Guild Wars 2

The idea here is to make harder predefined areas in the zone, areas that the are clearly visible in the map (i guess that those areas should be instanced to prevent zergs), you can see it as an open world mini raid, enemies from this area will not bleed to the normal map, The loot in GW2 is a joke and there is no reason to do hard content that gives the player green trash items.

padreadamo.3986:

PCIe 1x could mean it’s in the wrong slot or the slot is damaged. Are you able to switch to another? In addition, the card may not be in the socket all the way.

Thank you so much, it seems like the GPU or GPU electric cord weren’t all the way in their socket, i have PCIx 16 and the game run on 60 fps
I cant thank all of you enough for the help

thanx Ansau tested the card with gpu-z again and i noticed that i missed something the card is running on PCIe 1 instead of 16, tried to update motherboard drivers but it the same, haven’t updated my bios yet.

I use display driver uninstaller to fully uninstall the driver. this utility doesn’t leave any residue files.

I upgraded my GPU from HD 7870 to RX 470 and my FPS got a significant drop from almost constant 60 fps to 7-18 fps. The GPU is installed in the correct location made a test with gpuz and i also tested the card with the witcher 3 and that game runs on contestant 60 with higher settings then i used before. I guess that the game think that i use the old GPU because all of my graphic settings are similar to what they used to be even after i uninstalled the game and installed a fresh copy.

Edit: removed the files from C:\Users\MyUserName\AppData\Roaming\Guild Wars 2
and the fps is still low.

I hope that Anet would have used the method of implementing repeatable content done by the secret world, the player see it as completed with the option to repeat it, there is no reset, the player can leave it at any time and continue where they left off, the repeat quest counter start after the end of the quest.

Ayrilana.1396:

What mechanics in GW1 dungeons? You mean the keys?

You need to kill the boss adds in order to kill the boss in Vloxen Excavation (don’t forget that the enemies in level 3 respawn every few min so you need to consider your actions because the enemies will respawn where they died), pulling the boss to the fire trap in Shards of Orr in the right time, fireballs in Catacombs of Kathandrax boss chambers, ice balls in Frostmaw’s Burrows (so much fun to pull the patrolling enemies to those balls) and a lot more that i cant recall, don’t forget that the enemies had a lot more skills like the Stone Summit Defender, Stone Summit Marksman, the marksman can res if you don’t pay attention to them, Charr Hexreaper, Skeleton Illusionist, those are only dungeon trash mob, show me an enemy that have this amount of skills in GW2. You needed to know what you fight and prepare for it, a build that will work in one dungeon can fail miserably in another, do that without the stupid meta builds and you have a treat, in GW2 enemies ignore the traps so you can’t use them to your advantage, i would prefer to pull the enemies in ascelon catacombs to the traps rather then destroy the traps, it would have been interesting to have the ability to do both.

I agree that many of the dungeons in GW1 had the same map layout but at least they had mechanics. In GW2 most of the dungeon paths are similar like CM, in path 1 and 3 while in path 2 you take a different route to story mode locations, and the worst part is that most of them don’t have any interesting mechanics, I can live with a somewhat cheep level design (traps and obstacles in GW1 ware a lot more interesting) but I find it hard to live with cheep mod design, GW2 have its share of a rather bad level design where the player take a similar route and fight the same enemies in diffrent paths of the dunegon
My suggestion was to take the best of all worlds and create new dungeons with mechanics similar to GW1 dungeons, where you can pull an enemy to a fire trap in order to let it burn, have the ability to use the surrounding area as a tool.

I think that GW2 should have a lot more dungeons there are locations that seemed like possible entrances to dungeons and it seemed like that idea was scrapped.

In my opinion dungeons in GW1 ware a lot more interesting then their counterpart in GW2, can anyone really compare Sorrow’s embrace to Sorrow’s Furnace? Is there any dungeon in GW2 the feel like Slavers’ Exile?
There is a huge repetition in the dungeons of GW2 the best example is Crucible of Eternity. Yes there ware problems in GW2’s dungeon design, the lack of actual mechanics and such, But i think that the team need to learn from it and create better dungeons with interesting stories, something like Shards of Orr or Vloxen Excavations. If Anet can fix fractals and create interesting living story chapters then in my opinion they can assemble a team that can create new dungeons, something that will be interesting and challenging, that have actual mechanics where enemies are vulnerable to traps or environmental damage in the dungeon, let the players use their brain and not dps damage sponges. I don’t really like fractals for me they feal like random portions of dungeons held together by paperclips , i cant even select the portions that i dislike and the story element there is very week.

In my opinion if Anet ware smart they would have changed the raid party from 10 to 8 give small parties the ability to use henchmen and call it retro dungeon, it would have made so many people happy.

Every new content can be considered as a waste of time, with this state of mind all anet need to do is sit on their laurels and let us do the same content over and over again.

dsslive.8473:

what happens to people who don’t go zerker? they make their own groups/join groups that dont require that person to change to druid.

Your statement will be correct if kicking will require more then two players, all you need is two party members who want someone that will heal them, remove condition and help to max their DPS (babysitter). Rangers are in a bad state already, this elite spec will push them a way from the meta players.

I don’t think there is a grind in the game, people grind heavily if they like to gain the best weapon/armor, something that is not required in the game (most of my gear is exotic and i in many cases i am the last to stand). For now the game is more about player skill then stats.

In my opinion the druid spec might be the downfall of players who like to play as a ranger. what will happen to a ranger that like to join a raid and refuse to spec to druid?
How many will be kicked from parties for that?
Another aspect might be that the dedicated healing aspect of the druid will make the zerker meta stronger because the game will give them better crutches, a class that will be there to heal them and remove condition while they will focus them self on stacking and damage.
I cant see how this elite spec will prevent zerker meta.

I do agree that difficult mobs are great i am all for it, but for me the smokescale frantic telephoning give insane headache, fighting them becomes a chore and not fun.
when there is more then one it become unbearable, i stop fighting and let my toon die.

One thing that we should remember is that according to the latest twitch vid is that the the shield will be received via minor trait same as for the f5 skill, therefor the chronomancer will have use 2 minor for the new mechanics giving some type of balance with the baseline mesmer, baseline minor skills will be able to enhance the mesmer skills while chronomancer will use it in order to receive the new skills\weapon. What if the Alacrity will also occupy its own minor trait, in my opinion it will give better balance.

Zoid.2568:

It’s a feature you activate to participate in, depending on your actions.
- If you steal and murder (Only NPCs, players can’t be targeted) you’re a criminal.
- If you follow the law like a law abiding citizen you’re safe.
- If you follow the law and apply as a guard you have the rights to arrest criminals and put them in jail, also demand a fee depending on the crime they committed.
- Criminals and Citizen can apply for bounties which makes them a bounty hunter, chase down criminals and be rewarded for it.

I don’t see how PvP is forced?

The PvP will be forced when a player will have the ability to arrest a criminally accused players. How can the law enforcer convince the criminal to go to trial or jail?

The only place in the game that i can see something like this ever happen in GW2 is in the home instance in order to give it a bit more flavor, putting a similar system there will not break the game in any way.

This is how i see a system like that work.

The player will be able to track and arrest (quests in the home instance and the open world) NPC criminals.
The player will be able break in to houses and steal in the home instance.
The player will be able to join criminal faction (similar to the thieves guild or the dark brotherhood. quests in the home instance and the open world).
Quests and promotion will only be given in the home instance.
other then that no NPC will know about the player habits.

One of the key aspect of the end of the living story s2 was the fact that the sylvari actually minions of Mordremoth and the dream is the vail that conceal it. What if at the fight against Mordremoth the dragon will cast a debuff on a random sylvari character, this debuff will cause the character to attack allys for about 5 sec, lats call it Mordremoth calling. When the debuff will be over the character will receive a buff that will increase might, quickness, and fury for about 10 seconds, lats call it ventary’s retribution. The skill will have a long cooldown so it will not be a frustrating skill. I think that a skill like that can capture what most NPC feel about the sylvari in the expansion.

If I log out the game will send my character to the previews played zone after i log in.

Today i mapped from lions arch to mount maelstorm, played there for over two hours and logged out there. when i returned to the game i found my character at the center of lions arch.
It seems like if i log in with a different character and then go to character select, the game will remember the precise location of my character.

Sorry if i wasn’t too clear with my description.

This is the mail that i recived:

The stress test is scheduled for Thursday, 24 March from 7:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m. GMT (12:00 p.m. to 2:00 p.m. Pacific) and 25 March from 12:00 a.m. to 2:00 a.m. GMT (24 March from 5:00 p.m. to 7:00 p.m. Pacific).

Received both GMT and PST times.

Astralporing.1957:

As it has been pointed out, they could stay in the field all night long, and without buff on main char, the boss would have been invulnerable anyway, so not sure what edge you are thinking of.

I know that, but the phantasm can start attacking the boss at the second the main char receive the buff giving a minor boost, Anet took the opposite approach and nullified 90% of the mesmer’s abilities.
My main char is a mesmer, that boss fight was a nightmare, when i used my ranger the pet received the buff when i did and i was able to kill it in a fraction of the time it took me with the mesmer (things are rather o.k. if the ranger don’t change pets). I know that with the mesmer i can use the sword in order to have nice dps, a weapon that i don’t usually use (prefer to have range in order to maneuver and survive).

I understand why Anet didn’t gave phantasms constant immunity to the field, if thy would do that a mesmer could use it to attack the boss and receive an edge that other clases don’t have.

In my opinion the way to tackle this problem is:
If the player have the immunity shield every phantasm/illusion/pet will receive it upon creation the shield will disappear when the player’s shield disappear and the phantasms/illusion/pet die upon creation.

CaptainVanguard.4925:

Well, my opinion of this topic is a two sided sword.

Jory unfortunately lost her mojo in Season 2, she was strong in Season 1 because she was quirky, flirty, playful but very independent with or without Kasmeer around.

Instead she just became a glorified lesbian in Season 2 who’s only role was to be close to Kasmeer, and to cry when her sister died.

After that she more or less vanishes and while she does play “A” part in the glint storyline and the seeds storyline she doesn’t really do anything other than serve as a side narrator.

I haven’t played season 1 therefore i don’t know the difference in the char development.

i haven’t seen the glorified lesbians ,iv’e seen a couple who care about each other and trying to do the right thing. kasemeer role was crucial at the first chapter of season 2. jorry done a lot in almost every chapter she was in, even as a cannon fodder that steal aggro from the player character. i loved their conversation at glint lair, if you don’t teleport at the moment the teleporter is active you can hear them talking about destiny edge and glint.

I liked when jory cried at the time she seen her dead sister, it gave it an actual feeling of grief, she wasn’t acting all strong and heroin, she was among friends and she let herself crack.
I think i would do the same if my brother would die in a brutal way.

CaptainVanguard.4925:

I think A-net needs to take more “risks” with their chars, and let chars that are major die, or suffer terribly, even turn into villains, temporarily or permanently, or become redeemed and join the heroic team but in a believable translation rather than a sudden one.

Anet took a risk similar to the one you mentioned ,caithe stole glint’s egg, was ignorant to the master of peace death and acted like a plain bandit, asking for a leap of faith at the end of the finale chapter.

Vayne.8563:

Sure the problem is you expect these people to behave in a way that’s not realistic. A noble who has no real experience adventuring suddenly has adventuring thrust upon her. She’s not Conan. She’s not Rambo. She’s a mesmer who wants to do something to help, but she’s not experienced in any way shape or form.

Your character has been fighting Zhaitan for a long time. The people you’re with…not so much. Expecting them to act like soldiers would be like expecting Bilbo in the Hobbit to act like a soldier. Or Merry and Pippin from Lotro. They’re not soldiers so they didn’t act like soldiers.

Your statement is too logical, in many games a princess without any training and experience become an expert in weapons, combat and camouflage but in the living world s2 Anet is trying to create characters that make mistakes have flaws and mess up from time to time, they are not perfect but it is a good step in the right direction.

Fext.3614:

Nonsense. Try TSW for a good story and NPCs.
You simply cannot vivisect a ghoul without breaking a few bones…

I see that you agree with me here, i said that MMO NPC’s are MOSTLY flat and uninteresting, TSW might be the exception here. I never played it therefore i can’t comment on that game.

I constantly stated that i see Kasmeer Meade and Marjory Delaqua and the rest of their team as a good step in the right direction, in creating flawed NPC.
From what i gather heart of thorns characters and interaction feels a lot better.
Anet used the living story as a testing ground and i think it is a very nice one.

Bubi.7942:

Oh ouch. I don’t hate Marjory or Kasmeer, but mentioning Witcher characters and GW2 characters together seems wrong.

GW2’s characters are flatter than my man boobs.

I know what you mean I used this comparison as a way to show that If the NPC have the ability to trigger this much hatred then something right was done there (bad writing is a poor excuse).
MMO NPC’s are mostly flat and uninteresting, but for me at least it seems like Anet is trying to work on that issue. i see those characters as a first baby step toward better NPC design. living story trahearne is a lot less annoying then personal story trahearne.

This is your personal opinion fext. In my opinion Marjory and Kasmeer are great and i really like them, thy add flavor to the story, they are not perfect and have a lot of flaws. This alone make them good characters. In my opinion Anet should continue the creation of flawed characters.

I don’t know if you ever played the witcher 2 but how many people hated roche due to his nature, iv’e seen him as a brilliant character.

I see the living world season 2 as a way to touch a somewhat darker fantasy setting. destiny’s edge 2 are a good first step in this interesting road.

Pandaman.4758:

It’s not about the writing, it’s about event triggers. Here’s a simple example:

In a cutscene the an actor (either the player or an NPC) walks through a doorway, an event handler placed on the doorway is triggered, which opens a cage and drops a boss into the room; if you skip this cutscene the actor is teleported into the room, but because they didn’t actually walk through the door the cage is never opened, the boss never shows up, and you’ll be complaining on the forums about a broken quest.

This actually happens frequently even outside of cutscenes: Ascalonian Catacombs, Path 3. If Tzark dies (and stays dead) before someone reaches the wall he’s supposed to break down, it will bug the dungeon – what’s happening is that players reaching the wall is supposed to trigger his monologue, which in turn is supposed to trigger the wall collapsing, but because he’s dead he can’t talk, and because he can’t talk the wall won’t collapse, and because you’ve already triggered the event resurrecting him doesn’t do anything because the trigger only works once.

I guess that the developers cant use if user skip cinematic then teleport character to location x and trigger required events. a moder was able do this in WC3 world editor and GW2 is a lot more advanced.

In my opinion the reason for the unsinkable cinematics is not technical, it is due to the fact that Anet doesn’t want that the majority of the player base will skip story elements that are important to understand HoT because a lot of player want to maximize thier gaming time and the story is not that important (how many player don’t even read the character/NPC text and just skip everything?).

On the story/explorable dungeon runs that i lead i tell the party that it is fine to watch the cinematics and there is no rush, to my amazement i see that most of the party members are watching it when there is no pressure to move on.

I like Kasmeer and Marjory, they add some interesting point of view to the game, not everything is perfect and nice, they have their weaknesses and problems.
please explain what is wrong with the cutscene where Belinda entered Marjory’s sword?
In my opinion destiny’s edge 2 is a lot better then the original one.
They are not flashed out enough but i see it as a marker for future development, something to build upon. For me season 2 is a bit darker then the original gw2 and i hope that Anet will continue in this road.

Another thing why do you think that every character should be likable?

I guess it is hard to code that if the player press skip cinematic x events will be triggerd and the character will be teleported to location y.

Finished the living story chapters few times with my mesmer, and i never found it as a difficult one, Glint’s Lair was frustrating because my phantasms died upon approach but i liked it because it forced me to adapt to the fight. took me time to understand the mechanics of the finale boss fight, but i enjoyed it when i was able to figure it out without any type of help.
In my opinion LS2 bosses are a lot better better then the dungeon bosses but Anet need to use them as a baseline for the expansion and improve them, i hope to see phases and some interesting mechanics.

I hate speed clears and i find stacking as useless, constantly change my skills in order to help the party, for me harder is better (and i don’t mean damage sponge boss fights)

sorry if i went a bit off topic.

I like to see what happned to shiro tagachi. he was my favorite enemy in GW1.

For me the worst part of the NPE is the trait system, according to Anet it should encourage new players to go to locations and explore or just buy the traits, but some of them are WvW which some of us dislike (what about the wvw players who doesn’t want to do pve stuff) some under broken events and some under level gating, the other option is to buy it, but 10 silver +2 skill point for a low adept trait, 50 silver and 5 skill points for the master trait, 1.5g and 10 skill point for grand master, 3g and 20 for the new one (under grand master). all of this sum up in a very pricey price tag that require a huge amount of grinding and prevent experimentation. one of the greatest points of the old trait system was the ability to have all traits for an affordable cost, does Anet really think that a new player can afford it?

Tactu.4867:

In this instance ,I had a weird experience which left me with mixed feelings :

When Faolain attacked the centaurs (and making it look like the centaurs attacked first), i was like: "-What is she doing ????!!
- NO !
- Bit*h! STOP!
i refuse to participate in this . this in bs . "

and i let Faolain die as i though and hoped this will change something …. but it didn’t .

I was kittened off at first .
I knew it was a memory but this is conflicting with the fact that i had the illusion that i can do something about it( thinking this is why it’s playable and not a video )

Seeing that i cannot go forward through instance, i had to kill the centaurs against my will . Shame on me !

In my opinion this aspect make the episode so great, we are participating in a dream we are reliving caithe’s history and getting to slowly understand her. In this dream we don’t have any control, we can only get carried by the waves, we are yearning for control to let our knowledge change the outcome of history but we can only observe it.

This is a bad example, but think about PvP observer mode in GW1 you could leach on a character and see the game from their eyes but you can never change anything there, even if you see a huge mistake being done.

we see the events through kaithe’s eyes she doesn’t know the centaurs and trust her friend’s judgment regarding them. Yesterday i helped a friend with this quest and i decided to stand near the location of the initial centaur attack, what iv’e seen was that Faolin attacked the centaur and screamed she is under attack and then all the other sylvari came to her rescue. She used their fear of the unknown as means of manipulation, she used caithe love and trust as means to do things she will never will do on her own, things that she regret about 20 years later.

In my opinion this is one of the best chapters in the living story, it feels like reading a chapter in a book telling me something about one of the main characters. until this chapter caithe was a bland and shallow character, this chapter gave her some depth, she is not perfect she made and probably still making mistakes, maybe the incident with the centaurs was the reason for joining Destiny’s Edge.

I think the reward should be tied to the player contribution to the event, rather then the hit and run method used today.

Here is my favorite character Leoreana, can’t stop playing this class.

I like the idea of playing a person that don’t have the knowledge that the player have and do bad deeds due to that. I think it will be incredible great to have some morally gray decisions to do a good deed that will have sinister outcome, something in the line of the witcher.
In my opinion this type of naivety grant believability to the character and game.

To those who feel bad about this mission: what do you think about the renown hart that make you kill the dolyak calf mother in order to catch dolyak calf ?
Every game is full with missions that can make part of the players feel uneasy, we can ignore the mission or act according to the character.
I like to see how caithe will feel when she will realize that Faolain lied to her and she decimated a peaceful village.

GOSU.9574:

I didn’t really have a response to this thread til I read this quoted post.

You have two camps here, and the responses will reflect this.

Camp 1: GW1 players who were looking forward to a new engine to GW1 expanding in to crafting (I guess) and such, to provide a new experience with the old game. This was pretty much sold as GW2 right up until the launch when it was clear the Manifesto was ditched.

Camp 2: Players who never played GW1 during it’s glory days and come to GW2 from other games. These are the ones typically stalwartly defending everything in GW2 and poo-pooing anyone who brings up anything with GW1 in the discussion.

I can say that i am on camp 1.5 i loved GW1, played it a lot and couldent get enugh of it but it had its flaws. I played GW1 for 5 years, played GW2 from early beta untill the ascended patch and returend after the relrease of living story season two.

• Combat System: GW1 combat system wasn’t that involving, it was the perfect hand holding system where the system even turned me in order to face the enemy, press c then space then look at the cooldowns to press another skill.
  On the other hand the combat system of gw2 is pure joy, one of the best ive seen in an mmo. In my opinion can easy rival TERA online.

• Carafting: GW1 crafting was a none existent one, you had to buy matterials from the meterial vendor and buy your chosen armor from the armor vendor. I liked this system becasue i hate crafting but i understand why a lot of players hate it.
  In GW2 the crafting system is solid and grant xp for the crafter, it grants leveling other then killing mobs.

• Enemy AI: GW1 was incredibly well done, enemies paroled, all had strength and weaknesses, the best example is undead had a fire and holy damage vulnerability and imuned to cold attacked. the bosed never had a leash on them players could kite them to more strategic location, ranged attacked had increased range from higher positions, double damage if the target is attacked from behind. The player had to use a lot of strategy and good positioning in order to win.
  In GW2 the AI is simplified and feels closer to WoW, a lot less vulnerabilities and strength, a lot less player skill are used by the enemy NPC

• Weapons: In GW1 every weapon had it’s attack type (fire, ice, dark, chaos), all the weapons had the same stats as lower tire weapons, but higher tire weapons had the ability to add runes.
  In GW2 the system had been changed, a lot more tires of weapons had been added and they varied in damage output.

The main thing that made GW1 so great for me what the fact that after leaving the training area (istan in nightfall) the entire game was designed for max level, I hope that Anet will never raise the level cap and future expansions (if created) will be designed for level 80 with exotic gear.

I think that GW2 is getting better, silverwaste is what the game should have been in enemy AI, enemy strength and strategy the player need to form.
I think Anet learned its lesson regarding AI simplification and i hope that they will upgrade the enemy AI and events of all high level areas (65-80).

Odin of Ark.4860:

GW1 was fun until the release of heroes. Went downhill for me when that happened. Became a single-player game.

The thing that ruined GW1 in my opinion was the hall of monuments from the moment it was announced players played in order to fill HoM

They need to listen people feedback and then go on a mission of fixing the game and making GW2 universe the way players want,not devs.After all “customer is always right”.

Who should thy listen too? there are so many voices here.
Some players asked for progression Anet decided to listen and created the ascended gear, in result created a backlash that made a lot of players (including myself) to leave the game. On the other hand there are some incredibly good and level headed advices in this forum that can take the game to new highs.

I think GW2 is becoming better and closer to GW1 in some aspects, thy have a lot of work to fulfill the game potential but i think that thy are on the right path.

I do agree with most of the points raised by this thread.
I played GW1 from factions and i loved it, never played a game for such a long time.
GW2 started with a blast, the AI was smarter and the mechanics ware a lot more interesting, about 6 mounts after the game was released Anet decided to cater the gear grinder. Lately i feel like the game is returning to its routs the living story is built like GW1 missions where the main characters are flashed out, lore had been brought back to the game, the changed trait acquisition tent to mimic GW1 elite skill acquisition.

Edit: i have a lot of complains about the new trait system acquisition but the intention is there, and it feel for me that thy tried to minimize the simplicity.

I feel like some iron clutches that tried to strangle tge GW2 team had been removed and thy can act as thy wanted.

I prefer that Anet will focus on the living story and keep the good quality it have now and the length it had on the start of season two.
I like them to create areas as good as glint’s lair.

Regarding wintersday content Anet will give us i hope that thy will combine last year and two years ago content. or even just use the content from two years ago.
On other thought it will be great if thy will combine the living story with wintersaday and create a unique content.

In my opinion the best option is that a kick will require the approval of 4 party members (in a full party run) and the kicked player will have the ability to see who initiated the kick via game chat.
sometimes a player is making a mistake and get kicked for it, i think it will be nice to give him/her an address for questions, i don’t think that kickers should be able to hide behind a vail of anonymity.

I was in AC explorable path 1 few days ago and the team had constant lag and DC, this wasn’t the type of lag that effected one player it effected the entire team, players from different part of the world received DC and lag and the same time, an indication that the DC and lag are not a local problem. The most annoying error in the dungeon was that when the final boss reached about 25% HP we received a huge lag spike and 2-3 members got kicked from the game. tried to continue the dungeon 8 until we left.

In my opinion after the personal story is over a new map of orr should be spawned one that change and purify orr, part if the maps should be an elite area maps where players can team up and defeat powerful foes, it can be the equivalent of GW1 FoW, a place with great challenge and great rewards. Returning back to zhitan controlled orr should happen by talking to a historian and asking to see how orr looked prior to killing zhitan.

Regarding the permanent changes in the game please try to spread the destruction, kesseks hills was one of the most incredibly beautiful areas in the game and the only explorable permanently scared but living story events. how could it be the the centaurs never suffered any change from the events, i was hoping to see some of their camps lie in ruins, maybe part of the camps will try to ally with the humans in order to fight the foes scaring the land, both of them have a common foe that try to destroy their way of living.

An earthquake that will expose part of GW1 dungeons can be great, entering vloxes falls or shards of orr via the grove can be incredibly fun.

In my opinion this is a great opportunity to present the tengu to the GW2 world.
Lions arch is close to the gate to the tengu land. what if the tengu decided to claim lions arch as their own to use the former city info structure and build on it a new town.

it can be an interesting part of the living story, a tengu delegation come to lions arch to find a way to claim the city, thy want to do it in a peaceful way, to create a town that is partly tengu and partly pirate. The delegation meet a patrol of lionguagds while exploring the ruins of the city, one of them a young noble draw his weapon and raise his hands in order to welcome the lionguards (this is not part of the lore but might fit a behavior of a different race), the lionguard captain have doubts, the tengu doesn’t look as a threatening enemy but he is drawing weapon, while the human captain ponder what to do next a young archer kill the tengu after misinterpreting one of his gestures, an action that might start conflict between the two races.

For me the importance lie in those aspects.

1) The story should be grounded and be consistent with GW lore. i think that the second phase of the story should be about the tengu, what happened to them after the fall of lions arch, will thy try to claim lions arch as their city? it can open up interesting opportunities.

2) The enemy motive should be explained and known, when i played GW nightfall i understood abbadon’s anger and will for vengeance.

3) The story should be told ingame and not in other media.

4) The unlikely party, where NPC from different parts of the land, or NPC from different social class join ranks in order to overcome a common enemy. at first thy need to resolve their personal differences.

5) Opportunity to use stealth or conversation in order to finish a task. maybe steal an armor and use it as a disguise, the ability to temporary stun guards, lie to guards.

6) Adding a historian that can help relive the living story like in GW1 bonus mission pack.

I agree with everything you said, a well thoght post.
One thing that raised my interest toward GW2 was the ending of GW1 eye of the north, you see livia taking the scepter of orr. in GW2 we totally neglected the story of the scepter of orr. it made livia live for 150 years later. what will happen if someone else will find it and how will it effect the world, can it help restore orr?

Vayne.8563:

But you can kill 50 ascalonians anywhere and in passing. You’re not killing to level. It takes precisely 4 minutes to kill 50 ascalonians.

If you want to call 4 minutes a grind, be my guest.

So according to your statement grind is time based? this daily still urge you to kill 50 ascelonian in order to clear this “achievement”, what is the difference between this and kill 10 rats in any other game? killing 10 rats take roughly 2 min but it still consider as grind. By the way as a lower level those killings will give me xp and help me level.

@Vayne.8563: what truly baffles me is that you broke the sentence:

In most games, you go out, and you have really fun tasks, occasionally, that you get to do, and the rest of the game is this boring grind to get to the fun stuff. ‘

and only used half of it in order to show that their meaning is grind to unlock areas. while the second part

I swung a sword. I swung a sword again. Hey! I swung it again.’ That’s great.
We just don’t want players to grind in Guild Wars 2. No one enjoys that. No one finds it fun. We want to change the way that people view combat.”

clearly show that Anet is referring grind as a mindlessly killing the same enemies over and over again. something introduced by the latest dailies (kill 50 ascelonians, kill 25 underwater).
I prefer a gear gating that would take me to harder and harder areas, one that getting the new gear would take the small effort of running other dungeons or buying (took me few days to reach end game gear in other game) then mindlessly killing enemies as time gating.

you can use my grammar as a way to show that i truly don’t understand as a wonderful spin.

End game content should be played for fun in my opinion, not as a treadmill.

I cant understand how a temp dungeon and few events that last about and hour can be considered endgame. by the way in understand that you ware sarcastic PinCushion.
As the op said there are so many new MMO’s about to be released this year, those MMO’s will use part of the basic ideas from GW2 (as expected) while GW2 take the grind path. I hope that Anet will come to their senses and return to their original path and leave the new grind fiesta plans. I lost confidence with Anet, confidence that i had for more then 5 years while playing GW1.

@Tosha Daydreamer.9251: I said

In my opinion some of the game greatest defenders are Anet employees without the Anet tag.

to show that this is not a fact only my perspective. on the other hand you said

The only logical reason I can come up with is some are employed by competing companies and are trying to lure people away from this one to “their” company.

So i guess that you jumped to conclusion.

back to topic:

I don’t hate GW2 i like it a lot, I brought a lot of friends from DDO and LoTRO to this game, convinced players to buy GW2 in the elder scrolls forums. i guess you can say that i did a bit for the game and i feel like i can allow myself to point spots that i feel as mistakes, spots that in my opinion take GW2 from an innovative game to another WoW clone with GW lore.
You can disagree with me but i guess that it will be hard to be polite.

In my opinion GW2 early days ware as it was advertised the game was a blast, it had erorrs some of the events ware broken but it didnt detracted from the fun.
and then came the lost shores update and the ascended gear that created a huge rift in the player base a rift that hadn’t been mended till today. I thought that fractals will be a wonderful dungeon but in reality it wasn’t better then vexa’s lab, this dungeon is a grind fiesta. here the real grind started, Anet promised different ways to get the ascended gear ways that doesn’t involve the fractals, we got the laurels that requires the daily grind and the monthly grind, wait didn’t Anet advertised that this game will not have grind? so why do i need to kill all of those enemies without any reason?
the dailys and monthlies stopped my event search, thy became a part of the grind not something i do for fun. the spawning rate in this game is insane in the manifesto thy said that the player actions will count but the enemies i kill respawn 90-230 sec later sometimes instantly, events i finish reset 5 min later yup my deeds count (for nothing).
i dont mind the cursed shores art but i mind the amount of enemies and cc few days ago i tried to reach arah waypoint i tried to avoid combat and tossed back and forth, later i tried to fight but couldn’t fight the respawn speed, fun times maybe i need to change my perception of fun. The lower level areas feels a lot more polished then the higher level areas, even the sylvari land feels better then arah.

In my opinion some of the game greatest defenders are Anet employees without the Anet tag.