Should Balthazar Statues Be Toppled and Areas Named After Him Be Renamed?

[Gabriel of Engels.2673]

I just thought it would be fun to open a discussion to see people's thoughts on this... given recent event's in POF - should the humans of Tyria destroy things pertaining to the God Balthazar and rename areas currently bearing his name to something else? This happens all the time in the real world when governments/ideologies/theologies change - what are you thoughts?

[Ohoni.6057]

I like the baskets over his head in Crystal Oasis. Part of GW2's world is that certain areas do not change in "real time," but sort of reflect a period in a character's personal story development, so like Queensdale is perpetually five years ago, timeline-wise. That being the case, I don't see the need for *most* areas to be adapted to the new information about Balthazar.

 

That said, I *do* think it would be interesting for Divinity's Reach to reflect some of these changes, with some of the priests' dialog changed to reflect the new reality, both disillusioned and belligerent priests of Balthazar, and also other priests who are reflecting the new status of the deities. And I'd leave Balthazar's statue in place, but perhaps have it defaced to some degree.

[Sako.7609]

Revolution also breeds resistance, y'know...

[Gabriel of Engels.2673]

I like the defacing idea and a slight update to Divinity's Reach would be cool. It will be interesting to see the direction the game takes now that the gods are gone. Defacing a statue of a god could be a cool achievement point.

[Gabriel of Engels.2673]

> @"Sako.7609" said:

> Revolution also breeds resistance, y'know...

 

More Zaishen popping up to spread their cause/beliefs perhaps?

[Seaunicorn.9317]

I think news would travel slowly from Elona to Tyria, about an event that happened solely with one person and a baby-dragon. The people in Tyria, especially those devoted to Balthazar, may find it hard to believe their God (whom they haven't seen for ages anyway) is killed by a mere Human-Female-Meta/Charr/Asura/Norn/Cabbage, with no witness what so ever. So I would assume they would carry on as usual and preach all things Balthy. Magic has not visibly imbalanced Tyria after. Kralk has restricted his actions to desert area now. Joko is acting up in Tyrian cities but that might give the peeps more reasons to pray to their God of War. So my humble take would be, not to change Tyria lines. May be add one conspiracy-theory NPC who shouts that Balthy is dead, among other things- and a couple mocking him for it!

[Deathanizer.3716]

Orr is still covered in Zombies. Tyria doesn't clean up very well.

[DeTechTive.9251]

> @"Seaunicorn.9317" said:

> I think news would travel slowly from Elona to Tyria, about an event that happened solely with one person and a baby-dragon. The people in Tyria, especially those devoted to Balthazar, may find it hard to believe their God (whom they haven't seen for ages anyway) is killed by a mere Human-Female-Meta/Charr/Asura/Norn/Cabbage, with no witness what so ever. So I would assume they would carry on as usual and preach all things Balthy. Magic has not visibly imbalanced Tyria after. Kralk has restricted his actions to desert area now. Joko is acting up in Tyrian cities but that might give the peeps more reasons to pray to their God of War. So my humble take would be, not to change Tyria lines. May be add one conspiracy-theory NPC who shouts that Balthy is dead, among other things- and a couple mocking him for it!

 

That mere mortal is becoming quite a legendary figure throughout Tyria and has continually emerged victorious against any ancient powers that needed curbing. Just saying..

[Arden.7480]

I think they shouldn't, maybe Balthazar became rogue, but I think he should be praised because of the symbol he represented.

 

So don't praise him for all he'd done in PoF, but as the symbol of war.

 

But I'd like to hear when NPCs start talking: May the Five watch over you.

[Tyger.1637]

Jesus has been gone for about 2 millenia now and people still worship him. It's only been 250 years since the Six gods went silent.

 

So there might be vandals, defacings and cries of 'the gods have abandoned us' but who's gonna listen to a bunch of nutjobs spouting heresy like that?

[Zola.6197]

@"Tyger.1637" I’m not sure Jesus is the best comparison because he didn’t try to murderize the world. xd

 

That being said I could definitely understand resistance to giving up old ways. I’m sure plenty of people will refuse to believe what happened.

 

On the topic of the thread, I think it’d be great to alter some subtle things in Tyria. Add some new NPCs in LA and DR, maybe other cities, about what went on in the desert. Maybe have protestors in DR around the Balthy statues? That might be getting a bit wild.

 

But if not in the static map, I’m almost positive we’ll have to deal with some blow back in the Living World installments.

[Kovu.7560]

Its a logistical issue. You can't expect the devs to comb through all of the maps to update the text on relevant NPCs or change areas to reflect what's happening in the active story whenever anything major _does_ happen. It'd be neat, but nobody has the time or resources for that.

Plus, if you "update" maps, people who are playing the game for the first time might get a little confused by certain scenarios in the overworld not matching up to their own story progression. That's the unfortunate drawback of an evolving story.

I bet the whole Scarlet thing confuses people, as well as the Festival of the Four Winds or events associated with the Queen's Jubilee -- I'm glad they did a write up on that stuff.

 

~ Kovu

[Ardenwolfe.8590]

I do think they should be defaced and toppled over time.

[mercury ranique.2170]

From a lore perspective, the maps in GW2 are locked in time.

Cursed shore is still infested by Risen and the pact is waging war. To see how orr is doing in later times, check Siren's landing.

 

From that perspective, doing this, makes no sense. Take the event: 'Defeat the Risen Priest of Balthazar before it can summon a horde of Risen'. This event is integrated to the story and the timelock of the map.

 

I know there is no such thing as a 100% timelock. like new lions arch and stuff. But it is allready a huge inconsistency for new players who experience the story for the first time. So I like arenanet tries to avoid making lasting effects on timelocked maps nowadays and concentrates on making new maps for it.

 

Having said that, I would love to see a new map with a significant temple to the six and a toppled balthazar statue!

[Bast.7253]

It could have been an interesting current events collection at some point but might be a bit late now.

 

I just want an Abaddon statue decoration for my guild hall. :(

[Ayakaru.6583]

I agree with you if we had the LS1 mentality, but GW2 is now frozen in time

[OrbitalButt.5708]

I will be mentally replacing all the Balthazar statues with graven images of Me, the Protagonist of Reality

[Alga.6498]

> @"Ayakaru.6583" said:

> I agree with you if we had the LS1 mentality, but GW2 is now frozen in time

 

I double agree, it would've been awesome if we had an actual **living** World seasons and the whole Tyria knew about HoT and PoF events but ever since S1, everything is stuck in time so I doubt they will take their time and change Balthazar's statues around Kryta.

It would be nice if they did a similar thing as they did with Trahearne's death and placed a statue to those who had only completed HoT were able to see it so no new players or those who haven't got that far know what happened and why the statue was there.

Perhaps we could have the same treatment for Balthazar's statues for those who have defeated him?

[lokh.2695]

The maps outside of PoF and LS4 exist in a pocket of spacetime where Balthi has not done enything evil yet. No point for the habitant of those zones to change anything about their beliefs.

[Woodsman Silencio.9361]

We stil are waiting for Taimi to proof that Balthazaars war against the dragons would have destroyed Tyria. The only proof we had so far was from Omads Machine, wich has been destroyed. And of course the word of the goddess Kormir that they as gods can not destroy the dragons without destroying Tyria. But who is to say that we as joined races can not slay the elder dragons without destroying Tyria? Who can proof that Balthazaar did not forsee this and just wanted to give a hand to us ?!

[Steve The Cynic.3217]

That's OK, my "main" Guardian nearly died of shame. She was blessed by Balthazar as a child, and he came back to try to destroy the world. And she wasn't allowed to stick Calabolg Orchida through that idiot Charr's heart, the one that let Balthazar out of the Mists. And nobody said even ONE word about it.

[Lambent.6375]

Doing temple of balth is going to be kinda awkward now.?

[Azure The Heartless.3261]

What perplexes me is that (if I remember correctly) the original intent was to continue updating the game world through the Living World series. That seems, for their rate of expansion, an _incredibly large undertaking_ for even the most alert, most meticulous developers. As was stated before, you'd have to, for each iteration, comb through the entire map, replace dialogue where necessary based on what areas have seen influence from the previous events, add or remove assets according to that as well, and then think about what specific reactions the NPCs might have to the world events.

 

And this gets harder each time, because the map expands a little with every major release.

 

I'm not so sure I enjoy the current "pocket dimension" behavior that has developed as a result of having such sweeping changes to the world, but I am, for the moment, willing to chalk that up to:

 

* people refusing to believe some things that they couldn't see happen happened (there are still npcs floating around that probably still fervently worship Balthazar, and his efforts won't vanish from the land so easily.)

* some people acknowledging that they happened and choosing to remember Balth for what he -was- before he became a jackkitten.

* The slow spread of information without the internet (I mean Asura gates are fast, but still)

 

I can see it becoming a larger problem soon, but I'm not sure how to begin to address it (I'd guess that Arenanet can toss significant lore chunks into Fractals, to kind of "archive" them, add some style, and give a centralized location for the major story segment. But voice actors are hard to re-acquire for this.)

A large number of us that enjoy or care about the lore will read the wiki to weed out anachronisms or organize events, but it might be a bit confusing for new players.

 

 

[Steve The Cynic.3217]

@Azure The Heartless.3261: Ultimately, the concept behind the Living World series, as it was done in Season One, was not only a huge undertaking, but also fundamentally flawed. The problem is that it is fine for Season One, but what happens when they are on Season Four and everywhere that a new player goes, they enter story instances that are sepia-tinted and feature weird scenery that isn't in the current state of the game? (It's already bad in Lion's Arch, but imagine if it's like that *everywhere* you go during the Personal Story...)

[lagrangewei.8516]

the only thing that doesn't make sense is the priest can still channel bathy's power... as for the statue and stuff as someone had explained, not everyone agree or believe what happened.