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Living World Episode 6 Location theory


Sajuuk Khar.1509

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@Skelemiere.3094 said:The Charr homelands could be a very interesting next map. However, we put Jormag to sleep so it would make no sense for him to already be woken by us. I predict the next map could be in the area below Sulfurous Wastelands, that purple mountain thing. Or Arenanet could open up more of Deldrimor Front since we are already there, and there are at least two areas that could turn into maps. Either way, I'm curious to see how the story will play out given the latest episode's shock factor.Going to the Charr Homelands would have little to do with Jormag TBH.

Kralkatorrik was asleep there for thousands of years, we might possibly go there to find something to fight him with now that our plan backfired massively. Not to mention Rytlock has been pretty aggravated with our decisions for awhile, so he might leave to go do something and we follow him.

Jormag would be more Far Shiverpeaks/Verdant Cascades area related if anything.

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I'm not really sure why you've kept thinking that there'd be some mcguffin where Kralkatorrik slept that'll help defeat him. I mean, we've been there in GW1, it was just an island and a lake. So unless the answer is "he was bleeding while sleeping", then there's nothing more there than elsewhere.

Though given the fact Caithe collected Kralkatorrik's blood in the Dragonbrand, that is entirely possible. Countering that, however, is the fact that bit of the novel seems retconned out of existence as this past episode highlighted the fact we have no such things, and Caithe would surely correct that statement and provide the blood crystals to make a new proper spear.

Also, Jormag is as irrelevant to the Woodland Cascades as he is to the Blood Legion Homelands. Both areas are untouched by him, but are adjacent to the region in which he currently resides.

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@"Konig Des Todes.2086" said:I'm not really sure why you've kept thinking that there'd be some mcguffin where Kralkatorrik slept that'll help defeat him.It may not be something needed to kill him, but rather, something to bring back Aurene. Anet isn't exactly shy about pulling sheer BSium out when neededohh hey guys Glint had this entire massive Dragonsblood weapon forge under Moladune that could make weapons to kill Elder Dragons and Ogden knew this the whole time but was like "Na, its not important right now!"Regardless, the map changes made after episode 1 came out heavily suggest the Charr Homelands is where the final mission will be, it's fun speculating WHY.

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I don’t know, aside from the whole assets concern it also bothers me at the prospect of having a map slapped down in the middle of the region, which could make getting other maps in the area harder. Fortunately, Anet is more open now about uniquely shaped maps, but have we ever had a curved map or a really thin, long one? Meaning if they place it such that it leaves weird slices in the region we'll lose opportunities for more maps there. Hoepfully it connects to Ascalon directly

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@Sajuuk Khar.1509 said:Regardless, the map changes made after episode 1 came out heavily suggest the Charr Homelands is where the final mission will be, it's fun speculating WHY.

This really isn't a strong argument to me. There were map changes elsewhere too, but on top of all that, work on the Ep6 map wouldn't have begun until Domain of Kourna was nearly done. So why would it be changed for Episode 1?

IIRC, in the guild chat, they even said they had only planned to kill Aurene off as early as June/July last year, which would mean they were already a couple months into All or Nothing development before definitely killing Aurene off.

The other places that had map alterations that became S4 areas were places already beginning development - Sandswept, Domain of Kourna, Jahai, and Labyrinthine Cliffs. I do not believe we saw changes to Thunderhead Peaks area. But IIRC, we got updated areas for elsewhere we haven't been, too. More than one place. One being just south of Labyrinthine Cliffs.

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@Konig Des Todes.2086 said:This really isn't a strong argument to me. There were map changes elsewhere too, but on top of all that, work on the Ep6 map wouldn't have begun until Domain of Kourna was nearly done. So why would it be changed for Episode 1?Generally speaking, most MMO developers have high level ideas of where they want the story to go a year+ before they get there so they can have time to build the story in question, and thus have time to deal with any gameplay/logistical problems that might come up during that time. You basically have to to have releases lead in the direction you want to go to begin with.

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One of the tricky parts of speculation is that ArenaNet has a lot of freedom to move things around to make the story work, rather than just being locked in to where things currently are. Jormag reawakening and striking off into either the Blood Legion Homelands or Woodland Cascades wouldn't be any stranger than Kralkatorrik moving into Elona. We've wound up with Glint's Legacy in the middle of the Maguuma and Inquest off the coast of Elona. Looking at what we currently know (and don't know) is (and isn't) in a given location won't narrow things down any.

That said, throwing another idea out there- Ascension got brought up again as a fairly prominent gun on the wall, we haven't had any LW maps in the Desert proper yet, and there's still one Ascension trial site we haven't been to yet, the oldest one and the only one that didn't hinge heavily upon the gods' participation. Particularly if we need to follow up on the Forgotten or their ritual, I could see us heading to Thirsty River. Might even finally see the dam Joko built while we're at it.

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@Aaron Ansari.1604 said:That said, throwing another idea out there- Ascencion got brought up again as a fairly prominent gun on the wall, we haven't had any LW maps in the Desert proper yet, and there's still one Ascension trial site we haven't been to yet, the oldest one and the only one that didn't hinge heavily upon the gods' participation. Particularly if we need to follow up on the Forgotten or their ritual, I could see us heading to Thirsty River. Might even finally see the dam Joko built while we're at it.

That is an excellent thought

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@Konig Des Todes.2086 said:The other places that had map alterations that became S4 areas were places already beginning development - Sandswept, Domain of Kourna, Jahai, and Labyrinthine Cliffs. I do not believe we saw changes to Thunderhead Peaks area. But IIRC, we got updated areas for elsewhere we haven't been, too. More than one place. One being just south of Labyrinthine Cliffs.

It looks like a heavily water based map in the area south of Labyrinthine Cliffs that got updated, so I'm guessing we might go there next season (maybe even as an intro to Bubbles?)

Blood Legion Homelands looks most likely to me atm for the next episode, based on the direction of the story and large amount of recent map updates in the area.

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@Poormany.4507 said:

@Konig Des Todes.2086 said:The other places that had map alterations that became S4 areas were places already beginning development - Sandswept, Domain of Kourna, Jahai, and Labyrinthine Cliffs. I do not believe we saw changes to Thunderhead Peaks area. But IIRC, we got updated areas for elsewhere we haven't been, too. More than one place. One being just south of Labyrinthine Cliffs.

It looks like a heavily water based map in the area south of Labyrinthine Cliffs that got updated, so I'm guessing we might go there next season (maybe even as an intro to Bubbles?)

Blood Legion Homelands looks most likely to me atm for the next episode, based on the direction of the story and large amount of recent map updates in the area.

Did the place under labyrinthine get updated recently? I haven’t ever notice a difference down there

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Back after episode 1 dropped That_Shaman pointed out that all of these map tiles got updated

Most of it was to add the new branded areas, but the updates included adding Jahai, Bokoss Prison, Mahnkelon Waterworks, and changes to the Charr Homelands region, mostly the lake Kralkatorrik was sleeping in. There was also some changes to the southern Shiverpeaks in the Thundehead region as well, that weren't documented on this map.

https://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/7h2nm9/changes_made_to_the_worldmap/

139s5xF.jpg

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Thing is about the lake, to quote that_shaman:

Mahnkelon WaterworksThe main buildings from an important story mission in Guild Wars 1 suddenly showed up on the map

And it hasn't shown. In that image, you can also make out some tiles changed unrelated to the dragonbrand west of Jahai Bluffs map.

It seems like they just did a general pass updating a bunch of Kralkatorrik and Elona based areas, while touching Episodes 2-3 areas (Jahai getting some changes seemed more coincidence than planned). Also consider when in production this was - just after Ep1. So work on Episode 4 would have just began at that point. Even if they knew they would be going to that spot, they wouldn't know what shape that map would take thus couldn't alter for it. They already had a general shape of the Elonian landmarks due to GW1, and the sites were very, very generic on the map, barely any details at all.

It wouldn't be surprising, but I just don't think it'll be it.

Especially with two very obvious portal gaps in Jahai heading westward. Why go there, I dunno given the plot, but it seems like they planned it. Otherwise, why make them?

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A thought: Konig is right, in that from what we know of their production pipeline, Ep. 6 would've been months off from being started when the map update went through.

However, there would've been something else in the works, a project that'd been underway for at least a couple months: the next expansion.

If we're reading anything into the map changes- and I'm still not sure that's a good idea- my bet would be that we're looking at the first expansion map they'd begun work on.

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@"Konig Des Todes.2086" said:Especially with two very obvious portal gaps in Jahai heading westward. Why go there, I dunno given the plot, but it seems like they planned it. Otherwise, why make them?Several reasons

  1. We aren't getting an expansion after S4
  2. After the massive failure of last mission, the probability of us killing Kralkatorrik in the next mission is basically zero
  3. This means Kralkatorrik will survive into Season 5After the massive damage he took this last episode, he is probably going to retreat back to "Mount Kralkatorrik" to try to heal up, giving us a little bit of time to find a new way to beat him. I could easily see the first 3 episodes of LWS5 being a continuation of the Kralkatorrik plot.There's also enough space west of Kourna for three map
    • Marga Coast + Sunward Marches + Venta Cemetary
    • Sulfurous wastes + Dynastic Tombs + bottom part of Joko's Domain + Gate of Desolation
    • Mount Kralkatorrik itself for the final battleThis assuming they don't make maps on the Barbarous Shore, the other half of Vabbi, the Hidden City of Ahdashim, the lower part of Istan.

@Aaron Ansari.1604 said:If we're reading anything into the map changes- and I'm still not sure that's a good idea- my bet would be that we're looking at the first expansion map they'd begun work on.That makes even less sense given that they would still have their teams working on S5 map locations, which means we would see those changes on the map long before we see the next expansion map updates.

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I'm a bit confused here.

What's the timeline on these map updates? If the next episode wasn't being worked on yet when the map was updated and the Charr Homelands would thus be too early for it, then what was the Charr Homelands updated for? I know there are other tweaks here and there and they can't all be maps, but that Charr Homeland up there is pretty large. I mean, it's weird since we don't have any reason to go there at the moment, but it does have a connection to Kralkatorrik, so it's not like a reason couldn't exist.

It sounds like it worked to guess most of the season. I'm definitely missing something here about how the maps reflect the game, because I don't doubt the doubts in this thread.

I'm not sure what else we have to go on for any sort of educated guess. Has there been any other episode that ended the way this one did? I mean, we're practically mid conversation in an unusual place. Popping back into the open world teleports you and essentially takes you back in time more than any other situation I can remember. I wouldn't be surprised if the next episode starts up where we left off.

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@Sajuuk Khar.1509 said:

If
we're reading anything into the map changes- and I'm still not sure that's a good idea- my bet would be that we're looking at the first expansion map they'd begun work on.That makes even less sense given that they would still have their teams working on S5 map locations, which means we would see those changes on the map long before we see the next expansion map updates.

Depends on how they have it set up. If the expansion team and the living world teams update the same map file- or cause the same file to be updated- then when an update goes in, it'd reflect where both teams are in development. We've not heard that the expansion team was reassigned due to S5, so as far as we know, they would've started work on their stuff around PoF's launch. I imagine the maps get started on early, so I wouldn't find it strange if they'd begun work on one two months into the project.

@Jokubas.4265 said:I'm a bit confused here.

What's the timeline on these map updates? If the next episode wasn't being worked on yet when the map was updated and the Charr Homelands would thus be too early for it, then what was the Charr Homelands updated for? I know there are other tweaks here and there and they can't all be maps, but that Charr Homeland up there is pretty large. I mean, it's weird since we don't have any reason to go there at the moment, but it does have a connection to Kralkatorrik, so it's not like a reason couldn't exist.

The map update Sajuuk linked came with Daybreak's release, I believe. As best we know, at that time:-Ep. 2, and Sandswept Isles, were about six months into development, and indeed we saw Rata Primus added to the map at that time.-Ep. 3, and Domain of Kourna, were about four months into development. We saw Bokoss Prison added onto the map, but otherwise, it was unchanged.-Expansion 3, whatever it ends up being, was about two months into development. Too early to say whether anything linked to that was added to the map.-Ep.4, and Jahai Bluffs, were just beginning... or maybe hadn't yet begun, depending. We did see a lot of changes in that region- most notably the Fortress of Jahai, which made it into the map, and the Mahnkelon Waterworks, which didn't, but...

Not every change to the world map reflects tweaks for upcoming playable maps. The major change in the Daybreak update was the expansion of the Brand, to reflect the final cutscene of PoF. The same way we never got to see all of the newly branded regions in PoF, I'm not expecting to see every inch of the Elonian Brand either.

-Regardless, Ep. 5 and Thunderhead Peaks, Ep. 6 and whatever its map is, and anything from S5 hadn't begun development yet... to the best of our knowledge.

Regarding the Deldrimor Front change, that came in PoF, and I'm pretty sure that was just to accommodate the Desert Highlands map. Previously that entire region had been temperate green, a lot like Timberline Falls, so suddenly parking a frozen region all the way down on the desert's border needed everything between it and the Shiverpeaks proper redone to make sense.

It sounds like it worked to guess most of the season. I'm definitely missing something here about how the maps reflect the game, because I don't doubt the doubts in this thread.Eh? It worked to guess the next three maps, and gave off a few false positives, but its usefulness is probably expended. There's no reason to make minor changes- that is, tweaks so small that you'll miss them unless you do a pixel-by-pixel comparison- unless you need to change things to match a new playable space, and that kind of supposes that you've got the new space laid out. Since no LW maps past Ep. 4 would've been started, they wouldn't have known what they needed to change yet... thus the confusion over the charr homelands. All evidence points to a map being developed up there outside of the normal LW cycle, and the only possibilities I can think of are an expansion map, or a LW map scrapped during the big S4 rewrite we've heard rumors of.

I'm not sure what else we have to go on for any sort of educated guess. Has there been any other episode that ended the way this one did? I mean, we're practically mid conversation in an unusual place. Popping back into the open world teleports you and essentially takes you back in time more than any other situation I can remember. I wouldn't be surprised if the next episode starts up where we left off.

Off the top of my head? The last episode in S2, and the second-to-last in S2 and first in S3 both come very close. None of them had a major impact on how we started the following release. It just assumed that we ended the conversation without discussing anything else important, or at most put some of our followers to work researching it, and then the next episode begins with a suggestion that some time has passed and a letter/communicator message providing us with a new lead to follow.

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@Sajuuk Khar.1509 said:

@"Konig Des Todes.2086" said:Especially with two very obvious portal gaps in Jahai heading westward. Why go there, I dunno given the plot, but it seems like they planned it. Otherwise, why make them?Several reasons
  1. We aren't getting an expansion after S4
  2. After the massive failure of last mission, the probability of us killing Kralkatorrik in the next mission is basically zero
  3. This means Kralkatorrik will survive into Season 5After the massive damage he took this last episode, he is probably going to retreat back to "Mount Kralkatorrik" to try to heal up, giving us a little bit of time to find a new way to beat him. I could easily see the first 3 episodes of LWS5 being a continuation of the Kralkatorrik plot.There's also enough space west of Kourna for three map
    • Marga Coast + Sunward Marches + Venta Cemetary
    • Sulfurous wastes + Dynastic Tombs + bottom part of Joko's Domain + Gate of Desolation
    • Mount Kralkatorrik itself for the final battleThis assuming they don't make maps on the Barbarous Shore, the other half of Vabbi, the Hidden City of Ahdashim, the lower part of Istan.

@"Aaron Ansari.1604" said:
If
we're reading anything into the map changes- and I'm still not sure that's a good idea- my bet would be that we're looking at the first expansion map they'd begun work on.That makes even less sense given that they would still have their teams working on S5 map locations, which means we would see those changes on the map long before we see the next expansion map updates.

I really don't see Kralk lasting past next episode though. Why would we spend another full season chasing him again, especially when he's already so injured? That just gives him more time to recuperate from the damage we've done to him.

And as to Konig's point - with Kralk going all the way to Thunderhead Keep it seems like if they were planning on using those portal areas in Sun's Refuge they would have done so before we went to Thunderhead Keep. What benefit would we have at this point of going to any of those areas other than your finding Shiny theory. The areas connected to them in Guild Wars 1 wouldn't really move the plot forward or give us anything new to help us with Kralk. I could see us moving to one of those areas if we finish Kralk off, like the big purple mountain, but it kind of feels like that ship sailed with this latest release fighting him in the bottom of a random mountain underground... where we were supposed to be safe from him to begin with but obviously with this latest episode and his mist traveling ability doesn't really mean anything. We developed that base solely because it was safe from Kralk but obviously the whole underground thing doesn't matter anymore, so why revisit that just to wind up chasing him to some other surrounding map that doesn't provide us with anything to help defeat him? Joko's dead, so we don't have anything involving awakened in those areas that we would need to follow up on.

And chasing him to some big purple mountain that he might have went to doesn't really make any sense anymore because he can just mist rift his way half a continent away. At least revisiting his original location would make sense and may provide us with something that can help us defeat him. I don't know. I think of all the areas that location makes the most sense right now. Why was he there to begin with? Perhaps there's something there that will help him heal faster and we chase him there to make sure that he doesn't recover?

It's honestly such a mess at this point that it's anyone's guess. And if Aurene doesn't come back then there's really no point in even dealing with Kralk anymore because we already know Tyria will be destroyed if we do kill him... So either we kill him regardless and face the consequences or we spend another season chasing plan b. This life or death end of the world constant cliffhanger crap just really doesn't sit well with me when we have to wait three or four months to find out what happens. It's such a jarring experience from a consumer perspective and I honestly just wish we could be done with Kralk and spend a season floating around to random areas like Season 3 and focusing on some of the many open-ended stories that haven't been able to be explored. Something that doesn't always go with the episodic linear "oh no this character is dying or are they" "the planet is collapsing but is it really" cliffhanger non-sense. Getting some actual closure every now and then is nice and I'm sure they could still tie in an overarching story to lead into an expansion if they're still planning on making those at this point.

I mean at this point we could just wind up killing Kralk and spend an entire season exploring a Tyria ravaged by Jahai-style time-rifts or full on time travel. How did we go from classic Elder Dragon chasing plot to rampaging disguised gods and cosmic-scale prophetic space-time altering mega elder dragons and prophecies within prophecies within prophecies. If Aurene stays dead and we find another solution it's really just going to feel like they're honestly just winging it and making story decisions the moment they start writing the episodes. Is this part of the reason they had such a huge re-organization dilemma during the making of Kourna? Because they just decided halfway through that they were going to set us on this path of mist-traveling Kralk, prophecies negated by death, and legions of ghosts from every dimension. Where does the story even go at this point... I can't even imagine how exhausting it must be from a narrative perspective...

Anyway, off topic. Most logical to me still seems to be the homelands, no matter when the map was updated. A deviation from their original plan could explain the discrepancies as far as the map updates go. And there really isn't much of a point in even staying in Elona at this point with Joko being dead and Kralk being able to pop up wherever he pleases. The only thing working against that right now is that Kralk could potentially be too weakened to do it in his current state leaving him closer to where we fought him this time, but even that would be a pretty weak excuse. Also, the area under Lab Cliffs is just water and grass. Why would we even need to go there?

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@"cptaylor.2670" said:I really don't see Kralk lasting past next episode though. Why would we spend another full season chasing him again,Who says we spend the whole season chasing him? His death would probably occur half way, and then we spend the remaining half of the season dealing with whatever that triggers for the next arc/expansion

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@Sajuuk Khar.1509 said:

@"cptaylor.2670" said:I really don't see Kralk lasting past next episode though. Why would we spend another full season chasing him again,Who says we spend the whole season chasing him? His death would probably occur half way, and then we spend the remaining half of the season dealing with whatever that triggers for the next arc/expansion

But then why call it "season 5" instead of just stretching season 4 to finish that plot? The structuring would be a little strange if they did that. Wouldn't be much of a conclusion to season 4. And would give them even less time to spend on season 4 setting up the expansion versus allowing the entirety of season 5 to lead up to the expansion assuming there is one.

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@Aaron Ansari.1604 said:Eh? It worked to guess the next three maps, and gave off a few false positives, but its usefulness is probably expended.

Thanks. I understand a lot more now. I don't follow along all the time, so I was legitimately confused.@Aaron Ansari.1604 said:All evidence points to a map being developed up there outside of the normal LW cycle, and the only possibilities I can think of are an expansion map, or a LW map scrapped during the big S4 rewrite we've heard rumors of.

This is one of the things I wasn't aware of. That's interesting.

If I think about it though, while I may not have a guess about a map, I wouldn't say I have no guess about a theme. I really think the Ascension thing could end up being important to the map thanks to that other thread. Between the mention this episode, another NPC that associated Ascension with dragons, and the fact that Divine Fire (which had an association with Ascension) worked amazingly against Modremoth's Champion, it's possible we might end up seeking out a solution we hadn't considered before.

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139s5xF.jpgI would really really really enjoy traveling to that giant stigmatized crater/volcano but note that I'm okay with charrs homeland too for the last episode.

But where I would like to go too is unknown areas like woodlands cascades, the landscape should be very stunning and beautiful, an opportunity to make a metrica province/Kessex hills kind map, with giant waterfalls canopies and fog, bamboos... that kind of mystic ambience. But maybe for later.

Also I'm happy with kralk but want to kill it, that way we deal with primordius for a full underground exploration or finally DSdragon hooray.

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@"cptaylor.2670" said:But then why call it "season 5" instead of just stretching season 4 to finish that plot? The structuring would be a little strange if they did that. Wouldn't be much of a conclusion to season 4. And would give them even less time to spend on season 4 setting up the expansion versus allowing the entirety of season 5 to lead up to the expansion assuming there is one.Because Season 4 was ultimately not about killing Kralkatorrik, but rather, about getting Aurene to the point she could kill Kralkatorrik, and replace him.

The last episode of season 4 will likely have Aurene show back up alive at the very end as the season cliffhanger ending.

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