Guild Wars 2

Hey Nilkemia, We’ve got a long weekend in Australia, I’ll be recording tomorrow with a guild group and putting it up maybe Sunday or Monday, as always, depends on life

The idea was to help out people like Alice, so I plan to keep going with these at least until Anet have things covered. Oh and welcome back to you both!

I do summaries of each release which include all the cutscenes for you to watch.
http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL8wY-pBLajFYeyeyA3axtowONmbkNMRrx

Folly : We went to Southsun Cove with the Lion Guard to solve a problem (Karka invading Lions Arch) that the Consortium had started when Canach discovered it and riled up the Karka. The Consortium and Black Lion aren’t enemies, they are competing corporations. The Consortium do use some dodgy practices to acheive their own goals though.

During Flame and Frost they assisted the refugees by giving them a temporary camp after their homes were burnt down, but then took it too far, by signing them up to contracts that turned refugee’s into forced labour. It’s not a no purpose resort, they are trying to make money from this project they have started and don’t care what it takes to get it done. The Southsun stuff was a bit of a stand alone story, apart from progressing Ellens career, which is completely fine.

The Molten alliance was set up by a smooth talker from the city, we later find that the Alliance are actually working with Scarlet during the invasions, so while it hasn’t been said definitively, we can assume that was Scarlet (or maybe Mai).

The Aetherblades, Mai’s clockwork crew I believe was created because of the Molten Alliance. This is just my currently unproven theory http://www.youtube.com/watch?list=PL8wY-pBLajFYeyeyA3axtowONmbkNMRrx&feature=player_detailpage&v=0Sw2lgBUgBc#t=585 but yeah we don’t have an explanation yet on where the Aetherblades cames from.

The Zephyrites do have a connection to the dragons, they are the protectors of Glints legacy and live in the sky to protect it.

The election took place because Mai organised the assassination of Theo Ashford and even before that, the guy who would have been his replacement was killed during the Molten Alliance, which seems was also a Scarlet initiative. The council seat was probably opened up with the goal of destabilising Lions Arch, we have probably stopped that plan for now and I’m sure we’ll be seeing Ellen and Evon again soon.

Jennah was trying to bolster her peoples resolve and show they could overcome anything, that they had been tested and survived. Scarlet took that as a personal challenge and gave her something new to overcome, then started attacking randomly around Tyria likely sowing fear and doubt among the locals.

Scarlet is looking to overturn the existing order, in her words "I reject the notion that that I must choose the Dream or be lost to Nightmare. The forces that push us this way or that can be redirected. They can be set against one another to the detriment of both, and now I know how.”

So yes she is going to push and prod in lots of different places, it’s going to look random until you see the whole picture. Just because we don’t have all the information yet we can’t say whether the story works overall.

I’ve enjoyed pretty much everything but to give a bit of feedback;

I loved the Lost Shores and will stick up for it, people complain that the Living Story hasn’t given enough real permanent change, but I went there, with my ship mates and Ellen we stormed across that island, we built forts, we carved out roads, built bridges, and drove and Ancient Karka back into its lair before finally defeating it. The event itself had a few technical issues but for me, it’s the most memorable and fun update we’ve had. More please.

The freestyle jumping puzzle at the Labrynthine Cliffs was fantastic, would love to see another please!

Love the Delaqua cutscene, would like to see that and other cutscenes collected up in a single book/item. The writing and style was amazing.

The official start of the Story was the only real issue for me, too much hype and too slow to get rolling should have done it like the whales , the rest of the updates I’ve found something in them that I have really enjoyed.

I can’t really make a full call on the SAB:B2S and Teq Rising releases, I hope they aren’t being shoe horned into the story, as much as I’ve missed the main story progression others seem like they needed a break so I think it’s ok to just have something happen to the side. I enjoyed the content though, Trib mode!

Oh jumpads are on thing that worry me, they are finding their way into more and more content and as someone living in the Southern Hemisphere they can lag out and cause issues. Just a note to not make them the only option for progression during story please.

Otherwise, thanks all for the updates!

• A smooth talker from the city arranged the Molten Alliance.
• When we capture Mai she refers to someone she is scared of as Scarlet.
• Scarlet introduces herself for the first time.
• Scarlet and the molten alliance are found to be working together.
• A Story is added to the official site explaining that she doesn’t like the pre-defined molds that her people fall into (Pale Tree or Nightmare Court).

To quote: “But I reject that call. I reject the notion that that I must choose the Dream or be lost to Nightmare. The forces that push us this way or that can be redirected. They can be set against one another to the detriment of both, and now I know how.”

Perhaps those forces are the gods, order and chaos or maybe just right and wrong.

Scarlet’s voice rose as she went on. “I have a great deal of work ahead of me. I don’t know what the world will be when I’m through, but I will very much enjoy finding out. Empires will fall, continents will burn, and when the conflagration is over, I’ll be there to put my stamp on whatever new world this one becomes.”

Based on the little we know (and we aren’t supposed to know everything) it seems her motivation is that she has looked at the systems that undermine Tyria and is going to give things a shake up. I could make a comparrison to how GW2 was planned to shake up some of the MMO standards. Just because people think there is a right way to do something because everyone else does it that way, maybe there is something better.

She has been on screen for 1 month, you can’t have compelling stories if you introduce a villian, explain everything about them and then kill them off in one update. It would be called shallow by everyone and forgotten a moment later. They described the story as wanting to make a ‘tv show’ that you tuned in to see what happened next, and I want to see what happens.

Gandarel.5091:

Speaking about story, we shall count GW1, so it’s definitely not a 1st season. More like 9th.

I get what you are saying but it’s not as simple as that. I haven’t played GW1, I’m interested in the lore, so I’ve spent a bit of time looking at some things, but I’m in no way an expert on GW1 and there are many, many players who haven’t put any effort into learning the backstory.

To stick with the TV theme, it’s Season 1 on Star Trek : The Next Generation, sure there are stories that you can build on from the Original series, but you also need to do the stories on these new characters to meet them, you need to introduce some new villians, otherwise you are relying on your audience having seen everything that came before, plus it’s been 250 years isn’t everyone from those stories dead?

I think its been great and have enjoyed each release. People have been complaining from both ends half wanting complex stories told and the other wants things wrapped up every month. How many TV series have a fantastic first season? Things take time to build, to meet characters. Scarlets been in one episode and people complain that the character hasn’t been developed.

People have complained that the stories are disjointed when we haven’t seen the whole arc, scarlets motivations, why things that didn’t seem important might end up being critical. We are halfway through season 1 and the villian behind the first half was just introduced, I want to see how it plays out.

Konig Des Todes.2086:

Ed, from this interview it is revealed that the “dream” she saw was merely a hallucination of sorts – the device she entered was a sensory deprivation device which removed her senses, and doing that can lead to folks hallucinating things. She didn’t actually witness what she thought she witnessed.

Hi Konig, I’ve seen you say, that she just dreamed / hallucinated a number of times. this is the first chance I’ve had to actually listen to the interview and this is what Scott actually said.

“… a meditative state, we don’t know if she actually travelled to another place or if she just thought she did or if her mind did.

But yes, she was in a very unusual almost dreamlike place and she felt she caught this understanding of the world, and reality.

So it wasn’t anywhere in Tyria, it was in her own head and it remains to be seen how much of that is actually accurate and how much of that is just her broken psyche."

They are giving an interview on a story in progress and are choosing their words carefully so as to not give spoilers, but this whole sections say’s we (the players) are not intended to know what happened at this point.

You seem to have locked in on this hallucination idea, but I can’t see how you’ve gotten that from the interview. Angel makes a comment “I think the moment when Scarlet had her communion with the universe and came to understand how it all works in her mind. That’s how she see’s it.” Scott talks her about her having a sanity breaking moment which could be what the machine did to her, or she saw something that was literally mind blowing. He also talks about her being able to do miraculous things and we’ve seen her twist the watchknights into her own creations. I believe she manipulated the matter which fits with someone who really does understand the way the universe works. My take is that she did see what she claims to have seen, but I can’t say it for sure.

Like I say, we aren’t supposed to know for sure at this point, and I don’t see how you can flat out state it was just a dream.

Also as Nilkemia say’s the Game, the Short Stories are what I would think of as canon, until one of those tells us what happened in the machine, we just don’t know.

Tyrecian, Rainshine and others : I’ve put together videos for all the Chapters of the living story so you can watch the story unfold with the details we knew at the time. I’m only new to making them, so hopefully my style improves as it goes, but the idea was to help any latecomers, nostalgics or help refresh the details for myself and my guild.

http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL8wY-pBLajFYeyeyA3axtowONmbkNMRrx

I’d agree with Konig, without the short stories, we wouldn’t have half the details we need to flesh the stories out, and most people I’ve spoken to don’t read them and miss out on this great information, which is a shame.

Ok, so that’s Six Chapters complete and these or WoodenPotatoes videos should give anyone that needs them the chance to get up to speed with all the different story threads before the fun kicks off with the Queens Speech and the Anniversary bash.

We continue the story with Dragon Bash, while the festival plays in the background, the Captains Council becomes to focus of the story as a new enemy emerges.

I’ll be summing up the Aethblade Dragon Bash story a little in the next video as well as throwing out some theories. Inspired by this detective themed update

Hello again,
Chapter 3 added, Hope you enioy.

Hello all,
I’ve begun a video series on the Living World. This started as a thread I was updating for my Guild but with the story starting to build as the anniversary approaches, I thought it would be a good time to try and share with everyone.

Hope you enjoy, it’s my first attempt at this, so should improve as I go

Playlist for convenience
http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL8wY-pBLajFYeyeyA3axtowONmbkNMRrx

Individual Chapters
Chapter 1 — Series Introduction, Flame and Frost : Prelude, The Gathering Storm, The Razing
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R5YrD5AJwJg&feature=c4-overview&list=UUd-n1gE-blLibpiScV3R9Kw

Chapter 2 — Flame and Frost : Retribution
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fR9_UisGZ3s&feature=c4-overview&list=UUd-n1gE-blLibpiScV3R9Kw

Chapter 3 — The Lost Shores, The Secret of Southsun, Last Stand at Southsun
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YCOkB8YABFg&feature=youtu.be

Chapter 4 — Dragon Bash
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M3uNuYFOAp4&feature=youtu.be

Chapter 5 — Sky Pirates of Tyria, Plus some speculation
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2drrSW8yuuU&list=PL8wY-pBLajFYeyeyA3axtowONmbkNMRrx&index=5

Chapter 6 — Bazaar of the Four Winds
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lPKOuTPD4xU&feature=youtu.be

Chapter 7 — The Queens Jubliee / The Queens Speech
Coming soon

AnthonyOrdon.3926:

The very first living world team actually did the thing some of you have called for. Some 40 or so permanent events were added around the game in our very first content update. They were met with little interest or fanfare.

Hey Anthony, I can only speak for myself, but I was still finding my feet back then and the mini dungeons went completely by me at the time. I’d just got to 80 and wasn’t going back exploring the zones, I was busy with the Mad King and getting my first exotics but I love them now, they are awesome for small guilds like mine as well. Adding the kite was a good way to get people into one of them as we’ve had a lot of new players since then.

I’m another Australian who is over shooting with power 3, putting my crystal quest on hold for the moment. Amazing update otherwise.

No we are on the EU – Aurora Glade Diviner, but thanks for the info.

Can’t say I’m happy to hear that but it kind of makes my point though. If you have a bounty on a track or known spawn points you can check them all and get to a point where you are certain it’s bugged and move on, but with 300 random spawns unless you check everyone yourself then how do you know that someone didn’t miss something and you keep looking and wasting your friends time… The barrels were missing for 2 hours at least, does he re-hide after a time I wonder?

That’s probably going to annoy me more now but I appeciate you letting me know.

Hi Anthony, I read your comments yesterday and thought about them quite a bit. I’ve been organising our bounty runs for about 15 people (all 5 successfully) and while we’ve been pre-scouting about half the targets I think we’ve been getting more organised. and might be ready to try it blind.

I wanted to believe and do it your way but the problem is Sotzz and Wildman, even with pre-scouting the areas with 5-7 people we’ve still spent half an hour looking for Wildman and not found him. So yesterday I had some time so I found him and parked one character there while I switched to look for Sotzz.

For 45-50 minutes I ran over as much of the map as I could think of. There were no barrels so I presume Sotzz was out and would be easy to see but no luck. At our meeting time I got the others organised to do some pre-scouting and got a couple of people to look for Sotzz. As we found other bounties we sent more people to Gendaren and they couldn’t find him. After an hour we started and of course, we drew Sotzz. We didn’t have our 2nd target so I sent everyone except myself to search for Michelle so they would at least get their personal reward while I looked for Sotzz again.

Once done there (with 8 minutes left) I got everyone to jump to the waypoints along the South of the map and to spread across and run North (plus one to check the swamp)…. still nothing and time runs out… our first fail, so we keep searching….

Was he bugged? Was he there? No idea because after another 15 or 20 minutes we decided to take everyone to do some mini-dungeons to put some fun back. I personally spent an hour and half looking. We had 15 on the map for half an hour and still nothing, that’s more than enough time spent and way more than the team have allowed for.

So what’s my point here? If you have some control and can learn then yes we can organise. 5 people can find the targets that loop in 15 minutes without pre-scouting (discounting competing guilds), but with Sotzz? Even if everyone in the game spends their time wandering Gendaren memorising barrel locations (when they are there) then that one is just going to be about luck and frustration, or massive guild numbers.

You’ve indicated that you want more of them to be like Sotzz, well I’m saying that if you do go down that road I feel you will be hampering the small guilds even more and encouraging even more pre-scouting. I don’t feel like I have a choice now, my guild is desperate to get the jumping puzzles unlocked so we have to earn marks each week (even if just Tier 1). Unfortunately because we were missing a bunch of the level 5’s we are playing catch-up and didn’t have space to queue spare bounties.

We can fix that and the next time Sotzz comes up, if we don’t have him pre-scouted then we’ll probably not bother and start another. If you add more like him, then we might end up skipping those as well because I’m sorry but last night just wasn’t fun.

Shiren.9532:

Let’s be honest, the game wasn’t ready when it launched.

Really? I’ve been here since launch and had an absolute ball doing tons of different things. We’ve been given stacks of new content each month as well as bugs fixes which have been turned around really quickly when needed. They’ve let the meta evolve instead of knee jerk fixing every complaint and then made some changes with more to come. Can I ask if you ever stop and think about the complexity of a game like this? The number of permutations of characters and powers and events is mind boggling without considering the griefers. Even if they had 500 people working on the test team do you think they can reproduce the chaos that we will all unleash once in game?

Since launch we’ve had Guild Events, Fractals, more jumping puzzles, Mini Dungeons,
Christmas and Halloween events, Scavenger Hunts, New PvP maps, Fixes and Balances what more do you want? they are a company with finite resources and human beings with lives, I came from an MMO where you were lucky to get new content every 3 months, I’m blown away by the amount of new things I’ve done on top of the awesome game I brought, I still haven’t done everything despite playing almost every day. Yeah there are things I would like to see fixed sooner, but I know there are limits and the amount of criticism a teaser campaign is getting makes me wonder if people stamp their feet and write letters when they can’t see Avengers 2 right now!

So, the marketing team gave information on where the game was headed to keep people informed before they wandered off to try something new. People are always asking the team to communicate and let them know things. So they did and I think the plan was to have more stuff happen in part 2 but working out the living system i.e getting it ready to launch, took a little longer than they had ,so they stretched. If this was the only thing to do in game we might have a problem but as it’s not why can’t people give this a chance to see what happens?

Zeldain.5710:

Funda.7216:

I’m so glad I don’t have a job where 500 people are telling me I’m doing it wrong. You and the team are doing a great job Bobby, I’m loving the direction we are headed and can’t wait to get to see where the story goes.

It’s going to take more than a few happy players to keep the game going.

Oh for sure and while I wonder whether some of the people I see will ever be happy I’ll be interested in reading peoples responses once this story is complete and the next is in action. If this had been done with no fanfare I think people would have been falling over each other begging the devs to tell them what’s going on!

I’m so glad I don’t have a job where 500 people are telling me I’m doing it wrong. You and the team are doing a great job Bobby, I’m loving the direction we are headed and can’t wait to get to see where the story goes.
Hope you don’t mind, but I’ve been collecting the story details as they happen (and hopefully getting most of it right). Doing this to try and keep my guild up to date with events. All of this is possible to know in game by talking to the characters and should be fun to read a year from now when this is all part of the history.

The Living Story so far
January 29 saw the introduction of the Living Story where events and new elements would be added gradually and Tyria would begin to evolve week by week.

It begins with Norn refugee’s in Wayfarer foothills and Charr refugee’s in Diessa Plateau both making their way South. Gas eruptions are appearing in both zones with events requiring the player to close the vents. More notably, there are massive vents in the hills North of Solitude Waypoint (in Wayfarers).

A dead Merchant can also be found here.
“The cause of death is unclear. There are burn marks on the body, but there are also trails of blood from the ears. And yet, there is no other sign of damage from a blunt weapon”.
Nearby a Merchants body guard can found, he’s happy with all the gold he’s making from Merchants. He reports many more are being attacked up North.

On the 4th of February additional structures have been created in Wayfarer foothills and in Hoelbrak and the Black Citadel. More refugee’s have arrived and one NPC in each capital will now talk with you.

Feb 11 saw the expansion of the refugee’s camps at Hoelbrak and the Black Citadel. Two more NPC’s have been added giving different accounts of who they were attacked by. Oh and the camps are infested with rats! In Hoelbrak they report that the Dredge have attacked but they were using Fire and he’s never seen the Dredge use fire. Meanwhile in the Black Citadel reports are that the Flame Leagion are behind the attacks on the ranchers.

On the 19th of February, the Refugee Coordinator reported that White Bear has sent Wolfborn scouts and while we are waiting for them to report it seems clear to the coordinator that the Dredge have risen up with Magical help! The charr led by Tribune Brimstone have sent out scouts as well, it seems the Flame Legion are systematically clearing the farms in the North West of the Plateau.

25 Feb – At least things seem a little better at Hoelbrak, refugee’s have started gating to Lions Arch with the help of a mysterious benefactor. The Coordinator has finally confirmed that the Dredge and Flame Legion are working together.

On the 26th of February things took a turn for the worse as firey portals began to open up in Wayfarers and Diessa. Heroes rushed to the area to contain the Dredge and Flame Legion that poured out.

A mysterious new fortification has been constructed in the North of Wayfarers alongside the venting gas, giant doors block entry to a large building with flames burning along the roof line. Another fire can be seen further up the hill amongst the eruptions.

The refugee’s who have made their way to Lions arch have lost items in both Wayfarers and Diessa, if you can find the 6 unique items in either area they may be able to provide more information on what has been happening. (Adventurers report 2 can be found now at random spawn points).

The consortium, best known for their souveniers and ill faited island resort launches has stepped in to assist the refugee’s. Apart from providing temporary facilities in Lions Arch they are going to be constructing settlements in the Southsun Cove. The effort is headed up by Elpida Callis.

Grawl refugee’s who have been in Lions Arch for some time have been camped in the spot chosen by the Consortium and they aren’t very happy. They were also driven from their homes by Dredge months before but they are not being offered help by the Consortium. Doesn’t really matter though as in the chiefs words “Their smile does not reach their eye’s” in other words he doesn’t trust them and won’t touch anything of theirs.

On the 13th of March two new refugee’s had made their way to Lions Arch but had lost items along the way. The camp is becoming more established, clothes have been cleaned and are drying which should make visiting a bit more pleasant soon.

Elpida is making sure to let people know that Canach was responsible for the Southsun fiasco and he’s no longer with the company so this is bound to be a more successful effort from the Consortium!

The Merchants bodyguard who was bragging about how much money he was making has left at some point. Whether he’s on another job or not is unknown.

I’ve been completely happy with all aspects of the game so far, but this is one thing that really annoys me.

I want to help my team. I have an Ele, Thief, Mesmer and Guardian and play the ‘night shift’ due to my Australian-ness, so switching to specific characters depending on group size and make-up can be very handy. Under this system I’d be spreading my effort around multiple characters and delaying my personal progresss to enhanced abilities.

When I walk a Dolyak, that takes up 10 minutes of my time to help my team, that’s my time, the guy behind the keybord.
If I do that on my main or an alt what does it matter? Why should I have to grind 500 Dolyak escorts per character (made up number) to get a bonus when I may have already done that combined?

It means I have to sacrifice something to play my way rather than encouraging people to try lots of different classes, that, I find very disappointing.

Edit – Oh! Is this why we can’t use our existing stats, because you have the number of escorts and kills for my account, but not for each character?

Congrats to Far Shiverpeaks for some awesome battles tonight (Australian time) the 4 guys that held Bluebriar on our AG map for 2 hours and the massive crew that repelled us at SM an hour ago. Seemed like an even fight with lots of pushes from both sides, that was so much fun..

Oh Maloki, be sure to let those Aussies and Amercians know they are welcome on AG’s I could use a bit more company during the nights