Psientist.6437

I wonder what Aurene will have to sacrifice.

Something about the name of the map makes me happy. It is somewhat ugly/cute? Kinda like England I guess..... I haven't looked forward to a LW episode as much since LA was attacked. I can't wait to see how the studio presents WvW in PvE. What does "somewhat like PvP" look like?Imo, the studio succeeded with the LA episode. I don't know if there is a game design equivalent to "break a leg". Maybe something based on the concept "to grok". Be willing to eat whatever happens! I suck at motivation.

OP, I find your lack of faith in and allegiance to the economy troubling. You may be taking your agency too seriously.

The distribution of loot is heavily influenced by the BLTP. The BLTP and Tyrian gold provide genuine agency. We have the freedom to play the content we like, can be confident that new content will deliver usable rewards, and get access to the cash shop. We don't have to consider the players who enjoy economic game play, but if we are creating an ideal habitat for them we might as well. Compelled or compulsive farming of an area, not play for the sake of play, has predominantly unhealthy characteristics. The BLTP blunts unhealthy habits. There are trade offs to the BLTP. I don't consider the BLTP blunting the demand for the rush produced when one stops hitting themselves with rng a problem. A monetized BLTP is a powerful design motivator and the studio will have to compel the essential demand for gold. They will have to employ anti-agency devices to provide global agency. I think the game contains anti-agency devices built of logical agency fallacies. That is an important indicator of the studio's personality. However, the studio has also removed most of the worst anti-agency devices such as the reliance on the MF for global supplies. Ultra Rare tier items will produce a powerful demand for gold but I don't see how an mmorpg can avoid offering the tier. The Ultra Rare tier does offer a habitat for whale hunting. To access the agency provided by the BLTP players must engage in PvP game play. The trade floor is a competitive mode. GW2 selects for a large proportion of players who are looking to compete against the game for rewards. They become frustrated when redirected to players. It is also a fantasy rpg, rewards are naturally imbued with liquidity resistant significance. The unavoidably competitive narrative of the BLTP and the genuine agency it provides, conflict with narrative common to mmorpg players. The trade floor makes it at once easier and harder to be unique and wealthy. GW2 selects for players looking to build something from earned rewards. With the BLTP, they are provided a powerful tool for navigating the supply of rewards while maintaining a happily willing and engaged state. Players also enjoy a relatively high standard of living. The BLTP will show everyone the cost of building everything. It is very easy for players to run out of things they want to build or could realistically build. The BLTP provides sand box characteristics and levels of agency that aren't satisfied. Imo, this is an under appreciated trade off. Cosmetics isn't enough and Power is compulsive. Being a casual or optimized farmer and/or a trader isn't enough. I don't think access to loot is GW2's struggle. Complex agency and reward symmetry is GW2's struggle. The studio struggles to build meaningful reasons to collect and use loot. I think I am like many GW2 players. I am engaged by the long term Living World, by story, with some desire to build something. I also understand the value offered by the BLTP and the demand for gold demand. I don't find a reason to collect and use loot that resonates with the concept of the LW as a growing of the world or that provides engaging agency. Obviously, Arenanet does not have to provide me with a bespoke reason to collect loot.

I understand what you are saying but reject the distinction you seem to be making between self interest and enjoyment and rewards and enjoyment. Again, why wouldn't someone spending time in a zone they don't "enjoy" (this term is being used by many because it is vague and resists an objective and global description) be taken to mean that they "enjoy" rewards more than "enjoyable" game play? Imo, most everyone here, including you, has been somewhat right. However, many refuse to accept their value finding profile as their own and would rather blame the game or analytics for showing that they are compelled by or prioritize rewards. A company that sells into our reptile brain deserves to be put under a microscope (imo, Arenanet agressivelly sells into our reptile brains) but we also need to be willing to inspect and take responsibility for our own reptile brain. Please forgive me if this lands as criticism, I do not intend it as criticism but as a wake up call, but anyone claiming that they need to do something they don't enjoy in this game has given control to their reptile brains. The reptile brain loves rewards and is designed to pump happy chemicals when we get them. This thread started with someone mad at analytics for showing the studio people other than them and has been filled with people mad at analytics for showing the studio themselves.

If someone is doing something that is completely optional, why wouldn't we assume that they are experiencing some level of "enjoyment". The alternative, that they are experiencing no enjoyment, demands we consider whether they are masochistic, addicted or in some way experiencing a compromised ability to consent or calculate self interest. In the context of gaming, we have to face that possibly. Maddoctor, your black and white fallacies, strawmen and imprecise language don't answer this question. Indeed, you may purposely avoiding answering the question. Why shouldn't we expect the average cognitively healthy player to understand their own value system? Why wouldn't someone farming Silverwastes show that they value farming efficiently? Are we all wrong about what we want or too weak to resist? Why isn't the time we spend doing something a real display of what we value? I think you are making an argument adapted from the saying; "Do as I say, not as I do." "Pay attention to what I say, not what I do."

Right so behavior can be quantified. Care to give an example of a metric that shows that? I'm not sure what quick completion of achievements has to do with enjoyment of a story. Facebook. I am not going to argue the position that analytics can achieve perfect resolution of mindfulness. I am not going to argue with someone who claims there aren't countless examples of successful analysis of behavior. If the average player is engaged or stimulated with the story they are more likely to sit down and play. Thereby completing achievements faster. I hope you are not taking positions just for the sake of arguing.

I'm still confused as to how some form of data/statistic can show player enjoyment, without actually asking the player, but whatever, maybe I'm missing something. In limited amounts, by observing what players are doing and under which conditions, how popular something is, taking into account what the rewards are, how old the content is, how long people take breaks. Ofcourse, it will be more based on statistical guesses without actually knowing that every single player is enjoying themselves, but broad lines are definitely visible through data alone. Ofcourse, paying attention to forums reddit facebook etc is also hugely important. Paying attention to community reactions is indeed a much better way to gauge enjoyment. As for analytics data, I liked the story of Daybreak and the visit to the First City, meanwhile I didn't really like the story of Long Live the Lich. I played both an equal amount of times though, both to continue the story on multiple characters and to complete some achievements that were better suited for one character build than another. As far as in-game data is concerned, Anet would think that I enjoyed both the same, because I played them the same amount of times. I'm not sure what kind of observational data would show my preference of one over the other. But as I said I might be missing something or I simply can't think of an actual metric that would show that I liked one and disliked the other. Outside my own forums posts on the subject of course.If you played both equally, it would be hard for analytics to determine which story you liked more. However, since the story will always deliver episodes that you like more than others it isn't terribly important which story episode you liked more. A story will always have to present widely different episodes that will clash with someone's taste. That being said, there is likely a difference between how you behave in an episode you like vs one you don't. We all have tells. I am sure that, in aggregate, more players complete achievements for episodes they like. As well, doing all achievements for a story you don't like displays you care enough about achievements. edit: For the average player, how quickly episode achievements are completed will strongly predict how much the player enjoyed or was stimulated by the story. Analytics work, that is why the analyzers philosophy is so important to the analyzed.

I'm still confused as to how some form of data/statistic can show player enjoyment, without actually asking the player, but whatever, maybe I'm missing something. When someone applies themselves to a task, we need to assume that they have done some level of mindful calculation and have determined that they want to do the task. Often, watching someone will give a much more accurate picture of someone's mind then asking them. People lie or lack self awareness. In the video linked early in this thread, a WoW developer states that a 25ish% increase in gear stats is optimal. The gear treadmill makes their raids more popular because many find pleasure in the gear treadmill. Many people find pleasure in min maxing. Many people even enjoy farming or grinding. Honestly, I think some of the resistance to the strength of analytics is because it shows us what players really want. Or more accurately, it shows us our reptilian brain at work. We are discussing the principle of revealed preference that holds that people spend their resources on things they want and that they employ a mindful approach to self interest. This principle can break down or deliver cruel results. Does someone who spends their resources on their opioid addiction practice a mindful approach to self interest? If the supply of a resource is made too complicated, can someone practice mindful self interest? Imo, there are many examples of the studio selling into our less than rational lizard brain, but I also think what many people call fun is that feeling when the lizard brain takes over and starts pumping happy chemicals. Revealed preference isn't black and white but the studio can't begin to respect their players without employing it.

Analytics can uncover qualitative descriptions of what the player base considers fun. Given two identical activities with one giving more tangible rewards than the other, players will move to the activity that gives more tangible rewards. Congratulations, you have just discovered that, on average, players think tangible rewards are fun. That doesn't make us bad people or even shallow. We can't exclude tangible rewards from our description of fun without using a "no true gamer" fallacy.

How do skilled players become skilled players if not through data analytics? You can't objectively increase the odds of group success without using data analytics. What the swinging cat do you think damage meters are doing? The OP is using 'shoot the messenger' logic. Which isn't logical. Analytics has discovered competition for studio resources and they blame it on the tool. They also blame it on non raiders. Perhaps blaming the tool is meant to soften the guilt of non raiders. Raids could easily offer the worst or a terrible return on investment. RoI shouldn't be the only thing determining how the studio spends resources, but it will be an important consideration. Jordan isn't discussing analytics in good faith either. The WoW developers admit that analytics will discover optimal solutions that aren't fun, but will also give a genuine, over all picture of what the player base finds worth doing, a baseline for a definition for fun. Jordan responds with an example that analytics could show as optimized for 'fun as time' that isn't fun. He is trying to disagree with them by agreeing with them. Analytics would discover that players were logging in every 15 minutes or only running one dungeon. _A studio must use analytics and defines itself by how it responds to what they learn._Gamifying and profiting from fun is a herd of cursing kittens complex. Imo, the studio has problems with their philosophy of analytics. Trying to please many disparate groups across many disparate modes can cause a decrease in mode difficulty or mode complexity. Tyrian raids aren't as intense as other games. NPC character dimension is reduced in the Living World. Arenanet decided to build a game world that rejected gate keeping and I am glad to see them struggle to make that work. The inflation of mode type and mode agency is a worthwhile problem to have, a valuable foe. Gold provides a powerful analytical tool. Gold also provides agency, it defeats gate keeping. Yet somehow, the early game's economy relied on players behaving as robots at the MF. We can visit a casino and gamble. There has always been a white lie kernel near the heart of the studio's understanding of player agency. To me, it looks like an econ edge lord's religious faith in fungibility and black and white approach to revealed preference. Masochism, dependency, addiction do all qualify as valuable data points of agency. Imo, the problems with Arenanet's philosophy of analytics fall into two categories: They are willing to discover and monetize high fidelity examples of anti agency. Their agency creation and analysis tool has too many hard wired paths, some of which lead to anti agency destinations. The studio's genuine interest in listening for agency combined with gold as an agency multiplier has built a game that is always spreading and struggling to find its unique personality. Which I think is PvE and the Living World. Skins and the fashion wars don't do justice to Tyria's unique personality. Using a reward meta as an exogenous landscape where the studio can find endogenous data points of fun; the studio has never had a data set to query that resonates with their unique core personality.

When I first saw Jormag's speech for the Saga preview, this is what I thought about. One of Aurene's strengths is her bond to mortals and the Commander. How will seeing mortals die effect the bond? How appealing would Jormag's offer sound? She may not understand the logic of curing death by turning us into Icebrood but what about Crystalbrood.

In the real world, hobby fishing is all about grinding out luck, collecting gear and pretending to be skilled. I don't know where it would fit within the mmo genre. I will give it a try but I know my idea will be terrible. Where to fish is a real concern for Tyria fishing. Perhaps we can solve why fish and where to fish by making fishing a mounted skill set and we fish to feed our mounts. Our mounts take us to fishing holes based on their skills and diet. We would have to learn how to fish for carrots. Which is where my idea falls apart. Dumb can't be fun. There are other fishing risks. Fishing leads to fish. Fish are a gateway reward to taxidermy and we all know what taxidermy wants. Taxidermists and Housing! edit: Consumable effects could provide a social component. They could alter mount animations, add temporary auras, or cause events. Skyscales burp up fireworks. Jackals hiccup phase jump about. Roller beetles have heart burn outs. Skimmers get the dizzies. The effects would encourage fishing to lead to large public displays.

Wow, that works well. In the speech, Jormag is trying to seduce the listener to give up the struggle against death, the end of unique experience. The fear of death causes the enslaved human to adapt to the whip, the Charr and Norn to chase conflict or legend that makes a name immortal. Jormag wants everyone to stop worrying about preserving their uniqueness and become part of Jormag's sphere. That message doesn't resonate with Bangar's love of, and faith in, all things Charr. If Bangar fails, then they would be more vulnerable to Jormag's logic.

The number of dangling references in this story would give Checkov a fit. Checov's rule won't help us here. Imo, the writers would reject Checkov's rule and replace with it with a rule that the supply of dangling references shouldn't fall below a certain number. It would be a better rule for a serial fantasy drama where the writers aren't in control. I also think you are applying too stringent a rule for power acquisition. The real world and Tyria teems with examples of beings who gather power to themselves so that they can spend power on anything they want or just be powerful. Elder dragon's have always been the embodiment of the instinct to gather power. Perhaps we need to embrace the concept of there genuinely being two Kralkatorriks. The Tormented Kralk is the part of their mind possessed by magic and would grow in strength over time. Glint's vision describes their death or lose of power. It would be Tormented Kralk who fights the vision and not the vision that causes Tormented Kralk to emerge. At the most, the vision would have accelerated Tormented Kralk's growth as it gathered power. The non-Tormented Kralk, certainly not sane Kralk, could always have been present or the vision's effect on Tormented Kralk forced it to emerge or condense. This Kralk would not fear death or Glint's vision. It would want an end to the dragon cycle and see Aurene as worth protecting because she makes its end possible. She is new, she is not of the pain of the dragon cycle, and she is a brilliant reflection of the dull mote of good (or not evil) that persists within Kralk's divided mind. Their kinship is a bonus but not essential.

All lifeforms attempt to increase their hierarchical position. Life doesn't settle for just being matter and energy. If the Elder dragons began as mortal beings then they won't ever need a complex reason to seek power. Indeed, their appetite for power makes more sense if it functions according to primal nature logic. To me, the current Elder dragon cycle looks like the remains of species of antisocial or highly competitive beings that achieved Elder status. They became entangled with a cosmic Magic structure that pumps addictive magic through them. High dragons could start off as kitten eating gluttons, be made worse by the All, until a tiny, anti-crazed glutton, sliver of mind emerges.

A simple poetic description The Tyrian universe is made from all the real world fields plus the All field. The All field behaves literally as a finite supply of a currency commodity like gold. The supply of the commodity can be divided down to the atom. All real world fields trade energy using particles. They maintain a barter economy. That barter economy is emulated by the All field as a currency based economy. The All field builds a historical ledger of the barter economy's trade floor activity. Life and Mind create complex asset structures that eventually overload the All field's ability to maintain the ledger using just its own energy. The currency trade floor emerges into the barter trade floor. Agents on the barter trade floor can then leverage assets from the All ledger. The All ledger would leverage barter agents as well. Elder beings would be maximally leveraged by the All ledger. Balancing the All star would resolve about the axis linking the increase and decrease in agency offered by leverage across enough agents, always including the All ledger, where an entangled structure stabilizes.

Jormag is telling us that death and diversity is the real enemy and they can save us from from both. The dead Kodan can't feel the ice or fire of their coffin. The differences between Centaur and Human fuel their conflict. Jormag is offering to shelter us from death and conflict by turning everyone into Icebrood. That could loosely be described as their desire to be everyone's parent, but I think that desire is a cover for the basic Elder dragon motivation to turn everything into a version of their magic sphere.

Using this model, we can make predictions concerning which magic numbers provide stable configurations for an All star. The All star would have a commonly shared center dominated by the All field. Six spheres form around six centers. Place six spheres in water and apply enough force to fill the Common Center with water. The Common Center represented by the water's surface forms a peak. The peak will rise as the number of spheres decreases. One Elder Sphere gets thrown away from the slope. I think two spheres would form something analogous to a black hole. A family of All star super nova remnants would emerge from three, four and five Elder sphere's. One of my reasons for writing this was to protect Aurene. It would be easy to feed Aurene to the resolution of the plot. With her, the studio could put the power and power structure discovered by the plot beyond reach. This model opens a field of destinations for Aurene. I consider that a convincing example of this magic system's potential.

A simpler description of the All field For the model to work we need to assume that everything creates a shape that can be mapped. This include matter, energy and actions like running, lying or thinking. The All field uses shapes from the other fields (the real world) to create a simulation of the real world. The simulation includes a history of past shapes. Normally, this simulation doesn't interact with the real world. Life and the Mind produce complex shapes and eventually the simulation becomes so complex that the All field has to change how it is maintained. A portion of the simulation emerges into the real world as Magic. The original post describes how pixels are formed, resolution is maintained, the simulation is powered, etc. I understand the arguments against a harder magic system. It can be restrictive, disciplining. However, it is impossible to build dimension into a fantasy world without hardening the world's magic system. Its magic system is the world's most defining personality trait. GW2's plot is based on digging into Tyria's personality. If the magic system is hard enough, it does not have to be restrictive, just disciplining. It can prevent Deus ex plot vectors from ever forming and provide directions that don't exist with soft magic. A hard magic system can make writing more productive. The All field turns imagination into a real force, it isn't very restricting. I think the risk to plot freedom is minimal. My magic system makes plasticity of shape unavoidable, the same goal of the softest magic system. Unlike the softest magic system, it can explain the All and predict other cosmic scale stuctures like Ley Lines and the Mists. It provides a rationale for gear binding. I don't know if any Tyrian phenomena escapes explanation and can think of many exciting plot directions offered. According to my model, we are on a heroic journey to save the star we live on or adapt to living on the remnants of a super nova. That is a steeply inclined power fantasy slope. Imo, the plot has always been causing the demand for a harder magic system to rise. The weakness of deus ex magic always becomes more visible. The Asura do create unique considerations. They could gain and lose competitive and comparative plot advantages. Imo, this model increases global comparative advantage because it increases the symmetry of all mindful use of Magic. An Asuran lab and Grawl shrine do very similar work when each uses Magic to shape the real world. Asurans would maintain a competitive advantage by focusing on their unique traits. As a people, they love to study, deconstruct and reconstruct reality. All peoples produce unique and powerful Mindful Magic and Aurans study, deconstruct and reconstruct them all. In general, a harder magic system likely increases Asuran plot advantage. Aurene would be a useful way to moderate that advantage.

I have no formal training in quantum field theory. I am not even formally trained as a psientist. I am just willing to play both on the internet. I hope to make a case for an All field modeled on quantum field theory. The All field will carry a force and be home to particle or particles, as wave-forms as discrete kinetic work loads, that communicate that force. The All field carries the force called Agent Affirmation and maintains a field wide emulation of the wave-forms generated by the other fields predicted by real world quantum field theory. The All field describes an agent as any sufficiently coherent quantity and quality of work; a quark, an organic cell, a meme, a mind, all qualify as agents. The All field actively seeks to describe agents and communicate agency. All field wave-forms, native and emulated, are very stable and rarely collapse. When life emerges on a planet, it creates increasingly complex wave-forms within the All field. The energy density of the All field around the planet increases until it reaches a threshold at which All wave-forms collapse forming an All star. Magic is the collapsed All field's emulated wave-forms, that have become entangled with the other force carrying fields. For instance, the All field wave-form created when a cat hunts, collapses and can excite the other quantum fields producing Hunting magic. When an All star forms, all Life on the planet becomes entangled with Magic. The physiology of the greatest Minds become entangled with the All star as central coordinates, allowing stable convective topology for magic particles. That was supposed to be the TDLR. Before diving deeper, I want to ask whether Tyria benefits from having a harder magic system. Imo, the demand for a harder magic system increased as overall plot scale increased. Elder dragons are cosmic scale manifestations of magic physics. As well, an increasing quantity of such manifestations would increase demand for a harder system that connects them. There are risks to a hard magic system. The studio wants to avoid making the plot Asura-centric for good reason and ,in general, magic celebrates imagination and the potential of chance. However, a hard magic system could make magic theory based plot available to all races. It would explain the power of science and prayer. A hard magic system could leverage imagination. That is my goal here. Quantum field theory models reality using force carrying fields, force carrying excitation of the field commonly called wave-forms (particles), and math. The All field will need its force, particle and math explained. The All field carries the Agent Affirmation force. To put the math poetically, love of structure multiplied by love of structural resonance. The All force discovers wave-forms and communicates their structure across the All field. The AA force resolves as a field of tiny, densely packed particulate wave-forms with one massive virtual Wave-form. Particulate wave length is the minimum distance needed to achieve two affirming agents. The field condenses into a fabric of maximized excitation density, particle density. The virtual Wave-form would be the simple topology for one wave length connecting two nodes and creating two slopes. The virtual W-form is a perfect state for the AA force (connecting two agents, each affirming the other) with the field as the topology described at the maximally turbulent inversion of the virtual W-form slopes. The All field would be extremely flat and react to excitation from other fields by unfolding and building an origami like structure from a densely folded fabric. The small size of All wave-forms predicts that they could emulate larger wave-forms with a resolution relative to the ratio of sizes. AA force particulates discover and simulate wave-forms. The virtual W-form powers affirmation as emulation of the agent, the W-form will spend energy to create a copy of the discovered wave-form. Since it is virtual and is calculating All equals the other All, most of that energy is spent on itself. Some must be spent on the field particulates producing the simulation. I predict that the energy would accumulate at moments of maximize field deformation and would impact particulate configuration, orientation, address requirements, and descriptor requirements. The need for a particulate address is produced by the virtual Wave-form leveraging its polarized affirmation. The need for a particulate descriptor emerges from the particulate's address within an emulated wave-form. Visualize a spinning jump rope with two slopes. The virtual Wave-form is the math of perfectly paired hands that spin to achieve an entangled field of uniformly long minimally distant pairs of hands. Thank you for getting through that and I hope it was coherent. Put simply, the All field can emulate anything that could be described as "something doing something" and will seek higher resolutions for the emulation. The All field behaves as a currency field without symmetrically relative goods and services would behave. It seeks increased internal quantization and fungibility. The All field emulation would normally be weakly interacting with the real world. It would make structure more likely and more persistent. It would either move space time or particulates into higher Agency configurations. Perhaps both as parts of the virtual particle are virtually annihilated and particulates fold back up. The All emulation would have an energy density, a magnitude of available work per unit of space. Every emulated structure increases density. Structure type would multiply paths to density and structure magnitude and quantity would accumulate velocity. It may be impossible to see the effects of the All field without Life's effect on it. Compared to matter, Life will provide the All field with agents of extreme energy density. As Life proliferates, the density and energy level of All particulates leveraged by the All virtual Wave-form emulation increases. All particles that are part of the emulation increase in energy density; they are faster, better aimed, have larger field addresses and descriptions. When energy density reaches a threshold, the All field reacts by adjusting the local topology of dense All particulates. The most dense particulates are a given a unique descriptor and address algorithm. This condenses their ability to do work by giving them a smaller space to influence and broadens their workload profile. The new descriptor and address allows this population of particulates to anchor a convective topology of high energy All particulates. This population of particulates would be energetic enough produce excitation of the other fields. The All particulates with the most energy and information from the All's emulation of Tyrian fire would manifest in the other fields as Fire Magic. Life produces structure and energy in the All field because Life is structure. Extend that concept of structure to the Mind. Simple, mechanized lifeforms will produce a simple mechanized topology for the All emulation. A Mind can produce imaginative topology, descriptors, addresses and magnitudes. Life and Mind are always producing an increase in the All field energy density. When the All field reaches the density threshold, the high energy All particulates are given Life and Mind descriptors and addresses. At All star ignition, the most energetic Living Minds are given the Elder address and descriptor. High dragons become Elder dragons when the location and description of their Minds are used to organize the orbits of all Magic particles into a convective system that moves about a common center. At Six Elders, all Magic particles share one of six Elder address and description symmetries as well as a quantity of hierarchically applied address and description symmetries. Every living thing is used as an address and description symmetry and experiences Magic as the All star leveraging convective agency against themselves. The Mists would be created by the shock wave created by All star ignition. The All field would be sloped towards the common center of ignition and the densely folded, origami field would relax creating a ring of easily excited All space. If the star analog for an All ignition holds, and allows for new magic or new structure to form by fusion then an All Star would radiate that new structure. The Mists could capture any of that radiation. I want to go on and but I need to get up. I want the simplest description of this model I can achieve. I would love to test this model against Tyrian phenomenon. If any of this makes sense and you can offer support and challenge, I encourage you to reply. Offer a Tyrian phenomenon and I will try to fit it to the model.

You've lost me here. Care to elaborate? Approach a mind as you would a computer with finite capacities to store and run software. A mind free of magic would have 100% of that capacity available for "self" software. Magic, once introduced, reduces the capacity available to run "self" since it needs mind resources and it runs software that doesn't necessarily resonate with "self" software. The software for Jormag's self may have never cared about ice or manipulation but the Ice Magic and Manipulation Magic software is always running in their mind and imprinting on their "self". Jormag would compulsively think about luring someone out onto a frozen lake. I'm following, I think. Maybe, to translate your paradigm into a worldview most Tyrians can understand, we could say that the Elder Dragons are possessed by torment? What is torment, though? One way to think of it is as conflicting magic. That might be how an asura would describe it. Charr and sylvari might well agree with that. Humans and norn? They might go a little further and state that torment is the presence of malevolent spirits within the mind of a being, whomever that should be. Dragons, though, are probably more empathetic than even mankind and so, find them more often than not, playing host to demons who offer them the very thing they're biologically predisposed to enjoy: dark, twisted magic.Possessed by magic. My model for Torment is closer to mental illness and I think Tyrians would have experience with mental illness. Mortal magic users would be familiar with their sphere of magic intruding unbidden on their thoughts. An elementalist may find themselves thinking about fire compulsively and a necromancer's first response to anything may be to raise a minion. All Tyrians would need to practice how to manage the willfulness of magic. Thankfully, most mortals can't command an amount of magic that threatens their mental health. Elder dragons don't have that luxury. By choice or instinct, they can command magic enough to make insanity or loss of self to magic unavoidable. At Elder dragon power levels, unbidden magic thoughts could become very powerful and potentially manifest as hallucinations. Perhaps a sphere of magic could appropriate enough mind resources and achieve a pseudo agency within an Elder dragon's mind. I like the idea of the All as analogous to a star. As life on a planet evolves and minds begin wielding magic, the energy density of magic increases until a magic star ignites. The most powerful species or individuals of that species are integrated into the star. They become central to the convective cycle of magic. New magics would be forged within the star. Elder dragons or something like them would be required and the star wouldn't need to be concerned about their mental health. It wouldn't need to care if the Elder dragons metabolized civilizations and most life. It wouldn't need to be capable of caring. It exists and could go supernova without its Elders.

You've lost me here. Care to elaborate? Approach a mind as you would a computer with finite capacities to store and run software. A mind free of magic would have 100% of that capacity available for "self" software. Magic, once introduced, reduces the capacity available to run "self" since it needs mind resources and it runs software that doesn't necessarily resonate with "self" software. The software for Jormag's self may have never cared about ice or manipulation but the Ice Magic and Manipulation Magic software is always running in their mind and imprinting on their "self". Jormag would compulsively think about luring someone out onto a frozen lake. My thoughts, too. I have a theory about how they managed torment: An elaborate mating ritual between Abaddon and Dwayna. However, as we know, whatever blissful state the gods enjoyed was eventually disrupted when Abaddon fell. Why did he fall? Well, I'd say that the torment that he normally discharged through loving procreation with Dwayna eventually made him into a monster and he tried to force himself on her, inviting Dwayna's eternal scorn. Without another lover capable of "filling Abaddon's boots", as it were, humans were screwed. Could the Elder Dragons do a better job than the human gods? Well, they're far more ruthless, and loving or not, if they want you to help them deal with torment, it's mighty hard to refuse them their request. There would be no limit on how elaborate the gods' mating rituals could get. I am not being serious. I hope the gods get to hook up and it would be spectacular but I don't think god sex magic is responsible.

Gods and Elders of a sphere of magic are narrative devices used to portray compulsive and pathological personalities where compulsively applying or thinking about the sphere of magic is the pathology. Tyrian magiphysics may make this narrative device explicit. The human gods and Elder dragons may not be able to think for themselves or have complete free will. The magic sphere may carve out a portion of the mind to inhabit. Hosting one sphere at a low power level may not pose a significant risk to the self as there would be enough mind remaining to run a self. However, increasing the power level of a sphere or increasing the range of spheres would decrease the space available to run a self. Hosting multiple spheres could require space to buffer them or spheres could repel each other taking up more space and creating dissonance. I guess I see "Torment" as describing the voice or "mind sound" of a sphere of magic within an Elder dragon. If magic reaches too high a level or too many magics are brought together in a mind, then Torment increases. The human gods may suffer Torment as well but have ways to manage it. Perhaps being part of a pantheon is key. They work together, talk to each other, bolster each others minds. Jormag may only be able to apply a small portion of its mind to free will. They may be trapped in a way of thinking dominated by their spheres of magic and multi-sphere dissonance. They may even be trying to run a game on themselves, trying to trick themselves into ending the cycle. Is the small sliver of Jormag's true self trying to trick the rest of its mind into dying? Aurene's unique physiology can be explained as long as we accept that her mind could effect her physical transformation during her ascension to Elder dragon. In Tyria, there is an obvious symmetry between mind and matter and a mind less willing to cause harm could encourage a less dangerous physiology to emerge. Aurene's physiology may give her an advantage but I don't see how it can completely protect her. Well, the studio could just say that it does but an Aurene able to defy what would be a significant aspect of the Eternal Alchemy would be hard to believe. Hopefully we see an Aurene terrified of her future self and the danger she could pose. Hopefully we are on a journey to upgrade the All bios or migrate to a new All form factor. Hopefully we aren't going to be asked to unplug it and then plug it back in.

I am working on a hypothesis for Tyrian cosmology where the creation of human gods and elder dragons is analogous to the way stars are created. Stars form when a gas of diffuse particles reaches a critical mass density. The cloud of gas collapses and the force of that collapse starts nuclear fusion. If there are magic particles then something similar could happen. The energy density of magic particles around a planet increases until critical density is reached, giving birth to an All or magic star. If we make the connection between magic and mind explicit, then we should expect to see 2 things: The energy density of magic increases as minds on a planet become more productive.There will always be a top species with the most productive minds. When ignition of the magic star occurs, that species would be integrated into the topology governing the convective topography of magic. Perhaps the human home world experienced the birth of an All and all humans were integrated. After eons of competition, the pantheon of gods was reduced until only Six remained with Six being a minimum magic number for a stable topology. We could even consider the human gods as analogous to the remnant of an exploded All. Something happened to the humans home world that caused the All to go supernova. The All wasn't completely destroyed but the human gods now regulate the equivalent of a white dwarf or neutron star. Under this model, godhood or elder-hood is achieved by a group. The group would have abilities determined by the type of All star formed. All stars would have a range of types analogous to star types.