Future Expansions *Spoilers*
I believe Anet has plans to make Act 2 a non-expansion story Act. They have plans for 2 new dungeons to be released in 2013 as major updates along with new areas for Tyria to go with them and no it is not just merely 2 new areas so you can go to these dungeons but some where over 3 new areas.
Since every dungeon story mode is part of the Personal Story story wise we can expect the next Elder dragon Act once they release this update to the game.
For their future campaigns, I’d like to see less focus on choosing paths. I know, I know. “LESS options? Madness!” But let’s face it, the story paths weren’t exactly dissimilar. And creating these junctions in any story tends to fragment the narrative and remove any sense of flow from the story.
I think the dragons need to actually have a voice, from beginning to end. If you asked me who the villain was in GW2 vanilla, I really couldn’t tell you. There’s Zhaitan, of course, but he’s just the big monster you kill at the end. What was his objective? What was his character? What was the personal relationship he had with the character? These are important components to establishing an antagonist, and they just never come up in the story, at all. The closest we get is some disjointed conversation with the Eyes that doesn’t particularly go anywhere or seem to have any real purpose within the context of advancing the story.
If you’re making a story about advancing on an antagonist (like this one), one of the first things you need to do is introduce that villain very early, either by proxy or directly. You don’t wait until level 50 to do this; you do it in the opening cutscene, when at all possible. Again, either directly (the “attack on the village” scenario), or by proxy (why are the centaurs attacking us? apparently zhaitan is driving them out of their homelands and they’re desperate for supplies and etc etc).
I feel like all the gimmick player choices do more to hurt the story than help it. When you partition a story into possible outcomes, you marginalize the importance of the overall theme, which is the core component to any story, ever. It’d be like if at the end of The Godfather, you could also get an ending where they fly back to Europe and live as farmers. Sure, it’s another possibility. But that’s not the point of telling a story.
I feel like a lot was not handled well in the personal story, and probably mainly due to the focus being on creating the missions, when it should have been on catering the missions to tell a story. If the next BBEG is Jormag, I’d hope that it opens with you having a confrontation with Jormag himself, or a smaller avatar of him. I’d also hope much of the story is spent elaborating on the depth of Jormag’s personality (more than “he is a big evil monster,” its motivations, and ultimately a confrontation between the two of you. If there’s another Tybalt type character, and another similar situation, I’d also hope that Jormag himself strikes him down. Having these kinds of characters go out on their own terms, killed offscreen by witless common enemies does very little to motivate the player against the primary villain. (It actually made me think they were just prepping for a scene later.)
Just to sum it all up: care more about the characters & their interactions and less about the missions they’re involved in (which are barely of importance at all, just the ideas they convey). I read a book and watch a movie for the people in it, not for visuals or effects. Just the same, if I play through a story path in a game, I’m not doing it thinking “What inventive mission awaits me next!? Oh be quiet, NPC. You’re stalling the next loading screen!”
Actually the Goal of the Elder dragons has been revealed during the story in Orr through discovering the purpose of the Mouths of Zhaitan. It seems the Elder Dragons goals are to devour all magic in the world to satisfy their hunger. Once all Magic in the world has been devoured they will just go back to sleep again and wait tell the magic has returned to the world to begin devouring it again.
Basically like how Reapers harvest the higher civilizations in ME to turn into new Reapers but with the Elder Dragons it is so they can satisfy their hunger.
The big question right now is why the Elder dragons need to feed on only magic, where did they came from, and when did this cycle of return, devour, and slumber began.
Also, I don’t think the elder dragons can simply appear right off the bat in the very beginning of each story Act since as shown the reason why they hide behind minions is because they know they’re weak because they’re still hungry. Until they can consume enough magic to be at their full strength the Elder Dragons will remain deep in their territory until enough magic has been consumed.
When we fought Zhaitan he was actually still weak, with or without his supply of magic to eat, because he still has not taken enough magic in the world. It is why he did not decide to go after our hero and the pact himself and remained in Arah. When we face Jormag we most likely have to wait tell near the end of the story act before we can see him since he is still in the same condition as Zhaitan, still hungry for more magic and not at full strength.