xuzhang9580: Well here's some help for the next stream when WP explores Bava Nisos more:

> The hidden jumping puzzle is in the southeast corner of the map and it's near a waypoint. There's Anthos dialogue, a nice enviroment and a book (though I won't recommend taking the book too seriously lol)

> The side story "Case 382: Titan Organ Smuggling" will unlock after getting the achievement "A Titanic Voyage", where you have to do every lane of the meta 1 time, making it 3 times in total to complete the achievement. Of course, if you're quick enough you can tag every lane and be done, but since the meta spawns every 2 hours, maybe doing the achievement as a prep before the stream is a good idea?

> There's another side story called "Work Hard for Now" and it's the achievement that will give you the new portal scroll. It's got a nice little story so maybe worth showing? Also not to spoil it, but after finishing the achievement you should enter Mythwright Gambit (the raid) and get the end of the litte story.

> There's a book in the Northern Hollow area that's only accessible during the mirror event there. Basically you have to navigate a puzzle of mursaat mirrors and find the correct route that leads to the book. If I remember correctly, the route is random, so good luck on that.

> There's a book in the Southern Bronchial Well area, can't remember exactly where though.

> There's also another book that I can't even remember where it is (I only remember it being high up) and it's not documented on the wiki (I think). It's a note Tatyanna wrote and it's really creepy.

Of course, these may not be all and there's possibly more books on the map that I haven't found yet, just thought some help may be useful :)

anonymepelle: Ending aside I think this expac was a huge improvement from SOTO. ANet did good in scaling down the stakes and the amount of characters in the story, but I still think they are thinking to large. I think these mini expacs needs to be even more focused than this. Consentrate on ONE primary topic and have the whole story revolve around that. Pick 1-3 characters and have the storyline entirely focused around their journey and character development. This expac still had to many characters. Isgaren, Poky, Stoic, Waiting sorrow Caithe, Countess Anise, mabon and Livia coming out of left field near the end. The story started out being about the Poky, Stoic and Waiting Sorrows relationship to one another and while it was about that it was focused and it was good. It should have been about that relationship all the way trough since that was the story they were setting up at the beginning. it turning in to a Mabon and Livia story at the end just makes the whole thing disjointed and confused. If you want it to be a Livia story then have it be that from the start. Have us go in to Janthir with Livia, let us get to know her and the relationship to the septer. Explain what the septer means to her. Have it be part of her character development troughout the expansion to give it up. When it suddenly just comes out of nowhere (yes the septer of ore is thematicly tied to what is going on, but these character moments are not set up and the story wasn't about Livia before the very end so narrativly this is out of nowhere) at the end like this we don't have any reason to care. Outside of it just being a lore point to check off. We don't have any emotional connection to the stakes.

ANet needs to figure out what is the 1 topic they will focus on for each expansion then figure out which 1-3 characters best fit to have character arcs that tie in to that topic, then focus the entire story on that. That doesn't mean we cant have other characters be in the story, they just have to be to the side. The story shouldn't focus on them.

GodDammitLeary: The letter from Lyhr doesn't specifically state he is going to the foundry, just that the Astral Ward perhaps would "focus" on it. That could literally just mean that they would delve into more research on it.

On the topic of Lyhr, interestingly, he had stopped a Shadow Army invasion at some point in the past, which was a nod to Menzies in SotO. So I do think something is definitely cooking in the background for Menzies for him to be referenced in both expacs.

trippingbears1016: oh god, he referenced my comment referencing my previous comment!

I gotta get out of here!

Kyimo: Just started the VOD and already laughing hard at that NPC's perfect timing.

WP "It's been a couple of days since we beat the story"

NPC "I don't like you"

ahh great timing.

23bcx: one note, with the end of season 4 the fear wasnt that GW2 was going to get shut down it was that Anet was going to get shut down. When season 4 was ending they didnt know if any more GW content would ever come out.

MD-ee2fq: I enjoyed janthir wilds too and way more compared to soto. I love the visuals and vibes of the maps. Sintri is in the top 5 of my favorite maps. Sadly the events are very lackluster and unfun.

The story of JW was an improvement but still a bit undercooked. Absolution especially feels unfinished.

graven2002: Other hints that Mabon was behind the Eye at the end of SotO.

"Mabon: You've done well, my friends. You corrected my mistake when I could not.

Mabon: And here I thought Eparch was your finest work to date..."

"Mabon: It's not yours that gives me pause. Though perhaps Eparch was correct on one notion: you and Isgarren bear some things in common. I trust you both to navigate them."

(Eparch hadn't met the PC until after Mabon had died.)

masdamondi: Hey wp.

Just another voice throwing my hat into the ring. I think Anet's biggest slip up is constantly introducing new characters while failing to really think about existing ones.

E.g. why include malice? What does she add? What would she be doing? What does she learn here? Why would the ash Imperator abandon her post and put herself at risk.

Who would fit better here? Efram is right there as you point out.

In ff14 when you finally find urianger in Shadowbringers, he has been figuring out the rules of this place. Worked out things only his character really can. Every Scion has their own journey or lesson and we love them for it.

I know the funding levels and scope are different but these things are important to endearing players to your cast.

Also I've been playing gw2 since beta, but I've jumped ship at this point, I think it's because I enjoying magic having rules and stakes. The heart of the obscure being a nebulous everything solver makes me lose all interest because I know if the commander hits any kind of obstacle it will usually solve it, and if it doesn't, why not at this point? What can that thing not do?

azureavocado8463: Hey WP, so maybe I'm reading too deep into this but during the speech by Queen Jennah she says "Queen Jennah: Change. Productivity. Healing. Tyria.

Queen Jennah: There are challenging days ahead of us; we are not ignorant. As long as there is ground beneath our feet, there will be conflict.

Queen Jennah: But we are more prepared to face that conflict when we care for each other.

Queen Jennah: Now, raise a glass to your neighbor.

Queen Jennah: To Tyria. And the brightest of futures."

For some reason when I heard this for the first time it feels like anet was talking to me, not queen jenna. Sometimes I feel like anet uses the npcs to speak to us.

Did anyone else feel this way during the queen jenna speech?

_Banjo_: from my understanding, Mabon essentially tied part of his soul to the gate. So I guess this is one of these "horcruxes", therefore when he died, he couldn't fully move on to the appropriate afterlife (if there is one). He also retained his current state of mind / memories: something that souls at the Domain of the Lost couldn't do when they had traumatic experiences. I want to bring this up because this version of Mabon could interact and communicate with us.I would say this is the latest and only version of him. I know that's confusing even by Harry Potter logic... what does it mean if 7th of a soul exists, is it now the full thing that can be restored?

I feel theres a clear separation here from the "Echoes". I see Echoes as imprinted memories on Tyria. Theyre reliving a particular part in time. This is what we saw in the barrens up to this point. Im not sure how the wisp ties in here though, this is some sort of device that Horcrux soul mabon was uses to lead us to the memories. Whether the wisp is the same entity as horcrux mabon... im not sure. May have revisit that King Wisp story?

It's messy, but I think they haven't contradicted themselves at all yet.

Layering on the "Touchstone" objects is also very strange, but could this be tied back to Lazarus phylacteries? They could have even somehow justified how Mabon tying his soul to the gate, and explained it as something similar to Lazarus in GW1 or GW2 story. But also, we would have precedence of Mursaat understanding this mysticism.

We could even go one step further: Ready for wild theories here. This adds on to an idea i had back with soto:

During Season 3 One Path Ends. We are pursuing the Eye of Janthir in Abaddon's reliquary. Despite the Wizards not meaning to intervene, perhaps this Eye was being controlled by Mabon. Keep in mind this is a mursaat story, and what we think is the "Last of them", so he would be interested in how this turns out. Also, wouldn't he be interested in how we finish them off? (shining blade would also ba threat to himself but ill not go down this angle for my theory). You could even argue he helped us in the fight itself. During this fight, he also saw how the Horcruxes were used. Is this where he got the idea of tying himself to the gate with him observing the scene?

Further to this. The eye gives us a vision of Balthazar in the Crystal Desert. The vision itself isnt anything like what happens but there is a few visual hints of important things like the bloodstone spear etc. Could this have been a potential future that the wizards had already simulated in their fractals. We did see Joko-centric area of the skywatch archipelago after all. So before the eye disappears, Mabon leaves us with one last hint... perhaps as a thank you for ridding the world of lazarus? Another stretch, he helped us lead to Balthazar, might have set him putting in protections for a future menzies issue.

Just a few thoughts / red twine theory boarding.

xuzhang9580: Despite the failing of Absolution's later half of the story, I am still looking forward to the next mini expansion. SotO and JW both have strong launch stories, and though different people may have different opinions about which one it better, I think most will agree that both mini expansion's launch is good or at least not bad. When it comes to the post patches, SotO starts to drop in quality almost immediately with the first update where we went to Nayos and the whole thing just falls flat, while JW's post patches have been generally fine: Mount Balrior is fine (we've discussed how they handled Ura a bit poorly, but it's not too bad), Mistburn Barrens is fine (story is slow but lots of good world building), and only in the later half of the final release the story messed up. So I think Anet is improving, and maybe the next expansion will be better. I won't say I have high hopes or anything, but I am looking forward to what comes next.

RoastedWalnutss: Question, would we still be as annoyed/disappointed at the ending of this expansion (the part about us going to the foundry and it feeling wasted) if it ends up being a tease and the next expansion is largely focused around the foundry/related material and the final instance of JW is just a glimpse of what's to come.

KotMatroskin: I would love to listen to you talk about Clarkson"s Farm show, WP

SylvesterAshcroft88: It all felt a bit half baked, and the meta seemed to be missing, the big final boss encounter, as i was expecting something to come out from the portal, but then it just ended, no chests nothing, and i thought Nourys was boring.

raquetdude: If they are making “GW3” couldn’t they back port some of the new assets they are making?

eir3128: Poking at the holes in the plot in these videos is what makes them worth watching and I think this adds a lot of value to an otherwise undercooked yet overstuffed product. Thanks for allowing me to vicariously continue experiencing the game~

_Banjo_: We closed off the JW story whilst also introducing a couple of major concepts like the mist gates. If we had gone in an found out who lit the forge / distinguished it, i feel that would have been majorly overscoping and have potential to be even more dissapointed if this was in. Im glad it was just a visit and dealing with our immediate goal.We closed off the connection into Janthir wilds so the titans were no longer a threat. The forge is still lit, you coudl argue we didnt deal with it at the source of the issue but as far as the localised threat to the kodan - we've solved it (whilst also putting them mantle souls to rest). We found Sorrow in the process but also dipped into the missing voice stuff.

Of course there is still outstanding questions:

- Why the forge lit / who lit it?

- What did the mantle want with the gate?

- What did the mursaat want with the gate to begin with?

- What did that damn heart come from? (also interesting sorrow has been in the realm of torment before; im still convinced her and isgarren did something heinous to obtain this heart).

RoastedWalnutss: It feels like they have done some kind of market research that suggests new or most players like "happy" stories, So part of team writes the golden path/main instance story and writes exactly that because that's what the majority of players will experience. Meanwhile another part of the team writes all of the story/lore that is external to the golden path Journals, Side Stories, etc. gets a lot more freedom to write however they want because new or most players wont experience it without looking for it because they want it. A complete guess but it at least feels that way to me.

raquetdude: Ooh if they bulked the two together that would be super interesting honestly in how the community would respond

raquetdude: Only justification I can see for Saevus being left alive is for him to act as a guard incase any entity was to open the portal and come through the it into Tyria.

sabrina.me31: just a few random thoughts i had watching this video, in no particular order.

- i was curious if seavum saxum just sounds latin or actually means something, and apparently it means 'savage stone'.

- when Isgarren went to the realm of torment/the foundry after nightfall, why didn't he bring a magical fire extinguisher or something with him when he went there. he could have spared us from the end of this expansion, and we would have just gone on an adventure to find waiting sorrow.

- and lastly i'm also curious about your reaction to the book in the jp. i don't know if it's an translation issue, because i read it in german first, but at some point it almost read like something snargle would write. glad it didn't go there though.

BigSkoomatv: I was able to catch a bit of the stream live while you were talking about the Menzies theories and it had me thinking. Xpac 6 is the last confirmed gw2 expansion as of right now perhaps we see more maybe not. Wouldn't it be interesting to see the Devs launch the Gw3 / project Tyria story wise through the final xpac(s). I am no Lore master but imagine a timeline where Menzies is pulling the strings on all of the lingering stories in Tyria and once revealed we either end on a cliff hangar that sets the plot and theme/world for Gw3 or perhaps the commander/wayfinder finally fails and Menzies brings on a sort of realm reborn styled apocalypse. Maybe there are survivors that somehow use the mists to travel to the new Garden of the 6 ? Maybe not ? Scope has definitely been an issue in these expansions with the resources they have so maybe it is not feasible but I just think it would so great to give Gw2 a proper send off story wise and as you mentioned Menzies is sort of the last man standing big baddy wise (outside of new characters ).

Coil-t9r: Hey WP,

To add to the theory that ghost Mabon is Menzies (or generically someone controlling the shadow army), the Staff of the Mists was kind of just thrown into a sulphur pit in Guild Wars 1. In Guild Wars 2, there is a POI called the Shadow Arcade where shadow imps spawn when you approach a "Lost Chest". Could this be a reference to the two Staff of the Mists quests "The Cold Touch of the Past and The Hallowed Point" in which there is a box we kind of just open to find the Staff of the Mists. Is there an implication that someone who is controlling the shadow imps (see shadow army) to seek out the last know location of the Staff of the Mists (before the Guild Wars 1 hero intervened)? It loosely lines up with the Guild Wars 2 map. Additionally in Guild Wars 2 there are forgotten arches and a sand portal, both of which have links to the Realm of Torment. I think the Forgotten link to the Realm of Torment is pretty obvious and for the sand portals, a Djinn named Drojkor, Spirit Squall in the Djinn Enclave describes the Sand Jackals as using their attunement to the Realm of Torment in order to travel through the mists.

To bring that into the current story, someone from within the Realm of Torment, I strongly believe Menzies, has sent the shadow army to recover the Staff of the Mists. Menzies then uses the Staff of the Mists to open the portal in Bava Nisos (White Mantle Fanatics were tricked into thinking they opened it). He then starts forging some titans (potentially by using the Staff of the Mists) and lures Livia into delivering the Scepter of Orr directly into his hands. Menzies has now assembled the fabled TWO PIECES OF EXODIA. :smile:

And as a side note on the touch stone story. I was under the impression that titans were forged by tormenting lost souls (they had forgotten who they were) but I have no citation to back that one up. If that is the case, maybe the touch stones reminded them of their past, breaking the magic that caused them to become titans?

ozirus3344: Joined just in time for the stream to see my comment read out. Then had to drop again haha what're the odds.

Jun 16 2025

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