SunRoamer.5103

Sajuuk previously posted a twitter comment by that_shaman which visualizes the path of the flood wave, explaining why most of Istan and Sandswept were left untouched (although in the case of Sandswept we don't know what it looked like before, anyways). Especially Palawadan, residing on the eastern side of Istan, was entirely shielded. As others have also pointed out with real life examples, these kinds of events can have repercussions on landmasses that are immensely far away - the flooding there sometimes even being worse than in the direct vicinity. In case you missed the post since it appeared on page 1/was quoted on page 2: Plus I want to mention that the flood wave did not wipe out "any and all older structures". Old Kaineng is precisely in ruins because a lot of its stone underbelly remains - leftovers of the sewers and more perennial structures, as opposed to the wooden shanty towns that were collapsing in on themselves even during the times of GW1 already. Whether no landmarks remain is also difficult to tell right now, since the map seems to be south of where we explored in GW1. A cool concept for a LS6 map would be exploring the ruins of Old Kaineng, in which we might see the return of the more steadfast landmarks such as the remains of the Raisu Palace, Tahnnakai Temple and so on. These could be settled in parts (depending on Risen presence) by the poor, the undesirables and the outcasts of New Kaineng, recreating shanty towns that will then approach the original aesthetic.

In 2020 people reported anywhere between 45-50 GB of storage. My current install as of today is at around 51 GB. Some of the assets for EoD seem to be in the launcher already (somebody managed to datamine Kuunavang's model, for example) so around 55 GB seems likely for the entirety of the game once EoD launches. The last fractal also already added a few assets. Current + 55 GB seems extremely unlikely, as the base game + HoT + PoF shouldn't only be half of what EoD adds in terms of storage space.

It was pretty much my first gameplay-related thought. Hopefully they add a Griffon Adventure or two, I'm sad the last ones we got were the two in Jahai.

An approximation of where all four maps (plus guild hall and Arborstone) might be. Dimensions are obviously too large, but I just wanted to roughly pinpoint in which area they might be. Thanks to that_shaman (as usual) and @astralegend (maybe @Astralbien.9461?). In astralegend's mapping of Echovald Wilds he put the Mori village to the east of Lake Lutgardis, but now I wonder whether it might be to its west, making it be on the border of Echovald and Kaineng. IIRC the Echovald stream mentioned tengu helping folks with passage through/into the forest, plus the Harbinger mentor previewed during the livestream today talked about Mori Village being "not too far from here" - here being the ruins of Old Kaineng. Looking at the map again now, I'm also wondering whether New Kaineng City could be moved even further south, meaning the newly settled areas would actually include the eastern banks of whatever that river down there is called. The Nahpui Lab could be a good ways south of the old Nahpui District then, but still adjacent enough to warrant the name. (Is it not possible to integrate images directly into a post any more?)

Overall I really enjoyed the livestream. Some of the things I noted about the location of the map and how spacious it felt were explained, and the three standout revelations for me were: Old Kaineng City seems to have been entirely destroyed by the tidal wave caused by Zhaitan (somehow wreaking more destruction in Cantha than in geographically much closer Tyria and Elona - although I guess Elona was largely protected by the angle it's positioned at relative to Orr). This explains why it was rebuilt in the way we see it nowadays, although in a way it should have become even more cramped rather than less so, but who knows, maybe the "Zhaitan disaster" solved their overpopulation issues in the cruellest of ways. New Kaineng City is "further south". The ruins of Old Kaineng that the livestream started in were said by Indigo to be in the northeasternmost part of the map (we also see her motioning her hands towards her upper right, so it's unlikely she misspoke), and afterwards they enter the city through the Nahpui Lab. Weirdly enough, its "sister lab" to the south will be the Sunjiang Lab - the Sunjiang district in GW1 was east of Nahpui quarters, so we'll have to see how exactly this lines up. It was also mentioned that lands previously not settled by Canthan humans were then acquired to construct at least parts of New Kaineng City, which could be GW1's Pongmei Valley, Qingkai Mountain or the unnamed mountain range in between the Echovald and the parts of Old Kaineng further south along the coastline (that we'd never visited in GW1). Also explains why we could see bits of the Echovald in yesterday's trailer. All of this information combined allows us to somewhat locate the new map relative to GW1, and it seems that what we get in GW2 will actually mostly cover parts we as players never got to explore in GW1. This possibly allows for all maps to line up quite nicely - Shing Jae in the west, New Kaineng City directly east of it along the coastline, then the Echovald wilds and finally the Jade Sea. I wonder if everything north of the map will actually be entirely flooded, meaning we will never get to explore the old Raisu Palace, Tahnnakai Temple and so on. In-game world maps previously discovered did show some serious changes to the Canthan coastline, after all... There will actually be a large Unchained presence in Kaineng. We'd previously seen Orrian gorillas and Canthan guards wielding Orrian weapons, so now we know why. I do like this, as it allows us to follow up on Zhaitan lore, and it's interesting to see what happens to dragon minions long after their masters died. If anything, I now wish there had been some Unchained presence and lore in Path of Fire (Palawa experimenting on Unchained, trying to become their new master for example), but I also understand that just before then we'd explored Siren's Landing. This also really explained some of the driving force behind changes to Canthan society that we hadn't expected, such as the re-integration of tengu. Sadly this seems to mean "no slums", at least not in the very unique style of GW1's Kaineng. Also, no sewers it seems, as Connor mentions that they haven't really thought about how sewage is dealt with (they even had the iconic dragon-sewer pipes in the very first EoD teaser, but obviously the scenes shown at the time weren't really representative of modern day Cantha and more about its past). As a personal nitpick, some of the architectural and urban designs felt kind of nonsensical, but maybe Cantha just has bad urban planners who only do big and impractical (not like we don't construct some pretty stupid stuff in the real world ourselves).

A lot of times, the people who do get hurt by things like this are people who live in a diaspora, so in a minority in a foreign country where they have to endure a lot of micro-aggressions, blatant racism, fetishization etc. at the hands of the majority in power, meaning white people. They grow up being made fun of for their culture, food, appearance, accent etc. and are treated with little nuance - many times East Asians are automatically assumed to be Chinese, for example (or nowadays possibly Japanese or Korean with the rise of mainstream acceptance of anime and hallyu etc.). Which is why cultural appropriation and the disrespectful mish-mash of various cultures are such a problem, especially for people who are x-generation immigrants. The same outcry is rarely seen in their countries of origin; or if there is a similar upset, the exact reasoning and nuance is still quite different, since the lived experiences of people in their home countries vs. in a diaspora are wildly varied. Add to that the entire global power dynamics of Europeans sticking their fingers everywhere and ruthlessly pillaging and colonising just about every other part of the planet, which has severe cultural, social, political, economic and ecological repercussions to this day and it becomes understandable why those of European descent should overall be more mindful than the other way around. That said, I also don't really know who "those" people in East Asia that are supposedly being "hypocritical" and getting "butt hurt" are supposed to be. Sources?

As always, thank you for uploading these (loved the airship video as well, especially now that it includes the Zhaitan fight as well :P). The track that could be heard in Monday's gameplay trailer is not yet part of the playlist, right? Hopefully it will play during a break in today's livestream so that you can catch it without dialogue.

What we see though is on the same level as the water, so you can't exactly go "under" that (except have sewers/caves, but while also an aesthetic from GW1 that's still different from the prevalent slums of old Kaineng). Moreover, most of the base structures we see are made from stone (with wooden parts included and/or grafted to the structure in more or less convincing ways), so it's highly unlikely that these stone plazas and alleys and skyscrapers are supported by an underbelly of wooden shanty-towns. Probably there was flooding due to Zhaitan even in Cantha which might have destroyed a lot of the old slums/flooded lower lying areas which would explain why it was rebuilt as more of a canal city of sorts. Rewatching the trailer, it feels like the further from the palace (?) we get, the less water is present and the more claustrophobic the city gets - the beginning shots are relatively spacious, and the cityscape, while impressive in scale, doesn't tower as highly as it does in later shots. Especially the upwards tilted view of the square at night after the text reads "but change is imminent" gives off quite an intimidating feeling; I don't think we can even see the sky, despite the angle. In any case, we will see more tomorrow or at the latest on the 28th!

These shots definitely look better than the ones in the Gameplay Features trailer from Monday, so I guess the weird angles were largely to blame for the disjointed feeling it gave off. I do wonder if a lot of the shadow maps are missing for now - the trees tend to glow brighter than the Jade tech, even at night. I want to know whether this map will have some more slum-like areas like we knew from Factions, constructed more in the style of the Zephyrite Sanctum for example, but way denser. If not, I do hope the next Living Story season will take us to a different part of Kaineng eventually, where it's more "Old Kaineng" with sewers and slums. I would also like for there to be some narrower and claustrophobic areas - so far everything looked surprisingly spacious and less vertical than I'd hoped. GW1's Kaineng had some incredible height and depth. Something that surprised me was that we could see bits of Echovald forst in the trailer. In the Echovald Wilds livestream we saw two map portals as far as I remember - one towards the Jade Sea around GW1's Jade Quarry and another to Arborstone. There might be another portal towards the north (around Aspenwood Gate (Luxon)) or west of the map, or New Kaineng and Echovald Wilds aren't directly connected. It's also possible that we travel into the Echovald through Arborstone. In any case, seeing the trees in the trailer makes it very unlikely that the New Kaineng city map will be located close to the northern bits of the city, so no Raisu Palace - unless we get a very long map. Or, of course, they've managed to increase size limitations again; afaik the desolation was already pushing the limits previously. I'm looking forward to tomorrow's live stream!

On that note, has ANet ever done a promotion where an Elder Dragon was actually showed the way they turned out in game? Zhaitan was usually presented quite differently (apart from the launch trailer, which spoiled his ingame model), Mord looked very different (if we even saw him) and the IBS trailer had a very different look for Jormag (not just because of the angle).

Playing with siege turtles might be encouraged or required (so that we actually do have a reason to do the ocean floor walk), plus maybe anchored skiffs can also be useful so as to blast the leviathan from above. Remember, we don't need to be close to a shoreline anymore.

Well, at the end of the new EoD trailer we see a bunch of shimmery-black energy tendrils sucked into a similarly coloured magic anomaly of sorts, surrounded by massive sheets of Jade and broken bits of what once might have been the Harvest Temple (although I would much rather not see it destroyed so I'm hoping it's not). So maybe this truly is a "coalescent" dragon? At the end of the trailer we also see a shot of two of the new Canthan NPCs surrounded by ranks of Jade-Mechs, with a massive dragon face looming behind. This dragon actually looks similar to Aurene due to the sparkly texture, yet it also feels a bit more tech-y and just menacing as kitten.

A little tidbit that caught my attention (and that might warrant its own thread eventually after release) is that from 1:19 onwards we can see a mechanist and his Jade-Pal fighting Unchained gorillas in what is most likely Shing-Jae island (overall very green environs, a toppled lighthouse of sorts in the background). There was no Unchained/Risen presence in all of Elona despite it's proximity to Orr (there even being a landbridge) so I find it most curious that we end up finding some washed up all the way south in Cantha. Of course it's possible that they simply recycled the model as a generic undead monster/spirit, which I don't necessarily mind, but in that case some changes would have been nice (similar to how the Mouth of Zhaitan model was modified to suit the spectral demon that appears in PoF's The Departing). And side note: from what we've seen so far I don't particularly like what we've seen of New Kaineng City. I don't mind the Jade-Punk theme, but rather it just doesn't feel like a space that people would convincingly live in. It all kinda clashes and some spaces seem way too open. It feels like maybe ANet struggles with designing urban spaces since launch, since similar issues are present in the redesign of Lion's Arch/Vabbi (Amnoon kinda dodges the bullet due to just being so monumental and having half of the city buried by a recent sandstorm). That said, of course I will wait until Friday's stream/until I get my hands on EoD at the end of February to really make a judgment, though. When I zoomed in on certain parts I didn't mind the urban design as much, so maybe it had more to do with the angles, FOV and (possibly) despawned actors.

With today's trailer we got to see the little drones in action! Big takeaways: It seems like they're not constantly hovering by our side but instead only appear when using certain skills/during certain interactions. They're definitely not a constant AI-companion, which is understandable to no add even more clutter to the game, but might be disappointing to some. Despite this I hope they will be customizable in the future, similar to mail carriers, finishers etc. They can create a little updraft while gliding - which right now mostly seems useful for the people who don't own a Skyscale/Griffon and possibly in other niche scenarios (important question: will mount-disabled areas also have the jade tech mastery disabled?). This does make sense in the context of newcomers/returnees with EoD who don't have access to advanced/infinite gliding and/or aerial mounts, similar to basic gliding, raport and springer being unlocked for free. They can revive downed players. I guess resurrection orbs aren't a popular BL item, or there are severe restrictions to this (I know, resurrection orbs are still good since they actually revive defeated, not downed, players). Possibly necessary for the new "dynamic ways to travel" that we can see in the New Kaineng City-shots. Player characters are carried on platforms along a laser-zipline with the Jade-Tech drone hovering next to the platform.

A blocky emoticon? Living world season 6 set in the Super Adventure Box confirmed!

Looking at the list of balance patches, there was a major one about a month and a half before the release of Path of Fire, with a minor follow-up on the launch day itself. These prepared the state of the balance for the arrival of the new elite specialisations and in some cases helped redefine the exact roles the HoT specialisations had in comparison. Our last major balance update was more than half a year ago, in May '21. The patch notes mention that "we're preparing for Cantha", however this was mainly in regards to boons and conditions and not so much preparing for the possible new EoD meta (in any case, at that point it was too early to do so). I definitely hope that ANet will continue this tradition and therefore do a massive balance patch around/after the launch of EoD to deal with some long-standing issues as well as to prepare for EoD by defining some of the existing specialisations more clearly. I'm fairly optimistic that this will happen, as a balance patch is almost overdue at this point, anyways.

With the most recent night-time image of Kaineng (edited version of a previous daytime concept art) revealed in the background of the pre-launch/launch livestream schedule announcement, we have gotten a close-up of what is presumably the final EoD mastery, i.e. a flying Jade-Tech drone of sorts. The end of the year post from a while ago also teased Kaineng with another night-time view, which similarly hinted at this mastery in the form of the flying drone next to the walking figure. Astute observers will have noticed that the Shing Jae live stream also featured a yet-unknown map icon, which we can now assume has to do with the Jade-Tech mastery due to their similarity in design (as was graciously pointed out on a Reddit thread). Furthermore, the end of the year-post included this short passage: I also believe that it was mentioned that this final mastery would be more of a generally useful mastery not restricted to Cantha only. While we will find out about the details in a little more than two weeks (and who knows, maybe we will see teasers before that even, depending on what is planned for the release date reveal on the first of February), I am curious to hear what everybody else thinks this mastery will do in the meantime. Personally, I don't believe that it will be a hero/henchman of sorts (similar to what we had in GW1), i.e. relevant in combat. In my opinion this approach easily cheapens the appeal of dedicated pet classes such as the ranger, mechanist specialisation and minion-focussed necromancers, plus probably causes even more power creep (of which we already have more than enough in the form of elite specialisations and mounts). The only way I could see it work is by restricting where exactly it can be used or if it offered access to something very specific (e.g. a new boon unique to the drone). As it stands, I would prefer if it offered utility of sorts - basic access to a vendor, the bank or trading post for example (although this also would have to be restricted so it won't infringe too heavily on permanent contracts and BLC utility drops). Or maybe crafting assistance of sorts? A fun idea I have seen floating around, which pairs greatly with EoD's (seeming) focus on more social gameplay elements is that it may be used for a screenshot mode of sorts, as a free floating camera we can move around within a certain range of our characters to take more unique screenshots. Mobility options have been largely explored, I think, and I don't see the drone-design suggesting something similar to a grappling hook (aka more universal Oakheart mastery) or wall-climbing. I also really hope this drone will be customisable - it seems like a great opportunity for monetisation similar to mounts, gliders and outfits, and since it will be available to everyone customisability is even more important than in the case of the controversial jade-mech. Fun ideas could include a more asuran design, something similar to an Eye of Zhaitan, or a helpful (attention-starved) fairy of sorts (and yes, I would clearly prefer to earn some of these as cosmetic rewards within the game itself, but that's a separate discussion). What are your thoughts, expectations and hopes in regards to this little fella? As an aside to the most recent concept art: there's no need to read into the glowing text featured in several places. These are merely the result of the kitbashing approach to concept art, which have gifted us with the construction crane in the Hoelbrak loading screen or the random sunglasses-and-shirt-man in the Lion's Arch loading screen. In this particular case, it seems that photos of East Asian street signs were used, as we can find Japanese katakana ("netto", meaning net, most likely an abbreviation for internet, possibly from a sign for an internet café) and hiragana ("yakitori", aka chicken skewers, on the lanterns to the far right of the picture) as well as Chinese characters (the last two characters seem to be "内所", but it's difficult to tell, plus I'm not sure whether these are kanji/hanja or simplified/traditional Chinese characters since I'm only somewhat familiar with the former). It does feel slightly disappointing (if not orientalist) that somebody might have thought "it's Cantha, let's just slap some random East Asian street signs in there", especially considering that they could have quite simply replaced these with Canthan characters. Especially since this concept art was reworked specifically to show off the night-time ambiance.

If I recall correctly, it was mentioned that there will be a time skip with the Jade Sea map canonically happening later than everything else. This might of course just be in regards to the two maps we'd seen already, i.e. Shing Jae and Echovald, and then Kaineng happens even later. It's just that, considering how careful they were with turning the camera in the Jade Sea live stream, plus the mention of the time skip, it seemed to me like the Jade Sea would be the last map we go to in EoD.

Glad to see some discussion about these articles happening on the forums - this is only the second or third thread where I've seen them mentioned, as opposed to the much more lively discussions happening on reddit. You also missed one article at least, the one by MassivelyOP/Flameseeker Chronicles. In general I don't think most of the lore in these articles should be taken at face value. To me it seems like the gaming journalists that were invited had wildly varying degrees of familiarity with the lore and story of GW2 and just interpreted whatever was going on from that limited POV. In any case, these articles are meant to introduce EoD to a broader gaming audience so it doesn't make sense to be too specific, or explain why some ideas were presented in a very simplified manner. Especially when it comes to your first point: the mentions of the Pact and the Dragonjade really stood out to me in the articles since they were both only mentioned by NME (which, as far as I can tell, isn't really a gaming-focussed magazine/website).

A role playing add on/overlay using the API that has similar functionality was released just a little while back: WARP It adds a rudimentary journal (rudimentary because it's not a full on log, but rather comes with a character sheet for back story and up to four freely customisable slots where you can talk about specific features of the character, important items they might carry at the moment etc.) and it also helps you connect with other users of the add on. If you want, you can just remain "invisible" to other WARP users though. A forum post about add ons:

I am pretty sure that if this were a thing, we would have been told about it already. The only way I see it happening is if the release gets pushed back further into March and beyond and then having an additional beta event as a consolation prize of sorts.

Hence the turtle livestream on November 24th, a week ahead of its beta. Imo ESpec updates don't really warrant an entire life stream since they are pretty unlikely to change entire mechanics but are instead more about numbers and QOL to reduce the current clunkiness. And in the case that a lot of skills do get reworked it will also be quite hard to show them off across 9 professions within a single live stream - so a forum post detailing the changes (like they do for balance updates) seems more likely to me.

Thank you for the reminder about the Forgotten Seal. I have a bunch of these but never remember where I got them from (mostly using ascended trinkets anyways). I really wish the item had some flavour text about Wynne/Caithe/the cave so that the hinted story wouldn't be so wishy-washy. Is it still canonical in LS 2 that the time that passed between releases is exactly how much time was supposed to have passed in Tyria in between episodes? As far as I can recall this rule was broken at the latest with HoT, with Verdant Brink happening pretty much right after the final cutscene of Episode 8.

1. On the Mystery Cave and Tarir, they were both built (or at least heavily shaped) by the Forgotten. Since the Exalted were created by the Forgotten, their outposts can be considered as extensions of the Forgotten's sphere of power (especially the initial construction of Tarir, some later Exalted architecture might have been influenced by the Rata Novans, I believe). The Mystery Cave is just one of many Forgotten outposts, really. I can think of at least three such places throughout the game, i.e. the LS2 Cave, Tarir, and a certain place that we visit later in Path of Fire (not sure whether you've played through that so I'll remain vague). There seems to be a blocked entryway to a bigger complex within the Mystery Cave, similar to what we see in said location in Path of Fire. In both cases we thus do not know what exactly lies inside - possibly ritual sites involving the creation of the Exalted and "nurseries" involving Glint's Legacy. Possibly Forgotten dwellings as well, or a fortress of sorts (similar to how Tarir was a well protected bastion against the Dragons). As for the contents of the vision, I understood them more as a symbolic warning really and not to be taken as prophetic. Mordremoth (through its champion the Shadow of the Dragon and its spreading tendrils) threatened Glint's Egg and Tarir as a whole. In the end we kill the Shadow before it destroys the egg and before we ourselves reach Tarir, and then we kill Mordremoth itself in a desperate last ditch effort - the dreadful ending we saw in the vision was thus averted, even though we came uncomfortably close to it. A lot of things were definitely cut from HoT, however. 3. We try to find Caithe, and our only leads are the memory seeds. But yeah, few things are left to coincidence in most stories and I do agree that a lot of the plot points here are convoluted, at least in the way the story is told to us. With what is presented in the game it's indeed questionable why the random cave that Wynne just so happens to run into is a Forgotten/Exalted outpost which, conveniently, is abandoned but not yet sealed at the time. The main motivation was probably teasing Tarir and the role of the Forgotten/Exalted, as you've mentioned, plus the place looks pretty darn cool as a setpiece to stage the final fight. But I also think it's insinuated that Wynne had been there before. Remember that in the episode, when Caithe and Faolain arrive in the centaur village, Wynne is not yet there but exploring instead (and had been staying in the area for a good while). Would also explain why she so "conveniently" ran there and not just any random cave (I will elaborate on this later). Edit: Thanks to Konig's remark about the Forgotten Seal it's clear that Wynne had access to the cave. Explains a lot. One thing to keep in mind though is that Mordremoth was already messing with Caithe so she was always going to head deeper into the jungle (even though we as the Commander couldn't have known that at the time). It could not only mess with her mind/Wild Hunt but also sense magic and possibly keep track of her and the egg itself, so it shouldn't come as a surprise that the Shadow (as Fao-Vine does later) showed up where Caithe/the egg went//in a place of power. Regarding other coincidences, all civilisations (and wild creatures as well) in GW2 tend to be drawn to such places of power and magic, so it wouldn't be too shocking for someone to set up camp closeby. Also, distances in the game space are much shorter than they are supposed to be in the lore, and in cases like this it's especially fuzzy as the cave might be just a stone's thrown away or indeed require a somewhat lengthy trip (a longer distance also makes the chase seem more dramatic, I feel). a) Well, we needed a reasonable cliffhanger because Seeds of Truth was going to end there haha But as for an actual response, the sealing magic probably had always existed (it being a Forgotten outpost, after all), but for some reason it wasn't active in the past when Wynne fled there. As I mentioned in 3., it's hinted that Wynne knew the cave so maybe she initially opened it somehow and then studied the cave (I will have to replay the episode but I think even in the memory version of the cave there might already be hints of a campfire etc.). Or maybe the magic just wasn't up when she discovered it. Afterwards, someone or something managed to reactivate the sealing magic - Caithe seems unlikely, since she's not exactly a magically minded person, and it also seems questionable that Faolain would seal it. The game never gives any clear explanations, as far as I know, although I could think of two possible reasons: First option, Wynne discovered a sealed Mystery Cave, broke the seal after studying it, and then later fled and died there. The sealing magic eventually restored itself (wouldn't be the first of its kind to repair itself, plus that explains why we can never return there in the open world without map breaking), thus we are faced with a closed magic wall by the end of Seeds of Truth. Or, in case there was a key of sorts which Wynne found and used, this key could have ended up in Caithe's hands and she could thus close (and open) the Cave at will (keep this in mind for 4.). Edit: Like Konig said, Wynne was in the possession of a Forgotten seal which later ended up in Caithe's hands, then ours. Or second option, similar to what later happens with Exalted outposts in the jungle, its the proximity to Glint's egg that activated previously dormant security measures. The Master of Peace and Caithe gallivanting about the Maguuma Wastes with the egg thus ironically seals the cave. b) Like I mentioned earlier regarding your "all things conveniently in one place"-point, Caithe was already being mentally influenced by Mordremoth. This is further laid out in HoT, once we finally manage to reclaim the egg and have to flee from Fao-Vine. The Jungle Dragon was trying to draw her closer to itself, but couldn't fully dominate her mind (most named Sylvari we meet are actually pretty good at resisting their maker, all things considered), so it filled her mind with thoughts of a Wild Hunt and carrying the egg into the jungle (possibly messing with a real Wild Hunt that she was given). Moreover, and this leads into 4., I understood the more mundane items found there as hints that Caithe had camped there, possibly every so often. Returning to places symbolising trauma, mourning, loss and change is not too far fetched to me. In that case, especially considering that Caithe knew that Mordremoth was stirring at last, it's not too surprising that she would stop by the Cave since it's the location of one of the most important moments of her life until then, and doesn't need much of a detour - a last stopover to steel her resolve and prepare for a dangerous expedition into the unknowns of the actual jungle (I think as far as we know, the Silverwastes was the furthest that Caithe had travelled westwards until then). This would require Caithe to be able to enter and exit the Cave at will, so the idea that Wynne had a key of sorts, which then ended up in the hands of Caithe, therefore becomes more likely. Then again, Caithe is a talented thief so maybe she could break into a sealed Cave even without a having to resort to map-breaking Skyscales like we players do - there is a hole in the ceiling, after all. All in all, I believe that there are some hints that should help you with your doubts regarding LS2, but they are both sparse AND deliberately open to interpretation. At the same time, it doesn't really make sense for some other random person to have started camping in the Cave so I'm pretty sure it hints at Caithe's connection to the place and her reasons for being there during the events of LS2. It would have been nice to be told a clearer background story here so that it wouldn't all feel so coincidental, because I think that everything can quite easily fall into place and make sense with just a few more hints and clarity.

I feel like we would have seen hints of such in the concept art if the expansion was going to have a world-ending-is-imminent scenario. Colourful floating bubbles in Echovald Forest seem very doomsday to me, personally! :# On a more serious note, yeah, you might be right. But as it stands, we haven't really seen much of the current Cantha so far, as the teaser might have shown historical scenes and other pieces of concept art have been rare (and the aforementioned floating bubbles in one of these paintings did look very out-of-place, so who knows, maybe they are related to this - similar to how Kralkatorrik's rift shenanigans integrated pieces of other places and times into Jahai, maybe a part of the ocean somehow manifested within the Echovald Forest or something... or it's just visions-related VFX).If an oblivion-plot does happen, it might also just be more visible in some of the later maps because they happen later on in the timeline, when things start degrading more and more, and aren't necessarily present within all expansion maps. But like I said, I looooove me some floaty kitten, so this is just me hoping for more of floating stuff in case they do end the current saga with an ED dying. Other storylines seem just as plausible, though.