*SPOILERS* Anti-climax.

Hey, I wouldn't mind being the meat in that sandwich.

That's just wrong. I'm so sorry.

I was there first!

Jalis Ironhammer's brother's death was ten times more retarded. It is possible to kill all the mursaat he had been luring in 5 seconds, then watch him run, stop, yell "for great dwarf!" and then die on the spot for utterly no reason.

Heroic last stands aren't particularily great in this game

Ah, so that's WHAT happened! I just ignored the vizier advice and plowed through the front door I'm sorry to know we left him to die...

Rurik must be a complete idiot. Here I am, a level 8 smiting monk soloing Charrs. What's he do? "WE CAN NOT FIGHT THEM, FOOL! WE MUST TRAVEL ACROSS THE MOUNTAINS AND HIDE IN GIANT TROLL INFESTED LANDS!!11".

The Elonians are the people trying to help you ascend.

The Orrians were all the undead people attacking Kryta.

Orr was destroyed becuase the Vizier, when the Charr were attacking Orr went deep into the catacombs and summoned a giant explosion that killed everyone, includeding the Charr. He didn't mean to, but he decided to become giant and evil and stuff anyway.

I don't fairly understand the point of the Flameseeker Prophecies either.

The mesmer in Yaks Bend has a few choice words about Ruriks idea of coming to the Shiverpeaks...

it's ashame how horrible the story turned out... The background story in the Lore Book of the manual made me think I was in for a good story... I know it's an MMO, but FFXI had a superb story, why cant this

I'll make this really simple:

1. You only stayed with the ascalonians as per ruriks request, you did what he asked and had nothing left to give the ascalonians. You werent their king, nor even their prince, after ruriks plan was completed you left the ascalonains in the hands of the kyrtians.

2. White mantle, ha! Would you really blow your nose when you had a cold if you could simply cure it? The answer is no. And that's why you fore go the white mantle and try to take on the mursaat, White mantle are simply a symptom of the mursaats power, you dont threat syptoms if you can treat the disease.

3. The Shining blade, they where in esscence with you all the way to ice caves of sorrow, where your main tie to their people, dies. Basically their side plot ended the moment you killed markiss.

4. The vizier is the undead lich in disguise, wow sup-freakin-prize. He was called from a 'distant' land by the shining blade, possibly intercepted and killed by the lich before he ever made it, or he never really exsisted anyway.

5. Ascension, the forgotten where the first to ascend, then the 'ghosts' the orrians, the orrians greed allowed them to fail ascension as they where not really chosen as you are, and the foggoten hated them for that, hence why they try to kill them. It's been many years since any chosen have ascended since they have all been killed by the white mnatle in recent years. True sight is a dragon ability of legend 'chosen' also have it (not only linear to Guild wars) It has no ability of seeing things which are invisible etc, it's a very complicated thing to type out so i wont bother try googling it, it's been in many games/books etc so you'll get many diffrent descriptions.

Glint is the one who fore seen the fire seeker profivies, while she knew EVERYTHING which would unfold she dare not tell you for fear of changing the effect.

6. Stome summits arent another race, yet thay have almost changed into another race based on living in diffrent conditions than the other dwarves, you killed their leader (Thunderhead keep) brining any plans they had to a crashing halt, restoring order, no more dwarf blood fueds.

7. The mursaat are drawn to the dark power of the isle, and the power of the flame which you eventually seek it seems only logical.

8. The story is yet to be over, 2006 brings the next part most likly picking up from where the titans are attacking each town, much like old ascalon to new ascalon etc, the time line will have changed significantly.

9. You can choose to fill in the gaps in the story yourself, or better yet read the full story. Then again you can post like you did

10. Maybe you are horrible

Gaah! It all sounds like the hyperactive imagination of some X-Files writer. Aliens and being manipulated and prophecies and ghosts! It was only 1 step short of playing the X-Files theme when you meet the seer.

I mean how stupid can the heroes get. We're constantly being led left and right, up and down and we happily bow down to whoever seems to have the most charm at the moment. Blah. Makes you wonder if they'll turn on us again and suddenly it turns out that the Flameseeker Prophecies WERE GOOD and that the Lich and Titans were meant to come out and take out another alien race. Oh, no! We've been manipulated into preventing something from happening again! What if it turns out the Titans were meant to take out the Charr before they mutated due to exposure to Stormcaller water into UBER-CHAR that are level 100!

Not constructive, but you get the idea (I hope).

Just a suggestion, but what would have happened in Ascalon had you stayed? The once fertile earth is an ash, dust and rock covered wasteland with rivers and lakes of tar. Surely famine and disease would have followed even if supplies could have been brought in from Kryta. Enough supplies to feed whatever populace was left? Probably not. Myself, I saw Ruriks plea with the king to go to Kryta as more of a "let's fall back and regroup, heal and reorganize. Then come back as a force to be reckoned with". Not "I'm a spoiled brat (which he really is) I'm gonna pick up my marbles and leave." Adelbern was being a bit stubborn on either account.

Then again, that was just my impression.

Remember, Guild wars is not that old of an RPG. And its free too -.-. But its true, the story line is messed up.. plus many other things.

Ha, so true.

"Hey, your Ascalonian too? I was born there, I'll help out with the mission! Oh, and I'm a hero, too!"

"Dwarves? Oh, you'll let me through the mountains? How nice of you! Oh yeah, I slaughtered a few Stone Summit for you, too."

"Huh? White Mantle... Lion Guards... ya don't say. Well, I'll help you kill off these undead since you're wearing white. Oh yeah, can we come in your town too?"

"Shining Blade... You guys don't seem so bad now that I meat you... Hell, I'll go to bloodstone and kill off a few mantle for for you to see what you're talking about with all this evil mantle rubish."

"So we got to meet an evil-looking, undead controlling, vampire guy who's entire kingdom was wiped out under his advisary? Well, I'm always down for helping out my community! Stay in school! Just say no! YEAH!"

"You ghosts are telling me I have to Ascend? I don't know what that is, but as long as I GET TO KILL! HELL YEAH! FRIKKEN COOL, FRIKKEN COOL!"

"You're a dragon! Grrr... You die!"

"Stone Summit again? Well, what are we waiting on!? Let's Genocide those Xenophobes!"

"Huh, a seer from another planet? Your race is fighting the Mursaat, too and getting their asses handed to them so you've come here to help us? Well, you have quite possibly the worst voice acting in the game, so you MUST be telling the truth!"

"More killing... JOY!"

"The Ring of Fire... I don't know what the hell that it... but if you say so."

"You want me to open the door of Kamali so... >>SOMETHING<< can happen? I don't want to go if I don't get to kill..."

"Ah, whaddya know, that Vasier guy was a baddy afterall. More killing for me!"

"Oh Rurik... You know how much I hate violence... but I guess since you asked so nicely... ::chop, splatter, gash::"

"Yay, we wiped out an entire race, killed off countless innocent, and put almost every species in the world on the endangered list! Where's my price? ::wind blows::. Hey, this place looks kinda fimiliar... wasn't this where that dragon-thingy transported me after I murdered her?"

You folllow the path of the closed fist grasshopper, or is it the darkside flows through you. Meh, whatever...

Ok, so let's compose an ultimate What Really Happened list.

1. Kryta, Orr and Ascalon fight over some ancient stones that are supposed to be half-forgotten legends. Kryta and Orr can presumably fight using their fleets. Ascalon probably just awkwardly sits there, isolated by a desert and huge mountains, and sends impolite letters to both adversaries.
2. Charr invade from the north. Three kingdoms stop their wars and proceed to do nothing constructive about that.
3. Charr decide to nuke Ascalon using their Titan-powered Crystal Canons of Doom. They fire them right next to the Great Wall, possibly destroying 90% of their own race in the process, and certainly their mages and cannons. Ascalonians randomly survive or have their flutes broken.
4. Although Ascalon rallies and holds, the Charr magically appear in Kryta and Orr. In Kryta, they are beaten by White Mantle (no wonder, WM is on average 10 levels above Charr). Orr randomly explodes. Krytans comment on a really cold summer over their afternoon teas. Orrians, despite being blown to smithereens, compose themselves to a functional undead army and make it to Kryta. Either by swimming or by sneaking through Droknar's Forge. Well, dwarves aren't too bright anyway.
5. King Adelbern exiles Rurik during a particularily nasty mood swing, just after Rurik emerges victorious from a major battle using an ancient badass artifact. Rurik is sheepishly followed by our Heroes. And Farmer Dirk with his precious hogs.
6. Rurik manages to die in the mountains, slain by a random Dwarf faction. Players rejoice, since that means the end of over-dramatic incoherent one-liners.
7. Our heroes joyfully abondon the rest of refugees because those nice WM ask them to kill some undead and genocide Tengus.
8. Our heroes join the Shining Blade, the most incompetent group of rebels ever. They proceed to kill a WM army that suddenly appeared in Maguuma. SB randomly allies with Vizier, because people who explode their entire countries are valuable allies.
9. After a lot of sneaking and genociding, our heroes learn they have to Ascend. Ascending involves killing lots and lots of half-divine, benevolent snakes. The Heroes are helped by ghosts, who claim they never seen a living human in centuries, despite standing about two meters from the everpresent Xunlai Agents. Xunlai Guild has its agents everywhere and knows exactly what's happening, but apparently is too lazy to help saving the world from fiery doom. Who knows.
10. Our heroes beat themselves. Then they enter a grain of sand to kill the Facet Of Boring Mission. At the end, they kill a dragon or vice versa, that doesn't influence anything whatsoever.
11. Our heroes find out that they must now genocide a race called the Mursaat and joyfully travel north.
12. Our heroes help a caffeinated and drunk aggro master Jalis kill the Stone Summit. Somewhere along the way they also save the Shining Blade, but who the hell gives half a flying **** about SB anyway. Also, a tragic sacrifice of some character that made 2 cameos 60 hours prior takes place.
13. Oh, and they find an Alien. The Alien doesn't do any cool tricks though (like emerging from Dorian's ripped chest). However, it slaps our heroes with some spectral goo that makes them more competent in genociding mursaat.
14. Our Heroes learn that they must travel to the other side of the world to finish the genocides. They are cleverly manipulated by the Vizier. Glint knows about it, but is probably still pissed off about these eggs.
15. Our heroes kill stuff. Then they open a door and find out that the Vizier was evil. If they played Age of Mythology, they would know that there are ALWAYS titans locked behind giant doors in the middle of hell, but alas.
16. In order to fix their monumental ****-up, our heroes kill the lich. Thanks to the First Great Cliche Rule Of Evil Liars Exploding Once The Main Villian Dies, the volcano explodes. Glint explains to them that they have to at once, immediatly, and quickly run like hell during a half-an-hour long speech.
17. Our heroes sail to the sunset and drink ale.

Not to mention that, The Heroes decided not to take the powerful Scepter of Orr while escaping the volcano.

It mysteriously vanished (as in teleported). Probably that Gold Hoarding Dragon Prophet snatched it.

Ok, why didn't we stay and defend ascalon?

From the lore book i gathered that Ascalon and the charr had always nailed each other, note the building of the wall. Now the guild wars start, Kryta and orr probably with their navies and Ascalon battling both of the others as they crossed the mountains, for the Dwarves were still united then.

The Charr see this, they hate Ascalonians and all humans from a time ago (possibly when humans first consolidated their hold on the land). The charr army mobilises and builds a giant machine thingy which brings down the searing, bloowing open the wall and aniahlating ascalon millitary forces, they then sweep south through a broken kingdom that isnt going to put up much of a fight whilst more forces move through the northern shiverpeaks and attack Kryta (For some Dwarf sais that there are two passes through the shiverpeaks, Borliss pass and one furthur north controlled by the charr!).

Now the main army skirts the crystal desert and moves into Orr, crushing all resistance quickly, now the Vizer gets scared and reads the scroll, BOOM, Orr gone along with the majority of the charr army. the Vizer is turned Undead, you try reading something that powerful and see if it doesnt destrroy your body and soul. The rest of the Charr are cut down by Kryta, with Mursaat Help. Ascalon rallies and retakes the wall and the charr regroup, now Kryta is too powerful for them, so they pick on Ascalon and everything happens till the nolani mission where you come back and find Rin almost completely destroyed (where it was my view that Rin hadn't been nailed as much as Ascalon city and was mostly intact.)

Now Rurik sees theres nothing left and sais that they should get as many people out of ascalo before they are completely overrun. He is banished and whilst going through the mountains is chopped to bits, now command of the refugees seems to fall on you and Greywing, and he seems pretty incompetent. Now Kryta, lush jungle fresh air and one hell of a bug problem, you help in some ways while whats left of the refugees make one small village. Now you run off into a thicker jungle and lose contactwith humanity or any other race for a time, now how the hell is anyone going to help Ascalon when Kryta starts chasing after you, The Dwarves are killing eachother and the forgotten are helping people to Ascend, and ascend only as they have retreated form the world.

Now to other points.

Now in Tyria everyone hates humans except the dwarves because of the war over magic (the others must have a long memory), but they also fight eachother, the wilds bonus shows this well. (Not really on topic, but i wanted to put it in.)

The Charr gods. Now the charr make Representations of their gods, which look like titans, now the titans have been locked up for a long time, so this is a very old practice, now the Mursaat don't want the Titans free, for that would mean that the gate of Khimole (hope thats how you spell it) would have to be opened and the mursatt are screwed if that happens so the mursatt have nothing in relation to the charr in my view.

Now as for the state of things after the last mission, Ascalon is still holding on, barely, but being whittled down bit by bit. The Deldrimore Dwarves are retaking land in the shiverpeaks but whats left of the stone summit are resisting, even though their leader is dead, note the videos of sorrows furnace, the summit are still around camp rankor upwards I would assume. Kryta is in a state of change, the White mantle has lost most of its high ranking members and in my view of the quests around ToA the White Mantle are starting to crack, but without more story i can't see if their going to be thrown off so easily. And last for the Shining blades, their pretty much useless now, Evennia is alive but most others arn't, but who knows how many their are left.

NOTE: This is what i have pieced together out of all i have read and seen so far, it is not fully correct i can assure you, but i hope its close.
EDIT: expanded upon one area

Ok, some how you start out with gwen and the next thing I know I'm in the middle of no where fighting myself and I begin to think... What the hell is going on?

my goodness, so much to read... I missed alot of the stories becuase

1.) I bought the online license and didn't exactly get a "book" to read
2.) whenever I finished a mission with a party, usually 5 out of 6 people voted to skip the cinematic... I felt the peer pressure so i skipped it too... lol

from what I gathered tho this is what i summarized (in no particular order):

• King Adelbern is a dick
• Prince Rurik is a pussy
• Saidra is a dyke
• Evennia is a lesbian
• Stone Summits are racists
• Ascalon is a fudged (until Chapter 2?)
• Ascending does nothing
• Both Mantles and Vizier want the Sceptor for relatively the same reason, except the Mantle wants it to prevent the Prophecy, while the Vizier wants it to fulfill the prophecy.
• Ectos are too expensive.. (except for a brief period last week)
• Titans are cool
• and Gwen is still out there...

... and yea, I would've opted to stay and annihilate those Charr's sorry arses to smithereens...

i have to go soon so i couldnt read all that but i think that the seer was part of a mursaat rebellion with abundant black dye (note that she floats and her robes) but are those titans supposed to be those "great giants" mentioned int he manuscript

But there's so much more space and time for story in the game than in the manual. Alot of folks didn't even get the manual. There's no reason why every aspect of the story and plot can't be explained in the game.

Regarding this whole Prince Rurik is a pussie debate.

On my first time through the game with Thunder (W/E) I was group leader and got to smite the old undead one with my hammer. OK he was at death's door but hey, I am only a girl and it was a BIG hammer boys..... know what I mean?

Second time around with Holden my monk I got to put him out his misery again....it only took a look this time as I had no weapon equipped! (steely stare accompanied by a gurgling sound off camera).

I think rurik had a lot of unresolved issues. The relationship with his father. The absence of a mother figure. The unrequited relationship with Althea. The slightly effeminate beard and the weak chin. There was a very androgenous quality about dear old Princey but at least he looked fairly hard at the end in his undead state, even if he couldn't quite follow through on being a "bad man".

Pity he died a pussie........twice!