My male sylvari - regarding the strange new voice in his head - references back to Mordremoth in the instance where he visits the infirmary and I was so pleased with them for including that. My poor boy was like "please don't be like what happened in the maguuma. I can't do that again..." and he sounded so f**ing done lol.
Chiming in after playing on my norn male commander. He sounds so much more tired and reserved than the brave, tenacious hunter in core and even HoT. Like he's aged so much over the course of the whole storyline and just wants a stiff drink and a long nap.
24:20 - "Mabon"... We also have Mabon Market in Caledon Forest; the area with all the craft stations, those who do pact supply agents know it well too. Interesting enough this is also near the "Ruines of the unseen" and the NPC at this market has an event around here
I think the reason most of us watch *is* the long ramble-y lore discussions. It's a feature, not a bug. I do hope you continue to go through the islands slowly. There's *so much* revealed in books, events, and NPC dialogs. Most of your "I wonder if they ever say..." from this episode has the answer "Yes! Vehemently Yes!"
WoddenPotatoes i thought the "I thought you would be taller" comments were a reference to the movie Roadhouse where it seemed every character knew the legend of the MC but not the actual Main Character
Yes yes, please explore and take your time to your heart’s content. I love hearing everything, it’s not tedious and it’s not rambling and it’s not boring
When you were speculating about where they got the real people for the simulations, it has been said by the people of Garenhoff that they would send people up to the Wizard's Tower that never came back, as trade for the elementals and protection. I'm assuming they used those people to seed the simulations. Before we knew about the simulations, I assumed that those were just people who were sent up there to be trained into wizards.
Then explain all the other people and races on the map. They aren't really simulations. The fractals are real events with real people but taken from the reality that matches the scenario the Ward wants to play out. That is why everyone are confused as to why they're now in a different place.
@@carnifex2005 I was using the term simulations because they're controlled environments to test possible outcomes and solutions to potential threats, and they were compared to simulations in the dialogue. The books literally say that they are "created" by the wizards. They can be "paused" and they can be "stored" to be studied or unfrozen later. The woman at the command center even says they tried using "simulated beings" but it wasn't useful because they didn't have freewill like people. As for the other races, 1 they probably didn't only have contact with Garenhoff. I'd imagine they had other deals elsewhere. 2 Other races can be in Garenhoff, not just humans. There was an Asuran lab there, for example. As well as being right next to Lion's Arch. I wasn't saying they got everyone from Garenhoff anyway, I was pointing out that they clearly have gotten people from Garenhoff as an example. It could be that they probably have done the same elsewhere. The Wizard's Tower hasn't always been at Garenhoff, and is much older than the time of GW2 and GW1. They've probably been doing this for millennia. If the founder is a Seer, and Mabon says the towers are some of the oldest things in the world. Who knows how long, and how many places they could have got inhabitants from.
Honestly I am SO HAPPY for you, that this expac has satisfied you with the lore aspects and stuff like that. I feel like you really deserved a good meaty expac after Champions and I am glad you got it!
Something related to your comment on the Beacon of Ages looking good and people don't notice because it's well done, is that people don't seem to notice with all the "asset resuse" complaints, is that destroyed Garenhoff is actually made out of new building models/textures. Not just because they're destroyed and broken, but the buildings themselves don't look the same as Tyrian Garenhoff.
The vibe I got was that the inhabitants of the simulations were kinda like the people inhabiting Mist-Fractals, like the ones Ankka & co were repeatedly murdering when they were scavenging for resources in the Mists. Wizards tried with golems/elementals like you said but then resorted to using already existing inhabitants they yanked from other parts of the Mists for their simulations. And now that the simulations have manifested as real physical objects on Tyria the people in them have also become physical "real" people. I feel like that's the only way the head researcher's comments about them "being as real as you and I" and how to treat them going forward makes sense: they were somehow "less real" originally (because they were Mist "copies" that Tyrians generally don't think of as "real") but now they're actually real "real". I feel like the game wouldn't gloss over it if they were kidnapping Tyrians to use as test subjects. Or maybe they took prisoners of war from alternate Tyrias via WvW :)
This was my sense too, or something like it. They were taking desired timeline snapshots out of the Mist-multiverse (almost like computer backups) to run the simulations. They tried to use non-living beings in the landscapes and events of those snapshots, but it didn't work, so they resorted to just using the Mist-people actually living in them.
Watching these videos after completing the SOTO and all achievements is makes me want to scream at my screen haha!! In a good way!!! WP talks about the Mursaat/Seers and stuff that will be revealed in the lore achievements! This xpack was the best lore wise, honestly. I hope you liked it too WP but guess I'll find out watching the series :)
FYI most of the names of moons and planets are from Greek mythology, including Deimos and Phobos meaning terror and fear respectively and being sons of the god Ares whose Roman counterpart is Mars and Aphrodite. Also Peitha is very similar to Peitho (being Greek this was my thought immediatly when I read the name) which means persuation and was daughter of Aphodite and Hermes making them half-siblings. Also Nephus means cloud.
I also did some digging in other children of Ares and Aphrodite because Cerus didn't remind me of anything out of my head but it is very close to Eros (Love) which doesn't make sense but it could make sense if he was inspired by one of Eros' brothers Anteros (the Anti-Eros) or Imeros (longing for/desire) which checks out even more if you think about the end goal of Cerus (don't want to spoil for those who haven't finished the story first)
Most of the planets in our solar system are from Roman mythology (you can argue that the romans stole them from the greeks and just renamed them, but the people who named it chose the roman names regardless). Uranus was the only planet that was an actual direct Greek reference.
@@Somebody374-bv8cd I will not argue that they stole it because they didn't. They just changed the names. They kept the lore and added some things of their own. The English names of the planets are the names the Romans used for the ancient Greek gods. In Greek we call the planets with the original god names.
Regarding the Fractals: They mentioned that they had a fractal, in which Logan became too powerhungry after he got directly on the throne with the queen and caused him to become a tyrant. This indicates that they not really creating them, but looking into the mists to find certain "fractals" and look how they develop. Influencing certain events into a certain direction from a certain point
Seriously, how good is that 'a fractured horizon' song that plays when on the first SotO map. I don't believe I've feel so immersed into the game by its soundtrack since the original theme from gw1 pre searing. Well done! (P.s. I'm enjoying this new expansion SO much!! I'm taking my time though. Still on first map)
This expansion's story is by far my favorite they have ever done now that I have completed it. It really feels like they have a good grasp on the world of Tyria and all the intricacies. Can't wait to see how they continue this story and future expansions.
Thanks for doing these, they're so appreciated! I zoomed through the map to unlock my WPs before anything else deeper. I can listen to you read all this lore while I'm at work and save time! It's not as boring this way
I hope you're not right about the [REDACTED] fractal and the story of Nayos, because that sounds almost identical to the FF14 spoiler! Final Days in Endwalker lol. It's a very cool and scary concept, but emotions causing physical changes into grotesque monsters and it spreading just by feeling extreme negative emotions is way too close to that. In fact, that's exactly what it was.
I know it's a meme at this point, how slow it's going. But that's what I love about your playthroughs, if I wanted a "normally" paced gameplay I would go watch a bunch of other streamers (which I've also done). Yours it the one I know will check every millimetre of the expac while giving us a ton of backstory on old lore and how it relates with this one. Nice to see you excited with gw2 again!
There are indeed a lot of things you have yet to discover. It's interesting because your commentary or certain things you complain about really do reveal what you haven't found yet, and it's a lot. I mean, I say this because I've been going through and reading all the lore I can find and talking to all the npcs I see I can talk to, but I still haven't explored the second map outside of the story and rushing around the meta once. There's also more for me to scour through in the Wizards's Tower and the first map, too.
The way I understood the fractals on the new map, they are very similar to the fractals we access from Dessa's lab. They are little islands of reality showing a certain point in time and space in the mists. The difference is that the Dessa fractals are naturally occuring and seem to be usually pretty small and short, looping endlessly. The wizards found a way to artificially create and control fractals and used these for their "simulations". So these fractal are physically real in the mists even before they crashed into Tyria (and the people too, although I don't know where they got the people from)
I missed all these fractal researches! These are so cool .. also i think Sorrow was a Kodan for sure .. love your playthroughs WP! I enjoying hearing your thoughts on everything
You mentioned how it felt like destroyed Garenhoff felt like there should be an evacuation event, and I felt that way too. There actually is one that happens there apparently. I just saw it start in game. It must have a somewhat longer timer to restart I guess.
at about 1:10:00 and follow, your idea of the "late feedback" and the "detached character" made me having an image : a destroyed wall reconstructing himself. I'll keep this in mind because it' makes the World more consistent, and the "fractal team" less "the one to eradicate". Thanks.
Around the 1:00:00 mark - my interpretation of the Fractals is that the Wizards are able to "fork" reality to create their simulations. Then to put the Fractals in "statis" (as the call it) they essentially set them to loop (which is what we know as Fractals of the Mists). No harm comes to the beings in the Fractals, because they just reset every 5 minutes...
the jade crisis still being ongoing also gives an opening to go deal with some purist shenanigans that end up with us going after the weird things in raisu palace
I'm kind of disappointed that this isn't a blind playthrough, because I thoroughly enjoy your reactions to lore revelations, and it feels like you've had most of them off screen already. But: _Please_ stop saying things like "sorry for rambling about this for so long", or being apologetic about giving us lore recaps and speculation for two hours. _This is what we are here for._ If I didn't want to hear your insights as someone who's into this franchise since its beginning, I'd be watching someone else's playthrough. I'm not here for Lys' fashion, I'm here for _your_ thoughts about the game and its story, so please talk about it for as long as you fucking like.
A LOTR-esque return to Moria for the Asura could be pretty cool. New inhabitants have taken over and a small expedition has to try and reclaim it. A great Terror lies deep within, etc
(I've now played to chapter 4, so perhaps some of these questions I write will be solved after finishing it) - Yeah I was wondering that too. There were five races that survived the first ED rising, and four of them have members appearing as wizards in the story so far. The one missing is the Forgotten. - Also... I hate going back to this all the time, but I think it is suggested in Mythwright Gambit that Zommoros may know Isgarren to some extent. I may have been interpreting that information wrong all these time, but... I still hope this information gets references somehow. - Well I think it's written that after one ascends to become a wizard (I know, the word "ascend" probably isn't accurate), they forget most of their past. They don't forget basic stuff, but details and events and emotions will grow faint in memory. Why Anet write this lore is still a problem (I personally think it's for Zojja really, but avoid spoilers ahead), but it justifies why Mabon says he doesn't remember much about his past. - Hmm, the story journal recorded on Wiki says Waiting Sorrow IS a Kodan (I don't mean the player written lore, I mean the story journal copied from the in-game story journal). - I assumed that the "living people" thing is because they were ripped out of the Mist after Isgarren's magic got messed up. You see, some of the islands have historical characters (I gasped when I saw Zinn on the Rata Novus island), so the most reasonable answer I can give is that they were echoes in the Mist that got ripped out and dropped into reality, thus becoming "real people". - Seeing the elementals everywhere makes me wonder if Isgarren is specialized in Elemental magic, or the Seer as a whole race is specialized in Elemental magic and elementals to them are like jade construct to the Mursaat. - When you say the story leads to the meta, do you mean like in West Bjora Marches when there's a part in the story that can be progressed by doing the Draka meta? Because I've heard that for some players the meta event has been failing all day and causing endless frustration due to player incompetence at killing things simultaneously. I won't want to have that feeling when doing the story. - I remembered when entering Jorkna's Light, the local Astral Ward said that this simulation is to see what will happen if the Stone Summit wins the war against the Deldrimo. But then in that part of the map, there are no Stone Summit to be seen, and the forge is working fine as seen in the meta. So it's a bit odd... - Yeah I think so too, and to be more specific I think the [redacted] is something like the Kryptis, and the contagious thing they do is like the Kryptis processing someone. This is just wild guesses of mine though. - Nope, the Rata Novus simulation is in this map, located near the Maguuma simulation. There's like a vine bridge between them, and when I walk near, it disappeared oddly. So very low chance of it appearing again later. - I smiled when I saw the chefing event too. Also they are making baits to bait out the Kryptis, not eating the bone and meat and blood themselves, so I don't think it's too abnormal of them. - The weapon master NPC is Frode, the Norn in the story. - About Deimos, I find it really intriguing that Deimos was sort of helping the Mursaat. He was a demon, yes, and he was probably against Isgarren due to his demon bloodline (avoid spoilers), but I genuinely can see no reason for him to stay there and help the Mursaat keep Saul in check. Does Saul means something to him? Is it because he is good to prey on emotions so to speak? Or is Deimos not helping the Mursaat at his own will? - About the Relics, there's something that's been burning in my mind ever since I went through all the relics available. Why are Anet THIS into "on elite skill" effect? Just, why? I've never used one of those, and I very rarely see good builds with them before the relic change. I really need some explanation from people better in build craft than me.
To answer your Demios question, there's lore in-game that suggests the bastion of the penitent was originally a trap set by isgarren. I bet they lured Demios there and trapped him. Then, when the mursaat started using the place as a jail they were like "oh hey, not only is this place near impossible to escape, there's a built-in psychological torture chamber. Neat!"
"I remembered when entering Jorkna's Light, the local Astral Ward said that this simulation is to see what will happen if the Stone Summit wins the war against the Deldrimo. But then in that part of the map, there are no Stone Summit to be seen, and the forge is working fine as seen in the meta. So it's a bit odd..." About that - if you run through the events, you will notice that this is basically last deldrimor holdout against stone summit - one event involves defending it from stone summit invasion (that untimatelly becomes demonic) "About the Relics, there's something that's been burning in my mind ever since I went through all the relics available. Why are Anet THIS into "on elite skill" effect? Just, why? I've never used one of those, and I very rarely see good builds with them before the relic change. I really need some explanation from people better in build craft than me." Alot of "wildcard" rune effects were like that already - it may not have been as jarring as it seems now because alot of those runes were obtained in obscure places, or bore not so good stats. That being said it seems that as far as PvE goes the leading relics are the ones that procs on other things than elite skills.
WP, my theory is that the SA map you start on and the Simulation/Fractals coming into the real world is something that will be followed up on in a major way in the coming patches because I think their experiments are going to run further out of control and start invading the area south of the Horn of Maguma, if you look at the world map there is a very Box-like shape on the map there I've noticed for months (I even guessed where the expac was gonna be (actually guessed 2 places, but at least 1 was right!)). The next patches occur in 3 slices of a larger map, I think it is there in that box at the top of Maguma and it will expand on the Simulations and really explore the morality of what the Astral Ward has been doing.
As a french player, I couldn't help but notice the very different meanings between the french and english names of Waiting Sorrow : her name in french is "Brumaille Languissante". "Brumaille" is derived from the word Brume, which means mist (for instance, Mistborn Motes are translated to Particules de la Brumaille), and "languissante" could be translated to languishing. Not sure what to make of this translation choice. Edit : Also, the [REDACTED] Fractal Research at 1:57:00 reminds me a lot of the style of writings in the SCP foundation, a fictitious secret organization aiming to secure, contain and protect supernatural entities and phenomena. The SCP foundation website is a database of "short stories" written in the style of scientific entries documenting such phenomena, often censoring data that may be of harm to the reader due to supernatural reasons. Now that I think more about it, the astral ward is actually quite reminiscent of the SCP foundation in terms in regards to its goals, secrecy, and the many "research documents" you can read in the game.
I have the opposite opinion about the map being close to the water. I thought that was awesome! I love how the beacon of ages is on a chunk of maguuma mainland. My fear with this expansion is it would just be super high up in a random spot on the ocean. Instead it's rising into the sky from an actual grounded place on the mainland.
A lot of dialogue kinda pushes that these are basically Fractals like in the FotM, but were artificially manipulated to create simulations of "what-ifs". Also, I believe the whole "real people" thing basically means the living echos who are like Dessa, her krewe, and all the other NPCs we interact with in fractals. Cause despite them looping whenever starting fractals, they act like actual people.
Prior to me going into this full lore playthrough day 2, as a long time fan of the channel, I hope that it's as good as the end of dragons one! I'm a bit concerned about you having already beat the story, because a big part about why I loved the end of dragons playthrough was the fact that it was a (mostly) blind playthrough of you. Seeing you discover things, commenting on it and giving extra lore that the average player doesn't know about (like guild wars 1 stuff) was really enjoyable! Seeing you connect things with guild wars 1 is really fascinating. Of course there is SO MUCH to discover in this expansion besides the main story like you said, so I hope we get lots of those moments again :)
I'm pretty sure you are actually supposed to be that close to the water. The Beacon of the Ages isn't actually on an island either, it's connected to the mainland on the map (hence why the region is called the Horn of Maguuma). It's only Amnytas that's actually far above in the clouds, the fractals and the wizard's tower are much closer to the water
About the real people from the fractals, I didn't get it until I reread the story journal for this chapter. What I assumed based on the the story journal to explain the fractals appearing on the islands "When Isgarren's magic was fractured by the end of the dragon cycle these tiny realities were ripped from the Mists and manifested here above Tyria" was that the inhabitants of these fractals only became real once they were ripped into Tyria - that they were just mist entity things like those in our normal Dessa-type fractals before then. "They're not entirely dissimilar from the fractals monitored by Dessa, from what I can tell -Dessa's naturally occurring in the Mists and these deliberately formed- but the inhabitants that live within these are flesh and bone. They're outside of the Mists. They're alive." So I assumed it was because of them being dragged into Tyria due tof the inbalance caused by the end of the dragon cycle messing with Isgarren's magic that gave the inhabitants true life and the whole mess in the first map. That's how I've made sense of it anyway!
That's how I took it too. These tests weren't on Tyria, they were in the mists and somehow the dragon cycle ending screwed that up and sent a bunch over near the tower. Though really an excuse to reuse assets and have cool areas. lol If you go to the refugee camp in the east of the first map, some of the people are super confused what's going on. They say that the tower got destroyed and the elementals started attacking them, then all of the sudden they were high in the sky on floating islands. That these pocket realities, like fractals are almost echos of real people from our plane of reality. So it IS cruel in a sense that the wizards create these realities and people, who are real now, then either destroy it or freeze it after they are done. It just shows how the wizards view some people like ants or lab rats that can just be grabbed and killed if need be and their defense is, for the greater good.
1:26:35 - not sure if WP gets an answer from chat, but I personally dont have a problem with the lack of hearts, especially because there is so much to do, particularly on the first map. People are tagging up to lead rift hunts all the time, and every island has like 6-8 events on it, at least a couple of which seem to be up at any time. Of course, it will feel less populated in the future, but less and with legendary armor and relics, and lets be honest, who goes back to do hearts from previous expansions anyway?
I must say after i finished the expack story i really wanted ask isgarren about lord odran. It is nice you tought about lord odran too. (But i would if he was mentioned he was only another wayfinder , like livia turai and elementalist Aziure from the Order (ascalon necromancer based group) that was standing before the wizard folly tower in pre (that detail i really liked))
On the idea that there hasnt been any forgotten yet in the expansion while the rest of the old races are there, what if eparch is a forgotten? They mention they he tried to join the astral ward but isgarren turned him down way in the past, so him being a forgotten makes sense. And they also mention that eparch went to nayos and claimed himself king, not that he was from there, and with the forgotten being able to traverse the mists, it makes sense that a forgotten would be able to do so. If he is a forgotten, I hope that they make his model still corrupted by nayos so its not just a forgotten leading the kryptis
I noticed that Fractal not explained till afterwards, and I was confused. I thought I missed something. I thought Lyhr was the only one that could split (that's why he has two facets but no other wizard does.) And the 'real people' are from Tyria. All those people taht the Wizards Tower has been taken from Garandorff over the years. I think we are supposed to ignore the evil bit and focus on saving them. A lot of ambiant dialogue is about needed to save them as they 'owe' them. It's just there to explain the reuse assets without making them alternate realities.
I think it's a really good thing they called them fractals. If they didn't and were just random simulations then the wizards would be these dues ex all powerful lame characters, but instead of just making it time travel or any other gimmick that would cheapen the setting and stakes they instead tied it into the fractal phenomenon, and better yet they made it a mistake that probably can't be safely replicated( them being on tyria instead of the mist) we know of the fractals from dessa's lab where the mist makes these little pocket dimensions we study and explore. The wizards are just manipulating the phenomenon to get what they want out of the mist. What they were doing by saying these were real people is just that they had to go all in when it came to making these little pocket realities. The dwarfs and asura we meet they ARE just as real as us. Even though they were made in a fractal they are still real the same way if we were in a simulation wed still be real. They have real history and lives the same as we do just are now suddenly trust into our existence. They did this to basically undo any lore mistake they had made an obvious one being they used it to now have real flesh and blood dwarfs back into the world. Could even use this to bring back joko and Balthazar depending on how they handle it.
I just figured the inhabitants of the fractals are created with the rest of the fractal, so they are as real as the rest of the fractal. And now that those fractals have been transported to the real Tyria, those people became real people too.
20:41 I get the feeling while doing stuff in soto that anet is trying their best to ignore icebrood saga. In the first map, where there are fractals of various expansion regions but the icebrood saga region is clearly missing, replaced by drokknar's forge, a gw1 area. AND if you ask that astral ward elder dragon researcher she has barely anything to say regarding primodus (slightly more with jormag, at the very least) which is pretty disappointing considering he was the GW1 ultimate antagonist. 34:45 I've always had the headcannon that the norn were originally kodan who abandoned the belief of koda (which is pretty much the entire basis of kodan society)because they were more individualistic and somehow found the spirits of the wild, who turned them into the norn currently. Obviously I could be entirely off and they were just Jotun who fell but found the spirits so they didn't regress as much. I was disappointed about how little mursaat lore came out of marbon. We know this story will be expanded upon in at least 2 other maps - what I would really like to see is a mursaat that is a counter to marbon - rather than the regretful nice guy mursaat here, we get a mursaat that is not entirely evil and totally about self preservation - every man (mursaat) for themselves. That would be interesting.
They did have different names for the fractals of simulations. It was pretty clear what they were and I actually appreciated that they compared them to „fractals“. Have a better perspective. Also there are are events centered on rescuing the people of the fractals so I don’t think it was an afterthought to make them „real“ people. If anything it’s quite exciting because we now have characters that didn’t exist in Tyria anymore, such as the Dwarves!
Plus if you listen to the ambient dialogue, the people in the first map are clearly sentient and also confused why they are out floating on islands all of a sudden.
WaitingSorrow - your kodan comment just reminded me of something. One of the symbols is called "Balance", a theme that is heavily related to kodan. Remember the release site shows 3 releases with the symbols next to them. One of the releases was Balance - could this be related to Waiting Sorrow?
1:40:14 reading about Thackeray here makes me think of your video about a universe B. It does make me wonder though, if this is some weird meta reference to the dropped Krytan Locket thread. Does also make me think of Divinity's Reach, maybe the wizards influenced events a little though: Maybe Jennah x Logan is partly how he would gain leadership and they threw in some celestial c*kblocking? The big keystone thing behind the throne. The celestial theming to the top most layer.... which i believe was designed by someone called Grand Wizard Garren or something (Is...Garren?). A potential idea for a new video of "What Ifs" that look into fractals/simulations that could have been.
On my female sylvari (my main), I was told I was shorter than expected. I think the Devs are expecting the character to have explored the area by now, and so know what they are. And therefore know that the chaos they see around them are fractals. Each time you discover a new area of the map (that's a fractal) the game tells you this is a fractal of _____ meant to see what _____ would be like if _____ happened. edit: the faction provisioned sell the case of capture light that is used to buy the minis.
I find Mabon's "cop out" quite interesting. He just shrugs off the whole story of the mursaat as he deems it irrelevant to the grander scheme, he has a new purpose now not defined by his race. Im not sure how often he interacts with people, but it could also be a moment of realisiation that he has actually forgotten. This reminds me of part of FF14 where a character is asked why they are doing their scheme, and they can't even remember what set this all in motion. ALSO SPOILERS for the End: ...Zojja mentions she will have difficulty remembering things...
I haven't played through the whole story yet, but there are many references to the wizards having lost certain memories and when they are possessed by Kryptis the memories are dredged up and they often paint the Wizards in a bad light, like in the first map meta. This is usually brushed aside as the Kryptis trying to twist and manipulate people, but I wonder if there is some truth to it. The thing about real people in the fractals already shows that the wizards are pretty sketchy. The leader of the Kryptis also was one of the wizards in the past if I remember right... so I could see an Abbadon like situation here, where Isgarren / the wizards aren't necesserily evil, but do a lot of sketchy stuff and are at least partially responsible for this whole mess.
@@asgarzigel Zojja also explains that this "acension" process to become part of the Ward, you lose a little bit of yourself and memories and part of her was scared of forgetting her past even though she felt a bit lost by it and was one of the reasons she left. This expansion has heavy themes of holding on/letting go of the past and connections to it, goals and ambition and feeling lost in the world. That's my biggest take away from this. Even the commander is feeling lost, like a war veteran coming how to the boring real world and not knowing how to deal with it.
Hey WP, I hope you see this message - please can you provide me with a link to Day 1, I've looked through all your videos, searched for the title series including "Day 1" and looked through your playlists but I just can't find it and would like to start from that, especially as you say right at the beginning of this video that you went through all of the big lore, which is why I wanted to watch this series.
The emotion stuff in Gyala felt a little flimsy especially coupled with the power of friendship trope. I am loving the individual emotions they mention throughout the story though; the idea of Joy , Anger etc being their own classifications of magic intrigues me. Theres a meta around the forge of the new map that has different colour combos for them too (though i guess that could mainly be for gameplay). How does this align to the other breakdowns of magic we have; the class specific stuff, the various facets of the dragons/gods, Demon Realm related stuff (The Deep / Gyala). They even added some new weapon to gyala in theme with the Deep though theyre named in other ways, manifest of hunger and other states. I know youve attempted to "explain the magic" in the past. To me it felt like there was no real structure before, now theres this really interesting idea that theres another level to magic. How Wizards use magic in another way - how that is broken down into emotions instead?
It might depend on where you are, Tyria has the "elements" for a lack of better word as it's magic classification, while it works differently in other worlds. So the wizard fractals or the mists in general could have these emotion magics instead.
44:19 I honestly though this line from the commander was weird. The last time we sent a bunch of airships into a region where the foe was capable of mind controlling whispers (mordermoth) that ended REALLY badly with the sylvari causing all of the fleet to crash. Now we're suggesting we do the same to demons who can also whisper and corrupt thoughts and actions - sounds like a REALLY bad idea.
Yeah I spent most of my play through either moving across the map only to not make it in time to close the rift. Or waiting in one rift spawn spot because that got super annoying really fast. Oh or waiting through unskipable incredibly slow dialogue, don't forget that! Add in awful relics and straight up removing all the ones I used and now having to do two jumping puzzles for my weekly and this expansion has felt like a huge let down.
so if the fractals are real realities of people... An evil logan strike would be crazy (theyd need to give him a hammer in reference to the edge of destiny novel)
My theory about the fractal thing, with people being real and all that, is this: Naturally occuring fractals loop and are echoes of reality. The wizards tried using these echoes but they kept making the same decisions that the real people did, despite what they tried to do to change the fractal. So, they must have found a way to solidify the fractals into real "realms" where things no longer loop. At this point, the people in them might as well be real people, since they can experience new things and grow instead of just echoing past events. Then, when the islands materialized into Tyria, they could no longer pause the people and have to deal with the fact that now these copies they've made are just as real as anyone else, able to be posesssed by the Kryptis and needing actual help from the wizards. To me it's more a case of "Not realistic enough. Let's change this" over and over until they end up making it so the places and people are just as real as the copies they were based off. They ignored the truth, but now the places have been thrust into Tyria and Kryptis are targeting the people inside. They can't ignore the fact any longer due to the real danger posed and the fact that the people and situations can no longer be paused and are actually in Tyria now.
Don't know if anybody else thought this but i figured our character connected the "fractals of the mists" to these wizard made fractals. So technically the commander is aware of fractals and has some knowledge on them but maybe i'm reaching here
Oh.... There's a story about what really happened between the Mursaat and the Seers, which you find out after the end of the main story as some extra side dialogue. Super awesome to hear. Also, I'd just like to highlight that a lot of the side quests (such as the one for the Mabon greatsword collection) that give you some GREAT, one-time only voiced dialogue. So easy to miss, or not fully absorb the first time through. The Gendarran Fields portion of this may also have something to do with the "REDACTED Fractal Research" you read in this playthough.... maybe.... maybe.... Eventually the abandoned skyscale nests will give you an egg, which will start the collection for the "A New Friend" achievement, which is also under the Special category of the Wizard's Vault Objectives. Also, FYI, nothing about your videos is tedious. You could make a 24 hour video and I'd still watch all of it. (Maybe not in one sitting!!)
When they explain what happened between the Mursaat and Seers, it makes you feel bad for the Mursaat. lol Like they can't catch a break. Dragons start attacking them, Seers screw them over and the dragons attack them even more, what survivors are left (that we know of) get killed by us or fighting along with us.
They took the chunks of times from the Mists to see how they would play out so they could course correct if need be. Like take the Logan one you read about. Would Kryta thrive without Jenna? Would it be better under a different leader? No, well we need to make sure Jenna lives then. And so on. Makes me feel a like its a close parallel to the Ascians in 14. Altering events to lead to their ultimate goal, be it for good or evil. One thing that still makes me a bit sad is how much story they tie into the Raids. Its only through videos like yours or the wiki that i know anything that has happened in the Raids since thats not content yhat everyone plays. They mention Deimos quite a lot closer to the end and without having done my outside research i would have had no idea who that character was or what the connection is.
At the risk of you having answered in another Livestream, do you think it's ok for them to have yet another story where raids are halfway crucial or at least extremely relevant story, when they were always presented as side stories? What's the percent of people who are raiding now?
armor I think most of it is dungeon armor from arah. The hat is from the preorder bonus weapon I think is the primordus variant of the 3rd gen legendary
@@didoma73 Gen 3 legendary hammer, aurene's weight, with the primodus variant collection done. Just as a sidenote - the variants cost a shitton of mats.
We should has to face and evil version of our gw1 character at the end where they never died they have just been up to mischief, or a dark version of your gw2 character if u never did gw1
I did not interpret it as real people from the same universe as us, in the fractls. If you simulate a universe, doesn't that make what's in it real? When they say real people, I just see it as EXTREMLY sophisticated simulations, they believe that they are real, and that is what matters
I haven't watched the video yet but does anyone else hate Zojja's character? I feel like the reason why she was gone was poor and I don't even know her anymore. I can't care about her when she didn't care about me.
I cant stop comparing the Skyward Islands to Futurama's What If! machine. makes me laugh every time. Im not a huge fan of this expac, I dislike the skyscale and think it breaks the experience in GW2 and was a mistake, the story is more on feelings which we've had for about 7 years now. It lacks oompf, it feels rushed, and like its missing a bunch of content and they released it just to make the quarter date. I understand its the first expac of the new system, but if this is the tone, good god. I paid for this? LW Season 6?
My male sylvari - regarding the strange new voice in his head - references back to Mordremoth in the instance where he visits the infirmary and I was so pleased with them for including that. My poor boy was like "please don't be like what happened in the maguuma. I can't do that again..." and he sounded so f**ing done lol.
Male asua and sylvari are so fed up with everyone's shit
Oh thats so cool
My male sylvari is so done with being the hero I love it 😂
Chiming in after playing on my norn male commander. He sounds so much more tired and reserved than the brave, tenacious hunter in core and even HoT. Like he's aged so much over the course of the whole storyline and just wants a stiff drink and a long nap.
24:20 - "Mabon"... We also have Mabon Market in Caledon Forest; the area with all the craft stations, those who do pact supply agents know it well too.
Interesting enough this is also near the "Ruines of the unseen" and the NPC at this market has an event around here
What an interesting detail that I'm sure won't be expanded on in any way!
oh you sly dog...im going to need to do more hunting
I think the reason most of us watch *is* the long ramble-y lore discussions. It's a feature, not a bug.
I do hope you continue to go through the islands slowly. There's *so much* revealed in books, events, and NPC dialogs. Most of your "I wonder if they ever say..." from this episode has the answer "Yes! Vehemently Yes!"
WoddenPotatoes i thought the "I thought you would be taller" comments were a reference to the movie Roadhouse where it seemed every character knew the legend of the MC but not the actual Main Character
Yes yes, please explore and take your time to your heart’s content. I love hearing everything, it’s not tedious and it’s not rambling and it’s not boring
WP: So w----
NPC: AS I WAS SAYING, Blah blah blah
WP: So---
NPC: The nature of magic here is wild!
WP: S---
NPC: I WASN'T FINISHED YET!
When you were speculating about where they got the real people for the simulations, it has been said by the people of Garenhoff that they would send people up to the Wizard's Tower that never came back, as trade for the elementals and protection. I'm assuming they used those people to seed the simulations. Before we knew about the simulations, I assumed that those were just people who were sent up there to be trained into wizards.
Then explain all the other people and races on the map. They aren't really simulations. The fractals are real events with real people but taken from the reality that matches the scenario the Ward wants to play out. That is why everyone are confused as to why they're now in a different place.
@@carnifex2005 I was using the term simulations because they're controlled environments to test possible outcomes and solutions to potential threats, and they were compared to simulations in the dialogue. The books literally say that they are "created" by the wizards. They can be "paused" and they can be "stored" to be studied or unfrozen later. The woman at the command center even says they tried using "simulated beings" but it wasn't useful because they didn't have freewill like people.
As for the other races, 1 they probably didn't only have contact with Garenhoff. I'd imagine they had other deals elsewhere. 2 Other races can be in Garenhoff, not just humans. There was an Asuran lab there, for example. As well as being right next to Lion's Arch.
I wasn't saying they got everyone from Garenhoff anyway, I was pointing out that they clearly have gotten people from Garenhoff as an example. It could be that they probably have done the same elsewhere. The Wizard's Tower hasn't always been at Garenhoff, and is much older than the time of GW2 and GW1. They've probably been doing this for millennia. If the founder is a Seer, and Mabon says the towers are some of the oldest things in the world. Who knows how long, and how many places they could have got inhabitants from.
That theory kinda gets a wrench thrown into it when you notice there's a second Mayor Manrin from the fractal.
Honestly I am SO HAPPY for you, that this expac has satisfied you with the lore aspects and stuff like that. I feel like you really deserved a good meaty expac after Champions and I am glad you got it!
Something related to your comment on the Beacon of Ages looking good and people don't notice because it's well done, is that people don't seem to notice with all the "asset resuse" complaints, is that destroyed Garenhoff is actually made out of new building models/textures. Not just because they're destroyed and broken, but the buildings themselves don't look the same as Tyrian Garenhoff.
The vibe I got was that the inhabitants of the simulations were kinda like the people inhabiting Mist-Fractals, like the ones Ankka & co were repeatedly murdering when they were scavenging for resources in the Mists. Wizards tried with golems/elementals like you said but then resorted to using already existing inhabitants they yanked from other parts of the Mists for their simulations. And now that the simulations have manifested as real physical objects on Tyria the people in them have also become physical "real" people. I feel like that's the only way the head researcher's comments about them "being as real as you and I" and how to treat them going forward makes sense: they were somehow "less real" originally (because they were Mist "copies" that Tyrians generally don't think of as "real") but now they're actually real "real". I feel like the game wouldn't gloss over it if they were kidnapping Tyrians to use as test subjects. Or maybe they took prisoners of war from alternate Tyrias via WvW :)
This was my sense too, or something like it. They were taking desired timeline snapshots out of the Mist-multiverse (almost like computer backups) to run the simulations. They tried to use non-living beings in the landscapes and events of those snapshots, but it didn't work, so they resorted to just using the Mist-people actually living in them.
Watching these videos after completing the SOTO and all achievements is makes me want to scream at my screen haha!! In a good way!!! WP talks about the Mursaat/Seers and stuff that will be revealed in the lore achievements! This xpack was the best lore wise, honestly. I hope you liked it too WP but guess I'll find out watching the series :)
WP we all love your ramblings as you call them, it's what we come for. ❤ great content
Please continue rambling! I think it is a big appeal to your videos and livestreams. I like hearing someone else be as excited about the lore as I am.
FYI most of the names of moons and planets are from Greek mythology, including Deimos and Phobos meaning terror and fear respectively and being sons of the god Ares whose Roman counterpart is Mars and Aphrodite. Also Peitha is very similar to Peitho (being Greek this was my thought immediatly when I read the name) which means persuation and was daughter of Aphodite and Hermes making them half-siblings. Also Nephus means cloud.
Great insight!
I also did some digging in other children of Ares and Aphrodite because Cerus didn't remind me of anything out of my head but it is very close to Eros (Love) which doesn't make sense but it could make sense if he was inspired by one of Eros' brothers Anteros (the Anti-Eros) or Imeros (longing for/desire) which checks out even more if you think about the end goal of Cerus (don't want to spoil for those who haven't finished the story first)
Most of the planets in our solar system are from Roman mythology (you can argue that the romans stole them from the greeks and just renamed them, but the people who named it chose the roman names regardless). Uranus was the only planet that was an actual direct Greek reference.
@@Somebody374-bv8cd I will not argue that they stole it because they didn't. They just changed the names. They kept the lore and added some things of their own. The English names of the planets are the names the Romans used for the ancient Greek gods. In Greek we call the planets with the original god names.
@@kadosis Yea well I was referring to the English names.
Regarding the Fractals:
They mentioned that they had a fractal, in which Logan became too powerhungry after he got directly on the throne with the queen and caused him to become a tyrant.
This indicates that they not really creating them, but looking into the mists to find certain "fractals" and look how they develop. Influencing certain events into a certain direction from a certain point
Seriously, how good is that 'a fractured horizon' song that plays when on the first SotO map. I don't believe I've feel so immersed into the game by its soundtrack since the original theme from gw1 pre searing. Well done! (P.s. I'm enjoying this new expansion SO much!! I'm taking my time though. Still on first map)
This expansion's story is by far my favorite they have ever done now that I have completed it. It really feels like they have a good grasp on the world of Tyria and all the intricacies.
Can't wait to see how they continue this story and future expansions.
Thanks for doing these, they're so appreciated! I zoomed through the map to unlock my WPs before anything else deeper. I can listen to you read all this lore while I'm at work and save time! It's not as boring this way
I hope you're not right about the [REDACTED] fractal and the story of Nayos, because that sounds almost identical to the
FF14 spoiler!
Final Days in Endwalker lol. It's a very cool and scary concept, but emotions causing physical changes into grotesque monsters and it spreading just by feeling extreme negative emotions is way too close to that. In fact, that's exactly what it was.
On the GW1 throwback location topic, Granite Citadel was one of the best ones from the core game.
Yeah it was!
I know it's a meme at this point, how slow it's going. But that's what I love about your playthroughs, if I wanted a "normally" paced gameplay I would go watch a bunch of other streamers (which I've also done). Yours it the one I know will check every millimetre of the expac while giving us a ton of backstory on old lore and how it relates with this one. Nice to see you excited with gw2 again!
I feel like the Logan/Kryta fractal idea might just be the new actual fractal that'll get added with one of the quarterly patches
There are indeed a lot of things you have yet to discover. It's interesting because your commentary or certain things you complain about really do reveal what you haven't found yet, and it's a lot.
I mean, I say this because I've been going through and reading all the lore I can find and talking to all the npcs I see I can talk to, but I still haven't explored the second map outside of the story and rushing around the meta once. There's also more for me to scour through in the Wizards's Tower and the first map, too.
The way I understood the fractals on the new map, they are very similar to the fractals we access from Dessa's lab. They are little islands of reality showing a certain point in time and space in the mists.
The difference is that the Dessa fractals are naturally occuring and seem to be usually pretty small and short, looping endlessly.
The wizards found a way to artificially create and control fractals and used these for their "simulations". So these fractal are physically real in the mists even before they crashed into Tyria (and the people too, although I don't know where they got the people from)
I missed all these fractal researches! These are so cool .. also i think Sorrow was a Kodan for sure .. love your playthroughs WP! I enjoying hearing your thoughts on everything
Don't need to listen to more than 3 hours of WP in one day??? Here I am watching straight after part one waiting for more lol
You mentioned how it felt like destroyed Garenhoff felt like there should be an evacuation event, and I felt that way too. There actually is one that happens there apparently. I just saw it start in game. It must have a somewhat longer timer to restart I guess.
Not a long timer, up until yesterday's patch it was glitched to where it wouldn't trigger due to something or other.
at about 1:10:00 and follow, your idea of the "late feedback" and the "detached character" made me having an image : a destroyed wall reconstructing himself. I'll keep this in mind because it' makes the World more consistent, and the "fractal team" less "the one to eradicate". Thanks.
Chapter 1 & 2 recap: 6:00
Chapter 3 start: 28:30
Around the 1:00:00 mark - my interpretation of the Fractals is that the Wizards are able to "fork" reality to create their simulations. Then to put the Fractals in "statis" (as the call it) they essentially set them to loop (which is what we know as Fractals of the Mists). No harm comes to the beings in the Fractals, because they just reset every 5 minutes...
I finished the EoD playthrough last week, with 10-12 hour episodes... So smirked when you said ''yesterdays episode was quite long'' haha
the jade crisis still being ongoing also gives an opening to go deal with some purist shenanigans that end up with us going after the weird things in raisu palace
31:45 "when the gods found the bloodstones... and they split it up and it was chaos and then they left, they were like 'fuck it, we're out'" - LOL
I'm kind of disappointed that this isn't a blind playthrough, because I thoroughly enjoy your reactions to lore revelations, and it feels like you've had most of them off screen already. But: _Please_ stop saying things like "sorry for rambling about this for so long", or being apologetic about giving us lore recaps and speculation for two hours. _This is what we are here for._ If I didn't want to hear your insights as someone who's into this franchise since its beginning, I'd be watching someone else's playthrough. I'm not here for Lys' fashion, I'm here for _your_ thoughts about the game and its story, so please talk about it for as long as you fucking like.
A LOTR-esque return to Moria for the Asura could be pretty cool. New inhabitants have taken over and a small expedition has to try and reclaim it. A great Terror lies deep within, etc
(I've now played to chapter 4, so perhaps some of these questions I write will be solved after finishing it)
- Yeah I was wondering that too. There were five races that survived the first ED rising, and four of them have members appearing as wizards in the story so far. The one missing is the Forgotten.
- Also... I hate going back to this all the time, but I think it is suggested in Mythwright Gambit that Zommoros may know Isgarren to some extent. I may have been interpreting that information wrong all these time, but... I still hope this information gets references somehow.
- Well I think it's written that after one ascends to become a wizard (I know, the word "ascend" probably isn't accurate), they forget most of their past. They don't forget basic stuff, but details and events and emotions will grow faint in memory. Why Anet write this lore is still a problem (I personally think it's for Zojja really, but avoid spoilers ahead), but it justifies why Mabon says he doesn't remember much about his past.
- Hmm, the story journal recorded on Wiki says Waiting Sorrow IS a Kodan (I don't mean the player written lore, I mean the story journal copied from the in-game story journal).
- I assumed that the "living people" thing is because they were ripped out of the Mist after Isgarren's magic got messed up. You see, some of the islands have historical characters (I gasped when I saw Zinn on the Rata Novus island), so the most reasonable answer I can give is that they were echoes in the Mist that got ripped out and dropped into reality, thus becoming "real people".
- Seeing the elementals everywhere makes me wonder if Isgarren is specialized in Elemental magic, or the Seer as a whole race is specialized in Elemental magic and elementals to them are like jade construct to the Mursaat.
- When you say the story leads to the meta, do you mean like in West Bjora Marches when there's a part in the story that can be progressed by doing the Draka meta? Because I've heard that for some players the meta event has been failing all day and causing endless frustration due to player incompetence at killing things simultaneously. I won't want to have that feeling when doing the story.
- I remembered when entering Jorkna's Light, the local Astral Ward said that this simulation is to see what will happen if the Stone Summit wins the war against the Deldrimo. But then in that part of the map, there are no Stone Summit to be seen, and the forge is working fine as seen in the meta. So it's a bit odd...
- Yeah I think so too, and to be more specific I think the [redacted] is something like the Kryptis, and the contagious thing they do is like the Kryptis processing someone. This is just wild guesses of mine though.
- Nope, the Rata Novus simulation is in this map, located near the Maguuma simulation. There's like a vine bridge between them, and when I walk near, it disappeared oddly. So very low chance of it appearing again later.
- I smiled when I saw the chefing event too. Also they are making baits to bait out the Kryptis, not eating the bone and meat and blood themselves, so I don't think it's too abnormal of them.
- The weapon master NPC is Frode, the Norn in the story.
- About Deimos, I find it really intriguing that Deimos was sort of helping the Mursaat. He was a demon, yes, and he was probably against Isgarren due to his demon bloodline (avoid spoilers), but I genuinely can see no reason for him to stay there and help the Mursaat keep Saul in check. Does Saul means something to him? Is it because he is good to prey on emotions so to speak? Or is Deimos not helping the Mursaat at his own will?
- About the Relics, there's something that's been burning in my mind ever since I went through all the relics available. Why are Anet THIS into "on elite skill" effect? Just, why? I've never used one of those, and I very rarely see good builds with them before the relic change. I really need some explanation from people better in build craft than me.
To answer your Demios question, there's lore in-game that suggests the bastion of the penitent was originally a trap set by isgarren. I bet they lured Demios there and trapped him. Then, when the mursaat started using the place as a jail they were like "oh hey, not only is this place near impossible to escape, there's a built-in psychological torture chamber. Neat!"
"I remembered when entering Jorkna's Light, the local Astral Ward said that this simulation is to see what will happen if the Stone Summit wins the war against the Deldrimo. But then in that part of the map, there are no Stone Summit to be seen, and the forge is working fine as seen in the meta. So it's a bit odd..."
About that - if you run through the events, you will notice that this is basically last deldrimor holdout against stone summit - one event involves defending it from stone summit invasion (that untimatelly becomes demonic)
"About the Relics, there's something that's been burning in my mind ever since I went through all the relics available. Why are Anet THIS into "on elite skill" effect? Just, why? I've never used one of those, and I very rarely see good builds with them before the relic change. I really need some explanation from people better in build craft than me."
Alot of "wildcard" rune effects were like that already - it may not have been as jarring as it seems now because alot of those runes were obtained in obscure places, or bore not so good stats. That being said it seems that as far as PvE goes the leading relics are the ones that procs on other things than elite skills.
WP, my theory is that the SA map you start on and the Simulation/Fractals coming into the real world is something that will be followed up on in a major way in the coming patches because I think their experiments are going to run further out of control and start invading the area south of the Horn of Maguma, if you look at the world map there is a very Box-like shape on the map there I've noticed for months (I even guessed where the expac was gonna be (actually guessed 2 places, but at least 1 was right!)). The next patches occur in 3 slices of a larger map, I think it is there in that box at the top of Maguma and it will expand on the Simulations and really explore the morality of what the Astral Ward has been doing.
As a french player, I couldn't help but notice the very different meanings between the french and english names of Waiting Sorrow : her name in french is "Brumaille Languissante". "Brumaille" is derived from the word Brume, which means mist (for instance, Mistborn Motes are translated to Particules de la Brumaille), and "languissante" could be translated to languishing. Not sure what to make of this translation choice.
Edit : Also, the [REDACTED] Fractal Research at 1:57:00 reminds me a lot of the style of writings in the SCP foundation, a fictitious secret organization aiming to secure, contain and protect supernatural entities and phenomena. The SCP foundation website is a database of "short stories" written in the style of scientific entries documenting such phenomena, often censoring data that may be of harm to the reader due to supernatural reasons. Now that I think more about it, the astral ward is actually quite reminiscent of the SCP foundation in terms in regards to its goals, secrecy, and the many "research documents" you can read in the game.
Big fan of the dark Logan Divinity’s Reach idea for a new map / strike mission.
I have the opposite opinion about the map being close to the water. I thought that was awesome! I love how the beacon of ages is on a chunk of maguuma mainland. My fear with this expansion is it would just be super high up in a random spot on the ocean. Instead it's rising into the sky from an actual grounded place on the mainland.
A lot of dialogue kinda pushes that these are basically Fractals like in the FotM, but were artificially manipulated to create simulations of "what-ifs". Also, I believe the whole "real people" thing basically means the living echos who are like Dessa, her krewe, and all the other NPCs we interact with in fractals. Cause despite them looping whenever starting fractals, they act like actual people.
Prior to me going into this full lore playthrough day 2, as a long time fan of the channel, I hope that it's as good as the end of dragons one! I'm a bit concerned about you having already beat the story, because a big part about why I loved the end of dragons playthrough was the fact that it was a (mostly) blind playthrough of you. Seeing you discover things, commenting on it and giving extra lore that the average player doesn't know about (like guild wars 1 stuff) was really enjoyable! Seeing you connect things with guild wars 1 is really fascinating.
Of course there is SO MUCH to discover in this expansion besides the main story like you said, so I hope we get lots of those moments again :)
I'm pretty sure you are actually supposed to be that close to the water. The Beacon of the Ages isn't actually on an island either, it's connected to the mainland on the map (hence why the region is called the Horn of Maguuma). It's only Amnytas that's actually far above in the clouds, the fractals and the wizard's tower are much closer to the water
About the real people from the fractals, I didn't get it until I reread the story journal for this chapter. What I assumed based on the the story journal to explain the fractals appearing on the islands "When Isgarren's magic was fractured by the end of the dragon cycle these tiny realities were ripped from the Mists and manifested here above Tyria" was that the inhabitants of these fractals only became real once they were ripped into Tyria - that they were just mist entity things like those in our normal Dessa-type fractals before then. "They're not entirely dissimilar from the fractals monitored by Dessa, from what I can tell -Dessa's naturally occurring in the Mists and these deliberately formed- but the inhabitants that live within these are flesh and bone. They're outside of the Mists. They're alive." So I assumed it was because of them being dragged into Tyria due tof the inbalance caused by the end of the dragon cycle messing with Isgarren's magic that gave the inhabitants true life and the whole mess in the first map. That's how I've made sense of it anyway!
That's how I took it too. These tests weren't on Tyria, they were in the mists and somehow the dragon cycle ending screwed that up and sent a bunch over near the tower. Though really an excuse to reuse assets and have cool areas. lol
If you go to the refugee camp in the east of the first map, some of the people are super confused what's going on. They say that the tower got destroyed and the elementals started attacking them, then all of the sudden they were high in the sky on floating islands.
That these pocket realities, like fractals are almost echos of real people from our plane of reality. So it IS cruel in a sense that the wizards create these realities and people, who are real now, then either destroy it or freeze it after they are done. It just shows how the wizards view some people like ants or lab rats that can just be grabbed and killed if need be and their defense is, for the greater good.
1:26:35 - not sure if WP gets an answer from chat, but I personally dont have a problem with the lack of hearts, especially because there is so much to do, particularly on the first map. People are tagging up to lead rift hunts all the time, and every island has like 6-8 events on it, at least a couple of which seem to be up at any time. Of course, it will feel less populated in the future, but less and with legendary armor and relics, and lets be honest, who goes back to do hearts from previous expansions anyway?
I must say after i finished the expack story i really wanted ask isgarren about lord odran. It is nice you tought about lord odran too. (But i would if he was mentioned he was only another wayfinder , like livia turai and elementalist Aziure from the Order (ascalon necromancer based group) that was standing before the wizard folly tower in pre (that detail i really liked))
On the idea that there hasnt been any forgotten yet in the expansion while the rest of the old races are there, what if eparch is a forgotten? They mention they he tried to join the astral ward but isgarren turned him down way in the past, so him being a forgotten makes sense. And they also mention that eparch went to nayos and claimed himself king, not that he was from there, and with the forgotten being able to traverse the mists, it makes sense that a forgotten would be able to do so. If he is a forgotten, I hope that they make his model still corrupted by nayos so its not just a forgotten leading the kryptis
I noticed that Fractal not explained till afterwards, and I was confused. I thought I missed something.
I thought Lyhr was the only one that could split (that's why he has two facets but no other wizard does.)
And the 'real people' are from Tyria. All those people taht the Wizards Tower has been taken from Garandorff over the years. I think we are supposed to ignore the evil bit and focus on saving them. A lot of ambiant dialogue is about needed to save them as they 'owe' them.
It's just there to explain the reuse assets without making them alternate realities.
I think it's a really good thing they called them fractals. If they didn't and were just random simulations then the wizards would be these dues ex all powerful lame characters, but instead of just making it time travel or any other gimmick that would cheapen the setting and stakes they instead tied it into the fractal phenomenon, and better yet they made it a mistake that probably can't be safely replicated( them being on tyria instead of the mist) we know of the fractals from dessa's lab where the mist makes these little pocket dimensions we study and explore. The wizards are just manipulating the phenomenon to get what they want out of the mist.
What they were doing by saying these were real people is just that they had to go all in when it came to making these little pocket realities. The dwarfs and asura we meet they ARE just as real as us. Even though they were made in a fractal they are still real the same way if we were in a simulation wed still be real. They have real history and lives the same as we do just are now suddenly trust into our existence. They did this to basically undo any lore mistake they had made an obvious one being they used it to now have real flesh and blood dwarfs back into the world. Could even use this to bring back joko and Balthazar depending on how they handle it.
I had the same issue with the Fractal explanation. I started exploring before resuming the story and was so confused
I just figured the inhabitants of the fractals are created with the rest of the fractal, so they are as real as the rest of the fractal. And now that those fractals have been transported to the real Tyria, those people became real people too.
20:41 I get the feeling while doing stuff in soto that anet is trying their best to ignore icebrood saga. In the first map, where there are fractals of various expansion regions but the icebrood saga region is clearly missing, replaced by drokknar's forge, a gw1 area. AND if you ask that astral ward elder dragon researcher she has barely anything to say regarding primodus (slightly more with jormag, at the very least) which is pretty disappointing considering he was the GW1 ultimate antagonist.
34:45 I've always had the headcannon that the norn were originally kodan who abandoned the belief of koda (which is pretty much the entire basis of kodan society)because they were more individualistic and somehow found the spirits of the wild, who turned them into the norn currently. Obviously I could be entirely off and they were just Jotun who fell but found the spirits so they didn't regress as much.
I was disappointed about how little mursaat lore came out of marbon. We know this story will be expanded upon in at least 2 other maps - what I would really like to see is a mursaat that is a counter to marbon - rather than the regretful nice guy mursaat here, we get a mursaat that is not entirely evil and totally about self preservation - every man (mursaat) for themselves. That would be interesting.
Personally i think the REDACTED fractal might be just a writer's nod/pun to SCP foundation, it is in very similar language and style they use.
They did have different names for the fractals of simulations. It was pretty clear what they were and I actually appreciated that they compared them to „fractals“. Have a better perspective. Also there are are events centered on rescuing the people of the fractals so I don’t think it was an afterthought to make them „real“ people. If anything it’s quite exciting because we now have characters that didn’t exist in Tyria anymore, such as the Dwarves!
Plus if you listen to the ambient dialogue, the people in the first map are clearly sentient and also confused why they are out floating on islands all of a sudden.
WaitingSorrow - your kodan comment just reminded me of something. One of the symbols is called "Balance", a theme that is heavily related to kodan.
Remember the release site shows 3 releases with the symbols next to them. One of the releases was Balance - could this be related to Waiting Sorrow?
1:40:14 reading about Thackeray here makes me think of your video about a universe B.
It does make me wonder though, if this is some weird meta reference to the dropped Krytan Locket thread. Does also make me think of Divinity's Reach, maybe the wizards influenced events a little though:
Maybe Jennah x Logan is partly how he would gain leadership and they threw in some celestial c*kblocking?
The big keystone thing behind the throne.
The celestial theming to the top most layer.... which i believe was designed by someone called Grand Wizard Garren or something (Is...Garren?).
A potential idea for a new video of "What Ifs" that look into fractals/simulations that could have been.
On my female sylvari (my main), I was told I was shorter than expected.
I think the Devs are expecting the character to have explored the area by now, and so know what they are. And therefore know that the chaos they see around them are fractals. Each time you discover a new area of the map (that's a fractal) the game tells you this is a fractal of _____ meant to see what _____ would be like if _____ happened.
edit: the faction provisioned sell the case of capture light that is used to buy the minis.
I find Mabon's "cop out" quite interesting. He just shrugs off the whole story of the mursaat as he deems it irrelevant to the grander scheme, he has a new purpose now not defined by his race.
Im not sure how often he interacts with people, but it could also be a moment of realisiation that he has actually forgotten. This reminds me of part of FF14 where a character is asked why they are doing their scheme, and they can't even remember what set this all in motion.
ALSO SPOILERS for the End:
...Zojja mentions she will have difficulty remembering things...
I haven't played through the whole story yet, but there are many references to the wizards having lost certain memories and when they are possessed by Kryptis the memories are dredged up and they often paint the Wizards in a bad light, like in the first map meta. This is usually brushed aside as the Kryptis trying to twist and manipulate people, but I wonder if there is some truth to it.
The thing about real people in the fractals already shows that the wizards are pretty sketchy.
The leader of the Kryptis also was one of the wizards in the past if I remember right... so I could see an Abbadon like situation here, where Isgarren / the wizards aren't necesserily evil, but do a lot of sketchy stuff and are at least partially responsible for this whole mess.
@@asgarzigel Zojja also explains that this "acension" process to become part of the Ward, you lose a little bit of yourself and memories and part of her was scared of forgetting her past even though she felt a bit lost by it and was one of the reasons she left.
This expansion has heavy themes of holding on/letting go of the past and connections to it, goals and ambition and feeling lost in the world. That's my biggest take away from this. Even the commander is feeling lost, like a war veteran coming how to the boring real world and not knowing how to deal with it.
Hey WP, I hope you see this message - please can you provide me with a link to Day 1, I've looked through all your videos, searched for the title series including "Day 1" and looked through your playlists but I just can't find it and would like to start from that, especially as you say right at the beginning of this video that you went through all of the big lore, which is why I wanted to watch this series.
The emotion stuff in Gyala felt a little flimsy especially coupled with the power of friendship trope. I am loving the individual emotions they mention throughout the story though; the idea of Joy , Anger etc being their own classifications of magic intrigues me. Theres a meta around the forge of the new map that has different colour combos for them too (though i guess that could mainly be for gameplay).
How does this align to the other breakdowns of magic we have; the class specific stuff, the various facets of the dragons/gods, Demon Realm related stuff (The Deep / Gyala). They even added some new weapon to gyala in theme with the Deep though theyre named in other ways, manifest of hunger and other states.
I know youve attempted to "explain the magic" in the past. To me it felt like there was no real structure before, now theres this really interesting idea that theres another level to magic. How Wizards use magic in another way - how that is broken down into emotions instead?
It might depend on where you are, Tyria has the "elements" for a lack of better word as it's magic classification, while it works differently in other worlds. So the wizard fractals or the mists in general could have these emotion magics instead.
44:19 I honestly though this line from the commander was weird. The last time we sent a bunch of airships into a region where the foe was capable of mind controlling whispers (mordermoth) that ended REALLY badly with the sylvari causing all of the fleet to crash. Now we're suggesting we do the same to demons who can also whisper and corrupt thoughts and actions - sounds like a REALLY bad idea.
well the whispers weren't the issue with the airships in heart of thorns tho XD
Mordy was whispering to the sylvari which was why a ton of them on the airships turned against their allies and caused the ships to crash.
Yeah I spent most of my play through either moving across the map only to not make it in time to close the rift. Or waiting in one rift spawn spot because that got super annoying really fast. Oh or waiting through unskipable incredibly slow dialogue, don't forget that! Add in awful relics and straight up removing all the ones I used and now having to do two jumping puzzles for my weekly and this expansion has felt like a huge let down.
so if the fractals are real realities of people... An evil logan strike would be crazy (theyd need to give him a hammer in reference to the edge of destiny novel)
My theory about the fractal thing, with people being real and all that, is this:
Naturally occuring fractals loop and are echoes of reality. The wizards tried using these echoes but they kept making the same decisions that the real people did, despite what they tried to do to change the fractal. So, they must have found a way to solidify the fractals into real "realms" where things no longer loop. At this point, the people in them might as well be real people, since they can experience new things and grow instead of just echoing past events. Then, when the islands materialized into Tyria, they could no longer pause the people and have to deal with the fact that now these copies they've made are just as real as anyone else, able to be posesssed by the Kryptis and needing actual help from the wizards.
To me it's more a case of "Not realistic enough. Let's change this" over and over until they end up making it so the places and people are just as real as the copies they were based off. They ignored the truth, but now the places have been thrust into Tyria and Kryptis are targeting the people inside. They can't ignore the fact any longer due to the real danger posed and the fact that the people and situations can no longer be paused and are actually in Tyria now.
Don't know if anybody else thought this but i figured our character connected the "fractals of the mists" to these wizard made fractals. So technically the commander is aware of fractals and has some knowledge on them but maybe i'm reaching here
Oh.... There's a story about what really happened between the Mursaat and the Seers, which you find out after the end of the main story as some extra side dialogue. Super awesome to hear.
Also, I'd just like to highlight that a lot of the side quests (such as the one for the Mabon greatsword collection) that give you some GREAT, one-time only voiced dialogue. So easy to miss, or not fully absorb the first time through. The Gendarran Fields portion of this may also have something to do with the "REDACTED Fractal Research" you read in this playthough.... maybe.... maybe....
Eventually the abandoned skyscale nests will give you an egg, which will start the collection for the "A New Friend" achievement, which is also under the Special category of the Wizard's Vault Objectives.
Also, FYI, nothing about your videos is tedious. You could make a 24 hour video and I'd still watch all of it. (Maybe not in one sitting!!)
When they explain what happened between the Mursaat and Seers, it makes you feel bad for the Mursaat. lol Like they can't catch a break. Dragons start attacking them, Seers screw them over and the dragons attack them even more, what survivors are left (that we know of) get killed by us or fighting along with us.
They took the chunks of times from the Mists to see how they would play out so they could course correct if need be. Like take the Logan one you read about. Would Kryta thrive without Jenna? Would it be better under a different leader? No, well we need to make sure Jenna lives then. And so on. Makes me feel a like its a close parallel to the Ascians in 14. Altering events to lead to their ultimate goal, be it for good or evil.
One thing that still makes me a bit sad is how much story they tie into the Raids. Its only through videos like yours or the wiki that i know anything that has happened in the Raids since thats not content yhat everyone plays. They mention Deimos quite a lot closer to the end and without having done my outside research i would have had no idea who that character was or what the connection is.
At the risk of you having answered in another Livestream, do you think it's ok for them to have yet another story where raids are halfway crucial or at least extremely relevant story, when they were always presented as side stories? What's the percent of people who are raiding now?
Is WP using a mod to alter the visuals? The toons look more cartoony and crispy. I like it.
Reshade
I am just finding out that WP played Disco Elysium?? Holy shit? Did he have a video on that or just talk about it on stream?
He's talked about it on streams several times but doesn't have a video on it.
hmm, there was a 1h 23m video from day 3 which is now gone. what happened?
It shouldn't be gone?
@@WoodenPotatoesFunny, it's back. Possibly a YT glitch.
I actually thought they were fractal fractals, it had me very confused.
What armor and weapon skins is his Weaver wearing?
armor I think most of it is dungeon armor from arah. The hat is from the preorder bonus
weapon I think is the primordus variant of the 3rd gen legendary
The chestpiece is the Citadel of flame one. The backpiece is from gemstore - shrine guardian.
@@Somebody374-bv8cd thanks! what about his weapon at 5:05
@@didoma73 Gen 3 legendary hammer, aurene's weight, with the primodus variant collection done. Just as a sidenote - the variants cost a shitton of mats.
@@Somebody374-bv8cd thanks again! i'm guessing his hat is a gem store item too?
We should has to face and evil version of our gw1 character at the end where they never died they have just been up to mischief, or a dark version of your gw2 character if u never did gw1
I did not interpret it as real people from the same universe as us, in the fractls. If you simulate a universe, doesn't that make what's in it real? When they say real people, I just see it as EXTREMLY sophisticated simulations, they believe that they are real, and that is what matters
Spoilers, another character speaks on the Mobun and Mursaat thing
blue orb = abbadons magic orb that nullify dragon magic no?
eye of the ocean my bad, water dragons connection .
They lifted the emotion stuff from Warhammer
I haven't watched the video yet but does anyone else hate Zojja's character? I feel like the reason why she was gone was poor and I don't even know her anymore. I can't care about her when she didn't care about me.
mmorpg?
Is it only a 3 hour expansion?
This is an expansion…. Lol
I cant stop comparing the Skyward Islands to Futurama's What If! machine. makes me laugh every time. Im not a huge fan of this expac, I dislike the skyscale and think it breaks the experience in GW2 and was a mistake, the story is more on feelings which we've had for about 7 years now. It lacks oompf, it feels rushed, and like its missing a bunch of content and they released it just to make the quarter date. I understand its the first expac of the new system, but if this is the tone, good god. I paid for this? LW Season 6?
The elder dragons created this world and these towers predate that but they are used to keep thing sour od this plane :/ that don't make no scene