Guild Wars 2

Shadow Blade.1324:

disparity in eve is not strength its wealth and versatility,

It’s wealth & political & Military power. Which is the entire fabric of the game. You’re just pretending its not. Guild Wars has no political power (becoming a GM? really? that allows you to control corporations & resources on a global scale & have paramilitary forces that can hunt down & kill players & take all their possessions? really?) & wealth just makes gearing faster. But when I can get max level & gear in 2.5 weeks it’s meaningless. The idea that EVE could be even considered AVERAGE in terms of player disparity among all MMOs is laughable. And GW2 being probably the most accessible, even MMOs (to the point where players complained that people were TOO even) make the GW2 EVE comparison even more hilarious.

Magiofdeath.2745:

I wonder if lodestones will be on the laurels vendor

agreed. people will definitely want those.

Next updates:

New achievement: Buy 5000 gems

Will the monthly achievement reset after patch?

Bogya.6034:

Will the monthly achievement reset after patch?

No, but January monthly will not grant Laurels anyway.

Lord Ryoka.4572:

Zaxares.5419:

Grend.6251:

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?

You’re not alone. I’ve been waiting (probably in vain) for ANet to announce a way that Exotics can be upgraded to Ascended tier items. The introduction of Ascended items basically kills the Crafting disciplines because there is no way that crafters can make items that are as powerful as Ascended items. Weapons and Armor still have a place in that their skins are still visible and players might buy items just to transmute their appearance, but Jewelers are completely out of luck. Why would you even bother levelling Jeweler to 400 (outside of crafting Legendary Gifts) and amassing crafting materials when you can just save up your Laurels and buy an Ascended ring or amulet instead?

I would like to add on to this. I’ve been rocking the Triforge Amulet and I do feel it deserves a special place in the whole big hooha about Ascended amulets. It does require a huge amount of money and craft to achieve this, and it’s a shame to see it leave BiS because of new content.

I think that mystic forge recipes to upgrade the Triforge and other hard to get Exotics would be wonderful. Certainly if they added similar “all stats” ascended amulets that could be purchased with laurels, no one would ever go for the Triforge any more.

I’m wondering if the ability to get Ascended rings and amulets will hurt Jewelcrafters.

aNTarTis.2561:

Next updates:

New achievement: Buy 5000 gems

And that is just Tier 1 of 10.

Overall, I’m really interested in this. One thing I never liked, however, are the concept art. Don’t know, it just lacks depth to me lol.

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.

No mounts? Good.
No Cantha/Elona? No problem, I’ll wait.
No dragons coming? Errr….does that mean the events introduced will not be part of the greater storyline?

I sincerely hope Flame and Frost will not be anything like Southsun Cove which was terrible from a lore standpoint. It could have happened in any other MMO world since it has absolutely no link to Tyria per se: an arbitrary company disturbing a new arbitrary race for a one time, yet meaningless event…leading to said race’s demise.

If Flame and Frost involved Primordus and Jormag minions scouring the lands, terrorizing the people, that would make me feel like I am back in the game…as opposed to constantly doing Fractals which feels beside the actual world of Guild Wars.

Please bring back more lore to the game, I want my gameplay to be driven by storyline and not solely for the quest of loot. Heck, give Fractals more of a semblance of a narrative! Less content like Southsun Cove which I will ultimately not care about once the loot chest has despawned.

For example…more hints to the origins of the dragons, the previous races (especially the seers), and even the conclusion to the Mursaat called Lazarus the Dire. There is so much story to be told and expanded upon, instead of introducing crabs that really don’t matter (unless they are minions of the Deep Sea Dragon and will have their backstory fleshed out later).

Also…cut scenes with “visions” of the human gods…would be so cool to hear a double-voiced Lyssa or booming Balthazar telling about the war with Menzies (is that still raging on btw???)

^

southsun cove and the unexplained lore bits of the fractals don’t help the game on a lore standpoint.
i dont understand they could come up with such “whatever” dungeon delves…

might as well connect them to the current lore? no?

the true wow killer will need all elements to be perfect.
and i believe we will see it sooner than later.

“The sky falls and the ground shakes in the lands of the north. Charr and norn refugees crawl from the wreckage of their homes in the Wayfarer Foothills and Diessa Plateau, struggling to find shelter in the south. The call goes out for volunteers to assist the victims in this time of need, when earth and sky seem to have become the enemy…”

I see more of the introduction of 2 new dragons… Earth and Air.

As for Norn (racists post didn’t capitalize) and Charr, maybe they’re running for ELONA!!! (The great oracle sees and expansion in our future)

6 months out for an expansion isn’t unheard of. They released Factions and Nightfall within about that time. ;-)

Ashabhi.1365:

“The sky falls and the ground shakes in the lands of the north. Charr and norn refugees crawl from the wreckage of their homes in the Wayfarer Foothills and Diessa Plateau, struggling to find shelter in the south. The call goes out for volunteers to assist the victims in this time of need, when earth and sky seem to have become the enemy…”

I see more of the introduction of 2 new dragons… Earth and Air.

As for Norn (racists post didn’t capitalize) and Charr, maybe they’re running for ELONA!!! (The great oracle sees and expansion in our future)

6 months out for an expansion isn’t unheard of. They released Factions and Nightfall within about that time. ;-)

We already have an earth dragon…it’s name? Kralkatorrik…or Primordius, considering he lives underground.

DarksunG.9537:

Shadow Blade.1324:

disparity in eve is not strength its wealth and versatility,

It’s wealth & political & Military power. Which is the entire fabric of the game. You’re just pretending its not. Guild Wars has no political power (becoming a GM? really? that allows you to control corporations & resources on a global scale & have paramilitary forces that can hunt down & kill players & take all their possessions? really?) & wealth just makes gearing faster. But when I can get max level & gear in 2.5 weeks it’s meaningless. The idea that EVE could be even considered AVERAGE in terms of player disparity among all MMOs is laughable. And GW2 being probably the most accessible, even MMOs (to the point where players complained that people were TOO even) make the GW2 EVE comparison even more hilarious.

Magiofdeath.2745:

I wonder if lodestones will be on the laurels vendor

agreed. people will definitely want those.

its not i play eve and mine and do industry/ trading and run some missions 0 military / political power involved, the fabric of the game is a sandbox so you do whatever you want.

in this case the military/ political power is being able to influence geared people to join you in pvp, while GW2 isn’t the best comparison due to no open world pvp/ item loss, it would be like taking your 100 man guild or whatever and calling up as many friendly guilds as you can and going into WvW and greifing someone.

in most games you cant take ALL someones possessions unless you actively scam them and they are foolish enough to let you have it all in which case its their own fault, as a result of pvp at most they will lose their current ship/ fitting and implants. and the attacker will lose their ship etc if in highsec, if in low sec risk reward is part of the game, every tutorial tells you not to fly ships you cant afford to lose.

wealth also lets you gear faster here too, any game with any form of trade/ currency will have a wealth disparity, if you weren’t aware there have already been players posting topics about forming guilds with the aim to control prices on a variety of goods on the marketplace.

so lets compare disparity in both games both have wealth disparity, the scale of which assuming your comparing a regular player for years to a new player is for all purposes the same as the new player has no way of catching up. people are already complaining here that they have no way of catching precursor prices etc due to wealth disparity and its been a few months since launch.

strength disparity in eve is mitigated by targeting and specialisation ie weaker ships can kill stronger ones through use of ecm/vamps /transversal tanking etc. in guild wars specialisation doesn’t really allow you to kill someone with twice your hp dmg etc and doesn’t have the same depth as eve

in both games military/ political power is the same, if you run a large guild/corp you can call on more people to attack/ defend objectives or control the market through arranged price fixing, but need to do the necessary recruitment and logistics to make it happen and coordinate with other guilds to set up really big operations.

anyway we seem to be getting off topic as this thread is about the prelude. which sounds good on paper but might end up terrible in implementation and they need to go into more detail about it, specifically how they’re fleshing out the rest of the world down the line

RyuDragnier.9476:

Ashabhi.1365:

“The sky falls and the ground shakes in the lands of the north. Charr and norn refugees crawl from the wreckage of their homes in the Wayfarer Foothills and Diessa Plateau, struggling to find shelter in the south. The call goes out for volunteers to assist the victims in this time of need, when earth and sky seem to have become the enemy…”

I see more of the introduction of 2 new dragons… Earth and Air.

As for Norn (racists post didn’t capitalize) and Charr, maybe they’re running for ELONA!!! (The great oracle sees and expansion in our future)

6 months out for an expansion isn’t unheard of. They released Factions and Nightfall within about that time. ;-)

We already have an earth dragon…it’s name? Kralkatorrik…or Primordius, considering he lives underground.

Not to mention Mordremoth, which was hinted to by Subject Alpha in the Crucible of Eternity and the Infinity Coil Reactor…though he could very well be a “nature” dragon instead of classically “earth”. Also possibly the dragon that is anti Sylvari/the Dreaming (as the source of Nightmare as some lore fans suggest) like how each race has a dragon that opposes them.

Shadoekin.3928:

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.

No mounts? Good.
No Cantha/Elona? No problem, I’ll wait.
No dragons coming? Errr….does that mean the events introduced will not be part of the greater storyline?

I sincerely hope Flame and Frost will not be anything like Southsun Cove which was terrible from a lore standpoint. It could have happened in any other MMO world since it has absolutely no link to Tyria per se: an arbitrary company disturbing a new arbitrary race for a one time, yet meaningless event…leading to said race’s demise.

If Flame and Frost involved Primordus and Jormag minions scouring the lands, terrorizing the people, that would make me feel like I am back in the game…as opposed to constantly doing Fractals which feels beside the actual world of Guild Wars.

Please bring back more lore to the game, I want my gameplay to be driven by storyline and not solely for the quest of loot. Heck, give Fractals more of a semblance of a narrative! Less content like Southsun Cove which I will ultimately not care about once the loot chest has despawned.

For example…more hints to the origins of the dragons, the previous races (especially the seers), and even the conclusion to the Mursaat called Lazarus the Dire. There is so much story to be told and expanded upon, instead of introducing crabs that really don’t matter (unless they are minions of the Deep Sea Dragon and will have their backstory fleshed out later).

Also…cut scenes with “visions” of the human gods…would be so cool to hear a double-voiced Lyssa or booming Balthazar telling about the war with Menzies (is that still raging on btw???)

They have retcon’ed (sort of) virtually every bit of lore from GW1 so I really wouldn’t hold your breath.

^

thats why even if gw is popular and good, it wont pass the test of time as a legendary franchise.

^

buy really, thats a problem with most game worlds; they are so cheaply written/invented.

rare are the ones that are deep and creative.
mass effect comes to mind as a nice and flavorful.
fallout.
mostly, other than than i need to look at pen&paper stuff; shadowrun, white wolf vampire, exalted, legend of the five rings.
guild wars forte isnt that; its the kick kitten gameplay and graphics

juno.1840:

True colors shine through!

So your issue is that you personally ground out fractals for your ascended gear and you want everyone else to do it the same way otherwise it’s not “fair to you”!

If you enjoyed fractals, then you shouldn’t have any issues with who has what ascended gear and where they got it from. If you didn’t enjoy fractals, and instead were grinding for gear, then you should be happy that alternate avenues will soon exist to get said gear. No reason to be upset, you did get your gear before anyone else who chose to wait. There is a price for being “first”.

The argument made previously regarding the changes to fractals is legitimate. If a lowbie (lvl 80 with low fractal progression) wants to tag with their friends in lvl 12 fractals, they really should have 5 agony resistance (yeah they can scrape by without it, but it’s a detriment to the team as a whole). They won’t receive a lvl 12 fractal reward (which I have mixed feelings on) for completion, so their only opportunity to play with friends is to grind away (like you did), or spend laurels on a ring.

If they spend laurels on a ring, that’s laurels they didn’t get to spend on something else (and it appears there’s a lot of “something else” to spend laurels on). So yeah they paid a price. Don’t be upset about the price you paid and expect everyone else to pay the same price. You made your choice and if you are not happy with it, then not much will make you happy at this point.

There’s no true colors or fake colors. Everyone on this forum is practically the same color. People who want a way to upgrade their exotics to ascended are the same color as whatever color you just said I am. I’m just being sarcastic. If they could demand something just bcoz their exotics were hard to get, then why not fractals players who got their ascended the hardway. This is not my point.

Main thing is, players who refused to enter fractals to get their ascended gears because they hate fractals or whatever reason should not complain when ascended via laurel gears does not contain agony resistance. Why? because you guys hated fractals, remember? If you hate it so much so that you refuse to enter to get ascended, then you shouldn’t be going into fractals post-patch.

Don’t say that “oh, I need that agony resist because I might wanna join my friend in fractals”. That’s just an excuse. You do not want to join your friends because if that’s your reason then you would’ve done so. You just want the 3-4 chests that drops lodestones because it’s really easy to obtain it in there. Therefore, my conclusion is that those players who refuses to do fractals to get their ascended gears in the first place and is demanding agony resistance to be included in laurel ascended gears, just wants the easy way to get into high level fractals for the loots.

Avatar.1923:

^

buy really, thats a problem with most game worlds; they are so cheaply written/invented.

rare are the ones that are deep and creative.
mass effect comes to mind as a nice and flavorful.
fallout.
mostly, other than than i need to look at pen&paper stuff; shadowrun, white wolf vampire, exalted, legend of the five rings.
guild wars forte isnt that; its the kick kitten gameplay and graphics

Seriously can not believe you listed ME as well written world. Loved the games, but you could drive an Asari dreadnought through some of the holes in lore and plot in that game.

We know it’s not Dragon related, but I hope it’s something we will still recognize from GW1 or other.

It takes something big to see Charr and Norn flee, but I don’t want a repeat of Karka.

Emtiarbi.3281:

A big war between Jormag(Frost) and Primordius(Flame)!! :o

It’s “Primordus”….and I agree. If two of the Elder-Dragons battled for “Territory”, that would devastate the area they battled on. I mean, look at the damage they did just by waking up. There’s 2 problems, though:

1: “Primordus” never came to the surface. He’s still underground, building his Army, and tunneling. That was actually a smart move on his part. He’s the only Dragon that is facing NO resistance from anyone. You can’t STOP, what you can’t GET TO.

2: “Primordus” is the oldest of all the Elder Dragons (Hence the name). Usually, the oldest dragon is stronger than all of it’s companions. So, “Jormag” would likely get his kitten fed to him lol. But, Jormag probably isn’t stupid enough even to try.

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.

This is a bit late to ask, but by “…this story arc.” do you mean the entire Flame and Frost story arc, or just the prelude?

Supposedly the remnants of the stone dwarves are fighting the minions of Primordious still, but we don’t know how well they are doing or if they are even alive still. He may be facing some other kind of resistance or focusing on something else, we really don’t know what the heck he is doing down there, for all we know he could be tunneling to the Reign of Fire to go….uh…chill…no…take a vacation from building monsters. All we know about him is that hes got a massive tunnel network.

New Utility Infusions and Ascended Amulets.
With 5 new Utility Infusions and 30 Ascended Amulets to choose from, there’s something for every style of player.

Cool! But how bout ASCENDED BACKPACKS & RINGS??
Does this mean there are no other ways to get them after January’s Updates and it is only possible to get it by running FoTM solely still?

Are there going to be rings/backpacks for the missing affixes like Knight, Carrion, Apothe etc. Sounds like only new necklaces get them?

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.

Nuu, my homeland.

Jabronee.9465:

New Utility Infusions and Ascended Amulets.
With 5 new Utility Infusions and 30 Ascended Amulets to choose from, there’s something for every style of player.

Cool! But how bout ASCENDED BACKPACKS & RINGS??
Does this mean there are no other ways to get them after January’s Updates and it is only possible to get it by running FoTM solely still?

Read the first topics..

Viking Jorun.5413:

Tom Gore.4035:

When we will see capes/cloaks? Quaggan backpacks, COME ON!

Want to know why we don’t have capes/cloaks?

Charr. We break the game (and jumping puzzles).

Then don’t give capes to Charr. Problem solved.

Here’s my 2 cents on this patch.

I’ve never seen a horse in Tyria outside of the undead ones that Necrid Horsement rode in GW1 and the spectral horses of the…you know, spectral horseman. Where did the Norn/Human in the banner art get his?

Sounds good to me, getting people back into the maps.

But I do have my concerns.

1: How many Laurels will it take to trade for 1 Ascended item.
2: What is going to be the effect of the AoE nerfes
3: Bug Fixes, is there room for this to be adressed sufficiently
4: PvP Balance issues, has there been enough attention spend on this aspect
5: Revamped WvW…in what way?
6: UI, will we have the option to chose between current and new, in case one does not like the new one.

Just things that are on my mind.

Hm, any word on new town clothes?

And i don’t want mounts, they’ll make the world seem much smaller.

aNTarTis.2561:

Next updates:

New achievement: Buy 5000 gems

Been there, done that

KinkyPotato.4219:

ColinJohanson.2394:

PhilipRed.9473:

Just ascended amulets? what about the rest of the gear?

Good question!

Ascended rings will also be available for laurels as well. Back slot items will be made more widely available in the future and will likely tie into a different reward system.

(Please note, the ascended gear purchased for laurels will not have agony resistance built in, since that mechanic is currently unique to progression in the fractal dungeons. They are however statistically the same as any other ascended gear.)

We will also introduce an additional reward system (or systems) in the future to make these items more accessible to WvW players on top of the laurel system.

The remaining ascended item types will be introduced in future releases, and may or may not tie into the laurel system, TBD.

(Edited to add note about agony)

Will we also be able to purchase rings with nomenclature currently not existant at the fractals merchant including: Cleric’s (Healing/Toughness/Power), Giver’s (Toughness/Healing/Boon Duration), Carrion (Cond Damage/Power/Vitality), Apothecary’s (Healing/Toughness/Cond Damage), and Magi’s (Healing/Precision/Vitality)?

What about Power/Vit/Tough? What shall we call it? Its dungeon, WvW, and karma only, yet it should have a name.

Power/Vit/Tough does have a name — “Soldier’s”

New to the thread, not gonna read all 1,000,000 pages, but I just realized something.

This arc (be it this update or the next iteration), with changing priorities and a swarm of refugees, is going to mean the end of Meatoberfest. Are they going to risk the Cattlepult as well? /._.\ Say it ain’t so, ANet.

SharDarksoul.3024:

Hm, any word on new town clothes?

And i don’t want mounts, they’ll make the world seem much smaller.

I would LOVE cosmetic mounts. Don’t really need speed increase since the world isn’t all that big to begin with. Especially with instant waypoints around.

As someone who was very concerned about the initial deployment of Ascended gear, I have to say that this update sounds very promising. I like the direction that ascended is headed per this announcement. Plus, dungeon improvements are well welcomed.

Particularly, the laurel system sounds like a good implementation of limiting the speed at which one can acquire gear without making that gear acquisition overly grindy. I like the theory that someone with only 30 to 60 minutes available per day can keep up with the gear curve.

I hope it plays out as well as the design philosophy sounds.

BondageBill.4021:

As someone who was very concerned about the initial deployment of Ascended gear, I have to say that this update sounds very promising. I like the direction that ascended is headed per this announcement. Plus, dungeon improvements are well welcomed.

Particularly, the laurel system sounds like a good implementation of limiting the speed at which one can acquire gear without making that gear acquisition overly grindy. I like the theory that someone with only 30 to 60 minutes available per day can keep up with the gear curve.

I hope it plays out as well as the design philosophy sounds.

I have this bad feeling about these “achievements” though.

They should make hearts repeatable once a day and make those part of the achievements.

Zaxares.5419:

Grend.6251:

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?

You’re not alone. I’ve been waiting (probably in vain) for ANet to announce a way that Exotics can be upgraded to Ascended tier items. The introduction of Ascended items basically kills the Crafting disciplines because there is no way that crafters can make items that are as powerful as Ascended items. Weapons and Armor still have a place in that their skins are still visible and players might buy items just to transmute their appearance, but Jewelers are completely out of luck. Why would you even bother levelling Jeweler to 400 (outside of crafting Legendary Gifts) and amassing crafting materials when you can just save up your Laurels and buy an Ascended ring or amulet instead?

Your thinking way to far ahead atm. I believe that they will introduce new recipes for 400 crafting for the ascended gear (mind you it will be more expensive then making exotic). They havnt introduced Ascended Weapons or armour yet. Jeweler is becoming obsolete but all they need to do is introduce a new recipes and then its fixed.

So what exactly are they adding new to pve i can spend hours in? I see nothing and its not a new map pvp need but a whole new game mechanic or at least new mode(s)… Yay for a gem backpack? i don’t think so…

so… the biggest question ofcourse…

do we get to skin baby quaggan’s to make the backpack ourselves?

now that would be awesome…

Well the name is pretty cool honestly.

Thorgal.1287:

so… the biggest question ofcourse…

do we get to skin baby quaggan’s to make the backpack ourselves?

now that would be awesome…

that’d be a sweet cutscene

we play a family friendly game, not farcry 3 !

Thorgal.1287:

so… the biggest question ofcourse…

do we get to skin baby quaggan’s to make the backpack ourselves?

now that would be awesome…

LOL

Asumita.2174:

BondageBill.4021:

As someone who was very concerned about the initial deployment of Ascended gear, I have to say that this update sounds very promising. I like the direction that ascended is headed per this announcement. Plus, dungeon improvements are well welcomed.

Particularly, the laurel system sounds like a good implementation of limiting the speed at which one can acquire gear without making that gear acquisition overly grindy. I like the theory that someone with only 30 to 60 minutes available per day can keep up with the gear curve.

I hope it plays out as well as the design philosophy sounds.

I have this bad feeling about these “achievements” though.

They should make hearts repeatable once a day and make those part of the achievements.

Thats a really good idea. Hearts repeatable at lvl cap.

Predictions:
This story arc will feature a war between Jormag and Primoridus. Yes, the devs said no dragons, but they didn’t say no dragon minions (If you also meant no dragon minions, please tell us.)The dragons don’t have to appear in person.
Worries:
If the northern half of Wayfarer Foothills gets blocked off or changed, what will happen to the events, hearts, etc that were there?

Avatar.1923:

we play a family friendly game, not farcry 3 !

What does that have to do with anything in this thread?

Vasham.2408:

Avatar.1923:

we play a family friendly game, not farcry 3 !

What does that have to do with anything in this thread?

Because someone said something about skinning quaggans (sp) to make the backpack.

What’s the fascination quaggans? Were they in GW1, or something totally new that people had fallen in love with? Personally I find them annoying.

Nappychappy.7046:

What’s the fascination quaggans? Were they in GW1, or something totally new that people had fallen in love with? Personally I find them annoying.

They are the murlocs of gw2, except they talk, and act slightly more dur hurr and less eat your face.

Nappychappy.7046:

What’s the fascination quaggans? Were they in GW1, or something totally new that people had fallen in love with? Personally I find them annoying.

Because Quaggan.

It’s like pacman grew feet and got personality. Quaggan is the embodiment of everything we love about gaming distilled into a little ball of Quaggan.

just 2 more days till the update, I am hoping for a miracle and wanting to see loot fix in the patch notes.

Karizee.8076:

It’s like pacman grew feet and got personality. Quaggan is the embodiment of everything we love about gaming distilled into a little ball of Quaggan.

Two questions come up, what is the potion used, and what are you guys going to use when GiB is nerfed in a couple of days?