Here is my 50 cents, If you ever played GW1 IMHO this is what an expansion should be no extra levels, no gear grind just another story to experience, with the exception of 2 extra classes in each some new features and some different weapon types. There were a total of 3 independent stories, as most are aware these were Prophecies, Factions and Nightfall all taking place on other continents in the world, and independent from each other until you got to the main city then you could go to another one of the other lands and play the remainder of that story, I loved this concept.
The way GW1 did things worked so well partly because it was so heavily instanced… and in theory you did not need previous experience with prophecies to get something unique out of the other games.They were essentially different games in the same universe.
Whatever they choose to do with GW2 the setting itself connects it all together in a way that can not be written off (ie. while each of the continents has their own problems… in the end the peril of Elder Dragons is the same for all of them). The way that they have talked about the possibility of adding more personal story in at later date pretty much makes it so that we will be going through with same characters and proffessions throughout all of it. As far as classes go, if they add new ones in the future there will likely be a great deal of overlap, the only thing that we are sort of missing is a “dark” Guardian (ie. 3rd heavy melee class, focused on offense through indirect damage opposite to the guardian who is support).
The strongest card they have to play are additional races, as far as I see they have two viable candidates there the Kodan or the Tengu. In terms of character progression that would probably be additional weapons or unlocking existing weapons for other classes.
The one reason I can see them being reluctant to play the race card is that the existing five have 80 levels of story content frozen in time prior to Living Story and they probably don’t have an answer as to how they will provide similar content and in what amounts to any new races (and how to tie it to the timeline).
I don’t really think that suddenly dropping all of Cantha or Elona for us to see in a boxed expansion is the way that they will go. Things like opening up Crystal Desert are far more likely to happen first. I see us getting access to those additional continents gradually “landfall” style expanding the playable area as we go. If they plan to keep the 2 week release cadence that is most likely the only way they can realistically pull it off.
