Guild Wars 2

SunRoamer.5103:

If you play a Sylvari, you’ll actually hear the dragon and his minion talk.

Yes! i heard that! its a nice touch -

I’m looking forward to testing that system. I’ve been holding off on map exploration on alts until I know how it will be different in HoT. So I will likely do a hunk of exploration to see how it works and give feedback on whether it’s too weak, too strong, or just right.

Hopefully it will be a marked improvement over current stuff, even if that means I have to wait even longer to work on maps. It’s not like map completion’s been a giant priority for me after I did it twice including WvW.

The flip side of not keeping loot, by the way, is that you can spend your resources, use up skins and transmutes and makeovers, and you’ll still have them on your live account. Because you aren’t really spending loot either.

If you can only access it from Challenger Cliffs, I think that is fair game.

Everyone! Stop crafting the new backpack of Mawdrey and Mawdrey II! It’s a trap, a trap to doom Tyria!

Don’t you think it’s odd? ArenaNet, before Season 2, began said that they want player choice to be bigger in Season 2 than Season 1 (where we had the election). But where is that choice? It certainly isn’t obvious. But what can ArenaNet monitor so well that not everyone doing the main story will do? It’s obvious, right? It’s the backpacks! Crafting, or not crafting, the backpacks will affect the future of the Living Story. How, you might ask? Why would this bring about the doom of Tyria? Because they’ll overgrow us and take over in the name of Mordremoth!

In 4 months time, when ArenaNet has had a chance to analize the results and build upon them, the backpacks will grow and the lies of their description being kind and cuddly will be revealed. They will stretch those tendrils around our characters necks and strangle them like they have done to so many NPCs around the world, and our characters will not be revive-able – for they are no longer knocked out like the defeated state, they are dead, and resurrection magic doesn’t exist anymore. Then with the heroes of Tyria gone, Mordremoth’s forces will spread ever eastward, a new day a new zone! And if most instances of the map doesn’t push back Mordremoth’s forces, they’ll take over. But because of all the backpacks, there won’t be enough level 80s to eliminate the threat in Dry Top, our characters that we’ll have to remake will be too low level to do anything in Brisban, and when they reach Rata Sum – no more asuran characters! When they reach the Grove – no more sylvari characters! Divinity’s Reach? The same! Hoelbrak and Black Citadel! You guessed it! And then, when Mordremoth’s forces inevitable encroach on the last bastions of Tyria, Ebonhawke and Deathblade’s Watch, and they fall, the PvE servers, and the game will be nothing but WvW and sPvP. The world of Tyria will be Mordremoth’s vineyard.

She’s terrified because someone (read: you and the biconics) brought her into hostile territory when she should be in the safety of Rata Sum like other asuran children. She’s terrified because in her immaturity and selfishness she ran off on her own in hostile territory without any thought to her own safety or the inconvenience chasing after her would cause important people with better things to do who now have to do the same. Seriously, people are dieing, Mordremoth is destroying forts and threatening the whole world. We just did a field trip through the desert – risking out lives – because Taimi doesn’t want to hand over her device?

If someone like Taimi, with no background on waypoint knowledge was able to identify a solution to the problem the moment she was made aware of the problem, I’m sure the asura that created the waypoints, that maintain them every day, that construct them or find ways to make them more efficient, I’m sure they could have solved this problem. Taimi might be a genius, but so is her entire race.

My norn warrior
1. Shot of him before he hit 80, hes been called a “prettyboy” by some.
2. Shot of him after 80: hes been called a “flaming hot” norn by my friends.
Bonus: the champion destroyer harpy spawned while I was taking pictures.

One Norn hair style is the same, the double ponytail. Sticks out so straight, could almost use them as additional weapons.

Color consistency makes it match though! 7/10

Ima try again without glowy red berserker eyes so you can see his face better! also scowly face. roar.
Also modified the outfit some.

Well, if we want to point out showing off a bit too much, how about the flame legion pants on heavy male norn.
That’s a trail of happiness that goes waaaaay down… Not to say I don’t love it, I do, and god do I hope it stays there.

But ya know. Happens.

DoctorOverlord.8620:

Story/lore should be accessible by players of ANY skill level.

That’s like saying you should be able to progress in Final Fantasy 7 even though you insist to attack the Scorpion boss while his tail is up.

This is most definitely a l2p issue. If you’re having hat much a difficulty with this boss, then PM me ingame and I’ll teach you which tactics to use.

Konig Des Todes.2086:

In the original ending of Season 1, it was revealed that Rox and Rytlock are half-sisters. This seems like that is still true, even if not revealed. Rytlock and Rox talk a lot about knowing each other for a long time, throughout the final step.

*siblings

if rytlock is someone’s sister, he has some serious issues :P

I take it no noticed that right after Smodur said it failed, he also said it wasn’t over.

For all we know, the sword’s wielder chasing the sword into the mist may very well be part of the cleansing. If one doesn’t have the courage to jump into the mists alone in order to break the curse, what right do they have to be the King?

To be fair the ending DID make it rather clear that this was not the end. So I wouldn’t say it is all decided yet.

It’s validating to know that other people share my opinion. I thought my post on the new hairstyles was going to die pretty quickly. I miss being able to take the lore and art style of GW2 seriously. Even with the goofy Asura, there was a sense of artistic integrity in creating lore that pushed the limits of being funny without resorting to gimmicks. I know there were a lot of comic-relief moments, but nowadays, it seems like the kitsch has gone way too far and the entire game is just one big “Who can look the most ridiculous?” contest. It was funny for a second, and now I’m over it. I wish ANet could take themselves seriously again.

I do agree that many of the exclusive hairstyles and colour/tone choices are outside of any connection with a fantasy based Lore. But its what a large section of the casual and large fraction of the player base who know little to none of the Lore and are not invested in it in the slightest.

Which why we are getting these – with likely more to come….

A lot of the new hairstyles cross the line when it comes to portraying a world with aesthetic lore integrity.

The asura have gone from scary creatures from beneath the earth to your average Disney movie cute race, complete with pink hair, pig tails, bows and adorable baby animal facial features. The human hair styles no longer look like what a farmer, warrior, scholar or wilds adventurer would wear, they are increasingly fancier than what you would see at a real life wedding or date night.

We saw what happened with Rox, it was only a matter of time before the lines were pushed with the charr. For the record, I agree with the OP, the obvious anime hair is ridiculous for the race and as much as a lot of players enjoy it, it does detract from the aesthetic quality of the world now. It’s already very popular and you’re going to see it a lot.

Pandora’s Box has been opened, it’s not like they can do anything about it now. Fortunately the sylvari have mostly remained lore friendly in their hair styles.

Erukk.1408:

Thalador.4218:

Despite all this, I’m pretty sure this attempt by Rytlock will fail, and it will make things even worse for a time. Then in some later episode someone with Ascalonian royal blood in his/her veins will eventually lift the curse, truly freeing Ascalon from Adelbern’s madness.

People’s darkest fears realized…

Kasmeer: Hey! What does this sword do…
Marjory: Honey, I wouldn’t touch that if I were y….
Kasmeer: THERE CAN BE ONLY ONE!!

~Kasmeer runs over and beheads the ghosts of King Adelbern and Duke Barradin and absorbs their ghostly powers.~

Kasmeer: I am Kasmeer, Queen of Ascalon. The Cursebreaker. For I am the Special Snowflake!!!

I was imagining Marjory’s face during all of this and it was hilarious. xD

Next content patch, Mordem Drooburt appears to allow us to look our money back.

ThiBash.5634:

Talk about insulting. With this type of people making the game, no wonder everything is bugged and unfinished. And to think we’re paying that guy’s salary…just to be used for his own personal amusement.

Um… I just interpreted it as a guy who decided to play a little trick. It was kinda funny actually. Apparently for you that means the entire ANet is a hive of sloth and wickedness…

BrunoBRS.5178:

i’d like to think trahearne would accidentally catch on fire from clinking both swords together.

That’s for the next season, what are you? A Seer?!

I heard mass effect also invented dialogue, space ships, and doin’ it.

Shiren.9532:

It’s left to the player to make up an explanation for why it doesn’t match their experience in Nightfall.

There’s no need to make up an explanation.

Just take both what you know from GW1 and what you read in Scarlet’s house at face value, and the answer presents itself. Unless you’re unaware of the concept of ‘propaganda’, in which case you should worry more about your general knowledge than the quality of a video game’s writing.

Neither of those things will happen. Marjory sent Kasmeer away because she had to deliver difficult personal news to her mother and family and her mother doesn’t warm up to strangers easily. She’s not practicing necromancy, she’s choosing how to inform her mother of her sister’s death and not making that more difficult by introducing her mother to her noble girlfriend (something we are led to believe might be an issue for Marjory’s family, particularly her mother). Unfortunately, that’s the plot I suspect we will get from Belinda’s death, a Delaqua family reunion and more romance stuff with Kasmeer.

The necromancy plot doesn’t fit the tone of the story for the biconics. Notice Marjory is one of the least necromancer-like necromancers we’ve come across? Eve from GW1 was written like you would expect from a necromancer, Livia was like a necromancer. Marjory rarely comes across as someone who messes around in tombs, thinking about the dead, working curses or hexes. The most necromancy thing she does is commune with the dead and works with poisons. The biconics don’t really get their hands dirty.

Why would Livia train Marjory? I haven’t finished SoS (one day… maybe) but Livia has no reason to be interested in Marjory. Just because Marjory is a biconic doesn’t mean the world is interested in her. Belinda isn’t special so I doubt Livia would invest her time in her. Livia is a member of the Shining Blade and there was a recent reference to Canach joining them (I suspect the noble woman was Anise) so I suspect a Shining Blade plot will surface in the story in the near future. If Livia were to return, it would make more sense to do so with that plot than with Marjory’s plot. The two could be combined, but why would the Shining Blade care about Marjory? She’s arguably less useful now that she’s grieving.

(spoilers ahead)

Zephyrite’s ships have crashed, and Morning just died in front of Marjory. Obviously, that’s the best time for Marjory to check if her hair looks alright!

Marjory’s sister is dead, and Kasmeer is delivering the sad news to the rest of the team. Must not be such a big deal, though, as she’s casually stretching herself.

Usually I’m the last person to complain about immersion in video games, but default idle animations like these were designed to make characters look attractive and somewhat “hot”. So it’s not at all surprising that it looks utterly jarring in completely inappropriate situations, which we have a lot (and will have more every 2 weeks) in the new LS S2.

I suggest adding another “neutral” set of animations for all races and genders (at least females) which can be used in story instances and similar situations. As a semi-solution, this set may even be a part of the usual animation with the most “casual” parts cut out.

Nothing to add here, I just simply agree

I rarely get annoyed enough to post about something in the forums, and I don’t want to rant in a “tl;dr” post, but what were you thinking, ANet? Two of these new Charr hairstyles (the topknot and the Super Saiyan nonsense) look like my third grade drawings of DBZ characters, and I’m not happy about it. I guess you gave up on making them look good and decided they should be the comic relief? It’s shameful.

http://dulfy.net/2014/07/15/gw2-entanglement-new-hairstyles-in-makeover-kit/

Rainin.9812:

Achievements only attainable by a small percentage of players are annoying.

That’s why they’re called achievements and not ‘everyone gets a medal points’.

Some minor spoilers ahead. Continue are your own discretion.

I want to keep this as brief as possible. This isn’t a major concern, maybe more of a suggestion if you can call it that. I’ve played through the first two episodes of the Living Story and so far it’s really good. Definitely a step forward from the Living Story season one (mainly due to instanced story quests; I like that). My concern is the tone that this living story brings. We’re up against another major threat in Tyria. Vines having surfaced from the ground, essentially “eating” waypoints. This threat then destroying settlements and killing people. If I were in the fictional land of Tyria, I’d say this is a major issue. That said, I feel like the current tone of this Living Story acts as if it’s some sort of joke. The primary “issue” from my perspective rests with Taimi. She is too happy-go-lucky with the way things are acting and it sets a completely different mood than what I would believe the setting to be. Rather than our heroes being a bit scared or brave or determined to vanquish this threat, I feel like our heroes are making this threat out to be a joke. I feel like our heroes are not actually determined to kill this threat but instead would much rather sit around a campfire with a keg of ale singing Kumbaya. (Spoiler here) So Marjory’s sister dies, lets go into a cave and start giggling and laughing! That doesn’t seem very realistic.

Although the Living Story season one was not favored by a lot of people including myself, I feel like the overall mood was a lot better than what we have been giving thus far for season two with the exception of Kasmeer’s hiccuping at the end of the Scarlet fight (and even that received some critical reception). I’m sure it is too late to suggest a change as I’d assume that most of the dialogue and voice acting is finished but should it not be, consider this a personal suggestion; a suggestion to make the mood reflect what is actually happening in the world. Change up Taimi to be less (sorry Taimi fans) annoying, cheerful and full of humor to something that also reflects what the mood should be.

I don’t know how many others will agree with me but I am sure there are a few (maybe a lot, who knows).

Thanks for reading.

I reach the Concordia mission and everyone’s all fine and cheery about their shiny new fort… Which is mangled and destroyed by vines…

Is there a way perhaps the living story could not change the maps within the story missions? The Living Story is awesome, as is how it affects the world, but it’s a bit weird when the new events are affecting instances that are supposed to be in the past (IE Mordremoth influence in the time when Zhaitan still lived).

No, you’re a bit mistaken how it works.

1. To unlock a Living Story 2 chapter on your account, you need to log in during the two week period and click that big green star in the right corner. (If you can’t log in during this two week period, you can buy it with 200 gems.) This is account wide.

2. Once unlocked, you can freely do that chapter whenever you like on a level 80 character. Characters who are not level 80 can’t do that chapter, but it will become available to them once they reach level 80.

3. When the story is completed for the first time on a character, you unlock the ability to replay it and complete achievements. This is character-specific. Note that while completing the story on each character will give you rewards once per character, the rewards for completing the achievements is once per account only.

So basically, you have nothing to worry about.