Guild Wars 2

Messenger.7450:

Danikat.8537:

Although I’m avoiding doing the story on my existing characters until it’s fixed I decided I wanted to see the changes for myself so I’ve been levelling up a new one.

She’s level 50 now so not far off the edited parts. It will be interesting to see if it has been reverted.

So how’s it going?

Anyone else recently gone through the post-Sept. 30 patch PS?

Is the Greatest Fear chapter back? Truly back?

How’s the order of the episodes of the Orrian chapters?

I’ve got my Necro ignoring Gixx’s summons (Claw Island chapter) in hopes he doesn’t run into the screwed up PS. I really want him to meet Tonn. :-(

Progress slowed down a bit when I ran out of Tomes of Knowledge but the character is level 78.5, I’m thoroughly bored of EOTM but planning to finish levelling up tomorrow and do the level 80 storyline.

Here’s my notes from the level 70 section:

(I created the character on the 28th September. She’s a sylvari who joined the Order of Whispers, chose to help the Hylek and picked ‘letting an innocent die’ as their greatest fear.)

Story chapters are listed in the order you play through them.

Forging The Pact
Everything was normal up to this point.

According to my story journal at the end of this storyline Trahearne asked me to make sure a key element of the Pact’s campaign was ready. I don’t remember this happening.

The Battle of Fort Trinity
The fort already has the Krait Orb and Tonn’s bombs and your character seems familiar with the fort (they say ‘this place was already formidable’) on their first arrival.

At the end of the storyline the story journal says before we carry on with the main campaign I have to finish the mission I started at Trahearne’s request, but he didn’t make a request. This could possibly be referring to helping Trahearne with his Wyld Hunt, but so far that’s been presented as a core part of the main campaign against Zhaitan, not a side mission.

Against the Corruption & Cathedral of Silence
Other than seemingly being able to get a flight to anywhere in Orr, which seems unlikely with all those dragon champions in the skies (and events where Pact airships are attacked) these two were unremarkable as far as plot holes go.

The Source of Orr
By contrast this one is a complete mess.

Elli is taking about not needing time to grieve, and what Zott would want her to do, which is odd because I haven’t seen her since she was commentating at the pit-fighting contest in Trouble at the Roots.

Sayeh al’Rajihd and my character both talk about the Temple of Abaddon, which they haven’t been to yet. They also seem to know each other in spite of never meeting before.

Snarl Backdraft thanks me for helping him with Galina – because my character is a sylvari I’ve never met either of them before. My character talks to both of them about defeating the Mouth of Zhaitan – something which hasn’t happened yet.

I seem to remember a storyline between Cathedral of Silence and this one where we went looking for the artesian well, instead of just knowing where it is and getting air-lifted to that exact point.

My character and King Reza talk about the multiple eyes of Zhaitan and the fact that I’ve freed (aka defeated) them one by one. But before now I’ve only seen 1 Eye and that was in the Pale Tree’s vision during A Light in the Darkness.

After the cleansing ritual all the characters are talking about how the campaign against the dragon is all but over and they can go home, even though to me it seems like we’ve barely started.

In the follow-up instance everyone is talking as if we’ve almost won and the only thing left is the dragon itself, but to be honest that’s not that unusual. We won a major victory, so it makes sense everyone would feel like it’s just a matter of time before we win completely.

The really odd part is going to be when the level 80 chapter starts, apparently the first part is Temple of the Forgotten God, and according to everyone in The Source of Orr has already happened and a lot of the dialogue involves the Greatest Fear storyline. It’s also supposed to be where you first encounter the Eye of Zhaitan and start to learn about what they are.

All of which makes me think that will be the point at which even new players who have no idea how the story used to be will start to question what’s going on and why there are so many inconsistences.

OP that was brilliant. I first read it this morning when I got into the office and got some really odd looks when everyone else arrived to see me in tears at my computer.

Regardless of what anyone else thinks of her I’m glad you found Taimi such an inspiring character. Personally I think it’s great that they’re aiming for more diverse characters, in all kinds of ways, it makes the characters more real and the stories more interesting. Taimi is one of my favourites so far, for a lot of reasons, and I’m really looking forward to seeing more of her in future.

Windu The Forbidden One.6045:

Christina.5103:

I’ll never forget the day a pregnant woman berated me outside a grocery store for taking the handicapped space she wanted.

Wow that’s low. People are so quick to judge.

Sad but true. A friend of mine got her blue disability badge at the same time as her drivers licence, shortly after turning 17 and she’s been told more than once that she’s faking because she’s “too young to be disabled”. The sad thing is part of me wishes they were right.

starhunter.6015:

chronometria.3708:

I`d be a lot more impressed if we saw a disabled norn or charr who wasn’t somehow gifted with an intellect and gadgets that basically made their disability into a benefit.
.

Lets not forget Tybalt Leftpaw, his right paw/hand was mangled and he had no real use in it.

Also Taimi isn’t really exceptional in that sense. Based on dialogue in and around Rata Sum most asuran children can build at least a basic golem, and using them as a mode of transport isn’t that uncommon.

Which I think is why she had to explain it to Braham (and most players). Everyone saw an asuran kid riding around in a golem and no one thought twice about it until she explained that she _had to.

Considering the people at the top of the leaderboards apparently get there and maintain their position by grinding dailies and monthlies, rushing through living story content following a guide and completely avoiding anything that doesn’t give enough points I really don’t think it’s an accurate way to measure how good, or even experienced a person is.

Who would you rather get advice from? Someone who does every single daily, every single day but little else? Or a guild leader who spends most of their time helping new players complete their story and dungeon paths they’ve already done? Or a WvW commander who spends most of their time on TS organising groups and overseeing battles but may not do much of the actual fighting themselves?

Well the first one will have far more achievement points than the other two, so according to this system they’re the more reliable source of information.

Thoughts? This won’t end well. This has been suggested before and it just angers people every time.

Also Anet have stated, repeatedly, that it won’t happen. One of the selling points of the game is that you can come and go as you like. If you can have your names stripped because some random decided you don’t log in enough that’s gone and, as I said a lot of people would be angry.

Turtle Dragon.9241:

Aramil.9503:

Is it true that people are boycotting this because it is overpriced? I’ve got like 20 friends who all play and none of them are preordering. In fact, when I suggested that I was going to preorder they all told me not to and that there was a huge boycott on this game. Can somebody tell me if it’s just my friends or if this is a game-wide occurence?

About 4 in 10 people I have spoken to have not prepurchased HoT even after release date was announced. However, this is only a small sample size.

i with my 7 friends buy it, if u cant spend 40$ for game go to the work or tell ur mom present gw on xmas, or stop buy console games for 200$ per disc

Funny, I was about to say the exact opposite; that the hesitation to buy could be a result of the average age of gamers going up, because when you’re an adult and earning your own money you’re (hopefully) more mature and more likely to think before spending it, even if you can easily afford it.

I agree, the rainbow unicorn bow is such an immersion breaker when the rest of the game takes itself so completely seriously…

• Go to Wayfarer Foothills
• Open the options menu
• Under User Interface click the Content Guide drop down box
• Select ‘Hide events and personal story’

It will point you to whatever you’re missing.

Vavume.8065:

GuzziHero.2467:

Is there an option to turn this off? It is MASSIVELY obtrusive.

LMFAO, now you can see for yourself how obnoxious your tag looks when standing around in LA.
Btw this comment is not aimed at you personally, just all the ego tripping wanna be commanders who tag up in LA and in dungeons, they should have to suffer seeing the tag just as others do.

Have to admit this was my first thought too. Other players have had to live with commanders leaving their tags on 24/7 since launch (or shortly after when people were able to afford them).

Maybe now it’s visible, and therefore annoying, to the commander too more will remember to turn it off unless they’re actually using it.

Edit: In fact that might explain why I’m in LA on Desolation, it’s full of people and the only commander tag I see is someone afk at the WvW portals. Makes a nice change to actually be able to see the Bank waypoint instead of having it buried in tags.

Even the people who use it know it’s a ridiculous system that doesn’t actually tell them anything except that this person has been in the game longer than a month or so.

Especially considering most achievement points are gained by playing PvE, and often relatively easy PvE like exploring open-world maps and doing the story, or totally unrelated things like jumping puzzles.

If they could they’d be demanding a gear check, or DPS score or whatever else you can judge people on in other games. But they can’t so they settle for what they can judge you on. It’s the “grown up” equivalent of kids whose school brings in a uniform so they can’t judge each other on their clothes, so they judge you on your bag or where you buy your notebook instead.

And yes, even for easy content. You’ll sometimes see the same thing for story mode dungeons.

If you’re not interested in that type of elitist you’re best off just ignoring any party with an AP requirement.

I’m still hoping they’re staying quiet because they’re seriously re-thinking the system and planning to change it before the patch comes out.

It depends on what you mean by unusable.

There are very few (possibly no) builds in this game which are literally so bad that it’s impossible to play them at all. However there are many builds which (justified or otherwise) are not welcome in many groups. And if you’re talking about high-end “hardcore” group activities – speed clearing dungeons, winning PvP tournaments, etc. then you are down to a very small number of builds.

But for the majority of people, the majority of the time, it’s a lot more flexible.

For example my main character is ranger, who mainly focuses on conditions and critical hits, split evenly between her and her pet. I know for a fact it’s not the best possible ranger build, it’s not even the best one I could have made, but it’s the most fun I’ve found and works well enough that I’m able to do open-world PvE without problems and only need to make minor changes for casual dungeon groups and WvW.

Since that’s all I want to do on this character it works.

First thing to know: the Trading Post is shared across all servers in both North America and Europe – so there’s a lot of people using it and therefore a lot of activity. It’s not at all unusual for things to change much faster than you’d see in other games trade systems, or to see large numbers of buy and sell orders.

In this case however there is something unusual going on, but it’s not some nefarious plot by gold sellers (of any nationality).

Permafrost Dye was only available as part of the Jormag dye kit, which is the newest one to be added to the game but which is now unavailable.

A lot of people expected that the 5th birthday gifts – which players started getting on the 24th when the oldest possible characters turned 5 – would offer the Jormag dyes as one of the choices from the Exuberant Dye Kit (which unlike the gem store packs allows you to choose a specific dye). So they were holding off on buying it and similarly many people who got one from the Jormag kit were trying to sell it before the expected drop in price when the birthday gifts hit.

Then the 24th came and everyone found that wasn’t the case – you can’t get any Jormag dye from the Exuberant Kit. So people who wanted one had no reason to keep waiting and put bids in to buy it. Which of course caused the price to jump up.

The price might dip again once the initial rush of demand dies off, but it’s unlikely it will go back down to what it was unless the dye is made available another way or a brighter white is released. (White dyes, along with black, are almost always among the most in-demand.)

I think your best bet is to get a cheaper white dye like Celestial or Eternal Ice.

Seriously?

Worst case scenario you wait until the new story achievements tomorrow and get them then. Is it really worth throwing a tantrum over?

Just adding my voice to those who don’t consider WoW expansions relevant to GW2. I have no interest in playing a subscription game and many other reasons I want to avoid WoW in particular (not worth listing unless anyone here is really into Warcraft lore).

It’s also worth noting that while some current/previous WoW players may go back to it an expansion is actually more of a barrier to new people picking that game up. Unless they’ve changed it in the last few years you can’t play the latest one without buying all the others. And you will want them all because everyone else will be focused on the new stuff. But that’s a big commitment to make for a game you’re just starting.

Djinn.9245:

I think this could be several things:

First, I think that there are so many trolls on the internet that when many people see a post in chat saying that someone wants to give away something really nice, they assume its a troll. I know I do.

Second, I think that perhaps many people get on the game to do something specific. “Find me” could take a very long time with all the places to hide in a map. Or whatever your challenge is.

Finally, its not like doing your challenge = getting the prize. If 10 people participate but only 1 person gets the prize, people might think there is little chance of them actually getting anything for their effort.

This perfectly sums up my reasons.

Some times I might see something like that in map chat and think “Hey, this sounds fun, I’ll join in”. Other times I’m already in the middle of something and for whatever reason can’t drop it to go and join in (maybe people are waiting for me, maybe I have very little time to play that day). And sometimes I’m tired or in a bad mood or have had too many negative experiences with people lately and I’ll assume it’s a scam and ignore it.

None of which means it’s a bad idea. But it might be better to arrange these things with your guild/s and give people some notice ahead of time so if they’re interested they can make sure they’re online and free to participate.

vesica tempestas.1563:

its not brilliant, if everything is trivial to get then everyone gets everything, therefore everything becomes meaningless. As an extreme example, see WOW where everyone runs about with the same legendary, so ‘legendary’ becomes meaningless

I don’t care if other people have the same things I do. If they want it and they’re now able to get it too I see that as a good thing.

But the important thing is if the OP is right that all material prices are low now is a good time for me to work on all the goals I’ve been put off finishing by high prices. So while it’s bad if you’re a seller for someone who typically buys more materials than they sell it’s a very good thing.

shaquinna.2869:

Alright so I haven’t read all the posted in this merged topic. But I notice a lot of discussion about the prize. So I googled a bit and found these (and a lot more):

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Suggestion-Add-5-slot-Account-Shared-inv-bags

“Five slots, make it a gem store item, even an expensive one. I’d buy it.”

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Create-a-Special-Account-8-Slot-Bag

“and id pay 2000gems for such a thing whilst i never spent any gems at all for some bank acess things”

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Character-bag-slots-1

“I would pay 3 times the price of a regular bag extension to get an account bound bag extension.”

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Make-bag-slot-upgrades-account-wide

“I’m simply voicing my opinion that I WOULD DEFINITELY 100% WITHOUT A DOUBT BUY extra inventory slots if they were account wide and cost the same or slightly higher than buying another character slot (currently $10 I believe).”

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/A-Bag-Slot-that-all-Characters-can-use

“I would easily pay ~2000 gems for this feature, maybe 600 gems per character or something similar (price of a new bank tab), and on top of that Id spend a lot more for all the stuff i can now easily use on all my characters.”

“Think of all the people, like myself, who would be willing to throw down $100+ just to buy all the bags at once for all their alts.”

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Suggestion-Account-shared-Bags-1/first

“These shared bag slots would cost ~600-800 Gems.”

Seems like people have been asking for this a lot (there are a lot more posts about this but I can’t possibly link them all :P) And even though there are people who said they wouldn’t pay as much, there were people happily telling the forum that they’d pay a lot for them. So I suppose I can see where their price indication came from….

Personally I’ll wait till they’re on sale.. or at least I will ‘casually’ get the gold together to buy a slot. And I’ll probably start saving for the 2 remaining harvesting tools I need.

I think you misunderstood the people you’re quoting. All those posts are talking about an account bound bag, meaning 20 inventory slots, for the price we’re now being charged for 1-5 slots.

It’s hardly surprising if people considered 800 – 2000 gems expensive but reasonable for 20 shared slots that they’re angry at being charged 2800 gems for just 5 slots.

If this was 2,800 gems for a shared bag then I’d have bought it yesterday with cash. But 2,800 gems for 5 slots means I’m going to save up my gold to get it later on, and Anet will not get any money from it at all, which I assume is not what they really wanted.

Zojja is an elementalist. In lore (specifically the Edge of Destiny novel) she’s a golemancer and in-game she sometimes has Mr Sparkles with her but when she’s in combat she uses normal ele skills.

There’s also Agent Zrii who is a thief, Tonn and Ceera who are a Pact demolitionist (probably an engineer) and a medic respectively, Warmaster Efut who is either a warrior or guardian (and actually mocks other characters reliance on technology during the Battle of Claw Island), Elli who is a ‘holomancer’ (she creates holograms that can fight), and probably many more I’m forgetting.

In fact the only golemancer I can think of who plays a major role in the story is Taimi. And since she’s a child (16 as of the latest Living Story release) and can’t walk properly I think it’s understandable she doesn’t fight directly.

I agree that it depends on context.

I do think Anet listen to player suggestions and if you’re unhappy with something or think it could be better making a topic about it is well worth doing. But if it’s something that either can’t be changed in a reasonable time/amount of work (like weapon dying), or something that goes completely against the design of the game so Anet are highly unlikely to ever implement it (like adding a gear treadmill or perma-death or making a single-player version of the game) then asking for it isn’t likely to achieve anything.

If the changes you want aren’t likely to happen and you feel like trying to play the game without them is making you frustrated or unhappy then I think playing a different game is a completely reasonable suggestion. Why continue to play a game you’re not enjoying?

Or sometimes it’s not one specific thing: someone wants lots of changes which might be quite small on their own but add up to making the game almost unrecognisable. Like for example wanting a VIP mode/subscription, mounts, gear grind, new raids/dungeons to get new gear from, areas locked with gear-check so you have to have the latest gear to do that content, player inspection, a DPS meter, no more buying gems with gold so you know someone with a gem store item paid cash for it, capes, unique capes for top raiders/PvPers etc. and unique items awarded to people who spend the most in the gem store each month.

They’re basically saying they want a completely different game. And especially when I happen to know there are other games exactly like they’re describing it does seem that the logical conclusion is they’d be happier playing one of those than playing GW2 and complaining it isn’t the game they actually wanted.

And then in some cases it simply sounds like someone is bored with the game and may benefit from taking a break, either because new content will come out so they’ll have something else to do or because taking some time away from it will break the tedium of doing the same things just for the sake of doing something when they log in and they’ll find themselves enjoying it again.

But having said all that, yes sometimes people do use it to dismiss any request for changes, or even advice on what to do. In the worse cases I’ve seen people say it simply because someone is new and used the wrong terminology when asking a question – like asking where the quest hub for their race is or what’s the best ranged class.

I got Carlotta last year and I spent all year saving up for Prince Thorn, then got it on the first day with less than 1/2 my stockpiled Candy.

I’ve got no complaints about the changes to either. I’m just happy more people will be able to get them if they want them.

Whilst I agree it would be nice to see more new armour sets I think it’s unlikely to happen for exactly the reason you gave.

Designing weapons is relatively simple because the models are universal – a sword held by a human thief is identical to a sword held by an asuran mesmer etc. So they come up with a theme, adapt it to the shape of each weapon and maybe add some individual details if it’s appropriate and they’re done – 16 new weapons for everyone.

Armour is not universal and therefore requires a lot more work. At absolute minimum they have to create 4 versions of each set – one for male humans/sylvari/norn, one for females, one for asura and one for charr. And that’s assuming they can stretch the human/sylvari version to fit the norn (which players complain about) and use the male version on female asura and charr (which players complain about). Ideally they need to create 10 versions – one for each race/gender combination.

And then they have to do that again for the other 2 armour weights. That’s a minimum of 12 models and a maximum of 30 for what players will see as only 3 new armour sets.

It seems they are experimenting with ways to offer new armour skins without it being so much effort – every Living Story episode this season has included at least 1 piece (head, gloves or shoulders) with the same skin used for all 3 armour weights. Even if they just stick with that it’s an improvement, but they might be able to expand on the concept in future.

Also I assume the next expansion will include new armour like HoT did.

GW1 did cover some areas that aren’t in GW2 yet, but equally GW2 covers some areas that were never in GW1. There’s various maps available online that compare the two.

My hope is that eventually we’ll be able to re-visit all of the GW1 locations, and more. I’d love to be able to fully explore all of Tyria. But it depends a lot on how long the game lasts.

As for the other dragons both Primordius and the DSD are awake (Primordius was actually the first), but they’re the furthest from us – deep under ground fighting the remaining dwarves and far out in the ocean fighting Gods only know what lives there, things stranger than the karka apparently.

maxwelgm.4315:

GW2 as it stands, literally “Lives and dies by its community”, so the short answer is: we will get to see the whole world and beyond if the playerbase is steady (and growing, for we’ll have a pretty kitten large map to fill out with group metas), but won’t even get to see all the dragons if population dies out instead.

What was done in GW1 was that, after population started to diminish, they made it so we could take allied NPCs around with us to do all of the content by ourselves if we wished to. The way GW2 works, I don’t see it happening. could Dragon’s Stand be done with a single person and NPCs? And, more importantly, would it even feel like the same content? GW1 certainly did feel the same with NPCs or players, minus the fun dialogues and versality of builds.

Actually the option to take allied NPC henchmen was in GW1 right from the start, and the option to take heroes (same idea, but you could customise their skills) was added with Nightfall when the game was still going strong.

I’m sure some people said it was dying when that feature was announced and that’s why they did it. I’m equally sure some people said it was dying when Nightfall was first announced, and Factions and every major update before and after because that’s how some people react to absolutely everything a developer does.

I’m still disappointed they don’t have recurve bows like GW1 did. I know that in real life a recurve bow is a type of short bow (or at least usually shorter than a longbow), but in GW1 they were distinct weapons.

I liked that GW1 had a variety of bows to choose from (and that was with just 1 profession that could use them) and I was disappointed that GW2 only had 2.

I’d much rather see them add new weapons and increase the number of professions that can use them than take weapons away just because they’re currently unpopular with some people.

I don’t miss this at all. It was one of my least favourite things about both UO and GW1. (aka both other MMOs I’ve played.)

I wasted so much time spamming chat trying to sell things, and if you wanted to buy something that wasn’t both popular with players and a common drop it was even worse.

I once spent a week and a half trying to buy a Bladed Recurve bow. It’s a relatively common drop, but because it’s not a popular skin most players wouldn’t bother with the hassle of selling it. Which meant I had to go around outposts where people were likely to go after getting one, spam chat with announcements that I wanted to buy one and hope I happened to be there at the same time as someone who had one, that they read the message and that they realised they had the item I wanted.

In GW2 I’d just have to look on the TP and in the (highly unlikely) case that no one had listed one for sale put up an offer to buy it then get on with my life. It would take 2 minutes at most. It might still take a few days for the buy order to be fufilled but at least I can keep playing during that time instead of spending it nagging everyone in the vicinity to sell me one.

It’s a big shame this isn’t possible. Even with the guild bank option it’s going to require a big re-think in the way I manage my gold, since the guild bank isn’t as accessible as the normal bank.

I can understand if it’s not possible, but I do wish they’d realised that a lot of players would want that seperation and factored it in from the start.

SolidTx.3249:

I am, admittedly, a bit surprised. I never realized that gear progression could be viewed so negatively. I see how you are looking at it – but hopefully you can respect another point of view.

We think of gear progression as a good thing. I guess the difference then comes down to a capitalistic vs communistic game design philosophy. Said differently some want a game that reward their players with better possessions and items based on their achievements, hard work, dedication and comittment.

The same game, I guess, can be seen as elitist, requiring it players to work in order to get something that people feel should be communal and given to all freely.

And I don’t see GW2 at lvl 80 as a sandbox.. Once a player has exotic gear, map completion and a legendary what is there to do? Honestly, we can’t figure it out.

It’s not that people want new gear to be given freely to everyone with no work required. It’s that they don’t think there should be new gear at all.

Once you get to level 80 and kit your character out with a full set of level 80 gear that should be the end of it. Not just another step in an endless process of chasing the next tier. Otherwise you have to devote all/most your time to that process and rarely get to actually play the content you’re supposedly getting this gear for.

1) There was a long topic about this but it turned nasty and got locked.

2) This is considered griefing or verbal abuse (since the only purpose is to annoy/upset people) and they can be reported in-game.

3) Calling out people on the forum or encouraging other players to take action against them is also against the rules so you should remove their name from that post.

The most annoying part for me is when I arrive in LA just before it ends, just get to where I was going and then get dropped in the Mystic Forge. Yes it’s a minor annoyance when it happens once, but it happens regularly enough that it puts me off going to LA.

I agree that the event area should be reduced to match the circle on the map. Especially since you can’t play from further away even if you wanted to because the dialogue won’t show up in chat and the event UI doesn’t tell you if he said ‘Mad King says…’ beforehand.

Substance E.4852:

Devata.6589:

The do not touch is a text message on your screen but not a sign or a text spoken in the game. So it exist out of the lore (it’s a message for the player, not for the character). It would make sense for a Aprils fool joke (like they changed the intro sound) or any other joke from the developers but it does not really fit into the game. So not sure what to think about it.

The objects name is “DO NOT TOUCH”. You see it by simply targeting it like you would for any intractable object or npc.

Pretty sure they are here for the next LS. Why they are in the game world, doing nothing for 2 weeks is anyone’s guess though.

They usually put hints of up-coming LS releases in the game.

Like how towards the end of Flame & Frost and throughout the Southsun event there were NPCs talking about the Captains council worrying that the influx of refugees would overshadow the Dragon Festival, or that it’d have to be cancelled completely.

And trees around Kessex Hills started being cut down when the Halloween update started, before we had any hint that they were being used to build a giant plant-tower.

I also find it interesting that so many of these got found so quickly, when we’re constantly hearing about how the open world is empty and no one ever goes to most of the maps.

I think Anet probably does take the age of their players into account, but maybe not in this sense.

For example I’m sure they were aware when making it that an MMO without a subscription or gear treadmill would appeal to people who cannot commit a lot of time on a regular basis to playing, like adults with children or erratic work schedules, and factored that in to other decisions – like making the new login rewards continue where you left off instead of resetting if you miss a day.

But they would also have been aware that teenagers are a big market for any computer game, so having established that they wouldn’t be making a game with a lot of gore, or nudity, drugs etc. anyway they would probably have tried to ensure before even submitting it to ratings boards that they’d be likely to get a 12+/Teen rating so they could attract that market too.

Seth.1308:

People who regularly give ANet money already get VIP treatment. They just pay for what VIP skins and services they would like to have, rather than paying a subscription and accepting whatever ANet feels you are worthy of.

This.

Buying gems already gives you access to extra character slots, more storage space, infinite gathering tools, exclusive armor and weapon skins, exclusive minis and a bunch of other stuff. But unlike a subscription or VIP service you can pick and choose what you want and when you want it, instead of paying in advance and getting whatever they decide to give you.

One thing that’s helpful to remember about all aspects of this game: Arenanet do not like following the conventions and doing exactly what’s been done before. They like to start from those conventions and then put their own spin on it.

What’s going on here is a combination of that and players looking for innovative ways to use the skills available to them.

There is no such thing as a dedicated ranged or melee profession in this game, they all have both options and in many cases will be expected to switch between them – not necessarily switching weapons but standing in melee range or further away based on the needs of the fight. Movement and positioning generally is very important to combat.

If it helps at all though mesmers use greatswords as a caster weapon – for them it’s a ranged weapon and they fight by firing beams of magic from the sword or launching illusionary swords. (This happens a lot too, other examples including revenants using hammers as ranged weapons and thieves using staves as melee weapons.)

Rangers can use a longbow and it’s not a bad weapon. I think it’s mainly disliked because of how many rangers tend to use it – staying in one place at maximum range (or wherever they happen to be when the fight starts) firing away with the auto-attack and relying on their pet to keep them safe. (This is commonly known as a ‘bear bow’ because they tend to use bears – either because they’re new and lots of new rangers pick the bear as their starting pet or because they have the highest health so they’re the best ‘tank’.) Which is bad because as I said movement and positioning are very important in combat in this game. If you stay in one place you’re not going to be able to share boons with your party, move away from big attacks by bosses, rally downed allies, or even get the best effect from your skills.

Also because longbow skill 4 is a knock-back which is extremely annoying for anyone else who is fighting the same enemy.

Sword does have better DPS though. And I don’t personally see it as at all in conflict with the ranger archetype. Rangers are characters who travel through the wilds and are self-reliant, like army rangers (not specifically ranged fighters). My ranger uses a sword in DnD as well, and my rogue with the ranger specialisation uses one in Dragon Age. Also fantasy rangers are all ultimately based on Aragon from Lord of the Rings and his main weapon is a sword.

(In fact the only exception I can think of is Warcraft 2 (maybe 1 and 3? and maybe WoW?), where the rangers are an upgrade to the archers and dedicated ranged units. But I think that comes from the needs of an RTS game more than anything.)

I’m surprised people are getting DR after just an hour.

I spent most of yesterday evening farming the Labyrinth and I think I only saw the beginnings of DR once (it wasn’t enough of a drop in loot to be sure it was DR and not just a bad run, and I left shortly after). Last year I was farming it pretty much all Halloween and rarely saw DR.

My system is fairly simple:
1) Farm the Labyrinth until I get 250 bags or DR, whichever comes first (and it’s almost always 250 bags).
2) Go to LA, clear my inventory, open the bags, sort out all the loot. (Plus play Mad King Says if it starts.)
3) Head back to the Labyrinth. If I think I’m getting DR I’ll switch to do a few runs of the Clocktower or Ascent to Madness, on the same character then come back.

I’m not sure if it’s that system, the fact that I can only play for a maximum of 7 hours a night and have to stop at least once to either make and eat dinner or eat and wash up, frequently more than once if there’s other real life stuff I have to do, or a combination of the two but as I said I rarely get hit with DR and when I do it’s easy to get rid of.

One thing to bear in mind is it’s entirely possible to get a run of bad drops without it being DR. When it does hit you’ll know it. I never get it outside the Labyrinth (because I hate farming) but the first time it happened was pretty unmistakable. It wasn’t simply that I was getting less greens and rares, or a veteran from a door didn’t drop loot, I literally stopped getting anything except Spider Legs and Porous Bones for an entire circuit of the Lab. Periods of bad loot are much more common, but less extreme.

Secondly it’s important to remember it’s applied and removed per character. Switching to a different character when it hits will enable you to play without DR for a while, but will do nothing to remove it, when you go back to the first character they’ll still be affected. You have to play that character in a different map to remove it.

I think it’s highly unlikely new players trying to establish a foothold in the game are ever going to encounter diminishing returns. You have to stay in the same area and do literally the same event/kill the same enemies for hours at a time before it kicks in.

I’ve personally done Silverwastes from start (0/4 forts) to finish twice in a row on the same map without hitting it. In fact in almost 4 years of playing this game the only times I have noticed it were once when I was in the Mad Kings Labyrinth, going in a circle doing door events for about 3 hours and once when I was farming candy corn elementals (using the balm) – turning the same 9 ambients into elementals, killing them and waiting for them to respawn in a very small area.

It’s very controversial but in my experience a lot of that comes from players not actually understanding it. If they get silver reward on an event, or get a champion bag that’s lower than exotic rarity, or have a bad run on the mystic forge they’ll blame it on DR even though none of those things are actually affected by it.

As the Wiki says when it does kick in the results are dramatic. For example when I was in the Labyrinth it was literally within minutes I went from getting multiple trick-or-treat bags and greens and blues from every door event to getting literally nothing but grey text junk items, and only 2-3 of those. (Although even then it was only when I saw I wasn’t getting karma as an event reward that I realised it was DR and not just bad luck.)

In short I don’t think it’s ever going to be a problem for the vast majority of players and when it is the solution is simple – you’ll have been in the same location doing the same thing for several hours so it’s a hint that it’s time to take a break. Take your character out of the map and go do something different for a bit – even if it’s just going to a city to clear your bags out and collect your TP profits.

I’ve only just noticed the one in Divinity’s Reach is a replica, built because the original was so successful.

The wiki still talks about him being Heal-o-tron during the Battle for Lion’s Arch. I don’t think I remember him appearing during Season 2, but I may have forgotten.

Hopefully the worst case scenario for these and all the other currently unavailable LS1 items is that they will come back, with the original method of acquisition, when Season 1 is re-added. The problem is we have no idea when that will be, except that it’ll be a long time in the future.

However I agree completely that they should come back. Many other Season 1 items were added to the festival vendor in Lion’s Arch, including many of the meta-achievement rewards, which is what the shattered holo wings were, so it makes no sense to me that these and a few others were excluded.

And in case anyone’s wondering I already have them, and use them on my main character, so this isn’t me whining that I couldn’t be bothered to get them and now want an easier option. It’s me saying I feel horrible every time someone asks how to get them and I have to say they can’t. I’d rather everyone who likes them and wants to use them could get them the same way I did (playing through the equivalent of 1 Living Story chapter and spamming some consumables) than have people miss out so others can imagine they’re special because they happened to be playing during that month.

I’m 29 and regularly encounter people my age and older. I’ve even seen people on the forum talking about playing with their grandchildren.

I don’t know for sure but I suspect this game probably has more older players than most MMOs because the lack of a subscription and casual-friendly gameplay (things like not periodically adding new equipment tiers and levels, minimal grind to unlock new abilities and access areas) makes it much more appealing to people with jobs and other responsibilities that limit how much time can be devoted to one game.

To put this seemingly very odd decision in context their original idea for GW2 was to have the base game available permanently and then run regular 1-time only ‘special events’.

They tried that once (Lost Shores) and it was an absolute disaster. Even with the overflow system (basically the same as the megaservers we have now) piling everyone into one map caused a lot of latency issues so even for people who got to play the whole thing the experience was more like ‘run forward until the game froze, mash your skills, wait to see if you died, disconnected or got “lucky” and the event just moved on without you, then repeat from there’. On top of which there was no time for bug fixes, if you missed any part of it you were stuck etc.

So after that they shifted to things that could be played at any time within a short time period. For the first Wintersday for example they had Tixx moving between cities every few days with a different version of the Infiniarium available in each location. That was better but still quite confusing and meant some people kept missing bits.

So they changed it again, they brought in the concept of the Living Story where everything in an update became available at the same time and could be played any time during a 2 week period.

It was only after almost a year of that they finally conceded it would be better to just release permanent updates and brought in the new system for Season 2.

They’ve said they are going to go back and make Season 1 available again, but because it wasn’t set up for the new system it’s going to take some time.

I definitely think you should try some other professions. Warrior is probably the most straight-forward to play, which can sometimes make combat seem boring. I like playing an engineer and an elementalist because both require a lot more buttons, swapping attunements on the ele and kits on the engi, and it makes combat feel more exciting to me.

As for things to do it really depends on what interests you. I know some people who love World vs. World and pretty much only do that, because they say fighting real people means the combat is always interesting. Whereas I think because your goals are always the same – you’re taking over the same camps and towers and keeps day after day, week after week I get bored if I do it for more than a little bit at a time. I prefer exploring the PvE maps, sometimes literally just to see if I can reach a specific point even if I know there’s no reward for doing it, and playing through the story. And other people like doing all the dungeons and raiding. Or even just buying and selling on the Trading Post.

I think it’s a good idea to try a bit of everything and see what appeals to you.

I’m confused. Are you saying all events in the game are as complicated as two of the most difficult world bosses? Or is it just those two that bother you?

In case you’re not aware the Shatterer was recently updated to make it more complicated than a typical world boss, and the Triple Wurm was designed for people who find even things like that and Tequatl easy. Neither is a typical event, or even a typical world boss.

If you’re having trouble understanding them I recommend starting with something more straight forward, like the 1-15 zone world bosses which usually only have a few mechanics to worry about. Asking for instructions before the event may help too, the commander should be willing to explain it to anyone who isn’t sure what to do.

The first and most important thing to know about AP is that it doesn’t really mean anything. You can get some nice skins and sometimes useful items but that’s it. The vast majority of players do not care how many points you have, and most of the ones who do have very low requirements (like 5k). Anyone asking for more than that is being an idiot because it doesn’t tell them anything about your abilities.

Secondly most people do not have over 20k AP. Very, very few people have that much. Most long-term players seem to be between 5k and 10k, maybe as high as 15k.

There are a very small number of extremely competitive AP grinders who have extremely high points and will try to do all the dailies every single day. But unless you want to be on top of the leader board (which means nothing) or enjoy the challenge of doing that then there is no reason for you to join them.

The vast majority of players will just do 5 dailies for the rewards. Maybe they’ll get others afterwards if they keep playing (I think I’ve gotten 8 sometimes on a weekend) but for most people there is no reason to do more than 5.

Even then you don’t need to do it every single day. If you miss a day all you really lose out on is a laurel.

Can you give an example?

In spite of the fact that I frequently look things up on the wiki while playing I can’t think of a situation where what I would consider ‘critical’ information wasn’t available in-game.

Unless you count things that are deliberately hidden like the location of jumping puzzles or NPCs you have to find during a mission for an achievement.

In my case the opposition to dueling comes from memories of playing GW1 and having to see “Any1 1v1?” posted in guild chat every few seconds for hours on end. It was bad enough in that format, having it as a pop-up or mail or whatever format a duel request mechanic would take would be even more annoying.

I have absolutely no interest in 1v1 fights in a game balanced around a minimum of 5v5, I’d much rather get on with what I’m trying to do and let people who want assurances that their build is the absolute awesomest there has ever been throw themselves into PvP and blame their losses on their team mates.

But on top of that I suspect it would actually require a significant chunk of developers time to implement – it’s not as simple as typing out a couple of lines of code (not that anyone builds MMOs by typing the code by hand anyway) and suddenly any two people are enemies in PvE – but only to each other. And even once they’ve got the basic mechanics working they’ve got to build the UI for it, get the artwork done for the UI, test it etc. etc.

Since I have absolutely no interest in such a feature beyond wanting assurances that if it was ever added I could turn it off and carry on as if it didn’t exist I’d much, much rather see that time and effort go on something I actually do want in the game.

Are you saying you did the story instance where you deliver the egg to Tarir and then the egg backpack still appears on your character in the open world? I’m pretty tired at the moment so your post didn’t make much sense to me, but I think that’s what you meant.

If so then that’s a bug. Once you’ve dropped the egg off the backpack should disappear.

Of course it will be there if you’re on one of the story steps where you’re carrying it, but if that bothers you can’t you just switch to a different step temporarily?

Vyriis.6258:

Can tell for yourself just how different they are lore to mechanic by reading the “Edge of Destiny” novel and then going to play the areas they go through. Ebonhawk to Ascalon takes them several days/weeks and is a hard journey. Where as we can walk from Cursed Shore to Frostgorge Sounds in less than an hour with little to no danger.

Every time I go to the Dragonbrand I find myself thinking of that. To them crossing it was a massive undertaking, if I remember correctly they were hoping to be able to do it within one day because they didn’t want to be there in the dark, and just about made it because they were attacked in the middle. It’s the same for the Sentinels in the game, they spend ages carefully planning a trip into the Brand and make a big deal of crossing it without using their bridge.

Meanwhile I’ll often zig zag across it several times in an hour without really think about it, until I remember the book. Sometimes I cross it just to get to a gathering node, or speak to an NPC.

But distances seem very inconsistent in Lore. In Chapter 4 of Tyrian Travels Vikki says she crossed the Krytan border at twilight and got all the way to Shaemoor in the same evening, just as the moa keepers were putting the flock to bed. That’s all the way across Kessex Hills and the southern half of Queensdale. I just timed it and (going around Viathan Lake) to the west, which is the shorter path it took me 8 minutes to reach Shaemoor Garrison and another 3 to reach the moa ranch. That’s following the roads and without a speed boost, but also not stopping for anything, whereas Vikki apparently spoke to several people. The timing fits the story but doesn’t fit at all with other lore, where just part of that (like going from Altar Brook Trading Post to Claypool is apparently a long journey).

Firstly even though the fee is very small it’s enough to encourage at least some players to not use waypoints unless they need to. Which means they’re running to their location instead, which increases the number of people out and about in maps and the probability that those players will encounter events and other things they might have missed the first time.

But when players do choose to use waypoints the fee acts as a gold sink, just like the fee on the TP. It’s effective because each individual payment is low enough that players are willing to pay it, but across all the waypoint uses every day I bet it drains a lot of gold from the economy, which helps to balance out the gold constantly entering the economy from enemies killed, events completed etc.

I agree.

I’ve been running around Queensdale and every single one had someone camping it. At first I assumed they’d let people know when it spawned, like people always do with regular events, but they just kill it themselves (very quickly and easily) and go back to waiting.

Which pretty much means unless you happen to come across one in an isolated area or claim one to camp yourself you’re never going to see a holograph. Especially if, like me, you can only play at peak time.

It would be much better if they either spawned more regularly and had higher health so there’s a chance more people could join in, or if they spawned for each player individually so you only have to find the holograms instead of also waiting your turn camping them.

The problem I see with this is that it’s a lot of effort for the player (relative to simply not logging in again) for no benefit to them. And potentially a lot of risk if they ever do change their mind.

Which means most people are unlikely to ever do it.

Think about games you’ve stopped playing – MMOs or otherwise. How many have you consciously thought “I am going to stop playing this game” and then straight away uninstalled it, vs. ones where you simply found yourself playing it less and less until you weren’t playing at all and only thought about that fact when you needed to uninstall it to free up space on your hardrive, or cancel a subscription or whatever?

I bet there’s very, very few in the first category compared to the second.

Sure there’s always posts on this and every other game’s forum from people declaring that they are quitting forever because something has/has not been added/removed/changed/turned pink but the funny thing is many of the people who post those topics actually continue to play. Or at least continue to log in to monitor whether their feedback produces any results since what they’re actually doing is requesting that the thing they don’t like be changed, just under the mistaken assumption that making it a threat will increase the effectiveness.

And even the ones who do mean it and do stop playing at that point are a tiny minority compared to people who just stop. This is why many game forums don’t allow those posts at all and instead use actual info on player activity to gauge not only how many people are playing but what they’re doing and what may have caused them to stop.

The problem is the people who like it are too busy playing to come here. I’ve barely been on the forum since HoT launched because when I have time to get online at all I’ll playing HoT and Halloween instead of posting about it.

I’ve seen a lot of very happy, very excited people in-game, it’s only on the forum that people seem mostly negative, but that’s always the case.

I’ve only played these instances solo, so I don’t really have any basis for comparison but I haven’t found them particularly difficult.

I definitely haven’t noticed any delay on skills. That sounds more like you were getting lag.