WiK, Ebon Vanguard Allies and the new walkthrough

I've been playing the War in Kryta storyline with all of my enabled characters before the master quest offered by Murro was introduced.

Way back then, you could skip the pic-nic part and gain access to the Keep anyway, so I helped Keiran with my main character only and then never bothered again. That caused allies from the Ebon Falcons elite unit not spawning for me in the explorable areas, but anything else worked flawlessly, so it was fine with me.

I have now one more character that meets the requisites to play WiK, so, before I begin, I have a couple of questions:

- Is the "Ebon Vanguard Allies" quest mandatory now? Any way to skip the pic-nic?

- Are my older characters screwed? I can't complete the pic-nic part with those, since Keiran doesn't appear in Ice Cliff Chasms anymore. He's missing, as the Hearts of the North questline is enabled, and replaced by the Ebon Vanguard Scout . Will I have to permanently do without the Ebon Falcons?

Anyone?

Pretty please with sugar on top and a cherry?

No idea, really, I've done it on all of my chars before they even introduced the overacrh quest.

However, I can tell you that there were several topics in this forum about this issue, so a search could prove useful.

Maybe:
http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/w...0459635p4.html

Checked that one before posting.

There's just no "issue" yet. Just asking for some confirmation: looks to me like Anet forgot about the possibility to skip the recruitment of the Ebon Falcons before the introduction of the overarch quest. Before HoTN went live, I could still complete the picnic even after the completion of the WiK questline - Keiran regularly spawned in Ice Cliff Chasms, asking for items.

Now I can't, since Keiran's officially gone missing and the map was updated with a new NPC, a Vanguard Scout. I wonder if my characters are simply locked out forever, or if they'll be able to do the picnic part later, even if they don't need it, like, after completing HoTN or something.

Keiran's missions are so boring I don't wanna play them just to find out...

Not sure how vital the picnic is - I think you'll still be able to complete WiK and HotN without it. One of my characters completed both without the picnic, and she had completed WiK before HotN started. So if wanting to continue with HotN for your older characters, no picnic shouldn't be an issue.

I do recall having the picnic/HoM dialogue being triggered "out of sequence" on another char that had previously missed it, but unfortunately I can't remember the details now, was some weeks back now (and me with a memory like a seive ).

As far as the Ebon Vanguard Allies quest being mandatory now, I assume so - the quest appears in your log even if you don't speak with Murro. I've had other char's not speak with him and go straight to the War Camp to trigger the 1st dialogue there, after which the WiK quest/s have appeared in my quest log.

Basically, you shouldn't really have any issues now, just pick up from wherever your characters left off and see what happens. Good luck .

Cheers.

Same here. Looks like the picnic is now mandatory for WiK tough, since it's one of the primary quests in the overarch quest given by Murro now.

Thanks.

All of my characters can continue with HoTN no problem.

That's the core point: they've all completed WiK already (without the picnic) and are now given the option to continue straight with HoTN, but since HoTN disables Keiran as an NPC picking up items in Ice Cliffs Chasm, that way I can't do the picnic anymore if I ever wanted to, hence they will permanently lack support from the Ebon Falcons unless Keiran magically appears again during/after HoTN.

Hmm, well quite possibly yes, you may have completely lost the chance at the picnic (I did not manage to trigger it all with my one Rit, but its quite possible I simply missed the right 'opening' to do so - unfortunately I'll never know, as I now make sure all characters that can, do (well, now have done) the picnic).

However if you mean not having allies spawn in explorable areas (sorry, missed that in your earlier post) - they should spawn in Krytan explorables so long as you have some WiK content active on your character. Pity they didn't spawn during the HotN solo quests, would be a nice diversion - ah well.

Just did a mini test on the Rit who missed the picnic (who has completed both Wik and HotN). Picked up the current Wanted quest, exited out of ToA once in NM and once in HM - both times I had allies drop (Alari Doubleblade 1st time, Shadow and Carlotta 2nd time). Hardly extensive testing I know, but still, they did spawn for her.

Don't know if this adds anything or I'm just confusing the issue (and myself)

Cheers.

Allies do spawn indeed.

All of my characters (bar my main) never meet these tough.

From the page that you linked to in the Notes section:

Notes

• One of the Ebon Falcons will join your party near the portal in every Krytan area except Tears of the Fallen, Twin Serpent Lakes, and Stingray Strand after witnessing dialogue six of the War in Kryta dialogues and while the War in Kryta content is still active.

I added the important part of that note in bold letters.

Did you even bother reading the whole thread before bolding the obvious?

Dialogue #6 requires the pic-nic.

Yes I did read the entire thread and I thought I was being helpful. I guess not, my mistake.

I hope you get it figured out.

Seems they won't ever meet those particular NPC's as allies, no. Out of curiosity, portalled in and out of ToA several times with my Rit, scored as allies: Shining Blade recruits, Alrai, Shadow, Snakebite, Scout Melthoran all multiple times.

Did the same with my warrior, who did complete the picnic, second time out Nola Sheppard dropped in as an ally (and have had Keiran drop in on other characters).

Which is what AMDSpeed was trying to show with his/her quote & link, outlining the requirement for having those people as allies - neither my Rit nor some of your character meet all requirements by missing the picnic (and therefore some dialogue), so we'll never have those particular allies with the WiK active.

At the end of the day, it doesn't have much of an impact the overall story line by not having completed the picnic, just means you miss a small bit of the Gwen/Thackeray story (if you hadn't seen it before), miss on some goodies from the picnic parcels & a few differently named NPC's dropping in as allies when doing any WiK content, as far as I can see anyhow.

Cheers.

It's not what I've been asking, nor what I wanted to know. Actually, that's the starting point of this whole thread:

I know the requirements for the Ebon Falcons to spawn. It's been outlined multiple times in my posts. Before the introduction of the overarch quest, the picnic part was optional and could be completed any time, even after the completion of WiK. Some of my characters volountarily skipped the picnic, hence the recruitment of the Ebon Falcons.

That's not the case anymore: you can't skip that part now, but HoTN simultaneously took the possibility away for those who didn't play it during the War. Not meeting these requirements and not having the possibility to ever rectify that in the future is the key.

Just wondering if the automatic activation of HoTN is permanently ruling out the possibility to:

- play the picnic part
- and consequently unlock the Ebon Falcons

for those of my characters who skipped the picnic way back then when it was possible, for how insignificant the impact on the storyline it might be.

If your primary concern is "playing the picnic part", then all you need to do is party with an eligible player during Thackeray's Scavenger Hunt.
Note: be sure to bring all the required materials with you to complete it.

This should trigger these dialogues with Gwen in the HoM and therefor open up the requirements for you to view Dialogue 6 in Lion's Arch Keep and also enable you to have the Ebon Falcons spawn. Unless of course, there are other quests and dialogues that you skipped which would in turn close the door on you again.

My previous post included the War in Kryta dialogues which list all the dialogues and the requirements in viewing them. This is a very good source when trying to figure out what needs to be done when you find that you are stuck, I know because I used it a lot.

Thanks, never considered this option. That could possibly work as a stop gap solution.

Still wondering if there are more "legitimate" ways to do that.

You could try this first, before you invest time and gold into obtaining the materials, and see if removing the Ebon Vanguard Scout will make Keiran reappear? I don't really know, I'm just throwing ideas around.

From the link:

Notes

• He will only appear after having witnessed Dialogue 8 Hearts of the North dialogues, but will disappear after completing The Arrowhead.

well I have something similar

I do not wish to do the picnic but now it seems impossible to avoid doing it.

As on a mule account that did not partisipate in wintersday , I had to do the pendant quest which in fact is a wintersday quest .

I cannot skip the picnic at all now even did Zinns task/the trial/ went to Temple of Agis and then to telemark and out to tears of fallen and back INside of camp empty.

Blimm and Gox there to complete the asuran part..and 3 additional pop up on updating .

THE Keep is open in LA and Salma gave reward re azuran....but Ebon Vanguard still stating not complete unless I do the picnic(scavanger hunt)

So I am the opposite I dont want to do it but it seems mandontary now.