Cut Centaur Plotline?

[TeeracK.3601]

So the trailer for the Ice Brood Saga was awhile ago. You might not even remember it.

One of the more interesting shots in the trailer I thought was the scene with the centaur with human slaves.

The scenery reminds me a lot of Drizzle wood, but there are no centaurs there, so im wondering why this scene was in the trailer if the centaur had nothing to do with the Ice brood saga.

Makes me think there was plans for some kind of centaur plot that got cut from the saga? There is also the fact that a lot of the lore from the season 3 maps ended up tying in somehow to pof, s4, or ibs. One of the things that wasn't touched on was Noran from Lake Doric. He was the descendant of Aidan and Zho. Two core party members from GW1 and usually legacy characters make it back into the story, and it make sense for Noran to become a cast member now since we are going to Cantha soon and Zho was from Cantha. Just like how we are dealing with Drakkar and stuff so they brought Jhavi back into the story.

His family was killed(tho he says taken, so maybe he never saw the bodies? you can find grave makings tho) by the centaurs, so I was sort of expecting a continuation of the Human vs Centaur lore and some more Noran stuff, but I'm thinking now that might have all just been cut.

There is also going to be a dragon response mission in Lake Doric so maybe this is stuff yet to come, but I kind of got the sense all of the champion updates will be very bare bones like the first patch was.

What do you think?

[Fueki.4753]

Keep in mind that, when they showed the trailer, they didn't have any plans for a third expansion, much to the outcry of many players.They planned for the Grindbrood Saga to be bigger and more popular than it actually turned out.That's why I think they originally wanted to have a centaur centric subplot.But then it got cut, since they needed the developers for the third expansion, which was announced after the Grindbrood Saga ended up mostly being a failure.

I don't think that bit of trailer is related to the Lake Doric Dragon Response Mission.DRMs likely weren't planned when the trailer was made.At least, it'd be really sad if Arenanet planned DRMs since the beginning of season 5.

[lombomon.7268]

I think they might have wanted to include centaurs when they knew they were going to the Woodland Cascades in the early planning of the episodes. If I had to guess why we don't see centaurs in the region, it's likely because Drizzlewood became so focused on the meta event that including centaurs would have made the map less cohesive..

Though, who knows, maybe we'll get a bit of centaur action in the next 3 chapters of Champions.

[Zola.6197]

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.

There is no great reason for a carefully planned/constructed trailer to show scenes that would never come to fruition, so it is only logical to conclude content was cut as plans shifted in favor of an expansion given the surrounding context. And based on the past, we know ANet has cut a lot of content in past products -- we just didn't have such an obvious outward facing example of it. There were a lot of cuts to push out HoTs on time, and PoF had some heavy edits/changes in the story process if I remember correctly.

We could get some small adaptions of these scenes in the trailer in the DRMs, but they'll be pretty brief if they're addressed at all.

[Sajuuk Khar.1509]

@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.

[Fueki.4753]

@Sajuuk Khar.1509 said:

@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 in early Feb, 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. The number of Champions releases also matches the number of releases the portal tome suggested IBS would have, further confirming that notion.

And Arenanet knew, just after episode 1 came out, how disappointed many were and that season 5 wouldn't get the popularity they expected.That aside, I don't see any resemblances to Season 1.

DRMs, which take up most of the Champions story line so far, are just party instances.The dailies for Dragon's Fall and Fields of Ruin were just incentives to go and play content that is mostly unrelated to the current story.

I'd like to know how some people see this anywhere close to Season 1.

[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]

@Sajuuk Khar.1509 said:

@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.It didn't even seem like a lukewarm reception to me.Many people complained about the useless masteries, the many grinds, getting only half a map, etc.And let's not forget about rather big dislike of Arenanet murdering Almorra off screen.

[Randulf.7614]

@Fueki.4753 said:

@Sajuuk Khar.1509 said:

@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.It didn't even seem like a lukewarm reception to me.Many people complained about the useless masteries, the many grinds, getting only half a map, etc.And let's not forget about rather big dislike of Arenanet murdering Almorra off screen.

After the highly acclaimed Prologue, Episode 1 itself was generally a bit more mixed, but was well enough received especially outside of the forums where Living World tends to get better reactions. I think people found it rather short more than found it poor

@Fueki.4753 said:

@Sajuuk Khar.1509 said:

@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 in early Feb, 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. The number of Champions releases also matches the number of releases the portal tome suggested IBS would have, further confirming that notion.

And Arenanet knew, just after episode 1 came out, how disappointed many were and that season 5 wouldn't get the popularity they expected.That aside, I don't see any resemblances to Season 1.

DRMs, which take up most of the Champions story line so far, are just party instances.The dailies for Dragon's Fall and Fields of Ruin were just incentives to go and play content that is mostly unrelated to the current story.

I'd like to know how some people see this anywhere close to Season 1.

Concerning the quote from Andrew Gray, it was more about learning lessons from LS1 rather than copying the format it used. He did state the Kiel/Gnashblade election as an example of how they wanted to emulate community interaction and it is this they were going for as the quote below emphasises. It's not a case of doing the same type of content, just doing something where the community contributes to the World. And the DRM bonus events did just that (albeit poorly)

"As you may have noticed, we've been testing tech with things like the boss rush event, that we hope to leverage later on in The Icebrood Saga to create a unique, community experience. But, learning lessons from Season 1, the bulk of this content will be built in a way that it is still playable after the Icebrood Saga comes to a close."

So I'm afraid this was part of their plan at least as far back as early 2020, although before then we don't really know the extent of their plans. it is just guesswork

[Zola.6197]

@Sajuuk Khar.1509 said:

@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.

I don't see why it's difficult for you to grasp the idea they likely had a different plan before this update that involved a longer story for Icebrood Saga and didn't lead into an expansion, which caused several creative leads to leave the company within a short time frame.

[Sajuuk Khar.1509]

@"Svennis.3852" said:I don't see why it's difficult for you to grasp the idea they likely had a different plan before this update that involved a longer story for Icebrood Saga and didn't lead into an expansion, which caused several creative leads to leave the company within a short time frame.Because we have direct evidence that it isn't true, and any argument that it is amounts to a conspiracy theory.

[Zola.6197]

@Sajuuk Khar.1509 said:

@"Svennis.3852" said:I don't see why it's difficult for you to grasp the idea they likely had a different plan before this update that involved a longer story for Icebrood Saga and didn't lead into an expansion, which caused several creative leads to leave the company within a short time frame.Because we have direct evidence that it isn't true, and any argument that it is amounts to a conspiracy theory.

None of what you bring up is 'evidence' they couldn't have altered course at some point between the announcement and February 3rd.

[Kossage.9072]

The latest update about centaurs comes from Champions Chapter 1: Truce. After completing the "Primordus Rising" story step, various NPCs phase into Eye of the North, and the new NPCs located near the asura gate actually have cycling ambient dialogue which we've been recording on this page in the wiki. The relevant conversation about centaurs goes as follows:

Krewe Leader (1): Primordus's destroyers are pushing the centaurs out of their lands.
Krewe Leader (2): Better not pick a fight with a centaur today.
Krewe Leader (1): It was one time! And I was drunk!

Given the current destroyer problem that the centaurs face after having already been driven into a corner due to suffering lots of losses both in Ulgoth's war as well as in the failed Siege of Divinity's Reach, this might be a great moment for Jormag and its diplomats to reach out to the weary centaurs with promises of power and protection. While shamanistic tendencies are waning among the centaurs, Jormag could appeal to both the centaurs' spiritual side as well as their earthly desire for survival and revenge by offering to protect them if they accept its icy empowering blessings as well as present itself as a spirit of the land who sees centaurs as worthy inheritors of the earth due to their way of life.

The problem with this approach would of course be the centaurs' hatred of humanity while Jormag obviously wants its allies to get along (for now) in the spirit of cooperation without angering any party via needless acts of violence. We've seen Jormag's corruption warp racial supremacists' minds without those mortals necessarily even realizing it (see e.g. the Dominion wanting to exterminate or subjugate what they consider to be "lesser races", while Frost Legion are openly offering humans like Kasmeer a chance to accept Jormag's blessings and join their legion in a twisted way as we learn in the Frost Citadel meta dialogue), so perhaps any "Frost Legion" centaurs would just automatically drop their human-hating ideology and embrace "ice fortifies all races under Jormag's wing" creed.

Elite Frost Legion Musketeer: Bangar ordered me to keep all intruders out of the conversion chamber!
Elite Frost Legion Musketeer: Unless maybe you want to join us?
Lady Kasmeer Meade: Not my type, thanks. Efram, Ember? How do we stop the big tank?
Efram Greetsglory: First things first. Everyone scatter!
Elite Frost Legion Musketeer: You'd rather run around like skritt than join the toughest legion in Tyria? Fine, have it your way! (Source)

Whether the non-corrupted centaurs would take such a jarring shift in their frosty brethren's opinion well remains to be seen if some of them did take Jormag's offer in their desperation.

It's possible that at least some centaurs may see the light in the current crisis and approach the Pact with a truce against a common enemy before the Centaur Alliance itself (and particularly their youths) is wiped out, but that depends on if Jormag has any plans in mind for the centaurs or other races while building its army beyond what we've seen of its collaboration with the asura so far. :)

[Telwyn.1630]

@lombomon.7268 said:I think they might have wanted to include centaurs when they knew they were going to the Woodland Cascades in the early planning of the episodes. If I had to guess why we don't see centaurs in the region, it's likely because Drizzlewood became so focused on the meta event that including centaurs would have made the map less cohesive..

Though, who knows, maybe we'll get a bit of centaur action in the next 3 chapters of Champions.

Actually would like t try them as a playable but then we got a few problems. One mounts, armor and clothes, the cannot climb and of course the glider and flying mounts. Yeah they could be playable but man the problems to overlook and deal makes it not able to be done.

[Zola.6197]

Interestingly enough, there was a guild chat where they touched on this subject yesterday (I think?). I haven't been able to watch it yet, but they talked about a cut centaur storyline. It's on their Twitch channel, but hasn't been uploaded to youtube yet: https://www.twitch.tv/videos/883845503

[Lonami.2987]

It's kinda sad, I really wanted to see what the centaurs were doing after the war with Kryta finished :I.

[Sajuuk Khar.1509]

@"Svennis.3852" said:Interestingly enough, there was a guild chat where they touched on this subject yesterday (I think?). I haven't been able to watch it yet, but they talked about a cut centaur storyline.This is incorrect.

Cut content, by definition, is content that was actually developed, but then removed. Either pre, or post, release. As they admit in their twitch stream, they never actually made the centaur storyline because they considered it too complicated to try to explain why the Centaurs were now your allies in such a short time.

It isn't cut content, the content was never developed., or originally planned. It was an idea they had for a possible storyline. This contrasting to something like Malyck in HoT, who was originally designed to be in the expansion, but actually got cut out.

[Zola.6197]

@Sajuuk Khar.1509 said:

@"Svennis.3852" said:Interestingly enough, there was a guild chat where they touched on this subject yesterday (I think?). I haven't been able to watch it yet, but they talked about a cut centaur storyline.This is incorrect.

Cut content, by definition, is content that was actually developed, but then removed. Either pre, or post, release. As they admit in their twitch stream, they never actually made the centaur storyline because they considered it too complicated to try to explain why the Centaurs were now your allies in such a short time.

It isn't cut content, the content was never developed., or originally planned. It was an idea they had for a possible storyline. This contrasting to something like Malyck in HoT, who was originally designed to be in the expansion, but actually got cut out.

You can get caught up in semantics if you like, but the fact is there were plans for centaurs — as indicated by the trailer and now dev statements — that were cut from Icebrood Saga.

[TeeracK.3601]

@Sajuuk Khar.1509 said:

@"Svennis.3852" said:Interestingly enough, there was a guild chat where they touched on this subject yesterday (I think?). I haven't been able to watch it yet, but they talked about a cut centaur storyline.This is incorrect.

Cut content, by definition, is content that was actually developed, but then removed. Either pre, or post, release. As they admit in their twitch stream, they never actually made the centaur storyline because they considered it too complicated to try to explain why the Centaurs were now your allies in such a short time.

It isn't cut content, the content was never developed., or originally planned. It was an idea they had for a possible storyline. This contrasting to something like Malyck in HoT, who was originally designed to be in the expansion, but actually got cut out.

I've literally seen people use the term to refer to scrapped content that was only in the planned phase by both fans and devs 100s of times. You're arbitrarily making up a fictional definition of the term to try and make a nonexistent semantical point...

[Zola.6197]

The devs (Bobby specifically, I believe) said they hope to come back to the cut centaur plot at some point in the future. It’d be awesome if the post-EoDs content (and maybe the hypothetical S6) could delve into smaller scale faction/regional stories.

I suppose if Jormag and Primordus were meant to be the catalyst, that might have to change depending on what transpires in EoDs.

[Randulf.7614]

@Sajuuk Khar.1509 said:

@"Svennis.3852" said:Interestingly enough, there was a guild chat where they touched on this subject yesterday (I think?). I haven't been able to watch it yet, but they talked about a cut centaur storyline.This is incorrect.

Cut content, by definition, is content that was actually developed, but then removed. Either pre, or post, release. As they admit in their twitch stream, they never actually made the centaur storyline because they considered it too complicated to try to explain why the Centaurs were now your allies in such a short time.

It isn't cut content, the content was never developed., or originally planned. It was an idea they had for a possible storyline. This contrasting to something like Malyck in HoT, who was originally designed to be in the expansion, but actually got cut out.

Were there any other bits of info in the twitch stream? The Wiki transcript isn;t up yet

[hugo.4705]

Hope the centaur plotline and i think krait (end of trailer with wooden structure underwater and corpses) ones makes a comeback later.

They planned big events driven by community like ellen kiel election, very curious to see what they planned or if it is cut too. Because if ls1 like stuffs are drm, well, disapointing. (The concept is cool but quite long and not rewarding, at a point I feel those DRM could be tutorial instances to teach players about cc bars, aoes and how to use skills)

They have ton of plots to make a LS6 based only on local threats and filling races lores. For nightmare court, it's done, we killed faolin and nightmare trees so kinda leaser and major thing. Same for flame legion, we obliterated gaheron and ruined the citadel of flame. Dredge isn't an issue cause thunderhead shown they started revolution to be free. Sons of Svanirs and Inquest still an issue currently, they are hydras, cut a head, someone take the lead, for both we don't know the leader (yeah technically jormag, but maybe there is a legendary son of svanir) and so it let plenty of possibilities, without speaking of the interesting character of kuda that have been introduced in ls4 and still no info about high inquisitor mait or anything. Arah is done, zhaithan killed and risens purified as shown in siren landing. For Ascalon citadel, well it us a curse, so never ending threat, may be dealt with to one day or another. For caudecus, he has been killed. See Ls3, caudecus arc was awesome.

So to sum up kinda think like svennis above.

[Kalythsu.8350]

for the centaurs

https://twitter.com/that_shaman/status/1352719440400576512

and

https://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/l0otfe/datamining_upcoming_features_from_the_january_19/

[&AgH/cAEA] Centaur Support Mark

They were created but finally abandoned. The tokens appear in the game files

[ugrakarma.9416]

intriguing that something like happened on LS3-EP4, there are centaurs on trailer, but they are reduced to a mere "leather farm" lolzz.

i find this sad, it would be interesting explore more woodland cascades, and perhaps even get close to janthir islands.

i guess anet thinks Centaurs are uninteresting, but anet never get tired of over-used inquest that are everywhere(LS2,LS3,LS4).

[Randulf.7614]

The thing is, Krytan Centaurs suddenly joining Humans and other races after years of xenophobia and no lead in would be even more jarring. People are already criticising the recent releases for rushing through dialogue and plot points too quickly as some kind of tick box exercise. If Centaurs suddnely became an allied faction, then that would really give fuel to that.

When I saw them in the trailer, I had expected them to be more of a flavour in a map out that way. Something to give a map a bit of extra layering instead of fully focussed on just the icebrood. But, that never came to pass.