ignore the fourth point completely as they already wrote the Commander a certain way without giving players a choice when forgiving Canach after a season-long show of hostility and making sylvari players threaten Caithe with death in Heart of Thorns, facing Braham's verbal onslaught and the whole Pact and Shining Blade plot from Season 3, and making us taunt Joko in Path of Fire. But given how many transgenders and homosexuals there are working at ANet's positively diverse workplace as of this writing, there's no way they would (or should) shoehorn in a singular heterosexual romance without at least giving a homosexual option for the players who want it (hence the suggestion of two potential love interests in point 3). The devs could (and should) ignore the fifth point as well because a love interest should play a part in the Commander's actions to make them matter and help form the bond between the two; it would be sad if they only existed to be friged or relegated to mere home instance interactions.
Sadly all of the presented points of immersion shown above contribute to the issue of budget and gameplay considerations. ANet has told us that they prefer working with smaller hero teams per instance/episode (starting from Season 3 onward) because having too big a cast on screen at once (as they stated to be the case in Heart of Thorns and, to an extent, in Personal Story) would not allow any NPC to receive as much development as they would like. Add to that voice acting and localization costs for the supported languages (translating and dubbing all that dialogue isn't cheap even if there's often the tendency for translators to suffer the most when it comes to undercutting translation fees). So unless they can figure out how to get past all these hurdles and present a compelling love story featuring our Commander, I simply don't see the devs ever giving us love interest(s) in GW2 at the current point in time as intriguing as the concept would be.
-
Thanks for the answers, Jessica. Makes me wonder if the story will touch on that detail of the Elder Dragons one day. :)
-
Yep, I should've added a link to that in my post for context. That very answer was in fact what made me ask the clarifying question in the first place as the wording in the AMA is still ambiguous enough to me at least (because of the way it uses the verb "created", and "offspring" could be viewed symbolically rather than literally given how those Kralky corrupts are "reborn" in his image) to be taken either way. But admittedly I may be overthinking it. :)
-
See what I did there? Because we've had recent story references to the Scarab Plague, and bug swarms...eh, never mind. This sylvari of mine was only ever good with wooden jokes. :(
Anyway, back to the topic...first of all, thanks for giving us the opportunity for such a lore-focused AFC! It's appreciated, and I've enjoyed the discussion and the back and forth seen so far. :)
I've compiled a wide number of questions below for various topics as I don't want to just spam them one thread at a time. For any participating developers reading this, feel free to pick whichever question(s) tickle your lore fancy.
1) Kormir mentions a Hero leading a mission to stop Abaddon in "Facing the Truth", and [Koss on Koss Extended Edition](https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Koss_on_Koss_\(Extended_Edition\)) mentions Koss fighting alongside a Tyrian Hero. For the sake of documenting it in the [Hero (NPC)](https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Hero_\(NPC\)) article on GW2wiki, is there canonically only one Hero who did Prophecies, Factions, and Nightfall campaigns? Or were there multiple heroes dependent on which campaign the player played first as potentially suggested by [Young Heroes of Tyria](https://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Young_Heroes_of_Tyria) and the vision of what seem to be five heroes facing Abaddon shown during Kormir's speech in "Facing the Truth"? If the latter (multiple heroes) is true, was the Prophecies Hero the leader of these heroes as Koss on Koss Extended Edition mentions a Tyrian hero rather than an Elonian hero (unless his wording is meant to be symbolic given how the Hero saved the whole world, aka Tyria)?
2) Can Elona be considered its own continent lorewise, or should we just call it a nation for wiki documenting purposes?
3) What happened to Balthazar's divinity/power after the gods took it from him (given how a big deal was made about replacing Abaddon with Kormir in Nightfall)? Was the divinity given to some mortal/spirit who ascended to godhood as the new god/dess? If so, is there a story behind it (e.g. why he/she in particular was chosen as a replacement)?
4) After being freed by Rytlock and entering Tyria, how did Balthazar learn about the White Mantle's plans to resurrect Lazarus in order to begin his ruse?
5) After being stripped of his divinity, how was Balthazar (who had gained some power from absorbing the Maguuma Bloodstone) able to enter Primal Kiln in Draconis Mons to face Primordus and set up Taimi's Machine without being eaten/corrupted by Ol' Prim or its Destroyers? Did he still have a divine spark within him that allowed him to be unseen by Destroyers or his presence repelled them?
6) [Guild Wars 2: Path of Fire—Road to the Desert](https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Guild_Wars_2:_Path_of_Fire%E2%80%94Road_to_the_Desert) states that after absorbing a portion of the magic released by Mordremoth’s demise in 1328 AE, Kralkatorrik flew south. What attracted it to Vabbi in particular that it roosted there for (seemingly) two years until the events of PoF in 1330 AE? Was it the magic of the djinn, the Hidden City of Ahdashim?
7) Any news you can share on Shiny, the saltspray dragon we last saw in Nightfall chilling out in the Hidden City of Ahdashim next door to Vabbi? Was Shiny aware of what was going on with Glint, Vlast, and Kralkatorrik?
8) During the writing of PoF, were there ever considerations of having Zommoros play some kind of a role as in the finished game we get to interact with djinn and even enter Zommoros's lair?
9) Chak can drop [unidentified Lodestones](https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Unidentified_Lodestone) while the only other NPCs to drop such in game are dragon minions. Is this simply a game mechanics issue, or is there a deeper lore meaning for this curious connection given the chak's ability to filter magic?
10) In Season 2 Rox was quite evasive and even [lied to us once](
) while we chatted with her in Camp Resolve. What was her mission there (was she spying on someone and if so, who and why?) and how's Smodur (or someone else in the Imperator's office) involved?11) During some story instances in A Bug in the System, we were given hints of a male Inquest Director who appeared in some of the female holographic PA Announcer's messages. Is this Director simply the leader of Rata Primus, or is he someone way higher up in Inquest hierarchy?
12) Any clues or information on Overseer Kuda's mother given how Kudu (who seems to be the father based on hints) was shown to be quite the ladies' man back in the day (e.g. Plunka, Tazza)?
13) Any deeper meaning on why Kuda looks a bit like Zojja?
14) Any word on if Subject Alpha could have survived the destruction of the Crucible of Eternity given how durable it was as a foe and how one of its essences fled deeper into the facility before the base's destruction?
15) Back in Season 1 [it was once suggested](https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/User:Kossage/Lore_Portal#On_Taimi.27s_parents_and_Zojja.27s_role_in_Taimi.27s_education) that we might learn more about Taimi's missing parents, including their identities, in the future. Has this plot point been talked about since, or has it been dropped?
16) Are Rytlock and Rox's parents still alive (maybe somewhere in Blood Legion Homelands), or are they dead by now?
17) Has Kasmeer met with her brother Kyle Meade lately, and is there a chance she might one day introduce Marjory and/or the Commander to him even if he's a black sheep of the Meade family?
18) What did Faolain do during the years between her escape in Twilight Arbor story mode (1325 AE) and appearance as a prisoner in HoT (1328 AE)? Why were she and the Nightmare Court in the Heart of Maguuma to begin with?
19) What caused Cadeyrn, the Secondborn founder and original leader of the Nightmare Court, to let Firstborn Faolain (who was a later convert) assume leadership of the court instead of him staying in power?
20) Is there any centralized leader for the Sons of Svanir, or at least a bigger representative for rallying them like Knut is for the independent norn in Hoelbrak? In personal story, open world and dungeons we only ever met what amounted to local Svanir chiefs at best.
21) What led to the selection of the specific hero NPCs for the ["Defeat the invading Awakened"](https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Defeat_the_invading_Awakened) event in Central Tyria? It was really nice to see familiar faces (with dialogue!) fighting alongside us, going all the way from recent friends like Kerida and Ridhais to older veterans like Sigfast, Skarti, Ballista and Mangonel.
22) How was Braham's group capable of getting past what would likely have been thousands of Icebrood and dozens of dragon champions and braving the bitter cold effect of the north (for what must've been for days if not for weeks/months) to reach Jormag and surround the dragon as Braham's letter from "The Flow of Magic" from One Path Ends implied?
22) What caused Garm's (hopefully temporary) retirement? Was he simply not feeling ok fighting alongside Braham?
23) Any news on Braham's "Destiny's Edge"? Have these norn been disbanded, or is Braham still thinking about them? Would be fun to meet them one day if the story takes us in that direction again.
24) Were there any initial PoF drafts where we might've potentially interacted with other members of the Six aside from Balthazar and Kormir?
25) In "Facing the Truth", why was Kormir being cryptic about what we should do next rather than just telling us the truth flat out to save us time searching for answers (Kesho, Sohothin)?
26) As the gods seemed unwilling to face the Elder Dragons, does it suggest that the Forgotten never told them the plan involving Glint and her scions absorbing the power of the Elder Dragons and becoming benevolent balancers of magic? If so, why was there a lack of communication between gods and the Forgotten, as Glint herself showed frustration during "The Way Forward" at not being told what the gods may or may not have known?
27) Glint is said to be the scion of Kralkatorrik. Does this mean she's Kralky's biological daughter, or is this simply a symbolic phrase which means she became his "daughter" via Branding?
28) Who's Aurene and Vlast's father? Is it Kralkatorrik or some other unseen dragon, or was there never a father (depending on how dragon biology works)?
29) Aurene and Vlast are the only scions of Glint shown alive in GW2 times but in GW1 there were dozens of eggs. Were the other eggs destroyed by the Destroyers, or the Chosen who Glint claimed had returned to the lair to battle her (as per Edge of Destiny novel)?
30) What exactly is the timeline of Kesho and Vlast? In GW1 Vlast showed up in Glint's lair and was protected from Destroyers while in PoF Kesho is said to be his birthplace. Was he born in Kesho but then taken to dragon's lair for an initiation, or are the dozen or so Priory, local and Exalted NPCs wrong and he was only taken to Kesho after hatching? [book of Vlast](https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Book_of_Vlast) claims that Vlast had protected Elona for generations, but the Branded only showed up with Kralkatorrik ten years prior at most given the events in Edge of Destiny.
31) According to timeline, Kralkatorrik would have roosted near (or at) Glint's lair for almost a decade following the events of Edge of Destiny. Discoveries in open world and PoF story reveal that Vlast chose to battle the Branded to contain the Brand after Glint's death. How was Vlast able to reclaim the Dragonsblood Spear from the crater and battle the Branded (including killing many veterans) so close to his mom's fallen lair without Kralkatorrik sensing his presence and personally going after him?
32) Has Mordremoth transcended his physical being to become an entity of Mind (given how his shadowy visage appears during story moments, notably as we enter the Dream and when he possesses Trahearne, and how he can move his consciousness across his corruption), and is the Mouth of Mordremoth simply his original body that merely became an extension of him after he "transcended"? Asking this for clarification so we know whether we need to replace the current image in Mordremoth's wiki page with the shadowy face in case that's the "true form" of Mordremoth.
33) What inspired Mordremoth's name? Is it simply a reference to Mordred from Arthurian legend, or is there more to it?
34) What's the canonical order of events regarding the final battle with Mordremoth? NPCs such as [Laranthir](https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Laranthir_of_the_Wild#Heart_of_Maguuma) have dialogue in Dragon's Stand that changes whether you've completed Hearts and Minds or not while Canach suggests in Hearts and Minds that the events of Dragon's Stand are distracting the dragon during the party's infiltration. So, is the Mouth of Mordremoth canonically fought three times (before, during, and after Hearts and Minds)? Or is there only one battle while the pre- and post-Hearts and Mubds dialogues are non-canonical but added for gameplay's sake?
35) Are harpies able to breed with other sentient races, or are there male harpies that we haven't seen in game?
36) We see sylvari spirits in the Domain of the Lost. Does this mean all dragon minions such as Destroyers etc. have souls? If not, is the connection to the Dream that makes the sylvari a special case and if so, how?
37) What's the meaning behind Scarlet's enigmatic message to Caithe in the [spinal Blade Pack Blueprint](https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Spinal_Blade_Pack_Blueprint): "Caithe, someday you'll see, Tyria needs me."? Could it be Scarlet referring to her original plan (suggested by "What Scarlet Saw" short story) to pit Pale Tree and Mordremoth against one another to free sylvari, or is it her saying in a roundabout way how Tyria needs Mordremoth's guidance?
38) Anything you can share about the [Mysterious Stranger](https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Mysterious_Stranger_\(Tracking_the_Aspect_Masters\)) we saw observing our progress in the "Tracking the Aspect Masters" story instance in Season 2? Was he ever intended to play a bigger role in the narrative and if so, what that might have been?
39) Have we talked to E in person during Season 1 without realizing it?
If you read all the way through to the end, thanks for taking the time to do so. Have a wonderful AFC, everyone! :)
-
The plot's been going in an interesting direction, and there are lots of ways the narrative designers might address it as we move onward. There are also quite a few mysteries left untold although it's unlikely we'd see all of them addressed this season. Here are some plot threads I'd like to see:
1) Thanks to hints sprinkled throughout the season so far, the narrative has managed to keep it somewhat ambiguous whether we're dealing with the real Joko or an imposter even though the characters now believe we're facing the real deal. Granted, we already had the "Lazarus" plot recently, so would the story still dare do a redux of it with "Joko" even if the twist of the true identity turned out to be interesting? If we're dealing with an imposter, though, it'll be fascinating to learn who he/she is, why they're so angry at the Commander, and if they have a bigger master plan where the Scarab Plague is but a minor part.
2) Balthazar and Lyssa. This would mainly include the mystery surrounding Lyssa's allegiance and whether there's a possibility that either Ilya or Lyss had feelings for Balthazar or would otherwise sense his demise and how they'd react to it. While it's likely that Balthazar got Lyssa's Mirror from Lyssa's Reliquary, it's still intriguing to me that S3 and PoF gave us all these references to Lyssa from various sources.
3) Resolution of Menzies plot. Peter Fries explained during the written Twitch chat about PoF narrative that earlier iterations of PoF story would've had more references to Menzies and that it's possible some of those elements might see the light of day in the future. If this turns out to be so, I wonder if Menzies and Shadow Army plot will be wrapped up in a raid or referenced via other means. It would be even cooler if the curious plot reference to Balthazar's mysteriously lost dagger from Draconis Mons made a return in this plot, perhaps now wielded by Menzies as he tries to legitimize his claim to the Fissure of Woe.
4) Kito and the Order of Shadows. While we've met sympathetic individuals and Kito himself claims to want to help people, both Kito and the order have been cast in a somewhat shady light due to specific bits of dialogue in Season 4 as well as the Order of Whispers notes whose vocal version ended with the exposed Whispers agent being apparently strangled to death by Shadows operatives. Will we see more of Kossan, the Master of Shadows and others, and learn the Shadows' ultimate goal in their complex web of schemes? Is the Master seen in the Chantry of Shadows truly the Master or just a front for the true mastermind? Will we learn what's behind the sealed door in the Chantry? Given the hints that the original Order of Whispers survives in the south, it would be interesting to see our Whispers and Elona's Whispers unite forces while Shadows makes their move. I wonder if we'll ever keep our promise and tell Kito how we returned back to life as he was most interested in finding out the specifics in PoF.
5) Uniting the Istani and Vabbian Sunspears. Given how Spearmarshal Zaeim shares history with First Spear Kitur (having been Kitur's student before leaving for Istan despite Kitur's protests), I'd like to see master and student meet and reconcile. Even better if the narrative managed to tie in the griffon quest storyline into it: perhaps we and Zaeim lead a seemingly successful charge against Joko's forces only to end up in a devious trap where even Aurene can't help us. But then at, our darkest hour, we see a flight of griffons ridden by Vabbian Sunspears soar overhead and assault Joko's forces with Tahlkora (or one of the other Sunspears) shouting the iconic line of their order: "Sunspears never fight alone". It would be nice to see Tahlkora officially recognize Zaeim as the new Spearmarshal, ritualistically passing the mantle on him and truly unite the factions into a stronger entity. Perhaps we'd even see some resolution to Koss's story, especially if the Sunspear plot involved Kossan and the (potentially nefarious) Order of Shadows.
6) Return of the Pact with Marshal Logan and a new Pact Commander. Season 2 already revealed that we had had successors in the Pact; whether any of those commanders survived the Maguuma campaign is unknown, but we should hopefully see a new Commander acting as Logan's right hand. Perhaps this Commander would not like us because we did basically abandon the Pact in its darkest hour, and the new Commander might view it as an act of betrayal. Having some more friction between our allies aside from the Braham stuff would be nice, especially if the new Commander was made a sympathetic if harsh individual whose motivations a
were understandable (and perhaps he/she could voice the dissatisfaction of those players who felt we never should've left the Pact to begin with).
7) Revenge on Kralkatorrik. There are quite a few folks out there who have a bone to pick with ol' Kralky. Almorra lost her warband to the dragon and would want to bring the beast down no matter what (could even we be able to convince her otherwise?), Logan would want to redeem himself and this time face Kralky for real, and hopefully Zojja would make an appearance as a last hurrah to Destiny's Edge. Seeing them reunite with Caithe and Rytlock would be nice to see, and they could help realize Eir's vision at long last. Even better if the fan theory of part of Snaff's consciousness surviving within Kralky's mind turned out to be true; that way we could have one last emotional scene with Snaff before saying farewell to him for good. This Kralky plot should also include a meeting between Logan and Aurene and their reactions; I'd really like to see how he addressed her and whether he apologized to her about leaving at a crucial moment which led to her mom Glint's death.
8) A recurring Branded lieutenant as an antagonist. There's practically King Frozenwind's chance in Primal Kiln for any such intelligent Branded lieutenant to appear in the story at this stage (I wish Chief Kronon hadn't been slain as a mere bounty but had become a recurring antagonist and mouthpiece for Kralky), but I'd really like a speaking Branded like Victurus the Shattered acting in a role similar to some of the Risen lieutenants like Labwan the Deceiver of Eyes of Zhaitan to show that not all Branded are mindless, silent elemental horrors. Kralky is shown to be more than a force of nature with a truly malicious and greedy personality, so either hearing Kralky talk or the lieutenant to deliver messages would be effective in painting the dragon as a terrifying antagonist.
9) Rytlock and Rox's charr politics subplots. Rox has her mystery since Season 2 about spying on someone in Camp Resolve (and lying to us when we questioned her) and how the strange Monti Scythescrape tied into it. Rytlock still hasn't told us the full story of what happened in the Mists, and we don't know why whatever he learned is so top secret that only the charr with the highest ranks are privy to the discussions in the tribunal. Is Bangar involved, what's going on with Smodur, and is this all going to tie to a future charr storyline?
10) The new Destiny's Edge. I'd like to see these fellows make a proper entrance into the narrative at some point and show how bad an influence they might be on Braham. Their group must've been pretty good to not only reach Jormag past thousands of Icebrood but surround the dragon as well, and it was unfortunate that we never got to meet them in S3 even if it was for understandable reasons. I wouldn't expect to meet them in S4, but I hope they haven't been cast aside forever as they still have potential.
11) Hidden City of Ahdashim and Shiny. I wonder if we'll get to meet that curious dragon in GW2 and if he'll be able to be of some use to us. It would be cool if he was working alongside his original caretaker Goren's descendants and djinn, and came to our aid in the fight against Kralkatorrik. Aurene and Shiny's interactions would likely be adorable as he could become a big brother figure after the loss of Vlast.
12) Zalambur and Imann. Both of these characters are fascinating, and it would be nice to interact with them before we move away from Elona. There's quite a bit of potential in Zalambur and Kiel's "friendship", and I'd like the Hamaseen to come to our aid once again despite being just as shady as the Order of Shadows.
13) Facing the three Awakened marshals. This plot was already foreshadowed by Osa Ekolo's dialogue in "A Small Victory (Epilogue)" based on our choice of which faction Amnoon allied with. Facing the three marshals as honorable enemies would give us more than just one-scene wonder lieutenants (unlike Amala and Lonai), and perhaps we'd feel bad having to put them down in our inevitable clash with Joko. While Osa Ekolo might be the most understanding of the trio, I imagine Oluwa Eranko would react harshly to our deception, and Olori Ogun might view it as a personal honor to face us in glorious combat. Hopefully it doesn't mean we'll kill the trio off for good as I liked each of them in PoF story, but I can see their ultimate demises being a nice dramatic moment where we'd feel "sympathy for the devil", as it were because we once fought as allies for a good cause.
14) Elonian centaurs in Kourna or wherever. While it seems that many Elonian centaurs were massacred for the expansion of the Bone Palace, it'd be nice to see some centaurs survive out there in the wilds, perhaps led by Zhed Shadowhoof's descendant. Interacting with the Maguuma centaurs in Season 2 was nice, and it would be fun to see centaurs as allies and/or enemies, depending on whether any Veldrunner or Losaru centaurs survived.
15) Dzalana. Episode 2 already gave us an area in Dajkah, and Kourna seems a likely possibility in the future. Dzalana, however, is pretty much uncharted territory, and a map there could expand on the lore of the harpies, perhaps even tease their supposed origin as fallen servants/angels of Dwayna, which would be a nice tie-in to the gods plot. Harpies have such potential for the narrative, especially if we met the more intelligent ones and even got to interact with more "friendly" harpies like we did with the one in Joko's harem.
16) Kuda and the Director of the Inquest. Kuda was quite a fascinating addition in Sandswept Isles in the Specimen Chamber meta, and I wonder if she'll end up playing a role in the story proper at some point given her apparent ties to Kudu and dragon minion research. This would also be a nice way to get Zojja involved again as she wouldn't want anyone continuing Kudu's research no matter what, especially if said successor turned out to be Kudu's daughter. As for Inquest leadership, I wonder if the Director briefly seen in one of the holograms in E2 story was supposed to be the big leader of the Inquest or just some higher-up. We still don't know much about Inquest leaders, so this would give us a good opportunity to expand on that bit of lore and perhaps introduce new, smart antagonists into the mix.
I'm sure I'm missing a few intriguing plot points not brought up in this thread, but apart from the more obvious avenues the plot will take (Blish and Gorrik), I do hope at least some of the above get addressed (and possibly resolved) in some manner throughout Season 4. :)
-
While the Guild Wars were a series of conflicts in the past, the present narrative might slowly be leading us towards a troubling direction. ;)
We supposedly learned from that totally reliable gossiping lady-in-waiting in ["Regrouping with the Queen"](https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Regrouping_with_the_Queen) instance from Episode 4: The Head of the Snake in Season 3 that "Anybody who's anybody knows that the Orders have been at odds of late." How truthful this gossip really is remains to be seen, but we notably saw the Vigil acting as its own organization in Episode 5's Draconis Mons rather than having all of the Pact represented there as a single operation headed by a commander (then again, this could've also been because of game mechanics rather than being any lore hint).
Whether the Orders are indeed bickering and continue to do so, or the Pact remains as a shadow of its former self while rebuilding itself and pleading for funding, remains to be seen. I don't expect them to mount any large-scale offense/defense like the Orr and Maguuma campaigns anytime soon, though.
That's the justification for why guilds and mercenary companies (see e.g. raiders, [balthazar's Mercenaries](https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Balthazar%27s_Mercenaries) or the [folks Evon Gnashblade threatened to hire](https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Evon_Gnashblade#Quotes) to protect his interests in Lion's Arch if the Lionguard are unable to) are becoming [more prominent](https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Dougal_Keane#Dialogue) as sort of private military contractors with the blessing of the five major Tyrian nations in the [Guild Initiative](https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Guild_Initiative). We've also met self-serving guilds like [Modus Sceleris](https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Modus_Sceleris) who could end up causing trouble in the future if they're ever brought back to the narrative.
All of this development is potentially veering us closer towards a potential Fourth Guild War should the goals of these various competing guilds and mercenary companies begin to clash at some point while the Pact is too weak to stop their ambitions...
-
> @"Randulf.7614" said:
> Are you sure? I took that to be Kralkatorrik.
It's not 100% confirmed until a reputable NPC or a dev explicitly states it's so, of course. I, too, originally thought it may have been Kralky (given how fast it goes while you're given so much audiovisual stuff with it) until I took a closer look at the cinematic. There are a few clues in the Kesho cinematic, notably the dragon being in what seems to be underwater (notice the flow in the foreground when the camera pans to show the dragon's head as well as what look like bubbles around it). As for the purple-ish color for the dragon, while it could refer to Kralkatorrik, devs have told us before that "purple is the color of evil" in GW verse, so the cinematic's use of the color could simply indicate that, as an Elder Dragon, Bubbles is bad news and thus veers towards that hue to depict the concept image of the dragon to hammer that point home.
-
> @"ArbiterofTruth.2390" said:
> How do we know its name starts with an S?
The ["Hidden Arcana"](https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Hidden_Arcana#At_the_Durmand_Priory) story instance from Season 2 suggests that the dragon's name potentially starts with an S via NPC dialogues and the map of [the All](https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/The_All). For example, here's one bit of dialogue from the instance:
> **Historian:** That's a map of the All. I like to think of them as spirit realms. That's Tyria in the middle. All those other circles are spheres of influence and powerful magic.
> **Character name:** What about the letters? Are those...
> **Historian:** Yeah. First letter of each dragon's name.
> **Character name:** Who's S?
> **Historian:** Don't know any more than that. That was all they could get from the Tome of the Five True Gods. It's too damaged. Some of these scholars in here would kill to know the full name of that dragon.
> **Character name:** Is it the deep sea dragon?
> **Historian:** They think so. Me, I think they probably got the letter wrong, but who knows. They're still translating and trying to fill in lost pieces.
What's also intriguing is that during the [cutscene in Kesho](https://youtu.be/9_nhMmzVQew) that explained "The Legacy" in ["The Way Forward"](https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/The_Way_Forward) story instance in Path of Fire, we may have actually gotten our first, menacing glimpse of the [deep sea dragon](https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Deep_sea_dragon). If you want to check out the glimpse in the cinematic rather than in the wiki screencap, keep an eye out in the aforementioned cinematic between 0:14 and 0:15. :)
-
Thanks for the heads-up and continuing with the communication, Mike! Guild Chats are always fun with the developer insight that they offer. I remember you mentioning a while ago to keep an eye out on February, so I'm curious to see what you've all cooked up now that said time approaches. :)
This thread might not be the best place for the following, but I thought I'd add a bit of my experience as a consumer with a particular trailer and show what I, as an individual, feel works for promotional material since you want to hear player feedback. While I expect your team's take to be different than the older material I describe below, perhaps my analysis will be of some use in understanding the mindset of at least one consumer's who felt the whole AAAAHHH promo went way over his head.
One of my favorite promotional videos from GW2 era has been the [Heart of Thorns expansion announcement trailer](
) which had a thought-provoking opening with intriguing and somber yet anticipatory narration (aided by the music cue and clever writing with the double foreshadowing of both the revenant class and the events of the story itself with the narrator's concluding phrase "The hero's journey is to become legend"), leading to the reveal of the new jungle region of the world (selling the expansion environments) with the first money shot of a proto-version of the notable golden city of Tarir with its mysterious inhabitants, followed by the fluent narrative of showing two groups of players in peril with new enemy types and the surprising reveal of gliding (promoting an important HoT gameplay mechanic) saving one group from an untimely demise in a well-put-together shot. This is then continued by showing off the new revenant class as well as the elite specializations for some classes while also giving a taste of the other expansion selling points (the three biomes of the maps, challenging group content, new wvw borderland etc. with exciting shots of each) and ultimately ending with another money shot of franchise mascot Rytlock channeling the revenant's herald elite spec's Legendary Dragon Stance which naturally leads to the reveal of the expansion logo depicting a stylized Mordremoth (main antagonist of the expansion) and the name of the expansion, capped by fitting music cues that have been playing throughout the trailer.While the aforementioned trailer works really well to build hype up and get people intrigued with HoT's offerings, my discussions with friends and family who had no idea of what GW2 was showed me some of the areas that otherwise nice trailer was lacking. There's hardly any context for who the talking and walking cat-person is, where is he, what is he doing and why the narrative the trailer is building up should matter to someone new to the franchise. While the mystery narration at the beginning helps set up the anticipation and intrigue to keep the potential interested consumer watching, it would've benefited from a kind of "newbie"-friendly explanation of the story. Perhaps combine the kind of PoF and Daybreak trailer plot stuff by explaining the stakes or the overall context while also making sure the explanation isn't solely aimed at those who're already familiar with GW2 plot (unlike the PoF and Daybreak or even HoT stuff which, while nice to a veteran like me, only leave new people totally confused about what Tyria's story is about and why something called sylvari belonging to the dragon is a big deal, or why the appearance of some random armored Balthazar dude who's also called a god for some reason is earth-shattering as an event).
The HoT trailer using gameplay mechanics and expansion features as part of its narrative (gliding away from new enemy types, using the new region as backdrop for exciting events while introducing the concept of biomes, elite specs, and other features) works really well, and we did see a bit of this with the use of mounts in PoF promotion although it would've worked better to weave them into the PoF trailer's narrative better. Maybe the player is about to be overwhelmed by the new Forged/Awakened/etc. enemies only to see an ally or two come rushing in with the new mounts to save the day, and the group carries on their way through the beautiful, expansive desert (with a nice vista shot of the vastness of the new maps) to save the day (or other adventurers out there), to give an admittedly haphazard example of one potential narrative.
The dream trailer for an expansion or Living World episode would likely combine best elements from both HoT and PoF promotions into a coherent, exciting whole. Perhaps the dream trailer could begin with a brief lore explanation to set the scene for newcomers unfamiliar with the lore, then smoothly give a taste of what the plot of the expansion/episode is about while also using the HoT trailer method of sneakily introducing the new map(s), mechanic(s) (e.g. gliding, mounts, new mastery like the ones introduced in Living World episodes) and other selling points along the way. The WoW trailer method of explaining relevant lore in context of the trailer and then giving fascinating glimpses of other content coming with the expansion/episode could work for GW2 too unless there's a superior method that works even better.
So with Daybreak trailer (which did have that nice Kormir recap with relevant shots from PoF story and some new shots) we could've gotten not only the aforementioned stuff but also followed the HoT trailer formula of showing the additional stuff coming with it (Introducing a New Mastery Line: Crystal Guardian!, New Legendary Weapon: The Binding of Ipos!, New Fractal: Twilight Oasis!, New Raid: Hall of Chains! and other prominent and sellable features shipped with the release) to get folks excited even more when they realize the release offers so much more. The fractal and raid snippets in the trailer could perhaps briefly tease the lore/environment of said content, the fractal bit showing us glimpses of Joko commanding his Awakened army to crush the besieged village with players showcasing the "parkour" mechanics (which are specific to that fractal) above rooftops, and the raid bit showing us the oppressive environment of the Hall of Chains with panicked NPC chatter about "Him" coming to consume them all with the bit ending with the money shot of the shadowy, maybe deliberately obscured (for trailer hype) Dhuum himself sitting on his throne and uttering an ominous line from the raid like "YOU CANNOT VANQUISH DEATH ITSELF." as the camera spans to him from the raiders who approach him cautiously in that beautifully sinister and foggy Hall of Judgment he resides in. And before the viewer has realized that he or she has wet their pants from all those exciting shots of upcoming content that goes beyond their expectations, you deliver the coup de grace with a final boom! The trailer ends with Dhuum's eyes lighting up and the scene fading to white/black (or whatever works best) to reveal the Daybreak name (replace with subsequent episode/expansion name) and the release date (and how Living World is free if you log in when the episode is active, or in expansion's case that the base game is free to try), and the hype train would be choo-chooing away with new, excited passengers aboard spreading the gospel to all corners of the gaming interwebs. ;)
However, with that said, I understand that trailer time is limited by necessity (length, budget etc.) and there shouldn't be too much bloat to overwhelm a viewer, so it can admittedly be tricky to balance information dump with gameplay, but I feel there is a golden standard to follow once folks like you and your team crack it. The above is simply a way I, as a consumer, would build up a GW2 trailer to excite the masses but I of course don't have marketing data behind me to say whether this approach would actually work any better with people other than myself.
To conclude, for what it's worth, I really enjoyed those lengthy and professionally made promo videos about mounts, the new desert region, the new fractal, the new elite specs etc. that we got around PoF and/or Daybreak launch. I'm sure I'm not the only one who likes seeing behind-the-scenes stuff explaining more about the features coming with this or that product (game, movie etc.), so those helped build up hype for me. However, if there was one (admittedly minor) flaw for me in those particular videos, it was the "talking heads syndrome" seen in so many documentaries. An interesting approach to solve this common dilemma was used in the "Waking Sleeping Beauty" documentary which never cut to talking heads and instead flashed the name of the current speaker on screen while keeping the viewer's focus on the content they wanted to see: in that documentary's case it was behind-the-scenes stuff on Disney Studios depicting the era the documentary was tackling. For GW2's use I think combining the PoF promo and Waking Sleeping Beauty approaches might work best: show us the developers' faces once per person so we see who's responsible for the content, and then never cut back to those same heads and let us focus on the new content or otherwise behind the scenes stuff (e.g. for raids this could've been the artists depicting Dhuum or Desmina's looks from concept to the final in-game iteration), and you'll be set.
If you had the time to read through all of this rambling, thanks. You wanted feedback, so I felt I should provide it, and hopefully you got something out of it. Keep up the good work with your team by your side, and know that many of us in the community appreciate your initiative and are glad to see not only you but also some of your team members engage us in discussions here and/or Reddit. Hugs from this corner of Tyria to yours! :)
-
Thanks for sharing; it's been a nice read! I, too, am interested in the (so far) untold lore of these specific and curious mount variations, so it's fun to see someone's take on it. As another fan of sugarwraith's lovely "Life on Tyria" videos, I'm glad to see more interest in the community for flexing their creative writing muscles and going wild (with some IRL taxonomy references in the terms being used!) for the mount explanations to flesh out this little bit of Tyrian lore. Keep up the good work! :)
-
Haven't spotted her yet myself, but from what a wiki editor said, Kerida (nice consistency keeping up her alias during such a public event) appears during the last invasion wave leading two other NPCs, and the location is apparently verified as random. The wiki page for [Defeat the invading Awakened](https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Defeat_the_invading_Awakened) lists potential Queensdale invasion event locations as: Altar Brook Vale, Godslost Swamp, Queen's Forest, Phinney Ridge, and Scaver Plateau. As the wiki page is still a work in progress, there might be more locations where ally NPCs pop up in that haven't yet been listed.
Interestingly each invaded map has its own set of generic ally NPCs but also hero "cameos" similar to Kerida showing up to fight the Awakened. Each of these has unique dialogue, some of which apparently even varies depending on the player character's race, which is always a nice touch.
So far the wiki lists the following hero NPCs for the invasion events: the asura Peacemaker Ninn (who shows up in your home instance for the current event stuff as Mechanist Ninn for some reason) in Metrica Province, the norn Captain Magnus the Bloody-Handed (of the Lion's Arch Captain's Council) in Gendarran Fields, the norn Knut Whitebear's sons Skarti and Sigfast in Wayfarer Foothills, the charr Ballista Geargrind and Mangonel Gearstrip (notable from the early norn personal story of losing the tank while getting drunk although the pair also shows up during a story branch in the Orr campaign) in Plains of Ashford, and the sylvari Ridhais (the valiant from Knight of the Thorn side story with Caladbolg restoration) in Caledon Forest.
A very interesting and welcome selection of characters. Glad to see some of the less used characters get some of the spotlight too. :)
-
This is what Peter Fries said in a tweet about Awakened Amala channeling Balthazar:
> She isn't channeling Balthazar, she's channeling Joko's power in a way that in life she would have channeled Balthazar [source](
)As for the state of Menzies and the Eternal Battle, we may have another clue from Scott McGough in a reddit comment:
> Balth the god of war had been more or less idle since the Exodus, with very little in the way of human contact or terrestrial combat. He's a fiery god of action and he was champing at the bit for the chance to do what he was born to do (as he sees it). [source](
)For Balthazar to be "more or less idle" means that there may have been a change in the status of the Eternal Battle for him to feel bored and want get back into action when the Elder Dragons provided him with that chance for glorious combat. Whether this means Menzies was slain/imprisoned or fled somewhere beyond Balthazar's reach, however, is unknown at this time.
Personally I hope Menzies hasn't been dealt with off screen as he has potential to be at least a raid boss if not more. It would be interesting to learn more about his and Balthazar's lineage and how exactly Menzies became such a powerful opponent to Balthazar to begin with if that story is ever touched upon. :)
-
Based on the optional dialogue in "The First City", some Awakened (whether sent by the real Joko or someone impersonating Joko) did appear in Hoelbrak, at least, which is why Braham and Rox entered the portal that took them to Elona to begin with:
> **Braham Eirsson:** Rox and I were in Hoelbrak trying to figure out how to get to Jormag , since you put him to sleep under a mountain of ice.
> **Rox:** These portals just started opening up all around the city. Then those..."Awaked," you call them? ...Started pouring out.
> **Rox:** These were different from normal asura gates. They just seemed to appear out of nowhere.
Given that the Awakened invaded Hoelbrak full of norn, however, that invasion apparently ended badly for the invaders as one norn can likely squash at least ten Awakened at once without breaking a sweat. It's possible that the Black Citadel and other capital cities may have also suffered from these brief attacks depending on how the portals were calibrated, or Hoelbrak was an anomaly among the invasions which are now centered on areas near the capitals. :)
-
It is admittedly interesting that Grenth and Lyssa in particular would be fine leaving humanity to its fate for now given how they, if the texts about them are accurate, were both champions of humanity in their days: Grenth and his seven mortal companions overthrew Dhuum who was an unjust god in order to make the Underworld a somewhat better and just place for spirits to move on, and Lyssa wanted to help humanity forget their past and even wept when she was forced to retreat into Arah instead of staying disguised among the Orrians she so cared for.
And yet, after Eye of the North, these two gods would be willing to leave humanity face the destruction on their own without at least contacting their followers (via avatars, dreams, what have you) to give the mortals crucial info that Tyria could use to their advantage even if the gods themselves could not intervene out of fear of causing the end of the world regardless if they won against the Elder Dragons or not. Even Glint herself speculated about how much the gods knew and, depending on the circumstances, why she was not privy to the gods' plan despite helping the Forgotten (gods' servants) in their task.
If [Kormir's journal](https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Journal_of_Kormir) is any indication, Lyssa even mocked her for lingering behind, which seems a rather contradictory stance for the goddess who once cared for humanity so much. In Grenth's case I can somewhat understand it as he likely underwent the same revelation Kormir did after ascending to full godhood, and he realized that the gods' responsibilities extend far beyond Tyria even if in Grenth's case his home is Tyria. In Lyssa's case there are two alternatives that I can think of without simply retconning her character (which, of course, is also possible given how the writers for GW lore have changed over the decades and how original ideas may have also adapted to new storylines):
a) Lyssa was never truly caring as depicted in some of the texts (and suggested in the [Parable of Lyssa](https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Parables_of_the_Gods#A_Parable_of_Lyssa)) and those benevolent depictions in scriptures etc. were simply the humans' interpretations and softening of her character for the church's needs as per ANet's unreliable narrator/biased NPC views tradition, or
b) Lyss and Ilya have different personalities or shifting moods, thus explaining why Lyssa may at one point be depicted as very caring and at other points cruel (fitting for a goddess linked to, well, chaos).
From what we can see, though, the gods do seem to care for humanity and Tyria to some extent but also realize that their meddling has caused as much bad things as it has caused good things (see e.g. the gifting of magic and the fall of Abaddon) so they need to be careful with what they do, and they may have responsibilities elsewhere as the Garden of the Gods (which is admittedly biased NPC view) suggests. There's also the fact that the gods apparently may want humanity to stand on its own feet similar to parents who expect their children to manage on their own without relying on their assistance all the time.
This doesn't explain why Kormir chose to be cryptic for the sake of being cryptic about how to defeat Balthazar when advising Dragon's Watch, though (unless we go with the parental analogy for her to want them to figure out stuff on their own), or why she couldn't give them a useful book about Elder Dragon origins or their weaknesses (that the gods seemingly may have known of to some extent based on the [scroll or Tome of the Five True Gods](https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Tome_of_the_Five_True_Gods) from "Hidden Arcana" story instance which revealed the dragons' names among other things) to help them in their struggle.
So, to be fair, we have to keep in mind what the narrative designers have uttered at least since the days of Jeff Grubb and Ree Soesbee: the case of deliberately biased NPC views and the use of unreliable narrator, which doesn't necessarily mean retconning per se. See, for example, Elder Thrulnn's account on the fall of the jotun and what caused it compared to what the actual jotun spirits who once lived that time (or the stuff we learn in Arah explorable path 1) reveal, and you'll see why we should always take NPC accounts with a grain of salt.
Everything we've heard of the gods came from sources that were not the gods themselves (unless you count the avatars seen at the end of Nightfall as the gods directly speaking instead of them just retelling what the gods had told them). Most of the lore, however, comes either from old tales, scriptures, or NPCs heavily biased towards their patron god, so we haven't necessarily had the unbiased truth about the gods, thus forcing us to look at multiple sources of different accounts (enemies, allies, humans and other races alike) to get as expansive a picture as we can about the elusive truth behind it all.
I, for one, look forward to learning more about the gods if we get another chance at it because some of the hints presented in S3 and PoF, and Hall of Chains to an extent, have been quite intriguing. Time will tell what fate befalls the Underworld and if we might see some involvement from Raven as well given that Spirit's relation to the Undeworld. :)
-
Glad to hear you're finding some intrigue in the raid lore. Trying to get the dialogue added to the wiki without raiding can be an arduous task without raiders' assistance (especially when many raid vids have a guild or channel logo blocking the text box), but we'll do what we can. I still need to find a way into raid instances in different completion phases to flesh out articles for Glenna and Desmina as far as their dialogue is concerned.
Aside from what's already been said, there are two other notes of interest in the raid from what I've witnessed:
1) During the River of Souls escort Desmina specifically states that "Grenth fled" in a cold tone. Given how she's the god's First Follower, you'd expect her to sound a bit more polite in her wording choice instead of making it sound like Grenth was uncaring or a coward. However, this may foreshadow Desmina's growing discont and perhaps feeling betrayed/abandoned because she couldn't understand (or refused to understand) why Grenth had to leave the Underworld and why he never came to face Dhuum again (that we know of).
2) In the guild chat focusing on Hall of Chains, one of the raid devs had this to say about the event involving the Reapers:
**Byron Miller:** The Reapers again, as has been happening for thousands of years, have come to reseal Dhuum. Maybe it goes a little wrong this time. Maybe someone meant for that to happen, maybe someone didn't, you know. It sort of remains to be seen. [source](
)This heavily implies, to me, that we haven't seen the last of the story arc of Hall of Chains, and it may lead to future raid wings or potentially even have ramifications in the Living World if they follow the White Mantle/Eye of Janthir arcs that continued from the raid to the respective S3 episodes.
It would actually be pretty interesting for the story to explore [Mausollus](https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Mausollus), another obscure Grenthian priest character with ties to not only to Grenth but also to Elona; he was the first priest to spread Grenth's teachings to Elona from Orr and lived among the people of Istan and Vabbi. It's unfortunate that, as far as I know, there haven't been any references to him anywhere in Elona with him only being noted in the Cathedral of Silence story instance in Personal Story, and the Mausollus Sea in Orr.
Hopefully the potential continuation of the Desmina plot means we'd also see more of [Priestess Rhie](https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Priestess_Rhie) who played an important part in the Personal story. It'd make sense for her to be interested in the Reapers' fates, and she might reveal more about Desmina and/or Mausollus to us depending on what she knows from her church's ancient texts. It felt a bit odd not having any notable necromancer NPCs playing a part in the raid as one would imagine that Desmina's call reached Rhie who would've been honored to help fight Grenth's old enemy alongside the Reapers after her previous encounter with the Seventh Reaper in the Cathedral of Silence. Would've also been cool if the Reaper of the Ice Wastes, for example, would've had a brief snippet of dialogue for a player character who's completed the Cathedral of Silence instance as a nice callback to that story beat...unless it already exists in the raid and no one's noticed it yet.
As for the Personal story events, it is possible the Reapers were busy figuring out how to get to Dhuum after he reversed the seal to prevent Grenth's followers from getting into the Hall of Judgment, so the Seventh Reaper (Reaper of the Ice Wastes or not) may have been on a busy schedule at the time he was summoned to the cathedral in the story instance. Interestingly the Seventh Reaper says this in the [story instance](https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Cathedral_of_Silence_(story)):
**The Seventh Reaper:** The keeper of this shrine has fallen to Zhaitan. Grenth wishes him returned, but I am too weak to perform the task.
This might imply that Dhuum's doings have somehow weakened the Reaper and his fellows, thus forcing the Commander, Rhie et al to finish off the Risen Keeper instead. The wording of "Grenth wishes him returned" could be poetical in a general sense, indicating Grenth's general desire to not let his servants linger under Zhaitan's corruption instead of Grenth specifically mentioning the Keeper in particular to the Reaper as it seems that the gods ventured deeper into the Mists hundreds of years ago rather than in Personal story times, hence no more resurrection magic in Tyria (if not counting the strange artifacts like the mysterious Eternal Flame which Gaheron Baelfire tried to use in Citadel of Flames explorable path 2 to bring himself back to life.
All in all, the raid left many questions although it at least seems to have set the stage for more plot developments once/if they continue the plot with Desmina in some way. :)
-
I thought the Aetherblade airship was an intriguing addition and a nice callback to Season 1 lore, showing that they haven't been forgotten about even if the ambient dialogue's vagueness was such a tease. :)
Although it seems unlikely at this point that we'd be returning to Scarlet era's unresolved plots anytime soon, there was that curious bit of plot in S1 where Scarlet freed Mai Trin (Aetherblade leader) from Lion's Arch and sent her to the Mists in search of something, which helped introduce us to the Edge of the Mists as a location (you can still see her ordering folks around via hologram in the center of Edge of the Mists). I often wondered why Mai was even needed for the mission instead of Scarlet just telling some other Aetherblade lieutenant to take her place. While the Aetherblades participated in the Battle for Lion's Arch, Mai Trin and her ship were suspiciously absent and have remained elusive for the past few years.
The questions then become: What exactly was their mission in the Mists all about? Did Scarlet have another plan that's yet to come to fruition? Is Mai Trin still loyal to Scarlet or forging her own path?
It would be fascinating to learn the answer to that and hopefully meet with Mai Trin again if an opportunity ever presents itself for that.
-
As honored as I would be to have a character named after my nickname somewhere in Tyria (and be a member of the Order of Shadows, even!), the descendant of Koss and Melonni is actually called [Redeemer Kossan](https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Redeemer_Kossan), not Kossage. Unfortunately Kossan has some unfortunate implications in Swedish slang, but other than that, it was nice to see Koss's descendant have a name reminiscent of the famed warrior. Kossan also has all those race-specific dialogue options (from what I could see when chatting with him as a charr and a sylvari, at least) and even a fun Macbeth reference, which was a nice surprise to discover while exploring the Desolation. :)
-
Rox actually has a rather intriguing subplot involving her mission as a free agent from Season 2 that is yet to be resolved. I posted a lengthy commentary about it on Reddit [some time ago](
) which included most of the relevant quotes relating to Rox's secret if anyone wants to read said quotes verbatim. To summarize the discussion from that thread:Several Season 2 instances ("Plan of Attack", "Reunion with the Pact", and "The Pact Assaulted") hinted at and/or explored Rox's free agent status and what her secretive mission might entail. Curiously only charr player characters got to not only learn the identity of the aggressive and mysterious charr soldier [Monti Scythescrape](https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Monti_Scythescrape) whom Rox was rather evasive about but also caught Rox outright lying to us thanks to charr PC's knowledge of annual weapons testing which Rox was initially using as an alibi for her lie before she quickly corrected herself and changed the subject. During these instances we also learned that Rox was spying on someone and apparently visiting the Imperator's office every time she returned to the Black Citadel, thus suggesting that she was working directly for Iron Imperator Smodur (or someone high enough in the Imperator's office) for reasons that remained unclear.
PoF has shed some light on this mystery but also included new intruing developments. The inquiries about Rytlock's whereabouts from S2 instances foreshadowed the charr brass's eventual interest from S3 in what Rytlock had learned in the Mists and the subsequent would-be tribunal once the Adamant Guard had arrested him in S3 Episode 2. Add to that the fact that Rytlock was being rather evasive about what exactly had been discussed in that closed-doors meeting and how he was freed and got his rank back without hassle in PoF's story instance "Sparking the Flames", and it seems to me Rox and Rytlock's plots may be connected via Smodur somehow.
The questions all of this raise are the following:
1) Was Rox sent to spy on someone in Camp Resolve or elsewhere as her slip of the tongue in one of the S2 story instances implies? If so, who was she spying on and why?
2) Has Rox been recruited by Smodur and if so, why has the Iron Imperator chosen a gladium like her who's untrained in spy games for such a discreet mission instead of picking any of the three High Legions' finest for the job? Is it because Rox might be closer to the target and thus have easier access to them?
3) Is Monti Scythescrape potentially another spy and liaison (despite the charr PC not recognizing Monti's gear, it appears to be red tier 3 medium cultural armor and thus suggesting Blood affiliation), or is he actually a figure from Rox's past with another agenda?
4) Why would Rox's mission, whether it's spying on someone on Smodur's behalf or not, be so discreet that she'd deliberately lie to the player character about what she was doing given how she's respected the PC during their adventures together and always been one of the most sensible members of the PC's guild? Regardless of if the PC was charr or not, surely Rox and/or Smodur would trust the PC with the matter given how the PC has proven their trustworthiness (especially as a charr) again and again particularly after the events surrounding the World Summit and helping the charr diminish the threat of the Ascalonian ghosts and Flame Legion, not to mention Elder Dragons?
5) What exactly is going on with Rytlock and the charr brass, and why all the secrecy about the closed-doors meeting? Did Smodur really have the authority to strip a Blood officer like Rytlock from his rank without Blood Imperator Bangar's blessing (surely this would cause a political scandal as I doubt Bangar's the kind of person to let other Legions mess with his top underlings, and Iron couldn't hush-hush it either as the other Blood Tribune Fierhan Sparwind would take note of his fellow officer Rytlock's arrest), or was this something okayed by Bangar? Did Rytlock reveal more about his trip to the Mists (aside from meeting and freeing then-unknown-to-him Balthazar and learning the ways of the revenant from Glint) to the brass than he did to the PC?
It is curious to me that the expanded world map has spread east and now includes more of the Blazeridge Mountains as well as the Blood Legion Homelands and thus suggesting a potential future plot involving charr and their politics (with possibly both Blood Imperator Bangar and Ash Imperator Malice) that the writers have already been discussing during story meetings.
While it's possible that Rox's mystery was scrapped/put on hold like the Krytan Locket subplot from S2 (which Angel McCoy mentioned during a Q&A in her Tracon visit around the time of her departure from ANet), I'd be surprised if this is the last time we'll get to explore Rox's shenanigans, especially when the writing directly waved a new mystery right in our faces in PoF with Rytlock and the charr brass and refusing to tell us more about it for now. It's going to be interesting to see how much this plot will be developed in S4 now that Rox has made her return to the story and Dragon's Watch is reunited for the time being, but I for one look forward to finding out more as charr politics has always been one of the fascinating subjects of GW2 lore to me. :)
-
What's interesting to me in the "Daybreak" trailer is the very end in particular.
After the money shot with Aurene facing her enemy in the sky, we get the announcement screen showing the date of the release accompanied by, curiously, a specific music theme from Heart of Thorns(!) and what look like purple slivers of Vlast floating around. We learn from Adisa in Elon Riverlands that the slivers have come from Vlast being wounded by stronger Branded, so do the visuals reference Aurene being wounded during the story?
I also can't guess why this particular HoT reflective theme is used at this point instead of using a PoF track instead; does it hold narrative significance like the PoF trailer music cues did (which referenced Balthazar's theme and PoF main theme to show the protagonist's journey), or was the theme simply chosen for its anticipatory yet calm mood to fit in with the seemingly hopeful title (with double meanings) of the episode? Given Maclaine and the audio team's meticulous use of music, I wouldn't put it past the trailer team to tease us with this stuff like they've done before.
Whatever this all ends up signifying (if any), I look forward to finding out once the release goes live. :)
-
Based on promotional material, a few of the livestreams as well as comments posted by Mike O'Brien in the Reddit AMA threads for S3 episodes, here's what I've got regarding people who contributed to the stories of Season 3 and Path of Fire in some way. However, with the Living World teams Mo didn't separate the "story group" per se so with some of these names I'm unsure what their contributions ultimately were, but many of them did answer story-related questions in the AMA and/or the livestreams at least so they merit inclusion. Also note that Mo only listed the folks who participated in the AMAs so the S3 lists are incomplete by necessity.
Path of Fire:
Connie Griffith, Connor Fallon, Matthew Medina, Peter Fries, Scott McGough. Bobby Stein also helped with polishing the scripts.
However, the story video for PoF showed more folks, so the team likely had back and forth with the Living World story teams too. We also know that before departing, Jeff Grubb contributed to some of the story ideas such as naming choya (and I believe also chatted about the Balthazar plot stuff if I recall some of the content creator video interviews correctly). Ree Soesbee's contributions are unclear; would be fun to hear from narrative designers what stuff she contributed if any as she was still in the company when PoF began development and only left quite a while after Jeff.
Raids:
Bobby Stein.
Other narrative designers lent a hand at some points too from what I understand, notably Peter Fries. I know from a stream that Angel at least helped with the placement of environmental objects in Forsaken Thicket but it's unclear if she contributed anything to the raid story script per se or not. I imagine there may have been some back and forth too given how tightly knight the story folks at ANet are, though, as per Linsey Murdock's comments.
Living World Season 3:
Team 1 (Episodes 1 and 4):
-Episode 1: Andrew Gray, Andrew McLeod, Angel McCoy, Anthony Ordon, Brett Nellermoe, Erik Fagerstrom, Jessica Brasz, Joe Kimmes, Linsey Murdock, Heather Conover, Melina Mitchell, Sara Kanavel, Sonya Ballas.
-Episode 4: Andrew Gray, Andy McLeod, Heather Conover, Joe Kimmes, Kirk Williford, Morgan Brown, Matt Pennebaker.
Team 2 (Episodes 2 and 5):
-Episode 2: Aaron Roxby, Ben Newell, Joe Kimmes, Josh Foreman, Keaven Freeman, Kirk Williford, Link Hughes, Melina Mitchell, Nellie Hughes, Nicholas Hernandez, Tyler Bearce.
-Episode 5: Angel McCoy, Aaron Roxby, Andrew McLeod, Charlie Engelhard, Joe Kimmes, Link Hughes, Linsey Murdock, Melina Mitchell, Tyler Bearce.
Team 3 (Episodes 3 and 6):
-Episode 3: Andy McLeod, Anthony Ordon, Joe Kimmes, Keaven Freeman, Kevin Millard, Linsey Murdock, Nick Hernandez, Taylor Southerland. I believe Angel was part of this group too although she did not participate in this episode's AMA...although I could be wrong about her involvement.
-Episode 6: Angel McCoy, Andy McLeod, Alina Chadwick, Joe Kimmes, Linsey Murdock, Kevin Millard, Robert Land, Taylor Southerland.
However, this doesn't mean these were the sole contributors to their given content releases as quite a few devs seem to occasionally (or often!) chime in during meetings and folks from other departments may inspire the story teams or even help them out while creating content, thus deserving credit for some of the narrative (whether in instances or open world) too. :)
Also, we've seen some new narrative designers show up since then. From what I recall, Michael Yichao joined ANet narrative design team this summer although we don't know whether he'll work on S4, expansion 3, or some other project in house.
Joko and the Scarab Plague's Aftermath (Spoilers Ahead)
in Lore
Posted
> @"Sajuuk Khar.1509" said:
> > @"Lametoile.7394" said:
> > I'm not for returning to Cantha right now. It would be too rushy. And we have still plenty of issues and lore to adress in Tyria. It's time for Charrs and Norns to go back on the scene.
> Not really
> -Zhaitan and Mordremoth are dead
> -Primordus and Jormag are asleep
> -Kralkatorik and Bubbles are elsewhere
> -The White Mantle is gone
> -The Nightmare Court is a shadow of what it once was
> -The Inquest have just become an ineffective nuisance
> -The Flame Legion has basically vanished since their failed alliance with the Dredge
> -The centaurs have been pushed back to the border of Kryta and the Woodland Cascades
> The whole reason why PoF and LWS4 work narratively is because there really isn't anything going on in Tyria at the moment. Any Charr or Norn focus would only really come in a Jormag based expansion/LW, and that wont be for awhile given how the narrative is going.
>
> Once Joko and Kralk a taken care of, Bubbles is the only active dragon left, and since its unlikely we will get a whole expansion based around water, Cantha is the prime target for the next big focus.
To be fair, many of those plots can still be continued if the writers decide to do so, just like they decided to bring the gods back when there wasn't necessarily any need to per se after they had already cut ties with Tyria. To list some examples:
The Nightmare Court still has potential for various plots about it and related narratives:
1) the power struggles between its competing factions (Duchess Chrysanthea vs. other nobles) and what path the court will take under new leadership,
2) them possibly discovering Malyck's Tree and the ramifications of that (we know Matthew Medina has been working on a story pitch of sorts for the Malyck plot and how it's extensive enough to basically be part of a Living World episode at the very least should they ever feel it fits into whatever narrative they're spinning),
3) exploring the origins of Dream and Nightmare and if falling into Nightmare is truly an irreversible process,
4) exploring the fate of Unchained Mordrem and a potential Mordrem Guard redemption arc (will they be welcomed back to sylvari society, could they seek refuge in the Nightmare Court or form a new faction etc.), and
5) finally learning the fate of the two still unknown, missing Firstborn (whose potential appearances were teased in the Blighted Pale Tree fight in "Hearts and Minds", and whether either of them had ties to Soundless as one dev interview suggested). We could even have a "road trip" of sorts where we see all of the surviving Firstborn interacting with one another on a journey and playing a part as sylvari try to find their place in a world without Mordremoth.
That's plenty of material of keeping Nightmare Court and sylvari relevant once/if the devs feel like bringing them back into the story.
Last we heard of the Flame Legion, the Molten Alliance was basically a splinter faction, and the rest of the legion is likely still divided in power struggles like Nightmare Court is (was?). They could easily make a return in a "Cogs of War" centric charr arc as one of (potentially many) enemy factions. Imagine, for instance, the Flame Legion's splinter groups dividing into three cohorts each led by a tribune:
1) one group could specialize in continuing reverence of the shaman caste with emphasis on magic and maybe exploring the mystical side of charr shamanism like the Eternal Flame or returning to worshiping Destroyers etc.),
2) another group could specialize on Ash Legion like counterintelligence, espionage and assasination like the Fireshadows of old while trying to infiltrate the other legions or other Tyrian organizations for nefarious purposes (kind of like the White Mantle spy plot from S3 except given more screen time),
3) a third group could focus on a cult of personality around Baelfire with the fanatical Godforged and attempt to resurrect him yet again or at least revere him as a god who will one day return to lead them to victory,
4) a fourth group could actually become more progressive and actually decide to recruit females into its ranks (gasp!), either as a genuinely repenant force or an ostensibly "atoning" group that could turn out to be deceivers who try to get in our good graces to enact some sinister scheme (just imagine all the juicy dialogue of female charr players trying to convince these female Flame Legion to abandon the cause, only to realize these females truly believe in their leader's vision and think they're doing the right thing etc.)
As for the rest of charr plot, there's plenty of potential in storylines centering on the title of Khan-Ur, the schemes of the Ash and Blood Legion in their respective homelands, and Blood Imperator Bangar Ruinbringer's ambitions. ANet is apparently setting up something for later given Rox's intriguing spy subplot with [Monti Scythescrape](https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Monti_Scythescrape) in S2, Rytlock's arrest and demotion in S3 (I don't think Smodur has the authority to demote a Blood officer without Bangar's permission and Smodur seemed to be cool with Rytlock in S2, so maybe Rytlock's "tribunal" was Bangar's idea and Smodur's claws were tied in the matter), and Rytlock's sudden release with his rank restored and what happened in his "tribunal" is classified info even charr players aren't privy to as Rytlock explained in Amnoon in "Sparking the Flame".
As for Central Tyrian centaurs, they could easily become a subject of a Living World episode if not more if we expand into the Woodland Cascades where they've supposedly been staging their attacks from. Perhaps we could finally witness Queen Jennah attempting a ceasefire if not a peace treaty with them and grant the centaurs land now that Caudecus's schemes to fuel the centaur war have been brought to light. With Ulgoth death and a Modniir War Council leading them in the interim with an iron fist, the centaur alliance may be cracking (as potentially suggested by only Harathi coming to Caudecus's aid in Lake Doric). We could traverse to the centaur homelands and meet their civilians and try to support their rebels to overthrow the oppressive Modniir etc. regime that has been pretty much intimidating the other tribes to work for them so peace could finally become a reality. Then we could have antagonistic but sympathetic humans like [broil Cane](https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Broil_Cane) who, due to a personal tragedy, simply can't let go of their hatred for centaurs, leading to a dilemma as we have to save innocent centaur civilians from his and other hatemongers' wrath.
What's also pretty intriguing about the whole "peace with centaurs" plot is that not only human but charr and sylvari players could have unique interactions with centaurs. As we learned in sylvari personal story, some centaurs at least view sylvari as spirits of the land, and this could be a chance to view less hostile interactions between the two races (as long as we don't take racists like the Whispers agent Cai along for the ride and focus more on diplomats like Dagonet and Aife). I imagine charr players could also have unique interactions with centaurs regarding ceasefire with humans, and perhaps the two races could relate to one another by comparing their respective troubles with humans while charr let centaurs know how the Ebonhawke Treaty has been affecting the Legions with the good and the bad.
The above are just quick ideas I came up with, and I could think of plenty more to do, but I'm sure ANet could create more nuanced narratives in this setting and keep these storylines relevant with twists and turns where needed. Central Tyria has lots to offer still as long as the devs are willing to take the plunge and explore these storylines that wait to be told. :)