Guild Wars 2

Howdy! I haven’t measured things like damage output and stuff. The impressions left here were formed from playing some PvE and some PvP without worrying about numbers too much. Let’s get to it:
Revenant – Much better than in the Revenant weekend. I loved the class, it might just become my “main” (I don’t really have mains but I tend to play some more than others).
– The good: Versatility with low cooldowns. Feels like a mix of thief and elementalist (my two favourite professions!). The cast times and the overall flow feel great.
– The bad: Sword skill 2 feels mostly useless. Unimpressive damage, short range and negligible chill. If it had no cooldown I could see it being good for picking off slightly out of range targets but as it stands it really serves little purpose. Hammer 2 seems to be designed to used like an interrupt but is fairly slow and the payoff is not particularly good.
Reaper – By far my favourite elite spec so far. The feel is great and I love the design.
– The good: Reaper shroud is pretty amazing. Greatsword damage feels a little lackluster but the utility is nice (blinds and tons of vuln especially). Shroud 3 is a game changer…
– The bad: but as the only source of stability if often feels like not enough for the long cast times. Greatsword 5 has some very weird aiming. Shouts feel underwhelming and quickly become useless when blinded. It really sucks wanting to use the elite shout only to be completely shutdown with any blind, resulting in a 120 second cooldown.
Tempest – Haven’t tried it much so I don’t have a lot to say but it definitely looks cool.
Chronomancer – Liked it a lot better than I thought I would. I might just start using mesmer more when HoT is released. Nothing special to say about it except it feels too complicated for my brain. Which isn’t bad, it’s actually very good!
Dragonhunter – More interesting than I was expecting!
– The good: The new virtues are my favourite part! Traps are powerful and pretty to look at. Longbow feels good but…
– The bad: The longbow auto attack feels slow for its damage. Maybe I just didn’t use it long enough to get a good idea.
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Verdant Brink – The portion of the map we got to explore looks and plays great (aside from the crippling event bugs). The monsters were challenging and fun! (Things like Stoneheads giving themselves vuln when charging are really cool!) Most of them seem very well balanced (Smokescales are sometimes invulnerable even after leaving their smoke cloud, which sucks).
Masteries – The first 3 masteries I unlocked seemed to be obtainable in a good amount of time. Due to most events being bugged, exp gain was significantly slower than I expected so maybe the masteries will be unlocked quicker when everything’s working properly, which I’m not sure is a good thing but I couldn’t see how long “higher level” masteries took to obtain.
– Gliding: Basic gliding felt amazing! That’s it!
– Bouncing ‘Shrooms: Apparently some of them kill you. I’m guessing that’s a bug. Otherwise, they were fun! There were plenty of them which made me feel good about spending time working towards that mastery instead of other ones.
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Overall: A very positive experience. I’ve detailed the main problems I encountered above.

I used the skin at the start of the beta (with a beta character) and that character got the glider skin. I’m sure there will be a wardrobe section for it later but this is the only way I’ve seen it work so far.

(tl:dr at the end and I’m sorry for the long post)
I want to buy the expansion. I most likely will. But when I do it will depend on a few things. Before I make my point, I want to set some things straight about ANet, their decisions and the player’s reactions:

Defending ANet:
* Personal gushing I do believe HoT will be worth my time. There’s no guarantee right now, of course, but I’ve liked most things ANet have done before and I have faith I will like this too. Consider me hyped!
* Entitlement vs Loyalty – I feel like some of the complaints being posted here are invalid. Not only does ANet not owe its current clients anything, other than a working base game, they’ve been providing free content for the last 3 years AND whatever future content is added to HoT is included in the price. The game is completely playable without gems AND because gems can be obtained with gold most people can get what they want without spending any real money.
* Content and Features – Content isn’t the only measurement of value. All the features being added, regardless of whether people think they should’ve been here from launch or not, have value. By buying an expansion, you’re benefitting from the new content and new features. Some people may not be used to paying for features but that doesn’t mean they (the features) can’t be very valuable and the main reason why people would consider buying an expansion.
* Quality vs Quantity – The thought of an X dollar expansion should offer about the same content as an X dollar base game, while perfectly logical to a lot of people, is flawed. I see a lot of people talking about numbers (X maps, Y game modes, etc) but not even mentioning quality. We can’t know if HoT’s maps, however many there are, are as valuable, or even more so, as the core game’s maps. We simply don’t know.

Defending the Veteran Players:
* Taking Vets for granted – We still haven’t been shown, with sufficient detail, what all the major features will encompass and that leads to doubt and unwillingness to do business from the players. ANet started pre purchasing way too early, didn’t even give a single detail on two major features of HoT and expected everyone to pay.
* Flawed Approach – The weird/bad phrasing and marketing lead to confusion and anger, which in turn lead to people losing faith. Offering the base game for free for new players is great but stating that in the in game store was just… sloppy!

Now! Because we don’t know enough about HoT and its value, saying 50 dollars is too much or just right (or maybe too little, for some people?) is meaningless. For some people, all it matters is how many hours they get from a game. If that’s how they want to do it, that’s fine for them. But I’d rather have replayable and fun maps (as ANet said the new maps would be designed to achieve) then 40 hours of dredging through solo leveling and fetch quests.

This all leads to my final point: Players should not even complain about (pre) purchasing HoT until every major feature is sufficiently fleshed out. Most of this backlash is coming from ignorance rather than anything else but they also need to look at the overall value and not just the numbers. Even if all the new areas HoT will introduce make up a total of 33% of the base game world, that does not mean the content will not be valuable. GW1’s Fissure of Woe and Underworld were the same two elite areas of the game for 9 or 10 years and they were always interesting. Sure, interest waned and spiked as time went by, and that interest also came from the different builds that could be used, but those two areas are proof that map quantity isn’t that important. If ANet release enough info over the next few weeks (and maybe months), I’d bet most of the people complaning now would change their minds (assuming what ANet shows is indeed valuable). If all HoT has to show is bland while asking for 50 dollars, THEN people should complain.

A sign of good faith from ANet right now would make me feel confident in pre purchasing the game. I already like what I hear about HoT and I want to support the company. This is not meant to be a ransom, even though it looks like one. But money speaks louder than words and your mistakes made people doubt you and your intentions.

tl;dr:
Veterans! Wait and learn before you shout. You should judge the complete package and not argue with incomplete information. ANet started pre purchasing too soon but that doesn’t mean you need to buy it right now.
ANet! You dun goof’d and a sign of good faith would be welcome. I have no idea how it could work but you guys are probably already weighing your choices. Maybe even consider interrupting pre purchases until you figure out a solution? Maybe even let more info be released until you resume sales.

I want Cantha in Guild Wars 2! I want to see how the No-Longer-Jade Sea and No-Longer-Petrified Forest became after Shiro’s Hold waned. It would be a shame not to be able to explore that continent.

tl;dr: GIEF CANTHA NAO! I’ll gladly pay for a Canthan expansion!

I was playing perfectly fine before I went to eat dinner, but when I came back I couldn’t login. I made no changes to my pc, router, etc, so I don’t think it’s a problem on this end. My server is Far Shiverpeaks, if that matters.
Edit: I also got error 42. Just to clarify.

I did a quick search to find out if this problem had been reported yet (on this forum and using Google) but didn’t find anything. So here goes.

Female Norn Warrior.
For a while I’ve been saving gold to buy the Stag Chausses from Valdsam [Cultural Armorsmith Tier 3]. When I previewed the armor piece on my character, it seemed to clip through the character model. I assumed it was a preview issue since some shields clip on the character’s back when previewed as well. So I ignored it and kept saving gold.
Yesterday I finally gathered enough money, so I went and bought them from the NPC.

Unfortunately, they clipped as well. Keep in mind they aren’t clipping with other armor pieces or weapons. The graphic glitch still happens even if I unequip every other item. I’m assuming it’s a problem with the physique I chose during character creation and since I couldn’t find any other people with the same problem, my suspicions were strengthened.

Here’s what I have equipped (although it doesn’t seem to matter):
Level 80 Heritage Warhelm
Level 74 Dolyak Spaulders
Level 77 Trooper’s Armor
Level 76 Mending Gauntlets of the Eagle
Level 80 Stag Chausses (the ones causing trouble)
Level 80 Mad King’s Slippers
Level 80 Clerics Spineguard of the Cleric (probably not the issue as it doesn’t seem to have any graphics associated with it but since some back items do, I decided to include it here as well)

It doesn’t always clip, however. It mostly seems to happen when I walk backwards, stand still or use some emotes. When running and attacking it’s pretty much a non issue.

On a related note, the Fellblade and the Ithas Longbow from the Hall of Monuments also clip with the backside of the character, with or without armor, again leading me to believe this might be a problem with the character physique or the way this particular physique interacts with equipment rather than the armor/weapon models being faulty.

I really like this armor piece and, considering it’s price, it’s a shame it has such a noticeable clipping issue. I hope it can be fixed as fast as possible! Anyway, thank you for your time and for the great game! Really enjoying myself!