Guild Wars 2

Hey everyone, to help you better prepare for tomorrow’s big patch, here are some previews and guides you might be interested.

This is a MASSIVE patch with tons of content and I think everyone will find something they like. There is a brand new Canthan themed zone, new weapon skins, new armor skins, new backpiece skins, 2 new minigames, new sPvP map, new crafting mats/recipes, massive scavenger hunt, tons of achievements. The zone will be here for 4 weeks but some of the stuff are only here for 2 weeks.

Overview (Get a basic idea of what this patch contains – contain least spoilers)

• Bazaar of the Four Winds patch overview

Achievements

• Bazaar of the Four Winds achievement guide
• Sky Crystal scavenger hunt guide
• New account achievement rewards and achievement UI revamp overview

Skins

• Radiant and Hellfire armor skins (from account achievement rewards)
• Zenith weapon gallery (incomplete)
• Fortune Scraps and Zephyrite backpiece/helm skins

Minigames

• Sanctum Sprint
• Belcher’s Bluff

sPvP

• Skyhammer map overview

Crafting

• Quartz crystals and celestial recipes

I can’t expres how excited I am, espacially after seeing the previews!!!!!!!!!

I <3 u Arenanet!!!!

YeSyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesYES

I am.

Looks very nice and I must say, I liked Sky pirates too, so my hopes are high for this one.

Releases every 2 weeks? I’m okay with that too unless the achievments require me to light 50 effigies:) – but I think Anet has listened to the feedback on those achies so it won’t be happening, which will just make the updates generally more fun.

In my oppinion.

PvP in a PvP zone is not griefing.

When ever you start an debate about MMO mechanics with “In real life..” you’re on the wrong track.

Reducsing long range accuracy and creating forced misses is going to lower the over all dps of ranged weapons even more. Misses combined with dodges in blocks could mean you could go with out doing damage for an extended period of time. It would also be an incredably frustrating mechanic.

No one is using a sniper rifile in GW2, no one is even using a scoped weapon. Having a close range dead zone would create incredable class inbalances and any time a gap closer was used it would force the ranged user to switch to a melee weapon. This is helping ranged balance how?

Adding ammunition only adds tedium. No one actually runs out, it just takes up space. This also doesn’t add balance at all. It only adds an extra requirement for using the ranged weapon at all, not balancing it while it is being used.

Broadly speaking it’s open-world PvE exploration.

But more specifically I think it’s probably 2 features of that:
1. Down-levelling, which means all the content I “missed” while levelling is still viable, I can go back to any area and do anything and it will still be fun and somewhat challenging. It also means getting to level 80 gave me a huge sense of freedom – I could go anywhere and do anything I wanted – instead of simply meaning I was locked into a new set of level-specific zones and effectively (or literally) locked out of the ones I had been doing.

2. All the hidden content. Things like jumping puzzles, mini dungeons, vistas in strange and cool places, dynamic events that start up in seemingly empty areas, even just things like hard to reach resource nodes. It all makes it feel like I’m really exploring the world instead of just running between a series of checkpoints or gradually uncovering the map.

I loved doing map completion in GW1. I’m possibly the only person to say that but I did. I really enjoyed uncovering every area and although the wall-scraping was boring it was good to know I really had seen everything. But after GW2 I don’t enjoy it as much because aside from the rare NPCs with a quest in instances or some beautiful scenery there’s not really much of anything to discover. Thinking back the most exciting parts were finding the obscure little dead-end outposts in the middle of nowhere or spots where you could see the edge of the map.

I’ve already got more great memories of things I’ve found in GW2. Like the time getting to one POI that was just over a hill took me about 4 hours because I got to the top of the hill and then spotted a cave, which turned out to have a jump puzzle inside it and then I found some diving goggles and climbing out of the water I discovered a section of a town I’d missed before so I stopped to explore that and talk to the NPCs and then when I went to double back on myself a new event chain lead me 1/2 way across the map and I got distracted doing things over there…

And the nice thing is Tyria is so big that I think it will be a very long time before I know it all well enough to be bored with it. There’s too much for me to really remember it all so when I’ve been gone from an area for a while I’ll still have some challenge in figuring it out again. And of course doing events I missed the first time around.

+1 for violin. I would also like a lute. As a drop. So my characters who get one can say, “Ah, sweet, sweet lute!”

I think it was more than 1 person, it was a company wide decision. They’re trying tk market to those countries and japan, china, korea takes their different heritages very seriously. As american, I am melting pot, so I don’t mind mixing culture it’s what we do. But it could hurt sales for them if patrons from japan/korea are offended. Does that make sense? I also hope they bring it back in some form, indeed, it was beautiful.

There are some people who want to see the game improve. There are also some people who just want to see this game fail.

Lol i like how your like “stop being awesome!!” I cant wait until this game takes mantle as best mmorpg. Just waiting for the next wow sub update saying they down another few million. Finally a developer knows how to take care of their game very well… They deserve it!!

I do agree that it is [an] aggressive and risky model. However, fortune favors the bold I suppose. Go big, or go home. I’ll be right there to see how it pans out.

Edit: Gods be kittened filter!

People saying that they don’t like 2 hours of content every 2 weeks should think about how much time they would have to wait receiving no content at all while devs are busy stockpiling it for an expansion.

Paul.4081:

Xenon.4537:

Vayne.8563:

I talk a lot. Some people would hate it. My wife loves it. It’s not a flaw to her. I just have a niche audience.

Haha, I’m putting this in my sig. <3

Vayne you are the epitome of faith, I really wish I had as much, I kitten and moan a lot more than I probably should

Actually what you’re calling faith, I’m thinking is desperation. I’ve tried tons of MMOs and I couldn’t stay with any of them more than a few months. Loved the idea of the genre, hated the execution.

Anet really does seem to understand what I want in a game…and you know…I’m not so different from the rest of humanity that I’m the only guy that feels this way. I must be part of a demographic on some level.

So Anet has come closer to my demographic than anyone else has. They approach the genre from my point of view, so I have less problems with what they do than people who belong to a different demographic.

It’s because of this that I’m optimistic.

Funset.7893:

Tying the achievement points to exclusive rewards is absolutely disgusting.

Getting rewards for playing the game how you want to play it is in no way disgusting. You don’t need these rewards, and if you really want them, you can earn them through hard work. Furthermore, the fact that you can get them guaranteed by achieving certain goals that certain players put a lot of effort towards is great. This is the kind of reward system GW2 needs more of.

If they do this right, it will be pure win imho. I always disliked how expansions worked for MMO. All of a sudden you would get 15+ new zones, dungeones, etc… ad because of that, zones in before expansion will be left to die for a period of time.
If they can do this, it will add sandbox element to the game, just like EvE, which I think is awesome.

And best thing I read in that interview, is that living world team will have 3-4 motnhs to make new content compared to 6-8 weeks they had untill now is quite reassuring.

Wow. Black Lion Trader must be doing better than I thought, if they are willing to forgo the expansions. The expansions were a major money maker for GW1, and I would have assumed would be just as big of one here in this game.

I’m actually curious how that will work out. I have no ill feelings towards the idea, and in fact find it kind of exciting.

ShiningSquirrel.3751:

I take that as very bad news. So basically, the game is finished? The living story updates have so far been a little lacking, mostly veiled attempts to get the players to go back to older content that they have already completed. If no expansions are planned I don’t really see any future for the game as the living story is not going to carry it unless they make some major improvements to what they have been releasing so far.

Read the link dude. There is a whole bunch of other people/teams working behind the scenes that have no part with the current Living Story team right now, but that content could be pushed in as Living Story content.

FateOmega.9601:

Maybe it will retain some people but at the same time, it will deter new players from joining the game.

I don’t see that happening. I actually think there will be an influx of new folks

Vayne.8563:

Mackdose.6504:

Risingashes.8694:

Best MMO, but will quickly be replaced by MMOs that have learnt from GW2s mistakes if they continue to fail to improve core systems instead of focusing entirely on themepark sideshows.

Which MMOs are you referring to? Hypothetical MMO That Does Everything Better #1289?

LMAO! I think people don’t get the idea that MMOs at launch are either tiny and polished (aka Rift) are large and buggy (aka Vanguard, Warhammer, AoC).

No game launching today is going to be significantly better than an older game, including Guild Wars 2. Many features were (and some still are) lacking. But I don’t believe any other game will be in a much better position at launch.

People who think they will are the people that keep running from MMO to MMO.

True. And GW2 most definitely managed to capture the people running away from gear threadmills and irrational grind requirements. I don’t see a single game on the horizon with a low gear cap and such fast levelling. Probably won’t come until GW2 can boost 6 million sales or so.

At the very least until that time I’ll stay with GW2, just like I stuck with GW1 regardless of WoW, aion, a million f2p games. I don’t play grinders anymore.

My next MMO will probably Guild Wars 3.

Vayne.8563:

Emperor.1360:

Vayne.8563:

Paul.4081:

WTS – Honeymoon photos

Some of us have been playing since launch and still feel this is the best MMO available now (and in some cases available ever).

It’s not all about the honeymoon.

Yeah, I have been playing since beta. My CE Rytlock statue says hi.

I got one of those. My wife calls it a dust collector. lol

Tell her it’s a dust collector that will totally be worth $1,000,000……someday.

While I agree on most things, I do not understand the comment about crafting. Compared to many other MMOs, crafting is actually very well executed in GW2.

I just refuse to buy the argument that the game needs stat progression to be good or addictive. I am very confident that over time it cheapens the game and does more harm than good to the various systems as well as the community.

No, it needs a carrot-on-stick mechanism for sure, and it needs to bring a tighter focus to the end game, but there are myriad ways to accomplish this that don’t break the game like a gear treadmill.

I would guess that it is more than 1 person and probably less than 10 million people