Guild Wars 2

Anyone remember Asheron’s Call?

It came out in 1999 a couple months after EverQuest, and featured what I would call the predecessor to GW2’s Living Story.

Monthly content updates, with some story arcs taking multiple months to complete. They even destroyed a town (Arwic) as well during one of those arcs.

To me it looks like the first stage of creating a painting, block in basic shapes and colors, then continue to refine and add details eventually turning into something recognisable. Unless highly abstract art was the goal, in which case you nailed it?

At this point I would rather high-quality screenshots of areas of the world over these latest loading screens… the one for Dry Top is the one I like least of this new style.

Or, if they are “running out of space”, they could just add a new vendor.

Keep the old stuff on one vendor and start adding new skins to a new vendor, problem solved.

EDIT: Of course, we are all still waiting for the blade shard vendor, so who knows how long it would take them to add another BL weapon vendor… 2016?

Just a suggestion, if the Sclerite and Wintersday weapons are being removed from the vendors then why not have a “final sale” and reduce the number of tickets required to purchase these skins?

Sales on them have happened in the past… and yes, I am suggesting this because I would love to get the Wintersday longbow skin for my ranger, but am about 3.3 tickets short, and am sure others are in a similar situation.

Just a test post.. I think the pager on this thread broke.

EDIT: Yep, once I made this post the pager showed up, previously it was just the two black squiggly lines with nothing between and the make a post controls.

Donari.5237:

The 3 swim boosters could have been extreme RNG. I’ll note that my freebies were (as listed above) 1 wxp booster and 3 unidentified dyes — but I didn’t say before, as it didn’t seem relevant, that the dyes came in 2 drops, a 2 dye and a 1 dye. So I did get a double item. Triple could happen?

Yes, you can get double items, just not boosters… unless there is a bug with the Swim Speed Boosters.

Essentially when you open a chest you get two slots that are rolled from the same loot table, so it is possible to get two of the same items (ie: I have had two ticket scraps drop from a single chest, you got a drop of 2 dyes for one slot, and a single dye for the other slot), the third drop is always a booster.

My partner and I have opened around 500 chests and thus far have never received a Swim Speed booster, nor have we ever seen more than one booster drop in a chest.

From my understanding, and from the 500 or so chests my partner and I have opened, you only get 1 booster per chest. Then you get two other drops that, so far as we can tell, are rolled from the same loot table.

Personally, I have recieved two ticket scraps in one chest, and my partner has received a full ticket and a scrap in one chest, of course, along with a booster… hopefully one day we get a chest with two full tickets!

Perhaps a dev can confirm an issue with the Swim Speed booster, or can confirm the person above actually did get 3 boosters in one chest and isn’t just trolling.

Silvercyclone.1462:

3 swim speed booster worst key ever.

Try again. You can’t get three boosters from a single chest.

EDIT: In over 200 key runs neither my partner or I have received a swim speed booster, so they may not even drop in chests… the wiki doesn’t list it as a possible drop either.

Mini 3-Pack (Set 2)
Black Lion Ticket Scrap (Woo!)
Armor Booster

Pretty nice for a free key, thanks ANet!

Melfice.5091:

The raccoon is a minipet, you know that right?

Yes, indeed I do know that, nonetheless my Ranger would still love to have one!

I feel you, my Ranger would love the Rockfur Raccoon, but I would need 21 HoM points from GW1 to get it.

Hopefully someday they release a slightly different raccoon my Ranger could obtain easier than buying and playing GW1

Look closer, the original price is 2880, not 2000 gems.

I first heard “toon” used in Wow, probably because of the overly cartoon style of the graphics.

However, personally I really, really hate the term “toon” for “character” and do not use it myself!

I just got the Digital Deluxe Upgrade and couldn’t figure out why the chalice wasn’t working… now I know why LoL.

Sadly, I thought the Chalice of Glory would, you know, give me glory! Silly me!
(Yes, I know it says Rank Points in the tooltip, my brain saw Glory and got excited!)

As per the title, I think it would be very helpful if the main Inventory window size and position was saved per character.

Each of my characters currently have bags of differing sizes and I find myself resizing my Inventory window far too often when switching characters.

I hope this is the right place for suggestions, does any one else think this would be a helpful feature?

So would you say stores “cheat” you when they have periodic sales on items you purchased at full price previously?

Sounds like the golem banker would be great for key-runners.

What is the cooldown between uses of the golem?

EDIT: Does the sale on this item end at 2am (CST)?

Look closer at that screenshot… the crossed out value is 2880, not 2000!

44% of 2880 works out to 1612.8, which they rounded down to 1600.

locoman: I was wondering if it was a language issue. Though I think it is probably in a database somewhere as all instances of “apr” are “abr” on that page. Both the main page and the summary list on the right side.

LOL, that was very funny… now I wish I had thought of posting that way first!

Thanks for the laugh!

Just noticed on the upcoming blog posts the month of April is abbreviated “abr”. Oops!

Can’t wait to read the locked blog posts though, sounds like a lot of changes are coming to the world!

Your sample size of 14 opened chests is far too small to determine anything about the drop rate of Black Lion Ticket Scraps.

My partner and I have been doing a bunch of key runs over this entire living story and have managed to obtain 4 full tickets from scraps so far and we each currently have 9 scraps in the bank awaiting that final scrap for a full ticket.

My best streak so far was a scrap on one run, followed by a scrap and a total makeover kit twice in a row(!), followed by TWO scraps in ONE chest.

The 5 Alliance Supply bags are EXTRA and do not count as loot from any of the three drops the chest normally gives you… therefore they are not impeding your ability to obtain tickets and/or scraps.

RNG is RNG!

If you have a CDN $50 gift card then the exchange rate between USD and CDN is where you lost money.

At the time of this post USD $20 = CDN $22.17

So, you buy $20 worth of gems in US Dollars and $22.17 (now, $22.85 when you did it) is removed in Canadian Dollars from your card.

Has anyone else had an issue with an item going missing from their inventory without any action taken by the player directly?

I obtained a number of Desert Rose skins back when Southsun Survival was new and sold a number of them, I also gave one to my lowbie ranger via the white back piece that comes with the backpack sets.

After the Queens Gauntlet update I took a break for a while and only played intermittently to obtain some achievements. I only played my main character at this time, and after a while I took a couple months off without logging in at all.

I returned to play the Lions Arch living story and was going through my characters when I decided to level my ranger up a bit and bought her the Tiger Charr backpack set because she did not have a back item. After buying the set and equipping it I realised that she should of had the Desert Rose back piece.

I have contacted support (Ticket #387011) and the first response said they may be able to make an exception and requested additional information. However, after I submitted that information I was told they do not do restorations and that was that… I really do not get why they raise peoples expectations by saying an exception may be possible in the first place.

I can understand not doing restorations for accidents players make… what I do not understand is not looking into and potentially restoring an item that vanished without any player interaction.

Is it possible to have this issue looked into further? If there are logs that show when items are created/destroyed perhaps that can assist in figuring out what happened to my back piece?

The character the item was on is my ranger, named Feylee.

Well, actually, you can.

My partner and I have successfully entered both Southsun Survival and Sanctum Sprint each and every time we’ve tried. Now, granted, we play together on the same internet connection in the same room so that may have something to do with this, however, if you and your friend both enter at the same time you should be in the game together!

Good Luck!

tekonus.4735:

I feel like they would sell way more of these unlimited tools if they adjusted the price DOWN instead of UP. They started out at 800 gems… That’s $10 a pop, for use on one character. Now they are 1000 gems. If they were 250-350 gems a piece I’d probably own multiples of them on multiple characters. For 1000 gems, I’ll pass… and keep passing until they lower the price.

They raised the price to 1000 gems when they made them Account Bound instead of Soulbound. This way you only need to buy one permanent harvesting item and you can share it among all your characters.

I was standing around Rata Sum the other day when a couple NPCs started talking, with one saying she was off to the market in Lion’s Arch for the day… boy I bet she was surprised when she arrived.

The other thing that bugs me is the talk of “trade routes”, and having to escort merchants on routes between cities… are they unable to use the waypoints like everyone else for some reason?

It seems to have been done by the same artist that did some of the other recent loading screens (like Southsun Survival, for example).

Personally it is not my style, and I do not really think it is adding much to the style of the game. It really does look amateurish, but then again, it is art, which is very subjective.

I think the loading screens should provide some sort of glimpse of what is coming, not some highly abstract scene that takes longer than the loading screen displays to figure out what it is supposed to be!

I just got the Postern Ward achieve, and right upon entering the area you do have to drive the toxic alliance out of the area. Then after that there will be 3 randomly timed events to hold the rally location.

If you succeed at defending the rally point all 3 times you will get the achieve when you are ordered out of the city due to the miasma levels.

I got caught in that cave trap as well. The second time there I looked closer, and it really does look intentional to me.

Sneaky devs!

Delvoire.8930:

Eidola.9148:

As for the 8-bit vs 16-bit… 8 bit graphics were pretty horrible back in the day, very limited resolutions and pallets were all that were available, which is why I thought SAB would be closer to 16-bit graphics than 8-bit ones.

HOW DARE YOU SAY 8-BIT IS HORRIBLE!!!!!! Pitfall may be one of the best games ever made. 8 bits of glory and fun.

For the time 8-bit was a LOT of fun, however, 320×240 resolutions with 16 colors were pretty horrible compared todays hi-def 1920×1080 and higher resolutions!

Josh Foreman.6542:

We try to avoid calling it 8-bit, or any bit. It’s just an homage to what is currently called ‘retro’ or ‘old school’ by the majority of gamers these days. Those definitions change though. In 2 years they’ll be making retro games that look like GW2!

Good to know, thanks for the info Josh!

You are the first ANet poster to reply in any of my threads, and you didn’t have your colors enabled!

So, you have two accounts then? Your red posts have a different 4 numbers after your name than the post you made above!

Oh yea, that soundtrack is very 8-bit sounding, nice FM synthesis going on there.

I can’t wait for the 3rd, while this last update did not excite me very much, I am very much looking forward to playing in the Super Adventure Box!

Lonewolf Kai.3682:

Uhhhh.. It’s 8 bit stytle in 3D.

My first video game was a pong game, so I too went through the 8bit vs 16 bit era. And no, SAB is not an tribute to 16 bit. If you think otherwise, then I don’t think you really played in the 8 bit era.

Here’s a hint in case you missed it: take the 3D element of SAB and what have you got?

Why would I say I grew up with 8- and 16-bit systems if I didn’t. My first computer was a TRS-80, then Atari 8-bits (800, 800XL, 130XE), Atari 16/32-bits (520ST, 1040STE, MegaST), and finally moved into the PC-Clone market. I really wanted an Atari Falcon but never did get one of my own to play with.

As I have never actually been inside SAB I did say I was judging it via screenshots. I do look forward to getting some hands on experience though to see how it looks myself.

As for the 8-bit vs 16-bit… 8 bit graphics were pretty horrible back in the day, very limited resolutions and pallets were all that were available, which is why I thought SAB would be closer to 16-bit graphics than 8-bit ones.

I did say “the 16-bit systems didn’t even look as good” didn’t I?

I just think that the SAB is closer to the 16-bit systems than the 8-bit systems… though since it is all just paying homage I do get the point.

Thanks for the tip on the bombs, will keep that in mind. I have read so many good things about SAB that I am really looking forward to the 3rd now!

I guess only people like me who grew up on 8-bit and 16-bit systems would really appreciate the difference between the two architectures. I wish my 8-bit systems had looked as good as SAB… heck the 16-bit systems didn’t even look as good!

I still wish that 2H weapons had two sigil slots, seems odd 2H weapon users don’t get the same advantage as 1H weapon users.

That said, I started playing at the end of SAB’s last run and missed it… so am excited to try it out this time!

Anyone have any tips or tricks for World 1?

Why is the SAB supposed to be 8-bit? As someone who grew up on both 8-bit and 16-bit systems I have to say the screenshots I have seen for SAB look decidedly more 16-bit than 8-bit.

There was just an announcement in game that a new build would be available in “an hour or two”.

So I would expect the next update to patch and go live imminently

I noticed my camera seemed to be shaking more than it used to… so I just turned off camera shaking and everything got MUCH better overall!

Aetherized weapon never dropped from Sanctum Sprint, you are thinking of the Candidate Trials. Sanctum Sprint had a chance at dropping the catcher back pieces.

The Desert Rose and Rucksack dropped from Southsun Survival and Aspect Arena. Also, both candidates promised to add the same 4 games to the rotation, so it didn’t matter who won in regards to the activities.

Also, neither the rose or the rucksack are dropping from either activity, they were only available during the Cutthroat Politics patch.

I, too, was hoping for a majestic hot-air ballon ride… but really, got what I expected, a boring loading screen!

Salazan is a serious pain in the butt… but after watching the video on Dulfy I was finally able to beat him.

Now, I am stuck trying to kill 4 pirates at once… yikes!

Actually, you are hearing the announcer for the two floating arenas on either side of the one you are in. If you stand there you can watch the speech bubbles appear above the relevant announcer.

Really, they should of made the audible distance much shorter for each announcer!
It can be very confusing figuring out if it is YOUR announcer who just started counting down from 5, or the announcer for someone else!

I love this game, including the mist walkers… karka’ing surviors is so much fun, especially as they seem to have made the karka more aggressive.

I wish the revenge motes would stay in the world until someone picks them up, right now they despawn after a while.

Also, once the survivors are down to the last pair they should be able to see each other on the minimap, help deter camping!

Karka + Trip = Revenge

The only change I would like to make would be to allow mist walkers to apply torment to players who are camping in places the Karka can’t reach. That would help speed up the game as players would be less inclined to play hide-and-seek.

Personally, I love Southsun Survival. I have played well over 200 games at this point and still love playing, it is a different game every time through!

Deamhan.9538:

Yeah if you have 3 mystic forge stones make a mystic salvage kit.

The cost per salvage of a mystic salvage kit is ~8 copper if my math is correct.

I am pretty sure that everyone in the game has mystic forge stones by now… considering they give them out like candy with the achievement chests!

Should I get another BLSK I will probably save it for salving runes/sigils instead of ectos!

Thanks everyone for your comments, I posted mostly to vent about being frustrated about my bad luck with the RNG, but there is some great advice here too!

Just wanted to comment about the “sexy” stuff… 4 of the 5 characters on my account are Asura, specifically because they use the male version of armor models… well that and the Aura are just terribly cute!

This way none of them look like they just stepped out of a brothel… human light starter armor, for example! O.o

Well with the last two uses of my kit I finally got some ectos again, but that was a run of 10 uses without any ectos. Now I am down to Mystic Salvage Kits.

I only used the BLSK because I got it for free so figured why not use it for the slightly greater chance at ectos and for the guaranteed return of the sigil/runes.