PCGamer's Ultimate GW2 Spoilers

I dunno, this my first post as a pre searing cadet was this on 09-22-2007:

Drakkar Lake Ice Creature Screens

:P

Will each race get it's own starting place?

I agree Divinity's Reach will be the Human start.

Since a Dragon seems to have pushed the Norn south to Dwarf lands, they might start in someplace crazy like Droknor's Forge or something. We'll have to see (Gunthar's Hold is out, the article says specifically the Norn have abandoned it.)

The Asura could start anywhere, with their gates and such, but I suspect they will start in a city like Rata Sum, assuming it wasn't destroyed by tidal waves...

Charr will likely start in Iron Citadel, where Rin was.

Oh, and Sylvari will start near Ventari's Tree? (Currently in Arbor Bay explorable area).

Yea, I was meaning to write that what I had in mind was the Human's start. The Norn will probably start from the abandoned Drokanr's Forge. Seeing that the new stone dwarves have gone wandering around in search of things to kill. The Sylvari will probably build a small town or maybe city around the tree they were born from, it seems logical that would be a very holy place for them. The Azura will probably still be at Rata Sum, it seems very well protected with their magicks and GOLEMs. The Charr? Not sure, maybe in their newly established city. Or maybe a long term encampment seeing as they are trying to maintain a foothold in human territory. They could have been besieging Ascalon for more than 200 years seeing as Adlebern would have died not more than 50 years after the events of EoTN.

Thats my best guess for the starting points, but what I wonder is if we will be playing the story through one unique storyline per race, or will the storyline merge with the other races and continue?

Ok, so we know these Dragons are from a time where magic was pure and a-friggen-LOT more powerful. These things top jesus with minimal effort from what we understand.

All of a sudden, Ascalon has a piece of true magic too. Hmmm...
I think we're going to see a huge change in the power of spells and perhaps have relics to use in our fight against something to powerful. It will be like fighting fire with fire. Somehow I don't think an echo nuker is going to do all that much to a dragon in GW2. We'll need some sort of raw magic on our side if we would get even close to these things, let alone fighting them.

The things seem to warp and destroy anything that gets remotely near them, so unless we find a way to defend against that alone we can kiss tyria goodbye, lol.

Actually, I'd be guessing that the Norn would be moving into what was known as the Northern Shiverpeaks pre-Gwen: the Yak's Bend, Grooble's Gulch, Frost Gate, Ice Cave and Beacon's Perch area. The areas near Sorrow's Furnace I expect to be firmly in the hands of the Dredge.

That said, I'd expect any character with Eternal Conqueror of Sorrow's Furnace to get some recognition from the free Dredge...

As always the gods (Including Kormir the cow!) are on the backburner and leaving everything to go to crap. If these dragons are so powerful, its going to need a lot of magic to take them out.

And only the gods themselves could provide that. I hope Glint is still around come GW2

Lets rebuild the bloodstone!

...Oh my... o_o

My number one concern is my e-peen. Sadly. With so much time invested in Guild Wars 1 and the propsect that I can carry some sort of linage to my Guild Ward 2 toon, it is important to determine just how the HoM will impact my future toon(s).

I do like the idea presented before about not imidiely having knowledge of your history. It is terribly cliche but to have your toon believe one thing only to find out everythign they ever knew was wrong would be nice.

It could be interesting, if cliche, to find out that the gods have been negligent because they have something worse to be worried about...

Lets not forget about the levels we'll be able to reach in GW2 though. Since that will change alot of how the world works...

I actually think this will be one of the major story arcs of GW2 (since it's supposed to have several arcs). Seriously, if these dragons rival the gods and the gods aren't doing anything about it, then the only source of power strong enough to give us a hope of taking them down or just fighting back at all would be the bloodstones. I think most, if not all, of the bloodstones have already been found. These will have to be rediscovered since much history is lost by the time GW2 starts, and the keystone was never even found in GW1, iirc. Hehe, how ironic would it be if the keystone was actually split in two, and each piece was placed in one of the scepters (Orr and that other one)? I know it is unlikely and doesn't really make much sense, but it would be funny.

Nah, the gods are getting negligent because they know they've been doing a poor job and are about to get fired. So they've resorted to just answering emails (prayers) and ignoring any actual work since it's their last week on the job.

After reading the part about Ascalon it sounds interesting. Especially the part about Adelbern and Ruriks swords being the keys to letting the spirits rest in peace. I wonder if it would be possible to recover Ruriks sword or Sohothin as they call it, after so many years.

I also wonder if most of the human characters that inherted from a Tyrian Character will be decendents of the scattered survivors of that battle (I suppose it could work for the Charr as well, the player Charr being a decendent of a Charr Soldier who witnessed Adelberns last act)

EDIT: Rather than read my short synopsis, you can now read the GW2 article on the PC Gamer site. The Movement of the World

I've decided to come out of lurker status to help clear up some things about the Charr and Palawa Joko. I've purchased the magazine and read "The Ecology of the Charr" article as well as "The Movement of The World" article.

1) Originally the Charr did not originally worship any gods. All they had was the creation myth of Melandru. The Charr only sought gods once they humans had beat the Charr out of the now deemed "Ascalon." This brought rise to the Shaman class (i.e. the Flame Legion) who claimed to have a connection to their gods (the Titans.) Once the gods were exposed as being weak (they were killed by humans) the Shamans sought new gods, which they thought they could find in the Destroyers.

2) Pyre is not a Charr ambassador for the humans. His role was to show his fellow Charr that there were no gods and that the Shaman class was using the claim to gain power. Pyre allied temporarily with humans in order to free his warband, since Charr warbands are basically their only friends and family.

He became an icon for the other Legions (Ash, Blood, and Iron) to overthrow the rule of the Flame Legion. His grand daughter led the true rebellion against the Flame Legion and won.

3) Palawa Joko main motivation is revenge. He dammed the Elon in order to cause a drought that would weaken the Vabbi and Kournan forces. The result from the damming (because the water has to go somewhere) was it spilled over into the Crystal Desert, turning it green. Once he ruled over mainland Elona, Istan was a pushover. He also captured the Ossa family and the Sunspears in order to relish in the idea of having his greatest enemies serve under him.

Nice summary sm5. Just to clarify, although they believed in Melandru as a thing, they did not believe she was superior over the Charr. They did not (from my understanding) accept her as a god.

Which makes we wonder: what exactly are these gods we worship? The fact that Kormir became one of them, makes me think they are not as special as we thought.

Well we know that you can defeat a God and take their powers (Kormir taking Abaddons,Grenth taking Dhumms and Abaddon taking the powers of another to become a God). It would not suprise me if in GW2 it is revealed that the Gods we worship are nothing more than mortals with extreme power.

They dont appear to be unbeatable at knowledge (A simple human beating a God at a game with Balthazar and Kaolai's game of Nui) and they can be destroyed to an extent - however as seen with Abaddon defeating a God causes their power to run wild and when a person enters the power it makes them into a new being.

Lets face it - through Prophecies,Factions,Nightfall and Eye of the North we have shown ourselves to be more useful than the Gods of Tyria. And with these Great Dragons appearing to have the power to rival them, the Gods dont appear so Godlike anymore....

I actually believe there is only a few ways a God in the GW universe can be created. One is for a god’s power to be taken away from them who does not have god like powers. This was explained through the events of what happen to Abbadon and Dhuum because of their tyranny. I believe that some of these gods actually were mortals once, who had the gift and foresight to learn a great lesson before becoming a god.

The other way is to separate themselves from the power, giving into another to carry on the legacy. In some respects there were probably other god’s that were not corrupt in their ways but tire in the ways of being a god.

Probably the final action to be created is through the Mists itself, which makes a god to oversee new worlds that have been created.

As for one being more powerful then the gods in the GW universe, is probably due to the fact that some being are older then others. I think the 5 Gods of Tyria are actually not as old as these Ancient Dragons were. Probably these Dragons were left over from the effect of another god(s) who wanted to dominate Tyria but failed miserably.

Perhaps the gods (lowercase 'g', people...) of Tyria that we know were some of the Giganticus Lupicus (or whatever they're called) who took the power of the gods from some previous beings. Here's my speculation:

There is a single ultimate god who created the entire world much like Eru from LotR lore (read the Silmarillion). Once the world was created, he made a bunch of different beings including both these great dragons and the ancient giants (Giganticus Lupicus, or whatever...). At first the dragons were just normal good creatures, but at some point they went bad and wiped out nearly the whole world. When they finished destroying everything, they went to sleep deep under the earth and oceans. Then the ultimate god gave powers to a few of his surviving creatures to become lesser gods and rebuild everything. Other creatures could replace these gods if they were able to destroy them.

So a cycle begins where every 10-12 thousand years the great dragons reawaken and destroy everything. The gods, knowing that they don't have the power to defeat them (or perhaps being commanded not to destroy them by the ultimate god for some currently unknown reason) step back without hindering them so that they can begin rebuilding things once the dragons have had their way. This is why the gods have ceased interfering with the world in GW2 -- the dragons have begun to awaken.

The last time this happened, the dragons succeeded in wiping out the giants once and for all, but perhaps a few of the giants were able to take the place of the gods before they went extinct... This isn't a necessary part of the plot, but it is a possibility. In any case, the Glint and Kuunavang are created by the gods after the last wave of destruction perhaps with the gods hoping that these dragons would eventually be able to defeat the great dragons or else lead humanity and the other species toward defeating them. In any case, Glint is the first creature created after the most recent wave of destruction, and well, I think the rest is history as we know it.

EDIT: As an afterthought, having read the article finally, it seems there are five dragons that have arisen so far, right? There are the three we already knew about: Primordius who reigns below ground, driving out the Asurans; Drakkar who reigns in the north, driving out the Norn; and the water dragon in the Charr homelands who terrorizes the east where the Charr and Ascalonians live (he seems to also be known as the "desert dragon" according to the article. The other two are the dragon who caused Orr to rise who is perhaps supposed to be the most powerful one and the fifth dragon lies under the oceans creating evil tentacled creatures to terrorize the seas... Or are those last two supposed to be one and the same?

I couldn't agree more.

when we all started playing guild wars for the first time, the gods seemed like these untouchable beings that were here first and made everything. They were umnipowerful to us. But like all things, the more powerful you get, the less powerful other things seem, and now that we have this concept of raw magic I'm assuming that long ago these dragons, and the 5 gods we know lived on Tyria. It's my best guess these "true Giants" spoken of in lore are the dragons, and maybe even the 5 gods themselves (Who's to say how big they actually are?). They might be god-like to us, but in reality they could simply be beings of an old time, using this true magic that the world no longer has. How it was before the bloodstones.

This could have been a time where magic wasn't so conditional like it is today, and powerful magic was in possesion of powerful things. The sword king adelburn or whatever uses to create the ghost army was old powerful magic too. Maybe the 5 gods were at war with the dragons trying to protect the world...and maybe there items out there from those times with some of the power still in them.

My guess is, in GW2 we're going to see alot more powerful stuff, lol. and hopefully use some of it.

My basic thoughts:

Cantha

Face it, Factions sucked, Cantha sucked. I don't care if we drop a bomb on them. It was doomed from the start.

Elona

It is sad that an order as great as the Sunspears has neared its end, if not most of Elona itself. Still, it's kind of cool knowing Palawa Joko actually made progress after he ran off at the end of Nightfall.

Ascalon

Poor Ascalon. ANet just really is obsessed with this whole "Charr win. Ascalon LOSE. Ascalon go BOOM. Ascalon go BOOM again, though this time in terms of population (and going down)." Still, Prophecies pretty much proved Kryta to be the last bastion of humanity, and GW2 will continue that tradition, that Kryta truly is one of few safe remaining lands.

GW2 is turning a bit too WoWish. We know how this works out...

Human and Charr fight, blah blah blah:

Alliance: Human, sylvari?
Horde: Charr, Norn
Neutral: Asura

It's WoW but with THREE factions! :O

Then big bad dragon comes along, oh noes, we must team up, kill dragon, no progress made, next day we hate each other again. Nothing special happened.

-----

I basically want:

-Ascalon to be rebuilt
-The races to stop being gay and not trusting one another
-The dwarves to return
-Elona to not be so...well...screwed
-Cantha to be more destroyed than it is now! I HATE CANTHA!

So they are like...two sets of gods? Or maybe those ruled by Menzies and Dhuum?

Speaking of that, I wonder if Dhuum and Menzies are still giving Grenth and Balthazar grief

No way, Canthan ruled. I don't care much for Elona, lol.

This has taken me quite some time to put together so here goes...

In The Beggining, there were 5 Gods and 5 Dragons. (5 Dragons were mentioned in the article, and I smell a Good VS Evil match up here.) These Gods and Dragons were in possession of extremely powerful raw magick. They were capable of creating Life. Now the Dragons were not all too keen on the idea of sharing a planet with equally powerful Beings, so they set out to destroy the Gods. An epic battle ensued and the Dragons were defeated. Defeated but not killed as they were immortals like the Gods. They were imprisoned beneath the earth, ice and oceans.

Now before the Dragons were defeated, they used their raw magick to create lesser dragons, like Kuunvang and Glint. The 5 Gods found this young race and instead of starting from scratch, decided to use them to protect their new world.

Then the Humans were created and then the rest, most of use would already know...

Now what I want to clarify is that Dhuum was one of the First 5 Gods, but was replaced by Grenth, who may have been one of his earlier creations or a powerful dragon that overthrew him for his harsh rule as lord of the underworld. As for Abbadon, I don't think he was a True God seeing as in Nightfall, our heros, mere mortals could defeat him.

He was liked chained down for thousands of years, which restricted a large amount of his power. He was stated time and time and time and time and and time and time and time and and time and time and time and and time and time and time and and time and time and time and and time and time and time and and time and time and time and and time and time and time and time again that he was the sixth god.

What more do you need? How hard he was to defeat is irrelevant to lore, it's for gameplay purpose which is why he's not as strong as he could be.

There's also Menzies, which makes a 7th - he may not technically be a god, but being Balthazar's brother, he would presumably have been around. Although, as a piece of wild speculation... maybe Menzies was actually the god Abaddon replaced, casting him down the way Grenth cast down Dhuum before turning bad himself?

And given that so many of the gods (and family members of gods) have gone bad over the course of history, could it be that one (or more) of the original dragons were good and Glint and Kuunie are their descendants?

No need to get worked up. I missed that point about Abbadon being the sixth god. I actually have other things to do so forgive me for that mistake. About "how hard he was to defeat", I NEVER stated he was not a true god because he was EASY to defeat. I felt that he was not a true god because we DID defeat him. What more do I need? No more, I made a mistake, thanks for clarifying.

So, yes, I was wrong about Abbadon, but what I offered was just my 2 cents. I just felt I did not need to put a disclaimer about this being MY own thoughts.

Menzies was indeed Balthazar's half brother, but it was never clearly stated if he was a god or not. He does not seem to have a major role in the main stories, if that any indication oh his God/Not status. I would guess that he was not a god.

This makes me wonder, how does a god have a Brother? Same parents? Do Gods have parents? A higher God? That would make the 6 Gods siblings!

Or were Balthazar and Menzies mortal brothers? Balthazar defeating the previous God of War and taking over, while his jealous brother turned against him and tried to overthrow him?

I know Menzies probably has little to do with this forum topic, but I thought I'd just put it in, because it may be a clue to the origins of a God.

Maybe they overthrew Balthazar and Grenth?

That would certainly explain why the goddesses are silent - they're busy keeping Menzies and Dhuum from causing trouble.

Or... you know...

The article states that one dragon raises Orr, and another rises from the deep sea causing tentacles (!?). Sounds to me like two separate dragons, although frankly the Deep Sea dragon needs to be better thought out IMO.

The Charr "water" dragon (so named because the picture was named that in the fansite kit) could be the one in the Crystal Desert, as it did fly south.

BTW, where did this idea there were only 5 dragons come from? Did I miss something?

EDIT: Never mind, people are just counting the number of dragon that appear in the article. In that case, it's either 5 or 6, counting Primordus and depending on whether the Charr dragon is separate or the same as the desert dragon.

I really like the lore. I am a bit depressed that Cantha(my favorite nation) has been taken over by a Nazi like leader. It's also sad that Istan and,I think, Kourna have become nothing but vassals to Palawa Joko.

The best stories start out in the direst of circumstances.

As long as we have a chance to save Cantha, Elonia, and yes, even Ascalon (Ebonhawke gives me hope!) the GW2 will be fine.

I know! Cantha rules.

But, it's my best guess that a short time after GW2 has been out and we've made a little progress on the main story arcs, we might somehow gain access to cantha or elona in expansions to the game.

Maybe then we will be able to pick from 2 more playable races, such as the tengu, per expansion.

That would be seriously awesome, and could be possible seeing as the only reason we can't travel from tyria is due to the corsairs on RoF islands and the dragon army on Orr. If those were taken care of, or at least beaten to a certain point, then travel would be possible and we would so pwn up the emperor! He's a damn fool! WHY couldn't he have used the massive army, ALONG with the kurzick and luxon forces to battle the dragons. Before they left they could have smashed the heck out of the jade brotherhood and such fools to ensure canthas safety on their departure, lol.

Guess what? The Elon river extends north. What's the chance he went north of the Grand Court and diverted it from the mountains there? Stop restricting yourself to the current map.

Just because you have it doesn't mean you could use it correctly. Let's not forget the fact the Lich is a powerful magical undead please

The affliction really weakened Cantha's forces. All the afflicted were human once. Let's imagine only a fourth of them are really soldiers. That'll at least triple the current standings xD

Half of Elona's army is gone fighting you, The Sunspears were already "wiped out" by the time you reached the Sunspear Sanctuary. Vabbi wasted a bunch of it forces getting rid of the Elonians that invaded them already. Joko had all of those dead soldiers, plus the remnants in the Crystal Desert. Do your math.

Guess what? GWEN happened 8 years after the Searing. You were about 6 years before GWEN. Compare Pre vs post sear in 2 years. Now imagine 6 years of the same. Adlebern probably sacrificed himself in the next year or so. The remaining Ascalon soldiers are now in the Shiverpeaks if you read. The article states it's where the two mountain ranges meet. That means Ebonhawke's fortress is probably near THK and the Crystal Desert now. They still can supply themselves through the Asura, so just try invading a mountain fortress with full supplies in it.

What being original is bad? Personally I like these inventive ideas that are similar yet different.

They are. You're just looking on the wrong side :P

There is a whole section about this in PCG GW edition pp. 84-86. The short version is that humans drove them from Ascalon and they have been obcessed with regaining it ever since.

The interesting piece I gleaned from this though was the article that was given to them to accomplish the seering. The Cauldron of the Cataclysm. It is said the Cauldron is older than recorded history. The same thing said about the ancient dragons who begin all the devastation in GW2. Begs the question, who created it? Who created the ancient dragons?

I like your responses, but the article clearly states that Adlebern dies about 30 years after GWEN.

Other than that, right on!

Hrrmn. That puts him at about 90ish, from memory, and the Ascalonian PCs would probably be pushing 60 themselves, and the youngest among the PCs, being the Istani, would be in their 50s.

Yeah, I'd accept that the former heroes would probably be, if not completely inneffectual, at least no longer up to godslaying capacity by that point...

Since when was age ever a problem? Quite a lot of older guys were pretty damn lethal.

Well, Aldebern obviously has some powerful magic on his side. He'd probably live to over 100 easily.

I would think our characters would too. But, perhaps something else took them away from Ascalon. I just hope they explain it before GW2.

True, and I'd expect that the heroes probably still aren't exactly pushovers at 50 or 60.

But that's a case of still being powerful despite their age. They're not going to be as potent as they were when they banished the Lich, slew Shiro, destroyed Abaddon and demolished the Great Destroyer. They're probably closer to the point where they can still take on an decent number of regular Charr, but if they hit something closer to being one of their counterparts like a Charr boss they'd be in trouble.

Besides, if the heroes are fighting alongside regular Ascalonian soldiers, the Charr will probably have plenty of opportunities to flash their tiger emote.

The original Prophecies manual said Glint was the first creature on Tyria (though I think the Giganticus Lupus or w/e had been around before), placed there by the Gods. Whether they mean the world of Tyria or the continent of Tyria, we don't know.

Unless these dragons are the "true giants", or they are forgotten amongst lore, or ANet wants to make a retcon, then Glint cannot be related.