Guild Wars 2

Mira.4071:

I have a question about the laurels:

If they’re not being awarded retroactively for past achievements, then should we be waiting until the 28th to finish January’s monthly? The way I’m understanding it, finishing the monthly now means no laurels, and finishing the monthly on the 28-31 means laurels, yes?

Can anyone clear this up?

Anet said that we’re not getting any laurels for the January monthly, so just finish it up if you want to now.

Destroyer invasion of the shiverpeaks and maybe the opening of the ring of fire 80 zone? No dragons or Cantha there.

Edit: skritt involvement in the story line already points to the destroyers pushing up from the deep.

Flame legion vs. Sons of Svanir with norn and charr caught in the middle?

Nice, now we can grind the grinding content through new ways of grinding.

Arilin.8716:

So lets count!
Good:
1. New map for Paid tournaments (doesn’t matter for 99% players)
2. New achievement system with new rewards
3. Guesting
4. “Other improvements” (they better be good!)
5. Quaggan Backpack (if you Anet want to hold players using gemstore items…good luck & have fun)

Bad:
1. Ascended gear
2. Guesting (for many players it’s a very bad feature, as it kills free transfers)
3. No fix for dying sPvP
4. No fix for empty zones (mostly mid-lvl ones)

The Quaggan Backpack seems to make the update be more good than bad one.
For me, the new map is not comparable to ascaended gear, but i counted them on same level.

Lets REcount!

1. Ascended gear gives some of us something to work towards. While it technically can be seen as contradicting to the anti-grind statements ANet has made, it’s still something that is needed eventually in MMOs. Plus, ANet is good at making dungeons more challenging than a mindless grind.

2. Guesting is actually one of my favorite updates. You can guest into 2 different servers and it resets every day if you want to guest in another. It’s not ANet’s fault if you jumped the gun and picked a server that you don’t have friends in or didn’t research the peak times in. Besides that, its not hard to log into a guesting server. It’s really easy.

re: ascended gear
there is no choice, you have to have some kind of progression.
is items the best choice? dunno, but it’s a popular one if i look at most of my friends.

thing is, if they’re fun to worl toward then its all good!
just dont give me a “kill x different type of creature and gather x amount of whatever materials”. that would be a bit generic.
but something slightly lore related; ie: for kryta! win x amount of event involving centaurs, kill x boss to get a special receipe to make an anti centaur rune deciphering relic, gather x ingredients to make the receipe, craft it, then go the x place to decipher the relic, and obviously they ve put a centaur champion there.
thats cool in my book.

Will we get another loot nerf like this one in december patch?

i hope we can do something with the ascended gear, we cant salvage, sell on the TP, use on the Mystic forge and i have a tab on the bank Full of ascended ring just wasting space, plz fix this, make them salvage or used in the Mystic forge

I was kinda hoping the update would kinda push towards a new dragon story arc, but I guess this is basically confirmation that dragons will only come with expansions, and we will never see Cantha again. I hope I am wrong. By the way, if it’s not dragons, I haven’t an idea what it could be, but the karka event felt like a diversion at best – a story arc that has no bearing on anything else we should be concerned about, I hope this one doesn’t end up like that too.

When looking at the map, i wouldn’t be surprised if more of the map is being opened up, considering just from a zoomed out perspective only the middle really is open for exploration, so that leaves plenty of areas to further expand upon, and to see how things have changed in the old areas since Zaitans awakening.

Satakal.6971:

I was kinda hoping the update would kinda push towards a new dragon story arc, but I guess this is basically confirmation that dragons will only come with expansions, and we will never see Cantha again. I hope I am wrong. By the way, if it’s not dragons, I haven’t an idea what it could be, but the karka even’t felt like a diversion at best – a story arc that has no bearing on anything else we should be concerned about, I hope this one doesn’t end up like that too.

I REALLY hope we see Cantha again, but my guess would be that they’ll do an expansion of Tyria first, like letting us go back to the Northern Shiverpeaks, into the Crystal Dessert, Ring of Fire Islands and deeper into the Maguuma. Then a year or so after that we’ll hopefully go back to Cantha. Pleasepleaseplease!

They’ve kind of set up entrances to go to those other areas in Tyria, like the southern gate in Ebonhawke and some bandit barricades in the jungle that make it seem that those places will be visited first.

Satakal.6971:

I was kinda hoping the update would kinda push towards a new dragon story arc, but I guess this is basically confirmation that dragons will only come with expansions, and we will never see Cantha again. I hope I am wrong. By the way, if it’s not dragons, I haven’t an idea what it could be, but the karka even’t felt like a diversion at best – a story arc that has no bearing on anything else we should be concerned about, I hope this one doesn’t end up like that too.

i really dont think “lore” and “plot” and long term storylines are Anet strenght….
don’t want to sound negative here, but the “goal of the game was to kill a big evil dragon and his undead minions”.
i mean…
and they have quaggan backpacks and “server pride” in wvwvw.
yeah, i fight for jade quarry but nobody ever talk about “jade quarry” nor do i feel attached to it out of mathematical perspective.
ooooh, and i forgot the random bits of random unexplained lore that are the fractals.

basically gw2 rules and rock because of a kitten solid gameplay, amazing graphics, and well oiled animation, and fair balancing, and music.

Martin Kerstein.3071:

Just want to step in here for a second to comment on a few speculations:

There will be no mounts, no Cantha and no dragons coming with this story arc.
Sorry if that destroyed some dreams.

The keen observer will note that he didn’t say “No Elona”.

soma.3812:

I play WvW and just wvw i was told by a dev that i need never leave wvw for gear progression, yet i now have to do dailies and monthlies for laurels. I dont think i have ever completed a daily in my whole time of playing GW2. I dont even know what they are.
-1 Thumbs down for me.

Press H, go to Achievements. Click on Daily. That’s a daily.

Will we be able to put the amulet in the mystic forge to add base agony resist and still have the infusion slot available or will putting an infusion in the slot be the only way to add agony resist?

The Quaggan is adorable. Wish I could ask for a special back item skin for my Guild theme.

Many things sound good and I am happy for it. I would like to express that every time a new system is created, it pretty much invalidates the previous ones. Honestly, I truly wish FotM was never created. For after 25 or so (lost count) dailies, I only have 3 rings to show for it. Of those, one might be something I can build around. So now, basically all that annoyance and frustration has been made irrelevant. Which, I’m not thrilled with.

The back items will be the next question. Do I build one or keep the cheap back brace? Because I do not wish to spend 100+ Gold for nothing. As I spent (wasted) 40 gold for the Ancient Karka Shell. Which I can’t even equipped two of on a toon, grrr.

Please give us more of an outline so we needed waste our time?

I wonder if Anet learned anything from all the people who got frustrated with RNG in the last several holidays and will just sell the backpack directly instead of hiding it in a box

soma.3812:

I play WvW and just wvw i was told by a dev that i need never leave wvw for gear progression, yet i now have to do dailies and monthlies for laurels. I dont think i have ever completed a daily in my whole time of playing GW2. I dont even know what they are.
-1 Thumbs down for me.

Throwing the flag on this post. WvW is the easiest place to earn your daily achievement. I guarantee if you did anything at all in WvW you’d know what the daily is because each tier of each achievement category pops up as you commplete it. Somewhere between 12 and 16 total popups — every day for as long as you’ve been playing WvW.

Martin Kerstein.3071:

Just want to step in here for a second to comment on a few speculations:

There will be no mounts, no Cantha and no dragons coming with this story arc.
Sorry if that destroyed some dreams.

What about dragon minions? Does no dragons include them?

Arilin.8716:

Bad:
1. Ascended gear
2. Guesting (for many players it’s a very bad feature, as it kills free transfers)
3. No fix for dying sPvP
4. No fix for empty zones (mostly mid-lvl ones)
5. Achievement system diversity enhances dailies only (WvW still a monthly requirement)

Added a bad to your list. Personally, I’d have it a #1 instead of #5. That’s me though.

soma.3812:

I play WvW and just wvw i was told by a dev that i need never leave wvw for gear progression, yet i now have to do dailies and monthlies for laurels. I dont think i have ever completed a daily in my whole time of playing GW2. I dont even know what they are.
-1 Thumbs down for me.

Aren’t there PvP dailies out there? Thought I saw an achievement track for it. Think it’s just SPvP though, which won’t help you.

ANet should roll WvW achievements into the PvP tracks where they belong, so NO ONE gets stuck doing activities they hate for those much appreciated rewards.

Hmm, that sounds quite a bit like ANet’s philosophy of letting players play the game in the way that they want. Ah well, guess that’s still just so much marketing propaganda.

UrieltheFlameofGod.8643:

I wonder if Anet learned anything from all the people who got frustrated with RNG in the last several holidays and will just sell the backpack directly instead of hiding it in a box

Crystin and her team are going to flog the RNG magic box ‘n’ keys horse until it is dead and buried, then they shall dig it up, reanimate it using Necroeconomics, and commence flogging it again.

Martin Kerstein.3071:

Just want to step in here for a second to comment on a few speculations:

There will be no mounts, no Cantha and no dragons coming with this story arc.
Sorry if that destroyed some dreams.

But you will be selling the Witch’s Broom won’t ya!

Martin Kerstein.3071:

UrieltheFlameofGod.8643:

I wonder if Anet learned anything from all the people who got frustrated with RNG in the last several holidays and will just sell the backpack directly instead of hiding it in a box

You can buy the quaggan backpack straight from the gem store.

And the crowd goes wild!
Great news Martin. Thanks

Martin Kerstein.3071:

UrieltheFlameofGod.8643:

I wonder if Anet learned anything from all the people who got frustrated with RNG in the last several holidays and will just sell the backpack directly instead of hiding it in a box

You can buy the quaggan backpack straight from the gem store.

Good news.

I appreciate your measured responses when addressing passionate individuals.

wont bring anyone that quit back

Cordlessjoe.2415:

wont bring anyone that quit back

In time, I think these updates might.
Not to mention, they might bring new blood into the game.

Sees quaggan back packs.
immediately goes and converts gold to gems.

Czar Peter.7961:

Yaaay new ascended items goes back to playing Eve Online, a game that actually gets progression right

Eve Online, the one game where part of your progression happens without actually playing the game.

soma.3812:

I play WvW and just wvw i was told by a dev that i need never leave wvw for gear progression, yet i now have to do dailies and monthlies for laurels. I dont think i have ever completed a daily in my whole time of playing GW2. I dont even know what they are.
-1 Thumbs down for me.

Whilst I complete dailies and monthlies while mainly WvWing I do agree with you. Its a pity that it seems ascended items will only be available via laurels and not in WvW via badges or via karma. Which is a pity. Time to spend those badges I guess given that I don’t really want to go for a legendary. And what use is karma beyond the Orr armor and the legendaries?

Azjenco.9425:

Czar Peter.7961:

Yaaay new ascended items goes back to playing Eve Online, a game that actually gets progression right

Eve Online, the one game where part of your progression happens without actually playing the game.

True, but that’s not the point. The “level cap” in Eve is way higher than GW2 and you can buy expensive equipment to give yourself a small edge, but the point is nothing in Eve makes you unreservedly stronger than newer players. Progression in Eve (and GW1) is about unlocking more gameplay options, not about grinding for higher numbers like in GW2.

maddoctor.2738:

The Ascended amulets will be obtainable with Laurels, the new currency, you get 1 from daily and 10 from monthly achievements.

Will we still get jugs of karma?

Czar Peter.7961:

True, but that’s not the point. The “level cap” in Eve is way higher than GW2 and you can buy expensive equipment to give yourself a small edge, but the point is nothing in Eve makes you unreservedly stronger than newer players. Progression in Eve (and GW1) is about unlocking more gameplay options, not about grinding for higher numbers like in GW2.

Cool story bro, why donèt you go play that game instead of trolling these forums

Martin Kerstein.3071:

You can buy the quaggan backpack straight from the gem store.

By my beard, what sorcery is this?
Wonderful news, to be sure!
The happiness of life is made up of minute fractions.

Martin Kerstein.3071:

Just want to step in here for a second to comment on a few speculations:

There will be no mounts, no Cantha and no dragons coming with this story arc.
Sorry if that destroyed some dreams.

Not in the slightest I’m glad to see you guys taking a more vocal role in the forums and it’s best to temper expectations so that there is not disappointment from the gamers. We asked for communication and we’re getting, it that I applaud! Now that Dragons, Cantha, and Mounts( the latter two I had no expectations of personally )are out of the way, the description talks about earth and sky seeming to become the enemy, Norn and Charr head south struggling in search of shelter. Well since earth and sky are seemingly the enemies my thoughts are some possible cataclysm( earthquake in Diessa, horrible blizzard in Wayfarer? )this forces them south, now south of both of those areas could be Lions Arch or Deldrimor Front( the latter is a stretch ). I don’t really know what the enemy could possibly be in this, Inquest could have caused the disasters with some experiment of theirs maybe they’re the enemy behind this, it’s fun to speculate on the possibilities.

BroScientist.9875:

I’m just going to parrot what someone said already: make sure you guys don’t implement too many rewards systems over-complicating things. I could see that being messy and confusing for a lot of people.

Especially with WvW with badges and karma systems now, adding a 3rd seems very messy indeed.

Czar Peter.7961:

Azjenco.9425:

Czar Peter.7961:

Yaaay new ascended items goes back to playing Eve Online, a game that actually gets progression right

Eve Online, the one game where part of your progression happens without actually playing the game.

True, but that’s not the point. The “level cap” in Eve is way higher than GW2 and you can buy expensive equipment to give yourself a small edge, but the point is nothing in Eve makes you unreservedly stronger than newer players. Progression in Eve (and GW1) is about unlocking more gameplay options, not about grinding for higher numbers like in GW2.

In a way that even worst to start out a game where you cant play all of it seems a lot worst then simply being not at good as others. Do i need to do one event over and over just so i can play a comply different part of the game or should i just be able to play the game as is when i first get in it? If any thing its an ego thing that causing your view point on these games. The major comple you seems to have is a gear thing and for the most part the small bit of power you get from the “high” level gear is only of use in WvW and that only when your doing a 1v1 in WvW. Every thing else about GW2 is more of a skill base both in info of the game and how to play the way you want to. Most of the time WvW is more about group skill a zurg is great and all but a mindless zurg is far worst then a mindful.

Martin Kerstein.3071:

There will be no mounts, no Cantha and no dragons coming with this story arc.
Sorry if that destroyed some dreams.

lol yeah, not sure if it was supposed to make us expect the wrong things but you’ve got people that look like they are Cantha riding horses & call it Flame & Frost.. but it has nothing to do with Cantha, Mounts, Jormag or Primodus.
That’s really strange… I dunno…

The “level cap” in Eve is way higher than GW2 and you can buy expensive equipment to give yourself a small edge, but the point is nothing in Eve makes you unreservedly stronger than newer players. Progression in Eve (and GW1) is about unlocking more gameplay options, not about grinding for higher numbers like in GW2.

What?.. wait.. WHAT? “nothing in Eve makes you unreservedly stronger than newer players.” No other game in the history of MMOs has a higher disparity between a starting player & one that has, by luck & manipulation, become the center of the universe. I don’t give 2 quaggans if it’s your body’s physical stats or your planet-sized space craft that “makes you more powerful” but EVE is the absolute pinnacle of player power separation.

Well this was interesting – “Redeem these laurels for rewards like the new Ascended gear and Infusions!”

So this is how ANet, supposedly, is expanding their Ascended gear acquisition? Sounds like FotM and Laurels will be how one gets them now – no other methods???

Also, the lore sounds like a prelude to opening up more zones in the Charr region (Blazeridge Mountains, Blood Legion Homelands).

I know there will be no dragons, but will there be any more explorable maps added throughout this story arc?

Oh and, when will we return to the elder dragon storyline?

Zlociutki.9165:

Will we get another loot nerf like this one in december patch?

Can’t get worse than this I’m afraid.

http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Necrid_Horseman Just a reminder to people that there HAVE been horses in the game, just… not living ones that I can recall.

Shiren.9532:

Vasham.2408:

Shiren.9532:

ArenaNet is really stretching it when they say “January Update”. Sure, the 28th is January, but geese, you are cutting it so close it may as well be called the February update. Every time I read “this month”, I cringed.

I’m excited to see what the Flame and Frost update brings, I guess we will have to wait until next month (the 28th of February would be even more hilarious than January).

I really think they’ve missed the mark with laurels. It’s not immersive, it has built in daily limitations (creating pressure to log in daily and limiting how much you can do on a day you might have more time) and it does very little to improve the existing content – it’s just tacked on top of the existing content. I really hope their goals with expanding the open world rewards and improving on it’s design is a lot more ambitious than laurels. More unique rewards from existing chests (like JP chests, boss event chests from chains, champions etc), maybe make them pieces of a recipe for an item that is currently exclusive to RNG buying on the AH. I’d rather tell people about how I travelled all over Tyria killing giant destroyers, solving jumping puzzles and completing a scavenger hunt to assemble my epic weapons, rather than how I farmed CoF daily for gold and ectos, or flipped items on the TP with my spread sheets just to get enough gold to buy the exorbitantly priced mats for these weapons. It would actually involve me exploring the world, playing through content and it’d actually give a story and sense of real and unique achievement to my gear collecting, rather than encourage me to find the most efficient farms or methods of making gold. Dailies are just another way to turn GW2 into what every other MMO is already doing better.

I wonder if there will be any events added to promote the Flame and Frost: Prelude.

@alcopaul I agree.

I’m pretty sure the Laurels and what you buy with them are the motivation to go back, since if the Holloween patch proved anything it’s that you can add all the content you want to lower level zones and it’s still not going to draw in players unless there’s something worthwhile to get out of it. Same with Southsun Cove, but that suffers from a major lack of events period, not just poor rewards.

Laurels sound as if they are awarded by dailies. What’s to stop people from doing what they already do and just run the easiest dungeon path, do the easiest events, gather in the easiest place and complete the easiest jumping puzzle (read: mesmer portal to the end)? My post isn’t about adding new events or content, it’s about actually integrating (look that word up if you have to, it’s core to the problem of existing content) rewards into unique areas and zones. Rather than tacking on a token token system (both tokens are deliberate) which introduces new rewards but doesn’t truly immerse players in content or integrate the rewards into the content, I’d like to see them do more. Hopefully this is just the beginning and they are going to use the tools the game already has to solve some of these issues better than any token system will.

As far as management speak goes, I know ArenaNet does this kind of thing all the time. When they give a date (read: month, quarter, half, year) they almost always mean very close to the end of that time frame. I was just laughing at how pointless it is calling it a January update, I know they worked hard on it (and what will come later) and I’m not upset, I just think it’s funny that this will be called the January update when the vast 28/31 days of the month went by without it. People will look back on GW2 and read that this stuff came out in January and think to themselves, “I played for almost that entire month and I don’t remember any of that?”. :P

I’d be happy it came out in January as some of the items initially were mentioned as coming in a “February release”…

It’s free content for a game that you paid for one time. If you’re not already into pennies per hour cost of the game you’ve not been enjoying it nearly enough.

i saw the guy on the horse and dared to hope it meant mounts but then it was just anet trolling.

why release such a wallpaper when nobody is mounted in game?

Perhaps I am among the minority, but as a player who spent my first 400 hours in game saving for the Triforge amulet, I am worried all my hard work will be for nothing once these new ascended amulets are introduced. Does anyone feel the same?

Shadow Blade.1324:

cesmode.4257:

Again,
If you want ascended gear with built in infusion, then youre sights are aimed at high fractal levels. So go run fractals.

They are making ascended gear, without built in infusions, available via laurels so people are STATTED on equal footing, even if they dont run fractals. The infusion part of ascended gear is specific to fractals ONLY. So if you want ascended with built in infusion, then that tells me you are someone who wants to run fractals because that “upgrade” is specific to fractals.

If you do not run fractals, you do not need ascended with built in infusion.

I see no problem here.

Can people please calm down about this?

you don’t seem to understand the point, this was supposed to allow players to get BIS outside of farming fractals, if it doesn’t have the inherent AR then its not BIS its that simple and creates a sub teir if it cant be upgraded, as you will still have to grind lower level fractals and fight rng to get the stats you want if you want to dip into later fractals for a challenge or because guildies need +1

it does nothing to mend the fracturing of the player base people will still have trouble finding geared players to attempt the dungeon with since there is no AR on the gear, (infusions will help to some extent) youll still only have 50% of the infusion at most as someone who farms fractals, less when higher rarity infusions are released. then you have to grind lower level fractals (if you can find anyone to play them) to get a new set of gear with 100% AR.

Let me get this straight. First you non-fractal run players whine and cried about how you guys can’t obtain BiS ascended gears without doing fractals bcoz you guys hate fractals. Then when ANet gives you a way to obtain ascended gear outside fractals, you guys once again whine and cry that you can’t get agony resistance.

Why in the world do you want agony resistance when you guys were in the first place whining about not wanting to do fractals?? You want something fractal specific but too lazy or dislike fractals. I just can’t comprehend the level of fractals whining in this thread. Now ANet has given you a way to obtain the best stats gear, so just wear it and stkitten

Sorry, if the mod is gonna infract me then so be it. I can’t stand these people. When ascended gears first came out they whine about how they don’t wanna do fractals but still want those gears. Then ANet made it available outside fractals and now they whine about unable to get agony resistance when in the first place they DON’T DO fractals.

I believe this event should be retitled ‘A Dirge of Flame and Frost’…

For those of you who still don’t get the pun, the title sounds awfully similar to George R.R. Martin’s ‘A Song of Ice and Fire’.

Not trying to beat a dead horse but I’m very curious: it’s been stated that there will be no Cantha in these updates, but will the Cantha february holiday still take place in some for or another? Or are you referring to nothing Canthanese at all taking place in the next few months?

I thought we weren’t getting new content? only fixes this game needs badly…

I’m all for new content when the game is in a fully playable state, as it is now open world is dead and i don’t see how dailies will help, we need the content back we had four months ago so everyone benefits equally…