OBVIOUSLY SPOILERS FOR THE LIVING WORLD SEASON 2

So, ArenaNet is hosting something called "Guild Wars 2: Beyond the Point of No Return" at PAX South on Saturday, Jan 24th at 10:30am in the Main Theater. The full details page is here. Considering the head of the company and the lead game director are listed, and it is in the main theater, along with the trailer above, it is safe to assume this is something big. Whether or not it is an expansion in the traditional sense remains to be seen, but it is definitely *something* (or god help Anet). The event will be streamed and I know some duders will be at least attempting to attend, so we can all find out what it is together!

For those who want a TL;DR on the story so far, it is basically this.

Hopefully "Heart of Thorns" is something cool, regardless of what it is. I just wanted to make this thread to have a central place to discuss it.

I was going to complain that you ambushed my own write-up, but then I realized this was posted four hours ago and ohgodhowlongdidIspendwritingthispost.

Still, holy shit, that trailer. Hopefully MOB walks onstage at PAX blasting double air horns. I can't imagine how they're planning to price this thing.

@jack_lafayette: that...is certainly a post. It is nothing if not in-depth, though!

I haven't been playing this game for too long but I hope the new expansion brings new races somehow. I really dig dwarves in general and want for some sort of "hey, these stone dwarves have been fighting forever in the Depths of Tyria but maybe some should come up to the mainland, do you want to be one?" thing.

I barely know what is going on but I am up for some sort of Sylvari war or banishment or whatever they plan on cooking up.

@rempresent: Well they have a dwarf in the current story arc (Ogden from GW1 if that means anything), but I think they have been pretty explicit about him being the only one. Could be wrong though.

Huh, I wonder what's gonna happen with the Sylvari. I know they can't just make them into the enemy, since they're a playable race and all, but the implication from that trailer is that they're being hunted now due to the fact that they can be corrupted by the dragon. I haven't played any of the living story from the last two months or so (the last chapter I played ended with the dragon fight at the Sylvari capital back in September), so I'm a little out of the loop as far as the story goes.

I don't know what they can do to bring me back into the game right now, because honestly I'm so burnt out from playing Guild Wars 2 that I feel sick just thinking about it for too long. I guess I would want them to get rid of their current god-awful queue system so my friends and I can actually play mini-games together, that would be a nice start. They could also make the story move at a bit of a quicker pace, because it's seriously WAY too slow right now.

@rempresent: A new race seems like a probable "big surprise" for unveiling at their panel, but I have trouble imagining how they'd fit another seamlessly into the Mordremoth arc, at this point. Everyone's first answer is always the tengu, as they were the most concept complete before ArenaNet eventually nixed their playability in production (along with lore/nostalgia incentives), but it's hard to see them arriving until Primordus becomes a larger issue.

Maybe Heart of Thorns will have a narrative structure similar to the original GW1 campaigns, where a separate, historical chapter will gradually introduce players of the new race to the current conflict, while existing level 80s will be thrust directly into dragon country.

Those spoilers, holy shit. That all seems way more interesting than what was in the game at launch. I got to the last dungeon, got bored, and then stopped. Never got into the living story sadly. Hopefully this new thing, proper expansion or otherwise, will have some stuff that catches my eye.

But yeah, where the story's at right now seems pretty cool. That might be enough actually. That and that sweet scarf they recently released.

@shinboy630: They mention in the wiki that he is the last one that interacts with the surface people, I was hoping that maybe something would "erupt" and then the dwarves battling below the surface can come up and start interacting. That is what I am imagining.

@jack_lafayette: I looked up the Tengu and that looks super promising. I would roll a bird, armor on the models should look interesting.

I have just started to read up on the things that I am fighting and why on the wiki. I don't think they do a good job explaining story in game, especially if you do some things out of order. I don't know, I have been writing down things to research while playing and then going back and reading entries on the wiki. This week, in addition to doing the map completion, I hope to start running dungeons... that stuff looks super interesting to me. Although I picked this up in March, the whole game didn't really open up until this year for me. I feel bad for ignoring it for so long.

@rempresent: The personal story definitely does a poor job of explaining character motivations and your objective as the player. It gets a little more comprehensible once you've played through a few of the different routes, when you get more backstory on specific pieces of narrative that pop up for everyone right at the end of the game.

Have you played the personal story recently? Not saying this to discredit anything you say, just I know they removed some missions and moved others around, and I am curious if it makes more or less sense than before.

@shinboy630: I've played some, but none of the chapters that they changed significantly. As I understand it, there were two major adjustments that people have found problematic.

1. The portion of the story which centers around Orr was shuffled around such that "cleansing" arc takes place at level 70, and the "assault on Zhaitan" happens at 80. Apparently, this also had the effect of some characters being introduced after you've already met them, or events being referred to when they haven't yet occurred.
2. Though you still are prompted by the Pale Tree to explain your greatest fear, it now has no bearing on the story because the resulting missions have removed entirely. Specific aspects of that section of the story will still be referenced in the conclusion, however, which can only be confusing for players who never knew it existed.

This sounds like a good opportunity to get back into GW2.

Season 2 is when I kinda fell of on GW2. I tried here and there every patch or so but I just couldn't get back into it. For one thing I never liked the personal story stuff. I realized that trying to understand what I missed from other episodes while playing through these long lackluster missions wasn't very fun. Though I think ANet did a pretty good job with the writing(this extends to the whole game in general), but I bet its a hassle and slog for a new player to go back and play/buy all those missed missions. I mainly did open world PvE and occasional PvP. I only did a couple of dungeons(which I kind of regret).

So this has to be an expansion. I can't imagine it not being one. The story is set and everything. I basically want more of everything to make up for the personal story stuff that they'll probably be adding and I won't be doing. More weapons for classes would be cool but I don't know. My dream is still for them to double down on the idea of Orr/Kakca battle but that seems unlikely. I'm interested to see what they offer regardless.

Is it going to turn the game into Guild Wars 1?

This reminds me that I still haven't completed the personal story. If there is an expansion that just allows me to jump back in with my level 80 and not have to worry about having missed (or needing to buy) the living world content then I'd be down to go back to GW2. I really liked GW2.

Apparently this weekend the game's gonna be 10 bucks? Good time to pick it up if you've even got a cursory interest in the game.

@bollard: I mean you could always just read up on/watch the living world episodes. There actually were some really cool mechanics they used for certain episodes, and they are not super expensive, but they are by no means mandatory either. I highly doubt whatever new content comes out will penalize you for not playing the previous stuff, cause so far nothing has worked that way.

Prestream stuff seems to be live at the GW2 twitch. Hype!

ronpaul.gif

We're a-gooooooooooooooooo!

EDIT: Leading with an attender shit-talking sPvP. GREAT START.

Guys. This fucking expansion trailer. This fucking trailer.

I'm going to need to write up a new guild thread with all these new guild features. GUILD HALLS HYPE.