Sajuuk Khar.1509

When were dragons "almost killed easily" in LWS3 or PoF? In LWS3 Balthaazar had to go through an insane multi level plan, that required pretending to be Lazarus, tricking the White Mantle to be his army, absorbing the power of a Bloodstone, and having to steal a weapon made by the Asura(which itself was only able to be made thanks to the lost secrets of Rata Novus, and irreplaceable parts no one really understood from Omadd's Machine), to be able to confront Primordus. And in PoF he had to work with Joko, steel the secrets of the Exalted to build an army of Forged, and had to capture Vlast/Aurene, on top of everything he did in LWS3, in order to be able to even face Kralkatorrik. That's the exact opposite of going down easy. That's about the same level of plan we had to use to take down the dragons ourselves. Joko taking over Elona was a narrative device Anet used, along with Cantha going isolationist, to put humanity at the same level as the other races at the start of GW2. Humanity was too large/powerful, having conquered pretty much the entire known world, and having them start GW2 off like that puts them at way too much of a narrative advantage compared to the other races. They needed to bring humanity down a few pegs to bring other races up a few. Joko himself was an incompetent narcissist back in GW1. Makes sense his empire wasn't all that impressive in GW2. And if he hadn't taken over Elona the forces of Vabbi, Istan, and Kourna, would have just annihilated him in about all of 5 seconds the moment he learned he was even thinking of trying to find the Scarab Plague. It would be a one episode plot at that rate. Joko being a threat at all really only works if Elona is under his control. Hes too weak otherwise. Kralkatorrik got the same amount of narrative the other dragons got. Each dragon got three maps + a dragon fight. Zhaitan had Straights of Devastation, Malchor's Leap, and Cursed Shore, + Arah story mode Mordremoth had Verdant Brink, Auric Basin, and Tangled Depths, + Dragon's Stand Kralkatorrik had Domain of Vabbi, Jahai Bluffs, and Thunderhead Peaks + Dragonfall Jormag had Bitterfrost Frontier, Bjora Marches, and Drizzlewood Coast + Dragonstorm Primordus had Ember Bay, Draconis Mons, and the first two parts of Champions + Dragonstorm Soo-Won had Saitung Province, New Kaineng City, and Echovald Wild + Dragon's End Kralk arguably had more content then the other elder Dragons due to how much PoF focused on him as well, what with all the Glint/Vlast/Dragonsblood Spear, stuff that played such a consistent role in PoF. How was Jormag's setup thrown away? Jormag pretty much master planned its way to near victory. Manipulating Bangar into giving it an army, while also simultaneously almost destroying the Charr who made up the bulk of military forces against the Dragons. It got Almorra killed, robbing the Pact of one of its best military minds. It caused The Commander's comrades to doubt each other, and the Commander, crippling the effectiveness of Dragon's Watch for a time. It did what no other dragon could and used the Asura's hatred of Primordus to cause them to ally with it, giving it access to even greater power/information which it used to make itself even more powerful by finding a way to freeze people to sap their energy as its own. It also managed to launch a Tyria wide invasion alongside Primordus' invasion, attacking the gates of Lion's Arch, Divinity's Reach, The Dominion of Winds, the Flame Citadel, among others. And it went into Dragonstorm knowing it could win against Primordus, and almost did so, only failing because of an 11th hour, last resort, plan involving Aurene no one was sure was going to work. And the plot ended exactly as we knew it was going to from LWS3. The only thing that can kill either dragon is each other, so we had to get them to duke it out directly now that Taimi's Machine was gone.

If you read Koss' journals he states he tried to convince people to go take out Joko, but pretty much no one listened to him, so it ended up being just him and a handful of people who went to attack Joko to try to stop him before he could do anything. Literally had Elona actually tried they could have easily taken out Joko before he became an issue. His rise to power was due to a lack of trying on Elona's part. Literally, no one tired. Well no, as we see in Istan the Sunspears had a pretty organized base, a number of recruits, and were staging large operations against Joko, all before we arrived there. Its the exact opposite of just some stragglers. Basic intelligence and spying work is part of any nation. The Mordan Crescent should have been dealing with the Order of Shadows, who hinded Joko more then they helped him, since they were attacking Joko's nation. Also... hidden? seriously? when they have a giant obvious base a stone's throw from Joko's palace? You must think Joko is even more stupid then I think he is. The large scale dissident movement spanning from Vabbi into Amnoon leading refugees out of Elona for years before Balthazar or the Branded shwoed up. Joko did try multiple times, and its mentioned Joko has been trying for years to take Amnoon. The placing of Zehlon Ossa in Deadlock Sweep was to blockade the main pass into Amnoon to try to force them to surrender to him. literally all the lore from PoF that has shown these issues to have been issues since before Kralk or Balthazar showed up. This are LONG standing issues with Joko's rule. There is dialogue in the Desolation near the OoS base where one of the Keepers is talking to Kossan and tells him he will need to be the hero that unites Elona once they manage to take down Joko, and clear out the branded. Literally they were thinking of Joko's fall within Kossan's near future. We did though. Thwarting his plans to harass Diviner's Reach, and take hostages, in the Desert Highlands. The lifting of the blockade he placed on Amnoon by killing Zhelon Ossa. The raid against the Deadhouse that resulted in the death of Jabari who was lording over Palawa's Grace, and all the other events in and around Palawa's Grace where we help stop his forces from controlling the citizens, and taking supplies from the back into his territory, in the Elon Riverlands. Us luring Junudu wurms to wreck one of his major forts in the Desolation. Us killing the forces protecting his palace, and the whole Bonestrand event chain where we help free that village(and all the other Bonestrand events) in the Desolation. In Vabbi we killed the three Judges who ran his entire awakening court system, while helping to inspire the younger generation to rise up against hi m at the academy. Not to mention ltierally tricking his army into going head on into Balthazar's and the branded, wiping out a huge portion of his forces. We demolish pretty much every major system/plan he had set up in all the areas we visit. Total failure throughout the north desert, mass revolts in Istan, the people of Kourna siding against you, your oldest enemy coming back in force on multiple fronts, and with allies in the Corsairs, Order of Shadows, and ghosts, and being forced to hold up in a fortress on the edge of your territory. That is the definition of total political collapse. If any nation in real life was suffering from a similar situation total collapse would be used to describe it.

Going to have to disagree with pretty much all of these. To use Joko as an example. Joko was never that important. If you look back on his GW1 lore his only real claim to fame was an odd immortality power, and utterly failing to conquer Elona. He wasn't some great wizard who could destroy cities, he wasn't some brilliant mastermind in war, he wasn't even a particularly good leader in general. After being imprisoned he was utterly unable to escape on his own, nor were his Awakened able to do it for him. His escape is pure luck resulting of the Abbadon situation. And even in Nightfall he wasn't that important. We didn't need him for his armies, or his power, we just needed him to learn how to ride the wurms(something that could have been done via any number of mcguffins, using Joko was just a lore reference). And even after being freed he still needed the player to do everything for him to rebuild his position since he was utterly unable to do so himself. Now you look at his takeover of Elona in between the two games and... it only happened because literally no one but a handful of Sunspears actually tried to stop him, because everyone dismissed him. His grand plan was to look at a map, and make a determination a literal child could make(that most of the water coming into Elona comes from one river so block if off and you win) It wasn't some grand military conquest, it wasn't some huge epic war where he was able to take everyone out with superior power/tactics. It was literally just no one really tried to stop him. But because Joko wasn't particularly smart, or powerful, his empire was a paper tiger. Despite trying for ages he had utterly failed to wipe out the Sunspears, or their ideals. Despite trying for ages he was unable to remove the Order of Shadows. Despite trying for ages he was unable to stop the dissident movement. Despite trying for ages he was unable to make Amnoon bow to him. Because of his intense narcissism everyone in power around him was nothing more then yes men who couldn't real leading to wipe spread unrest in his land. Even the Order of Shadows predicted his empire would fall in as few years that they planned to prop Kossan up as a leader figure once it fell because hes just not good at leading. And within the content of Path of Fire we pretty much demolish all of his northern operations from the Desert Highlands, down to the Desolation, and into Vabbi. Killing many important people in his hierarchy, replacing others, and inflaming the already agitated people against him(not to mention throwing a good chunk of his army against the Forged and Branded). In the post PoF Griffon achievements we reunite the Sunspears in the north, build them up a base of operations in Vabbi, and help them start recruiting from the locals to rebuild themselves. And LWS6 had some Sunspears down in Istan doing the same, causing full scale revolt in Istan, and making him lose those territories. By the time we get to the stuff at Gandara Joko's empire is in full scale collapse. Hes effectively lost everything from Vabbi upwards, Istan to the south, and pretty much all of Kourna outside of Gandara and Jahai as well. Even if he has survived the events at Gandara the only place he could have fled to is Jahai, at which point we would have done the exact same thing we just did in Gandara, except now we would be even more surrounded. Joko's story wasn't not fleshed out(double negative there), and it certainly wasn't so because Anet "doesn't want to deal with the old". Joko's story was the way it was because that's how important he actually was in the narrative from the get go. He wasn't super smart, he wasn't super powerful, he wasn't some great leader(either militarily or in normal governance), he was just an overinflated ego who got as far as he did because people underestimated him a little too much. But that kind of person isn't going to be some grand expansion/full living world season badguy. Lazarus is pretty much the same. The Mursatt became fodder to the players by the end of GW1, then became even more fodder to the Titans, who the players then beat themselves. Making the Mursaat essentially double fodder. And the rest of them died to a rag tag group of Krytans, with some help from a few Asura, during the War in Kryta. Lazarus only managed to escape death because he fled, and hid like a coward. Much like Joko, he wasn't some ultra-mega-super-powerful entity. He was just a Mursaat who lasted because he ran. But by the time of GW2 the heroes of the modern age were SO much stronger then the GW1 heroes, and Kryta had become so much more powerful then it was back in GW1, and had made alliances with all the other major races making them even more powerful. While, on the other hand, Lazarus' potential forces, the White Mantle, had been reduced greatly. They were forced to hide in the jungle for the last 200+ years, and had been largely ineffectual at achieving any real results until Caudecus came along. But Caudecus is himself an egotist, who wanted it all for himself, and split the Mantle into two over if he or "Lazarus" should be in charge. Making their already weak force weaker. Lazarus and the Mantle, much like Joko, were never in a position in GW2's narrative to be some big expansion/whole LW season, level entity. That Anet did his story the way they did because thats the level of importance he was from game start. I could write the same for Saul(who I dont think anyone expected to be alive at all since GW1 made it clear the Mursaat poofed him off to make him a Martyr for the Mantle to rally behind), Jormag, Primordus, and Mai-Trin. Soo-Won doesn't even make sense in this context given that she had never been a character before EoD to begin with. All we know of the DSD was that it existed. None of these situations being what they were come from "not wanting to deal with old stuff" its entirely "players made up fantastical stories for aspects of the lore that were never implied to be that fantastical, and are now dissapointed that the writers wrote the stories on the level of which they were originally implied to be, instead of what players made up in their heads"

Why should Braham have third degree burns over his body and be suffering from PTSD when the whole plot was that the Spirits of the Wild were protecting him from such damage in the first place? And they already established the Spirits were ok at the end of IBS, they just need time to fully recover. We know what happened to Bangar, he got de-iced and had to be taken to a hospital to be treated for the injuries that caused him. After that hes 100% in jail for his actions, and we really have zero reason to see, or interact with, him again. The people frozen by Jormag was covered in the Taimi/Gorrik dialogue between IBS and EoD. Jormag's death has caused a very slow defrosting of these people, but it could be years, if not longer, before they are freed. Yeah, it took 7 years to get to Cantha to deal with a plot arc that could only really be dealt with in Cantha. Do you think they would have put Cantha out earlier just to close out the thing with Majory's sister? Its almost people many people don't get closure on big life changing events for years, if not decades, after the fact in real life! Gods! Realism in GW2's writing! I don't agree with the idea that its obvious Soo-Won wasn't mother. We have been explicitly told since launch that there are 6 elder dragons, and the Water Dragons has always been without any real detail, lore, or knowledge. They even made its name damaged in the god scrolls just to keep it mysterious. While Mother as a concept wasn't likely a thing in Anet's mind until LWS4, I am 100% certain the water dragon was meant to be mother from that point. Whats more likely? That they were they going to introduce a SUPAH SEKRET 7TH ELDAH DRAYGON! that no one had heard about before, and had never been mentioned anywhere else in the lore, or that the 6th Elder Dragon we knew nothing about was going to be it? Occams' Razor suggests the simplest answer is the correct one. People even pointed out right as Kralkatorrik said mother at the end of LWS4 you could hear ocean waves, and thus it was likely that the water dragon was mother. This is exactly the kind of thing I was talking about. People taking really simple things, and trying to concoct elaborate conspiracies to make them more complex then they need to be(or ever were) and then making up massive copeium to try to explain why it didn't go the way they wanted, when nothing suggested it was ever going to go that way. On another note, whats rushed about any of these dragon stories? Its been nearly 10 years since GW2 came out. Most MMOs dont even make it to 10 years of active content development in the first place. GW2's story is the exact opposite of rushed. Its overly long to the point that it was always seriously questionable if they were ever going to finish it. And all of the dragons got pretty much equal amounts of content as is. Each of the Elder Dragons had "teaser" content, where we fight the dragons minions in a significant way, leading to a larger champ battle. Jormag had the northern parts of Wayfarer, the northeastern part of Snowden, and Frostgourge(where its champion the Claw was) Kralk had the Dragonbrand which ran though Fields of Ruin, Blazeridge(where its champion the Shatterer was), and into Iron Marches Zhaitan had the southern part of Bloodtide, and the Sparkfly Fen map(where its champ Tequatal was) Primordus was more scattershot owning it being the underground dragon that could pop up anywhere, but we saw its minions in Metrica, Brisban, Kessex, Lornars, Timberline, and Mount Malestrom(where its champ the Megadestoryer was) Mordremoth had the Iron Marches events, veins coming up in Timberline and Kessex, Mordrem in Dry Top, and the Silverwastes(where its champ the Vinewrath was) Following that each Elder Dragon had pretty much the same actual "big fight" content. That being a pattern of three maps + a dragon fight Zhaitan had Straights of Devastation, Malchor's Leap, and Cursed Shore. With the dragon fight in Arah story mode. Mordremoth had Verdant Brink, Auric Basin, and Tangled Depths. With the dragon fight in Dragon's Stand. Kralkatorrik had Vabbi, Jahai, and Thunderhead. With the dragon fight in Dragonfall. Jormag had Bitterfrost, Bjora, and Drizzlewood. With the dragon fight in Dragonstorm. Primordus had Ember Bay, Draconis Mons, and had his third map/story section replaced with with first two Champions releases. With the dragon fight in Dragonstorm Soo-Won had Seitung, New Kaineng, and Echovald. With the dragon fight in Dragon's End Giving each of the Elder Dragons a fairly consistent amount of content from launch to 10 years later is the exact opposite of rushed. Pretty much this. None of these things matter to the Commander at this time, so they don't focus on it since the Commander wouldn't be focusing on it.

You should though. Good writing, and good world building for video games, doesn't just blurt out the answers to every mystery directly via dialogue. Good writing and world building gives you what you need to know to understand the plot at a basic level, and leaves most of the really in-depth stuff to be found out via examination of the world, symbolism, and finer details in what is around you. And no, Anet could have never satisfied the normal person's curiosity because normal people(at least on video game forums) nearly always go for the most extreme level of speculation, when the real answer is nearly always dictated by Occam's Razor, and thus never that extreme of an answer, leaving those kinds of people always dissapointed. You can see this reaction in other things like Joko, Lazarus, even the Spirits of the Wild, were people spent years making increasingly elaborate(and thus unlikely) theories on how they would be done, and what we got was the most simple answer since thats the most believable.

It could be tremors related to the Jade Sea, or things within it like the Jade Maw, "dejading" deep underground, and causing shockwaves as its breaking up. IIRC that area is right near the giant jade cavern you can take your boat into.

There is a book in the Jade Sea somewhere that mentions tremors, and people giving offerings to Lone. *edit* found it https://i.imgur.com/Ea1jFiV.jpg *edit* *edit* 1630 CC is apparently the year Primordus woke up, if that might mean anything.

Nope, I dislike checklist style plots entirely. Stop strawmanning every chance you get it just makes you look bad. On the subject of Champions however, there really wasn't much for it to delve into in the first place since it had already been done earlier in the story. The Primordus stuff, as well as the Asura stuff with Primordus, was covered starting back in HoT(with the discovery of Rata Novus) and continued throughout LWS3 with all the research into Primordus, the discovery of his weakness, the building of a weapon to kill him, and two maps focused on him(Ember Bay and Draconis Mons) The Norn stuff, including the Spirits of the Wild, and Braham's journey, was covered in "Whisper in the Dark", "Shadow in the Ice", and "Jormag Rising" in IBS The Charr stuff similarly had "Bound by Blood", "No Quarter", and "Jormag Rising" The Dwarven stuff had been a long running narrative since core. By the time Champions began we had explored all of the old Dwarven lands, gone to all the old Dwarven citadel of note(including some new ones), interacted with the last two living stone Dwarves, found the legacy of the Dwarves(the dragonsblood weapon forge), and used it to kill an Elder Dragon. We also got to collect the stories of the old dwarven heroes, found out what happened to the Stone Summit, and got limited dwarven weapon and armor sets. The only things Champions did cover were stories that had already largely wrapped up beforehand, and we were just dealing with the epilogues for. Things like the Renegade/Separatist plot, Charr/Human relations, the few remaining remnants of the Flame Legion, the Legions opening up to the Olmakhan, etc. Which were never going t be full episodes themselves because they weren't much to do with them anyways. The only thing we lost from the original plan of IBS was the Centaur plot, which they didn't just limit to checklist style, they just didn't do it at all. So once again you're wrong. Not only about what I like, but also about what actually exists in the game as is.

The Branded(at least in Charr lands) have been pretty much all wiped out by the time IBS starts according to Bangar. The remaining Flame Legion have made peace with everyone following the other races helping to defend te Flame Citadel during Champions. The Renegades and Separatists have lost any real power or influence following the deaths of Caudicus, Bangar, and Ajax, who were funding/leading them, and the years of Human/Charr cooperation whittling down hatred between the two races. Really only the Ghosts are left as a real issue.

Most of this is a result of people latching onto idea/concepts and building every increasingly complex, and unrealistic, expectations for how those ideas should be done(Joko, Lazarus, etc) Most of the supposedly "rushed" ideas weren't large enough, or complex enough, to be the kind of story people wanted without making then incredibly thin.

That's pretty much what we did in Icebrood Saga.

More of the personal story had nothing to do with Zhaitan though. Most of the personal story was racial background choices, joining the orders, and dealing with some of the lesser races. They had frequent appearances of every Elder Dragon minion, not just the Risen. Zhaitan only really mattered in the last like 1/3 of the personal story, and even that only took as long as it did because a lot of it was building the Pact plot... which we didn't need to do with later Elder Dragons since we had already done it in the personal story. Though each later story did have similar plots with us making allies in the new regions we visited. LWS1 barely had anything to do with the Elder Dragons at all, except in extreme retrospect with Scarlet being controlled by Mordremoth unknowingly at the time. Not to mention people complained about LWS1 being overly long and drawn out for what it was. If you look at the actual "big" content for each Elder Dragons its been pretty much the same for each. Three maps + a dragon fight Zhaitan had the three Orr maps, Straights of Devastation, Malchor's Leap, and Cursed Shore, with the big dragon fight in Arah story mode. Mordremoth had Verdant Brink, Auric Basin, and Tangled Depths, with the big dragon fight in Dragon's Stand. Kralkatorrik had Domain of Vabbi, Jahai Bluffs, and Thunderhead Peaks, with the big dragon fight in Dragonfall. Jormag had Bitterfrost Frontier, Bjora Marches, and Drizzlewood Coast, with the big dragon fight in Dragonstorm. Primordus had Ember Bay, Draconis Mons, the first two champions released(which replaced his third map), and the big dragon fight in Dragonstorm. Soo-Won had Seitung Province, New Kaineng City, and the Echovald Wilds, with the big dragon fight in Dragon's End. Its been pretty even for all of them.

More likely the seers trapping the remaining un-corrupted magic of the world into the Bloodstones in the last cycle drove them all the area since dragons eat magic, and would thus be drawn to it. Pretty much. By the end of Prophocies we have fodderized the Mursaat, then we kicked the butts of the Titans who kicked the Mutsaat's butts. And the heroes of GW2's era are much more powerful then the GW1 heroes. Not to mention having the Mursaat come back in force pretty much invalidates the whole plot of Prophecies, the War in Kryta, and the Lazarus plotline.

Slight correction. Utopia was the planned 4th campaign for after Nightfall. It got canned got Eye of the North.

Honestly there's quite a bit I could see happening after EoD LWS6 that expands on Cantha like LWS4 did for Elona, giving us more Jade Brotherhood, Speaker, and Purist content, dealing with the inevitable energy crisis the Empire will be facing, and finding out what the horrors in the deep are/what exactly Soo-Won was keeping contained down there before she went to Cantha. LWS7 that goes back to central Tyria to clean up the unresolved plot lines(Centaurs, Malyck, Ghosts of Ascalon, Wizard's Tower, Inquest), while setting up expansion 4. Xpack 4: "Dark of the Mists" dealing with deep Mists stuff like ancient gods, and possibly whatever destroyed the original human homeworld making its way to Tyira ala a Burning Legion like army of Mist demons or something. And tying up the god plot. LWS8 that expands upon the Xpack 4 region, and ties up whatever loose narrative threads are there. They easily have enough story content for another 5 years should they pursue it.

I don't really think it shows anything beyond Anet acknowledging that yeah, they haven't been entirely wiped out down to the last courtier. As for why leaving the NPC there... why not? They needed an NPC for that island, and already had one made. From what we know the "Nightmare Court story" in HoT was all of one small section where we freed some Sylvari NPCs, and in the original version they were Nightmare Court who explained a bit about what was going on with them during the larger crisis. Much like the original plans for Malyck in HoT, which were nothing big, the Nightmare court stuff was itself nothing big because they aren't really important in the larger scheme of the setting.

Most fallen organizations still have some sort of leadership left to organize them. The Mafia still has leadership for example. Again, that doesn't really mean anything. Also the Icebrood are just dragon minions, who lack intelligence. I think you were probably thinking of the Svanir, and the Svanir's leader(outside of Jormag) was the Fraenir, who we killed back in Bjora. If the Nightmare court show up it will be as an accessory piece to a Malyck story, but the story would be about Malyck and his tree, and finding out what happened to them. Not of the Court itself.

They kind of where though.The Sylvari were never a particularly a large species(due to only being a few decades old) and the Inquest only made up a minority of them. Between the losses they suffer in All the open world stuff The story content Our attack on their HQ which drove out Failoan, their leader Our multiple return trips to kill those trying to take her place The losses they suffered in the Toxic alliance, and our return return to Twilight Arbor for the Aetherpath The numbers they lose to Mordremoth during HoT The plausibility of them being around in any significant capacity dwindles to near zero. What a lot of people seem to forget is that its incredibly rare you ever achieve a total annihilation of an enemy force, or their ideals. You can look at the Mafia in the U.S. as an example. There was a time when they were incredibly powerful, and lorded over crime in the country. Yet most people now don't even really think of them, despite the fact they still technically exist and operate in the U.S. It doesn't actually matter if we get direct confirmation that they disbanded or not. The fact that they still exist is, itself, not really a justification for them being a major story beat in the future. The losses they have suffered, as well as their initial small number, makes the plotline wrapped up as is. The same is true of other groups like the Flame Legion, or Svanir. We don't need to be told, or directly see, every last Svanir or Flame Legion killed, or repent, to have their stories be wrapped up. The sheer number of losses, large scale destruction of their organizations, and repentance of groups like Efrahm's, already wrap up those faction's storylines as is. There will be remnants of these groups for years, if not decades, to come. Just like there will be for the Renegades and Separatists. That doesn't mean its plot worthy to investigate them. I think what you suggest here would be a very massive narrative misstep. The Inquest being some major narrative hook for Mists stuff doesn't really work because its already stretching plausibility that they continue to exist, with the forces they have, after literally years of just beating them down, and the destruction of two, city sized, bases(Crucible of Eternity, and Rata Primus). Trying to force them in as the plot hook for Mists content, when we already have far better, and more realistic, plot hooks with the gods, and mist demons, just reeks of fan-kitten, and trying to keep them around for longer then they should be. Similarly, the Aetherblades were a small group of pirates that only got as far as they did in LWS1 because they surprised people. We pretty much defeated their organization back in LWS1, and they are only an issue in EoD because they led the leaders get away, and rebuild over the last literal decade. But even with that, having the Aetherblades be something that lasts beyond EoD, and possibly LWS6 as remnants, wouldn't make sense with the scale of their operation. It would just be forcing them into a mists storyline for fan-kitten, ignoring the far better suited plot points we already have set up like demons and older gods. They simply aren't this multi-expansion/LWS threat. If we do a Mists plot(which I suspect is where the story will head after EoD/LWS6) then it shouldn't be rehashes of the Inquest and Aetherblades. Groups that have gotten enough content far beyond what they really should have gotten. It should be things that come from the Mists, and hasn't had much content already, like Mist demons.

Having the Inquest make some sort of Elder Dragon magic monster would be a nice plot point for after EoD. As is the Inquest are the only racial enemy group still around as a hostile force in any real capacity. With EoD seemingly ending the Elder Dragon plot, us getting one last big Inquest story ala "Bug in the system" to end their organization/research once and for all would make for a fitting post EoD release. And would wrap up the last of the racial enemy storylines.

So going by the trailer, and the various articles, this thing can Make fast travel points Revive the player from down state Make your skiff go faster Make mount vitality regen faster Provide updrafts Can be taken control of and used to navigate around Works ziplines Interact with jade tech batteries to get charges to open things like chests/power up defense turrets Can be used as a screenshot tool So It does everything... Nice.

Pretty much. Its just the modern video game mentality you see everywhere, a near religious need to find anything, no matter how small or petty, to hate and overblow it to epic proportions.

Shing Jea, the Jade Sea, and Echovald, all look pretty much the same as they did in GW1. Kaineng city has the same overall style, just with jade stuff and holograms slapped on top. Its all pretty recognizable as is. And what habit of just destroying old things? The only thing anet has really destroyed is old LA. Hell, one of the most overused complaints about GW2 is how similar things are, and how heavily they lean into places from GW1.

Not going to happen as that would totally invalidate skyscales and griffons, and would make getting across maps way too easy given that PoF sized maps are the max they can make maps. Not going to happen due to the sheer amount of VA work, as well as remodeling tons of armors in the game, that would take. Doesn't really make sense with how the crafting professions we already have covering everything we need to do in the game. This would just be the Guild Hall decoration system on a much smaller/more limited scale, to account for player houses being much smaller then guild halls, and not a real new feature. Not going to happen due to the whole new suite of models, skills, and powers, needed to make a new weapon valid this late in the game. Game modes 90% of the playerbase doesn't care about and are things that amount to side updates during a LW season, not an expansion level feature. Doesn't make sense due to map size and we have no reason to be that far out in the deep ocean shooting at.... uhhh..... who again? Anyways. I'd rather have things that work, aka what we got, then fantasies that don't make sense. That is a better feature list then what you provided. I can safely say I would get more out of skiffs, siege turtles, and fishing, then pretty much anything you listed.

Probably around Crystal Oasis sized, but with the city taking up the whole map. IIRC they said the PoF maps were pretty much as big as they could make the maps in GW2.

That_Shaman has even pointed out how the direction of the tidal wave makes sense also https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FK1LQ_PWQAAk9iC?format=jpg&name=4096x4096