Guild Wars 2

Hey all,

I have a question about exploration and hidden areas and things. I’ve explored around a lot, but most everything I’ve found turns out to just be another puzzle that’s marked on the achievement sheet. Does anyone know if there really are “secret” places to find, and is there any potential reward for finding those places beyond…“oh, nifty, an area I didn’t know was here!”

In the literature for the game, one of the more exciting points mentioned was that people would be rewarded for exploring and going off the beaten path. Now, while I think there is a certain fun factor to finding a place just for the sake of finding a place….it doesn’t feel terribly rewarding, since it’s mostly just a visual.

Does anyone know if there are any “secret” areas that have boss or champions that spawn? The wiki mentions “legendary” bosses that are supposedly rare and hard to find…do these really exist? Has anyone found a mob with a purple frame? Are there secret drops that are boss specific, even if only cosmetic? I’ve heard talk that there are “hidden” achievements that aren’t on the achievement list? Anyone found any? Do they give titles or anything?

Don’t get me wrong. I enjoy finding hidden areas and just seeing a new visuals, maybe taking a screen shot or two…but it would be so much more satisfying if there were hidden adventures, treasures, and creatures to vanquish.

Anyone have any idea what the extent of hidden or secret things is in the game?

There are certain event items in the game that can open a portal or “attune” an area so you can enter it.

Such as an item you can find in Metrica Province that if used correctly during the Thaumanova Reactor event will unlock it so you can jump into the reactor to find a mini dungeon.

Or there are items you can find in Mount Maelstrom that if used together at a certain place spawn a special boss.

Is that the kinds of things you are looking for?

I found the key for the reactor in Metrica, and got the guild together and did the special boss on the platform. Yes…that was great fun. Just haven’t found much else like it since then.

Are there a lot of those special little things in folks experience…or really just a few?

I also read about these “legendary” bosses with purple frames, and was curious if anyone had ever seen one.

And I read the Great Wyrm in Caledon has a rare drop that only drops from it, and was curious if there was more of that sort of thing…but perhaps special to bosses that could only be found by special or “secret” means.

Have you done Flame Temple Tombs?

Is that the one in Diessa Plateau where you go through the portal into the area that’s under water where you get the sword and take it to the statue and such? I’m not great with the names of everything, haha, but if so, that was a nice puzzle. I like the puzzles, they are fun, but they don’t really seem like “secret” content. Which is fine…like I said…it’s nice still stuff.

The example of the reactor in Metrica is more along the lines I’m curious about, because it’s totally separate little “secret” thing that’s not on any achievement table and that the game doesn’t really point you towards. I’ve heard there are secret rooms in dungeons and such…has anyone found any of them? Is there anything in them?

Thanks much for the replies Karizee. I not planning to end my search of nooks and crannies…I’m just curious if people have found truly “secret” things, or at least “hidden” things that aren’t one of the puzzles.

Emosewa.9731:

The example of the reactor in Metrica is more along the lines I’m curious about, because it’s totally separate little “secret” thing that’s not on any achievement table and that the game doesn’t really point you towards.

Cleanup Crew
Find and defeat the misplaced steam ogre in the Thaumanova Reactor. +10 Arenanet points

Emosewa.9731:

In the literature for the game, one of the more exciting points mentioned was that people would be rewarded for exploring and going off the beaten path.

What this was refering to was the exploration bonus xp attached to enemies, when you kill an enemy, you see 2 xp numbers flash up on the screen, the first is the enemy’s base xp reward, the second is the “exploration bonus”.

The longer an enemy is alive in the world, the more the bonus xp is, so by going off the beaten path and exploring, where few players go, enemy kills net you more xp rewards.

I’ve got an Energy Crystal in my bags that I found in Metrica that’s to open the Old Oola Lab and unlock an event there that I haven’t used yet.

It’s listed under the trophies category in the wiki, might try looking there or in the database for colored trophy items?

http://www.guildhead.com/items/catg/14/page/1

Exactly, Raptor, that secret event or key find is awesome. Have you seen or found anything else like it since?

Safari, that would be a shame. It certainly sounded in interviews and such that they meant there would be more things like the Reactor Key.

Ooo, I forgot Oola’s key…yeah, did that one too. Seems they’re all in Metrica…haha. I guess the Dwarven Key in…Dreadnaut? Forget where that was.

So, yeah…there are a few examples. Wonder how many more there are?

I have a couple INSANELY hidden and cool things for you to check out. There’s no rewards or special loot or enemies to fight in them but they’re very aesthetically pleasing and you’ll gain a sense of smug satisfaction in knowing where they are. In the Grove in the Garden of Dusk I think it is (It’s one of those gardens) there’s a pool you can dive down in and it’ll take you to a cool area. Also in Diessa Plateau in the town of Nolan theres an area with a bunch of mossy gears lying around. Two Charr children claim they can hear singing, I suggest investigating… Don’t want to ruin too much but find the pipe you can climb in and you’ll be greatly rewarded. These are the only 2 I know of but if anyone finds any more please post it on here.

There is ceiling cat, the cat war-room, and the turkey room. That’s all I know of.

Can’t remember where it was but there was a place with an organ and if you played a certain tune it unlocks to a chest behind it. There’s also the hidden achievement for reading the 20 issues of that book in ebonhawke. There was an event in one of the zones that I found out about by talking to an npc on the opposite side of the zone who told me about a dwayna statue and then remembering that in guild wars 1 you kneeled and bought up the avatar I did that and started an event

In dredgehaunt there are two large dragon statues with their tails entwined and their mouths open towards a frozen waterfall. If you find the crank you can activate the mechanism to release an ancient fleshreaver, who you then fight to seal away again. Like most priory things “oops. probably shouldn’t have done that…”
Apparantly there are secret Ooze bosses in CoF? But I don’t know if that was verified.

King and queen oozes in cof1, turkey room in ac1, hidden jumping puzzle that starts in holwing king room (no chest or achievement) secret cat room in borderlands jumping puzzle. Secret ghost event in AC under stairs before the first burrow, interact with torch. Secret garden in the grove (access by a pond)

all bosses in dungeons are legendary,
the boss outside arah is legendary
apart from those i know hardly any that is legendary

Some of the most obscure things I have found so far are mini dungeons. All of them give achievements though, so I guess they aren’t completely secret in the way you mean. But I’m horrible at thinking outside the box in this kind of game (i.e. do more than kill stuff, or pull the glowing lever at most), so they torture me for ages:

1) In Caledon, mini-dungeon full of Veteran Hyleks, with a Champion in the end. It starts behind a door that needs you to do something special to open, and also has a puzzle that had me banging my head against the wall before the final chest. Made me feel awesome when I finally finished it though, after half a dozen attempts.

2) In Gendaran Fields, mini-dungeon with traps, a champion spider, and a lot of mobs with pretty fast respawn rate. You need to look around the place to open the door that leads to the chest.

3) In Queensdale, locked door that leads to a tiny Ettin cave with a veteran, a chest and an achievement. My first secret, and one that took me ages of experimentation to find because I didn’t realize the game was fun enough to have this kind of solutions.

There are small treasure chests all over the world as well. Those aren’t related to any sort of achievement and they are usually guarded and/or hidden. One of them is in Iron Marches in an underwater cave(you need to go there for the POI) slightly hidden by seaweed.

Zeengo.2093:

I have a couple INSANELY hidden and cool things for you to check out. There’s no rewards or special loot or enemies to fight in them but they’re very aesthetically pleasing and you’ll gain a sense of smug satisfaction in knowing where they are. In the Grove in the Garden of Dusk I think it is (It’s one of those gardens) there’s a pool you can dive down in and it’ll take you to a cool area. Also in Diessa Plateau in the town of Nolan theres an area with a bunch of mossy gears lying around. Two Charr children claim they can hear singing, I suggest investigating… Don’t want to ruin too much but find the pipe you can climb in and you’ll be greatly rewarded. These are the only 2 I know of but if anyone finds any more please post it on here.

It’s actually in The Garden of Dawn, in the pool West of The House of Aife POI and East of the Vista, so in between the two.

Have you found the hidden unfinished and unnamed 5th jumping puzzle in Caledon Forrest? (Hint: it may require the use of 1 of 2 items purchased from an npc somewhere else in the game in order to get into depending on your class.)

There’s an entire subculture of gamers who’s sole purpose is to get outside the designed areas – aka out-of-bounds, out-of-world, etc.

If your character or item can help you move very far without direct line-of-sight terrain following skills, you can probably get to most, if not all of them.
Elementalist is my favorite for doing this and everything seems like a jumping puzzle when you’re doing it.

Examples:
Pic 1. Harathi Hinterlands, Ulgoth event – view from the top of the zone.
Pic 2. Brisban Wildlands, this is what Tangle Root looked like before living story update.
Pic 3. Metrica Province, Steam Ogre event – this is what the water pit looks like:
— if you don’t know what the water pit is, it is a secondary area under the pit you jump into when the force field is opened, there is a teleport field above the water that teleports you above Thaumanova Reactor to the Steam Ogre platform. If you miss the teleport field or the server doesn’t recognize that you touched it, you fall into water. To get out, jump out of the water toward the shiny spot.

My daughter plays too. We started playing at begin of july. Recently she started talking about an area she had visited in the first days; beach, ships, large place. The area was not anymore in the map. Some kind of vehicle took her there from Divinity’s Reach; no vehicle anymore. Strange, puzzling. Turned out the area is Labyrinthine Cliffs and it was open only a few weeks, ending at begin of july; just lucky that she visited that place in the first days of playing.

AnniMira.2506:

My daughter plays too. We started playing at begin of july. Recently she started talking about an area she had visited in the first days; beach, ships, large place. The area was not anymore in the map. Some kind of vehicle took her there from Divinity’s Reach; no vehicle anymore. Strange, puzzling. Turned out the area is Labyrinthine Cliffs and it was open only a few weeks, ending at begin of july; just lucky that she visited that place in the first days of playing.

Yeah, that opens up once a year, it’s one of the more popular events.

There are some hidden events that spawn champion mobs not so sure with legendary mobs though. Of course I am actually happy they’re just champions and most often veterans because generally you’re exploring solo and generally these places are pretty secluded and highly likely you’ll have to solo whatever the event spawns.

Most of these events drop just chests. There is one hidden event that I am aware of that rewards you with a unique town cloth hat… or used to before the changes to town cloths… hmm I should redo it see what it rewards now. But yeah I think mostly by rewards I think they meant the intrinsic reward you get for finding the secret more then anything else. I mean one of the secrets I ran across was a hidden outcrop inside a long underwater tunnel that had a quaggen in it that when spoken to is kinda annoyed with you for finding his secret place of solitude no reward but felt pretty rewarding none the less.

Shufflepants.9785:

Have you found the hidden unfinished and unnamed 5th jumping puzzle in Caledon Forrest? (Hint: it may require the use of 1 of 2 items purchased from an npc somewhere else in the game in order to get into depending on your class.)

I’m pretty partial to that place, spent a fair amount of time figuring out a way to get into the actual jp part easily. It’s probably my favorite spot in the game, largely because the odds of seeing another player in there are slim to none.