Dracyon Imperius.6309

As far as flavour texts go, there were a few options. Let's go Cyrano: Modification: "Spells to reshape flesh aren't quite common, but in a few select parlours in wealthy towns, wizards propose these rare modifications, as status symbols, or to repair and replace damaged ears." Accidental: "Sometimes, magic just goes astray. I once saw a man with eyes orange and burning as coals after one too many fire spells! Who knows where this comes from, but I blame necromancers - Captain Evon Gnashblade" Magical: "In old ruins, filled with ancient magic, you sometimes see creatures so very much like us, but with pointy ears. Some say they're from the Mists, traversing through cracks in reality left by Lord Odran. Others, that they were once humans or Norn, but they changed overtime, under the sway of the spells older than Doric. Fear their honeyed words and the forces they conjure, little one. - Thrulnn the Lost" Mysterious: "Have you ever seen what lies beneath a Mursaat's helmet? They say that they were beautiful, with almond eyes and pointy ears, and a cruel crook to their lips. They are extinct, now, but in some species that fell under their sway, their blood may still run deep..." Fey: "There are creatures that defy classification in Tyria's bestiary, with souls of pure magic, like the djinn, and an endless thirst for adventure. They are fey, and changelings, choosing shapes that best fit their purposes. It is said that they often have pointed ears, like a distant reminder of their lost true form." This is just scratching the surface. Of course, it doesn't need to affect how you use the pointed ears, you could still simply cosplay as an elf. But it gives roleplayers in particular a bone to gnaw at. Adding to worldbuilding. Adding options that can kinda make sense.

Dear Anet, we've seen a lot of weird things come into the game over the years. Spiders cosplaying as longbows. Asuran holo-horrors. Whatever the celestial outfit is. However, a lot of weird creations have been significantly improved with the addition of flavour text. Legendary weapons, for instance, were made much more immersive with small lore blurbs and added collections. As a roleplayer, it's rewarding to see some thought put into the worldbuilding, especially in outfits, armour pieces and weapons we might use to build our own characters. But in some rather painful instances, the gemstore content -if it even deserves the moniker of content- is barren of such basic writing. Case and point, the elf ears. There is absolutely no lore justification for them. Not even an attempt to give them any semblance of relevance in the worldbuilding. Couldn't be a body modification used by parts of the nobility. Couldn't be a magical mutation of some kind. Couldn't even be the result of a wayward spell, or an accident involving shears and the discovery of ears prosthetics! Seriously, I don't know if there is some kind of arcane barrier between the gemstore team and the lore team, but a single work email and two minutes of brainstorming could have added to the worldbuilding instead of taking away from it. Flavour text makes it look less half-assed and nakedly greedy. Please consider it in the future.

So... catalyst hammer, arguably the biggest selling point for a spec that was otherwise seen as one of the weakest in EoD's lineup, has been nerfed into the ground for PVE? Seriously, it's been a while since elementalists didn't dread patch notes.

Title says it all, really. I wanted to compile a few suggestions that wouldn't take ages to code (I think, I'm really not an expert) and that could revitalize roleplay. Roleplayers are among the most consistent and dedicated players in the game. They participate in decorating, raiding, fashion wars, dungeoneering and fractals, sell their kidneys for the latest gemstore scepter skin and stay even when content updates slow because they're invested in their communities. But their experience is often trying to find flaws in the game that they can exploit to create their own spaces of fun. It's not fun for us to have to endure abuse in Tarir for roleplaying during a meta, or see the coin meta in Amnoon and players jumping about on bunnies while you have a serious discussion about trade or rescuing a lost cavalier party. Finding styles that fit us is also a hassle, because the armour weights constrict our creativity, and a lot of armour and weapon skins tend to be on the sparkly side. So, with that in mind, a few suggestions to get the ball rolling: Instances - Squad dungeons: GW2 already has 8 superb instances that have distinct flavour and would require little to no change. Simply adding a "roleplay mode", where squads can enter, would actually allow DMs to have ambitious stories in unique settings. - Player flats: ok, that old chestnut. But it is a shame that three large cities (Lion's Arch, Amnoon, New Kaineng) feel a bit lifeless, when they each have their own unique ambience. Smaller player home instances with some decoration control by the player could allow individuals to create tea rooms, libraries, bars, hideouts, safe houses... Style - Weightless skins: I know, seeing a wizard in heavy armour seems incongruous, but Anet has already begun to breach the principle of "to each class their armour type" by introducing weightless skins, that can be applied to any armour type. More such skins, or even abolishing the weight restrictions on armour skins could go a long way towards reviving fashion wars, and also allowing roleplayers more creativity. - Set outfit tokens: allow players to purchase tokens allowing them to transform their current set of skins into a unique outfit. I don't personally object to this being a gemstore item, I could actually see it being extraordinarily successful, and it would allow players to have a lot more unique outfits at their disposal without having to store a dozen armour pieces in their inventory. Decorations - Structure decorations: assets for rooftops already exist in the game, as well as assets for small houses, but they are not in the crafting pool. There are dozens of wall decorations but very few rooftops and no doors, not to mention proper floors. It makes having proper housing very hard outside of the Lost Precipice. Floor, walls with windows, doors and rooftops would be a great addition at any rate!

Honestly, I like some of the ideas but I hate how it plays because it doesn't commit to one thing. It lacks a punch, for lack of a better term. I understand they didn't want to go full melee and tried to keep some ranged so as not to step on Weaver's toes, but the result feels weightless. They could go for melee/mid-range heavy control hammer abilities, and for goodness sake please change the f5 to something a bit more... natural? A builder/spender elementalist seems a bit unnatural, it's a class that often has to wait to set up combo fields or abilities for a satisfying payoff, sure, but the jade sphere takes quite a long time to set up, offers no immediate game-changing advantage and then is on a short, frustrating timer, not to mention the utility skills are extremely inferior outside of that limited time. All in all, it needs a rework. Change the way jade sphere works, fix hammer animations and give that weapon more of a clear-cut purpose.

A single shoulderpiece skin with an integrated cape. It's often quite difficult to pair shoulder pieces with capes without creating a weird disconnect of textures. Having the cape be part of the shoulder piece could be great, especially with something like the Ebon Vanguard shoulder pieces that have a mix of metal and fabric elements. There would be a few technical challenges with back pieces, sure, but it would allow for more creative designs like larger travel cloaks instead of making capes be very light and a bit flimsy.

I agree with most of what you say here; the openness of magic in GW2 is not just a problem, but also a considerable strength if you have creative players. The problem comes from having to build most of the practical lore you're going to use from the ground up, which can cause lore conflicts within a given guild. I think all experienced roleplayers have horror stories of that one loremaster putting down every shred of creativity, or the opposite end of the spectrum, the coexistence of a thousand conflicting headcanons. However, I would still argue that there is a clear middle ground, simply because of how... variable magic can be. The idea of a magical force that reacts to belief and willpower, and has evolved throughout history to constitue fluid schools of magic means that there are likely dozens of different philosophies of magic. You could have an Asura using complex theorems to cast magical spells, or a Zephyrite who basically does elemental bending. You could have a Sylvari whose mesmer magic unfolds through song and dance, or a human scholar who researches incantations written in ancient languages, constantly adjusting his glasses on his crooked nose while he blows the dust away from mouldy grimoires. Giving us four or five philosophies of magic would stimulate and guide player creativity, so long as it was clear those philosophies were far from all-encompassing.

Overly long grimoire intensifies.

Hi! I'm Mora, I have been roleplaying a few characters for about two years, and playing the Guild Wars franchise for around six years. A very enjoyable but also frustrating part of that experience was worldbuilding in Guild Wars 2, mostly around magic, politics, ancient ruins and delves, etc. I still periodically write an overly long grimoire of elemental spells, that my former guildmates likely remember and dread in equal parts. Which brings me to today's topic. Is further worldbuilding needed for your characters? It's no secret that Guild Wars 2's lore can be extremely vague. We know very little about the practice of magic, for instance. The only human school of magic to be confirmed (via a gemstore product with no lore) is the Queensdale Academy. There doesn't seem to be any data for the language used in incantations, despite repeated mention of incantations in source material from both games. We know quite little about the upper limits of most magical crafts, meaning blood magic could make you into a nigh-immortal vampiric caster and you would find little lore to gainsay you. Not that I've done that... cough. Is it even forbidden to use mind control, or chaos magic, which is notoriously unpredictable? Is it allowed to raise corpses on the battlefield? Or in civilian life? Is there a codex of laws on magic that we don't know about? I could go on, but you get my point: at some point, when exploring a topic in roleplay, you will run into an area that lacks substance, and there are a number of options that you can go for. The first one is, quite simply, headcanon. Logical supposition made from comparison with other source materials. For instance, the headcanon I use for nobility in Tyria, which is usually ill-defined at best, is a comparison to Tudor-era aristocracy: rich landowners with specific management powers over their community, but whose military, judicial or legislative power is derived from appointment by the Queen, or election to the Ministry. This in itself contains complications, for instance regarding the very principle election, because that has been a fluid concept throughout history. In an era when aristocracy still overwhelmingly controls the levers of power, it is uncommon to see universal voting, so I tend to believe that the electorate is smaller, perhaps an electoral college, or even regional customs and busybodies. What a guild believes in terms of lore and headcanon is going to be key to understanding that guild's fantasy and in-character rules, and that is pretty much down to lack of lore. Of course, we cannot expect devs to write down lore on everything, but the fact that we still don't have any lore on any gemstore item, or even the 1st-generation legendary weapons is frustrating. Lore, where it exists and is available even out of the game, can fuel the passions of roleplayers over years. I still remember the interview of Angel McCoy with Esprits d'Orr, which for years served as a basis for most speculation on magic. And while I welcome any dev answers, blogposts or articles on the practical, material nitty-gritty of roleplay, I know I would ultimately have more questions every time I got an answer. So I wanted to ask this particular community if, within the intellectual property of Guild Wars, and with relation to the existing lore, they felt that major headcanon was needed to compensate the lore pitfalls, and whether they had guidelines they used for their own headcanon.

Most of the questions I think could have led to some very interesting answers, but most of what has been given is in fact... very evasive. For instance, there isn't a single word about how organized religion fares in human society, and this constantly underexplored topic (we know next to nothing about the clergy, its structures, its influence and power, its heads) is likely going to remain dead... basically forever, which is a shame. Nothing new on horses, so hopefully it's because they're working on something, but if they're not, this is just playing coy. But what really annoys me as a human roleplayer is the fact that we still don't know much about the Ministry, after all this time. It's hard to find out how ministers are chosen, we have no idea how laws are proposed, whether or not there are committees, how power is gained and lost, all we know is that it is a nebulous, often corrupt entity that serves as a punching bag throughout the story, and now we're told that it's still alive and well, but without any details as to what changed or stayed the same. I'm tired of roleplayers being left in limbo everytime the devs decide to pump out a story without giving us any lore updates. Small lore articles to update us on the website, for instance, would be a good way to communicate information; I don't begrudge devs for not putting it ingame if it's hard to implement organically, but leaving roleplayers to systematically pick up the slack because they won't give us detailed lore is getting on my nerves. 90% of roleplaying lore on magic is guesswork already.

[Noble House] Name of Family: Imperius. Head of Family: Morarkhan Dracyar Imperius Heritage: overtly Ascalonian, but with mixed Krytan and Elonan heritage through mariage. Coat of Arms: Black rampant griffon on red background (old), currently with a white background (as of Morarkhan). Family estate: the barony of Ravenrock, on the side of the Witherflank River in the Gendarran Fields, north of the Ascalonian Settlement. Notable for: involvement with the Ascalonian diaspora, with each baron serving in some capacity against the Charr, or more recently, with the Pact; elementalists; politically attached to the feudal system, with a tense relationship to the Crown but overall loyalty. Additional information: - House Imperius is descended from Dracyon, the kitten son of an Ascalonian noble, and head of the Raven Hunters guild during the Krytan Civil War, during which his services earned him a barony. - The current head of the house, Morarkhan, a veteran arcanist and powerful elementalist, was recently chosen by the local nobility as minister for the Witherflank baronies, a small district beleaguered by centaurs. Reputedly cautious but loyal, he serves on the Ministry Committee for Justice. His votes tend to be critical of royal centralisation, and his speeches are overtly critical of mission creep by institutions with little oversight, such as the Pact or the Shining Blade. - House Imperius has, for six generations, been ably served by chancellors and housecarls descended from Haldar, Dracyon's second son, who married into the Agon minor noble family. Darien Agon currently serves as the house's chancellor, while his son Valeryan serves as the baron's housecarl and bodyguard.

The question "is X game dead?" is bound to elicit different, often intense emotions. The simplest answer is... no, GW2 is far from dead, it still has a healthy population, especially in the open world, where megaserver technology makes up for sometimes fluctuating numbers. These fluctuations can become more obvious and jarring in PvP, and night-time WvW (for more obvious reasons), but overall, you'll find a lot of players. That being said, the Icebrood Saga has been largely construed as a series of disappointing releases (especially the latter half of that mess). Recent content is often lacking or shallow, and even those who would liked to be hyped about the next expansion likely find information... wanting. The result seems to be a general souring of part of the playerbase, mostly players invested in the story. Does this translate to a mass exodus? Hard to say without solid data; but while we wait for more news and details on End of Dragons, I would not be surprised to see a number of seasoned players testing out new games or being less active. Tl;dr the game isn't dead by any means, but it has alienated part of its veteran playerbase, which might cause a lull in its activity.

The problem here is whether we believe the ingame showings match the lore. Jennah is not a battle mage, so while I believe she is leagues more powerful than the Commander, I believe they could probably beat her. But Livia? Livia has over two centuries of battle experience and could create bone hands powerful enough to drag down Orrian battleships. I'm not entirely sure the Commander could take her if she weren't hiding her strength as a base Shining Blade member. Even if we accept that the Commander could beat Livia and Jennah based on ingame scenarios, that does mean that the Commander would fall short of every single raid boss (including Sabetha, aka "canon lady"), most open world champions and absolutely all world bosses. Taidha Covington very much included.

Well... in short, lots of people. Don't get me wrong, the Commander is a powerful veteran infused with the powers of a dragon champion, but the scale of his powers would mark him as a minor dragon champion at best. In no small part because the Dragon Slayer mastery utterly failed to deliver on any kind of power fantasy, but moving on. The Crystal Bloom is relatively recent, and we have little to suggest that they are anywhere as powerful as the Pact. Neither Caithe nor the Commander can stand alone at the top of the mortal food chain, as we do have a few mortals of considerable power who could stand against them. Jennah, Livia and the ever-mysterious Isgarren are likely more powerful than the Commander, based on their magical feats alone; that being said, due to dragons being a thing, Anet has been quite reluctant to show off powerful mortals capable of rivalling dragon champions, so the list of powerful mortals is bound to remain quite short. Tl;dr the Crystal Bloom is a nascent organization and Caithe and the Commander, although powerful, are not the apex of mortal power. The Commander could use blasts of ley energy in Bloodstone Fen, before Aurene could make champions, so the growth in terms of power has been meager at best. But the real problem in terms of power-scaling is Aurene. We simply have no idea how powerful she is, and the writing on her has been very inconsistent. We know she can make powerful energy blasts and see into the future, as well as tap into leylines and... I think she could follow Kralk through tears in the Mists? But given her lack of space manipulation since then, this seems iffy at best. There is also some lack of clarity about how resilient she is, given she survived a Kralk blast to the fact. Her powers are just so very ill-defined that she's basically the dragon ex machina. She'll be as powerful as the story needs her to be. Now, if you're talking political power, the discussion veers again into unknown territories, because it's hard to appreciate how receptive some regimes would be to Aurene, and whether the Pact would be willing to accept the Crystal Bloom taking ascendancy. There are personal ties at the leadership level, but the Pact has been shaped by dragon-slaying, and bound to be wary of these new dragon champions at first. If Aurene were to manage to assuage everyone's concerns, she might come to occupy the same place Glint had with her followers at the end of the GW1 vanilla questline: a prophet of a hallowed status, who has the ears of sovereigns, but without being a sovereign herself. ... anyway, it's hard to say anything with any degree of certainty. The lore's all over the place and the storytelling has reached levels of inconsistency so terrifying that lore is becoming an abstract concept and everyone's headcanon is probably better.

Well, now we have to interact on as many threads as possible, since Anet has deleted the original thread. Reactions are bound to become even more negative with the censorship. I'd use more colourful language, but I don't want to give them an excuse to squash player feedback.