Do you think we'll learn about...

The actual origin of Joko? Who he was pre-lich? What he is? Where he came from? An actual back story?

Or do you think this is something that should remain a mystery?

I for one favor the idea of finding out about where he came from and how he came to be what he is, and also what makes him so powerful. But having not played Guild Wars 1, I suppose Liches? similar to the ones related to Orr are just naturally powerful anyway?

I feel like if ArenaNet want us to finally kill him, they will likely take us through his origins in order to help us understand him better, and find a way to defeat him.

Yes, I think we will get more info. Poss not a complete background, but filled in gaps at least

@Narcemus.1348 said:I feel like if ArenaNet want us to finally kill him, they will likely take us through his origins in order to help us understand him better, and find a way to defeat him.

I really hope they don't. Granted, I expect that will be the eventual outcome but man did I hate what they did to Lazarus. I'd much prefer persistent threats or questionable adversaries. That's what made Joko so awesome in Nightfall, listening to him taunt Zhed and the two go back and forth.

@Ronin.7381 said:

@Narcemus.1348 said:I feel like if ArenaNet want us to finally kill him, they will likely take us through his origins in order to help us understand him better, and find a way to defeat him.

The way things are going, I find it highly unlikely that Joko will be allowed to stay. With this newest story, he had made a pretty big jump to becoming too dangerous to let live.

..........

I think Joko has one the most detailed backstories. He was the last of the primeval kings (or he wasn’t) he was defeated by the Ossa’s (or wasn’t he). He was locked by the order of whispers (or didn’t they). He defeated Balthasar (or didn’t he) . He founded the city of Palawadan, jewel of Istan (or didn’t he?).I think there is a common theme and fact checking will not help you get it answered. I think I’ll call him Don Joko from now on. It is his Trumpf.

@mercury ranique.2170 said:I think Joko has one the most detailed backstories. He was the last of the primeval kings (or he wasn’t) he was defeated by the Ossa’s (or wasn’t he). He was locked by the order of whispers (or didn’t they). He defeated Balthasar (or didn’t he) . He founded the city of Palawadan, jewel of Istan (or didn’t he?).I think there is a common theme and fact checking will not help you get it answered. I think I’ll call him Don Joko from now on. It is his Trumpf.

Don't forget that he defeated Abaddon (or didn't he), Zhaitan (or didn't he), and Mordremoth (or didn't he) all by himself (or not at all)

I hope that if they go into Joko's backstory, it's via a fractal. Why? Because its irrelevant to the main story.

Yes, we're facing off against Joko, but we don't need to know who he was just to stop his invasion of Central Tyria, we merely need to know what he is now. And we already know that.

I am hopeful that when we defeat Joko, it'll just be a resealing. He, like Dhuum, could be a future antagonist should ArenaNet ever go the route of Guild Wars 3. Especially if they can continue to improve their writing abilities.

@Konig Des Todes.2086 said:I hope that if they go into Joko's backstory, it's via a fractal. Why? Because its irrelevant to the main story.

Yes, we're facing off against Joko, but we don't need to know who he was just to stop his invasion of Central Tyria, we merely need to know what he is now. And we already know that.

I am hopeful that when we defeat Joko, it'll just be a resealing. He, like Dhuum, could be a future antagonist should ArenaNet ever go the route of Guild Wars 3. Especially if they can continue to improve their writing abilities.

Let me just say AMEN to that! Anything is possible when you hire a professional editor to your Living World team. Also agree 100% with the Fractals of the Mists. That's the perfect medium for delving into the past to give context to the Living World.

Sealing would probably make for a good resolution. It's been established that nothing the Order of Whispers could do prior to GW1 could kill him permanently, and while it's possible that a solution to that problem is available now, it's just as possible that it isn't. Defeating and sealing him away at some point would allow for Joko to be defeated but would allow for him to return to the franchise as a recurring villain at some point in the future.

@draxynnic.3719 said:Sealing would probably make for a good resolution. It's been established that nothing the Order of Whispers could do prior to GW1 could kill him permanently, and while it's possible that a solution to that problem is available now, it's just as possible that it isn't. Defeating and sealing him away at some point would allow for Joko to be defeated but would allow for him to return to the franchise as a recurring villain at some point in the future.

There have already been some NPC's in PoF that have stated he can't be killed still, so unless they want to come up with some farfetched reason as to why all of the sudden we can kill him, I say just reseal back in a new prison, not the one he was locked in before. Especially now that's part of the new Branded area in Kourna I doubt we could even get to it, so we'll likely have to find a new place to stash him...I'm partial to putting him in the Domain of the Lost, and him having to find himself like we did only to be sent to his proper resting location in the Mists after all...not locked up, but now gone for good.

Whelp my idea to seal him would be to seal him in different areas. Just cut him up into five pieces, and put four parts in each section of Elona/the Crystal Desert. Then the last part could be placed somewhere in Tyria (preferably away from a place of power). That way he can't be brought back without some serious effort from the opposing party.

I'm pretty sure even Joko forgot about that time...

Of all GW villains I despise Joko the most, closely followed by Kralkatorrik. I am pretty sure that he was already a dork, liar, megalomaniac and a try hard when he was alive. :)

If you speak to some of the ghosts of the Primeval Kings during the PoF story they mention Joko - calling him a pretender to the Primeval Dynasty. They don't go into much detail so it's unclear what exactly happened, but that puts his first attempt to rule Elona somewhere between 452AE when the Scarab Plague ended the true Primeval Dynasty and 640AE when the Shattered Dynasty era ended and the 3 GW1 stats (Istan, Kourna and Vabbi) were established.

By 757AE he was building the Bone Palace in the Desolation so I think it's safe to assume he was dead and resurrected by that point at the latest. If I remember correctly in GW1 when your character and their party asks how his army was able to move through the Desolation he says the undead aren't affected by the sulfur and then you say there are records of living humans in the army too. If Joko himself was alive I assume it would have come up.

The Lunatic Court have claimed that Joko and Thorn knew each other when they were alive, but we know for a fact that Thorn was killed in 825AE so it seems unlikely Joko was alive at the time. I wouldn't consider a bunch of lunatics a reliable source so I suspect if there's any truth to it it's that Thorn was alive and Joko was not.

He was definitely undead by the time he fought Turai Ossa in 860AE.

(Also I've always wondered what would happen if Joko was killed on top of a bloodstone. That apparently worked for Vizier Khilbron who was also a lich. Maybe we'll get the chance to find out.)

@"Danikat.8537" said:If you speak to some of the ghosts of the Primeval Kings during the PoF story they mention Joko - calling him a pretender to the Primeval Dynasty. They don't go into much detail so it's unclear what exactly happened, but that puts his first attempt to rule Elona somewhere between 452AE when the Scarab Plague ended the true Primeval Dynasty and 640AE when the Shattered Dynasty era ended and the 3 GW1 stats (Istan, Kourna and Vabbi) were established.

Not necessarily. Joko calls himself "the last of the Primeval Kings" and Joko seems to have passed through the Tomb of the Primeval Kings before, or otherwise raided. They're likely calling him a fake because of his claim and them hearing about it.

It could mean he was of Primeval King lineage pre-Scarab Plague but never ruled in life, or he could have been one of the pretender warlords after the Great Dynasty, some of which are known to have laid claims to being heir to one of the two prior royalty lineages.

@"Danikat.8537" said:By 757AE he was building the Bone Palace in the Desolation so I think it's safe to assume he was dead and resurrected by that point at the latest. If I remember correctly in GW1 when your character and their party asks how his army was able to move through the Desolation he says the undead aren't affected by the sulfur and then you say there are records of living humans in the army too. If Joko himself was alive I assume it would have come up.

It should also be kept in mind that the sulfurous sands got worse over time. Sahlahja was a thriving city state of sorts when Joko began his invasion, so the sulfurous sands were likely not reaching that far south, or at the very least weren't toxic enough to prevent land access - especially given Turai Ossa's little pilgrimage to the northern Crystal Desert through the Desolation, though many died many made it through the Desolation so the sands had to be less toxic than during GW1's era where such passage was impossible without wurms. Even further back, Morah had existed right outside the source of the spreading sulfurous sands, the Mouth of Torment. And the Primeval Kings were crossing the desert from 29 AE to their fall, too (and they're likely the ones who built Morah). Come to think of it... Morah isn't in GW2, is it. Shame they forgot something like that.

It's said by a few ghosts outside of Lair of the Forgotten that the toxicity of the sulfurous sands has gone down since Nightfall too, so we're probably looking at something close to around Turai's time in GW2, given you can largely cross the Desolation map without a skimmer.

@Konig Des Todes.2086 said:Come to think of it... Morah isn't in GW2, is it. Shame they forgot something like that.There's a conspicuous arch, and I think an old bridge, on the site, but that's it. They didn't forget about it, but apparently they decided there's next to nothing left there.

...given you can largely cross the Desolation map without a skimmer.

Only because the gorges have been bridged, though. Most of the wide-open areas were south or west of the GW2 map, so if those bridges had been there in GW1, making the crossing from Basalt Grotto would've been just as easy.

@Danikat.8537 said:If you speak to some of the ghosts of the Primeval Kings during the PoF story they mention Joko - calling him a pretender to the Primeval Dynasty. They don't go into much detail so it's unclear what exactly happened, but that puts his first attempt to rule Elona somewhere between 452AE when the Scarab Plague ended the true Primeval Dynasty and 640AE when the Shattered Dynasty era ended and the 3 GW1 stats (Istan, Kourna and Vabbi) were established.

By 757AE he was building the Bone Palace in the Desolation so I think it's safe to assume he was dead and resurrected by that point at the latest. If I remember correctly in GW1 when your character and their party asks how his army was able to move through the Desolation he says the undead aren't affected by the sulfur and then you say there are records of living humans in the army too. If Joko himself was alive I assume it would have come up.

The Lunatic Court have claimed that Joko and Thorn knew each other when they were alive, but we know for a fact that Thorn was killed in 825AE so it seems unlikely Joko was alive at the time. I wouldn't consider a bunch of lunatics a reliable source so I suspect if there's any truth to it it's that Thorn was alive and Joko was not.

He was definitely undead by the time he fought Turai Ossa in 860AE.

(Also I've always wondered what would happen if Joko was killed on top of a bloodstone. That apparently worked for Vizier Khilbron who was also a lich. Maybe we'll get the chance to find out.)

Interesting theory. There are two unknown locations of bloodstones as far as I’m aware so it would be interesting if one of them is in that final area where Kralkatorrik flew on the world map. When considering his movement he either chose that location intentionally or a theory I had was that he was just traveling south but then changed direction because the deep sea dragon is south and Kralkatorrik changed due to not wanting to enter his current territory. Other than that I’m not sure why he would want to go to that specific area near the coast and it makes more sense that he would fly away from another elder dragon than towards. One thing I really don’t understand is why he seems to be specifically targeting Joko as was stated in the personal story. Kralkatorrik doesn’t seem to be very tactical like mordremoth or zhaitan. Either way I hope Joko has an interesting backstory other than just being some random evil lich that’s just been around a long time.

And would would happen if someone cut off joko’s head? Even if he didn’t die it doesn’t seem like he would be able to awaken anybody any new people so much as just control the ones he already has. And given the current deterioration of his body I doubt he would regenerate a new one.

I really think its about time he dies, so yes, we may take a look at his origin, after all, knowing how he made himself immortal can give insight on how to take such inmortality away from him.

Resealing is an option... but I don't really like that one, if he survives to an eventual gw3 then what? we'll have to reseal him again after he builds himself a new kingdom, and takes countless lifes once again? c'mon how do you expect anet to be original if you want them to reuse the same villain for a third time?