Guild Wars 2

This has probably appeared on the forum many of times but I’m just giving my own two cents.

So the map.. It’s been a little over a year since GW2 was released and so far (minus the living story zones) we’ve only seen Southsun and a permanent “new” zone and yes, obviously it’s dead. What about the rest of the map though? The rest of Magumma, Woodland Cascades, far northern parts of the Shiverpeaks, Ring of Fire, Crystal Destert, Elon River/Scavengers Causeway, Blood Legion Homelands, etc. The parts that you can’t get to but yet they are there. Where are they? They must be currently working on/worked on them but after a year only the Sea of Sorrows has opened and then died shortly after.

Don’t get me wrong. I still love this game, I still play it almost every day ever since release. I love all the zones but I think it’s just about that time to start with the rest of the map (aside from the other requests from the community for other aspects of the game). The world of GW2 is huge, it’s a huge map and there is a lot to see yet we can’t yet, haha.

As it is there are lots of people that enjoy the Living Story, me being one of them and there are lots of people that do not enjoy it. Seeing as it’s looking like the Living Story is here to stay with more perfecting of course. I hope down the line (very near future please) we start seeing new arcs of the story to open the gates to new zones. My personal favorite, Crystal Desert. But not just for the Living Story then just have the zone die. Don’t make the zone a LEVEL 80 ZONE! Level scale new zones, for example, Levels 65-70. Therefore making a bigger variety of zones for leveling players to enter and level there, whether it be a brand new player or a veteran making a new character. Making them just simply a level 80 zone assists in the death of the zone after opened up.

Not just level scaling either. More in depth dynamic events with rewards that make players come back time after time to do for gear, achievements, whatever their heart desires. Bosses, definitely bosses too. And of course, dungeons. We can’t forget those can we?

Dungeons are another thing. We’ve seen a few new dungeons pop up and the anticipation for the Tower in next weeks patch but they are still just Living Story dungeons and they disappear after the two weeks. My favorite of the LS was the Molten Facility, that would have been great if it stayed and with paths! With the zones, add new dungeons. You know we have those dungeon token vendors in LA and I think the vendors are getting tired of seeing the same vendors that were there a year ago. Time to bring in some fresh blood, new gear sets, and weapons.

With those new zones come mob recycles of course. Don’t do that. We all know you have designs for mobs that we haven’t seen yet. Do something with them!

I know back in GW1 new zones of the map opened with expansions. Seeing as there has been no talk for expansions I will rule it out of GW2 for now. We need some Living Story arcs that venture into the new zones and have people exploring and experiencing the whole zone, corner to corner. But not just Living Story, maybe new character stories…side stories, with the main one for characters. I say side stories because it will not tie into the main one. Basically we will have that two week living story or however long the arc lasts and then we will have a side story that is permanent for us to experience, get rewards from, named gear that pertains to those stories so people will question where you got this and that, and just have people GOING to these new zones instead of having them die in two weeks.

Maybe as a side story, side quest, whatever you would like to call it. Have an item that opens up a side quest for a player. Have that player go around the entire map doing certain things WITH help from others. Saying with help from others meaning you need to have a few other players to defeat a certain task, or path of a dungeon for the quest. As you complete that quest you got from the item, it will eventually lead up to the accusation of say Ascended gear, weapons, or something just as rewarding as that instead of simply just crafting them. Adds more variety on how to get certain things.

This is long and I could probably add more to it but I won’t. It’s all just personal thought from me. I just think it’s time for the map to start opening more up and there could be a lot more done with those zones to make them zones people can come back to and get things from. More places to go while leveling also. This is a long post that most will skip over but here it is still. Add what you want, comment what you want, etc. Just my personal opinion

So much of this… If this was GW1 we’d already have an expansion with tons of new areas to explore, and it’s really making me sad every time I look at the map to see all the unexplored areas still remain that way. As for the new enemy designs, the ones added so far are really good, but it’s still too few in comparison to how many Factions added. I am not asking them to rethink adding an expansion to the game (even though i’d like that very much), just asking that if they have chosen the Living Story to be their medium of introducing new content, at least make it so that the content is similar in size and scope of at least same part of what an expansion could bring (will be hard since the content is free). I hate WoW, but this is one of the reasons why i’d play it, the map exploration has few unreachable places.

I kind of the same way. I played WoW for a little over 5 years (quit a bit after Cataclysm) and I loved that you could go to every inch of the world almost and the new zones they made were level scaled. Not comparing WoW to GW though but GW2 needs new zones that are level scaled for more variety while leveling and such other than just an 80 zone.

I can wait for new zones because i would rather wait and have them release a zone they are proud of than have them release a half done zone.