Guild Wars 2

Hey everyone, as you all probably know, SAB Back to School is coming later today. While alot of info has gone out with th embargo mishap yesterday, I thought I would summarize it for those who havn’t seen them yet and put my own spin.

This is just a TL : DR summary, there is also a longer version with artwork hand drawn by my friend and a vine video I stole from Lord Vanquish: http://dulfy.net/2013/09/03/gw2-super-adventure-box-back-to-school-patch-preview/

World 1 and changes to loot

• World 1 will return with all of the achievements. Those who completed it last time will retain all of their achievement and get a King Toad Green Backpack cover if they have completed the meta (new players will do as well)

• New secret locations added to world 1 for players to explore

• All chests and dig spots are now account bound daily to prevent mindless farming.

• Old SAB skins are not returning but the 9 other weapons not shown last time will be coming (Mace, Axe, Warhorn, Focus, Torch, Pistol, Rifle, Dagger, Hammer)

World 2

• Zone 1 was largely finished from last time but you will need to do it again for the new achievements etc.

• Zone 2 is distinctively asian themed with mountains, dojos and palaces. It is also more exploratory than other zones with multiple paths you can take. Harder the path better the rewards.

• Lots of interesting mobs such as ninjas, frogs that swallow you, stealth owls that steal your baubles etc.

• Less baubles along the main path this time so you will have to really go out and find them.

• Environment is quite deadly and filled with dart traps on various passages. You will soon learn to watch out for them.

• Lots of puzzle this time, including one where you need to balance a scale to gain entry to the next checkpoint.

• Dojo master mini boss that pays homage to Megaman – defeating him gain you a giant glove of wisdom, which allow you to push blocks around to act as mobile platforms or break wooden barriers blocking your path.

• Push Block puzzle where you need to use your giant glove to push blocks around while avoiding dart traps.

• Roll a gong from top of a temple to the bottom while using it to block dart traps. Similar to the scene from Indiana Jones and Temple of Doom in the Chinese nightclub.

• Secret shop that sells Wooden Whistle for 250 baubles that can play a couple songs.

• World 3 isn’t finished but you will get a sneak peak at it.

Tribulation Mode

• For those who seeks a challenge, designed for small group of players who find Mad King Clock Tower easy
• Anything can and will kill you in one hit.
• Flowers that explode, rocks that jump up and slam you, even checkpoints will kill you. Invisible traps everywhere.
• Basically force you to find a new path from what you are used to. You are going to die alot and waste alot of lives so you will need to farm baubles.
• More checkpoints than normal modes thankfully so you don’t rage and break something.
• Full set of green color variant weapons available to those who completed world 1 on Tribulation mode, yellow for world 2 and purple for world 3 (not in this release).

Achievements

• Same achievements in world 2 that have you hunt down secret rooms and collect all the baubles.
• Complete 13 of the World 2 achievements and you can earn yourself a new title (Honor in Applied Jumping) along with a new backpiece (Storm Wizards’s Backpack Cover).

• Tribulation mode also have its own separate set of achievements but doesn’t seem to offer any titles or rewards beyond the special weapon skins and the numerous achievement points.

I enjoyed your artwork of a Charr being squished by the checkpoint.
Very entertaining

Edit:

Secret shop that sells Wooden Whistle for 250 baubles that can play a couple songs.

It’s a commonly known fact that retro game whistles summon teleportation options, be it birds or whirlwinds.

its red for world 3 and purple for world 4 right? on the trib weps

SAB chests will be Account Bound and not Soulbound :|

RedCobra.7693:

its red for world 3 and purple for world 4 right? on the trib weps

I believe thats what Josh had said.

Chrisplosion.3756:

SAB chests will be Account Bound and not Soulbound :|

Seconded. Now I’m gonna have to chose which ONE (possibly two) of the skins I want to get. And if I want the others I’m gonna have to pay out the kitten to get them. God Anet is really kittening me off as they keep “progressing” with these patches.

Anyways, Thanks Dulfy. Looking forward to the guides/walkthroughs and dig/secret locations.

skullmount.1758:

RedCobra.7693:

its red for world 3 and purple for world 4 right? on the trib weps

I believe thats what Josh had said.

Chrisplosion.3756:

SAB chests will be Account Bound and not Soulbound :|

Seconded. Now I’m gonna have to chose which ONE (possibly two) of the skins I want to get. And if I want the others I’m gonna have to pay out the kitten to get them. God Anet is really kittening me off as they keep “progressing” with these patches.

you can get 13-14 BB’s a day its here for a month so if you farm like some crazy robot you could get 8 skins through BB farming taking into account they are 50BB’s each, you can also get them as drops and purchase them off of the TP

Sounds like World 2 will be very interesting. And that gif with the projectile reflect/weapon looks fun. :P Can’t wait to try it out.

That said. I have been enjoying the art inclusions lately Dulfy. I think they add a nice touch in absence of screenshots.

Oh jeeze, Tribulation mode sounds like a nightmare. lol

RedCobra.7693:

you can get 13-14 BB’s a day its here for a month so if you farm like some crazy robot you could get 8 skins through BB farming taking into account they are 50BB’s each, you can also get them as drops and purchase them off of the TP

That is only if you manage to kill the frog in normal mode and any new end bosses we’ll have in world two.

I never managed to kill the frog in normal mode. So, that’s at least 2 bubbles less. We’ll have to see about the difficulty of world two, but I presume it continues the upward line regarding difficulty.

I’ll be happy if I manage to get two skins at the end of this.

LadyRhonwyn.2501:

RedCobra.7693:

you can get 13-14 BB’s a day its here for a month so if you farm like some crazy robot you could get 8 skins through BB farming taking into account they are 50BB’s each, you can also get them as drops and purchase them off of the TP

That is only if you manage to kill the frog in normal mode and any new end bosses we’ll have in world two.

I never managed to kill the frog in normal mode. So, that’s at least 2 bubbles less. We’ll have to see about the difficulty of world two, but I presume it continues the upward line regarding difficulty.

I’ll be happy if I manage to get two skins at the end of this.

Yeah, I don’t look forward to trying to do world 2 every day. So thats half the BBs right there. I just can’t get over the kitten choices that Anet is making lately. They give us the incredible gold farming invasions, then they go back and remove a farming that didn’t really reward anything, other than skins, which you still had to work for. UGHHH.

skullmount.1758:

Yeah, I don’t look forward to trying to do world 2 every day. So thats half the BBs right there.

Looks like we’ll have to farm our butt off even more. Kill every monkey, spider and bee, in the hope they’ll drop a bauble. Get the bauble achievement every time you go in…

LadyRhonwyn.2501:

skullmount.1758:

Yeah, I don’t look forward to trying to do world 2 every day. So thats half the BBs right there.

Looks like we’ll have to farm our butt off even more. Kill every monkey, spider and bee, in the hope they’ll drop a bauble. Get the bauble achievement every time you go in…

Yeah, the farming is still technically there, its now just sooooo much more time consuming. At least when it was character bound, I could run my 8-11 characters through the first two zones, and then go on and do other stuff.

skullmount.1758:

LadyRhonwyn.2501:

RedCobra.7693:

you can get 13-14 BB’s a day its here for a month so if you farm like some crazy robot you could get 8 skins through BB farming taking into account they are 50BB’s each, you can also get them as drops and purchase them off of the TP

That is only if you manage to kill the frog in normal mode and any new end bosses we’ll have in world two.

I never managed to kill the frog in normal mode. So, that’s at least 2 bubbles less. We’ll have to see about the difficulty of world two, but I presume it continues the upward line regarding difficulty.

I’ll be happy if I manage to get two skins at the end of this.

Yeah, I don’t look forward to trying to do world 2 every day. So thats half the BBs right there. I just can’t get over the kitten choices that Anet is making lately. They give us the incredible gold farming invasions, then they go back and remove a farming that didn’t really reward anything, other than skins, which you still had to work for. UGHHH.

lmao im really sorry, my comment started out as sarcasm towards the insane farming for a month for 8 skins then turned into advice xD woah i need to watch out for that

Account-bound limitations on chests / dig spots? Ugh.

I can see limiting dig spots so that people can’t just farm those all day (since farming nothing but dig spots doesn’t involve actually finishing stages and that I would somewhat consider contrary to the main “goal” of SAB), but restricting it per-character seems like it’d be a much better idea. That worked fine with the chests last time, so why does it need to be account-bound this time?

Guess its a good thing I got over 250 Bauble Bubbles last time >.<

The rest of World 2 sounds chaotic. And Tribulation Mode…. meh. I would have preferred a more legit skill-based challenge with harder jumps rather than IWTBTG style trial-and-error stuff where you get killed by random stuff out of the blue. Really not a fan of that kind of gameplay. But oh well, I’ll be giving it a try anyway.

SSSoooo, dig spots change every day so that we can’t farm, and tribulation mode says we need to farm? Sigh.. still we’ll find a way to get those continue coins.

Also, no titles for tribulation mode is disappointing. I was looking forward to rub the tribulation mode completion to lesser players’ faces (that’s what titles are for), but I’ll have to make do with just the weapon skin.

Still excited for the update though. Wondering how deadly trib mode will actually be.

Antediluvian.5169:

SSSoooo, dig spots change every day so that we can’t farm, and tribulation mode says we need to farm? Sigh.. still we’ll find a way to get those continue coins.

Also, no titles for tribulation mode is disappointing. I was looking forward to rub the tribulation mode completion to lesser players’ faces (that’s what titles are for), but I’ll have to make do with just the weapon skin.

Still excited for the update though. Wondering how deadly trib mode will actually be.

Well you could buy the ‘convenience’ item of the infinite continue coin…
Stupid monetizing of LS.

dulfy.1493:

• Full set of green color variant weapons available to those who completed world 1 on Tribulation mode, yellow for world 2 and purple for world 3 (not in this release).

I thought world 3 was red, not purple. Purple was for World 4, wasn’t it?