Guild Wars 2

So, I was just wondering what people thought Lion’s Arch’s fate should be once all this winds down. Should it reset to pre-invasion? Should it remain a deadly ruins?

Personally, I think it should return to awesome, but it shouldn’t be easy or clean. I think that after the full Scarlet storyline ends, they can do a fortnight or two of “aftermath” in which the players have to clean out the mobs, but after that the zone should become “safe” again, but not whole. All the damage should remain. Then over the next few patches, facilities start to return, gates are spun back up, the crafting stations and merchant stalls get put back up, like at the Vigil Camp, but most of the shattered buildings an rubble remain. Once all the services are in place, they can reroute the default gates back to LA instead of Vigil Keep, and it becomes the hub again, but it should still be a refugee camp in design.

It should take six months to a year to fully become a “clean” city again, and it should look completely different, since it was no longer built of wrecked ships. It should maybe incorporate Aetherblade ships in the new design, maybe more traditional craftsmanship with more stone buildings. The chances to the landscape should stay and be incorporated into the new design, building on what rubble they can, clearing away what they can’t. I think it would be a serious cop-out if they just reset large portions of the map to their pre-invasion state, even if they did take time to do so.

What are your ideas?

I think that Lion’s Arch, for the next little while (months… years?) will be inhabited by whatever Scarlet’s drill unearth, and its minions. LA will be completely unsafe for a long time.

At least I hope so.

I hope for a new “questing Zone” with new hearts, events and perhaps a new perm dungeon.

I go back to a suggestion ive been posting in all these topics:

A vote:

Vote to rebuild Lions Arch

OR

Build a new city in South Sun

If Rebuilding LA:

LA gets rebuilt, you have to donate towards it as well as excavating its now “drained” water system (since there’s a giant hole in it) which now leads to destroyers, Depths of Tyria, other interesting little unexplored ruins below to explore, leading to a certain fiery dragon longing to burn the world above.

If you built South Sun City instead:

Consortium become the major profiting company, Gnashblade takes charge and abandons the Lionguard to bankruptcy, invests in new island based voyages to the sea of sorrows hoping to re-establish trade with foreign powers and the deep ocean allowing for better trade for all! (And deep sea monstrosities maybe even dragons!)

im predicting the start of the next series of ls will be rebuilding la bit by bit. forget southsun. which proceeeds to talk with the tengu and opening up tengu as a new race (and new zones to explore) to play eventually with minor ls distraction along the way. a much better ls withcertain goal in mind but distraction along the way thats makes it a bit longer

If some dragon like horror emerges via the drill, then the area will become a dragon stronghold/corrupted area, like orr or branded or icebrood areas. This combined with the miasma rendering the area toxic even if long term mildly that makes the area uninhabitable for a long while.

Also there is no real reason make LA again. as a southern coastal city it served as a central port hub for the human nations. Since Zhaitan rising up Orr and the waves of undead, the absence of Cantha and Elona there is little need for such a hub.

The city was funded by piracy and then trade, trade cannot occur then so there is no future to be blunt, same for the captains council, the trade and asura portal hub not being in LA makes free trade easier for the rest of the nations, as they can trade directly without middle man of LA taking its cut.

Lionguard role and jurisdiction will also be questionable with no commercial basis.

Perhaps the story will have pact forces taking city back and returning it to lionguard and captains council, but it being uninhabitable and utterly ruined the pirate captains will hardly be civic minded and rebuild. They’d end up poor and likely attacked again.

Moteris.5913:

I hope for a new “questing Zone” with new hearts, events and perhaps a new perm dungeon.

I hope they never make new heart tasks; they’re terrible. However, I do hope that it is a new permanent explorable zone and that Lion’s Arch isn’t rebuilt.

They need a new capital city; perhaps a more advanced one with more defenses.

I hope LA gets rebuild and not as a city founded by pirates. But a city rebuild by guilds. And that it is the place where most of the guild halls will be, with a council of guilds instead of a council of pirates. Ofcourse the ruling guilds would be npc guilds as to not give an advantage to player guilds. Guild rivalry could be settled within designated guild arena’s. Giving people the gvg they want so much. While also giving them guild halls and recognision that guild are a major influence in the guild wars world.

Pixelpumpkin.4608:

I think that Lion’s Arch, for the next little while (months… years?) will be inhabited by whatever Scarlet’s drill unearth, and its minions. LA will be completely unsafe for a long time.

At least I hope so.

Indeed. That drill is flooding the Depths of Tyria, which are currently occupied by Primordus and his destroyers. What will be the result of this? Well, if ants are any indication…

Personally, I don’t know… I ’ve witnessed LA since GW1 and it was the main Hub in Tyria (lots of people) and it is used the same in GW2.

From one aspect I wouldn’t like to see glorious place obliterated. All the people accessing bank, crafting, this that, etc… Its a nice and warm place.

…BUT when I am thinking that LOTS of people are standing in LA (instead of doing some activity in the rest of the world) and remaining there for hours per day… I say “Go Scarlet … nuke that place and force people to roam outside”.

What I mean in the last paragraph is that LA has an overgrown popularity. You may wonder if pushing people out of LA will make then actually play. Not necessarily, but needing to go to place X to access FotM, to place Y to access MF, to place Z,W,S,T to access crafting stations… will make people to pass next to other events and stuff otherwise they wouldn’t have the chance to participate (while staying in LA).

This is what the drill finds

If you go to the wiki it says pretty much that Lion’s Arch will be “changed substantially when it becomes available again in a subsequent release.” What that means for the future, I don’t know. For now though, I think that’s the only hint (more of a tease though) we’ll get at least until maybe the announce of the next LS arch regarding the future state of the city.

The sooner I can forget Scarlet existed, the better.

Good riddance.

Ghost Nightstalker.7163:

I hope LA gets rebuild and not as a city founded by pirates. But a city rebuild by guilds. And that it is the place where most of the guild halls will be, with a council of guilds instead of a council of pirates. Ofcourse the ruling guilds would be npc guilds as to not give an advantage to player guilds. Guild rivalry could be settled within designated guild arena’s. Giving people the gvg they want so much. While also giving them guild halls and recognision that guild are a major influence in the guild wars world.

i could live with an la like that when it got rebuilt

I’m all for moving it to Southsun. They can keep calling it Lions Arch for all I care but I want this drastic change to stay a drastic change.

Regardless of what happens, we need to impeach the captain’s council. Every last one of them! Zhaitan has had his way with the city because of their ignorance, they still deal with the Consortium even though they brought on the Karka and now Scarlet is gleefully renovating at everyone’s expense because these idiots ignored stupidly obvious warnings. It’s time we get in some new blood.

I expect Lions Arch to become a new dungeon. It’ll be called “The Ruined City of Lions Arch”.

Story mode: we’ll get to kill Mordremoth, the dragon awakened by Scarlet’s digging. This fight is meant to be epic but will be largely completed by a Deus-Ex-Machina mechanism and where you should get some recognition for killing the 2nd Elder Dragon of GW2, most of the credit goes to a certain herbal necromancer and a bunch of spoiled, infantile, quarreling representatives of all playable races.

Explorable modes will each deal with one of the weird armies Scarlet gathered:
p1 – Molten
p2 – Aetherblade
p3 – Toxic.

During each path however we’ll have to beat a boss that’s partly Twisted and partly lion statue.

I think LA should be remade into new area. Living Story didn’t changed world at all, everything was temporary content so far. It can be great place to start.

problem was i liked la the way it was setup id like it back somewhat the way it was it could be changed a bit to make it believable but thing like the bank black lions trade post the crafting stations the portals could be moved to a new area a few other thing missing maybe rebuilt is a different area. im ok with change somewhat but la should retain its functionability as much as possible

I would like it if the ministers of DR tried to push the queen into taking LA back. I mean it would be easy to wait for us to do the clean up and then send in a small force to take it back. It could create a new dynamic, do the players that are human side with their queen or fight back for the racial unity that the new(now old as it has been destroyed) LA has brought to the races.

Anet would probably never do that due to the whole ‘you are a HERO’ and morally complex settings don’t fit into that staple. But it would be nice to have an instance where you see them argue about it and the queen putting her foot down and saying no. Plus it would show how the LS is actually affecting the world.

I had joked last Fall that Living Story felt a lot more like “Living Lion’s Arch” than a “Living World”. I think this event really drives that home.

I think it’s inevitable that LA will be rebuilt. Too much of the Personal Story relies on it and ANet has resisted suggestions for content in the past based on the need to preserve compatibility with the Personal Story. (I’m going to guess that many branches of the PS are currently broken as a result of the destruction of LA). That sense of inevitability, for me, erased any emotional impact the “loss of LA” might have otherwise brought.

I think things may be remodeled a bit. LA has been one of those locations that has been able to kill frame rates for many who play smoothly otherwise. However, I do sense that much of it will be pretty familiar once the clean up and rebuilding process is complete.

Since Living Story has felt more like Living Lion’s Arch, it wouldn’t surprise me if a good part of the remainder of the year focuses on rebuilding LA. Sort of a waste, if so, but the alternative is just to have things return to normal with little effort or fanfare, which would make the destruction that occurred seem pretty pointless in context.

Fiontar.4695:

I think it’s inevitable that LA will be rebuilt. Too much of the Personal Story relies on it and ANet has resisted suggestions for content in the past based on the need to preserve compatibility with the Personal Story.
I think things may be remodeled a bit. LA has been one of those locations that has been able to kill frame rates for many who play smoothly otherwise. However, I do sense that much of it will be pretty familiar once the clean up and rebuilding process is complete.

Since Living Story has felt more like Living Lion’s Arch, it wouldn’t surprise me if a good part of the remainder of the year focuses on rebuilding LA. Sort of a waste, if so, but the alternative is just to have things return to normal with little effort or fanfare, which would make the destruction that occurred seem pretty pointless in context.

i think you got a sense what will happen to the rebuilding la but i think theyll use it as distractions along the way of the new ls which will lead us another direction. more like minor stories in the ls while we move toward another destination. that way we get some part we know all we are doing and the chance to open up new areas

Paradox.5498:

I expect Lions Arch to become a new dungeon. It’ll be called “The Ruined City of Lions Arch”.
Explorable modes will each deal with one of the weird armies Scarlet gathered:
p1 – Molten
p2 – Aetherblade
p3 – Toxic.

Hah, I talked about this since that thumper first appeared in LA. smugface

Also, selling LA p3 15g.

aequitas.5694:

The sooner I can forget Scarlet existed, the better.

Good riddance.

I never really got the dislike towards her personally.

On the surface she may seem uninteresting to some (and ofcourse, this is merely my POV) but there are so many cool things that came with her storyline.
Short stories, little comments she made that created speculation on future patches and such.

I don’t know, LS gets alot of hate on the forums, but it really isn’t that bad.

I hope the leave it destroyed. Because of its design, there was little to no reason to ever go to any other city. LA had access to everywhere and had everything you ever needed. Hopefully now the other cities will get some attention.

actually I would be happier with dramatic and definitive changes that impacts forever the story and the balance, carving emotions into the player rather than mildly influencing him/her.
So far, A.Net has been scared to truly show evil, therefore true good cannot arise.
The atmosphere in LA these past weeks was nice, I will not deny this, but it is still far from affecting me deeply.
I would really like for LA to sink into the depth of the sea, with hordes of foes assaulting every “safe” place, without giving peace or breath to the players, then some intense cinematic who shows dramatic battles in which our friends get killed for good.
If the level of emotions is not strong enough, even victory is shallow.
Would killing Sephirot be as good if he didn’t kill Aerith first?

Grevender.9235:

Would killing Sephirot be as good if he didn’t kill Aerith first?

I’d argue that killing Scarlet was better by a mile for a lot of people.

ValeN.3129:

Grevender.9235:

Would killing Sephirot be as good if he didn’t kill Aerith first?

I’d argue that killing Scarlet was better by a mile for a lot of people.

oh well, many would’ve been happy with her just disappearing in a poooof because they hated her lack of character; my observations are meant to address this, as I think this aspect of the game can be greatly improved.

Breachmaker blows up knocking down the wall to dominion of wind, Thus opening it up and making Tengu’s a playable race. Ruins of LA becomes the starter zone for Tengu who fight off the remnants of scarlet’s armies as a starter zone !

I kind of hope that with the destruction of LA, there is tension between the races, and they each begin to accuse each other of “letting it happen…”

Then, each race starts investing in their own capital cities, making them viable again for us players.

Once they do that, then they begin to realize they have to reunite in order to truly defeat the Elder Dragons, and rebuild LA, but with the idea of it being a real city, with governmental offices, a merchant district with real storefronts, and places for Guild Halls.

Instead of using ruined ships for their architecture, they begin to recapture some of the grandeur that is seen right now underwater, with the statues and stonework instead of rotten wood and shaky catwalks.

Whatever they decide to do with it, I hope they don’t just download it in a patch… one day total ruin, and the next “behold, a new city.” Take it slowly, and let it evolve.

In fact, it would be kind of cool if they put up a few things, and see where the players hang, and rebuild it little by little, based upon what the players are doing, kind of like a “living CDI” based on observation instead of forum threads.

99% Hopes LA will be rebuild with a proper community-hub design and will always have wounds from the past.

I want the old fountain (in the harbor) to be raised up, and Lion’s Arch to be rebuild as a new city. We’ll take down the charred ruins that currently remain, and build a new refuge for all Tyrians.

I won’t lie- I don’t want LA to return, at all.
I have enjoyed seeing DR really busy and I honestly prefer the Vigil to what LA was like

Imagine my surprise when I logged on last night and saw easy a 100 players just hanging out by Shaemor waypoint.

let the players find their own places to do their thing- please leave LA in ruins

I’d like for Lion’s Arch to return better than it was before, perhaps as a result of the Captain’s Council disbanding and reforming as a Senate to rule Lion’s Arch, and the Council itself being replaced by one comprised of the leaders of the major nations of Tyria. With influence in the city greater than before, the five nations send supplies, workers, and so forth to rebuild Lion’s Arch better than before.

You see human influence in the construction of its buildings and stonework. You see Sylvari influence in the growth of trees and a small park acting as a, ‘Sylvari District,’ all of which cleanse away the lingering effects of the Miasma. Charr influence comes in its fortress, with new siege weapons, acting as the Black Citadel Embassy. Asura influence comes in with the Asura Gate hub, of course, with a research district housing a representative of the Arcane Council, devoted to studying Scarlet’s work and whatever else they find. Lastly, Norn Influence comes in the form of monuments and a district that functions for social gatherings, parties, games, and activities.

Make Lion’s Arch everyone’s city, a melting pot, but one that looks better than shipwrecked, rotting wood and ancient crumbling stone. Also, for the love of all that is holy, do NOT put the Trading Post and Bank further apart than what we have in Divinity’s Reach. Keep the crafting stations and Mystic Forge really close there as well. Ideally you’d have a circle of 10 buildings around the Mystic Forge, 8 of them for crafts, 1 for the bank, 1 for the trading post.

No sylvari should be allowed in the gates. It was the sylvari that tried to destroy Lion’s Arch. They should all be hunted down and handed over to the charr for use as fire wood at meatoberfest.

I really like the idea of having another in-game community vote on rebuilding Lion’s Arch, or <insert something else>.

Lions Arch will be rebuilt regardless. There’s too many NPC factions with an interest in keeping the city alive.
Will it look the same? If Anet is lazy yes. lol More than likely it’ll have roughly the same layout, but maybe a lot of buildings will be either damage or missing.

Maybe there will be a vote to expand Southsun, that would be cool, but even then I still think Lions Arch will be back in some form. Maybe not the hub it use to be though.

Vexander.9850:

I’d like for Lion’s Arch to return better than it was before, perhaps as a result of the Captain’s Council disbanding and reforming as a Senate to rule Lion’s Arch, and the Council itself being replaced by one comprised of the leaders of the major nations of Tyria. With influence in the city greater than before, the five nations send supplies, workers, and so forth to rebuild Lion’s Arch better than before.

You see human influence in the construction of its buildings and stonework. You see Sylvari influence in the growth of trees and a small park acting as a, ‘Sylvari District,’ all of which cleanse away the lingering effects of the Miasma. Charr influence comes in its fortress, with new siege weapons, acting as the Black Citadel Embassy. Asura influence comes in with the Asura Gate hub, of course, with a research district housing a representative of the Arcane Council, devoted to studying Scarlet’s work and whatever else they find. Lastly, Norn Influence comes in the form of monuments and a district that functions for social gatherings, parties, games, and activities.

Make Lion’s Arch everyone’s city, a melting pot, but one that looks better than shipwrecked, rotting wood and ancient crumbling stone. Also, for the love of all that is holy, do NOT put the Trading Post and Bank further apart than what we have in Divinity’s Reach. Keep the crafting stations and Mystic Forge really close there as well. Ideally you’d have a circle of 10 buildings around the Mystic Forge, 8 of them for crafts, 1 for the bank, 1 for the trading post.

i like this idea

I am going to pick different things out of some of the responses..

Keep LA destroyed, they should dam up the lake since there is a big hole and excavate and find relics from the old LA, use the big hole as a dungeon that goes down than branches off in different directions (upside down Christmas tree), be able to explore the breechmaker.

bump.2156:

I am going to pick different things out of some of the responses..

Keep LA destroyed, they should dam up the lake since there is a big hole and excavate and find relics from the old LA, use the big hole as a dungeon that goes down than branches off in different directions (upside down Christmas tree), be able to explore the breechmaker.

If we’re getting a dungeon in LA, I would like it to be that cavern we went into back in GW1 on the way to the Shiverpeaks and the Eye of the North content =)

But that’s hoping for a bit much I suppose. I already said what I’d like to see in an ideal situation. I want Lion’s Arch to be a great city, better than it was. One last way to just -shove- it in Scarlet’s face. She tried to destroy the city, but because of her, it’ll be better than it was before.

LA will be rebuilt, and will remain the central hub of Tyria. It is not a “capital city”, it is neutral territory, and that is it’s primary value to the 5 races of Tyria.

My expectation is that LA will get a face-lift. It will largely remain the same, but there will be some old stuff removed and replaced with new stuff.

I really hope that Scarlet’s Breachmaker becomes a permanent fixture in the harbor. It’s too big to just go away. Depending on what it hit down there, it may remain largely intact and has a lot of potential. I’m sure Taimi would love to move in and take ownership of it.

Honestly, I kind of wish it was entirely nuked beyond all repair.
I’ve never been that big of a fan of it, prefer the race cities, that are completely empty 100% of the time because LA exists.

I was hoping that the dragon the Scarlet was working to unleash was Primordous, and he was under LA, and the whole place got submerged in lava and destroyers or something. But no dice.

Not to mention it’s just so boring compared to the other cities.

I really hope the Captain’s Council get their comeuppance. Sure they played a big part in the evacuation and refugee efforts but it was their blind ignorance to the kitten obvious that caused the problems in the first place. Entirely reactive instead of proactive.

I also hope the sea gets drained allowing us to walk among the ruins of the old city. As a GW1 player swimming around it was cool, but actually seeing it properly on foot would be much better. We also don’t know what resulted in terms of damage from when the lay line energy was released. To me it looked like a pretty large explosion so even greater damage as a result of that would be realistic.

I don’t mind LA being rebuilt but I’d like it to be PC influenced, not scripted, and tailored better to suit the needs (and computers) of the players.