New Kaineng [Lore discussion]

[Kayberz.5346]

I think people are getting a little carried away with just how advanced they think Canthas technology is.

 

Ive seen multiple times now that people imply that their technology surpasses our modern day technology which is pretty disingenuous.

Technology isn't some linear path with a fixed progression. Especially in the guild wars universe that incorporates magic. There are definitely things that dragonjade seems to be capable of that we aren't capable of doing just yet in real life, like fully autonomous robots, full functioning prosthetic limb replacement, and stuff like that but thats because they can just hardwave the complications related to that technology with "magic".

Cantha doesn't have satellites, it doesn't have intercontinental ballistic missiles, it doesn't have the internet, or anything like that. They didn't just get super smart and invent nuclear power on a whim. They found a miracle resource that is capable of doing amazing things and they are adapting their existing technology to incorporate this miracle magic resource and with it are capable of doing things we might consider "futuristic" if it were being done in the real world with our own understanding of technology.  But this isn't real life, its Tyria, and in Tyria magic exists, and that magic subverts the natural laws of physics as we know it, because its all fantasy 

[The Greyhawk.9107]

15 hours ago, Tyson.5160 said:

I get your point however you are overlooking a key difference though, between our world and Tyria.

 

Titanic monstrosities called Elder Dragons. Beings that change landscapes just by flying around and corrupting things.

 

Having Kaineng flooded by Zhaitan makes sense to me, especially since it devastated many of the coastal regions too in central Tyria. Even Sandswept mention the catastrophe. 
 

i don’t know, I just don’t see it as this huge kick in the crotch that some people are describing.

Yes I had thought of this but I just don't agree that the ED's destructive capabilities were so far reaching as to wipeout any and all older structures, landmarks, etc. left over from the previous game.  Kryta for example, beyond the sinking of LA had been largely untouched at the time period of the game's launch and had seen only a few small attacks in the time since.

Bringing up Sandswept having some experience with the Flooding caused by the rise of Orr brings up a question, why is this area, Istan, so far less effected by the Flood but apparently much of old Kaineng was more heavily effected despite being much farther away.  I've compared the GW1 and GW2 versions of Istan and geographically they look largely the same (at least was is visible with the GW2 version, still sad we'll never get the rest of Istan).  If nothing else Kamadan/Pala-whatever should have been wiped off the map Lion's Arch style if Kaineng was so effected.

I wouldn't characterize what I've disliked about what's been released about EoD havimg been anything like a "kick in the crotch", merely just sad and disappointing.  Unlike what these repeated strawmans and borderline smears from others on these threads have been attempting to claim, I actually really wanted EoD to be great, I was genuinely excited about going back to Cantha and I had thought that they would come up with interesting new masteries and features.  But I just haven't been liking a lot of what I've been seeing so far (I mean they pushed FISHING as a major feature for God's sakes) and it feels like I'm being told here to just shut up, consume product and then get excited about new product.  Frankly a lot of my "negativity" stems as much from those aforementioned responses as it does the state of the game itself.

Edited February 8, 2022 by The Greyhawk.9107

[Kayberz.5346]

And it continues 

Edited February 8, 2022 by Kayberz.5346

[EdwinLi.1284]

10 hours ago, Teratus.2859 said:

I certainly agree with what you said about trying to capitalise on the whole cyberpunk thing, I've made my distaste for that particular style quite often in other threads as well.

But I think what Anet have pretty much gone for with Cantha is in some way a kind of industrial revolution for their nation due to the new way they've harnessed Dragon Jade and discovered Jade Tech.
Canthans have been mining and using Jade for a long time anyway, they've just found a new way of using it which has drastically advanced their culture.

The way I'm thinking of it is more along the lines of say humans discovering how to harness a sustainable form of fusion energy which would drastically change our countries and how we look at current energy and environmental problems.

I do agree though that Jade Tech being superior to Asuran Technology is a bit of a stretch.
Especially when it really doesn't look the part.
Asuran tech looks drastically more advanced than Jade tech does so I do hope there is some kind of confirmation in End of Dragons that it isn't quite on the same level as Asuran tech even if it is something the Asura can also adopt to advance their own technology down the road.
I'd quite like to see what an Asuran Dragon Jade Golem would look like in all honesty.

I still think Asuran tech is far more advance than Jade Tech and maybe even more advance now if not for the constant war with the Elder Dragons killing potential people who could have advance Asuran tech more quickly. I believe one of the major difference between Cantha and core regions is mostly due to how Cantha had their entire time before EoD to focus on themselves compared to Core regions that is literally in a constant war with Elder Dragons and losing potential technology and people who can advance their technology to a higher level in that war. After all, the Elder Dragons have been focusing all their main forces and themselves on the Core Regions since GW2 began except for DSD which we don't know the status of within current events. Elona, on the other hand, never advanced much past their GW1 technology due to Joko intentionally preventing technology advancement so he can better control the people in Elona.

 

However, as I said the sudden advancement for Cantha within Joon's life is rather strange to begin with so there maybe more to the whole Cantha advancing to this level thanks to Joon than we are being given currently. Especially considering the recent trailer mentioned a secret of the Dragon maybe involved. 

Edited February 8, 2022 by EdwinLi.1284

[SunRoamer.5103]

 

4 hours ago, The Greyhawk.9107 said:

Yes I had thought of this but I just don't agree that the ED's destructive capabilities were so far reaching as to wipeout any and all older structures, landmarks, etc. left over from the previous game.  Kryta for example, beyond the sinking of LA had been largely untouched at the time period of the game's launch and had seen only a few small attacks in the time since.

Bringing up Sandswept having some experience with the Flooding caused by the rise of Orr brings up a question, why is this area, Istan, so far less effected by the Flood but apparently much of old Kaineng was more heavily effected despite being much farther away.  I've compared the GW1 and GW2 versions of Istan and geographically they look largely the same (at least was is visible with the GW2 version, still sad we'll never get the rest of Istan).  If nothing else Kamadan/Pala-whatever should have been wiped off the map Lion's Arch style if Kaineng was so effected.

Sajuuk previously posted a twitter comment by that_shaman which visualizes the path of the flood wave, explaining why most of Istan and Sandswept were left untouched (although in the case of Sandswept we don't know what it looked like before, anyways). Especially Palawadan, residing on the eastern side of Istan, was entirely shielded. As others have also pointed out with real life examples, these kinds of events can have repercussions on landmasses that are immensely far away - the flooding there sometimes even being worse than in the direct vicinity.

In case you missed the post since it appeared on page 1/was quoted on page 2:

On 2/6/2022 at 6:57 PM, Sajuuk Khar.1509 said:

That_Shaman has even pointed out how the direction of the tidal wave makes sense also

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FK1LQ_PWQAAk9iC?format=jpg&name=4096x4096

Plus I want to mention that the flood wave did not wipe out "any and all older structures". Old Kaineng is precisely in ruins because a lot of its stone underbelly remains - leftovers of the sewers and more perennial structures, as opposed to the wooden shanty towns that were collapsing in on themselves even during the times of GW1 already. Whether no landmarks remain is also difficult to tell right now, since the map seems to be south of where we explored in GW1. A cool concept for a LS6 map would be exploring the ruins of Old Kaineng, in which we might see the return of the more steadfast landmarks such as the remains of the Raisu Palace, Tahnnakai Temple and so on. These could be settled in parts (depending on Risen presence) by the poor, the undesirables and the outcasts of New Kaineng, recreating shanty towns that will then approach the original aesthetic.

Edited February 8, 2022 by SunRoamer.5103

[Legion.4198]

As other have pointed out before, it seems like New Kaineng, and modern Cantha as a whole, is mostly based on Korean aesthetics rather than Chinese or Japanese, likely to avoid controversies of cultural mishmash. This extend to the clothing that seems to be inspired by the Joseon Dynasty. The name itself, a classic trope in cyberpunk with too many examples to count, clearly hinted that Old Kaineng was either destroyed or reformed. I hope that Old Kaineng is not just an abandoned ruin and has populated areas, industrial districts etc. Either way, it is clearly material for a future Living Season.

 

Joon mentions in the trailer "a hundred year of progress", which implies that the industrial revolution has been going over a 100 years which would follow Zhaitan's rise and the destruction of Old Kaineng (and probably coincided with the downfall of the Ministry of Purity and the rise of a new Canthan dynasty). In the Kaineng's city map tour it is mentioned that Jade Tech is very expensive and not everybody can afford it. While the higher districts show a prevalence of Jade Tech and are very opulent, the lower districts show that they use older steam power technology. Still, you can see bits of jade material attached to it, so it is possible that they used as a component of the steam machines even back then. Jade tech is likely no more sophisticated than anything that the Asura have, but may compensate by having much higher concentrations of magic than any material that the Asura have access to, Cantha having an unmatched labour pool, massive economies of scale, industrial might, and access to the wider world than anyone else in Tyria. A very crude analogy would be an ancient and sophisticated bronze civilization vs a younger and less sophisticated one that has just mastered iron. 

 

New Kaineng itself was built to the south on an area that used to be part swamp Naga populated, part unclaimed territory, and part old Tengu territory. While it seems that Kurzicks and Luxons have been integrated into the empire since Usoku's reign, tensions between humans, Tengu and Naga remain. The Tengu themselves on the city seems to live on the lower districts, which implies that while they are no longer persecuted by the empire and the city seems to encourage integration, they are not that well-off either, which is material for economic inequality, class and race conflicts in the city. 

 

[DarcShriek.5829]

I bet Kaineng has terrible toilets.

[EdwinLi.1284]

1 hour ago, DarcShriek.5829 said:

I bet Kaineng has terrible toilets.

not surprised since there are so few MMOs that actually have functioning toilets. 

😛

 

[Gibson.4036]

An opportunity to expand Chairs of the World

[Trejgon.9367]

23 hours ago, Kayberz.5346 said:

Ive seen multiple times now that people imply that their technology surpasses our modern day technology which is pretty disingenuous.

I would like to expand on this that such a claims could but just as well applied to things we already have in-game.

Autonomous golems (made in different ways by different species), floating cities, full blown teleportation. The only "edge" I see cantha having as far as promo material goes is prevalence and accessability of jade tech vs. things we have seen in core tyria.

[Narcemus.1348]

Yeah, you are probably right, Cantha isn't more advanced, they are just differently advanced. I think my comments along these lines stem from honestly feeling tired of the sci-fi themes found in this game. In the past I could just chalk it up to the Asura being involved, but now we have two sources of sci-fi themed technology in the game. Part of it comes from Inquest cropping up wherever the heck they please and their sci-fi like tech corrupting the themes of other regions of the world (I personally hated finding them in Farahnur). So seeing New Kaineng and having it feel more akin to Coruscant than old Kaineng (in my completely fallible human perspective) leaves me with a bad taste in my mouth.

[Trejgon.9367]

8 hours ago, Narcemus.1348 said:

So seeing New Kaineng and having it feel more akin to Coruscant than old Kaineng (in my completely fallible human perspective) leaves me with a bad taste in my mouth.

To be perfectly fair, old kaineng was not all that far off from Coruscant as far as my completely fallible human perspective goes 😉

I can understand dislike towards magi-tech we got from asuras and now we get it in additional quantities from Cantha, and I can totally relate to dislike of inquest presence in places like fahranur, gandara, etc.

[Teratus.2859]

On 2/8/2022 at 9:20 PM, EdwinLi.1284 said:

I still think Asuran tech is far more advance than Jade Tech and maybe even more advance now if not for the constant war with the Elder Dragons killing potential people who could have advance Asuran tech more quickly. I believe one of the major difference between Cantha and core regions is mostly due to how Cantha had their entire time before EoD to focus on themselves compared to Core regions that is literally in a constant war with Elder Dragons and losing potential technology and people who can advance their technology to a higher level in that war. After all, the Elder Dragons have been focusing all their main forces and themselves on the Core Regions since GW2 began except for DSD which we don't know the status of within current events. Elona, on the other hand, never advanced much past their GW1 technology due to Joko intentionally preventing technology advancement so he can better control the people in Elona.

 

However, as I said the sudden advancement for Cantha within Joon's life is rather strange to begin with so there maybe more to the whole Cantha advancing to this level thanks to Joon than we are being given currently. Especially considering the recent trailer mentioned a secret of the Dragon maybe involved. 

Loss of individuals could certainly be a factor.

Although times of war can often lead to rapid advancements in technology.
Much of what we use today medically and technologically are because of things that were invented due to our world wars.
Some being as mundane and normal today as the microwave oven or duct tape. 
Computer technology too saw rapid advancement during WW2, we may not have the kind of gaming PC's we have now if not for those early advancements, not to mention how much industry wouldn't have benefited from computers back in the 40's.
Time's of war.. especially large scale like a world war or in Gw2's case the threat of Elder Dragons would most definitely see rapid advances in technology.

Gw2 displays this quite well imo like we had no real airship presence at the start of the personal story but through the combined resources of the pact and the various main races by the time we were actively hunting Zhaitan we had a whole fleet of them as well Charr Helicopters which were also experimental at the start of the game (can even see a Charr working on the first Helicopter concept in one of the Ascalon maps)
Weapons and Golem technology also advanced a lot during the personal story too because the Dragon threat forced it.

I think this is probably one of the reasons as well that many feel irritated by the idea of Canthans just flying past everyone so fast.
Personally I think the whole Jade Tech thing is believable in a kind of Canthan industrial revolution kinda way but I do agree that the Asura should still be ahead of the Canthans by a reasonable distance.
But not so far that the Asura can't find wasy for Jade tech to advance their own stuff as well.

 

Edited February 10, 2022 by Teratus.2859

[Faridah.8431]

In the Kaineng City stream, they mentioned building New Kaineng in an area they had to buy, etc. etc. as if there wasn't already city there. Yet we can clearly work out that given the location they specify and what we can see of the new world map that came out, that its built on top of an area that was already city in Factions. So either they forgot their own maps/lore again, or we really haven't been shown the slummiest portions of the city yet.

But they shouldn't have made it sound like there wasn't any city there to begin with as that's just not true.

EDIT: Just to add to this notion, here's where New Kaineng City appears to be on the new map, which can by extrapolated onto the Cantha map from Factions below. Clearly there was old city here before, so what really happened?

GW2 Cantha

New Kaineng City on GW1 Cantha

So I really don't get this line from the stream at 30:03. They are trying to say this was unclaimed territory, Tengu territory, and Naga swamps???: 

 

Edited February 24, 2022 by Faridah.8431

[Konig Des Todes.2086]

That's a bit disappointing tbh, but not all that surprising. At first, before the clip loaded, I was tempted to say that maybe they meant that it is an area not seen in GW1 so it was new to develop and will be new to players. But that explanation is definitely on the lore side of things, so unless she's talking about Jade Wind expanding the city over naga swamp before GW1... that doesn't make much sense, and really does sound like they didn't really compare to the GW1 map when developing the lore for this new map.

[SunRoamer.5103]

Yeah, that's all a bit weird. We'll have to see how it's presented in the game. They did retain the parts of Old Kaineng City much further south but then destroyed the stretch along Cantha's western coast (directly south of New Kaineng City) - so now these two bits have become entirely disconnected?

It's also a bit weird how they were able to rebuild New Kaineng City in that area but then to the south of it the water levels remained so different from before that they couldn't rebuild/expand that way. The size of the actual city now seems pretty much limited to what the map in game will be, which is rather small compared to before.

Good news though is that the northern ruins of Old Kaineng look exciting to me - Raisu Palace remains recognisable (it makes sense, seeing as it was one of the more perennial structures Old Kaineng had) and the chaotic remains of the old city to the palace's south really make me want to go there. Overall the maps seem smaller than what I had expected though, so to cover all these areas we would need two Living world maps at least.

Edited February 25, 2022 by SunRoamer.5103

[Faridah.8431]

3 hours ago, SunRoamer.5103 said:

Yeah, that's all a bit weird. We'll have to see how it's presented in the game. They did retain the parts of Old Kaineng City much further south but then destroyed the stretch along Cantha's western coast (directly south of New Kaineng City) - so now these two bits have become entirely disconnected?

It's also a bit weird how they were able to rebuild New Kaineng City in that area but then to the south of it the water levels remained so different from before that they couldn't rebuild/expand that way. The size of the actual city now seems pretty much limited to what the map in game will be, which is rather small compared to before.

Good news though is that the northern ruins of Old Kaineng look exciting to me - Raisu Palace remains recognisable (it makes sense, seeing as it was one of the more perennial structures Old Kaineng had) and the chaotic remains of the old city to the palace's south really make me want to go there. Overall the maps seem smaller than what I had expected though, so to cover all these areas we would need two Living world maps at least.

 

Yeah I likewise thought the maps to be smaller than expected. I'm also left to wonder a bit about the tsunami as Cantha appears to be in an entirely different location south of Orr than what has previously been expected and shown via fan maps and that_shaman's twitter post with the tsunami map. It seems to be much farther west than previously thought.

[SunRoamer.5103]

I created a new map overlay using the early access footage of the new world map art as a base. The Isle of Reflection was entirely revealed, whereas Seitung Province, Kaineng City and Echovald Wilds each had a part of the map unfogged (this conventiently included what seems to be the border of each map). Assuming that the name of the zone is always centred, I was able to quite accurately place and scale the playable areas. Jade Sea remains questionable, but again the displayed name allowed me to centre my guess, plus it shares a border with the Echovald and we have seen the southern border in the live stream, which places it just to the south of the Harvest Temple and the smaller temple next to it. Besides my previous commentary regarding areas that were "unsettled by Canthan humans" and "ruins in the northeastern corner", I have also added a visualisation of the urban areas of Factions-era Kaineng City.

• My previous estimation was off by quite a bit in regards to the size of the maps.
• We can clearly see that New Kaineng City mostly overlaps with areas that used to be a part of the city. The southeastern area, which would be the only new inclusion, is painted more like the Echovald and includes a lake, so it is probably unsettled even in GW2.
• I highlighted the old parts of Kaineng City that are to the south of New Kaineng because, as I mentioned in a previous post, it just seems strange to not have the city continue further south. Ruins and destruction to the north make sense, but further south?
• Accurately placing the EoD map over the one of Factions proved to be quite challenging - parts of the map could align quite perfectly, but others then never quite hit the mark. This was especially notable with Shing Jae and the Island of Reflection, out of all places. Funnily enough, it's not even the northern shore but rather the southern coastline of Shing Jae that changed quite a bit and was difficult to "fit".
   

46 minutes ago, Faridah.8431 said:

Yeah I likewise thought the maps to be smaller than expected. I'm also left to wonder a bit about the tsunami as Cantha appears to be in an entirely different location south of Orr than what has previously been expected and shown via fan maps and that_shaman's twitter post with the tsunami map. It seems to be much farther west than previously thought.

While Cantha's (and the Battle Isles!) position is different from what most of us expected, the tsunami hitting the northern coast still makes sense. It's just the complete obliteration way further south along the coast that confuses me, but it's possible the shift in position actually makes that seem somewhat more plausible.

Edited February 25, 2022 by SunRoamer.5103
Formatting

[Faridah.8431]

The only thing that I think might be a bamboozle is they mentioned a Sunjiang Lab as well during the Kaineng stream. Giving benefit of the doubt and hoping they didn't once again completely disregard/forget their own maps/location lore, I wonder if they only had part of the map opened during the sneak peak so that the "map text in the middle" trick is actually not indicative of the full map being open (think as Dry Top unlocked episode by episode during Season 2 for an example, or more recently Bjora Marches).

As for the tsunami, I don't understand why it affected south Shing Jea or the western/southern part of Kaineng City either, yet the area for New Kaineng City appears to be completely unaffected? Very weird.

Edited February 25, 2022 by Faridah.8431

[SunRoamer.5103]

Yeah, that's why I marked old Sunjiang district on the map as well.

I don't think southern Shing Jae was supposed to be affected but instead they just took certain liberties with the design - Sunqua mountain appears much bigger than it did in Factions as well, and the coast around the western parts of the island seems to be very rocky. It also looks like there might be no snowy area in the mountains north of Seitung Harbor.

Probably the area of New Kaineng City was also affected but when the water receded they managed to contain the Risen further north and then rebuilt around there - why the same couldn't be done further south is what confuses me. While a tsunami might drastically change the landscape, it's not like the sea level rose over all so it's weird to see the entire coastline eroded like that.

[Faridah.8431]

So I went back and did an exploration of the explorable version of Nahpui Quarter (there is a mission version as well for those who have not played GW1). Aside from the heavy purple atmosphere of this nighttime zone, and seemingly limits on how far they are rendering distant terrain, looking towards the direction of GW2's New Kaineng City, there is no reason for me to believe that these tall megastructure slums just abruptly ended here and given the map art, should be expected to have continued into the area considered to be New Kaineng City.

GW1 Nahpui Quarter edge

So again I still don't understand this line at all: 

 

Edited February 28, 2022 by Faridah.8431

[Fueki.4753]

5 hours ago, Faridah.8431 said:

So again I still don't understand this line at all:

In one of the earlier streams, she admitted that she didn't play faction. Therefore, one can assume that she hardly knows anything about factions or GW1 Cantha. I wouldn't put too much thought into her words regarding topographical differences between GW1 and GW2.

[Konig Des Todes.2086]

5 hours ago, Fueki.4753 said:

In one of the earlier streams, she admitted that she didn't play faction. Therefore, one can assume that she hardly knows anything about factions or GW1 Cantha. I wouldn't put too much thought into her words regarding topographical differences between GW1 and GW2.

In that case, she was probably referring to how there wasn't playable city area where New Kaineng City is. Similar setup for The Jade Sea map - most of it was in the "unexplored" parts of the Jade Sea (though the Alliance Battle maps should canonically have taken place in that area, but I somehow doubt ANet's devs considered that since AB maps don't show up on the world map, even if you go to a specific spot on the world map when opening it while in said AB maps).

Whether this will affect the lore of what she said in-game is another matter, though. We'll see in a few hours, I imagine.

Edited February 28, 2022 by Konig Des Todes.2086

[Faridah.8431]

2 hours ago, Konig Des Todes.2086 said:

In that case, she was probably referring to how there wasn't playable city area where New Kaineng City is. Similar setup for The Jade Sea map - most of it was in the "unexplored" parts of the Jade Sea (though the Alliance Battle maps should canonically have taken place in that area, but I somehow doubt ANet's devs considered that since AB maps don't show up on the world map, even if you go to a specific spot on the world map when opening it while in said AB maps).

Whether this will affect the lore of what she said in-game is another matter, though. We'll see in a few hours, I imagine.

Yeah I wondered about that myself. 

While they didn't have maps present on the normal world map, when in any of the AB maps, they definitely had a location on the world map if you opened it.

[dusanyu.4057]

being honest old Kaineng being all but gone is perfectly understandable the place was a ramshackle Shanty town of hovels built upon hovels based on the real world Kowloon walled city https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kowloon_Walled_City  a good fart from after eating a bowl of "Baltazar's Blazes Chili" would have knocked it over