Guild Wars 2

I actually think heavy armors needs to have more feminine options for female characters, as well, but I love the way this set looks.

There’s no reason why they can’t make heavy armor that’s more fitted to the female figure than what’s currently there, though.

Just because the games -box- sales are not as strong as launch time -box- sales 9 months into the games lifespan does not mean that the game isn’t doing well. NCsoft, and ArenaNet both have reported that both the game, and gem store items are performing extremely well, and that the active player base is continually growing. Think about it, they have all these servers, and have had to bump caps up over multiple updates to accommodate the growth…They stopped bumping caps a couple of months ago, and now servers are reaching “Full” status again.

GW2 is doing pretty fantastically I would say, especially for 9 months into launch.

That being said, I think their focus on town clothes is a bit of an annoying choice for the gem shop, they would probably see a significant boost of income by making exclusive armor set skins for the gem shop, more regularly instead. And so that they can also make new skins for future dungeon content, etc they could do themes for the gem shop items like bringing in the best GW1 armor skins for the gem shop…And/or sets that fit the theme of a current living story/update cycle.

Kain Francois.4328:

I’m pretty apathetic about her design. Don’t care, but I don’t understand why people are complaining.

She does look pretty though.

Cause she’s supposed to be a central character in the over all story and she looks like a trainwreck. Messy hair & no shoes….for the Queen??? o_o

I’m still hoping they change that hair. it’s literally really horrible for a Queen lol. Every time I see her it makes me laugh at her.

RochelleFreeman.5603:

Can anyone tell me what sword the OP is using?

sword from Honor of the Waves dungeon tokens.

NoxInfernus.2361:

Shanna.4762:

NoxInfernus.2361:

I love Cantha, however…

Sorry folks, it’s not happening.
The Developer and the Publisher are looking to break into the Chinese market. This is a HUGE market, potentially eclipsing the NA and the EU markets. In order to do this they need to get past the government censors. As we are all aware the Chinese government is very ‘touchy’ regarding certain themes and messages that is presented to their people.
With this in mind …

These censors are becoming increasingly more liberal over time, these decisions may of been made a long time ago, as in years before GW2 was even a program or game yet. China has lifted restrictions on foreign movie releases from Western countries, significantly. The same thing happens with games since they have to pass through many of the same boards…By the time we got to Cantha (which wouldn’t be right now, anyway) this type of thing will probably be much easier to deal with if not almost a non-issue. Regardless, Factions passed it’s censors and was arguably very controversial, so there’s no reason why Cantha couldn’t with GW2 in the modern day with much less restrictive censorship.

That being said, many Chinese players have expressed the desire for Cantha as well…There’s just so much support for this region to be in the game that I honestly think ArenaNet would be making a very poor choice to exclude it, ESPECIALLY as they try to break into the Asian markets.

I hear what you are saying, but I remain skeptical.
Yes, China has increasingly relaxed it’s censorship in recent years.
I’m certain that what their censorship boards deem unacceptable today, will be tolerated tomorrow, but that’s a way off.
It must be remembered that Anet is currently working on getting the current version of the game tested and accepted. Some things have had to be altered in order to do so. many of these changes that have hit the press would seem minor to Western players, but really are a big deal to their censorship boards.

I would direct you to this thread that goes into more detail:

http://www.guildwars2guru.com/topic/82547-guild-wars-2-chinese-closed-beta-announcement/

Again, I shall hope for the best but not be disappointed too much if nothing comes of it.

Well, there is a difference between a separate service, and what the media itself contains. However, things like undead, zombies, etc are things that traditionally are changed for the Chinese release of any game..Mostly to make it relatable to the traditional cultures there where they view a lot of that type of thing differently than others. Other changes would be things like making some outfits more modest, altering some characters to appear more Asian, and probably some different skins for weapons and armor that are more appealing to them. I’ve no doubt there are other changes than those but I think that’s about 95% of it, and the most significant of them and the same thing is done for the NA/EU versions of Asian made games for that matter.

Whatever the case, I doubt China has an issue with their culture being represented because they’ve approved of many games in the past, and many movies, etc where their culture is the focus of whatever it is…So being an inspiration for something fictional probably isn’t all that bothersome to them so long as it’s not mixed with cultures they’ve got very tenuous relationships with, and very bitter histories with. If Anet made Cantha mostly Chinese, they would probably be fine with it. If they made it mostly Korean or mostly Japanese, they would probably also be fine with it.. It’s the mixing together of all the cultures, and then making it a “second class” position in a “western” themed culture/city/nation that seems to tower over it is where the problem seems to stem from, which is something that I think can be rectified with a little bit of effort.

If the Canthan district in Divinity’s Reach was bigger, and connected directly to the Queen’s Palace with a section of that structure being for the Canthan Hierarchy that resides in Divinity’s Reach, as in Ambassadors, vice-royalty, elected representatives to the Queen’s court, or something to that effect which would give them a bigger sense of equal standing…That’s a pretty good way of bypassing that issue more extensively and I don’t see any reason why it would bother anybody.

NoxInfernus.2361:

I love Cantha, however…

Sorry folks, it’s not happening.
The Developer and the Publisher are looking to break into the Chinese market. This is a HUGE market, potentially eclipsing the NA and the EU markets. In order to do this they need to get past the government censors. As we are all aware the Chinese government is very ‘touchy’ regarding certain themes and messages that is presented to their people.
With this in mind …
Look at the back story of how Cantha ‘ended’ in GW1. Think about the 250 years of in-game time that has past. Finally, think about how Cantha would need to be presented in an expansion.
There is no way in the mists that you can tap dance around the political environment in Cantha and not draw parallels to Certain other real world governments. It’s far too tricky.
The Censors would reject the majority of the content and themes that would make an expansion in Cantha so interesting. All that would be left is a watered down version that wouldn’t make Cantha, Cantha.
Better to play it safe, ignore Cantha, and develop content that will be given a pass by the Censors.

Now I hope I’m wrong. I hope they are able to bring Cantha back.
I’m just not betting on it.

These censors are becoming increasingly more liberal over time, these decisions may of been made a long time ago, as in years before GW2 was even a program or game yet. China has lifted restrictions on foreign movie releases from Western countries, significantly. The same thing happens with games since they have to pass through many of the same boards…By the time we got to Cantha (which wouldn’t be right now, anyway) this type of thing will probably be much easier to deal with if not almost a non-issue. Regardless, Factions passed it’s censors and was arguably very controversial, so there’s no reason why Cantha couldn’t with GW2 in the modern day with much less restrictive censorship.

That being said, many Chinese players have expressed the desire for Cantha as well…There’s just so much support for this region to be in the game that I honestly think ArenaNet would be making a very poor choice to exclude it, ESPECIALLY as they try to break into the Asian markets.

As people above me have stated, the name is from a lore perspective, not a literal one in terms of game mechanics. Relatively misleading to some, I know but it’s the truth!

If I’m not mistaken though, literal “Guild Wars” are gonna be part of this game at some point…At least that’s what I’ve heard from a few different people.

Jemmi.6058:

Shanna.4762:

Rofl, Anet changed our threads title to “The Cantha Thread”.

That’s probably how they refer to the thread internally

+1 for return to Cantha! Easily my favourite area from Guild Wars 1!

Lol, yeah..And that’s funny…We’re a persistent group over here

Rofl, Anet changed our threads title to “The Cantha Thread”.

WTB rebuilding of the Canthan District. I hope this may be happening after South Sun is over with for the time being in June.

cesmode.4257:

I see. Well that stinks. Why stay away from asian style themes? Who cares? Does it offend people? I hope not.

At this point it’s all up in the air..I don’t think any of us really understand exactly what went down when it came to Cantha, right now. All we know is that it’s been said that we very well may never see it in this game. Reasons are unknown at this time outside of the whole mixing of Asian architecture in the Canthan district of Divinity’s Reach, which is why it’s now a giant sink hole.

That coupled with ArenaNet wanting to focus on new areas instead of original ones with this game makes it seem unlikely that we’ll ever see Cantha again, or if we do it may either be many years from now, or ruined. Neither of which are appealing to most players lol. A lot of us want to return to the iconic places from the first game, in some acceptable period of time and to have a lot of it be very similar and recognizable as it was before…At least with Cantha & part of Elona….

JohnLShannonhouse.1820:

Alexander.4827:

Any chance for some unique dialogue later for us nobles?

On another thread they said they had intended to include this, but it somehow got left out.

Sounds like an accidental oversight that’s not very important at this time, but we’ll be seeing a lot more of Kasmeer & Faren in the update after next, going forward and I guess they’ll change this issue then.

Thalador.4218:

I would like to refer everyone calling poor Kasmeer a White Mantle infiltrator to this thread: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/lore/Nemesis-in-Living-Story/first#post2069527

On topic: yes, it is amazing and my human mesmer would probably spend all her money on it. However, since we now have another armor for NPCs that is currently unavailable to players, these beauties should not be forgotten either:

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/images/a/a4/Default_armor_colors_render.jpg

Light armor on the far right (it actually appeared in the Chaos Storm skill video on the mesmer page, too)

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/images/a/ac/Human_dress_%28saucy%29_render.jpg

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/images/0/09/Human_female_2_render.jpg

This one appeared first in the Races of Tyria trailer, and the screenshot with a lady wearing this is still up on the main Human page here. In-game it is worn by Krytan nobles and rich merchants, and… female Orrian nobles also used to be donned in such clothes.

Yeah, I want the armor at the end of that 1st link. I had assumed it would of been a gem shop set prior to launch but now I don’t know whether or not we’ll even get new gem shop armor skins or not.

On this note, Lady Kasmeer Meade’s armor won’t be from this update or the next but perhaps the June update which sounds like it will take us back to Divinity’s Reach to deal with an all new living story, where Lady Kasmeer makes her formal debut and we will find out what “class” she is, and thus probably what armor classification that set is lol.

This information is what I derived from the interview on MMOreport, combined with what a dev said about the armor somewhere on this forum and how it’s not coming from South Sun, specifically.

Yep, I’m sort of suspecting white mantle. But I’m also still unsure what armor classification that is. It looks like light armor, but also could pass as heavy, or even medium armor…Eh..As I said before maybe it’s all 3 if it’s a gem store thing in the future lol.

Lady Vireo.5189:

Wow, what an amazing video by Wooden Potatoes! (As usual!) He and the others who worked on it have made a fantastic tribute to Cantha. It’s great to see how many people have come here to support Cantha thanks to their good work! Thank you all for supporting the cause.

Let’s keep spreading the word here and on Reddit, YouTube, and Guild Wars 2 Guru!

On the subject of the upcoming “Dragon Bash,” which some of you have already mentioned… I do wonder if it gives us reason to be optimistic. I’m still hoping it’s our Dragon Festival, but maybe they are changing the nature of it to be “politically correct” because dragons are now seen as evil in Tyria. (Hmm changing Canthan content to please people who might offended…that’s not Anet sending a message at all, is it? Ok tinfoil hat off…) But if there are any vestiges of Canthan tradition at all, I’ll be happy.

Ideally it would be great to see the Dragon Fest/Bash lead into a living story plotline centering around the Great Collapse in DR. Maybe this is a leap on my part, but with all the NPC dialogue about a hidden threat lurking in the wreckage, it seems like prime material for a living story chapter. I can see it culminating in the rebuilding of the area like the rebuilt lion statue in LA. Maybe now that Anet has teams vetting game content for China it would be possible to use those resources to come up with a design for a rebuilt Canthan quarter that would meet with approval in Asia.

From the couple of things a dev has said about Dragon Bash, I’m getting the idea that Dragon Bash and Dragon Festival are two different things, and it’s likely that Dragon Festival isn’t being replaced by the Dragon Bash, which is a name that we might want to take more literally, which also sort of aludes to the possibility that we’ll get DF later?

Even still, it’s still technically possible that it could have something to do with the Great Collapse in Divinity’s Reach…Aren’t drakes rumored to have caused it, and be hiding in the sewers? So maybe we have to kill a bunch of Drakes lol.

I wanna know how the new match up thing is gonna work!

Yeah I’d buy an expansion. But I hope the expansions will continue to bring the game back in the direction they aimed for in the beginning along with connecting us back to the fact this is GW2, and therefor it should be more directly tied to the first game.

So I’d hope to return to Cantha, and Elona, etc…

Yeah I don’t know how anyone would “dislike” his video tbh, that’s one of the best put together things on YouTube imho between the art & narration, etc.

Still pushing for Cantha, here!

yesplx..but is there a bigger version of that picture somewhere, you can’t even see what that armor really looks like

I love Lord Faren lol, he’s so funny to me. I just wish he remembered me!!! >:(

Not really. I just want new armor skins. I don’t feel like treadmilling I just wanna collect.

get’s worse as you go up from light to heavy lol. heavy armor is ugly for a lot of people. there’s lots of nice mediums but too many coats. light has a lot of variety.

Robert Hrouda.1327:

no new armor models in the southsun shore story stuff.

Although looking like a crab would be pretty sweet.

….:( stop making town clothes & give us new armor skins in the gem store!!! waaahh…lol

In all seriousness, though…Yeah my request still stands. the same sets since launch are the only armor skins available in that thing, I would of seriously bet on there being like 3 or 4 by now considering we’re approaching a year since launch…

All of Destiny’s Edge are wearing cultural armors, so while we may not get it in the gem shop I guess they may add a T4 cultural which will depress me to no end whatsoever.

WTB new armor skins in the gem shop!

My guess is that this is either heavy armor, or light armor (seriously looks like something a mesmer would wear). But It could be an all purpose skin that applies to everything since I could see everything wearing it tbh.

Some of the light armors in the game have shiney metal on it, like the Orr exotic set…But yeah I can’t tell what it is either because some leather pieces do as well. Maybe it’ll be for all types, for once if we even get it in the gem shop? Cause it would be depressing for only 1 armor type to get a new skin and the others don’t, or have to wait for months.

It’ll probably be in the gem shop after the next update at the end of the month, like Brahm & Rox’s weapons. At least, hopefully..because that looks like pretty sweet armor for a mesmer or something. Maybe it’ll be the 1st skin that can be applied to any armor type? Who knows.

I see that screenshot on the front page! What is she, I wonder…

I feel like Joan. NCsoft needs to stop whining about cultural sensitivity and allow us our Cantha!

Yeah. WTB a better way to get these things…

I think this whole living story in South Sun Cove is going to lead to it becoming a permanent mainstay in the game even after we move forward to other things. We still have the rest of this, and then the next update in June that takes place in South Sun as well.

The settlers will probably stay, and the Island may change even more…It would seem really pointless to do all of this and not create something out of it for long term use and viability.

Regina Buenaobra.6193:

There is a reason why it’s called ‘Dragon Bash’ and not ‘Dragon Festival.’ All will be revealed in due course.

I still want Dragon Festival one day, please?

Uh, I’ve run CoF P1 on my Thief & my Ranger without getting kicked lol in fact I rarely run it on my mesmer anymore.. I don’t see nerfing CoF P1 as a solution to anything whatsoever. I did it to work towards my cultural armor, and it still took me forever and a hell of a lot of effort to accomplish. You don’t really get filthy rich in no time at all and nerfing it will just make people not want to run dungeons when they aren’t rewarded monetarily. The game is already hard to make money in, don’t make it worse.

Well, the whole Dragon Bash coming up probably has nothing to do with The Dragon Festival held by Canthan’s annually considering the difference in the name, so we still have no idea where Anet stands on Cantha these days. With Anet “planning” an expansion as they said in their statement or whatever to the NCsoft report, we can always hope that we will start to see more Canthan & Asian friendly content coming out in the future…Even though I doubt we will be seeing it before we see several other places 1st…

On the subject of Blade & Soul, that’s like a year and a half away…lol..

Regina Buenaobra.6193:

The information that Martin provided after the last quarterly earnings call about this topic hasn’t changed.

Our primary focus as a company is making the core game experience as amazing as possible, through new features, content, and the exciting changes and additions to the world through our Living World releases.

Yeah well NCsoft seems to think otherwise. And honestly, some of the decisions being made right now don’t make much sense so I don’t think an expansion is a bad idea tbh.

VOLKON.1290:

Aarean.5398:

Hope some guilds after a real challenge go to jq and keep the server going. Would be quite difficult fighting the numbers currently running in t1.

For some reason (casts a conspiratorial glare at ANet) JQ is locked in a “FULL” state now, even with the transfers we’ve had off. Used to be there were times of the day it would fall to “Very High”, but something changed.

(BG is also apparently “FULL” locked, but they’ve had an influx compared to JQ having had some players leave.)

It would be horrible if things were being tweaked behind the scenes like that. ANet did say they were working on ways to shake things up, so I just may need my first roll of tin-foil.

it wouldn’t even surprise me right now, because there are fundamental flaws with this WvW system all around, a very small (not really even) hand full of servers get any chance at competing due to a lack of coverage from oceanic time zones and such. For this system to actually be “fair” they would have to go back to the drawing board and totally re-do how WvW/World PvP content is done. Regardless of what anyone says, some sketchy stuff goes on with this area of the game right now, across the board.

ArenaNet will end up destroying their own game, or at least this aspect of it unless they do some very significant changes to the entire system altogether to promote a more equal opportunity across the entire game. All of this guild to guild, server to server elitism and political drama gets exhausting for most people, and for an entire side of a game to be almost totally in the hands of this type of behavior is depressing. A lot of people will up and leave to a game with a better and far more balanced world pvp system. Especially if it looks like ArenaNet is manipulating anything like this, rather than doing their job to ensure the integrity of the system & competition.

ThiBash.5634:

kamizefrog.3421:

ThiBash.5634:

To be frank, I’m still very annoyed that the Canthan district was removed because some nobody from the other side of the world felt offended.

What about the artists and programmers that put hours of work into the district? Are they allowed to be offended?

What about the scores of players that are now missing a very good looking part of Divinity’s Reach? Are we allowed to be offended?

Any apologies for those two groups? Is one Asian person more important than the majority of your fanbase?

In all honesty, that last fact offends me greatly.

I am of Asian decent, and I am highly offended that Cantha has been ditched because someone thought it would be offensive to a person like me. Moreover, I just don’t buy the excuse that Cantha would be culturally offensive to Asians. I think the truth behind Cantha’s omission is NCsoft’s fear that it would take away the thunder of it’s “Asian theme” themed MMO “Blade & Soul, which is due out in the USA soon.” Further, and on that note, why isn’t “Blade & Soul” possibly offensive (according to NCsoft’s standards), based on it’s theme alone?

In conclusion, like most of the posters here, I too would love (and pay top dollar) to have Cantha brought back in a future expansion to GW2.

I like you.

+1

There is still a huge JQ presence for WvW, but it is quite literally lacking in the coverage BG currently has and the burn is being felt across the board. This probably isn’t permanent from what I understand, and JQ has slipped and rebounded before so don’t discount JQ any time soon.

Arcanorum Ignis.9218:

I can’t see any new stuff for GW1 ever coming out.

I wish ANet would just give the GW1 IP to some other developer for them to work on because ANet obviously don’t care about it anymore.

It would be a cool project for some new studio to play around with.

Except for the part where the GW1 IP is also the GW2 IP so they couldn’t do that without also selling GW2 to another company lol. The better way around this is for them to shift some focus on answering these questions directly with content in GW2. The game needs a much stronger tie in to the 1st game and I think eventually that will happen.

I think ultimately we’ll see answers in GW2 rather than a new GW1 campaign or anything.

From a business standpoint, it makes no sense to avoid Cantha. In the end, people who weren’t a fan of cantha in the 1st game will have an opportunity to love it with this game. And everyone else who loves Cantha, will have their prayers and wishes answered.

If NCsoft wanted to hold back on the asian themes due to Blade & Soul, then it is a bunch of crap considering B&S won’t even be out in the US/EU for another 1.5 YEARS according to a B&S dev in South Korea. Fans of the GW franchise & lore shouldn’t have to get shafted over that, or any other kind of political nonsense. This is a moment for ArenaNet to show everyone what really matters to them. Their game, their lore & world, and their players…Or political nonsense.

I dunno, if Orr really does become cured and begin to regrow it’s vegetation, and offer a new location for humanity as the race is in dire straits right now with only Kryta left, that is an evolution…

And if South Sun really becomes a new city and location for refugees of all races, that’s also an evolution.

of course, we have yet to see any of these supposed long term goals in full form yet so it’s hard to say one way or another.

My main problems with Queen Jennah are the same 2 everyone else talks about. She has no shoes, and that hair. That hair is a nightmare, she needs the fancy up-do with the bun & tiara thingy if they’re gonna use one everyone can use. The outfit is okay but I’d rather it seem a little bit more Victorian. She’s also huge, so there’s that.

But on the topic of skin color, Krytan’s are supposed to be Mediterranean-like, right? So her skin tone is appropriate.

So…Shoes, dat hair, and her giganticness.

I want more long & curly hairstyles, and more ornate styles. More Oriental styles would be really nice, as well.

I choose human because I’m a fan of the human cultures of GW1, so continuity really…

For anyone who hasn’t seen the video yet, click the 2nd link in my signature.

Paradoxine.8192:

Did anyone remember Cantha when they did the Jade Maw fractal for the first time? With the graphics of GW2, Cantha would like absolutely amazing. Elona after that please.

Yep…Cantha needs to be a part of this game, as does Elona. The whole idea of abandoning core/iconic places/cultures from the original game outside of Tyria is a complete disservice to not only the fans, but the franchise, and the game as a whole. They could of just made a different game, with a different title if they wanted to abandon such major parts of the world…But it’s GW2, so I want it to be that and bring me back to the original places!

Imagining Cantha & Elona makes me sigh really hard irl because I know how amazing they would be. I really think we need to get out of where we are currently set in the game sometime in the relatively near-ish future…Personally I get bored of Kryta, and definitely with the Norn & Charr lands…I wanna visit more exotic places. As I’ve said before I do want them to open up new places we’ve never been to before…And I think they can still do that while also opening up the iconic places. Also, they could create new zones or whatever in Cantha & Elona once they’ve made the original ones, that we didn’t have in the 1st game.

Southsun is next!

I’d love to see Orr return to it’s former glory after so many years of death and destruction. Maybe as a new bastion of hope for humanity, since it’s the main race being decimated right now on the Tyrian/Krytan Continent.