We already lost

Yeah, i know clickbait title, but i couldnt find a better one ^^English isnt my native language so i´m having a harder time to explain, just fyi.Before you continue please note, that i´m mixing story and gameplay, so take it with a grain of salt.

So this has been a headcannon for a while now and it could explain a lot of things.What if we already lost against the Elder Dragons, especially against all the magic.The Antikytheria has already tilted and Tyria went to the mist. This could also happen some time in the future, because time in the mist isnt as linear as in the real world

Let us look at the ´´evidence´´:We all know Fractals. They are little realities of real and alternative timelines, which are repeating themselves over and over again, without the inhabitants noticing it. The only ones, who do realise it are Dessa and Arkk, however they cant it either.We also can observe this in every Map, that you can visit. In Orr Zhaitan is still alive and the event-chains are, guess what, repeating themselves. Hmm just like Fractals. But thats Orr you say, it is frozen in time, Anet said so.But why is a part of the world frozen in time? This doesnt make sense at all. Unless you look at the behavior you all know from Fractals ....So what im basically saying is, that every map is a big Fractal.

And what about the personal story? And Lions Arch? That changed alot.Yep, it changed over time. My theory is still valid :PLions Arch is explained a lot faster, so i´ll begin there:It changed in an instant. The most recent change of Lions Arch, after Scarletts destruction happened in an instant. Yeah, we all saw the construction sites, but in one minute you see all that, in the next moment you enter a new, shining Lions Arch.Next one on my list is the personal story and the famous player character.How can it be, that there is not one Commander? There are thousands and all claim to be this one person.Here we can look at Fractals again:They also portray alternate History.What you are basically experiencing is a What-if scenario. What if the Commander is a Sylvari, a Charr, Norn, etc.Even for me this is a bit far fetched, but i have another theory. What if you are not the Commander? Yes you heard me right, you are nothing special, you are just a random person.You once stumbled into the mist an d are now experiencing the memories of another person.The evidence here:Almost all the time you need to enter a ´´rift´´ to become the Commander. You all know the rift. Its a green starlike object, hovering over the ground. You are basically entering a Minifractal.But in the latest Living Stories you interact outside of these instances.Yes you are, but before you do that you ALWAYS enter an instance. You are basically following a straight line. I´ll call this an echo.I´ve seen alot of people complaining, that your character doesnt feel like you, but just as a person speaking out of your mouth.... There you have it. You are, in a sense, remote controlled. You have to follow the line, because you cant change it. It already happened.

But the horryfiing thing is:You are not only the Commander!You are:a random extra (Side Stories)Some Adventurer (Dungeon explorable)a soldier (Raids)an explorer (basically every map)and a few more im sure.

Further ideas/proof on my Fractal idea:Why can you repeat the dungeons? You can kill a person only once in real life, not every day.

So what are you thinking about it?I´m open to new suggestions and criticism and as i said above:I´m mixing gameplay and Lore which is something you shouldnt do ^^

PS:You are not always someone else. You can be you inside your home instance. Unless they call you Commander ...

there is this powerfull being called, "priorities". it causes some parts of the world to be forgotten or locked in time as if the struggles there are eternal.

in all reality, most of the repeating events are a one time thing in the lore, they just need to be repeatable for gameplay purposes, no need to look for some bigger purpose behind it, ofcourse Anet can decide to make it into something.

Lion's arch being build in an instant has to do with the time they have for the development and what they see as priorities, if they'de bring it back in stages, they'd have to put more work into it.

The game and the lore can be seen as seperate things, in most MMO's you are the main hero and the nobody at the same time, because there would be a big lack of content if you could only do either the hero stuff or the nobody stuff, it being repeatable is also important here, doing the HoT story multiple times on 1 character doesn't relate to the cannon lore, in the lore you did it once.

but if you like you can always think of something you feel like is more fitting for the lore and roll with it as your own "sub-lore"

edit: please correct me if i'm reading your post wrong, i'm not trying to be angry at you or anything.

Before you continue please note, that i´m mixing story and gameplay, so take it with a grain of salt.> @Spire.9341 said:

Before you continue please note, that i´m mixing story and gameplay, so take it with a grain of salt.

I´m mixing gameplay and Lore which is something you shouldnt do ^^

My third and last sentence.I know its not to be taken seriosly.

@Spire.9341 said:Before you continue please note, that i´m mixing story and gameplay, so take it with a grain of salt.> @Spire.9341 said:

Before you continue please note, that i´m mixing story and gameplay, so take it with a grain of salt.

I´m mixing gameplay and Lore which is something you shouldnt do ^^

oops, my bad. must have read it to quickly.

If memory serves me right, It actually took some time for LA to be rebuilt. Also the assault to retake LA is still in my top 5 ingame events, it was intense and made people band together and work in teams, much like the Tarrir event but more organic.

@Arlette.9684 said:If memory serves me right, It actually took some time for LA to be rebuilt. Also the assault to retake LA is still in my top 5 ingame events, it was intense and made people band together and work in teams, much like the Tarrir event but more organic.

I think he is refering to the change from "destroyed lion's arch" to "completely renewed lion's arch" was done in 1 day, with no rebuilding or construction work going on in the days/weeks/months prior to the change

Yup, thats what i meant

Now you got me thinking about the nature of reality. :o

@CharterforGw.3149 said:

@Arlette.9684 said:If memory serves me right, It actually took some time for LA to be rebuilt. Also the assault to retake LA is still in my top 5 ingame events, it was intense and made people band together and work in teams, much like the Tarrir event but more organic.

That was explained as the consortium building these structures elsewhere and porting them into place when everything was done, if I remember right. Some dialogue between npc's mentioned it back when the city was in rebuilding mode.

There have been lots of subtle patches in the past where things have happened incrementally, such as Kessex Hills being deforested before the Tower of Nightmares was built and revealed, but doing these subtle patches does take work. Everyone was focused on Lion's Arch, and it's a main focal hub, so it's harder to subtly change it without people noticing, and so it had to be done all at once. And there were some changes before this rebuild, such as building tools all over LA. But it had to be done in one go, since there was just such a big change to the city and all.

The repeatability of the stories, from Season 2 onwards, is more a response to how Season 1 was easily missed by some players just because of circumstances outside their control. If you wanted to use that as part of your evidence, don't, as this was supposed to be a kindness to players with busy schedules. Plus, achievements in Season 2 couldn't be done in their first attempt.

We - that is, the characters we control in the world - seem to actually notice the various changes in the world, which is different from those that are a part of the Fractals. The lobby of the Fractals has changed, but Dessa and her krewe don't notice. However, when Lion's Arch gets a makeover, we are aware of this fact, and notice the new memorials that appear and so forth. Thus, we're not in a fractal yet. That's not to say we're not hurtling towards doom, but we still have a hope of righting the ship and restoring balance to the world.

@CharterforGw.3149 said:

@Arlette.9684 said:If memory serves me right, It actually took some time for LA to be rebuilt. Also the assault to retake LA is still in my top 5 ingame events, it was intense and made people band together and work in teams, much like the Tarrir event but more organic.

Except that's not the case. Lion's Arch after Battle for LA had 4 stages:

First stage began with Battle for Lion's Arch: Aftermath. Here, we saw LA in a completely devastated state. No real services returned.

Second stage began with Festival of the Four Winds. This was the longest stage. Services returned, but things were still in rubble. Some, but not much, of the Breachmaker and rubble of ruined buildings were removed as well. During this time, we also saw workers moving about hammering, pickaxing, and shoveling stuff - though mechanically, this was without any real progress.

Third stage began a few weeks before the new LA came about. The foundations for various walls and new structures were shipped in, while NPC dialogue talked about more stuff beign shipped in "soon". In addition, all the rubble and Breachmaker wreckage was removed entirely. We also see Consortium surveyors mapping the landscape for said new structures' placements and sizes.

Fourth stage is as we now see, fully rebuilt.

The first and third stages didn't last long, but they lasted a few weeks all the same (first stage lasted from March 18, 2014 to May 20, 2014; second stage lasted from May 20, 2014 to May 19, 2015, and third stage lasted from May 19, 2015 to June 23, 2015.

This is definitely not "overnight" - even the preparation preview of new LA was shown months before the actual rebuilt LA.

And this is also shown in other aspects of the game. Even ignoring multi-phased Shadow of the Mad King 2012 and The Lost Shores and Wintersday 2012, we had Tower of Nightmares being previewed during Blood and Madness 2014, where we had deforested Kessex Hills and a weird veil showing up over the lake. With Season 2's second half, we had progressional changes to Fort Vandal in Brisban Wildlands, before Episode 5 came out and destroyed it - and even then, we had progressional changes after that, for a few days at a time until it got to where it is now.

With Path of Fire, we had progressional changes to Lion's Arch - on August 8th we had the refugees, new PoI, Ogden and Hero-Tron's new dialogue; with PoF, new dialogue about Balthazar showed up throughout the city proper.

ArenaNet actually does pretty damn good job compared to most games with progressional dialogue and aesthetics.

@Rognik.2579 said:We - that is, the characters we control in the world - seem to actually notice the various changes in the world, which is different from those that are a part of the Fractals. The lobby of the Fractals has changed, but Dessa and her krewe don't notice. However, when Lion's Arch gets a makeover, we are aware of this fact, and notice the new memorials that appear and so forth. Thus, we're not in a fractal yet. That's not to say we're not hurtling towards doom, but we still have a hope of righting the ship and restoring balance to the world.

This is the most important thing to note when talking about the argument of "Tyria is a fractal".

Unlike in fractals, NPCs in Tyria recognize the changes in the world immediately. In addition to that, there is this character who acknowledges us as "real people" but Dessa and her krewe as not. In addition to this, NPCs in fractals cannot leave their fractal, but we clearly do by going to the fractals, WvW, PvP, Mad Realm, and even the Realm of Torment (or specifically The Sanctum).