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BerriosC.7295

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@Sajuuk Khar.1509 said:To be honest, I would think that the next expansion would likely take us to Cantha, as I don't see them dragging out the Elona/Kralkatorik plot for much longer after this season of the living story is over.

IMO cantha is sill quite far off. However, your comment about the current story gave me an idea - what if they opened the next expansion with Kralkatorrik dying? Instead of the formulated “win at the end of the season then a cliffhanger something happens setting up the xpac” instead kill the dragon and then move on. That way the LW can take its time with doing good story. If need be, the expansion could even include a map in Elona before hitting the new region

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@"Fenom.9457" said:IMO cantha is sill quite far off. However, your comment about the current story gave me an idea - what if they opened the next expansion with Kralkatorrik dying? Instead of the formulated “win at the end of the season then a cliffhanger something happens setting up the xpac” instead kill the dragon and then move on. That way the LW can take its time with doing good story. If need be, the expansion could even include a map in Elona before hitting the new regionI don't think it is TBH.-Zhaitan and Mordremoth are dead, Primordus and Jormag were put back to sleep, we are likely to end Kralkatorik soon.-I suspect most of the Elona side stories, such as Joko, the Sunspears, and the Order of Shadows, are likely to be taken care of this season.-When is comes to the various racial enemies, the White Mantel is gone, the Nightmare Court is basically gone, The Inquest isn't something you can ever really get rid of, and the Sons of Svanir and the Flame Legion are too isolated from the rest of the world to matter right now.There really isn't a whole lot going on right now in the world, outside of Elona, and as I mentioned before, the Elona thing is likely to be taken care of this season.

If we presume this season will have as many releases, and thus, as many maps, as last season did, and look at the map of Elona, we will see pretty easily that this season could very easily take care of most of the rest of Elona quite easily. The Gandara map, and the Fortress of Jahai/Mahnkelon Waterworks/Chantry of Secrets map I outlined below are basically guaranteed given the edits to the world map they did to those areas not long ago.2GuF4YD.jpg

Really, there isn't much a whole lot to do besides go to Cantha, and they could mcguffin some reason why Bubbles moved down that way. As for this would start off, the Tengu would likely call us for some reason, and the first map of the expansion would be us going to the Dominion of Winds, and then, from there, going to Cantha. As least that would make the most sense to me given the Tengu's big connection to Cantha.

This is unless they do something REALLY REALLY stupid like having Kralkatroik fly off YET AGAIN, into the Scavanger's Causeway or something, and give us YET ANOTHER mostly desert themed expansion after the last mostly desert themed expansion

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@Sajuuk Khar.1509 said:To be honest, I would think that the next expansion would likely take us to Cantha, as I don't see them dragging out the Elona/Kralkatorik plot for much longer after this season of the living story is over.

And I can hardly see Season 4 finishing both Joko and Kralkatorrik. It's likely that we'll end with Joko's death / imprisonment, and Expansion 3 will be Kralkatorrik.

Expansion 4 might take us to Cantha, but I'd suspect S5 and E4 will be focused on charr, Primordus, and Jormag. Then we'll go after the DSD for the finale of GW2.

@Sajuuk Khar.1509 said:-Zhaitan and Mordremoth are dead, Primordus and Jormag were put back to sleep, we are likely to end Kralkatorik soon.

The lore surrounding the Elder Dragons tells us that Primordus and Jormag can be reawoken at literally any moment. They take so long to wake up the first time due to so little magic and so few active champions, but both have had over 150 years to spawn countless champions who would no doubt be gathering magic for them to wake again.

@Sajuuk Khar.1509 said:-When is comes to the various racial enemies, the White Mantel is gone, the Nightmare Court is basically gone, The Inquest isn't something you can ever really get rid of, and the Sons of Svanir and the Flame Legion are too isolated from the rest of the world to matter right now.

Nightmare Court's not really gone at all. Sons of Svanir have been causing perpetual trouble in the background since Season 1.

There's also the Separatists/Renegades, the centaurs, and the remnants of Scarlet's alliances (Aetherblades, Molten Alliance, and Toxic Alliance are all said to still exist but went into hiding). They can become a focus at any moment, once ArenaNet wants to make them so.

And that's not to even bring up the villain introduced in Episode 2: Kuda.

Or the potential of new enemies coming out of the woodworks.

@Sajuuk Khar.1509 said:If we presume this season will have as many releases, and thus, as many maps, as last season did, and look at the map of Elona, we will see pretty easily that this season could very easily take care of most of the rest of Elona quite easily. The Gandara map, and the Fortress of Jahai/Mahnkelon Waterworks/Chantry of Secrets map I outlined below are basically guaranteed given the edits to the world map they did to those areas not long ago.I'm hoping Anet does this season more justice than last, and gives us 9 episodes. However, unlike Season 3, there aren't as many threats and plots to go off of.

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@"Konig Des Todes.2086" said:And I can hardly see Season 4 finishing both Joko and Kralkatorrik. It's likely that we'll end with Joko's death / imprisonment, and Expansion 3 will be Kralkatorrik.I could. I really don't see them doing an expansion for Kralkatorik. While Path of Fire was about stopping Balthazar, Balthazar's goal was to kill Kralkatorik and take his power, thus we ended up doing most of the things that would be expected of a Kralkatorik themed expansion. We went to Glint's lair, saw her memories, and destroyed the dragonblood spear. We met Vlast, he died, we read his memories, and went to his home of Kesho. We learned Kralkatorik's unique weakness, which is his own power. Aurene came, got dragon-napped by Balthazar, got used by Balthazar in an attempt to kill Kralkatorik, and them absorbed a ton of energy from Balthazar's death, causing her to rapidly grow. And LWS4's mastery tract is based around Aurene harnessing her new power. If I were to compare how far we were in the Kralkatorik story to that of Zhaitan and Mordremoth, we would be in Cursed Shore/Dragon Stand right about to enter Arah or Mordremoth's mind. Really, all we need to do is call up Logan and ask him to bring the Pact down here so he can use that endless army of redshirts to distract Kralkatorik's forces while we use some mcguffin to zap Kralktorik's power into Aurene.

The lore surrounding the Elder Dragons tells us that Primordus and Jormag can be reawoken at literally any moment. They take so long to wake up the first time due to so little magic and so few active champions, but both have had over 150 years to spawn countless champions who would no doubt be gathering magic for them to wake again.I never said we wouldn't deal with them ever, only that they wouldn't be the next focus. I have always believed that Jormag and Pridmordus would be the last two dragons we fight, and putting them to sleep takes them off the table for the time being, and prevents people from asking the obvious question of "why are we going to Elona/Cantha to do stuff there when there are these Elder Dragons right on our door".

IMO Jormag's expansion/living world stuff would cover the Far Shiverpseaks, Blood Legion Homelands, and Woodland Cascades areas, while Primordus's would likely take us to the Deldremor Front area(not that he would be there specifically, but rather, the path leading udnerground to where he is would be in that region. Also his connection to the Dwarves makes that an obvious choice)

enemy factionI think that is vastly over stating the importance of most of those.-The Centaurs were driven out of Kryta back in core, with the defeat of their leader in Harathi Hinterlands. I suspect we would see more of them when we go to the Woodland Cascades, but that's about it. The Centaurs couldn't even beat Kryta on its own, with the Pact around, even less so.-The Separatists/Renegades are about in the same boat. They were a small group of people back in core that represented a political movement that one would expect to see when two former enemies try to mend their relations, but to have them actually become some major story level threat would be absurd.-Kuda is a nice callback to Crucible of Eternity, but it would be brain dead stupid to have her become a major badguy. Having her show up at some Inquest bases from time to time would be nice.-And yes, the Sons of Svanir are around, but isolated to the Shiverpeaks, they will get their time when appropriate, aka, during a Jormag expansion.-The Nightmare Court isn't gone as in "gone forever" but with the death of their founder, the raid on the main base, the death of all the people trying to take the leader spot, and the death of their leader Faolain, they are in a pretty bad spot, and not likely to recover. They will always be around OFC, but as a major thing, na.

I'm hoping Anet does this season more justice than last, and gives us 9 episodes. However, unlike Season 3, there aren't as many threats and plots to go off of.I would love that too. I'm not sure where they would put all those new maps, as seen in the map I quickly made above, another 4 releases would cover just about all of the rest of Elona. There are one or two more post I could see them, like southern Istan in the bog area, but thats about it.

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@Sajuuk Khar.1509 said:I could. I really don't see them doing an expansion for Kralkatorik. While Path of Fire was about stopping Balthazar, Balthazar's goal was to kill Kralkatorik and take his power, thus we ended up doing most of the things that would be expected of a Kralkatorik themed expansion. We went to Glint's lair, saw her memories, and destroyed the dragonblood spear. We met Vlast, he died, we read his memories, and went to his home of Kesho. We learned Kralkatorik's unique weakness, which is his own power. Aurene came, got dragon-napped by Balthazar, got used by Balthazar in an attempt to kill Kralkatorik, and them absorbed a ton of energy from Balthazar's death, causing her to rapidly grow. And LWS4's mastery tract is based around Aurene harnessing her new power. If I were to compare how far we were in the Kralkatorik story to that of Zhaitan and Mordremoth, we would be in Cursed Shore/Dragon Stand right about to enter Arah or Mordremoth's mind. Really, all we need to do is call up Logan and ask him to bring the Pact down here so he can use that endless army of redshirts to distract Kralkatorik's forces while we use some mcguffin to zap Kralktorik's power into Aurene.

You're forgetting that we still need to figure out how to neutralize Kralkatorrik without ending the world. This is a big thing that we've not even touched upon yet. If we assume Season 4 will be the same length as Season 3 (which is more likely than not though I'd prefer Seasons to be 9 episodes long regularly, as Season 3 suffered due to lack of length), then there simply will not be enough time to focus on defeating Joko, discovering how to save the world, and then making the push against Kralkatorrik. We would have to finish Joko next episode, or find out what we need to know in some super contrived Mordremoth's-weakness kind of way which is just bad writing.

Not to mention that doesn't account for the Order of Shadows and their less-than-noble schemes, or the Elonian branch of the Order of Whispers that got hinted about in PoF, and PoF and Hall of Chains both indicate that the gods' story isn't done and I feel we'll see that culminating before we finish Kralkatorrik.

Not to mention that an Elder Dragon is far too large a threat to serve as a mere LW Season boss, especially as Living World Seasons have since Season 2 been a "part 1 of 2" with the 2 being the following expansion. As much as I'd like for that to no longer happen, I don't expect ArenaNet will change how dramatically the LW Seasons lead into the next expansion. So however Season 4 ends, it will give a fairly obvious lead in to Expansion 3.

@Sajuuk Khar.1509 said:I think that is vastly over stating the importance of most of those.-The Centaurs were driven out of Kryta back in core, with the defeat of their leader in Harathi Hinterlands. I suspect we would see more of them when we go to the Woodland Cascades, but that's about it. The Centaurs couldn't even beat Kryta on its own, with the Pact around, even less so.-The Separatists/Renegades are about in the same boat. They were a small group of people back in core that represented a political movement that one would expect to see when two former enemies try to mend their relations, but to have them actually become some major story level threat would be absurd.-Kuda is a nice callback to Crucible of Eternity, but it would be brain dead stupid to have her become a major badguy. Having her show up at some Inquest bases from time to time would be nice.-And yes, the Sons of Svanir are around, but isolated to the Shiverpeaks, they will get their time when appropriate, aka, during a Jormag expansion.-The Nightmare Court isn't gone as in "gone forever" but with the death of their founder, the raid on the main base, the death of all the people trying to take the leader spot, and the death of their leader Faolain, they are in a pretty bad spot, and not likely to recover. They will always be around OFC, but as a major thing, na.

Most of these points of yours are ultimately "they're isolated to Tyria". But your first post was saying how there was nothing in Tyria to draw us back. Which is it?

As for Nightmare Court, there was no raid on their main base that crippled them - the closest thing was Twilight Arbor but that was 6 years ago now. Faolain may be dead but they came up with a new leader immediately and it should be noted that the Nightmare Court were never a fully unified group - there were dozens of splinter groups, and none of them would have suffered from Faolain's death. Not to mention that the return of focus to the Nightmare Court could also bring in Malyck, one of the few major dangling plots of Tyria.

Other dangling plots include the human-charr peace treaty and the small thread of Bangar's wild card nature, thus bringing us to the Separatists/Renegades, and possibly the remnant Flame Legion / Molten Alliance; it should also be noted that the world map expanded to add quite a bit of charr territories as visible! And not only that but this past episode brought a lot of charr focus, including introducing the Claw of the Khan-Ur to the game. If this focus continues, then it would make sense for the story to take us north into charr territories and see through these plots.

There's also Magdaer, the Wizard's Tower, and a few more things. All of these are things that ArenaNet can cover with the current world map, filling that out long before we can go to Cantha.

Your reason for Cantha was:

There really isn't a whole lot going on right now in the world, outside of Elona, and as I mentioned before, the Elona thing is likely to be taken care of this season.

But that's simply false.

@Sajuuk Khar.1509 said:I would love that too. I'm not sure where they would put all those new maps, as seen in the map I quickly made above, another 4 releases would cover just about all of the rest of Elona. There are one or two more post I could see them, like southern Istan in the bog area, but thats about it.

Your maps are fairly large for LW releases, they should be reduced by about 10%; and your layout works on the assumption that we restrict ourselves to Elona. However Joko's plan is to assault Tyria, and that opens up the possibility of maps in Central Tyria region for S4 as well. Furthermore, your layout is perfectly spacing things so that they're spread out just enough that no map can fit inbetween. When in reality, we could easily have maps that border others - be they bordering PoF maps or other S4 maps.

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@Sajuuk Khar.1509 said:To be honest, I would think that the next expansion would likely take us to Cantha, as I don't see them dragging out the Elona/Kralkatorik plot for much longer after this season of the living story is over.

I think so too, Kral's story would end this season , i don't see ANet draggggg him so long. and if so , i have no idea where he is heading to in next expansion.

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@"Konig Des Todes.2086" said:You're forgetting that we still need to figure out how to neutralize Kralkatorrik without ending the world. This is a big thing that we've not even touched upon yet.Not really. Balthazar used Aurene's power to almost kill Kralkatorik, since Kralkatorik's weakness is his own power. And after having absorbed some of Balthazar's magic, and having aged, and the whole mastery for this season being "Aurene learning how to use her new powers" the solution is an obvious one. We use a device like Balthazar's to suck Kralkatorik's power into Aurene, so she can become the new Elder Dragon, but a good one, like Glint's super duper master plan. We have not only Taimi, but the Full Metal Alchemist Brothers, not to mention their research on Kralkatorik to boot, to make such a device to boot.

We would have to finish Joko next episode.... Not to mention that doesn't account for the Order of Shadows and their less-than-noble schemes, or the Elonian branch of the Order of WhispersNa, all three stories can easily be worked on together, much like how this newest episode was about stopping Joko, but the Full Metal Brothers we recuse mention having backed up all of their data on Kralkatorik at the end. Other Elona storylines like the Order of Shadows, and the rebirth of the Sunspears would naturally happen alongside the releases for Gandara and Jahai. We get the Sunsepars from PoF, and the Istani Sunspears, to meet up, and attack Gandara to lite the fuse of major rebellion against Joko in Kourna. We will meet up and deal with the conflict between the Shadows and Whispers when we go around Jahai, etc. etc. I find it unlikely we would ever actually depose of Joko, of witness the full rebirth of the Sunspears, or see the full destruction or re-assimilation of the Shadows/Whispers. All of those are storylines far too long spanning to ever fully play out in-game. The Shadow's agents themselves even state this back in PoF, when you get to Vabbi, and see how devoted the people are to Joko, the Shadows agents tell you to not to try to upset the balance because such a change can't happen instantly, it has to be gradual, something we would just see the fruits of when the game would naturally close down.

Not to mention that an Elder Dragon is far too large a threat to serve as a mere LW Season bossThe only alternative is that he flies off for the 4th time, and we spend a whole expansion slogging through Branded in an area that has nothing to do with him, just for the sake of having an expansion to fight him in. Where would he go anyways? Scavanger's Causeway? Dazalana? Two areas that are mostly desert and badlands... like the last expansion, which had desert and badlands, and where we got end game Branded enemies all over the place. Except this time it wouldn't have Glint, Vlast, or anything else connecting to Kralkatorik.

Most of these points of yours are ultimately "they're isolated to Tyria". But your first post was saying how there was nothing in Tyria to draw us back. Which is it?Both and neither. You seem to be conflating my point on the dragons being asleep meaning we have little reason to go back to Tyria, with the wholly separate point that most of these other factions aren't large enough to be a major focus, or, in cases like the sons of Svanir, would only have their focus much later like during a Jormag Expansion. See, groups like the Separatists, the Renegades, the Centaurs, the remnants of the Toxic and Molten Alliances, the Nightmare Court, etc., all exist to serve the same purpose the Thalmor did in Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim. They are a political entity that exists because they would logically exist, but that doesn't mean they are, or should, be the major focus of a narrative. They are logical world building tools to flesh out the universe beyond the main story, but exist no more to be some big living world season narrative the farmer Joe in Shaemoor is.

Not to mention, the Separatists, like the bandits, were being funded by Caudecus as part of his "master plan" to bring down the queen, and he is now dead. Likewise, the leader of the Renegades, Ajax Anvilburn, was killed by the Vigil. The centaur armies were pushed out of Kryta by the Seraph, and their leader, Ulgoth the Mighty, was also killed. And remnants of factions like the Toxic and Molten Alliances will continue to exist for years to come, much like the death of the Elder Dragons doesn't cause all their minion to just drop dead, but, at the same time, they stop being a major threat. All these things you mentioned already had perfectly fine narrative ends, but people seem desperate to resurrect the dead over and over like the Enclave in the Fallout games. Just because something isn't gone from the universe totally and wholly doesn't mean its going to be big.

As for Nightmare Court, there was no raid on their main base that crippled them - the closest thing was Twilight Arbor but that was 6 years ago now.And we literally never see them having fully recovered after that(especially after we kill all the people there trying to take leadership after the first raid), with only a few scattered groups here and there.

There's also Magdaer, the Wizard's Tower, and a few more things. All of these are things that ArenaNet can cover with the current world map, filling that out long before we can go to Cantha.The Wizard's Tower and Magdaer are older, and harder dropped, plot threads then Malyck, and people really need to stop trying to squeeze water from stones out of there. Might as well bring up Rytlok trying the Searing Ritual again, or the crown he was supposed to return to the humans, or Marjory's ghost blade,

But that's simply false.Its really not unless you try to find larger narratives where there are none.

Your maps are fairly large for LW releasesThe maps I made are literally the same size as the Domain of Istan, and Sandswept Isles maps, I even cut out some of the water areas around them, so they are actually smaller then the overall size of the last two Living World maps. PoF adding mounts has allowed Anet to make bigger maps, that are a bit more spread out, compared to previous ones.However Joko's plan is to assault TyriaAnd we literally just destroyed the gate network he was using to do so, after having destroyed the OTHER gate network he was using to do so. How many of these gate networks does he have again?Furthermore, your layout is perfectly spacing things so that they're spread out just enough that no map can fit inbetween.Anet doesn't care about about 100% boxing in the whole game world, we saw this with release, with past living story maps, with Heart of Thorns, even with the two living story maps we have seen already for this season. Anet just does a "best of" hits collection. They basically destroyed any chance of seeing the area between the Domain of Istan, and The First city, with Daybreak, its much too small for a typical LW map.

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From memory on the Vigil storyline, Ajax Anvilburn was a leader of the Renegades, and a particularly effective one because he had a finer grasp of tactics than most, but the renegades existed before him and can be presumed to continue to exist after he's gone.

There was prerelease information suggesting that Bangar wasn't too happy about the truce, although he isn't in a position to do anything about it overtly (it's Smodur's theater of battle and therefore Smodur's call). Bangar going renegade and causing a Blood Legion civil war could well make for a side-plot comparable to the Caudecus arc at some point, particularly if the story heads north.

Can't say for sure that's actually in the plans, but if you're going to play the card that the Separatists were only a credible threat because of Caudecus' backing, the possibility does have to be considered that the Renegades also have a secret backer.

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@"Sajuuk Khar.1509" said:Not really. Balthazar used Aurene's power to almost kill Kralkatorik, since Kralkatorik's weakness is his own power. And after having absorbed some of Balthazar's magic, and having aged, and the whole mastery for this season being "Aurene learning how to use her new powers" the solution is an obvious one. We use a device like Balthazar's to suck Kralkatorik's power into Aurene, so she can become the new Elder Dragon, but a good one, like Glint's super duper master plan. We have not only Taimi, but the Full Metal Alchemist Brothers, not to mention their research on Kralkatorik to boot, to make such a device to boot.You're forgetting the whole without ending the world part.

We know how to kill Kralkatorrik. But we don't know how to prevent the world from dying once we do.

And there's no guarantee that Aurene becoming a new Elder Dragon would save the world if we also kill another Elder Dragon. Just simply feeding Aurene tons of magic isn't gonna save the world. Episode 5 showed that the world would die not solely from excess magic, but The All being imbalanced and that one more dragon death would cause that imbalance to be unfixable. We're not even certain it can be fixed now.

Na, all three stories can easily be worked on together, much like how this newest episode was about stopping Joko, but the Full Metal Brothers we recuse mention having backed up all of their data on Kralkatorik at the end. Other Elona storylines like the Order of Shadows, and the rebirth of the Sunspears would naturally happen alongside the releases for Gandara and Jahai. We get the Sunsepars from PoF, and the Istani Sunspears, to meet up, and attack Gandara to lite the fuse of major rebellion against Joko in Kourna. We will meet up and deal with the conflict between the Shadows and Whispers when we go around Jahai, etc. etc. I find it unlikely we would ever actually depose of Joko, of witness the full rebirth of the Sunspears, or see the full destruction or re-assimilation of the Shadows/Whispers. All of those are storylines far too long spanning to ever fully play out in-game. The Shadow's agents themselves even state this back in PoF, when you get to Vabbi, and see how devoted the people are to Joko, the Shadows agents tell you to not to try to upset the balance because such a change can't happen instantly, it has to be gradual, something we would just see the fruits of when the game would naturally close down.And that's how you spell a rushed, and ultimately bad, story telling. To cramp everything happening in rapid procession. That's the problem Season 3 had.

Even if you can manage to solve all those plots in four releases, that won't be good writing.

And you're missing quite a bit, in all honesty. The Shadows agents do say that it has to be gradual, but they're also playing both sides of the board game. Their goal isn't the defeat of Joko, even if they pronounce such. Their goal is as of yet unknown - they aid Joko as much as they oppose him. That's more than a single episode's worth of content right there. And Joko's going to be more than one or two more, especially since he's targeting Central Tyria.

The only alternative is that he flies off for the 4th time, and we spend a whole expansion slogging through Branded in an area that has nothing to do with him, just for the sake of having an expansion to fight him in. Where would he go anyways? Scavanger's Causeway? Dazalana? Two areas that are mostly desert and badlands... like the last expansion, which had desert and badlands, and where we got end game Branded enemies all over the place. Except this time it wouldn't have Glint, Vlast, or anything else connecting to Kralkatorik.Not really. He could easily stay put and the Season 4 maps never touch him, with the next expansion largely being in Kourna. It largely depends on where the maps go, and how large the season is. And whether the Season 4 remains in Elona, or returns to Tyria as Joko's goals suggest. Furthermore, there's be more places to go than Kourna - there are bits of Vabbi, for example, and the Sulforous Wastes still worth exploring.

But that doesn't change that every LW season has, thus far, been a build up into the next expansion while the expansion ends the plot. So Expansion 3 will be completing the story of Season 4.

Both and neither. You seem to be conflating my point on the dragons being asleep meaning we have little reason to go back to Tyria, with the wholly separate point that most of these other factions aren't large enough to be a major focus, or, in cases like the sons of Svanir, would only have their focus much later like during a Jormag Expansion. See, groups like the Separatists, the Renegades, the Centaurs, the remnants of the Toxic and Molten Alliances, the Nightmare Court, etc., all exist to serve the same purpose the Thalmor did in Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim. They are a political entity that exists because they would logically exist, but that doesn't mean they are, or should, be the major focus of a narrative. They are logical world building tools to flesh out the universe beyond the main story, but exist no more to be some big living world season narrative the farmer Joe in Shaemoor is.

Not to mention, the Separatists, like the bandits, were being funded by Caudecus as part of his "master plan" to bring down the queen, and he is now dead. Likewise, the leader of the Renegades, Ajax Anvilburn, was killed by the Vigil. The centaur armies were pushed out of Kryta by the Seraph, and their leader, Ulgoth the Mighty, was also killed. And remnants of factions like the Toxic and Molten Alliances will continue to exist for years to come, much like the death of the Elder Dragons doesn't cause all their minion to just drop dead, but, at the same time, they stop being a major threat. All these things you mentioned already had perfectly fine narrative ends, but people seem desperate to resurrect the dead over and over like the Enclave in the Fallout games. Just because something isn't gone from the universe totally and wholly doesn't mean its going to be big.The whole human-charr peace treaty is a really freaking huge dangling plot thread that exists and is far from a "small threat" topic. It's as large, if not larger, than the whole White Mantle situation, and we had half a season and four raids dedicated to that plot.

Furthermore, Separatists were not funded solely by Caudecus - Caudecus did support and ally with them but he was not the de facto leader of Separatists. There's a pretty big difference. And as Drax said, Ajax was not the sole leader or founder of the Renegades. He had taken over the Renegades for a very short time - they existed before him, and they existed after him. All his presence did was change their tactics quite a bit, and made them more effective while he lived. A new leader can easily show up to present a bigger threat than before, and we have that pretty heavy handed suggestion that Bangar may be secretly backing the Renegades.

Ulgoth died in 1325 AE. However, in Season 2 - 1327 AE - Queen Jennah makes a comment at The World Summit suggesting that the centaurs are still at Divinity's Reach's front gates. This means that the centaurs were NOT pushed out of Kryta. This goes double since we see them not very far from DR in Lake Doric.

And I would disagree that remnants will "continue to exist for years" given that we've completely wiped out every White Mantle now. There are no White Mantle remnants - the last remnants were removed in Episode 6. And we're not talking "remnants". We never encountered the leaders of the Molten Alliance or Toxic Alliance, and Mai Trin is still out there as well. That's not remnants, that's just a retreated enemy. No different than the White Mantle after War in Kryta or Flame Legion after Kalla's rebellion - they weren't remnants then, just retreated. Except they lost their then leader while these groups still have theirs.

And we literally never see them having fully recovered after that(especially after we kill all the people there trying to take leadership after the first raid), with only a few scattered groups here and there.Except for their literally unphased groups in Mount Maelstrom and Sparkfly Fen, and the group that became the Toxic Alliance also being in large numbers.

Even then, Faolain hadn't suffered so much as to be never heard of again - it just happened that her preparations were stopped by Mordremoth's arrival.

The maps I made are literally the same size as the Domain of Istan, and Sandswept Isles maps, I even cut out some of the water areas around them, so they are actually smaller then the overall size of the last two Living World maps. PoF adding mounts has allowed Anet to make bigger maps, that are a bit more spread out, compared to previous ones.I actually compared and they're slightly larger. Unless you're counting the literally zero content water as part of the map.

And we literally just destroyed the gate network he was using to do so, after having destroyed the OTHER gate network he was using to do so. How many of these gate networks does he have again?You know there are more methods of transport than asura gates, right?

And he does have an army of Awakened Inquest. Who's to say they cannot build him a new gate hub?

Anet doesn't care about about 100% boxing in the whole game world, we saw this with release, with past living story maps, with Heart of Thorns, even with the two living story maps we have seen already for this season. Anet just does a "best of" hits collection. They basically destroyed any chance of seeing the area between the Domain of Istan, and The First city, with Daybreak, its much too small for a typical LW map.Not really. Look at the map. There are literally 7 maps that are not adjacent to other maps. In order of release: Southsun Cove, Ember Bay, Bastion of the Penitent, Draconis Mons, Domain of Vabbi, Domain of Istan, Sandswept Isles.

Five of those seven maps are islands. And one is a raid.

They may not fill in every nook and cranny, but by in large, they don't have too-small-for-another-map gap between their maps. Not even the gap between Sparkly Fen and Lornar's Pass is too small for a new map, albeit the map would be small like Bloodstone Fen.

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Last season we had a machine that solved our dragon problem in one episode, so assuming that we need two seasons to figure out how to keep the world safe from kralk’s death is kind of irrelevant. The machine was destroyed but it just goes to show that using any kind of logic on what you think should happen doesn’t really apply when they can create some other easy solution to the problem. We assume Aurene isn’t strong or old enough to take Kralks magic but that doesn’t mean by the end of this season she won’t.

They could, especially if the leaks were true and they do plan on exploring the legion homelands, but I don’t see them dragging Kralkatorrik out for a second expansion when he was already kind of the focus for this one.

In a lot of your arguments I see you applying real world logic as the basis for what you think is going to happen in the game, but anything can happen. Lol

I don’t think it’s a coincidence that we saved two inquest members and one says he has a lot of data on Kralkatorrik. I think that data will be more crucial to figuring out out Kralkatorrik problem than them just being there to solve our scarab plague problem. One Audra solved our last elder dragon problem, and now we have three working together. I see Joko being the middle boss of the season with Kralkatorrik being the final similar to last season and a few hints at the next expansion tossed into the last few patches.

That doesn’t necessarily mean Cantha and the legion lands maps have been changed slightly which supports the expansion there, but I also think they’re planning on this season being s but longer.

The only alternative I see is that you are correct about Kralkatorrik being the next expansion and that this episode will be much shorter with the expansion sooner and thus it ties in a little more with the legion maps.

Whatever happens, I still don’t see Joko being the central focus for the remainder of the season given the pace at which were focusing on him but I suppose that could change at any given episode. The next will undoubtedly deal with Joko and the plague but it could wind up being another story filler with no resolution like this episode to draw out the plot a little longer.

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Next Expacs will probably be:

One in the Bloodlegion Homelands/Shivering Mountains. Charr oriented. Dragon would be probably Kalk.

One in Cantha: Not Dragon Oriented but will lead into bubbles introduction via LS.

One Underwater: Complete underwater revamp and improvement.Masteries concentrate on movement underwater, currents, flow, night vision etc.Dragon is bubbles.

One in the Isles of Janthir: Probably the last expac.Bad guy will probably be the ultimate big bady.You destroy him via Aurene which has tranquilized all other remaining Elder dragons to this point and absorbed their power. After that you established balance again in the World.

This conclusion is probably 8 to 10 years from now. After that Anet can Launch a GW3 with totally new stuff.

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@"Konig Des Todes.2086" said:You're forgetting the whole without ending the world part.No I'm not actually. The dragons would end the world because their deaths give off massive amounts of magical energy, which upsets the balance. Why would using a device to TRANSFER Kralkatorik's energy to Aurene release the energy that would destroy the world? Not to mention we have already seen, via the mastery tract, that Aurene already has the ability to not only absorb magic, but also transfer that power to others. All she needs to do is hit the critical mass stage to start doing it full time Elder Dragon style. I also made no comment on Elder Dragons past Kralkatorik either. I only stated we could end him right now fairly easily.Even if you can manage to solve all those plots in four releasesHere is the thing, they wouldn't be solved, and they SHOULDN'T be solved, because things like usurping a dictator who has ruled for hundreds of years, reforming what was a large religious/military order, and bridging a gap between two splinter groups that came from the same source, aren't things that can be solved in a year or two's time. At most, we should get the ball rolling on these things, and leave Elona knowing its heading to a better path.Not really. He could easily stay put and the Season 4 maps never touch him, with the next expansion largely being in Kourna.Then where would LWS4 be? Joko is attempting to invade Tyira... but we aren't going to do anything to actually hinder his operations like going after the two largest and most well defended fortresses in Elona, aka Gandara and Jahai? Are you suggesting the Pact Commander is going to go full on stupid and waste his time putting out the brush fires of Joko's invasions into new maps in Central Tyria... which would be miles away from any major population center(except DR) at this point with how built out the maps are due to all the previous releases we have had in central Tyira, and thus, Joko would have no reason to be there? Not to mention, we already see the local garrisons/armies defend the major cities, leaving us free to go chase down Joko in Elona itself.The whole human-charr peace treaty is a really freaking huge dangling plot threadNo it isn't. The whole Vigil order storyline was about making sure it succeeded, and, after that storyline, we see Charr and humans working together and all that jazz, showing it did succeed. Its literally not a thing at this point.Furthermore, Separatists were not funded solely by CaudecusThey don't need to be. He was, as far as we have been shown, their primary investor, and the one directing their actions. Just like he was behind most everything going on in Kryta such as the Centaur war, the bandits, the circus. Like it or not, Anet pinned basically all "evil" human activities on him during LWS3, and even have an achievement to collect journal pages and notes that proves he is.Ulgoth died in 1325 AE. However, in Season 2 - 1327 AE - Queen Jennah makes a comment at The World Summit suggesting that the centaurs are still at Divinity's Reach's front gates.And as we see in LWs3, there are some centaur bands near Divinities Reach, in the Lake Doric area, due to the actions of Caudecus/White Mantel, but its also mentioned that the bulk of the centaur army had been driven into the Harathi Hitherlands and back into their homelands. You seem to have this notion that unless something has been stopped 100%, that means it is still going on full force. That isn't how reality works. Pushing the centaur army back into their homelands, and killing their leader, isn't going to just magically make all Centaurs everywhere stop making attacks against the humans, but it also doesn't mean they are the same kind of problem they once were.And I would disagree that remnants will "continue to exist for years" given that we've completely wiped out every White Mantle now.No, we really haven't. We got rid of the last effective leadership of the Mantle back in episode 6, but people with Mantel ideology are still around, and will likely continue to make terrorist actions against Kryta for years to come, they just aren't an effective organization at this point.We never encountered the leaders of the Molten Alliance or Toxic Alliance, and Mai Trin is still out there as well.Ahh yes the "I'll get you next time Gadget!" type of villainy. No thanks. You don't need to kill all the leaders to ruin an organization to the point of irrelevancy. Especially when those factions were literally nothing but pawns for Scarlet that were only meant to be experiments and not lasting alliances.Except for their literally unphased groups in Mount Maelstrom and Sparkfly Fen, and the group that became the Toxic Alliance also being in large numbers.You mean the relatively small bases in both locations that pale in comparison to their bases back near the Grove? And the Toxic alliance was mostly Krait, with Nightmare Court assisting them. Both of which really go to show how on hard times/reduced they were, and forced to make such alliances, in order to make any sort of progress.I actually compared and they're slightly larger.I actually made them, and they're slightly smaller.You know there are more methods of transport than asura gates, right? And he does have an army of Awakened Inquest. Who's to say they cannot build him a new gate hub?If he had the ability to build a new gate hub, why would he still be using the gate hub in places like The First City, and Sandsweapt Isles, when he could be using ones built into places like Gandara and Jahai, which would be 20 times more secure?Not really. Look at the map.I have, there are no less then 10 gaps created by maps not being all perfectly boxed right next to each other.

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@InsaneQR.7412 said:Next Expacs will probably be:

One in the Bloodlegion Homelands/Shivering Mountains. Charr oriented. Dragon would be probably Kalk.

One in Cantha: Not Dragon Oriented but will lead into bubbles introduction via LS.

One Underwater: Complete underwater revamp and improvement.Masteries concentrate on movement underwater, currents, flow, night vision etc.Dragon is bubbles.

One in the Isles of Janthir: Probably the last expac.Bad guy will probably be the ultimate big bady.You destroy him via Aurene which has tranquilized all other remaining Elder dragons to this point and absorbed their power. After that you established balance again in the World.

This conclusion is probably 8 to 10 years from now. After that Anet can Launch a GW3 with totally new stuff.

I like it up until GW3. I don't get why people expect this, the era or sequel after sequel is mostly gone for MMOs, replaced instead with releasing one game and updating it as long as they can, which is potentially decades. Gaming is too young in history to say how long the longest games will last, but WoW is probably the best example at around 15 years old with no signs of stopping. So after dragons, villains will come out of the woodwork for all eternity as in most successful MMOs that last decades or however long. For all we know, they could last for a century (unlikely but you get my point)

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@Fenom.9457 said:

@"InsaneQR.7412" said:Next Expacs will probably be:

One in the Bloodlegion Homelands/Shivering Mountains. Charr oriented. Dragon would be probably Kalk.

One in Cantha: Not Dragon Oriented but will lead into bubbles introduction via LS.

One Underwater: Complete underwater revamp and improvement.Masteries concentrate on movement underwater, currents, flow, night vision etc.Dragon is bubbles.

One in the Isles of Janthir: Probably the last expac.Bad guy will probably be the ultimate big bady.You destroy him via Aurene which has tranquilized all other remaining Elder dragons to this point and absorbed their power. After that you established balance again in the World.

This conclusion is probably 8 to 10 years from now. After that Anet can Launch a GW3 with totally new stuff.

I like it up until GW3. I don't get why people expect this, the era or sequel after sequel is mostly gone for MMOs, replaced instead with releasing one game and updating it as long as they can, which is potentially decades. Gaming is too young in history to say how long the longest games will last, but WoW is probably the best example at around 15 years old with no signs of stopping. So after dragons, villains will come out of the woodwork for all eternity as in most successful MMOs that last decades or however long. For all we know, they could last for a century (unlikely but you get my point)

It was just a rough estimate. Personally i am not a "I want GW3" person. Depending on the engine and the techbical issues they might make a third installement. But in my opinion they could just continue the work they are doing now. Its a good game from the start and even better now.

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@InsaneQR.7412 said:

@InsaneQR.7412 said:Next Expacs will probably be:

One in the Bloodlegion Homelands/Shivering Mountains. Charr oriented. Dragon would be probably Kalk.

One in Cantha: Not Dragon Oriented but will lead into bubbles introduction via LS.

One Underwater: Complete underwater revamp and improvement.Masteries concentrate on movement underwater, currents, flow, night vision etc.Dragon is bubbles.

One in the Isles of Janthir: Probably the last expac.Bad guy will probably be the ultimate big bady.You destroy him via Aurene which has tranquilized all other remaining Elder dragons to this point and absorbed their power. After that you established balance again in the World.

This conclusion is probably 8 to 10 years from now. After that Anet can Launch a GW3 with totally new stuff.

I like it up until GW3. I don't get why people expect this, the era or sequel after sequel is mostly gone for MMOs, replaced instead with releasing one game and updating it as long as they can, which is potentially decades. Gaming is too young in history to say how long the longest games will last, but WoW is probably the best example at around 15 years old with no signs of stopping. So after dragons, villains will come out of the woodwork for all eternity as in most successful MMOs that last decades or however long. For all we know, they could last for a century (unlikely but you get my point)

It was just a rough estimate. Personally i am not a "I want GW3" person. Depending on the engine and the techbical issues they might make a third installement. But in my opinion they could just continue the work they are doing now. Its a good game from the start and even better now.

they will probably do an engine port instead of a next installment if engine issues become to bad

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@"cptaylor.2670" said:Last season we had a machine that solved our dragon problem in one episode, so assuming that we need two seasons to figure out how to keep the world safe from kralk’s death is kind of irrelevant.

The machine didn't solve the problem. The entire point was that while the machine could kill the two dragons, it would do so in a way that would release a catastrophic surge of magic that would destroy Tyria. That's not a solution, that's MAD.

@Sajuuk Khar.1509 said:Here is the thing, they wouldn't be solved, and they SHOULDN'T be solved, because things like usurping a dictator who has ruled for hundreds of years, reforming what was a large religious/military order, and bridging a gap between two splinter groups that came from the same source, aren't things that can be solved in a year or two's time. At most, we should get the ball rolling on these things, and leave Elona knowing its heading to a better path.

So, how many times in Guild Wars have we left a situation knowing it's heading to a better path, and come back later to find that no, if anything it's gotten worse?

In the Guild Wars franchise, it's never safe to leave a problem until you've torn it out by the root and burned it. Of course, sometimes you have to, because you have a bigger, more pressing problem to deal with elsewhere. But years of experience with the franchise have shown that you can never assume that you've passed a tipping point and the situation will get better on its own without the continued intervention of the PC.

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Yeah, i still find reasons to go to POF zones but in terms of being enjoyable I definitely find hot zones hitting the mark. Just the metas alone are really fun and make everything seem so much more alive. But I imagine we won’t get anymore like those metas.

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I'm not sure how useful speculation on future expansions would be considering that we have very little to go on. 2 episodes into LS3, did we have any indication that we'd end up in Elona? It's likely any expansion would be a continuous block of 4-5 zones (and a guild hall) and there's just too many places you could shove a large block of maps. Depending on the scope of them, you could even fit a second expansion in Elona covering Kourna, Dajkah and the Sulfurous Wastes ending at Kralky's new perch.

The only thing we probably can say for sure is that if the next expansion is spurred on by Kralkatorrik moving again, we can be sure he won't pass directly over any existing zones since they'd have to change them drastically, as not having a brand scar show up would be too big of a plot hole. From the mountain he's on right now there's a few paths he could take.

  1. He could go south, past Zehlon Reach, Dohjok, and into Istan. This doesn't seem very likely as Istan, while big, isn't really big enough for a whole expansion.
  2. He could double back, swinging across southern Kourna and into Dzalana. This seems unlikely as well, since we really haven't been given any reason to care about that region. Not even a hint of what's supposed to be there except lots of harpies.
  3. Taking a sharp turn north across the sulfurous wastes, through the gap between Vabbi and the Desolation, and off to the north. Doesn't seem likely either, but they did leave that gap there for a reason, and there are a few "anomalies" in the unexplored map around there, and the terrain does seem to be varied to the point where you can encounter 2 or more biomes in a single map (something they seem to have taken a liking to in PoF).
  4. Continue heading north across Scavenger's Causeway and onwards. I think this option is the most likely. While we currently don't have any attachment to the region, it does allow for a lot of potential endpoints without wasting precious map real estate or unnecessarily extending the world map. There's also some interesting structures on the western edge of the desolation that could potentially be our way in.

Where would he end up? Well Kralk could fly to the last island in the ring of fire (not likely), straight up the causeway to fill in the center of Orr, swing north across the Elon river and land in the Deldrimor front, or even keep going through the gap between the fields of ruin and the desert highlands and head back towards the Charr Homelands. Lots of options that way.

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@ZeftheWicked.3076 said:All i'll say is that i hope it'll be more like HoT (verticality, outposts, more masteries and mazes, huge replayability) and less like PoF.I hope its more like PoF, you know... good, rather then HoT which was a terrible slog through boring enemies, a boring environment, whose masteries were the same thing copied 3 times, that dropped more plot threads then a bad novel, etc.

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I preferred the maps in PoF over HoT, and not because the enemies were too hard, but because the maps were wider and more interesting. I did kind of miss adventures that weren't just PoI races, but the mastery skills were definitely more broadly useful. The flow of the story felt more natural, too. Now, I didn't find HoT boring, but I really didn't find myself going back to those maps much except for occasionally grinding for mastery experience, at least until the Living World maps came in.

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@"ZeftheWicked.3076" said:If you can't handle the challenge just say so. Saying "boring" to an xpac that revolutionized the definition of map in gw2 and many mmorpgs in general is pretty telling how it got you "bored"..PoF did more to change the map then HoT did TBH. Mounts have gotten far more use then gliders have, and have far more uses then gliders do. And no, HoT didn't change anything for any other MMO.

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I meant map veritcality, along with their complexity and mastery system.Any mmo can give you flat or semi-flat maps. That's no achievemet. While Verdant Brink, Auric Basin, and Tangled Depths remain in class of their own, unchallenged.I come back to them all the time to find new places i didn't find the first time or just get super high and glide to some very high spot i get amazing views from.

I have hard time convincing myself to look or spent time in any PoF map save maybe desolation. And i still haven't been there for a good 3 months or so.

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i love hot maps very much, but I would hardly say that there is unanimous opinion, who remembers the old forums, remembers that the style of maps of the HoT was quite hated in the first year. It seems to me that currently occurs is something like the LS1: people tend to see the past with pink lenses.

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