Guild Wars 2

Arenanet has stated that the conclusion to this story will “change the face of Tyria forever”.

I imagine this means that Lion’s Arch will become permanently messed up somehow, like Kessex Hills is now, or if not, some permanent cosmetic change on the same scale.

So I guess my question is, do we really want this? To be reminded of Scarlet for the rest of time? She is, hands down, the worst written villain in Guild Wars history (even worse than Shiro, which is astonishing). To have her influence permanently change the game world would cheapen the otherwise excellent content we enjoy in the non-living story elements of the game.

Scarlet and this entire story arc are better left forgotten, not immortalized. If Arenanet insists on continuing with this living story format, they should start from scratch instead of building upon what’s already been established this past year.

I want this.
I want to see the world changing, and I don’t care if the changes are made by Scarlet, Abaddon or Lord Faren.

Gabby.3205:

I want this.
I want to see the world changing, and I don’t care if the changes are made by Scarlet, Abaddon or Lord Faren.

I’d be down for Lord Faren changing the world. Unlike Scarlet, he’s well written, his character makes sense and he doesn’t break the lore. He’s annoying, sure, but that’s part of his charm.

As the Scarlet arc has gone by i’ve been enjoying it more and more. Anet is really starting to get good with the living story (Tower, Marionette, and Edge of the mists were all good imo). I still dislike the Scarlet storyline in general but I’ve been coming to like it more due to the higher amounts of storytelling. I just wish they had done that from the start.

That being said…If the “change the face of Tyria forever” is ONLY the destruction of Lion’s Arch, i’m going to be very disappointed as I would be expecting something much more.

Zelkovan.2630:

I still dislike the Scarlet storyline in general but I’ve been coming to like it more due to the higher amounts of storytelling. I just wish they had done that from the start.

I’ve honestly been fine with the additional storytelling. Marjory, Braham, Rox, Kasmeer and Taimi are all great characters who bring well-written dialogue to the table. I do hope they keep them around and continue to develop them.

Unfortunately the foundation of the story is entirely based upon Scarlet’s preposterous story arc, and their contributions to the lore are cheapened as a result.

Changing the face of Tirya should be all the following things:
- Modification of existing areas (Kessex Hills)
- Destruction of LA
- Introduction of new areas and possible content (Tengus as playable and Dominion of the Wind)

Other than this, it’s not worth it.

I don’t plan to step foot into LA during the entire next LS.

I will probably go through LA to see what they’ve done after the LS has cleared out.

I have gone back through Kessex a few times on my alts, only to do the personal story for exp. Skipped the entire zone because it’s ugly now, I hate the LS and what it has done to the game and Kessex is a glaring reminder of that.

So probably LA will be a zone I will also forfeit in this game.

Like I’ve said elsewhere, I am obviously not one of ANet’s intended customers for this game anymore.

ANet has made it abundantly clear, that unlike other developers who understand that customers help shape the game after release, ANet has retained full ownership of this game, and will do whatever they want, however they see fit.

Including nothing lasts forever.

Let’s hope that phrase does not come back to haunt them regarding customer income.

In the meantime, there will be customers who enjoy destruction. And those that are hoping something better replaces what is currently in LA.

I wish enjoyment for all who are looking forward to this next patch.

They hands down took the right decision choosing LA (IF and only IF it’s permanent)
1. LA has stood in this game as long or longer then abaddon..orr…or any other content this game has ever seen….i mean COME THE KITTEN ON!
2. Because of (1) it has a huge sentimental value to both oldschool and new players…so anything that happens to LA good or bad also has an impact on the players themselves.
3. Destroying LA would mean several things for the game:
- It’s not permanently tied to the past
- It can actually support PERMANENT changes
- Means a new start (good or bad) for all races of Tyria considering LA was like their local bar
- The game moves forward in it’s history.

Nothing lasts forever as they said….LA has withstood longer then “forver” i feel. It’s time to let go and look for a new future. Just imagine if they actually make an event in which we start creating a NEW city for all races (not called LA and not in LA zone)…where we contribute for 2-3 months by doing quests collecting stuff and so on. That would be amazing because at the end of the day u will think “hey i was part of this and i built this”. It would be the perfect opportunity to get players involved into content that effects Tyria forever (bad AND good).

Similar was the karka launch event where we built the settlements and bridges and so on. That day even tho it sucked because of the technical issues was honstly the one i am most found off because i helped do something there that i can come back and see years after and feel proud even tho it was pre-scripted lol.

But again…if this is another temporary thing….like “we have to take back LA in 1month” i am sorry but this event that “changes the face of Tyria forever” equals to an almost flawless 0 never before seen.

Keep in mind that this is not the last patch for the season. So bigger things still might await in the last patch.

goldenwing.8473:

I don’t plan to step foot into LA during the entire next LS.

I will probably go through LA to see what they’ve done after the LS has cleared out.

I have gone back through Kessex a few times on my alts, only to do the personal story for exp. Skipped the entire zone because it’s ugly now, I hate the LS and what it has done to the game and Kessex is a glaring reminder of that.

So probably LA will be a zone I will also forfeit in this game.

Like I’ve said elsewhere, I am obviously not one of ANet’s intended customers for this game anymore.

ANet has made it abundantly clear, that unlike other developers who understand that customers help shape the game after release, ANet has retained full ownership of this game, and will do whatever they want, however they see fit.

Including nothing lasts forever.

Let’s hope that phrase does not come back to haunt them regarding customer income.

In the meantime, there will be customers who enjoy destruction. And those that are hoping something better replaces what is currently in LA.

I wish enjoyment for all who are looking forward to this next patch.

Exactly my sentiment.

I know one citizen who’s going to spend the weekend taking screenies of all his favorite places in LA before they are changed. Someone above got it right: LA in the first GW was the first anchor of the game, the first place we (those that started with what was later called Prophecies) called ‘home’. GW2 has given us a different racial ‘birthplace’ but LA still feels like home, at least to me. We’ve had a year and half of this new version of LA and, regardless of the storyline that drives it, the changes will be sad to see. But the game was sold as being a living world, so be it. Kudos to ANet for being gutsy enough to take down a meaningful (and to some of us, sentimental) landmark.

Well, the original LA is under water. This was a new one, so no, the same LA hasn’t been around.

Are we sure that it will be destroyed at the end?

To be honest, I’m not a fan of ugly. There are many ugly zones in the game that aren’t a lot of fun to spend time in. All of Orr is an example. Parts of other maps. I don’t mind some destroyed landscape but it sure doesn’t beckon me to explore and hang around. Hopefully Lions Arch doesn’t become an abandoned ugly place.

mjhungness.8059:

… But the game was sold as being a living world, so be it.

I don’t know if you can really say that. The Living Story was added to the game well after launch and completely contradicts the developer’s design manifesto. The game we were sold at launch is not the game we have now.

The only references to a “living, breathing world” at launch refered to the dynamic event system, which works just fine.

In contrast, the Living Story doesn’t feel living at all. It feels completely separate from the core content; the integration, if any, is poor (for example, the centaurs not noticing that the toxic alliance were all over their land, the Order of Whispers not noticing a giant metal probe in front of their headquarters).

The Living Story does evolve and change, granted. But it leaves the rest of the game in the dust. Simply messing up Lion’s Arch or Kessex Hills isn’t enough to make the living story feel integrated, nor does it add value. It feels like a cheesy sticker hastily pasted over a beautiful work of art.

I just came to trash the latest living story content and wasn’t disappointed to see threads popping up almost immediately to do the same.

What I find ironic is that NOW we’re going to get “expansion-like updates” after the living story crapfest for over a year, but if ANet had just focused on those updates before the living story then every single thing they’ve done post launch would have been much more well received.

I heard a rumor that more elite skills are coming out soon? Excellent, we could have used those A LONG TIME AGO, and that’s just the tip of the iceberg of things that should have been done instead of forcing stupid, poorly written content on everybody despite massive complaints from the community since the beginning. Where are those dungeon updates and added skills that were mentioned a year ago? Oh right, nowhere.

Peter, I guess I was referring to the game being a living, changing world, regardless which mechanism is used, Living Story, Dynamic Event, etc. I agree that there are a number of aspects that should have changed based on the events, as you noted. There’s always room for improvement. But what ANet has undertaken is the desire to get to that point – we’re just along for the ride as they tweak and refine and see what works and what is important to the player base. I enjoy being along for the ride. Beats watching snow fall in the upper midwest. More importantly, it beats doing the same old tired quests over and over again – raise your hand if you want that.

‘this will change tyria forever’ ‘only 1 in 30 people were able to do the new content on their own’ ‘only 1 in 25k people guessed the upcoming changes’
they say that sort of k i t t e n all the time
and what supposed new content are you comparing living world to, if there wasn’t living world we would have very few updates for 9 months at a time and then huge content that most people would criticize anyway.. destruction of an area is what a few people were yelling about to make the game more ‘real, which i don’t understand because olgoth takes over the entire northern part of a map for hours at a time.. the only difference now is we are getting terrain changes for contested/destroyed areas..
personally, i’m appalled at lion’s arch destruction.. mRoAr stacked boat houses!

relax, nothing will hapend to LA, too much is tight to LA like personal story, every event(dragon bash, halowin, wintersday…etc). Mabye a part of LA will be change, some memorial plaque here and there or crap like that

and the next LS will be along “yeeee, we win against the evil forces of [insert generic bad]” and everything is back to normal

spiritus.7983:

relax, nothing will hapend to LA, too much is tight to LA like personal story, every event(dragon bash, halowin, wintersday…etc). Mabye a part of LA will be change, some memorial plaque here and there or crap like that

and the next LS will be along “yeeee, we win against the evil forces of [insert generic bad]” and everything is back to normal

Too bad the Massively interview said the opposite.

what interview?

I guess change is fine.

I’d like to see Skippington McVonFarmer of the Iowa McVonFarmer’s take Orr back and turn it into happy, sunny land with grass and sun and villagers and attacking bandits and centaurs and log cabins and towns and forts and mines and goblins and such.

I’m a bit worn out on the whole death/goth/vampire thing. It’s depressing. It doesn’t make me want to loiter in a zone. It just makes me look pasty and sad in the zone’s ‘death lighting’.

This interview: http://massively.joystiq.com/2014/02/11/prepare-to-escape-from-lions-arch-in-guild-wars-2s-next-conten/

They basically stated that all services that were important are being moved to the vigil keep and PS story entrances will be done through a new entrance.

spiritus.7983:

relax, nothing will hapend to LA, too much is tight to LA like personal story, every event(dragon bash, halowin, wintersday…etc). Mabye a part of LA will be change, some memorial plaque here and there or crap like that

and the next LS will be along “yeeee, we win against the evil forces of [insert generic bad]” and everything is back to normal

Yeah, the massively interview says otherwise. They already have everything in place so that LA can burn and everything will be just fine. The Mystic Forge, Asura Portals, Fractals, Dungeon Vendors, Canach and TP/Crafting/Banks are moving to the Vigil Keep. There will be a special entrance for LA to do the personal story stuff and afterwards you’ll still explore LA for map completion but it will be more dangerous.

Also, as someone who now knows what is to come, this will change Tyria forever moving forward.

Canach is moving to the Vigil Keep? Oh thank Dwayna. I was really worried about him.
Thanks Xukavi for the link and Delvoire for the summary.

First, the game was advertised as changeable. I bought the game for the reason that the maps would change and I’d constantly have new things to explore. So yes, it was advertised as such. I remember one developer add stating something like “Centaurs might destroy a whole village one day, and then no one would be able to go back to it as it once was.”

Second, Scarlet is the very definition of a good villain. Somehow, this prevailing attitude that she isn’t has taken over because of the fact that the entire story didn’t take place in one update. If you look through the whole arc, she didn’t suddenly appear for no reason. it started relatively slowly, with her mustering troops. And while it seemed she pulled the Aetherblades for no reason at all (besides attacking Lion’s Arch) her reasons are now perfectly clear.

She started with a small force. She took her pirates, attacked LA, and found the defenses too strong to immediately do what she wanted.

So what did she do? Rethought things. Recruited the molten alliance. The Krait. Developed a new plan. Essentially went back to the drawing board, started over, and came up with something fool-proof.

Every Living Story update has been a step of that plan. In fact, if the whole story happened in one update, THAT would make Scarlet a bad villain. We have seen her development. We have seen her amassing her troops. This whole thing is a year in the making – all the pieces fit, and it all makes sense.

At times, the story wasn’t executed perfectly, but that doesn’t make it BAD.

It seems to me that people are used to the instant gratification that you might get from an expansion pack on other MMOs, where you can play the whole story through in a few hours, then go on to talk about the lack of endgame (since you would have already finished the endgame, but I digress.) You’ve been given an ever-changing world with new content every two weeks, and that is nothing short of amazing.

I am all ways looking forward to the next update. I have gotten spoiled by the fact that this company updates so frequently. Great job anet, now I have to languish in anticipation week after week. Love yall lol

I for one am stoked.

The entire LW experience thusfar, with the exception of Kessex hills (minor IMO) has been one of absolutely no major consequences. Nobody likes change, especially when it hits us so close to home, but if you are going to have major villains leaving no mark on the landscape, we may as well just be doing our dailies.

Bring on the chaos, and let the chips fall where they may.

Depends on the change. For example, I think the current Kessex hills is UGLY, and would hope it eventually, gets ‘cleaned up’, even if it doesn’t go back to what it was.

I don’t want L.A. to be a pile of rubble forever… but rebuild it out of wrecked airships and I’d be happy.

Can we have Scarlet discover Nuclear Fusion and unleash a Tsar Bomba style hit on LA?

Turn LA into one big-kitten crater.

mjhungness.8059:

I know one citizen who’s going to spend the weekend taking screenies of all his favorite places in LA before they are changed. Someone above got it right: LA in the first GW was the first anchor of the game, the first place we (those that started with what was later called Prophecies) called ‘home’. GW2 has given us a different racial ‘birthplace’ but LA still feels like home, at least to me. We’ve had a year and half of this new version of LA and, regardless of the storyline that drives it, the changes will be sad to see. But the game was sold as being a living world, so be it. Kudos to ANet for being gutsy enough to take down a meaningful (and to some of us, sentimental) landmark.

Me too….

I remember when the lion statue was destroyed. They took their time to rebuild it, and it didn’t just “exist” one day after a patch.

I could see “rebuilding” LA, but I hope it’s not something done in a patch or two. I would love to see it take a year or so to rebuild it to some functionality. But, that’s just an opinion.

In the meantime, if you don’t want to be in any of my screenies, avoid LA for the next couple days

It’ll be a new Searing. First Ascalon, now Lion’s Arch! =P

I am betting that LA will get rebuilt. It will be an explorable zone for a while and we will have a hand in rebuilding it. As much as I am sad to see LA go, I will be glad to see what they do with it in the future.

I read somewhere that they intended to redesign LA to curb lag and make services more easily accessible. Don’t know if that is true, but it will be cool to find out.

PeterThomas.7243:

So I guess my question is, do we really want this?.

The notion of changing existing zones instead of giving us new zones to explore is akin to rearranging the furniture in a house and telling the owners it’s a new house entirely. It’s not. It’s the same house, you just shuffled the furniture around and painted the walls a different color.

Hell yeah I want this! Turmoil is part of Guild Wars! Countries are destroyed, plagues turn the people into afflicted monsters, evil gods rise from realms of torment. The entire continent of Tyria was changed by the rise of the Elder Dragons.

The big difference between gw1 and gw2 was that most of these things happened in the gw2 lore, but we didn’t get to see it first hand. This is our chance to see what these evil forces can do.

I’ll be sad to see LA go, but when it rises from the ashes again, it will be more the better for it. Instead of learning about how it survived, we’ll be part of it.

At least I hope so. :x

Delvoire.8930:

spiritus.7983:

relax, nothing will hapend to LA, too much is tight to LA like personal story, every event(dragon bash, halowin, wintersday…etc). Mabye a part of LA will be change, some memorial plaque here and there or crap like that

and the next LS will be along “yeeee, we win against the evil forces of [insert generic bad]” and everything is back to normal

Also, as someone who now knows what is to come, this will change Tyria forever moving forward.

We all know what is going to happen. it will be reveal that scarlet is really the servant of Evon. All of this was just his plan to scare away kiel and own LA.

He could have gotten away with it, if it wasn’t for those meddling heroes and their hot sexy lesbian friends.

darkace.8925:

PeterThomas.7243:

So I guess my question is, do we really want this?.

The notion of changing existing zones instead of giving us new zones to explore is akin to rearranging the furniture in a house and telling the owners it’s a new house entirely. It’s not. It’s the same house, you just shuffled the furniture around and painted the walls a different color.

Based on your logic. Getting new zone is exactly like hiring movers to uproot your house to a different location and do minor interior redesigning. New location same stuff, no real difference. The only real difference is one of them cost more money and splinter fanbase even more. After the initial rush, DE will go undone and the zone will be empty and people going back and complaining about adding new zones.

Where will Mad King Thorn visit us in October?

Phalanix.7542:

It’ll be a new Searing. First Ascalon, now Lion’s Arch! =P

ANet likes to nuke the places where players like to meet.

Next stop, Divinity’s Reach!

yay can we blow up lions arch?wooot. must see

I’m pretty excited for this… I hope I can get all the screenshots I need before this all takes place

“So I guess my question is, do “I” really want this? " first off fixed that for you, I love the scarlet character, if you had done the quest they put up for this event and you actually listened to the “information” that has been collected by the detective you work with you would have noticed by now they are making scarlet out to be the GW2 version of Moriarty from Sherlock, I love that show and absolutely love the idea of them putting that type of character in an MMO for me to fight.

secondly,
“Scarlet and this entire story arc are better left forgotten, not immortalized. "
Couldn’t be farther from the truth, if you don’t like scarlet then fine hate her guts and the guy who came up with the idea, but I like her character and concept and I like the idea of being able to point a part of the game 2-3 years from now and tell a newer player I remember that the way it used to be before, (insert name of living story expansion that changed it) happened.

Can’t wait to see that ugly LA 2.0 blown up.

Good riddance!

mjhungness.8059:

I guess I was referring to the game being a living, changing world, regardless which mechanism is used, Living Story, Dynamic Event, etc. … it beats doing the same old tired quests over and over again…

They could still accomplish this if they decided to regularly release PERMANENT new content with stories and scenarios that make sense.

Berethor.6142:

… if you had done the quest they put up for this event and you actually listened to the “information” that has been collected by the detective you work with you would have noticed by now they are making scarlet out to be the GW2 version of Moriarty from Sherlock, I love that show and absolutely love the idea of them putting that type of character in an MMO for me to fight.

I stated in my original post that I have, in fact, played “A study in Scarlet” and reviewed all the information contained therein, and I still find the story to be ridiculous.

Partly this is because Scarlet’s foundations as a character were flawed in the first place (to save time, I’m just going to link that Massively article again), and partly it’s because most of what Scarlet’s been up to has stretched the limits of believability even for a fantasy game where we have magic and monsters.

Winter is coming…

Berethor.6142:

“So I guess my question is, do “I” really want this? " first off fixed that for you, I love the scarlet character, if you had done the quest they put up for this event and you actually listened to the “information” that has been collected by the detective you work with you would have noticed by now they are making scarlet out to be the GW2 version of Moriarty from Sherlock, I love that show and absolutely love the idea of them putting that type of character in an MMO for me to fight.
.

Do you know how deeply you just insulted Arthur Conan Doyle?

I get this feeling that if Scarlet were male, no one would have a problem with her at all.

I mean, she’s the equivalent to many other male characters that have stormed across canons in the past. The Joker is mentioned in that massively article. She is like the Reavers in Firefly – at first, no reason is given for their existence, but people are terrified of them nevertheless. She’s Crais from Farscape. John Locke from LOST. Sephiroth from Final Fantasy VII. Magneto from the X-Men.

There is no difference between her and any other villain that has ever existed, except that she’s female.

Being a powerful woman does not automatically make you a bad character/Mary Sue/retcon bait. In fact, I applaud ANet for making the main villain female, rather than yet another male villain.

And I bet if a good portion of the people mentally rewrote her character as male, they would have no problem with her.

ChaosKirin.1328:

I get this feeling that if Scarlet were male, no one would have a problem with her at all.

I mean, she’s the equivalent to many other male characters that have stormed across canons in the past. The Joker is mentioned in that massively article. She is like the Reavers in Firefly – at first, no reason is given for their existence, but people are terrified of them nevertheless. She’s Crais from Farscape. John Locke from LOST. Sephiroth from Final Fantasy VII. Magneto from the X-Men.

And I bet if a good portion of the people mentally rewrote her character as male, they would have no problem with her.

No. There is absolutely nothing wrong with a female villain if she’s written well.

For example, Varesh Ossa in Guild Wars: Nightfall was a very effective villain. Speaking of which, there are parallels between her and Scarlet: Varesh was being manipulated by a dark evil entity (Abaddon), she was a very selfish and self-serving person and she had great armies and resources at her command. Yet, her character was believable and made sense, whereas Scarlet does not.

To save time (again) I’m going to link the Massively article that sums up most of what is wrong with Scarlet’s writing and backstory.

I like strong female characters whether they are villains or not. The problem is that Scarlet simply isn’t one. Yet she’s the star of the show at the moment.

(P.S., I actually don’t think any of the villains you cited in your post are particularly strong or well written either. The fact that they’re male does not let them off the hook.)

I’ve read the article, as I said in my post.

Just because it’s on Massively doesn’t make it true.

Why did Varesh make sense compared to Scarlet? You’re going to have to fill me in here, as I’m not familiar with the character.

ChaosKirin.1328:

Why did Varesh make sense compared to Scarlet? You’re going to have to fill me in here, as I’m not familiar with the character.

Varesh was the heiress to one of the Elonian countries (Kourna) and therefore had its armies and resources at her command. She was the descendent of one of the greatest heroes in Elonian history, Turai Ossa, and commanded great loyalty and respect from her subjects as a result.

She became tempted by the power Abaddon could offer her and realizes she could rule all of Elona instead of just Kourna with Abaddon’s help. At first, due to her lineage and reputation, her advisors and subjects follow along with her.

It became soon apparent that Varesh is calling upon Abaddon to swell her armies with demons to give her an edge against the other nations. In doing so, she begins to lose support from her closest followers, but the rest of the nation follows along out of submission and fear. Also, allying herself with Abaddon has basically cost her soul, and she slowly began to transform into a Margonite.

As I recall, Varesh regrets her actions toward the end, but by then it’s too late and Abaddon has complete control of her. The players, along with Varesh’s advisors who have abandoned her, are forced to kill her in an attempt to stop Abaddon from breaking through into reality.

Her motivations for why she wanted to ally with Abaddon were never fully explained, but you got the sense that she just wanted more power, just like how some people in real life do. However, her ability to command armies, tap into ancient religious powers, and wield tremendous political power all made sense (i.e., due to her wealth, money, power and privileged birthright). Everything she did in the story made sense and did not require huge leaps of faith in order to accept. Most importantly, she was a flawed character with weaknesses as well as strengths.

Overall she was an effective villain – intimidating, independent, power-hungry, and female. So there you go.

Varesh was not the best written character in the world, but she was written by Arenanet and she was pretty freaking good. Thus, Arenanet has no excuse why they can’t pull off the same level of quality for Scarlet.

Okay, that sounds like a decent character. So what about Scarlet is radically different so that she’s a bad character?

She’s a sylvari who wants more knowledge. She goes to the knowledge capital of EVERYTHING (AKA Rata Sum) and makes her way through all three colleges, likely graduating from each because of her ability to absorb knowledge. When there is no more stuff for her to learn, she turns to the Eternal Alchemy, and because she looked into the Eternal Alchemy, she essentially goes mad, or falls under the control of a more powerful being.

This powerful being pushes her to amass an army. It seems as if this army is specifically designed to (I assume) get her to a ley line under Lion’s Arch for reasons that are yet to be explained.

Likely, everything she’s done has been to follow ley lines. I’m guessing it’s because she’s been following them to a place of extreme power. Her initial attack on LA failed because her army just wasn’t strong enough — so now she’s coming back to finish the job.

The two characters are similar in that regard. She’s bribed and threatened other masses of bad guys to help her instead of utilizing demons, but the similarities are there.

And while she may not have been born into money or power, she had a thirst for knowledge, which prompted her to seek out the Asura, which makes a lot of sense to me.

Before she looked into the Eternal Alchemy, she wasn’t necessarily evil. She wasn’t quite GOOD, either, but not murderous at that point. If you read her journal, she details the fact that she is plagued now by voices in her head, pushing her to do things. She’s following the voices in order to confront the being responsible (or so she thinks) when she’s really just doing exactly what the voices want her to do. This seems like a pretty deep character flaw to me.

And eventually, she’s probably going to lose her life because of her ambition.

So where’s the difference?

I am very sceptical about this. I mean, Living World, cool thing, sure. Yet call me old fashioned but I believe MMO should provide more content with expanding rather than reworking. Rework is justified when it comes to updating mechanics, adding QoL changes or upgrading outdated visuals. And even then such reworks are often questionable. Even more so scraping entire zones in order to replace them with something different. To what end? That other big MMO did just that with their one Cataclysmic expansion and it is now widely considered as a giant waste of time and the biggest flop in that game’s history. I understand what AreneNet is trying to do but IMO they should leave things like LA or Kessex Hills alone and focus on opening new uncharted areas on the world map. Oh well…