Guild Wars 2

http://gamingbolt.com/guild-wars-2-interview-we-talk-to-areanet-about-how-the-mmorpg-has-been-doing-post-launch

So Colin Johanson did an interview over at gamingbolt and had something VERY interesting to say about the new content coming in the January and February event/releases:

" January and February are actually are biggest updates to date. They’re even bigger than all the stuff we did in October, November and December. And I think that when people see how much stuff they’re gonna get for no monthly fee in January and February, they’re probably going to be blown away. These two months combined are basically an expansion’s worth of content for free."

The first thing is what “expansion” means. In GW1 EoTN was considered an “expansion” while Factions and Nightfall were new “campaigns.” Assuming a similar scale of content to a GW1 “expansion” is coming at us, we’re looking at a LOT of new stuff to do + a LOT of new lore information in the next month or so.

So let’s get the speculation started! What do you think the focus of this new content will be?

If I had to GUESS I would speculate that we’re going to see the Jormag storyline pushed forward. This mostly has to do with the hinting in the end cutscene of HotW and the fact that the only non-Orr level 80 zone is in the Shiverpeaks.

My guess is that we will see some areas up north open up, beyond that, I have no idea.

Krytan fun time!
I’d rather have Jormag be a pay-for expansion. Not all dragons maybe, but it just seems weird to give a whole nother dragon for free. Then again, it could be a way to ‘make up’ for Zhaitan’s lameness
But, for why I said Kryta, we could get a whole load of stuff on the White Mantle, Isgarren/Garrenhoff, Fort Vandal, maybe even some Maguuma/Woodland Cascades stuff. I blame Konig for my newfound want for WM stuff

Edit: As I’m reading the interview, he mentions “And actually, in February, we’re going to do a whole bunch of expansions on top of that world vs world area, to make that experience even more uniquely Guild Wars. But that’s something where we took a lot of inspiration from a previous game, and take that and then build on it and make it something even more”
Not really lore related, but more WvW updates will be cool, and could take up some of the largeness of the content.

The things I’m expecting/hoping for the most is either focusing on:

• Jormag/Far Shiverpeaks
• Maguuma Waste/Fort Vandal/Bandit-Nightmare Court-Inquest alliance/Lazarus and the White Mantle

Jormag’s hinted at a lot as being the next Elder Dragon to face, and I’m having troubles seeing an entire expansion focusing on Jormag story-wise, so if the two months’ updates are together one expansion’s worth then Jormag being the focus of effectively half an expansion makes sense. Furthermore, five (especially consecutive) expansions focusing on Elder Dragons would be rather boring.

After that, of all the enemies fought so far, the ones who’re dealt the least amount of damage are bandits and the Nightmare Court, who are in an alliance with each other and Inquest, and there’s Fort Vandal in Brisban Wildlands which is a PoI that holds dozens of level 80 champions, on top of this there’s a visible portal leading north into the Maguuma Wastes showing that Anet’s got plans for there (if not hopes for plans). On top of this, Faolain is still alive and the Inquest, though damaged, are still kicking – Caudecus who’s likely linked to the White Mantle (who in turn are the leaders of the bandits, though the low level bandits don’t know this according to the Shining Blade) is also still alive and a hidden room was found in Caudecus’ Manor dungeon which to me hints at a second explorable mode (as do the ending dialogues which talk about further investigations on the bandits). And besides all of this, the White Mantle are the most hidden yet hold the most ties to the most races as alongside the aforementioned stuff they’re allied with centaurs (who hold hatred for both humans and norn), and obviously mursaat who know of the Elder Dragons and if investigated may wield info on them. And all of this isn’t even mentioning the more speculative storyplots that could revolve around the White Mantle (e.g., Isgarren).

It’d be greater, though, if both months focused on a single plot – that way it won’t feel rushed or half-arsed as compared to Southsun Cove.

There are other possible content that I see coming, but they seem less likely as they’re either less of a focus (Primordus/DSD) or a better candidate (imo) for a payred release expansion (Kralkatorrik/Crystal Desert/Elona(?), DSD/Unending Ocean, tengu/largos expanded lore/playability).

Doing Jormag in the middle of winter makes total sense, i expect him in january/february

I want mursaat homeland! They have alway’s been my favorite enemy.

I’m hoping for movement on another Elder Dragon storyline. It doesn’t necessarily need to lead to the confrontation itself within a two month window, but I think they could start setting it up.

In my personal opinion it seems to me that the next step to make would be to check out the new territory opened up by Zhaitan’s Death. I mean with Zhaitan gone and his undead army slowly dying away much of Orr, the Sea of Sorrows, and the Ring of Fire islands have been opened, and these have nothing to do with a dragon that we know of (except possibly the DSD). It would be a very interesting and cool to see the rest of Orr, and imagine what would be available to us lorewise.

Canthan New Year was a Major event celebrated in the first game late January through early February.

Maybe an introduction to Cantha, tengu ect…

With Zhaitan out of the way, this seems possible.

Would you really want, nay, expect a full new continent in January and February? While Fractals of the Mists does hint to Cantha being coming in the near future, I cannot see more than 3-5 zones being made, which is far too little for Cantha’s introduction if you ask me.

Cantha’s more likely to be part of an actual expansion, rather than two possibly-unlinked content updates that are the size of an expansion.

We have to help Queen Jennah find her cat.

Seriousness: I hope it results in the cleansing of Orr. I would like to see Orr zones instanced for players who have finished their storylines, getting rid of most of the undead and adding new mobs related to humanity, the forgotten, the gods, etc. Maybe add some tenuous human settlements? And make Orr somewhat nicer to look at lol

Hunter.6950:

Canthan New Year was a Major event celebrated in the first game late January through early February.

Maybe an introduction to Cantha, tengu ect…

With Zhaitan out of the way, this seems possible.

Bubbles does actually exist by the way. The Lost Shores shows that Bubbles minions have become more active. Trying to get Cantha would result in an encounter with Bubbles. Plus I point out that the Tengu no longer live in Cantha. I can’t understand why everyone think Anet will ignore the other Dragons and have us go on this ridclous trip to Cantha to to allow the Tengu to live in Cantha while the Elder Dragons pillage Tyria including the Domion of Winds which is their current home.

Konig Des Todes.2086:

Would you really want, nay, expect a full new continent in January and February? While Fractals of the Mists does hint to Cantha being coming in the near future, I cannot see more than 3-5 zones being made, which is far too little for Cantha’s introduction if you ask me.

Cantha’s more likely to be part of an actual expansion, rather than two possibly-unlinked content updates that are the size of an expansion.

Introduction……not the whole expansion……, maybe a boat of canthans and we finally hear word from of whats going on there. Followed by Tengu maybe involved somehow or something. Just makes sense if they do something with Cantha due to it being Canthan new year.

It was a major holiday in the first game like halloween and wintersday

We don’t really need Cantha to have Canthan New Year, seeing how Divinity’s Reach has descendants of Canthans – as does Lion’s Arch. However, I don’t see why we even need Canthan New Year in GW2 anyways, especially in the first year.

If the content would only introduce Cantha via some side-content comments, then there’s really no need to do that since Cantha already has such content, it’s just not a focus. If its adding Cantha itself, I just don’t see it given the predicting size of it (based off of Halloween/The Lost Shores/Wintersday content).

Think it would be cool if you fought a branded Snaff, maybe in a later monthly thing, If we get to fight Jormag I would hope its more epic than the Zhaitan fight.

Except Snaff is dead so he cannot be branded.

Oh, I thought dead could be branded. Sorry.

Nope. Using corpses as minions seems to be Zhaitan’s method of corruption. Kralkatorrik’s minions are either living creatures who have been corrupted or created from the land itself, although he seems to prefer the former. Primordus’ minions appear to be the latter, only being made of magma and stone rather than creatures who are corrupted.

Even if Kralk could corrupt corpses (Kralk’s MO is corrupting physical things – the only thing uncorrupted by the Dragonbrand is water, though it might be tainted, and ghosts – and as such he might be able to corrupt corpses just as Jormag does (in Edge of Destiny chapter 1, there’s an icebrood of a norn who went to face the Dragonspawn who’s face is half-crushed no way did the norn survive such), Snaff wouldn’t become branded because right after his death Zojja cremated him. His ashes lie in the floor somewhere in Zojja (formerly Snaff’s) lab in Rata Sum.

I’m hoping for the Crystal Desert since that is a very important area just randomly left out of the game. I know they probably felt it was unnecessary since Orr is desert-like but I miss it

I’m pretty sure it’s not random – it’s just being saved for when they’re ready to tell the story in a way that’ll do it justice. There’s a lot of Tyria that seems to fall into this category. I can’t imagine they just forgot about our old friend Palawa Joko!

gold.3025:

I’m hoping for the Crystal Desert since that is a very important area just randomly left out of the game. I know they probably felt it was unnecessary since Orr is desert-like but I miss it

I don’t think that was why. I think it wasn’t included in the initial release because that area would have story major importance for plotlines about Kralkatorrik and Palawa Joko, so it wouldn’t make sense to throw it into a campaign focused on Zhaitan/Orr. Releasing it before it had importance in the storyline would be kind of a waste.

I don’t expect we’ll see the Crystal Desert as early as January/February, but I do think it’ll be included in a future content update, and that it was planned that way because later it’ll be a lot more relevant than it would have been at release.

PLAYABLE TENGU!!!!! sorry trying to control myself… but who really knows but them… i hope we get mesmers mh pistols… one of the scholars to have a shield. maybe polearms… new hairstyles and faces

- an extra two traditional story/exp dungeons
- non-fractal ways to get ascended gear and 2 new pieces of which 1 armor
- repair fractal scales to max or average scale so it doesn’t gate nearly as bad.
- insane non-gold chain for precursor that can be done in small time investments
- a new area behind one of the content doors
- a new open world dragon champion and improved drops on champ/vets
- overhaul for Southsun, Mount Maelstrom and capital cities
- the promised WvW overhaul and sPvp changes

That would be much, if it was only half I’d happily buy gems towards that.

One of the game designer mentioned in an article that most of the changes in this expansions will be to the WvWvW system. I am guessing this is because this is one of the end game things to do that are really popular and have tons of space to improve on.
I suggest we all go to the WvW forums and start posting some ideas for these guys

I highly doubt that we will see major changes in lore and pve, Arenanet has bragged a bit in the pass about their future content. But if I were to guess I’d say it would probably be a new zone being introduced by a one time event. Possibly a dungeon and a few changes to WvW,PvP and Items.

Given Wintersday, I think Anet learned their lesson about one-time events and the super lag/disconnects they cause.

Yeah, I don’t see Lost Shore repeats happening again anytime soon