Guild Wars 2

Even Amazon has development goals it shares :P

What we want is to know that the time we are investing in a world we have a lot of hope for has a future we care about.

If I knew the majority focus of GW2’s development would be WvW I’d go play something else and cry because I personally want the map and lore being tied back into GW1 as much as possible – and there are other games with very good lore and continued expansions giving their game a “living story”. Yet I choose to play GW2 because of the lore of GW1 and the hopes it will be brought to GW2 and expanded upon.

We don’t want to know exactly what is incoming – we want teasers like what you had leading to GW2 (check out this new profession! It will be epic! /hype /lol@commando).

Little things like – we are going to have a paid expansion mid 2016 or so which will feature X region and incorporate 5 new dungeons and 2 raids at launch! P.S. here is a teaser clip to get the hype train going. And we can be all like “amg make more imgur pics of Colin being awesome! Replay through GW2 5 more times because more epic stuff is coming and we are hyped and want to make sure we haven’t missed a thing”.

At least for me expecting a small release every 2 weeks is just not satisfying unless there is some suggestion it progresses the game in the direction I hope it’ll go – Just like the OP probably wouldn’t care (example..) if you were updating Shatterer and Jormag – but if they knew there was potential for a dungeon they’d be hyped for it. But GW2 is currently not actively promoting its seasons like it did the launch of the game – players are lost and if they haven’t personally seen a release of interest to them in a while they’re becoming depressed with waiting for what may or may not be on the table.

GW2 is almost being developed as though it is not intended to be a person’s primary MMO. There is a “come hang out with us every two weeks and try new stuff and we’ll see you again next patch” mentality to it. Yet so much “grind material” (achievements & need for gold for new TP skins and releases) is constantly being added that it requires players to play alot to be ready to buy the next cool thing. This becomes a problem when we don’t know if we want to be playing because what we want the game to be and contain may never happen while at the same time if an expansion pops out and it is amazing there would be no regret whatsoever having cool looking characters and having devoted time to a game that you’ll continue to enjoy for a few more years.

Similar topic as the SAB thread. YEARS in limbo is a long time. For the sake of playing the game of real life priorities it is nice to say “yea this game – I expect it will be awesome in a year yet based on what they’ve announced” as opposed to “idk what I’m doing or why I am playing this still but I HOPE it’ll have good releases soon even though what has been launched this year hasn’t really been my style”.

I think this is a great idea – the concept art style, prolonged and narrated “movies” seem to be less and less used yet they were going to be a unique aspect of GW2 (I’m talking like new character creation movie). This could even be tied into stuff like the “what did scarlet see” except we actually see something that adds to our understanding of the lore…

We have seen them use neat “movies” for the pale tree vision and the end of LS1 (don’t remember if it was narrated). It would be really cool to receive an item similar to the zephyrite ship model after completing all of LS2 which allows you to play a prolonged movie (majority concept art – intermixed with explanations of movies like the eternal alchemy) that recaps all that has occurred and why and leaves us with the inevitable cliffhanger of “the hero must now move on to season 3 (and visit cantha)”.

Concept art sequences seems to be their stronger point though – in-game cut scenes like zhaitan invading fort trinity where all you see are buzzing things and a few random character models should be avoided at all costs (or things like the master of peace in his glorious-hardly-rendered-awkward-eyeball-and-weird-triangular-memory-self).

To an extent its understandable that they remove everything for re-tweaks and to ensure hype when they bring it back but it really feels like one of the biggest hindrances to the development of this game is that so much development time has been put into incredible content that remains “temporarily unavailable – possibly for years”. There doesn’t seem to be a reason that SAB W1 and W2 couldn’t remain in game and if a patch comes along to add W3 you, well, patch and change whatever you want to change then. If people want to check it out they will and if they don’t they won’t.

“Time Gated Fun” seems silly. I may not live long enough to see LS1 implemented into repeatable content or a return of SAB :P (or cantha implementation) It would seem more appropriate to enjoy the game however you want to and play it the way you want to anytime and look forward to the next thing coming along – rather than waiting for something (perhaps the ONLY minigame) you enjoyed to come back. Its one thing to be temporarily unavailable for a few days but when you start talking years you have to start questioning the lifespan of not only an MMO but the playerbase as well! Stuff like SAB also buys time for the GW universe lore to be re-established after the 250 year gap – we can hop around in 8-bit and not be so critical that the Tyria we loved for 8-9 years of real life isn’t yet fully synced up/implemented into a 2 year old successor game :P

Of consideration may be looking into an account wide link for characters that could offer improved xp gain (adding to achievement bonus) for sub 80 chars or maybe access to different hairstyles/hair accessories.

I’m not sure the amount of usefulness an xp “passing” might have but maybe you get an"instant +20 level" book for hitting 80 to use on another char or give your new 80 a boost in buying traits.

If you want to implement any system involving alts though it might be worth the time to consider something along the line of SWtoR’s lineage system – maybe boosting xp, gold find, getting armor skins and ranger pets or etc…

What I mean about Silverwastes is the majority of your time is spent fighting not wandering and that if you are just sight seeing you are taking up a spot on a map that is (*cough*shovel farming) intended for events. Just the same for drytop. Looking for a relaxed section/zone to enjoy the this region’s scenery from.

In an effort to imagine further world exploration I thought it may be interesting to discussed personal zones similar to the player’s home instance but actual large scale regions of the world (similar to GW1 layout).

The current zone layout for GW2 is great for the LS and zergs banning together to take down large bosses and even random people meeting up to do quests together. As we get more zones like Silverwastes however we see more and more of the world that isn’t interesting in the least to explore – only in being a massive warzone and a means to an end – fighting to another zone which most likely will be more of the same – and we miss out on the ability to enjoy the environment and design (even drytop: was nice you could wander but you wouldn’t be contributing to the zone effort in upping tiers).

It would be really interesting (to me…) to have regions of the world for which there are no plans (say we don’t need a huge rectangle map for Silverwastes and there is a piece not needed that could be used for this concept – small “L” shaped portion or something) where a player could enter like Salma District and just wander around enjoying music/environment/architecture/design and not being faced with a mob of players and constantly respawning monsters. This region could overlook some of the scenic portions of the main map but be removed. It could be a jumping puzzle or mini-quest or just empty place to wander in like the Hall of Monuments. Perhaps I am weird but I enjoy hanging out in places like Hall of Monuments and GW1 guild hall outskirts.

They could also serve as side quests and mini-dungeons you and your party could enter and explore. Like Glint’s Lair will most likely serve if we don’t see it again, but without the limitations of being a 1-time intent thing.

This could also be an excuse to open more of the world to explore since this isn’t an “open-world” game and all the cool places have invisible walls , with potential for future content additions as any other map as designers take interest in adding something.

lore…lOrE…LORE!…must have MORE LORE! TAKE MY MONEY!

Even spread out I would imagine players would tend towards the biggest zerg for more shovels. As for afking I think an advantage this map has over drytop is that you need to play not only for lockpicks but also for the shovels.

Somehow tying the number of chests available to individual players to how active they are on the map and mission success would be nice is what I’m getting at. I don’t have an ideal solution but we need to encourage zone success rather than chest farming or have chest farming be a result of the success.

Perhaps opening a chest consumes a stack of perseverance…so that you need to do events as well to be able to use the keys.

Except that 50 people farming 5 events together, on one keep, while spending shovels together gets just as many shovels as would 50 people individually doing 5 events each scattered in the zone.

But if the rewards/difficulty don’t make it worth player’s time w.r.t. farming chests in a mob at 1 fort it won’t get done by the general community.

While the whole concept of shovels to dig up chests was a nice idea I think this will rapidly get out of hand.

Less than a week after the patch launched there is already next to no reason to do the events in this zone. The zerg can group up at amber and everyone can get at least 10 champion bags every 3min just hanging out. You’ll see 20-30 people at amber and 1-2 people at the other forts.

I think it may have been a better idea to make chests available in abundance only after the bosses are defeated – then the zerg could group and go on a farm spree in their 4min cooldown.

Now I’m not complaining – this is a nice easy way to get lots of champ bags but I see no value in this zone atm other than doing this once achievements are finished.

Edit: unless whatever is to the west is going to encourage faster event completion.

Really!? Not dragon facets? So dull seeing colossi used for this Mini versions of dragons would have really set off GW1 players. Though I understand we won’t be spending much time in the lair (or will we o_O).

Another potentially interesting raid variation could be, say, an assault on Kralkatorrik and implementing the GW2 Beta party…

Say priory discover a potential cure for reverting branded effects that haven’t been “fully corrupted” an individual.

Raid progresses with separate teams working through a zone/dungeon – a failure results in a Resurrection as Branded where the team needs to survive NPC vigil assaults using branded skills until an ally group can let priory NPCs get to and heal you so you can continue your path (other players won’t come into contact with this group for PvP). An alternative to instant event failure but still requiring a difficult survival with skills you aren’t used to in order to continue.

Would definitely be interesting for paths where bosses take amplified condition stacks and damage – similar to husks in triple trouble.

As far as gear treadmill thru a zone I prefer buffs :P Poison protection etc, resistance to physical and so forth.

2: Foundational raiding mechanics based on the core combat and movement of GW2.

Ask some PvPers about how they feel “pressure” should be applied to teamfights
Conditions seem to be very infrequently applied in this game – and when they are like tower of nightmares ppl get angry. They get angry because it makes things hard Rather than 40 zerkers plowing thru a raid it would be nice to encourage a distribution of eles and engis and guards that can HEAL and REMOVE CONDITIONs.

Let there be targets in the sky that rangers or eles can hit or a war with a rifle to do more damage or progress to further encourage build diversity.

Combat and movement is great in this game, however if things like “jump the shockwave” and “dodge the rocket” are going to be used they need to be very well portrayed where the (hitbox?) is. That does NOT mean surround it with a huge orange circle. Say a missile comes at a character the very tip should need to be dodged so players know right when to roll. Very tip of the shockwave as well. It may be neat to implement a need for the “somersault dodge-jump” where if you jump a shockwave but aren’t in dodge a missile hits you (we are talking more challenging content). Also if you want things to be challenging there shouldn’t be giant orange aoe circles – just well portray when things are happening and let players respond appropriately. If a monster takes back its foot to kick you should probably move without needing a huge orange line.

That said AoE effects could probably use a simplifier – like you have standard character models in PvP perhaps we need standard AoE caps so that bosses are visible and not in a nuclear explosion. Simple indicators for conditions and buffs like GW1 would be more useful than huge guardian focus chains and elementalist everything.

I know we hate the “holy trinity” as well. But aggro control and heals and skillful dodges allow for things to be made much harder and manageable. If there was say a heal skill that grabbed monster attention or a method to do so it could allow for skillful aggro trading. Shooting a monster in the knee for example enrages it to come at you. If your allies don’t hit the knee it stays on you.

Bosses need to be more mobile and terrifying. Shatterer and Teq standing there and being structures leads to a giant mob on a foot spamming one. If bosses walked around the maps / swiped thing with their paws players may need to be more active in their movement. A sand giant with sprint dodge roll and skill chaining comes to mind People will learn to dodge and jump and use positioning if there is a reward there to encourage active behavior.

I have to admit I don’t have a clue where to begin and what has been covered having only read ~20 posts.

1: Progression

Open World?
I felt that the basic concept behind the marionette fight was a good core for a “raid” setup. Multiple 5-10man groups in a zone in different portions doing individual events to work through a zone and whittle down a large beastie. The concept of ogre wars event is also decent.

However to make things challenging I feel like something similar to GW1 faction battle line movement could be implemented. Say there is a raid that spans a large zone with very separated groups. If one group pushes far ahead they will face extremely difficult roadblocks that they can’t overcome without other groups in other sections catching up to their region and “weakening” it. Something like 1 group opening a door for another or a generator activating to remove a bosses boons/invulnerability. Thinking about this in terms of a “tower of nightmares” with multiple paths that need to be done consecutively. Waypoints would have to be unlocked per raid or something if it was an open world event.

Say tower of nightmares was a raid and there were more floors and a few bosses managed by individual teams and a few convergence points with large full server fights – killing a hybrid or something. Once a large boss is down it can be a rest area with a few minutes for everyone to re-coordinate and move out on the next set of individual paths. One team can’t get too far ahead because they’ll have to survive at a roadblock which may not be possible for long periods of time – standing in poison room or etc. If a team wipes you could have an event failure returning everyone to the last “safe” room. Once at the top and final boss or whatnot is finished big party reward chest and everyone involved through each checkpoint gets their chests and teleported to the end loot. If you only played thru 1-2 checkpoints get reward chests but not the end chest or something similar to Teq/Triple Trouble.

Individual Instances?
This may be a neat use of instanced regions. Say you had a group of 30-40 players in Domain of Anguish (GW1) lobby and you enter as a singular group separated into 3-4 teams.

Each team is in their own instance – individual squad chats and sharing a team chat. They work through their individual instance to unlock Mallyx at the end where all teams teleport to a new instance and have a battle of the breach maker type fight.

Then again if the “Tower of Nightmares” example could be managed with 30-40 it would be nice to have that as as instance for those 30-40 ppl so that someone dcing can get right back in and not be stuck spamming “join friend” etc. Open world “raids” may be more useful for say progression across a map for a huge zerg fight like teq. More challenging content should probably contained to group instances and manageable down a player or 2 in case of disconnect.

Looking at concepts like “The Deep” on GW1 I though also has the foundations for an instanced “raid” – especially the starting section.

Rewards: would preferrably be unique sets of armor/weapon skins costumes and minis – say from a spawning token vendor at the end and not RNG. DoA gemstones from GW1 for example.

So a proposal to revamp and reintroduce the marionette fight:

one of the groups (priory/vigil) is fascinated by scarlet’s innovative design and has developed a holographic replay of the event where we play our roles and they watch to reverse engineer the beastie to fight dragons.

Take the marionette and give it a slightly holographic look – set it on the world boss clock with priory/vigil or whoever announcing its time to start up. A way for players to get some sprockets and lewt and somehow tie it into lore (preferably not mentioning scarlet ever again tho :P)

Not that I personally cared for the fight overall but I hate to see development work thrown out and inaccessible – you spent resources designing this event think of a simple way to keep it in game (SAB!) for us to continue enjoying (molten facility should have been a full dungeon added to a history-transportation-portal in the fotm lobby!).

Personally I loved the first year’s halloween – the dungeon was attractive and had good rewards and could be done with friends. The second year’s halloween was terribly dull in my opinion with nothing but a cheesy daily grind. If anything has to be repeated it could at least be the mad king bursting outta statues and us dealing with him – his son is fine as a 1 year party but the mad king is tyria’s halloween not his children!

Was just thinking – above and beyond just merchant access what about “activity” access such as Keg Brawl. Always thought guilds may enjoy -private- activity access.

While a personal hall of monuments type feature would be cool (in player housing) maybe guild asura gates (like fotm) that let you travel to another player’s ‘housing’ (who is in your party) if we get player housing someday :]

Also cool music options and a beach so you can afk in here all day ….

No I do not get hundreds of whispers but I do get daily whispers and multiple whispers per day and I find them annoying.

I do find chats in the game annoying. This is not the point of this post.

The point is the option of privacy without being outright rude, which I can very well be but some players may not wish to be. The block list has limits and people circumvent it. The ability to control the followers list could be a more subtle solution. The removal of the list altogether wouldn’t bother me in the least.

No you can’t stop someone from writing down your account name. But if you have 200 people online/offline on your friends list and I removed myself what are the chances you would ever even notice that I wasn’t one of the “offline” names anymore. And if you were to keep re-adding and conversations became a problem for me I would have all the more reason to file a report.

The block list has a size limit. It also ends up with you being spammed by guildies and 2nd accounts asking “why did you block xx?” I understand a large majority of the population loves being able to say “look at my 1000 followers! I must be so cool!” but why couldn’t the rest of us at least have the option to remove ourselves from others friends lists / remove them from our followers list or get the simple option to accept/decline a friend request – as if that is any more awkward than blocking people.

New expansion, new classes, only one race, can’t access full bank/tyria till level 80 – yay exploration and new world!

?When?

I am really surprised they haven’t made any adjustments to the “followers” list yet. The other forums I’ve seen discussing it have been closed.

I enjoy playing GW1 & GW2 alone or with 3-5 friends of mine that may be online. Every once in a while I’ll meet another player I enjoy chatting with and add them to friends.

What I can’t stand is being in a dungeon party then every day for the next 3 weeks getting a message “want to do ac? how about coe?”. Then there is the “how can i get ap!?”. And finally the “why don’t you respond to me?” messages from people I don’t even know.

I am sorry but why is there a “stalker list” in this game since launch and no one thought it was a bad idea? How can it be a good idea? If someone wants to “friend me” send me a message and ask my permission please to allow them to see/talk/whisper me. Personally I would like it if no one could whisper me unless they were in my party or same zone instance and no one should ever be able to see where I am, what I am doing, or any other statistics about me unless I allow it.

Earlier this year I quit playing for 3 months primarily because I’ve been burnt out not knowing what direction this game is heading but also because I was tired of having to login to a game where people were constantly bugging/trying to compete with me if I was not “offline” at which point my friends could not message me. Now I’ve recently started playing again and it is starting all over.

I don’t mind helping people. If you post in map chat you need something I’ll come find you if I’m free and no one else has addressed your issue. If someone has something legitimate you want to ask like “that armor is cool where did you get it?” I’ll answer, but I don’t want people messaging me, competing with me, or thinking that I have time to spend with them on a daily basis for whatever. Sorry but I enjoy playing alone, GW2 is nothing more than an extension of GW1 to me – not an MMO for socialization and leader board competition.

Please consider making adjustments to this system to allow for more privacy for your players. I’d begun adding all “followers” to the block list but that not only feels rude but there is/was a cap on the number of players I could block?! Something as simple as a “request to become a follower” or the ability to remove people from the followers list would be amazing….

Those days when you could wander around Beta experiencing a new world for the first time then rushrushrush to hit level 80 and get rich upon game release. It is difficult to keep MMO players that like to explore happy forever but I feel like I experience most new content from LS within a day or two before waiting for the next LS – where a whole expansion could be so much more to explore and take considerably longer (of course there are what 20 LS events in a year? So altogether there is a lot to explore but not at once). Bringing out an expansion would really help in getting the adventurous types out of the LA trading post and into the wilds and having fun again.

BUT —- I think it would be really fascinating to have a multi-update living story where you actually travel zone-by-zone to Cantha or through Elona (travel by ship or something a map at a time fighting critters n pirates etc?) and at the end you reach Cantha and releases piece by piece in an neat unfolding story arc which will remain unlocked for all future players to access.

If this makes sense – you could use LS as the trip/adventure to explore new lands and fight off hordes or monsters to unlock new maps like Cantha. Players not there during the event would be able to go to and explore Cantha or wherever but would only have missed out on the initial journey – similar to the conquest of southsun cove. Let those active players experience a journey across the ocean of Tyria via LS like in Sea of Sorrows or across the deserts of Elona like Turai and fighting back Palawa Joko.

Exploration is the most fun/satisfying aspect of an MMO to me – I loved Aion and GW1 and games like WoW, Flyff, TSW, Star Wars and etc because its a whole new world to explore and neat artwork (and music – most these games have incredible music what happened to GW2s music?!?!?) and to me Cantha has always had the neated style of artwork/music to my tastes – truly miss this region from GW1 and would love to see some epic journey to return there someday.

Ewon, well written.

I support the ideal of bringing people back to enjoying the game and not to a grind to rewards (be they leader boards or achievement chests). I believe one of the initial conceptual plans for GW2 was to avoid the typical MMO grind which is precisely what players seeking those rewards are facing.

What I do not support however is the prevalence of time-sinks over player skill and game exploration. In general I have recommended that dailies be removed as they really are nothing more than a daily time-sink grind for some reward which could be implemented better (through story meta achievements. ex: complete 3 living story metas for an achievement chest and title). Let achievements come from experiencing game content and completing LS – let them be a record of how long you have been an active member of the community and not how much time you sink daily into a grind (if a point system must remain in the game at all…).

I just find it frustrating so many posts and discussions on a time-draining daily system when instead we could be discussing how to lift up players for their skill, their community activities, their participation in each story sequence over time, their enjoyment of the different aspects of the game, and for, of course, making the game better. The commotion is caused because some people want to be completionists while some want to just obtain a daily reward – why can’t your daily reward be playing “Guild Wars 2 the way you want to play the game” – which is most likely having fun and exploring lore or PvPing – not killing 50 wolves and 20 ravens every day for a point.

GW2 version of DotA to bring back PvP with GW2’s awesome combat system!

I personally feel that the GW universe has so much story depth potential that even trying to dig into it in 2 week spans will take way too much time at this point (adding scarlet and krait villains while we need to stop the greater evil – dragons and palawa in Elona…and probably other critters in the universe). Also I know there is a large concern with keeping zones populated for events and community but that is dragging down expansion potential.

I would really love to see the LS lead us to Cantha to prevent horrors of the forest/deep from intruding on the empire – or overthrowing a tyrannical leader. Then take us to Elona to push back undead and save centaurs and humanity…or ally with undead vs dragons. And then we can be on to exploring the remaining islands of the world and their cultures. For me it is the exploration that makes MMOs so interesting. Huge immersive worlds to check out lore and artwork with my friends. I personally wouldn’t mind an empty zone scaled properly like GW1 or we could consider consolidating “worlds” into a single server with districts like GW1 to keep maps as full as possible. Special zoned like WvWvW could have alliance choices where you chose some order you are representing or pair USA vs EU vs Asia etc.

To me the living story first has the role of expounding upon and tying up the billion intriguing loose ends of GW1 and GW2 at release. Using it to add new content like Scarlet with no -apparent- purpose makes me concerned I may never see an answer to my questions until GW3!

We would also like to know the living story is going – more lore on the direction events are heading so that we can start feeling like a Hero rather than a firefighter. I’m sure you have a wonderful relevant story plan for Scarlet and etc. but its been half a year and I haven’t more than a few guesses as to what we are doing. I’d prefer to be a heroic detective and infiltrator undermining some grand scheme in pieces.

So here is another rant from me. In summary: love GW2; add CANTHA!

I’m sure this has been mentioned before but would it be possible to have an equipment slot for mini-pets and possibly a small icon in the corner of the screen to summon/dismiss mini? I feel like they’ve always been a neat little side in GW but too bothersome to use. An equipment slot for them would be ideal so they didn’t vanish with the deposit collectibles and a quick-use icon would be nice (or key-bind since we don’t like UI clutter).

Thinking on this further it would be nice if said “equipment slot” allowed you to choose and “active” mini from storage so that the physical mini did no actually have to be on your character but could remain in storage while you summon it.

It is very frustrating. I understand it is very important to be able to play with your friends but if necessary friend groups should be moved to overflows if from separate servers. ArenaNet has always been big on not making players “wait” to play content such as one might experience in setting up a raid in WoW but sitting in an overflow for 7 hours to enter your own server is exactly that. Its not that overflows can not beat hard challenges but its not the community you chose to join (your home server) and is often a bunch of players not willing to participate because they can’t get to their home server.

Please consider booting inactive players after 5-10min of inactivity when in a guested server or when there are overflows available. Some of us wish to join our servers and beat these challenges and not have to support guesting players unwilling to try on their home server.

Just thought I’d add in my desire to see Cantha again to this thread.

GW1 was one of my first experiences into the world of MMOs along with WoW, both of which I found to be unique and interesting fantasy settings with incredible artwork and an interesting, if not fully revealed, story to immerse myself in. I thoroughly enjoyed the darker doomsday setting of GW1 with the Charr and undead waging war against mankind all, to whatever extent, being backed by a disgruntled God.

However the release of Factions was perhaps my favorite of the GW1 series with the unique artwork, themes, music, atmosphere and cultural diversity, and when I say cultural diversity I am speaking of Tengu, Luxon, Kurzick tribes living on the borders of a human empire. Ritualist quickly became my favorite profession using spiritual weapons and ancestor reverence to protect and smite in combat – and the fact that it was a rare profession to see played well until future reworks.

I have heard many people refer to Cantha as “Asian” and I want to challenge that manner of thinking. I do not play video games to play in China or the U.S.A or Vietnam or Japan. I could play Secret World or Call of Duty if I wanted to look at what I would expect to have realistic architecture or racial identity. Guild Wars is a fantasy setting inspired by Anet’s artists and what they envision could be different racial aspects for humanity in a video game, just as the Charr have legions, the Norn have clans, the Asura have colleges, and etc. Canthans are a subgroup of humans if you will that live across the ocean/Elona and have a different culture and architectural style. That style is not meant to be offensive to Asians and in my opinion has nothing to do with Asia other than the fact that Asia is different from other world regions and was an inspiration to the artists seeking to envision a new type of human culture known as canthan.

That said I continue to play Guild Wars 2 out of respect for the original game’s story and the new age game combat dynamics which I find to be much more interactive and enjoyable. However I am a bit depressed with the story thus far, not that it isn’t good in its own right but that it doesn’t have the doom-and-gloom feel of the original series. I have to save the world from world devouring dragons but would rather spend my time playing with Quaggan hatchlings. With the Quaggans, Kodan, Sylvari, Asura, Norn, Skritt, and Largos (D&D dark elf manta ray?!?) still uncomfortable races to me being that their tie in to the series is stretched so thin I can only hope for significant future content of the races history and how they avoided humanity’s notice to start making them more legitimate.

That said I would love nothing more than 2 significant expansions revealing the remainder of the original game’s world (Elona and especially Cantha) which may have completely different stories than the land surrounding Lion’s Arch and that may eventually be tied into a continued grand scheme of forces from the original game (Menzies, Dhuum and friends). Elona could have human refugees, the undead legions of Joko and whatever else popped out of the ground while Cantha could focus its story on an isolated region of the world where humanity struggles with tyranny and darker forces than Kanaxi and beasts like the Maw no longer frozen in the sea. Such a story would be extremely appealing to a player like myself who cares more for the struggle for human survival and defeating dark forces through heroics than allying with the local asuran zoo to kill a dragon then party for a year before killing another.

In short I think Cantha is a unique and creative blend of concepts that Anet’s team put together based on things they have seen in our world but yet their own entity entirely and not an “Asian” race. Cantha also offers a human-based story that I personally would love to explore with new professions like the Ritualist and type of blademaster such as Tagachi still being trained at the Monastery. To not include Cantha in Guild Wars 2 would be no different than playing a game of Risk where Africa did not exist but the rest of the world map remained unchanged. Not including a minimum of Cantha and Elona in GW2 would degrade the integrity of Anet’s fantasy world in my eyes and make me think twice before considering a purchase of a Guild Wars 3. How can a living world truly be developed and grow when no loose ends are ever tied, new races and continents continue to be added, yet the core story of the world dissappears on a whim due to a comparison between the fantasy world and real life. Canthan culture is a part of the humans of Tyria as is Vabbian, Istani, Ascalonian, Krytan, Orrian, Kournan, and those other yet un-revealed cultures across the sea. Once the story is written it can’t just be erased or collapse, it needs to continue growing as a whole or it will die as a whole.