Anet are inconsistent.
Southsun Cove was part of LS1 – available to everyone for free.
Dry Top & Silverwastes are part of LS2 – available for free, you pay only for the story.
LS3 maps – locked behind the paywall.
This inconsistency is not healthy for customers faith to the developer. Anet should either charge price for accessing LS1 & 2 maps or remove the “pay to enter” aspect of LS3 maps and start charging people only for story instances.
It’s not exactly inconsistent, as both Southsun and the Maguuma Wastes were both released when the core game still had to be purchased. Similarly, Southsun’s “story”, as it was during the 2 season 1 releases that involved it, are lost to time, similar to how season 2 is behind the pay wall. The only change is that the season 3 maps are locked from the free to play players, as well that those who have Heart of Thorns but haven’t unlocked the related chapters. I think it’s part of the necessity of going free to play. We’ll have to see what season 4 is like to see if it matches up with what they’ve established in season 3 or not.
Perhaps a screenshot or two of your Masteries panel will help clarify the problem? One for the Core Masteries, and one for the Maguuma Masteries. Also, just to be absolutely foolproof, are you sure you have the right chapter active in your Story Journal? I don’t know what’s going on, but I want to eliminate the most basic problems first.
At the time, Kralkatorrik regarded it as an irritation to be destroyed… particularly since he was already primed for a fight when he (it?) arrived. However, it could be an interesting twist for it to turn out that Kralkatorrik has thought on the matter since and decided that the ants might actually have what he’s looking for, something that gets destroyed when they’re turned into minions, and thus an alliance might serve his goals. Or that Snaff is still inside his mind working his influence from within…
I don’t think this scenario is highly probable… but it’s not impossible either.
I doubt that last statement. If he really thought that one of the races might have what he was missing, I doubt he would’ve flown even further south. Remember, unlike all the other dragons, he’s not even actively making his minions; him merely flying over the land transformed it and any creature in his path. Something called him to Vabbi after being at Glint’s former lair for so long, and there were probably plenty of people still there, assuming Joko hadn’t Awakened them all. I don’t see Kralkatorrik having a discussion with Palawa Joko (or anyone else) when he could instead just take it for himself. Neither Zhaitan nor Mordremoth gave any inclination that they were interested in peace, either, when they could just destroy any who would dare interfere.
I won’t dismiss Snaff being inside Kralkatorrik as nothing, though. It’s possible that Snaff is still in there, somehow, even if it’s a fragment or echo of the real Snaff, and that could somehow be his undoing (whatever that’ll mean for this part of the story). I doubt it gave him a personality upgrade, though, or a sudden willingness to back off. No, Kralk is probably still happy merely corrupting living beings into things that’ll serve him and his pursuit for an impossible goal.
Have you already done Torn From the Sky? You know, the one where you either rescue Laranthir’s allies or help the charr woman build a turret? If so, then you just need to around earning experience in the Maguuma Depths area until you have enough experience to unlock gliding.
Do you remember which instance this is in? And if you have to be playing on a human to see it? I don’t remember it at all…
I can understand them making these maps pay for. Season 2 took place mostly within Drytop and Silverwastes. This really didn’t justify the need to make players pay for it so they just made it part of central Tyria.
Slight correction: When season 2 was initially released, the game was still Buy 2 Play, so there were no Free2Play players at the time. As such, the Maguuma Wastes were just considered part of the core game. Shortly before HoT launched, they announced the core game was going F2P and everything related to HoT required that the game be bought. That’s when this divide started to form, and why all the new maps are cut off unless the chapter is unlocked.
However, Season 3 had 5 well crafted maps. Each of which provided a different currency and some easy but time consuming ways to get Ascended trinkets and backpacks. Each map also had something that made its mechanic a little more unique.
Just a small correction, it’s 6 maps (one for each episode and Season 3 has 6 episodes), not 5.
I’m not so sure that was a mistake. Schrodingers said there were “5 well crafted maps”, which could imply that one of the maps wasn’t so well crafted. Which one is that? We may never know…
a. humans are aliens to this world brought here through the mists by the 6 gods
b. the 6 gods preceeded us taking dominion/reshaping of this world before we arrived
c. the 6 gods focused on humans while seeing native species as tools, nuisance or prey
d. humans multiplied like locaust and overpopulated gw1 until the rise of the dragons
a) True, as confirmed by the recent article about the movement of Elona.
b) Less confirmed, but probably a factor. We don’t know when exactly the gods got here, but they definitely brought humans in and made certain they survived
c) False. There’s no evidence of this anywhere, and humans were never told to go and fight everyone and conquer the land. They just naturally expand as humans are want to do.
d) Definitely false. Humans were pretty much at the peak at pre-Searing time. After the Searing, Ascalon fell to the charr, Orr sunk down into the sea, and Kryta’s borders shrank somewhat. They even had to move the capital from Lion’s Arch to Divinity’s Reach, which was barely even a village back in GW1 times. I even remember someone making an observation about GW that wherever the hero went, things generally got worse rather than better, and humanity kept having to retreat into smaller groups and areas.
1. I can’t personally respond to this, as Razah was the only hero I didn’t unlock in GW1 (to my eternal shame), but we have a lot of humanoid races now, with the charr being the least humanoid of the major races. I don’t think it’s all that outrageous considering all the different races we have now.
2. We know nothing about humans before they came to Tyria. For all we know, the gods crafted us out of clay and breathed life into us.
3. There’s probably a reason why the Six Gods look so much like humans, but there’s been no discussion about it.
4. We don’t know what allowed Kormir to absorb Abaddon’s god-essence and stabilize it, except that it required a strong will. Lots are theorizing that the other sentient races could have absorbed the energy, if they had been around and volunteered to “sacrifice” themselves. This has happened so infrequently, we can’t really test it out.
5. We’ve been told that all the species are incapable of interspecies breeding, not just humans. It’s not surprising that the sylvari can’t reproduce on their own, but it would’ve been interesting to see a half-norn, half-asura walking around, with those giant floppy ears. Of course, if the story about Grenth being half-human and a demigod are true, it certainly does imply something about the Six relative to humanity.
6. I wouldn’t exactly call the asura “beastly”. They are goblinoid, which is more monstrous than beastly. The ogres are similarly monstrous without that beastly component I think you’re looking for, and same with the ettins. Unless you see something about them that I’m not.
7. Nothing to say about this.
8. First off, the reason why the asura weren’t dominant before is because they were a subterranean species, always preferring to live in caves. You really see this in Taimi’s logs when she spends all her time in the Rata Novus lab after being born on the surface. She finds strange comfort in always having that rocky ceiling overhead, and returning to her “natural habitat”, despite being born on the surface. As for why they still aren’t is twofold:
i) They aren’t especially good at being social. Yes, they form krewes to achieve common goals, but each asura likes to think they are the smartest one in the room and krewes will eventually break up. As such, they are competitive and tend to have secret labs ALL over the world.
ii) Often, they underthink the ramifications of their inventions and they backfire on the asura. Two examples of this are in Metrica Province, where during one event they start quizzing a group of skritt who get too smart for them and start fighting back; and in Timberline Falls, where charging an ettin’s cognitive powers makes him super violent and starts attacking everyone. There are probably other examples, but those two are the ones that I immediately remember.
As such the asura are the brains, but needs the other races to be the practical counterbalance.
Hopefully, that clears up some of your misguided assumptions. I’m not the best at keeping everything straight, and if I’m wrong I’ll be correctly shortly, but I generally know what’s going on in the world.
From what I recall of Season 1, there should still be someone at the camp that was near the Nightmare Tower in Kessex Hills, and there’s someone else positioned near the wreckage of the marionette fight in Lornar’s Pass. Moto is technically from Season 1, along with his Super Adventure Box, but that might be too incredibly obvious given the April festival now. Ellen Kiel was introduced in Season 1, and now has her own office; I know Evon Gnashblade still shows up from time to time, but I’m not sure if he’s unique enough to Season 1 to count. All of Southsun is technically part of Season 1, as well as the revised Tequatl fight (but I couldn’t tell you which NPCs weren’t there before, if any). The bar Marjory hung out in in Divinity’s Reach is still there as a PoI, although the NPCs in there are pretty boring. Then there’s the Aetherblade jumping puzzle in Gendaran Fields (also a PoI). The last thing I can think of really related to Season 1 that might have a distinct place is the memorial of Lion’s Arch getting destroyed and then rebuilt, or the fissure at the bottom of the bay where Scarlet’s huge drill hit.
I’m surprised you don’t have the same problem around Melandru’s reliquary as you do at Grenth’s, considering the Risen has to be killed before it can be reclaimed. Seems kind of like the same principle to me.
One solution to both of those is, instead of reclaiming, you could use the skill 4 (I forget what it’s called) on the devices found by every reliquary vault. I don’t know if it offers the same 20% completion, but it’s guaranteed no one will steal that from you unless they purposefully send an enemy to hit you.
The dervishes went to the same place paragons did.
Reusing puzzles introduced earlier in the instance is not new, either. One that comes to mind is Hidden Arcana, particularly the Glint section. You first learn a mechanic, that mechanic is shown in a slightly different way, then you kill a boss with it. I didn’t realize originally that Araya’s trap was the exact same pattern, just shown from a different angle. It might be enough of a difference for people, though.
I just want to point out that if you have problem with the Blighted Pale Tree, you can avoid the fight entirely by choosing to take Canach and Braham instead. It’s not an ideal solution, but it is one if you’re having trouble with part of the fight.
When you first logged in about a month ago, you should have noticed a dancing green star, similar to the destination marker used in story exploration. When you clicked on that, it should’ve said that “Episode 6: One Path Ends” is unlocked. You might not have noticed at the time, being a new player who was slightly overwhelmed at starting the new game, but that is the indication that a new Living World chapter has just gone live. For the past year, the window to unlock the chapter has been about 2 months (the free periods are listed on the wiki for the relevant seasons). When Path of Fire goes live, it’s believed that LW4 should start about 2 months after that release date, but keep watching GW2’s main site for the official news release.
We haven’t been given any indication that any races’ senses are sharper than any of the others. The differences are mostly cultural, and somewhat biological. I’m pretty sure your average charr or norn is stronger than most humans or asura, but everyone is fully capable of fighting on equal terms.
As for revenants, I think it says somewhere that they can see using other abilities, and the blindfold just helps to initially hone in on the new voices in their heads. It’s not just hearing or smell, but something even deeper to know where things and people are. Now I kind of want to dig through Rytlock’s dialogue to see if he ever described the colour of something after becoming a revenant, but that seems like a lot of work.
To be fair, whenever you try to buy something from a vendor like that, it does warn you if your current character can’t use it. You should have read that when it popped up before agreeing to it. One small thing that might brighten your day, though, is that you can throw the soulbound gear into the mystic forge with other gear and have something pop out that might not be, and it might even be better than what you threw in.
It might also be interesting to have racial-specific pets. Like, if this cat was for asura, there could be a leaf cat outside the grove, and a cat for the other three races.
I checked it out just now. Go into the store, click on the Heart of Thorns logo, then buy the standard version (on the left) for $29.99 US (no idea for EU players). That should get you just the HoT expansion and not PoF.
Claiming the game is biased to one race is pretty ridiculous. Yes, HoT was extremely biased towards a sylvari storyline, but even the asura got some slight focus with Rata Novus, even if the city was wiped out long before we got there. We’ve only seen one-third of the first map of PoF, roughly, so we don’t know what other races we’ll come across besides the humans in Amnoon. I think it’s even too early to call this a human-centric expansion, even if Vabbi was mostly human in population.There are 4 other maps we’re not aware of, and we don’t even know where they all piece together.
Whats wrong with each of the Expansion packs focusing on a different race? It does honestly seem like that is what they are doing.
There’s nothing wrong with an expansion highlighting one of the races, and I never said that there was. All I said was it’s far too early to claim that Path of Fire is going to be mostly or solely human. All we know is that Amnoon is populated mostly by humans, and not a thing about any of the other maps. Perhaps there’s a lost squad of charr out near the brand. Perhaps we will find a Pale Tree somewhere in Elona (although why would be beyond me). We might even find an asura lab somewhere in the desert, although it’d most likely be an Inquest lab because that’s how these things usually end up.
I was kinda annoyed that they tease both Primordus and Jormag as being our next targets, and then dismisses both of them by episode 5. I mean, that’s a small gripe, but it feels like we were lead down one story back just to swing back around when they change their mind. Even Braham piercing the tooth; it fulfills the ancient prophesy, but our actions with Taimi and Balthazar means it’s no longer the time to fight Jormag at all. That’s part of why people felt the entire season was a bit aimless.
As far as sylvari distrust goes, I think most people realized that it was Mordremoth who was corrupting them, and thus with Mordremoth’s death, there’s not really a reason to distrust sylvari any more. Even the sting of the Nightmare Court is lessened, if Faolain’s death and Duchess Chrysanthea’s help is any indication.
Claiming the game is biased to one race is pretty ridiculous. Yes, HoT was extremely biased towards a sylvari storyline, but even the asura got some slight focus with Rata Novus, even if the city was wiped out long before we got there. We’ve only seen one-third of the first map of PoF, roughly, so we don’t know what other races we’ll come across besides the humans in Amnoon. I think it’s even too early to call this a human-centric expansion, even if Vabbi was mostly human in population.There are 4 other maps we’re not aware of, and we don’t even know where they all piece together.
I am a little disappointed there’s not more curiosity from the Elonians at the non-humans they meet. Yes, there was an asura gate that popped up on Istan to link to Eye of the North 250 years ago, so they might of met the asura or the norn, possibly even Pyre’s warband. I guess magical plants are just more common in Elona these days than they are back in the Krytan lands.
The new elite specs are all fine, but they don’t fit with the main theme of the expansion. Honestly, if you’re going to have an underwater expansion, there should be new underwater weapons, and there’s only 3 underwater weapons.
As for underwater itself, old Lion’s Arch is already underwater, and there’s even a PoI at the old Lion Arch statues. And the last thing we need is Lion’s Arch destroyed AGAIN. Hopefully, we will be getting an underwater expansion at some point, but only after the underwater combat itself gets some love.
Sadly, I don’t think we’ll be seeing any new playable races, but we can certainly get villages and cities full of largos as our allies to deal with the dragon and its minions. We might even see some quaggan, the other amphibious race we know of. And somehow, skritt are STILL there, robbing shinies and generally causing trouble.
Also, I see we have a MadLibs game to name the next expansion: Noun of Noun.
Give me a unicorn that leaves behind a trail of ranbows and shiny sparkles and I will drop 40 on it in a heart beat. Just so I can make a big hulking charr that has hit every branch on his way down the ugly tree, and sit him on it. It’ll be a work of art.
Make certain you’re wielding The Dreamer while you’re at it.
Quick spoiler for Heart of Thorns: we killed Mordremoth. That, and possibly improving the gliding mastery, is all you should need to enjoy Path of Fire from what press we’ve seen released.
To properly navigate the new maps, we’ll only need the mounts and their masteries, which is entirely contained in PoF. Gliding will help, but I’d be surprised if there were any bouncing mushrooms or Nuhoch wallows down in the south-east. Story-wise, if you were confused during the intro and first instance of HoT, that’s going to carry on into PoF unless the first scene of the first chapter is us in Ellen Kiel’s office, getting briefed on what’s going on in Elona.
Basically, PoF is stand alone enough that you can jump right into it, but you’ll understand much more if you have the backstory from all the Living World content you can get through (specifically the Season 3 stuff).
If you weren’t around for the 2-3 months free period during initial release, then you need to buy the corresponding episode to play in any of the 6 LS3 maps (same with the 2 LS2 maps if you lack them).
This isn’t quite right. Anyone can enter Dry Top or The Silverwastes, but they’d need to buy the chapters to play the personal story. Season 3, though, cuts the new maps off entirely until you get at least one character there by progressing through the Chapter (usually after the first instance).
Bloodstone Fen, Ember Bay, Dragonis Mons and Siren’s Landing don’t even have portals to any other maps. Entry and exit from the maps is solely through waypoints, or a portal scroll sold by a special vendor at the relevant map.
I’m more interested in who or what put this “itch” there in the first place. How and if that can be exploited. Or is it something as simple as the planets way of combating the Elder Dragons. Since we will most likely never get a detailed answer as who or what Sylvari was perceiving at the time, we can analyze the end goal… they really want to kill dragons.
The “itch” is biological, or perhaps psychological. Basically, it’s a compulsion to try and complete this quest they were given, although not all of them will be successful. Our best guess is that the Hunts are tied to the Dream, although my personal theory is that it’s tied to the fact they were minions of Mordremoth.
Yes it can be impossible- Trahearne’s Wyld Hunt was impossible because in his dream he saw that he must clean Orr but he also saw Orr as the green, shining place once more. He did not see this, he died. We saw how Orr looks- there are some trees and flowers but it is not as beautiful as we imagined.
Except that cleansing Orr wasn’t impossible. Trahearne took the first steps towards purification, but perhaps there was more to be expected of him. It’s been ages since I played the Orr section of the personal story, so I can’t remember if Trahearne said he felt his Wyld Hunt was completed, but it definitely wasn’t impossible. Nor was slaying a dragon, as with the sylvari PC and Caithe, even though it seemed like it at first. So I’ll say Wyld Hunts are possible, but possible does not guarantee they will be done, nor that it will be easy to do.
In that regard the Sylvari have advanced at a breakneck pace, going from not even able to form words, to forming one of the strongest alliances. They are on par with just about every race despite the first ones waking up two decades ago. If they continue this level of evolution and integration the Sylvari should be the dominant race… again with a few questions answered.
But if you look at the race as a whole like children, I think you’re overlooking that they might just plateau after a while. Young children are much more capable of learning a language they’ve never experienced, but if you’ve ever tried learning another language as an adult, you’ll know that is not an easy task at all. So they quickly caught up to the other races, but I don’t see them necessarily surpassing them. They’d probably also be willing to share what they know, as all the major races have contributed what they can to the cause of stopping the dragons.
I’d be very surprised if there was an upper limit to how many sylvari there can be. I mean, have you ever counted the seeds that fall from a tree? Or perhaps it’d be more accurate to tally the fruits, including that some of them are rotten. (Sadly, I can’t think of a metaphor for the Soundless.) The Pale Tree will just keep producing sylvari until she dies or is severely damaged once more. When she starts dying, that’s when the sylvari will have to worry.
I would point out that the greatest weakness of the sylvari, if we’re talking national attack, is that the Pale Tree can’t move, and the sylvari can’t repopulate with her. There’s the possibility there are still some Trees in the Maguuma somewhere (we never found Malyck, after all) but we don’t know what these other sylvari would be like, if they were all claimed by the Dragon or if those Trees keep popping out sylvari now that Mordremoth is dead.
I wouldn’t have interpreted the initial post as one of which society is the strongest, but which race could produce the strongest combatant. In that case, I’d have to say that they are all equally capable of producing someone powerful in their own right. ArenaNet tried very hard to make certain that none of the races had a distinct advantage over the others, even if certain combinations of the racial skills make certain other ones better. Besides, how do you even decide what makes a strong fighter in a world with both martial and magical weapons, where you can blast either a fireball or a musket?
Well, remember that charr last names are composed of two parts: one part is common among the whole warband, and the other is distinct to them. So what “Swiftpaw” part of the Swift warband or the Paw warband? It doesn’t even have to matter; nothing says he stayed with that warband, or the Identity Repair Kit (which I assume you’re using) could completely rewrite his history. However, that might help in deciding how you want your charr to sound now.
Now as for how he got those powers is a more interesting question. There are lots of relics scattered over Ascalon he could’ve stumbled upon, or perhaps it was something in the Maguuma. All the old druids had mysteriously ascended, became the ghostly tree forms we see in GW1 and 2, so perhaps he tried to follow this ritual and got caught partway through. Or, since crafting Astralaria is one of the long quests, one of those steps to craft Astralaria will inspire you in just how he gained his powers. Perhaps Astralaria itself is what granted him the power.
That’s probably a fair point about Braham. For the most part, he’s probably just working through his own emotions about finally reuniting with his mother, only to be first separated when the Pact left, then to watch her die before his very eyes. He might have some other issue, but there’s no evidence of that yet, aside from him not being able to kill Jormag as he was about to do. But you’re right that our character probably could’ve been nicer to him, keeping the magic bow plan as a backup.
As for Anise, she might be hiding something from everyone, or it could just be that she’s sensitive about her own appearance, which is why Canach’s comment got to her so. I’m not sure what comment you mean from the PS, though. As for the actions in Episode 6, Anise probably prefers not to give out information to anymore more than is necessary. She’s essentially the head of a spy agency, like the Order of Whispers should be, and having information in the game of politics is power. The reasons she doesn’t like the Oath slipping out is so that people don’t know the true strength – and weakness – of the Shining Blade, and seeing as the Commander now knows it, could use it to her advantage. It’s like she’s playing speed chess, and reacting to an unexpected move. Thankfully, we’re all friends in this game, which is why taking the oath isn’t so bad, as we shouldn’t want to act against Kryta unless something goes very, very wrong.
Nothing to add on Canach. He’s been a fan favourite, and I’d be surprised if he doesn’t somehow make it to Elona. I’ll be disappointed if Kasmeer and Rytlock are our only old friends joining us across the desert, as that means we’ll have 3 of the main races whose perspective we’ll lack. Of course, Taimi is probably going to stay behind so we’d need another asura somehow anyway… Hmm, this is getting complicated.
Well, no reason for an XPack to not focus on the charr, but as things currently stand the Gold Legion* itself doesn’t seem to be a big enough threat to Tyria to be the reason why an Xpack would focus on the charr. Something would really have to have changed in recent years with them.
*the name gold legion comes from the document “Ecology of the Charr”, a name used for the Flame Legion as an insult, as gold is a very soft metal. The hasn’t been seen in game sadly, but I always liked this insult.
Of course, the Flame Legion could be the subject of LWS4, considering that the While Mantle were dealt with almost entirely in the span of Season 3. I have no idea what the topic would be, but it’d be good to have more Ascalon expansions.
I thought there is one – the manta like thing appears to be flying.
Looks more like it’s hovering. Sure it’s off the ground but you can’t fly high with it…or at least I never saw it fly high in any of the videos
It has a jump ability, not quite as high as the springer will have, but enough to get up a cliff you can’t on your own. I agree, though, that it’s not flying as it can only maintain a 2 foot hovering height off the ground (or water surface). Flying would mean it could climb vertically, and there’s no way the skimmer is getting over a sheer cliff face, which the WoW flying mounts could.
That’s a good thing that we can’t fly in this game, gliding is fine. It would totally ruin immersion
While standing around the storage in LA – I SAW A BEAGLE PUPPY IN KERCHIEF AND COWBOY HAT! and you are going to talk about immersion? Naw those days are long past.
Better than the floppy fish?
On-topic, most people have what I would about flying mounts, but if flying mounts WERE ever added, I’m pretty sure they wouldn’t be backwards compatible. We already have the No-Fly and No-Mount zones (which I believe have a 100% overlap so far), and for those who will argue about the gliders being in core Tyria, I’d like to remind you just how long it took them before they cleared that.
The mounts, however, very few places should be broken by them. There is one particular place I’m planning on going once I have my raptor, and no it’s not to take a level 2 down to Orr. I’m not going to say publicly, though, as I suspect ArenaNet would shut me down before I even had a chance to try.
I have the same problem as in the original post only the solution proposed by Bonezz.4961 does not help.
It keeps telling me i have to go collect the herbs when i interact with the cooking pot which is now green on the map, but i do not see them anymore as Bonezz.4961 posted above with his screen shot.EDIT —-—- UPDATE —-—-
Correction, i was trying to put the ingredients in the wrong location, just as Bonezz.4961. Please see nottsgman picture for details.
Also i tried stopping and “continuing” the episode again which did not help.
I have also reported a bug in-game for it.
If the picture in your attachment is your map, you haven’t gone near the hottest hot spring yet. Keep going east to that undiscovered PoI, and you cook the elixir there, not in the big one that sometimes gets attacked by ice monsters.
No, a krewe is a group of asura working on an invention. Once the invention is completed, the krewe disbands.
I’m aware of this culturally, but I was mostly making a joke. Of course, since ANet seems to be against using common plurals, is it 2 krewe or 2 krewes? Also, is there a special term for a group of asura or are there enough troubles pointed out in this thread that we don’t need to add more?
Does this often happen to you, or was this just one frustrating point that really pushed you over the edge? I just want to understand your stance behind this post.
Personally, I’ve never had a problem of getting disconnected in the middle of an instance and losing all progress. I think I might have once or twice been in an instance where I was racing against the mandatory reboot due to a patch update. Mercifully, I’ve never been forced out of an instance; if I’ve ever left an instance before I’ve beaten it, it’s because I chose to. I have had a bunch of the random disconnects from the game, though, for no apparent reason.
Hence the term “reworked”. No one is asking for a 1:1 implementation as it was. If done from scratch, they could make it all work in different ways. That’s what people have repeatedly been asking for in dozens of threads. There are plenty of story mission instances that sport a dozen or more NPCs in fight sequences. It’s doable.
But reworking the battle would be as much work if not more than doing it from scratch, and this is why ArenaNet has decided not to add this stuff back into the game, because it will take more work to return old content than to make new work which will satisfy more people. That’s the crux of the problem that people don’t seem to understand.
As I’ve been arguing, add back in the instances, since that will require very little reworking; just take them all and compile them into one pile. The only bit I really did fully by myself was the Dragon Bash mystery, and it’d be easy enough to add the few world NPCs back in for that story. Admittedly, it’s been 4 years, so I might be forgetting some stuff, but the large world stuff was the holographic dragon stuff to collect the Zhaitaffy, while the plot stuff was all instanced. Sadly, not all chapters were like that, but there were instances where the characters just stand around talking to each other.
But it also censors bad—- (I’m sure you can think of the three letters)
Bad…ger? I don’t understand why it would filter the word “ger”. That’s not even a real word!
Sadly, I am a solo player (hence why I hate PvP and WvW). :P I can never make or find the time to set aside to group up with people.
What you can try to do is ask people in the map for help. This generally won’t be helpful for the first instance, but on the last instance, which is always on the new map for the chapter, someone might be willing to help out.
Things that happened in the open world, such as the Tower of Nightmares or the Marionette fight would probably be impossible to bring back to the maps without much justification
First of all, the OP (as many others among us) suggested to make it all instanced, no need to “bring anything back into the world”.
Besides, there is quite a bit of illogical content in the current state of the world for those who have not played LWS1 and walk through those areas and just think, “What in the name of the Six is this???” (Like the ruins of the Nightmare Tower, many Fractals, the Toxic Events in Kryta…)
Well, the structure of the Marionette fight is too big to be put into an instance, since it is like the Vinewrath fight and instances max out at 5. Even as a raid of 10, that’s too few to do the Marionette fight as it was originally designed. I suppose the platform fight could be instanced, but that might be ignoring the point of it and the instance would need to be created. That’s why I say focus on what was already instanced, so that the grand things don’t have to be reworked to fit into an instance.
As for the remnants of the Season, there is generally an NPC somewhere that will happily explain what happened. I know there’s one near the marionette wreckage that will talk about the fight, and I’m pretty sure there’s someone in Kessex Hills to talk about the Tower of Nightmares and the Toxic Alliance. If they encounter them elsewhere, I’m afraid that can’t be helped as an NPC can’t be posted everywhere just to explain that the player should’ve joined years ago.
This post sums up why I don’t like how “asura”, “norn” and “sylvari” are both the singular and plural forms. If there was any sort of difference, even something borrowed from Latin (eg. asura, asurae or sylvarus, sylvari) it would’ve been fine by me. Small matter, though, as it was decided over 5 years ago.
The use of “those” twice in a sentence is fine if it applies to two different groups, especially if the raptors and the group of asura (or is a group of asura called a “krewe”, just like it’s a pride of lions?) are both far away but not near each other. If there was another word to use, it should be substituted, but there isn’t another way to say “those”, really.
I think there’s one final use of the word “asuran”, which is describing something vaguely asura-like. It hasn’t been used so far, because there’s not another creature that looks like an asura in Tyria, but if there were, it could sure apply.
You guys are so silly. Horses are clearly mythical creatures!
If Season 1 were to return, I think I would be happy or prefer if it was just a compilation of all the instanced content that was released at time. Like the introductions of Braham and Rox and their fights through their added mini-dungeons, or the Dragon Bash mystery. Things that happened in the open world, such as the Tower of Nightmares or the Marionette fight would probably be impossible to bring back to the maps without much justification, and required too many people to be properly instanced. The story beats, though, could be compiled into a few chapters somehow.
For GW2, the wow would be mounts, love them or loathe them. Not unique to MMO’s for sure but a wow nonetheless for GW2.
The mounts might not be unique, but it’s a very different approach than most mounts take, which is something I appreciate. I haven’t played much WoW, but I think their mounts are more like two-staged acquisitions: the ground mount, which gets you across land faster, and the air mount, which allows you to fly over obstacles. Meanwhile, the PoF mounts each have a specific use and while some overlap, each will have a situation where one is clearly better than the others.
I think the fact that we’re going back to Elona might be a bit of a wow factor for some players, those who remember Nightfall and have fond nostalgia for that. There’s also that option for players who weren’t interested in HoT to go straight to PoF, not needing any of the content from it to complete the story. Most games when they offer an expansion will expect you to have the previous ones for a long while or lock you out of the content entirely.
While Cirian has offered some great suggestions, they made it pretty clear that redoing the Personal Story just isn’t possible because they hard-coded too many parts of the engine around it and trying to have any of it be replayable would be a mess. I enjoyed playing through the personal story, and picking up on the plot points that would later return in the story, like the Balthazar statues, or Elli’s giant hologram technology. But that can only be done by making a new character, and ensuring you pick a new origin branch.
That aside, though, I do want to see more personality from the player character. I’m fine if they all make the same decision, but why not have their motives be different? Take fighting Balthazar as an example. Here’s what I would have done for each of the races:
- The charr would be excited that Balthazar has returned, so that they have a chance to slay a god for themselves.
- The humans would question if it’s possible to defeat a god, but would try anyway because it’s the right thing to do.
- The norn would welcome the challenge of seeing if they are mightier than a god.
- The asura would be fighting to get research information on Balthazar, and also confirming or disproving Taimi’s theory about the dragons.
- The sylvari would just be curious, and wants to stop the world from being destroyed before learning more about it. Perhaps even thinking of the saplings who haven’t yet had a chance to explore the world.
They are all small differences in motivation, probably only different by a word or two overall, but would still reflect the fact that the character you chose has more than a mere cosmetic difference from the other characters. I mean, in Heart of Thorns they managed to make it so that asura didn’t wonder what Rata Novus was, but were just surprised that it really existed, yet still explain to the player who didn’t know with the exact same dialogue said by Taimi as she would have to the other races. It can be done, it just needs a little more effort and consideration on the writing team’s part.
While Anise might have been watching the Commander for some time, I think she has better things to do with her time than to pester Rytlock while disguised as a norn child. Admittedly, a norn girl might be as tall as a full grown human, but the head of the Shining Blade and Queen Jennah’s adviser can’t leave human lands for long, even if it would have been for a funeral.
There’s a lot that was left out of the sylvari arc for HoT, and we may return to some of it, but who knows how long that might take, especially as people complained about LS3 being unfocused. The main sylvari arc is done, and while they will still be involved in the various stories, there’s no telling when we’ll learn more of their situation.
As for the “3rd generation” of sylvari, I think you’re a bit confused about how that works. The first twelve are called the Firstborn, because they were the only sylvari for a few years. Then, suddenly, a bunch of new sylvari were born all at once, and they were called the Secondborn as a way of being clever, but since there were so many, they weren’t given a special title. After the secondborn emerged, the tree never stopped producing sylvari. They weren’t all secondborns, though. By the time the player character emerged from the Dream, they had stopped counting generations. Sylvari born after the dragon attack are no different from those born before it, as least as far as we’ve been told.
As you seem to have noticed, people are a bit tired of hearing about the sylvari after they got so much attention in HoT, so it might be some time before they get much focus, but even the asura got some slight story in HoT with Rata Novus, so perhaps we’ll see them again. Just, not this expansion.
So far, there has been no unique dialogue found relating to Balthazar or any of the Elonians. This may perhaps change in time as we get the full release, but as it stands, all characters are walking the same path.
I feel like the main issue has been mentioned, so I’ll quote is so that people can see it standing out:
It’s already been explained that the reason the change is programmatically complex has to do with the various “flags” set as you start, level, and run stories with your character.
They still use these flags, which can’t just be carried over to other characters. I heard that human characters of common birth make a comment about being imprisoned in the Bastion of the Penitent raid. No other race really spends a period imprisoned. And we don’t know if it’s a specific flag formed (HumanCommon=True) or something more simplistic (Story1Branch3). Either way, this could cause serious problems if we start mucking about in their structure.
I hate to say it, but either stick with the character(s) you already created if you want the birthday swag, or create a new one if you want certain flags raised. This shouldn’t be a horribly complex choice, either.
As long as people (post beta) DON’T get our beloved ball cap (beta) or Mad King (S1 Halloween) title then its all ok.
I have the baseball cap, and I wasn’t there for the beta. It was a gift for those who were there at the start of the game. But I’m pretty sure none of the stuff in the S1 box contains anything that wasn’t part of one of the Living World updates, starting from Fire and Frost and ending with Scarlet’s death.