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Cantha expansion and asian themed content 'banned' for cultural reasons
Zeus.CM
Member, Newbie CommonPosts: 1,788
Have you ever wondered what is that huge hole in the Divinity's Reach - The Great Collapse?
(today)
It used to be fullly designed and completed asian themed Canthan district and according to wiki collapsed into the hole it is today because of poor foundations.
(in 2010)
Of course that wasn't the real reason why would Arenanet destroy its work and turn it into a craphole. Apparently, an NCSoft producer from Korea suggested that asians don't like cultural mixing, and demanded to make GW2 "universal"! Arenanet's Guild Wars franchise was famous for mixing the European (Ascalon), Greek (Kryta), African (Elona) and Asian (Cantha) themes into one world of rich lore. In 2010, Arenanet was therefor forced to delete all work on Canthan elements in GW2! The unnamed NCSoft producer from Korea don't work anymore but the decision wasn't changed.
In the relatively recent interview (22nd December, 2012) with Josh Foreman, map designer from Arenanet, he revealed the real reason for destroying Canthan district, despite possible sanctions by his superiors, in order to reach out to us - the fans - to voice up and somehow demand the return of Cantha and cultural diversity in GW2 world:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=xWo8G0OJ0FM#t=6226s
The forum thread was created on official forums:
where all the rumors were confirmed (again) by the same Josh Foreman who kindly joined the discussion.
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.
His last sentence pretty much confirms that the 2013 gw2 expansion will not be Cantha, and posibly we will not see it years to come if ever! Also, anyone who were hoping for Tengu as playable race, can forget it, since they come from Cantha.
"but it’s worth asking for."
So, I call all Guild Wars fans new and old to demand the return of Cantha and Elona into Guild Wars universe, because one crappy cultural decision was enough to destroy 2/3 of Guild Wars lore and world. Join the discussion:
Thanks.
Comments
Never really liked asian theme in games.
Meh, im fine this way, hope it remains.
*Sigh* NCSoft... why do you have to ban my favorite continent in Tyria?
Before we start bashing NCSoft consider reading this comment on this by Josh Foreman:
"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."
https://forum-en.guildwars2.com/forum/game/gw2/How-is-getting-rid-of-Cantha-a-universal-representation-of-humanity/1400102
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I don't care for it on the official forums and neither here. You have one dev saying something most likely from a very skewed view of the situation. It's one sided and honestly I would like the full picture. Even then, demanding this will only detract from game development. I would much more like a coherent world than a broken up one due to some people demanding a certain area to be put in.
From a lore point of view Cantha and Elona are actually off limits until certain things are dealt with. Zhaitan might be dead but his army and armada si still out there preventing ships from sialing to cantha. There is also bubbles the deep sea dragon somewhere there. On top of that cantha closed itself off from outsiders, remember. To get to Elona you need to cross the crystal desert a bad place to be before an elder dragon set up shop there. No doubt even worse now. Not to forget the desolation with yoko.
Currently Anet can go north towards Jormag and the former Charr lands or south towards droknar's forge and the northern part of the crystal desert. They can also go west into maguuma more. Lots of options that make a whole lot more sense than going to other continents at this point in time.
IMO: GW1 is 3 games + 1 x-pack, so all was split up and not mixed.
May be this idea still same for GW2 and future games / packs.
Anyway I don't see any drama of either decision.
P.S. just curious: Greece is not Europe?
try before buy, even if it's a game to avoid bad surprises.
Worst surprises for me: Aion, GW2
Nope, Grease is the word... :groan:
Sorry, some puns should be left untapped.
Self-pity imprisons us in the walls of our own self-absorption. The whole world shrinks down to the size of our problem, and the more we dwell on it, the smaller we are and the larger the problem seems to grow.
This is interesting. I wonder the reasoning behind this. I spent a number of years in Korea and Thailand, there was a sense that the host nation populace didnt quite enjoy the presence of other cultures (specifically western). This sense of unwelcoming came mostly from the college age crowd.
Was Pandaria well recieved in the East?
If Asians dont like "culture mixing" how can someone explain engrish?
I know Greece is in Europe, they are practically adjacent to my country (see Croatia). I was implying that Kryta was very specific to Greek culture, while Ascalon to Europe in general (France, Great Britain, Germany, Spain...).
But to the topic. This news might mean to new GW2 players absolutely nothing, but to old GW1 players like me it does, big time.
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The post by Josh doesn't automatically exclude a Canthan expansion. He says can be years away. Can be is very vague. It certainly doesn't confirm anything.
Anyways I don't see what's the problem with adding Asian themed content. Factions had some very nice zones.
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Yeah on that part NCSoft is great, i remember when they agreed to parner up with cryptic for CoH. They did not feel the game was up to par and gave Cryptic a whole year and extra funding to be able to polish the game up to what it was at release. So if they went in and micro-managed something i would guess there was a legit concern and they do know the asian market both from culture and experince.
This have been a good conversation
kind of funny since i worked on Koh Chang island, in Trat and sometimes in Bangkok and of course you hear the word "Farang" (foreigner) a lot but i felt overly welcomed by all age groups from the inner city to total rural areas...maybe it was you?
Cannot box all Asians into one group who don't like cultural mixing..would be like saying all Germans are Nazis or something. (I am German so can say that i feel)
Could be a whole bunch of reasons...didn't want to go the WoW - Pandaria route, Cultural mixing is a possibility or they felt it wouldn't work for whatever reasons...only way to know would be if the guys who made the decisions would straight up tell us otherwise its all hearsay
yep i miss the days on factions wars (luxons Vs kurzik), and those wonderfull landscape around cantha , but on other way i didn't like elona at all (find it the worst world design on GW1), if i 'm not wonder the cantha will come back in the next expansion,and maybe some kind of a ritualist class
I actually thought the change was great...there is nothing in the game world to indicate there SHOULD be an asian section...where are the "asians" in the game?!?
This is supposed to be a FANTASY game based on ANOTHER WORLD...why the hell would there be any real world cultures depicted in the first place!
Hey wait, Where is little italy?!? Wait! No German town?...the city I live in has all of those so why not GW2!
/cries a river
I hope we shall crush...in its birth the aristocracy of our moneyed corporations, which dare already to challenge our government to a trial of strength and bid defiance to the laws of our country." ~Thomes Jefferson
The official translation of 'farang' is foreigner, but we all know that is has a slightly more unpleasant undertone to it.
I didn't know Asia was in Tyria.
My fav campaigns were prophecies and eotn so I hit the jackpot with gw2 I guess.
If in 1982 we played with the current mentality, we would have burned down all the pac man games since the red ghost was clearly OP. Instead we just got better at the game.
Well mine were too. However, I spent lots of time in Cantha aswell, and had some really good time there. I like GW1 because it has so many different themes and cultures embeded in it. I hope that once they populate empty space in Tyria with zones, they make new continents like Cantha and Elona.
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