Sajuuk Khar.1509

> @"Fueki.4753" said: > And Arenanet knew, just after episode 1 came out, how disappointed many were and that season 5 wouldn't get the popularity they. expected. Episode 1 got a fairly good reaction though. So I'm not sure where you are drawing this conclusion from.

> @"Fueki.4753" said: > They planned for the Grindbrood Saga to be bigger and more popular than it actually turned out. > @"Svennis.3852" said: > Yes, it's clear that at some point after the announcement/trailer, there was a shift internally and plans changed. Perhaps the story would've headed in the same direction over all originally, but it's clear there was an internal decision to greatly accelerate the story (and cut planned content, most likely). A good number of the creative leads on Icebrood Saga also left the company shortly before/after the expansion was announced some months later. We will likely never know the specifics. As far as we know this is untrue. Way back on Feb 3rd 2020, just after episode 2 released, and before the pandemic hit, Anet put out a post on the forums stating that, after episode 4, they planned to go back to more LWS1 style content for future releases, and that is exactly what we got. They even specially mentioned things like the Boss Rush event style content, which we got with the faction donation drives. The number of Champions releases also matches the number of releases the portal tome suggested IBS would have, further confirming that notion.

> @"RyuDragnier.9476" said: >yet the EDs don't fight each other over food. Every ED seems to absolutely avoid each other like the plague, yet can use each other's magic when one dies. They either seem content with their territories, or they're more scared of something else dealing with them if they fight amongst themselves. Except this is untrue. while we don't see it happen in-game, we know from lore that Elder Dragon minions will fight each other if they come across one another. Likewise, the achievement to collect Jormag Blood in Drizzlewood mentions this blood was formed when Jormag and Primordus fought each other in the region in ages past.

> @"draxynnic.3719" said: > Addendum: Looking at the journal entries for the current chapter, the Commander seems to see pretty much the same thing. > > As an additional note: Anyone else noticed the similarity between Braham sensing where the Destroyer of the Ironhammer Line was going, and how we tracked down Svanir using Wolf's blessing in GW1? Yeah, the fact that they are still bringing up the bow, and the prophecy, as well as Braham getting some dragon minion tracking powers, does give me some hope that they something similar to what I said in my OP will still happen. Even if Braham doesn't deliver the final blow.

If you think about it, it makes sense the Elder Dragons would be centered around Tyria. Lets say they were originally spread out across the world evenly. As they consumed magic to feed themselves, and spread their domains, there would invariably be one spot left between them all, and they would all converge on that area to consume the last of the magic. Now consider that the Seers stored the last of the world's magic into the Bloodstones, to prevent the dragons from getting it(said Bloodstone being in this region of the world), and it makes even more sense that all the Elder Dragons would be in this region. Also, the Elder Dragon's aren't exactly in a small area by any means. It may seem that way due to the game being massively scaled down, by on a global level they are spread out over a fairly large area. I doubt theres some other Elder Dragon tier threat on the world that's keeping them in this area. They are just here because this is where they went to sleep last time, for logical reasons.

> @"Konig Des Todes.2086" said: > Hard disagree. I know you're really strong feeling towards your theory of Lyssa's involvement because of purpose mist in the trailer, The purple mist has little to nothing to do with why I suspect Lyssa involvement. It has more to do with it just making sense. Lyssa was stated back in the Orrian history scrolls the be the one most connected with mortals. So much so the other gods pretty much forcibly dragged her into Arah once it was complete. Balthazar not cursing Lyssa's name, and the fact he was using an artifact of Lyssa to disguise himself as Lazarus, implies she was helping him. Either directly or indirectly. If Lyssa doesn't show up with some plan to defeat the last dragon, or at least help fix the balance once they are all dead, then what is the purpose of the set up at all? If she doesn't care about the 6 literal world destroying, god-tier, Elder Dragons threatening the mortals, then what does she care about? The same goes for if not Cantha then where else? why would she just be twiddling her thumbs off in BFE instead of being in, or near, humans lands to help the humans? >There's also the topic of Menzies, who could serve as a major antagonist, and hell if ANet wanted, they could even make Desmina an antagonist or bring back Dhuum again. Plenty of plot potential present among god material. Hasn't it been largely implied that Menzies is dead? And Desmina seemed truly loyal to Grenth's ideals. Having her go evil, or have Dhuum come back, just kinda defeats the purpose of the Hall of Chains raid.

> @"HotDelirium.7984" said: > but their all working on EOD rn, allegedly. You can't tell me all this chaotic development doesn't have an impact on quality, M8. Except they aren't all working on EoD. Nor has that ever been alleged by Anet themselves. Anet, like most other MMO developers, has multiple teams working on various content releases, at various stages of development. They had like 4 Living World content teams working parallel to produce the LW episodes. One of them would be taken off making LW episodes to being primary development of the expansion, and as the various champions chapters get finished, the teams for those chapters, who no longer have IBS Saga to make, would be moved to help EoD's development. There is nothing chaotic about this development process. Its how they have been doing LW and expansion development for years, and how other MMO devs do it also. This is how games are made in general. And as I pointed out earlier, this has been the plan since at least January, probably since late last year. This whole Champions thing was planned out a year ago. Its not some 11th hour change to IBS because they moved so many people over to EoD that they don't have the people to make the content they originally planned or anything.

These sort of "general use" masteries tend to need to be so watered down that they are effectively useless, or they create a long term problem where you stack so many of them they become required to play the game at all. Masteires should be more like what we got with the non-glider mastieres in HoT, and the masteries from LW seasons. Specific, limited focus, mastery tracks that apply to the current content, to give it some sort of mechanical flavor from other content, but isn't necessarily used outside of that content.

> @"Astralporing.1957" said: >Again, a less than 50% of a big number is not small. Yes it is. By definition less then 50% of anything is small compared to the whole. I also find the claim of more people doing dungeons then LW extremely laughable. There is no basis for that. >Did you actually play at that time? Yes, and I recall people who did dungeons often complaining they were far too easy, and getting the entire dungeon item sets in a flash because dungeons were so over rewarding. >(hint: it could have been improved. Aetherpath was an exception, not the norm). Aetherpath was the norm. Even story modes were complained about being too hard for dungeons, but making them easier would defeat the point of dungeons, and would be detrimental to the dungeoners who found dungeons too easy to begin with. >Actually, Aetherpath failed because people did care. It's just Anet didn't listen Backwards again. Aetherpath failed because the majority of the playerbase didn't care, and listening to the people who did didn't improve anything. >There were other options as well, like introducing easy mode Which is literally what I just said. And no, they didn't just give up. Easy mode raids are strikes. >For that the percentages need to be way, way lower than 15-20%. In MMORPGs those are considered to be great values. I don't know what MMOs you are basing that off of, but in everyone I've played thats a massive failure. You need 60%+ to be considered a success. > Devs need to think not only about their current playerbase, but also about their future one. Yes, and you think about your future playerbase by looking at what has worked, and making more of it, because thats obviously what most people want, and thus, what new people are most likely to say for. >Let's put it this way: if you concentrate on content 55% of your game population does, and ignore everything else, it means you are flat out giving up on 45% of your game population. Games are not so harshly divided into segments as you seem to think they are. It isn't a "people only do X, Y, or Z" its "the vast majority do X, and some do Y and Z, and while not making more of Y and Z may cause us to lose some people, most people who play those are fine with X to begin with," > But don't you think that after seeing that part of the idea is not working, but some strikes are still quite popular, abandoning the whole concept instead of just concentrating on the part that worked would not be a good idea? There is no part of strikes that worked. The ones that are popular are popular because they are stupidly easy, and massively over reward for how little effort is put into them. If the only reason people like it is because its badly balanced in player's favor, then that just means you should fix the bad balance. Which in turn means people aren't going to like it, and thus, you have no reason to continue making it. >Again, that "minority" wasn't small. There are whole games (AAA games even) that are built around smaller target groups. And those games are typically indie games with low cost investment, that need low income to make their money back. apples and oranges false comparison fallacy. >You also seem to not understand, that there are two things that matter here - not only percentage of the population, but also absolute numbers. A mode with enough players can easily become self-sufficient even if it's a minority. Nope, that isn't how games work. Star Trek Online for example had to cut its feature that let users generate their own missions because only about 50% of the playerbase used it, and that simply wasn't enough to justify keeping funding on developing new assets for it, and fixing the bugs that sprung up. >No, you do. You think people play the game only for some types of content a majority plays I literally said the opposite. >True, but it doesn't mean those things are not important for them. >We actually have 8 years of this game's history showing us that it simply isn't true. We actually have 8 years of the game's history showing us that it is true. The fact that continued development did nothing to make those mode more popular, and that a lack of development hasn't stopped the game from being profitable, proves it. > Hint: a majority of players play at least one of the "minority" modes. Many play more than one. That's entirely untrue. Most harder content is played by the same small minority of people, while the majority of people don't touch any of them because they don't like the harder content to begin with. Different flavors of things they don't like is still things they don't like. >That's a flat out lie. Especially in the dungeons' case. Except its flat out now, and confirmed by the in-game data >I'm quite sure that while most players probably do indeed like Anet to continue developing living world/open world content, they would not want them to do that to the exclusion of everything else. And yet, even when Anet put development into anything else, only a small minority cared. >You know, it's ironic that at one point you say that Anet should not listen to what few people on forums say, I said nothing of the sort. I said they tend to make decisions that seem to contradict what forum posters ask for, not that they shouldn't listen to them at all. Please don't lie about what I said, especially when its that easy to scroll up and check my previous posts. It does nothing but make you look bad, and weaken any point you may have had.

> @"Sir Alymer.3406" said: >snip I'll just direct you to my post above, since it covers most of what you mention here already. That being said >Get this. a majority of players play open world because it's the only thing regularly being updated. Except open world was still the only thing that really got played even when the other content types were getting regular, or semi-regular updates. So this argument is wrong. >Then don't produce a game that has multiple game modes like PvP and WvW or game modes within game modes like Fractals, Raids, Strikes, and Dungeons. If they don't want to support them, either cut them out or straight up say they don't want to. Don't string people along consistently over the years with promises of something new and exciting only for them to really just be the next DRMs. Here for one chapter, gone the next. That isn't how game development works. Pre-launch you don't know what people are going to take too, so you need to develop all of the basic game modes in case. Over time, you look at what game modes aren't working out so well, make fixes to try to bring more people into them. You can't know how successful your attempts to fix the problems will be until they are out in the open either, so you need to do that multiple times as well. If that doesn't work, you try out new forms of content to see if that can replace that older content, or help nudge people into the older content. * Dungeons failed at launch, and still failed even when new paths were added. * So they moved to fractals to get that same kind of harder content, but in a more bite sized, and scalable, manner, to see if they could slowly build people up that way. * When that didn't work they tried to see if the could court the more modern hardcore crowd with actual raids. * When that didn't work they tried making Strikes to build people up to raid level akin to fractals, but even more bite sized. etc. etc. Also, you aren't going to straight up cut entire game modes when there is already perfectly viable content made for them, and people still play them. There is no reason to do that when you can just stop making more of it.

> @"battledrone.8315" said: > lol. what number does the publisher look at, when granting that budget?...yea They look at trends within the game over years, and the current playerbase numbers. > @"Astralporing.1957" said: >Actually, dungeons were very popular at the point they released Aetherpath. Sure, they were not being done by a majority of players, but enough players did them to make their further development worthwhile. It's just that Aetherpath was met with dislike. And Anet, instead of trying to reason why it was so, decided it meant all dungeon development should be cancelled. Again, popular among a relatively small group of people =/= successful, or actually popular. Stop trying to move goalposts. Also, Aetherpath was made using the common criticisms of the other dungeons to try to make them more popular. The fact that it failed is why they canned future dungeons. They already listened when making Aetherpath, the majority didn't care. >They still had some hope people will go into raids. They simply wanted raids to succeed. But they never really tried to improve on raids at all, they just kept repeating the same stuff over and over again until they had to admit to themselves it wasn't working. And then they simply cancelled it. Except they very obviously did try to improve upon raids. Later raids made some changes to bosses and enemy encounter design to try to make them more palatable to the majority. The problem with raids is that the majority literally doesn't care about hard content like raids. The only way to make them more popular would be to water them down into Living World levels of difficulty, which defeats the point of raids in the first place. >Content need not be run by a majority of the playerbase to be popular or worth developing further. Less than half the active players finish each LS story chapter. Does that mean LS should be cancelled, since majority is not even finishing it? Or should that rather mean devs should look into it and decide to improve things to get a better ratio next time around? >Also, if you really want to go that way - the majority of GW2 players are no longer playing the game. According to your reasoning they should have cancelled this game even before HoT. Because a majority was no longer playing it. Content DOES need to be run by the majority to be worth developing for. If you are a game developer, and you ave a decision between putting more money to A. More living world content that the majority of your playerbase will play B. A raid maybe 15%-20% of the playerbase will play The former will always win out since its a better investment of time and money. This is how games work in general. Hell, this is the cited reason in every MMO as to why the devs stopped doing X, Y, and Z, at some point. Also, thats a horrible argument. Devs use the active playerbase, not the number of people who bought the game. >Repeating something over and over again without iterative attempts to fix the initial problems is not "successive attempts to make them more desirable". Also, the earlier strikes were doing quite fine. It's the Boneskinner that was a problem (and for more than one reason). Except there were changes made each time to try to make them more desirable. Also, its rather ironic you say earlier strikes were fine, when the whole point of strikes was that they were supposed prep people for raids, and early strikes were massively criticized by the raiders for being WAY too easy compared to raids. The whole point of the Boneskinner was that they had already thrown easier strikes at you, now its time for a harder one to bring it closer to raid difficulty. People complained because most people who play games don't want raid-like difficulty at all, which is why dungeons, fractals, and raids, all failed in the first place. >You said "Its a sign that they stopping making things that weren't liked.". Dungeons were liked. They had to actively chase people away from them. Being liked by a small minority =/= being liked by the playerbase. >That's not a failure. 15-20% is actually pretty good. In a MMORPG with a population of 1 mil that would be 150-200k players. That's some massive numbers. Numbers you'd really not want to lose. >If you decided to abandon any part of the game as long as its popularity drops below 50%, you would end with nothing left. Lose 15% of your playerbase 4 times, and you're left with only 44% (a minority) of your original player number. >You simply can't get the player counts for an AAA size MMORPG with very uniform playerbase that all plays only the same kind of content and all want the same things. That's actually really bad, and I've seen entire features stop getting development when even up to 1/3 of the playerbase used them, because that simply isn't enough. You also make the blunder of equating people who play that kind of content with people who play the game ONLY for that kind of content. The majority of people who play things like dungeons, raids, strikes, etc. don't play the game simply for those things. And while they may be sad to see them go, they would still keep playing for the game's other content. You would only actually loose a very small % of that playerbase group because only a minority of the minority hinges their investment into a game based on one limited game type. >Problem is, the devs don't seem to know what the playerbase wants as well. They are just throwing stuff at the wall blindly, trying to find something that sticks. And, surprise surprise, the more they do it, the more new people decide to just not come in. Because, you know, they can see all the walls that are covered in kitten all over. Its ironic you say this when they very clearly do seem to know what the playerbase wants. * They stopped making dungeons, raids, and to a lesser extent fractals and strikes, because the playerbase very clearly showed they didn't want them * They kept making more living world/open world content because that is what most players wanted Even when it comes to these Champions releases * People have been asking for more LWS1 style content. * But they also asked that it doesn't go away once over. * They want bosses harder then normal open world bosses. * But not near the difficulty of raid or strike mission bosses. * They asked for older maps to get reused/new content added to them. * But to not do so where its permanently alters the map like Tower of Nightmares did. * They have also asked for something that actually feels like the dragons are attacking the world. * But in a way that doesn't actually cause any permanent damage for the same reasons as the Tower of Nightmare situation I mentioned above. And what did we get with Champions? * LWS1 style content * That doesn't go away once the story is over * With bosses harder then normal open world bosses * But not as hard as raid/strike bosses * That uses older maps * But doesn't change them permanently * That involved the dragons actually attacking the world * But in a way that doesn't actually cause any permanent damage to the world The "unpopular" Champions Dragon Response Mission format is, quite literally, Anet doing everything people have been asking for on the forums for years. It is, quite literally, a bullet point "here is everything you've asked for" content format.

> @"HotDelirium.7984" said: > If this is in fact the way MMO's are suppose to do content for the reasons you state it...then ANET surely doesn't do it optimally for whatever misc reasons. They may try but maybe it would be better to do the 6 month model like Cryptic. I always thought it was weird to have these design teams (what was it over the years 3,4,5?) who work on an episode each and leapfrog to the next one. From the DRMs released to lukewarm reviews and EOD likely in a year I think we're seeing every poor decision catch up to them. M8, the leapfrogging thing is how GAMES are made in general. Like, every game developer has multiple teams of people who are constantly leapfrogging over each other on projects. That's the only way game companies are able to release games in general as fast as they do. Its very rare that everyone in a game studio works on one thing, then everyone moves onto the next thing. And Anet does work on the 6 month model like Cryptic. There is nothing of Champions episodes 3/4 done yet because no one is working on them yet since that is content WAY too out there to have any solid development done of them. And that is how Living World has worked since forever.

> @"battledrone.8315" said: > so, you are saying, that their income isnt connected to the content they produce? unpopular content=less income=less resources to produce the next content > and the even spent a lot of those resources on "other projects" too. I don't know how you think video game funding works, but that isn't how funding for video games works. It isn't a simple "you make X amount of dollars on the last thing, so now you have X dollars to use on the next thing". Money comes from the publisher, and is obtained by presenting the idea, and asking for a budget for things like general development, voice acting, time for the creation of new mechanics, and how all of that will make money on the investment. Now, if your game has consistently bad profit intake, then publishers are less likely to give you money for the next big thing. But even then it isn't a 1:1 "you make X, you have X to spend" situation. The publisher can give you a bigger budget then the total profits you made previously, if you can convince them the expansion(in this case) will make up for it. Iceboord Saga was budgeted before the EoD was even a thing, and the EoD was budgeted long before Champions came out, and even longer before any sort of negative impact of Champions would present itself. So they really wouldn't be connected in terms of taking budgeted time/resources away from each other.

> @"Astralporing.1957" said: > It's a bit more complicated than that. It's more like when they do run into a problem with something - which they often do, because it is very hard to get something perfectly right in the first attempt - instead of trying to fix it they just abandon it straight away. I've seen this comment made in pretty much every MMO I've ever played, and its simply never true. If Anet simply abandoned things straight away * We would have never gotten Twilight Arbor's Aetherpath, because dungeons failed to lure in the majority at launch. * We would have never gotten any of the raid wings past the first three, because raids failed to lure in the majority upon release. * We would have never gotten strikes past the first one, since those failed to lure in the majority upon release. All of these content types largely stopped having active development because they failed, even after multiple successive attempts to make them more desirable. Not because they failed immediately. >Also, dungeons were actually very popular when they axed them. In fact, when they officially announced abandoning that content (which happened long after they did it unoficially), they had to heavily cut rewards to them first in order to intentionally chase the people out (which they straight out admitted to), because they kept being popular long after dungeon team got dissolved and devs apparently didn't like that. I never said they weren't popular. So your comment, and proceeding paragraph, has no relation to the argument. That being said, you can have 15-20% of the playerbase enjoy a type of content, which would make it popular among a noticeable percentage, but said content will still be considered a failure because the vast majority of the playerbase doesn't play it. Not to mention, the appearance of popularity is skewed via echo chambers(if you enjoyed dungeons, and hung around people who did also, you would be under the impression that most people do, since all the people around you say they do also), and because the vast majority of any game's playerbase(not just GW2s) doesn't go to official forums. Those that do tend to be the more hardcore crowd, who lean to those sorts of content types, and not the majority of players who don't. This is also why game devs(not just GW2's) often make decisions that seem to "ignore" the common complaints on the forums. Because every game dev knows the official forums are not a particularly good representation of what the majority of the playerbase actually wants.

> @"HotDelirium.7984" said: > I actually think its smarter to have a bigger team for content under a year and a small team for content years away. That way you aren't having to constantly trying to catch up and thus only able to deliver very small updates/loot per festival and episode release. They obviously have it backward and a game director would be letting them know that... That isn't how game development works anywhere. You generally only have a year's worth of content, if even that, planned out because the inevitable barriers/delays, be it from real life problems like COVID, or technical issues, that crop when when trying to make "the next big thing" will always make your longer term plans never pan out like you originally want. Cryptic Studios, the developers of Champions, Neverwinter, Star Trek Online, and the upcoming Magic the Gathering, MMOs have mentioned they typically only have the next 6 months of content really scheduled, with high level ideas for the 6 months or so after that, because you simply can't get too far ahead of yourself since something always comes up to cause some sort of change. Not to mention, you wouldn't want a team working on longer term content since they would be working with the game engine as it is when they started, and wouldn't be able to integrate anything new developed for the game since that point without having to throw everything out and start over, which defeats the point of them working on it previously. Anet's development style is the exact same as I've seen for every other MMO, and for the same reasons.

> @"Linken.6345" said: > How so, please explain? First off there is this https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/discussion/97028/a-message-from-andrew-gray/p1 Back on February 3rd 2020, just a few days after Episode 2: Shadow in the Ice released, Andrew Gray talked about how, after episode 4, they planned to go back to more LWS1 style content. He specifically mentions the "boss rush" style community events, like what we got with the Crystal Bloom event, as playing a factor in this content. He also mentioned how, unlike LWS1, this content will be deigned to be repayable after IBS is over. All of this is literally what we are getting with Champions. The number of Champions releases we are getting, that being 4, also matches up with what we learned from Episode 2 itself in regards to how many major content releases IBS was going to have by the time it was over. Episode 2 was developed for several months before its release in late Jan 2020, so this has been the plan since at least late last year. Long before COVID became a problem, before they couldn't do VA, and before they would have really started working on the expansion.

> @"Ashantara.8731" said: >-I believe they have cut the IBS short for the sake of the expac). You would be demonstrably wrong.

> @"Fenom.9457" said: > So yeah, maybe there’s only say.. 3 expansions worth or content in the points I listed? Weill, given that EoD is taking us to Cantha, and seemingly going to involve the Deep Sea Dragon, I would say maybe 1, assuming Anet actually wants to show us the 4th human homeland.

> @"Sir Alymer.3406" said: >There's supposed to be content for everyone. And there is content for everyone. Anet just stopped making rides that proved unprofitable like any business does. >and seems to continually ignore any feedback to make said content more open with a more gradual difficulty curve. Problem is that a difficulty curve isn't going to solve the problem that most players don't want the difficulty period. Just see strikes. The first few easy, then they got harder, and when they did most people stopped playing them because they don't want that kind of difficulty. Adding a curve isn't going to make people more interested in the harder content.

> @"Fenom.9457" said: > There are easily 5 more expansions of content just from the hints they've already dropped through the years, and of course, being the writers of the franchise, anet can add literally whatever they want wherever and whenever they want. The game has limitless potential and no need to die after the ED plot ends. The problem with everything you listed above is that its based on arguments of totality, and that isn't how writing works. There are going to be Centaurs attacking Humans, Renegades and Separatists running around, remnants of groups like the Nightmare Court, and Flame Legion(the evil part of it) still active, for years, if not decades to come, because those sorts of ideas don't just simply instantly die the moment their leadership is killed. That doesn't mean however that the story will, or even should, do anything with them. Its like saying Lord of the Rings could have gone on for three more books because they didn't kill every single one of Sauron's orcs, and thus the orcs could pose a threat. Yeah, that could happen, but at some point you have to concede that a group is so beaten down that them being front and center in the plot strains belief, and is no longer interesting. >Not to mention countless other teases, like Kodan being from the even more distant far north >the Krait obelisks and their prophecies about their prophets returning to flood the world, >The mystery of the human gods, particularly Lyssa. >There's supposedly giants across the Blazeridge mountains right? >And ogres came into Ascalon from there too, why are they leaving? >What about the rumored Charr lands to the east as well, Ash lands? And the Blood Citadel. >And the trade routes on the order of whispers map with one route going to another continent we know nothing about - a 4th human homeland? >Similarly, the old Utopia lore was recently brought up in the Guild Wars art book and made to fit into the current canon, and now we know about some mysterious island in the mists called Xotecha where the old gods before the six we've ever known lived. >And the Maguuma Wastes, remember something caused them to dry up - it was implied to be Primordus, but was never confirmed. And anyway, why would he do that and when was he over there? >Also the Isles of Janthir, the potential Mursaat homelands, and the rumors people with True Sight lived there? Why was Caudecus headed there in season 3? There must be something happening there. >The purification of Orr and a potential storyline where both humans and sylvari try to live in Orr again, >and this also brings up the subject of dragon minions after all the dragons are dead. The Mordrem Guard were capable of thinking for themselves, where are they? Still just sitting around in the jungle? >Remember the implication that harpies came from Dzalana, and may have some sort of ties to Dwayna? >Remember the Largos and their assassin based culture with houses, how does that work? Where are they and what's their story outside of being menaced by the DSD? * And they all came south because of Jormag attacking them. Same with the arctic Quaggan. * DSD story element. * Almost certainly EoD or LWS6. And there isn't much of a mystery. Balthazar is dead, Kormir, Grenth, and Melandru, are confirmed gone, and Lyssa is up to something. The only one we don't know about is Dwayna. * The other side of the Blazeridge Mountains is Charr lands. * Lore states they had attacked the humans and Charr in Ascalon in the past, they were just pushed back. Kralkatorrik's awakening, and the creation of the brand, pushed back the Charr, which allowed them to spread down from the mountains as they had been trying to for ages beforehand. They aren't leaving, just spreading out like all races do. * There is no rumor about it. We know Charr have lands to the east. What about them? Its just more Charr lands ala Ascalon, but without all the problems Ascalon has. * The Order of Whispers map had no trade routes. The trade routes were on the Durmand Priory floor map. And yes we know there are humans elsewhere due to Whispers agent Doern Velazquez. * And Anet themselves have said Utopia isn't canon so... its not canon. * The dragons naturally cause massive world destruction wherever they, or their minions, go. He also doesn't need to be over there directly. As for why he would have sent his minions over there, ley lines. * The Mursaat are all dead as per LWS3. As for why did Caudecus go there, because the White Mantle would have obviously had bases/outposts out there in the homeland of their gods. He would have been trying to rally more of the Mantle behind him. * Orr is a waterlogged wreck, full of Risen, even years after Zhaitan's defeat. It would be decades before any sort of resettlement occurs, and thats far otuside the scope of the game. * We already see what happens to dragon minions after the dragon's death. They lose power and become disorganized. As for the Mordrem Guard, Rox mentions the Maguuma is still swarming with Mordrem, and in the Festival of the Four Winds after HoT we can meet a sylvari who was a Mordrem Guard that turned back after the dragon's defeat. Those with the willpower to do so have turned back, while those that didn't are still in the jungle. That question was already answered. * If GW2 was ever going to explore Dzalana it would have been in PoF or LWS4, and it didn't happen. * Again, a DSD plot element much like how we got more Kodan lore with Icebrood Saga.

whoops, meant to edit my previous post not quote it

> @"battledrone.8315" said: > manhours they are sorely lacking now to make a new xpac. GW2 had HUGE pontential, but they squandered it What? All of that content, sans strikes, had ended long before they started making the new xpack. So them making it has no effect on the Xpack. Not to mention, by the time the xpack comes out it will be like a year and a half after its first announcement, which is generally how long xpacks take for most MMOs. > @"Sir Alymer.3406" said: > Ah yes. No one liked strikes. Zero people enjoyed fractals. No one loved dungeons. HoT was trash and no one plays those maps. Zero people do Triple Trouble. No one figured out Tequatl after the rework. Everyone hated adventures wholesale and not the janky mechanics and uber-tight timers for gold attached to them. You ever stop to think that, maybe, people "enjoy" open world because it's the only thing that gets consistent updates? It's the only mode that has any sort of constant support. The rest are on life support. I said most, not all. And have you ever considered people don't enjoy dungeons, raids, fractals, and strikes, because they simply don't care for them, and that they don't play them because they don't want to and not because new ones aren't being added all the time?

> @"Sir Alymer.3406" said: > 3. Raids have been put on indefinite hiatus. > 4. Strikes have gone the way of Raids. > 5. Fractals got one update in nearly two years. > 6. Dungeons are dead. This ignoring that the reason why all of this happened was because the majority of the playerbase didn't like/play them. So the fact Anet isn't making content most people didn't like isn't a sign of a dead game. Its a sign that they stopping making things that weren't liked.

> @"Aerick Blackmoore.8167" said: >6 month period for the Expansion itself Why assume this when Path of Fire came out Sep 2017, and LWS4 began Nov 2017? We will probably get 2-3 months, not 6, before the next LW seasons starts after EoD. Though I will say I can see two more LW season after EoD. LWS6 will probably be to EoD as LWS4 was to PoF. PoF took us to the desert and northern Elona, while LWS4 expanded on Elona. EoD will take us to Cantha, and LWS6 will add more into Cantha, and tie up loose ends from EoD. LWS7, if it happens, will probably be used to finish up the last remaining major plot threads. Assuming the hypothetical LWS6 and 7 are around the same 16-18 months we saw with LWS4 and IBS, that gives us around another 3 years after EoD before its done. The game would end around the 12th anniversary which, TBH, is longer then most MMOs last in terms of getting new content. As it stands, GW2 has closed up most of the plot threads it started at launch, and even since then. * Humans(Bandits are defeated, White Mantle has crumbled, centaurs have been pushed out, peace made with Charr/able to build new settlements in Ascalon) * Sylvari(Mystery behind their origin revealed, Pale Tree healed, Nightmare Court largely crushed) * Charr(Branded are dead, Flame Legion brought back into Charr society, peace with Humans made, Charr civil war over Khan-Ur done) * Norn(Learned the truth behind Asgeir's battle with Jormag, discovered what happened to the lost spirits, Jormag's tooth prophecy enacted) * Elona(Forged defeated, Joko dead and his empire fallen, Sunspears restored, new government rebuilding the nation) * Cantha(EoD and LWS6 will likely deal with the corrupt empire/Kurzicks/Luxons/Canthan racism) There's only a few things like the Asura story stuff(we will probably get at least some of this in Champions), Malyck, the ghosts of Ascalon, and Wizard Tower(likely a raid if anything) But really. All the major plot threads GW2 has started are mostly done. Keeping a story going for 12 years is pretty damn difficult without running into the "what do we do next" issue.

> @"Inculpatus cedo.9234" said: > I think all the locations have already been chosen. As far as we know yeah. Based on where mastery points have shown up, and what we saw in the trailer * Lake Doric * Bloodtide Coast * Thunderhead Peaks * Fields of Ruin * Snowden Drifts * Fireheart Rise * Caledon Forest all appear to be future Dragon Response Mission locations.