Guild Wars 2

I don’t know anyone who frequents these forums and I don’t know if anyone will really care, but I just felt like sharing. If no-one cares for this bit of sappy trivia, I’ll know when this thread dies with hardly any replies. ;-)

Somewhere in 2010, I met a girl while playing Guild Wars. We barely talked for a few years afterwards, then became better friends, then ended up dating. She lives in Poland, I live in Belgium.

In April this year, we met in “real life” for the first time, and life has been paradise ever since. We visit each other every 2-4 weeks, and last week, I signed the lease for an apartment in which we’ll be living together. She’s moving in with me soon, and I couldn’t possibly be any happier.

It’s funny to think that I used to feel like I was wasting my time by playing Guild Wars so much. But now, in hindsight, it was probably the best thing I have ever done in my life.

Thank you, GW.

Really nice job!

Simple statistics and probability.

I like playing in parties full of people with less than 2000 achievement points. Being absolutely clueless about what to do makes everything so much more challenging.

It always amuses me to see how many people are playing and enjoying the game compared to how few people voice their opinions on these forums — and how people say that “everybody” agrees that the game is bad and all that yada-yada.

Perfect example of what a “vocal minority” is.

Oletko Suomen? Perkele!

And that’s about as far as my Finnish knowledge reaches. Please do add me to your friends and whisper me when I’m online. I have several characters that really need some leveling, and it’s much more enjoyable (and goes quicker) when you team up.

Tao.5096:

I play 80% solo, and I’ve yet to feel punished for it.

Some people are exaggerating.

Exactly my thoughts.

Everything the OP is mentioning, is just a side-effect from how the game works. Indeed, these annoying tidbits are more apparent when you’re playing solo. But “punishing solo play” implies that ArenaNet does this intentionally, which is obviously not the case.

Thanks for the feedback. In that case, I think I’ll just be giving all of this stuff away for free.

Hi y’all

I’ve been playing more Guild Wars 1 again as of late, and now that I’m getting close to GWAMM and 50/50, I have realised that I actually have enough gold and other resources to get another account up to 30/50, or close.

This made me wonder: do you think it would be possible to trade those resources for GW2 gold? Do you think there are people out there who would be willing to spend their GW2 gold on these 6 titles and 30-ish items? And more importantly, do ArenaNet’s rules allow this kind of cross-game trading?

Korossive.7085:

Gaile Gray.6029:

According to Colin Johanson, Guild Wars 2 Game Director, Super Adventure Box will be back in the future. We don’t have a timeframe for the return of the SAB, but we will be bringing back this popular content.

I know you would like more details, more info, a date, etc., but that’s not available right now. I hope the above comment reassures you, though, because at the core, the important answer is that yes, SAB will be back in the future.

Please inform Colin that all gem purchases are delayed until Soon™, which will be in “the future” and “we don’t have a timeframe”.

In my specific case: Soon™ will also include Fractal Reset compensation.
(no, I have not forgotten)

Gaile, I seriously don’t understand the management in your company.

Wow, way to show off how selfish you are. “They’re withholding something I like, so they must be doing bad management.”

The game is called Guild Wars 2, not Super Adventure Box. From what I remember, SAB is still a special event, and that’s part of the appeal. If they’d make this content permanent, the majority of people would lose interest in it after a month.

What you are saying: “Why is the UI so bad?”
What you mean: “I personally don’t like these things about the UI.”

Learn to say things the way they are, and someone might actually listen. Personally, I’ve never had any issues with the UI. I quite like it.

I’m pretty sure that ArenaNet has some plans to change this still. Right now it’s like the breastplate is simply not meant to be reached.

Even smaller? Even more often?

Not every patch is a whole feature pack.

Broom.2561:

flyingcats.6194:

I think this is one of the things that show how ArenaNet think out of the box. They knew this decision would get a lot of negative criticism, but it’s simply an awesome decision in the end.

Is it? I find it mostly inconvenient. So imagine you’re gold poor, and loot a very expensive item you don’t need… you don’t have the money to put it up for sale on the TP. So you’re now forced to either save it in your bank, or sell it at bid value, which is usually a depressing amount lower than what putting it up for sale yourself would get you. Cause yeah, can’t trade player to player and using e-mail to transfer items? Eeew…

There’s tons of games out there that have inter-player trading without having scam issues. Mutual confirmation of trade (with item inspection windows), player owned vendors where you can take your time to look before buying, contracts with content inspection… seriously, what’s hard about it.

To your first paragraph: I think that in this one-in-a-million situation, the lack of direct trading does indeed have its drawbacks.

To your second paragraph: moot point, since trading through a trading post still requires less effort than finding a person who will want to trade with you through direct trade. Just look at WoW, where both systems exist: hardly anyone uses the direct trading, as it is simply obsolete. And in case you really want to trade directly, you can simply use mail, granted that you trust the other person.

I think this is one of the things that show how ArenaNet think out of the box. They knew this decision would get a lot of negative criticism, but it’s simply an awesome decision in the end.

Vayne.8563:

flyingcats.6194:

Vayne.8563:

flyingcats.6194:

GW1 had the business design of “releasing an expansion every 6 months”. It was nice, but it also had insane drawbacks. It took ArenaNet way longer than planned to release their first expansion, and then after the second expansion it was already clear that this constant overload of new mechanics was absolutely not maintainable.

What they’re doing in GW2 is much better, in my opinion. They’re not adding mechanics at GW1’s crazy speed, but they are adding much more content. All those Living Story episodes, the extra story packs (which I paid 600 gems for yesterday, and was not disappointed by), new areas such as Southsun Cove and Dry Top… It keeps the game refreshing and interesting, without overloading it with nifty and fancy features that nobody was asking for in the first place.

If you’ve been away, it seems like they’re adding a lot of stuff. But the amount of stuff is less than it immediately appears unless you’ve been away.

For those people here two years without that break, there’s not much new content…at least partially because a lot of the content has been removed.

One of the most valid criticisms of the game, in my opinion, is that the Living Story season one gamble failed and we have had the best part of a year with relatively few updates.

I think over time that will be compensated for (I’m cautiously optimistic) but people who are complaining definitely have a point.

The living story at its best — with new content every two weeks — was definitely a high amount of new stuff at a steady pace. Unless you play 16 hours a day and play through everything at lightning speed of course, but I do like to think that those people ruin the game for themselves by doing that.

Look, some of my favorite content is no longer in the game, and if you weren’t here, you didn’t get to experience at all.

So the new story, at this point, it’s fine. It’s great for what it is. But it’s not, and I don’t see it ever becoming, The Nightmare Tower.

It’s just a very different type of content. Content you can no longer play.

That is very true.

I think that ArenaNet will need to change the way the Living Story is implemented. In a way, it’s awesome if a story event impacts the world so that it changes, but it’s sad that this always has to mean that previous content is replaced by new content. Additionally, a lot of content was only available for two weeks, which is not so nice as well. It works well for people who play actively at all times, but if you regularly take extended breaks, you’re missing out on a lot of stuff.

The premise is wrong. Guild Wars 2 needs no “end-game”, because Guild Wars 2 simply has “game”. Other MMOs have numerous maps and activities that become obsolete once you outlevel them. Content is called “end-game” if it is still relevant at max level.

In Guild Wars 2, all content is still relevant at all times. There could not possibly be more end-game content than this.

Vayne.8563:

flyingcats.6194:

GW1 had the business design of “releasing an expansion every 6 months”. It was nice, but it also had insane drawbacks. It took ArenaNet way longer than planned to release their first expansion, and then after the second expansion it was already clear that this constant overload of new mechanics was absolutely not maintainable.

What they’re doing in GW2 is much better, in my opinion. They’re not adding mechanics at GW1’s crazy speed, but they are adding much more content. All those Living Story episodes, the extra story packs (which I paid 600 gems for yesterday, and was not disappointed by), new areas such as Southsun Cove and Dry Top… It keeps the game refreshing and interesting, without overloading it with nifty and fancy features that nobody was asking for in the first place.

If you’ve been away, it seems like they’re adding a lot of stuff. But the amount of stuff is less than it immediately appears unless you’ve been away.

For those people here two years without that break, there’s not much new content…at least partially because a lot of the content has been removed.

One of the most valid criticisms of the game, in my opinion, is that the Living Story season one gamble failed and we have had the best part of a year with relatively few updates.

I think over time that will be compensated for (I’m cautiously optimistic) but people who are complaining definitely have a point.

The living story at its best — with new content every two weeks — was definitely a high amount of new stuff at a steady pace. Unless you play 16 hours a day and play through everything at lightning speed of course, but I do like to think that those people ruin the game for themselves by doing that.

GW1 had the business design of “releasing an expansion every 6 months”. It was nice, but it also had insane drawbacks. It took ArenaNet way longer than planned to release their first expansion, and then after the second expansion it was already clear that this constant overload of new mechanics was absolutely not maintainable.

What they’re doing in GW2 is much better, in my opinion. They’re not adding mechanics at GW1’s crazy speed, but they are adding much more content. All those Living Story episodes, the extra story packs (which I paid 600 gems for yesterday, and was not disappointed by), new areas such as Southsun Cove and Dry Top… It keeps the game refreshing and interesting, without overloading it with nifty and fancy features that nobody was asking for in the first place.

I have this distant memory about a time where ArenaNet’s philosophy was to make the concept of “levels” less important. It is a system that’s illogical: you’re killing stuff, doing stuff, learning stuff, and your character’s ability doesn’t improve. Then suddenly you reach a threshold of experience and BAM, suddenly you are a whole lot better than 5 seconds ago. This concept is outdated, and ArenaNet knew this.

That’s what made GW2 and even GW1 quite great. There were so many ways to progress and improve, that were not linked to character level at all. Remember the skill points in GW1 for instance — you got one per level, but you got way more of them by doing missions. (In GW2, skill point events do this trick too.) You even learned skills by doing quests, removing the need to get skill points in the first place.

In GW2, this was implemented very nicely as well. The way everything unlocked gradually was perfect, and the pace was perfect as well. This was especially true with the way weapon skills unlocked: you (the player) learned to use the weapon gradually by using it for the first time on your character, and this made the learning experience quite smooth.

Now, I wonder if ArenaNet still has this philosophy. I made a new character a couple of days ago, and it seems absolutely everything is tied to character levels. That’s a 180 degrees turn if I’ve ever seen one.

Now, I am usually not against change, but going back to a concept that was considered to be completely outdated (not because of trends, but simply because it had been clear that the concept was illogical) already when GW1 came out? I disapprove, and I think I’m not the only one.

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

When suggestions pop up for things like “open world PvP” or “remove all waypoints, then add mounts” . . . no, I’m still going to respond with that statement. Because this game is clearly not the one they’re looking for.

When you reply to this with “this game is not for you” to this, you’re showing one thing: Your deep-down reason for not wanting to have those features is the same as their reason for wanting them: because it would make the game more similar to WoW.

Ergo, you’re being just as narrow minded as they are. Instead of replying “this game is not for you”, it would be more useful to explain why those features would be out of place in Guild Wars 2, in your opinion.

Disclaimer: I’m absolutely not complaining about this. I like the journey of going for a legendary item, and I know that the journey towards something is generally more exciting that the afterglow of having achieved said thing.

Question is simple. I didn’t log in to Guild Wars 2 for almost a year, and now I see that prices for legendaries and precursors have almost doubled. Ectoplasm prices (one of the important components) have only increased by about 15%, so: what has happened to legendaries and precursors to make their prices go up so much?

Oh my, CV is still at it? I was in this guild for a year or so, and in their alliance for much longer, in GW1. It was always a guild that was bursting with creativity and it seems like that hasn’t changed.

Does Southsun count towards the titles?

Okay, the title is a liar, but it describes the issue well: I am almost at 100% world exploration, which is satisfying, but I also want to get the five titles for having discovered each area in the world. They’re under the “Explorer” tab and split up between regions (Kryta, Maguuma, Orr, Ascalon, Shiverpeaks).

The annoying part is that I still have a couple of areas missing, and I don’t know where they may be. Nothing’s guiding me anymore, because I already have all points of interests, waypoints, renown hearts and skill points in those particular areas. This leads me to conclude that these missing areas are of the more “obscure” type; jumping puzzles, guild puzzles, underwater areas that don’t have any POIs in them, etc.

So, I would like to ask: if you can remember an area that was pretty annoying to find (because it does not have any landmarks in it), please post it here. Meanwhile, I’ll try to make a list of such areas so that this post may be used by other explorers in the future.

The areas I still need:
- Orr: 1 area missing
- Maguuma: 3 areas
- Shiverpeaks: 5 areas

Thanks in advance!

Shinzan.2908:

I can transfer servers from EU to US now and it takes about a minute, so the technology is there. Since guesting isn’t what we were promised and they said server transfers would remain free until they get it working they should just keep transfers free instead and remove the time limit.

The technology for permanent switching is there. The technology for temporary switching isn’t. It’s really not as simple as just moving something and then moving it back afterwards.

I honestly saw this coming. I’ve been telling all my American friends I look forward to playing with them when guesting is here, but at the same time, I knew this restriction would be there. Anybody who has any programming experience whatsoever, will understand that cross-region guesting is probably way too much to ask. Alas…

I agree. Free map travel was an amazing feature in Guild Wars 1, which made me wonder why other MMOs don’t have that.

This game has no end game, and that’s what makes the game brilliant. Instead of an “end game”, this game just has a “game”.

End game, in most other MMOs, is defined by the carrot dangling in front of your face, that’s supposed to keep you hooked with long, tedious tasks that give great rewards once you are level 80. In Guild Wars 2, you can do everything whenever you want; dungeons simply require you to be a certain level (which is not always 80), and PvP has absolutely no level requirement. Achievements, similarly, are based on many things that don’t require character level, and all of this simply contributes to the fact that level doesn’t matter in this game, and that this game has no need for something called “end game”.