Guild Wars 2

Well as the title states I’m looking forward to the Thaumanova reactor fractal.
And I do play High level fractals, and I did play GW1 and I did vote Kiel.

Look guys, its the same team that’s would have made either fractal, I’m not sure how you think one will be more awesome than the other?

Some of the Dev team however is pretty excited at making the Thaumonova fractal, I think they got some pretty neat idea’s up their sleeve’s and we have literally no idea what to expect. I doubt it will be ‘just another inquest explosion’… It turned the very fabric of the world inside out.

And to be honest most serious fractal players just want another farmable fractal, just like colossus was awesome the first 10 times, after 50 times.. its somewhat of a minor annoyance. If Abaddon had been made, people would play it like three times and then try to avoid it, because more thought and effort put into it means a longer fractal. I honestly think Thaumanova will be an enjoyable fractal to run.

socialdisorder.9684:

I hate flaming and QQ but this i just gotta say:
Abaddon LL guild u are the worst i have ever seen in my GW2 career.
3 of us vs 5 of u and u build a ballista? WTH were u thinking….
And still we wiped u…
I was standing there jumping/asking a 1v1 btw…

Lol I just said to my guildies: Hey, lets just throw a ballista they sure gonna write about that. So here we are as I expectedXD.

Anyway just to get some facts right:
- Our tag is [ILL]
- We were just having some fun running around and showing some parts of the map to our guildies who are kinda new to wvw. None of us saw you jumping btw. All we saw were some Deso-players fighting with us(2 Thiefs, some heavy Charr guy and you as an engi i guess. Perhaps someone else too in the beginning)
- We were 4 with all of us being build for zergplay and 2 of us(as mentioned above) being new to wvw(without complete armor and not used to play their builds and stuff)
- Swag
- Next time we’re placing a superior ballista;D

binidj.5734:

Besides which, human gods … pfft!

I’m gonna laugh so hard if the reactor blew because they were trying to harness the power of the gods..

What makes all of this particularly interesting?

If one were to meditate on the implications of the Inquest and their machinations, they have the potential to have one of the most complex storylines in the game, and fleshing out their backstory could have serious lore benefits for players, and that is why having Ellen for a representative could be advantageous, not just because of the one incident of the Reactor Explosion, but because of the potential for elaboration of various other subplots within the game, all tied to one of the most far-reaching organizations in any game world. The possibilities for exploration are nearly limitless and are a much stronger platform then to revisit a segment of game history that has been done before in a full previous expansion. I am not saying there are not merits in getting some hazy details clarified, but to me it doesn’t truly have the potential move the plot of the Living World forward in a way that is meaningful.

After watching this lore video, (it’s a very entertaining watch for anyone interested in Asuran Lore) the implications of having more revealing asuran content is very appealing. (Bear with me now) If the Asurans and Mursaat are related, the events of the Reactor could allude to a revival of the Mursaat/Unseen ones who already do have Janthir Isles and Janthir Bay on the map, which could actually set up for more content in expansions; not to mention the Nightmare Court/Bandit/Inquest alliance in Brisban Wildlands with the Level 80 Fort of Vandel’s Claim which could lead to both the realm of Mordremoth (the 6th dragon per Subject Alpha’s attack naming in Crucible of Eternity)….

Tangents aside, in my opinion Inquest Subplots specifically deserve additional attention because they seem to be the most entrenched faction in the game world, with far reaching influence to almost every corner of the map, with vast resources and lots of hints towards classified information such as the underwater/deep sea dragon for instance: Thaumanova Reactor (aquatic areas), Infinity Coil (Zone Blue: Under Construction) Crucible of Eternity (underwater aquarium which is suspiciously empty), Jinx Isle Base in Malchor’s Leap, all have these locations accommodations for underwater or nautical research into the Deep Sea Dragon. Another purely speculative point is the Aetherblades, we know they have teamed up with the Inquest who have some serious financial backing (personal speculation: Almuten Mansion Residents?) and how is it a multiracial faction can steal, hide, and maintain airship outposts? Not to mention they have a steam theme, which coincides with the steam creature enemies who come from an alternate reality of a mad asuran inventor..

I wrote that all just to provide examples of where the plot could go very easily and be completely appropriate for the game world, and the creation of a Fractal for the Reactor could be the first step in a long line of highly rewarding player experiences if executed correctly.

Sure, you can say that it’s “just another lab explosion” but the complexities that could be interwoven into that event are incredibly curious. Sure, one could “Fight A God!” but there is an achievement that sums up my opinions on that

“Been There, Done That.”

Elbegast.6970:

Of course ANet will cheat.

Pack up or shut up. If the former, can I have your stuff?

2500 is a bit much for an achievement that is timegated to 2 weeks. Even if it is well and obtainable within 1-2 whole day of playing, in retrospec, it is a lot more time consuming than other similar ones. All in all, if I had to judge the content dished out by evon or kiel, kiel won by a lot. I’m near the point I wish the loser which I hope will be evon gets hung on a stake and thrown eggs, shot arrows repeatedly and left out to dry to starvation.

We don’t know the inquest did it, we know it was an inquest lab that blew up and tore a hole in space and time with chaos magic and that’s it

We don’t know why the reactor exploded. Also abaddon is dead who cares about him, the reactor might have something that matters about the current dragons. The inquest have been doing their own research in the dragons. What I say is if you want abaddon go to gw1, I heard he is mentioned a lot there. People who never did play gw1 even knows who he is.

This will not end well.
I don’t know how this political storyline was even green-lighted to be implemented, let alone who decided on the ‘campaign promises’ that were the worst they could have possibly selected as well as assigned to which candidate. This single event has highlighted several of the most heated subjects amongst passionate players as the prime aspects of this release…and not in a good way.

• It has turned a massive spotlight onto the argument against the persistent implementation of RNG boxes. One argument is that a vote for Evon is a vote for continued and increased RNG box implementation, as it is seen as an opportunity for players to voice their acceptance and approval for its continued use with the Black Lion Key discount.

• They’ve pitted a human against a charr, and worse, a human female against a charr male. This has put the passionate role-players into a frenzy. Apart from the dynamics of politics in lore for humans and charr generally not meshing well, they’ve now given a prime opening for speciesism to introduce itself. Due to Ashford’s assassination, the Captain’s Council now consists of 3 humans, 2 asura, 1 norn, and 1 charr (no Sylvari at all?). Some players feel that this election is a good opportunity to take a step toward further balancing the representations of the species of Tyria on the Council by filling Ashford’s position with a charr instead of yet another human. A vote for Kiel is seen as a vote against charr and of increasing human domination of the Council. It is also an opening for the all too real gender discrimination issue, especially in relation to a role of power, to rear its ugly face in the game world.

• Hot on the tail (no charr pun intended) of those elements is the overwhelming hatred for Trahearne and the aspect of NPC story characters taking all of the credit for our actions. Just as he is seen by the majority of players as doing nothing but stealing the glory that was meant for us, the players, that view has now been tacked directly onto Kiel. The painting of Kiel as being Trahearne 2.0 (or Kormir 3.0 to some), that despite her actions (or lack of actions) during these events, as well as after, her receiving all of the credit and glory just as Trahearne did during our Personal Story has placed her in a very poor light in many players’ minds. This brings to the forefront a lot of the sour feelings players have regarding the Personal Story and of feeling cheated. So, one argument is that a vote for Kiel is the approval from players of ArenaNet continuing to have characters that reap all of the credit and glory from our actions.

• It has pitted the telling of the “New” (Thaumanova Reactor) against the telling of the “Old” (Fall of Abaddon). They’ve essentially made it a debate of GW1 Lore Vs. GW2 Lore and which is more important, especially since there seems to be many players with strong emotions tied to GW1 who believe GW2 has changed and strayed too far from GW1. So they have also made it a fight between those who enjoy GW2 for what it is and will become, and those who wish GW2 was just GW1 with better graphics. Thus making it into a vote for Evon as being a vote for “Established Lore/GW1”, and a vote for Kiel as being a vote for “New Ideas/GW2”.

Pro-RNG VS Anti-RNG
Charr VS Human
Male VS Female
Evon VS Kiel/Trahearne 2.0
Abaddon VS Reactor
GW1 VS GW2

All of this will end very, very badly for many players and for ArenaNet. Many players have such strong feelings toward some of these issues that there may be a portion of the playerbase that are so dissatisfied with the outcome of this election, regardless of who wins, that they actually quit playing due to how it might sour the game and it won’t be fun for them anymore.

Even still, there are the “Temporary Content VS Permanent Content” aspects of this event and many others I’ve not touched onto here, as well as the “Bugs Fixed VS Bugs Created” aspect of more frequent Living Story updates.

I just cannot believe that someone at ArenaNet thought any of this would be a good idea for events, let alone all of them at the same time in the same event. This reeks of being a horrible idea in all possible ways. Unless you want to risk losing your job, your customers, your friends, or a few teeth, it is just accepted that you do not involve two subjects for discussion: Religion and Politics.

Not to put down the seriousness of all the aspects I’ve mention, as they are all of a pretty serious nature for the future of the game, but anyone want some popcorn?

Most players will only play Abaddon a few times for the story. Then it’s all speed runs to the final boss. Because the LOOT is the only thing they care about in the dungeon.

Thaumanova Reactor will have this too. But the difference is the chaos rift is still active in the open game world. Who knows but Anet what the outcome of this is. I want to find out what the chaos rip is doing or going to do to reality.

Shieero.9187:

Price for this should be around 50 g imo. 15g you can earn in an hour.

In other words, an item for CoF farmers? Great, we need more of those…

Here you go: http://www.zam.com/story.html?story=32727

I personally like the desert rose, despite being just a palette swap of the fervid censer but as I’ve said on my thread, the lower right leaf part of the backpiece clips really badly. I wish they just removed that 1 leaf altogether. (Or at least move the backpiece further to the right)

Exclusive New Back Items
Two new exclusive back items, the Desert Rose and Zephyr Rucksack, are available as rare drops from the Southsun Survival and Aspect Arena activities respectively.
https://www.guildwars2.com/en/the-game/releases/july-23-2013/

No screenshots, ArenaNet? I would really like to see what these look like as that is important to me for my determining ahead of time how I plan to allocate my time for the different activities during this event.

Also, would you please make these and future event back items be packaged as a “set”? Meaning it includes both the skin and a white, account bound, stat-less back item just as the charr/quaggan back item sets include one?

-Note to others
Yes, I know there are back items on the TP, but those are soulbound on use, have stats, and are also not easily found as they are not in any particular category on the TP. You must know the different names and search for them specifically to find them. Yeah, I know, go to dulfy and see all the names of all back items to then search for, etc. That is not my point, nor is it my request, thank you though. Also, on that subject, they need to add a back item subcategory to the Armor category search drop down on the TP so these can be found easily by anyone without hitting the net to find them. Many still do not even know there are back items on the TP.

I ADORE jumping puzzles. This wasnt a jumping puzzle.

The possibility of falling doesnt make it a JP, nor does the fact that one skill gives you a jump boost.
This was a scavenger hunt. and you need to use unique skills to find all the items. If they were easy to find or get to it wouldnt be a hunt.
There was very little unassisted jumping and it didnt satiate my inner JP addict.

It was however a very fun scavenger hunt. I hope the next one is underwater.

Gudradain.3892:

I want to see Anet comment on this. Why do they build this place then put nothing at the top! I think it’s awesome to climb up there

If there were a sky crystal or an achievement at the top, there would be a lot of complaints from people who don’t have the patience or the ability to get to the top. My take on it is that the scaffolding was the work of a few developers who are big jumping puzzle enthusiasts, and they wanted to put in a real challenge for like minded players.

The entire area is constructed as a jumping playground after all, so what would be the point if the most ardent jumping puzzlers didn’t have something to shoot for? Puzzling out the path up to the top myself was one of the best experiences I have had in GW2 thus far, and then I find out that my solution isn’t even the only one. Smerec’s video demonstrates a completely different path up the scaffold from mine. I just love it.

Keep in mind that if you do vote for Evon, he will not have to kill you in your sleep.

just open up the achievement panel on another character and claim it….

Dayra.7405:

Aphix.9846:

I find it annoying how we had a clear lead in potential points for about 6 hours straight after reset, then we went to sleep and now check the scores lol, somewhat demotivating.

In the morning Piken did not looked that bad, but hey you should not sleep till 14:00 CEST if you want points.

Piken rarely wakes up before 19:00.

Old age and booze you know.

Pixelpumpkin.4608:

Venn diagram summary of feedback from various threads here.

Some of us bloody love the Aetherblade dungeon, and some of us feel the Aetherblade dungeon is too hard – we’d all be served well if the dungeon was made permanent.

Is this something we can agree on?

I agree.

Thanks to my excellent teammates, I was able to complete the dungeon, along with most of the achievements. But I have several friends who are still struggling with it. Given some more time, I think most of them would complete it. Many would probably even learn to love some of the details (like Frizz’s encounter, which is absolutely awesome).

Sadly, they won’t get a chance to enjoy it, and they may even go away angry. As someone who wants to see his circle of GW2 friends remain excited about the game, that’s a little disappointing.

Most of you are missing the point of the diagram, I’m guessing you didn’t even look at it. OP is saying AR is fine but NOT as limited story content. And also, no one is impressed if you think it is easy but go ahead and break your arm patting yourselves on the back if it makes you feel better.

Excalibur.9748:

No the dungeon is fine. The more I do it the more I feel it’s fine. Just make sure you have 1-2 guardians.

Yeah, just let me pull two guardians out of my kitten when I need them.

They really just need to do away with the constant limited time only crap. Certain festivals and things make great limited time events, but normal content shouldn’t be limited.

Using the living story’s logic, it’s time to remove all of the risen from the game and the entire story quest. Zhaitan has been gone for ages. Make everything limited and you don’t have a game anymore.

This puzzle isn’t really that hard or punishing compaired to the WvW puzzle. There are no “hard” jumps just a lot of room for silly mistakes. It was a fun and not to hard puzzle.

If you want to find a harder and more unforgiving one then obsidian sanctum is sitting right there in eternal battlegrounds for you. You find a group of enemies you’ll have to redo the entire thing.

I want more amazing puzzles LIKE obsidian sanctum just not in WvW or PvP. :P

I just wanted to dedicate this episode to the developers who designed the ‘Not So Secret’ jp.

Specifically, I’m talking about the aspect of the puzzle which forces players to redo the whole level again when they failed a jump in the later parts of the puzzle. I’m not saying difficulty isn’t good, it’s just that the artificial difficulty is pointless and is plainly just not fun.

I do hope everyone can learn from this and make Guild Wars 2 a better game :-)

http://youtu.be/ea6UuRTjkKs

worst updates made ever…. the game is wonderful but the updates its like from people dont know what the majority of people want…bad jp bad achievements worthless rewards.the game is excellent. i played many others mmorpgs for 10 years gw2 is excellent in all means… be careful plz with updates.

The dungeon is a joke! Hard mode has officially arrived. I don’t mind the dungeon being that difficult, but I’m one achievement away from earning the mini and I can’t even beat Frizz let alone the dungeon! It’s frustrating to get so close to earning a reward for the living story only to run into a buzzsaw of a dungeon.

I’m not saying don’t create hard content for pro players, I’m just asking please don’t abandon us casuals in the process.

Excalibur.9748:

No the dungeon is fine. The more I do it the more I feel it’s fine. Just make sure you have 1-2 guardians.

Since the supposed design philosophy of this game is that you’re not supposed to be locked into particular party builds to be successful “Just make sure you have 1-2 guardians” means that the dungeon is not fine.

I’m worried from a slightly different position. What concerns me is that the dev’s will feel pushed to create new content, putting strain on them that is unnecessary. I’m grateful and happy for the amount of effort they’re putting in, but I’d rather they took more time time to develop their ideas between events.

Several reason for this;
1. Stress, I know what it’s like to work to deadlines and in software, where nothing is certain, this can mean knackered, frustrated programmers who potentially could end up leaving under the strain. Now i’m sure that Anet has covered this with the programmer and that they feel they can cope but it’s a worry for me nonetheless. I’d rather we have the same programmers as long as possible who enjoy their job, know the game, and know the community.

2. Quality control. With rushed ideas and stress programmers comes the very real possibility of bugs in the program. The uninted consequences that can never be fully accounted for when adding new code to such a massive game. There’s also issues of balance and accessability. For example The Dragon Bash story with Marjory’s cutscenes were really incredible, so much so that there were repeated threads thanking and congratulating the devs. Fun quests, good rewards and varied ways to reach them, if a bit grindy.
The aetherblades however are essentially barred content to low-levels and soloists. There’s literally nothing enjoyable for a good portion of the community to do (no grinding the same few mobs hundreds of times in different areas is not fun) and no way to access the story at all. Needless to say this is quite dissapointing. It’s also all the more likely on a scheduled release.

3. Missed content. On topic with OP, I feel that frequent content overall will lead to a lot of people missing out on a lot of the fun, which is just a shame. Sure, you could argue that people would miss things happening in the real living world but then things aren’t timedto every two weeks in the real living world.

In Conclusion. Anet, take your time, chaps. Release stuff when you think you can. If you whip up a mini event in a week, then get out in a week. If you someone has an awesome idea but it’d take an extra week to develop and make accessible to all, then take that extra week. By all means, make this world as alive as you can, push the boundaries, and make it a challenge for yourseves. Just don’t overdo it and make things suck for your collegues.