Guild Wars 2

So, about Season 1, I got a guy who I like who can summarize my thoughts about the content we got:

Blade Syphon.4325:

Or they could leave the content there permanent, scrap the entire notion that Living Story = Content must be removed, and give players more things to do than they can shake a stick at.
It’s actually painful at how fast people are to defend Anet’s idea that their Living Story concept of adding temporary content is somehow innovative and, even worst, a good, cool idea.
Yes, sometimes MMO Developers do remove content from the game when they feel it fits the storyline, but never to the extent that Anet does with each passing update. Think about it, if Anet actually left in the content (barring holidays, obviously) instead of constantly removing it, by now we would have had over a dozen new story missions, two full fledged new dungeons, a third mini-dungeon, an additional scalable dungeon with the Queen’s Jubilee, an entirely new meta-game they could have continued to add to with the Queen’s Gauntlet and Super Adventure Box, and an entirely new zone in the form of the Zepyhr Sanctum along with the Challenge Mission it came with. Not to mention the various new PvP modes/Activities they’ve added over the year as well that are no longer in the game.
Instead…we have Fractals of the Mist, WvW changes, a completely dead zone, a handful of rotating activities, and a revamped world boss no one does anymore.
Remind me again why the latter is better than the former?

But now, let’s talk about your post, and dissect it for the misinformed booty that it is.
You do have SOME good points.

• So, we get Southsun Cove, which is a bare and barren wasteland that no one really visits unless it’s for Karka Queen.
• We FINALLY get Dry Top a year or so later, which actually is a step in the right direction that has a mechanic that’ll HOPEFULLY make it replayable in the future, and once it is complete.
• We get Edge of the Mists, which is fine, as well; it’s basically a glorified karma train and helps newbies into WvW.

But here’s where you start to falter.

• Two new PvP maps? Yeah, that’s bull. What, Skyhammer and freaking Courtyard? Do you seriously count a map that’s locked behind the Custom Arena Kit and NEVER see unless we cough up the coin?
• Wardrobe? Sure, and then they took away town clothes, toys, and other cool stuff that people would’ve actually paid for off of the gemstore. In their place, we get outfits, lazy armor copouts that can’t be actual armor because “then they’d have to design them with clipping in mind.” As if THAT’s ever stopped them before. Arena Net messed up, and they know it, because they had to give out tons and tons of gem refunds.
• Trait system revamp? Because you ALL know how much we wanted this. If I’m leveling a warrior, I now need to go to an area that’s ten levels ahead of me to do an event, JUST to get my adept trait?
• “But still, one new dungeon?” Which dungeon? You mean the AetherPATH that we got, and the one no one even does anymore?
• New fractals? WOW, the recycling of content that should’ve been permanently in the game in the first place is now available in FoTM, because you all know how much the majority of players love the poorly constructed Fractals.
• SAB? Ha ha. You’re funny.
• Story wise, we’ve been getting a lot of content? You mean our linear campaign of finding out what else Scarlet was responsible for, with lore inaccuracies and TIRING cliches?
• New skins? You mean the ones that find us running across the same landscapes, grinding the same events, and goldfarming for? Reusing content is not new content, friend. It gives the illusion of it.

It’s not a matter of being greedy. It’s about ANet insisting that every decision they make is a godsend, about how “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it,” about how they rarely admit responsibility for poor decisions or mess ups with mass bannings, about how they do not value consumer input at all.

Arena Net, you play OUR game, the way WE want you to.™

Yeah.

And her socks, too.

…Sniff, SNIIIIIIIFF.

…Belinda’s death was impactful at all?

Wow, I’m so glad that I was able to relate to this character that did literally nothing but give us exposition, gave us no time to even get to know her more or well, and was only made to die so we could feel for an even less interesting character.

How the hell are you people able to feel for this middle school-level of writing?

So, I popped back into this thread, and I came across a lot of…
“It’s not a nerf, it’s a bugfix, and it is now working as intended.”

Do none of you people know of the saying, “if it isn’t broken, don’t fix it?” Because of our supposed fix, an effective move for a less effective profession, compared to others, is less viable now. It’s a nerf.
If this is how it was supposed to be working, then I feel mainhand sword would have been tossed to fade away into obscurity a LONG time ago.
No one had a problem with it, there were plenty of other bugs that “weren’t working as intended,” and fixing them would have helped mesmers more than anything.

…So, why?

Asura, assuming no lab mishaps, have a 5-10% longer lifespan than a human.

Councillor Flax has, according to page 266 of Sea of Sorrows, has been councillor since AT LEAST 1237 AE.

So, that’s 90 years, AT LEAST, he’s been on the Arcane Council.

Just how old is this old fart, anyways?

What are your farming strategies for farming in the queen’s gauntlet?

I’m finding myself having a bit of trouble, and I know there’s a lot of different ways, a lot varying in difficulty, and I’m sure the soldier professions can do it much easier than the others.

Builds? Gears sets? Profession? Boss? Gambits? What is your most optimal way of farming? What is easiest for you, and what produces the most gauntlet chances?

Alright, so. Elephant in the room.
This is a troll thread.

…I hope.

People really need to stop comparing her to Harley Quinn.

Harley Quinn doesn’t go about Gotham city being revealed to be the cause of everything “just because.”
If Scarlet is Harley Quinn, who is her Mistah J?

Jesus Christ, was Kormir not enough of a lesson?

/endrant

Blade Syphon.4325:

daemonlama.5413:

Valenthor.4052:

Anet, the only MMO developer that removes content from their game.

It is all perspective. Look at other mmo’s and how there is so much unused content. Everyone already been there and done that. Taking this tower for an example, they leave it in for 2-4 weeks. We spend those weeks playing the kitten out of it, then it goes away. That lends itself to give the LS a feeling of it being living. It was defeated, and now its it no longer exists.

It keeps things from getting boring and then ignored. Which we all know, happens with all content. They give it to us, take it away and give us something new, then some time down the road they give it back to us in an altered state to keep it fresh and interesting.

Or they could leave the content there permanent, scrap the entire notion that Living Story = Content must be removed, and give players more things to do than they can shake a stick at.

It’s actually painful at how fast people are to defend Anet’s idea that their Living Story concept of adding temporary content is somehow innovative and, even worst, a good, cool idea.

Yes, sometimes MMO Developers do remove content from the game when they feel it fits the storyline, but never to the extent that Anet does with each passing update. Think about it, if Anet actually left in the content (barring holidays, obviously) instead of constantly removing it, by now we would have had over a dozen new story missions, two full fledged new dungeons, a third mini-dungeon, an additional scalable dungeon with the Queen’s Jubilee, an entirely new meta-game they could have continued to add to with the Queen’s Gauntlet and Super Adventure Box, and an entirely new zone in the form of the Zepyhr Sanctum along with the Challenge Mission it came with. Not to mention the various new PvP modes/Activities they’ve added over the year as well that are no longer in the game.

Instead…we have Fractals of the Mist, WvW changes, a completely dead zone, a handful of rotating activities, and a revamped world boss no one does anymore.

Remind me again why the latter is better than the former?

I am going to save the crap out of this post.

Yo, yo. This particular asura female hair style isn’t functioning properly. Something over time as probably ruined the hairstyle, because the problem wasn’t always here, and it happens to NPC asura with the same hair style as well.

On the left is the bugged and recent hair style, on the right is the old version. It is not the lighting of the game on the hair, as the bugged hair persists no matter where the character is.

/guitar
/chicken
/somethirdthing

You know?

So, implementation of dueling was mentioned, but only in World Versus World.

No. Please, don’t, do, this.
Implementing dueling in World VS World would be counterproductive to the main objective… which is World VS World. Every time a commander or someone would get called out or have their mother insulted, they’d stray from the zerg and decide to duke it out with their unsheathed sausage swords. World VS World isn’t the place for same server beef or sausage comparison. If you are going to ever implement dueling, which you dudes at A-Net totally should, please put it in open world and in the Heart of the Mists.
But, why should YOU want dueling?

Pros:

• Dueling keeps the hangouts of the world alive, and less bare and barren than they already are.
• People duel to test builds, or to learn how to play well from other players. Allowing dueling in open world would scale people to appropriate levels, and practice with gear sets on. Allowing to duel in the Heart of the Mists would allow people to test things a lot more easier, and allow people to get some sense of experience without the pressure of screwing up in a match.
• Dueling promotes a competitive demeanor, and gets people hyped up to PvP more.
• If you’re on an unofficial RP server, no longer will you see an awkward clash of walls of text, and player characters standing with their weapons unsheathed for three hours. (Yes, that happens.)
• Dueling would keep people tied to this game. It’s just something fun to do for hours with anyone at any time that a lot of other MMOs have, but GW2 lacks for whatever reason.

Cons(And why they’re B.S.):

• People would build specifically for dueling. (There are builds for every profession that are viable for anything. If people are able to recognize which builds are effective for what, then this matters very little.)
• People would QQ and complain, or get too hot headed and smug about dueling. (People QQ and complain, or get hot headed and smug about WvW, sPvP, and tPvP. People get salty about losing all, and people get smug about things they are good at ALL THE TIME. That’s how human beings are, and you shouldn’t be doing anything PvP related, or play MMOs at all, if you’re trying to avoid that.)
• Dueling isn’t necessary, and A-Net should focus on other things like living story. (Nothing in this game is necessary, butt mongrel. You can do whatever you want, how you want, and play what you want. Living story doesn’t seem to be appealing to fan demand anyways.)

But, how would dueling work? How can A-Net be innovative with dueling in a way that no other MMO has done so? GW2 has a unique style of combat, and therefore it should have unique ways of dueling, right? Why not have multiple ways of dueling?
Why not have a /spar, a simple dueling mechanic that ends when maximum health is reduced to zero?
Why not have a /duel, where dueling is furthered to the downed state and requires your opponent to be finished, but not killing them off?
And finally, why not have a /deathduel, a duel to the death that results in the victor /sitting over the corpse of the opponent, awaiting to be resurrected?
Sound interesting?

So far, a lot of people aren’t quite as content with the boombox item on the gemstore as they can be. I, myself, haven’t found myself hurling money at the screen for it due to all of the demotivational hype about it. So, in order to make this item the best thing ever invented to hopefully be permanent on the gemstore, I offer the following suggestions.

1) When walking, not running, with the boombox display the hammer/greatsword walking animation with it held, holstered over the shoulder.

2) A lot of people have been complaining about the low volume of the chiptune tunes. Kick it up a notch.

3) Replace the songs on the Boombox with proper boombox blasting music tracks from renowned rhythmic poets of GW2, such as “Daytona 500” by Ascalonianface Killah, or “Eradicate the Law enforcement” by The Solid Form of di-hydrogen oxide of the guild “Asuras with Attitude.”

I am sure one of these on these lists can be removed, but, think about it.

Thank you for your interest.

Fix it.

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Demolitionist_Tonn

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Tonn%27s_Greatbow

But then, there’s the matter of lore. Me and the clique I chill with on GW2 like to refer to these as “filler arcs,” because they’re just gaps until we find out about what we actually want to find out about.(Cantha and Elona, but that’s a tale for another time…) That, and the fact that there are so many other matters of lore that fans of GW have been BEGGING for, and aren’t too revealing about major things that you guys have planned for the future. Will the largos ever get any further lore or depth, and thus be used to allude towards Bubbles’ unveiling? Will Ascalon ever get any lore other than flame legion, ogres, Foefire ghosts, separatists, and renegades, and then have the charr extend their support of their treaty by allowing Ascalonian humans to rebuild Piken Square? Will we ever receive ANY throwback to the original guild wars, as far a lore goes?

I’m sure that there are many ideas that myself and many others could dish out for A-Net to use, but that isn’t the point. The point and reality is that there are many subjects for living story arcs to choose from that fans will GLADLY buy things from the gem store for, opposed to the stereotypical “party gone wrong” scenario. Scarlet is such a poorly introduced Mary Sue, and only the most naive of Naruto fans can find this edgelord McAbyssdye as a good villain. The only thing that she’s got going for her is that she’s voiced by God’s Gift to Voice Acting Tara Strong herself.

And finally, there’s the permanent impact on Tyria of living story, if there ever is any. Many people complained about living story not feeling living at all, because of this. If it truly was living, there would be a much larger mark left on Tyria. People are not content with a stupid model in Lion’s Arch, or a new minigame that people only play for achievement points and not for fun, or a freakin’ bare and barren zone that people only care about during its respective living story arc. Everything fun and appealing is taken away to prepare for the next arc, so that “we don’t get bored of it?” We get bored of waiting for something actually interesting to happen! What about all of the itches that players want scratched, so that we can keep busy on this game? A new zone to explore that you can add more aesthetics to, as well as a couple of JPs, to keep us in it? A new DUNGEON, and not a fractal? A feelsy battle for GW1 players where they fight their hero as a ghost with a NEW soundtrack in the background?

This living story arc was definitely a step in the right direction, but PLEASE read this, the feedback of your players, and blow us away. Living story is all we have.

/endrant

I insist that you read this post to its full length before responding, but nonetheless:
TL;DR: Living story is important, war is fun, Scarlet sucks, and nothing’ll come of this other than aesthetics, so listen to us about how we can make it better.

Living story is, essentially, a big part of our PvE endgame. Once you hit level 80, are in full exotics(soon to be ascended), get your legendary, get every aesthetic you care about, beat every dungeon path in the game, living story is what you’re left with to do as far as PvE goes. And a lot of those things I’ve listed are things that you don’t even have to do, and that includes living story as well. Honestly, in the end, it all really comes down to aesthetics, because that’s all living story seems to give us(back items, weapon skins, etc) since there’s no gear grind for this game, and I’m perfectly okay with that. But living story is what gives us new content, is supposed to change the world, and keeps us tied to the game. Therefore, it is imperative that you guys at A-Net strive to make living story blow us away with awesome, especially since it’s apparent that more resources will be used on it. Value our critiques for the next arcs, and devalue unintelligible QQing always.

I believe that there are two major aspects to living story: gameplay, lore, and the permanent impact on Tyria, or how the game has evolved. You nailed one, and it’s gameplay. The attacks on Tyria laid out by Scarlet are absolutely amazing, is rewarding and rich in loot, and replayable as hell. It isn’t just a mindless zerg of events and enemies in a cramped space like the arc before. The enemies flood a zone, your commanders and people in the zone have to be made well aware of how to approach certain events, and which events should be focused on and when. The time limit is sometimes the hypest (stuff) about the attacks sometimes, as I was left planting my face against my monitor to kill Scarlet with five seconds left of the clock. The people who farm this event farm it FOR the event and not the profit, as the map chat of the zone is flooded with praise and “holy crap that was nuts.” The only two downside in gameplay is that Scarlet, like a lot of other “legendary bosses,” are complete pushovers when a zerg bumrushes them down, and it’d be awesome if you’d make these final bosses as difficult as guild bounties, with extra time to operate of course. The other one is the lack of a culling slider. Some of us benefited from it, A-Net, so think about both parties when you make a gameplay changing move like that.

Thanks, you two, for that tidbit of information. I got the daily achievement related to the Queen’s Jubilee event before I got 15/16. I guess it didn’t give me credit, and won’t until you reach 15/16, so I’ll wait until tomorrow and see what happens. Making dailies related to the meta-achievement seems like a pretty silly idea.

So, as soon as I saw the Watchknights, I immediately fell in love.

And thus, my quest to get the mini Watchknight began. Thing is, I’ve completed every achievement in the Queen’s Jubilee category, and I can only get up to 15/16 completion for the mini watchknight…

Am I missing an achievement? I completed the one that was in the daily, if it had any relevancy to the completionist achievement. Or, is this a mistake where credit was not given for a tier of achievements?

In Caudecus’s manor, in the study with the door guard that inevitably cuts down Logan with 100 blades, what armor does that man wear?

I’d like it for my human guardian. A friend of mine suggested that it was the Banded set, but I’m not sure, as the leg piece seems to be a bit more drapey than the banded ones. If anyone could find out what armor set this guard wears, whether or not it’s even in game would be greatly appreciated.

Alright. So. Got to say, A-Net, I’m really digging this dancing book. Really enjoyed the utility skill dances when I got them from some boxes o’fun. The more emotes the better, yeah? Yeah.
So, I also dig that you guys went out of your way to give our characters some personality in the form of plentiful voice dialogue. Really digging my unsheathed weapon quotes.
“This’ll be unpleasant for you…”
Appreciate it. It almost compensates for the lack of emotes the players have. Almost.

But what grinds my gears is when the NPCs have exclusive emotes that can easily pass over/be recycled for player emotes. We have such a little selection of emotes as is, so why would you give these animations ONLY to the NPCs? Why would you even attempt to give our characters the personality and dialogue that they have if the freakin’ NPCs act out their emotions more than anything? Every NPC of the playable races have an idle “talking” emote. Is there any reason this couldn’t have been scrapped for the players as well? For when we’re casually standing still in /say? (Like that other MMO that need not be named.)

Some of the Norn prisoners in the Molten Dungeons clasp their hands together and do a “/beg” esque emote. Is there any reason these couldn’t have been given to the Norn and other races? And, sometimes, when you type certain /commands to experiment to see which emotes you can do, you won’t even get an invalid message, which confirms that there is no emote of that kind in the game. This leads me to speculate that there actually ARE these emotes in game, but aren’t available to the players. Jeez.
From the GW2 Wiki:

“/dance was not available until the August 21st Stress Test. Many emotes from Guild Wars 1 such as /guitar and /flute are not in the game but when entered into chat they do not yield an ‘invalid command’ message. Since this was also true for /dance, many suspect that these emotes will be available in the future.”

“Some Molten Alliance enemies in the Cragstead instance are capable of performing a /taunt emote. Performing this emote yourself does not yield the ‘Unknown command’ message.”

I’ll buy an emote pack from the gem store if that’s what it takes. I absolutely loathe seeing a conversation between two NPCs using emotes that I would LOVE to use. If there are new emotes coming out in the future for us to use, then that’s all fine and dandy. Just stop making them NPC exclusive when you release them in game, and the LEAST you could do is scrap the NPC exclusive ones that they have currently in game to us. I imagine it isn’t that difficult.
Here’s hoping A-Net doesn’t ignore their suggestion board, because packs of emotes could heighten gem sales. You like it when we buy gems, right, A-Net? Right?
TL;DR: If you’re going to give NPCs emotes, give the players access to the same emotes.
Edit: I made a couple of stupid brainfart typos. Thankfully, no one read them. i hope

Waypoints shouldn’t be canon. Otherwise, they’d provide a HUGE loophole in a lot of things. They’d be an equivalent of the conundrum of the griffon out of Mordor in LOTR.

“Why did Logan travel to Ebonhawke when he could’ve just used the Waypoint closest to it? THAT one wasn’t contested!”

Curo.2483:

Yeah that too. I tried to make my Charr as cute and small as possible, and he gets the voice of a big black guy, lol!

YO, WHY HE GOTTA BE BLACK, DOG?

So, we ALL know that Guild Wars 2 is going to, at some point, have some expansions that we’ll have to pay money for, right? Right.
That’s not a problem for me. I’ll more than happily buy an expansion pack for this game. There’s so much more to expand on in this game; the world in this game is ENORMOUS and is fertile with opportunity.
That being said, there should be content to keep us busy for a while with these x-pacs. New content, perhaps some satisfactory replayability, with something there for everyone.
I can suggest these things for possible expansion packs that’ll keep a lot of people busy, offer some variety and new options, and make a lot of people happy.

Expansion #1: Tengu playable race, explorable Cantha zones, explorable Maguuma Wastes zones, 3rd soldier profession, new two-handed axe weapon, new underwater combat weapon, AT LEAST two new dungeons, new crafting discipline, new sPvP maps with CTF modes, Mordremoth reveal, a new selectable story campaign involving Mordremoth.

Expansion #2: Largos playable race, explorable Elona zones, explorable Blood Legion Homeland zones, new adventurer profession, new katar weapon, new underwater weapon, new crafting discipline, AT LEAST two new dungeons, selectable campaigns dealing with Kralkatorrik and Palawa Joko, new sPvP maps with deathmatch/TDM modes.

Expansion #3: Kodan playable race, explorable Far Shiverpeak zones, explorable Unending Ocean zones, new sPvP maps with king of the hill modes, AT LEAST two new dungeons, selectable campaigns dealing with Jormag, Bubbles reveal, 4th scholar profession.

I feel, thinking about these concepts, that there are some things that should be placed with other bunches of content, or that there are some other things to look into that tie in better with the themes of each expansion pack. Please do not hesitate to offer your thoughts about these ideas. If you enjoy brainstorming, feel free to offer your own ideas.

“Wah! What’re we going to do on the broom, Commander?”