[SPOILER DISCUSSION WARNING] The new Main Organization for Commander/Wayfinder

[EdwinLi.1284]

SPOILER below. You are warned and cannot complain after passing this line.


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So with the ending establishing the Astral Ward as the Commander's new organization he/she will be following. What is your opinion about it and where do you think this can lead to next?

In my opinion, it is a expected result to give the Commander/Wayfinder a place to provide him/her goals. He/she was quite lost after the Dragon War ended and did not know what to do but now he/she has found his/her path in life as a member of the Astral Ward.

Story wsie, so far they establish a few things in advance story wise being the Astral Ward needing to reveal themselves to Tyria soon due to the current events did not go unnoticed in Tyria. A letter to Livia found in the ending also hints at something going on in Kryta as well that require her to return there. Then there is Zojja now going to travel the Mist which can lead to more Mist related stories or side stories later. Not to mention they been hinting at the Good/Neutral Mursaat city through side lores in the expansion storyline so that is open as potential future storyline as well.

Edited May 21 by EdwinLi.1284

[Randulf.7614]

The thread potential that most stands across the whole expac is looking for Waiting Sorrow. Maybe with Dagda. The one other clue I picked up on was that other things are now looing at Tyria "ready to bite". So if we are keeping the Astral Ward theme going, then maybe something else from The Mists is going to appear. Or a rogue fractal from an alternate timeline has more severe consequences.

I kind of like the idea of keeping the Ward secreat and thus separate for now. They can revisit the idea of being part of an Order and this time have specific mini missions we do. Like the rifts, but more varied. The cast is fairly big and it's not really necessary to merge all these characters.

[Sajuuk Khar.1509]

3 hours ago, EdwinLi.1284 said:

So with the ending establishing the Astral Ward as the Commander's new organization he/she will be following. What is your opinion about it and where do you think this can lead to next?

In my opinion, it is a expected result to give the Commander/Wayfinder a place to provide him/her goals. He/she was quite lost after the Dragon War ended and did not know what to do but now he/she has found his/her path in life as a member of the Astral Ward.

Story wsie, so far they establish a few things in advance story wise being the Astral Ward needing to reveal themselves to Tyria soon due to the current events did not go unnoticed in Tyria. A letter to Livia found in the ending also hints at something going on in Kryta as well that require her to return there. Then there is Zojja now going to travel the Mist which can lead to more Mist related stories or side stories later. Not to mention they been hinting at the Good/Neutral Mursaat city through side lores in the expansion storyline so that is open as potential future storyline as well.

The ending doesn't really establish that the commander will be following the Astral Ward going forward. These new xpacks are supposed to be self contained stories, the story is over. The Commander has all of ZERO reason to keep working with the Astral Ward, who are focused mainly on the Kryptis issue.

As for where too next... SoTO makes numerous mentions of the Mursaat, and Janthir. The Eye of Janthir shows up during the Eparch fight, and we find a note from Anise telling Livia to return to Divinity's Reach. The image Anet gave for the next xpack was called "delta bog" or something like that, and the only delta on the map is the one north of Kryta, near the Isles of Janthir.

I'm betting the next xpack is Janthir focused.

[DanAlcedo.3281]

Makes sense from a voice actor standpoint. 

No need to replace them and/or their roles if they stick around for maybe 2-3 expansions. 

Also no new player hub needed etc. There is enough space in the tower left to add things like vendors. 

 

 

[maxwelgm.4315]

When Sun's Refuge was added and then dropped in LW4 people were pretty upset that it wouldn't become a proper player hub even after many achievements to revitalize and add NPCs to it, so I'm guessing at least from a gameplay standpoint they might stick to the Wizard's Tower. Consider especially that the Wizard's Tower can move so they can have different instances on the map of the same Tower if they so wanted to bring it closer to the following expansions.

[Invidia.9074]

There is a big hint, that was noticed on reddit (I missed it myself).

There is an Eye of Janthir observing our fight with Eparch, and disappears shortly after it. And apparently Mursaat statue in Mabon's quarters in the Wizard Tower is now glowing (will verify later). I think this gives us a compelling hint of where we are going next.

[EdwinLi.1284]

14 hours ago, Sajuuk Khar.1509 said:

The ending doesn't really establish that the commander will be following the Astral Ward going forward. These new xpacks are supposed to be self contained stories, the story is over. The Commander has all of ZERO reason to keep working with the Astral Ward, who are focused mainly on the Kryptis issue.

As for where too next... SoTO makes numerous mentions of the Mursaat, and Janthir. The Eye of Janthir shows up during the Eparch fight, and we find a note from Anise telling Livia to return to Divinity's Reach. The image Anet gave for the next xpack was called "delta bog" or something like that, and the only delta on the map is the one north of Kryta, near the Isles of Janthir.

I'm betting the next xpack is Janthir focused.

They do not focus only on Kryptis issues and the commander mentions considering staying with the Astral Ward going forward when talking to Zojja about what they are going to do now in Epilogue.

We see this during the Unlock Wizard Tower meta as it shows the other issues they deal with being they protect Tyria from other invading forces from the Mists and things on Tyria that may affect the Mists in ways that endanger Tyria. The Shadow Army had attempted to invade before with the Ward been holding them back each time and they been keeping the Aetherblades from damaging the fabric of reality with strike squads in secret. They have been basically the secret army that protect Tyria from the shadows in the current cycle era keep any type of Mist related threats from becoming noticeable even before Kryptis became a major focus for them due to Eparch.

Also, they still follow a set timeline so even if players do not play a specific expansion, it will still be considered canon that it did happen within the time frame it happend in the timeline. 

As for the possible Janthir expansion, considering the huge hints about the Good/Neutral Mursaat faction with notes since the beginning and their city located somewhere in Tyria or the Mist and other aspects showing up such as the Eye of Janthir. It does look like the next expansion is probably focus on the Good Mursaat/Neutral faction. Considering Zojja's plan to explore the mist, we may run into her again in the next expansion if the Mursaat City is in the Mist. If the note about the Mursaat city being located in the Realm of Dreams (which the Commander now has access to thanks to events of SotO) is right then we know part of our next stop.

If the hints from the notes involving the Mursaat maybe Mist beings in origin, the Astral Wards may get involved again since their job is to protect Tyria from Mist related threats. However, at the sametime they may no be able to hide anymore since current events has made people more aware about them due to the Krytis invasion, Kryta looks like may get involved in the next expansion, and if whatever is going on with the Good/Neutral Mursaat faction is related to their potential Mist origins, then they will not stand by and let it threaten Tyria. 

As for Wizard's Tower, they probably just give us a story instance version of it if they ever need the Commander/Wayfinder to go back to it for any story related things or just give players direct access to it if they plan for it to be a mobile main hub for future expansions. The Kryptis storyline is over but now a new storyline is appearing from what we been hinted at that takes place after events of SotO.

Edited May 22 by EdwinLi.1284

[mandala.8507]

11 hours ago, Sajuuk Khar.1509 said:

The ending doesn't really establish that the commander will be following the Astral Ward going forward. These new xpacks are supposed to be self contained stories, the story is over. The Commander has all of ZERO reason to keep working with the Astral Ward, who are focused mainly on the Kryptis issue.

I think there's going to be more connectivity than some of the studio's comments about the narrative moving forward implied.

First off, I think the reason they even brought up the idea of "self-contained" story arcs was because they were shifting away from the elder dragon story and wanted to assure players that they weren't going to spin up a narrative that took another 10 years to resolve. This doesn't necessarily mean that the story will be entirely contained between mini-expansions, just that it won't take a decade to pay off.

Additionally, there seem to be a great deal of connective threads running from SotO into the next expansion, and this does involve characters from the Ward and Wizard's Court, imo. I think the next story would benefit greatly from assembling a mix of SotO characters and some of our Tyrian staple characters to allow them room to shore up the world building and save time on character exposition.

12 hours ago, Sajuuk Khar.1509 said:

I'm betting the next xpack is Janthir focused.

I think this isn't even something we should consider to be speculative, but practically confirmed. There's absolutely zero reason to bring back the eye of Janthir if we aren't going there.

The real speculation then becomes the what and why of the narrative that will take place in the Isles of Janthir.

[EdwinLi.1284]

10 hours ago, mandala.8507 said:

 

I think this isn't even something we should consider to be speculative, but practically confirmed. There's absolutely zero reason to bring back the eye of Janthir if we aren't going there.

The real speculation then becomes the what and why of the narrative that will take place in the Isles of Janthir.

There is also something I notice with this expansion teasing at being the Shadow Army. In the Unlock Wizard tower meta, one of the most recent events in Lyr's life set during GW2 is that he took part in a battle to prevent a Shadow Army invasion and even asked them if their "Master" sent them. 

It is possible something is happening in the Mist involving the Shadow Army and maybe Menzies return. 

Considering the Mursaat origin being revealed to be Mist related and this recent event of the Shadow Army becoming more active with invading Tyria, I won't be surprised if the antagonist in the next expansion is the Shadow Army and maybe Menzies while the Good/Neutral Mursaat (and maybe the Astral Ward, Kryta, and some other returning characters) as our allies.

Edited May 22 by EdwinLi.1284

[mandala.8507]

11 hours ago, EdwinLi.1284 said:

There is also something I notice with this expansion teasing at being the Shadow Army. In the Unlock Wizard tower meta, one of the most recent events in Lyr's life set during GW2 is that he took part in a battle to prevent a Shadow Army invasion and even asked them if their "Master" sent them. 

It is possible something is happening in the Mist involving the Shadow Army and maybe Menzies return. 

Considering the Mursaat origin being revealed to be Mist related and this recent event of the Shadow Army becoming more active with invading Tyria, I won't be surprised if the antagonist in the next expansion is the Shadow Army and maybe Menzies while the Good/Neutral Mursaat (and maybe the Astral Ward, Kryta, and some other returning characters) as our allies.

I'm not sure if I'd be stoked to have Mursaat and Menzies on the same plate next expansion. I think SotO has proven that these mini-expansions need to be ultra-focused and specific in what they choose to tackle plot-wise. Too many things going on at once necessitates shallow storytelling because they just have so little time to flesh each individual aspect out. If the end of the special category of the Wizard's Vault in late August is to be trusted, it means they will be dropping the next expac exactly a year after SotO launched, which is pretty crazy to think about.

I imagine writing for a game like GW2 becomes exponentially harder on a tight release schedule, because videogame writing is nothing like writing independently. The narrative team doesn't just get to sit there for months perfectly plotting out the narrative while everyone else waits around for them twiddling their thumbs. They have to rapidly nail down a skeleton narrative to give direction to the rest of the studio, then design their own detailed narrative content while also writing flexibly to fit the work from other departments into their world-building and lore that might not have been exactly what they wanted or storyboarded initially.

A HUGE pet peeve of mine is when players critique the writing and world-building as if the narrative team is just a writers room with total creative control. I guarantee that on a 365 day development cycle, they have to be insanely flexible and accommodating to the other departments and essentially write around the work others are doing so that everyone else can have as much time as possible to actually make a good game for their story to sit within.

So yeah, I hope we don't tackle Menzies on top of the Mursaat next expansion.

However, I do think there is some credence to be given to the significance of the presence of the shadow army faction in both SotO (through Lyhr's memory) and Gyala, where certain abyssal creatures were present alongside the Kryptis Oni. In Dragonfall, a Sylvari describes the shadow army as essentially "elemental darkness", which I think ties (at least loosely) into some of the Void lore.

A fun fact about the Eparch fight maybe people didn't notice, but when we use the Heart of the Obscure on him, there is a void effect that spills from him. This was originally also present in our fight with Asthenes, who had manifested on Tyria through his connection to Mabon, but was for some reason removed in later patches. I had initially surmised that this void effect was a relic from early development when the Kryptis story had been a bit more connected to Void lore that they wrote away from later on, or that it was just a placeholder effect they forgot to take off. This could still be true of the effect on Eparch (it just being a placeholder they forgot to get rid of), but it could also be that they wanted these themes of the Abyss, the Void, and the Mursaat to build up tangentially to the Kryptis story to lead into this next expansion.

But maybe that's just me hard-coping because I want them to revisit that deeper world building.

Eparch does say a curious line though in the Lonely Tower Fractal. He says, "You refuse to harness its power, but you can feel it. I know you can, Isagarren." What is the "it" being referred to here? And does it have something to do with the Mursaat or the Void?

Questions...questions, and not enough answers.

[Dean Calaway.9718]

For a start at the beginning of Season 3 Almora Soulkeeper came to us concerned the Pack was falling apart... We told her too bad and we are gonna go our own way to do our own thing now and she told us no problem and we can keep the title because it's a life time title i.e. writers needed that as a place holder for dialog.

Fast forward to SotO and at the first time we find a little trouble we tell the new people we just meet we can have a fleet of airships there in a couple of hours... what... ? Since when do we have that pull still... if ever... as our character even on the high day of the pack was just bossed around everywhere, because plot.

Not to mention I thought we were suppose to be moving away from the whole world ending story lines, why are we teaming up with the Astral Ward to be another bossed around grunt? I get the Commander is suppose to be mostly a blank character for players to project, but it's not like we get a choice in anything, I would have told Taimi to shut up and given the Dragon Lab to Phlunt. If we're not getting any choice anyway then at least make the commander more interesting by having our character have concrete self interested goals.

[Trejgon.9367]

2 hours ago, Dean Calaway.9718 said:

For a start at the beginning of Season 3 Almora Soulkeeper came to us concerned the Pack was falling apart... We told her too bad and we are gonna go our own way to do our own thing now and she told us no problem and we can keep the title because it's a life time title i.e. writers needed that as a place holder for dialog.

It is not that pact was activelly falling apart, but they needed a new treahearne to do boring paperwork, and commander was most obvious candidate. But Commander is not the fellow with affinity to sitting on their butt and pushing papers running logistics of big orgs like that. Additionally, Pact have received some heavy losses in preceeding HoT - managed to get ontop ultimatelly, but some side stories around that period went as far as proclaiming that Pact lost worldwide relevance after airfleet got destroyed by Mordremoth. Got proven wrong with passage of time.

2 hours ago, Dean Calaway.9718 said:

Fast forward to SotO and at the first time we find a little trouble we tell the new people we just meet we can have a fleet of airships there in a couple of hours... what... ? Since when do we have that pull still... if ever...

There are many instances of commander calling in Pact fleet in between start of LWS3 and SotO. Commander is on good terms with new pact marshal - Logan Thackeray, whom got officially recognized as such in LWS4. We got some Pact presence in kourna campaign. We got Pact assets involved in Jahai bluffs against death-branded shatterer, continued using pact assets during all or nothing episode, and Dragonfall Meta is Pact forces alongside with sunspears and crystal bloom - including Pact airships securing the perimeter around the map.

Commander called in Pact Airfleet to the battle of the Jade Sea, which would be most recent example of "crap is going down, lemme call Logan we need Pact Fleet here."

As for "if ever" argument, for some scope measure - The first instance where Pact deployed in response to Commander signaling that pact needs to deploy was during silverwastes campaign - which started after Commander started raising awareness about Mordremoth.

[Kalavier.1097]

2 hours ago, Dean Calaway.9718 said:

For a start at the beginning of Season 3 Almora Soulkeeper came to us concerned the Pack was falling apart... We told her too bad and we are gonna go our own way to do our own thing now and she told us no problem and we can keep the title because it's a life time title i.e. writers needed that as a place holder for dialog.

Fast forward to SotO and at the first time we find a little trouble we tell the new people we just meet we can have a fleet of airships there in a couple of hours... what... ? Since when do we have that pull still... if ever... as our character even on the high day of the pack was just bossed around everywhere, because plot.

 

I think you got some details mixed up here.

Almorra approached the commander with the promotion, and role, of Marshall, aka the main leader of the allied Pact forces. The role was empty since Trahearne died, and they needed a new leader. So they had decided to offer the job to the Commander, being a well-known and experienced plus trusted figure. The Pact was never in fear of falling apart in danger of any sorts. They did have a new part of the job description which was the Marshall would mostly stay in LA, directing forces from the rear instead of the front for safety. The Commander declined the promotion, wanting to be more of a free agent. They retained the Pact title and position, just were allowed go do their own thing.

We've always had the pull to call in the Pact since we became Commander, it's just the Commander has rarely done so. We call in the Pact air-fleet at the end of EoD to help deal with Soo-won, and they show up with extra airships not affiliated with the Pact as well. Not only Pull, but being personal friends of Logan means that if we contact him saying "Things are very, very bad and it's serious we need an army here." Logan can rally the Pact. The Commander doesn't cry wolf, if they call for aide they need it.

Wayfinders are hardly grunt, and we don't get bossed around that much? It's much more "Hey, we need help here!" and the Commander going to help.

[Dean Calaway.9718]

3 hours ago, Trejgon.9367 said:

Commander called in Pact Airfleet to the battle of the Jade Sea, which would be most recent example of "crap is going down, lemme call Logan we need Pact Fleet here."

You mean the same airships that take a week to reach Amnoon from Lion's Arch... ? Imagine getting to Cantha.

That was one long distance call.

[Konig Des Todes.2086]

5 hours ago, Dean Calaway.9718 said:

For a start at the beginning of Season 3 Almora Soulkeeper came to us concerned the Pack was falling apart... We told her too bad and we are gonna go our own way to do our own thing now and she told us no problem and we can keep the title because it's a life time title i.e. writers needed that as a place holder for dialog.

Fast forward to SotO and at the first time we find a little trouble we tell the new people we just meet we can have a fleet of airships there in a couple of hours... what... ? Since when do we have that pull still... if ever... as our character even on the high day of the pack was just bossed around everywhere, because plot.

On top of the mixed up details Kavalier point out, I think you missed the entire finale of Season 4 and End of Dragons, where the Commander and their allies call in the Pact's fleet of airships to take on Kralkatorrik / Dragonvoid. This is literally the same as what the Commander/Wayfinder offers in SotO.

The Commander is no longer part of the Pact, but they still have the respect and friendship of the Pact's leadership - particularly the new Pact Marshal, Logan Thackeray.

1 minute ago, Dean Calaway.9718 said:

You mean the same airships that take a week to reach Amnoon from Lion's Arch... ? Imagine getting to Cantha.

That was one long distance call.

They were on their way to Cantha already, the call to them didn't just happen at the start of the meta or anything. They also show up with Canach and Ivan among the fleet, who was already in Cantha and had technology for traveling through the Mists, like how the Commander got to Cantha in the first place.

And yeah, long distant calls became a thing while the Commander was knocked unconscious (or in the background of the EoD plot when Taimi was improving the communicators, somehow, at a distance) - remember Rytlock, Zafirah, and Braham calling us during the Dragonvoid outbreak in The Only One finale?

[Dean Calaway.9718]

3 hours ago, Kalavier.1097 said:

The Pact was never in fear of falling apart in danger of any sorts. 

 

3 hours ago, Trejgon.9367 said:

It is not that pact was activelly falling apart

General Almorra Soulkeeper: The Marshal rank is...uh...vacant. And we want you to fill it.

The Commander: This is an honor.

General Almorra Soulkeeper: I'm glad you view it in that light. The Pact is hanging on by a thread.

[Kalavier.1097]

34 minutes ago, Dean Calaway.9718 said:

 

General Almorra Soulkeeper: The Marshal rank is...uh...vacant. And we want you to fill it.

The Commander: This is an honor.

General Almorra Soulkeeper: I'm glad you view it in that light. The Pact is hanging on by a thread.

The Pact was recovering from having a huge chunk of it's forces and materials wiped out in a day and having just emerged from a brutal 40 day campaign in the jungle.

It wasn't falling apart, it was rebuilding.

[Dean Calaway.9718]

Dude, I'm hanging on by a thread...

Bro I'm so glad you're rebuilding!

[Kalavier.1097]

22 minutes ago, Dean Calaway.9718 said:

Dude, I'm hanging on by a thread...

Bro I'm so glad you're rebuilding!

You understand there is such a thing as "Context" right?

[Konig Des Todes.2086]

2 hours ago, Dean Calaway.9718 said:

General Almorra Soulkeeper: The Marshal rank is...uh...vacant. And we want you to fill it.

The Commander: This is an honor.

General Almorra Soulkeeper: I'm glad you view it in that light. The Pact is hanging on by a thread.

It's called being dramatic, even Almorra isn't immune to such writing.

It's like when people say Mordremoth "is the entire jungle" when he, in fact, isn't - all the trees and flowers are not part of Mordremoth, merely the wriggling vines you can see moving beneath the broken ground. When Canach says "we've been walking on Mordremoth's back this entire time", we weren't literally walking on a dragon's back.

The Pact had almost a full year to recover by that point, and weren't exactly about to completely fall apart as it had several leaders besides Marshal calliing the shots. If they were able to spend a full year to recover and still were about to fall apart, then they would not have had an army ready to assist by LWS4E4.

[EdwinLi.1284]

2 hours ago, Konig Des Todes.2086 said:

It's called being dramatic, even Almorra isn't immune to such writing.

It's like when people say Mordremoth "is the entire jungle" when he, in fact, isn't - all the trees and flowers are not part of Mordremoth, merely the wriggling vines you can see moving beneath the broken ground. When Canach says "we've been walking on Mordremoth's back this entire time", we weren't literally walking on a dragon's back.

The Pact had almost a full year to recover by that point, and weren't exactly about to completely fall apart as it had several leaders besides Marshal calliing the shots. If they were able to spend a full year to recover and still were about to fall apart, then they would not have had an army ready to assist by LWS4E4.

Not to mention in current time the Pact is doing just fine. It is only a matter of providing a new purpose for the organization now with Logan working things out. 

How this progress is just a matter of when will they reveal what the Pact new purpose is as a organization. 

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

Now back to the topic....

Looks like a decent amount of the Astral Ward members are going to return in the next expansion since they appear to be the ones helping with Titan containment during the early part of the storyline. Not to mention they already establish some outposts in the region just incase this scenario finally happened. 

I wonder how the returning characters are going to react to Commander's journey in SotO since he/she is going need to explain it to them due to how they were probably wondering why the Commander vanished off the face of Tyria for weeks without contacting anyone. Not to mention what became of Zojja since Taimi and the surviving members of Destiny's edge were probably worried about her. Not to mention the new title Wayfinder.

Rytlock is probably going to be a bit mad the Commander did not ask him to help since last time we saw him, he ask the Commander to call on him because he prefer fighting over the stuff he has to deal with in his Office.

Edited June 8 by EdwinLi.1284

[draxynnic.3719]

8 hours ago, Kalavier.1097 said:

I think you got some details mixed up here.

Almorra approached the commander with the promotion, and role, of Marshall, aka the main leader of the allied Pact forces. The role was empty since Trahearne died, and they needed a new leader. So they had decided to offer the job to the Commander, being a well-known and experienced plus trusted figure. The Pact was never in fear of falling apart in danger of any sorts. They did have a new part of the job description which was the Marshall would mostly stay in LA, directing forces from the rear instead of the front for safety. The Commander declined the promotion, wanting to be more of a free agent. They retained the Pact title and position, just were allowed go do their own thing.

We've always had the pull to call in the Pact since we became Commander, it's just the Commander has rarely done so. We call in the Pact air-fleet at the end of EoD to help deal with Soo-won, and they show up with extra airships not affiliated with the Pact as well. Not only Pull, but being personal friends of Logan means that if we contact him saying "Things are very, very bad and it's serious we need an army here." Logan can rally the Pact. The Commander doesn't cry wolf, if they call for aide they need it.

Wayfinders are hardly grunt, and we don't get bossed around that much? It's much more "Hey, we need help here!" and the Commander going to help.

The amusing thing is that after all that, by the end of Season 4, Logan is leading from the front more than Trahearne did (Trahearne in Orr typically only left Fort Trinity when he thought his expertise was specifically needed, and in the Maguuma campaign, he probably thought that being on the airship was safe enough).

Which implies one of four things:

1) The Pact assumed they wouldn't have to tell Logan to stick to a desk due to his injuries, and didn't consider what he'd do if/when he recovered.

2) After what happened with the Commander, the Pact leadership realised the futility of recruiting someone who's known for their fighting abilities and then telling them they're not allowed to fight.

3) Logan changed the policy after entering office.

4) Logan pulled a "better to ask forgiveness than permission" and nobody had both the ability and the inclination to stop him.

And yeah, I suspect that, whether formally a member or not, the Pact probably has an understanding that if the Dragonslayer is calling for help, it's serious. Things like the Guild Initiative suggest it might even be policy to have a few adventuring guilds loosely affiliated with the Pact that can identify and deal with relevant issues. The bigger question is how long the Pact is going to remain "the Pact" when the dragons are no longer an issue, find a new purpose, or devolve its resources back into the three orders.

[Kalavier.1097]

8 hours ago, draxynnic.3719 said:

The amusing thing is that after all that, by the end of Season 4, Logan is leading from the front more than Trahearne did (Trahearne in Orr typically only left Fort Trinity when he thought his expertise was specifically needed, and in the Maguuma campaign, he probably thought that being on the airship was safe enough).

Which implies one of four things:

1) The Pact assumed they wouldn't have to tell Logan to stick to a desk due to his injuries, and didn't consider what he'd do if/when he recovered.

2) After what happened with the Commander, the Pact leadership realised the futility of recruiting someone who's known for their fighting abilities and then telling them they're not allowed to fight.

3) Logan changed the policy after entering office.

4) Logan pulled a "better to ask forgiveness than permission" and nobody had both the ability and the inclination to stop him.

And yeah, I suspect that, whether formally a member or not, the Pact probably has an understanding that if the Dragonslayer is calling for help, it's serious. Things like the Guild Initiative suggest it might even be policy to have a few adventuring guilds loosely affiliated with the Pact that can identify and deal with relevant issues. The bigger question is how long the Pact is going to remain "the Pact" when the dragons are no longer an issue, find a new purpose, or devolve its resources back into the three orders.

Giving credit to Logan, he did stick to the airship mostly and I'd assume they worked on a much tighter security for fleets just to prevent another Verdant Brink from happening.

Though they could have also figured that during wartime, having the Marshall be among the troops is a moral boost and allows for much faster reaction time to situational changes, and since Logan is a highly experienced soldier and an officer, he doesn't suffer some of the problems that Trahearne faced being a scholar first, then Marshall. 

[Teknomancer.4895]

On 5/21/2024 at 6:33 PM, EdwinLi.1284 said:

Then there is Zojja now going to travel the Mist which can lead to more Mist related stories or side stories later

Considering that they lobotomized ascended Zojja and went on and on about how she'll mostly forget her previous life, I really doubt that she'll be much of a factor in anything going forward.

And in any case I don't expect further voiceover for her. I'm sure Felicia Day's price tag isn't cheap.

[EdwinLi.1284]

10 hours ago, draxynnic.3719 said:

 

And yeah, I suspect that, whether formally a member or not, the Pact probably has an understanding that if the Dragonslayer is calling for help, it's serious. Things like the Guild Initiative suggest it might even be policy to have a few adventuring guilds loosely affiliated with the Pact that can identify and deal with relevant issues. The bigger question is how long the Pact is going to remain "the Pact" when the dragons are no longer an issue, find a new purpose, or devolve its resources back into the three orders.

The three order part been handle first already but not much resources are going into the Pact now that the war is over. However, we may see a change in that once the Astral Ward reveal themselves to the public in the upcoming expansion since with the reveal of constant Mist related threats, the Pact may change their goals to aid the Astral Ward in this eternal struggle with defending Tyria from Mist related threats.

As for the orders, Vigil is becoming more of a Private Security organization with Lion Arch being the main client so they add to the defense with the Lionguard (though a certain someone still refuse to take up his mantle of General still but he is getting there very slowly *cough* Laranthir*cough*), Priory is more into expeditions and still looking into old ruins since with the Dragon War over there is a demand into exploring places they originally could not due to the Dragon War, and Whispers are doing their Whisper thing with Politics more since threats within politics are constant. 

Thinking about this, we may get some Priory and Whispers in the next expansion due to possible interests into exploring Janthir and the obvious involvement of Kryta's politics.

Edited June 9 by EdwinLi.1284