∇
troperville

This is a "Wild Mass Guess" entry, where we pull out all the sanity stops on theorizing. The regular entry on this topic is elsewhere. Please see this programme note.

Guild Wars 2

Speculation about future additions to the game

I am almost certain that there will be additional races and classes in the future, because that's what pretty much everyone expects from an MMO. Also, it's one of the easiest ways to keep players interested, because it means that they have to create a new character and play for a while to explore the new content, and not just use existing characters. And if the addition comes without free character slots, it will also generate a lot of revenue that way.

New races:

The Tengu are the most obvious contenders. We know, first of all, that they had been planned to be one of the playable races during the early phases of game design, but were put aside later on, so there's an existing base of work to build on. They already have a large closed off area that would just need to be filled with a city and a low-level map. They are humanoid, so existing animations and meshes can be used with only a little tweaking. They fit in lore-wise, and even though there are very few Tengus appearing in the game so far, they could either easily add more, or leave it as it is, and make a player character Tengu either a sort of envoy or an outcast for fighting with the pact. Also, Tengu are not in conflict with any of the other playable races, and never appear as enemies, making them prime canditates for flawless integration. The only change lore-wise would have to be that the Tengu give up their isolationism at least a bit, so that other races can travel in their territory. (Even this isn't necessarily a barrier, as Arena Net could very easily make the ending of the Tengus' isolation - possibly in connection with a series of events that convinces them, with the help of the player character, to join the Pact - a major one-time in-game event to introduce the new race, home city and explorable areas.)

The Kodan share many of the aspects listed for the Tengu. Their problem might be that a city is hard to add lore-wise, as the whole point of Kodans in Tyria is that they fled south and are scattered on their small sanctuaries along the shore. However, the "city" could just be an additional, maybe a bit larger sanctuary added further north in the Far Shiverpeaks. The low-level zone could be connected to Snowden Drifts.

The Largos are also humanoid and non-hostile, but since they prefer to stay completely hidden and only reveal themselves to certain pact members when they have to, it would be hard to justify having them openly running around other territories, and even harder justifying other races visiting theirs. But they would open the possibility of a major underwater city.

The Dredge are a far-off choice and a nightmare to integrate into the story. Almost all encountered Dredgre are hostile, and they contribute absolutely nothing to the Pact. However, they would be a truly unique race. One way the introduction of the Dredge as a player race could be handled might be to stage a revolution which overthrows the communist regime (players who have been through Frostgorge Sound know that there is an ongoing rebellion against the regime, and even help said rebellion in a couple of renown hearts and a number of dynamic events.) The Dredge home city and level 1-15 area could be set up in one of the currently unused areas of the Shiverpeaks, possibly in a northern zone connected to Snowden Drifts or Diessa Plateau, and the enemy faction (which every player race has) could be remnants of the old regime seeking to regain power. Or, alternately - in order not to make things too confusing for players - the playable Dredge could be the anti-communist rebels, which would make the existing NPC Dredge the necessary enemy faction.

The quaggan are another possibility. They're very popular among the GW 2 player community, are widely spread across Tyria (just about anywhere there is a large, open body of water connected to the sea is likely to have a quaggan community), they're definitely on the side of good, and like the existing races, can be modeled on the basic humanoid form without excessive tweaking. The big problem, of course, is that they're amphibians so that their home city and low-level area would have to be in a coastal or sea zone, and they currently have no home city, having been driven from their old homes by Jormag (in the north) and the krait (in the south); however, as suggested with the Tengu above, the foundation of a new quaggan home city could be made a major one-time in-game event.

Also, conveniently, there are five races (skritt, hylek, ogres, Grawl, Jotun) that have been introduced recently...and become good... The skritt are the most popular of these races (in fact, there have already been several fan-made mockups of what a skritt character creation screen sequence might look like). Their city and level 1-15 zone, like the Dredge's, could be located in any currently unused mountain area linked to a level 15-25 zone.

New classes:

These would actually be harder to implement than races, as they also require more tactical tunings and fresh concepts to integrate them into the game. I am not that big on strategy, so I can't really judge what roles those classes could fit in combat.

Another class using heavy armor seems intuitiv, as there are only two at the moment. Maybe a kind of battle mage?

New places

About half of the current map is not accessible, so I assume that the parts that are already "named" (like the Ring of Fire and the Deldrimor Front) will be opened bit by bit, like it happened with the Lost Shores update (even though Southsun Cove is still not really "integrated" into the game world). However, I also think that at least parts of it were just left blank to leave the oppurtunity open to add something in there at some point, but they might never actually do it. Also, it could partly be a marketing ploy, because it gives the impression that the world has much potential for expansion.

The current Flame and Frost series of updates will end with the defeat of Jormag, to finally give players the feeling that there is something moving with the Elder Dragon situation. To get there it will also open the Far Shiverpeaks region. Rule of Three says that it will probably have three stages, spanning January through March (possible April if there is another event in between). (Jossed; as the Flame and Frost story has developed, the enemy turns out to be an alliance between the Dredge and the Flame Legion.)

At some point a similar chain of events will start with Kralkatorrik, at the same time the first paid addon for GW 2 will be released, which will add Elona. Since that dragon is said to block the way across the Crystal Desert, his defeat will be the perfect kick-off for the Elonian campaign. The Elder Dragons will stay a Tyrian problem, though, in Elona you will fight against other foes (probably including, but not limited to, Palawa Joko).

The same will happen for Cantha and the Sea Dragon.

Primordrus and Mordremoth will also be defeated at the end of a series of updates, Primordus will be somewhere in the depths of Tyria.

After all six dragons are down it will be revealed that a seventh exists, because six is just no proper number for mythical beings (only five or seven will do). This will also be the last major story update for Tyria, from then on the focus will only be on further addons, or, if it takes some years for this to happen, even already on GW 3.

It is highly likely that Flame and Frost will bring us to a Jormag storyline, but your Rule of Three argument is invalid as it has been announced there would be four releases.
- I kinda lost faith in that happening. The first two installments of the Flame and Frost story were just Flame Legion and Dredge enemies (both without any connection to Jormag, or another dragon for that matter) randomly popping up. And the preview of the third story makes no mention of anything connected to the Sons of Svanir, Icebrood, Jormag, or the Far Shiverpeaks either. So Flame and Frost will probably just end with killing whoever leads the Molten Alliance, and otherwise just be an Excuse Plot to introduce new mechanics and updates.

The player character will be the Sixth Ranger of Destiny's Edge.

Not only does part of the storyline involve your character teaming up with former members of the group and befriending them, but it's strongly hinted that the player will be tasked with Putting the Band Back Together. It's entirely possible that the player will ultimately join the group not only as the Sixth Ranger, but also as The Heart of the ensemble.

Confirmed as of the City of Arah dungeon (except that all five players of the party fill the spot, but from a storytelling perspective, they act as one).

The sylvari's Pale Tree is a centaur Ancestor Tree

The Ancestor Trees (a minor lore detail from Nightfall) were considered sacred to Elonian centaurs; their fruit was believed to be divine and a way of passing down spiritual wisdom from one generation to another. The Pale Tree is a sacred, magical tree planted by a wise centaur whose fruit (the sylvari) are born gifted with knowledge from previous generations and Ventari's teachings.

The Herald that occasionally sends you mails is a Tengu

The Charr believe, incorrectly, that the older human Gods are or were minions of the Elder Dragons.

Rytlock has no reason to hide the truth of Glint from the Charr, especially since it feeds into Charr beliefs about greater beings being dangerous and deceptive, and matches with Charr concerns about human alliances with greater beings. They also probably have heard of human heroes fighting the Facets of the Human Gods — Asura might keep knowledge secret, but they're not known for hesitating to brag. Combined with other legends, as the Pact gets closer to Orr and start understanding things like humans seldom seeing the faces of their gods and going mad when they do, or of dragon minions proudly proclaiming the gods to have been consumed by dragons, and there's a lot of good reasons to think this.

Things will take a turn for the worse in Guild Wars 3

In Guild Wars 2, the five races call off whatever hostilities they currently have and band together to deal with the threat that the Elder Dragons pose. Once all of the dragons are killed, however, these tensions will inevitably return. Humans amd Charr will start fighting once more, Asura will opt to use their technology to dominate Tyria, and the Sylvari and Pale Tree will have grown more cynical as a result of all the terrible things they will have inevitably witnessed in the war against the dragons.

Your order mentor isn't dead

Sure, the Sovereign Eye of Zhaitan claims he/she is, but that just begs the question of why it didn't just make you fight a Risen version of your order mentor then in an attempt to demoralize you/persuade you to join Zhaitan. The real reason? Simple, the Risen failed to kill him/her. Granted, this just raises a lot of questions (Where did he/she go? Where were he/she while you did everything else in your personal story?) but considering that the Eye tried to persuade you to join Zhaitan, it just felt weird that it didn't try to throw your mentor at you then.

The one problem with that is Sieran, the mentor for Priory members, is a Sylvari. As we've seen the Sylvari are immune to, if not all dragons', Zhaitan's corruption. Suicide bombing to avoid leaving a useable corpse seems right up the Vigil's alley... But surviving through apple based shenanigans suits Tybalt to a T.

The Tengu will become a playable race

The place that they've taken as their home is a conspicuously blank area on the map that's just west of Lion's Arch. The content in there should be enough to get characters up to level 15, which should be enough to boost early level characters, and it's right next to the Kessex Hills where they can continue leveling up. They likely won't have a portal to Lion's Arch, but that's okay, since their zone is right next to the city anyway.

If the Tengu don't become playable, then we can at least rest assume that they'll open up the gate and let visitors in where we'll have a whole new place to quest around in.

The Six Gods is somehow part of an Elder Dragon, and humanity is the Elder Dragon's corruption.

Expanding on this: each of the five races are actually related to an Elder dragon of their own. Perhaps the respective dragon either hasn't woken up, is dead, or somewhere else. People already have strong evidence the Sylvari may actually be Elder Dragon minions too.

Asura were originally a race of space aliens

(Edited myself for greater coherency) Basically the idea goes that several thousand years ago, the asura game to Tyria in a ship and crash landed in an impact so deep, they got buried beneath the earth their ship tunneled out. Given that asura tend to keep very little history beyond who invented what, it's easy to imagine they would quickly forget they were ever NOT part of Tyria's natural inhabitants. Out there, but when you look at their architecture and have a strong air of science fiction to them than magical fantasy, it really does make them seem displaced.

The Elder Dragons were the aspects of their respective flights before, like Deathwing, they were corrupted by the Old Gods.

The Sylvari are connected to an Elder Dragon. But not in the way we think.

We know that for some reason, the Sylvari are apparently immune to Elder Dragon corruption. Some takes this as a sign that the Sylvari are the Elder Dragon's corruption or minions. I have a different theory.

Sylvari are immune to Elder Dragon corruption because the sixth Elder Dragon has already corrupted them. It will turn out that the sixth Dragon has lied dormant underneath or nearby the Pale Tree, subtly corrupting the tree and her children. However, the Sylvari are not minions because the sixth Elder Dragon haven't awakened yet, and thus unable to turn them into his minions. So the Sylvari aren't fully corrupted... yet. Would it awaken though, the Sylvari will be warped into the Elder Dragon's minions, now that it would have full control and influence over them. The Nightmare Court is a group of Sylvari who has subsconsciously succumbed to the corruption, kind of becoming the Elder Dragon's minions in the process. The nightmare corrupting the dream? That's the Elder Dragon.

The sixth Elder Dragon (Which I will call Nightmare Dragon from now on) embodies Nightmare Fuel, which will be mirrored in its minions. The minions will all look nightmarish and terrifying, even more so than the Risen!

There may be a multi-part update series like Flame and Frost where not only will the Nightmare Dragon begin to awaken, but it will also become a race against time to find a way to cure or at least neutralize the corruption in Sylvari before it's too late.

After the update, the Nightmare Dragon's corruption in the Sylvari will be heavily weakened, though it won't be completely gone (the corruption can still take over the Sylvari if they're subjected to enough torture and horror). The Nightmare Court, of course, will fully embrace the corruption. Their models will be changed after the update to reflect these changes, and some dialogue will also be changed.

The idea that the Sylvari aren't dragon minions because the dragon is dormant is, at the very least, doubtful. Jormag created the Nornbear, and there were Destroyers around, long before Jormag and Primordus awoke. Why would Mordremoth be weaker than these two ?

A slightly different take on the above speculation

I definitely agree with the reason that the Sylvari are immune to the corruption is due to them being tied to the sixth dragon (aka, Mordremoth, which according to some hints from the Crucible of Eternity explorable paths, is likely earth/nature themed in its powers), but I do have a different interpretation. The Pale Tree is a dragon minion that spawns other dragon minions. The "Where life goes..." Sylvari storyline shows that there are other similar Trees, so the Pale tree is not unique.

As Mordremoth is (possibly) still asleep or in a weakened state it has limited influence over its minions, which were prematurely awakened by Ronan. Ventari's teachings have led the Sylvari to adopt a new philosophy and without direct control from the dragon the other trees, which have just began to flower and spawn, have no explicit direction, meaning their Sylvari are not inborn with malicious intent.

This could all change when Mordremoth awakens. The Pale Tree may be able to resist the Dragon's orders, but would the Nightmare Court, the Soundless and Sylvari from other trees, deep in the Maguuma Jungle and Wastes?

Mordremoth has nothing to do with the Sylvari

They're just a Red Herring placed by Anet to distract us from the truth. Mordremoth isn't even anywhere near the Pale Tree. His true location is right underneath Divinity's Reach. Remember that Great Collapse? Mordremoth caused it while dormant. The Sylvari's immunity against the dragon corruption will be explained, but Mordremoth has nothing to do with it.

We will start seeing more opposing alliances in the future

They noticed how we accomplished a lot combined. Knowing that it's going the only way to win, our enemies will team up together to fight us. Who knows, maybe we will eventually see Krait equipped with Dredge weaponry...

Guild Wars

WMG/Video Games

Guilty Gear