Guild Wars 2

I was looking at the whole continent of Tyria and I saw a lot of interesting areas that could be added in the future expansions. Lore wise, which areas do you guys think will be part of the expansion(s).

I personally want to see what happened to Crystal Desert and Ring Of fire.

The Crystal Desert almost certianly since Kralkatorik is probably there. I suspect we will see more of the Meguuma Wastes as well. There are portals in game sealed off that lead to both.

I get the feeling that we’ll be taking on Jormag next. A lot of the Norn characters repeatedly say that they’ll be heading straight for Jormag once Zhaitan’s taken care of. Plus, there’s Frostgorge and the fact that it’s much higher-leveled than most of the other Shiverpeak areas, on par with Orr.

A lot of those areas will be added later in 2013 as Major Updates along with Act 2. So far I only know that Anet plans for 2 new dungeons with those new areas.

One can see paths leading to the Crystal Desert (heading south from Fields of Ruin), Elon River (heading southeast from Mount Maelstrom), Maguuma Wastes (heading north from Brisban Wildlands), and into the Sea of Sorrows (west from Sparkfly Fen, and the three gates into the Dominion of Winds).

The last personal story steps gives me the following implications:

• Largos and tengu will become playable, or at least hold a much bigger role in the near future
• Primordus and Jormag are the two most wanted-to-go-after Elder Dragons
• The deep sea dragon may not be known to Destiny’s Edge, but seems to be known by the Order of Whispers and Durmand Priory, but doesn’t seem to be considered an immediate threat since its kept under wraps.

Given this, along with Pact presence in Frostgorge Sound and the level 80 champions around Fort Vandal in Brisban Wildlands leads me to believe we’ll get the following in the next expansion or content updates:

• Largos and tengu will become playable, their starting areas in the Sea of Sorrows. If these races’ story takes place post Zhaitan’s death then the DSD’s minions will become known.
• We’ll face all three mainland dragons simultaneously or in short order – Primordus in Maguuma Wastes (it’s suspected in-universe to have dried because of an ED, Primordus being most likely candidate), Kralkatorrik in Crystal Desert, and Jormag in Far Shiverpeaks; if not this, then I suspect Primordus will be later while Kralkatorrik and Jormag will be quickly
• Fort Vandal will become a new lvl 80 dungeon, dealing with the White Mantle and, perhaps, the mursaat as well.

@EdwinLi: Where’s your source on the “2 new dungeons” bit?

• Largos and tengu will become playable, their starting areas in the Sea of Sorrows. If these races’ story takes place post Zhaitan’s death then the DSD’s minions will become known.

Tengu as far as I’m concerned have a 99.9% chance of being the next playable race, they constantly hint at choosing sides and being neutral, they have walls stopping you getting to their places (they could easily open them up), a bit like the Worgen gate from WoW.
They would fit perfectly in character creation, everyone likes and knows them lore-wise, they have some great concepts : http://kekai.weebly.com/uploads/5/4/7/6/5476798/4274396_orig.jpg (all the bird faces and creativity would be great), they would also fit well with classes, warrior – ranger – thief – elementalist – mesmer!

First of all, some wild speculation… then some fact based stuff

Although Konig’s post was pretty spot on (also hey XD)

Speculation
- Dungeons! There is scope for a dungeon in each of the major cities, and I am really hopeful that just as Sorrows Embrace was intended to fill the gap between Prophecies and Factions we get some of these to fill the gap between Zhaitan and the next dragon.

In Divinity’s Reach there lies an extensive underground crypt accessed via the Skull Plaza near our personal instance. There are NPCs in the area that suggest there have been some nasty murders recently involving the crypts, and there is a huge sinkhole that appeared around about the time that Ghosts of Ascalon came to a close. (probably due to events in the book).

In the Grove the entrance to the old Shards of Orr dungeon from GW1 should be within the city limits. There is a lot of the grove that is not accessible though so I wouldn’t be surprised if the city was expanded somehow in the future. Why name things on the map that we can’t actually get to unless we get to them later?

In Rata Sum the lower levels of the main cube are referred to as The Golem Mines. They are caved in and ruined implying some sort of catastrophe and actually mean that Rata Sum has a much lower population than it should do. We could be sent down here at some point.

The Black Citadel sits over the ruins of Rin, and given that it was the capitol of Ascalon its not too much of a jump to assume that it too had Catacombs, particularly as you can’t access the area referred to as Ruined Nolani.

Hoelbrak is a bit of a stretch though, it doesn’t appear to be sited over any Dwarven ruins but it could be near something Asuran as its not far from the old site of the Central Transfer Chamber.

- Areas! I would absolultely love it if we got to go back to Cantha and Elona and perhaps even further afield. We have only explored a relatively small section of Tyria in our adventures and there’s a huge inland area that is just begging for the devs to do something with east of the Blazeridge mountains.

- GUILD HALL AIRSHIPS. Yes please.

Evidenced Stuff:
- Dominion of Winds: I would be highly surprised not to be able to go into here in the very least.
- Druids Overlook and the northern maguuma: There is a ruined bridge that bandits are trying to repair in Brisban Wildlands that lines up perfectly with the former site of Druid’s Overlook, thus unlocking the northern and western sections of the Maguuma for exploration. (Side note, you can replay the bonus section from the old Aroura Glade mission in this explorable as well, so maybe there will be more ghosts from the Prophecies storyline as we get closer to the bloodstone)
- The Tarnished Coast: There is a closed off portal in Rata sum that is used in the personal story but never any other time since. It seems strange that in a city where everything has a specific use there would be something so prominantly useless opposite the gate to Lions Arch. This -could- lead to the rest of the Tarnished Coast and the southern parts of the Maguuma. There is also a large city sized slice between Rata Sum and the Grove that has not been added to the world map that could be used for extra content.
- The Crystal Desert: the gate adjacent to Ebonhawke leads to the crystal desert and presumably to the area where Rytlock and Logan first met. Although the entrance to that area could also be in the branded parts of the Fields of Ruin as there are a few parts of the brand that look like they could be portals in the future. There is also a clearly blocked off portal site next to a sylvari encampment in Mount Maelstrom.
- The Grove: as I mentioned in my speculation, there are large areas of the grove that are named but not seen. We could be seeing these in expansions or they could remain as tantalising though always inaccessible areas. There are also parts of the grove that have appeared in the races trailer that we can’t access.
- Northern Kryta: The areas north of Divnity’s Reach are said to be inhabited by both NPCs and by the fact that Seraph’s Landing receives goods from upstream which happens to be inaccessible, and indeed there is a road that ends in a sheer cliff in Demetra and a possible new/old gated entrance in the district of the city that is currently a big hole in the ground. We could be seeing Northern Kryta as either a high level explorable area for endgame or as a new conjoined starter area with a race we haven’t encountered yet.
- The Northern Shiverpeaks: There is a way-point right in the top corner of Frostgorge sound that doesn’t make any sense unless at some point in the future it will be next to a portal leading to the remains of the Northern Shiverpeaks.

there’s an extremely obvious blocked potential zone portal at the south east corner of mount maelstrom.

it seems to lead towards the crystal desert, or perhaps to where mathan’s grotto once was.

either way, a large part of the zone will definitely be underwater.

There is also the road in Sparkfly Fen you can clearly see on the map that leads right to the Sea of Sorrow area on the map but if you go there the road is blocked by a giant rock wall.
It quite the obvious thing shown on the map to say “hey this how you will enter the Sea of Sorrow Map but the place is not ready yet”.

Reading this thread makes me cringe that I’ve only explored 50% of the world so far. Soooo much to see still

Essarious Quw.8946:

In Divinity’s Reach there lies an extensive underground crypt accessed via the Skull Plaza near our personal instance. There are NPCs in the area that suggest there have been some nasty murders recently involving the crypts, and there is a huge sinkhole that appeared around about the time that Ghosts of Ascalon came to a close. (probably due to events in the book).

In the Grove the entrance to the old Shards of Orr dungeon from GW1 should be within the city limits. There is a lot of the grove that is not accessible though so I wouldn’t be surprised if the city was expanded somehow in the future. Why name things on the map that we can’t actually get to unless we get to them later?

In Rata Sum the lower levels of the main cube are referred to as The Golem Mines. They are caved in and ruined implying some sort of catastrophe and actually mean that Rata Sum has a much lower population than it should do. We could be sent down here at some point.

The Black Citadel sits over the ruins of Rin, and given that it was the capitol of Ascalon its not too much of a jump to assume that it too had Catacombs, particularly as you can’t access the area referred to as Ruined Nolani.

Hoelbrak is a bit of a stretch though, it doesn’t appear to be sited over any Dwarven ruins but it could be near something Asuran as its not far from the old site of the Central Transfer Chamber.

DR: I don’t recall any mention of the murders being tied to the crypts. However, I suspect that the Great Collapse will be explored further, and there are various mentions of sounds coming from the bottom of the Great Collapse as well as the same sounds coming from sewers – I suspect that the bandits aka White Mantle caused the Great Collapse which is why the SHining Blade knew of it so quickly and managed to evacuate people, and that they’re the source of the noise in the sewers.

Shards of Orr should actually be submerged.

We were told that Rata Sum is still under construction and being built – the Golem Mines would be that, not collapsed or anything.

Some areas are blocked off but exist because we can see them but there’s no reason to go there (or it’d be a pain for Anet to make further access to the locations :P). So I doubt we’ll be going to them.

Hoelbrak’s too far south of Central Transfer Chamber – that’s off the map to the north, as it was north of Yak’s Bend which is in Frostgorge Sound.

Essarious Quw.8946:

- Druids Overlook and the northern maguuma: There is a ruined bridge that bandits are trying to repair in Brisban Wildlands that lines up perfectly with the former site of Druid’s Overlook, thus unlocking the northern and western sections of the Maguuma for exploration. (Side note, you can replay the bonus section from the old Aroura Glade mission in this explorable as well, so maybe there will be more ghosts from the Prophecies storyline as we get closer to the bloodstone)
- The Tarnished Coast: There is a closed off portal in Rata sum that is used in the personal story but never any other time since. It seems strange that in a city where everything has a specific use there would be something so prominantly useless opposite the gate to Lions Arch. This -could- lead to the rest of the Tarnished Coast and the southern parts of the Maguuma. There is also a large city sized slice between Rata Sum and the Grove that has not been added to the world map that could be used for extra content.

Druid’s Overlook is actually in Brisban Wildlands, I think. May be wrong on this. But we’ll definitely be going into the Wilds of GW1 if that portal’s ever used – as I myself said. ;P

That gate will likely only lead to the story instance, just as there’s a spot in various other places which are only accessed via storylines.

Essarious Quw.8946:

- Northern Kryta: The areas north of Divnity’s Reach are said to be inhabited by both NPCs and by the fact that Seraph’s Landing receives goods from upstream which happens to be inaccessible, and indeed there is a road that ends in a sheer cliff in Demetra and a possible new/old gated entrance in the district of the city that is currently a big hole in the ground. We could be seeing Northern Kryta as either a high level explorable area for endgame or as a new conjoined starter area with a race we haven’t encountered yet.

I find that a bit doubtful. There’s no doubt going to be areas that we won’t be able to go to, yet will have lore to them. Lake Doric is among them.

That road “that ends in a sheer cliff in Demetra” actually heads in the direction of Caudecus’s Manor – specifically the hidden path which is used by bandits.