So i know for the most part what were getting is a lot of bogs ,woodlands and the city of malmouth. Maybe some other locals ? But i don’t see any snow but to the north of Homestead
Seriously hoping we can get a winter/ snow based themed expansion,now im not sure what would take our character there but i go back to the barbarian lands of LOD and how amazing those places were in diablo 2. Asterkarn, hands down is one of my favorite areas in the game and i think the huge forts and the snowy settlements were a nice touch. Maybe even a DLC based in the mountains between west of Valbury/North of Darkvale Gate, there’s a ton of mountain regions there that’s ripe for story.
Any ideas or thoughts of where you guys wanna go next? I know AoM is releasing sometime soon so just conversing…
I’d be down for some snow/ice. We came close to such a scene with the Asterkan Mountains, but those are barely interesting at all (with only the Hidden Path, Mog’s Shrine, and some good lore being of any importance).
Could also go for some deeper, darker sorts of dungeons and more sprawling, fantastical castles. The only thing that fits the classical dungeon bill is Steps of Torment…but we can do “Grimmer” than that, can’t we?
Yea, honestly Ceno that’s exactly what i had in mind… huge castle walls scaling snowy mountain tops. Frozen tundras and snowy pathways and of course, deep dark cavern dungeons with maybe some lava? I’m just spit balling but i can literally imagine it now
Maybe some of the c’thonic cultist went northeast up into the mountains to resurrect some of the dead creatures long lost in the mountainous caverns or maybe a frozen king? There’s so many ways they can go with it
I just feel like that area is big enough that could warrant a 1 “act” expansion or maybe a smaller act DLC. I felt like Asterkarn gave us a nice taste but i felt like they could do so much more with a “snowy biome”. I would lovre to see what Grim Dawn would look like in true winter
PS: And ive been waiting for the day we get a huge sprawling castle dungeon…hell throw that up in the mountains and let it be a rogue dungeon! Inside and outside, that would be a sight to see and i mean huge… size of Valbury but in castle form, multiple levels inside and outside. They def have the art and assets to pull something like that off. Hopefully Zantai will skip by this post
We’ve gone into Chthonic rifts in the main game, but we’ve never visited the Aetherial or Eldritch realities, so I’d like to see those eventually…
I know we’ll be interacting with more Aetherials in the expansion and I presume Ugdenbog is filled with Eldritch creatures, so maybe it will be possible even in this expansion?
It’s hard to list an environment that hasn’t been done 1,000 times already in other ARPGs, so aether-corrupted or chthonic versions of these environments might make them more appealing. The setting will ultimately be determined by the story that the developers want to tell, though.
I don’t necessarily know if I want to see the Aetherial ‘homeworld’. Perhaps I’m a bit of a Warhammer fanboy, but I’ve always picture the Aetherial realm as a psychic/immaterial space much like the Warp. My headcanon wouldn’t really offer much of a place for players to explore, being non-physical and all.
Exactly my thoughts Ceno, i’m much more of a grounded fantasy guy… i like dungeons,villages,catacombs. I think places like Bastion is fine as a dungeon but would be awful for a place to level or quest through…just doesn’t offer much for the eyes and i think the aetherial world would be just like that.
Gimme stuff like this, if we got a setting like this in the Grim Dawn world? It would be amazing, i just know it would be.
Some reason pics aren’t working but if you wanna pick my brain, that’s the idea i have in my head.
Now imagine giving us a place like this in the world of Cairn? It’s ripe for the picking and it would totally change things up in terms of looks and give the art team free reign to go nuts, while DLC would be great … i honestly think something like this is expansion worthy. Frozen forest,tundras,snowy plains,frozen lakes,huge “abandoned” keeps… honestly the main enemy might not even have to be aetherial or cthonic. I keep thinking that piece of loot “Bane Of The Winter King” belonged to the king that once built the castle in those hills. Imagine the end castle literally being made of frozen ice and the act would lead us into the deep dark caverns of a dorman volcano. Don’t mind me just geeking out at the possibilities! Lol
Asterkarn Road and Valley seem to be map stetchers, there is very little point to either except as waypoints before reaching Fort Ikon. A “Mountain Quest” to the west of the Asterkarn Region an Ice Palace dungeon, I’d even be happy for it to be the mortal lair of Moosilauke, with chilly being the end boss.
Since we don’t have a whole load of cold monsters a lost tribe of ex-chthonian brothers could inhabit its demesnes with appropriate cold spells and weaponry.
I think the DLC approach is more appropriate in this case than the expansion approach. It has a shorter/easier development cycle and won’t stress Crate out as much. It could be treated as a side project while Crate focuses the majority of its attention on its next game.
That would be a interesting side story to dig into, find out why he’s the nemesis boss for the undead…must be one bad ass dude before his transformation into the monster (if it was a transformation)
Yea, i could see a nice 3-4 hour DLC story based in the snow mountain regions, something small and contained.
I thought about making some sort of campaign where the starting area is close to a main road leading to a city and your character is found by a minstrel who helps you to his camp. Then you wake up and the Grim Dawn event is happening and the camp is attacked by the dead with the minstrel near death.
Anywho you go through the city that is now under attack and you get evacuated to some citadel which becomes the main hub that you travel from and one of the areas that you go to is a mountain fortress with an outlying village in which case you receive news (or lack of news) about it being overwhelmed by another Groble/Dranghoul/Troll/Mistborn invasion.
To get there you’d talk to some NPC where you’d “travel” in some caravan that would have a few set pieces (but not fully connected - hargath’s island boat mechanic) and then eventually you’d get to this main area and so on. The fortress resides inside a long inactive volcano so you’d have some pockets of snow falling down from any of the open vents and so on.
In any case your character will eventually meet up with the survivors and you will eventually find out that this troll overlord thing is actually an aetherial who’s trying to find/use some sort of artifact that is in the fortress for some nefarious reason.
I had some other ideas about a desert map with cultist activity in some ancient ruins and the summoning of some sort of creature.
Rather fun coming up with ideas but implementing them can be a challenge. I used to have a lot more time on my hand in which case map making was a lot easier to get into. Kinda stopped after messing around with some D2 level design that I tinkered with and haven’t touched the editor since then.
IIRC there is a lore talking about people from the south of Devil’s Crossing for the first time in this expansion. I guess we might heading south next time?
If we are going north, then we can propably go to Erulan, Cairn’s capital, since every sign points it to be towards north. So those fantastic castles and snow theme can fit together pretty well.
If we are going south, then I hope to see jungle stuff and deserts with beaches. Maybe some underwater exploration too, if this is possible?
honestly I am tired of facing aetherials and chthonians… an undead theme would be nice and a touch of eldrtich wont be bad… especially if we can get to experience more of their realm…
but if we want all of these wishes to happen, lets tell more of our friends about the game and perhaps hypnotize them to buy moar copies…
I like this idea - A quiet village with survivors, as you explore the mystery you realize they once served the great lord himself but the practices didn’t sit well with them so they defected and are now in hiding. You are then given the choice to execute them (as you should) or spare them
Exactly this, in some other thread I expressed interest in another major faction. Undead sounds nice as well. Arkovia’s lore might not permit this but they made something work with Aetherial Vanguard, so a different sect of Arkovians in a different region sounds nice. Eldritch faction sounds better
I like the idea of a cold themed area. I am however interested in Old Grove exploration. They can try to make something work by making it a short area, the camera angle limitation shouldn’t be too hard to overcome (imo)
I’d like this, while I love the game. From a new player’s pov a second expac might be a little too much content to explore. A short and sweet DLC might fit
