Speculation

I searched, and while I found many questions about Chapter 4's theme(i.e. greek, etc.) I saw none about what a possible plot would be, especially given the speculation/possiblity that Nightfall ends a trilogy. If Chapter 4 begins a new Trilogy, what and when will it be set in the world of Tyria? My own thoughts on this came from reading a couple of threads, including the "expansion and evolution of pve" stickie. Someone around here mentioned the rebuilding of Ascalon, which got me thinking.

What if the next trilogy involves a time after this trilogy? What if its years later and Ascalon has already been rebuilt, Nightfall complete, Factions united? Perhaps some great threat comes into play which forces all three continents to fight against new lands planning an invasion or some such plot device. While there would be problems bringing old characters into it(depending on how far in the future it is), it would be a way to connect the old countries with a new set. It would also allow for the addition of starting any class on any continent(since now each country has since resettled into peace), and perhaps races as well. Maybe this would be more suited as a 'Guild Wars 2' than a chapter 4, as each chapter currently appears to be set in approximately the same time period.

Or what of a prequel, a return to the original Guild Wars which kept Tyria from allowing guilds to build Halls upon their lands? Again, time travel would be a problem, but think of the possibility of discovering 'lost' secrets and skills.

Perhaps this would be more appropriate in your stickie, King Symeon, but I was attempting to address a chapter, not a general expansion.

Anyway, what direction do you guys think this next chapter will take Tyria? (I'm not talking themes, I'm talking possible plots/reasons for new continents,etc)
But this is just my two cents
Please discuss yours.

I really don't know how they can make an enemy that is harder then the ones in nightfall. You fight a god afterall, what can be more threatening then a god?

A God that is just another Lvl n creature that can be killed

I really do hope they do Not add anymore areas. Continent wise however. Elona, Cantha and Tyria have been in lore since the beginning. I really would love to come back to Tyria and help with Ascalon's counter attack against the charr.

Im hoping that they revist the old continents and add areas to them. Not expansions of course, it would definately be a chapter with new areas feeding off. (Charr homelands, Even more north into the shiverpeaks, Continued Maguuma, More Elona and more cantha ). Right now everything is just speculation for chapter four. But with Nightfall, Everybody has some pretty high hopes for C4 and i sure hope it will live up to those expectations.

Back to the Future, anyone? lol

I don't know about you, but if they do some sort of time-traveling chapter, I hope our characters age with the time gap. LOL... the tanned, muscly warriors all greyed and hunched over, chasing monsters around with an even more extreme AI kiting.... sounds like a good idea to me. haha...

Is the "Greek" idea pure speculation, or was it hinted somewhere? I REALLLY hope that chapter 4 of 5 is based off of the shiverpeaks area...I LOVE snowy/wintery areas of games!

Thats what a lot of people are actually assuming the next game will be. Essentially, in chap 3 we killed the most bad ass of demons in the GW world. Whats left? Giant robots and wierd ass technology from the dwarves.

A whole chapter like the Sorrow's Furnace addition? *yawn*

A prequel wouldent work for importing characters.

"HI! I have Shiro's Swords. I got them. Uh. Five years. From now."

note that abbadon was chained by some chains that were forged by balthazar, and that most of his armor was scattered around the mouth of torment (at least it hints at that strongly in the mission description for mouth of torment, which might explain why abbaddon is just a bit...disembodied??). maybe next time grenth tries to take over the world or something and we get to take him on :P loljk

I'm hoping it takes them a year to make the new expansion. If we have an entire new base for a trilogy coming from the Factions team, I'm betting on the entire trilogy being pointless. Moot. Please give us another Tyria to pwn in :-) And I like the idea of north Tyria too. We've got south, we've got east, nobody likes the west (maguuma) now give us some north!

yes, i felt the need to make a cheer about it.

I have a better idea. Dedicate your energy to discovering crap we don't know about Chapter 3, you know, the one just released, instead of some unannounced chapter.

I would like to see Ascalon rebuilt, with new races, and much more emphasis on teams of human players versus giant teams of remote controlled heroes. Don't penalize people for playing by themselves, but encourage teams of humans to play together via in-game matching systems or bonuses or something....

Elona is due south of the crystal desert :P

For all you know, we travel to the past to undo what Abaddon had done through the mist or something.

No way...ascalon was unimaginative and boring. Snowy areas FTW

I think we'll either:

-Venture into the north, finding a massive snowy mountain range. The shiverpeaks are just a branch.
-Venture into the west, into a huge Jungle.
-Venture into the south of Elona/Cantha.

Hmm.. lets see... I don't own Nightfall! Therefore this is not an option. I'm frankly waiting for the Nightfall hype and excitement to die down so I can get solid info on Elona without having to worry about spoiling for others by asking.

I frankly can't wait to see what happens in coming chapters, because I know the company will probably pull many ideas from its players. Just like they did for the last big update. So its fun to play guessing games.

But that's just my two cents.

I second that! Woot woot! I hope a Viking/Scandinavian theme for the next chapter. And a mission where you fight monstrous sea serpents on a boat!

Maybe the official Margonite homeland? According to the NF Manual, the original Margonites weren't created by the God Of Secrets.

yeah snow, my monk Yuki (snow in japanese) would love to see some again!!

I don't what could be more threatening - maybe the hero that thrwarted the Gods will on three continents and eventually beat him?

Until we see something the hero can not kill there is always something more threatening. Heck, maybe all the other gods do insane or something.

Plus we still have the whole charr/Ascalon thing - and they had some pretty kick ass titans too. I, for one, would like to at least see what happened to Ascalon after I left in a cinematic, a whole game would be even better.

Follow-up and discovery of Orr would be nice. There's a guy in the Gates of Torment that speaks about the cataclysm after all.

Maybe when you begin chapter 4 using a char from a diff chapter, you do a quest which gets you dragged into a time warp? And then you go into the past and help the charr. The biggest problem I see is how a time travelling person will affect the future. It would mess up the storyline a bit too much for my liking. Maybe it might mean we have to start a new character?

I tihnk chapter 4 will be a new trilogy, but it would not be something so completely different. Im guessing an Icy landscape. Good ideas though. A chapter in Orr would be very interesting, but theres the time travel issue again.

chapter 4: play prophecies from the char viewpoint......

not a good idea, you know 8 bastard heroes are going to kick your ass

I think Chapter 4 will feature northern tyria, there's just soooo much unexplored territory and lore there.

- Charr homelands north of ascalon
- Mursaat homelands north of the jungle ( where that alessio guy found them after he got lost in the jungle, he then started the white mantle. )
- Further North in the shiverpeaks.

And the Charr and Mursaat are indeed connected by lore. The Mursaat hold the titans prisoner in prophecies. The Charr ally ( Last day dawns quest ) with the titans and build burning statues in the shape of them.

This opens many possibilities. Where the Charr send by the Mursaat to destroy the human kingdoms so the Mursaat could come up as the great hero's that rescued the humans and then pose as gods? Like they did with kryta. Did the Mursaat drive away the Charr so that the Charr had to run south colliding with the humans because the Charr worship the titans while the Mursaat imprison the titans? And what is it with the seer? That black mursaat. Are they a seperate race? Are they like albino mursaat?

This would pose many many options. Some examples:

- A stroke in the lands conquered by the Charr wich can be conquered back by you and then you can build towns there. The Charr will constantly be attacking these towns. Kind of rebuilding ascalon like but without the time travel problems. Not PvP, PvE. Kind of the same thing as the luxon/kurzick battles but against monsters. If the line is far in the monster's favor then missions will be fairly easy and give mediocre awards. If the line is far in the player's favor then missions will be very hard but give very good rewards. Winning a mission moves the line in your favor and losing moves it in the monster's favor. It will also move in the monster's favor over time. And say every 'time period' it will be pushed back a lot as the charr launch a major offensive.
- Extremely strong Mursaat bosses, you have all seen the jade armors in prophecies. They're not living things but more like constructed with magic. Imagine those things 25 times as big and made up out of various creatures ( hands that are warriors using all kinds of attacks, feet and legs that are rangers using stances and speed buffs for the whole body, Torso that is constantly healing all body parts and a head that is an elementalist. And all body parts are using a spell that is easily interupted but respawns another body part. )
- Lots of options for new classes! Engineers trying to rebuild stuff in the Charr lands ( leather armored guy using guns and bombs etc. ) Nobles from ascalon fighting the charr ( heavily armored guys with rapiers and hired hands, human pets that can perform various functions. ) Druids from the maguuma jungle that have somehow managed to survive ( Spellcasters using natural effects like sending a flock of birds to attack the target, a snake to poison it etc. ) Seers ( with all the destruction in these parts people become closer to the gods, these have started seeing omens of the future. New skill type: Omens. Wich are effects that can be applied to others ( enemies and allies ). Like Omen of Bad Luck: You have -25% change to critical strike, end when you critically strike. Omen of Fortune: The next time you would take a fatal blow that blow is ignored and the attacker knocked down. These omens would last till the effect they're after is fulfilled, just like self-fulfilling prophecies. )
- A great story line building further upon that of prophecies!

Atleast those are my hopes and i personally think it's quite likely that this might just be it :P

I’m still thinking of GW Atlantis,..

In the great libraries of Vabbi tales speak of an island continent that suddenly disappeared. I believe this will be the next area to discover.

A Civil War among the Gods would be MOST delicious and interesting, especially if ANet really wants to develop the characters of their Gods over the course of time. Take a Greek God approach to the whole thing. Jealousy, love, cheating, etc. It would be good stuff.

SPOILERS: There's a new woman God in God-land now too. All the better.


To be honest, the new story arch could really be anything. It's hard to predict something that could have a start in any subject or theme. We'll see where it goes from here though. Personally? I'm hoping for something conquest based, sort of like Factions but make the stake bigger. Make people PICK a side and be forced to stick with it rather than giving them the option to jump ship. Then put some real prizes on the line for the conquesters: early access to preview content, etc.

There could be a story more pirate based. What if Chapter 4 was based around boat travel and pirates? What if the map was a big island chain (think Pirates of the Caribbean theme I guess)? Pirates versus Order? Those would be very interesting factions.

The story could be Roman conquest based. Royal family members turning against each other. Be in your own "Brutus" faction, "Caesar" faction, etc. Commanding heroes was just step 1? What about entire armies? The game does seem to be taking baby steps toward incorporating larger RTS elements. Armies for chapter 4? Click the flag for the troops to go there but instead of 3 heroes and 4 henchies, it's 40 army members. 100 army members? Maybe chapter 5 expands on that and allows you to create units on the fly, even more RTS style. Imagine the possibilities there for widescale PvP too!

There could be a Charr-lands theme. This would be popular. Maybe the next big innovation is being able to make a Charr rebel character? Imagine if the next two classes weren't human at all. There's no one saying it can't happen. Want to hop a ship to Shing Jea and be able to call everyone two-legs and /dance with four? You know there's a part of you that wants to.

There are simply way too many thing Chapter 4 can introduce in terms of story. We do know this: whatever story comes about, it will mold around whatever new gameplay features ANet has in mind. Not the other way around. This was confirmed on the Nightfall CE DVD. People may agree or disagree with this as it is a matter of opinion, but it is true nonetheless. Gameplay comes first before story with the Guild Wars series (which is just fine in my book, especially in an MMO), so if we can predict what gameplay features come, we can predict the stories.