you sir, are my new favorite person of the day.... way to end the year! Thank you! LOL
Happy to be of service, I guess
90 minutes of SAB ? Count me in !
Maybe if they were playing through all of it live on stage...
Or just tie them in with completing chapters in the Personal Story or something if you're going to go the unlocking route. That said, I think it's idiotic to have to unlock them at all.
I agree that having to unlock them is tedious, but I also get that it's a way to encourage players to explore. The problem is that there's nothing telling you "Go here and do this" unless you wade into the Trait menu, then check every single trait, then go where you need to. Personal Story unlocks wouldn't work because they're not only tied to your level but not everyone wants to do the Personal Story (or do it again).
If they were set locations, at least then you'd only have to travel to 5 places and do 5 "Trait quests", at least it would be over fairly quickly and still have that cool exploration element.
Unlocks are just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to my dislike of traits, however... but that's a long post I've already made, so there's no point in going through it again (we can take this to PMs if you want though).
Anyway. There's a whole big world out there. Much as I dig Elona and Joko, I'd like to see unexplored stuff. Different cultures, places, monsters and the like.
I was thinking earlier today that if it is an expansion (which I doubt it will be, but we'll get to that), it would make sense to go in all directions at once. The Living Story is doing an adequate job of moving the story further into enemy territory, and I imagine that we'll unlock bigger and bigger swaths of Maguuma as we go. We don't
need an expansion to unlock that area because it's happening during the Living Story.
On the other hand, there are places to expand all over the map that are
not being sufficiently handled by the Living Story:
- The Deldrimor Front (between Ascalon and the Southern Shiverpeaks).
- The Far Shiverpeaks (North of Frostgorge).
- Woodland Cascades and the Isles of Janthir (north of Divinity's Reach).
- The Blazeridge Mountains and Charr Homelands (north of Ascalon)
- Tarnished Coast (West of Rata Sum, though that may technically fall under Maguuma).
- Ring of Fire Islands (south of Rata Sum)
Not to mention places we've never been, like east of Ascalon into completely unknown territory. I mean,
it's a pretty big map. And I know Elona and Cantha are fan favorites that everyone wants to see, but from a developer standpoint they might not feel like re-treading that ground right away in favor of something new that is less creatively constrictive. Maybe there are stories they want to tell that don't fit the existing narratives in Elona and Cantha.