Just expressing a few ideas that I thought would be kind of cool.
Cantha in GW1 was more advanced, in that Kaineng City was a sprawling urban landscape. It was ugly in most spots, only have a few nice places. The palace was especially nice, but there wasn’t much reason to go there.
I was thinking that the city could have advanced even further, perhaps having even taller buildings and hovering cars. There would definitely be slums and sewers, but it wouldn’t make up a majority of the city, as in GW1. They would hopefully look better than in GW1 as well (this should be a goal, regardless).
As in GW1, this would be an explorable area, with an urban center to be used as a hub. I’m certain that this can be done right, and this could be done very well. I did not enjoy this part of Guild Wars Factions so much, likely because of the slummy landscape and the afflicted. Implementing this or a similar idea while addressing the issues I mentioned could produce a very fun and interesting area.
I was originally uncertain about a return to Cantha at first, but I would fully embrace the idea if it were given an all-new, fresh look. I am most excited about Kaineng City; I can’t think of anything interesting to do to update the Echovald (Forest) or the Jade Sea. Perhaps these areas could be more wilderness areas since the Kurzicks and the Luxons would have likely integrated with the Canthans in Kaineng City.
There can be a lot of freedom when it comes to how futuristic to make the city. There are tons of people in Cantha. They have been cut off from the continent most people are familiar with. Even though the humans there have not been influenced by the charr printing presses or the asura gates, there would still be advances made. If there is too much incredulity about how they advanced so quickly, there could be some outside influence of some kind, perhaps the steam creatures.
Note that by ‘futuristic’, I don’t mean in the same style as the steam creatures or the Black Citadel. I believe the look could be derived from blending technology and magic. Note the attached picture. Though I don’t particularly like the game shown in the picture, it had pretty good visuals, especially the imperial city. Airships or hovercars could be some possible common transportation.
As Anet has shown already, hi-tech stuff can be integrated into the Guild Wars setting very well.
As far as linking the tengu to Cantha, there can be npc dialogue relating to this, but I feel that nothing more should be done about this. I would love to have tengu as a playable race. However, they would be better to have in a Primordus campaign/exp pack. Since their town, Dominion of Winds, is already affected by destroyers, this would only make sense. They should not be forced into a Canthan expansion simply to fit into the lore.
Summary:
Let Cantha be a futuristic/magically advanced city.
