Guild Wars 2

I like Guild Wars as a franchise and I will preorder just to get the title ready for when it goes live. That way I can merely enter the Crystal Desert, enjoy the game play, have it crash because every game’s first day does stuff like that, and finally enjoy my journey afterwards!

As much as I loved Heroes and (some) Henchmen for GW1, I don’t see mercs working well for GW2.

Quite honestly the open world stuff is so easy you don’t need automated help, plus there’s so many zergs at times. In all other places where they could be used: dungeons, raids, etc. It would not help considering how Arenanet’s goal for this game seems to be “casual pop in/out, have fun with friends.”

I could see this as some Activity to do, but not as a Mastery Point.

What I enjoyed from this:

1. We are back in the Crystal Desert. Thank you ANet for taking us back to a map and showing us what 250 years have done to it.

2. The map is beautiful. I like how the NPCs discuss matters and allow us to take in what’s going on in Elona through this.

3. Treasure hunting is so much easier now with the skill button instead of purchasing shovels, popping the echo, hoping it doesn’t break, uncovering the mound, then hoping you remember to have a key.

What needs improvement:

1. The bounty system really doesn’t feel that any different than a dynamic event that cycles. Plus it seems the timer is shorter.

2. Some of the Mastery challenges are nice, like the teleport stones. However some like the sous chef need tweaking. Either slow him down or speed us up in terms of winding up and throwing ingredients. Even just walking near him to “take” it from us would be acceptable.

3. Hydras are just constant knock down machines and aren’t very engaging when I fought them.

What just flies under my radar:

1. Mounts: Honestly I never cared for them, not excited by them, but I don’t hate them either. I get it though as to why we need them. Where HoT you wanted to go “up” in map, Elona is going “long” so there’s more ground to cover and these things are the new mechanic like gliding was. The Dye channel on the Raptor doesn’t seem to be that impressive either.

Overall this is a decent and engaging beta so far, it really does excite me to see what else I’m getting upon release date.

Aside from some snark I could put about player’s actual guilds being this broken, I think it will serve a purpose.

Destiny’s Edge was broken after Snaff’s death. This guild didn’t suffer such a moment, but rather drifted apart due to life just getting in the way. When the new expansion rolls around, I bet a portion of that will be dedicated to building up the guild again, thus giving new players a chance to “meet” these characters again. Some debuted during LS1, it isn’t like you can replay a lot of that anymore.

Either that or we’ll have a rotating cast of characters for this guild as the game continues.

SyllyReth.2495:

The constructs were little above and beyond necessity.

Agreed, remove the constructs and the mission gets more challenging without losing the fun. Either that or they should increase the size of the room.

I tried again, third time, with consumables to help increase my health and reduce knockdown damage. I was doing fine against our insane Minister when it was just him and the White Mantle. My current best attempt so far was him at 50% health. The moment those constructs came in, it became a knock down/spectral agony/knock down/now you’re instantly dead.

Rinse repeat and frustrate.

To top it all off, I was flailing button presses like a spastic monkey and accidentally hit “return to Lake Doric” because my action cam icon was just in that spot as I frantically hit my buttons last minute.

All that progress lost, I don’t think I’ll be attempting this again until adjustments are made. It stopped being fun.

I used to detest PvP in GW, both original and this one.

Now I’m just filled with apathy for them.
To be quite honest the only time I ever WvWvW is with EoTM when I’m loaded up with the WvW boosters because I can’t convert them into anything useful.

So to not waste them I spend the better part of my booster time trying to reach a Commander who is blazing away at top speeds and demanding everyone keep up with him. If you weren’t there from minute one, you may as well wait for the next rotation of it.

Even if you were, some nearby whoever color will glomp and kill all of you in an instant so why try fighting them? Those that might last now have to trek through half a map to reach the blob again.

sPVP is boring, though I did grind out more time on my Celebration Boosters with Stronghold than the other mode.

The game modes add nothing to the lore, nothing to the overall story of Guild Wars, and aren’t engaging to me.

Ironically enough I DO enjoy Dragon Ball, Lunatic’s Court, and Snowball Mayhem. I guess those being seasonal and limited added some charm to them?

The map is fun and interesting.
The story was entertaining and dark, a good direction from ANet.
The final battle is frustrating and not fun at all. The room is too small, the AoE is too powerful, and there’s too many mobs.

Basically if feels as if you wanted the difficulty of a raid end, but with very little pattern for us to learn and defeat. Aside from that black mark, the rest of this update is spectacular.

Honestly none of these names leaped out as “pick me” in my eyes.
If I had to be completely candid, I’d want something like Jorymeer’s Mystery Incorporated.

Goofy as all, but I’d enjoy it.

However I can’t choose the sillier so I went with the less suck. The Dragon answer, because this game is all about Dragon’s lately. Plus it sounds closer to the theme of how GW (story) guilds name themselves anyway.

The other two made me think of the following:

The Unbroken: Sounds like half a Mursaat or White Mantle name. I expected this to be grouped with something else like ’Garglemantles The Unbroken!"

Eternity’s Guard: I sort of snickered, expecting this to be a player guild name instead. I can just imagine Taimi spamming Metrica Province about the size of their Guild level and how they do activities on Sundays.

To begin, here’s some background on mine.
Human, Commoner, Vigil, specialties are Scepter/shield and Hammer.

Zakhelm.4618:

How do you Roleplay your guardian/Dragon hunter?

A Veteran who has seen plenty of destruction and wants to stop what he can.
When I first played GW2, I kept my character close to the “lost sister” story that Personal Story supplied.
Initially he hated the Centaurs, all of them, “Four legs bad, two legs good” kind of mentality. (Yes a complete reversal to Animal Farm’s quote)
Then he met a Sylvari (one of my alts) and realized that the plant people are a product of sorts from the Centaurs, or at least a peaceful one who was friends with a human.

After traveling Drytop, meeting peaceful Centaur herds, his viewpoint changed. He could let go of all that hatred for them. Yes he’ll still fight the malevolent herds in his lands, but not with the same “exterminate zem ALLLL” mentality he had before.

What motivates them IE. what is there belief/faith that drives them?

His sense of right and wrong, plus his recent experiences, cause him to fight hatred where he can. Ironically using the same pool of anger he had for Centaurs originally.

When Scarlet attacked, he thought she was just a rogue Sylvari who went nuts.
Then Aerin killed some Zephyrites, who were a peaceful people.
This almost twisted my Guardian to hate Sylvari until evidence of Mordremoth came to his attention.
Now he sees there are some Sylvari fighting this, but they’re also forced to fight people that once stood by them.
My Human guardian reasons that if he can trust the non corrupted ones, help them burn the dragon into cinders with holy fire, maybe that will make up for the constant vile hatred he had for just one of many Centaur herds.

What are the Limits to their abilities?

He doesn’t have a concept of battlefield honor. No one on one duels, no gallant sense of adventure. There’s only “can it kill the enemy? Good, use it.” which might cause some to see him as slightly dark at times. He sees it as pragmatism later. Judge him after the enemy is long dead and buried. So in a way that makes him reckless when he’s pushed over the edge.

Is normal to just specialize in one form of guardian type magic or does your character pull out all the stops to achieve their goal?

Though he prefers to use scepter/shield or Hammer to protect those who can’t fight. He will use any weapon, any spell, anything to burn Mordemoth down. He believes that a young race like the Sylvari shouldn’t start their early years with this hatred bearing down on them.

What are there reactions to other classes such as necros, mesmers, revanants, etc?

His reactions to the other classes is best summed up here.
“Are you here to fight dragons? Are you here to protect Tyria? Would you sacrifice a piece of your soul if it means peace of mind for everyone else? If yes to all these questions then I’ll bleed alongside you. We attack at dawn.”

At the end of it all, maybe he will put down the armor and wear a farmer’s tunic like his grandfather. Putting some life back into Tyria to balance all the life he pulled out of it.

Well that explains why I didn’t want to reward track grind yesterday.

Good to know, I’ll wait for the one decent thing in PvP to come back.

A stronger Living Story addition to HoT.

Sicarius.4639:

Hey! Those 4000 odd people watching that stream think it’s highly valuable!

Oh yes, 4000 is a lot.
Maybe even one day, if ANet tries hard enough, they’ll reach numbers to rival WoodenPotatoes or Bog Otter. :P

Reach for the stars with that E-whatever. Chances are it will fall short and hit the Rocky Mountains instead.

Qugi.2653:

Anet goal for GW2 is Esport.

It is funny and adorable they think a boring game mode like PvP will be E-Sport.
It is also sad that my HoT money potentially went into funding such a potential flop of a season.

Oh well, I nearly got my gliding mastered.

I enjoy HoT, despite the problems.
Overall I do like the verticality with the maps, even if they are a bit frustrating at points.
I’m going to try out the Dragonhunter eventually, but now I’m just content with getting all my other lvl 80s to the jungle at this point.

Mastery-wise I love gliding and the shrooms.

Are there any other areas you are excited by? PvP? Fractals? WvW? Guild Halls? Masteries? Raids?
I don’t enjoy PvP nor do I care about WvW (making me wonder if ANet cares about it either). I’ve done mostly low level Fractals so most of the changes haven’t affected me, except the AR change.

My guild loves the new hall and the raids that we’re arranging.

As for what to expect next? I want the story to continue, because this really feels like it was part of Season 3 and didn’t conclude to a result I’m happy with at the moment.

NTDK.4897:

I promise cookies

My guild does that too.

Mostly we list out what we are.
Then we provide a solid calendar list of weekly things we’re going to do.
The point is to not pressure anyone, but encourage that the veterans can and do help around when needed.

Aside from that I don’t know what the officers do to bring folks in.

Huzzah, you’ve felt the impact of their “increased drop rate”.

Now instead of ‘once in a lifetime’ you get one ‘once in a blue moon’.

The sad thing is the themes are kind of weak.

Race packs would be neat, but then that risks alienating potential purchasers.

SirMoogie.9263:

These will probably become separate items later.

I hope so, because that’s the only way my wallet will want to get them.

Agemnon.4608:

I just wish GW2 did some player housing. Wildstar did it.

It is rather sad I was excited about Guild halls because that would be the closest to a home instance I could upgrade.

Yeah the original home instance did get some neat things, but now that seems to be forgotten by ANet.

I want to earn fun nodes, or at the least get to purchase them via gem store.
I do not support the notion of nodes dropping from the Black Lion Chests.

I also support the idea of breaking up the packs at some point.

Maybe sell the initial pack first, like a preview, that way early adopters can buy their shiny. Afterwards pull the pack away but replace with the items broken out into their own purchases.

I liked the glider skin, I like the idea of the weapon skin, but I don’t care much for the outfit. In fact, I’ll go even further with my suggestion and say they should rotate in retired BLTC skins into the gem store for a short time.

We know they can set up quick sales, they did that with those wings earlier. The idea of picking your choice of old BLTC skin from a short time frame could generate frantic cash buys for them.

I see why they are doing this, but I don’t agree with it. Here’s hoping they will listen to us and break out these items later.

redwing.9580:

I feel like the supportive gyros (stealth, medic, purge, and bulwack) should behave more like the glint skills instead of being the buggy ai that they (giving us a passive that we can turn on then deactivate). and all of the gyros in general feel they lack the amount of health needed to really be able to do there job i.e. a worker in wvw came over to one of my gyros and one shot it.

This is actually an interesting way to work with what we’ve got.
Glint Rev’s facets are just FUN and really helpful not only in groups, but individual play.

If we could get gyros to work like mechanical facets, the Scrapper would be loads of fun.

I played in PvE mostly in the new map.
I also played a bit in regular Tyria, Orr especially.
I set up my armor to be more Valk with Berserker trinkets and Hammer.

Out of all this, I found the Scrapper to be a little less interesting compared to regular Engineer.

Here’s why, the drones are (at best) a disposable turret that doesn’t last long.
At worst I barely recognized they were there and when they weren’t, well nothing of value was lost.

Hammer was fun, but weak. I did decently at cleaning up in groups at Maguuma.
However I didn’t feel like I was making a big impact on damage.
Then again that’s probably colored by the fact we have huge zergs playing in tight corridors right now.

In Orr it was a little more fun, even if the damage was weak.
Still the problems with the gyros are evident: slow, somewhat useful but they can’t compete with the kits we have on hand.

I will say one thing I love about the drones are the F1-5 abilities.

Think of Fractals as GW2’s equivalent of a multi-verse theory.

You’ll see stuff from its past, you might also see stuff that isn’t, you will also see things that are just weird. The story of Dessa and her crew is in there, but aside from that there’s not a big story connecting Fractal to Fractal.

Tuthan.3250:

It’s good that they stop the key farming. I saw a clip on youtube that someone farmed 1000 blacklion keys, that’s just crazy lol

That doesn’t make sense.
That’s like saying the guy who managed to save up 1000 Vials of Powerful Blood needs adjustment, because “that’s just crazy”.

That person put effort into it, got rewarded, plain and simple.

Tapioca.9062:

I don’t keyfarm enough to affected by this but it’s still unpleasant. If Anet want people to buy Black Lions Keys instead of spending time on alternatives, make buying them worthwhile instead of packing the chests full of garbage like boosters or, worse, booster dust.

I can agree to this in some ways.
When I was leveling my characters, back in the old days, I rarely looked towards a booster for any leveling help. So key and chest purchases were slim to none.

The game itself already provides quite a bit with the foods and other buffs given.
However as I started getting more of my characters to 80, there wasn’t a need for boosts that much anyways. Now due to the rewards system we have in place, I have too many of these blasted things.

So how does having boosters in the BLC help anything, aside from padding the rewards roll with stuff I don’t want nor need as I open the chest?

If they gated it to once a day, like they do with ascended item crafts, quartz creation, etc I’d be okay with it. However a week? That’s a bit overkill really.

Though I understand, in part, what they are trying to do; I cannot agree with the time gate established with this patch.

They basically want to stop quick key farms. Okay I get that, and I even saw something like that with this whole level 10 requirement for the Personal Storyline start.

They should change it to one a day, like many have stated, because there are people who level up various characters. I personally have at least 4 who aren’t even up to Orr in the Storyline, yet they are level 80 and have at least made it to Fort Trinity.

Doing this doesn’t really encourage me to complete multiple characters’ stories so quickly. Then again that might also be ANet’s plan, but if so that’s a cold way to do it.

Back to the key farm issue, I don’t see HOW it is an issue or bad thing. Sure there are defenders to this change. I’ve read some posts in reddit about that. How this is a gem item and farmers are bypassing to get a gem item with little hassle.

Truth is they aren’t. They are either using the stuff given to them via ANet (boosters, so many boosters) or they are using Tomes or other leveling bonuses ANet provides them, or they use in game things like Moa Haunches and play through to level 10.

All these things aren’t bypassing anything. The farmers put time in to get that reward, no different than someone grinding to get a pretty object or gold to purchase said pretty on TP.

If there’s another reason why key farming is bad, I’d love to hear it.

Atheismo.5164:

What you just described sounds very fun, and I would definitely play an event like that all day without getting bored.

Thanks, want to know the ironic thing about this?
My idea came from a brainstorm I had which was the following:
“ANet really did well with Crown Pavilion and Guild Bounties. I wonder how they could merge those two things with the Mordrem invasion of three maps?”

It jars my mind that ANet can make potentially fun events, but then not use those same ones as a spiritual template for ground breaking moments or teases like this one.

Gaile Gray.6029:

We encourage all of you who’ve participated in the Mordrem Invasion to please share your constructive thoughts on how we can improve on these types of experiences in the future. Please share your ideas and feedback in this thread.

Thank you.

Give Champions the ability to drop loot or Blooms.
Give gold or karma for each event completed.
Show players a reason why they should care about total of incursions stopped.
Provide some sort of benefit for that.

At the very least, if rewards can’t be increased then decrease the price of the items.
That way the grind isn’t so high.

For future events, don’t place them so close to Toxic Alliance events where they overlap.

Also the game’s time limit and cool down could be worked differently alongside mobs.
For example: Instead of giving us 30 minutes of frantic mess, then another half hour of nothing in the next map after; provide some hot spots to entertain us while we wait.

Let’s say Kessex Hills will be the next map hit. Give certain spots of the map a few Champions running around like bounties. Then the bounty hunt ends about 10 minutes before the big event. Afterwards, provide small pockets of Mordrem (which drop loot) in those maps until that map becomes the next one in rotation. Then bring back the roving bounties.

Rinse, repeat, reduce the parking lot that is the waypoints on the map.

As a result of this frustration and disappointment, I will not participate in the Mordrem activities. Nor will I encourage anyone I chat with, but I will wish anyone wanting to farm it the best of luck.

I’ll spend my time doing dungeons or playing Silverwastes.

Story wise this would have been so interesting.

The Pact invades Mordy’s home and now he’s mad.
So he decides to do the same.
We as valiant heroes, take up the charge to stop the darkness from taking over.

However in game it turned into a massive zerg tagging an event, moving to the next one, and hoping the previous ones end successfully before the timer runs out.

Rewards-wise, it just was not rewarding. Too few blooms for too high of a price in order to get something at least worthwhile. Also none of the Champions dropped anything, in fact no mobs dropped anything.

This type of event should not be repeated on ANet’s maps. We need to strike a better balance between rewards and time. We now have F2P folks coming into these maps and we don’t want this game to seem like a not fun, grindy, boring mess.

Well as I started playing, I thought Wow we’re going to push back the Mordrem. We’re going to show newbies how exciting this will be.

It then turned into Oh, I have to kite around 20 events within 30 minutes to get a meager amount of blooms? Fine I won’t complete any of them.

So I promptly killed two Mordrem in an event, then ran off to the next.

First off, thank you for this BWE because I enjoyed it.
I did encounter some problems, much like others did that I hope can be resolved before the next BWE (whenever that may be).

Snipers and Smoke monsters (I can’t remember their actual names) might need some adjustments. I was in a mix of Valk and Knight armor when a Sniper mowed my Dragonhunter down in three volleys. As someone else mentioned, in the heat of battle that’s going to be a bit of a problem to deal with.

My second problem with the mobs were those blasted smoke hound creatures.
When they are in multiples I can’t tell how I can kill just one. I know there’s some pulling required, but every time two showed up I just didn’t want to play in that area.

Aside from that, I didn’t mind the mobs. I like the Mordrem and even enjoyed playing the story mission as a Sylvari. I do note though that at the end, talking with Rytlock, there’s always a wave coming to kill you after the mission is over. That might need to be looked at, because it does ruin the ability to interact with folks after the mission is “over”.

I’m slightly jealous over those who got to play against the Wyvern, because most of the maps I encountered kept bugging out on events. The Itzel one was notorious for raising people’s hackles.

As for professions, I’d say the Dragonhunter’s main attack feels weak. Not by means of actual damage, but presentation. I didn’t get time to play out the Tempest sadly, but I did begin liking the Mesmers again when my Chronomancer was wielding Scepter/Shield and Greatsword as the swap. Now that was more enjoyable than I realized.

I really can’t wait for another BWE so I can pull up the Tempest and maybe get the Druid, assuming you guys have that available by then.

Yeah I kept losing track of the tablet after a while.
Afterwards I switched legends, because keeping track of this isn’t worth it.

From my play through I enjoyed Mace/Axe due to the conditions and overall ability to rift enemies together.

I can get around pretty well in a fight with that, then use the conditions on me against them.

Hammer was my go-to standard weapon for the past two days (well 1 and a half I guess right now). Nice and ranged, satisfying hits at times, and I’ll probably keep that as my standard when this eventually launches.

Staff was, well interesting is one way to put it, but disappointing would be the more accurate way.
Even the Guardian lootstick feels like it does better damage, though I don’t have all the numbers to back it up.

I played Silverwastes with it, going into the middle of a mob and trying to do something of worth. Aside from skill 5 getting me out of there, I couldn’t enjoy the play with it.

All the weapons do need a DPS boost somehow. As a person who usually plays solo, I’m going to find some difficulty enjoying this profession compared to my others.

When it comes to the legends, I like Jalis because of the stability.
I tried playing as Mallyx, which is where my solo fun really got enjoyment.
Then the knockback from various mordrem mobs made me swing back to Jalis.

As for Ventauri, I honestly don’t know what to do with it.
Even when I ran around with random folks as a group, it felt like I wasn’t doing a thing to contribute anywhere.
Maybe the idea is to use this with a more coordinated group?
I have no idea, but I do know I kept forgetting where the tablet was and stopped caring after a while.

I guess this is why I don’t care much for some ground targeting things.
In PVE everyone zerks out, kills stuff, then runs to the next location.
By the time you get things set up for Ventauri to be useful, half the mobs are dead, and the group has moved on.

Ironically for a more static game like GW1 I could see how Ventari would have been a godsend, but with the run and gun nature this game has at times I’m going to skip on the Centaur.

Overall I hope for Shiro to be the DPS we need and deserve.

Diovid.9506:

Don’t game companies temporarily hire additional developers during crunch time (i.e. the last couple of months of development)?

Try any software development company.
It isn’t too out of place to hire out contract workers, give them tasks on a project, then keep the ones they like.

But it doesn’t have to be the crunch time of the project either.
There could very well be some component that has to reach a time table, thus the quick hires. Meanwhile the project overall won’t be fully complete until much later.

Much like retail stores hiring seasonal work, then offering the good ones a permanent gig if there’s a spot available.

I don’t think the following people are dead:

Logan – Though really I can be on the fence for this one. He made up with Rytlock, sort of, during the dungeon storylines. He could still die, but mostly the Human side of things would feel the impact more.

Rytlock – He’s not, we know it, the end.

Caithe – She can’t die, because of the realization of her people. We need that Sylvari perspective and I don’t see Canach bringing any of that from Destiny’s Orphans.

I’m on the fence about these characters:

Eir – She could introduce the Druid much like Rytlock will Revenants. Yes she’s sort of made up with Zojja during the Zhaitan arc so that concludes that drama. She still has some things to work with when it comes to her son. Though if she did die, that would give Bro ham a dramatic angle which he could use.

Zojja- She’s put some stuff to rest with Eir. She really doesn’t keep track of Taimi. She’s always busy with her experiments, plus Felicia Day might take a while on her voice acting due to her schedule. So if they DO kill someone off I’d suspect her first.

However I hope not because I would love to see Zojja inspecting the jungles, experimenting with Dragon stuff like Snaff did.

Plus I love Felicia Day’s voice at times.

Trahearne – Oh I’m quite aware he’s not DE, but he was on that ship. He could die. Seriously I see it happening because he was, more or less, the voice for our characters.
Now that we can talk outside of a cinematic his role as mouthpiece isn’t needed too much.

Yes he’s in charge of the Pact, but I could also see one of our missions handle his loss as well. If he died, elements of the Pact would be all over the place. As the big hero, we collect them and reforge our purpose to complete the mission. Afterwards we either get a new big chief, or ANet could really pull the rug under from us and make us the big chief in charge. Yes we held a very important role, but Trahearne was the face.

Maybe Abaddon was really Matt Smith during his human days, if they had any that is.

I’m not going to throw my hat in for rainbow support.
Mainly because a “rainbow dye” would look ugly to me.

Now if ANet wants to create a series of dyes bundled together for gem sales, I’d be behind that. One super rare red, blue, you get the picture and like the other dye sales you get a chance of getting one.

Or if they really wanted to have fun with it, one day have some regular NPCs discuss their plans about marriage in that new garden Lion’s Arch has.

It could be low key, but still a cute little thing for those who really enjoy watching these characters go about their lives.

I’d rather have more lore in the game.
Now I don’t mind some articles about behind the scenes stuff for lore related events.
I think we had stuff like that as well, but it was rather sad that I could get more immersion from the game by being outside it.

Bad Wolf (spirit) is near.
We’re doomed.

Oh it would be one hell of a QoL update for those interested, no doubt about it.
Hey have some optimism, we don’t know what exactly is in HoT completely.

Maybe the fundamentals towards that will be put in?
After all HoT’s biggest theme currently is “expanding the game” in terms outside of just expanding the lore.

Leveling/traits/skills getting tweaked, WvWvW getting a map, PvE getting a dense map, and it seems that even outside of HoT ANet is trying hard to improve things everywhere.

Maybe it will be in the pipe one day.

SyllyReth.2495:

There was a LOT of talk about making LA less pirate oriented and more inclusive as a racially integrated city,

I’d love to see how it seems more racially integrated.
I’m not knocking on you, nor mocking you, but the architecture doesn’t seem to be that inclusive. It seems to try and be as vastly different from all the other cities as possible.

Maybe, just maybe I can see some Human influence in the Commodore’s area, but everywhere else?

Tiger Ashante.1792:

I don’t know about the cost of it, but I think if Lotro can do it, so can Anet. In fact i was utterly shocked when gw2 released without this feature. I thought for an MMO these days it’s a must especially for group play.

Just because one title has a feature, does not mean every title similar to it will have said feature.

There are probably many reasons why GW2 doesn’t have it in yet.
They could range from costs, focus of the game, to even maybe not having anyone with the code base knowledge in the company at this time.

Will they eventually? I don’t know.
Should they? Well that determines who you ask. Personally I’m fine without it for the moment. It isn’t that I hate the idea, I just typically disable said things whenever I play online games (LOTRO and WOW being my main examples I played). So not having it right now is no problem for me.

OP I’m just not seeing how this new expansion is going to be hostile towards introverts/shy people.

I hardly ever use the chat windows in these games and I get by fine.
That includes when I do dungeons or fractals.

So long as you can take advice from others who do know the mechanics to something, you can be the complex quiet henchman for them.

I’ll say that I didn’t care much for old GW2 Lion’s Arch.
It was stuffy, cobbled together, and overall just not pleasant.
Like one article said, it really was a tinderbox ready to go up.

I’m glad it did, but I’ll admit that the spaciousness of this one does have a problem as well. The nautical themed buildings, although nice, really do not mesh with the old pirate theme we had before. They do mesh well with a sea exhibit or something water-based, but as a pirate or merchant town, it looks out of place.

That said it is rather creative how Gnashblade’s new place has the key doorway.
I like how enclosed and almost fortified that place is, like a bank vault on steroids.
Yes there are touches of nautical-ness in there, but they aren’t overpowering.

The fortifications along nouveau Lion’s Arch are a good touch. It shows how much the populace remembers and wants to never again have it happen to them.

I do like the “wedding area” even though I thought it was a simple garden, but Cobiah Marriner’s place of rest feels like it was disturbed. Here in Deverol Gardens you have a wonderfully laid out open resting area….and off to the side dumped beside are two headstones and a plaque. It feels like Cobiah’s grave wasn’t even considered when the garden was made.

I guess it could be a reflection of how planned cities or spots within tend to just shuffle old graveyards and things around.

However the ambient discussions are awesome there. Especially the mother who doesn’t want a gardener for a son. Little surprises like that make it more fun to sit and watch these people.

So in summary the fortifications look great, the Black Lion’s architecture is more akin to what I anticipated for the rest of the place, and if we could find a way to incorporate the Founder of Lion’s Arch’s resting place better I think this city will be top notch.

There are many other things I do enjoy about this place. The Mystic To—-er Fountain’s look is awesome, the new Lighthouse looks great, and it does feel like things shifted around for the better mostly.

I only had a few complaints and hope they were addressed in a respectful manner.

Considering how PvP gets the shaft in many other updates, I don’t mind this one tweaking PvE here and there.

Face it, we PvE players have it good at times.
Now GW2 is ramping up to ready HoT and there’s been things that the devs wanted to do getting worked now which do not require some Living Story update timing.

Anyone else feeling that PVP always ruins the fun for PVE and it seems to be the thing that always takes precedence in choice over “balance” ?

No, but then again I don’t tend to care about the PvP side of things and I don’t feel like they’ve impacted my PvE experience that much anyways.

ColinJohanson.2394:

Or you could always grow your guild

Halls are pretty and all, but I’ve been meaning to ask a question.
Please excuse me if this was asked elsewhere.

Do I need a Hall to access my Guild Bank?
Because I don’t plan on growing my little self bank guild enough to tackle a Hall.

Azure The Heartless.3261:

Bear? BEAR?!

BEAAAAAAAAAAAAAR-

I always love going back to that gem of a link and hearing this specifically.
Every time I wonder, could we have a Norn themed cardboard box in game for our thieves to sneak around?

I like the name, I like the bow, I don’t understand the traps.
So two out of three for me.

I think ANet mixed up their specializations.
Because surely they meant to say something Paragon-ish instead.
Right?

We needed better ranged weaponry, great but making us back line like that?

Elmer Fudd now becomes Dohvakin, great.
I know my initial reaction seems negative, but I guess I’ll wait for them to release more before I really take action.