Guild Wars 2

New blog up with some more information about the coming map(s):

https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/gameplay-features-making-the-most-of-maguuma/

Also includes nightmarish frogs.

At least people will stop crying about “only one map” since they confirm there will be more:

“For example, in Verdant Brink—the first map players encounter once they enter the Heart of Thorns— [… ]”

It is a decent read, but absolutely no new information in this article. I’m getting rather annoyed at the lack of forward moving information lately. Give us:
-Rest of Revenant information
-A Specialization or two (there are 9 of them after all)
-Guild Hall information

Something to sink my teeth into. They said they’d give a week to each specialization so that is 9 weeks of dedication right there. Then at least a week for the Revenant, and then 1-3 weeks for Guild Halls. So, by my count Anet has 13 weeks of data to present which, if started next week and no weeks taken off (unlikely), this will take them through to mid-July.

^ I would assume that the reason they don’t give us those blogs are because they are not completely set in stone yet. Everyone knows what happens if they do a blog about something and then there are changes between now and release of the expansion.

The way some of it is worded makes me feel like it’s very close to release. I’M GETTING ALL TINGLY. TAKE MY MONEY ANET

Thumbs up on that one. Sounds exciting and fun! =)

Eeeee! I complained in another thread that we were only getting one blog a week and they used it up on a recap … but now there’s a second one, with some interesting hints at how instanced/open world stories will intertwine.

I’m a bit leery of the different-paths-to-same-result they hint at, though. In the instance we get two variations, help or hinder Laranthir. That choice will apparently affect our open world interactions with him (side question arises, does that “toggle” if we go back to play the other choice?). But he and his squad will do their thing regardless of which instanced choice we made, and still be available to help at the end.

I know GW2 doesn’t do phased content, so I’m at a loss as to how they can have individualized consequences in the open world. But this feels like it has the potential to repeat the biggest flaw of the original PS, to wit, no matter what you do you end up at the same conclusion as everyone else. Instead of branching out to different outcomes, you start with a lot of roots and end up with one trunk.

Here’s a flowchart made long ago by zwei2stein at guildwars2guru (from an October 2012 post) that illustrates the reduction in choice as you progress. I don’t say there’s any other option in this game’s structure, but it would be nice to find ways to at least have the illusion of choice.

http://i.imgur.com/doaX6.png.

^ I think it was simply a matter of having to make a choice.
Either they could have real branching story-lines, or they could make it replayable. And it appears that they decided that more people would prefer replayability over branching.

They can’t really have both after all.

We are going to talk..im really impressed O_O

Not to diminish the hard work of folks at Anet, but personally it doesn’t sound like the sort of hardcore content I’m looking for. I don’t care about mushroom jump mastery… The story in GW2 has never been really good, the strength of the game is the gameplay and art.

How about super-hard dungeons with good rewards?
How about real GvG mode instead of a single pvp map?
How about having 3 different borderland maps and changing the way WvW works instead of making 3 copies of the same map and implementing them in the old imbalanced server-PPT system?

The things I’m really interested to see are the new trait lines and the new WvW map design.

Xillllix.3485:

Not to diminish the hard work of folks at Anet, but personally it doesn’t sound like the sort of hardcore content I’m looking for.

That’s probably because this blog post wasn’t meant to outline any of the challenging group content.

Awesome Blog Post, but, also sounded like filler, sort of, just so they have information to post today.

….Still waiting for specialization info, (for me, there’s not much that will get me playing again besides that)

The comment about being positioned for the “final confrontation” is interesting. I wasn’t expecting to be anywhere near the Dragon with the expac, however this could be evidence to the contrary.

I just watched the PoI. I extracted some interesting statements, and came up with some questions (might have to put the latter in Bobby’s PS changes thread to ease his seeing them).

- They have come up with a way to let us see old terrain in the PS. Not just going forward, but they’re reworking a lot of the core ones so you will see old LA in scenes set there (such as Tybalt and his apples).

- direct quote from the narrative director: “An unprotected sylvari who gets too close to Mordremoth is going to turn.” The mentioned protections were the Dream and “willpower.”

- In the HoT zone PS, not only will there be varying outcomes based on choices (that you can revisit and redo without having to level a new alt), but there will be content you can’t get to until you’ve unlocked masteries. Gliding for example, you’ll need that to get to some parts of the PS instance, and I think he said you’ll need masteries for some hard mode achieves.

- A sylvari will have extra tidbits, treasures, treats, etc. Different NPC reactions and such.

- What you do in the PS affects how things go in the open world, what dialogues you hear, etc.

Some questions I have:

What if you don’t do the PS? I personally will do all of it in all its permutations, but I know many players never bother with it. What effect would that have on zone play?

Will PS-result-specific dialogue only be audible to the player? So different people, even grouped, hear different shouts and comments?

You said there are changes in the PS revamp that have involved the cinematics team. We know there have been some re-recordings of lines by VO’s. I know you want to keep some as surprises but can you give a couple of examples of the more subtle changes that might otherwise have people debating “that’s new” “no it was always like that?”

lordkrall.7241:

^ I think it was simply a matter of having to make a choice.
Either they could have real branching story-lines, or they could make it replayable. And it appears that they decided that more people would prefer replayability over branching.

They can’t really have both after all.

How do you mean they can’t have it both ways? They could do it just like any other branching unlock system. By playing through a story segment and fulfilling one objective, a new story segment could be unlocked. By playing through again and fulfilling a competing objective, a different story segment could be unlocked.

It would definitely work better if players had more fine-tuned control over replayability (ie, segment by segment, rather than in blocks of segments). And of course it wouldn’t necessarily be possible for a choice to make a small alteration to a future segment (like having NPC A or B show up), only to open up two different paths.

At any rate, they’ve already done branching missions together with replayability in GW1, though only in a very limited fashion.

Because if you can unlock both with the same character it isn’t really branching. It would also be rather confusing to have 3-4 different follow-up instances all conflicting each other if you unlock them all.

lordkrall.7241:

Because if you can unlock both with the same character it isn’t really branching.

Maybe it’s a quantum thingy. The character didn’t really choose so much as probabilistically did both to some extent, and incidentally ended up at the same place either way when the waveform collapsed.

I’m increasingly convinced that they’re putting far too much of their work into these zones, an “eggs in one basket” problem, if you will.

The fact is, not everyone’s going to like the new zones. And if you don’t, what will the expansion really offer you? There will be no reason to do the Maguuma masteries, as they’re only of use in the new zones. No personal/living story, as that’s tied to the new zones. PvP and WvW maps will not need the expansion.

Specializations will hopefully not need to be unlocked within Maguuma, and it’s unknown if Guild Halls will require working with those zones or not. That leaves … precursor hunting? Maybe?

Basically, if you don’t like the new zones, the expansion’s going to fall flat for you. ANet seems convinced everyone’s going to love it, but they seemed to think that about Scarlet, too. The more they play up these areas, and the less they talk about the stuff that changes ALL of GW2 (Rev and specializations), the more it worries me.

Another question, useful for RP between now and HoT: How does a Nightmare Courtier’s resistance to Mordremoth compare to a Dreamer? To a Soundless? To Malyck’s Tree and its ’varis?

Is the Dream protection enough or does the Dreamer need to also have determination, willpower, grit, mental fortitude, whatever you want to call it?

I know you all said Canach will be revealing what it’s like to be a ‘vari near Mordy, and I’m not asking for spoilers, it would just be nice to know what it feels like right now to be a sylvari in Tyria because it can be pretty hard to retcon a long RP plot that develops characters.

Our characters have yet to be able to go to the Heart of Maguuma in-game. All Sylvari PCs are safe until the xpac launches. I’ve also hypothesized that Caithe and the Sylvari PC are immune (or have more resistance) to the influence of Mordremoth because both of them fought the Shadow of the Dragon in their Dreams. (Caithe did it twice.)

If your RP is already heading to the jungle, then your characters should be affected in some way. This shouldn’t cause a retcon. Corruption is not always instantaneous. It’s usually very small and very constant. You could always write it as being able to hold off corruption until you actually get to experience the story and learn what it really does.

Nightmarish frogs? All i see is 2 frogs high on cra**

Fade, I agree. The problem is with months of RP time while the game is frozen in a ten minute gap, people will develop their stories as best they can with current knowledge. Either that, or stay in a holding pattern without change, or just not RP their varis.

I myself am not doing much RP on my three RP ‘varis. But I have friends that are deeply into ’vari RP guilds and I am worried for them if they set up involved plotlines that hinge on a variant of Mordy corruption that turns out not to be anywhere near lore-accurate. I’ve tried retro-RP of alts before, where they’ve gone through life-changing experiences but I’m playing a scene set in the past, and it’s really hard for me to remember how they acted before. They are the cumulation of their experience, and of mine as I’ve played them or just experienced the game.

So I’m super excited that my character will have a voice again. I hated only getting to speak in text. And I love that different races get different dialog options.

Rebound.3409:

Nightmarish frogs? All i see is 2 frogs high on cra**

The frogs if you guys mean the totally ugly Hylecks with oversized heads and hands who survive in trees with bottled water from Divinity’s Reach because Bubbles stole all the water from the jungle. Yeah I’m with you, ugly nightmarish oversizes frogs on crack.

From the very beginning, Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns™ was designed to maximize every player’s jungle experience.

As long as you don’t think or even mention the word water.

The terrain itself were all conceived, fleshed out, and woven together to create a unified and immersive world that hooks players and keeps them hooked.

As long as it’s not underwater.

Under the steady hands of Matt Wuerffel and Jon Peters, the Heart of Thorns team collaborated, iterated, and executed on a series of features and themes that deliver our most satisfying and comprehensive gaming experience to date.

Without water.

I’m Going Up, Down, All Around

New methods of exploration also create new opportunities for more gameplay. The new Mastery system in Heart of Thorns gives players the chance to build up their region-specific skills, like gliding, which allows for deeper and more complete exploration of the waterless environment. Max out your gliding not swimming Mastery to discover previously unavailable areas and gameplay challenges. Max out your hylek language and lore Mastery to access content the frog folk reserve for those in the know.

Replayabililty, or Storytelling and Retelling

As if there weren’t enough water in the Heart of Maguuma, we made sure that when players experience the waterless story of Heart of Thorns, there are ample reasons and rewards to justify going back and doing it all over (and over) again. We set out to give players plenty of options to explore outside of the water and plenty of loot to earn to make replaying these waterless story instances not only attractive, but essentially dry.
Wait, Did You Just Say Something?

Finally, we were able to restore the player character’s ability to speak the side effect is that they forgot how to swin, easy come easy go, don’t forget to swing your trident—not just in story instances, but also in the open world. It may seem like a simple thing, but having your onscreen avatar speak whenever it makes sense for them to do so creates broad new avenues of engagement and interaction. Players can participate in verbal exchanges with friendly NPCs but not underwater that would be silly, hurl threats and challenges at enemies, and bark mission-specific orders to comrades. They can have these exchanges while in motion or even in combat but not while swimming. Best of all, we are also now able to give each race their own distinct lines so that norn, sylvari, asura, human, and charr characters can speak like actual members of the unique cultures and societies from which they hail but not while wearing a swimming suit.

Hybarf Tics.2048:

Rebound.3409:

Nightmarish frogs? All i see is 2 frogs high on cra**

The frogs if you guys mean the totally ugly Hylecks with oversized heads and hands who survive in trees with bottled water from Divinity’s Reach because Bubbles stole all the water from the jungle. Yeah I’m with you, ugly nightmarish oversizes frogs on crack.

I’m pretty sure those are Itzel, the new race whose language we’re going to be able to learn as a mastery. I assume they’re different from the hylek, possibly distant cousins?

I want to mention something else that’s bothering me about how they’re focused on the new area(s).

To play through them, you’ll have to spend mastery points and time learning how to glide. And jump on mushrooms. And talk to new races. It’ll be a lot of work to get it all, and it’s just for these new areas.

And when we leave these new areas? Well, it’s all useless, right? None of it will apply to the old world. They can’t let it apply to new expansions, or you’ll have people half done with the new masteries before the expansion even launches. It’s going to be an incredible amount of work that pays off only in these areas, and never again. If a future expansion calls for gliding, we’ll have to learn it all over again. No more jumping mushrooms, now it will be steam fountains or something, requiring a new mastery. No more Itzel, next time it will be alternate Quaggans or something.

All of this leads to the obvious question: Will it really be worth it?

Hybarf Tics.2048:

From the very beginning, Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns™ was designed to maximize every player’s jungle experience.

As long as you don’t think or even mention the word water.

The terrain itself were all conceived, fleshed out, and woven together to create a unified and immersive world that hooks players and keeps them hooked.

As long as it’s not underwater.

Under the steady hands of Matt Wuerffel and Jon Peters, the Heart of Thorns team collaborated, iterated, and executed on a series of features and themes that deliver our most satisfying and comprehensive gaming experience to date.

Without water.

I’m Going Up, Down, All Around

New methods of exploration also create new opportunities for more gameplay. The new Mastery system in Heart of Thorns gives players the chance to build up their region-specific skills, like gliding, which allows for deeper and more complete exploration of the waterless environment. Max out your gliding not swimming Mastery to discover previously unavailable areas and gameplay challenges. Max out your hylek language and lore Mastery to access content the frog folk reserve for those in the know.

Replayabililty, or Storytelling and Retelling

As if there weren’t enough water in the Heart of Maguuma, we made sure that when players experience the waterless story of Heart of Thorns, there are ample reasons and rewards to justify going back and doing it all over (and over) again. We set out to give players plenty of options to explore outside of the water and plenty of loot to earn to make replaying these waterless story instances not only attractive, but essentially dry.
Wait, Did You Just Say Something?

Finally, we were able to restore the player character’s ability to speak the side effect is that they forgot how to swin, easy come easy go, don’t forget to swing your trident—not just in story instances, but also in the open world. It may seem like a simple thing, but having your onscreen avatar speak whenever it makes sense for them to do so creates broad new avenues of engagement and interaction. Players can participate in verbal exchanges with friendly NPCs but not underwater that would be silly, hurl threats and challenges at enemies, and bark mission-specific orders to comrades. They can have these exchanges while in motion or even in combat but not while swimming. Best of all, we are also now able to give each race their own distinct lines so that norn, sylvari, asura, human, and charr characters can speak like actual members of the unique cultures and societies from which they hail but not while wearing a swimming suit.

you know they haven’t actually said ANYTHING about water one way or another so your post is a bit premature