Guild Wars 2

It is lost forever. Even ruins will be gone as there is going to be a big cataclysmatic event which will change the landscape of southern shore, or at least LA zone.
Even if LA is rebuilt sometime, it will be moved somewhere else.

Why do you think that will be the case? All we’ve seen is burning ruins. And that can be rebuilt.

Most likely it’ll be rebuilt because it’s a central hub for players – this is the same reason why it’s received so much living world attention.

It just doesn’t make sense to me to have the central city in the game be gone forever. Lion’s Arch was already destroyed once*(hence the ruins underwater in the harbor) and they built it right back in the same spot.

It good to have one central city with all the races intermingling in a central place not too far to one side or the other for those who have to watch their travel expenses.

*I didn’t play GW1 so I’m not up the lore of what happened to the first version of LA.

I definitely hope it isn’t rebuilt as a full city – maybe convert it into a memorial or Ground Zero kinda thingy but rebuilding the whole city back won’t have the same kind of emotional impact on players as having it as a wasteland reminding all civilized races of a huge loss would.
I’d take it further by keeping LA portals in The Mists intact but throwing an on-screen message that reminds players of where those portals once used to lead to. Let the players feel the loss they felt when Tybalt/Sieran/Forgal died, but this time on a much massive scale.
We could have a LA memorial event every year (similar to Dragon Bash) around this period that would take us to a virtual setting (like fractals?) of the present LA so new players get to see what they have missed and old players can relive their favorite afk-spot for a brief time without actually going afk.

If it’s rebuilt it should be more of a city and less of an open air marketplace.

I’d rather see Divinity’s reach be the central hub. It’s more how a city should be.

uhohhotdog.3598:

If it’s rebuilt it should be more of a city and less of an open air marketplace.

I’d rather see Divinity’s reach be the central hub. It’s more how a city should be.

but that’s what it pretty much is……

First two responders, sorry but you still didn’t grasp what living story is about. After the end of each LS arch, there are going to be big changes to the world (not mentioning little changes during the arch).

Everyone with at least a pinch of fantasy can imagine what are those PROBES for…..

And the video showing LA in ruins is connected to Escape from LA patch, not the last one.

I wonder if Kurt Russell will make an appearance?

To the OP,

I fail to grasp where a rebuilt Lion’s Arch will not define the purpose of a living story. The destruction of Lion’s Arch will have big and permanent changes to the world, but that doesn’t mean that Lion’s arch can’t be rebuild. Hopefully in a totally new fashion, but there are more then enough options to build a new lion’s arch where the old one was, on top of the ruins.

It also makes sense. The location has always been the main trading hub for Tyria. People know where it is and find it therefor with ease.

Off course I do expect that the landscape has unndergone some big changes and that it will look totally different. Just as current day lions arch looks very different from how it looked 250 years ago.

Real life city’s proven many times that destroyed city’s are being rebuild in the same place.

London got rebuild in the same spot after the great fire of 1666
Hiroshima and Nagasaki got rebuild after being nuked
All the european city’s both on allied side as on german side that got destroyed in wwII got rebuild on the same spot
etc, etc.

In modern history, only one city didn’t get rebuild on the same location as the old and that is Pripjat (more commonly know by the name of the nucleair facillity Tjernobyl).

I expect Lion’s Arch will be rebuilt and better than ever. Think about it, all the races are already currently united against the Elder Dragons. We’ll have the Black Citadel supplying the metal, the Grove supplying the wood, Rata Sum supplying the magic, Divinity’s Reach supplying the funds, and Hoelbrak supplying the extra manpower. She will be greater than before, she will be a true showing of world unity. WE CAN REBUILD IT, WE HAVE THE TECHNOLOGY!

I won’t be mean to give you a hint of what I know. Let’s just wait for the grand finale.
I was just wondering why majority of ppl on forums think that automatically.

Anet has 3 options:
1) leave the city as permanant wreck and force players to the other main cities/home instance. – this would alos allow a post LA expansion and help drive the idea the living world change the game for good., we’ve had the after match of the tower which is still there and awesome, so leave this.
2) have the city rebuilt but over a long period of time (the whole of next season)
3) someone drops 4 legendaries in zomoros and the city magically rebuilds….

True that Arc, but every game needs a core place.
LA is it in GW2, as Kamandan was in GW1 (apart from LA), but only because Kamandan was a starter area and there was the bigger chances to sell your chatspammed stuff.
Then there came a new place with last update, its not popular due its bad mapping.
SWG’s was Mos Eisley, even if it had terrible NPC spreading.

So, I would like to see the Race capitals being used, but all of them lacks the forge.
BUT we still need a lot more; A better LA as core place, and the racial cities should offer something more to keep people there. I don’t know why people don’t use them, maybe they’re just not as practic as LA. Has no portals, no dungeon vendors, no mf, no fractial entrace, and the 95% of map is just empty at options.

Let’s see Divinity’s Reach, which is number 2 place. Nice styled quarters, but nothing there to do, nothing there to buy, nothing there worth to visit.

Whole game needs huge improvements…

For TP/crafting/banking I often use DR. It has much less loading time and WP between crafting station and TP+bank (which is close together) is right up the wall and 95% of time you don’t even get loading screen when you jump between them.

And I am not suggesting there won’t to be new hub in the game, or new LA. I’m just telling you it will be most probably somewhere else. And I think, it makes sense the name of the city will be different.

Mortifer.2946:

It is lost forever. Even ruins will be gone as there is going to be a big cataclysmatic event which will change the landscape of southern shore, or at least LA zone.
Even if LA is rebuilt sometime, it will be moved somewhere else.

For two things:
First, a central hub is a good thing. And while having the racial cities be more lively would also be a good thing, there are far better options to do this than just depriving players of other choices. Besides, due to the usefullness of such a hub, it would still be created by a simple convenience of players gravitating to only one of the racial cities. Which one? I have no idea, but once the thend would start, it would snowball fast until everyone knew that one of the cities is THE City.

Second – the location. If you look at the map, you will realize why LA was so perfect as a hub. Its central location was important there – and i don’t really see where it could be moved to still retain that important factor.

In other words – either LA will be rebuild, and in pretty much the same spot, or the game will end up diminished. The choice of course is in the hands of devs, but i definitely know which of those two i’d prefer.

Darkoray.4570:

I wonder if Kurt Russell will make an appearance?

I see what you did there, Snake.

To answer the topic question; Helloween and X-mas events.

Till now only LA was decorated. If LA isnt rebuilt, the question will be wich city will then be decorated for these events. And just one city, or more cities?!

Note to Anet: If LA is gonna be rebuild, fix the jumping puzzles while yer at it!
And i mean, make them friendlier for larger characters (Charr and Norn).

RyuDragnier.9476:

I expect Lion’s Arch will be rebuilt and better than ever. Think about it, all the races are already currently united against the Elder Dragons. We’ll have the Black Citadel supplying the metal, the Grove supplying the wood, Rata Sum supplying the magic, Divinity’s Reach supplying the funds, and Hoelbrak supplying the extra manpower. She will be greater than before, she will be a true showing of world unity. WE CAN REBUILD IT, WE HAVE THE TECHNOLOGY!

and Hoelbrak supplying the extra beer !

If they didn’t rebuild it, it would interfere too much with the player’s main story. How are people to do their personal story with LA nuked to nothing?

Zeivu.3615:

If they didn’t rebuild it, it would interfere too much with the player’s main story. How are people to do their personal story with LA nuked to nothing?

Arenanet has just to settle the Personal Story in the past. It would be a great opportunity to provide players flashbacks to locations that have changed over the course of time. The separation of time lines would solve many problems and restrictions.

I really hope it does not get rebuilt.

The Living Story needs to show that it can have a huge impact in the world- it also needs to be freed from the personal story so we can move forward to things that matter

Like- the cleansing of Orr- the treaty between the Humans and Charr, the cleansing of the ghosts etc- stuff like that, that changes and moves the world forward.

LA is too much of a comfort zone, while it stands people will always think- oh well LA is still there, how bad can it be?

btw the assets form the festivals can very easily be reused somewhere else.
Wintersday for example should always have been in Hoelbrack

If LA falls, I’ll place the first few bricks myself. After that I’ll let my minions do all the real work, but what ever it takes, Lion’s Arch will rise again.

The one main reason why I think Lion’s Arch won’t be permanently destroyed are
seasonal events

Whether it’s Dragon Bash, Wintersday or Halloween, these events all centered around festivities in Lion’s Arch. ANet developers have stated in the past, that they are planning to leave these festivities as they are, in order to give them the time and resources to work on bigger content updates. Having Lion’s Arch completely destroyed would mean that these event’s would have to be completely re-worked.
So my prediction is that Lion’s Arch will stand again by mid-june.

CorneliusCoffin.3169:

…So my prediction is that Lion’s Arch will stand again by mid-june.

I am thinking along the same lines as you, that it will be rebuilt because of the seasonal events, along with the fact that it is the “melting pot” of Tyria.

BUT…I think (hope) it will be longer than that before it is finished. Maybe have a core for a triumphant party, but still be in-process for a while after… I am thinking by maybe the return of the Mad King….

Let’s hope you are right guys. I love LA, mainly its rural parts. Let’s just hope we will scare away whatever will come up from the Depths under the city

I vote they rebuild ascalon!

CursedShaitan.9720:

I vote they rebuild ascalon!

Actually I was in Ascalon settlement in Gendarren last night- seems like a much better option to me than old Ascalon- just clear out/ make a treaty with the centaurs and done.

Because ANet is a master of temporary content. They ALMOST exclusively make everything in this game be temporary and “sell” it to you as being an expansion’s worth of content….thus making content that is not memorable in any good way (worthless). If they do make this permanent it will be a huge plus in my book.

I don’t really want LA to be gone forever.
It is like the place you can always return to… I’ll miss it if it’s permanently gone.

Maybe some coastal parts of Orr will finally regenerate and we will build LA there.

LA is doomed either way. Either Scarlet destroys it or the Mold problem does.
They should just build a new one elsewhere. :P

The consensus in my household is that burning away all the wooden ships will allow for each race to have a stronger influence, and instead of being a ~humanity’s hope~ city, it’ll be a ~united Tyria’s hope~ city. I want to see way more Asura and Sylvari architecture — the Norn could remake the bank in a similar style but more exaggerated, the Charr could rework the crafting and the TP area (because Gnashblade). I mean, the boats are mostly resting on natural rock formations, so the main structure of the city will still be there.

Considering that a central hype to GW2 was Lion’s Arch, which emphasized the care they took in designing its districts and laying out the city, I have a hard time believing they’d scrap all that work permanently. And as others have said, you’d have a multi-city holiday dilemma. This works in GW1 because the holiday cities are on different continents, but it might feel clutter-y in GW2. Or it might be cool! I don’t know, I just think it’d be a waste if it was never reclaimed. Especially when our characters have taken down Zhaitan. We can take down an elder dragon but we can’t organized for a counter-attack against Scarlet’s little minions? I don’t believe it.

I hope it will be rebuilt after a month.

That way I can forget about scarlet faster.

As for specific reasons:

1. I don’t think they will throw away all the good work they did on Xmas and Halloween

2. New players shouldn’t have to crisscross a lvl80 raid zone (even up leveled) in order to get to leveling zones

3. I don’t think the vigil hub idea works long term unless it is an entirely new map with waypoints etc. The existing vigil keep layout will be camera hell.

4. Lore wise it feels wrong (story missions for protecting LA being one example, GW1 history and the novels being another example).

I’m pretty sure LA will be rebuilt. But how long will it take and how will it looks like? We don’t know.

I’d say 1 year for LA to be rebuilt and the design will be completely changed due to its destruction.

I will lay down my life to save Meep

LA will become an explorable area that we can visit any time and becomes a great map. A new permanent hub will be created (Vigil is simply short term solution). That new hub could very well be the opening of the Dominion of Winds (per one of my previous predictions).

LA will be rebuilt. Why?

Money.

Someone in the game says “All roads lead to Lion’s Arch”, and it’s true. It’s central to a lot of things, and it’s coastal for shipping. There’s even an island fort that protects it somewhat. It’s simply the most practical place for a large trading port in that part of the world.

Will it ever be the same as it was? That I can’t say. But even if they reduce it to a smoking crater, it can be rebuilt. Differently, perhaps using a lot of norn and charr work for massive bridges between the walls of the crater, and asuran floating structures, but they could still rebuild it.

Even if no large group sets out to rebuild it, it will happen. Some ship will make landfall there for practical reasons, and then another…then someone will put up a makeshift dock, just to make that all easier. A merchant or two will visit, getting better prices on those goods by being right there and saving them the cost and time to transport it elsewhere. A blacksmith will set up shop to do repairs, and inn to profit off of the sailors and merchants that are showing up, a tavern… Oh, look. A small town. And it’s growing.

Besides, the Captain’s Council will need to rebuild it. If they won’t, then they will disappear as a group – and then our decision to choose Kiel as one of their members would have no lasting consequence on the world beyond one fractal. And we were promised that it will.

……….unless big kitten dragon will be in its way.

so guys , happen to remember back not too long after release they said they wanted to make players want to be in their races capital ? yea i think this part of the LS is that big hint right there >;-)

dagrdagaz.4913:

To answer the topic question; Helloween and X-mas events.

Mad King Thorn being the Keeper of the Seven Keys? I guess I could go for that.

Axelwarrior.9084:

I don’t really want LA to be gone forever.
It is like the place you can always return to… I’ll miss it if it’s permanently gone.

This is the reason I would like to see it gone. The emotion that pulls you in and makes you love/hate some part of the world. Destroying something people love makes the game feel alive.

Anet’s checklist:
-LA get’s destroyed (CHECK)
-Introduce a new playable race [Tengu] (CHECK)
-Main center for all afker’s from LA to move to the Tengu’s main city (CHECK)
-New dragon to fight (CHECK)

Enundr.9305:

so guys , happen to remember back not too long after release they said they wanted to make players want to be in their races capital ? yea i think this part of the LS is that big hint right there >;-)

It will not make players to want to be in their race capitals more than they already do. Again, it would be stick in place of carrot.
And i am all about carrots.

Morrigan.2809:

I really hope it does not get rebuilt.

The Living Story needs to show that it can have a huge impact in the world- it also needs to be freed from the personal story so we can move forward to things that matter

Like- the cleansing of Orr- the treaty between the Humans and Charr, the cleansing of the ghosts etc- stuff like that, that changes and moves the world forward.

LA is too much of a comfort zone, while it stands people will always think- oh well LA is still there, how bad can it be?

btw the assets form the festivals can very easily be reused somewhere else.
Wintersday for example should always have been in Hoelbrack

I’ll give you an answere for this…
“Huge impact”: Real cleansing of Orr then. Or populating the existing maps, discovering new ones (Crystal Desert), etc. Its about to Build, not to destroy.
AN can’t let us to decide which city we’ll flood. They’re developers, they need to control us, so the hub place of the game needs to be designet for large amount of players.
We’ll have serious FPS issues in other cities anyway…
Not to mention this game is still very unoptimised and ignores strong GPUs.
( +30 FPS if WvW character quality set to Lowest from High. Huh?! Okay, dummy clone toysoldiers everywhere…)

Since the game is heavy casual type, its not a problem that “LA is too much of a comfort zone”.

Assets are just pre-made models & NPCs & some content. Its very easy to move,
I wonder why not every city gets a real decoration these times, only LA…
Anyway, huge amount of us would hate AN for a +1 new reason if they decide to permakill LA… its a fact to deal with.

I don’t think the landscape will be changed as much as it was before after the attack. The original flood was from continental upheaval with a restless dragon.
The problem for Lion’s Arch is that it was sprawling. The actual town didn’t extend further than the Asura gates, but there were facilities all over the map.
The Captain’s Council has proven that they were too complacent.
When it is rebuilt, it is going to be dense and have a lot of clutter removed if a new faction takes control.
I wonder about the Lionguard, since they are dealing with Kessex Hills and eventually all of this.

When you look back over this first season of Living Story several maps have had changes. You have the hatchery in Diessa Plateau, you have the new Village in Wayfarer Foothills, you have the new platform in Divinities Reach, not to forget the huge change to Kessex Hills. These aren’t the only changes just the biggest ones that occur to me.

These things are now a permanent part of the landscape, now Lion’s Arch is gonna get an Extreme Makeover courtesy of Ms Scarlett, and for at least two weeks and more probably a month, Lion’s Arch isn’t gonna be the central hub. It will be there, it will be explorable but things will be much more dangerous.

However, I stand with many doubting that this signals the end of Lion’s Arch as a social hub. I don’t see them putting skill challenges, and renown hearts and giving LA it’s own mob table. I do see Lion’s Arch looking different in the aftermath, perhaps significantly perhaps not.

I would like it to be an explorable zone with all being burnt down and in a way that would be “a new map” !

It’s been rebuilt once after the 3 factions defeated the first dragons..it will be rebuilt again.

LA from a technical standpoint is a mess. I think they are tearing it down to build it up in a better way so that it has less lag and can support huge future battles. Part of me hopes they don’t though because it would mean a new hub zone which means new permanent content. I would rather have that than have a rebuilt LA.