Guild Wars 2

I agree that some fees(travel, repair, etc.) are ridiculous, but it is easy to make money in this game…. if you grind. Taking into consideration that ArenaNet said this game would not be about grinding, I think there should be many more options for making money. I haven’t really gotten into doing dungeons yet, but I always hear people complaining about how often you die on explorer mode and how expensive the repairs are. Maybe ArenaNet should remove the repair cost inside dungeons? They should also consider removing it or significantly lowering the repair cost in WvWvW. Sometimes you get into stalemates trying to take a castle or wall and can go for hours without receiving a single silver but you die several times. Unless I’m missing something about WvWvW, it seems that you break even or lose funds anytime you play it for an extended amount of time.

Last night, I decided I would devote some actual time to grinding in Cursed Shore, I am a Guardian and I have a full set of the Superior Rune of the Pirate to increase my magic find. I would say in 4-5 hours of running around killing everything in sight and participating in events, I made about 8 gold. So it isn’t hard to make money, but it is a grind and we were promised that the game would not be about grinding.

Guidelines that I followed for my grind were:
*Vendor all white-green drops unless you are in need of salvage mats. Keep in mind you do not need to use master salvage kits to get Orichalcum Ore from lvl 70+ items, you can salvage with a Crude Kit and still get Ori Ore.
*Any drops that are level 70+ Yellows you should salvage with a good kit, as you have a chance of getting ectoplasm, sigils, runes, that may be worth more than the actual item or used to craft legendaries. If you really need money, check the Trade Post price of Yellows, sometimes it can be around 50 silver.
*Join in events every chance you get, but don’t do them exclusively. You get many more drops when 20 other people aren’t attacking the same mob.
*If you are capable, aggro several mobs before killing them all at once.
*Don’t mess with underwater mobs, they bug out and become invulnerable frequently making them a waste of time.

Now, let’s start throwing out some assumptions and connecting some dots.
Everyone remembers how the pale tree came about? Good. I don’t recall if I read this somewhere, or I began to suspect it on my own; but why does the Pale Tree, a plant, have a humanoid avatar? Why are all the Sylvari humanoid? Ronan planted the seed on the graves of his family, surrounded by the graves of the entire village that he laid to rest. So I am assuming that the pale tree took the image of his wife, and the Sylvari are the images of the deceased villagers. While growing, the Pale Tree was influenced by Ronan and Ventari’s teachings. Also influenced by others who joined in their life of harmony, which is why we can assume that the Sylvari started being born when Tyria came under threat of the dragons and why the Sylvari exist to stop the corruption.

If you don’t see it yet, where is the “conspiracy?” Do you remember the description of the cave Ronan found the seed in? Have you completed the Arah Dungeon? Did you also get one-shot the first time you tried to attack the extremely powerful plants guarding the cave, just like where Ronan found the seed? Have you seen Zhaitan(who is made up of other dragons) and did you also think to yourself that he/she looks like a huge disfigured dead tree? So the questions remain, where was this cave that Ronan found the seed? If it was indeed inside Zhaitan’s cave was it really a seed or maybe a dragon egg? Maybe it is a seed and Zhaitan was attempting to corrupt it because he/she knew what the seeds were capable of. Maybe the seeds were corrupted, but over the years and circumstances of the one seed’s plantation it was purified. All organisms in Tyria can be corrupted, so why not purified also? This could explain why some corruption remains, why some Sylvari join the Nightmare Court and attempt to corrupt the dream. Yes, there’s other reasons they join which I have not gone into, but it is said the Nightmare Court Sylvari lose themselves in corruption and become pure evil. Looking forward to hearing if anyone else has similar thoughts.

First and foremost, this is a light-hearted post, hoping for discussion even if it’s in disagreement. This post will contribute nothing to the game itself and is just a big waste of time, so feel free to get involved and waste time along with me. I’m sure there are others who know more about Sylvari lore and can correct any errors in my thinking, and those who can connect additional dots and help bring this conspiracy to light! I really love the Sylvari lore and I have thrown several of my own assumptions(choose this word carefully and will use it a lot) into the mix after playing through the game.

If anyone is unfamiliar how the pale tree came to be, it was a seed stolen from the cave by a Human named Ronan. Ronan was a member of the Shining Guard and was on wartime duty far away from his village, now known as The Grove. He stumbled upon this cave guarded by extremely powerful plants, and inside this cave he found several large seeds and took one with him. Upon returning to his village(The Grove) he found that it had been razed by Mursaat and his beloved wife and daughter had been slaughtered. He planted the seed on their graves and vowed to live a life devoted to peace, love, friendship, and all that other pale-tree-hugging stuff. Ventari joined him later who was also devoting his life to similar values.

I believe all three bullet points are exact opposites of each other, and at the same time two sides of the same coin. I can go into more depth on these three points, but you will get the gist of it without me boring you into a Risen.
*Sylvari – Risen
*The Dream of Dreams – The Nightmare
*Pale Tree – Zhaitan

I am not going to talk much about The Dream of Dreams and The Nightmare, the ways they are interconnected and influence each other should be obvious, but for a great read check out the Dream and Nightmare Wiki page. The Pale Tree is a creator, it is the embodiment hope, justice, friendship, growth, and most importantly life. Zhaitan and his minions are destroyers, Zhaitan is the embodiment despair, chaos, corruption, and most importantly death. The risen are a product of Zhaitan’s awakening, much like the Sylvari are a product of the Pale Tree’s awakening. Zhaitan continues to spread his corruption of Risen across the lands and the Pale Tree continues to produce Sylvari at an increasingly frequent rate. I think we all know why the Sylvari are born, it’s pretty black and white and stated throughout the game, the Sylvari are born to fight the corruption, risen, and dragons, this is why they exist. They are the exact opposite of Risen, the Sylvari are plants, brightly colored and blooming. Yet they have much in common with the risen. As far as Tyrians know, Sylvari do not age, neither do the Risen. Sylvari have male and female genitalia but cannot reproduce, like the Risen. Sylvari are cold to the touch and are the only playable race that doesn’t have blood running through their veins, like the Risen. And all Sylvari, whether they are Nightmare Court or not are linked to the Pale Tree and the Dream of Dreams, like the Risen are linked to Zhaitan and The Nightmare(you only need to kill Risen and read their dying words to see they are connected to the Nightmare). Compared to the other races in my gameplay the Pale Tree and Sylvari are tied-in much more closely with the Dragons and Risen, and many of you might already know all of this.

Blacklight.2871:

How many ways are there to obtain badges of honor?

I’m not going to pretend to know all the ways to get them but, you can do jump puzzles in the WvWvW areas that reward them and are repeatable(I don’t know how often you can repeat). Obviously from killing players, if you don’t like the 1 dimensional “sit outside and knock on a door system,” roam the zone looking to gank avoiding high traffic areas. Guard/gank Dolyaks to find small scale fights. In my opinion it’s more fun than zerging and you have better chance of getting loot if 40 other players aren’t hitting the same target. I have also heard that some Boss type spawns in WvW will drop badges of honor, I have not looked into this for myself. Google is your friend and so is youtube, search what you’re looking for and chances are somebody else has already come up with an answer. The game is young and there may be undiscovered means or ArenaNet may implement changes in the future, just do what’s fun for you and don’t be too discouraged yet.

Jayne hit the nail on the head, just play however is most fun for you.

Mystfit, when I was leveling up I was having fun getting 100% completion in zones, so like you I was doing all the easy zones and working my way to the hard ones. I ended up being in my 40-50s when doing level 20-30 zones etc. and no regrets here. If you are worried about being max level and completing zones for nothing after that, be aware that you continue to “level up” even after 80. You just don’t advance to level 81, you gain a skill point everytme you level up after 80.

Like you and many others Crothen, when I saw the requirements my immediate reaction was “omg all that just for aesthetics?!” I thought to myself there is no way I am going to complete that, I’m not even going to try. Well, I spent about a week playing steadily alternating between farming level 80+ mobs and doing WvWvW mainly just to see what I accumulated along the way. I’m finding that many of the mats you need you will be getting anyways as you play, there are also several ways to obtain ectoplasms, badges of honor, and other materials needed that at first appear daunting. There are even players who have shared how to use the Mystic Forge to make the Mystic Clovers, with a 100% success rate(I haven’t tested the recipe myself). Just play doing whatever is fun for you, and you will see many of the required items start to build up in your inventory.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying it is easy to obtain or that it isn’t a grind, but keep in mind that the item is pretty much optional. I think ArenaNet took into consideration that it is a grind, and that a Legendary item should be difficult to obtain so that it remains Legendary. That would also be the logic behind Legendaries being for aesthetics, ArenaNet doesn’t want to force players to grind to get a better weapon, they felt the longest grind in the game should be optional.