Gw2 Storytime: How Ellen Met Magnus, Zhaitans Corpse and More

[@WoodenPotatoes]

I have 19 or so Gw2 videos planned for the next few weeks. One of those videos is a review of the book! :D

[@affey]

A few months ago, I started reading books in your voice. Improved my reading experience greatly.

[@kenny.w588]

do continue to touch on links in these stories to other parts of the lore! all the hints and nods that Anet puts into these stories are a huge part of what little direction and cohesion we are offered in the living story.

[@ChrisGeorgeBull]

I really like the way you do your videos. It's fun to listen to someone talk about something they are obviously very passionate about. I think you should continue making your videos in this format. 1 video - 1 story. Gives us more to look forward to!

[@NoMoreNever]

Zhaitan was as you say in the video epic and cinematic, but ultimately an anti-climactic boss fight/event. While it makes sense that you would need some serious fire-power to put a dent in him/it, it should not have been enough to kill him outright in my opinion. If he was sufficiently weakened somehow then I could have gotten along with it, but even then he should have been almost impossible to kill in my opinion. The personal story was very random in how it dealt with the Dragons and without having read any of the novels made it seem like Destiny`s Edge failed to kill one because they were one hero short. That more than any firepower shoots a plot-hole through any Dragon no matter how ancient and powerful they may be.

[@Bwaaz]

if you notice during the personal story (if you don't skip everything, which kills the purpose of the story) that we starve zhaitan by cutting off his "food" supply, which is magical items. Hence he is weak in the end fight because he didn't absorb any energy in a long time and is starving like hell.

[@Krystalocke]

I think Zhaitan's strength was in it's armies because apparently it's considered one of the weaker elder dragons. That's still not excuse for that end fight though

[@Krystalocke]

Yes, lorewise I think we all understand that he was weakened. However, in terms of gameplay/mechanics it was lackluster and didn't give an elder dragon the justice it deserved. Everyone agrees on that, not referring to it lorewise of being weakened.

[@aid4nski215]

Zhaitan's weakness is his reliance of minions. 1. He didn't eat and eating = food = energy. So he has no energy. 2. He was also weakened by the laser that Zojja used. I think it's pretty justifiable. I don't really care that it's anti-climactic because it actually makes sense. I mean it's not like we're gonna fight zhaitan face to face like Mordremoth because zhaitan can't access the dream

[@Crishmy13]

Actually Fafnarin could be named after Fafnir, a great dragon in a norse legend.

[@Easytorememberanyday]

I don't mind how you make these story videos happen. I just want more! They're real joy to listen.

[@doubleohelix]

I saw there was a gw2 storytime episode and thought "wait, there's a new story out?" without reading the whole title. I went to the website and did find a new story! Read it and came back to watch this video and realized this was an old story...crazy coincidence! Love the storytimes by the way.

[@WoodenPotatoes]

Well the great destroyer was only every described as his most powerful general, but you can interpret it like that for sure.

[@WoodenPotatoes]

There is one! It was made before launch but doesnt have southsun on it, sadly. Theres also a really ambitious one in development right now.

[@DolphinBeezy]

I'm digging the quirky chiptune music in the background for the past couple of videos :D

[@Foghorn8]

For the first minute of this video you really needed "My Heart Will Go On" playing over the top.

[@WoodenPotatoes]

''Tequatl'' is actually a name /given/ by the hylek. Translated from aztec or some mesoamerican language it means ''Laughing snake''. This could be the case for all of them! (named by a norn, named by the humans, etc)

[@bayoubomber7]

It's always entertaining to watch your vids, no matter what you do. Keep up the good work.

[@daefaron]

The Kralk fight was explicitly a "We'll try to disable him with mind-games, and once he's one the ground you must stab this SPECIFIC spot, with this specific shard, as hard as you can. Anything less, any other spot, will do no damage to him." The failure came from when the branded managed to Reach the Asura and murder him before Rytlock could get into position, and Kralk flew off.

[@WoodenPotatoes]

This was the dust foce OST! :D

[@WoodenPotatoes]

I was using staff vs Teq a lot, and for these videos just hadnt really changed much.

[@WoodenPotatoes]

No when you hit the kill zone it insta kills you AND teleports you to the humble. At this point you use a revive orb and then try to swim out of the invisible walls.

[@WoodenPotatoes]

Awesome thank you! Yes I meant the dust force OST.

[@WoodenPotatoes]

No not at all. I contacted Arenanet about them letting me produce audio books for their novels. They didnt respond. The reason I asked for permission is someone else once tried and all their stuff got pulled offline.

[@AuroraPeachy]

Love your theories! Those dragon Champion names are scary, especially Moondeath O_O

[@inkthedink]

I wouldn't mind you pairing a few stories. However I like the extra commentary, some of the extra back story etc.

[@Intencemuffin]

WP you can also get on top of the reef layer in Malchor's Leap to see what the place would look like when the Orr was under water. The sky also changes oddly up there

[@berndvanhoof]

awesome to see you found your way back to lore vid's (rather your focusing more on them again) which were always your strongest/most interesting vid's! Well, for me at least. Keep em Coming ! and Anet do more Story's for WP to tell us!!

[@DrKaschuba]

Great episode. So we might see good old Zhaitan again

[@daefaron]

That's a possibility. As noted in another comment of mine, I don't think we've gotten a solid confirmation that Zhaitan is dead or just defetaed. The most interesting thing about the Tequatl update is that it explicitly references his previous attacks (before the update) and says that each emergence he grow stronger. Meaning you never kill him, simply force him to retreat.

[@WoodenPotatoes]

As nerd tar said, this is a dungeon, so it wouldnt work that way sadly. It also wouldnt work unless there is DEFINITLEY collision up there where the POI is, but theres every chance there is none at all :/ Only other option would be to Norn Bear form charge off the airship and hope you get close enough!

[@zungle1140]

Yes, but I'm still right here, the thing inside the Lake is Jormags Champion indeed, but the voice Svanir and Jora heard was Jormags voice, Jormag can talk through her champions with her mind, it's in the books and in the logs that Anet made. Anet also say that Svanir being corrupted by Jormags voice, transformed into her champion.

[@WoodenPotatoes]

Will do! Apprecite the comment.

[@inkthedink]

really liking the music in the background.

[@swordsman1600]

This video format was fine. Seeing the fight again reminds me still how much they have to make it better. This is the dragon who's supposed to be so powerful he can raise an entire continent from the sea. Just shooting him with a laser is quite a bit more than just anti-climactic. Then again, so is the very idea that Kralkatorik could be beaten by just 7 people and Glint. I'd have to read the novels to get the full picture though, but just from the sound of it, it's pretty odd.

[@nyanfish1]

you mean dust force right? :D and i just wanted to tell you, you are an awesome guy and please continue making this sort of contend for a long time, i dont even play guild wars 2 that much anymore buy whenever you upload a video it still brings a smile to my face. :)

[@NOIT-sees-you]

First thing I think of when I hear the name Fafnarin is Fafnir from the Icelandic sagas. He were one of the sons of a dwarven king and famous for his martial prowess. His part of the story he features in is that he killed his father to get his hands on some cursed gold his father owned. After the murder he fled out into the wilderness to hide with his gold. Over time, he transformed into a poison breathing dragon to guard his riches. Eventually he were killed by his brother Regin's foster son.

[@haha_catsOriginal]

so the zaithan's corpse is that kind of human thing painted on the undiscovered map

[@WoodenPotatoes]

Kaineng is way bigger. Its a metropolis at least tripple the size of Orr

[@TalysAlankil]

The POI in arah is on the wiki, WP. It's called "Zhaitan's Last Stand", apparently.

[@Intencemuffin]

Sorry ignore that last, Its in cursed shore near the shelter WP while you still can get pretty high up the coral, they patched i'm pretty sure so you can't get above the layer to see the clear sky and water glitched below, they nerfed the coral but you can still get on 1 of those massive arch things before you hit 9000 invisible walls. I tried it just then.

[@Araedi]

Fafnirin is a reference to Fafneir which is a dragon in norse mythology

[@just_berge]

She was on a cruise. Just a common cruise. Then a Quaggon saw the ship and was frighted. He then called for is friends and they raged and formed a super Quaggon. They then went to the Cruise Ship and started destroying it. Magnus, who was flying on his pet pig with his fellow comrades, saw the Quaggon. They flew down on their pigs with bows and arrows and disrupted the Super Quaggon and they then fleed in fear. Magnus's pig then turned into a boat. Magnus saw Ellen drowning and grabbed her and pulled her up. She was saved. He was pissed because he just saved his own cruise ship that his company owned. He then set out a 10 year hunt after every quaggon which made Jormag arise because quaggons are actually Jormag's semen.

[@Cassius40k]

I was doing this glitch out thing a few months ago with some friends. I managed to fall off the airship in an earlier segment and never died when I fell, so I ended up in the water and decided to swim for miles to reach the dragons lair. Unfortunately part of the story was triggered and I was teleported to the next segment of the story.

[@leef9142]

Yes. Fafnir was also an important character in Richard Wagner's ring cycle operas which is the most complete collection of German/Norse mythology anywhere. He starts as a Giant, but keeping the one ring (not even kidding, LoTR is a rip off of this.) turns him into a dragon sometime between the 2nd and 3rd operas.

[@windingtwilight]

Having just done SOTO and its finale with combination of the map meta, ArenaNet has proven that it can do unique and interesting fights for story steps. Having also watched your live stream WP you said it well, for what was thought to be a underwhelming story they actually did something unique and interesting with the META with its Finale. With that being said; Please ArenaNet, give us more Zhaitan this year added into the story. You have the technology, you even have the assets already in the game for crying out loud! It’s entirely worth it to incentivize players to make more characters, to replay the story, to bring back more player base etc. give us story mode CM Give us Zhaitan strikes/fractals/ convergence or wild mode or what ever Janithir Wilds brings us. Give us Zhaitan CM but not just shoot it down, give us Zhaitan proper, boots on the ground, phases etc. Let new players really learn what the game is like outside the story when they get to META events past vanilla! For everything Zhaitan means, for what Zhaitan is, it made us heros. Zhaitan deserved more, we deserved more.

[@FaHuBi]

Actually WP, as I visited the GW2-homepage just now: The new short story is already out!

[@harpy02]

i think fafnerin is based on a Norse mythical creature called Fafnir which was a man turned into a dragon through a curse of a ring as he was greedy he was slain by a hero who took the ring out of greed as well i don't know how it continued though

[@DeathChanx]

I love the stories and lore you uncover, please dont stop. Also come back to GW1 lore (stopped on Cantaha).

[@WoodenPotatoes]

Not this year! I went the year skyrim, halo anniv and Gw2 were at the show.

[@zoro9876]

Just fyi WP the invisible walls, are just the airship's (The Humble's) mesh upside down, so if you swim towards a door you can exit. Just as a joke, look at where the poi is on the Giant throwing Grubs on the map, just awkward.

[@Aztec2250]

Hey WP. Long time subscriber, first time commenter! Slightly off topic, you mentioned you were reading Sea of Sorrows. I just finished it last night. Once you're through, it would be great to hear your thoughts on some of the lore explored in it. Great vids as always!

[@RandallStevenson]

I'd say it was more like the will of captain magnus than the will of the gods

[@nnarcus]

Just visited Vizier's Tower, sucha mysteries place.. Would love some story time about that place!

[@DownloadCompleteTV]

I think that Zhaitan has to be revisited. They have their story reasons, but look at what they are testing. 1) a dragon fight that's hard. 2) a dungeon revamp... That's hard.

[@swordsman1600]

If it's something like that, then I can see how it's a fair bit more justified. I still have a mind to go and check out the novels though, since I'm interested to see if the writers can convey a story with them better than they can in game. At the same time though, this it would be nice to actually have this referenced in game more explicitly at least at some point. I never liked how the player is expected to accept things that they wouldn't know without the novels.

[@Intencemuffin]

The massive Coral like structures that cover the whole map (From the land being under water) , with a lot of jumping up the coral reef you can get way above the map to an layer where the coral stops and if you look down from this point (from what i remember) it looks likes water is below you and sky changes thus it looks like Orr is under water again. I don't think these any tutorial on it, i did it by chance while bored

[@berndvanhoof]

We will release it when it is done , They sure dropped the ball with their philosophy on the last Fight which is an incredible let down. They should have redone it long ago..

[@vesser99]

Zhaitan is freaking big. I wanna see the others, and i wanna have real combat with them, like with tequatl. Also, they'd better be ginormous.

[@nyanfish1]

hey, i was wondering what this amazing music is that you always use in your videos? i'd really like to know so i can listen to it outside of your videos :)

[@SendMeOnMyWayy]

Wooden Potatoes you wonderful, wonderful man

[@Kortas.]

No Jormags Champion was the thing inside Drakkar Lake. Svanir was just serving him ;)

[@shamsham8328]

Hey WP! I'd like it if you paired up the videos! I usually listen to your stories during my commutes which tend to last about 40 minutes and I think that's average for a lot of people. I can't be bothered to change the video half way through a drive though. Longer is always better, anyways! It's great during visual wood when you both start delving into other topics and end up with a long video.

[@DormantRooster]

Perhaps Zhaitan's "draconic" looking champions are just a final stage? By the names it sounds like they all started as something else. Those 3 dragon champs in Arrah may have once been Norn and Tequatl may have once been a Hylek. It would make sense lore wise too. Why would a lesser dragon need to be corrupted to serve Zhaitan? A "sunless" Hylek would actually make sense...once a champion of the Hylek now corrupted and after years of service to Zhaitan, becoming draconic in form.

[@yamochanchan]

that was my first thought after hearing that line thx for pointing it out ^^

[@Panamafotografo]

Good story and good video. . .btw is it still possible to find zhaitans "corpse" or did they nerfed it? like the UFO "glitch" found at the CM dungeon?

[@kenirainseeker539]

I just found his corpse a few minutes ago, so yeah, still possible. found the bodies of the dragon champs you kill earlier, too.

[@ThisAlbino]

He was originally a Dwarf too.

[@daefaron]

IIRC, they had a spot called "Zhaitain's last stand." I'm unsure if that is the POI you are talking about early on, or a different area.

[@perfectlyhopeless]

Did they do something to Arah? I don't remember those cinematic scenes where Zhaitan shows up. If my memory serves correctly, all that happened was he flew by, hit the ship once or something like that, and then he hovers around next to the side basically saying "Come on bro! Hit me all ready! I'm totally letting you kill me!" while I shot cannon balls at him while my other two party members took care of the adds.

[@radekkucera5350]

According to wiki it's Zhaitan's Last Stand.

[@THEFLYnRasberry]

there was a new story that came out today, called twilight preperations, it was pretty interesting

[@Hikoriee]

Zhaitan really isn't that big, is he? I mean he's big... But compare him to Mordremoth (who is like 90% neck), or even Kralkatorrik who in Path of Fire, is SO big we can only really see his head, Zhaitan is rather small in comparison. I wonder if it's just because he was the first elder dragon they truly brought to life in game, and only realized after that they must be bigger. 🤔

[@jessdove8776]

I honestly believe that Zhaitan is considered the "weakest" out of the Elder Dragons. Zhaitan's weakness was his liability on his minions, and food supply. Im a believer that the weakest link is considered the smallest in size, because they are also considered the "runt" Zhaitan may have been the first Elder Dragon we faced but I believe we encountered him first because he was the weakest link, I bet Mord, Kralk, Jorg were all like "hes the weakest, send him first" kind of deal. As if he was trying to prove that he can also be strong. Hes strong in his own way but he was strong when he had his army of minions and his food supply. But thats it. Thats just my theory though

[@WoodenPotatoes]

The reef layer?

[@snicopx8453]

I watched another video with zhaitan's corpse there was a LARGE purple cloud shaped as a snake (or maybe as the Elder dragon of deep sea ) near zhaitan's corps this may lead to new questions ,thoughts or predictions :)

[@fallengaming2053]

Try this again but glide around!!! Since we have gliders!

[@INDAREVISH]

but story mode wont allow us

[@alanodulio1920]

Zhaitan is not yet dead... Modremoth still out there....

[@lekskiindi6000]

this channel does very good doing that

[@cappecfh]

She wanted to be saved by her parent, but was saved by a random norn, she might think the gods didn't grant her what she wanted at all.

[@gknucklez]

I dont know why but when Zhaitans Corpse appeared I became really excited for a moment. Also I just noticed the airships in story mode are similar to the ones the aetherpirates use. Are there more airships around? I thought they were specifically made for the fight against Zhaitan.

[@WoodenPotatoes]

Ooooh nice! Could have been more exciting but nice!

[@psypsy751]

What if, by the time you were swimming above Zhaitan, its model sort of spazzed out a bit? Man, that would've been scary :)

[@Worvez]

I love you, WoodenPotatoes!

[@AngelavengerL]

very interesting stuff.

[@WoodenPotatoes]

I did once ask A.net but got no response.

[@radekkucera5350]

Look at his playlist on jumping puzzles, he talks there about it.

[@VFXCompositor]

The POI is Zhaitans Last Stand :)

[@DanielAllen248]

WP = my favourite youtuber ..

[@Uploaded1995]

It's really a shame that they didn't flesh out the fight with Zhaitan. Hopefully they will do so, with the next Elder Dragon.

[@Gluarinator]

Really love your videos :)

[@wrestlingrankings574]

Fafner/Fafnir was a dragon in Norse Mythology. Guess one of the dragon names is derived from that.

[@Destructor240]

its weird i had the feeling the elder dragons were bigger after reading the books especially the second one because duh they fight one xD it felt like Krakaltorrik is about 3 times the size of what Zhaitan looks ingame

[@flipm0de]

I would guess that Fafnarin the Heartslayer refers to Fafnir from Norse mythology: wiki/Fafnir

[@VerrowSvar]

OMG now I have to do arah story mode again, I wanna see that corpse XD

[@DeathFern]

Anet has said he is dead.

[@lostmyaccount]

ah yes, you are right!

[@BehraamBaqai]

I really hope not. Anet did say he's dead anyway.

[@KillchainGames]

Im so sure that zhaitan isn't really done and dusted yet...I dunno but after how stupidly simple arah story leaves it...I get that they cut the fight down because of time constraints but even beyond that I just got this gut feeling man....Tequatl where in the fuck is he getting his power from?!?

[@BrennannannerB]

Ellen said she'd be good if the gods saved her parents, not her. Her parents were not saved though, so if shes's evil, that could be a reason.

[@Parzie9547]

That cloud at 12:27, so weird

[@Scrappydog]

WP, whats with the sudden staff usage on your recent videos? ;)

[@TheGodSaw]

I love your videos:)

[@Binidj]

I like the commentary around the stories, it's easy enough for me to go read the actual fiction for myself ... I can even read it aloud if the mood takes me ... but what I don't get is the information and opinion that you can offer. So for my money I'd rather you just did one piece of fiction per video but with more "rambling" about it.

[@CryHeroCZ]

Yea i would love to get better bossfight with zhaitan ... even if that was something like delivering final blow under the sea with submarine or smth. It will probably never happen thou :/

[@moosiesan]

They should make a rematch with Zhaitan ffs.