Guild Wars 2

I just heard news that Cantha might not ever be making its way back into GW2 as an unnamed artist for Anet has said: "NCsoft was firm in its decision to stay away from “Asian” themes and keep it “universal.” ArenaNet had to make adjustments quickly. A small number of you may recall that the human story was originally split by Canthans/Elonians/Ascalonians instead of the current Streets/Commoner/Noble paths. Divinity’s Reach originally had sections dedicated to the three cultures as well (Ossan Quarters & Rurikton are the current “versions” perhaps?) ArenaNet obeyed NCsoft’s suggestion and halted all Canthan productions, including the once-existing Canthan sector of Divinity’s Reach…. Because of time restrictions, they had to erase the Canthan sector of DR quickly. The current result is “The Great Collapse.” It’s an inside joke now, she says. The “Collapse” symbolizes what was once an idea that didn’t make it all the way. She further states that ArenaNet had to come up with some new lore to cover up the lack of Canthan content — hence the Emperor’s decree (read lore on Wiki). That’s all I have."

Regardless if this true or not, it is ridiculous. The game world is made universal because it has more than one type/race of human. In GW1 I saw it like this:
Kryta= Greece, Ascalon =European, Istan and Kourna= African, Vabbi and Orr= Arabic and lastly Cantha represented Asia, mostly China/Japan/Korea. That universal diversity is what made Guild Wars such a compelling game. By trying to represent most cultures, you created something universal. I think it is a huge mistake that NCsoft think that universal should mean some sort of one ‘common race’, that because of sexual mingling has come about. That being the only way for it to come about… It is unbelievable to think that entire continent can be erased from a game for the sake of PR.

Cantha and Factions had some of the very best concepts about it in terms of map design and cultural lore. From The training Island to the main land the entire game was beautiful, and the giant city, felt like a giant city. I have actually gotten myself lost in it many times. In fact for quite a lot of people I know, Factions is what got them playing GW in the first place… I know that doesn’t count for much but still.

But what I am most annoyed about, is that you guys (anet) have always been ‘we talk to our player-base’ If this about Cantha is true, then surely this is something we need to talk about. As this is no small thing, it is an entire section of lore and some of your best work going down the drain for no real good reason. Even if this is a thing set in stone, I think it is unfair that the player-base’s opinions go left unheard. It could even be possible that if NCsoft realise how much we love that part of the game, they might change their minds. After the whole Mass effect thing, I think anything is possible with enough voices.

Anyway I just thought I should say something and hopefully people agree and that we can rescue Cathan from the ideas bin.

One would have to ask, is there any evidence to back this ’unnamed artist"?

I agree. there is no evidence. But if it is true, then it is a real shame and I think that it is important that people know about it and at least are aware of it. But I honestly Hope that is is some kind of hoax. But you can never put anything past the companies in charge of the developing teams.

We didn’t get enough of Cantha in Factions, right? God, I hated that city…

The Kodan ships feature Asian architecture. Just sayin’. I really want cantha to come back though. That was when I REALLY started to like GW1.

But why on earth would NCSoft, a Korean company, want to get rid of Asian elements?

Kind of… doesn’t make sense in my head. Maybe from an investor point of few, but it’s not like Asian themes turn many people off. (inb4 korean grind/anime joke)

Well lets be real, there are 5 races now in GW2, its not about only humans anymore. Did we see any charr or asura or norn in Cantha and elona? I cant imagine that 5 races suddenly decide to migrate to cantha in 250 years. Sure I would like to see cantha again, BUT a big BUT, I would rather see new areas with new lore .

Neb, I am not too sure but it could be to do with the political climate in Korea, not that I know what is going on over there, so I wont say anything. But it could be for any number of reasons, I personally can’t see any of them being a good reason.

“Well lets be real, there are 5 races now in GW2, its not about only humans anymore. Did we see any charr or asura or norn in Cantha and elona? I cant imagine that 5 races suddenly decide to migrate to cantha in 250 years. Sure I would like to see cantha again, BUT a big BUT, I would rather see new areas with new lore .”

I also agree that it would be awesome to see new area with new lore. But the problem with Cathan, is that it is a huge part of the lore and it’s lore had bled into Nightfall. (SPOILER) And there was one Charr in Night fall, in a mission, but it turns out that it is actually an assassin in disguise. And the Tengu played a huge role in Cantha. And it’s not like that each continent was unaware of the races and happenings of the others. I also understand that human are now in decline BUT Cantha does have lore that clearly implies that humans still live there. I think it is a shame that humans could lose some of their diversity because there are five other races… I mean surly Anet have a large enough staff to keep each race feeling ‘diverse’.

I personally hated the map design in Factions, but not the actual design. Lore is good, but execution was poor. Regardless, there is potential there, and I personally can’t wait to make an Asian looking character as a thief. I surely hope they won’t be restricting us to Kryta only I hope…

I hope this is not true…i really hope this is not true..

I’m pretty sure The Great Collapse was in one of the first trailers, and Canthan isolationism is one of the first things we knew about (even got its own event in GW1).

I pretty much exclude the possibility of us not ever seeing Canthan-themed content again. Completely. I don’t know if it will be a full-fledged continent like in Factions, but surely we will revisit a few areas.
But I doubt ArenaNet is even in the planning stages for Canthan content. There is still a lot of terra incognita on the current world map that desperately needs some love, especially Maguuma.
That being said, having first experienced Elona and Cantha in GW1, and only then the Tyrian continent, I just feel no connection to the current GW2, not until one of those two regions is added. It doesn’t feel “Guild Wars” to me, which isn’t bad per se, I can handle change, but those two continents felt extremely unique and appealing to me in a fantasy-genre context. I felt at home in them. Made lots of great memories there.

Derk.3189:

The Kodan ships feature Asian architecture. Just sayin’. I really want cantha to come back though. That was when I REALLY started to like GW1.

I would say that has more to do with their “Buddhists” ish philosophy.

personally i’ll wait for the sky to fall before i start calling that the sky is falling.

i loved cantha, i hope we get to visit it one day, but i dont know if it will be the first or second expansion or when, but we will have to wait for anet to say when.

Let’s see some sources before we continue.

Its sad to see that you wrote an entire essay and dont get the concept of EXPANSION PACKS or the lore, which says that the rising of Orr and the elder dragons has closed communication between continents.

An essay. Good Lord

That you want to return to Cantha someday is fine, but why didn’t you just say that instead of coming up with all this nonsense?

The game just launched. Why would they include Cantha with launch when they can get people to pay for it down the line?

I still remember the feeling when I first logged on GW1, with Cantha music in the launcher. Man, I was sold. Factions really got me into this serie aswell.

Let’s hope it’s not true.

i think we will be able to visit cantha again in gw2.
but probably just the ruins.

the actual civilization there probably long gone. destroyed by dragons perhaps.

That is a shame as Factions was my favorite time period in Guild Wars 1. It was my favorite soundtrack too.

Katostrophe.3274:

Its sad to see that you wrote an entire essay and dont get the concept of EXPANSION PACKS or the lore, which says that the rising of Orr and the elder dragons has closed communication between continents.

An essay. Good Lord

It’s sad to see that you don’t even read said essay to get a grip on what he is talking about.
What his essay is ABOUT is the fact that the whole of Cantha may be scrapped by Anet and we will never see it in expansions to come. At all.

Corian.4068:

That you want to return to Cantha someday is fine, but why didn’t you just say that instead of coming up with all this nonsense?

The game just launched. Why would they include Cantha with launch when they can get people to pay for it down the line?

You also missed the point. There may be no Cantha expansions. Nobody was expecting Cantha at launch.

Do we get any evidence or we’ll just have to speculate on a random post that could be made up completely?
If this was true why this “unnamed artist” comes with this now, two months after release?

This doesnt sound likely to me for multiple reasons. The biggest one is that by the same logic we couldnt go anywhere all the playable races didnt have major representation. That means areas like the Charr lands beyond the Blazeridge mountains including the other two legion citadels and elona would be off the list.

I dont see Arenanet kittening that much of their world.

Hang on. Dial it back a second. Can I see your source? I’m not trying to sound snobby—I just honestly want to know where you found this bit of news, who this “unnamed artist” was and what context you took your quote from. Because going from “wanting universal rather than Asian themes” to “There will be no Cantha” is a magnificent leap of logic.

There’s a lot of ways you could interpret ‘avoiding Asian themes,’ but without the actual quote and the source, it’s all speculation.

However, a slightly simpler argument might say that they want to avoid Asian themes in the overall design philosophy of the game. There has to be a believable element of Western fantasy (which, believe it or not, has plenty of room for Eastern themes) in the design of GW2 in order to make the world more accessible, and do differentiate it from the stereotypical Korean Grinder.

The quote might have just been about universalism as a goal of the GW2 design vision and its relation to shying away from characteristically Asian themes. In which case, the evidence is all over Tyria. The world is variable and diverse and draws from all sorts of fantasy sources, and it’s hard to pin down in one specific genre.

Again, no idea what the original quote was, the context, or who even said it, but this is a simpler interpretation.

An interesting idea. There’s been a lot already of ‘gee the world has changed a lot in 250 yrs.’ Maybe Cantha got sunk or fell off the planet to become a moon or…

Personally, I’m not going to worry about whether the devs copy GW1’s progression of expansions. Whatever they do decide to do, I hope it’s good. They could just as well discover an Americas region with Inca/Mayan/Aztec influences. Or heck, make up something new.

Eveningstar.6940:

Hang on. Dial it back a second. Can I see your source? I’m not trying to sound snobby—I just honestly want to know where you found this bit of news, who this “unnamed artist” was and what context you took your quote from. Because going from “wanting universal rather than Asian themes” to “There will be no Cantha” is a magnificent leap of logic.

There’s a lot of ways you could interpret ‘avoiding Asian themes,’ but without the actual quote and the source, it’s all speculation.

However, a slightly simpler argument might say that they want to avoid Asian themes in the overall design philosophy of the game. There has to be a believable element of Western fantasy (which, believe it or not, has plenty of room for Eastern themes) in the design of GW2 in order to make the world more accessible, and do differentiate it from the stereotypical Korean Grinder.

The quote might have just been about universalism as a goal of the GW2 design vision and its relation to shying away from characteristically Asian themes. In which case, the evidence is all over Tyria. The world is variable and diverse and draws from all sorts of fantasy sources, and it’s hard to pin down in one specific genre.

Again, no idea what the original quote was, the context, or who even said it, but this is a simpler interpretation.

It is among the comments. I quite like how you have read into it actually. Makes me sound that I rushed into it, a bit. I guess I did, and beyond taking this persons word, there really is no proof at all that it is true. I hope that your way of looking at it is, indeed what was really meant because I really can’t think of a single reason why it would make sense to drop Cantha.

Cool, thanks for the link. I, too, would love a return to Cantha. Factions is what sold me to GW in the first place. Shing Jea and Kaineng City took my breath away.

I’m calling bs on this, what company would purposely cut off the potential profit of revisiting one of it’s most successful expansions, especially when many of the art assets can be used towards recreation.

Cantha and Elona both earned high marks for fans, and it would be a crime against gaming to ignore the potential awesome jumping puzzles a place like the echovald forest could produce, still one of the best environments ever created in gaming period.

Ripping off reality in no way makes a game compelling. As far as I’m concerned, humans should never have been a part of Guild Wars or indeed any work of fiction set in another universe.

I’m glad you aren’t in charge of GW or any other fantasy media I consume then, Terazeal.

Terazeal.1976:

Ripping off reality in no way makes a game compelling. As far as I’m concerned, humans should never have been a part of Guild Wars or indeed any work of fiction set in another universe.

Human’s will always be ‘required’ in a successful fantasy setting simply because it helps the audience relate to something. The same applies for fantasy fiction of any other medium. The fact that there are more humans than any other race in this game is testament to this.

I hope this isn’t true. Factions brought some of the best art into GW universe, some of the most memorable locations. I was looking forward to seeing Jade Sea in GW2.

I’ll be pretty disappointed if we don’t get Cantha in an expansion – I loved the setting in the first game even if the city was hell ta get through.

i highly doubt that Cantha won’t make its way into GW2. it would be kind of ridiculous to just ignore all the lore possibilities there. i’m sure a lot of people would love to see how the Echovald Forest and Jade Sea have changed throughout the years with Shiro’s corruption diminished.

I can see why they should include Cantha in future expansions and why they shouldn’t include it.

Honestly I would love to see the return of Cantha. It is the only other known Human Empire to still be around.

It has rich lore which can be played into an expansion, the xenophobic Emperor trying to keep the 5 (Possibly 6 with Tengu) races out of his country/region while fighting a new Dragon threat.

The Tengu are demanding they are allowed to return, both to reclaim some of their more sacred home lands (I know they came from all of Cantha, Elona and Tyria but the refugees from Cantha are the ones who caused the alliance between the Tengu tribes) and to help defend it.
The Pact are trying to move in to eliminate another Dragon threat but are struggling as they are still clashing swords with Canthan forces at every turn.

This sparks an uprising within the region, causing a splinter group to smuggle/escort large groups of Tengu and Pact soldiers into the region to form a foot holding and help take the current Emperor off the throne.
(Is just one idea of how the story could work, that is leaving out all possibilities with the forest and jade sea.)

So it doesn’t make sense to me really that they would avoid it.

Elona is still around. It’s cut off aswell.

If there is any truth to this, the reason could simply be that almost every MMO out there has at least one Asian-style expansion. Most recently notable would be Kung Fu Panda.

If GW2’s first expansion were to do this also, you know the WoW fanboys would come alive saying that GW2 was copying WoW (Yes, Guild Wars did it first, but since when has that stopped the wow kiddies?)

LOL Kryta isn’t Greek, its South east Asian, Houses on Stilts, fisherman villages, brown skinned people.

But yes i would require sources.
If sources are true, I would be in an uproar at the decision to exterminate Cantha, its as much my homeland as it was Mhenlo’s

Omg. My heart sank when I read this.

Cantha was my most anticipated areas that I want GW2 to have in the future.

It should have Cantha. In the human’s “never find my sister’s body” path, you have the choice to make your character’s background as a descendant of Canthan. I still have hope that they will include Cantha in the future. It’s a must or it’ll spoil the whole lore and anticipation.

Truth or not, I’m still curious as to why they took the trouble to erase the Canthan district from DIvinity’s Reach and changed the heritage stories to street-rat, commoner and noble. It’s not like the former idea was bad and neither was the community opposing to that idea before.

I’d be very disappointed in Anet if Cantha didn’t make it into the game for a stupid reason as the OP suggests.

I really hope this isn’t true, I loved Factions and I’m eagerly awaiting a GW2 Canthan expansion.

scizwig.5492:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ARZWX51hYYk

It is among the comments. I quite like how you have read into it actually. Makes me sound that I rushed into it, a bit. I guess I did, and beyond taking this persons word, there really is no proof at all that it is true. I hope that your way of looking at it is, indeed what was really meant because I really can’t think of a single reason why it would make sense to drop Cantha.

Im annoyed that you didn’t mention that your source was a Youtube comment. I get you want to entice discussion about a subject that interests but this is not the way to do so, for real.

It is possible in theoretical terms, the idea that they won’t pursue Cantha. “Westernization” has become a dirty word after TERA and Aion, as it’s now associated with second handed, quirky patches-delayed for months ideologies.

But it would be a sad thing. Guild Wars 1 was an interesting beast because you had large fan groups that each prefered each campaign. Many believed that Prophercies to this day, is still the best. Many also loved Nightfall for it’s unique and under explored African and Middle Eastern inspiration. I gotta agree with this. Besides something like Prince of Persia, Guild Wars Nightfall was a unique game in style and tone.

Factions however boosted very impressive art and music. The soundtrack was cued heavily from the likes of Hero and Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. Tan Dun. The Jade Sea, the ingenius use of Asian folklore. Particularly the Japanese, variant. To this day, the Tengu are still a fan favorite, just for the way they run, Naruto style.
I felt Factions was Asian, but not stereotypical-so, outside of the story with characters that talked like everyday Asians speaking english.

Only reason I could see this potentially being true is if NCSoft is trying to keep a distinct line between Guild Wars 2 and Blade and Soul, and they fear that Cantha could muddle that.

But it’s doubtful anyway. You’ll probably see Cantha in the future, as it’s too major a part of the world to be handwaved… Maybe not until a much later expansion, but I’m sure you’ll eventually be able to return there…

I am shocked Cantha removed from the map for a suggestion surely forced Nc soft. But I want to say:

Nc soft is the publisher, Arena net may very well say no. Fans are the buyers, and want to revisit the lore of Gw1! It is us who buy extentions! We are the source of income Nc soft and Arena net! So it is up to us to write a Nc soft, or make a petition if this rumor was true …

One should not end up like that, disappointed, but we love the lore of Guildwars1 and 2. This is unacceptable.

unless you cite a really reliable source, I doubt Cantha is really out of the game in future expansions. It just doesn´t make sense from a business point of view – especially considering NCSoft had City of Heroes cater to asian audience by introducing a whole superhero team at one point. The point of avoiding competition with asian themed titels of the same publisher seems rather weak in comparison – but I give you justice in as much as publishers DO make weird decisions sometimes.

There is no such thing as universal appeal, all that leads to is blandness for the sake of not going into any one direction too much, and I would hope that Arenanet would know that and not go that way. However NCsoft is the boss and they’re having difficulty with their games in the west…

I would like to say that Factions is my favorite Guild Wars campaign and that Cantha is what I would consider my “GW home” if you will. Tyria is very pretty and all that, but it’s not “mine”, it’s not personally as fascinating as Cantha was. If we’re going to be fighting dragons for five years instead of returning there (or making and exploring new culturally different continents) i might just lose all motivation to play. What’s it gonna be, a boss fight and poof goes a dragon? There’s five years of content in one sentence. Please don’t, Anet.

Bring on Ultima Online housing!

Absolutely. No. Chance. In. Hell.

Last thing we need is an entire continent littered with keeps and castles no one flippin uses like whatever that ice-island was up north. Sooner or later your game world is gone and ‘eaten’ by the projects, Tokyo style.