On 24th of August 2018 the last Krystaran kingdom was added - Sin of Maraj. A date to mark.
I understand it so that I+2 decided to slow down adding bunches of new troops to the game a little. Instead of 7 new troops for a new kingdom we have only 4 new troops for a new faction, which also develop respective kingdom.
I asked in some Q&A stream about new kingdoms, and was said that “sometimes, maybe…” Now Krystara stopped expanding and went to Underworld. With the same pace all kingdoms will have their factions in about 2 years. And then developers will invent something completely new, I believe.
My understanding is Underworld marked the end of “new kingdoms”, and when Underworld is finished there will be a third map.
Keep in mind while we get “only” 4 new troops from a faction, for the majority of the time we were getting new kingdoms we only had GW as an event. Now we get 2 troops from raid/invasion, a bounty troop, a new class, and 4 faction troops per month. Plus the mythic/legendary. That’s 9 troops/month, and we almost never averaged 1 kingdom/month.
So while it feels like troops trickle in slower, we’re actually getting more troops per unit time than we used to!
Initially, the primary motivation for changing the map from v3 to v4 was so that more kingdoms would be able to fit. Unfortunately, it seems this motivation fell off the radar, but the map change went ahead anyway.
One interpretation of what Sirrian has said about new kingdoms is that the only way we’ll get a new kingdom is through their “country inspired” mechanism. In the past, this has (apparently) seen new kingdoms added when new languages are added, with the new kingdom themed after the new country (Shentang and China are the only example I’m aware of, because I’ve only been playing a year and a bit).
Sirrian did also respond somewhat positively to the idea of adding an Australia-inspired kingdom. This seems unlikely, because of something we call “cultural cringe.” Essentially, most Australian companies on the world stage have something of an inferiority complex that means they tend not to promote Australian-themed products, and sometimes even to hide their Australian roots. (This is not an accusation; it’s really, really common.) In our devs’ case, this has meant minimal Australian-themed content (eg: no Australia Day pet), but they certainly haven’t hidden the fact they’re Australian based. So we may yet see an Australia-themed kingdom at some stage. Personally, I feel many countries respond very positively on learning that our devs are Aussies – but I’m not really in a position to judge.
Finally, the other way we might get a new kingdom is if Sirrian has a story idea that requires one. He explicitly mentioned that he’s intrigued by what might be found on the island between Whitehelm and Khetar. Sadly, I suspect any such quest line would probably be trimmed down to a Faction, in the current state of the game.
My final conclusion? We might get a new Kingdom if a new language releases, or if Sirrian comes up with a story that must be told. But it’s unlikely to happen before every Kingdom has a Faction.
Do we really count tower and raid boss counter troops as new troops? They have copy paste effefcts, so its just reprinting the already released troops with new color and under new kingdom. Sure it helps with kingdom leveling but it brings nothing new on the table, and thats what i think was asked for here.
Go take a good, long look at each kingdom’s troops and find me the kingdom where more than 2 of its launch troops are relevant. You’re applying nostalgia and that’s not really a supporting argument.
If you look close, you’ll find most kingdoms released with 7 raid/boss troops and some even released with 8.
In the “good old days” before factions we had 600+ troops and 8 of them mattered in meta. Now we have 700+ troops and about 2 dozen matter.
Really, I’d like to see 2 more kingdoms - 1 for Green mastery and another for Blue. So it will be all balanced. I suspect @Sirrian and developers know where to put them on the map.
I’d rather see a new map/realm, derived from Blighted Lands storyline.
If Sin of Maraji, with its Portal to the Underworld, is connecting Krystara to Underworld, it would be interesting to know what Blighted Lands, with its Abyssal Portal, is connected to.
