Some interesting gaps about Golbez's history

If we did truly go to the 13th and explore it in an expac, with actual zones, I wonder if there would be a different aetheryte mechanic? The 13's whole schtick is that the lifestream and aether are out of control and all over the place. But that's what forms aetherytes and what we use to traverse them on the source/first.

Would the teleport mechanic on the 13th have to instead involve us popping in and out of a reaper-like portal?

Or maybe an atomos network instead of an aetheryte network, with atomoses having eaten portals or something and preferring stationary lives??? (To explain why the zone fast travel points don't move around on us.)

This is of course assuming we would be traversing the 13th as it exists now. If they end up syphoning light to it and stabalizing the shard somehow before we explore it more, then we'd probably just have aetherytes as normal and they'd be explained as "natural reservoirs for the new aether that flooded the shard" or something.

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Originally Posted by Alleluia

If we did truly go to the 13th and explore it in an expac, with actual zones, I wonder if there would be a different aetheryte mechanic? The 13's whole schtick is that the lifestream and aether are out of control and all over the place. But that's what forms aetherytes and what we use to traverse them on the source/first.

Would the teleport mechanic on the 13th have to instead involve us popping in and out of a reaper-like portal?

Or maybe an atomos network instead of an aetheryte network, with atomoses having eaten portals or something and preferring stationary lives??? (To explain why the zone fast travel points don't move around on us.)

This is of course assuming we would be traversing the 13th as it exists now. If they end up syphoning light to it and stabalizing the shard somehow before we explore it more, then we'd probably just have aetherytes as normal and they'd be explained as "natural reservoirs for the new aether that flooded the shard" or something.

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I would assume an expansion that takes place on the 13th would be post-influx of light from the 1st (inferred by Y'shtola at the end of 6.4). Reverting it's places and people back to what it was during the Contramemoria and the mission would be to reopen the life stream.

What's interesting about doing this kind of expansion is the characters would be untrustworthy and easily corruptible (as shown in the flashbacks with Durante). There is a lot of risk to personal safety trying to save this world even if it is redeemed by light (the finale's setup would have to be a big betrayal). The WOL's reputation would need to be completely reearned over the course of the adventure.

But does the community want another expansion on another shard (so much of the source still remains unexplored)? And this does make a great potential expansion, but what do we do after that--another set of 5 post patches to setup another completely new conflict? (I fail to see how this could connect with the next 2-3 expansions we're promised with the 10 year plan).

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Originally Posted by Alleluia

If we did truly go to the 13th and explore it in an expac, with actual zones, I wonder if there would be a different aetheryte mechanic? The 13's whole schtick is that the lifestream and aether are out of control and all over the place. But that's what forms aetherytes and what we use to traverse them on the source/first.

Would the teleport mechanic on the 13th have to instead involve us popping in and out of a reaper-like portal?

Or maybe an atomos network instead of an aetheryte network, with atomoses having eaten portals or something and preferring stationary lives??? (To explain why the zone fast travel points don't move around on us.)

This is of course assuming we would be traversing the 13th as it exists now. If they end up syphoning light to it and stabalizing the shard somehow before we explore it more, then we'd probably just have aetherytes as normal and they'd be explained as "natural reservoirs for the new aether that flooded the shard" or something.

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I think a big reason why we won't get a Thirteenth Expansion is because, if we ever did, it would strip the Thirteenth of all that makes it unique. The Thirteenth is a weirdly ruined, indistinct hellhole of a place without any of what we'd recognize as comforts or pleasures.

A Thirteenth expansion could possibly do six relatively diverse zones without difficulty, although I think we'd hit a problem similar to Ala Mhigo where all the zones are 'it's a desert, but'; even if you come up with six unique twists on 'it's a void of darkness, but', it's still gonna feel pretty samey. But as far as other expansion assets, and presuming the same structure as we have now, a Thirteenth expansion would need:

• Two 'peaceful city' zones
• Somewhere between maybe six and nine small settlements in field zones
• A handful of crafting/gathering storylines (which of course requires some kind of hub for that)
• Six zones' worth of mining, botany, and fishing yields
• An aetheryte network
• Three different tribe quests, one of which is crafting and one of which is gathering
• Some sort of infrastructure for hunts
• A market square
• An inn

And that's leaving out things like raid storylines or role quests, where any amount of them could be somewhere else, but if they were all offshored then it'd feel a bit cheap.

Plausibly, yes you could write in a lot of these, but at what point when you start adding all these amenities have we lost the Thirteenth feeling like an inhospitable wasteland whose social dynamic is entirely dog-eat-dog?

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Originally Posted by Cleretic

I think a big reason why we won't get a Thirteenth Expansion is because, if we ever did, it would strip the Thirteenth of all that makes it unique. The Thirteenth is a weirdly ruined, indistinct hellhole of a place without any of what we'd recognize as comforts or pleasures.

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Idk, this more of point of view issue. You can say it's "unique" and I could say it looks like a world in need of saving. And given everything we know about the WOL and the Scions, do you really think they'd sit back and say let nature take it's course; it's better if we do nothing (because it's unique)?

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Originally Posted by Kesey

Idk, this more of point of view issue. You can say it's "unique" and I could say it looks like a world in need of saving. And given everything we know about the WOL and the Scions, do you really think they'd sit back and say let nature take it's course; it's better if we do nothing (because it's unique)?

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I'm not saying that they wouldn't, I'm saying that the devs wouldn't see that as a good expansion potential. Which is why we're exploring this in patch content and sidestories, so that that story can exist but not force it into this prescribed list of 'Things An Expansion Needs' that doesn't serve that story. If the Thirteenth is something they want to tell, but doesn't fit an expansion, why not approach it some other way, like they are?

Also, they can't actually fix the Thirteenth in an immediate sense, because if they do then they can never use voidsent again and completely destroy Reaper's lore. So, yeah, we're not doing 'SAVE THE THIRTEENTH' as an expansion, and the Thirteenth's story will mostly be expressed in 'fight this one warlord' and 'get the ball rolling on a long-term solution' in the void quests.