Poormany.4507

tbh, knowing Anet's announcements, I have the same bad feeling. My guess: $25 mini-expacs ~once or twice a year (1 mini-expac for 2 or 3 quarters, followed by a free quarterly update or two), no more elite specs (at least for the next few years, if ever) because of balance difficulties, and it will pretty much be 2-3 LW episodes repackaged as an expac, with (hopefully) slightly better quality (~LWS4ish) because they merge the LW and expac teams. If they went ahead and said this now, it would just hurt EoD sales because players would be (justifiably) upset that they'd be paying for less content that was previously expected to be free as long as you logged in for 10 seconds on one day (basically free). Expecting a PR-like post downplaying/justifying their decisions in the middle-end of the quarterly updates.

Previous LW episodes were pretty much free (all you had to do was log in) and consequently, there was a much smaller quality demand, with the expectation that it's a one-off issue and the next LW episode/expac will be much better. Having to pay for LW with a considerable chance that it ends up being low-quality content sold as a mini-expac does not sound like an improvement - unless the price was much lower than an expac ($10-15), which I really doubt will be the case, since they specifically said "slightly reduced" cost (more likely $20-25 per mini-expac).

Merging and rebranding 2-3 Living World episodes as mini-expacs seems very risky to me tbh. There is no guarantee those three won't end up like the second half of IBS. Imagine paying $20-30 for that and then getting fully reused 2012 models in copy-paste missions. If Anet had a more consistent quality track record with Living World, this would sound great, but pretty much one out of every three to four LW episodes ended up being clearly rushed and generally disliked by the community (i.e, One Path Ends, Kourna, IBS). Imo, they need to do a strong LWS6 (especially the ending episodes) before introducing mini-expacs, or they risk losing a lot of the playerbase.

I'm guessing it will start with Ihn's visit (either her leaving or returning to Cantha), but the Purists will either capture (more likely) or kill her, leading us to go to the new area (very likely Old Kaineng based on the hints of Purist experiments on Risen in EoD and the teaser art). The White Mantle was pretty much confirmed to be dead/entirely fell apart after LWS3, so I doubt we'll see them again. I could see the Speakers/Brotherhood joining the conflict in some way though, as their temporary truce was dissolved at the end of EoD.

Likely a long shot, but maybe we'll get some kind of small/vague description or hint of LWS6 and/or Expac 4?

If you really want to go spoiler free, don't look at the Wiki/Forums/Social Media about the game. Don't look ahead at mini names, achievements, or future story chapter titles that will likely be spoilery. Turn off all chats. If you do any of that, it's on you if you get spoiled because of your own curiosity (I've definitely fallen for that temptation at times tbh).

If I told you, they wouldn't be a secret anymore 😉 I did hear there's a nice secret place next to the Town of Nolan in Diessa if you're interested though...

Another big issue that would come up with this is how would you address situations where earlier choices that are skipped on alts would impact dialogue later in the story? (Example: https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Infinity_Ball) Having to go through and redo all of the dialogue in all current instances to add in a default option for those who skipped parts of the story on alts seems like a ton of dev work, that I don't feel like would be worth it. I feel like doing this would just force the story/devs to rarely or never reference prior player choices/events and go down the path of just doing one exact same default narrative/dialogue for all players without any kind of unique, player specific dialogues. This would impact any player that cares about the story, as the quality would drop drastically if it's pretty much forced to make a default, exact same dialogue for everyone to account for players skipping story instances on alts.

There's tons of unique dialogue/visuals if you play through content with a different class or race. You can't do most of the Personal Story on a single playthrough because it depends on which race/initial character bio/Order you choose.

What would be the point of leveling or playing through the story with alts with this idea? The game would pretty much be a one-and-done game at that point. What if someone (such as myself) likes playing their alts as different characters, not as an all-in-one character like you do? Not a fan of this idea.

Just look up "red and blue koi fish Yin Yang" on Google Images and you get plenty of drawings/art of the same exact Yin-Yang design from long before either of these MMOs even came out. Definitely not even close to "stolen" as OP claims. https://www.google.com/search?q=red+and+blue+koi+fish+yin+yang This argument, imo, is like saying GW2 stole team-based dungeons from Runescape (Dungeoneering) or Norn from the Elder Scrolls (Nords). It's just the same widely available, cultural themes and designs being used in different games, not anything being stolen.

I do not want to see her brought back in physical form tbh. Her death and redemption arcs were one of the ones Anet pulled off really well and had an impact. Bringing her back would just cheapen that imo (similar to the fake Aurene death in LWS4). Though, I would like it if we saw her in a Mists/Fractal form and let her pass on/gain peace knowing that people view her differently now.

As others have mentioned, since he didn't die at the end of the Saga, although I was kind of expecting him to, I don't think he's dying anytime soon. Killing him off atm would be pointless. Maybe if he gets another Far Shiverpeaks storyline in the extended map and/or rejoins us sometime in the future it would make sense, but that would probably be at least a several years away. We're almost certainly dealing with primarily Canthan/Unending Ocean stuff in the next LW, which I don't really see Braham as being that important to. One of the new Canthan characters or Ivan dying seems much more likely in the nearer future imo, although it should definitely not feel forced, especially since we just had three major deaths in EoD and haven't really gotten a chance to interact that much with the new Canthan ones.

It was 250 years since it was a city. As we saw in GW1, Old Kaineng was pretty much a fire hazard waiting to happen, if not collapsing from some other natural disaster. I would not find it unbelievable if that part of the city got destroyed within that 250 years, claimed by Naga, and then rebuilt into New Kaineng after the Zhaitan flood.

Don't have a problem with the current system and agree with others that killing off main characters frequently loses its impact and starts to become tiresome. That said, I am against plot armor death/injury escapes that don't really make sense- Braham's at the end of IBS was the most noticeable. He didn't even get burnt or anything physically, compared to how permanently disfigured Ryland became. Sure the Spirits of the Wild gave him partial protection, but no scars/injuries at all just made it seem like writer's favor/plot armor.

Also have this issue. Annoying to have to click the achievements pane every time I want to see what the PvE dailies are. I have zero interest in PvP and do not want/need to see any PvP dailies. Hopefully this gets fixed soon.

How would it not be? They would have to update most armor/weapons (and their animations), come up with new animations for almost everything, and change all racially-specific dialogue, all for 10 years worth of content. Also, unless they introduced the new race as an entirely new level 80-only starting area (more likely), they would need to redesign/retcon the entire storyline up to this point, as neither Tengu/Largos/any of the other major races participated in it in any significant fashion. The amount of time/resources spent on that could so much easier and more worthwhile to be spent on more important stuff that would be more important to players (like new expacs) than a minor cosmetic change, most likely only for level 80 players who are far into the story.

Housing, I'd be fine with tbh as long as it's not the only main expac feature (on a similar level to fishing and skiffs, which I only occasionally use, but are not the only two main expac features and are supplemented by other more useful ones i.e. Jade Bots). I think it would be a good addition, especially to players who don't have access to specific Guild Halls, if any at all or just want a personal space just for themselves to go and customize. Personal housing also already has much of the technical aspects/assets that could be directly ported from Guild Halls and would thus require less dev resources/time than starting from scratch like with mounts or gliding. Weddings, on the other hand, I don't really see as being expac level and would definitely not want any kind of large-scale focus on, as they would only probably be for a small niche of players. As others have mentioned, you can already RP in-game weddings in places like that isle in LA. I would be fine with them adding a few NPCs and/or designing a few free outfits for that location, but anything more involved with that seems like a waste of resources.

This is the only way I can see them reasonably doing any sort of new playable race tbh - Starting in a level 80 zone that just begins their story at that point in the game. Then adding in a popup and/or sepia effect for previous mission replays like they had in GW1 missions that you played through with characters from a different campaign: "You are experiencing events that occurred to heroes of the past." This way, no old missions would need to be remade from scratch (only modifying some of the few racial dialogues/events in them) just to fit in a new race. In any case, I highly doubt anything like this would be worth the effort, as others have said, and would much rather have Anet focus on other new content/fixing old content.

There has been a bunch of player speculation, based on mentions of her in EoD, that Zojja has already woken up and is working on something important: https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/topic/114003-does-eod-imply-that-zojja-is-currently-missing/ In any case, I would also like to see her again, or at least have some kind of conclusion for her.

Please no. I would quit gathering if any kind of required minigame was implemented for it due to the large amounts of mats needed for crafting. Fishing is not needed for most crafting so it's more an exception. Also, what exactly would be the point/benefits of implementing such a system?

Came to GW2 from GW1, but played Everquest 2 and Runescape before. Left those because of too few players (EQ2) and getting put off by the forced subscribe-to-play model (RS). GW just has a much better playerbase and respects my time/money more.

Story - 9/10 Good for the most part and felt on par with those of HoT and PoF. The underwater reactor map was one of the best we've had imo. Only reason it got 9/10 is that the whole Minister Li/Rama subplot felt very tacked on and like it should have been saved for LWS6 when we'll probably have to deal with the Ministry of Purity again anyways. The characters were really good imo. Maps - 7/10 Again good for the most part, but the jade tech/batteries everywhere (even in random abandoned ruins) felt tacky and out of place, especially in the Echovald where these is less civilization anyway (like the dev(s) who worked on this just went trigger happy with the copy-paste button). As others have already said, Kaineng had so much more potential than it received and has a lot of empty/useless areas that I see no reason at all to go to. I was expecting a bustling city similar to Divinity's Reach since it is the capital city of Cantha, but was really let down by how much empty space and lack of ambient dialogue there is. Guessing this is because of lack of dev time, since Kaineng was the last map previewed before launch. Masteries - 9/10 I really liked these masteries. Skiffs and fishing are a nice way to relax and I enjoy the fishing minigame. Jade bots are awesome and provide really useful functions (the gliding one is very useful imo, haven't gotten the revive one yet, but that one seems very helpful as well). Only downside was the Arborstone ones felt a little repetitive, but were still ok and useful for a hub in Cantha.

This also raises the question - Can gods absorb other gods' magic if they die, similar to how Aurene absorbed the other elder dragons' magic and how Kormir absorbed Abaddon's? If this is the case and they do end up going the route of some kind of god conflict, we could possibly use one or more of the "mortal friendly" gods (Dwayna or Melandru come to mind) to contain the other(s) magic or, as mentioned, get other allied individuals (such as Kormir was) to somehow absorb their powers and act as replacements. On topic for this thread, I don't think Zojja will be part of the main party (assuming she returns) and much more see her as having a behind-the-scenes support role, with an occasional in-person appearance (much like Logan does currently).

There was also Caithe (I think) yelling "For Snaff, for Eir!" during the final boss in EoD. No mention of Zojja, again implying she's still alive and possibly even in a recovering state (I would think if she was in a permanent coma or something, she'd be getting avenged as well). Felt kind of like Balthazar cursing all the Gods but Lyssa at the end of PoF tbh, which the devs have implied is deliberate and that story is not yet complete. These similar small nods to Zojja kind of make be think she'll be brought back at some point, possibly soon.