WHY WAS ZHAITAN SO TINY?

[Teratus.2859]

@Konig Des Todes.2086 said:

@"Teratus.2859" said:If I were to do it i'd probably take the Priory's library map and shrink it down so it fits to scale with the Priory layout on the world mapAck! No! The open world is scaled down for gameplay purposes! Dungeons and in-door instances are more likely to be accurate to lore scale. But not in this case, they're the same scale as the Hidden Arcana instance began by making a copy of Lornar's Pass (you can see a portion of it when viewing via Tyria3d). And as mentioned, the tail size scale is 1:1 the same.

I didn't know the scale was the same, It looks significantly larger in the priory than it does on Zhaitan.That's a shame then, perhaps someone over at Anet can give us some official size figures someday.. in a Gw2 bestiary or something.. a good few of us have been wanting one of those as far back as Gw1 lol

Mordremoth is a harder one to compare since we don't really have anything to go on but his Dragon Stand corpse and that is all twisty etc not to mention I don't think we even have a full model of him.. from mouth the tail.

The Mouth of Mordremoth model is straight when pulled from the dat. But as you say, we lack a full model of him. Given the event icons, I imagine he's effectively a super-large

version of this guy

, and do one day hope to find that model in the dat to see just how large Mordremoth's full body would be by upscaling the mini enormously.

Me too man, we've no idea what the rest of him looks like.

[Aaron Ansari.1604]

@Teratus.2859 said:

@Konig Des Todes.2086 said:

@Teratus.2859 said:If I were to do it i'd probably take the Priory's library map and shrink it down so it fits to scale with the Priory layout on the world mapAck! No! The open world is scaled down for gameplay purposes! Dungeons and in-door instances are more likely to be accurate to lore scale. But not in this case, they're the same scale as the Hidden Arcana instance began by making a copy of Lornar's Pass (you can see a portion of it when viewing via Tyria3d). And as mentioned, the tail size scale is 1:1 the same.

I didn't know the scale was the same, It looks significantly larger in the priory than it does on Zhaitan.That's a shame then, perhaps someone over at Anet can give us some official size figures someday.. in a Gw2 bestiary or something.. a good few of us have been wanting one of those as far back as Gw1 lol

In fairness, we are considerably closer to it in the Priory than we are in the Arah.

I know a lot is being made in this thread about how much smaller Zhaitan was compared to other Elder Dragons, but it's worth bearing in mind that, compared to anything reasonably sized, Zhaitan is freaking enormous. When the model was pulled from the .dat, it was estimated to be more than 1600 feet long. That's larger than the Empire State Building, large enough to dwarf the Eiffel Tower. He may not be large enough to build a city on, the way Kralk or Primordus are, but he was still plenty big enough to make humans look like bugs. I actually walked out of Arah with the opposite impression from Konig- all those cutscenes and swooping camera shots made it impossible to tell how large the model really was. It wasn't until I broke out of the map and swam down to where his corpse ends up beneath the playspace that I had any real appreciation for his size.

[Fimbulvetr Wraith.2379]

All those years soaking on the freezing abyssal plane. Poor guy is bound to suffer some shrinkage.

[Gryphon.2875]

@Aaron Ansari.1604 said:

@Teratus.2859 said:

@Konig Des Todes.2086 said:

@Teratus.2859 said:If I were to do it i'd probably take the Priory's library map and shrink it down so it fits to scale with the Priory layout on the world mapAck! No! The open world is scaled down for gameplay purposes! Dungeons and in-door instances are more likely to be accurate to lore scale. But not in this case, they're the same scale as the Hidden Arcana instance began by making a copy of Lornar's Pass (you can see a portion of it when viewing via Tyria3d). And as mentioned, the tail size scale is 1:1 the same.

I didn't know the scale was the same, It looks significantly larger in the priory than it does on Zhaitan.That's a shame then, perhaps someone over at Anet can give us some official size figures someday.. in a Gw2 bestiary or something.. a good few of us have been wanting one of those as far back as Gw1 lol

In fairness, we are considerably closer to it in the Priory than we are in the Arah.

I know a lot is being made in this thread about how much smaller Zhaitan was compared to other Elder Dragons, but it's worth bearing in mind that, compared to anything reasonably sized, Zhaitan is freaking

enormous.

When the model was pulled from the .dat, it was estimated to be more than 1600 feet long. That's larger than the Empire State Building, large enough to dwarf the Eiffel Tower. He may not be large enough to build a city on, the way Kralk or Primordus are, but he was still plenty big enough to make humans look like bugs. I actually walked out of Arah with the opposite impression from Konig- all those cutscenes and swooping camera shots made it impossible to tell how large the model really was. It wasn't until I broke out of the map and swam down to where his corpse ends up beneath the playspace that I had any real appreciation for his size.

Did you screen-cap that?

[Malavian.4695]

Well...I guess the real question would be were the other dragons as big as they are prior to Zhaitan being killed? Prior to Mordermoth begin killed? Prior to the death of Balthazar? If anything Aurene demonstrated they're size seems comparative to the amount of magic that they have absorbed, not how old they are.

[Konig Des Todes.2086]

@Malavian.4695 said:Well...I guess the real question would be were the other dragons as big as they are prior to Zhaitan being killed? Prior to Mordermoth begin killed? Prior to the death of Balthazar? If anything Aurene demonstrated they're size seems comparative to the amount of magic that they have absorbed, not how old they are.

I would argue the opposite. Aurene demonstrates that their size is comparative to age. Aurene as an Elder Dragon is the same size as Vlast, Glint, and Drakkar - which is smaller than even the Claw of Jormag, Tequatl, Shatterer, and Shadow of the Dragon. Which is in turn much smaller than Zhaitan or Mordremoth. By all rights, Aurene should at least be the size of Zhaitan given that she absorbed the lion share of Kralkatorrik's magic (this remains true even if we exclude the magic Kralk absorbed from Zhaitan, Mordremoth, and Balthazar).

Though I would also argue that magical amounts do hold a factor, given Aurene's sudden boosts in size when absorbing a high concentration of magic, just that age is not irrelevant.

[Malavian.4695]

@Konig Des Todes.2086 said:I would argue the opposite. Aurene demonstrates that their size is comparative to age. Aurene as an Elder Dragon is the same size as Vlast, Glint, and Drakkar - which is smaller than even the Claw of Jormag, Tequatl, Shatterer, and Shadow of the Dragon. Which is in turn much smaller than Zhaitan or Mordremoth. By all rights, Aurene should at least be the size of Zhaitan given that she absorbed the lion share of Kralkatorrik's magic (this remains true even if we exclude the magic Kralk absorbed from Zhaitan, Mordremoth, and Balthazar).

Zhaitan was supposed to awaken as one of the first dragons because he was 2nd powerful to Primordus. Primordus was delayed due tot he events of Eye of the North. If we remember the sleeping Primordus from the Eye of the North end scene, he was not as massive as the one displayed in Season 3. As for age, I don't see how that could be relevant because technically Aurene is what...two yrs old at most?

[Malavian.4695]

Thinking a little more on that...there was a difference in expenditure of magic between the different dragons as well. Maybe Zhaitan was smaller because he technically was extending himself beyond just a primary body. He had Eyes of Zhaitan, Multiple dragons flying around that looked like Tequatl. He had a central core body, but his power was more decentralized.

[Konig Des Todes.2086]

@"Malavian.4695" said:Zhaitan was supposed to awaken as one of the first dragons because he was 2nd powerful to Primordus. Primordus was delayed due tot he events of Eye of the North. If we remember the sleeping Primordus from the Eye of the North end scene, he was not as massive as the one displayed in Season 3. As for age, I don't see how that could be relevant because technically Aurene is what...two yrs old at most?

There's absolutely nothing that indicates a clear power difference between the Elder Dragons before they began taking power from dead Elder Dragons. Zhaitan was also the fourth Elder Dragon to awaken - the order being Primordus (delayed), deep sea dragon, Jormag, Zhaitan, Kralkatorrik (delayed), and Mordremoth).

If age wasn't at all relevant, then by the end of PoF, she should have been the size of Vlast and Glint if not larger - she had absorbed two huge spikes of magic in that 2 year span (she's 3 nearing on 4 now btw), whereas Vlast and Glint had been slowly gathering magic for centuries. Yet in PoF/S4 she's smaller than Vlast and Glint. In of itself it's weird that Vlast and Glint were the same size, in fact, given that Glint had been absorbing magic for 3,000 years (even if the first couple millennia were magic-deprived). But more importantly, Aurene as an Elder Dragon should be vastly larger than Vlast if their size is solely based on magical consumption - but theyr'e the same size.

Maybe Zhaitan was smaller because he technically was extending himself beyond just a primary body. He had Eyes of Zhaitan, Multiple dragons flying around that looked like Tequatl. He had a central core body, but his power was more decentralized.

Those risen dragons aren't part of Zhaitan's body - just the Eyes and Mouths. Tequatl and the other risen dragons are akin to the Claws of Jormag, of which we see many (though not as many as the risen dragons) throughout the northern and far shiverpeaks.

[DonArkanio.6419]

Lack of time and technology. Lore and fan theories don't work for me here.

[Aaron Ansari.1604]

@Gryphon.2875 said:

@Aaron Ansari.1604 said:

@Teratus.2859 said:

@Konig Des Todes.2086 said:

@Teratus.2859 said:If I were to do it i'd probably take the Priory's library map and shrink it down so it fits to scale with the Priory layout on the world mapAck! No! The open world is scaled down for gameplay purposes! Dungeons and in-door instances are more likely to be accurate to lore scale. But not in this case, they're the same scale as the Hidden Arcana instance began by making a copy of Lornar's Pass (you can see a portion of it when viewing via Tyria3d). And as mentioned, the tail size scale is 1:1 the same.

I didn't know the scale was the same, It looks significantly larger in the priory than it does on Zhaitan.That's a shame then, perhaps someone over at Anet can give us some official size figures someday.. in a Gw2 bestiary or something.. a good few of us have been wanting one of those as far back as Gw1 lol

In fairness, we are considerably closer to it in the Priory than we are in the Arah.

I know a lot is being made in this thread about how much smaller Zhaitan was compared to other Elder Dragons, but it's worth bearing in mind that, compared to anything reasonably sized, Zhaitan is freaking

enormous.

When the model was pulled from the .dat, it was estimated to be more than 1600 feet long. That's larger than the Empire State Building, large enough to dwarf the Eiffel Tower. He may not be large enough to build a city on, the way Kralk or Primordus are, but he was still plenty big enough to make humans look like bugs. I actually walked out of Arah with the opposite impression from Konig- all those cutscenes and swooping camera shots made it impossible to tell how large the model really was. It wasn't until I broke out of the map and swam down to where his corpse ends up beneath the playspace that I had any real appreciation for his size.

Did you screen-cap that?

I did, but if I still have them, they're trapped inside a functionally dead PC... unless, possibly, I bothered to back them up. I'll check this weekend if I find the time.

[Drizzt.1796]

PLEASE end this thread! Its been going on too long!

But thanks for helping me understand!!!

 

[Gryphon.2875]

@Aaron Ansari.1604 said:

@Gryphon.2875 said:

@Aaron Ansari.1604 said:

@Teratus.2859 said:

@Konig Des Todes.2086 said:

@Teratus.2859 said:If I were to do it i'd probably take the Priory's library map and shrink it down so it fits to scale with the Priory layout on the world mapAck! No! The open world is scaled down for gameplay purposes! Dungeons and in-door instances are more likely to be accurate to lore scale. But not in this case, they're the same scale as the Hidden Arcana instance began by making a copy of Lornar's Pass (you can see a portion of it when viewing via Tyria3d). And as mentioned, the tail size scale is 1:1 the same.

I didn't know the scale was the same, It looks significantly larger in the priory than it does on Zhaitan.That's a shame then, perhaps someone over at Anet can give us some official size figures someday.. in a Gw2 bestiary or something.. a good few of us have been wanting one of those as far back as Gw1 lol

In fairness, we are considerably closer to it in the Priory than we are in the Arah.

I know a lot is being made in this thread about how much smaller Zhaitan was compared to other Elder Dragons, but it's worth bearing in mind that, compared to anything reasonably sized, Zhaitan is freaking

enormous.

When the model was pulled from the .dat, it was estimated to be more than 1600 feet long. That's larger than the Empire State Building, large enough to dwarf the Eiffel Tower. He may not be large enough to build a city on, the way Kralk or Primordus are, but he was still plenty big enough to make humans look like bugs. I actually walked out of Arah with the opposite impression from Konig- all those cutscenes and swooping camera shots made it impossible to tell how large the model really was. It wasn't until I broke out of the map and swam down to where his corpse ends up beneath the playspace that I had any real appreciation for his size.

Did you screen-cap that?

I did, but if I still have them, they're trapped inside a functionally dead PC... unless, possibly, I bothered to back them up. I'll check this weekend if I find the time.

Thanks. Would love to see that.