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Allied factions [Lore and lore gameplay discussion]


EdwinLi.1284

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With recent events it seems we will finally get into obtaining new allies into the war effort against the Elder Dragons called Allied Factions.

So how do you think Allied Factions may play out through lore reasoning and how that lore may affect the Allied Faction's functions in gameplay?

So far we confirmed that specific factions will finally join the fight against the Elder Dragons and bring in unique NPCs specifically for their faction and some may have unique abilities or combat styles exclusive to their faction.

Crystal Bloom = Elona theme NPCs and have Paragon job NPCs with paragon skills

Ebon Vanguard = Ascalonian NPCs (I can only assume they may have some Ebon Vangard skills from GW1 EotN)

Deldrimor Dwarves = Stone Dwarf NPCs (I can only assume they may have some Deldrimor skills from GW1 EotN)

Tengu = Tengu NPCs using skills we seen for ourselves on the receiving end with Tengu enemies.

I actually won't be surprised if they brought back faction reputation for extra rewards and/or ability to upgrade specific factions

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Don't forget, we also see Exalted and Kodan in the allies section of the trailer.

As for lore reasons, Destroyers are popping up everywhere, the Commander and Aurene have set up shop in the eye of the North, everyone send some representatives asking the famed Dragon slayer for help.

  • We have known since launch that the Destroyers have been harassing the Tengu, popping up on the other side of the wall. Most likely to attacks rise in number to the point the Tengu are forced to ask for help.
  • The Stone Dwarves have been fighting destroyers since EoTN, and now come back up to the surface chasing them.
  • Crystal Bloom are Aurene's servant, and would fight Primrodus for the same reason they helped fight Kralk.
  • Ebon Vaungard, we see Ebonhawk getting attacked, and Crecia helping defend it. so Primrodus attacks there and the Vanguard get involved.
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@"ugrakarma.9416" said:Too much allies, against a single ED? i hope theres explanations why primordus awake is too much "earth shaking" than jormag.

I'm not the kind of picky guy with lore, but i think we have 2 EDs(Aurene+Jormag) and basically all tyria now, lots of "old friends".

Primordious seems to be one of the most destructive dragon of all the elder dragons, and it was the first to awaken. It had about two centuries to build an incredibly massive army from rock and lava, and the only reason it didn't explode like a volcano towards the surface during those years was because the Dwarves's sacrifice, and even then, at the beggining of the personal story one can see the destroyers beggining to resurface in different places. So, Prime could be the biggest threat to Tyria right now as it has a massive army and its naturally inclined to destroy everything, and can also send minions anywhere in the continent, bypassing walls and defenses built above the ground and threatening cities directly.

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@Pax.3548 said:

@"ugrakarma.9416" said:Too much allies, against a single ED? i hope theres explanations why primordus awake is too much "earth shaking" than jormag.

I'm not the kind of picky guy with lore, but i think we have 2 EDs(Aurene+Jormag) and basically all tyria now, lots of "old friends".

Primordious seems to be one of the most destructive dragon of all the elder dragons, and it was the first to awaken. It had about two centuries to build an incredibly massive army from rock and lava, and the only reason it didn't explode like a volcano towards the surface during those years was because the Dwarves's sacrifice, and even then, at the beggining of the personal story one can see the destroyers beggining to resurface in different places. So, Prime could be the biggest threat to Tyria right now as it has a massive army and its naturally inclined to destroy everything, and can also send minions anywhere in the continent, bypassing walls and defenses built above the ground and threatening cities directly.

Primy is also probably the most less caring for life in Tyria as well but the other Elder Dragons have some level of care for life even though they twist life into their own vision of what their ideal world is.

His minion are just pure mindless rock and lava while the other Elder Dragons use the life that exists now and twist it into their own vision or at least create a type of life that is still at least some what sentient but still enslaved to its will.

In a way Jormag does not lie when she said that she cares about life as her twisted ideas is about protecting life in Ice because when something is preserved in ice it is protected from harm and never has to change once preserved. However, as I said it is still a twisted view and method of what she believes the world should be. Think of it like a twisted view from a overly protective mother who never wants their children or people they care about to change.

Primordus on the other had probably wants to turn the entire planet to nothing but rocks and lava with no speck of life left on it with only his destroyers roaming the lands since they are mindless lava rock beings or worst case only he will be the only living thing on the planet if he wins since the destroyers served their purposes of wiping all life from the planet.

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@Pax.3548 said:

@"ugrakarma.9416" said:Too much allies, against a single ED? i hope theres explanations why primordus awake is too much "earth shaking" than jormag.

I'm not the kind of picky guy with lore, but i think we have 2 EDs(Aurene+Jormag) and basically all tyria now, lots of "old friends".

Primordious seems to be one of the most destructive dragon of all the elder dragons, and it was the first to awaken. It had about two centuries to build an incredibly massive army from rock and lava, and the only reason it didn't explode like a volcano towards the surface during those years was because the Dwarves's sacrifice, and even then, at the beggining of the personal story one can see the destroyers beggining to resurface in different places. So, Prime could be the biggest threat to Tyria right now as it has a massive army and its naturally inclined to destroy everything, and can also send minions anywhere in the continent, bypassing walls and defenses built above the ground and threatening cities directly.

thanks. this is very plausible.

I just hope they don't throw it at us without an in-game explanation (even a brief one), because not everyone knows the lore of gw1.In gw2, they never made the elder dragons' scale of power clear, as a reference we just thought that the post-balthazar Kralkatorrik would be the most powerful of all.

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@ugrakarma.9416 said:In gw2, they never made the elder dragons' scale of power clear,I mean, we had a newly awakened Zhaitan bringing up an entire landmass out of the ocean like it was nothing. Heart of Thorn started off with Mordremoth casually destroying the fleet that beat Zhaitan. During the lead up to Kralk we had him opening tears in time and space, not only in Jahai, but in core maps as well.

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I am curious how Allied Factions may affect the story missions since each faction is no doubt going to have their own plans and methods to handle X and Y situations. Thus the commander maybe stuck being the tie breaker again on which path to choose leading to the ending.

It will be nice if they brought back split mission choices based on which Faction the player choose to side with when it comes to the plans in specific missions to bring back a bit of replayability to see the two different outcomes in multiple playthroughs and consequences of those choices as well.

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@EdwinLi.1284 said:I am curious how Allied Factions may affect the story missions since each faction is no doubt going to have their own plans and methods to handle X and Y situations. Thus the commander maybe stuck being the tie breaker again on which path to choose leading to the ending.

It will be nice if they brought back split mission choices based on which Faction the player choose to side with when it comes to the plans in specific missions to bring back a bit of replayability to see the two different outcomes in multiple playthroughs and consequences of those choices as well.

I doubt they will have any real “consequences” or diverging outcomes. Maybe some different paths, but nothing that they’ll have to account for in the story long term.

I’m expecting each dragon response mission to be pretty self contained. Like mini strikes or dungeons.

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@"Svennis.3852" said:I doubt they will have any real “consequences” or diverging outcomes. Maybe some different paths, but nothing that they’ll have to account for in the story long term.

I’m expecting each dragon response mission to be pretty self contained. Like mini strikes or dungeons.Pretty much. All of these allied factions will default to the Commander/Pact's playbook since that is the default playbook for fighting dragons that have worked thus far.

They will provide unique NPCs, with their own special attack skills, but it wont be some big tactics choosing thing.

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Off topic thought.Sajuuk Khar.1509 ✭✭✭✭ said" We have known since launch that the Destroyers have been harassing the Tengu, popping up on the other side of the wall. Most likely to attacks rise in number to the point the Tengu are forced to ask for help."

What if the devs create as last map of the season the Dominion fo winds? The Tengu needs our help battling Primordus. After defeating Primodus the roads to Cantha will become open. The Tengu show us finally, how the escaped from there and together with the dwarfs we will track the depths of tyria back to Cantha. It would be a "safe" passage, cause the DSD is probably just blocking the waterways.

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@"Talan Ondar.4150" said:What if the devs create as last map of the season the Dominion fo winds? The Tengu needs our help battling Primordus. After defeating Primodus the roads to Cantha will become open. The Tengu show us finally, how the escaped from there and together with the dwarfs we will track the depths of tyria back to Cantha. It would be a "safe" passage, cause the DSD is probably just blocking the waterways.

I would say it depends whether or not we're getting any new maps during Champions. As far as we know, it might only be instanced story missions in previously released maps. At the moment, I'm imagining we might get one map for the finale if we're lucky. If so, I doubt they'd give us DoW. In my mind they'd pick a large swath of land to be the big battle between Primordus and Jormag. Who knows, though.

I definitely think the Tengu/DoW have the potential to lead us to Cantha somehow. There's also the tunnel the dredge dug out that goes all the way to Cantha, and with the new Aetherblade speculation we could become allies with them and fly to Cantha. Lots of possibilities.

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@"Fueki.4753" said:They are probably just going to be some kind of reputation system (which would use Achievement system as a tracker, like Commendations in Drizzlewood).As for the "Response Missions", they are likely just going to be different flavours of NPCs fighting along-side us.

I expect that the Allied Factions in those response missions maybe based on locations as well. We know the Crystal Bloom and Ebon vanguard are going to be be the two first factions to join and later Dwarf and Tengu.

Crystal Bloom is probably the the Universal faction to appear in these Response missions due to how they are already being trained to be Aurene and the Commander's starting forces.

I am curious if the Pact may get involve in this as well since they are the main organization that started the united Campaign against the Elder Dragons.

Not to mention what they may do with Allied Factions as the story continues and even enter the moment when Elder Dragons are no longer part of the storyline since we know Anet wants to move on from the Elder Dragon storyline to a new story arc that may finally allow us players to explore the rest of the planet since so far we have only explored 20% of it since GW1 and due to how lore wise the Elder Dragons have locked us in the current 20% of the planet because of their constant attacks and threat to the entire world if they win the fight in our current location.

That aside, it will be a bit funny if in the next story Arc, once the Elder Dragons are no longer the focus, we find out the rest of the world were completely ignorant of the Elder Dragon threat to the point they even say "what is a Elder Dragon and what do you mean the world almost ended?"

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@EdwinLi.1284 said:Not to mention what they may do with Allied Factions as the story continues and even enter the moment when Elder Dragons are no longer part of the storyline since we know Anet wants to move on from the Elder Dragon storyline

I expect allied factions will be the gimmick of the moment. While the factions might remain as the story dictates, as a mechanic I expect them to be sequestered to dragon response mission.

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@EdwinLi.1284 said:I expect that the Allied Factions in those response missions maybe based on locations as well. We know the Crystal Bloom and Ebon vanguard are going to be be the two first factions to join and later Dwarf and Tengu.We also see Kodan and Exalted. So we may get two new allied factions for the first three chapters, then everyone comes together in chapter 4 to fight whoever.

@"Svennis.3852" said:I expect allied factions will be the gimmick of the moment. While the factions might remain as the story dictates, as a mechanic I expect them to be sequestered to dragon response mission.Pretty much, I doubt the Kodan, or Ebon Vanguard, or the Tengu, are suddenly going to go globe hoping with us or anything.(outside of Tengu going to Cantha)

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@"Talan Ondar.4150" said:

Off topic thought.Sajuuk Khar.1509 ✭✭✭✭ said" We have known since launch that the Destroyers have been harassing the Tengu, popping up on the other side of the wall. Most likely to attacks rise in number to the point the Tengu are forced to ask for help."

What if the devs create as last map of the season the Dominion fo winds? The Tengu needs our help battling Primordus. After defeating Primodus the roads to Cantha will become open. The Tengu show us finally, how the escaped from there and together with the dwarfs we will track the depths of tyria back to Cantha. It would be a "safe" passage, cause the DSD is probably just blocking the waterways.

Yeah I thought of that too and I'm just hopeful the Truth will be a playable race as well, I can just hope. But most likely that won't happen till they give an ex ant ending for the game where then they can add extras.

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@"Svennis.3852" said:

@EdwinLi.1284 said:Not to mention what they may do with Allied Factions as the story continues and even enter the moment when Elder Dragons are no longer part of the storyline since we know Anet wants to move on from the Elder Dragon storyline

I expect allied factions will be the gimmick of the moment. While the factions might remain as the story dictates, as a mechanic I expect them to be sequestered to dragon response mission.

Definitely, since it's an aspect of dragon recursion missions. Not likely to have dragon recursion missions in End of Dragon, let alone after the Elder Dragon plot.

@Sajuuk Khar.1509 said:

@EdwinLi.1284 said:I expect that the Allied Factions in those response missions maybe based on locations as well. We know the Crystal Bloom and Ebon vanguard are going to be be the two first factions to join and later Dwarf and Tengu.We also see Kodan and Exalted. So we may get two new allied factions for the first three chapters, then everyone comes together in chapter 4 to fight whoever.

The whole trailer's just for Chapter 1 and the mention in the roadmap about updates "in between releases". I wouldn't label the one exalted as proof of recursion mission allies, because in the Thunderhead Peaks shots, we see Braham talking to Ogden - I imagine that the wyvern, etc. is going to be a story mission, and not the replayable recusion mission with allied factions.]

Similarly, I am not so hasty to proclaim tengu being involved in the recursion missions either - they could be part of a story instance, and we just see them standing around to chat. Hard to tell with the little show in the trailer.

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@"Konig Des Todes.2086" said:The whole trailer's just for Chapter 1If so, they did an extremely poor job of suggesting that.

The trailer says "upcoming chapters feature", which suggests its for a later chapter, and not a future update for this chapter. And that is how I've seen everyone take it as well. Especially since they do that mid trailer title card to suggest everything from the start to that point is chapter 1, and everything after that is later chapters. If it was all for just this one chapter wouldn't it say "upcoming chapter feature" to reference the singular chapter, or upcoming chapter's feature" to show a possessive instead of a plural?

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@Sajuuk Khar.1509 said:

@"Konig Des Todes.2086" said:The whole trailer's just for Chapter 1If so, they did an extremely poor job of suggesting that.

The trailer says "upcoming chapters feature", which suggests its for a later chapter, and not a future update for this chapter. And that is how I've seen everyone take it as well. Especially since they do that mid trailer title card to suggest everything from the start to that point is chapter 1, and everything after that is later chapters. If it was all for just this one chapter wouldn't it say "upcoming chapter feature" to reference the singular chapter, or upcoming chapter's feature" to show a possessive instead of a plural?

I see the upcoming chapters features more like fragmented parts of the whole upcoming features. They are just showing a small bit of what to expect each upcoming chapter but a good amount is still not shown yet until those chapters are released or their trailer reveals those unseen contents.

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@Sajuuk Khar.1509 said:

@"Konig Des Todes.2086" said:The whole trailer's just for Chapter 1If so, they did an extremely poor job of suggesting that.

The trailer says "upcoming chapters feature", which suggests its for a later chapter, and not a future update for this chapter. And that is how I've seen everyone take it as well. Especially since they do that mid trailer title card to suggest everything from the start to that point is chapter 1, and everything after that is later chapters. If it was all for just this one chapter wouldn't it say "upcoming chapter feature" to reference the singular chapter, or upcoming chapter's feature" to show a possessive instead of a plural?

I personally think that the title might have a small typo, and it is meant to be "upcoming chapter features". But if you think about the development process for games, then it makes sense.

Best case scenario, if they retained their original teamwork from the IBS announcement, they'd have four teams working on all releases since IBS began, so the Episode 8 team = Sunqua Peaks Fractal team. This means they've worked on that content for less than two months, and some of that time was spent in pre-production with scoping out the plot, determining what it contains, etc. even before going into scripting instances and encounters.

Add in the fact that the footage for the trailer is likely 3-5 weeks old so that the team which makes trailers could have it done on time with recording, editing, etc., and the recording for the trailer was likely done shortly after - or around when - the Sunqua Peaks team left pre-production for their episode. In this scenario, there is nothing from Episode 8 that could be showcased in the trailer.

However, if COVID and End of Dragons altered things, then the LW teams are likely numbered three now, and so the Sunqua Peaks team would, instead, be working on Episode 7. So in this scenario, there would nothing from Episode 7 to showcase in the trailer.

Meaning that, at best, the trailer only shows Episodes 5 and 6. And literally nothing more. And even then, the amount of content from 6 would be miniscule - there'd be no VA for it, and in general it'd be only 2/3rd done, full of bugs - not something you'd want to showcase.

However, consider the fact that they established there will be additions to content in-between releases, and the fact that they have not ONCE in eight years showcased two releases' content in a single trailer. Why would they break one of the very, very few things they actually maintain consistency with now of all times?

Then consider that the release page and the trailer don't match up. That even before the "upcoming chapters feature" section, there are things missing from the release page talking about November 17th stuff; and that missing stuff lines up perfectly with the stuff that is in the "upcoming chapters feature" section (namely, allied faction: Ebon Vanguard being MIA from release page, and upcoming chapters feature showcasing Ebonhawke).

It just makes a lot more sense to consider that the wording is either a typo or accidentally misleading, and it isn't referring to Episode 7 at all.

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I'm confused. The release page says specifcially

"Guild Wars 2 The Icebrood Saga: Champions Chapter 1 Trailer"

I can sort of see a bit of ambiguity after the bit in the middle, but I just took that as still being part of this chapter or the stuff they are adding before Chapter 2 (they did say the content would be built on in the weeks between chapters)

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@"Randulf.7614" said:I'm confused. The release page says specifcially

"Guild Wars 2 The Icebrood Saga: Champions Chapter 1 Trailer"

I can sort of see a bit of ambiguity after the bit in the middle, but I just took that as still being part of this chapter or the stuff they are adding before Chapter 2 (they did say the content would be built on in the weeks between chapters)

Not everyone bothered to read the roadmap, and even among those that did, not everyone took note of that one sentence (I didn't until the fourth re-read). Then there's the eternally pessimistic old men in not old man bodies that are just grumpy and blaming everything ANet does (you know, gw2 redditors).

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