Guild Wars 2

I’ll start this off by saying I’m extremely excited for HoT, it might be small, but if we’ve seen anything over the past few years its that Arena Net will improve on what they’ve built. That being said, it makes me think of what Heart of Thorns means for the future of Guild Wars 2, particularly future ‘expansions’ and content.

Let me also say, everything I am about to write is pure speculation, and maybe a little bit of wishful thinking.

With Heart of Thorns, ANet is establishing three major things, a new way to start (The Revanent), a new way to end (Profession Specializations) and a new way to progress (Mastery system). Along with that they’re trying new things with level design and presumably adding some new gear and at least one new dungeon, along with some high level content and hopefully some low level content, but all of that is kind of par for the course with an MMO expansion.

What I’m hoping that means is that we will see something similar with each expansion in the future. I’m assuming we’ll get one ‘expansion’ for each Elder Dragon, maybe a few will be combined or some of them will be released in episodic content like the Living Story, but either way I think we can assume we will eventually face each Elder Dragon in turn. And for the sake of speculation, Im going to use an Elder Dragon being introduced as a boss to mark an expansion, regardless of how the elder dragon is introduced

But what do these three pillars (new start, new progression, and new end game) mean for those future expansions. Well to start off, the new way to start. I would be a little surprised if every expansion gave us a new class, especially considering that we already have 3 professions of each armor-type. What I wouldn’t be as surprised to see are new races with the expansion packs.

We have two new races that would be ripe for that kind of content, the Kodan would be a perfect pairing with the fight against Jormag, and the Tengu could come in any number of ways. In the lore we also have the Dwarves, probably the most likely of unlikely candidates, and the Undead (Pawala Jokos subjects) which I would say are the least likely candidate. We also have Canthan humans which could introduce all kinds of new story elements, but like I said, all of this is pure speculation.

How would the Tengu come in though? I can think of two major ways to introduce the Tengu to the pact, and get them out from behind their walls. Either have Primordious rise and shatter the wall on his spines, forcing them to fight, now that the Dragons have come to their door-step, or have a colony of Tengu fleeing the pogroms in Cantha break through the Deep Sea Dragons blockade and land somewhere, causing the Dominion to open up to help the refugees.

Obviously introducing any new race is going to require restructuring the personal story completely. Using Primordious, or really any other Elder Dragon, as a vehicle to do this is ideal. Primordious rising up and shattering the land, reshaping the world and pouring his minions into new zones (Kind of like what WoW did with Cataclysm, reformed the entire world) or have Krakltorik stir, opening the way to Elona and causing a new brand of chaos elsewhere. Either way, using one of the currently quiet Elder Dragons as an excuse to re-write the story from the ground up seems like the no-brainer there.

And the new way to progress is an easy one, extending the Mastery system to new zones and to lower levels, adding more ways to get around like mounts, or surfing or something, The Mastery system is brilliant really and it seems natural to spread it around the world, instead of just in high level zones within the jungle.

And then we come to specializations. At first having one specialization per class seems kind of lame, and it is, but the specialization system is described by Colin as a “secondary profession” and I think thats more than just a nod to the original game. Guild Wars had 10 professions, each one could have any of the other 9 professions as it’s secondary. That basically meant Guild Wars had 90 distinct professions. So adding one subclass per expansion, giving us a grand total of 6 specializations per profession (which I think is unlikely, I’m envisioning more like two or three total by the end of it all) we wouldn’t even be close to Guild Wars staggering number of distinct class combinations.

And plus, this is Arena-net we’re dealing with, so who knows what new features each expansion could bring that none of us would have even thought of. I don’t think if youd asked me two years ago what I wanted out of the first Guild Wars 2 Expansion I would have even thought “You know, Hang-gliders would be nice”.

Anyway, this is mostly just me blowing off excited steam. But what does everyone else think that future expansions after HoT will mean? Or just future content in general, the future of the personal and living stories, future dungeons, guild content? I didn’t even talk about the PvP content here, but I think we can expect that to evolve even more in the future too, team objective modes, duels, guild fortress sieges, who knows?

In recent interviews it Anet has made it sound like they don’t intend to add additional races because it is a lot of effort for little gain (although this may change since there will be a lot of time between now and expansion #2). In addition I also believe that they probably will not add a new class (3/3/3 works out well), and will instead add 2 specializations per class along with one or two completely new weapons that only these specializations can wield.

I am however somewhat worried that Anet will lay the foundations for these great ideas and never actually expand on them (looking at your guild missions, fotm, and wallet).

what’s with people saying it’s small before we even have the vaguest idea of the volume of content?

the only thing HoT tells me about future expansions is that they shouldn’t take as long, now that ANet has a good idea of what the heck they want to do with their game’s release method.

knightmawk.5673:

And then we come to specializations. At first having one specialization per class seems kind of lame, and it is, but the specialization system is described by Colin as a “secondary profession” and I think thats more than just a nod to the original game. Guild Wars had 10 professions, each one could have any of the other 9 professions as it’s secondary. That basically meant Guild Wars had 90 distinct professions. So adding one subclass per expansion, giving us a grand total of 6 specializations per profession (which I think is unlikely, I’m envisioning more like two or three total by the end of it all) we wouldn’t even be close to Guild Wars staggering number of distinct class combinations.

oh, this. this is so silly.

it’s like people forget that while yes, in theory you could have 90 different combinations, at best 20 of those were worth a kitten , and most meta builds by the end of the game didn’t even need the secondary in the first place (some of the popular assassin builds, for example, relied 100% on assassin stats).

people tend to forget that GW1 had a staggering amount of options. staggering is the perfect word, because it would scare people off or make them give up and just do whatever. not only that, but like 95% of the builds weren’t just bad, they were unsalvageable. in GW2, if the guy can press 1-5, then at least it’s something, even if he failed at setting up traits and utilities that complemented his playstyle.

GoldenTruth.2853:

In recent interviews it Anet has made it sound like they don’t intend to add additional races because it is a lot of effort for little gain (although this may change since there will be a lot of time between now and expansion #2). In addition I also believe that they probably will not add a new class (3/3/3 works out well), and will instead add 2 specializations per class along with one or two completely new weapons that only these specializations can wield.

I am however somewhat worried that Anet will lay the foundations for these great ideas and never actually expand on them (looking at your guild missions, fotm, and wallet).

I agree 100%. New races feel so superficial and only valuable to folks looking to start fresh. They often require unique armor models and unique new-player zones: both of which consume development time. I’d rather have ANet spend the time making armor and quests which would be available to ALL players.

I think the existing professions provide a pretty diverse framework to build on. I’d love to see how far they can take the new specializations before adding new ones.

It is worth remembering, though, that there is still value in the superficial; they rake in quite a bit from essentially just that in the gem store. Considering that, it wouldn’t shock me to see any new races being added that way rather than bundled into an expansion – though I’m not sure which of the two would be better for ArenaNet’s business interests (it depends just how many people would buy it, versus how many you’d lose by bumping the price of a bundle a little).

You can speculate all you like about anything, but I think it’s wrong to use speculation as facts. We don’t know everything about the expansion, we only know about 3 new features and even about them we don’t know any real details so we can’t really speculate about things coming on another xpac even before the 1st one is released.

Right now everyone is just speculating about speculations based on very little official information. I think we should see the volume of content, the quality of content, the details about the new features and then start guessing about what will come next.

Kelthien.8593:

GoldenTruth.2853:

In recent interviews it Anet has made it sound like they don’t intend to add additional races because it is a lot of effort for little gain (although this may change since there will be a lot of time between now and expansion #2). In addition I also believe that they probably will not add a new class (3/3/3 works out well), and will instead add 2 specializations per class along with one or two completely new weapons that only these specializations can wield.

I am however somewhat worried that Anet will lay the foundations for these great ideas and never actually expand on them (looking at your guild missions, fotm, and wallet).

I agree 100%. New races feel so superficial and only valuable to folks looking to start fresh. They often require unique armor models and unique new-player zones: both of which consume development time. I’d rather have ANet spend the time making armor and quests which would be available to ALL players.

I think the existing professions provide a pretty diverse framework to build on. I’d love to see how far they can take the new specializations before adding new ones.

New races are far from superficial. They are immensely valuable to roleplayers (and this IS an RPG, mind you) like myself, as they give us a chance to see new cultures through the eyes of one of their own. They provide a new story. A new city. New animations. All of these add to the joy of gameplay. Do not underestimate the visceral experience that comes with a wildly new set of melee animations, for example.

To that end, I say that the Tengu deserve inclusion at some point. They have an established city. Their physical stature is not terribly different from a Charr (and would likely suffer from many of the same issues), but their inclusion would give the community a nice selection of tribal/native armor.

BrunoBRS.5178:

oh, this. this is so silly.

it’s like people forget that while yes, in theory you could have 90 different combinations, at best 20 of those were worth a kitten , and most meta builds by the end of the game didn’t even need the secondary in the first place…

Im not disagreeing with you, some of those builds were pretty worthless, that doesn’t mean they didn’t exist.

Im seeing the specialization system as a natural extension of the sub-classes though. Instead of being able to go Ranger/anything, you can go say, Ranger/caster, or Necromancer/fighter. In fact I wouldn’t be surprised if specializations were archetypal, like by the time everything is said and done we end up with a caster and soldier specialization for each adventurer, an adventurer and caster specialization for each soldier and an adventurer and soldier specialization for each caster. Again, pure speculation, but it does kind of naturally flow from having 90 classes with 20 that people actually used, to having 20 classes

New races would be cool, but I don’t think they’ll do that. The problem with that is the current 5 races are so tied to the world already. Everywhere you go you see charr, asurans, norn, sylvari and humans. Traveling makes you feel like you’re part of a culture that’s spread throughout the world. If they add the kodan for example, then the players would be basically the only kodan walking around. What would they do? Add a bunch of kodan npcs all over the world? Race-change some of the current npcs? I’m not saying they won’t add a new race or two, I just think it’s unlikely considering the obstacles involved inorder to get them to be as integrated into the world as the current 5 are.

Although I could maybe see them add a new race when we go to a new continent. Like say when we go to Cantha, they could add the Tengu then I suppose, because they would be developing a whole new world, so they could put a new playable race throughout it. But again, eeeeehhhhhhhh, probably not.

As someone said earlier, they could make Paras become a specialization, maybe even with a unique weapon, instead of making an entirely new class. Which got me thinking that they might add specializations with unique weapons when they go to Elona and Cantha.They could do this for all the old classes. When we go to Elona, Guardians could become Paragons, and Warriors could become Dervishes. When we go to Cantha, Thieves could become Assassins, and I dunno, maybe Necros or Revenants could become Ritualists. But that would all be quite the nod to the original game, and I doubt they’ll go THAT far.

SolidGold.7958:

New races would be cool, but I don’t think they’ll do that. The problem with that is the current 5 races are so tied to the world already. Everywhere you go you see charr, asurans, norn, sylvari and humans. Traveling makes you feel like you’re part of a culture that’s spread throughout the world. If they add the kodan for example, then the players would be basically the only kodan walking around. What would they do? Add a bunch of kodan npcs all over the world? Race-change some of the current npcs? I’m not saying they won’t add a new race or two, I just think it’s unlikely considering the obstacles involved inorder to get them to be as integrated into the world as the current 5 are.

Although I could maybe see them add a new race when we go to a new continent. Like say when we go to Cantha, they could add the Tengu then I suppose, because they would be developing a whole new world, so they could put a new playable race throughout it. But again, eeeeehhhhhhhh, probably not.

it doesn’t have to be a new continent, just their native region (sadly for the tengu, that means “nowhere”, since all the canthan ones are either in kryta or dead). kodans for example could be added in an expansion that pushes far north, where they would be the majority. it’s not like there aren’t kodan refugee tribes spread everywhere in the shiverpeaks, plus the oddball in other regions (like lion’s arch, or at least there were some there before it was nuked)

BrunoBRS.5178:

SolidGold.7958:

New races would be cool, but I don’t think they’ll do that. The problem with that is the current 5 races are so tied to the world already. Everywhere you go you see charr, asurans, norn, sylvari and humans. Traveling makes you feel like you’re part of a culture that’s spread throughout the world. If they add the kodan for example, then the players would be basically the only kodan walking around. What would they do? Add a bunch of kodan npcs all over the world? Race-change some of the current npcs? I’m not saying they won’t add a new race or two, I just think it’s unlikely considering the obstacles involved inorder to get them to be as integrated into the world as the current 5 are.

Although I could maybe see them add a new race when we go to a new continent. Like say when we go to Cantha, they could add the Tengu then I suppose, because they would be developing a whole new world, so they could put a new playable race throughout it. But again, eeeeehhhhhhhh, probably not.

it doesn’t have to be a new continent, just their native region (sadly for the tengu, that means “nowhere”, since all the canthan ones are either in kryta or dead). kodans for example could be added in an expansion that pushes far north, where they would be the majority. it’s not like there aren’t kodan refugee tribes spread everywhere in the shiverpeaks, plus the oddball in other regions (like lion’s arch, or at least there were some there before it was nuked)

True, I guess I just think it would be odd if some of the playable races were mostly just in one region, when all the other ones are all over the world, in every region.