Guild Wars 2

Zaxares.5419:

I personally suspect this is what is happening too (although why would Mordremoth, or whoever’s in Scarlet’s head, want to attack Primordus?).

Pet wish? I’m keeping my fingers crossed that all of this chaos right on the Dominion of Winds’ doorstep finally spurs the Tengu to open their gates, shoot the Aetherblades out of the sky, and they join the world as the 5th playable race.

Think about it: if things are so dire for LA, what better way for massive reinforcements to come in in the form of an entire race of skilled fighters who have been staying behind their walls all this time?

Well, if it’s Primy in her head, then she’s going down there to kill him to get him out of her head. Though the line about “you’ve been taking my credit” in her journal suggests the entity wants all of her plans to go off, and why would Primy stage an attack on himself? So if it’s Mordremoth in her head, then he’s using her to take out Primy so there’s less competition for the magic of Tyria.

I also see this as the perfect time to bring the Tengu in. One of the walls to the Dominion is coming down, either during the battle or from the drill, and they’re going to have to take in refugees from Lion’s and help quell the destroyers. It would be a huge missed opportunity not to introduce them now.

If there is destruction we will certainly see:

- Parts of the town on fire and destroyed
- A giant hole by the giant drill (or it will at least crash near LA somewhere and will be the final dungeon)
- A destroyed lion

What i hope we won`t see:
- The destruction of old LA (in that case more destruction then)

What else will happen?
- Canach goes for redemption joining the fight
- Ellen Kiel will help with her newly aquired airship
- The Faboulus Five will help in the fight while the lions guard is helpless
- No other races will join the fight, or will be too late
- We loose the old Asura gates for a while (however apearently they will function without beeing whole if i remember the one in EotM)

Visteri.3821:

On the other hand, if they are planning to make Zhaitan rise again in order to make a better Zhaitan 2.0 fight, the personal story for newly created characters might change as well. It could become about the second time Zhaitan was killed. That would free them up to do whatever they want with the world.

However, that idea brings a number of problems with it, first in that the part of the story that deals with the Pact would have to change significantly. We can’t have the Pact being canonically founded twice. (Though if they managed to find something better to do with Trahearne…)

Second, I’m sure a lot of players would be mad about it. Newer players because they’re part of the second group instead of the first, meaning they’d feel less important, and older players because they had to go through a less fun version of the story and now the noobs get everything handed to them on a silver platter whine whine. But there’s nothing stopping them from making it playable for older characters as well.

Still, this would also take a massive amount of work and probably wouldn’t even be worth the time and money. Better to direct their focus toward making fun new content.

I guess we’ll have to see.

Aside from the potential problems coming up with messing up LA, couldn’t Anet just tack on Zhaitan’s 2nd coming as additional PS? Rework some of the LS into PS missions and you’d get an extended PS that people could follow up with.

Considering all the focus on Lion’s Arch, the semi-recent release of the Sea of Sorrows book, and Ree’s coy answers to certain questions, how likely do you all think it is that (Sea of Sorrows spoilers)Livia will make an appearance?

Maybe the thing Scarlet’s probe found under Lion’s Arch is actually (maybe this is a spoiler too)the Scepter of Orr?

Visteri.3821:

Considering all the focus on Lion’s Arch, the semi-recent release of the Sea of Sorrows book, and Ree’s coy answers to certain questions, how likely do you all think it is that (Sea of Sorrows spoilers)Livia will make an appearance?

Maybe the thing Scarlet’s probe found under Lion’s Arch is actually (maybe this is a spoiler too)the Scepter of Orr?

Why would the person that owned the object, throw it away? It makes no sense.

DarcShriek.5829:

Why would the person that owned the object, throw it away? It makes no sense.

According to Sea of Sorrows, she doesn’t have it anymore.

Visteri.3821:

DarcShriek.5829:

Why would the person that owned the object, throw it away? It makes no sense.

According to Sea of Sorrows, she doesn’t have it anymore.

Actually, Sea of Sorrows implies that she does still have it, but either way we’re making an assumption based on the tense of one word spoken 71 years ago.

I think we can safely rule out Personal Story-disrupting levels of damage. If the storytellers of ArenaNet are having meetings to discuss how to work Hero Voice into the climax, then they haven’t had all the hero voice actors in the studio to record any tweaks or restructuring required to move the Lion’s Arch scenes to a new location – both types of recording would have been done at the same time.

They wont touch LA.
The Guy taking your Black Lion Tickets is standing there after all.
Nope, definitely wont touch LA.

“Aside from the potential problems coming up with messing up LA, couldn’t Anet just tack on Zhaitan’s 2nd coming as additional PS?”

Because it makes no sense for anyone who hasn’t completed the personal story if Zaitan comes a second time. Everything in the personal story is Zaitan. Everything that is Zaitan is in the personal story. The Living Story is deliberately excludes Orr and Zaitan so that the timeline remains ambiguous for each player.

Zaxares.5419:

Whatever happens, I’m certain that Canach will play a part in it. That whole off-hand remark about how somebody could buy his billet and allow him to work off his debt just screams to me that somebody (either Kiel or Marjory is my guess) will be doing that very shortly.

Wouldn’t it be nice if, for once, the player got to do it? Instead of it constantly being about the other characters, Canach has a direct relationship to us?

I think it’s obvious that his billet will be purchased in the future, whether or not it’s during Scarlet’s attack I don’t know (it would make sense given they want us to think the defence will be undermanned). I just hope his new Goody-Two-Shoes-Kiel impersonation is just an act and the Canach we see in the future is less obnoxiously white.

Nike.2631:

I think we can safely rule out Personal Story-disrupting levels of damage. If the storytellers of ArenaNet are having meetings to discuss how to work Hero Voice into the climax, then they haven’t had all the hero voice actors in the studio to record any tweaks or restructuring required to move the Lion’s Arch scenes to a new location – both types of recording would have been done at the same time.

My understanding is that they have trouble working the PC voice actors into the new Living World style of dialogue scenes. There should be no problem replicating the Personal Story scenes if they wanted to. I doubt they would retcon Personal Story, that would be a disaster.

They could just jump from the end of the orders introduction storyline to the assault on Fort Trinity chapter and it wouldn’t make a functional difference plot-wise.

As for LA itself and the happenings that will rock the world to its core, it will probably become temporarily a warzone followed by the opening of the first gambling hall in Tyria, so a double disaster for the moral compasses of the world.

Shiren.9532:

Not enough will happen to LA to contradict the Personal Story instances which take place inside of it. Every order story is rooted in Lion’s Arch.

Unless ANet finally decides to sacrifice continuity for awesomeness. One of the issues with MMOs, in terms of story telling is that different people might be at different points. Phasing is a way to accommodate this, displaying different worlds depending on your progress. However ANet has already stated they din’t like the idea of phasing, so in essence, nothing can be world changing or it would ruin the Living Story – Personal Story continuity.

Zaxares.5419:

…

As a Voltron fan, I can’t bring myself to downvote that idea. XD

And to be pedantic you can’t downvote. But yeah that would be 100% rule of cool.

Mickey Frogeater.1470:

Jennah is implied to be trying to avoid direct contact with Logan. Why? Because she’s not Jennah of course! She’s the Nemesis in disguise! He/she would have to avoid Logan if he/she is to pull off his/her scheme perfectly… I also think Kasmeer might also be a candidate for one of the Nemesis’s disguises…

Interesting. During the investigation it was noted that the watchwork knights had a striking similarity to the steam creatures… Scarlet did try and take a shot and Jennah (Fake-Jennah? Fennah? Fannah?).

Shinzan.2908:

It will get damaged and some landmarks might get blown up, but ultimately the players will save it from destruction and finally kick Scarlet’s kitten .

Kinda boring but most likely.

Volstag.6371:

Wait a second, anyone think it will be Canach that figures out how to stop the toxin?

He is an alchemist so very likely.

moomooo.9357:

Aside from the potential problems coming up with messing up LA, couldn’t Anet just tack on Zhaitan’s 2nd coming as additional PS? Rework some of the LS into PS missions and you’d get an extended PS that people could follow up with.

I like this idea very much. In corporate the Living Story into the Personal Story, giving us the much needed permanency that we (and by we I mean like me and a handful of other people) always wanted and giving new players the story that they’ve missed up until now. Further fully opening the possibility of Zhaitan 2.0, or some other elder dragon.

LA can’t get destroyed. Then we’d have nowhere to stand afk.

mcgriddles.2416:

LA can’t get destroyed. Then we’d have nowhere to stand afk.

You can always stand in the crater.

Stooperdale.3560:

“Aside from the potential problems coming up with messing up LA, couldn’t Anet just tack on Zhaitan’s 2nd coming as additional PS?”

Because it makes no sense for anyone who hasn’t completed the personal story if Zaitan comes a second time. Everything in the personal story is Zaitan. Everything that is Zaitan is in the personal story. The Living Story is deliberately excludes Orr and Zaitan so that the timeline remains ambiguous for each player.

Except that the living story timeline hasn’t been ambiguous for a long time.
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Living_World_summary
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Timeline

With the increase in Tequatl’s power, there’s even less doubt about it. There was even ingame dialogue where npc’s speculate if the fall of Zhaitan could have made Tequatl stronger.

Considering how many people, both in this thread and outside, are touting the whole “LS can’t have big effects because it would interfere with the PS”, I hope the “nothing is sacred” line we got refers to Arenanet’s decision to keep PS and LS separated.
Nothing would demonstrate that better as the complete annihilation of LA, though personally I doubt they would go that far since no game developer has ever gone that far before for the sake of story.

Naetell.3815:

Stooperdale.3560:

“Aside from the potential problems coming up with messing up LA, couldn’t Anet just tack on Zhaitan’s 2nd coming as additional PS?”

Because it makes no sense for anyone who hasn’t completed the personal story if Zaitan comes a second time. Everything in the personal story is Zaitan. Everything that is Zaitan is in the personal story. The Living Story is deliberately excludes Orr and Zaitan so that the timeline remains ambiguous for each player.

Except that the living story timeline hasn’t been ambiguous for a long time.
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Living_World_summary
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Timeline

With the increase in Tequatl’s power, there’s even less doubt about it. There was even ingame dialogue where npc’s speculate if the fall of Zhaitan could have made Tequatl stronger.

Considering how many people, both in this thread and outside, are touting the whole “LS can’t have big effects because it would interfere with the PS”, I hope the “nothing is sacred” line we got refers to Arenanet’s decision to keep PS and LS separated.
Nothing would demonstrate that better as the complete annihilation of LA, though personally I doubt they would go that far since no game developer has ever gone that far before for the sake of story.

It wouldn’t bother me if the entirety of LA was altered or removed, but the overall to correct both personal story and annual events seems to great for the reward. Just my 2c

Maybe they’ll have Zhaitan return inside the LS to be defeated once and for all so they can proceed with the story. With the LS officially happening after the PS they’ll need to have an exact time when Zhaitan was beaten just for the records. And the arah version of Zhaitans fall didn’t make his death clear. We just saw him fall.

Nick.6972:

Scarlet attacks Lion’s Arch, everyone fights, Scarlet gets killed, Jungle Dragon gets revealed.

As a hoax all along.

On a serious note I don’t think the jungle dragon is connected to the living story, nor do I think a Elder Dragon is behind Scarlet. I also don’t think there will be a battle for Lion’s Arch. How do we know those probes are just probes and don’t have any additional purpose? They could be bombs she developed that would link up with the Leylines and inject Elder Dragon Energy into them causing a similar event to the Thaumanova reactor? That would be a far more effective means of dealing with Lion’s Arch. It is possible all the clues we found thus far have been intentionally left by Scarlet to have us all gather at a single location in preparation for this major battle where we will be wiped out by this Thaumanova Bomb. Then she can accomplish her true objectives in relative peace as a significant portion of her opposition would of been destroyed by the blast.

The last Living Story was basically to allow other players to catch up with the story. It wouldn’t make sense if it was all just a hoax. That would derail the whole story, and the stories in GW2 usually aren’t that unpredictable. We are told that the purpose of the probes is to find the strongest leyline. We would not be told this if it was completely untrue.

We are told by Kasmeer and Marjory that Scarlet plans to attack Lion’s Arch, which we knew already. That should end any doubt right there. It is literally confirmed twice that Lion’s Arch will be attacked.

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

The last Living Story was basically to allow other players to catch up with the story. It wouldn’t make sense if it was all just a hoax. That would derail the whole story, and the stories in GW2 usually aren’t that unpredictable. We are told that the purpose of the probes is to find the strongest leyline. We would not be told this if it was completely untrue.

We are told by Kasmeer and Marjory that Scarlet plans to attack Lion’s Arch, which we knew already. That should end any doubt right there. It is literally confirmed twice that Lion’s Arch will be attacked.

I was referring to the Jungle Dragon part as it has been thrown onto every action Scarlet has done without much evidence to support.

Searching for Leylines doesn’t necessary mean she looking for an Elder Dragon, because if they actual fed directly on the Leylines then there wouldn’t be much reason for their armies to attack us until the Leylines have been completely exhausted. Perhaps she hopes to disturb the Leylines to create an chaotic storm of magical energy via introducing Elder Dragon corrupted magical energy into the Leylines. Since they crisscross the globe in other settings it would be an effective means to “burn the world”. Or as I mention earlier it could be possible those Probes aren’t just detectors and have an additional purpose. A bomb seems likely given how troublesome the adventurers, us players, have been for he last year or so to her plans. While we haven’t truly dealt her any significant defeat, that she has confirmed, it is possible she does take us as a potential threat that must be neutralize when we no longer of use. Deceiving us into thinking she will strike at Lion’s Arch will be a perfect means of dealing with a good number of us in one swoop.

Why did I get infracted for making a prediction? I was playing EOTM yesterday and some guy was talking in the chat that there’s an NPC in game saying something about Jungle Worms (The new world boss) being tied to the elder dragons.
Great moderation, honestly.

Nick.6972:

Why did I get infracted for making a prediction? I was playing EOTM yesterday and some guy was talking in the chat that there’s an NPC in game saying something about Jungle Worms (The new world boss) being tied to the elder dragons.
Great moderation, honestly.

Odd considering my reply to yours hasn’t been deleted yet, which is normally the case when they remove the comment I replied to.

Also do you know or can learn the name of the npc that mentions this information?

No idea. Haven’t played Living Story since the last September patch.

What if the attack on Lion’s Arch is a head fake? Could the reason the Captain’s Council isn’t worried about Scarlet because they are all working for her and know whats coming? She runs the most powerful group of rogue pirates, it’s a town founded by pirates. Is it to far fetched that she didn’t assassinate someone to put someone on the council, it was to remove a dissenter who knew to much?

I think Lions Arch is going to be reduced to a pile of rubble after reading the Massively article on the next update lol. They are moving all the important parts of the city to the Vigil Keep and making the story instances that take place in Lions Arch available through a different way, so yeah, seems like Lions Arch is going to get destroyed…..

I am both extremely excited that a game is willing to go this far, and also sad to see the city I spent so much time in go….

I don’t see it being destroyed permanently, because it would undo the whole point of creating the festivals. Last year many players were very vocal (¹,²,³) about the Living Story having a disproportionate amount of story telling to festivals and other distractions. Arena Net’s response to this was:

“We still want to have some content that can happen each year, our holiday festivals, Super Adventure Box, Zephyr Sanctum, and the new Queens Gauntlet are all intended to be content that will regularly return. The goal of having these in our portfolio of event content that can occur again each year is they allow us the opportunity to easily build on something we’ve already completed as themes for some of our releases for year 2.

We wanted to get to the end of the first year of Gw2 with a decent amount of these events that can happen each year in our pocket, to allow our second year a lot more opportunities to lean on these while we focus on much larger projects we’ve been working on in the background." ⁴

Since the holiday festivals are integral to Arena Net’s plan of having cyclical content to fall back on to give themselves more development time on the non-cyclical Living Story releases, I don’t see Lion’s Arch leaving forever. They’d have to abandon some of the events and most of the art assets at the very least. At most it will stay claimed until Dragon Bash if I’m correct.

I suppose one alternative is to have Lion’s Arch festivals in the Mists, where we as players can visit the Lion’s Arch of old for festivals; but Arena Net has been hesitant to add multiple copies of zones as it can fragment the player base. Though I’d be happy if they chose this route. as I think it’d make it a much more Living World if we could lose Lion’s Arch forever. However, I can understand why they wouldn’t do it considering all the effort they went into designing new art assets and some events for the various festivals.

¹ – For a world ravaged by dragons
² – Please no more festivals!!!
³ – I don’t like this update
⁴ – Colin on temporary content

Yeah, I’m 95% certain that after the conclusion of LS Season 1, Lion’s Arch will be rebuilt and reinhabited. Buildings may be different, and parts of the map may be permanently altered, but by and large LA will continue to serve the same function’s as the game’s “hub city” as it did before.

I don’t think Lion’s Arch will be destroyed because several Personal Story(meeting Destiny’s Edge, joining the Orders, retaking Claw Island… etc.) missions take place there. Otherwise how would they change the Personal Story for all new characters and characters already made who haven’t reached that point yet?

Zaxares.5419:

Yeah, I’m 95% certain that after the conclusion of LS Season 1, Lion’s Arch will be rebuilt and reinhabited. Buildings may be different, and parts of the map may be permanently altered, but by and large LA will continue to serve the same function’s as the game’s “hub city” as it did before.

This would be my guess. Lion’s Arch is an iconic landmark in Tyria (as the trailer points out). Where else will perform the function of a central hub that all races come together? Scarlet will have to be defeated and retaking Lion’s Arch would be natural progression from that. The fastest I see it happening is the next patch is the Escape from Lion’s Arch, the following patch is the retaking of Lion’s Arch and the defeat of Scarlet. Over the next year the Living Story will probably deal with the rebuilding process of Lion’s Arch, fixing up parts of the city that were destroyed, building new parts etc.

Tuskin.2548:

I don’t think Lion’s Arch will be destroyed because several Personal Story(meeting Destiny’s Edge, joining the Orders, retaking Claw Island… etc.) missions take place there. Otherwise how would they change the Personal Story for all new characters and characters already made who haven’t reached that point yet?

According to Massively, "Personal story steps will be accessible through a new entrance. " It looks like Lion’s Arch will still be there in the PS, just not in the open world- which I really wish they’d been doing before.

Here is the latest footage of Escape from LA. :P

“The answer to all of these questions await in our four upcoming releases in 2014: and lead to one final moment that will change the face of Tyria forever.”
maybe lions arch is going to die or taken over.
so it’s not our big city anymore, that is a big change and will change tyria forever.

“Personal story steps will be accessible through a new entrance. " and this is something that is a evidence for it to.

Tuskin.2548:

I don’t think Lion’s Arch will be destroyed because several Personal Story(meeting Destiny’s Edge, joining the Orders, retaking Claw Island… etc.) missions take place there. Otherwise how would they change the Personal Story for all new characters and characters already made who haven’t reached that point yet?

That isn’t a problem. Personal story instances that take place there can have their entrance at the new Lion’s Arch zone entrance (so players don’t have to fight through mobs to get there). When they start that story step they are viewing events their character did in the past like all the other personal story steps. The Personal Story and Dungeons by being instanced content are time-locked. This is one of the reasons I prefer MMOs that aren’t heavily instanced.

@SirMoogie.9263

Regina Buenaobra:

Rox, Braham, Marjory, Kasmeer, and Taimi are referred to internally as “B-Iconics” (or Biconics) as opposed to our “A-Iconics” or main iconic characters, Caithe, Rytlock, Eir, Zojja, and Logan. They are not a “replacement” for Destiny’s Edge; these characters fulfill a different role in the story. Because members of Destiny’s Edge are so entwined with your Personal Story as well as the over-arching story with Zhaitan, and because the Living World plot lines are taking place at the same time all those other story threads, we couldn’t have the members of Destiny’s Edge splitting themselves between these other areas and what was going on with Living World. This is partly why we introduced these new characters.

I’m hoping this is a misquote on their part, because if it isn’t, that means the timeline is still screwed up.

SirMoogie.9263:

I don’t see it being destroyed permanently, because it would undo the whole point of creating the festivals. Last year many players were very vocal (¹,²,³) about the Living Story having a disproportionate amount of story telling to festivals and other distractions. Arena Net’s response to this was:

“We still want to have some content that can happen each year, our holiday festivals, Super Adventure Box, Zephyr Sanctum, and the new Queens Gauntlet are all intended to be content that will regularly return. The goal of having these in our portfolio of event content that can occur again each year is they allow us the opportunity to easily build on something we’ve already completed as themes for some of our releases for year 2.

We wanted to get to the end of the first year of Gw2 with a decent amount of these events that can happen each year in our pocket, to allow our second year a lot more opportunities to lean on these while we focus on much larger projects we’ve been working on in the background." ⁴

Since the holiday festivals are integral to Arena Net’s plan of having cyclical content to fall back on to give themselves more development time on the non-cyclical Living Story releases, I don’t see Lion’s Arch leaving forever. They’d have to abandon some of the events and most of the art assets at the very least. At most it will stay claimed until Dragon Bash if I’m correct.

I suppose one alternative is to have Lion’s Arch festivals in the Mists, where we as players can visit the Lion’s Arch of old for festivals; but Arena Net has been hesitant to add multiple copies of zones as it can fragment the player base. Though I’d be happy if they chose this route. as I think it’d make it a much more Living World if we could lose Lion’s Arch forever. However, I can understand why they wouldn’t do it considering all the effort they went into designing new art assets and some events for the various festivals.

¹ – For a world ravaged by dragons
² – Please no more festivals!!!
³ – I don’t like this update
⁴ – Colin on temporary content

Festivals in the mists? OK, I have heard this whole, “Lions Arch can’t be destroyed cause the festivals!” more than a few times but really, during the festivals, how many of the mini events that you partake in actually took place in Lions Arch? ALL of them teleported you to another realm or area to do the events. It’s really not all that tough to take the decorations that they’ve made for the events and end up decorating Divinity’s reach or some other capital city and have you teleport to the instanced event areas as was how it was done in Lions Arch.

Saying they can’t destroy Lions Arch due to the festivals is like saying they can’t destroy Lions Arch cause of the Asura Gates there, but even those are getting moved. Lions Arch is going to be destroyed permanently, but I guess you’ll just have to see it before you will believe it.

Nothing in the “evidence” you provided suggested that the festivals HAD to take place in Lions Arch, everything about the festivals from day one has been instanced. They probably have a good reason for doing this since they knew that they would eventually be destroying Lions Arch.

Erukk.1408:

@SirMoogie.9263

I’m hoping this is a misquote on their part, because if it isn’t, that means the timeline is still screwed up.

I’ve heard similar statements before and they are contradictory to other statements made by Arena Net, such as the one by Matthew Medina that places the Karka Invasion after the defeat of Zhaitan ¹. I tend to go with what makes more sense and Matthew’s statements make more sense than Regina’s. It doesn’t make sense for the Personal Story to exist in parallel with the Living Story (especially with the next update). A common example is how did Aetherblades steal Pact airships if the Pact didn’t exist? Since we have a point in time reference for the first Karka Attack, we can now place the other events as most Living world event rely on it.

Either way, if this is a confusing matter for players, ² they could add a timeline interface to the game that indicates when events happen, or post a little message when you enter your personal story that says, “You are witnessing events your character has done in the past to form the Pact to defeat Zhaitan.”

¹ – Matthew Medina on Living World Timeline

² – I really don’t think it is. Many books and TV shows show past events without directly saying when they occur. They often use contextual clues to place events. Some personal story steps may need more clues than they have now that the story has progressed in the open world, but that would probably be harder to add than a flashing message or timeline interface.

webtoehobbit.4201:

everything about the festivals from day one has been instanced.
They probably have a good reason for doing this since they knew that they would eventually be destroying Lions Arch.

Art assets, NPC dialogues, NPC movements, and the few events that occur in Lion’s Arch are not instanced. I agree there is a lot of instanced content, but it is not “everything”. This is a good point though.

OK, I have heard this whole, “Lions Arch can’t be destroyed cause the festivals!” more than a few times but really, during the festivals, how many of the mini events that you partake in actually took place in Lions Arch? ALL of them teleported you to another realm or area to do the events.

It’s really not all that tough to take the decorations that they’ve made for the events and end up decorating Divinity’s reach or some other capital city and have you teleport to the instanced event areas as was how it was done in Lions Arch.

Yeah. I’m not an expert on art assets or Arena Net’s internal technologies for scripting NPCs and events, so you may be right. I was taking a guess that that it would be a harder task than it may actually be to move the NPCs with holiday related dialogue, script their movements in the new location, move the events that do occur in the city (like the Wintersday Doylak), redesign the art assets so they fit the theme of the new festival location, and test.

Saying they can’t destroy Lions Arch due to the festivals is like saying they can’t destroy Lions Arch cause of the Asura Gates there, but even those are getting moved.

I’m not so sure those are good analogies. Moving a festival involves moving the NPCs with holiday related dialogue, scripting their movements in the new location, moving the events that do occur in the city (like the Wintersday Doylak), and redesigning the art assets so they fit the theme of the new festival location. Moving a portal requires some work, but the portal doesn’t need a art redesign or no new scripted behaviors (it performs the same function). It does need proper placement, and some assets in the surrounding area need to be created to house the portal.

Nothing in the “evidence” you provided suggested that the festivals HAD to take place in Lions Arch,

I don’t think they had to be in Lion’s Arch. I think they were designed to be in Lion’s Arch and that moving them would require some design changes.

Festivals in the mists?

That’s the lore explanation. Otherwise they would appear like any other festival. Lion’s Arch is an instanced zone, so multiple copies of it can persist at once; including copies of it as it is now and copies as it will be after Scarlet’s attack. They can allow copies of how it is now to be generated when people enter the Mists portal to the festival.

I do think though, that there should be some instanced historical view of Lions Arch, like, as somebody suggested in another thread, the Zephyr Sanctum model, but like, an explorable version? I don’t know how you’d explain an item like that, unless an Asura invented it, or maybe through the mists like you said, either way, I’m gonna miss Lions Arch :’(

BTW, if the story writers want to make this invasion as dark as possible, please see the 2007 documentary on Nanking.

Id say by this point there wouldn’t be any major changes to the approaching release since they would literally be in the QA testing by this point.

We will definitely see LA burn now. I do expect it to be rebuilt though unless it gets irradiated or something. Its location is simply to valuable as a trade hub to be ignored by people and if most of the Captains Council is still alive I suspect they will definitely want to take it back afterwards.