03:26:11 "The scepter is an extreme solution to a fresh problem." I think this is a brilliant quote on meta level. Let's put pragmatic characters like Ludo and Skarti aside (and Malice who has pretty much a Charr generational trauma), the people who feel strongly about using the scepter are the people who've actually lived through the previous titan conflict or its fallout: Isgarren, Livia... and WP, who played GW1 before.😄 I, as a GW2 only player, didn't feel any need to use the scepter for couple of reasons. First, it's because both parts of the equation are unknown to me. I don't know anything about titans except "it was bad", but I could say this about any other threat we've encountered in GW2 already. And I don't know anything about the scepter except "very powerful unstable mcguffin", so essentially the idea of using the scepter is "Let's fight this thing I know nothing about with this other thing I know nothing about. Oh, and both of them can bring huge catastrophes". And I imagine it's the same for some of those nay-saying characters, to them at this point of time the titans are an intangible thing from history, but to people who saw what it was like it is not. Second, my other reason for not using the scepter applies to the latter people: they're all (including GW1 players) are basing their decisions on outdated info.😆 A lot could've changed, we don't have the same actors acting this threat out as before. Besides, no one said they voted to NEVER use the scepter, it's very clear they'll bring this topic back, seeing as we got a huge instance out of it and Livia said the Commander has the will to use it. If they wanted to write it out, they could've come up with number of reasons like "the Kryptis attack damaged artifacts or left them highly unstable" or "it's being used elsewhere for something else", but they didn't. I will say though that Jennah's reaction got me curious, it feels like there's a possibility for hidden reasons she doesn't want to use the scepter. They could easily give her "nay" to other NPCs if it was a simple matter of voting numbers. I wonder if the fact that her father (who was ALSO suddenly named-dropped in the middle of the instance for no obvious reason which is sus) had built connections with the lowland kodans (during the previous Alliance meeting Jennah lamented her inability to maintain it) will add onto something bigger. I wouldn't think much of it if not for Isgarren's remark in this story step. Why drop it like that and during a more important discussion, we certainly don't need more confirmations of how he's a powerful being who knew lots of world leaders and heroes throughout Tyria's history (and Jennah's father isn't some big character all players know about). So it's a combination of "Weird that Jennah doesn't want to deal with it asap"+"We have new info on how there were previous diplomacy trips from the crown to this region"+"Isgarren brings up her father for seemingly no reason in the middle of more important talks". I may also just heavily overthinking it.🤣Sorry about this wall of text! I'm just too eager to see where this will all lead, haha.
I had the same impression. The titans had been around Janthir for 3 years or however long Stoic Alder said without much happening at all and at this point in the story we don't know wheter its just the one titan or a whole horde of them. I did not play gw1 so maybe I underestimate how big of a threat titans really are, but they would have to be pretty bad to warrant using the scepter, with the wielder potential being "able to conquer the world" as wp said, at the first sighting of a lone Titan. To me it sounded perfectly reasonable to keep this as a backup option and actually go out there and investigate the threat first. Saying that one should have an alternative solution in mind before shutting down another solution should not be applicable when the solution might be more dangerous than the problem for all we know. At this point the crisis at this point seems very minor compared to everything else that Tyria has faced down, but yeah I did not play gw1 so maybe I underestimate the titans. I think the quote sums it up well.
Also it feels like Jennah might be afraid of vicinity of lowland Janthir. She has her own generational fear with Orr, using extremely powerful artifact so close to home can be very good reason not to rush it.
Isgarren casually outing the shining blade hideout being beneath divinity’s reach (saying the scepter was stored in a velvet room beneath the city) 😩 cmon man you’re a secret society too what you doin
In that lorebook about trade in the alliance instance, it mentions the awakened who sells jokko statues. I can't remember if you ever saw, but he's in Arborstone, and there's a fun easter egg where you can find him in the Wizard's Tower and have a conversation with him about why he shows up everywhere.
Voting against using the scepter right now is not inaction, it's about researching the threat properly before using ancient magic. It's like throwing a nuke when a conventional weapon could have done the job, just because you haven't checked how severe the threat actually is.
When you were comparing the different guild halls, you described gilded hollow as "a dinky little cave". Man idk if you've really explored it or not and were just being hyperbolic, but bro there's a LOT to explore there. Not only is there a lot of cool caves and big cavern areas, but there's HUGE vertically. You can climb *way* up out of the top of the cave and build up on the surface as well. It also has a really cool Easter egg, where if you go up there, you can look in the right direction and see Mordremoth's "tree" in the distance as part of the skybox.
I do believe caution in the Alliance meeting here was warranted. What GW1 players know of the Scepter of Orr isn’t common knowledge; these are events that happened 250 years ago. The few characters that share that knowledge voted to use it, while Jenna specifically voted against it for paranoid backstory reasons. It was also weird that Caithe of all people was catastrophizing (sp?) a being jumping through mist portals as if she hadn’t dealt with Kralkatorik a few years ago. The Alliance *should* by all means retain the faith they have in the Commander to gather more information and handle a singular titan with the support of the Alliance/Astral Ward as a substitute for the Pact. The Commander lead the charge to take down six Elder Dragons, what threat does a singular titan pose that would be greater than that? At least that’s what I gathered from the meeting. Given how the story is going, if the threat escalates, we might see the chaotic outcome of a truly divided alliance (or an Isgarren that puts his “foot” down) in future instances.
I think I disagree with WP's take on using the scepter here. The alliance has little to no knowledge of the actual threat going on in Janthir, only that a titan has been spotted and is affecting the environment. They don't know how many there are, if they're allied with other races or, considering there is Mursaat city in that area, any counter-magics or relics present. Use of the scepter itself could be flawed, such as filling the user with madness as is often the case with older, potent magic. There are a few options between doing nothing and using the scepter. The titans aren't an immediate threat or directly attacking as demonstrated by the large one leaving so rather than relying on a "nuke", the better option should be to survey the area and understand the actual scope of the threat at hand and possibly discovering the source of the threat itself. Jumping to the first solution presented without understanding the enemy is very similar to what happened at the start of HoT, and we can see what happened there.
I kind of love how by the time you voted there was no chance of the Scepter being used, but at the same time based on Chekov's Gun, it's almost guaranteed to be used later in the expansion.
I don't know where I read it, I thought it was an in-game comment that there was a good reason to not use the Scepter. The reason was that there's a chance that Titans are not stupid or mindless and may understand that the Scepter of Orr still exists. If they know that and came anyway, it's very likely that the Scepter either does not affect them or would backfire in some way.
I got so pumped when I got to part 5 and they started bringing in GW references and bringing back Livia and the scepter of Orr into the story! Let’s go!
1:40:00 The blanket symbolism was mentioned earlier. Patient Willow: Now, let's see... Perhaps... Oooh, I know just the one! Used in many a tradition-consummation of mates, coming of age... Patient Willow: Symbolizes new beginnings. Yes, shall do right by you both. His wife has passed away. I think this was the keepsake we found when we cleaned the house earlier that let him know its time to move on. Also, its very much hinted here that Stoic and Aurora are becoming close. She is also very close to Pokey as a mentor.
at 1:44:00 when you says you don't like Malice being around doing the small work . I feel you are forgetting the first instance of the story were Malice said she wants to come because she was so sick of the politics and wanted a break and to do actual field work . so basically Crecia is covering for her while she gets to relax and get a change of pace .
First, Crecia isn't ash. Second - it doesn't really matter whether Malice herself wishes to be doing field work. The fact she simply CAN saunter off like that feels a bit... trivial. Like there is no weight to her position or her people.
@@WoodenPotatoes yeah that's fair , I'm mostly viewing it like i would view a president or a prime minister going on vacation , or on the campaign trail, were they are not doing the job but have someone cover for them, but if anything emergent happens they can go back and take care of it
@@WoodenPotatoes might just be me but there's definitely a personal goal she's hoping to get out of this, sure she said she doesn't want to be Kahn ur but she's Ash Possibly hoping taking care of the titans would be enough of a feat to earn the title
Warclaw has kind of two magical jumps you use endurance for, dodge button makes you go more forward and spacebar gives more vertical height. It's different from other mounts where you can separate the endurance using skill from jump.
I know I have previously complained about the audio balance, so I just wanted to say it's been really good now on this one! I have enjoyed watching your playthrough, thanks for doing this.
Thanks WP! Love the content. I did my playthrough of janthir on a core Mesmer with spear and dagger/sword. No quickness or alacrity, had a lot of fun, worked just fine.
Re: Malice being out in the field instead of doing what a political leader's supposed to do, to me it seems like she's having the time of her life right now. She's on a VACATION. Perhaps it doesn't align with what Anet's planning for her, who knows, but I like to interpret it this way. Think how happy Aymeric would be if he finally got the chance to escape his paperwork hell and go on an adventure with us.
If the sceptor of Orr can control mist creatures, then could it control a human god? And if so, is that why Jenna and Anise are so against it being used... cause they both Lyssa. I will die on this hill, but I think thats just such a fun idea
As an aside, I have to give props to ANet for even caring to give us up to date news on regional issues. Most MMOs wouldn't give a shit, and I mean games come out with an xpac and none of the other maps or politics matter, just the new area. WoWis like that, I imagine FFXIV is like that. How often does a new threat or discovered region/race affect global economics and politics? They've basically given us an update for every region except that mysterious one to the West on the game map. lol They didn't have to write any fo this, but they did. *claps* lol Though I AM dissapointed with Whispers. It would've be far cooler if they hinted that they knew exactly who the Astral Ward was without saying too much.
steam overlay has a notes feature that you can use to make notes that show up on your screen even when overlay is not up. kinda new, havent really used it myself.
I just thought of something... When we use the level 80 boost, and we haven't yet picked an order, they should have had a little popup asking for your Order choice. Then we could have more order specific dialogue that is meaningful.
02:43:33 I've only played GW2 (I have bought GW1 but haven't gotten around to it) and when this expac launched and the Titans were talked about, I legit thought they were made up for this expansion. I went to the wiki on Titans and felt like I had been mandella effected. How have I never heard about Titans before this expac???
My character was Priory, and what you get seems to be exactly the same thing I get when talking to them. I think the other toon I used was Vigil, and no difference, so they weren't that detailed, but in your playthrough as a Sylvari and me a Norn, there are definitely differences in how the Kodan react. You probably got the better of it being a plant.
I agree that there shouldn't have been any titan-y stuff on the first map. Story/dialogue wise the Kodan are dealing with them, but don't trust you enough to say anything. We're meant to be in the dark and assume there are no crises going on right up until that chapter. But the titanspawn in Lowland Shore stick out like crazy. I have been looking forward to you playing through the second meeting so much! So many tidbits, so many new questions! This is going to be a long comment... How are the Kodan connected to Orr? It's been brought up twice now, but with no details at all. It's hard to imagine them that far south ever, especially that far before Jormag. I'm curious how long we'll have to wait for more about that... There must be an army of Skritt below the building or something. The Skritt from SotO was pretty smart, but anyone involved with the wizards are special in some way. The queen here doesn't have any excuse... Bringing down the dragons was the purpose of the Pact, but I can imagine them discovering that their organization was able to serve the denizens of Tyria in other ways along the way. I get wanting to see some friction between them and the Alliance or the Astral Ward, but I feel like that's what ANet gives us any time two factions are in the same room. imo they've painted themselves into a corner, less drama would be less interesting, more drama would be entirely predictable. Babysitting people that can't get along has been the story since we first meet Destiny's Edge, and lately the reasons for the friction have been getting downright silly. For instance, the Lowland Kodan don't trust magic, and perhaps there will be a reason for that in time, but it seems like a straw man to keep them dubious of us. The impression I got from the Economy scroll was that the Alliance is keeping an eye on relations between all the newly (re)introduced nations for information's sake rather than to manipulate trade or anything like that. That said, I could see everything we get in this instance turning into a supergovernment very easily. I can't see that being interesting in the slightest, modern media plays with that so much and the inevitable end is that the powerful entity becomes the big bad sooner or later because the protagonists can't be bigger than the big bad. Oh man, Livia as the witch would be so insane! I don't know how closely you looked at the witch, but her staff/spear had a White Mantle symbol and bloodstone shard. With all her history and connection with both Kryta and the Wizards she'd be the PERFECT double agent! Exactly like you said, very little that mattered mechanically- lots of talking without anyone responding to the talking- but so many hooks for the future! I'd have a harder time siding with using the Scepter if anyone made a better case against using the Scepter. Like you said, it isn't the One Ring. It feels like the opposition to using it is the fact that Khilbron accomplished evil with it, but nothing ever suggests that it had any power over him. If it is a Seer artifact then it shouldn't even have any real ties to Abaddon, right?
Sohothin was never in Balthazar's hand, Balthazar re-ignited it and Rytlock used it to free him. I think the line was referring to the scepter of Orr and Abaddon maybe?
Loving the content! I'd definitely suggest at least trying out power soulbeast. I feel like it makes the pet choice more impactful and adds a lot of quality of life.
I like the terms tranger it feels very witcher fantasy to me. Its also a cooler way of refering to them then aliens since the kodan are all about things being connected to the world seeing the titans as strangers cause they are from other world and arent part of tyria.
7:07 - Why is he on core Ranger? 15:55 - Open World 56:18 - Open World (Main Story Continues) 1:11:06 - Home Sweet Home (Story - Instance) 1:45:17 - Open World 1:59:12 - Open World (Story) 2:07:51 - Graced by Fire's Wild Journeykin Observations (Life in the Lowlands Achievement) 2:26:17 - Open World (Story) 2:32:19 - Missing in Action: Haar Mire (Story - Instance) 2:43:43 - Letter (Story) 2:45:31 - Strangers among Lands (Story - Instance) Regarding bears, the saying/poem is: If it's brown, lay down. [lay on your stomach and protect your head/neck] If it's black, fight back. [make yourself big/fight back/make loud noises] If it's white, goodnight. [they are opportunistic eaters]
As someone who has not played this game in a few years and only ever bought HOT and no expansions since I was thinking how weird it would be to play this game now and just buying Janthir expac. It dawned on me how weird it would be to be going around and people constantly keep calling you WAYFINDER. Without having played SOTO you would have no idea why!
About the post-it note thing: I think you can do something like that with BlishHUD? I'm pretty sure there's a module that lets you hide Blish from the recording and there's a module for note taking
Hi WP, a little bit late here, but is there a chance Crecia in the Alliance meeting was referring to the original Dragonsblood-Spear we destroy in Glints Lair in PoF, which we only did so "it did not end up in the hands of a mad god"? Was what instantly came to my mind about using powerful artifacts to deal with a major threat in combination with Rytlock, who absolutely hated that we destroyed that one.
This release has been weird, because we've seen a lot of indications SOMEONE knows old lore, references to the books, obscure gw1 enemies etc, but its all surrounded by even more lore that clearly knows nothing of the old lore. Whoever that one person is, they should be in charge of lore if they can actually get things on track again.
The lead writer from SotO onwards is Indigo Linde, who is a massive GW1/lore fan. That's why there's a big re-emphasis on worldbuilding and tying stuff together.
@@lintonthepenguin Glad to hear. I admit it has improved since the last guy who just wanted to ignore world building. But someone somewhere is still forgetting a lot of lore.
One thing theyve not been afraid about is the use of rental items in this expansion: Ive seen Skimmer, Skiffs, and also the fishing rod. One of the heart NPCs in that fishing village wants an exotic fish for an achievement. So this is open to everyone. As well as letting peopel fish towards heart progress.
I'm not sure exactly when/where it was as I don't play the game any more but I did notice at one point during this or another one of WP's videos that a background NPC was trying to sell us on the idea of hiring a Springer because of how useful they were.
One think that is very interesting about the warclaw ranger pet is how its knockdown skill is done, basicly it is smokescale done right in terms of balance it has knock down but with 1 full secund cast time so it is probably not that hard to react to in competitive modes, but when soulbeast merged its player variant has 1/4 cast time so it can be used as interupt. Do i remaber right that it was you who was really happy when they finaly removed the knockdown from the smokescale?
Isgarren calls it Legavo, had we ever known it had a name before besides Scepter of Orr? Enyoying your playthrough, had some questions when playing it myself, that I though it was my misknowledge but guess the Orr and kodan is new. Hope you enyoy this story, looks great (this patch at least) for me.
Are the lowland kodan the lost tribe from the lore? It would fit perfectly since they lost their voice and then their claw desided to move them. And that story happened in time of last dragon rising so lowland kodan could be split from the polar kodan for really long time
Oh btw we have the name of the witch, so if you don't want to be spoiled until you get more info on her on this map I don't recommend reading not-yet-finished achievements' descriptions.
I think using the Scepter of Orr this early would be a mistake because it's only the start of the expansion and if we use it early, something will go horribly wrong :P . The only way to be safe is to wait until Anet realizes it's the 3rd update and they need to wrap the expansion up and if you use it then, it'll work no matter how out of nowhere it seems. :3
I think it was kinda obvious Malice is not really happy with her "desk job" and tries to run away and do stuff out in the world rather than being "an imperator". Also did you realize Rytlok was imperator too? Maybe there is this Char tradition that some imperators simply don't like being "leaders" :D
Also, I missed the Astral Ward expansion, but did they ever explain where the hell the Ward was when Abbadon and his demons were running amok? Based on the years I can find, they formed well before even pre-searing, yet Titans, Shiro, and demons ran rampant.
I think i would justify it as the Astral Ward only intervenes if something not of the current world/timeline/realm interferes. Hence why dragons, gods or any other threat from “this” Tyria isn’t their concern but the Kryptis ie something from another realm would be.
Another aspect is that Waiting Sorrow grew tired of Isgarren’s leadership and his indifference to helping Tyria. Probably why she left. Isgarren wanting to participate now is probably him growing and realizing that he needs more help. I don’t fully understand his motivation to join the Tyria Alliance but then again i never finished Soto so.
@@andremoseley2362 I've heard a lot of good theories, but point is Anet doesn't seem to have offered any. Order of Whispers had a very similar description to how the Ward is, described in GW1: "[...]working to keep the existence of beings such as demons and titans outside the knowledge of the populace." But again, seems like the majority of the writers don't know GW1 lore.
The voting instance is quite amazing, but I don't understand why a player would want to use the scepter immediately. We don't even know how many titans we're up against. Isgarren kept it safe, but has he even researched it? Does it still work the same as it did before? What party is behind the titans? What if they have magic that interferes with the scepter? Not even that, but the boss-fight showed that fighting them normally is a perfectly fine play. Not even THAT, but what immediate threat is there anyway? Doing nothing while Rome burns? There's not even an inclination that an army of titans will be burning Rome tomorrow anyway. I also don't understand why you think you vote for either an idea or no idea at all. Investigation is a perfectly fine counter-idea. Lastly, we come into this vote with the GW1 knowledge of the scepter (even though I still voted Nay), but GW2 players have no idea what the scepter can do. It'd make even more sense for them to not want to use it either. If anything, the story didn't do enough to justify the threat of the titans.
03:26:11 "The scepter is an extreme solution to a fresh problem." I think this is a brilliant quote on meta level. Let's put pragmatic characters like Ludo and Skarti aside (and Malice who has pretty much a Charr generational trauma), the people who feel strongly about using the scepter are the people who've actually lived through the previous titan conflict or its fallout: Isgarren, Livia... and WP, who played GW1 before.😄 I, as a GW2 only player, didn't feel any need to use the scepter for couple of reasons. First, it's because both parts of the equation are unknown to me. I don't know anything about titans except "it was bad", but I could say this about any other threat we've encountered in GW2 already. And I don't know anything about the scepter except "very powerful unstable mcguffin", so essentially the idea of using the scepter is "Let's fight this thing I know nothing about with this other thing I know nothing about. Oh, and both of them can bring huge catastrophes". And I imagine it's the same for some of those nay-saying characters, to them at this point of time the titans are an intangible thing from history, but to people who saw what it was like it is not. Second, my other reason for not using the scepter applies to the latter people: they're all (including GW1 players) are basing their decisions on outdated info.😆 A lot could've changed, we don't have the same actors acting this threat out as before.
Besides, no one said they voted to NEVER use the scepter, it's very clear they'll bring this topic back, seeing as we got a huge instance out of it and Livia said the Commander has the will to use it. If they wanted to write it out, they could've come up with number of reasons like "the Kryptis attack damaged artifacts or left them highly unstable" or "it's being used elsewhere for something else", but they didn't.
I will say though that Jennah's reaction got me curious, it feels like there's a possibility for hidden reasons she doesn't want to use the scepter. They could easily give her "nay" to other NPCs if it was a simple matter of voting numbers. I wonder if the fact that her father (who was ALSO suddenly named-dropped in the middle of the instance for no obvious reason which is sus) had built connections with the lowland kodans (during the previous Alliance meeting Jennah lamented her inability to maintain it) will add onto something bigger. I wouldn't think much of it if not for Isgarren's remark in this story step. Why drop it like that and during a more important discussion, we certainly don't need more confirmations of how he's a powerful being who knew lots of world leaders and heroes throughout Tyria's history (and Jennah's father isn't some big character all players know about). So it's a combination of "Weird that Jennah doesn't want to deal with it asap"+"We have new info on how there were previous diplomacy trips from the crown to this region"+"Isgarren brings up her father for seemingly no reason in the middle of more important talks". I may also just heavily overthinking it.🤣Sorry about this wall of text! I'm just too eager to see where this will all lead, haha.
I had the same impression. The titans had been around Janthir for 3 years or however long Stoic Alder said without much happening at all and at this point in the story we don't know wheter its just the one titan or a whole horde of them.
I did not play gw1 so maybe I underestimate how big of a threat titans really are, but they would have to be pretty bad to warrant using the scepter, with the wielder potential being "able to conquer the world" as wp said, at the first sighting of a lone Titan.
To me it sounded perfectly reasonable to keep this as a backup option and actually go out there and investigate the threat first. Saying that one should have an alternative solution in mind before shutting down another solution should not be applicable when the solution might be more dangerous than the problem for all we know.
At this point the crisis at this point seems very minor compared to everything else that Tyria has faced down, but yeah I did not play gw1 so maybe I underestimate the titans. I think the quote sums it up well.
Also it feels like Jennah might be afraid of vicinity of lowland Janthir. She has her own generational fear with Orr, using extremely powerful artifact so close to home can be very good reason not to rush it.
I like to think that if Rytlock was at the vote about the scepter he would remind us that "short-term gains bring long-term trouble."
Isgarren casually outing the shining blade hideout being beneath divinity’s reach (saying the scepter was stored in a velvet room beneath the city) 😩 cmon man you’re a secret society too what you doin
Oh nice I didn't even think about that comment!
In that lorebook about trade in the alliance instance, it mentions the awakened who sells jokko statues. I can't remember if you ever saw, but he's in Arborstone, and there's a fun easter egg where you can find him in the Wizard's Tower and have a conversation with him about why he shows up everywhere.
Voting against using the scepter right now is not inaction, it's about researching the threat properly before using ancient magic. It's like throwing a nuke when a conventional weapon could have done the job, just because you haven't checked how severe the threat actually is.
When you were comparing the different guild halls, you described gilded hollow as "a dinky little cave". Man idk if you've really explored it or not and were just being hyperbolic, but bro there's a LOT to explore there. Not only is there a lot of cool caves and big cavern areas, but there's HUGE vertically. You can climb *way* up out of the top of the cave and build up on the surface as well. It also has a really cool Easter egg, where if you go up there, you can look in the right direction and see Mordremoth's "tree" in the distance as part of the skybox.
Yeah the climbing to the top stuff is definitely cool!
I do believe caution in the Alliance meeting here was warranted. What GW1 players know of the Scepter of Orr isn’t common knowledge; these are events that happened 250 years ago. The few characters that share that knowledge voted to use it, while Jenna specifically voted against it for paranoid backstory reasons. It was also weird that Caithe of all people was catastrophizing (sp?) a being jumping through mist portals as if she hadn’t dealt with Kralkatorik a few years ago.
The Alliance *should* by all means retain the faith they have in the Commander to gather more information and handle a singular titan with the support of the Alliance/Astral Ward as a substitute for the Pact. The Commander lead the charge to take down six Elder Dragons, what threat does a singular titan pose that would be greater than that? At least that’s what I gathered from the meeting.
Given how the story is going, if the threat escalates, we might see the chaotic outcome of a truly divided alliance (or an Isgarren that puts his “foot” down) in future instances.
I think I disagree with WP's take on using the scepter here. The alliance has little to no knowledge of the actual threat going on in Janthir, only that a titan has been spotted and is affecting the environment. They don't know how many there are, if they're allied with other races or, considering there is Mursaat city in that area, any counter-magics or relics present.
Use of the scepter itself could be flawed, such as filling the user with madness as is often the case with older, potent magic.
There are a few options between doing nothing and using the scepter. The titans aren't an immediate threat or directly attacking as demonstrated by the large one leaving so rather than relying on a "nuke", the better option should be to survey the area and understand the actual scope of the threat at hand and possibly discovering the source of the threat itself.
Jumping to the first solution presented without understanding the enemy is very similar to what happened at the start of HoT, and we can see what happened there.
I kind of love how by the time you voted there was no chance of the Scepter being used, but at the same time based on Chekov's Gun, it's almost guaranteed to be used later in the expansion.
I don't know where I read it, I thought it was an in-game comment that there was a good reason to not use the Scepter. The reason was that there's a chance that Titans are not stupid or mindless and may understand that the Scepter of Orr still exists. If they know that and came anyway, it's very likely that the Scepter either does not affect them or would backfire in some way.
I'd love to hear where you read this!
I got so pumped when I got to part 5 and they started bringing in GW references and bringing back Livia and the scepter of Orr into the story! Let’s go!
I dont know if you see it later in the video but the "crystal" in the troll cave is talked about in a book later!
I really want WP to find the book because to be honest I'm not sure what the implication of the crystal is!
1:40:00 The blanket symbolism was mentioned earlier.
Patient Willow: Now, let's see... Perhaps... Oooh, I know just the one! Used in many a tradition-consummation of mates, coming of age...
Patient Willow: Symbolizes new beginnings. Yes, shall do right by you both.
His wife has passed away. I think this was the keepsake we found when we cleaned the house earlier that let him know its time to move on. Also, its very much hinted here that Stoic and Aurora are becoming close. She is also very close to Pokey as a mentor.
at 1:44:00 when you says you don't like Malice being around doing the small work . I feel you are forgetting the first instance of the story were Malice said she wants to come because she was so sick of the politics and wanted a break and to do actual field work . so basically Crecia is covering for her while she gets to relax and get a change of pace .
First, Crecia isn't ash. Second - it doesn't really matter whether Malice herself wishes to be doing field work. The fact she simply CAN saunter off like that feels a bit... trivial. Like there is no weight to her position or her people.
@@WoodenPotatoes yeah that's fair , I'm mostly viewing it like i would view a president or a prime minister going on vacation , or on the campaign trail, were they are not doing the job but have someone cover for them, but if anything emergent happens they can go back and take care of it
@@WoodenPotatoes might just be me but there's definitely a personal goal she's hoping to get out of this, sure she said she doesn't want to be Kahn ur but she's Ash
Possibly hoping taking care of the titans would be enough of a feat to earn the title
Warclaw has kind of two magical jumps you use endurance for, dodge button makes you go more forward and spacebar gives more vertical height. It's different from other mounts where you can separate the endurance using skill from jump.
I know I have previously complained about the audio balance, so I just wanted to say it's been really good now on this one! I have enjoyed watching your playthrough, thanks for doing this.
Balance is important to me too! So don't worry about commenting on it.
Thanks WP! Love the content. I did my playthrough of janthir on a core Mesmer with spear and dagger/sword. No quickness or alacrity, had a lot of fun, worked just fine.
“Don’t worry about the Mursaat! Come play the mobile game!“
This had me laughing out loud 🤣Thanks WP
I'm sure I'm not the first to say this but the (amazing) music in this expansion has some major Witcher 3 vibes.
Re: Malice being out in the field instead of doing what a political leader's supposed to do, to me it seems like she's having the time of her life right now. She's on a VACATION. Perhaps it doesn't align with what Anet's planning for her, who knows, but I like to interpret it this way. Think how happy Aymeric would be if he finally got the chance to escape his paperwork hell and go on an adventure with us.
If the sceptor of Orr can control mist creatures, then could it control a human god? And if so, is that why Jenna and Anise are so against it being used... cause they both Lyssa. I will die on this hill, but I think thats just such a fun idea
A comment in the live chat got me wondering if it could control Gwen, Snaff, Eir, etc. but this is so much cooler an application of that...
As an aside, I have to give props to ANet for even caring to give us up to date news on regional issues. Most MMOs wouldn't give a shit, and I mean games come out with an xpac and none of the other maps or politics matter, just the new area.
WoWis like that, I imagine FFXIV is like that. How often does a new threat or discovered region/race affect global economics and politics?
They've basically given us an update for every region except that mysterious one to the West on the game map. lol
They didn't have to write any fo this, but they did. *claps* lol
Though I AM dissapointed with Whispers. It would've be far cooler if they hinted that they knew exactly who the Astral Ward was without saying too much.
Believing in afterlives is one thing, someone coming BACK from those afterlives, or the lobby in this case, is unhead of.
Frode challenging Isgarren has me really hopeful that we eventually do challenge the ward and setting him up as a half villain
steam overlay has a notes feature that you can use to make notes that show up on your screen even when overlay is not up. kinda new, havent really used it myself.
Oh nice!
"I think!"
1:40:35 A hint at romance, and a reason to pay attention to Fading Aurora. I thought it was subtle and well done, but maybe a little too subtle..
Just finished the second alliance meeting in game, had to come check out your opinion. Didn't disappoint 😎
I just thought of something...
When we use the level 80 boost, and we haven't yet picked an order, they should have had a little popup asking for your Order choice.
Then we could have more order specific dialogue that is meaningful.
02:43:33 I've only played GW2 (I have bought GW1 but haven't gotten around to it) and when this expac launched and the Titans were talked about, I legit thought they were made up for this expansion. I went to the wiki on Titans and felt like I had been mandella effected. How have I never heard about Titans before this expac???
My character was Priory, and what you get seems to be exactly the same thing I get when talking to them. I think the other toon I used was Vigil, and no difference, so they weren't that detailed, but in your playthrough as a Sylvari and me a Norn, there are definitely differences in how the Kodan react. You probably got the better of it being a plant.
I agree that there shouldn't have been any titan-y stuff on the first map. Story/dialogue wise the Kodan are dealing with them, but don't trust you enough to say anything. We're meant to be in the dark and assume there are no crises going on right up until that chapter. But the titanspawn in Lowland Shore stick out like crazy.
I have been looking forward to you playing through the second meeting so much! So many tidbits, so many new questions! This is going to be a long comment...
How are the Kodan connected to Orr? It's been brought up twice now, but with no details at all. It's hard to imagine them that far south ever, especially that far before Jormag. I'm curious how long we'll have to wait for more about that...
There must be an army of Skritt below the building or something. The Skritt from SotO was pretty smart, but anyone involved with the wizards are special in some way. The queen here doesn't have any excuse...
Bringing down the dragons was the purpose of the Pact, but I can imagine them discovering that their organization was able to serve the denizens of Tyria in other ways along the way. I get wanting to see some friction between them and the Alliance or the Astral Ward, but I feel like that's what ANet gives us any time two factions are in the same room. imo they've painted themselves into a corner, less drama would be less interesting, more drama would be entirely predictable. Babysitting people that can't get along has been the story since we first meet Destiny's Edge, and lately the reasons for the friction have been getting downright silly. For instance, the Lowland Kodan don't trust magic, and perhaps there will be a reason for that in time, but it seems like a straw man to keep them dubious of us.
The impression I got from the Economy scroll was that the Alliance is keeping an eye on relations between all the newly (re)introduced nations for information's sake rather than to manipulate trade or anything like that. That said, I could see everything we get in this instance turning into a supergovernment very easily. I can't see that being interesting in the slightest, modern media plays with that so much and the inevitable end is that the powerful entity becomes the big bad sooner or later because the protagonists can't be bigger than the big bad.
Oh man, Livia as the witch would be so insane! I don't know how closely you looked at the witch, but her staff/spear had a White Mantle symbol and bloodstone shard. With all her history and connection with both Kryta and the Wizards she'd be the PERFECT double agent!
Exactly like you said, very little that mattered mechanically- lots of talking without anyone responding to the talking- but so many hooks for the future!
I'd have a harder time siding with using the Scepter if anyone made a better case against using the Scepter. Like you said, it isn't the One Ring. It feels like the opposition to using it is the fact that Khilbron accomplished evil with it, but nothing ever suggests that it had any power over him. If it is a Seer artifact then it shouldn't even have any real ties to Abaddon, right?
As I understood it they were suggesting the Kodan used to live in Orr maybe even before humanity and the six even showed up.
Sohothin was never in Balthazar's hand, Balthazar re-ignited it and Rytlock used it to free him. I think the line was referring to the scepter of Orr and Abaddon maybe?
Loving the content! I'd definitely suggest at least trying out power soulbeast. I feel like it makes the pet choice more impactful and adds a lot of quality of life.
I like the terms tranger it feels very witcher fantasy to me. Its also a cooler way of refering to them then aliens since the kodan are all about things being connected to the world seeing the titans as strangers cause they are from other world and arent part of tyria.
7:07 - Why is he on core Ranger?
15:55 - Open World
56:18 - Open World (Main Story Continues)
1:11:06 - Home Sweet Home (Story - Instance)
1:45:17 - Open World
1:59:12 - Open World (Story)
2:07:51 - Graced by Fire's Wild Journeykin Observations (Life in the Lowlands Achievement)
2:26:17 - Open World (Story)
2:32:19 - Missing in Action: Haar Mire (Story - Instance)
2:43:43 - Letter (Story)
2:45:31 - Strangers among Lands (Story - Instance)
Regarding bears, the saying/poem is:
If it's brown, lay down. [lay on your stomach and protect your head/neck]
If it's black, fight back. [make yourself big/fight back/make loud noises]
If it's white, goodnight. [they are opportunistic eaters]
As someone who has not played this game in a few years and only ever bought HOT and no expansions since I was thinking how weird it would be to play this game now and just buying Janthir expac. It dawned on me how weird it would be to be going around and people constantly keep calling you WAYFINDER. Without having played SOTO you would have no idea why!
I think they revealed what really happened to Jadon during that "April the mesmer" bonus event.
Man that was such a good collection quest.
I named my journeykin pet „Midnight Train“
You should be sniffing with your warclaw to dig up caches
I don't need a mastery to do that then?
About the post-it note thing: I think you can do something like that with BlishHUD? I'm pretty sure there's a module that lets you hide Blish from the recording and there's a module for note taking
Hi WP, a little bit late here, but is there a chance Crecia in the Alliance meeting was referring to the original Dragonsblood-Spear we destroy in Glints Lair in PoF, which we only did so "it did not end up in the hands of a mad god"?
Was what instantly came to my mind about using powerful artifacts to deal with a major threat in combination with Rytlock, who absolutely hated that we destroyed that one.
This release has been weird, because we've seen a lot of indications SOMEONE knows old lore, references to the books, obscure gw1 enemies etc, but its all surrounded by even more lore that clearly knows nothing of the old lore.
Whoever that one person is, they should be in charge of lore if they can actually get things on track again.
The lead writer from SotO onwards is Indigo Linde, who is a massive GW1/lore fan. That's why there's a big re-emphasis on worldbuilding and tying stuff together.
@@lintonthepenguin Glad to hear. I admit it has improved since the last guy who just wanted to ignore world building. But someone somewhere is still forgetting a lot of lore.
One thing theyve not been afraid about is the use of rental items in this expansion: Ive seen Skimmer, Skiffs, and also the fishing rod.
One of the heart NPCs in that fishing village wants an exotic fish for an achievement. So this is open to everyone. As well as letting peopel fish towards heart progress.
I'm not sure exactly when/where it was as I don't play the game any more but I did notice at one point during this or another one of WP's videos that a background NPC was trying to sell us on the idea of hiring a Springer because of how useful they were.
@@aginjai you can get a springer unlocked for free in this expansion when you get too the map! its not particularly advertised
One think that is very interesting about the warclaw ranger pet is how its knockdown skill is done, basicly it is smokescale done right in terms of balance it has knock down but with 1 full secund cast time so it is probably not that hard to react to in competitive modes, but when soulbeast merged its player variant has 1/4 cast time so it can be used as interupt. Do i remaber right that it was you who was really happy when they finaly removed the knockdown from the smokescale?
Yeah the random CC's without clear tells I always disliked.
I think it's very funny how we don't mention to the skritt queen that WE killed her mother to get that rich quartz node.
Isgarren calls it Legavo, had we ever known it had a name before besides Scepter of Orr?
Enyoying your playthrough, had some questions when playing it myself, that I though it was my misknowledge but guess the Orr and kodan is new.
Hope you enyoy this story, looks great (this patch at least) for me.
It was named in SotO
There is a blish hud add on for note taking
Are the lowland kodan the lost tribe from the lore? It would fit perfectly since they lost their voice and then their claw desided to move them. And that story happened in time of last dragon rising so lowland kodan could be split from the polar kodan for really long time
Oh btw we have the name of the witch, so if you don't want to be spoiled until you get more info on her on this map I don't recommend reading not-yet-finished achievements' descriptions.
What outfit is that???
There's one major difference between the old Titans and this one. It has four legs, which implies that someone else is creating new Titans.
I think using the Scepter of Orr this early would be a mistake because it's only the start of the expansion and if we use it early, something will go horribly wrong :P .
The only way to be safe is to wait until Anet realizes it's the 3rd update and they need to wrap the expansion up and if you use it then, it'll work no matter how out of nowhere it seems. :3
2:10:50 Has anyone seen his spear ? I'm just asking because I'm wondering how can he be a spear carrier without his spear you know.
The plan is to add around 500 more decorations this expansion cycle.
I think..... I think..... I think.... Hahahahahahahahaha
"I think-"
"I think"
😂
What threat has the Titan actually been so far? It hasn’t made advances, it’s kept its distance right.
What are all your keybinds? The normal 1-5 skills don't show what they are.
I think it was kinda obvious Malice is not really happy with her "desk job" and tries to run away and do stuff out in the world rather than being "an imperator". Also did you realize Rytlok was imperator too? Maybe there is this Char tradition that some imperators simply don't like being "leaders" :D
Rytlock isn't an Imperator.
@@WoodenPotatoes He isn't, but wasn't he back in the days of Zhaitan?
@@WoodenPotatoes Ahhh he was tribune, my bad. I suppose still fairly high position, but not exactly imperator level.
what's the music at 2:02:16 to about 2:02:36 ?
Also, I missed the Astral Ward expansion, but did they ever explain where the hell the Ward was when Abbadon and his demons were running amok?
Based on the years I can find, they formed well before even pre-searing, yet Titans, Shiro, and demons ran rampant.
I think i would justify it as the Astral Ward only intervenes if something not of the current world/timeline/realm interferes.
Hence why dragons, gods or any other threat from “this” Tyria isn’t their concern but the Kryptis ie something from another realm would be.
Another aspect is that Waiting Sorrow grew tired of Isgarren’s leadership and his indifference to helping Tyria. Probably why she left.
Isgarren wanting to participate now is probably him growing and realizing that he needs more help. I don’t fully understand his motivation to join the Tyria Alliance but then again i never finished Soto so.
@@andremoseley2362 I've heard a lot of good theories, but point is Anet doesn't seem to have offered any. Order of Whispers had a very similar description to how the Ward is, described in GW1:
"[...]working to keep the existence of beings such as demons and titans outside the knowledge of the populace."
But again, seems like the majority of the writers don't know GW1 lore.
@@Techstriker1 hard agree 😂 to the point the Whispers person stood in the room and said “what the f**k?” 😂😂😂
WP discovers democracy 3:55:36.
Techstriker1 and Raser, show yourself here please. I would like to call you guys out when stuff is answered by the devs and writers.
The voting instance is quite amazing, but I don't understand why a player would want to use the scepter immediately. We don't even know how many titans we're up against. Isgarren kept it safe, but has he even researched it? Does it still work the same as it did before? What party is behind the titans? What if they have magic that interferes with the scepter? Not even that, but the boss-fight showed that fighting them normally is a perfectly fine play. Not even THAT, but what immediate threat is there anyway? Doing nothing while Rome burns? There's not even an inclination that an army of titans will be burning Rome tomorrow anyway.
I also don't understand why you think you vote for either an idea or no idea at all. Investigation is a perfectly fine counter-idea.
Lastly, we come into this vote with the GW1 knowledge of the scepter (even though I still voted Nay), but GW2 players have no idea what the scepter can do. It'd make even more sense for them to not want to use it either. If anything, the story didn't do enough to justify the threat of the titans.
Yay more jw vids👍💪
I have to ask, who's "Janet" 😅
4:00:00 Brexit means brexit, wp! 😤😤😤
No idea what a titan is 😅