This week's article of The Scrying Pool looks at the future of expansions after recent interviews.

Adding traits is restricted in what can be done. Traits are divided into Adept, Master and Grandmaster tiers and include a predetermined Minor Trait and a player selected Major Trait for each of these tiers and trait lines.

There is one minor trait for each tier, so outside of adding another tier to the system there isn’t much that can be done in terms of adding new minor traits. Major traits are also locked in a similar manner, but still allows for some expansion. Each tier has a set number of major traits, which helps add simplicity to the system. Every Adept major trait includes traits one through six no matter what profession or trait line, Major add traits seven through ten and Grandmaster adds the final two traits.

If the system was expanded to include more traits, it would probably require an identical expansion everywhere. Adept could include seven major traits, but only if every Adept had seven major traits. Having different tiers with a different number of traits would break down the simplicity of the system and even start balance wars if some professions had more options available than others. Even expanding to add another tier would require an equal expansion across all trait lines.

In addition to adding new traits, there is the consideration of what happens when the level cap rises. Currently a single trait point is assigned to players upon each level up. Adding another 10 levels would add another 10 trait points to the system. This could easily be remedied by saying that new levels wouldn’t add more trait points, but that removes one of the level up rewards and creates this floating system in the game where low level characters don’t have the system unlocked and max level characters have it fully unlocked with the max amount of traits. This isn’t much of a concern, but it also limits the ability to expand the trait system by adding additional tiers past Grandmaster if that is so desired.

If you thought that the max level would stay constant, like GW1, then you might be disappointed. Last November, president of ArenaNet Mike O’Brien stated during a Reddit AMA that “We’ve always expected that we will someday raise the level cap in GW2.”

Guild Wars 2 is set up in a way that raising a level cap is not needed but can be useful. There have been multiple Living World updates that have added new zones, content and story without ever needing additional levels to drive them. However, the amount of content that would be released in an expansion would need some way to drive players through the content.

Getting ten different level 80 zones can leave players wondering where to go. Having ten zones, each marked with its own level from 81-90, would drive players through content in a certain direction. Now there is a progression with the new levels as well as a progression through the different leveled zones. It doesn’t have to be one map per level either, as three maps per level from 81-85 would still fulfill the same idea.

Lastly with this talk of new maps is what happens with world completion. The only new map added since launch, Southsun Cove, doesn’t count for or against the current world completion. This evasive maneuver works fine for a single map, but wouldn’t really work for an entire campaign.

World completion status could be revoked until the new completion total is fulfilled, but even additional waypoints and points of interest added to maps that do count for world completion haven’t revoked the status so far.

In GW1 there was a separate cartographer achievement for each of the campaigns. This could work for GW2 with the completion status, but then the star reward has to be looked at. Currently any character who gets to 100% completion gains a star next to his/her name that anyone (save the player themselves oddly) can see. Will each new completion add another star to a player’s name, or will a system be placed to select what star is shown similar to selecting the currently displayed title? A selectable badge system could be a cool system to add alongside the title system, just as long as it isn’t overdone.

This article was more of a general look at expansions and some of the core systems that will potentially be affected by one. Over the upcoming weeks the Scrying Pool will look at some features that we might see added in future expansions. Leave a comment below if there was something you think I missed that I need to check out.

Matt "Mattsta" Adams is trying to get all of the Dragon Bash and Sky Pirate achievements completed before Tuesday's patch. Why must the golems get a pull!?

I finished the Sea of Sorrows novel since the last article of the Scrying Pool came out. I thought it was really good and would recommend it for anyone interested in the lore of the Guild Wars universe. It is historical, taking place about 150 years before the events in Guild Wars 2, but at a big point in the events leading up to the setting of the game.

As always, if you have a question for me or a topic you would like to see talked about here, comment below or tweet it to @MattstaNinja.