Far West Tyria.

[ugrakarma.9416]

I didn't get when the map extended to far west, when Cantha come out?

 

 

Tyria is full of mysterious places, i hope expansions lead us to some of these:

https://imgur.com/a/BYkcQZl

https://imgur.com/Eu74kJ2

Also some more background about Herboza the Wretched, why did she want go to west, what did she expect find there? just "exploring"? would be cool if added a myth/legend thats shes heard about.

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Herboza_the_Wretched

 

[anninke.7469]

It would sure be nice to explore all at least some of the distant unknown lands.

[Nosrorav.4703]

7 hours ago, ugrakarma.9416 said:

I didn't get when the map extended to far west, when Cantha come out?

tl;dr mechanical reasons

Cantha is west of Tyria in verticality, so they had to expand it some bit. On top of that, for mechanical reasons (world map origin is to the top left corner apparently), since htey had to expand west they had to expand west enough for the old maps to be duplicated and not overlap:

Linsey murdock confirmed on reddit during s4 era (i think) that in gw2, while maps can overlap each other, it's very complicated and would make the coders cry. It's why the orriginal Lake Doric, that wrapped around DR, was cut.

EoD was being rushed due to unplanned (as confirmed indirectly by Bobby Stein and others) and at launch not all instances were properly shifted (Twisted Marionette for example still had the old location, putting it in the middle of the ocean). Until they had that cleaned up, they couldn't remove any of the old maps (even assuming they could now), so they couldn't overlap any maps either.

So it had to go far enough west to avoid overlapping.

And since the world map is also made by square tiling, they likely had to go north some too - or just wanted to take the opportunity to do so.

7 hours ago, ugrakarma.9416 said:

Also some more background about Herboza the Wretched, why did she want go to west, what did she expect find there? just "exploring"? would be cool if added a myth/legend thats shes heard about.

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Herboza_the_Wretched

prolly just to explore, like romke

[Gazrul.3086]

Guilds Wars 2 The Forbidden West. 

[Teknomancer.4895]

 Mark unexplored zones with "here be dragons?" Nah, we already cleared that part of the map. Here be our extraction industries. 😉

Maybe Out West is where all the player-race quarries and mines are. The materials the huge Central Tyrian cities are built from had to come from somewhere and I can only think of one or two smallish playable areas where player races (or Asuran golems) are actually shown extracting materials.

Elona & Cantha show more of their work, so they get a pass. The Grove also gets a pass since it's not made from anything but rather grown in a forest. I suppose you could cut the ruins of Orr some slack with a lazy deus ex machina excuse that its mines were sunk along with everything else. At launch, Lion's Arch was built from stuff that they would have had easy access to as a port city: decommissioned ships were pulled out of the water and repurposed as buildings. But for LA as it exists now, where did Evon Gnashblade actually source all that concrete and stone?

At least in PoF and later, you see more resource extraction being depicted (Canthan jade mining was also featured in GW1). Somewhere in semi-central Tyria, there simply have to be at least a few big mines and quarries that aren't wholly owned and operated by either Skritt, bandits or Dredge.

I will now resume my suspension of disbelief. 🤣

[Randulf.7614]

On 7/22/2023 at 3:49 PM, Teknomancer.4895 said:

 Mark unexplored zones with "here be dragons?" Nah, we already cleared that part of the map. Here be our extraction industries. 😉

Maybe Out West is where all the player-race quarries and mines are. The materials the huge Central Tyrian cities are built from had to come from somewhere and I can only think of one or two smallish playable areas where player races (or Asuran golems) are actually shown extracting materials.

Elona & Cantha show more of their work, so they get a pass. The Grove also gets a pass since it's not made from anything but rather grown in a forest. I suppose you could cut the ruins of Orr some slack with a lazy deus ex machina excuse that its mines were sunk along with everything else. At launch, Lion's Arch was built from stuff that they would have had easy access to as a port city: decommissioned ships were pulled out of the water and repurposed as buildings. But for LA as it exists now, where did Evon Gnashblade actually source all that concrete and stone?

At least in PoF and later, you see more resource extraction being depicted (Canthan jade mining was also featured in GW1). Somewhere in semi-central Tyria, there simply have to be at least a few big mines and quarries that aren't wholly owned and operated by either Skritt, bandits or Dredge.

I will now resume my suspension of disbelief. 🤣

A land where the black lions roam free

[Kalavier.1097]

On 7/22/2023 at 10:49 AM, Teknomancer.4895 said:

 

Maybe Out West is where all the player-race quarries and mines are. The materials the huge Central Tyrian cities are built from had to come from somewhere and I can only think of one or two smallish playable areas where player races (or Asuran golems) are actually shown extracting materials.

 

There are a number of mines being shown, and Ebonhawke runes a massive quarry and is explicitly stated to be exporting stone to other cities.

[Danikat.8537]

I started Guild Wars with Prophecies, so my first character appeared in Tyria in what's now the Plains of Ashford and I've been wondering about what's west of Ascalon ever since I found out the story took us east. I assume there are people in Tyria who know, as far as I'm aware it's no harder to go that way than in any other direction, it just hasn't come up within the story but I'd love to find out what's out that way.

[Nosrorav.4703]

On 7/22/2023 at 10:49 AM, Teknomancer.4895 said:

Maybe Out West is where all the player-race quarries and mines are. The materials the huge Central Tyrian cities are built from had to come from somewhere and I can only think of one or two smallish playable areas where player races (or Asuran golems) are actually shown extracting materials.

I know they're not grandiose but we do see mines throughout core. Quarryside, Blackwing Excavation, Bloodcliff Quarry, Scourgejaw's Vault, and Pig Iron Mine to name but a few. We see many abandoned mines too, like Demongrub Pits. Blackwing, Bloodcliff, and Pig Iron are honestly pretty kitten large and can easily explain most human and charr mining (especially since it's established charr are big on recycling things as shown in Plains of Ashford).

And keeping in mind that scale isn't 1:1, it goes to reason there are mines here and there we don't see, while these we do are much, much bigger lorewise than we can tell from gameplay.

[Danikat.8537]

13 hours ago, Nosrorav.4703 said:

And keeping in mind that scale isn't 1:1, it goes to reason there are mines here and there we don't see, while these we do are much, much bigger lorewise than we can tell from gameplay.

That's a good point. I'm not sure if it's the official name but I've heard it called 'conservation of detail'. The entire of Tyria is much smaller than it would realistically be (you can walk from Ebonhawk to Rata Sum in under 12 hours) and games tend to prioritise areas which will be interesting for players which in this case means wilderness regions. All the farms in the game would be barely big enough for subsistence farming providing for just the people who live and work on them, but we're supposed to believe they also supply nearby towns and cities. They're basically stand-ins for much, much larger tracts of farmland which aren't included because they'd be very boring for players. I think it's the same with other industries, including mining, as well.

There's other discrepancies too, for example one mine in Lornar's Pass is apparently owned and operated by the Black Lion Company and is the original source of gems, but for obvious reasons you can't dig up any gems there (at least not the currency, you might find the crafting material ones), you'll only be able to use the same ore nodes you'd find elsewhere in the map.

[EdwinLi.1284]

Well they have left Doern Velazquez open to the concept of civilizations beyond the known ones we have seen only in GW1 and GW2 so far. However, he maybe forgotten at this point since we have not seen him since Season 2.

[Kalavier.1097]

16 hours ago, Danikat.8537 said:

That's a good point. I'm not sure if it's the official name but I've heard it called 'conservation of detail'. The entire of Tyria is much smaller than it would realistically be (you can walk from Ebonhawk to Rata Sum in under 12 hours) and games tend to prioritise areas which will be interesting for players which in this case means wilderness regions. All the farms in the game would be barely big enough for subsistence farming providing for just the people who live and work on them, but we're supposed to believe they also supply nearby towns and cities. They're basically stand-ins for much, much larger tracts of farmland which aren't included because they'd be very boring for players. I think it's the same with other industries, including mining, as well.

There's other discrepancies too, for example one mine in Lornar's Pass is apparently owned and operated by the Black Lion Company and is the original source of gems, but for obvious reasons you can't dig up any gems there (at least not the currency, you might find the crafting material ones), you'll only be able to use the same ore nodes you'd find elsewhere in the map.

We do have travel time from Ebonhawke to Ascalon city in the novels, with that being on foot (Not Horseback or other mounts/caravans) and at a hard pace. There is also this guy in Gendarren fields, though it's unclear where he is coming from https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Jogeirr Who mentions that due to packing in as much travel as he could every day, he's half a week early to deliver something to Vigil keep.

Another thing of course is that in terms of gameplay vs lore in that regard is (Unsure if you meant walking speed or just being on foot from Rata Sum to ebonhawke) is rest and eating/bathroom breaks/etc. You would have to take breaks to rest your body and eat, which makes travel time longer as well.

[Danikat.8537]

15 hours ago, EdwinLi.1284 said:

Well they have left Doern Velazquez open to the concept of civilizations beyond the known ones we have seen only in GW1 and GW2 so far. However, he maybe forgotten at this point since we have not seen him since Season 2.

I'd like to think SotO shows that Anet don't actually forget about characters and story threads - considering it's finally addressing the longest running mystery in the series and bringing Zojja back. There's a lot of characters in this game and they can't all make regular appearences in all the stories so the fact that someone hasn't been seen for a while doesn't mean they've been forgotten or they're never coming back, it just means they don't have a role in the story Anet currently wants to tell.

The new article makes it sound like they've known what the Wizard's Tower is about for a long time and they've been looking for the best way to tell that story within the game. I suspect the same is true with other mysteries like where Doern is from, where Malyck's Tree is, and possibly what's west of Ascalon.

[EdwinLi.1284]

16 hours ago, Danikat.8537 said:

I'd like to think SotO shows that Anet don't actually forget about characters and story threads - considering it's finally addressing the longest running mystery in the series and bringing Zojja back. There's a lot of characters in this game and they can't all make regular appearences in all the stories so the fact that someone hasn't been seen for a while doesn't mean they've been forgotten or they're never coming back, it just means they don't have a role in the story Anet currently wants to tell.

The new article makes it sound like they've known what the Wizard's Tower is about for a long time and they've been looking for the best way to tell that story within the game. I suspect the same is true with other mysteries like where Doern is from, where Malyck's Tree is, and possibly what's west of Ascalon.

They do forget characters. Back in early days of icebrood saga, a lot of people was still asking about Laranthier of the Wild's condition and why he has been MIA. In response to this constant question, they added the small detail of NPCs in the first chapter of Icebrood saga explaining that Laranthier been on a leave of absence to take care of the Pale Tree and admitted they do tend to forget about certain characters for a time due to how many characters they added into the storyline making a bit difficult to keep up with everyone of them. 

Edited July 28, 2023 by EdwinLi.1284

[Kalavier.1097]

13 hours ago, EdwinLi.1284 said:

They do forget characters. Back in early days of icebrood saga, a lot of people was still asking about Laranthier of the Wild's condition and why he has been MIA. In response to this constant question, they added the small detail of NPCs in the first chapter of Icebrood saga explaining that Laranthier been on a leave of absence to take care of the Pale Tree and admitted they do tend to forget about certain characters for a time due to how many characters they added into the storyline making a bit difficult to keep up with everyone of them. 

Gw2 doesn't tend to get heavily involved in things that are not directly related to the current plot, and sometimes people get overly annoyed and vocal about that. When we are prowling around the far shiverpeaks, we don't know what's going on in Kourna. When we are deep in the jungle, we don't know the affairs of Ascalon.

Not every character goes to every location, and sometimes people forget that detail.

[anninke.7469]

On 7/28/2023 at 6:17 PM, Kalavier.1097 said:

Gw2 doesn't tend to get heavily involved in things that are not directly related to the current plot, and sometimes people get overly annoyed and vocal about that. When we are prowling around the far shiverpeaks, we don't know what's going on in Kourna. When we are deep in the jungle, we don't know the affairs of Ascalon.

Not every character goes to every location, and sometimes people forget that detail.

If we're dealing with a major Vigil crisis, asking about the order's highest ranking officer is quite logical though...

Edited July 29, 2023 by anninke.7469
typos

[Kalavier.1097]

1 hour ago, anninke.7469 said:

If we're dealing with a major Vigil crisis, asking about the order's highest ranking officer is quite logical though...

There is no vigil crisis until after we reach Jora's Keep, and Jora's keep has the letter.

There was no point when people would ask about Laranthir that didn't include his letter of absence, as the vigil crisis didn't occur until the same episode/instance that said exactly where he was.

[Nosrorav.4703]

On 7/27/2023 at 6:14 AM, Danikat.8537 said:

I'd like to think SotO shows that Anet don't actually forget about characters and story threads - considering it's finally addressing the longest running mystery in the series and bringing Zojja back. There's a lot of characters in this game and they can't all make regular appearences in all the stories so the fact that someone hasn't been seen for a while doesn't mean they've been forgotten or they're never coming back, it just means they don't have a role in the story Anet currently wants to tell.

The new article makes it sound like they've known what the Wizard's Tower is about for a long time and they've been looking for the best way to tell that story within the game. I suspect the same is true with other mysteries like where Doern is from, where Malyck's Tree is, and possibly what's west of Ascalon.

Rather than "ANet doesn't forget" SotO is more an excersize of Anet going "okay, let's dig through and look up all the dangling plothooks and fan favorite characters". I mean, Zojja is hard for them to forget when people are constantly asking about her, but characters players don't ask about - like Laranthir as @EdwinLi.1284 pointed out with IBS - they can and sometimes do forget about.

For example, in Season 2, Morning of the Zephyrites dies. She's alive and well, same exact model and name, in Festival of the Four Winds. Medina ended up pointing this out in a post-hoc commentary and basically said "whoops". Eitel the Unlovable, the norn bodyguard that shows up in Noble Ledges in HoT, had died in the human personal story, too... Something they clearly forgot about - "whoops".
Primordus' design is the same, btw. During the Guild Chat talks for Flashpoint, they mentioned that it was never said that the statue seen in GW1 was Primordus and thus they were free to redesign it however they wanted, but afterwards players presented statements by devs and lore that the statue was Primordus, and in IBS they talked about Primordus' mutations and made reference that the statue was indeed Primordus later on, such as in the 20th Anniversary Complete Art of Guild Wars book by Indigo.

ANet are flawed and make mistakes, and to think they remember all the plot threads and characters both major and minor is unrealistic.

Doesn't mean they can't go diving through the wiki for characters though... They just need to make sure the character hasn't died before.

1 hour ago, Kalavier.1097 said:

There is no vigil crisis until after we reach Jora's Keep, and Jora's keep has the letter.

There was no point when people would ask about Laranthir that didn't include his letter of absence, as the vigil crisis didn't occur until the same episode/instance that said exactly where he was.

The letter is in Jora's Keep, yes, but it wasn't there during Whisper in the Dark (Episode 1). It was added with Shadow in the Ice (Episode 2) after people were asking about Laranthir and why Jhavi was replacing Almorra when Laranthir is second-in-command of the Vigil. if you go to the letter's wiki page, it's even part of Shadow in the Ice achievements.
You say there was no point people would ask about Laranthir that didn't include his letter but this is false. Episode 1 was released November 19, 2019; Episode 2 was released January 28, 2020. Two months people asked.
But basically ArenaNet forgot that Laranthir was second-in-command of the Vigil, put Jhavi in that position for the IBS plot, and when people brought it up after Episode 1, they made this letter and released it in Episode 2.

(Also why the heck is the leader of the Vigil submitting a recommendation for leave of absence from the Vigil? She's the leader!)

Similar thing happened with the Episode 2 norn "Priest" NPCs near the Lost Spirits' shrine - new devs called them priests, players pointed out norn have shamans not priests, and all but one has since been renamed properly (I'm guessing the one missed was simply an oversight by the fixer).

[Poormany.4507]

On 7/27/2023 at 6:14 AM, Danikat.8537 said:

The new article makes it sound like they've known what the Wizard's Tower is about for a long time and they've been looking for the best way to tell that story within the game. I suspect the same is true with other mysteries like where Doern is from, where Malyck's Tree is, and possibly what's west of Ascalon.

From the last article:

Beyond that, Tyria has a lot of healing to do. The sylvari need to recover from the events of Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns; the charr and norn are on the mend following The Icebrood Saga. Cantha has been revealed to the world. Heck, the Pact needs a new purpose. And we’re about to meet the Astral Ward. Tyria’s at a turning point.

This makes it seem like Malyck's story is probably already planned soon, if not the next story after SotO, with possible plans for more Charr/Norn content afterwards. I'm guessing the Charr content will possibly take place in East Ascalon, as that would be the most logical place to see the aftereffects of the Charr Civil War (after all, it's where the other Citadels are at.) The Norn content may quite possibly be the further in the North Shiverpeaks, as there have been mentions in game about Norn parties trying to reclaim the land after Jormag's death. They could also tie in the mysterious Dredge tunnel from the Shiverpeaks to Cantha that's yet to be explored.

Edited July 30, 2023 by Poormany.4507

[ugrakarma.9416]

On 7/27/2023 at 7:14 AM, Danikat.8537 said:

I'd like to think SotO shows that Anet don't actually forget about characters and story threads - considering it's finally addressing the longest running mystery in the series and bringing Zojja back. There's a lot of characters in this game and they can't all make regular appearences in all the stories so the fact that someone hasn't been seen for a while doesn't mean they've been forgotten or they're never coming back, it just means they don't have a role in the story Anet currently wants to tell.

The new article makes it sound like they've known what the Wizard's Tower is about for a long time and they've been looking for the best way to tell that story within the game. I suspect the same is true with other mysteries like where Doern is from, where Malyck's Tree is, and possibly what's west of Ascalon.

i welcomed very much  these lines of news article:

Quote

We’ve only explored a small portion of Tyria to date—and even then, a great deal of the world we do know has vastly changed over the events of the last eleven real-world years. We want to dig into that with more focused, self-contained stories, and we hope to bring each of these into the limelight as we see Tyria react and unravel to a future without chaos (well, without dragon-centric chaos). But before we slow things down and explore modern Tyria, we opted for something a little more mysterious to mark the beginning of this new arc.