Guild Wars 2

I know one citizen who’s going to spend the weekend taking screenies of all his favorite places in LA before they are changed. Someone above got it right: LA in the first GW was the first anchor of the game, the first place we (those that started with what was later called Prophecies) called ‘home’. GW2 has given us a different racial ‘birthplace’ but LA still feels like home, at least to me. We’ve had a year and half of this new version of LA and, regardless of the storyline that drives it, the changes will be sad to see. But the game was sold as being a living world, so be it. Kudos to ANet for being gutsy enough to take down a meaningful (and to some of us, sentimental) landmark.

Draugl.8079:

What makes you think that everyone will habe them?
From the forums i got the impression that there are many that don’t want them for various reasons.

Lol -not surprising …
Official Forum Recipe:

1. Title “X is Kitten Horrible – ANet Fix!”
2. First post: “I actually like X”
3. Second through eighth posts: “Kitten fanboy, you kitten . X sux.”
4. Every fifth post: “I don’t need X, ur whiners, I can solo it.”
5. Following three posts: “Kitten liar. Stop being uber. X is broken, everyone kitten knows that.”
6. Every ten posts and every other post for six posts: “U whiner, L2P.” “No, you, kitten.”
7. Post 48: “Hi, it’s Dev ABC. We didn’t want X to break the meta, especially with the EU servers lagging. While we’re still testing X and may make additional changes, we strongly feel X accomplished what we wanted it to do.” End with usually pretty funny joke (yeah, I’m sucking up now).
8. Following five posts: “Thanks ABC! GW2 rocks! X is perfect! Keep up the great work!”
9. Next three to fifty posts, depending on degree of hatred/love for X: “Sux”. “L2P”
10. Thread is buried by “I Hate Y – Fix This ANet!” threads.

Oh my God, there’s complaints about a free gift? As part of a package that says, “thanks for playing the game”? Wow. I don’t understand that mindset. I played GW1 and completed all 4 campaigns and always thought the birthday minis were icing on the cake. I’m not a collector so my opinion isn’t geared towards collecting every mini. But this is a free gift! What you paid for is the right to play the game, not for specific items of content. Keep it up and we’ll start getting nothing free – I sure wouldn’t continue to give stuff to someone who doesn’t appreciate it. Just wow.

This one affected me more than my first time walking out into the ruins of Post Searing Ascalon. That first time, with my first GW1 toon, I honestly didn’t know what was happening when it happened and I hadn’t really adopted much attachment to Pre-Searing Ascalon. It was still a shock.

This time around, the city that I’ve come to call my GW2 home is ruined. Me and a few guildies were running around last night, trying to find familiar buildings and markers amidst the ruins and I just felt sad. Gone were the areas we took our in-game Christmas screenies for two straight years. Gone was the plaza in Fort Mariner that my thief practiced her teleporting skills. Gone was the little cove on the east side and tiki bar up on the hilltop west of that. Gone was the grand hall of the TP where I agonized over my armor upgrades for seemingly hours across all my toons. Gone was the Lion fountain where we all stood around in our Mad King outfits listening to his silly jokes. Gone is the Mystic Forge where I stood for hours with a mixture of dread and nervous anticipation, hoping beyond hope that I’d get a mystic clover instead of some more leather scraps. Gone was that first moment of exhileration when I found the old lions from GW1 in the bay.

Yeah, last night was a little heartwrenching. After the smoke and red haze disappeared, I realized that a chunk of happy times was now going to be a memory. Great job for doing all that in a game! Touches like the note boards and grieving citizens – wow. Just nice job!

veasna.3675:

i wish they would introduce twerking as a dance move so i can do that in wvw after stomping peeps.

That would actually make my billion and one deaths worth while.

You realize the the QD train nerf isn’t the first train nerf. FGS’s changes now result in a lot of standing around waiting for champs because they grouped what’s now called ‘The Trio’. It’s not about new player experience. It’s about nerfing, pure and simple. Taking a 50,000 ft view of what’s been nerfed and what hasn’t, there’s only a few play styles that haven’t been significantly nerfed, if you disregard the constant build nerfs. Wow, I just wrote ‘nerf’ six, now seven times. Anyway, each patch brings about a player base that logs in and looks around at what remains for them to do in a game that once was wide open and free. Apparently, the current player base likes to be told, quite often, how to play the game, what’s approved play styles, and how much loot they should take in a day. Wow, I play the game to get AWAY from reality.

zerospin.8604:

Make us solo champions while doing impossible jumping puzzles to obtain the skin. That is a challenge. That is worth something.

No no no no … NO! Not jumping puzzles for anything! ANet, pretend you didn’t hear that!

1 UP!

I love pizza. I could eat pizza every day. Sometimes I take a break and eat spicy hot pan-fried noodles. But then, back to pizza. Make this the little guilty pleasure tucked away in Rata Sum and I guarantee you’ll have a steady stream of pizza eaters.

Wow, some of the responses are pretty vicious, especially from one particular poster. Can’t a discussion of opinions be a little less confrontational? Holy cows.

My opinion is that the OP made valid points. I’m not as emotionally attached to this game or any game that I won’t walk away when I get bored with the next thing that comes along. This is OP’s point – he’s bored. He listed his reasons in a very straightforward way and, as I read it, without malice. It kills me that his opinion is being viciously attacked. Just, wow.

Lol – I’ve seen real players play like you described!

My only issue is the luck of the draw with the platforms on Marionette. It doesn’t really test anyone’s skill or preparation when you are arbitrarily outnumbered and the fate of the ‘every 2 hours’ event rests on your shoulders. The rest is good, in my opinion. They require coordination and planning and a level of effectiveness. Clean up that platform mechanic and I think both events are pretty good. And this coming from a player that hasn’t beaten either. I’m good with losing a fair fight. That’s what keeps me coming back. Randomness, not so much.

Jory’s sister’s reaction comes more from Jory’s sister knowing Jory’s buttons than an influence of the GW2 society. I took the dialog in the Dead End as being surprised and friendly banter that Jory’s interested in a noble – obviously one of Jory’s buttons. And sis is just lightly rubbing it in.

As for comparisons to our own history – how about we just not? Too much bad. Clean slate, Mr. Sulu, set a course for out there.

If I’m reading the zerg mentality right, you need a large group so that the stragglers keep the chasing mob busy with their dying. “I don’t have to be faster than the bear, I just have to be faster than you.” Heartless.

Tachenon.5270:

supertron.6712:

i like to lol at people who complain about someone doning something they would never even fathom being in their skill set, or even attempting.

im just waiting to play your mmo’s.

Person 1: Hey! This apple is all squishy and yucky! Why, it’s rotten to the core!
Person 2: You’re neither an apple farmer nor an agent of the Order of Whispers ! You don’t know anything about apples!
Person 3: One need not possess a Master’s degree in Classical Dance to understand that ballerinas do not generally wear combat boots while performing Swan Lake.

Regardless of any erroneous esthetic elements, I hope that Southsun retains the majority of its newly-bestowed entertainment enhancements once the living story moves on to the next chapter.

You know nothing, Jon Snow.

Ben, there is a chest to Tixx’s right (your left as you face him). You open that, even if it’s open already, and get a number of gifts in your loot bags – you should have about 5 slots open for the gifts. If you don’t get the gifts, file a support ticket. You only get one set of gifts per account.

I shouldn’t do this, being Christmas and all, but if the present contains even two of the dolls or golems I try to race in, take the gifts and run run run. If there’s others in the area I scream at them to stay away, then help when they go down. But yeah, those dolls are dynamite.

This game has a number of different playing styles and every single change implemented will impact these styles both negatively and positively at the same time. It’s refreshing to read a forum that is populated by intelligent discussion (constructive criticism) but far too often, it’s just juvenile nastiness. The rule of thumb should always be: would you talk that way if the person you were addressing were standing in front of you? Eliminate that, push for constructive criticism as opposed to silly little “I hate it” posts and you have what I think the OP is talking about.

This is a huge thread (for me!) and I’ve read 1/3 of it but don’t have time to continue. I just wanted to add my two cents. Each LS installment is a different puzzle, a different scenerio, requiring different measures to finish. Some ‘solutions’ are maybe what the devs envisioned but that is the beauty of a human player base improvising and iterating and finding the optimal path. For big events, you need lots of people. For smaller events, you need creativity. But so far, from my recollection, each event got me thinking about exploring different builds or doing it with a different toon. And that’s what’s refreshing in this game – it’s constantly changing.

The heavy armor on Asurans remind me of the Bugs Bunny Martian…

Logged into Divinity’s Reach. Chatted for a while. Did a few heart chests in Queensdale. Bought some new outfits with gems I bought in the TP. Threw a bunch of unused rares into the Mystic Forge, didn’t get anything worthwhile, but, hey, life is good – it was fun! Think I’ll pop some more gems for some transmute charges so I can change up my wardrobe a bit. Man, I love this game! The only thing that would make it better was if that horrible, dreadful, despicable Champ Train was gone … what? It is? Woo-hoo!!! Unicorns and bubblegum and lollipops for everyone! Back to the TP – I had my eye on that Legendary thingie, Eternity or something. I think I have a few thousand left on my Visa…

… sounds like … work.

Those moas, man, they’re bad. Give me nightmares. Even though I keep telling myself, “Stay focused! Engage the veteran Minotaur that’s pounding away at me”, I still see that moa out of the corner of my eye, munching away on his leaves. I hate that moa. Just as soon as I kill this Minotaur, that moa’s dust! No!!! Be strong! That moa means nothing! Nothing, I swear! Do not look at the moa … must not … Dwayna help me … AHHHH!!! You’re going down moa!!!

Xenon.4537:

Celtic Lady.3729:

See, that’s an assumption you make. Nothing says that people that ran the train will now spread out to other areas. They might simply leave the game.

Boy if the QD champ train was the last thread people hung on to and had no other reason to play GW2, I feel bad for them. Not because their train is gone, but because such a crappy activity is all they seem to enjoy.

Actually, it may be the last straw, not the last thread. I’ve played quite a number of MMOs and GW2 is by far the most nerfed game I’ve played – and that includes GW1. If I’m wrong, please, someone tell me of another game where so many things (skills, builds, events, loot drops, etc…) are nerfed. Regularly. I’ve loved this game since the beginning but the nerf trend isn’t getting any better. It’s almost as if the players are sort of held in contempt – like if a portion of the player base plays in a way that doesn’t fit some kind of mold, it’s wrong and nerfed.

And for what? Why was this needed? If there’s chat abuse, treat that with the protocol already set up. Why is supplementary nerfing required to control chat demeanor?

This is actually the first game, and I’ve played a LOT, that I’m not afraid of people leaving. I honestly don’t see anything similar in depth and breadth out there that would seriously make a run against GW2. Even what I’ve seen of ESO looks like the old tired and true. I’m on the GW2 rollarcoaster at least until something significantly better comes along. As for the forums, most of the complainers here are just that, complainers. The minority state their reasons and offer a solution – the rest just vent. I can’t wait for the changes to hit – they seem to be eliminating a lot of the multi-toon grind.

PeterThomas, I believe I’m seeing your point, having re-read your posts. I’m guessing that, in answer to what I believe you are saying is a poorly integrated Living Story, it was just too big, too much, to integrate every aspect of the existing world with the new content. I’m talking about mob AI, existing quests, the ‘atmospere’ of the surroundings. It’s a valid complaint but that’s a daunting task. We already have this with the implementation of dungeons in just about every MMO currently out there – honestly, anyone invading a sentient area would have one huge fight 10 feet inside the doors once word travelled back that there were invaders. Not the ‘fight as you go’, where you can plainly see mobs in view, waiting around for us to ‘get to them’. So, I believe that your comment about the Living Story not contributing to making the world a living, breathing world, as I stated (defending my initial premise ) is more a matter of how far do you take the ‘ripple effect’ of something happening and the ripple it causes to the surroundings.

To a large extent, the first issue that comes up is how far o you change the experience of the area for those that have never been there before, have never done the quests. You have to, at some physical point, draw the line and say that beyond this line, the rest of the world will largely be unaffected. That the line is a hard line and too close to the LS event for you doesn’t necessarily reflect on whether that removes the living world aspect of the game. It’s a balance trying to define what the world looks like with the LS in it versus what it looked like before – playability, depth of existing storylines, etc. The worst thing that could happen, from an ANet marketing standpoint, is to lure new players (and accounts!) into a world that has changed completely from what it was at launch – to bring them into an ongoing story in which they’ve lost the opportunity to experience older content. Again, creating a constently engaging, fair, cohesive world with every patch is daunting. You have to draw the lines, create the ‘bubbles of consequences’, so to speak, and leave the rest of the existing world ‘as is’ for now, it’s fate ‘to be determined at a later date’.

I will defer on your commentary of Scarlett – I think you know more about her than I do. Actually, I’m sure you do. But for my opinion, I’m entertained by the whole story arc to this point and for me that’s enough.

There was an added feel of realism to the housing system used in LOTRO, the first MMO (actually ONLY MMO) that I played that had a system. As someone posted above, LOTRO had it’s strengths and weaknesses – the way LOTRO implemented it would put it in the solo as opposed to sociable content. What I loved about it was the different maps each neighborhood had, depending on race, and each house occupying a different plot of land – if you wanted a waterfall view, you had to visit a number of neighborhoods to find one where this piece of land was up for sale. But yeah, you could make a case that it was more Sims than having value to the game.

The LOTRO Guild Halls were another thing though. Our guild had many private parties there and it was awesome to see our entire guild together at one time, drinking from a beer keg, yakking it up – pretty fun.

What I would like to see, if they implement housing, would be a reason to have a house that goes beyond cosmetics or being a gem sink. Maybe something like staying in an inn, ala WoW, where you get a buff for either experience or something the longer your toon stays in his house prior to going back out and adventuring. Also having a number of crafting stations available, but not a crafter, which would be in line with your toon buying crafting equipment so he could craft at home.

Also, maybe have an instances and non-instanced part of the house, a foyer open to the public in which you can mount your trophies or suits of armor (as someone mentioned above) and then the rest of the house which is yours. We could go visit the showroom of some of the more elite players on the server and admire their rare trophies. I’d love to see housing used as another element to round out my toon’s character in relation to the rest of the world.

These threads are amusing. Really, defining the things that are not the core points of the game and sort of mocking those who like it. That’s like saying you don’t like Pizza Hut Pizza because they don’t put enough cheese on it. It’s kind of smug to complain about the way Pizza Hut makes pizza, expecting them to change when so many people do like it. Go to Little Caesers. And so funny to see the pulpits plop out where everyone is a minister in the Church of the Awesome. (slow clap). I’m just kidding. Seriously.

Man, we really need new content … this is starting to get ugly.

Agree with OP. We play the game regularly when there isn’t a special event going on. But when there is, we’d really like to be able to do what it takes, earn in other words, a reward. There’s no earning with RNG – not if it takes exactly one very lucky kill to get a rare chest and then a rare ticket. OP got it right – there IS fun in working towards a goal that IS reachable. Not just statistically possible.

I like to come home from a job that isn’t all that rewarding, to jump into the skin of my ranger, or my warrior, or my mesmer. Sometimes it’s my engineer or my thief. I like to just relax and focus on simple objectives, like the daily, or finishing the hearts in my current zone. Or maybe I’ll just pick a zone I haven’t been to and explore. I don’t expect GW2 to be the end-all 5 star restaurant that fulfills everything – I’m content to let it just wipe away the grime of a normal everyday workday and dip my toes in another world that seems a lot more simple and complete.

I guess I question the decision to put skins behind nothing but luck. Yeah, you can play the game to get coffers as loot but what’s the point of designing all these neat skins if only a very very small population of the world has them? Forget about how you get the chance – I wanted a Southsun skin, played the crap out of the game, even bought $10 worth of chests – all nothing.

Dungeon armor and weapons are a different story – you do the dungeons, you get the stuff. But random chances of getting a skin that is only going to be available for a limited time. Kinda sucks not to get one when you really want one. Guild Wars teaches me a hard lesson in life? Thanks Guild Wars!

My solution – make the skins either saleable on the TP or make them achievable with doing how many runs or whatever (grinding). Yes, I would agree to grind for a skin long before standing in the RNG line and coming away empty handed just because I’m one unlucky kitten.

I like it for the reason that it’s an additional mechanic in combat. I know that mobs aren’t really supposed to be on our level (vets and maybe the new elite notwithstanding) meaning that we are supposed to be ‘heroic’ with additional ‘heroic abilities’. This brings some trash mobs up a level, requiring more attention. I agree, the line between those that can and can’t rez should be based on lore – not every mob gets it. But yeah, I’m for adding more complexity, more options, to any game. Except for rock, paper, scissors, lizard, Spock, of course.

Leveled five characters … check.
Map completion … check.
Personal Story completed … check
Tried PvP, didn’t like it … check.
Play WvW … check
Completed LS … check
Run all paths of all dungeons at least once … check.
Undertook going for Legendary … no way to get T6 mats by farming with DR … pre-cursor is at +1000 gp and counting … champ train gone …

Just curious, from all those who are happy the train is gone – what am I SUPPOSED to be doing? I set my goal for a Legendary, and yeah, it’s supposed to be hard to get. But I’m probably going to take a break now, because not only is the end still out of reach, the means to get it are being taken away. I’m tired of feeling more like a beggar than an earner.

Isn’t this supposed to be a ‘sandbox’ game? Why is every other way to play this ‘sandbox’ game met with aggression, suspicion and gratuitous nerfing? I’m starting to feel like I’m doing a LOT of things morally wrong and unscrupulous just by playing the game.

I’m sorry, I haven’t read most of this and actually did debate on posting anything but in the end, I thought, ‘why not’. It just makes me laugh (real laugh, not sarcastic laugh) that every time there’s a new release of content, there’s at least one and usually more threads that are titiled just like this (with some variation). It cracks me up every time. I’m thinking that if a new content release went out at 12AM, thirty seconds later there would be a post on the forums titled “This is just horrible”. Sorry, I’m sure there are valid points but it still just kills me – in a good way, of course.

Commenting on the OP, as mentioned before, the density of the mobs and the lack of safe spawn points is part of the storyline, intended to give the sense that this is a poorly conceived resort area where, at this point, everyone is at each other’s throats, including the wildlife. To address the OP’s complaints about the area not being casual-friendly, one of the things that GW2 gets right is diversity of playstyle. Between WvWvW, PvP, upscaling and downscaling of areas, and now, the living story arcs, this game has strived so hard to make the game an open sandbox to find the area that appeals to you, whether it be content or skill level.

As a constructive comment to the OP, Southsun is an area with a unique playstyle and yeah, you either adapt to the style that it takes to survive (constant attention to mobs) or you die.

Removing downed state makes GW2 like every other MMO – your red bar goes down, you die and have to be rezzed after the fight is over. The only thing you gain by removing it is by making the battles quicker at the cost of removing the additional tactics downed state offers. Plus, each class has unique skills during downed state that further defines the class. And it promotes team unity, something refreshing in MMO’s that often reward personal gain at the expense of strangers. Personally, I love the system and it’s one of the best things about the game.

My opinion: I think that if you needed to have this one achievement to get the meta-achievement then I would agree that having it in the game is unfair. But, you don’t need it, it’s just there. So saying to eliminate it is kind of silly. It’s something to shoot for, something that requires specific things like coordination, skill and probably luck and it represents a difficulty level that defines the top end. I’d rather have a mix of achievements available, covering a broad range from easy to very hard, than to cut out the two extremes and just have stuff I can do in one day and be done with the whole event. I don’t think everyone shares the same expectations of what achievements are.

I read down to Shiren’s post and had to comment – good post, BTW, Shiren! I agree 100% with it. I understand the frustration from those that are really good at the game, have mastered thier builds, got the dodge timing down, got the boss animations down, got a good understanding of the nuances … all that and are presented with easy content that doesn’t challenge them. But … this is an event dungeon, with achievements and it is only around for a limited time. Why not make it easier for ‘us noobs’ to run and then, with the patch that removes the content but makes the dungeon permanent, beef it up to the better player’s standards. Yeah, if I get good at something, I want to be tested, challenged. But if I’m not great at it and just want to play the event content, why not ease up a bit?

All this would be fixed with scalable content anyways. Scalable difficulty, scalable loot. It’s being done now in other games.

So this is purely without consideration of game mechanics, just a ‘wake up on Christmas morning with what I was hoping for under the tree’ thing. It would be cool for the city’s planners to propose a blueprint for the ‘new city’, with a number of new buildings with new functions (guild halls, personal homes and neighborhoods) as well as the old functions (bank, TP, crafting). And then give the players quests to help with the construction of each building. The amount of player resources spent would drive the speed in which the building was built, and which ones get built first. It would be interesting to see what the player base wants to get up first.

Maybe they’re tired of throwing out information only to have it analyzed over and over with the result being a billion complaint threads. And I say this with a smile because if you step way back and look at the whole picture, it’s pretty amusing. I mean, here’s a game over here, with a persistant world with lots of things to do. And over here, there’s a forum with people giving opinions and whatever on what the game should be. It’s a forum, so there’s a LOT of people ‘talking’ at once, and a lot of them are angry. Think of it as a crowded room full of screaming. Would you want to go in the room all that often? And if you did, wouldn’t you rather just slip in and listen without revealing yourself and taking the whole brunt of it all. You may not get out of there alive.

OK, silly analogy. Feedback is good, both positive and negative. The devs are likely thick skinned and the company will implement as much of the feedback as fits the model and as resources allow. I’m rambling. Carry on…

Yeah, if the thing you like about WoW is linearly progressing through one quest line after the next, then you’ve got some, maybe uncomfortable, experiences ahead – in a good way. The two main things to know in PvE is:

1. Fight at your level – there is nothing keeping you from jumping into higher level zones and getting pasted. Also, there are tougher level areas in the same zone so if you start fighting multiple mobs at your level or higher, you might have strayed too far away from the entry area.

2. Figure out what works the best for your class and play style. You might want to start with a Ranger or Guardian at first – the Ranger’s pet is good at keeping aggro away from you and the Guardian is a tanky class.

Honorable Mention: look to your loot to upgrade your gear. I usually use my loot gear in between the 10, 20, 30 level increments – for those I go to the trading post and get a full set of blue or green gear. Weapons too – upgrade as you can. Guides and wikis help.

Shiren summed up my feelings about RNG for festival skins exactly. Good post Shiren! Making FESTIVAL skins available that are stylish and would make players happy to put armor around should be up to the player’s desire to get it, not RNG. I’ve posted before that if I wanted something, like the SAB skins, I would be fine ‘grinding’ for it – at least I know I will get one if I work hard enough. Same with dungeon skins – you have to learn your toon and the dungeon and then work to get the skin. But RNG, that’s not investing your time in the game – that’s just luck. Which is a shame because those skins, all of the new content festival or living story skins, look great.

Huh, I didn’t think being a comic book geek was a requisite for being a good critic on characterization and plotline. Intuition sorta had me going the other way … I’m not sure she ‘came out of nowhere’. Yeah, she did to us, but how much foreshadowing do you need to make a good villain? Not much, thank you very much, Norman Bates. Slap me around, I guess, but it’s a little early to be so dismissive. This isn’t the comics, after all – there’s undoubtedly more to play out. As for a careful analysis of her character, how many different types of villains are there, out there? There’s the Evil Scientist who is bent on just taking over, there’s the Out for Revenge who’s got it out for someone, and then there’s the Evil for the Sake of Being Evil who has no real agenda but to, well, just be evil. The limited ‘air time’ we’ve got of Scarlett isn’t enough to clasify her as cliche, right? Or am I missing something?

penatbater.4710:

Azraeel.1238:

The only thing that needs fixing with the helmet is the facial hair, we shouldn’t lose facial hair when we wear the helmet!!!!!!!!

It’s the power of the dragon. Have you seen any dragons with beards in gw2? :P

I see them in real life when i go to visit Grandma.

Good post above. My first GW2 class (after capping all GW1 content with the same class) was Ranger and that seems to be the most forgiving in terms of not needing to know the nuances right away and letting you learn them as you play. It has good ranged capabilities and with the right weapons / pet skills you can usually keep away the mobs that want to get in your face and do some thumping. They’re medium armor though, so you should adopt the mindset that you can’t really toe-to-toe like the melee classes (Warrior and Guardian).

As for other classes, I’ve capped the Engineer (a joy to play but the huge number of options may be a lot to pick up right off the bat) and Thief (toughest to cap for me so far but the most fun I’ve had playing GW2, once I got my builds to work the way I envision playing the class).

I’ve gotten my Warrior and Mesmer up to mid 60’s and they are fun – Warrior is good for thumping and the Mesmer has some nice combo field skills. I’ve got a Guardian and Necro that haven’t seen much action but I ‘birthday scrolled’ them up to 20th so I’ll at least have some tools to let me learn the class. My brothers have capped both classes and say they’re a lot of fun.

Hope that helps!

I remember some of the best times I had playing GW1 was when I beat a dungeon or boss with literally a sliver of health left and the realization that I would have to do it all over again if I didn’t get my next skill off before your opponent did. The stakes being that high made the victory all that much better. I think that is behind this release of the Gauntlet, which is not to say that future editions will be any different. I think (totally conjecture on my part) that some of the allure is that you do have to pay to get in, you do have to pay to change your current build, and you do have to be pretty good to advance (I’m not all that good and I have a tough time). But I think this is exactly what was intended – every fight is huge because you do have something to lose (tickets, build costs, yout time, etc…) You don’t just fight, get beat, then stand in line again. It’s about taking your best into the arena, waging war with your best, then maybe getting humbled. And then picking yourself back up and learning what you could have done differently and going at it again. Not paying anything trivializes the ultimate victory. Blood, sweat and tears – that’s what makes a champion. Thanks to Anet for putting the bar high in this one and giving me something to shoot for.