I’m sad to hear that Cantha might not be part of GW2.
I don’t understand how Cantha was not universal enough. I played beta event weekends for Guild Wars 1 and previews of Tyria never hooked me. I did not play the game on launch and I pretty much forgot about it. A year later when Factions came out I was persuaded by a group of friends to try the game, I bought Factions, and was quickly hooked by Shing Jea and the plague storyline. I kept playing and was blown away by the huge scale and squalor of Kaineng, I fell in love with the beauty of the Jade Sea, and I was captivated by the dark mysterious Echovald forest. I ended up buying Prophesies because of Factions, Later when they were released I bought Nightfall and Eye of The North. I played Guild Wars long after my friends got bored of it. I have over 3000 hours logged there now. I moved on to Guild Wars 2 on launch day and have been playing it happily ever since….
None of that would have happened if not for Cantha. Cantha is what hooked me on the Guild Wars universe. Without Cantha for sure I would be playing some other game and not Guild Wars 2.
Please reconsider bringing back Cantha for Guild Wars 2. I miss it’s places, I miss it’s art, I miss it’s culture…I want to see what happened in Cantha over the 250 years since Guild Wars more than any other region from the original game….and maybe Cantha will hook new players that are not so attracted to Tyria today, just like it did for me back in 2006.