Every game, no matter how successful, will always be missing something players want. Whether it be a feature from a previous game in the franchise, or a highly demanded map on the forums. That’s what’s so special about expansions and sequels. They can expand the games experience by adding in these missing features. But we don’t always get what we want, and this seems to hold true in Guild Wars 2's expansion Heart of Thorns, as 4 very popular wishes among players will still be absent when it launches.
Mounts as Travel Options
Guild Wars 2 is actually very nice to players in terms of traveling. Using waypoints to fast travel across the world for a very minimal fee really makes life simple. On top of that, many players have skills allowing them to increase their running speed, making travel even easier. So why is it that players have continued to ask for mounts since the game launched? Well, because it would look cool... and that's about the only reason I can think of.
Mounts serve an actual purpose in other games by being required to make travel faster. While the glider seems to be necessary, it probably won’t have much function outside of a few key areas. Aside from the harsh Maguuma Jungle, Guild Wars 2 doesn’t need to make travel easier, but it could use the mounts for a more cosmetic purpose. Some of the newer players aren’t aware, but a mount already exist in the form of a flying broom, and a magic carpet. These mounts don’t increase speed, or actually fly over any obstacles, but they do look cool. Too bad there doesn’t seem to be any broader plans for mounts in the future.
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Now that’s traveling in style.
Capes
Back in the original Guild Wars games when you and your friends formed a guild, you could don a cape allowing you to show off your colors while looking cool in the process. Even though guilds returned as a feature to Guild Wars 2, capes have been left in the past. Does Arenanet hate fashion? Are they against us showing off our guilds colors? That’s not the case at all! The issue is capes are very prone to clipping in games, even on human characters. Imagine trying to get the same cape physics to work on the Asura, or even the Charr. Well, they could get it to work, but it would require a lot of time. Instead, we got wearable guild banners. To be honest though, I don’t see too many wearing them.
Single Player Housing
The player house is actually a more recent feature that’s been appearing in games, and players are eating it up! Who doesn’t want to take a break from battling epic monsters so that they can go home to rearrange their furniture? (Ok, so not everyone cares about housing.) At first it seemed like Guild Wars 2 was going to feature this Animal Crossing like experience, but like a few other things it never saw a truly completed form. What we did get was part of the home city where a bunch of people are hanging around, and not taking notice of the weird mineral nodes that are just popping up out of nowhere in what ArenaNet calls our "home instance". You’d think after all we’ve done for Tyria, we could get a least a nice small house. Regardless, the guild halls feature should and could make up for the lack of single player housing.
New Playable Races
This has become a staple feature for MMO expansions, but I think a lot of us knew this wasn’t going to happen in HoT. That still doesn’t stop us from wanting new races to play. The mighty Tengu, the adorable Quaggan, and even the mysterious Largos are fan favorites that have been requested over and over again as playable races. While new races are always fun and exciting, we do have to keep in mind just how much more work they add to the developers’ already insane workload. Already two of the races require alternate version of armor skins, many of which still don’t look that great. While it would be sweet, adding a new playable race means we’ll be waiting even longer to play HoT. And if that's the case, I'll gladly wait until the next expansion to play the Tengu.
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The only race cuter than the Asura.
What would you like to see come to HoT that you feel Guild Wars 2 has been missing since launch? Let us know!
