Hoelbrak... - Blue Tracker

#1 - April 2, 2013, 12:15 a.m.

So on my second or third character completing exploration here, I noticed some oddities…

a) There are NPCs my (charr) character is apparently familiar with. I forget the names now and I don’t think I’ve actually had anything to do with them, especially on this character. One was a thief/pickpocket in a temple, which made me think maybe it’s a profession thing (character is a thief), but idk. The others weren’t as far as I could tell.

Is this normal/intended? Outside of a select few from the storyline and some I met in quests my characters don’t seem to (mutually) know anyone. Maybe those NPCs just know you no matter what?

b) http://i.imgur.com/eUmapnk.jpg

I never really paid attention before, but it’s interesting/weird that the ‘missing, maybe dead’ shrines have ghost heads on them, compared to the ‘certainly dead’ owl spirit having a statue. I’m not even sure what to make of that. If it were a hint, it’s… less subtle than I’d expect. Like, surely people would notice. But what does that leave? Norn hologram? The spiritual equivalent of a deer’s head on a wall?

…I don’t get it.

MatthewMedina

#6 - April 17, 2013, 7:27 p.m.

So, to answer 1, there’s certainly cases where this may be an oversight, or a bug, but there’s also cases where we deliberately give NPC’s knowledge of the player – the presumption being that you’re a hero and carry a reputation with you. It’s true that this might seem odd if you have a sylvari sapling barely out of the Grove, but to cover every possible contingency in NPC conversations would have taken a tremendous amount of time so this can sometimes just be a conceit we’ve used to give the narrative a bit more of a personal connection.

For 2 – the “spirit heads” are common on all the lodges. But, you’re right that there is a significant difference here for the norn in how they chose to depict the shrines, because the spirit of Owl was not just lost, it was devoured by Jormag. Since absolutely nothing of Owl remains, the norn chose to convey that by sculpting Owl’s memorial from wood.

MatthewMedina

#10 - April 19, 2013, 6:01 a.m.

RoyHarmon.5398:
MatthewMedina.5419:
Since absolutely nothing of Owl remains, the norn chose to convey that by sculpting Owl’s memorial from wood.

Not true! My character has one of her feathers.

Ah, but you can’t very well make a statue from a few feathers left behind. :-)