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Cantha confirmed!


Tamias.7059

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@Silvercyclone.1462 said:This will be interesting. Humans able to go around but the other races are going to have Canthans trying to kill them since they were forced out.

Forced out of living in the empire, but there's a lot of Cantha that isn't the empire, and this says nothing about visitors. The Zephyrites were able to visit without issue, and they're multiracial (even if mostly human and the non-humans were largely forgotten about post-Season 2 like the multiracial Zaishen Order).

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Now that I'm done hyperventilating, some observations:

  • The voice in the trailer (who is addressing Kuunavang), who we know to be a mysterious new character
  • A potential hint to how the Elder Dragons relate to the history of the Empire of the Dragon: "They built new lives upon the very thing that sought to end theirs"
  • Just after that hint, we head to the sewers and there's what looks like the section of a giant dragon spanning the gap – can't remember if anything like that was in GW1 but if so it was definitely made out to be man-made rather than part of any dragon's body. If everyone knew the city was built on the body of a dragon you'd think someone would have mentioned it.
  • the expansion logo is styled after a wave, which very strongly hints that the water will be a central figure in the storyline. In fact, in the logo there's one dragon above the waves and another beneath the waves (could that be the DSD?) – a hint that there'll be 2 dragons, possibly in opposition to each other?
  • the name of the xpac, End of Dragons, and its possible implications: assuming the obvious happens and Aurene survives the Icebrood Saga and Jormag, having been revealed as evil, does not, this expansion seems poised to resolve the main storyline of GW2 and possibly in some sense imply the death of the Elder Dragons, or at least what they represent. If there were no dragons, what would that mean for their magic? Would magic end? Would it be dispersed across the mortal races, making them all more powerful (think Abaddon's gift of magic on steroids)? What would that mean for Aurene and Kuunavang? I guess that's all up for speculation. And then where does the story of GW2 go after the dragon storyline has been resolved (if that is where we're going)? Return of the gods? Xotecha? Wherever this dude's from? Or does it not go anywhere else, are those storylines best reserved for GW3? Or do we not wrap up the story of the dragons at all, being as Primordus is still out there and we haven't (yet) seen any hint of its involvement in this expansion.

That line in particular interests me: "[Mortals] built new lives upon the very thing that sought to end theirs". Is the voice saying that humans defeated the dragon in the last cycle and built Kaineng City on top of it? As far as we know, the last dragonrise was long before humans arrived in the world. Or maybe the voice is more generally referring to a broader class of mortals, including the Forgotten, the offshoot of the Deldrimor dwarves, and the builders of the Altrumm Ruins. Another possibility is that the voice is referring to a dragon that has awoken beneath where humans have happened to build their civilisation, but that for me that doesn't quite scan with the past tense "sought to end [the lives of the mortals in question]", since a dragon that's been dormant since long before humans arrived probably has never sought to end humans. Maybe I'm reading a little too much into it. And if such a dragon has awoken, which dragon? The deep sea dragon? Because that'd contradict The Movement of the World (and it wouldn't be the first time that The Movement of the World has been contradicted), which says the deep sea dragon awoke in, well, the deep sea.

The locations the camera seems to pan through are:

  • Shing Jea Island (maybe Monastery Overlook or Shing Jea Arena?)
  • through an archway that looks very similar to the one in this concept art
  • into Raisu Palace
  • then the canopy of Kaineng City (looking, unfortunately, pretty unchanged from GW1)
  • into the Kaineng sewers
  • then into some crazy space realm
  • then the Jade Sea – looking very unchanged from GW1, directly contradicting the Eye of the North manual which very strongly suggested that it was reverting back to water. Obviously a lot of us are hugely nostalgic for the Jade Sea but I think it'd be a shame if ANet shied away from moving the world on for Cantha in the same way that they did for Tyria in GW2's release, just for nostalgia points. By implication does this mean we can assume that the Echovald Forest will also still be made of stone? That's a shame if so, I think it'd be really cool to revisit there and see the architecture carved out by the Kurzicks magically transformed into wood

and if anyone wants to read my feverish hopes for where a Cantha storyline might go, see this thread from more or less a year ago

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@Sajuuk Khar.1509 said:

@Konig Des Todes.2086 said:Forced out of living in the empire, but there's a lot of Cantha that isn't the empire,With the forcible means by which the Dragon Empire brought the Kurzick's and Luxon's back into the empire, there really isn't any known spot from the Cantha map that isn't part of the Empire.

The gw1 map no, that's all empire now.. however the Gw1 map only showed a portion of the continent.There is a great deal of land south of what we played in Gw1 that was never explored nor did we know anything about it.These are areas I am personally looking forward to seeing in Gw2 as well as the old locations from Gw1, I'd love to know what's down there.Might even be a whole region of non human races down there united against the Empire or something.

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@Teratus.2859 said:

@"Konig Des Todes.2086" said:Forced out of living in the empire, but there's a lot of Cantha that isn't the empire,With the forcible means by which the Dragon Empire brought the Kurzick's and Luxon's back into the empire, there really isn't any known spot from the Cantha map that isn't part of the Empire.

The gw1 map no, that's all empire now.. however the Gw1 map only showed a portion of the continent.There is a great deal of land south of what we played in Gw1 that was never explored nor did we know anything about it.These are areas I am personally looking forward to seeing in Gw2 as well as the old locations from Gw1, I'd love to know what's down there.Might even be a whole region of non human races down there united against the Empire or something.

I'd also point out, the Guild Wars Factions Manuscripts describe the Kurzicks and the Luxons as "the two most populous and diverse vassal cultures in the Empire", implying the existence of numerous otherwise unmentioned vassal cultures besides.

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@Teratus.2859 said:

@Konig Des Todes.2086 said:Forced out of living in the empire, but there's a lot of Cantha that isn't the empire,With the forcible means by which the Dragon Empire brought the Kurzick's and Luxon's back into the empire, there really isn't any known spot from the Cantha map that isn't part of the Empire.Everything south of the area we saw in gW1 would be bordering, or inside, and antarctic region of Tyria. Unless you are a Kodan, or some deep sea Quaggan, you aren't living there.
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@Sajuuk Khar.1509 said:

@"Konig Des Todes.2086" said:Forced out of living in the empire, but there's a lot of Cantha that isn't the empire,With the forcible means by which the Dragon Empire brought the Kurzick's and Luxon's back into the empire, there really isn't any known spot from the Cantha map that isn't part of the Empire.

Compare this:https://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/File:Cantha_unexplored_map.jpgto:https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/File:Cantha_Map.jpg

Quite a lot of room, actually.

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@"Tamias.7059" said:

  • Just after that hint, we head to the sewers and there's what looks like the section of a giant dragon spanning the gap – can't remember if anything like that was in GW1 but if so it was definitely made out to be man-made rather than part of any dragon's body. If everyone knew the city was built on the body of a dragon you'd think someone would have mentioned it.

There's a lot of "dragon shaped pipes" in the sewers of Kaineng City in GW1, nothing new. In fact, all the designs presented in the trailer can be seen in GW1, even the Jade Sea as you point out. Which is very disappointing - and I hope is only done for the sake of the teaser trailer, and isn't actually how GW2 Cantha will be.

And then where does the story of GW2 go after the dragon storyline has been resolved (if that is where we're going)? Return of the gods? Xotecha? Wherever this dude's from? Or does it not go anywhere else, are those storylines best reserved for GW3?Ruby says that GW2 story is not ending, so we won't be moving on to GW3, at least. [EDIT: I see you responded to such later.]

Xotecha, the god-killers, and the return of the gods (who left because of the Elder Dragon threat) seems most likely. After PoF, devs did confirm that the god plot is not over, and I doubt they were just referring to the Hall of Chains raid and Dragonfall.

@Sajuuk Khar.1509 said:Everything south of the area we saw in gW1 would be bordering, or inside, and antarctic region of Tyria. Unless you are a Kodan, or some deep sea Quaggan, you aren't living there.

There's also land to the east, and I imagine there'd be some space before hitting any permanent snowfall land, given the southern border of GW1's map showed no snow except on mountain peaks.

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Another crackpot theory, the DSD was defeated BEFORE the Canthan empire was built and that's where the name "Empire of the Dragon" came from. It just wasn't noticed because the whole thing became Jade and it had two resident dragons soaking up all of the energy. Perhaps the Krait and the Quaggan were driven out by the minions/champions of the DSD that went astray after its defeat similar to the risen and unchained storyline.

Probably less likely than the DSD being defeated in between games after they shut themselves off from everyone, but it's an interesting possibility.

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@"Konig Des Todes.2086" said:Compare this:https://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/File:Cantha_unexplored_map.jpgto:https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/File:Cantha_Map.jpg

Quite a lot of room, actually.

@"Konig Des Todes.2086" said:There's also land to the east, and I imagine there'd be some space before hitting any permanent snowfall land, given the southern border of GW1's map showed no snow except on mountain peaks.If you overlay the GW1 map of Cantha over the GW2 world map, that eastern land is part of that circling mountain range. The mountains would dominate it except maybe a very small shoreline around the rim. the same is also seemingly true of at least a chuck of the land to the south.

We are talking a very thin line, across a large mountain range, that borders the antarctic region. You could live there, but thats like exile of the worst criminals territory. IT would be easier to just go to Elona or Tyria at that point.

(one thing to note is that while the western coast doesn't match up at the bottom, all the islands like shing Jea, the two islands of the west, and the large island to the south all do. The coastline has just increased massively between the two maps, and now connects the mainland with these islands on the world map)kRSA1tD.png

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@Sajuuk Khar.1509 said:

@"Konig Des Todes.2086" said:Compare this:
to:

Quite a lot of room, actually.

@"Konig Des Todes.2086" said:There's also land to the east, and I imagine there'd be some space before hitting any permanent snowfall land, given the southern border of GW1's map showed no snow except on mountain peaks.If you overlay the GW1 map of Cantha over the GW2 world map, that eastern land is part of that circling mountain range. The mountains would dominate it except maybe a very small shoreline around the rim. the same is also seemingly true of at least a chuck of the land to the south.

We are talking a very thin line, across a large mountain range, that borders the antarctic region. You could live there, but thats like exile of the worst criminals territory. IT would be easier to just go to Elona or Tyria at that point.

(one thing to note is that while the western coast doesn't match up at the bottom, all the islands like shing Jea, the two islands of the west, and the large island to the south all do. The coastline has just increased massively between the two maps, and now connects the mainland with these islands on the world map)
kRSA1tD.png

Is there anything cannon about that being a harsh antarctic region though?

I mean, that logic doesn't really apply to a video game. In this franchise alone we've gone into a volcano filled with lush greenery, snowy regions that go into jungle, deserts that immediately transition into jungle. We have the whole area up North where Jormag is that's pretty harsh. I don't think you can really apply that to a video game. For all we it could be a lush jungle, snow, and a volcano from zone to zone.

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Well, looking at the map, the southern edge of the GW1 map of Cantha is about the same latitude (closer to the equator, in fact) then regions that are green at northern latitudes, and that's with the northern regions tending to be at higher altitudes as well as having the influence of Jormag. It'd be getting colder as you go further south to be sure, but I think there's a way to go before you hit tundra in the non-alpine regions.

That said, that area might well already be the hinterlands of Cantha - it's likely that the Luxons and Kurzicks retained their degree of independence for as long as they did largely because they were well adapted to the terrain of the Jade Sea and Echovald respectively while mainstream Canthans weren't. It's also worth noting that in GW1's time Kaineng was as overpopulated as it was due to population movements away from the areas affected by the Jade Wind, implying that the reach of the Canthan nation once extended further than just Kaineng and Shing Jea. It would make sense for Canthans to have occupied some of the regions south of the Jade Sea and Echovald prior to the wind (noting that the epicenter was the Harvest Temple, which is towards the southern end of the Jade Sea) and it's likely that they'd expand back into those areas once it's safe to do so.

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@"Bast.7253" said:Another crackpot theory, the DSD was defeated BEFORE the Canthan empire was built and that's where the name "Empire of the Dragon" came from. It just wasn't noticed because the whole thing became Jade and it had two resident dragons soaking up all of the energy. Perhaps the Krait and the Quaggan were driven out by the minions/champions of the DSD that went astray after its defeat similar to the risen and unchained storyline.

Probably less likely than the DSD being defeated in between games after they shut themselves off from everyone, but it's an interesting possibility.

While it may be entirely plausible that the Empire of the Dragon was named for the corpse of an Elder Dragon and not the plathora of dragon species on the continent nor the Celestial Dragon that is repeatedly brought up in reverence throughout GW1, said Elder Dragon cannot be the Deep Sea Dragon for the Deep Sea Dragon's orb is still active in our two visions of The All - which show Zhaitan's and Mordremoth's orbs as acting weird and inactive post-mortem. Any killed Elder Dragon would a) be unknowingly killed as far as jotun, dwarves, and possibly Forgotten knew, and b) would have been replaced.

Also, the Jade Sea didn't exist until 800 AE, which would be a full 1,000+ years after the Empire of the Dragon was established, and was formed by twisted god magic - nothing to do with Elder Dragons.

@Sajuuk Khar.1509 said:If you overlay the GW1 map of Cantha over the GW2 world map, that eastern land is part of that circling mountain range. The mountains would dominate it except maybe a very small shoreline around the rim. the same is also seemingly true of at least a chuck of the land to the south.

Assuming A) the mountain range is one long continuous range and not just two smaller ranges, and B] that mountains cannot be settled (which norn, dredge, dwarves, jotun, and more would tell you is false).

We are talking a very thin line, across a large mountain range, that borders the antarctic region. You could live there, but thats like exile of the worst criminals territory. IT would be easier to just go to Elona or Tyria at that point.

Assuming that A) the antarctic region would hit so quickly off of the GW1 map (which seems unlikely - and yes, I'm fully well aware of your texture-on-globe argument you've made before, but for the same reasons Drax gives, as well as given how they changed the S2 texture for Season 4/PoF with Elona's placement, I'm doubtful in the texture being so accurate when placed on a globe), and B] such environment would legitimately be horrible to live in - this won't be Antarctica, it wouldn't even be Greenland, but instead may be more akin to Russia or Scandenavia in terms of quality of lifestyle - harsh in some areas, but plentiful in others - and we see several cultures living in mountainous snow-covered regions as denoted above.

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@"Tamias.7059" said:

  • then the Jade Sea – looking very unchanged from GW1, directly contradicting the Eye of the North manual which very strongly suggested that it was reverting back to water. Obviously a lot of us are hugely nostalgic for the Jade Sea but I think it'd be a shame if ANet shied away from moving the world on for Cantha in the same way that they did for Tyria in GW2's release, just for nostalgia points. By implication does this mean we can assume that the Echovald Forest will also still be made of stone? That's a shame if so, I think it'd be really cool to revisit there and see the architecture carved out by the Kurzicks magically transformed into wood

To be fair, back in winds of Change we had no evidence, only rumors that the Jade Sea and forest were "reverting". We've never had real proof of it.

Hell, the manual lines don't strongly suggest that either are reverting. It explicitly states the waves under the surface of the Jade Sea are purely unsubstantiated rumors. The Forest always had life growing out among the stone trees. We have jade carvings from Cantha among the Zephyrites at the cliffs. I'm doubtful that the Jade mined from the sea wouldn't also revert if the overall sea was returning to water.

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@Kalavier.1097 said:

@"Tamias.7059" said:
  • then the Jade Sea – looking very unchanged from GW1, directly contradicting the Eye of the North manual which very strongly suggested that it was reverting back to water. Obviously a lot of us are hugely nostalgic for the Jade Sea but I think it'd be a shame if ANet shied away from moving the world on for Cantha in the same way that they did for Tyria in GW2's release, just for nostalgia points. By implication does this mean we can assume that the Echovald Forest will also still be made of stone? That's a shame if so, I think it'd be really cool to revisit there and see the architecture carved out by the Kurzicks magically transformed into wood

To be fair, back in winds of Change we had no evidence, only rumors that the Jade Sea and forest were "reverting". We've never had real proof of it.

Hell, the manual lines don't strongly suggest that either are reverting. It explicitly states the waves under the surface of the Jade Sea are purely unsubstantiated rumors. The Forest always had life growing out among the stone trees. We have jade carvings from Cantha among the Zephyrites at the cliffs. I'm doubtful that the Jade mined from the sea wouldn't also revert if the overall sea was returning to water.

I don't know, I think that the manual is trying to hint very clearly that the effects of the Jade Wind are slowly being reversed. The exact text is,

Over the past few years, life has begun to spring up in Echovald Forest as many areas have seen new growth take hold. Some even claim to have seen a change in the Jade Sea—small pools of water forming or even waves moving beneath the frozen surface—but these reports are unsubstantiated rumors at best.

Maybe they gave themselves enough scope to change their minds if they wanted to by framing the reports of changes as rumours, but I read that as a very intentional hint that the Jade Wind is being reversed.

Like, how weird would if be that the manual talked about rumours of waves beneath the surface of the Jade Sea, and then ANet never meant anything by it? And I think it's pretty clear from the manual as well that the growth in the Echovald Forest is since the defeat of Shiro. ANet of course have the freedom to retcon this, and as you say it wouldn't be a huge retcon because they gave themselves the freedom to be like, "oh, those were only rumours" (at least in the case of the Jade Sea), but I think the intent when those words were written was definitely that the Jade Wind was slowly being reversed.

All that said, having rewatched the trailer a few times I strongly suspect that it's depicting Cantha in 1072 AE, not Cantha today. I thought it strange at the time that Kaineng City would look exactly the same as it did hundreds of years ago, given how unstable its construction was (and I'd have thought it would have either burned down or the Ministry of Purity would have addressed this), and there's also the miasma in Shing Jea Island. I don't know why the trailer would show us Cantha's past rather than present. But I think it might do.

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