Guild Wars 2

Rhanoa.3960:

Inculpatus cedo.9234:

Well…I rarely spend time in a City, nor do Dungeons or World Events. Thus, I’m afraid your statement is a bit inaccurate.

I can’t really discern what the issue is, or if there even is one, though.

What he said!

What they both said.

It’s not a problem that people use cities. Cities are meant to be busy, no? They’re also guaranteed safe zones where you wont have mobs trained onto you as people run by.

Occasionally I will hang out in quiet spots in the open world which I know to be safe too. Snowdrift Haven is one of my favourites. Of course, such quiet places mean that players can’t interact with other players so easily; just another reason why Cities win out.

Offair.2563:

Sarie.1630:

Pro tip: Do the easy WvW daily achievements each day. Use the WvW reward track potions on the Gift of Battle. You’ll end up getting one after a couple of months. Clearly if you’re desperate for one now this wont help you but might help people planning on legendaries in the future. A little forward planning can go a long way.

If ya happen to do all dailies every day for the potions its roughly 3 weeks of play time.

I’ve never really gone for all of them ‘cause I’m lazy and in no hurry for gifts… but that’s good to know. The ease of the dailys does depend a bit on how well your server is doing. For example, if they’re doing really well, they take longer to complete as you have to run across the whole map just to find a flag for Land Claimer.

I currently have over 200 WvW potions sitting around waiting to be spammed.

Pro tip: Do the easy WvW daily achievements each day. Use the WvW reward track potions on the Gift of Battle. You’ll end up getting one after a couple of months. Clearly if you’re desperate for one now this wont help you but might help people planning on legendaries in the future. A little forward planning can go a long way.

Luclinraider.2317:

I love the game….but can’t really argue the point.

It’s a shame when you can’t slap some sense into your friends but if they’re completely indoctrinated into gear-treadmill games it’s probably a very hard habit to break. Guild Wars 2 is a different game. It’s a game you have to want to play and you have to be motivated enough to drive yourself to experience all the content. It’s not going to hand content to you on a plate, you have to go and find it, and that’s part of the adventure. It’s too abstract a concept for those who just want to chase higher and higher stats.

There is also a deep rooted desire for stat-chasers to feel like they’re superior to others in PvP. “Why would I want normalised gear in PvP? I want to grind out gear that few people have so I can wipe out all the newbies.” It’s a common desire that you see all over MMOs with open world PvP. They don’t care about fairness, only being more powerful than the next guy.

My advice? Leave them to it. You’re wasting your breath. It’s a harsh truth but I’ve seen and experienced it all too often before. The closest to a gear treadmill GW2 has are new stat types that come out with Living World or Expansions. For a short time they may be players in PoF working to make a set of the armour with the new stat combinations, but it’s not the same as having the biggest baddest armour to paste newbies with.

Finally, it could be misleading to say that GW2 doesn’t have a gear treadmill. It does, sort of. When people call GW2 “Fashion Wars 2” it’s not tongue-in-cheek. You work to get the best, shiniest gear to show off. It’s not for everyone, and even players of GW2 don’t always care about having the shiniest – in fact there’s a thread on the front page of this forum right now speaking against just that. That’s GW2’s gear treadmill, I suppose – Legendaries.

Some of them are ambiguous, yes. I don’t mind too much because, at this point, we have so many titles that they can be used to further identify your character. Some players will show off the most prestigious title they have. I find it’s often fun to choose a title to fit the character, such as Rift Warden on my Revenant, or Flameseeker on my Flameseeker Prophecies wielding Guardian.

I will be disappointed if we don’t get a “Well To-Do Hero Type” title in PoF though. +50 Lore Points!

If I were you I’d begin from scratch and level up a new character to refresh my memory. If nothing else the game has changed quite a bit since the very early days.

The expansion purchases is something that only you can decide. Perhaps make sure the game is your bag before you make a purchase? Let to L80 and play around a bit at max level. There should still be plenty of time to achieve this prior to PoF’s release.

kurfu.5623:

No thank you. Underwater combat is terrible.

I think it doesn’t have to be terrible. I do think that in order to not make it as dull as it is it requires an expansion-level budget.

As it stands, right now, I’m not super excited about having underwater maps dumped into the game. Package up an underwater expansion, with new underwater elite specialisations, build templates and the ability to auto-switch build in diving underwater, underwater masteries (shark riding?) and re-working existing utilities so that they actually work underwater (…and Rev isn’t just stuck on Mallyx + Shiro) and hell yes, I’d totally be into that.

Underwater zones could provide that level of verticality without the need for gliding and updraft/leyline/mushroom use that seemed to wind up so many people.

As I say though… I reckon that’s expansion-level stuff, but it could work, and I’m convinced that underwater combat could be made more fun than it is.

The big question is: If ArenaNet announced an underwater expansion would that turn people away? Sadly, I suspect, the current answer would be yes. A lot of groundwork would probably be required to slowly convert the community’s view of underwater content to a favourable one.

Shirlias.8104:

ps: there should be also a way to “unlock” old hero points without exploration but i am not sure.

The only alternative to unlocking core hero points is the WvW method you already mentioned, but probably shouldn’t confuse new players with stuff like that!

Keep your L80 so that you have access to higher level stuff but yes, level from scratch.

Druid is an elite specialisation. You can only begin to unlock it once you’re L80. You will be able to get more hero points from map challenges both in Core and HoT areas.

Instant L80 boost sounds great to new players…but it is more often a curse than a blessing. There is so much to see as you level up organically and you get to learn the profession better and develop a plan of how you want to build your character by the time you get to L80. This is even more useful if you’ve never played the game before, I think.

Guild Wars 2 also isn’t going to hold your hand and tell you where to go. This is what players coming from games such as WoW can’t get their heads around. You need to motivate yourself and find things to do. Starting out this will generally be dynamic events to gain experience and learn how to play your character.

If you intend to stick with the L80 and make it work I would advise running around core maps bee-lining waypoints and hero points. Unlocking waypoints is very, very useful. Don’t get hung up on hearts and world completion, unless you really want to make a legendary weapon. Hearts are not the be-all-and-end-all of GW2 and you will burn out on them pretty quick.

My advice: Keep the L80, as it’s useful to have, but level something naturally and experience the game as it should be experienced. If you start now you can easily be L80 by the time the next expansion hits. 79 levels seems a lot but it doesn’t actually take all that long.

As a side note: Heart of Thorns hero point challenges are worth 10 points. Core challenges are only worth 1 but are all easy to solo, whereas HoT challenges are sometimes champion foes which are very hard, or impossible, to solo.

FrizzFreston.5290:

And here Im just thinking. Why are her hands so big?

They allow her to hold really big… stone tablets?

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

If you think there’s an inconsistency, then also tell ANet.

Or don’t.

I don’t want the cost of the game to soar because they’re having to check through every language and historical language ever just to make sure there is no obscure connection to any “inappropriate” word in another language, just because a bunch of players make it their job to deliberately root-out these things.

There is a history of ArenaNet inserting slight adult references here and there. The one that sticks out to me is a quest in the Lahtenda Bog called A Sticky Operation involving taking out groups of Corsair Seamen. It’s stuff like this that overly sensitive sorts might deem too inappropriate, but in reality, it just allows those of us with a sense of humour to have a little chuckle to ourselves as we come across it.

I think the word reasonable must be applied to enforcement of the rules and not absolute when it comes to stuff like the OP is talking about. English is the main language here and probably the easiest one to cause offense in given how widespread it is understood. If the NPC was called Kitten, Kitten, Kitten the Kittenable, Tactician Kitten or Kitten Briar, then sure., report away. I don’t really agree that we should be encouraging this kind of behaviour though.

Lahmia.2193:

Seems like the kind of thing someone who only plays content for the reward, rather than the experience, would say.

If something in game doesn’t have a reward associated with it no-one does it. Reward is always going to have some bearing on a player’s desire to play content. The reward could be a weapon, a skin, or even just achievement points, but whatever it is, it will be a big motivator. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that at all. The reward doesn’t have to make the experience any less valuable.

Ariurotl.3718:

Seera.5916:

They want to explore the new lands and play the game with the new elite spec.

Not be rewarded with the new elite spec after exploring and playing the new expansion pack.

Exactly. Couldn’t have put it better myself.

This sort of thinking is really sad to see. It completely trivialises the character progression within the new expansions. As it is you can collect all the current hero points in the game and be able to unlock the majority of the new elite spec, assuming they continue with the 250 point unlock cost. Masteries are account bound already, which makes them a bit too “fire-and-forget”.

It reminds me of a time before release back in 2012. People would complain that they couldn’t have a L80 instantly on 25th August 2012, they would complain that they couldn’t get everything unlocked from the get go. It is so very sad to see. Now you can get an instant L80 and I think the game is worse off for it.

Speaking more generally, I’ve met a few people in game over the last few months who have bought the game, or come back after a very long break. They pop a L80 boost. Stand around asking what there is to do and within a week you never see them log in again. So what does getting everything unlocked get you? It gets you even less to work for and no idea of what you want to do. Levelling slowly and unlocking skills and traits at a slower pace means that you generate aspirations as you play and by the time you get to L80 you actually know what you want to work towards.

[Sarcasm]If they were to trivialise elite specialisations by making them unlocked for everyone who bought their relative XPacs then they should definitely make all legendaries unlocked on all accounts so we don’t need to work for those either. I can’t be bothered to work for legendary armour so that would be sweeeeet.[/Sarcasm]

Heironeous.4928:

Does it not make ANYBODY else that fought through the Scarlet’s War content angry that just any new kid with money can just get the same items that I busted my butt for?

Yes and no. On the one hand it is annoying and does devalue what those of us who bothered playing during Season 1 achieved. On the other hand though I thought it was more just a way for ArenaNet to drain all the 4K Gems players have been getting with their PoF so that they will buy more gems later. I won’t be tricked into spending my gems yet, ArenaNet!

There is a stance which kind of “resets” your attunements and makes your 4&5 skills match the attunements for the first three. This helps to address that issue I feel.

Hannelore.8153:

I just wish they would let me do something els with all these Gifts of Exploration besides crafting legendaries with them.. one was enough.

I came up with a bunch of ideas for their use ages ago. I don’t remember many of them now, but something appropriate like Everlasting Road Marker banners, maybe an item that temporarily allows players to use your commander tag as a waypoint, or an item that can unlock all core waypoints for a new characters.

There’s plenty of fun things that could be done with them I think, and would further encourage players onto old maps to gain these gifts.

Zoltreez.6435:

but i heard that even the MOBS on the new expansion are tunned for Condi dmg and Power feels weak and hits like a wet noodle on Mobs compared to condi…
is that true ? i don’t know if thats true or not….

Not sure if this is some kind of troll. I played Guardian through the beta with Berserker stats and ripped through large groups of enemies with ease and solo killed some of the bounty champions. I didn’t find any foes in PoF so far that act like HoT husks and are deliberately tuned to be weaker to conditions.

Are these reports you’re getting maybe coming from players who tried to fight some of the bounty bosses which, when affected by certain mob traits, require you to be within a certain range to deal damage, and are assuming their experience applies to all foes? If so, that is not the case.

ZeftheWicked.3076:

So remind me here, am i a commander of Tyria’s greatest military force or Kiel’s errand boy?

On second thought, don’t answer that. It’s too depressing to know…

Well, no, you’re not a commander of Tyria’s greatest military force. At least not any more. That would be Logan.

The fact that we’re still the ‘Commander’ is addressed in Out of the Shadows by Almorra. This is clearly simply a convenient title by which all NPCs can address us regardless of race or gender. I enjoy that at least there is a little variation in PoF with the Cavaliers addressing us as ‘Outlander’.

Maybe Ogres cross-bred with Sand Giants: https://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Sand_Giant

Ragnarox.9601:

Heh be lucky if they dont nerf DH cause firebrand will be worse than base guardians so compensation is to nerf DH to the ground. (look at staff nerf, totally not needed and they did it anyways).

Just because Firebrand is likely to be a more supportive elite spec doesn’t necessarily mean that DH will be nerfed. DH is clearly meant to be a direct damage specialisation. I think when we have 3-4 elite specs per profession we will begin to see real differentiation between them and they will allow a profession to further specialise into a particular job.

I share your cynicism to a point. Maybe they will be tempted to nerf DH to make Firebrand look better in terms of damage. I imagine ArenaNet wont want Guardians to feel like there is nothing in PoF for them if all they want to do is play power based builds. I hope they don’t nerf DH though, and I don’t think they need to. It’s completely acceptable for an old elite spec to remain good in PvE and for a new elite spec to shine in other areas of the game, such as raids, fractals and WvW.

maddoctor.2738:

I really hope the actual PoF maps will be much more interesting and challenging than the beta.

Definitely. Look at the North & South outposts as an example. Ordinarily there would be stuff happening here, right? The only event I saw at either of those was an escort event to start.

I like that the areas of dunes are event-free (with exception of bounties). That feels as it should – it’s a desert, after all. When I get to an outpost I expect to see things to do and hope that flavour events of this kind will be added by release.

Yargesh.4965:

I am taking on multiple hydras (the heads do absolutely nothing but twitch on the ground). This is not good for the game I enjoy but if enough others like it too bad for me.

It’s a decapitated head. The most I’d want to see it do is to spew fire randomly for a bit of extra danger.

I kinda thought that the point of the heads was, other than for flavour, to maybe keep you in combat longer and stop you from mounting and running off? /shrug

Perhaps if players want harder content there could be a hard mode where every foe in PoF is replaced by a shoal of champion trout. You get a special orrian gulper outfit and a troutnado mini for winning GW2.

On a more serious note foes like the Forged did feel a bit undertuned to me, and I wondered at the time if it was to allow players to not feel totally outmatched in a beta and stop them from wanting to purchase the XPac. Perhaps Crystal Oasis will act a bit like a L80 version of Queensdale and we will find the later zones see ramped up difficulty.

Mount masteries seem to require token amount of XP to unlock – not engaging.
I enjoy the lack of events in the dunes but there should be something more to do at the outposts.
Mounts themselves are fantastic but would like a few mount emotes, such as /sit.
Really enjoy the optional gear identification.
Would like more NPCs with text based dialogue. The voice acting is nice but you have to be there at the right time to hear it.

This is a bit of a “citation needed”, but I think I heard NPCs talking in the demo area about the Choya. If memory serves they were said to live on top of mesas but something happened to force some of them to leave the mesas and begin harassing human colonised areas.

I’d be interesting to see if anyone else has a record of what I remember hearing.

Feedback time.

Starting with stuff I particularly liked:

• The feel and design of the raptor mount. You can tell a lot of time has been spent on the raptors. I hope this carries over to the additional mounts.
• The design of several of the forged.
• There is a satisfying amount of NPC conversations to listen into which hint at interesting things to see both in the beta, and out with. I particularly enjoy the mystery surrounding Zalambur and the pumping station sabotages.
• The sky.

Hopefully constructive criticism:

• If I’m being picky I would like more interactable NPCs. Different accounts and stories from the refugees. Insights on the running of Amnoon from the Councillors. A few randomly interractable workers and cavaliers.
• Perhaps this is something that will be worked out by release, but a number of NPCs in Amnoon seem to be ‘low res’. I don’t understand why this is the case unless it’s just because it’s a test build.
• Mount mastering. 4 tiers? I maxed out Tier 3 in a very short amount of time. Either it’s not been finalised yet, or ArenaNet have caved to players complaining about “the terrible mastery grind” of HoT. As it stands the mount mastering are not very exciting. It feels like there should be more tiers and they should require more experience per tier – else it’s just a case of collecting the mastery points.
• It feels like there should be more flavour events around the likes of the North and South outposts. Unlike a lot of people I like that there’s little going on in the dune areas. That’s how it should be. Deserts are desolate. When you reach an outpost there should be stuff going on and it would be nice to see some kind of flavour event in those locations.
• I am a bit concerned that someone having a Daredevil gives them an automatic advantage in competitive stuff such as the adventure and the race.
• There are a lot of merchants around who you can’t interact with. It would be nice if the likes of the Vase merchant would sell you decoration items for your guild hall to give them a purpose other than an NPC with occasional voice acting.

Excellent Name.9574:

redundant RNG throwback

It’s no more or less RNG than getting the drops pre-identified directly into your inventory.

I’m pro this change provided there is no cap on how many a heart NPC can identify at one time.

So far I have found Melee combat to be completely acceptable. I rather wonder if the likes of The Forged will be made more difficult by release though as they seem like pushovers. The trout are pretty punishing in melee but that’s all that sticks out for now.

HaTTori.1493:

Example: how about the armor sets? Are the the nice armors all behind paywall, and only the not-so-pretty. Like, those what were free back in the day are now paid or…?

What’s nice is really rather subjective.

If what you want is an outfit, then you (generally) need to buy them with Gems.
If what you want is a specific skin from a Living World episode (or HoT) then, of course, you need to unlock that content.

Nothing that was obtainable with in-game currency in the core game is now hidden behind a paywall, I’m not sure why any company would do that.

My advice? If you’re into the fashion aspects of this game then log in, go to the account wardrobe, preview stuff. Check to see if the stuff you like is available in-game for your account right now with no paywall.

Smiggles.6823:

It turns out according to Wooden Potatoes most recent video that that was a really bad idea.

So I’m sad now.

If you’re only referring to the need to chuck a Mystic Coin in a well for the collection achievements please remember that, providing you continue to accept log-in rewards, gaining enough Mystic Coins for bits and pieces of collection achievements should be no issue.

You still have well over a month to save up more Mystic Coins.

Ider.1276:

Sarie.1630:

a bad Warhorn skin which, when used, sounds like Evon Gnashblade cursing continually for five minutes.

Actually, I want that!

So many people want that, that’s why the devs are going to have to nerf it slightly. The duration of the noise will be reduced from 5 seconds to 2.5 seconds and instead of Evon Gnashblade cursing it will be Steward Gixx chuntering about which knitting patterns he likes the least.

ClockworkRaja.1732:

Segway (For the Asura as well as others)

I kinda like this idea on the basis that it could be small enough to not be too intrusive.

Can I piggy-back on Canach’s shoulders?

Pifil.5193:

Hmmm, that pretty much is just a nicer Sohothin… Maybe it’s Rytlock’s.

Or maybe, like with the Caithe missions in LW Season 2, we have to play AS Rytlock in the mists to find out what happened to him, and we get to use it there.

jheryn.8390:

Play as you want never had anything to do with players creating the game in their own ideal image.

I don’t think I’ve ever seen a response to this issue stated so succinctly before.

I’m actually surprised it took this long after the PoF Announcement for someone to complain about not being able to “play how they want”.

You have to spend an average of 200 hours grinding a specific drop from an Arctodus in Snowden Drifts in order to “please” Palawa Joko and earn his allegiance. Once Palawa Joko is on your side he will reveal that he has resurrected Scarlet and his grand plan is to allow Awakened Scarlet to absorb all of Balthazar’s Power and become a new God. In order to do this the player must make a decision within the story. Do you help Awakened Scarlet by farming blade shards in the Not So Secret jumping puzzle to fuel her or do you try to stop her by farming blade shards from the Not So Secret jumping puzzle to throw at her?

If you choose to help Awakened Scarlet then Palawa Joko will reward you with a special weapon skin with Ellen Kiel’s face on it but if you do not then he will expel you from The Desolation and only give you a bad Warhorn skin which, when used, sounds like Evon Gnashblade cursing continually for five minutes. This will also revert your PoF story by 5 steps and will force you to replay it until you choose to help Awakened Scarlet.

When you finally destroy Balthazar and Awakened Scarlet takes on his power to ascend to godhood she will reveal that she was Mordremoth all along. You will need to complete Dragon’s Stand 10 times to collect a special drop from Axe Master Hareth when he appears within the dragon’s coil at the end of the map meta so that you can purchase a special oil lamp like the Elonian skin but prettier and has grawl graffiti all over it. You can then face the god Moredremoth and shout “You wanted to be a God? You got it, and everything that goes with it!” and suck Mordremoth into the special oil lamp.

There is then an endgame quest to bury the oil lamp deep within Augury Rock which is then buried in sand for the next 500 years.

Sorry I should have used spoiler tags.

I’m excited to find NPCs in the world that you can actually speak to who tell you actual lore. HoT was terrible for this; really, really terrible. I think PoF shows a lot more promise.

AzureWolf.9150:

Glenstorm.4059:

I read a comment on reddit that mounts are disabled in (most?) cities, so I don’t think we’re in danger of mounts cluttering the hubs…

As well as being disabled in jumping puzzles (just like Gliders). I think this will be a fun addition to help us move about the world of Tyria just a bit faster.

Jumping puzzles from HoT onwards have generally been designed to make use of Gliding. I think it is likely that we will see Jumping Puzzles designed with mounts in mind for PoF, and perhaps only see them disabled in Core & HoT.

…as much as I’d like to use my mutant bunny mount to avoid all the pop-up rocks in the Skipping Stones puzzle….

Aryan Arlande.6184:

Too late, too little

What we really need, is a Dragon for riding, so we can burn down every structure, building, boil the sea and tear mountains apart with a single breath.

That will teach these casuals and F2Ps a lesson

Yea, stupid free-to-play, casual Lannister army.

I edited my post to clarify. What I should have said was “two pairs of arms.”

In profile it looks as though he has two right arms, one on his waist and one folded in front of him.

My initial reaction was it is likely to be undead… but the more I keep staring the more the number of arms I can see are bothering me!

I don’t think it’s a Balthazar minion.

Wishful Thinking alert.

See the attached image. Two pairs of arms, blackened, floating. Is what we’re seeing here a GW2 Seer?

Image taken from: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KZM0bJekitten=10m26s

A more pertinent question should be: In PoF can I reskin my skimmer with the Magic Carpet please?

Konig Des Todes.2086:

And the goal of “prevent Balthazar from killing Kralkatorrik so he doesn’t regain his full power and destroy the world” is very little different from “prevent Abaddon from breaking free so he doesn’t regain his full power and destroy the world”. The only difference is that instead of chasing down Copy of Varesh for 80% of the storyline, we’re chasing down Copy of Abaddon for 80% of the storyline.

That’s more-or-less the plot of every game ever.

Stop the bad guy from doing the bad thing because otherwise… catastrophy!

Perhaps ArenaNet should consider making a romantic comedy. An expansion centred around crafting Kasmeer a wedding dress and having to explore Elona to find the finest silks.

Atonement.8021:

Not all knowledge your character has needs to be directly referred to previously in game.

About this – often stuff is referred to but it’s super out-of-the-way or super obscure and any regular player just following personal story and events will never come across it.

I always liked this about GW. If you took the time to speak to out-of-the-way NPCs and read random books in the world, etc. you could read hints about other sub-plots yet to be explored which then made them richer for you when the time came because you read about it already.

If we take Livia as an example. I can’t think of much in-game which references her. There is a PoI called the Wreck of the Lady Livia and there is a note about Livia in Oola’s Lab in Metrica Province I think. ArenaNet could definitely have done better at introducing her but I suppose this is down to constraints within the story and the resourcing of same.

Those of us who played GW1 will know her, those of us who have read the books will be more up-to-date with her back story, so for us her reveal was really good to see. I do feel for GW2-only players who are left thinking “Huh…???” at the end of the story, and wouldn’t blame them for it.

Speaking of scraps of information that’s really out-of-the way … if you read all the stuff in the house at the end of the Shining Blade Secrets story you get to learn that The Shining Blade was actually gifted to that faction by the Seers. I wonder if this information will play a role later on. Seers are just another facet of old Guild Wars lore that GW2-only players will have almost never heard about. A reveal of a Seer in GW2 would be seriously moistening for me… but not so for GW2-exclusive players I think.

My butt is primed for more Canach Sass.

Tumult.2578:

I don’t see that as a logical expectation at all. By adding things like mounts that so many people clearly said they would hate and likely stop playing over, they lose a lot of players. More importantly, those that stay will not buy the expansion. Without it, all that future content will be unavailable. The story will become nonsense and likely unplayable without the new masterys and any new skills or abilities. That’s when the rest leave.

So players wont buy PoF because it has mounts in it. Ok, I get that. I don’t like mounts either but still intend to purchase. Why? Because there’s a lot more to it than mounts that interests me.

Tumult.2578:

I don’t see any logic in claiming that showing they can add content in a reasonable amount of time bears any merit, when they showed that in year one already and this expansion has not proven anything yet except that it will block future progress and likely block the future story, if it’s not purchased.

I think blocking Living World Season 4 behind the expansion is a perfectly fine thing to do.

Tumult.2578:

So, no, I will be saving my money because it looks like I will need it elsewhere soon.

We all want different things out of the game and have different priorities. All players should view the evidence and decide what is right for them.

Meanma.5623:

tekfan.3179:

Like Logan suddenly hopping out from the back and doing a flipflop into the energies.

It will be Rytlock doing that.

“Later, cub.”

Please let it be so.

road range.6293:

We’ll see. Myself, due to recent history and direction since HoT, I’m holding back my money this time around, with skepticism, until I see some genuine positive player feedback from it. And, see something more than just needless mounts, and obligations to drain the bank and completely re-learn, and re-gear all characters, to play for.

I’m probably preaching to the converted but don’t base your decision purely on forum posts! Players who want to vent their gripes come to the forums. Those who are happy with the XPac will be playing and enjoying. I find that because of this the forums give a very one-sided idea of what the content is like.

You know what the forums will look like on release day. It’ll be full of people complaining about the grind. THE GRIND, OH THE GRIND. God, the mastery grind is real. As if ArenaNet would expect me to get tier 3 of the mutant bunny mastery before I can get a specific skillpoint. That’s it. Life is over, game is ruined, just another HoT WoW clone. Doom, DOOM, DOOOOOOOM.

eh

I sure wont be visiting the forums in the weeks after release if I can help it. It’s so depressing!

Aaaaand I just found this:

Skip to 6:44. Looks like your prayers got answered.

Arden.7480:

What’s about Palawa Joko? Will his forces unite with ours to kill Balthazar?

I’m tempted to speculate yes, an uneasy alliance. Presumably Balthazar will be threatening Joko also.

My additional speculation will be Season 4 Living World will involve us dealing with Joko, heading into Kourna to begin to root him out, once we’re done with him as an “ally”.

circuitnerd.5863:

So I’ve currently got all 9 professions and they are all geared at level 80. Now that I have this level 80 boost I can level up another character instantly but I can’t decide on which one. Since now that means I’d have a duplicate class. And feels a bit pointless to have 2 of the same class. So what would you do?

Having two of the same profession basically means you can have two different builds set up at once. Say you have two Eles, you can have one set up as Power and one as an Auramancer. Log into the one you need.

See what ArenaNet have given you there is a build template saver!!!

Ahem.

I’ll probably use mine to make an Elonian-themed character. It’ll be a duplicate profession, but so what. I don’t mind a bit of Fashion Wars to make it worth it.

chemie banger.9624:

Oh no. Big maps even.

Hope stuff will be solo able.
Maybe some lower level maps. Not just more 80 stuff.

Could be my timezone doesn’t help :-/

It’s “complaints” like this that perfectly illustrate that you can’t please everyone all of the time.

I’m delighted at the idea of five huge maps. I enjoy the exploring aspect of this game. I also quite like them to be not too busy. If you’re concerned about not being able to kill bosses due to lack of players, I don’t think there will be an issue in finding willing participants in the months after release, either in map chat or the LFG tool. Both are good ways of alerting people to boss spawns.