Guild Wars 2

Two of the new Fused weapon skins.

Tequatl rises…

Full Flame Legion armor except for legs, Flame Legion shield, and Destroyer axe.

Alloy.2839:

As has been mentioned, the rapid pace of the Lost Shores event caused much forum discussion. So the Living Story is proceeding very slowly, well many vocal posters asked for it. Possibly not quite this slowly however. Several comments have been made as to the lack of information available about what is happening in the refugee homelands. I relate this to the night Katrina came ashore in New Orleans. Communications down and it’s getting dark. Category 4 or 5 hurricane hitting a city below sea level. Go to bed and wait to see what happened overnight. No one outside the area really knows anything, and those inside only know what is happening to them. It’s a role playing game, use your imagination, think of it as a real disaster where information is lacking.

Excellent points.

Another possibility, which would be interesting: what if the Flame Legion and the Dredge are not the real threat?

Imagine, if you will, that these two groups, while pushing the refugees out of their homes and invading surrounding areas, are in reality themselves fleeing some greater threat, one which no one else has even heard of yet.

And, as Alloy hit on, it’s possible that even the refugees themselves don’t have enough information to go on. Consider the effective time-period the game is set in and the unreliability of verbal comunication.

I would argue that the two are comparable, since regardless of whether you’re telling a story via a book, a movie, a video game, a table top game, or just sitting around actually telling it, it’s still storytelling. All forms of storytelling share common traits; it’s the medium in which the story is told that changes.

As far as the freedom to roleplay in a video game goes, unless you’re roleplaying between living people it’s entirely illusory. You can pick what you say to npcs, sometimes, but it’s from a narrow list of options. Arguing that in a game you can do what you want is only true up until you reach the limits inherent in all games. We can initiate contact with npcs, but no matter what, there’s only a small number of interactions possible between us and them. This means that, to an extent, the story is told to us. Yes, we sometimes have to hunt it down, pursuing it, but after that we sit back and enjoy the ride, from which we cannot deviate.

Also, many events we have no control over. You gave an example of someone sneaking up on someone undetected, and said that this couldn’t happen in a video game except for in a cutscene (or at least, that’s the only way it could happen in GW2). And yet, there are numerous times when a player moves his/her character near a tree only to have a bandit drop from it and attack, or has an enemy unstealth from nearby, totally undetected. With the bandits in the trees, no matter how hard you look, you won’t see them until they spawn.

And, as far as the heroes having something else to do, well, Logan, Rytlock, and Caithe don’t seem to be that worried about what’s going on. So far all we’ve gotten is a letter and some heralds saying ‘Hey, something’s going on".

Moving on, why on earth would the corpses have notes that just so happen to explain everything for you? And why would the dredge be carrying flame legion gear? I mean, the fact that they’re fighting on the same side should be a big enough hint that they have some kind of alliance going. And attacks might seem mindless to someone who doesn’t have all of the facts… like all of us players.

You say there’s nothing connecting the dots, but I think most people would disagree with that alone (if nothing else). There are refugees fleeing something… dot. Now there are invaders attacking settlements… dot. People fleeing attacks, and others attacking… and you’re saying there’s not enough connecting these two facts?

I’ll use a video-game reference for this, in the hopes of better expressing my point: it feels like you’ve played the first event in a long chain of events and then declared ‘Well, there’s no story to this event."

All I’m urging is patience. Wait and see how it plays out; only a fool passes judgement before everything is finished.

I have to disagree with you, on most points. What you’re doing is akin to opening a book, reading the prelude, and tossing down saying “There’s no story here!”

Refer to practically any fantasy novel. Game of Thrones doesn’t open with the White Walkers laying siege to King’s Landing. The Malazan Book of the Fallen doesn’t begin with the Chained God wiping out all life on Genabakis. The Kingkiller Chronicle doesn’t start with Kvothe saying “Okay, this is exactly where and how I screwed up”.

In two of those examples, the threat could have been averted early on if people had just used some common sense and worked together. But they didn’t. They had other things going on. Things which, to them, seemed more important at the time.

And in GW2, every race has something that probably seems more pressing going on at the time this invasion is taking place. Humans are locked in war with the Centaurs. Norns are fighting the dredge and the sons of Svanir. Charr are fighting the ghosts and the Flame Legion. No one in their right mind would worry about an invasion in some distant area when they have armed foes within their own borders.

You’ve said that there isn’t any coherence or story so far. When it began, there was just a trickle of refugees coming through. We weren’t told why, other than vague hints about an invasion. Now, we get to see the face of the invasion, the Flame Legion and the Dredge, but we haven’t been told why yet. So, the ‘who’ has been answered, but not the why. A coherent chain so far. There are hints of what’s to come, but they’re implied, not explained. The next link in that chain will likely either be a full invasion into charr and norn territory, or will actually allow us to seek and and discover what’s going on.

Like with any good story, Anet is building towards something. Something big. Some things are not revealed yet, some will remain hidden until the very end. They’re not just dumping the entire thing in your lap.

So, have patience. Something big’s coming.

Ghost.2079:

AnthonyOrdon.3926:

By offering a variety of content, we can have a game that lots of people can enjoy. There’s a lot of content out there, but there’s not a whole lot of things for a coordinated group to do larger than 5 people to do. Guild missions were made to remedy that.

It seems to go against the scaling nature that has been built into a lot of GW2. You add in a cool new content system for guilds, but it is gated to a high level. We all know you and the rest of the staff have been hearing this over and over – just hope you’ll do something about it. Releasing it as-is also goes against other additions ANet provides. It’s not scaled. It is a way to “get something” but to do that you must be in a larger guild. There is no scaling in a system that dun dun duuuun provides possible precursors and that is the failure of this content system. You as a company had to know there was going to be a lot of backlash with this particular addition.

“Just join a big guild” is not a solution, ANet.

For shame.

You don’t have to be in a large guild to do them; people from outside your guild can participate. You only have to be in a guild to start the events. Guild events just require a large number of people for the most part.

Shade.6081:

The thing I find a near game breaking feature is the idiotic forced down leveling. You never get a true feel of how powerful you have become with forced leveling between areas. This feature needs to be removed completely. The whole idea of linking levels to geographic areas is both annoying and completely illogical. Think about this for a second. You are at level 80 and you return to the area where you began the game and just because of your geographical location you are now level 1-5? Really? This system is absurd. And don’t cry me a river about how it makes the game “fair” because that is total bs. This feature could quite possibly be the game breaker for me.

Want a true feel for just how powerful a level 80 character is? Take a level 10 character and try to make it to the level 80 areas; if you do make it there, try fighting a mob.

The system isn’t absurd. It’s to make sure that you don’t have a few level 80s rolling through the starter areas griefing the beginners, it’s so you can go anywhere in the game and find some level of challenge.

And really, the way the game is set up, it’s not something you notice all that much.

Honestly, I love the downed state for pvp. I got into a match where someone dropped me to 0HP, then started to do their finisher. I hit them with a hammer to knock them down and interrupt their action, stood back up (forget the actual name of that ability), proceeded to knock them to 0 HP and finish them, then collapsed when my timer ran out.

Getting that last little bit of revenge on the person who killed me was pretty amazing.

runeblade.7514:

How about you stop working for your legendary and stop whining. Just start grinding for the Ghastly Greatsword. Trust me, it is easier for you, just do that like the casual you are, leave Legendaries alone.

Already have that greatsword, thank you. It’s nice. Also working on a set of CoF gear.

Casual? Given that all you know of me is a few posts in this forum, you really think you know me as a player?

Reading comprehension=0, friend. Not once have you shown that you actually understand what people are talking about. And I think that was the last of my TrollFeed, so I’m done with the conversation.

Have fun, and I hope you get everything you want and more importantly deserve in life.

Well, I don’t discount the Entitlement argument in all cases, since I do think that as our society progresses people are developing attitudes of entitlement (and I also think that this is inevitable, since technology is supposed to make our lives easier and when things are not easy some people can’t handle that). And I’ve seen plenty of threads where I can’t think of a better descriptor for the OP’s attitude than ‘Entitled’.

HOWEVER, this is one of those gems where instead of whining, the OP (and others) suggested keeping things difficult but doing them in more interesting ways. Runeblade is effectively saying “Hey, you can earn a million dollars by selling discarded soda cans, quit whining”, whereas most of the others here are saying "kitten that, let me go on ‘The Amazing Race’ to earn my million. Both require significant investments of time and energy; the difference is that one is fun and exciting and involves a lot of cool stuff, and the other amounts to trying not to open your wrists from the boredom.

I’m all for the changes proposed, and think we should get a petition going (it’s worth a shot). I think that if they do change the system, the people who already have their Legendaries get to keep them. Just give us something that doesn’t scream “EVERY OTHER MMO EVER!!!”

runeblade.7514:

No work, no legendary. It is so simple. Why do these whining sing to my ear?

Perhaps you should actually read the posts instead of just talking out of your kitten What has been suggested is that people still have to put in a LOT of time and effort to get their Legendary weapons. What they’re proposing is that the system for obtaining them be changed to actually reflect work, effort, and skill instead of pure, dumb luck and mindless hack-n-slash grinds.

Reading comprehension is a wonderful thing.

Kirk Seeker.6497:

I can tell you only one, Play, play more and discover the world of MMOs, than probably, I’ll discuss with you.

Nice way to dodge the points I’m making, while assuming that because I’ve said I came over from SWTOR that that game and this one are the only ones I’ve played. I’ve played others, I just don’t think that this makes me an expert on them (as you seem to consider yourself). And those others that I’ve played are irrelevant to this discussion, which is about SWTOR and GW2 (and by ‘this discussion’, I’m referring to the one you and I are having).

Kirk Seeker.6497:

Man, I don’t want start a holywar about what grind is mean, believe me I know what is it, lookin on my experience in games and MMO.

Still all I have told is true, and it’s confirms by servers population. People leave the game because there is nothig to do after you have all, exept grind for legendary, and more over after stupid ideas from creators.

It’s a facts, so just relax and play if you want. I do not want play it now, but I’m still follow for the game, cause it was 4 month of fun, and I like it.

For the third time in as many posts, your having played several different MMOs does not, in any way, make your points valid just on its own.

When I look a the server pops, most of them are heavy or full, so I’m not sure what you mean by the pops confirming your point. Now, compare that to SWTOR having to merge more than half of their servers because people really were quitting and going elsewhere. Compare that with WoW hemorrhaging players.

What you’re saying isn’t ‘facts’. It’s opinion, and a poorly thought-out one at that.

Personally, I love the game, and I’ll be here for the duration. I don’t put it on a pedestal, I realize that there are areas that need work, but it’s still the best MMO out.

First of all, I wanna answer you, playing in differnt games you are receiving an experience. Experience is the main thing. That’s why it’s important how many and how long you play, and quantity and quality of the game you’ve played.

As for SWTOR, I do not use f2p, I do not like “half-accounts”, and in SWTOR, I’m just creating my own saga.

As for GW2 – it’s become to stupid korean grind for legendary or some badges from dugeons, with superior grafics, and from new patch stupid dungeon system. When you have done all this live event hundered times or this dragon was 1000 to you – and reward some stupid green/blue thing, but your char is TOP-dressed – I tell you it’s a bulls@it.
But dungeon system now – has killed in me any whishes to login at all.

Ah, but simply playing a lot of different games does not make one able to compare them in menaingful ways. As an example, you’ve again stated how much of a grind that GW2 is. SWTOR is now, and forever will be, a far more grind-y game than GW2. Do you have legendaries to work towards there? No, but if you want the top-end gear, that nice big speeder, or anything similar, you’re going to be logging a lot of hours doing repetitive stuff.

Beyond that, in GW2, getting those legendaries is purely optional; you don’t need them to run anything with, because they’re no better than the high-end exotics. In SWTOR, if you want to run even the lowest level Op (EV) most groups won’t even look at you if you don’t have a full set of modable gear. And to run the higher ops you absolutely have to have full sets of tiered gear. You are forced to grind simply to enjoy all of the content.

As far as SWTOR and F2P, it doesn’t matter if you’re a subscriber or not, the fact is that unless you keep giving them money you are not allowed access to the full game. They make you pay for some of the silliest things imaginable (want to display that title you earned=$$$; want to play more than three space missions a week=$$$). And it doesn’t matter if you were a subscriber since they launched and sunk another $180 into it just to play before they went F2P in monthly fees; despite having spent at least $240 on the game, if you don’t keep subscribing you lose access to more than half of the stuff in it.

In other words, you’re paying more for an inferior product (inferior so far as things which can actually be compared goes; if you’re a die-hard SW fan and don’t like Fantasy, that’s something different altogether).

Closing statement: If you think that GW is a Korean grinder-game, then despite your self proclaimed mountain of experience in MMOs you do not have a clue as to what you’re talking about.

Tithas Pulo
Fergusson’s Crossing

Kirk Seeker.6497:

So, as I see all fanboys has written their opinon about GW2. Now a couple true words about game. By the way I know how to compare, I have played in EvE more then 2 years, Warhammer Online – 3 Years, Fallen Earth – 1 year, AoC – 1 Year, and some small projects like Vindictus, WoT, Warthunder etc. Yes First expression is – WTH IT’S THE BEST GAME EVER… I’m playing in GW2 from beta.
So after I have reach max lvl on 2 chars, have completed my personal story, have opened full map, have received 5 dungeons sets (some twice on both chars), have made all story/expl mods in all dungeons and finally have made all jump puzles – all this has taken from me – 4 months of playing.
Now I have NOTHING TO DO in this game. Farming of dragons, not ingteresting yet, moreover nothing good is dropped from them. You will tell me about Legendary weapon? First drop chance is too small, and I’m borring to grind it, Second, for what? For receiving +4 strength? Legendary weapon – its one of too many fails of Anet.

For now my interes to the game near 20%. After patch, when dungeons was totaly ruined for PUG and casuals, I have nothing to do there at all.
WvW – is borring 2 maps- it’s lol! In WAR I have had too many RvR maps + Capitals + Forts.
Crafting is too easy, and you needn’t your craft, cause all sets you can receive from dungeons.

So now I receive only game with superior grafic, but without inner world and full of grinding. That’s why Anet has lost and continue loosing peoples. This game becomes not people oritiered.

So now I’m playing in SWTOR, and find it’s amazing, for 2 weeks I’m lvl50 sith, still I have too many to do there.

Why is it that people seem to think that merely having played other games somehow magically bestows upon them the ability to compare and contrast them in a meaningful, rational way?

I played SWTOR for a while, and fi anything it’s far more of a grind than GW2 ever will be. Sure, there’s a whopping 4 raids to go on, where loot is a crapshoot (even if the raid leader doesn’t hand it out to the people he or she likes). Sure, there’s a vouple of dozen dailies to grind out over and over again so that you can get some minor pieces of gear. And worse, it feels like a grind; it’s not like in GW2 where they hide it and even make it fun.

Honestly, you could probably grind out everything you needed or wanted in SWtOR in about a month if they didn’t limit you to running each raid once a week.

And now that they literally nickle-and-dime you to death on every single feature of the game since going F2P (you want to wear that top-tier armor? better break out your wallet) there is absolutely no comparison.

Atamis.1607:

For me, i’m willing to help and show them the ropes, but even after a few wipes people insist on standing in the red circles, thus taking people away from dps to rez their sorry kitten thus dragging the fight on and possibly wiping us, it just slowly whittles away any patience i had to the point i’m completely cool with saying 80s only for ac.

Funny you should say that. The wonderful person who screamed at us for being noobs also called us pussies because we didn’t res him. While the cave troll was standing on top of him. Using its AoE attack.

Wasabi Kitty.8247:

If I join a group for AC and see it’s filled with people levels 40 to 70 and leave, how is that being an elitist? I know I can get a group with 4 other level 80s in under 5 minutes, so I choose to run with them.

Do I owe you my presence? Do I have some obligation to run with you? No, I don’t owe you anything. I am under no obligation to run with you.

Stop being entitled.

Boy, someone sure thinks a lot of themself…

This is so far from being an issue of entitlement that even mentioning it shows you missed the point entirely. There’s an enormous difference between saying “Hey guys, I really don’t have time to show a new group the ropes” or “Sorry, looking to run with an experienced party” and saying “kitten you noobs. What a kittening waste of time. You guys suck”.

Elitism doesn’t bother me. It’s being a total kitten for no other reason than because you can that does.

Had pretty much the same experience as the OP earlier. Joined a group to run AC exp on path 2, which I had run before. Another player seemed to know the dungeon pretty well, but the other three players seemed new at it. Partway through the other experienced player went crazy, calling us all ‘stupd noobs’ and swearing a lot. We ended up booting him from the party.

Guy didn’t even try to explain what needed to be done. I had only run it once before, so I was still sketchy on the details, but this guys just went nuts and kept saying ‘kitten you’.

I can understand wanting to run with an experienced group, but when you join a PUG and then wig out because some of the players don’t know what to do… lame.

Got a few ideas cooking, will put them up later. In the meantime though, what about racial classes (didn’t see anyone suggest it so far)? Such as, if you’re playing a human, you get access to a class no other race can select; then have one for each race. Humans could get Paragon, Norns could get Berserker, etc etc.

Hey, welcome to the game

I wasn’t in the SWtOR beta, but I picked it up on release and played it for about 7 months all together. I wanted to like it, and for a while it was okay, but it ended up feeling like WoW with lightsabers. I loved the storylines and the companions and whatnot, but the gameplay was just lacking in so many ways.

Then I picked up GW2. Holy crap. I tried to play GW1 but could never really get into it, but after playing GW2 I wish I could go back and run through everything just to get the ancestral gear or whatever it is they give you.

For me, GW2 is the best game out there right now, even with the few problems it has (and every game has a few). Now if we could get guild halls, mounts (yeah, a lot of people don’t want them, I wouldn’t mind having one), and player homes (supposed to be coming in the future) I’d be set for life.

Coming over from SWTOR, I was stunned by how good GW2 is. Are there problems? Sure, but they’re not insurmountable. I foresee great things in the future for the game.

Non-instanced housing shouldn’t be a problem, if they use the existing buildings in some of the cities. Heck, in Divinity’s Reach alone there are well over 200 buildings that have no function other than to sit there. By the time you take into account every empty building in the entire game…

Or they could make each of those empty buildings a mini-instance and not only would there still be more than enough for everyone to have their own, you wouldn’t have to worry about someone getting the home you wanted before you got to it.

As for it not adding anything to the game, that’s a matter of opinion. You don’t like the idea or want your own in-game home? Fine, that’s okay. But don’t bash it; the rest of us are willing to sink the time and effort into getting one.

Not sure how this could be done or represented properly in game, but in Exalted the guns are magic weapons which fire bullets made of gold, which are propelled by the prayers of gods living in the tiny shrines carved into the barrel.

Something like that, or even kind of similar, would be awesome.

Name: Nightfall
Weapon: Greatsword
Skin: Basic form of the Berserker’s Pearl Broadsword
Effect: Blade displays the image of a starry night sky, complete with moon. Image shifts as the character moves, as if the blade is a gateway into space.
Reason: “The wise fear the fall of night” quote from a novel. Plus, just an amazing looking effect if done correctly.

One more thing: I’m not sure if the standard edition has it, but the collector’s edition of the strategy guide has a pretty good history of Tyria included in it, which might help in putting the world down on paper.

If you’re going to be running a game with people who already play GW2, why not try running the game IN GW2? The system is already there and with vent, TS, or the like you can play without having to type everything out. I mean, you’re limited in what you can do, but it saves you the work of hammering out your own system or of trying to tweak an existing one to fit the setting.

Other than that, if you’re going to fiddle with a pre-existing system for the game, I’d suggest the Legends of Anglerre game. It uses the same Fate system as the Dresden Files RPG, but it’s optimized for a fantasy setting. Also the Dragon Age AGE system is good, if fairly brutal on characters. You might be able to use the Exalted version of the Storytelling system, though it will require significant changes (unless you want the party punching out Zhaitan right out of the gate). Hrm… Pathfinder would work (the current evolution of Wizards’ D20 system, but better than 3 or 3.5).

Really, any system could work if you’re just trying to have a game set in Tyria, from a black-comedy Fiasco game (imagine a Sylvari bare-knuckles boxer, a Norn named Arrow-Tooth Tony, and a Charr who swallowed an 84-karat diamond), to a light-hearted KAMB game (Instead of Kobolds, think Skritt-Ate-My-Baby).