How did the Crystal desert become accessible?

I've either missed something completely or there is a bit of a plot hole in how we access the Crystal desert.Since launch the desert/elona have been competely inaccessible and only the order of whispers had any communication with it, but now out of nowhere there is refugees in... Lions arch? How did they get there? How can we access it all of a sudden?

I wish this would've been further explored.

I think a large part of the answer is simply Zhaitan's death... and airships.

The main cause of the cutoff from Amnoon was probably Zhaitan, who controlled the channel through which the Elon drained into the Sea of Sorrows. Meanwhile, the route south from Ebonhawke is probably the communication line that the Order of Whispers used, but was blocked by the Brand (in fact, you can visit the tunnel that emerges from that route into the Desert Highlands. It's blocked).

Zhaitan's defeat has probably been progressively making the route down the mouth of the Elon more accessible. If we can get a ship to Siren's Landing (which... we probably should not be able to do given the low bridges across the Straits of Devastation, but perhaps they can be moved out of the way...), then the rest of the route is probably fairly straightforward.

Airships then make it even easier, since as long as the weather isn't too hostile to airships, you can just fly over most threats.

So what's probably been happening is that behind the scenes, communications lines have steadily been formed with Amnoon since the rebuilding of Lion's Arch. This is just the point where that became relevant to the PC.

@draxynnic.3719 said:I think a large part of the answer is simply Zhaitan's death... and airships.

The main cause of the cutoff from Amnoon was probably Zhaitan, who controlled the channel through which the Elon drained into the Sea of Sorrows. Meanwhile, the route south from Ebonhawke is probably the communication line that the Order of Whispers used, but was blocked by the Brand (in fact, you can visit the tunnel that emerges from that route into the Desert Highlands. It's blocked).

Zhaitan's defeat has probably been progressively making the route down the mouth of the Elon more accessible. If we can get a ship to Siren's Landing (which... we probably should not be able to do given the low bridges across the Straits of Devastation, but perhaps they can be moved out of the way...), then the rest of the route is probably fairly straightforward.

Airships then make it even easier, since as long as the weather isn't too hostile to airships, you can just fly over most threats.

So what's probably been happening is that behind the scenes, communications lines have steadily been formed with Amnoon since the rebuilding of Lion's Arch. This is just the point where that became relevant to the PC.

I was thinking along the same lines so calling it a plot hole was perhaps a bit of a stretch.

I do think it's a bigger deal than the PC acts like it is, I guess that's where my disappointment lie.

I think the only reason that they were not able to cross is due to the crystal sea and that is now gone and evaporated to crystal desert.

@Alchofas.8243 said:I think the only reason that they were not able to cross is due to the crystal sea and that is now gone and evaporated to crystal desert.

The Crystal sea evaporated looong ago, when abaddon was originally defeated why the other gods, since then it has been a desert, but since the beginning of gw2 it was inaccesible mostly because of zhaitan controling the west area and the brand on the east area of the land that connects Tyria to Elona, back then it was too dangerous for anyone to go to Elona and only the order of whisper knew some ways to go in.

It should be noted that it was Tyrians who cut ties with Elona, rather than the other way around, and travel was never actually impossible, just fairly dangerous due to the nature of the Crystal Desert and Zhaitan's presence over the Strait of Malchor.

Keep in mind, the last Elonian refugees showed up 50 years before the game - that's 50 years after Zhaitan rose. So Zhaitan didn't block off all passage, and it was never a case that only the Order of Whispers could get into Elona. It was The Bone Wall, by all indication I can find, that ceased the refugee movement (and perhaps them being able to settle in Amnoon as well). But from the Tyrian side, it was just official trade stopped when Joko took over, but Priory and small adventurers were always able to get into the Crystal Desert.