Guild Wars 2

Yes you can.

http://hom.guildwars2.com/en/#page=welcome

GW1 is a great game, enjoy. I suggest buying all of the campaigns at once, usually some good deals over on steam and such. You get your first HoM points just by connecting all the campaigns to 1 account. Simple and easy.

GW1 is not very noob friendly these days as mobs share skill updates with players, making certain fights very OP and seemingly impossible if you don’t know how to counter them. If you absolutely need help I could come in and steamroll everything with my heroes for you. xD

Although this forum quite dead nowadays these people are very helpful and are happy to assist you ingame http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/

There is no official GW1 forum.

for the people who like to argue everything just to be right:

Mace/Mace

• 1 Daze(15s cd)
• 1 Stun(7-10s cd)
• 1 Knock down 25s cd

Hammer

• 1 Stun 7-10s cd
• 1 Knock Down 24-30s cd
• 1 Push Back 20s cd

Rampage

• 1 push
• 1 Stun
• 1 Knock down

[utility]

• Stomp

so.. Engineers lowest stun break CD is 40s. vs 10 CC’s most in a lower cd, and all the warrior needs to land is 1 stun break or no stun break you realistically have to outplay them, while all the gotta do is land one of the spammable stun on you

Marcus Greythorne.6843:

Safari.3021:

In game Polls:

Barmen.

You talk to a barman in a tavern, they chat yto you, ask you questions, you give your responses.

Anet get their poll.
Player recieves tankard of ale for their time.

Encourage participation by making “visit tavern for a drink” a daily achievement when a poll is needed

haha this makes ingame polls actually immersive, nice idea Only problem I can think of: how do you make the connection between the things you want to ask about (a specific event etc.) and the dialogue?

NPC: “Grab a seat, I’ll pull up a drink for you. Heard news at the Splintered Coast is pretty bad. One of the Dragon’s lieutenants seems to be getting stronger”

Player: “Yep, you wouldn’t catch me there” [didn’t participate] / “I was actually there in the fight” [participated].

NPC [if participated]: “Really?! I bet it was a close fight.”

Player: “Psh. A walk in the park for someone like me” [easy] / “Well, it was a sight more difficult than the usual fights I get into” [medium] / “You have no idea. Bodies. Bodies everywhere” [hard].

NPC: “Really…Fancy talking about it?”

Player: “Sure” [brings up a text box] / “Not really, it’d probably bore you” [if answer was easy] / “I’m trying to forget it, why do you think I’m here?” [hard]

NPC: “Truly a thrilling tale” [text box filled] / “No problem, I understand” [text box not filled]

NPC: “Here you go. This drink is on the house.”

Or something along those lines.

As someone who has actually played on all 3 servers.

Pve wise:
1. BG
2. JQ
3. SoR

WvW wise
1. SoR
2. JQ
3. BG

The BG pve groups have always been stellar in comparison to JQ and SoR in my eyes. BG is where I got my dungeon master title all those months ago, and even today, when you want to do teq, you get told to head to BG.
SoR on the other hand has been very lackluster to me in terms of PvE. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, but I often find myself unable to find other players in maps, or even during world bosses sometimes.
JQ was very middle line. Nothing special, but nothing awful.

For WvW
SoR has been my favorite WvW server out of the 3. The commanders are (generally) fun people. They’re also quite dedicated. Even back at the game release, SoR was the server I recognized as being very much “in it to win it” as it were.

JQ is again the middle line here. I honestly didnt care for the JQ playstyle at the time. I’d come into EB and see someone commanding. And if he was doing serious commanding rather than a karma train, it usually was “take our stuff, take smc if possible. Siege up, repair, and then turtle.” Very rarely did I feel like we were making any solid pushes. It may have been my timezone, it may have been that I was unlucky, but that sort of playstyle just didnt appeal to me.

I rank BG last here, but not because they’re bad at WvW. I was on BG when they were clawing their way up to T1. I just didnt like a lot of the attitudes involved. To me a lot of the BG players came off as very very arrogant. I had issues with the other T1 servers at the time. But there was a lot of the whole “2v1, 2v1!” stuff going on. Not a bad server, but the drama that was surrounding me constantly when I was there put me off it in a pretty big way.

Dead Anet,
with introducing of Leagues, can You please change color of dead enemy player from red name tag to grey name tag?

Thanks

the problem is that ANet basically created a game with 2 opposing rules

1) 3-faction
2) ppt

the raison d’etre for 3 factions was so the weaker 2 could arrange truces of sorts, band up against the stronger one and beat on it till the power levels were similar

short matches make this largely irrelevant, people wont bother with something as difficult as starting talks and forging an alliance when in a few days the match will be over and forgotten.
the short matches also prevent from having some of the good drama that invariably accompanied (and made interesting) 3-faction games, where today’s ally would backstab you tomorrow, etc etc…

last but not least, the ppt mechanic makes alliances largely unviable. for the second server, it makes far more sense beating on the weaker one to get more points/rating than allying with it.

basically ANet made a 3 faction game just because DAOC did it too, but completly failing to understand the reasons behind it.

This is the best post I’ve ever read on this forum. ProxyDamage, I really hope ANet grabs that achievement and takes notes. I, for one, thank you for taking the time to write this message, I wholeheartedly second everything you said. I too feel my enthusiasm with GW2 diminishing and I would like for them to address the issues the games has. I was on the verge of quitting, I uninstalled the game for the first time since I bought it just a few days ago and then reinstalled it because… well, I realised I don’t want to quit GW2, I want it fixed. And by this time I don’t even want ANet to fix everything, I would settle for only part of the problems solved.

There’s always this talk about “core gamers” and I believed these were the people drawn by the ideas expressed in the Manifesto. Now, considering the amount of MMOs on the market – and more to come – there probably won’t be a “WoW killer”, where millions upon millions of people fill the coffers of a single company. A lot of people will always be drawn to what’s new. Right now that’s FF14, in a couple of months that will be Wildstar and the next year it will be TESO. So I guess if those people leave then, in the long run, you’re left with the “core audience”. Thus I wonder, if the core audience is those people that responded to the manifesto, then why not please them?

I wonder if this is where the problem lies actually and ANet needs more people to buy the game because the existing players can go by not further contributing to the company’s earnings? Of course, there can’t be a single reason for the shift in ANet’s mentality (at least that’s how I perceive it) but I, for one, can’t figure out a clear answer. And truth be told, I shouldn’t. It’s not my business to mind the inner workings of the company, my job is to play and pay for the product that has been advertised in the manifesto.

• Dailies/monthlies could have been something amazing, a “bonus” for logging in every day, if only they weren’t the only way of acquiring laurels.

• Ascended could have been a long term goal everyone would work for, due to the sheer convenience of it, but nobody felt forced to do, if instead of being statistically superior they were simply offered something else: the ability to switch stats “on demand” when outside of battle.

• Additionally, by having agony resistance, they could be used as a means of soft vertical progression in the PvE side of things, without affecting WvW. Parts of the open world could have enemies with agony. Optional (keyword) new places where agony was present and, while not mandatory, agony resistance would prove very useful.
• You could even add other forms of agony other than the “poison on steroids” it is. Further “agony” conditions in those places that would be several diminished by agony resistance.
• Fractals could still be fractals, the “hard vertical gated” content for the vertical progression fans.
• Furthermore, it would stop the ridiculous stat inflation WvW is already subject to…

• You could have had an end game focused on building a wardrobe. With increasingly difficult to acquire skins behind difficult bosses, and a PvE focused around the incredibly solid dynamic fighting system you created.

• Legendaries could have been tests of game knowledge and skill, requiring the player to best different areas of the game, instead of grinding to amass a gigantic laundry list of “ingredients” to cobble together.

• You could have had a solid WvW experience… Something so very few games have ever managed on an similar scale… Instead of the increasingly trashy “grind and blob ’round the clock” mess it’s becoming

You could have done so many things… You should have, actually, given your promises… But you didn’t. You still can change most of it, but I’m not holding my breath.

I’ve mentioned before that GW2 felt schizophrenic, regarding something else at the time. I fear that particular disease has spread. Currently the game feels… Lost. Without direction. Like it’s trying to be everything, and do everything on a surface level, with no real idea where it’s going from there. Like a kid in a playground that is trying so hard to belong to every group that ends up never being a part of any. “We don’t want grind! Just grind! Ok a little bit! But not too much! Grind this much exactly! But do it everyday. We’re all about the PvE… PvP, I mean. E-SPORTS! HERE IS ANOTHER STORY OF SOMETHING WHO CARES WHAT! PLEASE LOVE ME!”

ACT IV: Eulogy

Almost a year ago I saw something. I saw a lot of potential. I saw the game I’ve been waiting for since I was 15. Unfortunately that’s not the game I’m playing anymore. GW2 today isn’t that game. In fact, I don’t think it knows what game it is either. It reminds me of the Jarhead fiasco – A great movie in its own right, that faced incredibly harsh criticism mostly because it was marketed as something it was very clearly not (i.e.: an action movie). GW2 set itself up for a specific audience. It waved the flag, set the speech, and took all the nice pictures kissing babies and such… Now it’s turning around, saying it’s something else, but not really, but, but, but… Make up your minds ANet. Choose a direction and embrace it.

Don’t look at this as an “I quit!” post. I didn’t, not yet. I’m hanging around (with rapidly fading enthusiasm, I admit) to see what happens for now. When it gets too much for me I’ll quit then. I’m hoping that, somehow, GW2 can still become that game I was waiting for. Either ways, the game needs to decide what it wants to be.

Around 17 thousand characters later, 8 standard pages, I’m done (man the posting system is gonna have a fit with this one…). Thanks for reading, honestly. If anyone at ANet reads this, my sincerest thank you and best of luck whichever path you choose.

PS: Give yourselves some sort of achievement for reading all of this, jesus christ…

4/x

• For a game with such a focus on aesthetics and cosmetics as end game it is still egregiously impractical and expensive to just switch looks (no wardrobe system for example). Every time I want a new look I’m expected to not only acquire said look, but to either farm an entire new armor set to place it on, or erase the old look I acquired on top of being forced to acquire a “premium-shop-only” item – Transmutation crystals. It’s simply not a viable system for a game that wanted its end-game to revolve around these cosmetics.
• The “Pact” storyline is still a depressing excuse for… anything really. Particularly “Victory or Death” which is still the single worst “final boss fight/dungeon” I’ve ever seen in a game.
• sPvP is still a completely separate entity that segregates PvE/WvW progress from itself. Of course level and gear stats need to be separate due to the nature of PvP, but what about the rest? Why different currencies? Why can’t I keep my PvE aspect in PvP or vice versa? Why is progression in PvP so… asinine? Feels like the entire progression in that mode was a rushed afterthought that has never been addressed. Even dailies/monthly (which, ironically, you have no real reason to do if you’re strictly a PvP player) are stuck in the uninspired linear “do these 4 every day forever” mess of 6 months ago for the rest of the game…
• PvP is still stuck to that one game mode, with classics like CTF, KotH or good’ol team deathmatch still ruefully neglected.
• The dungeon system is still a mess, with a full set of gear requiring me to grind a dungeon to utter exhaustion (timed gated grind, of course), after which I never wanna see that dungeon again.
• WvW still lacks proper structure and organization, such as proper commander support, being filled with more and more game breaking trash such as leveling grind with gamebreaking “traits”, and now the horrid bloodlust buff (the new redesign of the middle of the borderlands is great, mind you, it’s just the bloodlust that sucks horribly).
• Most PvE encounters are still uninspired and linear, with the AI behavior being somewhere along the lines of “run at enemies and attack till they die”.
• For all the temporary content, the permanent additions are still rather lacking, with the downside that anyone unfortunate enough to join in or comeback now will naturally feel confused and utterly uninvested in the current events.
• Some balance issues with broken or useless traits/skills (classes? hinthintrangerhinthint) have yet to be addressed one year later…

… etc.

And unfortunately, this seems like the way it’s going to be… ANet have made their new strategy clear. They’ve thrown their manifesto out the window. You can safely disregard everything they’ve said before (and take anything they say now with mountainous piles of salt, cause you know it’s only sticking as long as it is convenient). Vertical progression, grind, temporary chores and time gating are the new kitten, and it’s here to stay. The rest is secondary. We’ve come a long way in a year…

“Still you are blessed, compared with me!
The present only touches you:
But oh! I backward cast my eye,
On prospects dreary!
And forward, though I cannot see,
I guess and fear!”

ACT III: Could have, should have, didn’t.

You know what the saddest part of all of this was? It was all so…predictable. So avoidable. It’s easy to see why it happened, but it was so easy to avoid…

The game shipped out incomplete, unfinished and rushed out the door. This is a fact the developers themselves have admitted to several times now – as if one needed anything other than observation. Hell, most of Orr didn’t even work on release (arguably a lot of it still doesn’t, glitching and stalling frequently). Seeing as you can’t start building a roof without the foundations being finished, naturally, the late game was the most unfinished. In a game where reaching end game was relatively simple, a lot of complaints followed swiftly regarding the poor state of the end-game (see above). ANet (and NCSoft?) started feeling the pressure and took the path of least resistance – add more grind. Add something shiny for people to look at, and make it stronger so they’re forced to go for it. Add some tight time gating and voilá, instant end-game that’ll tie off your population for a few months! And I can’t even begin to talk about the mess PvP became trying to be League of Legends despite being a completely different game (and how that affected WvW…).

Pity. A real pity.

3/x

Everything was in place. I got the game, and for a while, it was good. My friend was right, getting to lvl 80 and BIS gear (exotic at the time) was trivial. Sure, the game wasn’t perfect, it had a lot of flaws even, but the core was solid enough to keep me playing. I made a lvl 80 of each class. Tried all races. Even got some classes multiple sets of gear. The combat was good, and I felt free to play however I wanted. Sure, the end-game was lacking, particularly the PvE side of it, with incredibly boring and uninteresting “tank n’ spank” encounters being the norm. The entire later portion of the game, particularly, was so obviously rushed out the door… But that was OK. The game promised on-going development, and it was showing signs of keeping to it, so no big deal. I can wait as long as the game stays enjoyable. Dynamic combat and little to no grind? This game was aimed at me!

And for a while, it was good.

ACT II: The best laid plans of mice and men…

“But little Mouse, you are not alone,
In proving foresight may be vain:
The best laid schemes of mice and men
Go often awry,
And leave us nothing but grief and pain,
For promised joy!”

Change was coming. It began with Fractals of the Mists. A whole new dungeon, directed at the vertical progression crowd! Nothing wrong with that by itself. After all there’s nothing wrong with having parts of your game dedicated to different types of players. Sure, it may not be my thing, but so what? Let’em have it if they want it. Slightly less acceptable was what they came bundled with: Ascended rings and backpacks. In retrospect, it should have been an obvious omen. A symptom of that disease I loathed. But alas, I chose to give the ANet team the benefit of the doubt. Sure, it was a bad antecedent, but right then and there it was just a couple of rings and a backpack… Not that big a deal. After all, their entire game up to that point had been built and sold on a concept that was diametrically opposite to the idea of vertical progression. That was what they used to sell their game. That was the audience they had called for, and the one that had answered.

Fast forward 10 months, and it’s easy to see I was wrong. Oh, how hopelessly optimistic, how drowned in hope and denial, my “gambit” now seems. More ascended gear followed, with more promised to come. All of it with superior stats. All of it hard of acquisition, all of it heavily time gated. Nice and slowly the game covered itself with a viscous layer of the very material it once denounced! In my mind I can’t shake off the image of campaigning politicians. The game that was once proud of letting you play how you wanted is now burying you with chores. Dailies, monthlies, temporary content, time gating and other artificial limitations piled on top of more gear and leveling (WvW) grind… Chores you must do TODAY OR NEVER AGAIN!!, every day, the way they want you to or not at all.

Hey ANet, I have a secret tip for you: Chores aren’t usually associated with fun. It used to be that I could play the game the way I wanted, when I wanted. No time to play today? No problem. Maybe I’ll play double tomorrow. Or maybe this week isn’t good, I’ll play extra next week when I can. Not anymore. Now ANet had taken upon itself to ration out my playtime for me. “Log in, do your daily/monthly, do your ascended crafting – all of it. Do you want any Celestial stuff in the near future? Do that too then. And don’t forget dungeon runs, fractals, bosses, and whatever else you give a kitten about in this game. Once per day! And no you can’t do extra tomorrow! It’s our way or the hard way!”. Augh. Honestly, does anyone in your offices think this is fun? With every update there’s more and more crap that’s piling up on the treadmill list…

That said please, PLEASE, don’t get me wrong or intentionally try to misinterpret my words. I’m not against additional content. I’m against additional, forced, treadmill content. As I said before, I’m not against Fractals and ascended being directed at the vertical progression nuts… Let’em have it if it floats their boat. I’m against it sipping into the rest of the game. I’m not against dailies and laurels. I’m against them being the only way to acquire laurels, and them being time gated. I’m not against living story updates. I’m against timed updates that you need to do now to collect the reward/achievements or never again (unless you’re lucky). I’m against focusing on throwing more arbitrary temporary stuff at us instead of fixing the core flaws the game shipped with. Which leads us to a final grievance…

…Most of the flaws the game shipped with are still there. A year of temporary content later and most of the core problems are the same. If anything, they’re actually aggravated by all the additional forced grind and vertical progression.

2/x

Prologue:

To anyone that knows and appreciates my “mile long” posts, this is probably the second last post of this kind I’ll do for a while, if ever, with the final one being reserved for the state of the Ranger, the first class I’ve ever played. In short, it feels ultimately pointless, like shouting at the void, with the sole reason for my persistence being some sense of absolution. “I tried my best”, I tell myself. Ultimately I’m just a random guy on a forum and most of my effort seems to be going to waste, so “meh”. Thank you, all 2 of you (including myself and my ego) that care.

So, without further to do: Yes, it will be long. No, there is no tl;dr. Grab a chair.

ACT I: What was advertised

My, my. It’s been around a year now, hasn’kitten Quite a lot has changed. I remember when I bought into this game. I had been interested in it for a while when a friend, which had been here since the beta weekends, offered me the free trial that came with the first Southsun update. I found myself surprisingly interested.

At first I was cautious. I went through the MMO phase when I was around 15-17. I’ve grown out of it. If you like it more power to you, but as far as I’m concerned most MMOs I’ve ever seen or heard of were the same pointless waste of time – vertical progression and grind. Uninteresting “locked in” combat and gameplay, a “world” peppered by useless cardboard cut out figures that offer you the same 2 or 3 variations of fetch quests or head hunting missions (“Am I finding or killing how much of what this time…?”), and a core surrounding repeating the exact same kittening thing from start to the day you quit, only to see arbitrary numbers pop up that define how powerful you are, all while playing in a world full of players you hate as their mere presence hinders your progress. Basic linear gameplay and aggressive vertical progression assured that the majority of what mattered in any encounter was not your knowledge of the game mechanics, not how much you’ve learned and could apply, but how much time I had sunk into the game. A kitten slap contest between two creatures to see which was wearing the heavier gloves. I abhorred them. I tried as many as I could hoping to find that mythical creature, that MMO that had actually good gameplay and no grind. Eventually I gave up. I simply assumed that it couldn’t be done, as nobody interested in making those kind of games possessed either the knowledge, insight or interest to make such a beast.

When I saw Guild Wars 2 I saw hope. Here was an MMO with what seemed like a solid combat system (“action based combat” they call it, apparently). Sure, it’s not perfect. There are a lot of “lock ons” and similar crap, but an immense improvement over anything I’d seen before. There was movement. There was aiming (to some degree at least). There was a system that actual rewarded people for what we in the fighting game community call “footsies” (look it up), at least after a fashion. It was remarkable. Furthermore GW2 proposed something else, something I’ve longed for but had never seen done – It proposed to make you actually want to play with other people in the world you’re in. HOLY kitten!? For real?! An MMO where I am happy to see other players? Instead of looking for any way to demotivate them from permeating the same area as me, lest they end up robbing me of my loot and exp? Surreal.

But there was one more thing. The combat was the core. Even if everything else was in place, I wouldn’t have joined this game if its fighting consisted of the “same ol’ stand in place and trade abilities” combat I detested. The change to the loot, exp and reward system (“everyone is a friend”) was a massive motivator. But the final piece of the puzzle was yet to be decided. One thing was still left, without which I wouldn’t have considered my purchase: What about the grind? What about vertical progression? At the time, a friend assured me getting to max level and BIS gear was relatively simple, trivial even, if cosmetic was not to be a concern. But I did my own homework. I studied the game’s prices and gear availability during the free trial. I looked up developer interviews and the so called “manifesto”. All pointed to the same thing: End game in GW2 was to revolve around horizontal progression, not vertical. “We don’t make grindy games” was a phrase that was thrown around often and proud.

1/x

Trick.9370:

GTA 5 anyone?

No thanks. Waiting for PC version.

Hi Guys and Girls.

In this Post can we have only one person post when their server has beaten Teq.
Might I please ask for full server names so I can copy and paste and not have to go searching for names.

Also I do mean this to me a serious thread and not have fake posts and the like.

So we can see who beats what when. So far as far as I can tell we have had:

Blackgate (NA) = 5

Tarnished Coast (NA) = 4

Desolation (Eu) = 4

Vabbi (EU) = 1 (Confirmed that a Huge EU Guild Guested there so not a actual server kill)

Eredon Terrace (NA) = 1 (With the help of Blackgate)

Sanctum of Rall (NA) = 2

Elona Reach (EU) = 2

Seafarer’s Rest (EU) = 1 in an overflow (Is this the first overflow?)

Piken Square (EU) = 1

Fissure of Woe (EU) = 1 (With the help of TKS)

Jade Quarry (NA) = 1

Gunnar’s Hold (EU) = 1

Riverside(EU) = 2

Stormbluff Isle = 1

I will edit and add more numbers and servers. Could I also ask that when you first complete it on your server please state your full server name and region (NA) or (EU).

Thanks

Khal Drogo.9631:

I think a lot of people arent really complaining about the ascended tier per se (albeit a few are concerned about a neverending treadmill) but the amount of grind required to obtain ONE weapon as opposed to getting a ring and accessory. Cannot imagine what has to be done for ascended armor.

I for one, am complaining that the gear even exists. This is my main issue with GW2, and why I quit playing. The amount of grind is a distant second place in my complaint department. Actually, it’d be third, after the endless AP grind, followed by poor Living Story and Personal Story quality.

I really can’t find a reason to play any more. What are my options?

1) grind gear
2) grind meaningless AP
3) do the same set of dungeons that have been in the game since launch.
4) play a poorly written living story, in a blind panic to get the achievements in time, before they go away.

Since Fractals, there have been no new dungeons. WvW is essentially the same zergfest it’s been since launch, and sPvP has had few meaningful improvements – it’s still the same old same old, at heart.

The few bits of really good content that ArenaNet have come up with since launch were temporary, and can’t be played any more.

So what’s my motivation to stick around? There isn’t. The only reason I still come to these forums is because I was a huge Guild Wars fan, and I keep hoping they’ll find a way to plug the leaks in the sinking ship that’s becoming GW2.

I love to explore a world like GW2, but not by my self!

The maps level between 25 and 70 are almost empty, It might be just me but I rarely see players doing anything in those maps.

My point is, with out player, there wont be any motivation! whats the point for them maps to even exist if no one wants to go there?

EXAMPLE: Queensdal, the champ train, it gives motivation to the player, and more players give more motos to even more to join the force.

On the other hand, those 25-70 level maps, nobody ever visits other then map completion or personal story, and they just hit from point a to point b with out looking back, if only if there were others there, those middle level maps might wont be so boring.

A net needs to do something to motivate players to go further then Queensdal and Wayfare foothills! So I can have more options then the 1-15 level maps when I just wants to explore random area, encounter some random pps and make random friends!

PS: 69 more hours to go before my account vacation ends.