Guild Wars 2

Wow, there’s a lot here since I’ve been gone. I’ll just address a couple things.

1. I’m not posting this thread because I am playing a victim or seek attention. I’m not even that offended about the whole thing honestly. I just don’t like the idea of my black character wearing Minstrel’s gear because it sounds messed up. I posted about it because I thought others probably did too and I wanted to see what people had to say.

2. If you’re not American, you probably don’t know about the reference of a Minstrel as an entertainer in blackface. When I type the word In google, over half of the images are of a guy in blackface performing a show. I personally hear the word Minstrel and think blackface entertainer over medieval musician even though I am aware of both definitions. For some people in America, Minstrel = blackface is the primary definition. Sorry about the miscommunication.

I don’t think I’m being unreasonable at all.

Do me a favor and type “Minstrel” in a google search. Then click the image portion of that search. Now what do you see? There is a primary theme.

Ok now after doing that take a look at my elementalist in the screenshot below. You can probably guess at this point where I’m going to go with this.

The meta says that Minstrel’s is the best healing gear, but I just can’t bring myself to acquire and equip it. I’ve been running Magi gear telling myself that it has more +healing but that’s not the real reason I use it. I really dislike the idea of giving my elementalist a full set of Minstrel’s gear or stats implying that my elementalist is a Minstrel, one of the blackface entertainers that pretends to be unintelligent for laughs.

I am quite aware of the term’s medieval roots designating a musician, but we don’t live in medieval times. That word means something else to many people today. Quite frankly, I think Minstrel is a very poorly chosen word that could easily be replaced by something like “Bard”, “Jester” or “Friar”. We’re not talking about calling a character in the game a Minstrel, which I would understand more, we’re talking about creating player controlled characters that wear the label of this stat set. Player characters of all races, some of them happen to have dark skin, some of them happen to wear this stat set.

Ideally, I would like to see a name change on the stat set. If this cannot be done, I will probably still play the game as it’s really fun, but I don’t think I ever will equip Minstrel’s gear on my elementalist. I feel like Arena Net is a forward thinking game company representing multiple racial identities with strong and interesting characters. It just seems like a needless small break from that to include something like this.

I’m sorry if this post sounds like I am trying to make something out of nothing but it’s something that has legitimately been bugging me and I figured I would share the sentiment out.

Remove blackgate, then it’s all fixed xD

j/k

You would have to make WvW maps larger and also account for people making mounted escapes.

It would change a lot, more than what gliding did for sure.

Lord Trejgon.2809:

there is a stat intended to greatly improve your survivability against conditions [which skipped your armor] and it is vitality.

and actually it works just as you said – if you get only toughness you will be laughting at power builds, but die really quickly to conditions, and if you stack up on alot of vitality with no toughtness you will be abel to sane level of conditions for long enought to grab next heal/condi cleanse, kill the guy spamming at you… but die very fast to power build due to their higher spike against targets without enought toughness.

all working as intended….

as long as the amount of conditions being dished out stays within specific parameters – and this should be area to work on balancing them…..

This.

Vertical maps were cool, but that was a feature that HOT explored. This expansion is going to do something different to make exploring Elonia unique. That villager said “you will need” the raptor. It’s not just going to be a way to travel over flat terrain quickly.

A few things that jumped out at me while I played the demo:

-I really like the aesthetic of the Elonian city, the farms and the desert wasteland surrounding it all.

I spent most of the time in the city just looking at all the details. It reminded me of a high end beach resort with palm trees and luxurious fountains lining the open air architecture. The starfield skybox is gorgeous and it so beautifully fits the silhouette of pyramids and vertical wind turbines. If the other areas are as beautiful as this, I think I am going to like exploring Elonia.

-The raptor.

Do I really need to say anything else? I main a thief which can move pretty quickly, but I found the raptor to be much faster even than that. Moving fast is nice, but what really sells me is the fluidity of mounting/dismounting and the movement animations. nothing about it feels static or awkward. I even did figure 8s around other players and found the interactions to look so realistic. A+ here. It sort of hurt to get off the demo, play the regular game and not be able to use that mount. It just fits into the game so well.

-Balthazar

I’m no loremaster of guild wars to be sure, but I am looking forward to what’s going on with the human god of war. The conversation/fight with the retreating fire warrior slave revealed that Balthazar wants to kill the elder dragons which is good (I think). I actually wanted to see if I could join Balthazar until it was revealed that he is actively enslaving people which is bad. (Why do bad guys always want to enslave their armies?) I think the story will at least be intriguing. Looking forward to it.

Anyways I am done rambling, can’t wait to play POF. Please give Kthx.

The question everyone is asking is can we do it on an existing character or will we have to create an entirely new character on a test server?

There being no way to walk to Elonia explains the different style and culture i’m sure we will experience in the new area.

But swords are cool! We also get more options with how to customize our class. We could do a dagger offhand or focus. With the element combination mechanic of weaver, we could mix in obsidian flesh with burst skills on fire. Think of the possibilities!

Edward H Angle.1407:

Tempests had its reign as top tier DPS during HOT when they needed to sell copies of the expac. Now that PoF is out, they had to nerf Tempests so that people will buy the new expac for the Weaver spec.

Pretty much this, and i’m ok with that. If tempest is too strong, no one will want to do anything else.

I think they take all game modes into account when balancing. They give a lot of attention to PvP too. In fact, they hired an entire team devoted to it.

The only thing I don’t like about the crafting meta is that the best way to get t4/5 materials is to farm account bound bags on an 80 and then give those bags to be opened by a level 47 alternate character. I currently have 9 level 80 characters and refuse to take part in this loophole.

Ok, I guess I can try that. I’ll open a ticket later today.

I thought the puzzle was cool where you had to throw the bloodstone on that electric trap. I solved it by overloading it and activating all the nodes at once ^^

Actually theres 42~ skills because all the weapons have unique middle skills.

Oh, you’re right. I thought only the sword could have unique hybrid skills. That’s even cooler!

Easily the spell weaver. I don’t even main elementalist but being able to combine elements to make unique attacks sounds really cool. 4X4 elements makes for 16 possibilities!

Fire/earth could be chunks of molten rock, or Air/Water could be freezing wind. It’s just cool to imagine what’s possible here.

My elementalist Sameeka! She’s a Norn, so aparently no Elonian options :/

Not sure what that would do. I’m pretty sure the customer service rep would bring my attention to what was stated publicly: Deluxe is not up-gradable to ultimate. I don’t think there is anything I can do about it really except express my woes publicly.

I think raids are fine at the moment. They aren’t for everyone for sure. That’s not their design. They are to give the most experienced players something to strive for. If you really want to raid, look up the fights on youtube and ask around for a raiding guild to take you in. They will expect you to have the best gear for a class/build that they need. So you have to play a very specific way and be open to taking time equipping your character with the very best. Again, not for everyone. I don’t even do it, but i’m glad it’s there for those who need that experience as it retains quality hardcore players.

If I had to guess, POF will come with raids, but that’s just a guess.

That’s actually a really good lore question. We don’t even know enough about the story to say if it should be changed at the moment. I guess using the ability makes you an acolyte of Balthazar?

Hello, been playing since march and absolutely love the game so far. I was also thoroughly impressed with the Path of Fire announcement video and in my excitement I preordered immediately. I looked at the different options, and figured “Deluxe” would be a sensible choice so I bought it assuming I would be able to upgrade to ultimate should I choose to do so. I recently found that you cannot upgrade to ultimate if you already purchased the regular or deluxe versions. In hindsight I probably should have waited to give myself time to make a more well thought out decision of which package I should buy Path of Fire, but in my excitement I could not help but preorder immediately.

I would gladly buy ultimate if I were given the option to upgrade my existing Deluxe preorder. My money is yours Anet. Please allow me to give it to you! Thanks for making a great game and do carry on.