Guild Wars 2

Manifesto trailer; http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=35BPhT-KI1E

From their own words, – Orr is a hyper place. It’s a place about the power of zhaitan. Now that he is dead, and the next expansion is coming with a new dragon, should Orr completely change? all three zones, with more opening up, new look, new monsters new story.

It’s too extreme to do a “cataclysm” and change everything every expansion. but they could change Orr.

This is the problem with storytelling in MMOs. you follow a storyline, and then the exact opposite thing happens than what was meant to. “the enemies respawn 10 minutes later, everyone doing the same thing I’m doing”.

In many areas of the game, that are not end-game specific, the events down reoccur so often. But in Orr. Its crazy.

And as a constitutition. As a playground for lvl 80. the zones where you can be lvl 80 at full power. Don’t they deserve to change? If next boss is jormag, it would be great to see how his powers will overtake orr, and how his minions will recapture the forgotten land.

Alternatively, they can just make a new place and set of end game zones. but then your still going to be stuck with Orr. the “outland” of Guild Wars 2. the “ugh” place.

If they changed everything, it will also feel like that the beginning with zhaitan was something special. future players wont experience that part of the world. Because GW2 was about changing. not static. not running plinx four years from now. At least I dont hope so.

What do you think? change orr? or new end game zones. and if so – how can they make smarter events and storytelling?

It can’t change because new palyers will always have to replay the first missions and their personal story as well .. unless that all gets changed too what would mean to rewrite the entire game. And I don’t beleive that it will happen or that it even should happen.

It is great to have a changing world but they can’t keep rewriting it. What would happen with people who are half way through their personal story of the first part and then, once the second comes out, it ends suddenly and they have a whole new story set in front of them without getting the chance to finish it? Or anyone who wishes to replay it or .. as already mentioned .. new players who want to play the entire game and not just the current part of it.

Orr is the ending area of the first part of the game and has to stay as it is. New parts of the story will get their own ending areas.

I agree with Rin. I WOULD, however, love to see some changes by the time the expansion comes out. Maybe some more wildlife, with the NPCs saying something depending on your progression in the personal story. Such as, if you’ve beaten Zhaitan, “Zhaitan’s power is finally starting to fade and Orr is healing.” Or if you haven’t, “Zhaitan’s power is starting to weaken, now is the time to strike and take him down!”

I want to see Orr restored to its former greatness.

We need a new villain, zombies are cool but they inhabit a ton of the world.. and get a lil repetitive.. Pirates? Flying red slipper monkeys? Player VS Arenanet employees in swat team skins? I’m open to ideas.

No. Orr as it currently is is interesting, ominous, and different from all the other zones. Making it all happy sunshine and rainbows would just ruin the feel and would become too similar to the other zones. Also, I am to believe it would take a very long time for the place to recover, I mean not even Ascalon has recovered fully from the Searing.

Cosmetic effects can be easily implemented. The only thing that the player would need to do is download an x MB patch. Before you do the Arah story you have v1 of Orr, after you do the story you have v2 of Orr. Simple

Death Reincarnated.3570:

Cosmetic effects can be easily implemented. The only thing that the player would need to do is download an x MB patch. Before you do the Arah story you have v1 of Orr, after you do the story you have v2 of Orr. Simple

kind of like what WoW does with phasing?

Kromica.2831:

I want to see Orr restored to its former greatness.

This. I would love this.

Orr was destroyed and left underwater for almost 150 years before Zhaitan brought it back up from the depths of the ocean.

And people seriously think that this level of death and decay is going to be healed in a single year just because some leafy tart stabbed a sword into a puddle of water? O_o

Absolutely not. I think it’d drag any sense of believability right out of the game if it went back to being green and happy and full of wildlife in such a short time.

Yes, they said they wanted a changing world, but that’s too much change far too quickly.

Sad Swordfish.9743:

This is the problem with storytelling in MMOs. you follow a storyline, and then the exact opposite thing happens than what was meant to. “the enemies respawn 10 minutes later, everyone doing the same thing I’m doing”.

I agree with you completely, i feel orr should change completely, the quote i chose above was suppose to be how guildwars 2 worked, it is not the case at all its exactly like every other mmo..

And to those complaining about changes and them missing content, i say you should have purchased guildwars 2 earlier, and they missed what 4 events/holidays now that content is gone for good too…

I agree with seeing Orr restored.

The current Arah story etc. should be revisited through The Mists, seeing as that place has access to the past/present/future and we have access to the Fractals. It shouldn’t be part of the Fractal Dungeon sets though.

I would love to see phasing implemented in this game. As I recall after Wrath of the Lich King (Cataclysm), areas such as the Eastern and Western Plaguelands slowly started to come back to life, Stratholme was slowly coming being renewed and being emptied of Undead. Though to be honest it would be a huge undertaking and change the game play for many. Vanilla WoW still had for many years bandits in the starter areas of the human areas and the Horde areas remained unchanged through many expansions until Cataclysm where politics (in game) and new races being introduced changed the overall feel. New players wouldn’t have known about what existed before except in conversations they had with WoW veterans. Originally there were no mounts, then they were introduced but were Profession specific. Later on you could get any mount you wanted but still had to wait to be a certain level. Originally you couldn’t fly in the starter zones on your flying mounts but this was later changed as well. But this took years to implement. To make changes such as these in a small space of time would ruin the immersion feel of the game (mounts, be it ground based or flying) and major updates to the world environment.

I consider the Undead in Orr to be like landmines in WW2 and South East Asia which are still being found and disposed of many decades later. So it’s to be expected that there will still be many years of Undead activity in Orr, though there should be less in the intermediate areas such as Blood Tide Coast and the Sylvari Starting Zones because it would seem logical that there would be fewer left around to travel to these far away locations. Unless of course a later update introduced the concept of some sort of Undead reanimation factory in an unknown location or a portal system used by the Undead to travel from Orr (perhaps through the Asura gates, but on a different “frequency”?). Then I could see (from a lore perspective) the idea of the Undead still being quite rampant in Orr and other areas.

Dante.1508:

I agree with you completely, i feel orr should change completely, the quote i chose above was suppose to be how guildwars 2 worked, it is not the case at all its exactly like every other mmo..

WoW used phasing to make its game world change as a result of major events, and it’s hardly the only MMO out there that has made use of this method to change its in-game content as a result of major events.

And a previous poster already illustrated some of the problems that it tends to cause. New players don’t know what the game originally looked like, and miss out on lots of prior content simply because they joined the game later. That tends to be a deterrent for some people.

And to those complaining about changes and them missing content, i say you should have purchased guildwars 2 earlier, and they missed what 4 events/holidays now that content is gone for good too…

If it’s anything like GW1, the holiday content will likely return next year in some fashion.

And all of the non-holiday content is still accessible in-game (with the exception of the one-time-only Karka events, and honestly, no one in their right mind wants to replay those), so I don’t know what you’re talking about. I strongly suspect that Flame and Frost will also be a permanent in-game addition in some form or another, too, given that they’re investing such time and effort into the “Living Story” model.

I don’t think that just because you bought a game a year or two later than me, that you somehow deserve less content than me. That’s not a good way to sustain your player base, much less grow and expand upon it.

I think whether or not they’re willing/able to change Orr is the ultimate test of their ability to create a “living world.” It doesn’t have to change all at once, and it will probably never be a glorious place of peace and sunshine, but references to the future of Orr once Zhaitan is defeated and it’s possibly cleansed are scattered throughout the zones, as well as being a big part of the personal story. The idea is that it’s a place that people will someday maybe be able to inhabit again.

Rin Shian.1932:

It can’t change because new palyers will always have to replay the first missions and their personal story as well .. unless that all gets changed too what would mean to rewrite the entire game. And I don’t beleive that it will happen or that it even should happen.

It is great to have a changing world but they can’t keep rewriting it. What would happen with people who are half way through their personal story of the first part and then, once the second comes out, it ends suddenly and they have a whole new story set in front of them without getting the chance to finish it? Or anyone who wishes to replay it or .. as already mentioned .. new players who want to play the entire game and not just the current part of it.

Orr is the ending area of the first part of the game and has to stay as it is. New parts of the story will get their own ending areas.

Maintaining status quo is incompatible with their goal of creating an ongoing story that affects the actual game world. Pretty much every other MMO has a vast majority of the game world frozen in time, where the players supposedly save the day but never really get to see the fruits of their labor because of the possibility that future players won’t get to experience things exactly the way they did. ArenaNet has said that’s not how they want to do things. The personal story is a series of one-time missions, where the world is persistent, and the world should take precedence. The “defeat Zhaitan” arm of the personal story can always be given a disclaimer that it takes place in the past or something, and is the backstory of your character and the world rather than present events.

Bonefield.9813:

Maintaining status quo is incompatible with their goal of creating an ongoing story that affects the actual game world.

No it isn’t. At least not in the sense you’re trying to make it out to be. You’re trying to make it sound like the world can’t be “changing” if Orr doesn’t start showing signs of growth, to which I will repeatedly point out the reality of the world you’re trying to change.

Firstly, Orr was underwater for nearly 150 years after a massive cataclysm that destroyed the city of Arah and much of the continent, forcing the entire pennisula to slide into the ocean. Then it was brought back up from the depths as an undead wasteland for Zhaitan in 1219, and it’s been that way for over a hundred more years up to the present day.

Expecting everything to start turning green and full of life in less than a year of real time when it became what it is today over the course of 250 in-world years is completely unrealistic and would destroy any sense of in-world immersion that the game might have had.

The world can still be “changing” without radically altering the entire appearance and function of several maps in the game. True, I think it needs to be more than just “a fountain in LA got broken”, but there’s clearly a middle ground in there and it needs to be considered.

critickitten.1498:

Bonefield.9813:

Maintaining status quo is incompatible with their goal of creating an ongoing story that affects the actual game world.

No it isn’t. At least not in the sense you’re trying to make it out to be. You’re trying to make it sound like the world can’t be “changing” if Orr doesn’t start showing signs of growth, to which I will repeatedly point out the reality of the world you’re trying to change.

Firstly, Orr was underwater for nearly 150 years after a massive cataclysm that destroyed the city of Arah and much of the continent, forcing the entire pennisula to slide into the ocean. Then it was brought back up from the depths as an undead wasteland for Zhaitan in 1219, and it’s been that way for over a hundred more years up to the present day.

Expecting everything to start turning green and full of life in less than a year of real time when it became what it is today over the course of 250 in-world years is completely unrealistic and would destroy any sense of in-world immersion that the game might have had.

The world can still be “changing” without radically altering the entire appearance and function of several maps in the game. True, I think it needs to be more than just “a fountain in LA got broken”, but there’s clearly a middle ground in there and it needs to be considered.

My point about maintaining status quo was separate from my opinion on Orr, and directed at the idea that they can’t change things because it always needs to be the same for the sake of the personal story. My opinion on the necessity of ArenaNet actually showing progress in the cleansing of Orr is based on the fact that the story itself makes a major point of that. That’s the future the writers chose to paint for Orr. They could have just as easily left it at Zhaitan being dead, and leaving Orr as a testament to the fact that dragon corruption is irreversible; instead, most of the final chunk of the personal story is dedicated to finding a way to save it. This is the point at which most MMO stories shuttle players off to the next expansion, leaving the supposedly hopeful future of the area in limbo for the life of the game.

A middle ground is fine. I would be disappointed if it changed overnight, and was instantly entirely different. But the cleansing itself is supposed to be something of a magical process, and we do have a race that can start plant growth apparently at will (and have managed to do so even in Orr, in some places—see Caer Shadowfain). I don’t expect it to suddenly be a different place. Visually and thematically, I think it’s an amazing, beautiful, bittersweet area, and slowly shifting the tone from “utterly corrupted” to “cleansed and in the process of healing” wouldn’t change that.

Bonefield.9813:

My point about maintaining status quo was separate from my opinion on Orr, and directed at the idea that they can’t change things because it always needs to be the same for the sake of the personal story. My opinion on the necessity of ArenaNet actually showing progress in the cleansing of Orr is based on the fact that the story itself makes a major point of that. That’s the future the writers chose to paint for Orr. They could have just as easily left it at Zhaitan being dead, and leaving Orr as a testament to the fact that dragon corruption is irreversible; instead, most of the final chunk of the personal story is dedicated to finding a way to save it. This is the point at which most MMO stories shuttle players off to the next expansion, leaving the supposedly hopeful future of the area in limbo for the life of the game.

A middle ground is fine. I would be disappointed if it changed overnight, and was instantly entirely different. But the cleansing itself is supposed to be something of a magical process, and we do have a race that can start plant growth apparently at will (and have managed to do so even in Orr, in some places—see Caer Shadowfain). I don’t expect it to suddenly be a different place. Visually and thematically, I think it’s an amazing, beautiful, bittersweet area, and slowly shifting the tone from “utterly corrupted” to “cleansed and in the process of healing” wouldn’t change that.

The problem is that it’s hard to argue that such a change can be properly conveyed within a reasonable span of time.

All previously existing examples of major growth took place over many years, not months. Normal growth for a single tree takes years. Regrowth of a major ecosystem takes far far longer, and “it’s magic” doesn’t offer enough of a shoulder shrug when even the magical instances of growth aren’t largely significant. Even the extremely magical Pale Tree took over a hundred years to grow before it bore the first of the Sylvari race.

Expecting it to occur at any point within even a ten year span is still a bit unreasonable. I could see a tiny bit of growth within ten years, but….visibly recovered? Not by a long shot.

critickitten.1498:

Orr was destroyed and left underwater for almost 150 years before Zhaitan brought it back up from the depths of the ocean.

And people seriously think that this level of death and decay is going to be healed in a single year just because some leafy tart stabbed a sword into a puddle of water? O_o

Absolutely not. I think it’d drag any sense of believability right out of the game if it went back to being green and happy and full of wildlife in such a short time.

Yes, they said they wanted a changing world, but that’s too much change far too quickly.

what do you suggest then? they could remove the minions of zhaitan and replace some new folige that will have growth over the year(s) on the surface along with enemies of jormag. maybe encrypting the island in magic controlled by the minions.

They could phase it for people who haven’t done their story yet, or instance it if they absolutely had to. I have a feeling that Orr will eventually or gradually begin to change over time. They don’t have to get rid of the dungeon, either because the lost city could stay lost while the outside gradually grows more vegitation and wildlife, and less undead and replaces that aspect with other things even if it’s really just a change in skins. One of the bigger forts could grow into the new city in Orr, or a new one could be founded by Queen Jennah for humanity since humans desperately need more places to live….Or it could be the first real Pact lead City, or some long lost descendant or relative in some fashion to the last King.

On the issue of it changing too much in a short period of time….If you consider what we saw in the story, and how fast that growth took place in that gigantic temple….Then it would not really be too unbelievable for it to change gradually, over the span of a year. It’s magic after all

Shanna.4762:

They could phase it for people who haven’t done their story yet, or instance it if they absolutely had to. I have a feeling that Orr will eventually or gradually begin to change over time. They don’t have to get rid of the dungeon, either because the lost city could stay lost while the outside gradually grows more vegitation and wildlife, and less undead and replaces that aspect with other things even if it’s really just a change in skins. One of the bigger forts could grow into the new city in Orr, or a new one could be founded by Queen Jennah for humanity since humans desperately need more places to live….Or it could be the first real Pact lead City, or some long lost descendant or relative in some fashion to the last King.

On the issue of it changing too much in a short period of time….If you consider what we saw in the story, and how fast that growth took place in that gigantic temple….Then it would not really be too unbelievable for it to change gradually, over the span of a year. It’s magic after all

All of that within a year?

And you think that’s a reasonable, believable level of development? Considering that it took decades to build Divinity’s Reach, and over a century for the Pale Tree to grow to the size it is today, I’d say you’re completely out of your mind if you think that the entire continent of Orr is going to go from “dreary hellhole of Tyria” to “thriving metropolis” in a year’s time.

I believe in a game world that makes sense and develops over time, certainly, but it needs to develop over the proper amount of time. No visible changes would show themselves in a year’s time, even with magic, because we’ve already seen how far magical growth can go….and it’s not THAT far. Everything you’ve just suggested would take decades, if not centuries, to occur in the world of Tyria….and you want it “gradually” phased in over the course of a single year?

Or they could leave orr as it is and open up the rest of the map so we can explore new stuff. But I guess they already have plans for those areas.

Geotherma.2395:

Player VS Arenanet employees in swat team skins? I’m open to ideas.

Best suggestion ever, bonus points if they give us a tinfoil hat skin to do it in.

Hate to shamelessly plug a post of mine but I made a similar post regarding this issue not so long ago. It also explains how we could have 2 different orrs so both players who have beaten the game and those who are yet to can play the different versions. If you want to check it out you can do so here:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Possibility-of-2-Orr-s-in-future/first#post1391279

I hate Undead Orr.

But I would love to see a “living Orr” – It seems like it would be a beautiful zone. It’d be the backwards"pre-searing" of GW2! LOL Well, kind of. Not really, but yeah.

Even if they don’t change the actual zone, I would love to see a pre-destroyed Orr Fractal.

critickitten.1498:

Orr was destroyed and left underwater for almost 150 years before Zhaitan brought it back up from the depths of the ocean.

And people seriously think that this level of death and decay is going to be healed in a single year just because some leafy tart stabbed a sword into a puddle of water? O_o

Absolutely not. I think it’d drag any sense of believability right out of the game if it went back to being green and happy and full of wildlife in such a short time.

Yes, they said they wanted a changing world, but that’s too much change far too quickly.

lol Nice play on a “Monty Python” saying

There’s still parts of Orr that we can’t visit yet; I’d like to see them become accessible at some point, and involve cleansing the rest of Zhaitan’s corruption and removing the undead presence.

The current zones would be too hard to change, though. If you alter them permanently, then they’d have to alter the personal storyline for new players/alts. If you add phasing (like what World of Warcraft did), then you separate the playerbase in to two or more groups, and it causes issues with people grouping up.

High level undead zones have been done to death.

I’d like to see something less depressing.

Kromica.2831:

I want to see Orr restored to its former greatness.

Asura TimeTravel Portal™ ^^
Visit Orr (and Ascalon) in all it’s old greatness.

That would be the best Asurian invention ever xDD

I think Anet sadly shifted to easymode when it comes to open world.
People complained a lot about Orr “difficulty” (lol, I know…) and they made it easier.
Hopefully they will find a way to let players go into an hardmode version of current maps just like they did in GW1.