Guild Wars 2

To keep my skills sharp, and because I find the personal story full of artistic potential, I’ve been writing the GW2 story in novel form, from the point of view of the female sylvari player character. I take a lot of license with it, but I try to keep dialogue and general plotline on track.

I’ll be serializing this by chapter, assuming there’s any interest. This should be obvious, but this WILL contain story spoilers for the personal story (and, as we get there, the living story and heart of thorns).

I’ve been working on this off and on for more than a year, and it’s kind of close to my heart, so I really hope you’ll like it.

I’m actually super nervous about posting this because this is something kind of close to my heart. For the past year or so, I’ve been honing my writing skills by working on what’s essentially the GW2 personal (and living) story in novel form, from the point of view of the player character. Particularly, the female sylvari player character. I’ve just gotten such a strong sense of personality from her that it just felt natural (thanks largely to the amazing Jennifer Hale, and of course to the writers at arenanet!).

I’d really love to know what you think!

Introduction

My name is Lyra. I was awakened in the Cycle of Noonday, which I guess is the equivalent of a human’s being born a summer child. I am young, even by sylvari standards. We as a race are little more than children, the oldest among us (the Firstborn) being but twenty-five years old. I have lived as an individual for a matter of months, but I carry with me the experience and knowledge of the Mother Tree, who nurtures and teaches us in the Dream before we awaken.

Every experience from every sylvari, I think, gets absorbed into the Dream, and then pieces of it are passed around to the new sprouts, so they might have a bearing on the world they’re being brought into. It’s a complicated phenomenon, and I’m not even sure that the Pale Tree knows everything there is to know about it. She is the arbiter of it, however, and is responsible for giving us the knowledge she thinks it is right for us to have.

I have known since my birth that I am destined for something great. Actually, perhaps “destined” isn’t the right word. Maybe “great” isn’t right, either. I am compelled to do the impossible. It’s an unrest in my stomach, an itching underneath my skin. My people call it the Wyld Hunt. It’s said that the Mother Tree never gives a hunt that is beyond possibility, but I am not so sure. Many of the Valiants I know have drives to foster orphans, or fight in the Mists, or save sacred animals. Those goals all seem so… attainable. Mine is to defeat an Elder Dragon – the corrupter of the dead, Zhaitan. A daunting task for someone who is not yet a year old.

I am not alone in my Wyld Hunt, however. Caithe, one of the Firstborn, shares it with me. When I was very young, we bonded because of it. Caithe taught me to fight and be ferocious, and to seek out new ways to test myself. Recently, though, I’ve felt her becoming distant from me. Though that is not the greatest of my concerns, it does upset me.

My quest to find some way of defeating an impossibly powerful being has taken me along some strange paths. I have garnered my fair share of renown in a short time through my interactions with Destiny’s Edge: an elite guild of would-be dragon killers. Together we have saved monarchs, retrieved ancient artifacts, and taken down other threats to Tyria.

Well…I say “together,” but while I have the privilege of calling them my friends individually, as a group they… Well, suffice it to say, there is some bad blood there. After they lost one of their members in an ill-fated attempt to defeat the crystal dragon Kralkatorrik, there has been a rift between them.

So, by and large, I have found my own way. At the urging of my Mother, I have allied myself with the Vigil, a military order formed to fight the elder dragons. It did not take me long to rise through their ranks – I don’t mean to brag, but I did mention I have the collected wisdom of years and many lifetimes, didn’t I? Alongside them, I have finally begun to make some progress against my penultimate target: Zhaitan.

Chapter 1: Killer Instinct

I looked up to Forgal Kernsson. Firstly, literally so – as a norn he was close to twice my height. Secondly, he was my superior officer in the Vigil, and I felt an intense need to prove myself to him. He seemed almost grudging of being assigned to me, and I was determined to show him he was wrong to be uncertain about me.

The formatting here is such that I cannot directly copy and paste from my documents, so the actual chapter can be found here, on my gw2 fansite: http://guildwars2.rocks/chapter-1-killer-instinct/

Just wanted to add that I am also having this issue. Hoping it gets fixed soon. :/

It happens to me whether I use f5 or click the skill.
It happens whether or not I’m moving. Whether or not I use the skill.
It happens to me in Bloodstone Fen and HoT and Dry Top and core Tyria.

And then sometimes it doesn’t happen at all.

Hi! STAR is looking for active and mature new members! We’re pretty great, and here’s a breakdown of why:

Guild Events!

• Weekly missions and raffle.
• Training fractals.
• And special events like fashion shows, jump puzzle tours, obstacle course relays, and more!

Inclusiveness!

• We accept players of all races, genders, orientations, skill levels, and build preferences.
• We strive to maintain a friendly and open atmosphere at all times. As such we do not allow language that might alienate others.
• We do ask that members be at least 16, with a preference for 18+ as we often get into conversations not appropriate for younger audiences. However, exceptions with regards to age have and will be made, depending on the individual.

Guild Boosts and Upgrades!

• Guild level 60.
• Waypoint Cost Reduction.
• Guild Armorer/Weaponsmith grants access to exclusive skins.
• 24-hour guild boosts (Gathering, EXP, Map Bonus etc) all maxed out.
• WvW Objective Upgrades.
• Scribing recipes to help you level more affordably.
• Plus a sweet, decorated guild hall, complete with handmade jumping puzzles!

And More!

• A custom guild PvP arena for cooperative dailies.
• A hosted teamspeak, which is encouraged but not required.
• Friendly, funny, and unusually attractive members!

For more information, please check out our website at http://starbuckguild.com or message katubug.6378, Geneva.3140, or Remaninglove.5128 (note spelling: no i in remaning) in game! For an invite, PM/Comment/Ingame mail!

It seems a little odd that WvW map completion was removed from the acquisition of the Gift of Exploration…but now WvW participation is being forced in much higher order to acquire the Gift of Mastery.

I don’t mind WvW, so the change isn’t anathema to me or anything, but it does seem unfair to people who have already earned their badges but don’t want to participate in WvW any longer. This is especially so for people in crummy matchups (such as against TC or BG).

Sometimes, when you go to add a daily achievement to the Watch list, it fails to track. I have noticed this a few times before, but was finally able to find the source of the issue.

I have Heart of Thorns, but my alt accounts do not. The achievements that cannot be added to the tracker are the vanilla ones that take the place of HoT specific ones.

For example: today’s daily is Heart of Maguuma Forager, but for non-HoT accounts, it’s Maguuma Jungle Forager. When on my alt account I try to add Maguuma Jungle Forager to my watch list, it doesn’t add. The little eye lights up, but the achievement panel doesn’t. And when I switch to the Watch tab, it’s not there. Going back to the daily screen, the achievement is just as though I never selected it.

This bug occurs both when "watch"ing from the daily list, the popup with the dailies chest, and the detailed view of that specific achievement.

Agreed. This is as bad a change as removing “space” as a window confirm.

If you’re going to change keybindings, at least give us the option…

I don’t have a huge preference one way or another, but I WOULD prefer more feminine skins for asura and charr in general. I don’t stop liking dresses just because I care more about my brains.

Zekowah.6480:

it doesn’t quite make sense for a Sylvari to have completely different hair-do’s every other day.

I disagree. I mean, we’re talking about a race that grows their own clothing. I think it might take time to go from branches to petals, or vice versa, but I’d imagine it’s quite possible.

I don’t think it’s any more immersion-breaking that having a human go from a black pixie cut to a long pink ponytail overnight.

diax.2815:

Why do asuran males have no nipples or bellybuttons?

The women also don’t have breasts, and thus may not have mammary glands (any “modesty” regarding the female chest could be cultural diffusion). It’s theoretically possible that they do not nourish their children in the same way that other mammals do (perhaps they are marsupials!).

Another possible explanation is that they do have "belly"buttons, just elsewhere on their body.

Another, even better explanation is that they just don’t show very well ingame. Male norn barely have nipples, also.

Oooh ooh ooh okay okay:

Sylvari seem to have teeth: are they made of bone? If so, do sylvari have a skeletal structure of some kind?

How long does it take cultural armor to grow? When it’s removed, can they put it back on or do they have to regrow it?

edit:

How do ghosts work? We know how Ascalonian ghosts came to be. We know there are ghosts in Cursed Shore (of norn). There are also additional human ghosts in that one fort in Straits (pirates – who also have ghostly treasure?? did the treasure die?? lol). Are there asuran or charr ghosts? Sylvari ghosts?

psst, it’s Gendarran Fields, not Kessex. XD

Can we all have temporary Terrace passes in the meantime? ;D

I’m kidding, obviously. Get those Iron Legion engineers to work!

Trying to rez someone underwater is almost impossible unless they’re also rezzing themselves. A group of three of us were fighting Captain Cork in Malchor’s Leap, when one of us went down. Even with both of us rezzing him, we were barely making any progress except for when he was able to use his 4 skill (he had aggro and kept getting interrupted).

I’ve also noticed this a lot at Rhendak. People go down and unless they’re using #4, rezzing them takes forever and a day.

I know that underwater combat isn’t a priority, but isn’t there some way to make this a bit less difficult? It is possible to quickly rez someone on land even if they’re doing nothing – why is the health loss while underwater so much heavier? It seems like a bug to me.

https://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/42z06z/juggernaut_collection_still_requires_failed_event/

Posted to reddit – response received! Thanks/sorry Matt. :P

I only need this one last thing for Juggernaut III Collection. I need to rub my ooze buddy all over myself and become affected by Corruption while fighting the Risen Priest of Grenth.

Having participated in the defend event (because the 2-3 other people weren’t responding to my pleas in say chat), and making sure to stand in a bunch of AoEs, I did not get the achievement. I know for sure that this is possible with the retake event. Is it possible on the defend and I just didn’t do it?

Or is this one of the collections that Anet has yet to fix?

97, please, and I hope I can make it to the event!

I think that the recent change to the creation of Soft Wood Logs was a very positive one, and that something along those lines might benefit silk. While I don’t necessarily think that requiring 3 silk scraps to make a bolt is unfair, I think that that in combination with the requirement of 100 bolts of silk to make a Silk Weaving Thread is.

My personal feeling is that dropping the Silk Weaving Thread requirement to 50 bolts of silk, to bring it in line with the other ascended time gated items (mithrillium, glue, etc), would be a good change. The other option in this case, switching to 2 scraps for a bolt (but keeping the 100 bolts the same) is, I feel, still better than the current system, but perhaps not quite as good overall as simply reducing the amount of silk needed for ascended crafting.

The updraft points/jump pads in LP need to be activated in order to use them, but…

Isn’t half the point of an updraft to KEEP you in the air? I find having to land + activate them to be tedious and annoying. Gliding was the primary draw of Lost Precipice, and really, it’s not NEARLY as fun now as it was during the claiming.

There have been several posts on the subreddit about this, and it remains something that myself and the rest of my guild VERY much care about. This is an important thing to those of us who claimed LP over GH, and it doesn’t seem like it would be a tremendously difficult fix, since the claiming version of the guild had them active.

Can we please have our updrafts be constant?

Also a minor note, in the LP jumping puzzle, there is an updraft NOT associated with the jump pads, and it’s bugged entirely. It’s there in visuals only.

I’m not sure if this is a bug, or if it’s intended, but I really, REALLY dislike it. It’s not nearly as easy to build AF back up as it was in the beta, and to lose ALL of it because you went down is really rough. Especially since post-rally is when you’re likely to need it the most.

I’d even understand losing it all on death, although from a selfish standpoint I’d prefer it not to. But on down? Just feels unnecessarily punishing.

Also having all of these problems.

A huge portion of my guild did not get rewards for finishing Proxemic Labs, even though we all participated. Ironically, the one player who got left behind DID get credit.

As the leader of a relatively large guild, overall I adore a vast majority of the changes that have been made to guilds in Heart of Thorns. However, there is a lot that feels unfinished, and/or is clunky and nonintuitive.

Firstly, it took us a long time to figure out how it was that upgrades WORKED. Where we could view them, which needed what, how to approve and so on. Now that we know how, the primary complaint is that it’s obnoxious.

I appreciate that the Treasury panel on all NPCs provides a list of total upgrade components needed. That’s fantastic, along with the functionality of viewing how much is needed and for what upgrade. However, I would suggest that a sort function would be great. If not a “sort by upgrade” than at least “sort by completion %,” so that the stuff that we still need appears first.

It’s also deeply frustrating to be unable to view what upgrades you have/need, and what items you need for them, from the normal guild panel. Having to go through a loading screen to talk to an NPC, so that I can go back through the loading screen to get to the cooking station because I forgot how many empty kegs we needed, is frustrating. Not being able to tell at a glance what level our Workshop is, or what upgrades we could add, is frustrating (and a loading screen to find that out seems unnecessary). Why can we view decorations from outside the guild hall, but not upgrades/upgrade items?

Even if we still have to go to the NPCs to donate and approve upgrades (although honestly I’d like those abilities from the normal guild panel, as well), please let us VIEW them from wherever. Also, a more minor note, the ability to donate directly from one’s bank/collections, or even the guild bank, would be very nice.

The “Processing Table” – aside from crashing my game, never announces itself (has no name, and the interact is just “manage,” and I’d never have found it except a guildie pointed it out to me. I’m also still not entirely sure what it’s used for, but it seems to be replacing the old guild queue? Why can’t we make this ALSO controllable from the UI, like the queue used to be. Also, some ingame documentation on what it is and how it works might help.

Finally, it’d be nice to have some sort of “skill tree” viewable from the main guild panel. I’d be nice to see everything in perspective, regarding how far we’ve come in upgrades, and how far we have yet to go. Right now it all feels sort of nebulous and neverending. What’s Guild level 17 MEAN? What’s the cap? How do we get there? It’d be really nice to have a more tangible, visible goal regarding upgrades.

So, Flesh of the Master gives your toughness based on each active minion. And Deadly Strength gives you power based on your toughness.

However, they don’t synergize with one another. Not sure if this is a feature or a bug, but thought I’d mention it.

Well, not necessarily everywhere. But right now it’s incredibly tedious to have to run from the guild hall to the bank/trading post/crafting stations (most of which are not IN the guild hall) just to see what’s needed, and then make/buy whatever it is, then run back to the guild NPC to donate them.

I also have some complaints about the guild UI itself being fairly confusing, but that’s a post for another time. I’d just really like to be able to view what’s needed for the guild upgrades without standing at an NPC, if possible.

Not me, but two of my guildies have experienced the same prologue bug that others are reporting.

I am happy with the changes to the celestial energy gain, and I think the cooldown is fair. But I think having you lose half your energy by ending early, especially with the condition that you can only ENTER the form at 100% charge, is a little unfair. I’m trying to avoid comparing it to Shroud, because it’s different…but as it stands it seems like I’d feel like I needed to hoard my celestial form for only the most dire situations, instead of using it for constant support, as I assume is the intention.

All the other changes look excellent, although I agree that Glyph of Unity in offensive form is still underwhelming.

The light gloves for Sorrow’s Embrace cost 330 tokens. Those must either be the biggest gloves I’ve ever seen in my life, or they’re made of pure dragon tears.

Is this only for events open to the public? My guild hosts an annual costume brawl tournament, but it’s generally guild only (because we usually offer gem store prizes). However, we’re having a free-for-all after the structured tournament that anyone is welcome to attend!

Event Name: [STAR]’s Annual Costume Brawl Tournament
Group name: Starbuck Guild
Time: October 30th, 8pm CST/1am UTC
Game world: NA/Sanctum of Rall

What it is: A bracketed Costume Brawl tournament, packed with more Pow, Bang, and Whack than you can shake a stick at! Contenders will claw, hoof, flipper, or whatever their way to the top to claim ultimate victory!

For more information, check out the thread on our website: http://starbuckguild.com/topic/halloween-event-costume-brawl-tournament/

I am really, really loving druid. I think almost everything it does, it does right.

I’d like to see the #1 skill in celestial tweaked a bit. It is pretty difficult to land, because of the small radius and how long it takes to hit.

I also found the #5 skill pretty underwhelming, considering the long cast time. It’s beautiful though, love the animation.

How celestial form works is a little weird, too. Right now, you can’t sustain it while in celestial form, like you can with death shroud. Personally, I think that’s fine. But if you wanted to put a sustain in there, you could use a % of damage taken.

If you leave it early, you lose all your energy, even if you only popped it on accident and left it immediately.

However, because you can get energy out of combat, just by using healing skills on/near allies, the previous issues are tolerable and perhaps even necessary for balance. I think that if the out-of-combat energy gain is to remain, then losing all of the energy upon leaving celestial form is fine. However, if it’s your intention to tweak energy gain out of combat, then I think we should keep our unused energy when we leave celestial form early.

It is comparatively hugely difficult to gain celestial energy when not using a staff vs using one. I feel like druids shouldn’t be punished for wanting to use other weapons QUITE as much as they currently are. Especially if there’s any plan to tweak celestial energy gain outside of combat, there NEEDS to be more ways to get it when using weapons other than staff.

Overall I’m pretty happy with the rest of everything. The traits seem solid. Staff damage is pretty underwhelming, but it’s not meant to be a heavy damage weapon, so I’m not tremendously worried about that. I love Glyph of Empowerment, although it was the only glyph that I was really willing to run on my mostly-support build. The glyph heal I’m sure has been mentioned – it needs to have the pet included, and not taking heals from my allies, in order for me to ever slot it. And the elite seems slightly situational, but pretty neat regardless.

OH AND THE PETS ARE AWESOME. I love love love love love the Smokescale. And I’ll be tremendously sad at my lack of giant bristleback come HoT…but I’ll survive.

Thanks for all your work on this! The beta was super fun!

According to someone on reddit, it might not be the tools, it might be the item booster causing the issue.

While harvesting with infinite tools on my engineer, I’ve found that my flamethrower unequips frequently at the end of the harvest.

This happens with the Constortium Harvesting Sickle, the Watchwork Mining Pick, and with the Frost Wasp Logging Tool (the only infinite tools I have). This does NOT happen with normal Orichalcum/Frostbitten tools.

It happens all the time when I am out of combat, and only some of the time when I am in combat. I haven’t been able to place what combat condition prevents me from dropping my kit, but it seems to be if I’ve attacked with the kit, sometimes when the harvest finishes, my flamethrower doesn’t unequip.

It unequips after every successful plant harvest, and every successful mine. However, sometimes if there is one “strike” left in a tree, it will wait until I begin channeling that fourth strike to unequip.

This is driving me absolutely bonkers, please tell me this is something that’s being looked at?

I was one of the people who used spacebar to OK things like “The map you are trying to join is full” and “Your mail sent successfully!”

But lately…all I’ve been doing is jumping. I’m not sure if this was intended behaviour, but it has been the opposite of a QoL adjustment for me.

Starbuck [STAR] is a fully-upgraded, HoT-ready guild (of basic kittens who literally can’t even). We’re a big guild with a small-guild mentality, which is to say, active members are friends and family to us. We accept members of all skill levels, from the noobliest noob to the most seasoned veteran.
We are primarily a PvE guild. We do daily fractals (intermediate and level 50), dungeons, and weekly training runs for both. Every week we run Guild Missions, and a number of other events including key farming and “silly” events such as quaggan walks and naked map runs. We also have a guild PvP arena for duels, practice, and dailies, and some of our members compete in ranked/unranked PvP also. In addition, we have constant guild buffs such as magic find, karma gain, gathering boost etc. We also have a private Teamspeak server, which we require for certain events (such as aetherpath parties) and highly suggest the rest of the time, as it helps bonds form more quickly.
We’re located on Sanctum of Rall (NA), but we accept members of all servers, as we rarely run WvW together. We are overwhelmingly an English-speaking guild, but a number of us have English as a second language, so if you are conversational in it, you’re probably fine.
We are primarily active in the afternoon-evening for North America. In CST, 4pm-12am is our most active time, but we do have members on at all hours, and we are interested in recruiting more guildies for the Oceanic/Australian time zones.
I am the guild leader, so you can message me ingame. Other players you can message for an invite are Lahrun, Shanna Kinomoto, Synthia Arson, and Geneva Longbow.
We do have a website, http://starbuckguild.com, containing guides, links, and our forums. We run weekly forum lotteries (entries are earned by participation), monthly screenshot contests, and more!
Finally, our guild puts an emphasis on being kind and friendly. We have a strict no-jackwagon policy, although friendly razzing is always fine. We are a very diverse guild, both in gender, in race, and in skill level, and as such discourage any comments that would alienate any members of the guild or make them feel unsafe or uncomfortable.
If any of this sounds good to you, please get in contact with us! We have no represent requirements at this time, so feel free to give us a shot on your alt characters or when your primary guild is being boring.

Starbuck [STAR] is a fully-upgraded, HoT-ready guild (of basic kittens who literally can’t even). We’re a big guild with a small-guild mentality, which is to say, active members are friends and family to us. We accept members of all skill levels, from the noobliest noob to the most seasoned veteran.

We are primarily a PvE guild. We do daily fractals (intermediate and level 50), dungeons, and weekly training runs for both. Every week we run Guild Missions, and a number of other events including key farming and “silly” events such as quaggan walks and naked map runs. We also have a guild PvP arena for duels, practice, and dailies, and some of our members compete in ranked/unranked PvP also. In addition, we have constant guild buffs such as magic find, karma gain, gathering boost etc. We also have a private Teamspeak server, which we require for certain events (such as aetherpath parties) and highly suggest the rest of the time, as it helps bonds form more quickly.

We’re located on Sanctum of Rall (NA), but we accept members of all servers, as we rarely run WvW together. We are overwhelmingly an English-speaking guild, but a number of us have English as a second language, so if you are conversational in it, you’re probably fine.

We are primarily active in the afternoon-evening for North America. In CST, 4pm-12am is our most active time, but we do have members on at all hours, and we are interested in recruiting more guildies for the Oceanic/Australian time zones.

I am the guild leader, so you can message me ingame. Other players you can message for an invite are Lahrun, Shanna Kinomoto, Synthia Arson, and Geneva Longbow.

We do have a website, http://starbuckguild.com, containing guides, links, and our forums. We run weekly forum lotteries (entries are earned by participation), monthly screenshot contests, and more!

Finally, our guild puts an emphasis on being kind and friendly. We have a strict no-jackwagon policy, although friendly razzing is always fine. We are a very diverse guild, both in gender, in race, and in skill level, and as such discourage any comments that would alienate any members of the guild or make them feel unsafe or uncomfortable.

If any of this sounds good to you, please get in contact with us! We have no represent requirements at this time, so feel free to give us a shot on your alt characters or when your primary guild is being boring.

Hi there! I’m the creator of the http://starbuckguild.com/ore/ route. The way I personally use the tool is by unchecking copper, silver, gold, and mithril. I also skip all the gardens except strawberries, potatoes, artichokes, and spinach.

I run the whole route with a gathering boost going (usually a guild boost also, and sometimes a banner boost). It generally takes me 1-2 hours to complete, and nets me 15+ gold. I do have a Watchwork Pick, but I usually just sell those once my bank gets full – I deposit while I’m out running.

I should also mention that the toxic spores, while 9s each and totally worth gathering, are something I do last, in case my booster runs out.

I can definitely see how it could be considered OP, considering the low cooldown of Elixir F. That said, I don’t think it’s necessarily any more OP than Juggernaut. Since HGH is a master-tier trait, it’s my personal opinion that having that extra stack of might/extended cripple&swiftness on Elixir F wouldn’t be ridiculous.

That said, if the balance team disagrees, I’d say that renaming the skill would be a good idea.

Thanks for the feedback!

This has probably been asked before, and if so I apologize. But since EG skills 4 and 5 proc HGH, I’m wondering if skill 2 is meant to? And if not, why not?

I really hope that the stat-changing system will include accessories. Or at least, give us something to do with all these rings! I’d take salvaging/forging!

Zach Lute.7920:

Thanks to the help of your incredible graphical skills, I went ahead and made this improvement for a future release, so keep an eye out for it.

Enjoy your improved quality of life!

Holy crap, you’re amazing! Thanks so much, I definitely will enjoy it! <3

@Dahkeus: Thank you very much! Checking out the video right now.

This is it: http://i.imgur.com/IlOwhGn.jpg

To explain: I’d really like it if the tooltip would show not just the name/usage of the item, but the amount of the item in the bank (like it does when in the inventory). Some items’ icons, like the Watchwork Sprockets or Wool Thread, are light enough that the number is difficult to read, and I have to remove the item to my inventory to see the actual amount.

Now, I am using SweetFX in these screenshots, but I have the problem even without SweetFX. And I know I could adjust my monitor’s gamma, but it’s perfect in every other way, so I don’t really see that as an option.

It’s not a big thing, but they can’t all be big things. Thanks for listening! <3

I’ve been playing since day 1 of early released. I paid for the game, collector’s edition, in full the moment I knew it was available. I have bought gems regularly (have spent hundreds of dollars on them). I’ve bought myself new accounts. I’ve bought gems for those new accounts. I have been an evangelist for this game since day 1 – I know of at least 5 people certainly, maybe more, who bought this game as a result of my recommendation. I run a guild. I log in every day. I help new players learn the ropes and feel welcome.

I like to think that I am a model player, in that sense. I love and support arenanet as a company. I respect the hell out of their staff for having to put up with a fickle and ungrateful playerbase. But in this case, I think the outrage is at least somewhat justified.

I think that the bundling of the base game with the expansion is a great idea, frankly. I DO think a $40 expansion-only version should be offered, partly to accommodate folks with less income, but mostly to encourage players who have since left GW2 to return without feeling like they have to buy the game all over again.

However, I think it’s ridiculous that the $50 version doesn’t include an extra character slot. That essentially sets the price tag to $60 for anyone who wants to play a revenant without deleting an existing character.

On a personal note, it makes me look like a fool. For months now my friends and guildies have been saying that character slots won’t go on sale because anet wants to make as much money as possible off of people buying the expansion, wanting to make revenants. I objected, pointing out that the GW1 expansions came with character slots so you could try the new classes. Heart of Thorns is definitely coming with at least 1, if not 2, character slots. Now I look like a deluded fangirl.

There will always be people who complain. But I believe adding a character slot to the $50 version (and thus, 2 for the $99 version – which is the one that I got), will eliminate the bulk of the outrage over this. It costs you as a company nothing – and gains you the continued goodwill of much of your playerbase.

Randulf, so you think it would be okay to move it to the Support forum? I wasn’t sure it’d be welcome there.

Deceiver – I think a testimonials type thread would be amazing!

I was thinking about how I feel bad that every time I contact support, it’s because I want something…However, I didn’t think it would be appreciated if I put in a ticket just to say that I hope they had a good weekend and to tell them I appreciate them. So, I hope they get to see this, somehow.

The support team for this game is one of the best support teams I’ve ever had the pleasure of dealing with. There have been times that I was basically hopeless that something could be rectified, but put in a ticket just in case, and you’ve been able to help me.

Even in the times you weren’t able to help me, you were still prompt (assuming you weren’t swamped) and polite. Being a member of any support team is a rough job, and it tends to be full of people who are having bad days, and sometimes, it can be a bit thankless. Especially if people don’t fill out the “how was the service” survey at the end.

So, thanks. You guys are wonderful, and I appreciate you.

Two more things:

1. The hammer autoattack for revenant (at least on females) looks kinda janky and unnatural.

2. I’m finding it hard to distinguish the red made by Coalescence of Ruin from the red made by enemies.

I have to say, I’m thoroughly enjoying this.

I was not at all interested in revenant, to be honest. Even the videos leading up to it didn’t excite me. However, actually trying one out was fantastic! It’s like a guardianecromancer!

It took a bit to get used to the skills, and a few of them I was still a little kitten y about, but I think it’s pretty solid gameplay. I highly preferred Jalis to Demon, personally.

There was also a bit of learning curve getting used to the flow of events. It took me probably a good hour to figure out the pattern of events and how to get the most out of them.

The constant knockback/knockdown (with no stun break or stability available on the flamethrower bundle) during the Thorn Torching adventure was a little frustrating, but I assume that’s intended?

Not all of the vines were valid terrain. I’m assuming that this is due to it being a beta, but it’s a bit weird to fly right through a giant vine.

I loved the wyvern fight. It was long and grueling, but not overly difficult. I absolutely loved the breakbar technique – making that thing come crashing down (especially because of 5+ Forced Engagement) is super satisfying and almost feels like Monster Hunter.

I’d really like it if there were little hidey-holes and hidden things, like there are in the rest of Tyria. I adore exploring every little nook and cranny, and I didn’t get a lot of that out of the limited area we were allowed to visit. I hope there’s more in the full zone!

I’m also really interested to see how things play out if your main character is a sylvari (which mine is). The fantastic racism in this story is pretty close to my heart, and I find myself getting more worked up about the anti-sylvari sentiment than I probably should.

I would like to see a response to this as well.

I do not know if this is happening anywhere else, but I’ve been playing in the Silverwastes all morning, and the lag spikes have been absolutely insane. I’ve lost connection no less than 6 times and it shows no signs of improvement.

Please tell me that this issue is being looked into?

I would love new content every halloween, because I agree, I think Mad King is a great character! I’d also like to finally take down Tixx on Wintersday for turning all those skritt into toys (you know it’s true! illuminati!).

I think that ArenaNet needs to hire enough people to cover living story AND consistent content AND festivals, imo. I am sure they have their reasons for not doing so, but in an ideal worlds, that would be the case. No one can get truly excited for entirely recycled content.

In the meantime, I am happy with what I have.

This is great design work! I would LOVE something like this. My main issue with the hero panel is that I often want to view my stats or swap equipment on the fly, and if I was recently playing with dyes or wardrobe or what have you…then it’s frustrating and often confusing to click back to the selection menu and then click into equipment.

The way you’ve added tabs is a great idea, and I love how the UI is full, but not cluttered. I would love the kitten out of this.

I’m not sure if this is appropriate, but here’s another thread on the same topic: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/support/bugs/can-t-drink-nectars-Achievement-Bottoms-Up/first#post4395585

So yeah. I think this is likely bugged.