Guild Wars 2

For ages, it seems, there was a mysterious gigantic hole in Divinity’s Reach, teasing us with its potential. We wondered, pondered, and speculated. What could it become? A jumping puzzle? A new dungeon? Catacombs and/or sewers to explore? Would we ever find out why the collapse happened? (Never mind the possible ret-conning over the Cantha district that never was and alleged reasons as to why.)

Like others, I wanted to venture down into those depths. I wanted to discover something hidden and mysterious below the city most of my characters call home. The location would have been perfect for a jumping puzzle or a new dungeon or a new episode of the Living Story where we venture below-ground.

Whenever anyone has written about this in the forums, these are the wishes that are most often expressed.

There’s a lot to be happy about in the Queen’s Jubilee update: account currency wallets and better champion and dungeon loot are wonderful improvements.

But I’m disappointed that what many players anticipated and hoped for regarding the chasm in Divinity’s Reach simply appears to be utterly disregarded by ArenaNet.

How do you know that some nasty beast won’t come crawling out of the hole and smash the platform to itty bitty pieces, and otherwise fulfill all your darkest fantasies?

rodadams.5963:

How do you know that some nasty beast won’t come crawling out of the hole and smash the platform to itty bitty pieces, and otherwise fulfill all your darkest fantasies?

Then I will be pleasantly surprised.

And yet we have not seen the area, so we can’t really assume it will be bad, now can we?
By the sound of it I would say it sounds way more fun than just “venturing into a hole and find out stuff”.

Just because they put a cork in the hole it doesn’t mean that anything that is under it is completely lost.
We can still get our jumping puzzle/dungeon/whatever someday. They would just have to open a little door somewhere.

There’s a screen of it on the release page (see attachment). I for one was hoping to see the “arts” (read Canthan) district make a return because I know exactly where I’d spend most of my time. This game lacks Canthan influence and as the oldest known human empire I find it disappointing from a lore perspective. I hope to see Cantha in the future (maybe not the near future I’ll concede) and if I dont it’s certaintly a game-breaker for me.

lordkrall.7241:

And yet we have not seen the area, so we can’t really assume it will be bad, now can we?
By the sound of it I would say it sounds way more fun than just “venturing into a hole and find out stuff”.

Nobody said the content they created for this won’t be fun. I’m sure it will be. Neither does “venturing into a hole to find out stuff” have to be as mundane as you’re trying to portray it (isn’t that pretty much every dungeon crawl, ever? ). We don’t know what goes on during the creative brainstorming sessions for this. It could very well be that they just couldn’t come up with a story they felt was compelling enough compared to the idea of the Queen’s Jubilee/1st-year anniversary of the game. Or it would’ve involved the Dredge, in which case I would have had mixed feelings about it because I simply hate the Dredge.

We have seen the area to an extent: the hole has been simply covered up with the pavilion/arena. I hope maybe there’s a secret entrance to darkness below…

maybe the end of the Queen’s Jubilee would lend itself to an attack on Divinity’s Reach – for whatever, if anything, lies deep within the earth. ; )))

biggs.4702:

lordkrall.7241:

And yet we have not seen the area, so we can’t really assume it will be bad, now can we?
By the sound of it I would say it sounds way more fun than just “venturing into a hole and find out stuff”.

Nobody said the content they created for this won’t be fun. I’m sure it will be. Neither does “venturing into a hole to find out stuff” have to be as mundane as you’re trying to portray it (isn’t that pretty much every dungeon crawl, ever? ). We don’t know what goes on during the creative brainstorming sessions for this. It could very well be that they just couldn’t come up with a story they felt was compelling enough compared to the idea of the Queen’s Jubilee/1st-year anniversary of the game. Or it would’ve involved the Dredge, in which case I would have had mixed feelings about it because I simply hate the Dredge.

We have seen the area to an extent: the hole has been simply covered up with the pavilion/arena. I hope maybe there’s a secret entrance to darkness below…

If you think the content will be fun, can you maybe avoid piling even more hostile criticism on ArenaNet before the patch is actually released? At the very least acknowledge everything ArenaNet already does for the game and its players with a “Thank you!” now and then, rather than claiming they’ve disregarded the desires of their players in a patch that you haven’t even seen yet.

If you’re going to nitpick about a patch that you think has a lot to be happy about, just try to do it a bit more respectfully.

Stormleaf.1769:

biggs.4702:

lordkrall.7241:

And yet we have not seen the area, so we can’t really assume it will be bad, now can we?
By the sound of it I would say it sounds way more fun than just “venturing into a hole and find out stuff”.

Nobody said the content they created for this won’t be fun. I’m sure it will be. Neither does “venturing into a hole to find out stuff” have to be as mundane as you’re trying to portray it (isn’t that pretty much every dungeon crawl, ever? ). We don’t know what goes on during the creative brainstorming sessions for this. It could very well be that they just couldn’t come up with a story they felt was compelling enough compared to the idea of the Queen’s Jubilee/1st-year anniversary of the game. Or it would’ve involved the Dredge, in which case I would have had mixed feelings about it because I simply hate the Dredge.

We have seen the area to an extent: the hole has been simply covered up with the pavilion/arena. I hope maybe there’s a secret entrance to darkness below…

If you think the content will be fun, can you maybe avoid piling even more hostile criticism on ArenaNet before the patch is actually released? At the very least acknowledge everything ArenaNet already does for the game and its players with a “Thank you!” now and then, rather than claiming they’ve disregarded the desires of their players in a patch that you haven’t even seen yet.

If you’re going to nitpick about a patch that you think has a lot to be happy about, just try to do it a bit more respectfully.

Did I somehow get sent back in time to the SWToR forums before the collapse? I swear I read this same post there. Oh, never mind the names are different.

Calling a company on their mistakes doesn’t make you a bad guy. It makes you honest. If the company is worth a kitten they will listen. They might completely dismiss you and say “no this is our game, we are doing it our way”, but they will listen. Companies that don’t, well we’ve all seen the past. Even Blizzard is starting to realize this mistake, and they were so big no one ever thought they would lose out to a free to play game. (LoL)

Incidentally, those screenshots of the Crown Pavillion make it look like the hole is still there. It’s just been refurbished into a giant sunken gladiatorial arena.

Zaxares.5419:

Incidentally, those screenshots of the Crown Pavillion make it look like the hole is still there. It’s just been refurbished into a giant sunken gladiatorial arena.

Why fill in the hole when you can just throw a coat of paint on the walls and call it the worlds deepest gladiator pit?

GSSBlunaspike.4153:

Did I somehow get sent back in time to the SWToR forums before the collapse? I swear I read this same post there. Oh, never mind the names are different.

Calling a company on their mistakes doesn’t make you a bad guy. It makes you honest. If the company is worth a kitten they will listen. They might completely dismiss you and say “no this is our game, we are doing it our way”, but they will listen. Companies that don’t, well we’ve all seen the past. Even Blizzard is starting to realize this mistake, and they were so big no one ever thought they would lose out to a free to play game. (LoL)

I’d hardly call it a legitimate “mistake” to not put exactly what some players wanted in a hole in Divinty’s Reach. Something for those players to complain about, obviously, but it’s pretty unfair to title a post “Player wishes disregarded” over a patch that hasn’t even been fully released. Especially when simultaneously admitting that there are already things to be happy about in the patch.

lordkrall.7241:

And yet we have not seen the area, so we can’t really assume it will be bad, now can we?
By the sound of it I would say it sounds way more fun than just “venturing into a hole and find out stuff”.

Never underestimate the joy that can come from venturing into holes to find out stuff.

People wanted something to be put into the great collapse and they are putting content in the great collapse. Sounds EXACTLY like they listened to player wishes.

It was cantha district and ncsoft wanted it out.

They created a story for it.

Thaz that. It’s nothing more.

dude, JUST LOOK AT IT. it’s gorgeous, and it’s huge.

i for one am hyped as hell to walk in such a huge building. i imagine it’ll be crowded with NPCs chatting, much like the bazaar, and it wouldn’t be a stadium/arena without a bunch of merchants selling relevant wares (even if they’re there just to make noise and look colorful). add that with the (hopefully permanent) arena challenges and you finally got a reason to go to divinity’s reach.

Gasoline.2570:

It was cantha district and ncsoft wanted it out.

They created a story for it.

Thaz that. It’s nothing more.

It had a story with ingame npcs verifying it’s existence as the canthan district. 1 npc even calling it the canthan district(there’s a topic with exact details somewhere in the forums i believe somewhere in the living story forum parts). Anet mods put their fingers in their ears and blantantly lied when ingame dialogue said otherwise.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/livingworld/cutthroat/New-thing-in-Great-Collapse/first#post2473621 scroll down to konig’s post. Anet has problems showing respect to the very lore and content that even gave them an excuse to make a gw2. It’s one thing to turn the mirror but spitting on stuff is entirely different.

don’t get me wrong i love playing gw2 but it’s sad i have to tolerate bad story decisions when their company has shown the ability to do more then just blog and retcon and make parties and minigames cough war in kryta cough,

Just another to the pile of mistakes on their side they won’t even aknowledge. List is getting pretty big fyi.

You can just go jump down the hole now, it merely teleports you back up and kills you, breaking armor.

Gasoline.2570:

It was cantha district and ncsoft wanted it out.

They created a story for it.

Thaz that. It’s nothing more.

Can you reference ANY data that is credible for your “ncsoft wanted it out”, comment?

Projecting your personal beliefs into this discussion as facts makes you appear to be quite a number of things, but never close to credible. You can point out what you think are “mistakes” all you want, but stating your “guesses” as to why as known “facts” just makes you appear to be just another conspiracy theory nut or self-proclaimed prophet of doom.

Pavees.7281:

Gasoline.2570:

It was cantha district and ncsoft wanted it out.

They created a story for it.

Thaz that. It’s nothing more.

It had a story with ingame npcs verifying it’s existence as the canthan district. 1 npc even calling it the canthan district(there’s a topic with exact details somewhere in the forums i believe somewhere in the living story forum parts). Anet mods put their fingers in their ears and blantantly lied when ingame dialogue said otherwise.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/livingworld/cutthroat/New-thing-in-Great-Collapse/first#post2473621 scroll down to konig’s post. Anet has problems showing respect to the very lore and content that even gave them an excuse to make a gw2. It’s one thing to turn the mirror but spitting on stuff is entirely different.

don’t get me wrong i love playing gw2 but it’s sad i have to tolerate bad story decisions when their company has shown the ability to do more then just blog and retcon and make parties and minigames cough war in kryta cough,

Note that Konig doesn’t actually quote dialogue stating that this particular area was the Canthan district…just a quote that says there’s a “Canthan area” somewhere in Divinity’s Reach, and referencing a pre-release interview where, if you listen to it, Ree seems to dance around actually calling it a Canthan district until she finally says it. Note that the developers have always maintained that anything could change prior to release…what matters is what’s in the game at release and all I can find is references to an arts district.

I keep hearing people say there are NPCs that state this area was the Canthan district, but I cannot find them in-game, only ones that say it was an arts district. If someone could point those out, that’d be great. It could very well be that they were forgotten after the change to the Great Collapse and hadn’t been tracked down until sometime post-launch.

Stormleaf.1769:

GSSBlunaspike.4153:

Did I somehow get sent back in time to the SWToR forums before the collapse? I swear I read this same post there. Oh, never mind the names are different.

Calling a company on their mistakes doesn’t make you a bad guy. It makes you honest. If the company is worth a kitten they will listen. They might completely dismiss you and say “no this is our game, we are doing it our way”, but they will listen. Companies that don’t, well we’ve all seen the past. Even Blizzard is starting to realize this mistake, and they were so big no one ever thought they would lose out to a free to play game. (LoL)

I’d hardly call it a legitimate “mistake” to not put exactly what some players wanted in a hole in Divinty’s Reach. Something for those players to complain about, obviously, but it’s pretty unfair to title a post “Player wishes disregarded” over a patch that hasn’t even been fully released. Especially when simultaneously admitting that there are already things to be happy about in the patch.

Whenever someone says their opinion is the “obvious” one, it usually isn’t. Conviction does not correlate to correctness.

Who knows if what ArenaNet is doing here will turn out to be a mistake? No one will until later, but certainly not now.

It is absolutely fair to state this as player wishes being disregarded. People have expressed what they’d like to see out of that area of Divinity’s Reach. As far as we can tell, we’re getting absolutely nothing that resembles player speculation in the past. “Disregard” is about as fair and accurate of a description as you can get. If that’s not disregard, I don’t know what is.

ArenaNet put a big hole in Divinity’s Reach. Seems only natural people will want to know what’s down there. I can understand ArenaNet wanting to do something that’s better than expected and better than the product of a first pass at brainstorming. And I’m thrilled about the account wallet and champion loot changes, specifically. But I don’t like having an itch that might never get to be scratched, and I don’t mind saying so.

Based on that screenshot it looks like the hole is still there. It’d be reasonable to assume whatever is under it is still there too.

Brother Grimm.5176:

Gasoline.2570:

It was cantha district and ncsoft wanted it out.

They created a story for it.

Thaz that. It’s nothing more.

Can you reference ANY data that is credible for your “ncsoft wanted it out”, comment?

Projecting your personal beliefs into this discussion as facts makes you appear to be quite a number of things, but never close to credible. You can point out what you think are “mistakes” all you want, but stating your “guesses” as to why as known “facts” just makes you appear to be just another conspiracy theory nut or self-proclaimed prophet of doom.

For your reading pleasure…

http://www.zam.com/story.html?story=32795

Wasn’t there suppose to be a bunch of houses there? NOT some weird beautified smaller hole?

I mean, if you go to Street Rat and talk to Riot Alice, she says that her father lived there (and I died I think). Also, near the collapse, there are NPC’s that do conversations with each other, claiming they lived there and had little stores there.

Are they just shoved back into the other districts? So a neighborhood collapses and causes many to lose their house. Finally they fix it, and instead of seeing you’re house repaired, it’s a giant fancy hole.

I don’t know about you, but I would be very mad.