User:Midnight08/My Sandbox

Guild Wars Utopia is name of the new CORPG released by ArenaNet in 2007. Little is known about it, except the name itself, and that it is in the latter stages of production (confirmed to be "well underway" as of May 11th, 2006). The name has not yet been officially announced in a press release, however, like the preceding campaign, discovered on the United States Patent and Trademark Office, a WHOIS confirms that NCSoft has registered this domain - see here.

Content
No details have been released about any of the content for Utopia, however, Jeff Grubb has reportedly said that there are a few hints towards it in Nightfall and Gaile Grey, ArenaNet community relations manager, said that it will tie up a few loose ends and expand on minor details from Prophecies.. The only real obvious one is in the Nightfall manual where in the timeline of Elona it is mentioned that "Cantha begins trade with Tyria, Elona, and northern areas". There are several other tidbits that could be considered hints, for example the bridge made of the same material that the Mursaat used in Guild Wars Prophecies appearing in the final mission of Nightfall. However, this is hit and miss as nothing has yet been confirmed about the nature of Utopia.

Storyline
There are two prevalent theories on the storyline of Guild Wars Utopia. The first is that it will focus on the Mursaat, one of the enemies in Prophecies, and take the players to their homeland of Janthir. This theory is expanded upon here. The second is based on the recent appearance of the NPC Bahltek on Istan, and that the mage he mentions is Lord Odran, who was a character mentioned in the Prophecies manuscripts, but from there on never mentioned again. This is expanded upon here in this thread, and also mentioned here. However, the key to the storyline may have existed even before the release of Factions, with the theory that Lord Odran is a member of the Mursaat race. This theory can be found here.

New Professions
The Dervish was originally designed as a brawler-type melee class, an idea that was eventually scrapped. It is possible that the concept may be once again revisited in Utopia, but nothing has been confirmed. Concept art for a flail-wielding profession can be found here, and concepts for a profession called "Bard" can be found here. It is likely, however, that these professions were developed into the Dervish and Paragon, respectively.

New Gameplay
No details have been released about any new gameplay for Utopia.

Theme
Guild Wars Factions had an Asian theme, and Nightfall had a North African theme. It was originally thought that Utopia, or "campaign four" as it was known at the time, would have an Aztec/Mayan theme, following the homeland of the Charr, but because of recent revelations (ghost ships appearing, much detail put into the character models of reindeer and polar bears and one of the NPC's writing a play about someone called Havelgaar, Terror of the Tides) most of the community now believe that this campaign will be Norse themed. It is also worth noting that the origins of the word "Utopia" are Greek.There is also the possibility of an advanced civilization, similar to Atlantis.

Release Date
Nothing is known about the release date, however the developers have a six-month cycle for releasing campaigns. This cycle began on April 28, 2006, so it would make sense that Utopia will be released in the second quarter of 2007.