Sajuuk Khar.1509

I find it funny that people seem to dislike IBS. Icebrood Saga, so far, has been my favorite living world season. The slower pace of the story means everything gets developed more, rather then the constant stream of "introduce a new character -> kill them off the next episode" break neck pace we saw previously.The maps that get released with each episode are smaller, but have nearly the same amount of events as the LWS3/4 maps did, making them far more packed with content, giving me more reason to stay on them longer.We got a lot, and are getting more, Norn lore. Lots of stuff about the spirits, and Asgeir.Likewise, we are finally getting more content about the Charr's broken society, other then just more flame legion vs everyone elseJormag's more manipulative approach had less to less mindless "samshy smashy the dragon minions" narratives, a welcome relief over previous stories which usually just ended up being 4 maps of "fight dragon minions"Strikes are useless, just like all of Anet's attempts at "hard" content have been(Dungeons, Fractals, Raids), but pretty much everything else is a big step up over past LW seasons IMO.

Yeah, no. Anet isn't just going to "nuke" Tyria. that isn't how it works. They need the maps that already exist to remain as they are for new players, and people who need to go back to them for achievements/collections.

That being said, I never had a hat in the Captain's race. Not only did I hate everything about LWS1 that I had stopped playing before that point, but I don't play fractals, so it never mattered to me which one we got.

Somewhere in all that we will have visits by Bear and Snow Leopard spirits where they will teach us some sort of lesson like Raven and Wolf did. Anet has also commented that, after episode 4, they plan to do something like the player engaging Season 1 content, except, this time it will stick around. Given the current plot, there may be some sort of Khan-Ur election thing held. And we are probably going to get another "Visions of the Past" update as well. their whole wording around the first one, and the subtitled nature of the first one, implies more. So that I what I guess the Centaurs will do, nature magic stuff to help us fight Jormag/commune with the Spirits.

So far we have gotten the Charr, Norn, and Kodan stuff we saw in the trailer. That just leaves the centaur appearance, and then the final battle.

If anything, the Bangar/Renegade connection just creates some pretty big plot holes. Now we are led to believe that literally no one, not even Creica or the Ash Legion, somehow found ANY evidence of Bangar supplying the Renegades for years, despite the fact that he was not only the one most opposed to the treaty, but ALSO the father of the guy leading the whole group. At least in the case of Caudecus he was constantly being busted for being involved, but managed to get out of it by being JUST slippery enough they couldn't pin anything on him directly. Now they have made Bangar into some giant Mary Sue, and everyone else into stumbling idiots. Its such a forced connection.

As mentioned in "Hidden Arcana" and later expanded upon in "Crystalline Memories", all the ritual did was allow Glint to think for herself. She didn't turn good because of it. In fact, she stayed loyal to Kralk for some time after. It was only after using her mind reading powers to hear the thoughts of the other races that she switched sides. The point of the ritual is to free an enslaved minion's mind so it has the CHANCE to turn good. Actually being good is based on sympathy. Here's the thing though... the Pale Tree was a seed, seeds don't have minds to be enthralled, they are just seeds. The seeds could have turned into a Blighting Tree, had Mordremoth been awake to direct it so, but he wasn't. The Pale Tree wouldn't need the Forgotten's Ritual because it never had a mind to be enthralled, much less a mind needing to be un-enthralled. And its also explicitly stated that the Grove is far enough away from Mordremoth that its voice barely makes it out that far, which is why the Sylvari there didn't turn when Mordremoth awakened. So it never had a risk of being corrupted like Svanir was despite Jormag being asleep. All the Pale Tree would need is to develop the same sympathy Glint and Aurene needed to, which Ronan and Ventari provided. At this point we just need Bear and Snow Leopard based episodes(and maybe something with Owl somehow), and for Braham to fulfill his role as Asgeir 2.0, which Anet is heavily setting him up to be, and then Anet will have fulliled the needed Norn lore. Which, given how many episodes we have left for IBS(not a lot), they could do that, and finish up the charr civil war plot, just in time for the final battle.

Your comment about the seed cave is exactly what I am referring to. Ronan made no mention of anything being in the cave beside the seed and the plant monsters. Why would there be ANYTHING related to the Forgotten there at all? Same thing about the previous dragon rise. Its a cave, with some seeds, and some Modrem in it, and again, Ronan made no mention of there being anything in the cave besides the seeds and the plant monsters. Why would anything from the past dragon rise have survived there at all besides the creatures themselves? If they want to explore something like the last dragon rise they should do so in a manner that doesn't conflict with Ronan's stated experiences. The cave is not the place to do it, and trying to shove the cave into it just raises more questions then it answers due to its not matching up with what we have already been told about the cave. And i've been advocating turning the Pale Tree into a ED replacement for awhile now. We just need Taimi to whip up some sort of giant Dragon energy conductors and jam it into her roots, and start filtering the magic in till she gets the hang of it. editI also just though of something else. The Pale Tree's story mirrors that of Aurene's immensely. Someone took something directly spawned from an Elder Dragon's "line" so to speak, they formed a connection with it by planting/hatching it and raising it, and both entities turned out "purified" as a result. We know that being severed from an Elder Dragon's mental connection isn't enough on its own, as Glint didn't turn good until she was not only freed from it, but until she read the minds of mortals, and grew to sympathize with their cause. And the bond between mortal and "Dragon" being what allows Aurene to resist temptation/corruption has been a major plot point thus far, likely explaining the Pale Tree/Sylvari's ability to resist as well. This would also be further supported by the Maydrey collection.

I've generally liked the Norn representation in Icebrood Saga thus far. We have already Gotten more background on Braham's failed attempt to kill Jormag, and what happened to the group he went with.Killed the Fraenir, the highest ranking of the Svanir.Had Jhavi lead a large attack on Drakkar, and defeat the beast in combat, earning her and her family some measure of revenge for what the creature did to them.Learned what happened to the lost Spirits of the Wild, who stayed behind to keep Jormag at bay, and have, at least temporarily, freed them from Jormag's influence.Interacted with both Raven and Wolf.Gotten some more Asgeir lore, and even gotten a look at some echo of him via the Raven lens.Just need some Bear and Snow Leopard time, maybe some "shocking" reveal behind what the Spirits of the Wild actually are, and to defeat Jormag and thus break the Icebrood and Svanir's backbone.

Things like the cave Ronan found the seed in are, 100%, absolutely, irrelevant to the Sylvari's origins, or any story involving them. No effort was made to ever make the cave seem seem to be anything but a cave. The only things that were ever emphasized were the strange seed, and the planet monsters guarding it, both of which got answers in HoT. Ronan could have found the seed in the middle of a steam somewhere deep in the Maguuma and nothing would change about the story because where he found it doesn't, and never, mattered. Any issue of finding it would result in a POI, and maybe a short quip from Sylvari characters about somehow feeling this is the place the seed was found. As for the Dream, Anet could literally shove revelations about the Dream at ANY point in the story, since the Dream is so much of a nonentity in the canon, insofar as hard information on what it is, that they could connect it to anything and have it make sense. Hell, they could tie it into some sort of primal force of the planet that is also revealed to have spawned the Spirits of the Wild and it would make sense because the Dream is THAT much of a not-thing in the story. Most probably though, we know that the Dragons have a hive mind like connection to all their minions, that allows them to know anything their minions know, and send out at least general knowledge on what the Dragon's will is. We also know that powerful champions of the dragons can use this hive-mind to give orders to lesser minions, and that, even after the dragon's death, even weak minion can still take advantage of this link to control very small groups of the most lesser of minions. With the Pale Tree/Sylvari's mental connection to Mordremoth being non-existent from the get go, the intrinsic hive mind within dragon minions(Sylvari) would have very done what the Borg in Star Trek do when disconnected from the main hive mind, aka create their own, with the Pale Tree as the hub. This hive mind being separate from Mordremoth's, but ultimately based on the hive mind his minions use, and the Sylvari's personalities being influenced by Ronan and Ventari, would have been what allowed Mordremoth to enter it(its based on his mental network after all), but would also serve to why it attacked Mordremoth, like an immune system, it detected a foreign entity within it, and fought back. The Pale Tree not having the same sort of direct power like Dragon Champions do would also explain why the Sylvari essentially get a random shotgun blast of information from it, instead of a flow of information controllable by the Pale Tree.

Its like you are intentionally misrepresenting everything I saw, and everything that happened in the game's story, just to find problems with it that aren't there.

This is the problem with fandoms in general, they became so wrapped up in something that they lose track of common sense, and basic rational thinking, and assume everything has to be part of some giant meta-conspiracy like story, when it never would be because that doesn't make sense. Its the same problem with the Lazarus and Joko speculations, that grew so far out of control even back in the original Guild wars that it was bizarre that anyone thought even half the speculation would come true, and, lo and behold, it didn't, because it never made sense it would be that big in the first place.

Also, the Norn don't have an army, they have hunting parties. The Norn lack any sort of organized civilization, and are basically a species of loners. This is part of the reason why the Spirits of the Wild led them south in the first place, because they were trying to take on Jormag like 5 at a time, and it wasn't working out, and they were getting themselves killed off as a species. Even with the founding of Hoelbrak as an unusually concentrated center for the Norn, they still largely remain a species of loners who pride themselves on focusing on the individual, rather then any sort of community effort. After Barham cracked Jormag's tooth we didn't see the Norn, as a species, organize some giant fighting force to to confront Jormag, they were perfectly fine with letting Braham and his small group do it themselves, because that is how the Norn have always operated. If anything they WOULDN'T get involved because its up to Braham to forge his own legend, and its up to him to slay Jormag because hes the one who cracked the tooth. Having some large Norn army show up would be completely counter to everything established previously about Norn culture. Leaving most of it up to Braham and his hunting party(Dragon's Watch) is the most Norn thing they could do. Assuming Anet keeps the "three lane" Elder Dragon fight they used for both Mord and Kralk I can see it as lane 1 being Norn/Kodan, lane 2 being Charr Legions, and lane 3 being the Crystal Bloom. Assuming episodes 5 and 6 don't do something like take us further into the Woodland Cascades, and we befriend the Centaurs or something.

The thing most people cite as to why they hate Braham, Crack in the Ice, is actually what got me to like Braham at all.