"New" Kaineng

[Konig Des Todes.2086]

8 hours ago, Dami.5046 said:

The whole point is it won't look like what GW's Cantha looked like. Take core maps, how different are they to the first game? They even put areas i consider iconic, such as ToA as an underwater HP. I mean really.

I fear that certain areas - Harvest Temple i'm looking at you - will have the same fate and will be some underwater HP or PoI. 

I hope that Kaineng isn't any 'punk' and they have made it into a refreshing modern looking city with no gimmicks. Tall buildings, maybe a hint of what was there before, flashing neon sighs , roads.

yeah I said roads. I have no issue with the next mount being a car.🤪

I'd say that there's a fine line between GW1 being ruins and thus looking different (e.g., ToA), to the change in assets resulting in different designs, to a high technological leap of 500+ years' worth in a mere 250 years.

But in quite all honesty, some people don't really like how much of Kryta, Ascalon, and the Shiverpeaks are unrecognizable from GW1. Kryta going from tropical to temperate is perhaps the worst of offenders, but what landmarks exist, are all just isolated ruins like ToA and the sunken LA.

Harvest Temple probably won't be underwater based on the concept art we've seen.

And you say you don't want "any punk" but then label things that would make it "jadepunk" in some of our eyes 🤔

5 hours ago, Faridah.8431 said:

In GW1, portions of the city were technically on fire including Nahpui Quarter and the Xaquang Skyway above The Undercity. Obviously it didn't "spread" within the realm of how maps worked in GW1, but lore wise its not hard to imagine that the fires really devastated large portions of the city that were effectively poorly built slum shacks on top of each other with the only mitigation I could see being the large walled canal areas separating portions of the city. Its possible entire GW1 maps worth of the city simply burned down.

Combine that with later flooding from the Rising of Orr event and it's possible that huge areas of the city had to either be rebuilt, or else abandoned and other unaffected portions of the city not explored in GW1 (the big swath going down from Nahpui Quarter along the western coast for example, were developed as "New Kaineng".

Will be interesting to see how that plays out. We don't know at this point.

Nah, I'm doubtful that the fires went far. By the time we see them in Factions, they're smoldering, so the spread would be slow and under control, if there was any further spread at all. And we return 8 years later during Winds of Change, with zero dialogue about fires.

The Canthans also used fires to burn Afflicted bodies, without any issue of the fires spreading to buildings.

With one fire drake exception.

5 hours ago, EdwinLi.1284 said:

They called it New Kaineng so most likely old Kaineng still exists but if they continued building upward as we know well in GW1 was their thing when they expanded the city by building over the older parts of Cantha city then Old Kaineng should still be there but maybe under New Kaineng.

Or New Kaineng City is in an entirely new location, which is the most common usage of the prefix "New" for a location. E.g., New York, New Jersey, New Loamhurst.

Quote

I think that is a very important factor in the trailer we need to keep a eye on. The rapid advancement of Cantha is obviously been greatly influenced by a outside influence that is giving them knowledge way ahead of their time. We don't know who or what it is yet but we just now he or she exists due to EoD trailer. 

I personally think it maybe something beyond in the Mists.

Joon is by all indication both the source of that rapid advancement, and very much Canthan.

While we only know a little of her, what we do know is that she's the voice that talks about advancing Cantha in the second trailer, and is an inventor of the dragon jade tech.

 

In all honesty, her line there is a very generic self-absorbed inventor of technology kind of thing to say. I can easily see that line being said to the Canthan Empress, and referring to how she (Joon) advanced Canthan technology and without her Canthans (Empress's "children") would be stuck in the past (lacking technology).

Edited November 2, 2021 by Konig Des Todes.2086

[Konig Des Todes.2086]

4 hours ago, Super Hayes.6890 said:

For those that want GW1 Cantha, go play GW1 and visit it again. I am expecting a GW2 Cantha, whatever that may be. I am sure there will be nods to the first Kaining City but this is a different game. Set your expectations accordingly. I look forward to having fun with many of you in that game. I hope Greyhawk joins us too 😉

Well, like I said, there's a difference between seeing a change and advancement of 250 years.

And seeing an advancement of 500+ years happen in 250 years.

But given that ArenaNet writers seem to think 200 years is ancient history (looking at your Tarir), and compare the advancement of technology and government in Tyria as akin to America's own advancements since 1776, when GW1 Tyria/Cantha/etc. were more akin to 1400s... My hopes are low.

Elona was done very well in terms of changes between the games. Vabbi in particular. It was notably different - even ignoring the branding - and time had certainly passed. But it didn't feel like there were leaps and bounds well beyond two centuries worth of progress.

Edited November 2, 2021 by Konig Des Todes.2086

[hugo.4705]

Well.

We had shing jea stream in which we literally see:

-Floating platform to carry crate reminding asura cart but jade version.

-Jade technology waypoint

-Furtively a golem silhouette

Then, we had the specialisations:

-Catalyst which has a floating jade metal sphere that seems to project holograms of creatures

-Bladeworn: they fused a karana with a pistol

-Mechanist and their high tech golem

We have after that the website and trailer:

-Yao with prosthetic with parts that floats but somehow still work together: superconductivity?

-Yao background that look like a microchip green circuitry. 

-An aetherblade jade rafinery (that surely contains inquest tech, thanks to an art shown during the timer bedore first look stream start)

-Arts that remind of aetherblade fractals, with wooden scafolding and asura tech.

-Aetherblade flag.

-News artworks, with most of them, neons or jade lights on them.

 

Why do you think new kainerg is the last on stream schedule? Because gw2 kainerg isn't like gw1 kainerg. It is impossible to think that the city still look like a slum. It will be modern, like our real life tokyo. Neons melted with chinese architecture.

You saw the jade mech, you saw artworks. They didn't made them for nothing.

JADE - IS - NEW KAINERG - POWER - SOURCE

What is not understood in that sentence?

JADE powers their WAYPOINTS, it powers their LIGHTPOSTS, their HOUSES , their SIGNS AND NEONS.

https://imgur.com/60I33VM

Edited November 2, 2021 by hugo.4705

[radda.8920]

1 hour ago, EdwinLi.1284 said:

Is it because they made the grass too green and added a lot of green jade color and paintings on building and etc around Shing Jea Islands?

I remember back in GW1 there was signs of attempt to design the island to have a lot more plants if they could but graphics and limits of GW1 engine and computer system of that era probably limited how much they could have added into the Shing Jea Island.

GW2 graphic style of trying to reflect paintings made 3d could have also affected the coloring of places as well which I know certain people will not like since the painting art style would make certain aspect of color way too bright. 

The Plant life around Shing Jea Island is not a issue for me anyways since it is how I imaged Shing Jea Island to be like if GW1 never had their graphic limits but ya the buildings has a bit too much emphasis on green jade coloring. 

They can tone down the green brightness a bit but guess they had a lot of focus on certain  ancient china building designs.

https://i.pinimg.com/600x315/52/fe/3f/52fe3fc046740996feca5f81f8c295d3.jpg

 

It's a bit of everything, the style of the buildings is too different, the colors are much more "fluorescent", there is a huge problem with the saturation. Shing jea on gw1, even though it's colorful, there are less bright colors that burn the eyes, it's calming / restful. And there is also the music that plays a lot.

The POF desert is different from the one of gw1 for example but there is the same light and atmosphere, I really felt that we were in the same place but with years of evolution. For shing jea, i am really shocked with the difference. If only, if it was different BUT pretty, but for the moment I find it really ugly.

Finally, we can easily see the difference with the screens below:

http://www.noelshack.com/2021-44-2-1635892587-gw003.jpg

http://www.noelshack.com/2021-44-2-1635892605-gw007.jpg

http://www.noelshack.com/2021-44-2-1635892726-gw039.jpg

http://www.noelshack.com/2021-44-2-1635892775-gw042.jpg

http://www.noelshack.com/2021-44-2-1635892794-gw032.jpg

http://www.noelshack.com/2021-44-2-1635892856-gw045.jpg

https://www.noelshack.com/2021-44-2-1635893393-gw043.jpg

 

 

 

 

Edited November 2, 2021 by radda.8920

[EdwinLi.1284]

53 minutes ago, Konig Des Todes.2086 said:

Well, like I said, there's a difference between seeing a change and advancement of 250 years.

And seeing an advancement of 500+ years happen in 250 years.

But given that ArenaNet writers seem to think 200 years is ancient history (looking at your Tarir), and compare the advancement of technology and government in Tyria as akin to America's own advancements since 1776, when GW1 Tyria/Cantha/etc. were more akin to 1400s... My hopes are low.

Elona was done very well in terms of changes between the games. Vabbi in particular. It was notably different - even ignoring the branding - and time had certainly passed. But it didn't feel like there were leaps and bounds well beyond two centuries worth of progress.

to be fair, Elona should have gotten zero advancement in technology due to Joko hindering any attempt to advance in their technology so the people can remain easily controlled. It is quite easy to keep Elona the same atmosphere as GW1 with slight changes to the region when their society should have obtained zero progress in advancement and only changes is the addition of Joko's undead army designed buildings and a few new towns and maybe one or two new cities.

By design, Elona should have gotten the least change in GW2 due to Joko's influence which they did represent since many people in Elona are still using GW1 style building designs, clothing, daily life methods, and their level of technology. 

Mounts being introduced in Elona is something outside of Joko's influence since it is common for cultures to adopted animals into aiding them in some shape or form.

Edited November 2, 2021 by EdwinLi.1284

[radda.8920]

17 minutes ago, EdwinLi.1284 said:

to be fair, Elona should have gotten zero advancement in technology due to Joko hindering any attempt to advance in their technology so the people can remain easily controlled. It is quite easy to keep Elona the same atmosphere as GW1 with slight changes to the region when their society should have obtained zero progress in advancement and only changes is the addition of Joko's undead army designed buildings and a few new towns and maybe one or two new cities.

By design, Elona should have gotten the least change in GW2 due to Joko's influence which they did represent since many people in Elona are unaware of common things that have become very common technology in Core Tyria. 

 

it is quite true what you say. Afterwards, in the new shing jea, it's not necessarily the buildings that pose the most problem to me. It is especially the bright colors, the luminosity, the shape of the rocks, and even a little the sky that is totally different. All these elements change the whole aspect of the island. I hope it will not be the same on all cantha 😞

 

I hope they will make the green a little less bright, they still have time to make it a little darker until february. Like this, at least:

https://imgur.com/a/90dY4Lh

 

Edited November 2, 2021 by radda.8920

[EdwinLi.1284]

31 minutes ago, radda.8920 said:

 

it is quite true what you say. Afterwards, in the new shing jea, it's not necessarily the buildings that pose the most problem to me. It is especially the bright colors, the luminosity, the shape of the rocks, and even a little the sky that is totally different. All these elements change the whole aspect of the island. I hope it will not be the same on all cantha 😞

 

I hope they will make the green a little less bright, they still have time to make it a little darker until february. Like this, at least:

https://imgur.com/a/90dY4Lh

 

Well the sky being different is expect, for me atleast, since GW1 Shing Jea Island had a thing where certain areas were trapped in a 24/7 gloomy cloudy sky which would have darkened a lot of coloring and made the atmosphere different from spots where sky was clearer. However, this is partly the fault of limitations in GW1 era due to day and night cycle and weather cycle not implamented into the game. 


That aside....
For those who don't want to play GW1 but want to get a look at Shing Jea Island back in GW1 here is good video covering each location of the Island.
 

 

Edited November 2, 2021 by EdwinLi.1284

[Konig Des Todes.2086]

2 hours ago, EdwinLi.1284 said:

to be fair, Elona should have gotten zero advancement in technology due to Joko hindering any attempt to advance in their technology so the people can remain easily controlled. It is quite easy to keep Elona the same atmosphere as GW1 with slight changes to the region when their society should have obtained zero progress in advancement and only changes is the addition of Joko's undead army designed buildings and a few new towns and maybe one or two new cities.

By design, Elona should have gotten the least change in GW2 due to Joko's influence which they did represent since many people in Elona are still using GW1 style building designs, clothing, daily life methods, and their level of technology. 

Mounts being introduced in Elona is something outside of Joko's influence since it is common for cultures to adopted animals into aiding them in some shape or form.

Joko wasn't really hindering development, so much as micromanaging because he wanted to ensure that it benefited him.

The moment he came across Inquest, he killed them, Awakened them, and took their technology for his own. It's even hinted very heavily (but sadly not yet 100% confirmed) that he was the one behind hijacking R.O.X. in GW1, which means he had some degree of understanding of asuran magitech only a year after they surfaced, and outright confirmed that Joko had some dealings with Zinn.

And Elona did advance a bit, but most of it was in necromancy and magic, rather than dues ex magitech coming out of nowhere. Which fits perfectly. I wouldn't count mounts because while the Awakened do have a military for raptor mounts (albeit almost never seen), the mounts that players get - and are most commonly seen - actually come from outside Joko's kingdom. Jackals from the djinn, whom are independent; raptors and skimmers from Amnoon and nomads, whom are independent of Joko's kingdom; and springers from the village descended from Ascalonians, also independent of Joko.

 

And on another front: if it's perfectly logical for Canthans to advance 500+ years worth of technology between the two games, why didn't Krytans? Cantha also suffered from Zhaitan's rise, and the centaur threat is less than 50 years old. They even had the chance to capture and reverse engineer asura, dwarf, and charr tech. But instead it feels as if they barely began to reach the point that Cantha and Vabbi were at in GW1's time (being the two most magitech advanced nations).

Kryta had about 100 years of no detriment to promote advancing technology, and rival neighbors advancing their own technology to provide competition with. From when Salma finally united Kryta completely in 1088 AE, to Zhaitan's rise in 1219 AE; and there was also a point of peace outside of Ascalonian skirmishes they assist from 1256 AE to ~1275 AE. Yet it seems the only advancement they made is the royal gardens and being able to build Divinity's Reach in a year; humanity's only advancements in technology come in 1325/1326 with Uzolan's attempt to reverse engineer asura golems, and Jennah's commission of watchknights from reverse engineering steam creatures.

 

EDIT: And to keep in mind, I'm not saying Cantha shouldn't advance at all. I just don't want it to be suddenly more technologically advanced than the asura and charr, which already push the suspension of disbelief for the amount of advancement there's been since GW1.

I'm just worried we'll end up getting this for [New] Kaineng City, somehow, but green; that art was done by Daniel Dociu, former lead art director at ArenaNet, around the time he left; when it was posted, alongside a bunch of GW1/GW2 art, people got into a "OMG CANTHA!!!! I WANT THAT!!!" craze.

And I'd equally rather not get the top two backgrounds here, that's just too much neon lights and electricity-looking stuff for me. Even just from the image, it feels like I'm seeing Bladerunner or Ghost in the Shell, or even that Hong Kong fight scene in Kong vs Godzilla, which honestly felt silly because of all the neon lights even if it is apparently accurate, and not Guild Wars 2.

This makes a great cyberpunk setting. Not a great fantasy game setting. I don't need nor want a modern day Hong Kong in Guild Wars 2. Save it for Guild Wars 3 instead.

But hey, that's just my opinion in the end.

Edited November 3, 2021 by Konig Des Todes.2086

[Konig Des Todes.2086]

2 hours ago, radda.8920 said:

it is quite true what you say. Afterwards, in the new shing jea, it's not necessarily the buildings that pose the most problem to me. It is especially the bright colors, the luminosity, the shape of the rocks, and even a little the sky that is totally different. All these elements change the whole aspect of the island. I hope it will not be the same on all cantha 😞

 

I hope they will make the green a little less bright, they still have time to make it a little darker until february. Like this, at least:

https://imgur.com/a/90dY4Lh

Thankfully based on the stream, the brightness was dulled a bit after the initial footage and screenshots were taken.

IMO, based on the stream, Shing Jea is perfectly fine. And it's also perfect with it being described as traditional, rural, and simple compared to the city/cities.

Edited November 3, 2021 by Konig Des Todes.2086

[radda.8920]

43 minutes ago, Konig Des Todes.2086 said:

Thankfully based on the stream, the brightness was dulled a bit after the initial footage and screenshots were taken.

IMO, based on the stream, Shing Jea is perfectly fine. And it's also perfect with it being described as traditional, rural, and simple compared to the city/cities.

I still find it abominably ugly .And yet if there is a strong point in guild wars 2, this is the  environment, I have rarely been disappointed by a map in this game. The only time I was shocked was by the massacre they carried out in Kourna.

Afterwards, shing jea was one of my favorite places on gw1, I've been waiting for it during 9 years so my expectations were high. And I admit that I expected better considering what they have accustomed us to with HOT and POF.

Then I'm not the only one to say it, just read the comments next to the stream and the hundreds of feedback on reedit. This is one of the first times that a map is so controversial, so there is a major problem. Hope they will correct the colors / saturation.

Edited November 3, 2021 by radda.8920

[The Greyhawk.9107]

Going by my own recent studies of Medieval history I'd personally put gw1 around the 1200 to 1300 relative to the real world, so for Gw2 Cantha to be either Cyberpunk or comparable to modern day Tokyo the Canthas would have to have made some Seven Hundred years of technological advancements in only 250 years, and (as Konig pointed out) outstripped both the Charr and the Asura in that time.  Plus, at least as far as we are currently, they'd have had to do so in isolation from most other nations as only the Zephyrites seem to have made any contact with them.  Yer asking too much from me and at least a few others to accept that.

Far as Shing Jea is concerned, I'd probably be ok with it if they lowered the saturation to be similar to that image Radda linked to, even if the topography seems somewhat incongruent to GW1's version.

Edited November 3, 2021 by The Greyhawk.9107

[EdwinLi.1284]

24 minutes ago, The Greyhawk.9107 said:

Going by my own recent studies of Medieval history I'd personally put gw1 around the 1200 to 1300 relative to the real world, so for Gw2 Cantha to be either Cyberpunk or comparable to modern day Tokyo the Canthas would have to have made some Seven Hundred years of technological advancements in only 250 years, and (as Konig pointed out) outstripped both the Charr and the Asura in that time.  Plus, at least as far as we are currently, they'd have had to do so in isolation from most other nations as only the Zephyrites seem to have made any contact with them.  Yer asking too much from me and at least a few others to accept that.

Far as Shing Jea is concerned, I'd probably be ok with it if they lowered the saturation to be similar to that image Radda linked to, even if the topography seems somewhat incongruent to GW1's version.

As the EoD trailer hinted, the rapid expansion of Cantha's technology into jade tech is not quite natural. People say Joon invented Jade tech and rapidly advanced Cantha but the talk about the Mist and centuries of progress maybe a hint Joon obtaining such knowledge may not be so natural. Something is certainly unusal about Cantha's rapid advancement and it appears Joon caused it for a unknown purpose. 

I suspect there is more than just Joon suddenly invented it and rapidly advance technology by over 700+ years ahead of time.

Edited November 3, 2021 by EdwinLi.1284

[The Greyhawk.9107]

2 minutes ago, EdwinLi.1284 said:

As the EoD trailer hinted, the rapid expansion of Cantha's technology into jade tech is not quite natural. People say Joon invented Jade tech and rapidly advanced Cantha but the talk about the Mist and centuries of progress maybe a hint Joon obtaining such knowledge may not be so natural. Something is certainly unusal about Cantha's rapid advancement and it appears Joon caused it for a unknown purpose. 

I suspect there is more than just Joon suddenly invented it and rapidly advance technology by over 700+ years ahead of time.

Define "Natural" within the context of Tyria (the world, not the continent).

[EdwinLi.1284]

7 hours ago, Konig Des Todes.2086 said:

I'd say that there's a fine line between GW1 being ruins and thus looking different (e.g., ToA), to the change in assets resulting in different designs, to a high technological leap of 500+ years' worth in a mere 250 years.

But in quite all honesty, some people don't really like how much of Kryta, Ascalon, and the Shiverpeaks are unrecognizable from GW1. Kryta going from tropical to temperate is perhaps the worst of offenders, but what landmarks exist, are all just isolated ruins like ToA and the sunken LA.

Harvest Temple probably won't be underwater based on the concept art we've seen.

And you say you don't want "any punk" but then label things that would make it "jadepunk" in some of our eyes 🤔

Nah, I'm doubtful that the fires went far. By the time we see them in Factions, they're smoldering, so the spread would be slow and under control, if there was any further spread at all. And we return 8 years later during Winds of Change, with zero dialogue about fires.

The Canthans also used fires to burn Afflicted bodies, without any issue of the fires spreading to buildings.

With one fire drake exception.

Or New Kaineng City is in an entirely new location, which is the most common usage of the prefix "New" for a location. E.g., New York, New Jersey, New Loamhurst.

Joon is by all indication both the source of that rapid advancement, and very much Canthan.

While we only know a little of her, what we do know is that she's the voice that talks about advancing Cantha in the second trailer, and is an inventor of the dragon jade tech.

 

In all honesty, her line there is a very generic self-absorbed inventor of technology kind of thing to say. I can easily see that line being said to the Canthan Empress, and referring to how she (Joon) advanced Canthan technology and without her Canthans (Empress's "children") would be stuck in the past (lacking technology).

While Joon is expect to be the inventor, I don't think her knowledge was a natural one. I suspect the mystery around Joon creating Jade tech involves something beyond just being a genius that got lucky and rapidly advanced Cantha's technology by a huge technology phase. There was talk about the Mists and promised future.

This comment interests me because it maybe possible Joon may have gained Jade tech from seeing into a possible future of Cantha and took the knowledge from there. It is a wild theory and probably not true but if Joon been looking into possible futures/alternate timelines, then she could be taking knowledge from those futures/alternate timelines as well. However, I suspect it maybe a outside influence giving her these visions or atleast at first until she got those Jade tech things we see in the trailer. 

Joon seems almost obsessed with finding the right future in the trailer so it is possible she has been looking into the future.

 

8 minutes ago, The Greyhawk.9107 said:

Define "Natural" within the context of Tyria (the world, not the continent).

Something they came up with themselves without any outside influence providing them the knowledge.

Edited November 3, 2021 by EdwinLi.1284

[The Greyhawk.9107]

2 minutes ago, EdwinLi.1284 said:

While Joon is expect to be the inventor, I don't think her knowledge was a natural one. I suspect the mystery around Joon creating Jade tech involves something beyond just being a genius that got lucky and rapidly advanced Cantha's technology by a huge technology phase. There was talk about the Mists and possible future.

As in acquiring and reverse engineering tech from the future or another world?  I could see that as reasonable so long as it doesn't fully turn Kaineng into modern Tokyo.  If Jade magi-tech is still new, as in its inventor is still alive, than its still not believable to replace and upgrade the majority of Kaineng with whatever might be implied by the artworks that started this thread.  kitten takes time, even with new or recent advancements, and like others on this thread have put it we still want to see the Soul of Cantha maintained.

[EdwinLi.1284]

8 hours ago, The Greyhawk.9107 said:

As in acquiring and reverse engineering tech from the future or another world?  I could see that as reasonable so long as it doesn't fully turn Kaineng into modern Tokyo.  If Jade magi-tech is still new, as in its inventor is still alive, than its still not believable to replace and upgrade the majority of Kaineng with whatever might be implied by the artworks that started this thread.  kitten takes time, even with new or recent advancements, and like others on this thread have put it we still want to see the Soul of Cantha maintained.

Well in the trailer, Joon did mention centuries of progress. I honestly won't be surprised if she is much older than she looks or have been doing something that may have altered Cantha's past during those 250 years to rapidly progress. That ending scene in the trailer with all that jade tech powering up when she said she will find the future is very suspicious.

There is a lot of questions about who Joon is beyond just being the inventor of Jade tech. At this point we just have to wait until EoD release to find out.

--------------------------------------

Speaking of design advancements, I don't think appearance wise in Canthan clothing will have much of a change. We see in the EoD website page in Section 06 Ancient Magic a unknown character who has a robotic jade tech arm but his clothing is still Canthan style design close to GW1 design. 
 

Edited November 3, 2021 by EdwinLi.1284

[Amanda Whitemoon.6173]

about this, have any of you ever looked at the globes you can place in the guildhall, if you look at it, the Raisu Palace area looks like a bunch of lakes, makes me think that maybe the entirety of Raisu palace fell into some sinkhole cause my a tidal wave or something from the north removing the foundations.

[The Greyhawk.9107]

51 minutes ago, Amanda Whitemoon.6173 said:

about this, have any of you ever looked at the globes you can place in the guildhall, if you look at it, the Raisu Palace area looks like a bunch of lakes, makes me think that maybe the entirety of Raisu palace fell into some sinkhole cause my a tidal wave or something from the north removing the foundations.

That'd one hell of a sinkhole considering not only how large of an area the Raisu covered, but also the elevation.  If memory serves the Imperial Sanctum was built on a small mountain.

[witcher.3197]

22 hours ago, Faridah.8431 said:

In GW1, portions of the city were technically on fire including Nahpui Quarter and the Xaquang Skyway above The Undercity. Obviously it didn't "spread" within the realm of how maps worked in GW1, but lore wise its not hard to imagine that the fires really devastated large portions of the city that were effectively poorly built slum shacks on top of each other with the only mitigation I could see being the large walled canal areas separating portions of the city. Its possible entire GW1 maps worth of the city simply burned down.

Combine that with later flooding from the Rising of Orr event and it's possible that huge areas of the city had to either be rebuilt, or else abandoned and other unaffected portions of the city not explored in GW1 (the big swath going down from Nahpui Quarter along the western coast for example, were developed as "New Kaineng".

Will be interesting to see how that plays out. We don't know at this point.

It's not like this would cause Kaineng to up its tech game and solve housing problems.

 

Kaineng looks the way it does because of the refugees flooding the city after the Jade Wind and as such lots of homes had to be built for people with nothing to their names.

 

A second disaster of that magnitude that limits living space further by flooding Kaineng itself and destroying a lot of the empire's economic centers would not lead to a sudden surge of development and prosperity. Quite the opposite.

[Konig Des Todes.2086]

13 hours ago, radda.8920 said:

I still find it abominably ugly .And yet if there is a strong point in guild wars 2, this is the  environment, I have rarely been disappointed by a map in this game. The only time I was shocked was by the massacre they carried out in Kourna.

Afterwards, shing jea was one of my favorite places on gw1, I've been waiting for it during 9 years so my expectations were high. And I admit that I expected better considering what they have accustomed us to with HOT and POF.

Then I'm not the only one to say it, just read the comments next to the stream and the hundreds of feedback on reedit. This is one of the first times that a map is so controversial, so there is a major problem. Hope they will correct the colors / saturation.

Most of the comments I saw in regards to the stream were basically either complaining about the high vibrance and saturation from the teaser images, ignoring how the stream showed it, or it was complaining about reducing the high vibrance and saturation in the stream, arguing it was fine in the teaser images.

11 hours ago, The Greyhawk.9107 said:

Far as Shing Jea is concerned, I'd probably be ok with it if they lowered the saturation to be similar to that image Radda linked to, even if the topography seems somewhat incongruent to GW1's version.

The topography is more accurate to GW1's version than most of core GW2 is. ArenaNet really improved that level of accuracy in S4. IBS didn't really follow through, though, but it's possible EoD will.

I guess my expectations of accurate natural topography is low enough that the close but differently proportioned and alteration of zone boundaries that we saw in the stream don't bother me at all.

10 hours ago, EdwinLi.1284 said:

As the EoD trailer hinted, the rapid expansion of Cantha's technology into jade tech is not quite natural. People say Joon invented Jade tech and rapidly advanced Cantha but the talk about the Mist and centuries of progress maybe a hint Joon obtaining such knowledge may not be so natural. Something is certainly unusal about Cantha's rapid advancement and it appears Joon caused it for a unknown purpose. 

I suspect there is more than just Joon suddenly invented it and rapidly advance technology by over 700+ years ahead of time.

There's absolutely no talk of the Mists, though? In either trailer.

And didn't ANet devs state that Joon invented jade tech? So unless Joon is over a century old, her line of "a century of progress" is hyperbolic - which would not be the first time ArenaNet has used misnomers, hyperbole, and unreliable narrator in the introduction to stories (read: "I am charr. With engines of destruction, we have killed our gods." (humans killed the titans, charr engines didn't exist yet) or "I am sylvari. Twenty-five years ago, my people first appeared in Tyria." (sylvari appeared 23 years ago to that point)). And even if her line isn't hyperbolic, "a century of progress" != "a century of jade technology in common use".

Other than the mention and use of dragon magic, there's nothing unusual implied about Cantha's technology. From a Doylist perspective.

 

From a Watsonian perspective, it advanced far too much for there to be nothing unusual from a Doylist perspective.

Edited November 3, 2021 by Konig Des Todes.2086

[hugo.4705]

The fact that aetherblade are in cantha, itself speak about mists. Since last time mai trin were shown was in the mist. All the flotilla of aetherblade airships is equiped with mist rift opener device? Kind of a big deal if the case.

Thanks to recent story, we saw jormag, kralkatorrik and aurene opening mist portals to teleport themselves or their armies around, so ability of creating a rift is draconic magic/ability. So, it can be turned into a device to do the same thing. 

 

The big jump in technology could be tied to mist travel and aetherblade. 

We know mai trin escaped to the edge of the mist after escaping prison.

Fractals of the mist trin tell us that the mist shows the past , the present or the future.

They could even link aetherblades with auris weirdbringer: we still don't know when he got its aetherblade uniform, between grothmar and field of ruin appearance but we don't know more.

 

I'm 100% sure that scarlet didn't only saw mordremoth in omadd machine but also the deep sea dragon and cantha. While her mission was to awake mordremoth, she gave the mission to mai trin to go to cantha. Cantha of the past. And that is mist rift stabilizer storyline.

Remember that sentence: the big events who affected tyria also affected cantha . Sure, zhaithan flooding, mordremoth ... death of balthazar..... but also bloodstone explosion and bloodstone incursion rifts.

 

Call it far fetched, but, the infinity sphere storyline, with us leading an army of steam creatures... I call out that those steam creatures were prototype and come from cantha. First attempts at jade technology. But then, they god perfectionned and led to things like mechanist mechs.

From wiki: steam creature appeared in lornar, wants to extend their territory for unknown reasons.

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Steam_creature

Those first attempt of using jade being to wild and making crazy agressive constructs, canthan threw them in a mist portal set to a random location, ended being lornar pass. Scarlet noticed the jade energy in them and created twisted clockworks with it. (Notice the green sparks in twisted clockwork creatures).

Before ls1, scarlet already sent an agent to cantha to study jade technology. That agent is the character we see in the trailer as joone. The progress of jade technology worked, and the agent asked to be joined by someone from modern times: mai trin.

Auris weirdbringer is in fact a very high ranked aetherblade that was in charge of time/mist travel. Whereas for some agents it worked, auris ended stuck in loop and appear at several places in same time, all part of its timeline, so possible to see him in cantha.

 

So yeah hard to think about it, but someone, who already experienced all the events we faced, went to the past in cantha, to tell them what will happens, that the advancrment in technology is needed and that cantha have to become more technology advanced to protect their elder dragon. What the point of the deep sea dragon, you will tell me? Scarlet knew she would be killed by the commander. And that eventually mordremoth will be killed, but, she bet on jade power and one last dragon to stop us.

 

What if you could create a tome machine powered by jade that would allow to bring all the elder dragons back to life? 

This us the ultimate failsafe plan, you rewind time, hoping to prevent thd person that destroyed your plan.

Maybe the deep sea dragon has more knowledge than others too, we will see.

The jade tech expansion in cantha isn't natural just after a miner found jade. Someone, who knows about draconic magics or elder dragons  went to cantha.

Not a lot of candidate: Durmand priory? Inquest? Scarlet? Or a dragon itself.

Sure we can think that one day an engineer saw the use, but imho, with the help of zephyrite or asura . 

I still bet 100% that jade technology in new kainerg and cantha is due to aetherblade and deep sea dragon.

Edited November 3, 2021 by hugo.4705

[Konig Des Todes.2086]

10 hours ago, EdwinLi.1284 said:

While Joon is expect to be the inventor, I don't think her knowledge was a natural one. I suspect the mystery around Joon creating Jade tech involves something beyond just being a genius that got lucky and rapidly advanced Cantha's technology by a huge technology phase. There was talk about the Mists and promised future.

This comment interests me because it maybe possible Joon may have gained Jade tech from seeing into a possible future of Cantha and took the knowledge from there. It is a wild theory and probably not true but if Joon been looking into possible futures/alternate timelines, then she could be taking knowledge from those futures/alternate timelines as well. However, I suspect it maybe a outside influence giving her these visions or atleast at first until she got those Jade tech things we see in the trailer. 

Joon seems almost obsessed with finding the right future in the trailer so it is possible she has been looking into the future.

 

Something they came up with themselves without any outside influence providing them the knowledge.

I think you're taking the words out of context and proportion. For starters, the mention of the Mists has nothing to do with Joon - it's about the unknown voice talking about/"to" Aurene. And the promised future is that aforementioned generic inventor line of "I improved their life with advancements of technology". Nothing there implies anything about seeing possible futures.

Aurene: There's familiarity in this strangeness, like a song half remembered, a tune without words to carry it. I know you, and yet... I don't.

Unidentified voice: You will soon, little one.

Joon: Who are you talking to?

Unidentified voice: Just an echo in the Mists, a possibility.

Joon: Look around us. Your children would be trapped in the past if not for me. Their worlds are carved from the jade that I gave purpose. I promised them a future. A century of progress cannot end this way. I'm not— Cantha's not just a spoke in some grand cosmic wheel.

Unidentified voice: Would a great innovator give up so easily on that promised future?

Joon: I won't. I'll find a way to save us all.

Joon: The future is out there. What are we waiting for?

By the sounds of it, Joon "gave a promised future" with the advancement of jadetech that she "made", and something is threatening to revert or cease advancement, and I'd bet, given the whole "cosmic wheel" bit, that it's the ramifications of the deaths of Jormag and Primordus destabilizing The All and the world dying.

 

Either way, player theories always tend to blow trailers out of proportions by taking very literal words and extrapolating context and meaning that is non-existent. Happened since Season 1, so I think going into "seeing the future" and "involvement of the Mists" is setting yourself up for disappointment.

Not that I can blame you, with ANet giving us practically nothing but "someone is investigating Elder Dragons and raiding labs dedicated to studying Elder Dragons" for our lead-in to EoD.

10 hours ago, EdwinLi.1284 said:

Well in the trailer, Joon did mention centuries of progress.

Century. Singular.

Which is likely rounded up, given that isolation began with Zhaitan's rise in 1219 AE (aka 106 years before GW2 began); so we're no doubt looking at 100-70 years.

And progress != spread of technology, it means advancement of isolated studies of technology, technically.

Not to mention this is often called Dragonjade technology, and the Harbinger actively channels Zhaitan's magic - so it's even possible to be in its current form only because of Zhaitan's death (and subsequently, Mordremoth's, Kralkatorrik's, Jormag's, and Primordus').

8 minutes ago, hugo.4705 said:

The big jump in technology could be tied to mist travel and aetherblade. 

We know mai trin escaped to the edge of the mist after escaping prison.

Fractals of the mist trin tell us that the mist shows the past , the present or the future.

They could even link aetherblades with auris weirdbringer: we still don't know when he got its aetherblade uniform, between grothmar and field of ruin appearance but we don't know more.

None of what we see really shows any indication of Aetherblade technology. It's all jade tech, absolutely zero air/lightning magic being utilized.

Besides, it's very, very unlikely that ArenaNet well apply a barely fleshed out side story that doesn't even have achievements tied to it into the main plot.

8 minutes ago, hugo.4705 said:

Call it far fetched, but, the infinity sphere storyline, with us leading an army of steam creatures... I call out that those steam creatures were prototype and come from cantha. First attempts at jade technology. But then, they god perfectionned and led to things like mechanist mechs.

But we know where those steam creatures come from. The asura PC from the future. In other words, they're fully Tyrian, not Canthan.

 

And then ArenaNet went and retconned it so that Scarlet invented them and sent them to Lornar's.

 

So unless they're retconning the steam creature origins again, the steam creatures have nothing to do with Cantha.

8 minutes ago, hugo.4705 said:

Those first attempt of using jade being to wild and making crazy agressive constructs, canthan threw them in a mist portal set to a random location, ended being lornar pass. Scarlet noticed the jade energy in them and created twisted clockworks with it. (Notice the green sparks in twisted clockwork creatures).

By that argument, then all necromancy is tied to jade magic. Dhuum is Jade magic. Mordremoth is jade magic.

 

Green is just an archetypal color for plant magic, and ties it to Scarlet. Similar to how Kralkatorrik/Branded and Abaddon/Margonites are both purple but hold zero relation.

 

 

[Faridah.8431]

18 hours ago, Konig Des Todes.2086 said:

Nah, I'm doubtful that the fires went far. By the time we see them in Factions, they're smoldering, so the spread would be slow and under control, if there was any further spread at all. And we return 8 years later during Winds of Change, with zero dialogue about fires.

The Canthans also used fires to burn Afflicted bodies, without any issue of the fires spreading to buildings.

With one fire drake exception.

 

Hmm fair point. Been a long time since I played Winds of Change and you're right, no mention of fires, so really anything would have come from flooding.

 

1 hour ago, witcher.3197 said:

It's not like this would cause Kaineng to up its tech game and solve housing problems.

 

Kaineng looks the way it does because of the refugees flooding the city after the Jade Wind and as such lots of homes had to be built for people with nothing to their names.

 

A second disaster of that magnitude that limits living space further by flooding Kaineng itself and destroying a lot of the empire's economic centers would not lead to a sudden surge of development and prosperity. Quite the opposite.

Well we don't know what Kaineng looks like yet at this point.

[EdwinLi.1284]

40 minutes ago, Konig Des Todes.2086 said:

I think you're taking the words out of context and proportion. For starters, the mention of the Mists has nothing to do with Joon - it's about the unknown voice talking about/"to" Aurene. And the promised future is that aforementioned generic inventor line of "I improved their life with advancements of technology". Nothing there implies anything about seeing possible futures.

Aurene: There's familiarity in this strangeness, like a song half remembered, a tune without words to carry it. I know you, and yet... I don't.

Unidentified voice: You will soon, little one.

Joon: Who are you talking to?

Unidentified voice: Just an echo in the Mists, a possibility.

Joon: Look around us. Your children would be trapped in the past if not for me. Their worlds are carved from the jade that I gave purpose. I promised them a future. A century of progress cannot end this way. I'm not— Cantha's not just a spoke in some grand cosmic wheel.

Unidentified voice: Would a great innovator give up so easily on that promised future?

Joon: I won't. I'll find a way to save us all.

Joon: The future is out there. What are we waiting for?

By the sounds of it, Joon "gave a promised future" with the advancement of jadetech that she "made", and something is threatening to revert or cease advancement, and I'd bet, given the whole "cosmic wheel" bit, that it's the ramifications of the deaths of Jormag and Primordus destabilizing The All and the world dying.

 

Either way, player theories always tend to blow trailers out of proportions by taking very literal words and extrapolating context and meaning that is non-existent. Happened since Season 1, so I think going into "seeing the future" and "involvement of the Mists" is setting yourself up for disappointment.

Not that I can blame you, with ANet giving us practically nothing but "someone is investigating Elder Dragons and raiding labs dedicated to studying Elder Dragons" for our lead-in to EoD.

Century. Singular.

Which is likely rounded up, given that isolation began with Zhaitan's rise in 1219 AE (aka 106 years before GW2 began); so we're no doubt looking at 100-70 years.

And progress != spread of technology, it means advancement of isolated studies of technology, technically.

Not to mention this is often called Dragonjade technology, and the Harbinger actively channels Zhaitan's magic - so it's even possible to be in its current form only because of Zhaitan's death (and subsequently, Mordremoth's, Kralkatorrik's, Jormag's, and Primordus').

None of what we see really shows any indication of Aetherblade technology. It's all jade tech, absolutely zero air/lightning magic being utilized.

Besides, it's very, very unlikely that ArenaNet well apply a barely fleshed out side story that doesn't even have achievements tied to it into the main plot.

But we know where those steam creatures come from. The asura PC from the future. In other words, they're fully Tyrian, not Canthan.

 

And then ArenaNet went and retconned it so that Scarlet invented them and sent them to Lornar's.

 

So unless they're retconning the steam creature origins again, the steam creatures have nothing to do with Cantha.

By that argument, then all necromancy is tied to jade magic. Dhuum is Jade magic. Mordremoth is jade magic.

 

Green is just an archetypal color for plant magic, and ties it to Scarlet. Similar to how Kralkatorrik/Branded and Abaddon/Margonites are both purple but hold zero relation.

 

 

I am not expecting anything nor expecting to be disappoint since my expectation is always set to zero with GW2 ever since Core Storyline ended with the Zhaitan Arc and they began move away from Destiny Edge to the creation of Dragon's Watch and having them as the Main Character group in Season 1.

All we have now is speculation and that is all we can do now but we should never expect speculations to be the facts of what will happen once the actual events of the storyline is finally accessed.

Edited November 3, 2021 by EdwinLi.1284

[Konig Des Todes.2086]

11 minutes ago, EdwinLi.1284 said:

All we have now is speculation and that is all we can do now but we should never expect speculations to be the facts of what will happen once the actual events of the storyline is finally accessed.

Glad you think so. Too often I see folks in this community exaggerate their expectations and then insult ArenaNet for not meeting those expectations.