Guild Wars 2

Tengu seem the most likely choice of next playable race; but how about – in connection with an eventual return to Cantha – Anet went a little outside the comfort zone and revived the Wardens (GW1 wiki).

250 years have passed; Shiro is “gone” so maybe they can see past their somewhat limited role as Protectors of the Echovald Forest and are no longer zealous/mad about their intent to take it all out on humans but maybe for a plot in Cantha they can have Echovald as their starting zones and from there move out into the world.

They would look quite unique in character creation and are a humanoid (formerly human) race and maybe prove an interesting alternative to Sylvari as another “forest people” without Anet having to introduce the stereotypical elves/dwarves.

In my opinion for the GW universe; anyone asking for elves/dwarves; WoW → that way or LotRo <- that way… embrace the fact that dwarves are extinct and elves are non-existant.

RoyalPredator.9163:

• My consequences: RNG is broken, and Accounts somehow go “lucky” or “unlucky” on creation. I’m investigating the connections…

This is my belief too; some sort of factor tied with your account in the whole RNG picture that leads to RNG being broken for some.

I don’t have “many” hours played; ~1400 since launch, and I have played all aspects of game minus SPvP.

0 Precursor drops
0 Precursors from MF (probably spent about ~100G on various GS,swords,shields)

I refuse to buy from TP and will rather wait for the “alleged” scavenger hunt…

RNG in this game is just depressing so you kind of have to forget about it and play for some other reason…

If Quaggans become playable, I leave this game.

Personally, the Largos seem too elusive for them to become so wide-spread and common, so with story developments it seems most logic the choice would fall on Tengu or Kodan – subject to improving their customization options.

I know I listed Veldrunners (the pride from Elona) previously, but you’d have some explaining to do running around Kryta killing all your four-legged brethren… but then again, all the other races do so why not (Asura v Inquest, Norn vs Svanir, Charr vs Flame Legion, Sylvari vs Nightmare, Humans vs all) :P

She’s crazy because Mordremoth has invaded her mind and is using her as a vessel now.

Yea, it’s LS update 1 of 4, and the big wurm is one creature unearthed by the probes, but don’t stop at thinking all those mysterious probes all over Tyria/Kryta are there just to bring out a wurm… he could be the first of 4 lieutenants maybe?? Scarlet could be another, perhaps??

You get 2 world bosses in the first of this seires of 4 final LS updates for Scarlet arc. The dragon will Ofc come in the 4th update, now we’re seeing what lieutenants of Mordremoth Scarlet can unearth first. Will be nice to check out, then see where this story goes for the next 3 updates. Either something good or possibly it’s time for a break with ESO until GW2 becomes what I am anticipating:)

Love the graphics in GW2; I was pretty awestruck by the graphics in Age of Conan too – which is my MMO-background. But ofc, AoC is so badly optimised that running on ultra settings like I do now in GW2 would’ve cost me several thousands…

Improvement for royal terrace

• Scratch the royal terrace
• Re-make feature as unlockable progression items for your home instance (horizontal progression)
• Example unlocks:
  – Do some activity to get craftsmen to move into your home instance → unlocks crafting stations
  – Some other activity to get traders in → unlocks bank+trader
  – Some activity to unlock new weapon for class/trait/etc. → trainer moves in
  – Some activity to fix a broken Asura portal or other thingy → get your instant teleport to home instance (sort of like the PvP enter/leave mists)

Depending on how well-equipped your home instance is, you’ll attract your friends/guildies to come with you in group because you have so many facilities available, so you’ll manage to make your home instance into a sort of housing feature.

And while we’re on that; qualify home instance for further decorations by getting the option to display trophies based on achievements, armor models/mannequins, skin locker/display room, mini menagerie, etc.

The royal terrace is simply a gold/gem-sink at the moment, make it worthwhile for players by moving the features into our “home” so we can achieve it through progression of some sort rather than digging into our pockets, yet again.

We’ll meet ninja quaggans in Cantha; Doooonatelloooo, Leooonardoooo, Michelangelooooo and Raphael (he’s an adopted quaggan hence the ooo-unfriendly name).

That Shiro concept art is from gw1, antara? Would be nice if he was somehow introduced into the mix again too…

FirebrandFrog.7603:

You sorely underestimate how prideful Asians can be and how nationalistic, racist, and prejudiced they can be.

Also keep in mind the way Cantha is ultimately portrayed: a Japanese-style monastery island, a massive megalopolis that has a tiny, well-developed district with the rest of the city being mile-high slums (remember: Kowloon was a thing and Cantha’s slums are very well-influenced by it, down to the gangs running the streets), and wilderness with two non-Asian groups tussling for control of resources: the Greco-Roman Luxons and the Germanic Kurzicks. And it’s known that eventually these two factions are unified under Kisu’s rule, which means Cantha isn’t even pure Asian anymore!

Of course, the only people who find this offensive are the old farts who’ll belly-up in the next 10 or 20 years…

I agree – there’s the pride and prejudice which can be infringed upon. But of course, it’s a fantasy world in a game in which one region has inspiration drawn from an amalgation of cultures in the eastern part of our world – not an exact copy of either Japanese, Chinese, etc. cultures. Of course, I can only shake my head at how it’s difficult to understand these people finding this offensive, but it’s probably difficult to get around that.

lordkrall.7241:

aspirine.6852:

Indeed, this game has so much potential but it gets wasted with bad management and junior gamedesigners it’s really a shame. There are 3 major releases planned this year that are in direct competition to GW2, they better come up with something good. Like Cantha expansion.

Which 3 might that be?
As far as I am aware all major releases this year will be P2P and thus not in direct competition with GW2 B2P model.

TESO – P2P – and bound to bomb in its first 3 months based on how much it’s getting things wrong in beta and only 4 months to release
WS – P2P – WoW in space by ex-Blizzard people, going to cater to a small niche
EQ:N/L – not sure it’s even 2014 for this, but as F2P maybe comes closest to rival GW2 in some respect

Remember guys, it was LewisB from a GW2 press site that said “Something better than an expansion” as a joke with some other people. Then everything else has escalated out of proportion based on that subjective quote.

Who knows what LewisB finds better than an expansion at this point; with the LS being majority of content happening in 2013. If I’m to guess at future of GW2 in 2014, Scarlet’s “Mysterious Probes” will awaken/unleash another elder dragon in the world, and maybe we’ll get back to facing elder dragons (like we should). And given the new EotM map for WvW, I’m guessing they’ve been practicing making desert areas because we’ll be heading to the Crystal Desert and see the return of Kralkatorrik at some point soon – although I’d expect Primordius to be the one awakened by the mysterious probes.

Of course, I want nothing more than Cantha/Elona/Far Shiverpeaks regions with lots of new zones, horizontal progression, professions, races, skills, weapons and the whole shebang, but I just have downplay my own expectations so I don’t get upset when this information the press sites is sitting on right now gets revealed.

More tiers… Hell no!

We’re trying with the CDI to go horizontal, forget asking for vertical progression…

The game has delivered on so many areas already, i’m going to call BS on that, teege (and others claiming the same above here)

daimasei.4091:

You shouldn’t say anything like this.

Also, unless you fix all the Dynamics Events currently bugged or make a true profession balance, any new content (including a full-permanent expansion) will be pointless.

Same goes for you, don’t give Anet any ideas it’s ok to postpone new content again this year in favour of QoL and bug fixes to stuff that shouldn’t have been necessary in the first place…

As for the hype here, this was a Twitter chat between two of TTH guys as a humorous reply to DragonSeason saying Anet were on the ball again. That some random guy posts it on reddit and causes a landslide isn’t their fault, and LewisB previously also said the same about sitting on really exciting news back before the Tower of Nightmare… Like many others… And that got the hype machine rolling too… People should take it with a grain of salt and neither assume dragons, expansions etc. even though i’m famished for just that myself as well.

If anything, Anet could use this thread as a measure that the LS doesn’t come close to providing the same excitement as an expansion – of permanent content. The 2013 LS probably had a small expansion’s worth of content, the problem is that the majority of it is no longer in game…

nexxe.7081:

Torvic.8256:

The sudden planetwide emergence of the Quaggan Empire?

You mean they don’t have one already? All those backpacks and hats they sell…

…but it must be a diminishing empire the way they have all their citizens sewn into those marketing items…

Well, you already have the Aetherblades in-game, so why not just give eles their aether element too?

Lonami – awesome body of work, and having read also about your plans for future theorycrafting of 5-6 more expansions, this is awesome to read for another, fellow enthusiast.

Lots of cool ideas that hopefully some creatives at Anet draw upon when they create their own “expansions” into these territories (whether it comes as an expansion or sifted in smaller batches). The way you planned a sort of horizontal progression by building up region ranks to sustain the damage mobs from the higher level zones output, this also lends itself well to a roll-out strategy by Anet which doesn’t force them to do an expansion but rather roll things out zone-by-zone to let people build up “resistance”… of course, I hope that won’t be their strategy as that sort of time-gating by not making all the content available to explore at your own pace, not their dictated pace, would really impact satisfaction and appeal of the new content…

Agree with what’s being said for the most part by OP; since GW2 launched, I’ve only had small breaks playing TSW (for the fantastic lore+story and interesting char progression, but horribly clunky combat), TERA (for a dose of the good ol’ trinity with “proper” tanking) and just lately even returning to Age of Conan to check out those newly introduced world bosses, which are just lol… that game has maybe the best fantasy setting (Conan/RE Howard) and awesome graphics (but the game is soooo badly optimized) and is still so riddled with bugs and lack of development (when I quit 1.5 years ago they were anticipating crafting revamp, etc. and they still are…) and this “quick win” was done so kitten by FC you’d think they hadn’t researched GW2 on how to do world bosses properly. I’ve tried Rift, Neverwinter and they completely failed to involve me… just a bunch of clickety click on every godkitten quest marker NPC and blah, plasticky characters… TERA nearly failed in that same respect, but I got past it due to the combat and again graphics are quite remarkable. I even tried Age of Wushu/Wulin for its sandbox, oriental theme, and the atmosphere and graphics were really nice but the game is just “unplayable”. I want companies to make me a long-lasting theme park, sandbox = boring! (ok, I know that is very generalising but it’s not far from the truth of my feelings towards this community yearning for sandbox MMOs)

GW2 is far superior in smooth combat, graphics, camera and angle/perspective and yea, it has its short-comings and areas with room for improvement, which actually is important otherwise Anet would have nothing to stretch for.

Just about 500g here… been saving for the most part since I started back at launch, but also crafted some ascended and named exotic (Jormag’s Breath). Made quite a bit from playing the TP and also investing in Flame & Frost dyes when they returned for a week. They dipped in price then, but held on to them and sold for quite a bit for substantial profit (given I converted gold to gems to buy them too). Only time RNG has ever favoured me, getting 5-6 F&F dyes from 3 packs or so…

Hrafnadottir.8516:

Oh wow… gulp I suppose I’ll be stuck in a “bad hairday” with her for the time being, then.

Thanks for your swift reply, Ben!

You can sometimes get them from Black Lion Chests (again requiring you to get BL keys though – either from doing your personal story or by purchases from gem store) or even from those achievement chests (but I think you need 5K APs and as a new player you will probably not have that just yet…)

To be honest, I don’t see why the Asian market wouldn’t feel honoured that a game had a huge part of its world inspired by Asian themes, in addition to Western and African. You’d think they would feel discriminated if “their” culture was the only one left out…

Some idiot in NCSoft corporate needs to get the sack for this stupid decision that Cantha (district in DR) couldn’t be in from the start…

Never say never about Cantha returning, who knows?

Well, if they do bring changeable stat combos to ascended tier gear, maybe making legendaries account bound (ONCE you have equipped it with mind not to sell on TP) could be a good way to differentiate soulbound ascended gear and account bound legendaries?

Vayne.8563:

Lord Kuru.3685:

Dondarrion.2748:

Looking forward to conclusion to Scarlet in next 4 LS updates; looking forward to new legendaries and precursor scavenger hunt, looking forward to next LS “series” and hopefully it brings a new ELDER DRAGON (you know, what this game is about, right?), new zones/playable races/professions.

Well, one can dream, and I hope it’s all inbound in 2014

Wildtrash, ESO won’t deliver (I will try the latter, but I don’t believe either will succeed, imho)
EQ:N/L caters to different crowd with its features (Next could be interesting though)…

Anyway – heavily invested in GW2 still – so c’mon Anet, dazzle me in 2014!

Reveal Scarlet as an elder dragon lieutenant and all will be forgiven

Just the existence of these new MMOs will likely hurt GW2. People will try them, and that puts them out of habit of logging into GW2. So even if the new MMOs are bad, a number of people won’t return to GW2.

GW2 really has to do something to stop people from even trying these new MMOs. But considering the first is coming in April, there’s not much time.

It depends. Something like the Elder Scrolls MMO might actually bring people who NEVER played an MMO to the table, and then, if the game doesn’t do well, Guild Wars 2 could end up with some of those people.

I know some of that went on with SWToR. There are people who liked Star Wars, sort of saw the possibilities in an MMO, didn’t end up liking the game and ended up playing Guild Wars 2.

It’s not the short game that’s important, it’s the long game.

GW2 – and no other MMO – can prevent its existing players from trying out new MMOs. These games can be perfect, but the new ones have the novelty effect. Many people will be swarming to them, from all MMOs, and they will appeal to some, whereas others will return to whatever games they come from. Even I will try out TESO, but not with TESO in mind to replace GW2, hell no I intend GW2 to be my long-/slow burner as long as it starts to deliver on my expectations more in 2014, but if you’re a gamer, new titles are attractive and any game will experience a dip in activity when a contestant is launched.

2013 brought a bunch of stuff in GW2, but I still think of a lot of it as QoL, which was how Colin rephrased it back when the “massive content patches” “worth an expansion or two” for Feb-March got kind of delayed in favour of fixing game mechanics, balance, bug fixes, etc. And then the whole LS started pouring in for better or worse, which we’ll see through in Q1, ’14 by the sounds of things.

But after that, I have high expectations of Anet to up their game further, both to compete with these other titles coming out and also to match their players’ expectations, e.g. hopefully an expansion is actually being worked on and ready to be announced around the time WS/TESO launches or a little earlier.

I don’t know…

Don’t understand crafting? Well, head over to gw2crafts.net and choose your discipline and either a normal or fast guide. It will take you from 0-400 in 5-10 minutes; then you can work your way from 400-500 so you’re geared towards ascended crafting.

It’s a step-by-step guide, you follow it without any need of understanding.

And I have to agree with who said it above; if you’re (not you Hamfast, just “you” in general to those complaining ascended gear isn’t easy to acquire) not willing to put in money and effort, then the top tier is not for you either; exotics will suffice just fine and most people will be using exotics for a long time. Just a number drawn out of thin air, but I can’t believe more than ~5% have full ascended gear yet.

And I think it’s supposed to be top tier as a gold sink, not one for those loaded with cash to get even richer by flooding the TP with crafted gear.

Give us skin locker with re-usability like the PvP locker, and turn all cultural armor into skins and at the same time unlock cultural armors across every race to mix up what people want to look like.

Ascended gear also drops, most probably by a rate which is comparable to the time and effort needed to craft it all.

Forgotten Legend.9281:

the only way i would accept actual Cantha showing up in GW2… is that i could swim there with my character on the current maps. one of the most HATED things about GW1 was “taking the boat” to switch maps, and then go to wherever you wanted to go on the new continent.

You already had to take a boat to Southsun Cove the first few times (until WPs) – and I suspect if either Cantha/Elona get introduced, the same will apply. Either a ship from LA or just WPing there once you’ve discovered it.

Zephyrites didn’t mean Cantha or Elona got re-introduced, it only explained their origin as being of Canthan or Elonian descent – same way you get to choose that yourself when Logan asks you early in the human personal story (whatever that question means because it certainly doesn’t seem to have any effect).

As for why there’s no response from Anet in here, whenever an Anet employee gets the urge to write an “official” response in here to console us in our yearning for Cantha, Colin pops up behind their back…

Looking forward to conclusion to Scarlet in next 4 LS updates; looking forward to new legendaries and precursor scavenger hunt, looking forward to next LS “series” and hopefully it brings a new ELDER DRAGON (you know, what this game is about, right?), new zones/playable races/professions.

Well, one can dream, and I hope it’s all inbound in 2014

Wildtrash, ESO won’t deliver (I will try the latter, but I don’t believe either will succeed, imho)
EQ:N/L caters to different crowd with its features (Next could be interesting though)…

Anyway – heavily invested in GW2 still – so c’mon Anet, dazzle me in 2014!

Reveal Scarlet as an elder dragon lieutenant and all will be forgiven

FuriousPop.2789:

lol who cares… when ESO comes out u watch and see how many servers will still be highly populated…

True, servers will have a activity drop for the first free month, then when everyone realises how bad ESO is, they will be back. Why? Because GW2 is free and keeps getting new stuff, whereas ESO – judging by all reviews so far – has so many issues and so little time to fix stuff before launch.
Such as – hm, 4 months to launch, how come we’ve seen NOTHING of the PvP or AvA… with combat being so floaty and awkward as it is, how much do you think ZOS will manage to fix in the next 4 months when there’s still SO much left to beta test and the betas aren’t even open yet…

Don’t take this as GW2-fanboyism, but rather an ES fan who’s expecting/fearing the worst of the upcoming ESO launch. They might’ve done well to learn Anet’s mantra…

I like the idea of ships sailing to Cantha as well, reopening the tradeways and possibly bringing some asura engineers over to setup a portal.

Regardless of how though, I just picture this way of returning to Cantha with a cinematic of a ship or fleet of ship approaching Cantha’s shores and the title theme to Factions playing…

(dream)

It would make GW2 worth every single cent I’ve spent on game/gems. Don’t get me wrong, it’s already worth it, but that would seal the deal forever!

A commonly recurring one seems the warrior’s FGJ which I always keep hearing as

“Forget justice”

Where do I enter my postal address to receive xmas cards in the future? :P

Eventually both Tengu and Kodan become playable, is my guess.

Isn’t it odd to even suggest that to enjoy a more varied WvW MU, you must intentionally lose battles or stop playing so you drop on the ladder?!

Out of so many European servers, how come SFR must repeatedly face Vizu and Piken over and over?? True, this is the 3rd week facing the same two worlds (last week of league + 2 consecutive MUs since then) – but given this new variance reduction algorithm, there’s a high chance it will be Vizu/Piken very often from now on…

We want variation, not fighting the same over and over, and we want good fights, and that will come from being put up against Gunnar’s Hold, Miller’s Sound, Vabbi, etc. And when the odds are completely off in those cases, well then Anet must implement mechanisms to buff the lower-tier/lower-ranked worlds so they come to “near-equal” terms. Ofc, world population is probably difficult to get balanced, but then find some way to compensate by way of allowing smaller world’s players port freely between their places so they can easily form big group defenses when the larger opposition is knocking on their tower door. Or buff their objectives’ defenses, or pit 2 of the smaller worlds together for a MU against the other worlds, so you get WvWv(W+W).

Ideas for horizontal progression

Unlock new stat combos for ascended gear
I would definitely welcome a change to let ascended gear also swap stats like legendaries; it brings those two “tiers” of gear together power-wise and in terms of flexibility, but also retains that only the legendary will give you the ultimate, cool style. A way to remove the vertical progression of having to grind out several sets of varied-stat ascended gear to have all the top stats, this could change into horizontal progression by starting out as crafting one fixed stat combo for your ascended gear, and then send your character on missions of some sort (exploration, gw1-like challenge missions, faction progression or set of achievements to complete) to unlock further stat combos you can swap between.

Progress with faction
By faction progression, I’ll refer back to one of my ideas from very long ago, in the personal story you rise in ranks in one of your factions, but after a couple personal story quests, you never hear about your faction again. Why not let us become more invested/immersed in our character’s in Tyria by building reputation within our chosen factions (whether the mutually exclusive Order of Whispers, Durmand Priory, Vigil) or even in the Pact – or introduce new ones with upcoming LS updates. E.g. if we ever get to Cantha, reintroduce the Luxons and Kurzick, this time not necessarily opposed to each other because that would just be repeating yourself, but possible as allies facing a greater threat and one in which you could gain ranks. Same goes for your character’s race background; could a Norn gain reputation within one of the clans (Bear, Wolf, Snow Leopard, Raven) – an Asura within its chosen college – a Charr within its legion, etc. Rewards could be unlocking new, unique skins, or a vast array of new skills and traits to further expand on build diversity in this game.

Making all weapons accessible to all classes
Probably a big undertaking – but I think Anet are capable of handling it – but instead of making me grind out materials/gold/tokens all the time, give me the option to work towards getting my hand on new weapons for my characters. This again would give you a lot more skills and traits per weapon per profession which again would greatly benefit build diversity. And I wouldn’t mind having to work for unlocking new weapons by completing some achievements first or such, not just buy my way to new skills with skill points but follow the somewhat similar pattern you used for the Antitoxin Spray healing skill purchased with LS specific tokens.

Just some thoughts off the top my head – lots of details to go through to ensure it would work – but at least I think they’d be nice alternative “grinds” to more of the same grind we have now.

For feedback, could Anet please make adjustments to all festivals for subsequent years? I like Halloween, Wintersday, Dragon Bash, etc. but when I get the exact same events, I feel it’s kind of slack by Anet. Change the JPs around; make adjustments to snowball mayhem, add a new story for Tixx or the Toypocalypse, etc. etc.

^^ Nurgle;
people are so structured, I just login and think, right what do I want to do, and what are my guildies up for?
At some point during my playtime when I’ve heard the achievement ding a few times, I check the hero panel for the state of my daily achievement and play a bit more focused towards completing it. If there’s an active LS category; I’ll try to complete those in good time before end of patch.
Sometimes I even log back out after logging in and play something else that evening and return feeling fresh the next day.

sadatoni.6524:

I played GW1 for a week when it came out. Got GW2 when it came out and play it most of the time. I’ve re-installed GW1, but I’m finding it quite frustrating.

GW1 has a completely different challenge level – one bad pull and you screw up a whole mission or hours spent in a dungeon which you even had to pay alot to enter. Haha, I still have GW1 installed – I need to get through Winds of Change to conclude the Beyond “expansions”.

Former GW1 player here, not a GWAMM though, but a Flameseeker which was my target all along. Been playing GW2 since betas and planning to be here when you’re all gone
Am also one of a handful remaining of a 100+ strong guild which included both GW1 and “new” players – most of which have left regardless of background due to lack of guild/raid content and endgame/progression.
I’ve dug in and am waiting in expectation of great developments on the lore side, potential expansions, new races, professions, playable areas, etc. To quit the game in its first year is rash; luckily though GW2 has no sub-fee so people can return if they see something cool coming.

After all, there’s “only” WS/TESO on the horizon which isn’t very strong competition

What song is that in the video?
Oh, nice video too.

I know they can drop, I’ve just never had a single unique drop like this, whether from rank chest, world boss chest, fractals, random drop, whatever…

Anet – please change my RNG modifier – the current one sucks :/

A WvW specific weapon/armor skin would be nice addition, after all that mini dolyak is sure to crop up in the gem store any moment soon so that anyone can grab it anyway and where’s the exclusivity then…

It shouldn’t be too hard to compensate, as it stands now, just looking at the current match-up thread for Viz/Piken/SFR, someone from Viz stated many have stopped WvW because they were so disappointed with the rewards, and I guess this isn’t just a problem on Viz. I never did it for the rewards myself, it was just part of playing WvW, but I agree the rewards were fairly mediocre and not anything distinct to remember Season 1 by…

I like the OPs suggestions, and to further strengthen the argument of not making all match-ups available at the start of the season, you won’t only prevent world population movement, but you will also make it difficult for the worlds to make strategies for their season – i.e. you only get to see your match up for the week you go into, you don’t know about the last weeks and it’s therefore difficult to know if you should focus one enemy more or the other.

Now you had the issue of 2v1 – whether by alliance or just individual focus on the same world – and that’s down to strategy of knowing that you needed to put someone in 3rd in a match-up so that they would lose some valuable points because they would get max points for the remaining match-ups, etc. If it’s like regular WvW weeks, you won’t know your match-up within the league, and you prevent this to a greater degree – and also servers from trying to form alliances – at least outside a single match-up.

romainette.2369:

hello !
sorry SFR and Piken, but Vizunah is not up for wvw right now : after all the efforts, a lot of people are sleeping, resting, seeing their wife and friends, after 7 weeks camping the computer ! also a lot of people are just disappointed by the rewards, and they stop wvw.

Rewards were crap for all, leagues were tiring for all, but you don’t see SFR and Piken releasing the pressure in WvW that much. Can only hope Vizunah puts in an effort again, otherwise their 7-week effort isn’t all that impressive if your balloon just deflated. WvW hasn’t stopped just because the league ended, even though the MU this week was a joke and many people relax a bit more.
Hope you get your numbers up again!

Asura = annoying little, tinkerers and very much like gnomes in other games
Dwarves = dwarves of other games, just that they’re extinct, like in Elder Scrolls
Sylvari = basically like wood elves
Charr = orcs, only cooler and less ugly/dumb, etc.
Quaggans = butt of all GW2 slapstick/jokes and the embodiment and constant reminder of how GW2 is way too light in tone/atmosphere… woooooooooooooooo, let’s toss in some stupid, “innocent” humour and ooooooooooooooo this, booooooooooo that… Come on, just wipe them off the face of Tyria already, knowing they’ve been facing the Krait a long time, it’s very difficult to understand why they’re not all gone already, or all in enslavement.

Regarding the whole question of commander gating, put yourself back at launch and evaluate some of the ideas that have come up:

Gating based on WvW rank … well, possibly it could work in order to limit for a bit longer than the 100g gating because you had guilds/groups pooling gold in order to finance a commander tag. With this new system, your designated commander would need to do the whole job of getting to the desired rank.

Then – imagine WvW at game launch – how long would all maps be without commanders at all under this mechanism? What WvW rank would you require of a commander? And wouldn’t everyone playing a lot of WvW hit the same rank roughly the same time anyway, and essentially there’d be no gating??

Regarding a rating system based on evaluation of commander you’ve followed on map – nope, too prone to trolling and sabotage.

Guild gating based on activity – how will that work for commanders who are part of several guilds? They’re just commander in sufficiently active guilds? Take the case of some servers/worlds where you’ve had new guilds formed just for the WvW leagues drawing the best of several existing guilds. It would be a fresh guild, would they not be able to have a commander straight away?

Whereas gating could make sense, I feel the 100g cost that is already in place should suffice and then having extra features to commander tag visibility added instead, you’ll get a system that prevents over-use/abuse in maps – whether WvW or even PvE. If you’ve afforded the tag, let it be up to that player to use that tag and then people will either follow or “block” the name of that player if he/she is either not a good commander or simply trolling with the tag.

1) Flexibility of commander icon visibility

See “mock” screenshot attached – when you turn on your pin, you select if it’s publicly visible, only visible to your guild or even just to your current party. Add more options if needed, e.g. alliance, if you got that feature coming up at some point so that guilds can do coordinated raids without needing 2 guild commanders.

2) “Cosmetics”

With account-bound WXP coming, “cosmetic” details to the commander pin

Let commander choose colour of their pin, but also adopt a feature like naval military where ranks carry weight even for the commander. People can see if they want to tag up with the Diamond Legend commander out there who’s got all the ribbons, or the Scout rookie who just bought his pin and is fresh to WvW (extremes)

3) Commander Panel/UI
Give the commander more helpful tools to quickly give him/her the info they want, whether it’s supply_info or such. Having to stack up and type /supply_info seems very tedious, why not give them a mini panel like the Party UI that is available while your pin is active – where you can see this info (or at least click a button to issue that and other relevant commands).
Of course, thinking of more attractive options now, how about some mini-map where you can add markers of where (& who) your scouts are, for your own record.

Just some thinking about quick wins and features that could be valuable.