Cantha and Tengu playable race, when ?!

[Nazferatwo.1764]

war eternal was great, but i would like more from this game, i would like another DLC.anyone here agree ?more classes or subclasses.more story. we need cantha.

[Ben K.6238]

Well, I'm sure Kuunavang would be an interesting way to follow up season 4. ANet hasn't provided any details on what comes next, so it's possible they might be thinking Cantha, but it's also possible they're doing something else. And don't hold your breath on the Tengu.

[Poormany.4507]

I'm sure we'll get Cantha eventually, since it would be a massive seller, but there is no indication that it will be next expac, which could be anywhere at this point. We'll probably get more specs and maybe even an additional class like Rev did with HoT, regardless of where the expac is. Highly doubt we'll get a new playable race at this point, as it's just not worth the devs' time and resources.

[Zeefa.3915]

Cantha, maybe sometime. I certainly hope so anyway.Playable tengu, probably never.... sadly.

[derd.6413]

not in this lifetime

[Nazferatwo.1764]

@derd.6413 said:not in this lifetime

we keep this attitude, we will prolly not see it. wheres your motivation ?

[Leo G.4501]

@Nazferatwo.1764 said:

@"derd.6413" said:not in this lifetime

we keep this attitude, we will prolly not see it. wheres your motivation ?

It's the whole counter culture to the hype culture. You have these gamers that hype up anything and everything to an absurd degree which then leads to disappointment as things never live up to the hype. This then spawns these "negative nancies" that do the opposite and expect the worse (takes the form of "we'll get nothing" and "nothing will ever be balanced" or some such) so that when things do happen and stuff is added, no matter how minor, they can still feel good about their chosen game.

[Nazferatwo.1764]

@Leo G.4501 said:

@Nazferatwo.1764 said:

@"derd.6413" said:not in this lifetime

we keep this attitude, we will prolly not see it. wheres your motivation ?

It's the whole counter culture to the hype culture. You have these gamers that hype up anything and everything to an absurd degree which then leads to disappointment as things never live up to the hype. This then spawns these "negative nancies" that do the opposite and expect the worse (takes the form of "we'll get nothing" and "nothing will ever be balanced" or some such) so that when things do happen and stuff is added, no matter how minor, they can still feel good about their chosen game.

i believe in not telling devs what to do, i believe in planting a seed and let them handle that idea.true Anet team is not the same from GW1, but i liked every single thing they have done.people just need to focus on the positive, and stop getting discouraged with other peoples opinions. people are hard to please, specially when they aren't satisfied with life. :D

[aspirine.6852]

I hope they have proper time to build Cantha, like expansion time and not living story time. I would buy that without even seeing what's in it.

[Nazferatwo.1764]

@aspirine.6852 said:I hope they have proper time to build Cantha, like expansion time and not living story time. I would buy that without even seeing what's in it.

that's what i am saying, lol and people are too negative about it.as a community we should motivate the devs.

[Tzarakiel.7490]

Cantha was very unpopular in Asia due to them mixing cultures that are antagonistic to each other. Now that the game is out in China they will probably never add Cantha. After all why develop maps they can't release there.

[Sirius.4510]

I keep hearing that but I never hear any evidence for it! How do we know the Asian market has a problem with Cantha? Did anyone actually research it?

[RizelStar.3724]

Cantha as an expansion, sure, as for playable races you got to factor in Living story content and etc. I'm not a person who believes in never so just be sure to take everything into account when it comes to playables races in this game.

[Tzarakiel.7490]

@Sirius.4510 said:I keep hearing that but I never hear any evidence for it! How do we know the Asian market has a problem with Cantha? Did anyone actually research it?

The Jews are only second place in terms of suffering endured during WW2 and the Chinese will never forgive the Japanese for giving them first place. Especially since Japan even refuses to acknowledge it ever happened. If you're 18 or older google Nanjing WW2.

[Xanadrine.4352]

@Tzarakiel.7490 said:Cantha was very unpopular in Asia due to them mixing cultures that are antagonistic to each other. Now that the game is out in China they will probably never add Cantha. After all why develop maps they can't release there.

We will not get cantha because of this. And with all the new pc rules about cultural appropriation you can bet someone would raise a stink over it.

[Sirius.4510]

@Tzarakiel.7490 said:The Jews are only second place in terms of suffering endured during WW2 and the Chinese will never forgive the Japanese for giving them first place. Especially since Japan even refuses to acknowledge it ever happened.

But Cantha is not China or Japan. The history between those two countries doesn't automatically translate into borrowing themes and names from both being offensive.

[Illconceived Was Na.9781]

@Tzarakiel.7490 said:Cantha was very unpopular in Asia due to them mixing cultures that are antagonistic to each other. Now that the game is out in China they will probably never add Cantha. After all why develop maps they can't release there.

There's no evidence of this.

@"Sirius.4510" said:I keep hearing that but I never hear any evidence for it! How do we know the Asian market has a problem with Cantha? Did anyone actually research it?

The only thing we have is a statement about the Canthan District, the one that was planned for Divinity's Reach. At the last minute, it was axed and replaced with the "Great Collapse" (since replaced by the Queen's Pavillion). No one authorized to speak on the topic has ever explained why. No one working for ANet other than Josh Foreman ever said anything else about it.

What he did say has been interpreted to mean a lot of things, including that Cantha was unpopular is Asia.And this interpretation persists despite Foreman also having written:

• "I certainly don’t know where, when, or how the decision was made"
• "For all I know it was some producer in Korea who doesn’t work there any more and the next time it’s brought up there will be no problem. Or maybe there will be one or two tweaks that will fix the problem. Who knows?"

(I'll add the full quote in another post.)

[Rukario.1695]

The chance of adding any races at this point is probably very small, due to the reworks that would be required for every single armor piece -- unless those are just meshes and are freeform, then honestly they could do as they wish.

As for an expansion, well time will tell.

[Illconceived Was Na.9781]

Original Source of the Rumors About Cantha

• December 2012 Interview with Josh Foreman (skip to 1:44:17 for the relevant bit) (I've listened to the entire thing and that's as specific as Foreman gets)
• Empty Coffee Mug, referencing the same podcast on Reddit
• Foreman's comments from the original forums are archived here, here, and here.
• Anthony Ordon's Comment
• For what it's worth, Anthony Ordon's comment about the lore

Quotes From Interview

Here's what Foreman said in the interview:

We had a Cantha district. It was built out. It was polished. It was beautiful. We kept getting feedback about the Asian market. And everyone was having a problem with it because the Chinese don't like having their architecture mixed with Koreans and the Koreans don't like having their architecture with the Chinese. And of course it's fantasy smorgosbord. It's gothic mixed with Nordic mixed with ... that's just the way fantasy works. But not over there apparently. So it got to the point where we were like ... well, what do we do with this spot? We don't have time to rebuild from scratch, so we just nuked it.

And that's it. The only actual fact we have is that there were plans for a Canthan district in Divinity's Reach and that the section was removed at the last minute. "We kept getting feedback" is ambiguous about the source. We don't know if a Korean VP over at NCSOFT said, "don't do it" Maybe there was last minute feedback from playtesters in Asia. Or perhaps ANet had just entered into negotiations with KongZhong (the current publisher for the China version of the game) and they had an opinion. Or it could have been something else entirely. We simply haven't been told.

"Everyone was having a problem" is exactly the sort of thing I've heard VPs say when they mean, "I have a problem with it." It's hard to find evidence that entire ethnic groups "don't like having their architecture mixed," rather than it's a preference (strong or otherwise) by some individuals with clout.

Quotes From The (Archived) Forums

Here's what Foreman said on the archived forums:

JF: Cantha was my favorite GW1 region to work on. And I worked on every GW release. I know a lot of the dev team loved it and would love to revisit it. I kinda agree with critickitten about the negative aspect of tight corridors. Most of that came from hitting technological limits while trying to keep the epic quality of the concept art. I think we could do some really amazing things with those themes in our new engine. Certainly nothing is ruled out. I certainly encourage anyone to express your desire for a Cantha region in GW2 in a positive and friendly way. It could be years away, but it’s worth asking for.

Fan #1: Pure target audience strategy. They saw how westerners rejected Asian elements during Mists of Pandaria development, so they took it as a business rule and wanted to surf on the rejection. That is speculation of course, but it is so obvious …JF: That’s not what happened. This went down long before anyone even know MOP was coming. It was simply a cultural consideration.

Fan #2: If the only options at the end of the day were that Anet has to make the concession to keep Cantha uniformally one Asian culture moving forward, or never have it then I bet most of us would accept that concession even though it sucks that they have to be “sensitive” to those issues for political reasons. There’s a lot that goes on that we never hear about and never will hear about, and have really no right to hear about at this point in time in regards to the business and relations portion of ArenaNet and the game. As Josh said, many of the developers would love to return to Cantha, I bet many of them would rather do it sooner than later, but there’s probably a lot they have to do in order to move forward with Cantha and I sincerely hope they will and if there’s a way for them to make it happen I am sure they will.JF: That’s a very good way of putting it. I certainly don’t know where, when, or how the decision was made. I’m just a map artist. So I’m not in a position to critique it. I also don’t know the extent of the decision. For all I know it was some producer in Korea who doesn’t work there any more and the next time it’s brought up there will be no problem. Or maybe there will be one or two tweaks that will fix the problem. Who knows?

Fan #3: Without ourselves knowing the true situation and full extent of the decision, maybe we players shouldn’t fill in the blanks with “NCSoft Overlords perma-banned Cantha!?!?” I for one will try to stay open and keep hoping!JF: Indeed. I’ve been in this industry for 16 years and worked with a several publishers including Interplay, Sierra, THQ and now NCSoft. And for what it’s worth, the amount of creative freedom that NCSoft gives ArenaNet is MASSIVE compared to the others. NCSoft is crazy successful for a reason. They recognize the talent here and support us with a very hands-off policy in general. They give us a LOT of feedback and data to work with, but I’ve never got the impression that they are overlords like I have with the other publishers I’ve worked under.

Here's What Anthony Ordon wrote:

Just a final quick note, I’m certainly not denying that at one point a Canthan district was planned and partially implemented. But the actual lore of the district that the game shipped doesn’t support it very well right now.

I think it’s great that you guys are fans of Cantha and I would personally like to see it in the game as well. But what you’ll be finding under that tent (very soon) is not Canthan. I’m just making assumptions here, but if we did return to Cantha I suspect it would be a really big deal, way too big to fit under the even largest of tents, or even in an existing city at all.

[Xanadrine.4352]

If you dont think ncsoft is not allowing cantha because of cultural appropriation, i have a bridge i want to sell you.

[Illconceived Was Na.9781]

Cantha ... when ?!

Since ANet clearly likes nostalgia as much as a lot of fans, I think Cantha is a plausible destination for a major expansion (whether called that or released as an epic Living World series). There are tons of lore issues that would need to be addressed, which provides some incredible story-telling opportunities.

Personally, I prefer ANet go someplace we've never been before. For me, it would be more interesting to see something new, than a remake of someplace from before. I'm less pessimistic about a reboot, since they have done such a good job with Thunderhead Peaks and the Crystal Desert generally. Even so: Tyria is a big place; I'd like to see more of it.

Tengu playable race, when ?!ANet has been very clear that they aren't willing to commit to working on new races (they are interested in them, despite that). There are tons and tons of threads about the reasons, which boil down to: they can deliver Living World or a new race; each takes comparable effort. And LW offers more storytelling and mechanical benefits, while new races tend to have niche appeal.

[Sirius.4510]

@Illconceived Was Na.9781 said:

Thanks for all the material there! There were quite a few things I'd never seen before. I would tend to agree that it doesn't rule Cantha in or out - the biggest consideration is really where ArenaNet wants to take the story from here.

I hate to concur on the race thing (have been hoping they'd bring in tengu for many, many years) but I kind of have to. GW2 is a very expensive game to add races to and unless they're willing to make significant compromises, I don't see a good way to do it. You can make concessions on armor, but voicing is probably even worse and is not really negotiable.

[Einlanzer.1627]

If they never release Cantha it'll be the biggest dropped ball in the history of MMOs.

I feel like that only a little less about never getting new races. It's like no forethought was put into designing the game around long term scaling.

[Nazferatwo.1764]

@Illconceived Was Na.9781 said:

Cantha ... when ?!

Since ANet clearly likes nostalgia as much as a lot of fans, I think Cantha is a plausible destination for a

major

expansion (whether called that or released as an epic Living World series). There are tons of lore issues that would need to be addressed, which provides some incredible story-telling opportunities.

Personally, I prefer ANet go someplace we've never been before. For me, it would be more interesting to see something new, than a remake of someplace from before. I'm less pessimistic about a reboot, since they have done such a good job with Thunderhead Peaks and the Crystal Desert generally. Even so: Tyria is a big place; I'd like to see more of it.

Tengu playable race, when ?!ANet has been very clear that they aren't willing to commit to working on new races (they are interested in them, despite that). There are tons and tons of threads about the reasons, which boil down to: they can deliver Living World or a new race; each takes comparable effort. And LW offers more storytelling and mechanical benefits, while new races tend to have niche appeal.

honestly this can change over time.

[Nazferatwo.1764]

@Einlanzer.1627 said:If they never release Cantha it'll be the biggest dropped ball in the history of MMOs.

I feel like that only a little less about never getting new races. It's like no forethought was put into designing the game around long term scaling.

I agree