To Cartha!! Sail at Dawn!

What do you all expect to see in Cantha? (I think it's clearly where the next chapter will take place)

I expect a few of these things:

-level cap increased slightly (even for a game that -rightfully- claims skill is more important than level or hours played, 20 is still a really really low level cap. I suspect that the reason is so that they can introduce new level caps on future expansions without ending up with ridiculous levels... like 200 or whatever. The next level cap will probably be 30)

-new professions/skills (it's a brave new world, there will obviously be a new culture and with it new types of jobs and new types of magic/war/etc.)

-more pets (there is a menagerie in Cantha, that's where Jarrel the animal tamer sends the pets she takes from you)

-new enemies (duh...)

Any other ideas based on clues from the game?

edit: ty for spelling

1) In called Cantha.

2) ArenaNet has specifically stated that the level cap won't be raised, and I don't want it to be. The reason the cap is 20 is to remove grind, not to press onward with the story.

--Ginko

they should not/will not raise the level cap.

the whole idea of the game is to have you develop good strategies and think about how to use skills effectively, and develop good skill combos for the quest/mission you are doing. They do not wish players to merely grind to levels higher than the monsters, and then beat everything using brute force. Raising the level cap does just that -- it induces people to grind to the max level and then fight the now relatively weaker monsters using no skill, but brute force.

Because of this, if they raise the level cap, they'll also have to raise the monsters' levels as well, making level cap raise meaningless but for the grind.

I think they probably shouldn't have even included levels at all in this game. It just causes interminable speculation about raising of the level cap.

What do I expect to see in Cantha? Hmm... I could buy an expansion that will probably be just as disappointing as the current game, or I could go buy an FPS with which I will have many more hours of fun than I have had with Guild Wars (excluding beta, cause those were fun), so far.

I expect a new PvP arena, new terrain-type, different group size (10 or so), and hopefully more towns off the beaten path (Like Marhan's Grotto, Maguuma Stade, etc.)

I don't understand, if someone like you hates the game, why do they play it?

--Ginko

Well stop filling the forums with your bitching and buy the damn FPS already. Christ. Every freaking thread you bring that up. BUY IT ALREADY!



As for the thread topic. A few new professions would be nice. But I can only hope their as fleshed out as the current 6. From the mark they already set its hard to see them going much higher.

I wouldn't be surprised if they added a rouge-ish class in the next expansion, as they've got the other basic class-types fleshed out pretty well. Some sort of speed/dexterety based fighting class would be nice.

i reckon.

tougher enemies which means bigger parties!!!!!! maybe, it will be 10 in party, then 12 then 14 then 16 then 18 then 20..... so prob more guild focused.
oooo yeah!
prob more pets, new proffesions, new skills, more weapons

I'm surprised that you're disappointed in the game, Weezer.

I never even thought of group size, that totally makes sense. I'd like to see starting size as like 6 or something and max size at 10 or higher. I'd also like to see parties go into an instance together meaning PvP in PvE, and also a chance for 20 or 30 team sized so we can take on massive monsters.

I doubt this, the game is not really about levels. 1-20 is more a tutorial than anything else, that I have seen.

Adding more classes will destroy balance, I dont see any place for these, new skills, possible.

These are both probably safe assumptions.

I expect more areas, possibly new skills, new armour, new weapon mods, different PvP / PvE styles etc.

They have to add new something (classes, races, skills) because the current set will get old eventually...

I don't see how it would destroy a balance. All it has to do is add something new, and as has been discussed here and otherwhere, a rogue set hasn't been touched on by any class yet.

my friend augmento wants to bet me 20$ that the next profession will be a rogue with stealth (primary), dual wield, unarmed combat, and thrown weapons.

Increasing the level cap would lead to pointless grind and make GW like other MMOPRGS that increase it with every expansion.

Adding new items and armors with better stats would help the rich powergamers and provide an advantage to those that can spend more time playing / farming.

Introducing new classes that are more powerful then the original ones will destroy the balance and force people to buy the expansions in order to stay competitive.

Guess what there will be in the new expansion...

I expect lots of new item model types, and absolutely nothing that'll give you an edge over other players, other than increased skill flexibility.

I would pray that a universal increase of skills-per-bar would be implemented, like 10? Oooh, the possibilities... *drool*

Wheezer, if you spent just as much time capturing elites as you do whining on these boards you'd had your full complement of skills for all professions unlocked already. If you want to go play an FPS, just go and play the hell out of an haxxored BF 2 server, but stop going on and on and on about how you're JUST going to do that in every freaking post on these boards. You're loosing the little credibility you had left, and the only thing I can conclude from your behavior is that you must really, really like Guild Wars the way it is now, but just get too little attention from your parents so you're trying to get it here.

I expect a lot oriental style zones, a lot of new items (Canthians are all merchants no? ) and I HOPE the story will continue making us to visit the underwater ruins of Orr O_O

When I go to Cantha I'll be taking along my "Spot the little birdie" book.. because I've heard many MANY tales about the rare 'Blue Footed Noobie' bird that migrates to the warm weathers of Cantha every single day. It is said in "Spot the little birdie", and I quote:

-----
"Among the rich and diverse terrain of the Cantha (North of somewhere off the map), the not very well know 'Blue Footed Noobie' is flourishing. Making it's home in densely populated areas, the Noobie is well know for it's ear piercing cry. Travel into areas where the Noobie is present requires very good ear protection and resistance to shooting it on site to stop the deafening noise. However, due to the rate at which this once rare creature is appearing, measures are being put into place to restrict population.
The Blue Footed Noobie can be identified by the obvious blue feet. A sign of so little blood reaching the lower parts of the body following the constant use of it's mouth. Other distinguishing characteristics include:

Very colourfull plumage (Mostly clashing colours. Noobies have no sense of style)
Limited vocabulary (Often resorting to abreviated forms of communication)
Large dulap under the beak (Used to store bullsh*t)

The Blue Footed Noobie can grow to immense heights and weights and have young three to four times a day."
-----

So there we go. That is what I hope to see.

*Packs tranquiliser gun, tracking collars..... and a big net*

Are you being paid by Blizzard to constantly diss this game in all of the main GW forums? Seriously. Every time I log in to either TGH or GWG I see a thread from you dissing the game. It's getting boring. You have become obsessed with the whole UAS/UAR crusade and I think it's time you get over it. Life is really too short to devote so much of it to GW-moaning/bashing/whining/whinging. Sure, there are things you don't like about the game - make 1 constructive post and 'move on'. Enduring your incessant whinging across multiple and unrelated threads is exceptionally tedious for the rest of us, especially when you hijack other threads to do it.

Back on topic, not sure what we'll see in the expansion, but I hope the level cap isn't raised but that we have new professions to choose from, and perhaps races. Lots of people have said they'd like to play as char, undead, dwarves, etc. The potential is huge so it's quite exciting. I guess the interesting thing will be how new skills will work with the original skills in terms of countering, etc. Perhaps they already have this in place when the original game was designed, but they're just not releasing it until the expansion.

I would expect more skills, and just maybe the possibility to play something other than human. More missions and quests, new environments and monsters to fight are given in the expansion. Different weapons and armour will likely be introduced, but they certainly will be no better than what is already available (in order to avoid MUDflation).

I feel fairly certain that new forms of PvP and GvG are going to be included in the expansion. As for me, I'd love PvE "race"-versions and stuff like that, but I won't try to second guess what form the the PvP will take. (There might be some influence from the "Battlegrounds" design in WoW though, hehe)

There should be no fiddling with the level cap. It's there for a reason, and breaking that would also make the PvP game inaccessable to a person not opting to buy the expansion. Since ArenaNet has firmy promised that expansions will be optional (at least in terms of raw power, albeit not combinatorial prowess) I am convinced that the max level will remain twenty.

Personally, I find that the thought of introducing a new class leads to an almost incomprehensibly difficult balance problem. If ArenaNet makes any new classes, and they work well, I'll be very impressed. On the whole though, I'd rather they just tweak the current skill sets. Compare with "Magic: The Gathering", where the introduction of a new colour would change the game in it's foundation.

It has been said that feature enhancements will be free of charge, whereas more content will be placed in the expansion, so I don't forsee any epansion-bound additions to the GUI or basic functionality, like guild commands etc.

I'm already lusting for the expansion, even though there has been no infromation what so ever on what it will contain. Considering it's still half a year off (or more) in time, I'm settling in for the long haul. Let's hope we get some freebies in the meantime

oooh man i want like a 15 person party taking on like lvl 40 monsters....that would be soo awesome.

i'd also like to see a new class of character and maybe a way of remaking your character into that as a primary (you keep all the exp points you have, buy new skills and redo ur attribute points).

New skills would be nice, both common and elite.

Some rare and new 15k armors would be cool, or even making the Marhans Citadel or Fissure armor just a bit stronger. Or instead of making it stronger, have like special missions to infuse it with resistance against "Creatures of the Underworld", "Creatures of the Fissure of Woe". So like, wherever your going in the new world, you can add a resistant to your armor...But once you've resisted it to one place, and go to another, you lose the old resistant.

PVP arenas! We need some more :P Maybe add a few new Guild Halls, and expand the number of players in GVG would be swell.

A couple new weapons (i.e chaos wand, ya know, the glowy stuff)

Kainshadow I like your idea of being able to go into the underwater city of Orr, that would be so cool.

But I think whatever ArenaNet and NCsoft throw in, it will be great. They're the masterminds that gave us this brilliant game. And I'm going to expect a million things out of them because they kept the monthly, free. So whatever they give us, I will enjoy it, and play it

I expect:
Chaos Magic Profession
Spear User / Thrown Ranged Weapons
2H Sword User / Dual Weapon Wielder
New Pets
A Width Aspect for the character.
An addition Character slot.

I hope to see some new spells, armor and classes.


Some people mentioned a rogue class, which would really be awesome. Just to add in on the rogue class, how about they get the ability to disable traps? So many times running through the desert and getting caught in traps is no fun.

I would like to see the addition of more professions. Most peticularly a Rogue/Assasin like class. Right now there is no other fighting class besides warriors, and certianly no stealth at all in the game, besides the monsters that pop out of the ground. I think this would add a intresting element provided it balanced with the rest of the current game.

Let's break this out a bit into structured discussion of the suggestions.

1) New class

This would be cool but difficult, more difficult than people are suggesting. Say you add in the Rogue class. You have to make sure that coupled with any other profession it's not overpowering. I mean, could a War/Rogue sneak up and assasinate the other teams monk? It's tough enough on monks already.

If you nerf the Rogue enough that he doesn't overpower as a secondary what skills do you give him in primary that would be powerful enough to make him viable. Sneak almost defeats half the game. Why would they add a sneak that could say get through Lornars. Should he be High damage low support, low damage high support, defensive or offensive and each of these has to be balanced into the rock paper scissors game that we play.

There might be a class out there that's perfect to add, maybe even a rogue but it's a tough addition and I'm not sure it's one high on my priority list.

2) Bigger groups

Now That's one I can get into. 16-24 member raids would be awesome. Big Tough dragons and monsters. Bosses that chew average up and spit them out. Now that's what I'm talking about. I hope that's the way they go. The only real problem that I see is that ANet has steered clear of big bosses preferring little bosses within the story. The bosses so far have all been disapointing. And if they put in a big boss people are going to want a reward. That changes the whole random reward aspect of the game.

I think this would fix the game for me but I'm not sure they'll do that.

My own personal suggestion is:

3) Dungeons:

Everyone I've talked to that's been to the underworld and fissure love it. We need 10+ dungeons like that added in my opinion. Plus, they have a semi-dungeon in Pre-searing called Catacombs. They need something like that for the 8-15 group of up and comers. They've got the room, just stick a newly found cave entrance anywhere and throw in a couple of dungeons.

4) New Attacks from monsters:

The other thing they could throw at us are different attacks from the new monsters. True blindness where your screen goes black, attack rate slows, scourge healing monsters. I'm from EQ and in NToV they had dragons that would fling you up in the air, and ones that would spin you with tornado attacks and you'd spin in circles.

They could add all kinds of new and challenging attacks along with ways to combat them.

5) boring way

This is what I fear. I think what most likely will be added is new zones with the same monsters with different skins. Plenty of bad voice clip scenes and 10 new missions that take you from town to town. With a new set of armor at the last town. These monsters will have slightly more Health points and hit harder.

This is what I don't want an incremental bait and switch. Where we don't actually get anything new, just new scenery.

1. Yes, balance would be nessesary. Like all skills however, stealth would be timed and have a recharge, to elminate running through the game.

2. I am all for this. There is no real EPIC challenge to the guild wars game.

3. New areas are what expanstions seem all about. See the video for the new area content coming. This seems to be underground perhaps.

4. These could come in the forms of new skills. I don't see adding skills to monsters and not to players as well as all that nice.

5. Agreed. We don't want a add-on of what we have already. A expansion should add new features and ways to play the game diffrently, not play the same game longer.

I thought it was on record that the groups were maxed at 8 as that's what they thought would be the maximum size where strategies could still be coherent and not just a zerg rush?

Of course they could have changed their minds, I wont be holding my breath tho

Additional: From a recent interview i read - features will be free (observer mode, engine upgrades) and released asap. Content and extras will be whats in the expansions (skills, races, areas).

If the cap is ever raised it won't be via exspansion, than it would force PvP'ers to buy the pack, which I doubt they want to. If the cap is ever raised to something high like forty, the majority of the game would leave and never return, ArenaNet isn't stupid enough to do that.

--Ginko

Or it could be a stance that, say, halves movement speed, any skill use while in the stance dismisses it, sacs a energy regen to maintain, and still has a % to fail every 10 seconds or so that goes down based on the attribute level.

it's inevitable that the mobs will continuously get higher level....they HAVE to. the introduction of a new level cap with the expansion won't surprise me. They've gotta do something to keep you atleast competitive. NASCAR is about driver SKILL....but if one of the cars tops out at 155 while everyone elses cars do 220, theres not really any competition.

I think the 20 level cap is fine, and I'm glad they're not gonna raise it. However, a few extra 15 point attribute quests wouldn't hurt.
New classes would be nice, but also a little annoying for some players. If your already to the end of the first game, and a new class is introduced. In order the play that class primary, you'd practically have to repeat the entire game. I think they should just expand on the existing classes, adding more skill types or something. For example, they could give rogue like attributes to a ranger or something.

While that is an easy way to bump up difficulty, it is not the only way.
New skill combos and better AI can make even same level opponents harder.

This is exactly why the level will not go up. For skill, all cars need to go 155. Track layout, road hazards, different levels of agressiveness, random malfunctions, teamwork, coordination of support, etc...
These are what start to matter when the cars are limited to the same speed.
Winning takes SKILL once all other conditions become equal.

I would like to see something like the Catacombs in pre-searing for the new areas...an underground path that connects many of them together. Also, very deep into it, they could add a "town" that leads to a couple dungeons.

Actually, this isn't really necessary. They could simply raise the cap to 25-30 through patch, at the same time the expansion is released. This means that everyone would get it. Don't know if they'd do that, but it's possible. What else are you going to do with the XP you get in the new missions? Grind more skillpoints?



I think the expansion would HAVE to have new classes. Who else is going to buy it? Would you spend 50 bucks on just a few new areas, more fedex quests, the same lvl 1-24 range of monsters with a different skin (ohh, now it's called a Grangnar instead of a Desert Griffon, and it looks like an eagle, not a griffon!!!! Yet it still does the same thing), and a few more missions? I mean, seriously?

It would also need more character slots (and I'm talking +10, since the number of combinations is going up drastically), plus heavily expanded storage.

So :

- New skills
- New classes
- New areas / monsters / missions / dungeons
- I really like the idea of higher party numbers, or perhaps even better, allow two parties to go into an instanced area at the same time, so you can really get some strategy going. One party has to go over the top of the mountains and disable the catapults, the other party has to go below and wipe out the foot soldiers etc. That sounds pretty cool imo.
- More slots / storage
- Slight raise of level cap?
- More items
- And, in my opinion most importantly of all, they need to release it before the end of the year. Is anyone still going to be that interested a year from now? Enough to spend another 50 bucks and dust off your old characters?

All in all it seems like a huge task, and I do hope Anet realises this, and doesn't just release 50 more fedex quests and 5 new areas with a new armor, and that's it.

Creston

I think I would most enjoy new pets and new interactions with animals.

I'd love a Bull as a pet!

But, even better, would be if a new class was introduced that would be a "shapeshifter" type thing. Maybe it would require one of the drops from a creature (seed, eye, hide, tusk, etc), but you could change into that creature and would pick up their skills.
Their skills would include a tree devoted to shifting into different things, maybe by species or by class. Your skill points in this area would affect how long you maintained that form.
What would be tricky is that when you changed, you would replace half of your skills with those of the thing transformed into. Somehow, too, your armor, weapon statistics should be preserved or at least have an influence on your shifted stats. I just want to be able to Giant Stomp in PvP
I guess another skill tree consisting of self/group buffs would be appropriate.

And more traps. Traps are the best.

They don't need to raise the level cap. Just add in more monsters like Glint, maybe raise the monster level to 50, and it'll be a blast =)

ArenaNet never said they WOULDN'T increase the level cap. They stated that they had no plans at this time to. But I do agree, a level cap raise is imminent. I doubt it will be this expansion, or even the next one. Eventually though there is only so many ways to make a game challanging without raising the level cap. And even when they eventually do, I doubt it will be a big one either. Something like 25 or 30.

</broken record>

That would be a amazing use of larger parties or muli-party use of a single instance. I don't know however if the GW system would allow muliple partys in the same area easily however. Thats for the code monkeys.

I really could see GW expanding in this direction. Perhaps even take the War of the Worlds to a competitive mission. Europe vs America vs Korea, all in the same instance, trying to complete their mission goal before the other, or even a co-operative Europe/American/Korean mission. The way I see it not having seperate servers is a good advantage of GW, they should captalize on this innovation.