Sajuuk Khar.1509

And yet, at the end of EoD, Soo-Won clearly had more magic in her then any of the other Elder Dragons we've fought, and was still the same size as she was in the reactor despite it. Says the man who conveniently ignores facts while claim others ignore facts Primordus got drained by Balthazar at the end of LWS3 yes. But then Balthazar's magic got taken by Kralkatorrik when he died, and when Kralatorrik died a large part of its magic went back to the other elder Dragons. So a good chunk of the magic Primordus lost came back full circle by the time we face him in Dragonstorm. This on top of Primordus getting more powerful over the course of several months, during the events of Champions, due to his minions burning everything, creating an looping cycle of gaining more power. Likewise, while Jormag got drained by Balthazar at the end of LWS3, a chunk of its magic, along with Balthazar's, and Kralkatorrik's, would have been restored to it when Kralkatorrik died. This on top of absorbing magic from the corrupted Spirits of the Wild, the magic its minions were normally giving it, and all the power it was gaining via its multi-month freezing of people in ice as a means to build power like Primordus had. And when we face it in Dragonstorm its the same size as it was back in Jormag Rising, indicating no change in size between those two points despite gaining more magic. The Fang of Jormag still fits on Jormag's Dragonstorm model. Well no. Kralkatorrik's body wasn't formed at the end of PoF, but his head clearly was. Yes his body was much larger then it normally would be because he had spread it out in the storm, but nothing indicates the part of his body that was formed, aka the head, would be any different in size. And Kralk's LWS4 model changing between releases was admitted to the devs to be the result of gameplay, and needing different sized models for different encounters due to the game engine, not any in-universe lore reason. I never said Mordremoth was "the whole jungle" obviously he isn't all the normal plants, trees, and other things that make up 95% of the jungle. Since neither Soo-Won, or Jormag, increased in size after getting more magic, the whole idea of magic = larger is pretty much bunk. Drakkar's appearance changed because of Jormag manipulating it with magic. Appearance =/= size. https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Wildfire_(story) When an Elder Dragon dies the magics its taken into it get sent to all the other Elder Dragons. Kralkatorrik took Balthazar's magic, and then later died. Meaning at least some small part of both its and Balthazar's magics went to Jormag, and Primordus. This is the same thing that happened when Zhaitan and Mordremoth died, with their magics going to the other Elder Dragons, and what happened to Primordus and Jormag's energy when they died, with most of their power going to Soo-Won. This was the in-universe justification as to why Primordus looks different in Icebrood Saga compared to LWS3. The other magics had warped it appearance. His IBS model has a more hammerhead appearance to it, an obvious influence from Kralkatorrik's death. And the Spirits of the Wild specifically call out the magic of "dead gods"(Balthazar) infecting Primordus.

If you want to get into the technical. A fang, by definition, is just a long, sharp, tooth. A tusk is a long, sharp, tooth.

Well if we take a look at the Elder Dragons. Soo-Won was the last Elder Dragon we fought, and had magics from all previous elder Dragons. Despite this, she is one of, if not the, smallest of the old Elder Dragons. Primordus was the 4/5 dragon we fought. Despite having gained magic from Kralkatorrik, and Balthazar, since we last saw it in LWS3, its Icebrood Saga model is actually much smaller then the LWS3 model. Jormag was also the 4/5 dragon we fought. Despite gaining magic from Zhaitan, Mordremoth, Kralkatorrik, the captured Spirits of the Wild(Ox, Eagle, and Wolverine), and likely something from Balthazar as well, the fact that the Fang of the Serpent still fits on its left tusk almost exactly would indicate it hasn't changed size much, if any, since Asgeir's time. Kralkatorrik. Despite gaining/processing the magic gained from Balthazar at the end of PoF, Kralkatorrik's model actually shrinks in LWS4 compared to the giant head we saw at the end of PoF. Mordremoth was the 2nd dragon we fought, and really only had magic from Zhaitan, and the initial burst of ley line energy that woke it up. Mordremoths whole body, the giant mass of vine tentacles that go deep into the earth, not just the head/neck section we fight, gives it the largest overall mass of the Elder Dragons. This despite it being one of the weakest when we fight it. There's nothing really to compare Zhaitan to that I can think of that would indicate any change in size one way or the other. So looking at what the game shows us, the Elder Dragons not only DON'T get bigger the more magic they take in, they actually either stay the same, or tend to get smaller/be small. The largest elder Dragon was one of the weaker ones when we fought it. Most champion/legendary enemies being larger is a result of game mechanics, not lore. Normal bandit executioners are massive for no reason beyond they are legendary enemies. Braham and Ryland getting bigger is a rather unique specific call out by the game, but they weren't normal dragon minions in the first place, and I don't recall the Commander getting HUGE at the end of End of Dragons when Aurene gives us a lot of power. Though I haven't played that chapter since shortly after the expansion cameo out and might be misremembering it. But if they didn't that would seem to prove it isn't just tied to having more magic power, but rather a desire by the dragon to make them larger.

Most of it is just player headcanon to try to in-universe rationalize why boss monsters are so much larger then their normal counterparts, and why Elder Dragon's model size changes so often across the game(ignoring that games aren't 100% accurate and do things for the sake of the game rather then because its actual lore) The closest we've really gotten is an acknowledgement that an Elder Dragon's appearance(not size) can change depending on the kinds of magics they've taken in. Braham comments if Primordus "was always this ugly" during the Icebrood Saga when he goes into the volcano, and the Spirirts of the Wild mention that "Now, the infection of magic from dead gods and dragons is etched across his face." The fact Soo-Won was the last dragon, and also one of the smallest, disproves the notion that they grow bigger simply because of how much magic they have. *edit* Braham and Ryland are the only two instances I can immediately think of where they actually, in-game, mention them having gotten bigger. But neither Braham and Ryland were normal dragon minions, instead being unique champions like the commander.

Well A. That isn't what shoehorned means. B. When you have six Elder Dragons, giving them roughly equal screen is logically how you would do it because... why would any one dragon get any more time then the others? C. If the mother reveal was done at the end of the expansion then the expansion would have ended with us finding out Soo-Won was mother, right as we kill her and thus remove from the world the only living thing old enough to give any sort of background on her being mother. D. How does she come off as weak or uncaring? In order to save the entire planet from total annihilation from the dragonvoid she sentenced not only herself, but her children, to a endless cycle of torments at the hand of magical/void suffering. That's not weak, that takes incredible conviction and self sacrifice. Weak would have been letting the void ravage Tyria, killing everything on it, just to protect the other Elder Dragons. Jormag's tooth in Hoelbrak is part of its left tusk. A tusk being a kind of tooth.

Asura have magi-tech that makes them, far and above, the most advanced species on the planet. If you took a modern scientist, using modern tools and technology, and told them to find out how many days are in a year, they could probably do it much quicker then someone from a civilization with a tech level of the dark ages. Anet has been pretty consistent on giving each of the dragons pretty much the same amount of time/content. This being 3 maps of story, and a dragon fight Zhaitan had Straights of Devistation, Malchor's Leap, and Cursed Shore. With a dragon fight in Arah story mode. Mordremoth got Verdant Brink, Auric Basin, and Tangled Depths. With a dragon fight in Dragon's Stand. Kralkatorrik got Domain of Vabbi, Jahai Bluffs, and Thunderhead Peak. With a dragon fight in Dragonfall. Jormag got Bitterfrost Frontier, Bjora Marches, and Drizzlewood Coast. With a dragon fight in Dragonstorm. Primordus got Ember Bay, Draconis Mons, its third map got axed for the DRMs. With a dragon fight in Dragonstorm. Soo-Won got Seitung Provence, New Kaineng City, and Echovald Wilds. With a dragon fight in Dragon's End. Just like they gave the various seasonal subplots from LWS3 onwards the same amount of time/content with 3 parters. And the other races rose naturally out of evolution. Well, probably magic accelerated evolution.

Ignoring that people spent literally hundreds, thousands, of years, with the same basic calendar system with half assed attempts to "adjust" that didn't work, and led to them being constantly off until a working one was discovered MUCH MUCH later. You can't just ignore the first several thousands of years of human history, and just cherry pick the timeframe from right before the introduction of a more modern clanedar, to the current day. And these historical examples prove how real it is. If we can go so long with broken calendars, and utter failures of attempts to correct them, why would Tyrians not as well?

I'm going to have to stop you right here because this literally happened in real life. Cultures as far back as early Egypt, to other societies spanning from China to Rome, at one point used lunar calendars. The issue with this is that lunar calendars had around 29 days in a month, and only 354 days in a year, which, over the course of years, led to the calendars becoming increasingly off from the seasons and such, due to the 11 day absence from the modern one. This meant that every 9 years or so everything would be off by 3 months, and it would take about 36 years for everything to realign. These cultures tried various methods like adding extra months every few years to try to keep it aligned with various levels of success. Rome's calendar was so off that, by the time Julius Caesar took power, that there was a 3 month difference, despite various attempts to tweak it by adding days and months to the year. In fact, in an attempt to correct this error, Caesar introduced a 445 day long "year of confusion" to try to realign the calendar, while also adopting elements of the Egyptian calendar(which was a 365 day one by that point), and introducing leap year days, to try to correct it. And even THAT didn't actually solve the issue, so from the time Caesar introduced it, and the 16th century, the calendar was again off by about 10 days. Which is why some places celebrate Christmas in January. It wasn't until 1582 that the modern Gregorian calendar came into existence. It too used time warp tactics by cutting off 10 days from October that year, and changing the leap year rules, to try to fix everything again. That's why ancient people didn't tend to use the calendar for things. They planted crops based on when stars were at certain points in the sky and whatever, because calendars weren't accurate, and everyone knew it. It took an incredibly long time for humans to be an accurate calendar that didn't keep getting more and more off key every year because humans didn't understand concepts like leap years, or that lunar cycles do not match up with earth years. And even our modern calendar isn't actually accurate. Though the inaccuracy is so small it will take like 3,000+ years for it to show itself.

This is pretty much how I imagined it. There's a number of side stories in Tyria proper that haven't been wrapped up, but are also not full LW season sized stories. I could easily see, after LWS6, after Xpack 4, and after maybe a LS7? for the Xpack 4 region, Anet wraps up these smaller plots in a last LW season. The Ghosts of Ascalon, making peace with the centaurs, Malyck and the Nightmare Court, taking down the Inquest, could all be done in Icebrood Saga style two parters like Bjora/Drizzlewood were. The Malyck plot would be a good place to do the Nightmare court in a way that makes sense, but isn't unrealistically large for their position.

It was stated on the Mursaat lore tables back in the Ember Bay map that the elder races couldn't decide what to do about the dragons. The Jotun and Dwarves hid, the Seers stored magic, while the Forgotten and Mursaat built armies of constructs to fight the dragons. The Mursaat believed that, had they fought together, they could've won. https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Mursaat_Lore_Tablet Over ten thousand years ago, elder races put aside their differences and forged an alliance against the awakening Elder Dragons. If we'd worked together as planned, we wouldn't have had to hide. The elder races could not agree on what to do. The jotun hid from the dragons, and the dwarves withdrew into their fortresses. The Seers stored magic for use after the dragons returned to sleep. We mursaat and the Forgotten forged armies of powerful constructs to destroy the dragons. The Seers, dwarves, and jotun did not want to fight. This drove a rift between us and them. We assaulted Zhaitan with our army of jade constructs and enchanted armors. We failed, and many mursaat and Forgotten died. We will never forgive the other elder races for deserting us. After our failed assault on Zhaitan, our Forgotten allies withdrew to what is now the Crystal Desert. We knew that, upon the other races' annihilations, the world would be ours. We slid sideways into another layer of awareness to avoid having our magic stolen from us. Centuries passed. The Elder Dragons consumed all of Tyria's magic. Once prosperous cities lay in ruin. Civilization fell into an age of darkness and brutality in the absence of magic. As the dragons returned to their cyclic slumber, the elder races reemerged. The once-powerful jotun refused to rely on magic ever again. They have since remained ignorant, brutish creatures. The Seers set about sharing their stored magic with the world, though society had devolved into divided, violent tribes. Wars broke out over control of the magic pool. The Forgotten allied with Glint and ignored the now to focus on the future. We mursaat... we returned and built a base among the Fire Islands, as strong as ever. The world will one day be ours.

Soo-Won made them to help balance the world's magic, and prevent the Dragonvoid from destroying everything. As we already saw with Glint, and Aurene, dragons can just make eggs, without needing a mate. Being exposed to large amounts of magic, along with corrupting forces of the Dragonvoid, drove them insane over countless ages. Same reason Kralkatorrik seemed to until the very end. Ages of magic buildup, and Dragonvoid corruption, had rendered Primordus little more then feral. We saw both Kralkatorrik and Primordus change appearance after absorbing more/different kinds of magic. And Mordremoth was stated to have likely had a more traditionally draconic appearance in ages past, but essentially "took root" and became the giant planet monster we see it as. Elder Dragons are beings of magic, and have shown to be largely just giant balls of the element they control that they attach their mind too. They have some ability to change their shape, and are affected by what kind of magic they take in as well.

Well no, it going back into the system means its gone back into the ley-lines which Aurene is connected to, and can monitor. Normal humans, Charr, Norn, Sylvari, and most Asura(outside of the Asura who know how to build ley-line tech) can't access it. Neither can other races like Quaggan, Hylek, Grawl, etc.

Well Aurene was already holding magic from Zhaitan, Mordremoth, Kralkatorrik, Jormag, Primordus, and Balthazar. Not all of it, but way more then one dragon's worth. Aurene purifies and cycles magic. She doesn't hoard it all like the other Elder Dragons do, so it went back into the system but this time purified of all the bad stuff that caused issues in the past.

Yeah, having the Mantle comes back would be like having the Svanir or Flame Legion come back in force We demolished the Svanir throughout the core maps, Bitterfrost, Bjora, Drizzlewood, and the DRMs. We killed the Fraenir, the highest ranking Svanir hand pick by Jormag. And we killed Jormag itself, the very thing the Svanir worshiped and were "led" by. We likewise did the same for the Flame Legion, with much of the remnants coming back under the fold while being led by Efram. And we were able to establish some sort of peaceful dialogue with the remaining hostile ones after the DRM at the Flame Citadel. The Nightmare court I could see coming back in a small fashion if Anet ever gets around to doing a release or two on the Malyck plot. But the Inquest just needs to go IMO. We've destroyed so many bases, and killed so many personnel, its gone beyond stretching belief that they still operate straight into Saturday morning cartoon villain tropes. Maybe ONE more big base in Cantha, where they finished their dragon hybrid monster research, but that really should be it for them. They're so overplayed.

Gonna have to hard disagree here. The White Mantle was never a particularly large organization since their fall at the end of GW1(hence having to hide out in the jungle, and operate via proxies like bandits, and a handful of Ministry agents in GW2) They were never some large mega-army who could've posed a real threat to Kryta outside of internal espionage, and a surprise attack while hyped up on bloodstone dust. Having them come back just invalidates everything we did in LWS3. Even if you don't like LWS3, good writing builds upon past writing, it doesn't just ignore it.("Somehow Palpatine returned" isn't good writing.) Having them now be multi-species defeats the entire point of the Mantle's racist human-centrism. These sorts of organizations don't just become open to everyone at the tip of a hat like that(look at any number of real world racist hate groups) Even if they tried to become more open.... why would anyone WANT to join them given their past history? Even if a handful of others did join them for some reason they wouldn't pose a threat to the forces of the five major races which are now more unified then ever. Any Mursaat that have been stuck in the outer realms since the last dragon rise would be so disconnected from the Mursaat that started the Mantle back in GW1 that it doesn't make sense they would be as evil as the Mursaat from GW1. We already discovered the magics to resist Jade constructs in both GW1 and in GW2. That power is already long negated. The Mursaat did go out with a bang. They made one last giant assault on Kryta at the end of the "War in Kryta" story arc in GW1 Beyond, which resulted in the near genocide of what remained of their race at the hands of the Krytans and allies. Lazarus was the sole survivor of a dead race, desperately trying to seek revenge on a world that had already moved so far past him, and the ground his race founded, that they couldn't even see him in the rear view anymore. He shouldn't be a big deal, the Mursaat stopped being a big deal back in GW1.

Ironic you would say this given that the 1-80 storyline is literally tons of plots crammed within a single arcs, without giving them the time to explore most of the story that could be done with them, whereas LWS1 is a giant arc all about scarlet and her plans LWS2 is a giant arc about the crash Zephyrites, and finding Aurene's egg LWS3, 4, and IBS, all used trilogies of 3 releases to tell stories with much more depth/content then anything in core. I mean it did have an impact in the story. After Balthazar's manipulation of the White Mantle, which lead to their subsequent collapse, the Shining Blade would OFC take the chance to find and kill Lazarus, the last remaining Mursaat, and the last vestige of the Mantle's power. Going after Lazarus also coincided with us tracking down the Eye of Janthir, which we were looking for because it could tell us where Balthazar went, leading into PoF. It was the logical conclusion to the Mantle storyline told in the rest of the reason, and served as a logical inroad to PoF. When 99% of the "eldrich horror" stuff was coming from Drakkar, who was now dead.... yeah, its gonna end after the creature causing it is dead. The ending wasn't really axed though. we know IBS was originally going to have 4 more chapter in it, isntead of the 4 Champions releases it did have. Based on what we can gather Chapter 5/6 would have taken place in the Centaur Homelands, and involved what we saw in Chapnions 1/2(Primordus' awakening, the "alliance with Jormag", Braham getting his powers, Jormag's betrayal, Owl's Death) We probably would have gotten Vision 2 of the Past 2: Electric Boogaloo involving Braham going itno the volcano to become Primordus' champion Chapters 7/8 would have been around Anvil Rock, involving all of our forces coming together to fight Jormag/Primordus, resulting with what we saw in Dragonstorm where the two fight head on since thats what LWS3 set up for how they had to die. Only thing that really changed was that we got the story in DRMs instead of on new full maps. But its the same overall story.

The entire "Logan has gotten over the Queen and is dating someone else" thing is a just a giant ploy between Logan and Jennah to let him stay Pact Marshal long enough, and get enough achievements under his belt, to raise him to nobility, so they can get married without it seeming it was obvious that she gave him nobility just so she could marry him.

As we saw with all the dragon's minions the death of their dragons didn't just cause all of them to drop dead. Risen still infest Orr, Mordrem still infest the Maguuma, we know theres lot of Branded still underground needing to be forced up by the thumping devices, and theres still some Destroyer and Icebrood forces remaining. The Pact is still going to have dragon minions to fight for YEARS, if not decades, following the evens of EoD. Not to mention the Pact would very easily also turn its attention to whatever the horrors of the deep are, and if we get a Mists based story, and have like a Mist Demon army, they could go after that also. And the Order of whispers pre-dates both the Priory and Vigil. After the fall of the Elder Dragons they would just back to political manipulation to help keep the world "stable", like they were before.

Given that a season for GW2 is typically 1.5 years, three seasons involving the orders would be nearly 5 years worth of content just on one story. Even doing one as an expansion isntead of a season would be like 3.5 years of content for one story. That's far beyond the scope of any of the Elder Dragons, or the side villains like Joko, got. You're almost certainly going to lose the vast majority of casual players dragging a story out that long. Part of the reason no story has gone on that long in the first place. If anything you would probably get a singular season, where each order gets two releases if they're like LWS3/LWS4 releases where each gets its own new map, or, if built like IBS, you could get three releases for each order, each one giving half a map like Bjora/Drizzlewood maps were released. This leading into an expansion where we actually go there. Also the "Sunrise Crest" specifically refers to the body of water next to the "Wetlands" landmass, not the landmass itself. There's no one to invade us from the Sunrise Crest since no one lives in that body of water that we know of. The people live on the "wetlands" landmass.

If Menzies was still alive one would think Balthazar wouldn't have gotten bored of having nothing to fight, leading to his tantrum in regards to fighting the Elder Dragons, which got his powers taken away by the other Gods, leading to PoF. Scrolls in PoF also suggest the Eternal Battle against Menzies has ended, and items like "Menzies's Agony" and "the Fate of Menzies" suggests his death also.

Its stated that Cavalon was destroyed by the Ministry of Purity as part of the campaigns to reunite the Empire.

This assuming the Tyirans, Canthans, and Elonians even know of this 4th human land in the first place. If it was even remotely common knowledge would Doern Velazquez need to act all sketchy about it(assuming hes not just pulling our leg on the issue) and instead just be like "ohh yeah I'm a descendant of someone from 4th human land!" The Durmand Priory map had the trade routes on it, but it was almost an easter egg given it was used as a stretched out carpet texture and not something you really saw normally.

I would disagree with this notion. While its become more common for MMOs to last 10 years, getting to 15 years is still pretty rare. There's only like 7 MMOs I can think of(EQ, EQ2, WoW, LoTRO, Runescape, EVE, Mabinogi) that have had 15+ years of active, consistent content development. And pretty much all of these are able to go on as long as they do because they were made in an era with much lower graphical and gameplay standards. So putting out new content for them is comparatively cheap then making new content for something like GW2. Or they're WoW which, despite numerous missteps these last few years, is still the dominate MMO in the industry due to cornering that position ages ago. Even then, just because Anet could do something doesn't mean they should. At this point we've already defeated the Elder Dragons, the things that could rival the human gods in terms of power.... and taken down a fallen god as well. Once we finish the god plot.... whats next? The super-ultra-mega-elder dragon gods from the deep mists? WoW has showcased what happened when you keep trying to force the universe to continue, despite the fact you've obviously reached the natural end.... DUDE ALTERNATE TIMELINES! DUDE THE JAILER WAS BEHIND IT ALL! And no one likes that. I would hope Anet instead just takes the higher ground of ending the story when its obviously done, rather then try to force it to continue. And GW2 has set up a long term issue with its sustainability. HoT and PoF have set up certain.... expectations about what should be in an expansion to make it considered worthwhile to the playerbase. Mainly things like Elite Specs, and new gameplay changing features. Elite specs however have a logical dead end, that being, warriors only have 4 more weapons they need added before they can use them all, which means a max of 4 more expansions before the Elite Spec system reaches a dead end. But you wouldn't want any one class to be able to use every weapon type in the game for balance/diversity reasons. But trying to manage what would then be 63 elite specs in GW2 would be impossible to balance. When it comes to new gameplay changing features we already see the long term issue there with the reception to EoD. EoD added boats, fishing, and co-op mounts, all things people had long asked for, but that wasn't considered "enough" for a large portion of the playerbase. At this point the only big gameplay feature people regularly ask for, that is actually likely, is a player housing system. But even that would just be the guild housing system paired down to the player level. Lets say Xpack 4 does that.... then whats Xpack 5's big feature? The whole expansion system GW2 uses isn't sustainable for another decade, but not doing those means there isn't that influx of cash, and new/returning players, that keep the game alive long term by renewing interest. Getting to 15ish years is likely based on the obvious narrative points they have left to do, the typical length of a LW season, and accounting for the like 2/3s of a year we've had with them back porting LWS1 back into the game. But I wouldn't expect it to go on much longer then that looking at the history of the genre.

I personally figured that would be a running plot throughout the two Canthan stories regarding the Purists/Risen, and the Deep Sea Monster. "Find new power source" isn't really an "arc" on its own. There's no real obvious "antagonist" force to push the story across multiple maps/releases by itself.

EoD left two pretty big plot threads open/hinted at as being next The Purists trying to take over the city using Risen The mystery of what exactly is the monster in the deeps Looking at LWS3, 4, and IBS, all of which used 3 parters for its various sub stories LWS3 Dragon plot: Rising Flames, Crack in the Ice, Flashpoint LWS3 White Mantle plot: Out of the Shadows, The Head of the Snake, One Path Ends LWS4 Joko plot: Daybreak, A Bug in the System, Long Live the Lich LWS4 Kralkatorrik plot: A Star to Guide Us, All or Nothing, War Eternal IBS Charr plot: Bound by Blood, No Quarter, Jormag Rising IBS Norn plot: Whisper in the Dark, Shadow in the Ice, Jormag Rising I could see similar arcs being done for both of these plots for LWS6, or whatever naming they use. We also know Xpack 4 is being made. What that will be about is anyone's guess. However, now that the Elder Dragons are defeated, the only really big plot left open is the Six Human Gods plot, and what exactly Lyssa is/was up to. So its possibly Xpack 4 will be about Lyssa, possibly more stuff about the Gods, and the Mists. Barring any unforeseen catastrophe that causes the game to shut down they could do a LWS7 that expands on whatever Xpack 4 takes us(much as LWs4 did for Elona and LWS6 will likely do for Cantha), and theres enough loose plot threads of smaller stories in Tyria to patch together another LW arc after that if they want to tie up everything. So the game easily has enough stuff for story content to keep going until like its 15th anniversary.