The next expansion/LW series: Total Destruction

[Game of Bones.8975]

 

Depending on how EoD finishes, I would like to see a new enemy introduced set on taking out sentient life on Tyria. Each LW story could focus on the destruction/rebuilding of a core “Home” city, with the final story ending in a last stand at Lion’s Arch.

 

It could be something from GW1 (The Underworld, FoW, The Mists, or a completely new region). New races/professions could be introduced as heroes to help our current characters in the overall conflict.

 

In the end, you would have newly constructed cities (possibly additional cities across Tyria as “Homes” to chose from, new professions instead of the current Elites for the nine professions, and a new race or two.

 

It would be difficult for established characters to transition from Old to New, but it was done with the Destruction of Lion’s Arch in LW1.

[Borked.6824]

As long as there is some subtlety.  This game's biggest flaw is trying to move at 100mph, killing off dragons and old gods every other week.  A season of tasteful and tactful turmoil would be appreciated.  But I do like your idea as there's not a lot of avenues to break permanence.

[AquaBR.9250]

23 minutes ago, Borked.6824 said:

As long as there is some subtlety.  This game's biggest flaw is trying to move at 100mph, killing off dragons and old gods every other week.  A season of tasteful and tactful turmoil would be appreciated.  But I do like your idea as there's not a lot of avenues to break permanence.

No is the total opposite, the flaw of this game is killing ancient god-like dragons and they not leaving they destruction in the world, damm Primordus could rip half of Tyria open in a giant volcano just by walking to the surface, would be a hella cool concept of map/boss, just a giant crater the size of divinity's reach just popping in a random core tyria map, just like the tower of nightmares changed kessex hills forever, a story element changing the enviorement forever, that was the most awsome thing i've ever seen in a MMO.

Edited December 21, 2021 by AquaBR.9250

[Gibson.4036]

I'd like the exact opposite.

With the end of the dragons, I'd like to see the writers take the opportunity to scale the conflict back. I'd like villains with understandable motives and interesting personalities, instead of mountain sized forces of nature that can only really be understood by others of their own kind because they are so far beyond mortals.

I'm plenty okay with fighting to save a local people or a region, rather than constantly being on the brink of the destruction of the entire world. At some point, the threatened destruciton of all and everything just becomes so mindnumbingly big and tiresome.

[Gibson.4036]

This thread got me thinking.

What happens when so many enemies have united because of a common threat when that common threat is past? What holds all these factions together once there are no elder dragons? What kind of pressure would the former commander be under to be the glue that keeps them together, though that's a task that should fall to no one person?

Maybe too complex a story for this kind of game. But there could be a lot of potential there.

[Batel.9206]

23 minutes ago, Gibson.4036 said:

This thread got me thinking.

What happens when so many enemies have united because of a common threat when that common threat is past? What holds all these factions together once there are no elder dragons? What kind of pressure would the former commander be under to be the glue that keeps them together, though that's a task that should fall to no one person?

Maybe too complex a story for this kind of game. But there could be a lot of potential there.

You made me think of Dragon Age: Inquisition's Trespasser DLC, where that exact thing happens. The world-destroying threat (well, that world-destroying threat) is gone...so what do you do with the gigantic military organization created out of the blue to fight it? A lot of people aren't happy - you're infringing on their kingdom's territory, you're (inadvertently) threatening their own military operations, and you've got spies and diplomats and soldiers in every nation of the world. Naturally the game prevents you from actually acting on that, but the potential threat is what makes people nervous. The player character, the leader of that organization, is the one taking the brunt of everyone's ire, and it really gets to them. ("Could ONE THING in this [forsaken] world just STAY FIXED!?")

It's a fascinating set-up. Trespasser didn't really explore it too much (you're whisked off to deal with, surprise, a different world-destroying threat), but the potential is there. I'd love to see GW2 try something like that. Put some more pressure on our poor Commander - see how they handle the stress. They can't just go off and bash a monster dragon in the face to solve the problem now, so how can they deal with this? There was a bit of it in A Star to Guide Us where you awkwardly try to mediate peace talks between Elonian factions, and everybody has a different reaction to you, ranging from

Spoiler

hatred (Your pet dragon killed Joko, you monster!) to incredulity (Joko was our immortal king for a reason, y'know) to wariness (Uh, if you or that dragon have the power to actually kill Joko permanently...what can you do to the rest of us?).

It was great. Seeing more of that would be amazing.

As far as "burn the world down and let's see what comes from the ashes" sort of a plotline... On paper, that sounds great. In practice, not so much. How would you handle such a thing? Would the game be divided between those who've gone through the world-destroying cataclysmic meltdown and those who haven't? If not, how would new players just going through their personal story deal with the world suddenly ending when they're just getting to know their Order mentors? Would players who don't care for the story still be able to play in old maps without the destruction, or would everyone be forced into new maps? What would happen to a player who took a break from the game, came back near the end of the storyline, and - oh look every major city is utterly destroyed and half the continent's in ruins and everybody's dead or dying...what the litter of kittens happened here!? Something similar happened with LWS1, and the temporary nature of such events was what hurt the story in the long run. I'd rather not see that repeated.

Edited December 21, 2021 by Batel.9206
...sorry for the wall of text there. :)

[Westenev.5289]

Does the world ALWAYS have to be at risk? We've had an escalating plot since day 1, but the lws5 prologue gave me a taste of what gw2 could be if it spent time developing characters and just paused from all the doom and gloom.

 

I hate marching to war to save a world of characters I don't know nor care about.

[Debesyla.7102]

I would rather take some more down-to-earth conflicts like political or family dramas. (That's why Charr civil war and the very end with Rytlock and famillia was my favorite parts of IBS...)

Every game has "all destroying, this is the end" dragons, gods and whatever. Not every has actually relatable stories that you remember even after finishing the game.

[Teratus.2859]

Pretty much what I was hoping for with Primordus as the finale of IceBrood Saga but they completely botched it and have now eliminated thee Dragon that easily should have been the main antagonist of Gw2 without giving him any big moments to shine in this game.

Despite being thee embodiment of destruction and carnage.. Primordus pretty much did nothing but sleep for the entire duration of this game's story.
An absolute waste of an Elder Dragon and the only villain in this game that could have surpassed the threat of extinction that only Kralkatorrik so far has really made me feel is genuine.

Zhaitan, Mordremoth and Jormag all felt like they were trying to rule the world, Kralk and Primordus wanted to exterminate it.
Water Dragon so far just going off theories feels more like the latter than another force of destruction.
But we don't know for sure yet so anything can happen.