Guild Wars 2

Will the Risen eventually be removed from Orr?

That would be interesting. I feel like they are finding the sweet spot for how the living story works before they do crazy changes like that. Sounds like they are getting close to that point. I like the idea.

I want to see living Orrians! They couldn’t all have died. Surely some were elsewhere when everything went splish splash. And now the descendants of those survivors ought to be mighty interested in reclaiming their ancestral homeland. In, you know, setting right what once went wrong. Oh, boy!

Let’s just hope they weren’t in Divinity’s Reach, in the Canthan District…

The Canthan District was evacuated, so no people died. I’m not sure about living Orrians though, they would be a lot different than their ancestors.

I can think of some ways of how this can be implemented. One example is to redesign Orr to match the current timeline but also come up with some sort of ‘history system’ which lets you go back to a previous version of a map. New people will still want to go to war with Zhaitan after all.

While if they did that then the other dragons would have their minions attack.

Yes, continuing off of what Bloody Knight Jack just said: I think if they ever did this, it might come along with an expansion (or a -big- living story release) involving a fight with the next elder dragon in line (whichever one that might be).

It would be awesome if they had the fight against the next dragon be in the personal story quest format, with new quests and areas to go to, but while having the old Zhaitan personal story still be an option for players who haven’t completed it. I sort of imagine it like the achievement tabs: in the personal story tab, there would be two tabs, “Zhaitan” and “Whicheverdragontheychoosenext,” or something more dramatic like “The Struggle against Zhaitan,” etc. For players that haven’t completed the original story, maybe there could be a button to press on this menu: “Switch to this story.” This way, they are able to choose which story to focus on for the time being and can switch to the other whenever they please! Perhaps characters would have to finish the original quests for their character development before splitting into the two dragons’ tales. This fork in the road could happen when they finish the third arc of their racial story (as in the quest where they choose their order and save their respective race from whatever threat), or it could happen after finishing their order’s quests, but before Claw Island (since that is obviously Zhaitan-centered). Either way, I think the first 30-ish levels of story are necessary to begin with as they focus on the character’s past and development before delving into the worldly issues.

As for Orr being un-undeadified, maybe the cleansed Orr could be only accessible to people who’ve completed the story with Zhaitan? I think that would make the most sense. But if that’d be unfair to newer players/people who’ve yet to complete the story, they could just open it to everyone… I’d see two outcomes with that: these players would be inspired and want to save Orr themselves so they can really feel accomplished in the cleansed Orr, or these players would have little to no desire to complete the original story because obviously Orr is already safe enough. So I’m not sure what the best route would be in that regard.

Anyway, these are just some ideas and I don’t think we’d see any sort of expansion like this for a while.

People would still finish their story so it wouldn’t be blocking the top-right corner of their screen

Tachenon.5270:

I want to see living Orrians! They couldn’t all have died. Surely some were elsewhere when everything went splish splash. And now the descendants of those survivors ought to be mighty interested in reclaiming their ancestral homeland. In, you know, setting right what once went wrong. Oh, boy!

Let’s just hope they weren’t in Divinity’s Reach, in the Canthan District…

There are probably lots of people with Orrian heritage that are currently alive. Anybody who lived on Orr though most certainly did die, and anybody who was alive during that time is also dead too. In a way, probably the majority of humans currently alive have ancestors that are Orrian.

Anyways, I’d love to see Orr getting restored and without all the Risen, but unfortunately that would probably be a bad move gameplay-wise. They would have to completely redo the personal stories for all of the races. However, what they COULD do is do something similar to what WoW did with the phasing of zones. They would basically have two versions of the same zone in the game at once. That way they could show Orr post-Zhaitain without screwing over the personal story.

I certainly wish so – but first they have to improve a lot on the execution of the living story set up.

Hmm, I don’t actually see that coming. People who are on their main quest will need the experience of coming to Orr, filled with undead, I guess.
I also don’t think that the living story requires the undead to be removed. For all we know it’s not definitely temporally located, meaning it could very well take place before the defeat of Zhaitan.

Cleansing Orr permanently is a big step due to the effect that would have on the personal story system for those who haven’t completed it yet. I also think making a “phased” version would be a bad idea as you would dilute the number of players available to do events or help newer players out.

If Orr was updated, they would have to phase it or something so that folks who haven’t done the two major climaxes of the personal story will still see undead.

But that would rob those of us who have of many of the events and world bosses. I don’t see it changing from what it is now -- that you can tell yourself these are the last bits of undead clinging to their land (and respawning thanks to game mechanics).

edit: Or I guess just pull a Cata/GW2 transition to the world and introduce a whole new version of the place -- but what would the enemies be there? And think of all of the undead-related content all over the other zones that would have to be changed as well.

synk.6907:

If Orr was updated, they would have to phase it or something so that folks who haven’t done the two major climaxes of the personal story will still see undead.

But that would rob those of us who have of many of the events and world bosses. I don’t see it changing from what it is now — that you can tell yourself these are the last bits of undead clinging to their land (and respawning thanks to game mechanics).

edit: Or I guess just pull a Cata/GW2 transition to the world and introduce a whole new version of the place — but what would the enemies be there? And think of all of the undead-related content all over the other zones that would have to be changed as well.

The current Orr bosses would be replaced by new ones. As for enemies, maybe pirates would seek to take over. An ongoing battle between pirates and those entitled to Orr would be a great idea, similar to the war between the charr/humans and treaty seperatists.

The whole problem with “Cleansing Orr” is that there’s no alternative. It’d be settled and completely peaceful. As such, it would be the most boring zone in the game.

A good idea though, would be to add another area to the west of Arah, that’s cleansed, to be opened once you complete the story. That area merely has pockets of Risen remaining, a world boss Lich and “reconstruction” hearts. Maybe a return of dinosaur enemies.

There are living orrians. Well their decendents at least. They are the origional inhabitants of kryta. As far as ones still living well beyond the several hundred years. There was one in Guild Wars 1. I don’t remember if he died in it or not though. But even then he was very old. He might have just died from old age. Also cleansing Orr may happen but it would mean that any new players to the game will miss out on the whole zhaitan quest chain.

fuzzypanda.9365:

There are living orrians. Well their decendents at least. They are the origional inhabitants of kryta. As far as ones still living well beyond the several hundred years. There was one in Guild Wars 1. I don’t remember if he died in it or not though. But even then he was very old. He might have just died from old age.

He was so incredibly old, he was actually a lich, and the players killed him.