Guild Wars 2

Just wondering… The latest new map a Tower Nightmares was abandoned few days after its release. So I just wonder why so many people want new maps? I would rather like to see an update that fixes the issue with deserted maps…

because
1.) there is nothing new in the existing map or Anet destroyed the use of it
2.) we want what GW1 has, a giant scope to explore with different moods everywhere, i have yet to see a desert in GW2.

Because exploring new areas while leveling was one of the best experiences I have had while playing Guild Wars 2.

Because the map that we’re working with now is only a tiny piece of the world. Because I spent many many years in Cantha and Elona in GW1. I have a deep attachment to many of those places and peoples and I very much want to go back and see what’s happened to them.

Is the Jade Sea liquid again? Has the Echovold Forest recovered? What’s the state of Kaineng City and the Empire? What’s Elona like now that the Elon has been dammed? How is life under Palawa Joko? How is he dealing with Kralkatorik, and did he have any contact with Zhaitan? I’ll bet you he did. I’ll bet you he knows all kinds of secrets. I want to pry them out of him and then put him back in the ground where he belongs.

There’s so much to see and do. Why don’t you want new maps?

I enjoyed Tower of Nightmares, btw, and on my server it saw plenty of players right up until it fell.

Because running in a huge zerg over old and tired ground, no matter how much they dress it up, has nothing on the thrill of exploring new land and wondering what’s coming up over the next hill, even if I have to do it solo!

HiddenNick.7206:

Just wondering… The latest new map a Tower Nightmares was abandoned few days after its release. So I just wonder why so many people want new maps? I would rather like to see an update that fixes the issue with deserted maps…

The Tower of Nightmares was not a normal world zone. It was a particularly challenging pve map with powerful monsters every few yards designed for group play even if it was in a zerg train. It was very difficult to solo and when the zerg train stopped it was too difficult for many trying to solo or run in small pugs. Too time consuming for me anyway to grind away at it.

The frustration for me is seeing a large world map much of which hasn’t
expanded permanently in over a year with a substantial story and original culture except for the challenging Southsun. I would rather have a substantial mid level area to level an alt.

Tranc.6780:

Because running in a huge zerg over old and tired ground, no matter how much they dress it up, has nothing on the thrill of exploring new land and wondering what’s coming up over the next hill, even if I have to do it solo!

How much does it take to explore a single map in gw2? 3-4 hours? That’s not so much for a MMO game… And AN have to spend a lot of time developing it. So I don’t think that adding new maps to just explore them is going to make the game any better.

Finnway.2183:

Because exploring new areas while leveling was one of the best experiences I have had while playing Guild Wars 2.

The problem is that the maps are going to be level 80 areas and you’re not going to level up in them.

Exploring while lvl 80 is also fun. I did my second world completion with lvl 80 and it was just as fun. I hope there will be a nice, beautiful lvl 80 explorable map someday, not like Southsun which is worthless, with no vistas, skillpoints and un-explorable.

why does it “have” to be a lvl 80 map, why not have some new mid/high level maps?

a while ago i was discussing on what level cantha should start, we ended up with a decision that it should start as a lvl 50 area and build up to lvl 80.
this is so mid level characters can enjoy cantha while not making it to much a “let’s rush there with a new character” expansion, it’s just right.
you might think that you want more with a lvl 80 character but it beg’s the question, we already have southsun and look how many are actually playing there.
also, a max character already has allot of exclusive things, having something in a mid level opens up the game so much.
even the presents of wintersday are way to much focused on max level, any character on the appropriate level are struggling to even take out one doll.

so to ask for a new lvl 80-only map is like asking Anet to make the same mistake they already did, it’s better to expand what we need rather then expand to lower boredom.

Because more variety is awesome.

sorudo.9054:

why does it “have” to be a lvl 80 map, why not have some new mid/high level maps?

a while ago i was discussing on what level cantha should start, we ended up with a decision that it should start as a lvl 50 area and build up to lvl 80.
this is so mid level characters can enjoy cantha while not making it to much a “let’s rush there with a new character” expansion, it’s just right.
you might think that you want more with a lvl 80 character but it beg’s the question, we already have southsun and look how many are actually playing there.
also, a max character already has allot of exclusive things, having something in a mid level opens up the game so much.
even the presents of wintersday are way to much focused on max level, any character on the appropriate level are struggling to even take out one doll.

so to ask for a new lvl 80-only map is like asking Anet to make the same mistake they already did, it’s better to expand what we need rather then expand to lower boredom.

But why we need level 50 area?! I don’t get it…

Dark Jericho.8609:

Because more variety is awesome.

But does it help the game? Do you think that If we had got twice as many maps then we would be playing twice as long with a single character?

Personally I would love to see new maps… But I don’t think that it would help the game. Most of people have played new maps (Southsun, Bazaar, Tower) just to get the achievements and then leave.
I don’t see so many people out in the open world exploring either. And if I do meet some people exploring then it seems to me that they just run from one poi to the other.

HiddenNick.7206:

sorudo.9054:

why does it “have” to be a lvl 80 map, why not have some new mid/high level maps?

a while ago i was discussing on what level cantha should start, we ended up with a decision that it should start as a lvl 50 area and build up to lvl 80.
this is so mid level characters can enjoy cantha while not making it to much a “let’s rush there with a new character” expansion, it’s just right.
you might think that you want more with a lvl 80 character but it beg’s the question, we already have southsun and look how many are actually playing there.
also, a max character already has allot of exclusive things, having something in a mid level opens up the game so much.
even the presents of wintersday are way to much focused on max level, any character on the appropriate level are struggling to even take out one doll.

so to ask for a new lvl 80-only map is like asking Anet to make the same mistake they already did, it’s better to expand what we need rather then expand to lower boredom.

But why we need level 50 area?! I don’t get it…

i didn’t say that…..and what’s wrong with wanting a new mid level map?

My preferred play-style is “explorer.” It’s not exploring if you’re “discovering” it for the eighth time.

because new is always better :P
but now, really…I love Tyria and zones as they exists now, but I got 100% world completiton, 99,9% of the events I see are “done that couple of times” and even though I´m sure I didn´t see everything, it´s hard for me to explore further, since most of the landmass I saw and know what to expect there….it´s the thrill of exploration and doing unseen things in a new zone (and bigger than southsun or the Tower, even though I loved both).

Well it looks like anet really hit the gaming lottery with all of the people who are actually against getting new continents added to the game. Why should we want a new continent with interesting new lore and people with new customs and traditions? Why should we want more variety of enemies to fight and new skins and skills? Why do some of you want a game that is quickly going stagnant? I would love to see how WOW or some of the other mmo’s would have fared after a couple of years if their only new (if you can really call it) content, is a couple of new features added to the same tired zones over and over.

Because A-net gave us Living Story, which was supposed to change the old zones, but it wasn’t very effective. Some will argue the changes in Kessex Hills, but those changes are running parallell with all the old events and storylines. I really wish Living Story could work, but it isn’t.

It’s a very huge task to try and evolve old events, and zones, and A-net learned the hard way. It’s just not feasible.

HiddenNick.7206:

How much does it take to explore a single map in gw2? 3-4 hours? That’s not so much for a MMO game… And AN have to spend a lot of time developing it. So I don’t think that adding new maps to just explore them is going to make the game any better.

Then I think we have to disagree, because I believe it makes all the difference.

GW2 is 16 months old. When GW1 was 18 months old, it had expanded to 3 continents, nearly tripling its original size. This also included two very lengthy story lines, which were much much better than the living story.

So I’m not talking about just 1 new map to explore, I’m talking about 50. It took me 6 years to get as bored with GW1 as I am with GW2 right now. The development time has not been better spent on jumping puzzles, mini-games, and Scarlet.

Tranc.6780:

HiddenNick.7206:

How much does it take to explore a single map in gw2? 3-4 hours? That’s not so much for a MMO game… And AN have to spend a lot of time developing it. So I don’t think that adding new maps to just explore them is going to make the game any better.

Then I think we have to disagree, because I believe it makes all the difference.

GW2 is 16 months old. When GW1 was 18 months old, it had expanded to 3 continents, nearly tripling its original size. This also included two very lengthy story lines, which were much much better than the living story.

So I’m not talking about just 1 new map to explore, I’m talking about 50. It took me 6 years to get as bored with GW1 as I am with GW2 right now. The development time has not been better spent on jumping puzzles, mini-games, and Scarlet.

But gw2 is a different game. It took them 6 years to develop the world that we currently have. So it does seem as the current game system requires a far more effort to expand the world. So it doesn’t seem to me as tripling the game world size in 18 months is possible. And with that in mind I don’t think that adding new maps is going to help the game.

Again, gotta disagree. It took them 6 years to develop the graphics engine, design the 8 professions, skill & trait system, combat mechanics, how WvW and sPvP would work, the setting/background, the personal story, 32 dungeon paths, and I bet a ton of developer tools, infrastructure & foundational code, in addition to the 25 open world maps. All from scratch. Now that those things are in place, they could certainly put out 25 maps in a year, or year and a half, if they wanted to. But their priorities where elsewhere. How could you think that essentially adding a whole new world would not help the game?

Tranc.6780:

Again, gotta disagree. It took them 6 years to develop the graphics engine, design the 8 professions, skill & trait system, combat mechanics, how WvW and sPvP would work, the setting/background, the personal story, 32 dungeon paths, and I bet a ton of developer tools, infrastructure & foundational code, in addition to the 25 open world maps. All from scratch. Now that those things are in place, they could certainly put out 25 maps in a year, or year and a half, if they wanted to. But their priorities where elsewhere.

Ok, so just think for minute about what they’ve managed to add this year… After thinking about that do you still think that it’s possible for them to develop a whole continent in place of LS? I don’t. Besides… When you develop your team members are responsible for different things. So development of everything overlaps. Environment artists never work on game mechanics…

How could you think that essentially adding a whole new world would not help the game?

Current map purpose is to level up characters and to make place for living world releases. And it serves that purpose. But take note that all maps are pretty dead besides those that are hosts for current LS release. So LS releases makes people play… Not the vast world.

HiddenNick.7206:

Just wondering… The latest new map a Tower Nightmares was abandoned few days after its release. So I just wonder why so many people want new maps? I would rather like to see an update that fixes the issue with deserted maps…

1) Tower of Nightmares isn’t a new map, it was a temp dungeon. TEMP being the word as in it’s not somewhere we can explore anymore. TO PROVE ME WRONG you need to explore the tower right now… and you can not… hence my point.

2) The maps are not empty, people need to explore and travel through the map to get their legendary. Champions, bosses, and invasion has people jumping back in those maps. You are probably coming from a dead server. Spend time on Tarnished Coast every map is busy.

3) You are arguing for less… You have the unpopular opinion regarding for less content, honestly it is irritating. I don’t know you heck you might might be a nice guy BUT this issue you are pushing it’s not helping.

HiddenNick.7206:

Tranc.6780:

HiddenNick.7206:

How much does it take to explore a single map in gw2? 3-4 hours? That’s not so much for a MMO game… And AN have to spend a lot of time developing it. So I don’t think that adding new maps to just explore them is going to make the game any better.

Then I think we have to disagree, because I believe it makes all the difference.

GW2 is 16 months old. When GW1 was 18 months old, it had expanded to 3 continents, nearly tripling its original size. This also included two very lengthy story lines, which were much much better than the living story.

So I’m not talking about just 1 new map to explore, I’m talking about 50. It took me 6 years to get as bored with GW1 as I am with GW2 right now. The development time has not been better spent on jumping puzzles, mini-games, and Scarlet.

But gw2 is a different game. It took them 6 years to develop the world that we currently have. So it does seem as the current game system requires a far more effort to expand the world. So it doesn’t seem to me as tripling the game world size in 18 months is possible. And with that in mind I don’t think that adding new maps is going to help the game.

it also took them 5-6 years to make GW1, ever thought about that?
also, they were making cantha 2-3 years before GW1 was released, so their plans were solid and made ppl happy to see more to do.
in GW2, we have allot of crappy LS junk with a barrel full of grind in the form of achievements and gold grind and let’s not forget that the game has barely expanded at all.

just because the game is a bit more next gen doesn’t excuse the lack of expansion, making a map is actually really easy when you know what you’re doing (and i am an environmental artist so yes, i know what i am talking about).
the only 3 problems you’re faced on is
1.) how is the story connect the rest of the world?
2.) what is the main attraction going to be?
3.) what is the focus going to be?
sure, you first need to design the map but mostly that’s what happens while you make the map, sort of like “go with the flow”.

so the question we really need to ask is not if we need a map but what we want to see added, is it something as simple as the crystal desert or do we rather see a big expansion like cantha or elona?

Just a few comments in response to those who don’t want new maps:

IMO, a map is not “abandoned” or “dead” simply because it does not have 30 player characters AFK’ing every few yards like LA does. Open world zones should not have the same population density as the cities. It breaks the scaling system and immediately trivializes any content in the zone.

If you have the capability of running into several other players over the course of completing a given zone, that is actually a good population spread in comparison to any other MMO I’ve ever played.

Players who like high population centers (aka zerg content) have the Living Story. That will likely be the nature of that cycle unless ANet changes its implemen drastically.

Based on my own observation, with the exception of Southsun Cove, new maps introduced through the Living Story have had the most staying power out of any LS patch. The only patch that had even more staying power that I can think of was the Crown Pavilion because of the very lucrative farming. Labyrinthine Cliffs and the explorable Tower of Nightmares had a consistent player presence the entire time they were available. That isn’t to say that they didn’t see a drastic population decrease after the first 24 hours, but that has been and will be the case with any content release.

Even if the Living Story is providing all of the same content types as new maps, the major difference is permanence. The Living Story could be the best content on earth, until a new or returning player comes back to the game and can’t access any of it.

If a new zone is done properly, it would fit seamlessly with the original game zones, no matter what level it is or which region of Tyria it fits into, and hopefully it would provide multiple types of PvE content that would apply to various niches of the player base, just like the existing zones do.

Because those poor guys building the new asura gates in lions arch (in the eastern ward) have been laboring for over a year with absolutely no progress to show!!

Seriously though, I love exploring…I love having a VAST world to walk around in. I’m not the type of person that sits in one zone…I leveled additional characters of each race just so that I would be forced to walk around in every zone of the game. I loved when they released Southsun and spent hours exploring it (even with the danger). I love seeing new things and new places.

First we need Underflow.

ANET, plz STOP Insisting on using the flawed server concept. It does nothing but segregate players and kill your low level zones.

HiddenNick.7206:

Ok, so just think for minute about what they’ve managed to add this year… After thinking about that do you still think that it’s possible for them to develop a whole continent in place of LS?

Absolutely I do. Just think for a minute how much “junk” content we’ve had in the past year (the dozen mini games, two worlds of Super Adventure Box, etc.). I know there are people who like mini-games, jumping puzzles, celebrations, and hell — I even liked Super Adventure Box. But I don’t think most of us bought this game for those things, and when Anet says they want to focus on the “core” game, that list is not what comes to my mind.

HiddenNick.7206:

Current map purpose is to level up characters and to make place for living world releases. And it serves that purpose. But take note that all maps are pretty dead besides those that are hosts for current LS release. So LS releases makes people play… Not the vast world.

Wow, that is the most false statement about this game that I can think of. A vast world makes people want to play because it’s like getting a new game. LS releases have me on the verge of quitting, and I know many friends who are quite bored with it too. If you’re going to try to hook people with just story, it better be a very good (cable TV quality) story. Instead, the living story tries to force people to play using gimmicks like time gating, temporary content, achievement points, mindless repetitive grind, gambling, etc.

While I really want to see a desert, a real, gigantic desert in GW2, I don’t want it to be added to the game yet. Not until ANet gives up the Living World. I don’t want a small area called desert that is more likely a sandbox from a kindergarten. I’d like to see a massive desert, with a very minimum of 3 maps, each as big as a starting map. If ANet plans to continue the 2 week relases of Living World, with 4 teams each working 1 month on a new update, I don’t see this ever happening. Making 3 full sized maps and filling them up with life, events (NOT CHAMPION TRAINS!!!), lore and everything… that can’t be done in a month.

Why do people want elona so bad?

CANTHA! im tired of fighting crabs undead and other bullcrap i want to fight friggin humanoids (yh undead are a humanoids but they get lame fast)

only thing fun in gw 2 for that part are the white mantle bandits which are pretty much just bandits.

Just imagine going trough the streets of kajneng again in your full plated kurzick armor (i know kurzicks will be gone but still) fighting against groups of random ninjas/bosslike yakuza and samurai of a new crime organization that rules the crime scene in kajneng nowadays.

Even better imagine the enemys are tough!!!(yeah that would be cool ehh ) and you actually need to group up for openworld because being downscaled to a lower lvl actually makes you weaker and not one hit everykitteningthing when exploring/rampaging:O!!!!!!!!

but wait you dont have any friends you say?!?
that doesnt matter because Heroes are back :O !!!!!!!! yeah and even the cool hero system with your alts as heroes no way u say , yes way!!!! and wait even more they would remove the whole friggin concept of farming low lvl mats mindlessly like a kittening zombie to get endgame gear you can actually get it from exploration/ dungeons and bosses !!

Yes im aware this is turning in a rant xD

oh the joy of killing not thugs and lowlifes in my armor found in a awesome dungeon alongside my finally not so useless anymore alts which where waiting for there 8 sets of ascended armor which they will never have gotten since 10000000000000 hours of farming didn’t suit my style.

just imagine……
so thats why we need new maps and a lot of other features to tbh :P
Thx u for reading your the best

Little side note LS is the dumbest idea ever done pls stop this joke it has gone on long enough Real lore a decent story and hell make it connect properly but steampunk pirates random allience and a vaque weird mastermind villain which has no clear motive for anything in life at all.

Please pokemon has a better story then that and thats about trowing balls against animals and ordering them to murder each other while sadistically watching them do so( just kidding loved pokemon!! big part of my childhood consisted of pokemon red xD )

Guild Wars keeps me through living story. I’d rather have new content every two weeks for something new, novel and of a short duration, as opposed to a year or more of utter stagnance for a new map to be developed, designed, tested and implemented (as well as all of the additional content a new zone demands). Yes, I would love to see the entirety of the world map unveiled, however not at the expense of LS. Exploring a new zone is definitely fun and exciting, but that excitement is about as lasting as a new LS release. I’ve played the other games with new maps every 1-2 years with expansions, and new zones don’t have a lasting draw to the community aside from dailies or farming mats (which coincide with a raised level cap, new crafting recipes, vertical gear progression, etc). There is also little change between expansions, they add dungeons, raids, and daily quests, but everything can be obtained/completed (at a reasonable pace) within a fairly short amount of time – obviously much faster for those who don’t savor content – and shortly thereafter, people return to the original populous zones (after their dailies) and continue to repeat the same content (raids, dungeons, dailies) until the next expansion or they burn out/level an alt. There is very little else to break up the monotony in the meantime.

Were GW2 to abandon LS entirely and focus their resources on a new zone, they could add a series of events and perhaps it’d wind up like another Frostgorge and thus see some consistent use, but we would give up all content updates aside from small bug fixing updates every few months, for the duration of a year or more. No change, nothing new, whatsoever. Perhaps some players would enjoy that, and the game itself, unchanging would suffice – however in my experience, the shine of a new zone wears off about as quickly as it does with LS. Thus the beauty of LS; it only lasts a short duration, usually timed at about when the novelty fades. The LS may drive some players away – nearly every other MMO lacks that particular feature, and may appeal to said players – however the LS cycles are a draw for some of us as well, those of us who want new changes on a regular basis to shake things up a bit after the staid monotony of other games. That is what drew me back to GW2. I don’t even mind having missed 6-7 months of LS releases – because more are coming.

A new zone will offer some new events, hearts, additional resource nodes, and opportunity for exploration – and perhaps I’m less of an explorer, but once the hearts are completed, how much time would one likely spend there, after fully completing it, without a champ train or something like the temple events? Even on a large server, it’s at times hard to muster up a crowd for those in Orr. If we got another Brisban Wildlands, Harathi Hinterlands, or Blazeridge Steppes, how often would you truly spend your time there, having completed the zone?

islarose.7356:

-SNIP-

…how often would you truly spend your time there, having completed the zone?

It depends how well the zone is designed and implemented. From your examples, Harathi Hinterlands is one of the best-designed zones in the game, so I would love it if a new zone was comparable. Its dynamic events are generally cohesive, including the build-up to its world boss (Ulgoth), and the zone as a whole is fun to explore.

Obviously prioritizing new zones or Living Story is going to be a difference of opinion among players, but for me, the Living Story is the definition of tedium. With a very few notable exceptions, the vast majority of the Living Story up to this point has been nothing more than grinding achievements to salvage some shadowy semblance of satisfaction at having played the game. Heck, the majority of the Living Story updates have been the MMO equivalent of anime-style filler episodes, which always leave me wondering why I bothered.

islarose.7356:

-snip-

You think all the past years’ LS content would only equate to 1 new zone? I’m pretty sure we’re talking about a continent’s worth of zones. And yeah, I’d go there a lot if it was set up well. On the other hand, I might avoid it entirely if it’s tied to the LS.

I would love to see new maps in the game, maybe more than anything. I don’t expect to see them for about a year. By then, the “elite” players will have moved on to some new version of PvP somewhere and it will become ok to have a PvE Forum. That is when the developers will start actually communicating with the quiet masses that always wanted new maps. The Living Story is fun but it should never have taken all the games development resources. It may be gradual but I expect more and more resources will be shifted as time goes by.
Some happy medium between occasional LS content designed to stay in place and new map creation will win out. I just hope it happens soon.

Well everything new is fun. But I dont want anything temporary like before…

Personally I would like Anet to take endgame to a whole other level. A massive new zone with a central “safezone” town, fully featured of course (ie bank, crafting station, WvW portals, bl trader, the works). Outside the the central town it should be dangerous. And by dangerous, I mean even the lowest of mobs actually capable of killing level 80 characters. And on top of that… Open world PvP in the zone (people in the same guild cant hurt each other, of course). Scattered throughout the countryside, there would also be castles/keeps/towns that can be claimed by guilds… And of course be attacked/reclaimed by other guilds. NPC forces would randomly attack and try to claim them as well. If you end up in an overflow, you would only claim a town for the lionguard or something like that.

I want zones you can literally live in and feel part of, while at the same time having that “oh hey I stumbled upon 3 bandits and they killed me, better bring friends next time” feel. Now its just lets run through Orr like a living wrecking ball and ignore the 10 mobs trying to scratch my armor. Imagine an entire area of zones like this. It would be amazing. Guilds can claim entire zones if they are able to hold on to it.

But nothing even close is ever going to happen. Plus, it would probably empty WvW :/

islarose.7356:

Guild Wars keeps me through living story. I’d rather have new content every two weeks for something new, novel and of a short duration, as opposed to a year or more of utter stagnance for a new map to be developed, designed, tested and implemented (as well as all of the additional content a new zone demands). Yes, I would love to see the entirety of the world map unveiled, however not at the expense of LS. Exploring a new zone is definitely fun and exciting, but that excitement is about as lasting as a new LS release. I’ve played the other games with new maps every 1-2 years with expansions, and new zones don’t have a lasting draw to the community aside from dailies or farming mats (which coincide with a raised level cap, new crafting recipes, vertical gear progression, etc). There is also little change between expansions, they add dungeons, raids, and daily quests, but everything can be obtained/completed (at a reasonable pace) within a fairly short amount of time – obviously much faster for those who don’t savor content – and shortly thereafter, people return to the original populous zones (after their dailies) and continue to repeat the same content (raids, dungeons, dailies) until the next expansion or they burn out/level an alt. There is very little else to break up the monotony in the meantime.

Were GW2 to abandon LS entirely and focus their resources on a new zone, they could add a series of events and perhaps it’d wind up like another Frostgorge and thus see some consistent use, but we would give up all content updates aside from small bug fixing updates every few months, for the duration of a year or more. No change, nothing new, whatsoever. Perhaps some players would enjoy that, and the game itself, unchanging would suffice – however in my experience, the shine of a new zone wears off about as quickly as it does with LS. Thus the beauty of LS; it only lasts a short duration, usually timed at about when the novelty fades. The LS may drive some players away – nearly every other MMO lacks that particular feature, and may appeal to said players – however the LS cycles are a draw for some of us as well, those of us who want new changes on a regular basis to shake things up a bit after the staid monotony of other games. That is what drew me back to GW2. I don’t even mind having missed 6-7 months of LS releases – because more are coming.

A new zone will offer some new events, hearts, additional resource nodes, and opportunity for exploration – and perhaps I’m less of an explorer, but once the hearts are completed, how much time would one likely spend there, after fully completing it, without a champ train or something like the temple events? Even on a large server, it’s at times hard to muster up a crowd for those in Orr. If we got another Brisban Wildlands, Harathi Hinterlands, or Blazeridge Steppes, how often would you truly spend your time there, having completed the zone?

I agree fully.

Exploring zones was the best part of GW1. Those little out of the way – places like Granite Citadel and The Falls were so fun to explore and find. Imagine going to Maguuma stade and finding someone else there, we’d strike a conversation on how we happened to go there at that particular time. (I started playing GTA V a while back and I haven’t gone far in the actual storyline, since exploring is so much fun.)

That’s why I’m so eager for them to open the world for us, I personally don’t need action, events, huge mobs to enjoy a zone. “something to do” and “achieving something” can mean different things to different people. There’s so much lore in GW but they have locked the world from us.

If you ^ think that I only play this game to grind AP and kill hundreds of mobs via LS updates, you are mistaken.

HiddenNick.7206:

Finnway.2183:

Because exploring new areas while leveling was one of the best experiences I have had while playing Guild Wars 2.

The problem is that the maps are going to be level 80 areas and you’re not going to level up in them.

Umm…. emphasis on exploring? I enjoyed map completion too…

Obsidian.1328:

islarose.7356:

-snip-

You think all the past years’ LS content would only equate to 1 new zone? I’m pretty sure we’re talking about a continent’s worth of zones. And yeah, I’d go there a lot if it was set up well. On the other hand, I might avoid it entirely if it’s tied to the LS.

A single, fully fleshed out zone would take a significantly longer period of time to develop than a series of LS events, being worked on simultaneously by multiple teams in existing zones. A continent’s worth of zones, with hearts, dynamic events, PoI’s, Skill points, way points, etc. in addition to the artwork and races/lore/voice overs/etc. would not equate to one year of LS releases. How long did they take to build Tyria, pre-release? Probably only slightly longer than it would take to build Cantha or Elona (to account for their work on classes/balancing/etc.), which is why a release of that size would likely take ~2-3 years to develop. It would be unheard of for a game just over one year old to release a major expansion, and in the meantime we would see minimal change or evolution; this issue with player expectations has been discussed endlessly by developers, from every major MMO out there.

islarose.7356:

…It would be unheard of for a game just over one year old to release a major expansion…

ANet did exactly that, twice, with far fewer people on staff than they have now:

Guild Wars was released in April 2005.

The entire continent of Cantha was released in Guild Wars Factions in April 2006.

The entire continent of Elona was released in Guild Wars Nightfall in October 2006.

HiddenNick.7206:

Just wondering… The latest new map a Tower Nightmares was abandoned few days after its release. So I just wonder why so many people want new maps? I would rather like to see an update that fixes the issue with deserted maps…

Tower of Nightmares is not a “new explorable map”. It’s a LS instance.

Best regards

I want new maps because I loved exploring the ones we already have – they’re works of art. New Zones give us a chance to experience new events, stories, and even game mechanics. As mentioned by others, players returning from the first game want to see what happened to those old areas like Maguuma, the Crystal Desert, and beyond. It’s rather enticing to look at the map and wonder what those unexplored named zones contain.

Even in terms of this game, it would vindicate ArenaNet of the Living Story shortcomings and provide the long term fans something to sink their teeth into. We could also use more dungeons and world bosses. ArenaNet needs to be less focused on nerfing and subtracting from existing content and more focused on expanding it. They’re actively erasing all sense of history they’ve put in their game – adding new zones is one step towards remedying that and playing towards one of the game’s greatest strengths.

Corpus Christi.2057:

HiddenNick.7206:

Just wondering… The latest new map a Tower Nightmares was abandoned few days after its release. So I just wonder why so many people want new maps? I would rather like to see an update that fixes the issue with deserted maps…

Tower of Nightmares is not a “new explorable map”. It’s a LS instance.

Best regards

I didn’t wrote that ToF is: “new explorable map”. So I don’t know who are you quoting?

Best regards

I would like to see new maps, because it just gives more to do. Heck I would even like to see some more story thrown in if the rewards were better for completing them.

Personally, I dunno why people want new maps. Nothing is going to get people to give up Queensdale.

Merlin.4058:

Personally, I dunno why people want new maps. Nothing is going to get people to give up Queensdale.

a proper new map might…

HiddenNick.7206:

Finnway.2183:

Because exploring new areas while leveling was one of the best experiences I have had while playing Guild Wars 2.

The problem is that the maps are going to be level 80 areas and you’re not going to level up in them.

It’s almost like they would have to add 3-4 maps, starter, mid range, 80…cough…cough…expansion…cough…

I dislike these monthly mini-update things. Or the seasonal stuff. Would much rather have new lands to explore.

Less swamps next time, however…..the new maps could be bigger though.

The most fun I had in this game was in the weeks after release exploring the wonderfully crafted zones. Why wouldn’t I want more of that. That, by the way, is something the Living Story, as it’s currently being utilized, cannot and does not deliver.