Racial Zones

[ChampionMasquerade.5283]

Does each playable race have there own set of zones? I know Norn have the Shiverpeaks, Charr have Ascalon, and I think humans get the zones in Kryta associated with them, but the Sylvari and Asura seems to share their zones. Can you actually attribute zones to the race that is most likely to explore them when leveling up, or was that not intended?

[lokh.2695]

It is intended I think as the personal story explores these regions in the first few missions.

Sylvari and Asura do share their starter zones to some degree, the stories do take you to different locations though.

[Khisanth.2948]

That also depend on some of the choices you make. One of the charr route takes you to Snowden and one of the Norn route goes to Diessa

[Taril.8619]

Each race generally has a region that progresses naturally for them, with all the zones linking together in a mostly level based way. With the zones featuring hearts, events and NPC's that are focused on said race.

 

Norn inhabit the Shiverpeaks and deal with the Sons of Svanir and Dredge.

Charr inhabit Ascalon and deal with the Flame Legion and Ascalonian Ghosts/Branded.

Humans inhabit Kryta and deal with Bandits and Centaurs.

Sylvari and Asura both inhabit Maguuma Jungle and deal with Nightmare Court + Risen and Inquest + Destroyers respectively.

 

Personal stories tend to take you through early zones in these regions, though with some exceptions. Until level 30 that is, when you go to specific non-race defined locations (Based on Orders and then after level 60 being a singular path for all characters)

 

Interestingly enough, despite being home to 2 different races, the Maguuma Jungle region still has the same number of core zones as the other regions, that being 7. This also includes both cities. Though, as a result, the zones are often larger than in other regions to give a similar amount of coverage.

[Westenev.5289]

> @"Taril.8619" said:

> Each race generally has a region that progresses naturally for them, with all the zones linking together in a mostly level based way. With the zones featuring hearts, events and NPC's that are focused on said race.

>

> Norn inhabit the Shiverpeaks and deal with the Sons of Svanir and Dredge.

> Charr inhabit Ascalon and deal with the Flame Legion and Ascalonian Ghosts/Branded.

> Humans inhabit Kryta and deal with Bandits and Centaurs.

> Sylvari and Asura both inhabit Maguuma Jungle and deal with Nightmare Court + Risen and Inquest + Destroyers respectively.

 

It gets a little more complicated.

 

Sylvari tend to turn up in Kryta maps to fend off the undead.

 

Humans turn up in the Fields of ruin (Ascalon) to fight Separatists and Renegades.

 

Norn creep into the edges of Kryta (gendarran fields) to hold gladiatorial fighting competitions for the lols.

 

The Pact turn up in level 60+ maps to fight dragon minions and flame legion because this is when they're canonically relevant.

 

Asura pop up secret science bases anywhere and everywhere to do anything and everything. No point trying to explain how this race's borders work.

[hugo.4705]

Kinda hard to put limits, if you consider the personnal story but also the different outpost. As example, human "high presence" in DR, queensdale, brisban wildlands, kessex hills, gandarran field, harathi hinterlands, crystal desert BUT you have them in la and lion guard so bloodtide coast, sparkfly fen, snowen drift. Ah and also in pact! So frostgorge sound, mount maelstrom, timberlines falls, lornar pass, dredgehaunt cliffs and Orr!

 

If you take any race, you will find the same scheme: presence in "starter area" + "racial organizations outposts" + "pact bases".

For asura, for organizations, you have peacemaker, independant researchers bases and inquest bases. That thing easily cover 75% of the world map.

Only shiverpeaks and ascalon have less labs.

(Only labs in dredgehaunt, timberlines, blazeridge and fireheart rise) whereas all maguuma map have lab (maybe not verdant brink). Every human map have lab too apart harathi.

 

Just to say, take any evil racial organization, note the outposts: quite spread all around. Inquest have the highest number of bases.

https://umap.openstreetmap.fr/ru/map/gw2-exploration-map_333774#1/0/-370

[Naxos.2503]

Arguably, only the Asuras are not fitting into their zone, Sylvaris are born out of the Maguuma jungle (atleast that outcrop), humans are part of the last (?) remaining human kingdom of Kryta, Norns have moved to the Southern part of the Shiverpeak mountains, and Charrs have been steadily moving west from Ascalon and their homelands to the west. On the other hand, the Asura came from underground, and so have no clear "home". You do learn later in the story that they had cities as far as the deep Maguuma jungle (hence probably why they'd be close to the Grove), but some lab complex crop up all around Kryta and occasionaly as far as Ascalon, and it isn't clear since when those labs have been in use.

[Hannelore.8153]

Its more accurate to say the Maguuma Jungle are Sylvari lands, even though they're a recent race, they're also the only race to originate from Maguuma. Asura don't come from there, its just where they ended up after evacuating their underground cities.

 

Alot of the structures around Rata Sum and Metrica Province aren't even Asuran, but ruins of unknown origin.

 

This is why the Asura seem so widespread in the world; they settled pretty much wherever they could exit to the surface, similar ot Skritt. Rata Sum just gets extra attention for being a particularly prolific Rata, but far from the only one out there.

 

There's even an ancient, abandoned Rata in Mount Maelstrom; Rata Pten, which is far east.

 

***SPOILERS FOR HOT AND LS3***

If you play through the Heart of Thorns achivements, the Rata Novans built a city cube (visible on the map), and were evacuating to it when the Chak attacked, as part of New Horizons project, but we have no way of knowing what happened to them. The information is very vague, and we know the group that ended up in Rata Arcanum went through the gate, not through the secret lift.

 

Presumably, they still inhabit the area between Tangled Depths and Metrica Province.

[hugo.4705]

Yeah asura define the undergrond as their home, as they were the overlord of that underground (writing it on every structure is asuran script) but in fact; they lived on the surface, then they went underground to be forced to return to the surface later. So, the surface architecture is their original architecture? Hmm.

 

About rata novan, I'm too intrigued by the cube of tangled depths. There is an hidden achiev "new horizon" that shows that the gate of the rata novus center teleport to a long corridor with a door, placed, under that cube. So hypothesis, but the ones in the cube migrated toward the actual rata sum, or well the coast. I doubt that they simply stayed in the cube waiting for chak to kill them.

It would be pretty cool if novans are still here between rata sum and hot maps. I would like to imagine a map, with a front betwwen Novans and Sumans looking at each other wondering what the other think.

 

But fundamentally, I agree with above, the jungle is home of sylvaris, but asura were everywhere under the surface, and they simply came out like worms.

 

It is interesting to note, that the kryta asura labs are arcane eye hidden spying facilities. The kessex one have a window on wizard tower and town; in gandarran, over the town at the entrance of LA. LS2 also give us the info that the northern complex of metrica was meant to study and experiment on sylvari. The only lab in ascalon is to experiment on charr... Once they emerged, their first idea were to spy and experiment on the other races. Don't know about norn, but there is the oudo eye lab meant to fool the grawl, maybe there is a norn study station of the arcane eye, but we don't know about it? Arcane eye to me have spying outpost everywhere.