*SPOILERS* Anti-climax.

You actually have to read?

Most definately not - if you go to the docks/beach in Lion's Arch there's a woman called Jiaju Tai and she tells you that she comes from a far away kingdom and gives away some more interesting infos on the way:







As you can see on the above screenshot Orr has sunken into the see - but she also says that Cantha lies past the ruins of Orr... So there should be some remains of the former kingdom even though most of it prabaly is playing Atlantis right now.
So it may really be the area west of the Chrystal Desert and east of the Ring Of Fire:



BTW: Maybe we'll be able to visit Cantha in chapter 2... Could be that this is a hint to some of the new areas...

I thought the plot was doing ok up until rurik gets owned because to that point you had an objective and a leader, you were saving Ascalon's people from the charr as best you could to later go back and kick their asses out of town after you managed to help them rebuild in kryta and find strength. Additionally Ambassador Zain is a very benevolent in that he's quite Chaotic Good towards ascalon and your character, while the king is very stubborn and while not ill-meaning he's just ignorant. So once Rurik dies you get the ascalon people to Kryta, mission accomplished, now its time to rebuild the army, ally with kryta and go wipe out some Charr.

Wrong, Ambassador Zain is part of an organization that murders innocents, and they control Kryta. However you don't find this out until after you're halfway into the wilderness helping the mantle kill undead and round up chosen. You find yourself in the jungle, facing an immediate moral dilemna, the mantle kill innocents and the shining blade do not.

So now your character is "fleeing" from the mantle all through the next missions and unable to talk with your countrymen. Up until now I was with the story alright. Once you get to riverside mission, I found it odd that the guy you saved to give the leader of the white mantle sceptre for safe keeping, is apparently enlighted to the point that he understands the mantle are bad and gives you the Sceptre of Orr? So why didn't he give it to you in the first place/why isn't he a member of the Shining Blade? He shows you the way out the back so he is benevolent to your character. This was the first plot stupid for me. We should have killed a boss, or Dinas should have been better written.

And now the stupidest plot twist in the game, give the sceptre to the Vizier, who it doesn't take a rocket scientest to assume is less than virtuous. This mission was very poorly written way to get you to the desert to learn about the prophecy. Give the all powerful staff to the bad man.

As for the idea of ascension, being the conquering of one's self to be judged before the true gods (Lyssa,Dwayna,grenth etc). Glint is much their prophet on Tyria in my mind. I was ok with this, I was ok with all the filler story about how different groups failed because of selfishness, greed, vanity etc. Human flaws. Your character transcends these flaws, showing selflessness, and teamwork to beat the missions.

Once you prove you are a champion of humanity and not its scourge or simply too weak, your character heads back into the chaos of the world (as the desert is disconnected by an overland link in the game) to help those in immediate need when you last left, your shining blade friends and the deldrimor. You find out the unseen gods are not really gods, but a race of being with a lot of power, in relation to your average human they would be like a demi-god. This idea is set up fine, and the spectral agony skill as much illustrates this to us.

On and on we go, the mursaat are revealed and we must find a way to rescue our friends, which we do although saidra dies really stupidly was very poorly written, we eventually get our friends team up with the Deldrimor and make an offensive at Thunderhead which succeeds, we defend the king and the keep and we slay the head of the white mantle trying to finish us off as we are obviously the biggest threat to the plan we are the chosen after all who've ascended and been seen a good light by REAL gods. Gods beyond the mursaat. We fight beside undead, of which the good race dwarf king has no problem, this is stupid. The ressurection of Rurik would have been better if they didn't show the undead skeleton with a Fiery Dragon Sword follow the lich into the portal (this spoiled it 3 missions from the end)

Soooo we end up on the fire island with our good friend CrazyMcCrazyEyes the vizier.
Our objective is to destroy the mursaat cause they are evil at least in the fact they kill innocents. Now this is the main part I'm unsure of or they do not tell you. Why is the mursaat home base on tyria located at this Gate of Komalie which locks up the Titans, just a destructive force? Do they leech power from the gate? Why do they sustain the gate? So the titans don't kill them? Their motivation falls apart here for me. So we beat up the mursaat, and we bust the seal on the Gate of Komalie, this frees the titans, and I guess it can be assumed we killed all the mursaat, or they vanish in some Titan devouring flash. Who knows.

Now the Vizier is the Lich (dumb), he should have been a servant not the lich himself. And in one mission we man handle the titans, Rurik and the Lich. End of story.

The resolution is very poor, and the ending is so fast, and the lich and titans are so weak we end them in one mission, they felt extremely anti-climactic. The story started good and had strong character presence (Rurik). They killed him off and strung us along through so many attempts at plot twists that by the end, we are expecting twists because they have happened at regular intervals. (every 3 or 4 missions).

Plot twists are great, and multiple twists together are also good. But the best usage of a plot twist with multiple facets is to dump them on your audience repeatedly and quickly at the end while masking their existance the whole way. Much like the Usual Suspects, and some good caper flicks, where everyone is not who they seemed to be and everyone turns on eachother.

This has turned so long no one will read it.
In summary, they plot twist you to death at regular intervals which make them not surprising, and the "ultimate" badguy of the story is so weak that you destroy him in 30 minutes.

I disagree

White Mantle was just a different fanatical faction who obeyed whatever the Mursaat wanted

the only reason Mursaat wanted the door of Komalie sealed was self preservation

Mursaat would have been invincible in Tyria otherwise

its never clear what the Mursaats ultimate goals were
- all we know is that Mursaat are enemies of the Seer's race
(both of whom came from the Rift)

alot of discussion of lore here
http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/s...8&page=1&pp=25

I don't disagree with this statement, why would the mursaat want ambassador Zain to get the survivor's of Ascalon to Kryta and why would he suggest the idea to Rurik. If the Charr are in with the Mursaat like the Mantle, what motivation to "save" the Ascalon refuge's is there? This is one of the plot problems with the Mursaat. They in essence promote our travel to Kryta with Ambassador Zain, and we bring their end. Why would they have wanted us to leave Ascalon? Zain should have never existed, especially with the benevolence of his quests.

the Mursaat were "unseen gods" to most of the mantle

many of the mantle were just doing the routine tasks of diplomacy among their own race (with Orr gone, only Kyrta and Ascalon is left)


I dont think theres an easy way to identify whos "chosen"

biggest plot hole in the game?
The D'Alessio Seaboard, Divinty Coast mission

where you use the Eye to identify the Chosen

unless the Eye wasnt doing that at all - and just selecting random victims

I overlooked the post about Cantha

nice catch

I've got work in 10 mins, So please pardon my bluntness and lack of detail.

All of those questions are answered by A) talking to the NPC's in each area particularly lore npcs in the mission areas. B) doing the quests marked Primary and to a lesser extend the non primary quests. C) doing *some* of the bonuses.

EDIT: Will answer them individually when I get home.

a couple of things...

about ambassador Zain -- anyone remember that quest where the Krytans were selling something in Ascalon; the Ascalon leaders were suspicious, and we brought one piece of the merchandise to be evaluated (i believe at Serenity temple). was it ever resolved what that merchandise was actually for?

as for the Mursaat.... seems like they just are preserving themselves...
there's this prophecy that they will be destroyed by the chosen -- so they, naturally, kill all chosen.

not a great situation for them to be in... but who wouldn't do the same (assuming you believed the prophecies)? i don't find them to be that evil.

Very good points! The death of Saidra is so stupid that I would like to see her well and alive again in the addon! Do not care how that is explained!

Thank you for explaining what I just didn't have the time or motivation to explain. I'm not sure how many here have seen "The Crying Game" or "The Shawshank Redemption" - both good examples of this type of genre.
Of course most of us are not looking for cinematic virtues in an RPG but one would expect a halfway decent storyline. I mean Diablo's scripting was admittedly cliched but at least it was fun and made perfect sense.

I think it does make sense

the Mursaat believe the FlameSeeker Prophecies that foretold their demise
(the chosen will open the door of Komalie)

so in their best interest,
the Mursaat create a stronghold at the door to prevent that

I wish I could find the printed text of the Flame Seeker prophecies somewhere

the lich rattles it off in some of the ending movies but I havent found anyone posting the "known" text from mission ending movies


talking to npcs wont help either

seems like Glint, Seer, Mursaat, and Lich are the only ones in Chapter 1 who know the prophecy

I finally revisited this thread, and am imprsesed by all the response it's garnered.

I was completely unaware of much of this.

Thanks for shedding light on it!

I wonder if someone has put forward the effort to put all mission text into a single sit-down-and-read format.

Long story short, everyone is bad in varied degrees and you merely maintain the peace. There appears to be little to no point to the other "races" like the centaurs, who are just on the sideline for all these events and apperantly anyone who isnt already dead or not human already knows everything that is going to happen.

The only things really explained while going through the game is how kryta survived by using the power of the mursaat. Just about everything else in the game concerning plot just leaves a large question mark.

Orrians/Forgotten/Stone Summit are in the manual.

You go to Kryta because Rurik has a split with the king and, along with him, you lead a bunch of Ascalon refugees to Kryta. When you reach Kryta, you do stuff to help them (because they are offering your people refuge) (D'Alessio, Divinity), but end up finding about the Shining Blade (The Wilds), and the White Mantle sacrificing Chosen to the "Unseen Ones" to try and prevent the Flameseeker Prophecies, which greatly upset their masters, the Unseen (Bloodstone Fen). As such, you begin helping the Shining Blade, and the White Mantle become your enemy (Aurora Glade). The Shining Blade make a deal with the strange Vizier of Orr, who promises to help the Shining Blade in exchange for the Scepter of Orr (Riverside Province, Sanctum Cay). However, Markis reveals himself as a traitor, and you are forced to escape from the White Mantle (Sanctum Cay), and Ascend in order to defeat the Mursaat (why this is is never really clearly explained.)

Ascension involves doing certain things, generally involving killing the Forgotten (the snake-people in the lore book) to get the attention of the gods. (Yay, genocide! :/) Ascending grants you access to the dragon Glint's lair, who tells you... err, something about you needing to go to the Ring of Fire to defeat the Mursaat, and your former allies (e.g. the Shining Blade and the dwarves) need your help... I think (The Dragon's Lair.)

From Droknar's Forge, you are told that 1) Evennia and Saidra have been captured, and 2) fighting the Mursaat is suicide. So, you go to free Evennia/Saidra, and search for an ancient Seer spoken of by mystical texts that can help you in the fight against the Mursaat (Ice Caves of Sorrow). Once you've freed Evennia and Saidra, they demand vengeance against Markis, so while you're looking for the Seer, you get to kill Markis, too (Iron Mine of Moladune). Anyway, now that you've finished helping the Shining Blade, and your armor is freshly infused with something from the Eidolon by the seer, it's time to repay your debt to the dwarves, since they let you go through their pass (unless you went through EA's... but... uhh... shut up ) (Thunderhead Keep). After generally saving your allies, off you go to the Ring of Fire to kill the Mursaat, because there's a secret weapon there...

So, after an assault on Mursaat bases there (Ring of Fire, Abbadon's Mouth), you reach the Door of Komalie, and the Vizier/Undead Lich backstabs you and releases the Titans to destroy Tyria. So then, of course, you have to kill the Lich to reclose the Door of Komalie and retrap the Titans (Hell's Precipice), completing the Flameseeker Prophecies.

The game's done. You can stop reading this and go back to grinding for skill points now.

Yeah, some of the plot points dont make much sense in a way. However, this is chapter 1. Chapter 2 might pick up the pieces of the first story; like what happened in Ascalon after you left, the remnants of the Shining blade and the White Mantle. SUmmer update shows that the evil dwarves still have power and are amassing more power.

Yep, the plot is rather incoherent.

I especially love it how two kingdoms are blown to pieces but the rest of the world is unaffected. You'd at least expect a tsunami or a really cold summer, but that's kinda forgivable I guess.

The better thing is Kryta-Ascalon war. Can someone logically explain how and why did two kingdoms separated by giant mountain chain and connected by utterly nothing war with each other? Obtain passage tickets from Jalis? To get to a bloodstone 1,000,000 miles away?

Also, did anyone else get to Ventari's Refuge before doing The Wilds/Bloodstone Fen? For half of the maguuma, I was simultaneously killing white mantle, pursuing shining blade, collaborating with shining blade, and being a white mantle knight. They should block this somehow

Edit: and I don't get the Forgotten either. On one hand, two of them give you much help, on the other hand, you beat the living daylight out of them in all the missions. Some dialogue I skipped?

yes, the story is lacking majorly. What i got from the previews was that the point of the game was to save Ascalon from the invading charr. Now when the prince decided to skip town and just screw over his fellow countrymen by dragging me with him i was a little surprised. for a prince he really isnt very loyal. i think he deserved to die.

after ascension i felt i should have gotten stronger or something, why not. didn't i go throught that hell at the thirsty river for something? didn't i? Ascension should have gotten me at least on elite skill and some sort of infused armor, weapon, etc.

as for that weird area 51 alien, i just wanna know what planet hes from. He's obviously not from here. Personally i would like to know where he came from and if we can go to them through those portals made by that wizard in the lore section of the book that came wiht the game.

That was quite the funny post,

Yeah, but the tide turned when the White Mantle followed the Shining Blade into the mountains. Sure, they caught a lot of Shining Blade. But the dwarves (on both sides) were quite happy to attack them. By the time the end game rolls around, the Mantle were no longer a factor. The last regular quest of the game is Final Blow, where you finish off the Mantle leadership, a process started back in the Henge of Denravi mission.

But don't the ascalons just start setting up camps/outposts all over Tyria?

No, they have a settlement in Kyrta but that is about it.

Those lands belong to someone, Kyrtal allowed then to create a outpost ... they did not just go there and build a outpost.

The story is basically a carbon copy of Warcraft 3's...Rurik=Human prince, Ascalonians fleeing=Orcs fleeing, Frozen Northlands=Ring of Fire, Lich=Lich...Etc

Oh god, time for some setting up...

Dinas was an agent of the shining blade.

You maay have seen the cutscene where they retrieved the scepter, but you char DID NOT. Neither does Evennia nor the shining blade

Elona Reach runners could tell you otherwise


Haha, Saidra death made me laugh. "I'm gonna hold them for as long as I can"... Then she proceed to get owned in less than five seconds. Not only that, but the little mursaat party WAL- err, HOVER AWAY after they are done To the death of us all, my "red engine"...

Anyway, they spoiled Rurik, but they also spoiled the Lich there. I mean, THE LICH HAS THE SCEPTER! Err, 2+2=4?

But they tell you! I will roughly quote the dwarf at the beginning of the ring of fire: "They didn't create the fortress to keep something in, but to keep SOMEONE out."

Actually, he vizier is a man of powerful magic, so it makes sense. I mean, next time you venture into Kryta, note that the undead drop DECAYED ORR EMBLEMS. The orrians are the servants, the vizier is the master.




*ahem* Remove a zero from your number

The scepter had decided that it had enough of the stupid story and left. :)


But seriously.... I was peeved about just ditching Ascalon. I sorta figured "well, I'm part of the Prince's Vanguard.... I'll sneak back at some point, hahaha!" but then we never went back :(. I didn't even realize that Rin was the capital until like my third time through the game.

One of my friends who studied in my room while I played (however that works :/) commented on my change of heart toward Rurik; before I knew what happened to him, I was always saying "I hate Rurik" and "I really hate Rurik". Then, when I'm spending several days trying to do all the quests and bonus quests and anything elsethat might save him and yelling "NO! Dammit!" she's "why do you care, you hate the guy"..... but yeah, after Rurik was gone, the general story did fall apart. It wasn't that big a deal to me; I'm just happy the gameplay makes up for it.

I missed the Cantha stuff too; never found that particular NPC to talk to. Not that it has a major impact on the game :(.

I was suspicious of the Vizier (which probably means it was obvious, since I look up when people tell me "Gullible" is written on the ceiling).

The prophecies.... I don't like stories driven by prophecy all that much. In fact, when I get the option, I always play my characters in a "Prophecy can shove it" kind of way (as much as I can :( ). On the other hand, if I'd been told "we expect you to fulfill these prophecies", I personally would have asked "hey, what do they say? Oh? I'm going to unleash the firey hordes of doom upon all of Tyria?". I still would have done it, but I expect most people don't find the thought of everything burning to be nearly as amusing as I do (I'm a little disturbed :)).

Then there's Saidra. "Oh, let me charge the Mursaat! I'll hold them as long as I can". Often, she's dead before my computer loads up again; the only saving grace is that the Mursaat move only 1 mile an hour, so we can still escape safely. I barely knew who she was before she was dead; I remembered Evennia, but Saidra was like "WTF? Who is that? Oh, a corpse, ok".

Glint was "amusing"; I'm gonna go kill her sometime. Put together a dragon slaying party and just beat the daylights out of her. Otherwise, she was just an "I know everything and tell you what I want you to know because I'm a controlling b-rate itch" character (is that a bad word? I never can remember). Yes, we want to kill the dragon, don't we?

By the end, I was just sorta going "Ok, so I go here next. Whatever; things to kill, skills to cap, things to make die. This is fun!".

I did like that I wasn't totally lost at any point. I never said "wait, where do I go next?" or "holy Freak of Nature! I wandered into a level 50 zone and got killed in one hit". The general level balance wasn't bad.... but the story..... oh dear heavens the story was awful. Don't play GW for the story.


In closing, yes, I want to go back and kick some more Charr hide and save Ascalon. Screw the rest of the world (since when am I a patriot?).

---Off Topic... almost
Guild Wars is definatly not a carbon-copy WarIII. I've played both; Rurik isn't ideal, but he's definately no Arthas; Arthas (without spoiling too much) seemed to revel in the things he did, and he did some mean things. And, up until you get half way through the first Orc campaign (before Frozen Throne), the story isn't bad at all. Cliche and cheesy at times, but not bad, and some of it was new and inspired rants that I won't get into now.

(Smilies are disabled because it says I have too many pictures in this post and the smilies are causing it).

Does chapter 1 mean ANYTHING to you idiots?

While this is the first chapter, that's also no excuse to leave such glaring holes. Take almost any trilogy, for instance, be it movie or book. They always wrap up all the loose ends in some way, maybe sometimes aside from one key thing that is basically the teaser for a possible sequel. Guild Wars did a very, very poor job of having closure for even the most simple of things.

I personally see GW's story as a tacked-on effort to give roleplayers something to splash around in. I picture the beginnings of GW as going something like, "Okay, we have an idea for a free massively multiplayer game. We're going to focus on skills and PvP as a result." "But what will the story be? If the game doesn't have a story, there won't be any common ground for the rest of the game." "We'll make up something, but that's not the point." Essentially I view GW's many missions as constructed by engineers, not artists. All of the missions and quests seem tacked on in an effort to try to piece together locations, not events.

There are hundreds of tiny questions that were just never clairified. Everything is just thrown at you in the hopes that you will accept it, like the existence of the other 'major races' such as Tengus, Grawl, Centaurs and the bloodthirsty yet-without-actual-reason Charr. None of these races really have a backstory aside from the fact that they exist, and they either want or don't want you dead.

Many problems you encounter in various areas have only minor closure. For instance, the White Mantle are never actually beaten, although you have a rather minor quest in which you beat their remaining leaders. You never actually seem to beat the Mursaat either, although you do kill a good deal of them.

Really, the whole "plot" of the game reminds me a bit of Zelda: Ocarina of Time. Your whole mission is to beat a villain that you create halfway through the story. By never going through time, you never have to worry about a villain that you, up to that point, have never even had many, if any, dealings with. By never bothering with the Scepter of Orr (really, even proceeding past the Ascalonian Settlements, since that was your objective the whole time really), you never have a reason to fight an ultimate evil.

Eh, I'm just dissapointed by the whole story in general. It doesn't seem very thought out at all, just littered with basic concepts for minor details. The world itself doesn't really have a feeling or spirit to it.

Thank you, thank you. I thought I was the only one. Ascalon is basically cut off from the world, if you look at it.

I wish there was more choice to what you do but anyway....it says CHAPTER 1. Chapter is a small part, it's not an episode or part, so yeah, there's always more loose ends. The next chapter generally covers 1 or 2 of those loose ends, and by the looks of it, it's even more stone summit......

One quick thing. Ambassador Zain could have been a benevolent member of a malevolent faction. Just because he's White Mantle doesn't mean he's an inherently terrible person, he's just going along with some inherently terrible things. He might not even know about them.

Oh... I guess one other thing. What the hell does "To the end of us all" mean? It sounds sort of cool, but if you think about it, it makes no sense. The only possibility is like "We'll fight here even though we expect to die," but... the hell. They could have worded it a little better, at least.

The funny thing is: ANET seemed to unintentionally create a interesting RPG story:

Rurik is set up as a noble prince, but ends up weakening Ascalon. A useless traitor.

The unseen gods are a race of spellcasters who create a religion that apears benelovent but is rotten on the inside.

The Mursaat arent that bad if you really think about them. They protect themself, but at the end of the day, what was your main success? Closing the gate - which the Mursaat did fine without you. The only bad things about them:
they are not human. Thats always a good reason for mass genocide.
They kill some chosen. Thats bad, but just look at your killcount for once.

How do you prove your worth to the gods? By killing stuff without any reason at all. Whats your gripe with the forgotten in thirsty river. And what did the centaurs do to you (dunes)?

So they created a RPG that appears to be a cliched Epic with heroes and monsters, but in truth, the heroes are monsters as well, and the "monsters" (mursaat, white mantle) are not that bad.

The lich however... every damn RPG has a BBEG that schemes and plots and tricks you into helping him. A plot twist would be if the Vizier was indeed good. Honestly, how many games have you played where to undead are good?

*Oh and there are hints that the ambassador is not that benelovent at all. See the artifact quest that you delivere to serenity, and never find out what it actually does.

I do agree that the GW world lacks lore, and lots of it.

It is almost ironic how all sides are bad, in varied degrees. You did point out most of them, but it does go slightly deeper if you think about who knows what before hand.

You also could look at the char, who appear to worship both the mursaat and the burning titans, as observed by their flaming totems. The char could have easily been just a tool used by the mursaat to wipe out the "chosen" that resided within ascalon and orr. It would also explain the miraculous survival of kyrta, if the mursaat suddenly withdrew their backing.

Then you have the seer, who's race has been in conflict with the mursaat. This begs the question as to why and their real motives. Were they attempting to weild the power of the titans, or did they know the full story behind the prophecy and were trying to directly aid the chosen to break the seal and allow chaos to reign?

Furthermore, you have the dwarves who are in conflict, due to the xenophobic differences. Why did it exist? One conclusion would be that the dwarves knew about the chosen releasing the seal of the titans and were trying to prevent it, just like the mursaat. Also, how did the dwarves survive the searing, if the char had to cross through the mountains in order to reach orr and kryta?

Then you have the centaurs, who also appear to be split between siding with humans and trying to activly drive them off or be "neutral". Motives could be argued similar to the dwarves.

Next you have the supernatural, the dragons, undead, druids (spirits), and forgotton. Gee, this whole catagory reeks of, "well humans are stupid playthings for us to exploit and kill, but later on get slaughtered by a small band of them that we know will come and do nothing to stop it". There is also an underlying they are too dumb to understand anything if we explain it to them element as well.

The only living human that appeared to know anything that was going on was the space cadet shouter guy in frontier gate, who would proclaim the flameseeker prophecies are comming to pass and they should follow the prince, but the world is comming to an end ect.

Well it would be nice if the game world allowed you to choose what path to take, who to side with, and how to complete tasks (ie avoid killing). It would be a booring game though if it was more sneaking and double dealing than fighting though.

Honestly though, if there wasnt some ultimate evil to vanquish, then it would be even more anti-climactic if you just spent the past 100 or so hours slaughtering endless amounts of only mediocre opponents.

The story was fine up to Yak's Bend.

I thought the story was alright

1) You defend your home, Ascalon, from the Charr

2) You lead your people away to Kryta so they dont have to suffer while fighting the charr every day. We dont know what happened to those who stayed, but because the Lich sent titans to Rin I believe that the Ascalonians were still alive+kicking.

3) You fight your way across the treacherous shiverpeak mountains, and have to fight your way through a race of angry prejudiced dwarves to do it.

4) You arrive in Kryta, help out the White Mantle against the Undead.

5) You learn that the Mantle slaughter 'innocent' people, so you do as all heros do and fight the tyranny. This means joining the shining blade.

6) You escape the mantle and their mursaat masters and realize you cant beat them with your current powers. You then go and ascend. The story makes more sense if you ascend while still level 18-19, so when you ascend you gain all that XP and max level and you have tanglible reward for ascending.

7) You go rescue your Shining Blade friends from the mursaat, go help the dwarves against the summit (repaying your debt for them helping you out earlier)

8) You go to the RoF to end the mursaat once and for all, only to discover you've been used by the vizier the whole time. The mursaat and the mantle apparently were doing a good thing by keeping the door closed, even though they were being a little.. extreme with their measures of slaughtering innocent chosen.

9) You go kick the Lich's ass to make up for your previous stupidity.

Kinda makes you think "Oh come on not everyone can be a traitor." but hey its better than some. Most of you didnt buy GW for the story anyways.

Well actually the ascension missions are the few missions that actually capture the spirit of GW. You fight the Forgotten to prove that your worthy, just like you fight "Korea"/"insert other Guild here" just because you want to better then them. Competition. Bloodsport. And at the end of the day, everyone's still is around.

This is nothing bad, but if you consider that the the mantle is evil for killing some innocents to prevent great evil (the starship-trooper-esque bugs on fire), killing some forgotten "for competition" is just as bad.
Maybe its the age-old problem of rezz vs death. I never understoond why its such a bad thing when people died in fantasy games. You usually get rezzed while your still a nobody, so why does noone rezz the "important character to suffer a tragic fate (tm)"? People are so used to hollywood cheese that they think people dieng is "dramatic". Honestly, i died at least 10 times in the same mission where rurik stops breathing. Rezzing for the win.

on a sidenote: im not sure wether ANET actually intended the story to be so deep. Look at the blade: they appear to be the "cool mysterious underground rebel good-guys" but actually create the most evil (handing the scepter to the mysterious, undead-summoning, powerfull mage who somehow managed to survive the destruction of an entire nation after meeting with him ... once)
. The only thing they actually manage is to free a couple chosen.

Then they get wiped by the mantle. To bad i had to "flee" the tin cans. I fear the mursaat (chain - lightning ...), but mantle? People used to farm them, imagine the joy when you get attacked by 100 knights at once

Ah! A voice of reason!

Chapter 2 - The Cleansing of Ascalon
SubTitled - Charr-broiling with Rurik's Ghost (Bam!)

But then again... Ch2 is supposed to be content for ascended characters... and anyone can get to Ascalon.

Maybe not.

Pity.

interestingly, if rurik dies in that mission before the cutscene because you take too long, nothing happens... the mission just goes on, and he gets rezzed for the cutscene.
(the mission says you need to hurry, but it is not lost when he dies...)

what happened to orr ? hmm

ever wondered why Undead drop decayed orr emblems ? :P

Made me laugh as well.

Poor Evennia...she lost her Partner.