Alright, people, let's get straight to business. If you always skip cutscenes, have never read a block of flavor text, and can't pronounce the name of your character's homeland, you probably won't give two shits about this. But if you're a lore nerd (e.g. me), this may well blow your god damn socks, pants, sports jacket, and ridiculous tie off.
 
I give you not the continent, but the entire planet of Tyria:

@Dark_Lord_Spam: This is cool I love when people do stuff like this when the world map isn't explicitly given to them. Hey, do you think that I can still get in on the stress test on wednesday if I preorder today (tuesday), or do you have to already have characters or something?

Shit.

Wow, that's impressive. It'd be interesting to see what's on the south of Cantha's continent.

@Fattony12000 said:

Shit.

Shiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiit.

@Dark_Lord_Spam: This is cool I love when people do stuff like this when the world map isn't explicitly given to them. Hey, do you think that I can still get in on the stress test on wednesday if I preorder today (tuesday), or do you have to already have characters or something?

That's pretty cool, and I'm a little surprised that they have the balls to show the entire map. Even the Elder Scrolls guys shy away from that, in case they ever need to make a new game and say "oh, well, there's another continent over here!".

I do hope the hunt for the dragons takes us to more than just the parts of Cantha and Elona we've already seen in GW1.

@Dark_Lord_Spam: Yeah, cool, I'll probably wait til the next weekend beta, I got other stuff looking to take my money this week anyway.

Can I just play the final game already : (.

I watched Woodenpotatoes' video last night and man, he really gets into it. So glad I subscribed to him. If you are like me and never played the first game but want to get into the lore or just learn about the world, his GW2 Daily playlist is a great watch.

@selfconfessedcynic said:

@Fattony12000 said:

Shit.

Shiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiit.

I guess we'll be playing this game forever.

Holy smokes! That's equal parts insane and awesome. I love getting in DEEP with the lore of my games so this makes me excited as hell.

Now that's great detective work!

Not gonna lie this kinda blew my mind.

I wonder where that cancelled Guild Wars expansion was being set in.

Holy shit. This is amazing.

@No0b0rAmA said:

I wonder where that cancelled Guild Wars expansion was being set in.

The dude in the video mentions the island in the northwest corner of the map, but that's all speculation, so who knows.

This gets me really excited for the scope of the game and all the possibilities. Wonder if they'll go straight to the GW1 expansion locations or to somewhere new first?

Also, Colin Johanson of arenanet commented on the video you are all talking about and confirmed it's all canon and part of the GW2 lore.

@shinboy630 said:

@No0b0rAmA said:

I wonder where that cancelled Guild Wars expansion was being set in.

The dude in the video mentions the island in the northwest corner of the map, but that's all speculation, so who knows.

It was supposed to be some South American jungle setting IIRC.

What I find most amazing is the size of the Tyrian continent, and the prospect of what might live on it. We know that the Charr came from there, but that's it. It's basically a blank canvas to go buck wild with creativity on.

My favourite story arcs in GW1 were with the Mursaat, Seers, Forgotten, and any of the other "ancient" races. Reading through the wiki right now it says that the Forgotten (the snake people from the Crystal Desert) are from there too and were at war with the Charr in the Blazeridge Mountains area so that could be an interesting bit of lore to explore (you can maybe explore Forgotten monuments and whatnot). It also says that they aided the gods in fighting Abaddon (presumably in that area).

This gets me really excited for the scope of the game and all the possibilities. Wonder if they'll go straight to the GW1 expansion locations or to somewhere new first?

Also, Colin Johanson of arenanet commented on the video you are all talking about and confirmed it's all canon and part of the GW2 lore.

Wait, so if the Far Shiverpeaks are actually just in the centre of the world, then what's up north must be way colder. Tyria is a very icy planet.

@Dark_Lord_Spam: And that still wouldn't redeem the Lost Planet franchise.

Even fiddy couldn't jump that big ass world

@Dark_Lord_Spam: weird, I believed it because it would be a massive waste of a life for someone to bother making that account and commenting there over a video of a map.

@Maystack said:

Wait, so if the Far Shiverpeaks are actually just in the centre of the world, then what's up north must be way colder. Tyria is a very icy planet.

These were some of my first thoughts too. That was followed immediately by "FUCK YEAH KODAN!"

The video-dude's idea of the gods only life-ifying the area around Orr is a pretty good one (and everything else is still a waste because of the elder dragons), though I personally don't think they just left to another side of the world, I believe they left the world entirely.

@Maystack said:

Wait, so if the Far Shiverpeaks are actually just in the centre of the world, then what's up north must be way colder. Tyria is a very icy planet.

The shiverpeaks are icy because they're mountains. Maybe the northern areas are lowlands so they would actually be warmer. Who knows.

@UssjTrunks said:

@Maystack said:

Wait, so if the Far Shiverpeaks are actually just in the centre of the world, then what's up north must be way colder. Tyria is a very icy planet.

The shiverpeaks are icy because they're mountains. Maybe the northern areas are lowlands so they would actually be warmer. Who knows.

My theory is that all GW fiction is secretly written by George RR Martin and that Tyria is just in the middle of a really long winter.

@shinboy630 said:

@UssjTrunks said:

@Maystack said:

Wait, so if the Far Shiverpeaks are actually just in the centre of the world, then what's up north must be way colder. Tyria is a very icy planet.

The shiverpeaks are icy because they're mountains. Maybe the northern areas are lowlands so they would actually be warmer. Who knows.

My theory is that all GW fiction is secretly written by George RR Martin and that Tyria is just in the middle of a really long winter.

Or Al Gore and Tyria is suffering from the after effects of Charr-caused global warming.

@Dark_Lord_Spam said:

@UssjTrunks: Well, there is all of that flooding and desertification and shit. Maybe the secret final boss in GW2 is offshore drilling.

I was going to say The Chinese Government. : D

ED: No offence to the local chinamen. Wait, that was offensive wasn't it? ah fuck. (but seriously, no offence - but as an Indian, I can say that both the Indian and Chinese governments need to get their shit together)

@UssjTrunks said:

@shinboy630 said:

My favourite story arcs in GW1 were with the Mursaat, Seers, Forgotten, and any of the other "ancient" races. Reading through the wiki right now it says that the Forgotten (the snake people from the Crystal Desert) are from there too and were at war with the Charr in the Blazeridge Mountains area so that could be an interesting bit of lore to explore (you can maybe explore Forgotten monuments and whatnot). It also says that they aided the gods in fighting Abaddon (presumably in that area).

The Forgotten were brought to Tyria from other worlds, as stated in the lore, and the battle with Abbadon was done where the sulferous wastes now lie in Elona, the demonic energies seeping from the portal to his prison is what tainted the land and why only undead and demonic can "live" there. It was Abbadons's ultimate fall and the massive energy released that sunk the land and obliterated the ancient society that lived there (commonly referred to as the Primeval Dynasty). As far as east of the Blazeridge there was some hints that it was charr lands and its possible some of the larger scale battles between the charr and forgotten were waged there, although some of it did take place in what is known as Ascalon, but since it was the last (presumably) area they conquered there probably wasn't much fighting left, I imagine the war was coming to an end as the Forgotten withdrew to the crystal sea. I could go on in depth about this forever, but that's the jist of it, sorry wasn't dissing you, I just love my lore, had to fill in a few gaps for you ;-)

I know that this thread is now very old, but I'm recently becoming a bit of a lore hound myself. However I'm doing it for the sake of a project that I'm working on (probably one of the more intricate fan projects within the GW community). I'm starting small by creating a 3D rendition of how I visualize Shing Jea monastery looking as of Guild Wars 2. I'm using the powerful CryENGINE 3 as both my tool set and my canvas for this. However I don't want to just grasp at straws so I'm educating myself a bit. I noticed in the video the guy talks about how Shing Jea is now connected to the main land and how the Jade sea has vanished. I speculate that both inconsistencies may actually by the aftermath of the "Deep Sea Dragon" who had risen in the unending ocean. This Dragon could make his minions from water. This can also explain the Jade Sea vanishing because after Shiro had been defeated in Factions, Echovold supposedly became un-petrified and the Jade Sea returned to water. I imagine that this Deep Sea Dragon may have headed closer toward the shores of Cantha and manipulated the Jade sea into a horde of Minions as is similar to how Primordius turned rock and lava into minions. It's hence, very possible that legions of these water minions, made from the oceans, were sent to overtake the land which then would result in water levels decreasing, undoing some of the flooding caused by Zhaitans awakening. This then would not only explain the bridge between Shing Jea and Cantha, but also the returning of the Battle Isles. As far as the Isles of Janthir, the theory of the Unseen having something to do with their disappearance is as good as any other; however it is also possible that, through some yet -un-revealed lore, the Elder Dragons had something to do with it. Then again, since a lot of problem events stemmed from those isles, it is also possible that the cartographer who made the map wiped them from it out of vengeful spite, possibly in hopes that they may be forgotten. Just my two cents for lore is all. Thank you for the awesome article though. XD

EDIT (ADDITION):

I would also like the add that it may be possible that "The Kraken" from the Luxon story of Factions could have been a foretelling of the "Deep Sea Dragon" as a it's potential Champion.