Guild Wars 2

I’m actually a little surprised that no one so far has mentioned Ascalon, outside of a joke. Have we all forgotten what happened to Ascalon city in the first place?

Once upon a time, Ascalon city and the surrounding area was a beautiful, idyllic place where it felt like nothing worse than an enraged bull or an inconveniently-located bee hive could ever disrupt the way of life that humans enjoyed within its walls. And then it was cataclysmically destroyed — permanently.

I’m sure all of us who were around to see that have never forgotten how it felt. I’m sure all of us still feel those feels every time we traipse through the ruins of the city, which still has not been rebuilt I might add, and never will be.

That event was known as The Searing. For many of us who have been around for a long time, that event was central, even focal, to our fascination with Guild Wars and its lore. Perhaps it is bold of me to suggest that what we need is another Searing. Not literally of course — just an event of that scale, an event that permanently takes away something that has felt like it will “always just be there,” something that reminds us that there is no wall that can not fall; that we are not truly safe anywhere in the dangerous, ever-changing world of Tyria.

GoddessOfTheWinds.2937:

I’m pretty sure LA will be rebuilt. But how long will it take and how will it looks like? We don’t know.

I’d say 1 year for LA to be rebuilt and the design will be completely changed due to its destruction.

Just talking about this….maybe it will be rebuilt into a steampunk theme after the returning inhabitants use all the watchwork metal scrap left from Scarlet’s armies to rebuild the city.

I hope the current Lion’s Arch gets demolished so brutally that it won’t be recognizable.
The whole area just reeks of poverty.
Then we can rebuild it to something more aesthetically pleasing and modern.

Mortifer.2946:

First two responders, sorry but you still didn’t grasp what living story is about. After the end of each LS arch, there are going to be big changes to the world (not mentioning little changes during the arch).

Everyone with at least a pinch of fantasy can imagine what are those PROBES for…..

And the video showing LA in ruins is connected to Escape from LA patch, not the last one.

And yet they said the same thing (Epic events that change the world FOREVER!) about the Southsun event and all that happened was that the Lion statue was knocked down. So excuse me if I’m a bit sceptic about ANet hyperbole.

Unless there is some perminant reason such as the place is radioactive or dangerous to live in, there is little reason in lore why they wouldn’t rebuild LA lore wise. After all it sits at an important trading junction and that alone would make it valuable land to resettle.

Of course if something else happens which renders LA uninhabitable, I suspect we will see the new hub situated wherever the main services relocate too which could easily be a new hub. After all, those refugees have to move somewhere.

Maybe Southsun Cove, new homeland of Lion’s Arch? —-discuss

hehe I would love to move to Southsun- just clean up/domesticate the Karkas.
give out some personal plots and we are good to go.
It even has a bikini beach

Morrigan.2809:

hehe I would love to move to Southsun- just clean up/domesticate the Karkas.
give out some personal plots and we are good to go.
It even has a bikini beach

Exactly!
…and imagine KARKA MOUNTS (just kidding)

Morrigan.2809:

hehe I would love to move to Southsun- just clean up/domesticate the Karkas.
give out some personal plots and we are good to go.
It even has a bikini beach

Part of the problem with that is that the karkas are intelligent. It’s a very alien intelligence, but it’s there.

Palador.2170:

Morrigan.2809:

hehe I would love to move to Southsun- just clean up/domesticate the Karkas.
give out some personal plots and we are good to go.
It even has a bikini beach

Part of the problem with that is that the karkas are intelligent. It’s a very alien intelligence, but it’s there.

haha yes I forgot about that- well then it is a matter to find out how we can sweeten the deal for all of us :p

Karka as next playable race :P

but…but… muh map chat ; __ ;

People think it will be rebuild because in the end, LS never had any real consequences before.

I’m sure there will be a bunch of cosmetic changes to LA, but in the end it will come back and life goes on as usual.

Shpongle.6025:

but…but… muh map chat ; __ ;

One of the primary reasons I can’t wait for Lion’s Arch to be reduced to rubble.

I can’t even follow the map chat half the time anyway, there’s always one of the same four or five attention-kittens spamming emotes a hundred times in a row next to the bank. I could name them by name at this point. Or maybe this is just a Borlis Pass issue.

Raze the place, Anet! The only thing better than standing amidst the rubble of that derelict haven for crime and degeneracy would be slaughtering some baddies over it.

Shonie.5297:

I hope the current Lion’s Arch gets demolished so brutally that it won’t be recognizable.
The whole area just reeks of poverty.
Then we can rebuild it to something more aesthetically pleasing and modern.

It could keep the same sort of aesthetics for all I care I just want it to be built up to be the actual CITY it was always pitched as. I mean outside of the bank/trade hub area there’s next to nothing. Something like four bars and a dozen houses, that’s not a city that’s a village at best.

Yeah, where is theatre, shopping centre, administrative buildings, golem factories, and so on? :P

Despite the spoiler posted by Mortifer.2946 above, my questions is this: What happens when Mad King Thorn shows up in LA next Halloween? That’s HIS city at that time of year. What would motivate him to go to another city? How would he know about Mortifer.2946’s spoiler before Halloween? Wouldn’t he kinda be cheesed off that the city and it’s inhabitants weren’t available to him to command and play with at his favorite time of year?

Elricht Kaltwind.8796:

Shpongle.6025:

but…but… muh map chat ; __ ;

One of the primary reasons I can’t wait for Lion’s Arch to be reduced to rubble.

I can’t even follow the map chat half the time anyway, there’s always one of the same four or five attention-kittens spamming emotes a hundred times in a row next to the bank. I could name them by name at this point. Or maybe this is just a Borlis Pass issue.

Raze the place, Anet! The only thing better than standing amidst the rubble of that derelict haven for crime and degeneracy would be slaughtering some baddies over it.

Oh god, this. It’s not just a Borlis Pass issue, I’m on Yak’s Bend and we have a handful of players that do that. Or they just talk about nonsense and then get annoyed at other people for talking nonsense.

Iason Evan.3806:

LA from a technical standpoint is a mess. I think they are tearing it down to build it up in a better way so that it has less lag and can support huge future battles. Part of me hopes they don’t though because it would mean a new hub zone which means new permanent content. I would rather have that than have a rebuilt LA.

Exactly. From both Developer and User perspective, there needs to be an excellent designed HUB. The economy will choose one anyway, why not to think ahead and pre-make one comfortable? (As suggested [iR])

insaneshadow.1654:

Elricht Kaltwind.8796:

Shpongle.6025:

but…but… muh map chat ; __ ;

One of the primary reasons I can’t wait for Lion’s Arch to be reduced to rubble.

I can’t even follow the map chat half the time anyway, there’s always one of the same four or five attention-kittens spamming emotes a hundred times in a row next to the bank. I could name them by name at this point. Or maybe this is just a Borlis Pass issue.

Raze the place, Anet! The only thing better than standing amidst the rubble of that derelict haven for crime and degeneracy would be slaughtering some baddies over it.

Oh god, this. It’s not just a Borlis Pass issue, I’m on Yak’s Bend and we have a handful of players that do that. Or they just talk about nonsense and then get annoyed at other people for talking nonsense.

You know, of course, that map chat is tied to people, not to the area, right? It’s not going to disappear, all those people will just move to a new gathering spot. Anyone who thinks that destroying LA will improve the community is really naive.

Astralporing.1957:

insaneshadow.1654:

Elricht Kaltwind.8796:

Shpongle.6025:

but…but… muh map chat ; __ ;

One of the primary reasons I can’t wait for Lion’s Arch to be reduced to rubble.

I can’t even follow the map chat half the time anyway, there’s always one of the same four or five attention-kittens spamming emotes a hundred times in a row next to the bank. I could name them by name at this point. Or maybe this is just a Borlis Pass issue.

Raze the place, Anet! The only thing better than standing amidst the rubble of that derelict haven for crime and degeneracy would be slaughtering some baddies over it.

Oh god, this. It’s not just a Borlis Pass issue, I’m on Yak’s Bend and we have a handful of players that do that. Or they just talk about nonsense and then get annoyed at other people for talking nonsense.

You know, of course, that map chat is tied to people, not to the area, right? It’s not going to disappear, all those people will just move to a new gathering spot. Anyone who thinks that destroying LA will improve the community is really naive.

But if capital cities are the new gathering spots then there’s only a one-in-five chance that they’ll gather in mine.

In Guild Wars 1 there were a ton of different outposts that filled the role of “gathering spots.” There was Lion’s Arch, Ascalon city, Piken Square, Kaineng city, Shing Jea, Kamadan, Eye of the North, and those were just the biggest ones. I confess I did not at all like the communities in some of those places, which is why I didn’t hang out there. So if anything, I don’t really see how spreading out the community to the different capitals wouldn’t improve the community.

Trust me when I say that nothing short of the Apocalypse will prevent idiots from being idiots whether there is one social hub or 5, or 50. At day’s end the only effective way to deal with idiots is to ‘ignore list’ them as fast as they spawn.

I find it highly unlikely that the things in LA will be completely gone for good, it is not cost effective at all to throw LA away permanently.

Why, f.ex. all pre-existing holiday and event decor (with the exception of QJ, that did not have much of decor for it and whose next incarnation we have no clue about) is already done for LA, they would have to redecorate whatever the replacement will be from scratch (sure they can re-use some of the props, probably even a significant portion but it will take a lot longer than placing the decor in LA again would, ie. the design process and prop placement can be re-used).

Whatever they do for Vigil keep it can not hold a candle to Lions Arch in the long run, I wager. LA was designed as the hub from ground up Vigil keep is a culmination of less than a year of planning and preparation vs what LA had and as an area the Keep seems like way too small to be anything permanent.

LA will be back, if not then my hat off to arenanet but I am almost sure that designing a city, or even significantly redesigning one is one of the most cost prohibitive type of undertakings that exists in GW2 (mostly because they require lot more unique props and ambiance than regular zones because people spend longer times in them and are packed closer together, granted they do not really have DE’s). So it is highly unlikely that LA will literally be gone for good. The real question is how much will they change when it does come back.

Need more iron and jute to rebuild Lion’s Arch and protect the orphans…

I don’t want to disappoint you, but those decorations are a KIT.
NPCs, Scripts, Event instas, + an effected model pack. It is easy to reuse anywhere, any time.

At least I’m happy for the new opportunities, and I’m interested to have a deeper look on that Vigil HQ. That is the only true castle in the game (apart from the floating one), when there should be some more.

@ my redesign topics I’ve highlighted some point about the redesign.
Even if the main ways are missing/changed, its very useable.
I doubt AN will rebuild it without serious changed, or even better, totaly new mix, otherwise it will be a huge facepalm. And LA will be the same boring & laging HUB place.

Mortifer.2946:

It is lost forever. Even ruins will be gone as there is going to be a big cataclysmatic event which will change the landscape of southern shore, or at least LA zone.
Even if LA is rebuilt sometime, it will be moved somewhere else.

Cause we need a hub and Vigils Keep aint it.

It will be rebuilt reason being they can easily keep reusing their old wintersday
/Halloween/etc events

If they really want to convince me that they are capable of making a living world that changes the maps forever then they will need to reduce LA to molten slag then have it turn into a new zone that slowly becomes overgrown and abandoned over the next few months. A completely new city should be started somewhere else and built up from there.

Anyone who thinks LA won’t be rebuilt is seriously lacking in their understanding of the lore of this world.

Lion’s Arch isn’t a human city as some, for some reason, believe. It’s a city where all of the races were welcome even when the Humans and Charr were still at war. It is a city that proved the race’s of Tyria’s ability to band together and fight off Dragon minions long before the Coalition existed.

The idea that the, now united, races of Tyria would simply abandon the city rather than band together to push out the attacks, reclaim Lion’s Arch, and rebuild it through a united effort is not an outcome I’ll believe until I see more than someone vaguely hinting at secret knowledge to get attention.

It’s not destroyed, it’s flamekissed!

I would like to see Lion’s Arch rebuilt by Evon Gnashblade into Black Lion City. Or by the Pact into New Trinity City.

I’m looking for Trahearne to fly in on the Pact Airships to retake the city at the end. And then, after the battle, they can use pieces of airships to replace the pieces of sailing ships that burned in Lion’s Arch.

Because it’s not the first time LA has been “Destroyed”.

It’s Guild Wars, there will always be Lion’s Arch.

Temporary content is temporary.

I want Scarlet to pump dragon energy straight into the Ley Line turning LA into Thamunova 2.0, leaving nothing but destruction and chaos energy in the shattered remains of the city making it completely uninhabitable.

It doesn’t pull at your heart strings if it can come back, make this sting Anet, just like Ascalon, and Sieran, and Snaff

phaneo.4597:

I definitely hope it isn’t rebuilt as a full city – maybe convert it into a memorial or Ground Zero kinda thingy but rebuilding the whole city back won’t have the same kind of emotional impact on players as having it as a wasteland reminding all civilized races of a huge loss would.
I’d take it further by keeping LA portals in The Mists intact but throwing an on-screen message that reminds players of where those portals once used to lead to. Let the players feel the loss they felt when Tybalt/Sieran/Forgal died, but this time on a much massive scale.
We could have a LA memorial event every year (similar to Dragon Bash) around this period that would take us to a virtual setting (like fractals?) of the present LA so new players get to see what they have missed and old players can relive their favorite afk-spot for a brief time without actually going afk.

It’s looking more like Lion’s Arch is going to be worse off than many of us thought but here’s why I don’t want that to be the case.

Scarlet isn’t a good enough villain to leave such a dramatic mark on Tyria. Lion’s Arch deserves a better send off than Scarlet.

Thelgar.7214:

It’s not destroyed, it’s flamekissed!

Don’t you mean Scarletkissed?

ew…

Meadfreek.6789:

It just doesn’t make sense to me to have the central city in the game be gone forever. Lion’s Arch was already destroyed once*(hence the ruins underwater in the harbor) and they built it right back in the same spot.

It good to have one central city with all the races intermingling in a central place not too far to one side or the other for those who have to watch their travel expenses.

*I didn’t play GW1 so I’m not up the lore of what happened to the first version of LA.

When Zhiatan Brought Orr Back from underwater it flooded the first Lions Arch. Pirates and Corsairs alike rebuild it with the broken ships etc.. (hence the pirate theme of most buildings). Everyone was okay with this so no one contested it because the pirates were not hostile, This city was a trading hub between races.

I personally want it gone and over with rebuilt as a open world explore map mostly under water. Then HOPEFULLY instead of herding like sheep as this community does, They all go to each races capital or Fort Trinity. Something other than LA or just all in one area. ( Or if DoW opens up maybe there).

Riku, i believe that wont happen. LA will transform yes but wont be gone like some like to believe. Already people gave some reasons why it should be still there. not even to mention the “personal story” who everyone has to do on his first character. what use does it have if LA isnt there anymore. remodel LA is a great idea. and also they can otherwise trough all the stuff away they made in the past. wich i dont believe they will unless there is an new expansion pack comming soon with another “personal story” who everyone does. and an new hub. LA2 or something. wich is not very likely.

Based on this update alone it tells us anything can happen. With that being said things can be rebuilt after this is all said and done.

I would guess it will be remade In some fashion. It may not be a total remake but I’m going to guess that those flames wont forever burn in LA. LA is basically the trade capital of Tyria and I think it will always will be.

There are several things they’d have to change if they truly destroyed lions arch.

1. They’d need the race cities to all have gates leading to each other, if the gate hub is destroyed

2. The race cities would need mystic forges, if zomorros is destroyed

3. All personal story chapters which take place in LA would have to be rewritten, as well as all that pertain to LA, like Clawr Island

This is all possible; it would take plenty of work but I could see them doing it. There’d be a couple additional changes to make:

The three jumping puzzles -could- be removed from the game, and from the achievements list. However, they’re off to the edges of the zone, and could go mostly unaffected by whatever takes down LA (perhaps the entrance to trolls end would be moved, entered a different way, as would be the entrance to the pirate cave)

It’s likely the POIs, wp’s and vistas would be shifted around or changed slightly for the new terrain, the rubble or whatever. If any are deleted, there’d have to be a check so that anyone who has every other part of the world map complete, but not world completion, would get completion when the remaining objectives are removed.

Dastion.3106:

The idea that the, now united, races of Tyria would simply abandon the city rather than band together to push out the attacks, reclaim Lion’s Arch, and rebuild it through a united effort is not an outcome I’ll believe until I see more than someone vaguely hinting at secret knowledge to get attention.

This, and if it doesn’t happen then the writers don’t really understand Tyria.

i see morronlan does ofcourse.. all hail morronlan… he knows everything..

“FROM RUIN WE PROSPER”.

Can’t you read?

You don’t put a huge statue with a motto in the middle of your city and then ignore it.

i did ignore it all the time. was busy farming.

This whole thing is a mess again… No even a karma paper to unlock heirlooms?
Or proper ingame informations before we need to check a Webpage again?
Since even the gemstore items must-be-checked in wiki, I do not wonder.

im sure it will be rebuilt, but hopefully not EXACTLY the same that would feel corny to me

We now have the permanent captain’s ticket – which suggests the ship will remain for longer than 2 weeks. Additionally, not all the conveniences made it to the Vigil Keep (likely in order to promote sales of said tickets). It seems that Anet’s goal is to make the central hub vip-only.
Future LA fate looks rather grim now.

They should make the HOM portal stones as self-Hub.

My guess is that they’re going to rebuild LA, but only with the services you currently find at the Vigil keep, so no more crafting stations. You’ll have to go to the racial cities for those, or fork out gold/gems for a special pass. I think the idea behind this (next to making money of course), is to force more people into the racial cities.