Guild Wars 2

+++Things I Liked+++

• Lake Doric is a versatile map. Updrafts, ley lines, high points. Lots of back passageways and secret things, I love when a map isn’t just the bare minimum or all laid out obviously. The secret Melandru achievement for example, nice and subtle but just enough signposting so you know something’s up.

• Just because other people compared Fort Evennia to that awful sneak-based Ash Legion heart – I actually liked this mission. A situation where I can utilise skill to NOT have to fight things is something I like.

• Demmi came back! If one character had to come back for Caudecus’s demise it would be her to finish off her story from the base game. I was so happy to see her again.

• A few moments where my race/class were mentioned. Logan mentioned me being a sylvari in the Krytan throne room, and against the Manor’s beastmaster I was able to turn the dogs against their master and I THINK it was mentioned that I was a ranger?

• Really liked the humour in the final instance after Canach showed up. Barbs at Anise, sarcasm to break up the repeated fights, and joining him to snark at the weird gubbins in Caudecus’s quarters. Many chuckles. Canach is acerbic but genuine, I like him.

• Riddles! Love em. Maybe they were easy, and there were only two and I got them right without much effort, but I still felt smart because of it, so, thank you.

• The animation in the scene where Caudecus pulls a gun on Demmi deserves a proper mention. His sneering and everything had surprising quality to it. Speaking of things I’m surprised this engine did, the basement lair with spinning walls.

• Tons of callbacks to Caudecus’s Manor. Demmi asking who broke a wall, and I’m like “o yea that was me”. “Here’s the secret entrance” “ok thanks I’ve been through here before actually”. And all the collectible letters with callbacks to small past events, also showing how deep Caudecus’s treachery and corruption ran.

- Stuff I Did Not So Much Like -

• How many waypoints in Lake Doric, 3? It feels like such a struggle to get somewhere specific. Couldn’t there have been some more ley lines other than leading out from DR?

• Probably my own fault, but Logan asked me to recon points in Lake Doric. I did so, and incorporated my map completion with that. Then Logan asked me to infiltrate a White Mantle base, which I’d already done… and the NEXT part, asked me to just bum around helping out until a bar filled, but I already completed the map because I thought his ‘do recon’ section was implying I should go and see it all…!

• Demmi had to die, apparently… :/ Bringing back a character with unfinished business from our story YEARS ago and letting her take part in all this, but after all our own effort if we were in the Order of Whispers, and her being in hiding for years… she just HAD to go down too instead of being allowed to fully escape an abusive family? Kind of cruel. I don’t think minor characters need to die in main story segments just to distract from the plot armour on more vital characters, like the Queen…

• Demmi gets shot… with a gun. Literally a dramatic pistol fire. Like. Uh. In a fantasy game? A gun? I got shot maybe 50 million times in that instance. I have a skill that turns projectiles into healing, so couldn’t I.. ….A GUN Are you serious??

• A GUN?

• Seriously the WORST WAY to force a character to die in a cutscene! Something that everyone’s magic usually brushes off, but for no reason right now, is apparently lethal!

=Overall=

I liked it, exploration is one of my top priorities so I’m glad I still have things to do there and collection achievements to fill in. Story had good humour, but GOOD GRIEF it was overall depressing. A sweet old minor character dead, never able to live out of the shadow of her mad father. Two characters moving on with their own lives, turning me down for Dragon’s Watch. Some kind of new threat and priority danger for Marjory, because this Lazarus guy is apparently a fake. Divinity’s Reach saved from a threat that has infected it for years… but now in perpetual war and under a bubble shield on a new map that won’t ever be resolved or change.

Sadface.

I’ve never had an awful lot of money in this game, so I thought I might ask here.

I would really love to get an Enameled Morning Glory Dye. ^^

EDIT: This was fulfilled by someone, thank you VERY very much!

Randulf.7614:

Pyreo.8517:

I realise now how Mordremoth’s powers incorporated Zhaitan’s and how that was specifically mentioned multiple times in HoT

It was? I’m not outrightly disputing you, but can you point any instances of that, because I can’t recall any.

This is from my perspective/memory, I could be mistaken.

Taimi notes that virtually all mordrem are a result of the combined Zhaitan/Mordremoth magic. At least some of them show signs of being reanimated. They aren’t just vegetation, they look zombie-like or blighted. Think of Mordrem Wolves and their skull faces. I think all minions of that type are Mordremoth’s magic infusing a corpse of whatever the animal originally was. Fern hounds, husks, etc, primarily animals that are found in jungle/sylvari style areas like Caledon Forest.

There was a part of the story, I think when norn were questioning the Commander about Eir’s death, they asked why her body had to be taken care of immediately and not returned for burial. The Commander replies that it was too dangerous – it wasn’t just sylvari who were at risk of dragon corruption. Everyone was.

At the opening of the HoT story in Verdant Brink, one of the first things in the first mission involves you being told that the mordrem take corpses away. I didn’t even really think about it at the time. Turns out that was super important. Zhaitan’s main strength was his army of risen – the more our side lost, the more he could reanimate and the stronger his became. And now because we kill Zhaitan first, every other Elder Dragon has that ability in addition to their own elemental sphere of influence, which means we almost definitely killed the worst dragon first.

Everything in Maguuma with ‘blight’ in the name, and the blighting tree section in Dragon’s Stand. Blight is not a normal healthy plant thing. Blight is when a plant is infected and dying. (My tomatoes had it :C) I think it’s reasonable to figure everything blighted would not have been possible under Mordremoth’s magical spectrum alone.

Mordremoth’s minions, as we learned in the big reveal of the Living World, were supposed to be sylvari (who became mordrem guard). Possibly everything else he had at his disposal was through manipulation of Zhaitan’s spectrum. The end part of the plot where you have to rescue Logan and Zojja from the blighting pods? They were being slowly killed to become new templates for soldiers. Mordrem are clones, combining the use of dead bodies (Zhaitan) with pods that birth new life (Mordremoth).

To add a bit of conjecture, you could propose that the reason Trahearne alone was able to link into Mordremoth’s mind and channel your consciousness inside is that he is both plant (sylvari) and death (necromancer), making him the most in sync with the dragon. At the very least, it fits thematically.

Maybe I’m biased because all I’ve ever wanted in this game was a real baby dragon – okay, all I’ve wanted in any game.

But the writing was so strong in this chapter, it really got me hyped for more. I realise now how Mordremoth’s powers incorporated Zhaitan’s and how that was specifically mentioned multiple times in HoT but I just shrugged it off, and now we find out it’s a huge deal. Brilliant.

I’m really looking forward to what this’ll lead to. The Destroyers now have death and plant powers, and Icebrood will get them too. Knowing that each dragon we defeat won’t just go away, on the contrary, will contribute their section of the magic spectrum back to be absorbed by the other dragons – I can’t wait to see what comes out of that artistically. Didn’t expect it. Loved it.

The structure was good too. The single task that covered Ember Bay was easy to stick to, Rhoban gave a good comedic lilt, it had a strong adventurous theme and the fiery island was built up as intimidating and hardcore nicely, and that was bookended by returning to two familiar locations at the start and finish. And the dragon magic rebound was referenced at each end too, first by Taimi’s research, and then by the hatchling, who seems to have absorbed Mordremoth’s expelled magic while in the egg. She resembles the Mouth of Mordremoth, I swear.

I’m really getting into this story, I hope the writing team know they are pulling it off stronger than ever. (Only complaint? I’m a ranger and I’m the eggbearer – Aurene pet! AURENE PET!!! I WILL RAISE HER AND TRAIN HER and we will be BEST FRIENDS)

I really agree that these maps need separate queues and Capricorn achievements need to last through the off-season. It is downright confusing to me that you’d have limited time achievements on a beta unranked map alongside the ranked season. Why can’t we focus on one, then the other? I like playing a LITTLE PvP and getting the achievements that I can. I don’t want to be at it for hours every kitten day, especially when I have the (much more fun) PvE story and maps coming out to do.

I’m okay with spending time on PvP achievements that take a while to do, but two things really bring the whole experience down and turn it from fun and engaging to frustrating as heck – if you land on the wrong map, you instantly don’t want to play it. You might as well sit it out. There’s no point. Don’t give us achievements and then put it behind a random chance 10 minute waste of your life to even start attempting them. This will be even worse now, with the baffling decision to have two beta maps w/ achievements going at the same time, and unpin the first one??? Well sucks to us who thought we had a couple more weeks to finish them.

And the second thing is just a real annoyance I’m lumping in while I’m here – why do we have to win 25 games for AP completion, when it’s nowhere near in line with some of the other tasks? By the time you get 25 wins, which could mean playing the map 50 times or more depending on who you get saddled with, you’ll have blown past the other categories and then some.

Why bother putting in an achievement for bell ringing etc when you might as well just roll that AP into the 25 wins, the only thing that bears focusing on? You’ll get the others on the way without having to try. The balance just seems totally skewed. You could bump up the number of bell rings, decaps, and everything else required for the achievements and that would actually feel better, more in line with 25 wins, because then you’re not hyperfocused on that ONE thing, with nothing else to do but try to win over and over and over, with no sense of sportsmanship because you NEED the win. My preference would be having it at maybe 10 wins, and increasing all the other categories, because I Can Do Those Myself. I can join a game, play my best get decaps, defeat other players, and I’m still making progress, and if we lose, well gg no matter. Handshakes all around. But with the win requirement far outclassing every other category, I feel frustrated and bitter when I lose, because winning is all that mattered to me, and I hate doing these matches with that mentality.

^ I also rate very highly the fractal where you get an achievement for returning the bow. Loved that.

Also the first time I saw a dragon flyover. I was in Snowden Drifts, heard a faraway roar, and looked up JUST in time to see what I thought at the time was Jormag. I hadn’t expected that kind of thing to actually be implemented and I was rather terrified.

But the absolute best moment I’ve had was doing the Molten Facility. I went through dozens of times and people always had varying amounts of trouble with the end bosses. We took down the Firestorm together, but against the powered-up Berserker, people started dying fast. (I always thought it was better to defeat them the other way around.)

Around 75% HP, all four of my party teammates are dead, and I’m downed. They of course all sigh in frustration and start preparing to restart the fight, but being a Ranger, I can get myself back up on my feet a bit easier. I thought I’d see how far I could get on my own.

I don’t remember how long it took but I took that Molten Berserker down, plinking away with my bow, for ages and ages all by myself (well, with my pets), while the defeated party cheered me on. I dodged all the shockwaves and just kept at it until I won. The yelling in disbelief from my party was the best bit.

Part of the story is the encroaching threat of these dragons. What games often do to make the threat tangible is to show death early on when the main antagonist becomes clear. See Mass Effect 3 and that little kid you meet right at the start, who comes to personify the main character’s survivor guilt, as just one example.

This is a common thing and it happened in a lot of the personal story before, yeah. Lots of characters only existed to be interesting and then die. I thought this was likely to happen to Belinda the first time we saw her – main character’s siblings are prime targets, especially when she was talking about wanting to ‘spend more time’ with her sister, how Kasmeer really wanted to get to know her better, and she was shipped off to a very specific location. It all pointed clearly to her taking one for the team and portraying the severity of the situation. How else are we going to feel like this dragon needs to be dealt with?

Despite seeing it coming, it’s not like I’d complain about it. It’s just part of storytelling. it happens a lot. Characters exist to serve a purpose and sometimes that purpose is that they eventually die and to get the threat level to become personal.

Not that you can’t criticise the execution of it, but the whole thing doesn’t really fit Women In Refrigerators. That applies when the death is casually used to bring the bitter manpain. This was a believable loss to a /group/ to illustrate an oncoming disaster. And it’s more applicable when the female character being killed is one of precious few – not so in the Living Story where the majority of the cast are already female. She’s not getting booted off this mortal coil so a dude can look angsty, I’m pretty sure. If this thing attacked and nobody died, I think people would complain that everyone’s invincibility was not very believable.

Windu The Forbidden One.6045:

Of course the PC can be voiced.
I think it’s pretty stupid the PC hasn’t recieved any new voiced dialogue since launch.

Well yes, it is physically possible. But I mean that they’re still working towards implementing it at this time.

They probably have all the DE2 voice actors pretty much on hand for these releases. Getting the voice actors of the player characters in is gonna require more planning so they can do it in as few sessions as possible, because those VAs were much more prolific. So they’re going to need to iron out a lot of that dialogue WAY before an actual release.

They’ve also scrapped the old cutscene system for its awkwardness and need to properly figure out the format from now on. I’d very much like new player character lines too, but I know there’s a few hurdles involved. Marjory, Rox, Braham, Taimi and Kasmeer are just five compared to 5 races x 2 genders.

Hopefully we can get more player-specific text dialogue, which is very rewarding for far less production cost, until the point where the player’s voice will be reincorporated.

So I’m glad the story is written that way! Just wanted to add my own opinion that I’m quite happy the focus is on the tasks at hand, not my reputation.

It’s difficult to incorporate the PC in dialogue because you can’t be voiced, and the NPCs can’t use your name in voiced dialogue. I would rather it be this way because nothing much can come of pointing at the PC other than ego stroking.

For another thing, the teamwork with Destiny’s Edge 2. Compare the opening of LW1, where we were alone and completely in the dark and questioning norn refugees, to the start of LW2 – still confused, following a vague lead about out of control vines, but when we arrive there, we have five characters to greet us. Five characters we’ve been through quite a lot with already, who accept our presence with no big fuss because we’re already friends. And because the LW is time sensitive, we really have met these characters several months ago, which feels like a genuine growth of camaraderie.

They’re your guild, your warband, or your krewe. There’s a reason the different races have their unique words for banding together, it’s an important concept. It’s literally the name of the game, GUILD Wars, massive MULTIPLAYER online. I know it’s not all that great when you dislike the characters themselves, but with the diversity between them, there should be at least a couple you can be fond of.

If you want to be the only character saving the world, go play a single player game. This is not that game and I’m liking it. Picking out your PC to heap all of the praise on them would be immersion-destroying in this big, diverse world. I like that some characters haven’t heard of me. I like that the LW is drawing on the unique strengths of the cast – Kas doing her portals to help everyone, Taimi’s fangirling, and the bits that were just for fun, like Rox being allergic to something (?). These characters are supposed to be my friends, so I don’t want to be elevated above them. Like one of the devs said elsewhere, praise for your character is much better and feels more deserved when it’s done sparingly.

I LOVED that we got some race and class-specific dialogue! I really hope it’s something that continues! It added so much personality to the scene, making up for the fact we currently can’t voice speak. As a sylvari this played out especially well for me. With a number of sylvari gone rogue in the story, naturally my cohorts have questions about how that works, questions I am ACTUALLY able to answer. I noticed this happening a bit at the end of LW1, with Scarlet dead, people were showing signs of overt racism towards sylvari – including me. They don’t necessarily know I killed her, but they have growing distrust towards my kind. I’ve never enjoyed racism so much! It feels natural and pulls me in to the unfolding events. I now want to get to the bottom of everything so I can prove I’m not bad, that my people aren’t bad, and now that Soundless aren’t bad – I’m pretty privileged that the story works this way for a sylvari I know. But THANK YOU WRITERS I’M LIKING IT A LOT THANKS. THUMBS UP! I’m the sole plant hero in a group that may even be growing suspicious of my motives!

Speaking of plants, I still don’t get why people heap so much dislike on Trahearne. I got to have a partner to complete my wyld hunt with. Did I miss something, or are the loudest forum-going players just unable to fathom NPCs with developed goals? The world can’t just sit there inert waiting for you to do something so it can applaud. And with the immensity of the undertaking in the personal story, it would’ve been illogical to do it alone.

I didn’t like EVERYTHING in the update, like, I was hoping to have seen the last of the aspect powers, but I can appreciate how interesting they make an open world landscape. I hate jumping puzzles with really fiddly scaffolding and puddles you can’t see, but the other achievements are straightforward, exploration based, and I think it all came together nicely. The strength of the LW for me really is the addition of new areas and challenging ways to explore them.

The buyable episodes of LW is a fantastic compromise, so now people can play at their own pace but it still has the sense of ‘really’ occuring on the release date. The LS benefits, in my opinion, from being slightly time restricted so we feel like the whole world of Tyria develops gradually. It would lose a lot of impact if every update were simply permanent stuff.

Oh and kudos on the varied cast of female characters! It’s a delight, it really is. I hope if arenanet happens across any of the “WHERE R THE MENZ?!?!??” posts here it’s just a blur as they scroll past. Being in a hero group with just one man in it (and a sweet and sympathetic one at that) – WONDERFUL.

tl;dr – I don’t want the improvements in the Living World to go without positive reinforcement, don’t listen to the ME ME ME crowd, put in more female characters because they’re great

OH THERE WE GO never mind, this topic finally got it.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/audio/Anyone-know-the-name-of-this-song

It’s kind of been bugging me for months. I’m sure I’ve seen other people asking for this track and they probably mean the one I’m thinking of, but I haven’t seen it found.

I first heard it while running around Kessex Hills when the Tower of Nightmares was revealed. There’s a part in it where nothing but a piano plays, some very soft, solemn minor chords. It made a big impression on me because it was so different from the usual fully orchestrated, fast-paced or grand sounding music – it was just plain sad.

I’m sure I’ve heard it in game since then, but I don’t know which area triggered it. Possibly in Lion’s Arch, I think.

I just really want to know because it was a lovely piece but I can’t see anyone who knows what I’m talking about! I did go through the official soundcloud, it WASN’T there.

I’m a fan of the DE 2.0 group, they’re fun characters to lead you through each LS release. I liked Rox immediately, Braham soon after, Marjory is pretty cool (although the constant fawning over Kasmeer gets a bit dull) and I was sceptical about Taimi, because the whole ‘precocious child’ thing could easily be annoying, but I think she’s adorable, has great voice work, and her disability makes her more likable, and stops her being too perfect.

So they’re our representatives for each race, so nobody feels left out and we get a lot of contrasting personalities and viewpoints. We’re just missing a sylvari.

Seeing as a sylvari is currently the villain, it makes sense to not overload the story with them, plus it might necessitate leaning on an extra plant person for answers about Scarlet. But after Scarlet is defeated, surely a sylvari will join the sub-Destiny’s Edge group.

It’s probably going to be Ceara. The investigation scene emphasised that she was a normal girl before trying to look into the eternal alchemy or something. Something has corrupted her mind. The separation of that previous ‘normal’ persona from her current state as Scarlet Briar, and name-dropping the Ceara part, implies we’ll end up fixing Scarlet’s mind and returning her to her original self eventually. There’s also that the LS characters mostly have some connection to their DE equivalent (Rox trying to get into Rytlock’s warband, Braham is Eir’s son) and Scarlet has some connection to Caithe and knows secrets about her.

I’m kind of apprehensive about this, it just seems like we’ve got all this stuff about something ‘controlling Scarlet’s mind’ and scaring her and turning her insane for its own purpose, so that once we confront whatever that enemy is, Scarlet gets healed back into Ceara and absolved because she wasn’t really in control of her actions, and takes the sylvari spot in the group to use her abilities for good.

I’d be kinda peeved if that happened, since Scarlet has caused a heck of a lot of trouble, killed people, attempted regicide, etc, I hope we don’t just forget all that because she wasn’t in her right mind. :P I’d much rather put both of them down for good. I’m getting tired of hearing Tara Strong in everything, lol.

On the other hand, there’s Canach, but not much has been done with him, even though he does seem accepting of his punishment and was never really that bad. A male sylvari rep would also keep things more even, if it was Ceara, there’d only be one male in the group. It could be someone who hasn’t been introduced yet to keep the story less chock-full of sylvari, but all the focus on how ‘Ceara is being controlled by something’ makes me think it’ll be her.

Until then though, I play a sylvari so I can just pretend I’m the missing piece until proven otherwise.

tl;dr scarlet’s irritating and i hope she doesn’t get reformed and forgiven at the end of the plot

Thank you. That’s the stuff. I’m gonna limit how much I listen to it though, I don’t want it to get boring before all the attempts I’ll need for the achievements, haha.

I’m currently enjoying logging in every couple of hours to take another stab at the marionette (I like the wait, keeps me from burning out all at once and gives it a proper event feeling), and I just wanted to say well done on composing a compelling piece for the fight. It’s catchy and interesting, and makes me look forward to the next round of robot tower defense. A bad piece of music would have gotten grating fast, so thank you. It’s really encouraging and gets you into the fight.

There was another bit of background music that impressed me back during the nightmare tower, I was running around Kessex Hills and this quiet, sombre piece started up. It was so different from usual for the overworld to feel all melancholic. I’ve gotta go looking to see if I can find that music somewhere, it was great. Oh, Wintersday too, it has great tunes and the choir bells minigame is the highlight for me.

So yeah, while I might get frustrated with mechanics sometimes, I really do admire the effort Anet puts into its music.

Saw some odd things in the sky while doing the dragon hunt in Frostgorge and Blazeridge.

The first one looks like the jubilee hot air balloons, but I really can’t figure out what the other one is. It’s like an oven with wings! They also only appear in the specific place and angle I looked at them from.