Guild Wars 2

We prevented the total annihilation of the only neutral, free trade, city on the continent from giant creatures awoken in the sea of sorrows whom could have very well been minions of another dragon. Finding them not minions but just manipulated beasts, we thwarted the plans of an environmental terrorist who was trying to stop the Consortium, a shady mercantile organization who initially awakened the creatures and tried to cover up the danger, without regard to collateral damage.

Meanwhile, unbeknownst to us, the Dredge and Flame legion were forming an alliance that left several cities and outposts in ruins. We teamed up with Charr and Norn to mount a counter offensive while getting intel from the Order of Whispers who had infiltrated the enemy ranks. Upon discovering the enemies lair we storm in and destroy their ultimate weapon.

Not ones to take a break after the action when we are needed, our heroes help prevent riots from occurring in Southsun between the refugees from the Molten Alliance conflict and the Consortium who are using them for labor under the guise of sanctuary. Cannoch, the possible anti-hero that was betrayed by and moved against the Consortium in events passed, is once again out to thwart their machinations by destructive means that could cost the lives of innocent refugees. The Lion Guard Ellen Kiel, works with us to stop Cannoch and avert an open war in Southsun…

just in time for the Dragon Festival celebration,

rebranded the Dragon Bash to celebrate future and recent victories over the evil; however, a shadow is cast over the event when one of the ships council is assassinated during the festivities. Logan Thackeray commissions a private investigator, and her blonde cohort with a classy chassis, to look into the assassination so he doesn’t appear to be stepping on the Lionguards toes. We gather information and suspects for Majory and reveal the culprit to be a spy from the pirate band known as “The Aetherblades”. A manhunt occurs for all Aetherblades across Tyria until we finally track them to their hideout and have a final showdown with the assassin Mai Trin and her brute.

We take our share of the pirates loot, shoot down their backup and head back to town, where Magus the Bloody handed grants Kiel an Aetherblade airship as her reward for years of loyal service as a Liongaurd, successes in Southsun, and raid on the Aetherblade hideout. With her new found captainship Magus nominates her for a seat on the captains council. To win she would need to garner the favor of mysterious cloud-dwellers known as the Zephyrites and commit them to a trade agreement. Vying for that same seat and trade deal is the unscrupulous Evon Gnashblade, proprietor of the Black Lion Trading Company. Our heroes decide who wins and are ultimately responsible for the changes to Lions Arch that either of them, directly or indirectly, bring to fruition.

…its all in how you word it.

What was that Dani? Im not sure Im picking up what you’re laying down.

Lots of people enjoy the living story content. And living story content teams are separated from expansion content and core teams. So those skill, trait, geography and story expansions are well in the works.

I’m not sure why any of you would want to try to dissuade Anet from creating content that thousands of people enjoy that exists as a foundation for future story and offers diversionary content from the core game.

If its not for you, then its not. Don’t do it. Exercise some self control and ignore that update or just avoid that content. That means more than any forum post you can make would be since it seems most of you are incapable of delivering feedback without being cynical or just contributing misinformation. By this point, i’d wager the devs that frequent the forums recognize some of your names and don’t even bother reading anything that comes after, escalating crassness does not help that reputation.

After Dragonbash the forums were flooded with people that loved the music and theme; Aetherblades LS was praised for the Majory character, dungeon difficulty, story delivery; Four Winds got player credit for art design, movement playground, NPC dialog, Sanctum Sprint.

Those chapters also had their flaws. Dragonbash was grindy, the PvP event was prone to leeching. Aetherblades had a hard dungeon that was great, but was slightly marred by unclear achievements. In the Four Winds, some of the traversal required precision that was difficult for people with higher latency connections and Belcher’s Bluff was buggy leading to some frustration.

Queen’s Jubilee, i’m sure it will have something awesome everyone thinks is a blast, and i’m sure it will have something that either casual or hardcore players toss a fit about.

If you don’t want the cookies Anet is giving out until the cake is ready, you don’t have to have any. But you should know they are delicious. A lot of people like them. One of the new recipes they try might be a bit dry, so we come here and say “Hey Anet, thanks for the cookies, but this one was not as good as the rest because it was dry” and it will most likely be better next time. Also, each cookie means the cake is closer to done.

DiogoSilva.7089:

@AcidicVision

And the playerbase has adapted… by overloading the meta with necros, spirit rangers, and thieves anti necro/ rangers. By overloading the meta with condition spamming, etc.

Did you know that condition cleansing, no matter how overloaded a build is with it, is not enough to counter necromancers?

Yeah, that’s beyond adapting, that’s just OP. I don’t wish for these classes to become “useless” again, but I’m sure there’s a nice middle ground between their previous state and their current state, where those builds can remain viable without being completely and utterly required.

I think whats happening is more along the lines of no one ever having to deal with it, so no one knows how yet. In the first quarter, thieves would decimate with Pistol whip because everyone wanted to stack power/crit and had less than 14k health with no toughness. Warriors used to wreck everything with 20k+ hundred blades because no one wanted to waste a utility for stun breakers. Mesmer clone bombs were gross until everyone figured out you only needed to dodge the first clone to start the shatter.

During each of those phases you seen more thieves, warriors and mesmers than anything else.

Every class will have its day. There will be a gimmick that will dominate for a little while and then people will figure it out. Youll start seeing that gimmick less and less and another will take its place. There is a way to beat conditions just like there was away to beat the “unbeatable” pistol whip, stun/100b, shatter bomb.

DiogoSilva.7089:

“Spirits are finally made useful”

“Necromancers are finally made useful”

That wouldn’t be a bad thing, if it didn’t come at the cost of the entire meta’s balance. It’s good that people are playing those professions, but sometimes things don’t just get buffed, they get overbuffed.

The entire meta had grown since launch to virtually ignore spirits because they were useless and Necros because they were bug riddled. You cant call that balance, since all things weren’t considered.

Now some new factors have been introduced and the meta will have to adapt around that. Just like it will have to adapt when new traits and weapon skills are implemented.

Flavor of the month builds will come and go. Old classes will get new tricks. That niche build you have been getting away with using for months might require some tweaking. Believe it or not, that makes for better PvP.

Buff Nerf Patch Adapt. If it’s hard to remember, have t-shirt: http://goo.gl/nSkNyJ

Anet already perfected this in GW1. The books. Players were pointed at an NPC that gave them a journal and it cataloged the players achievements. When it was full, players could turn it in for a faction boost.

This is as simple a problem to fix as adding a historian NPC to capital cities that players can interact with to get this years Tyrian Almanac. Each page summarizes an event. Maybe there could be a little reward for having your Almanac updated by a chronicler from each event. Signing off on the fact you were there. Maybe a little stamp on the corner of the image. Something consistent.

Here is the way I see it…

1. Players go to historian NPC to get an Almanac. This almanac contains a table of contents that lists the names of each LS event. You can click them to go to that events page.
2. The left side of the almanac features an image from the event (concept art loading screens) and the right side has text summarizing what happened and who was involved.
3. The historian can look at your achievements and stamps each event you participated in, retroactively, for the last year only.
4. A chronicler NPC at each event can take your book, stamp it, and gives you a little thing for helping preserve Tyrian history and having that page authorized during the event.
5. At the end of the year (the beginning of a new Almanac) you can save yours for posterity, or turn it in for a reward based on how many pages are authorized.
6. Players coming back from a break have the ability to say “hey, I can just go to the historian to catch up and pick up or update my Alamanac”

Functionally and thematically, I think that would be awesome. Bobby, PM me, we’ll work out the details

Dean Calaway.9718:

Meanwhile ANET still hasn’t buffed some crazy long exp paths that no one ever wants to do because they aren’t worth the time.

Worth the time is subjective. Some people enjoy playing the game for the challenge and obstacles. And as of now, Arah and Lupi are one of the bigger challenges in the game. Taking the path of least resistance because it is profitable, rather than challenging, engaging, or fun is pretty gross and a mindset I think crossed over from other MMOs.

Until the age of speed clears in GW, UW and FoW runs could take hours. If you wiped, there were no waypoints. Your party was booted from the dungeon that you paid to get into. Yet people loved them. There is nothing in GW2 currently as hard or demanding as that, but all of the dungeons now (even story mode), give you more in the way of guaranteed loot for completion.

Its a bit of an old fogey rant, but “Lets do this dungeon to kill ALL THE THINGS! …And maybe we’ll get some ecto” has been replaced with “That takes too long and doesn’t pay me enough” was a saddening turn in the communities disposition.

Ever seen Amityville Horror? If you want to avoid a slowly on-setting madness that will lead to attempted murder on everyone you love, you’ll use Texmod to get Cartographer.

Here’s the skinny. In PvE every class is viable and it comes down to how you play.

Guardians have low base health but have a great class mechanic, respectable damage, and high survivability in solo and group play.

Necros have high base health, a “second healthbar” class mechanic, and variety in skills and weapon combos that can keep things interesting. Excellent solo play and undervalued in groups. Necro also have a movement speed signet that speeds up playing significantly. You realize exactly how much if you try to play a Norn Mesmer afterwards.

I would suggest those to start learning the game, it’s mechanics, lore, and geography.

The reasons I wouldn’t choose the other characters…

Mesmers and Eles are good end game, but can be painful at lower levels. They have the most complicated class mechanics. Elementalists have to attunement dance and Mesmers have to keep rotating through a clone factory. Those things can be a blast (no pun) and really engaging, but they could frustrate someone with zero experience with combat and movement.

Thieves (my personal favorite class) are made of paper and a new player could get really put off by frequent deaths, always feeling out numbered, always feeling like there was no way to survive a situation. When you don’t know the game, three seconds of stealth seems useless. When you do know it, three seconds is all the time in the world. Once everything clicks and you know the class there is a magical transition from everything killing you, to you killing everything and rarely being touched. But from a complexity standpoint, I think its a horrible place to start.

Engineers can get boring for new players. They have limited weapon options and in the early game players tend to pick a kit and stick with that one until they are quite literally, forced to switch. When you did into the kits, utilities, traits and combos, the class gets pretty meaty. But that stuff isn’t open to you until later levels so it can seem monotonous. A good second, or third play through character when you have your leveling process streamlined and an idea of how to manipulate the mechanics in general. But not a great starter.

Rangers can get dull early on and liven up later when the game stops letting you get away with standing in one place and shooting everything with a bow while your pet holds aggro.

I dont like Warriors.

Just in case others look at this for advice…
I initially gear my characters with karma. If you save it while progressing through story and get your dailies, then by the time you hit 80 and get to Straits of Devastation, you should have enough to get an entire set of temple armor. At least I did for my Thief, Guardian and Mesmer and am on track for the same with my Warrior.

Its easy from there to TP the runes you prefer to replace whatever comes in it and use the gold and mats you saved for your weapons.

Temple armor and WvW gear are the cheapest exotics in the game. But temple you come by naturally through the story.

If you are short on Karma, map completion in each of the 3 Orr areas (and Frostgorge?) grants a free exotic that may or may not fit your build, but its enough to get you by until you find something that does. Or you could TP it and buy what you need.

Im one with nature and climb stuff all the time. I would definitely say I am an accomplished, nature attuned, climber of things.

But even I have trouble when I try to parkour over a wet, magically growing, moss covered swamp tree, while carrying an electric ball of energy and worrying about stepping on well hidden trap that has been laid out to bait me into hitting a different set of traps, all while being stalked by lizard monsters, giant spiders and a naked axe wielding bog barbarian.

I dont find myself in those situations often. Just saying, when I do, it’s not as easy as you would think.

Characters can tend to stick with you based on the time and effort you invest in them. In games with a sub, characters are a monetary investment. Maybe there is some more attachment to characters in other MMOs because it takes a lot longer and costs more to achieve max level, and even after that, each piece of gear probably took hours and hours of gameplay to get.

In GW2 you can get a max level character within a week or two (actually playing, not craft boosting). And a set of top tier gear can be gotten for free from the karma vendors in Orr if you have been saving it and getting your dailies.

There isn’t much of a time or resource investment into that character yet. Now after you decided on the perfect armor look, and perfect accessories and have picked those hard to find/expensive weapon skins or are decorated with some event items or titles you earned with that character, then you start to get a little attached. That character is yours and not just a toon that went through the story and got the default end game armor.

This was the same in GW1. You could get max level and finish the story in a weekend. In Factions you were max level within an hour of starting a character. Then you start working towards your 15k armor, and title, maybe some chaos gloves or a blindfold, you hunt down each skill your character has specifically. You have hats to commemorate every holiday it’s seen and minis that mark every birthday.

The attachment is definitely there. But I would say it comes a bit later and for better reasons.

Namica.2951:

JustTrogdor.7892:

Namica.2951:

Is it ok to let them use my account for a time to try it out?

No recruit a friend, so its my only choice.

Absolutely not, is against the ToS and could get your account terminated. If that person does anything wrong you would be the one dealing with the problem. They do not take kindly to sharing accounts.

Shame that. Wonder why they dont have one.

Gold farmers abuse free trials and refer a friend programs. That’s why games either don’t have them at all, or have extreme limitations.

The keys had an abyssmal drop rate because Anet wants you to purchase them. The keys that drop and the keys that you get from story serve two purposes…

1 – A nice little perk to get a free thing from the cash shop to open a chest.
2 – A way to hook players into the gambling nature so they buy more (something good will be in the next one)

Think of it as a Casino rep handing tourists a $10 chip or drink voucher to come in and try a game. It’s a neat little free thing that they are hoping leads to you spending a lot of money.

I don’t want to sound totally cynical so I will add….GW2 is a beautiful game and I fully support buying gems. Buy them to get skins. Buy them to get gold. Or character slots, bags, minis, event items. Whatever strikes your fancy.

If you are raking in dozens of hours of entertainment, then why not throw them a few bucks here and there to keep the studio healthy while getting something that improves your game experience in some way. But unless you are a gambling sort, stay far far far away from black lion keys and special event chests. Odds are heavily against you that you will get the thing you want from it and you will only end up getting upset.

Know exactly what you are getting for your money and continued support or pass on it. This sends a clear message to developers. We get more of what we want, they get more money, everyone wins.

No, in fact, your luck was actually pretty good seeing as how you got 3 out of 10. But you did end up learning a valuable lesson.

I bet we have to run up to 50+ event specific objects and press F for an achievement.

Silhouettes. Back items from events aside, you could still look at the shadow, or silhouette of a character and distinguish its class. This is important for visually, quickly, disseminating information in chaos and specifically why armors are designed with the general shapes they have.

There is a new offender to this design principle though. The Radiant and Hellfire gear and Dragon bash helms look heavy on any class; however, I don’t expect to see many more exceptions and wouldn’t be surprised if we see a change to radiant (the bulky portion of the gloves is under, rather than over long sleeves on some medium/light armors. Marking it look like normal gloves for that category, albeit glowing).

Mark answered. This thread can go no where good from there.

Grimwolf.7163:

As someone with HoM rewards, I don’t care. At all.
I wouldn’t care even if they were letting everyone get the straight HoM items themselves and not just reskins.
The need to have something others can’t get is terribly juvenile.

That is a very nice disposition, but this is a horrible game for it. GW is all about needing to have something others don’t have/cant get. Other games have vertical gear progression to display accomplishments. GW has skins and titles.

Since the last day dawned on the kingdom of Ascalon the biggest driving force in PvE was to get those super rare, super unique, super hard to acquire, outrageously expensive things that few others had. You ooh-d and aahh-d over people and they ooh-d and ahh-d over you. You scraped your characters face against every wall in the game for cartographer so you could have that title to display an accomplishment that a majority of players didn’t have.

Promotional minis demanded the highest price because a limited number of them existed in the game and only that many people would ever have them. And when you see someone with one, it was neat.

Juvenile as it might seem, people are proud of their stuff and defensive of its exclusivity because they worked hard for those things in a game where working hard for those things is what you did.

You see it in GW2 already. Whenever it looks like something that players put significant work into is going to get slightly easier for anyone else to get, there is an uproar. Most recently from those that put the hours into WvW for the gift of battle for their legendaries, after achievement rewards practically gave them away to everyone.

To begin with, IDS and FDS are two distinctly different things. In GW sure, it may have been a reskin, but lore and methods of acquisition kept them distinctly different. In GW2 they are even more distinct. The skin isn’t an exact replica, and it isn’t even called an IDS as far as I know.

Saying one is the same as the other is sort of like saying the Green ranger was the same as the Red Ranger. In some neighborhoods, that could cause a rumble.

Now more on topic, having 49/50 of the HoM points, I don’t see an issue. Its a one handed weapon, it has glitter all over it, whatever. Maybe the outline is the same, but the Fellblade is still distinct. Now, if they released a broadsword that looked the same, with maybe different color hand-wrappings and called it the Hewblade, then I might cry foul. It would be like your Fellblade and accomplishment unlocking it are trivialized by an influx of cheap flea-market knock-offs.

I think the sanctity of our HoM items is still intact.

Ok just checked and the event page says:

“We’re adding support for permanent Finishers! With this release, you’ll be able to sort through your available Finishers and choose the one you’d like to use as a default. Change your mind and change your Finisher! "

Looks like the people that like to hang on to one of each for special occasions or just to collect them are in luck. I wonder if the finisher is consumed after you choose it, making it impossible to pick again if you only had one, or if the finisher is “learned” so you only have to have one to ever switch to it.

I really like this addition. Makes me wish you could Finish champs in PvE

Gandarel.5091:

Magische Boek.2530:

i sure hope so, i still have 2 snowman finishers and 2 gift finishers on the bank

Btw I don’t know why do you think they will turn every single finisher you already have as a temporary one to a permanent one.

I’m 100% sure they won’t change items that are already in your inventory.

Unable to investigate at work, but didn’t the update mention choosing any finisher you currently have to be used as a permanent finisher? If so, i’m gonna to be dropping snowmen on fools 365!

There is not as much farming as people seem to think. The issue is with the mindset people have that makes them think they have a right to access something within a totally subjective amount of time.

Xx Sephiroth xX thinks he should be able to get a legendary in a month. The only way to even come close would be extreme farming of CoF and Arah on a constant basis; therefore, Anet designed it to be farm heavy.

This is not the case. Legendaries were meant to be a long term goal. Just because some people may have found a way to accomplish that quicker doesn’t mean the design or spirit behind it changed. Really, just about every single item needed for a legendary can be earned in a respectable amount of time through a wide range of activities. The only real hold up is the pre-cursor that will be craftable soon. The last few updates have made legendaries easier to get if anything.

Logan is out of a job. The queen appears to prefer mechanical apparatuses.

Skins and titles. As it was in GW. When you have a hard to acquire skin or title, people notice. That is about to get more distinctive with the champion named skins (pretty much green weapons in GW).

Also, its pretty easy to get a reputation on your server by being helpful, leading dungeon groups, hosting events and generally being pleasant. I took a weekend of sometime around last holiday season to just help players get done story mode dungeons. Just from that, people recognize me in game and randomly ask me to join for stuff.

In WvW you gain local infamy by being a good commander. Game wide you can be part of a recognized guild.

In sPvP people will usually recognize unique skins, rank and leaderboard position. If you are finishing consistently at the top in hotjoin, people will get to recognize you pretty quick by name.

Aw. Well that went from first on my event to do list to last if at all. I was expecting something similar to hearth stone that let you go to your home capital, or instance, from anywhere in the game for free.

A consumable that copies another professions elite isn’t nearly as enticing. Maybe because I have already had access to that skill for a long time.

Ah well, everything cant be for everyone. I’m sure a good portion of people will love it.

…why we cant have nice things.

Some time ago there was as discussion among multiple threads that dealt with empty zones and why players tend to flock to some areas and avoid others. The general consensus from the community was that they weren’t rewarding enough.

Afterall, what incentive is there to go back to 40-60 level zones with level 80 characters? We postured that, if the zones rewarded us based on level that we would spread out into the places we that we liked visually, that had neat DE chains and the population would have a reason to leave Orr and LA.

Anet acquiesced. Regardless of zone level we receive (most of the time) rewards in a level appropriate tier. Even if the loot is blue or white junk, it sells like level 75-80 blue or white junk instead of level 30 or lower. And regardless of where you play now, there is a decent possibility of ectos from rares. I know I was giddy post-patch when I got an exotic dagger from a vet in Kessex.

We, however, did not fulfill our end of the bargain. Instead, high level/high geared characters have come to the conclusion that if most of the rewards from any zone are level appropriate, then they should play in the areas of least resistance as to churn through DEs and champions faster.

And as I stated in the beginning. This is why we cant have nice things. I didn’t pay much attention to all of the loop threads popping up recently because I thought the issue was limited to solo players. Last night I rolled a new character and went into Queensdale because it’s the area I know best (other characters are: 80T, 80G, 80M, 30W, 30N). I even tagged along with a few players totally new to the game to show them around. To be blunt the community is making the content unplayable.

With all waypoints unlocked, and mapping instantly when someone pings Troll, Boar, Barracuda, Wasp or Oak, a new character still does not have the speed boost skills/traits to get to the events in time. And even if they do manage to get there in time to try to get last hits, they cannot do enough damage to get credit before the champ is dropped. I, and the players I was trying to show Champion DEs to just gave up on it after the fourth loop of managing to get credit for nothing.

We are talking maxed level characters in full dungeon sets with legendaries, running through Queensdale and poaching champions within seconds of their activation. Before the players in the level range the content is designed for have a chance to even see the mob, yet alone hit it for event credit. Add to that, if you try to camp an event spawn and do your damage before the loop herd shows up, they can get outright abusive to players that just wanted to be able to finally get credit, or didn’t know looping was a thing.

Overall, this is poor community behavior. It also makes PvE, in one of the lowest levels of the game and where most people will get their first impressions, unnecessarily competitive. Something Anet has been vocally opposed to.

So when the nerf comes to lowbie areas or champs, or side-kicking. Or whatever measure Anet decides to take so new characters and players can experience their starter zone without a stampede of 80s bulldozing all of the events ahead of them, remember that we did it to ourselves. We asked for incentive to visit mid level range areas, they gave it to us, we made it a detriment the experience of others. If I hadn’t happened to be on a fresh character, in the company of totally new players, I may have never considered it. We haven’t been very classy at all.

I enjoy doing the Fractals. The only one I cuss over is Uncategorized. That Harpy knockdown with indicator rings that are larger than the platform you are on make me want to punch my Parakeets.

My favorite is Cliffside. I like the urgency of running with the hammer from point to point, you cant sleep on the boss (unless he is bugged), and the Colossus is awesome. I hope we eventually get some lore for him.

Higher level Fractals are nice, challenging content if you get a group that prefers to actually play through them instead of attempting every little glitch or loop-hole they have heard of. And they are one of the few things in the game where you can actually see the group synergizing with each other over the course of the run.

Whoever wins, more fractals in the rotation means less repetition for those that do multiple runs a day. Sounds like a win for players and OP being needlessly cynical.

I have might have an inside man that might have told me that once a week, one of the precursors has its MF chance stealth increased. ’Splains multiple people getting Spark on their first try one week, and The Lover on their first try the next.

Pravda.7641:

Nick.6972:

Where are these players? I mean, I’m on High Population NA server.
Yesterday I spent around 15min playing the TP in LA and I didn’t see a single /map , /say message.

Seems fishy.

Plus, if the game is so popular, why can’t we get 1 Mil likes? Seems awkward.

Made up data probably.

Same. Sure the numbers are nice, but I never see anyone anywhere. Leveling alts, playing my main…I’m lucky to see a few people a day. Never see a map chat besides the occasional event call out. And you know what? I’m on TC, one of the supposed most popular servers. Its hard to play the game anymore since a lot of the time it seems like its just me playing.

Its hard for me to believe those numbers. I hope I get to see a rise in activity eventually. My love for the game is slipping since I feel like I’m playing single player nowadays.

I see these posts and honestly surprised each time. I’m on DB, it’s supposed to lower pop than TC and I see people everywhere. LA is so busy around the market area that I get player culling and /m is going non-stop.

Some areas are less populated. Most of the 40-60 areas and the shiverpeaks. People have just seem to have found their favorites and play there. For example, there are always people in Sparkfly, while Dredgehaunt is nearly a ghost town (no pun intended). Bloodtide usually has a good amount of people, while Blazeridge only sees traffic for the Shatterer.

As far as starting areas (1-30) Maguuma is typically busy, Kryta is the most populated, and even Ascalon sees good traffic up to Fields of Ruin. Shiverpeaks seems to me to get the least love, until level 70-80. There are always people there for claw, corrupted shards, Honor of the Waves, T6 mats and some good events.

If you guys are really that alone in zones, maybe check your servers peak times. Guest around and find a server that works more for your play time. If that isn’t the issue, try different zones in the level range you are at. Shame to say, but there are some duds of areas that players have just sort of worked around. Hopefully they see more permanent, engaging content and find their ways into player leveling paths or world event rotation.

I don’t see the numbers being faked. Just spread out thin amongst a pretty large world, sPvP, WvW, Fractals, LA, dungeons and a ton of servers.

Funny thing here, for this guy to have over 10k, he had to have had at least 9k before the achievement chests were implemented.

So, he is actually complaining about being handed rewards and account bonuses for something that he was doing anyway that was giving him nothing previously other than a higher AP score.

There are some serious mental gymnastics going on there.

Hrm. Hopefully ill be able to preorder it from PlayAsia.

You’ll buy more keys. You know you will. The next release will come in and the Black Lion Chest will come pleading like an ex-boyfriend “But I have changed! Really! There’s a common chance to get my goodies now!”, and you will say “ok, but this is your last chance!”.

Then he starts asking you for money to support his reform but you’ll find out he is just sending it to Evon Gnashblade and fueling his bad habits. So you will kick him out again, and proceed to come scream on the forums about how betrayed you feel, how great of a girlfriend you were and the good intentions that were behind the investments you made in him just to be lied to and left empty handed in the end.

However, instead of getting the comfort and support that you expect from the community, you will be ridiculed and just made to feel worse because everyone will tell you its your fault for giving him the money and enabling him.

This will happen over and over again, because you cant let go of the hope that one time it really will be different. And maybe, just a little bit…you enjoy the abuse.

Elbegast.6970:

Ashanor.5319:

I didn’t even log on for Sky Pirates. I hate pirates. When developers can’t create interesting antagonists, they resort to pirates.

Hold up. What about this game?

http://www.gamespot.com/skies-of-arcadia/reviews/skies-of-arcadia-review-2641052/

Skies of Arcadia was an amazing RPG, with pirates.

I wouldn’t know. I don’t play games that feature pirates. They could even pay me to play that game and I would refuse on the sole basis of pirates.

Yet here you are, on the forums for a game where the hub city for the entire continent is made out of pirate ships, run by pirates, and features a Goonies tribute pirate jumping puzzle with pirate items at the end. The surrounding zones have pirate enemies and late game has pirate zombies and ghost pirate ships. You can get runes of the pirate and an entire NPC outpost is a parody of the pirates of penzance.

But…you draw the line with steam punk pirates, that look more like geek and sundry customers than actual pirates, that get around in zeppelins.

You are a confused confused individual.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/La_Llorona

“We will see you again” The epitath is for the child she murdered. She cannot go home and weeps at that grave because she is trapped here and forced to wander until she finds the spirit of the child.

La Llorona is also called the weeping woman and lady in white.

geo, it might lead away from the game, but I think you should continue your digging for information and details into the Lady in White. Could get into some interesting folk-lore that bisects history and turn up that maybe this urban legend didn’t start with La Llorona. All because a dynamic event piqued your interest ^.^

Yay learning!

I gear up all of my characters to exotic level and then just play the game. If I am doing fractals and I get rings, I put them on whatever alt is appropriate. If I look up and have enough laurels or guild commendations for an amulet or trinket, then I buy one for whichever character I think needs it at the time.

Ascended items are neat things I get as I am playing. I don’t try to farm them and don’t freak out one of my characters might have not gotten her ring yet. It’ll happen eventually. ATM I have two fully exotic/ascended characters with 35-40 AR and one that’s halfway there with 25.

As far as hording resources, there are two metaphorical truths that apply to nearly all games…

If you save your special weapon for the next bigger, badder robot crab, you will never get to use it.

and

It doesn’t matter what card you played, the one you draw next will almost always seem to have been better.

Welcome to the game.

One of two things has happened. You have gotten on a server somehow that has the total opposite schedule you do (EU on US server, US on EU server), or you are playing in the Norn starting area.

The other areas that you would be in…Queensdale, Celadon, Metrica, Kessex, Plains of Ashford, Diessa plateau…are considerably populated almost all of the time anyways, but particularly now that Krtya and Ascalon have event meta achievements going on.

Really most people should just resign themselves from the idea of having the best looking stuff the game will have to offer. It will more often than not be locked behind RNG.

The craftsmanship in these weapons, the Dragonbash weapons and the Scelerite (even though a lot of people didn’t like them, the Geiger esque textures were really well done) surpasses just about every other item available through game-play, sans a few of the legendaries.

And only a subset of players, or a subset of a subset, will ever have access to them. What makes it even worse is the message that will be sent by electing Evon to the council. Many of the designers will realize it would be a victory leveraged by the Fractal or just wanting to vote for the “bad-guy”, but dollars to donuts, the monetization team will say that the majority player base is in love with the RNG chests and wanted to access more of them. This is another strategy straight from the Nexon / Maple Story play book.

Fortunately, none of this really takes away from the game. The skins are so rare that you only see them occasionally out in the world. That removes any real skin-vy issues and feeling left out because everyone else has something you don’t and can never get. The skins don’t confer any statistical advantage or status. They aren’t a mark of some specific accomplishment. They are in almost all cases, pixel crack that people want because its the new thing or fits the character theme.

Save yourselves the frustration, and just never expect to have them. That way you wont end up disappointed and if you somehow get one, it will be that much more exciting. Also, never ever ever think you will somehow have a better chance this time than you did last time based on the words used in the marketing material. Read it, pick out the bit that is there to intentionally make you think you have a fair shot and then laugh about how they tried to catch you with it and move on to the bullet points about new items you can buy directly or new activities to participate in. You’ll be much better off for it.

So people are still buying keys hoping they actually get an event item huh? Here we go….

No. There are a few low pop servers where the Arah gates tend to be closed more than open and where fewer people are attempting the dungeon. Farmers should go there.

There is a critical path that players take in PvE from tutorial to end-game. Trying to prevent completion of an event that gates the final dungeon and harassing players that are trying to progress is directly conflicting with or blocking that path. The farmers are the ones that need to get off of it, not those that are trying to walk it as it was designed for them.

Anyways, this topic will be moot soon enough. I’m sure devs have been in here to read it, and seen the negative behavior players farming are exhibiting towards players that are just trying to play through their story or do dungeons as intended. There may have even already been a meeting note on how to resolve the issue. In the end, farmers being kittens will have only ruined it for themselves. Rewards will be scaled down and the people doing the event to get into Arah will hardly notice because that’s not what they were there for to begin with. Bravo farmers, you’ve kittened yourselves again.

I’ve been doing this since launch because once you hit 80 waypointing across the map can get pricey. Especially if you are jumping from end to end for events or have multiple characters.

I’ll go to mists → LA → Capital in region I am going to → WP to where in the region I need to go.

I load pretty fast. 3-5 seconds. So the screens don’t bother me more than the spending X silver to go help a guild mate with a story, X more to get to an Orr temple, X more to do Tequatl, X more for daily zone, X more to get to LA for NPCs. It may not seem like much but it adds up. Unless its substantial jaunt, I don’t WP within zones either; I equip a movement signet and hoof it (faster than a centaur).

Guild waypoint buffs are nice. Also, vote for Kiel!

As a side note, does anyone live anywhere with speed passes for toll roads? That would be a nice account item to have next to infinite harvesting tools and salvage kits. For 25s or so every month you can WP all you want at no charge. Would be a nice thing for people have on their mains that see the most WPs and pay the most in tolls.

mexay.3902:

AnthonyOrdon.3926:

We will not make both fractals.

Things like this are why ArenaNet continues to fail as a company.

[snip]

tl;dr putting the fractals behind a temporary content decision where a large part of the community will be voting solely on the characters or the temporary content is a terrible game design choice and should be amended ASAP.

I wasn’t aware it was failing as a company. From what I understand of business, creating a product that funds normal operation and supports research and development into new products for seven years, tripling your workforce in the last eighteen months, increasing your parent companies yearly profits by 322%, moving three million units in a struggling/highly competitive market (PC MMO), and being relocated to a larger more accommodating facility are marks of a fairly successful and growing company. But I dont have an MBA or anything.

Aside from that, keep in mind you could be getting nothing in the way of permanent content. Anything is better than nothing as there will be a group of players interested in it that will enjoy it. It’s also impossible to make everyone happy, because everyone has different tastes. If this update design conformed perfectly to what you would want, someone could easily adopt your same tone.

I think it’s a stroke of brilliance personally. ArenaNet wants GW2 to follow a living world model where player decisions have an impact on the content. We have an election, both candidates are offering something different. We don’t get the stuff from the losing candidate. Our decision has a very real, very direct impact on what happens in the game from content to story. That is outstanding design and something that game developers have been trying to make work for decades. How do you make player choices actually impact the world and keep the game fluid despite those decisions?

Anet is taking steps in the right direction towards answering that question because of the medium they have to work with. We cant have everything and we cant reload a checkpoint because a decision didn’t give us the meta result we wanted. We can think carefully about the decision we make and try to influence the decisions of other players. And that is kittening awesome.

There’s a weird psychology with exploiting that makes people think they are superior to someone else. Either superior to the designers for doing something that wasn’t intended, or superior to other players for not knowing what they know.

Players will have that attitude and stick to it even to self detriment. That Dredge shortcut isn’t even a shortcut. It takes longer to get around the switches than to just do them right. No kidding at all about that. Also, only two people need to jump down into the cage everyone else can run in when they hit the switches. So even if you do have someone hell bent on wasting time because they know a trick they think is fancy, why would they require everyone to do something that only takes two?

I remember someone getting kicked from Dredge because they didn’t know the Ice boss/ramp glitch. It was the third Fractal also. That glitch (long since fixed mods) involved getting the boss stuck on a ramp where the players could safely hit him from underneath. The party leader said he and his guildie would kick whoever didn’t go straight to the ramp. And he did. It took over an hour and twenty minutes to kill the boss that way. That boss takes less than 20 minutes with a bad group.

That behavior and rationale is so mentally unbalanced its really hard to just categorize it as “elitist”.

MokahTGS.7850:

Yes a rapier would have been awesome, but to be honest it doesn’t fit with all the other mechanical weapons. Perhaps it was pulled and will appear at another time.

BTW….the gun and rifle…OMG.

There is a distinct lack of melee weapons that have finesse in mind. That’s what people were looking for with the rapier. Mostly Thieves and Mesmers. Probably a good few Asura Rangers. Not to say other classes/players didn’t want one, but those that it fit the class theme for were really looking forward to it.

Hopefully it crops up later in the event.

Well this is disappointing, if true.

All of my characters take the Krytan route up to 70. I just like the Meta-chains better and events fire off fast in pretty close proximity (at least that’s how I perceive it).

After I got 100% map completion on one character, I obviously favored some areas over others and I ignore the other half of the world for the most part.

So what would make me visit those other areas? I like to fight big kitten monsters. I like fast event chains that span the map. I like the idea that players could mess up and lose a chance at the big kitten monster. Some world bosses and some areas have that. But most don’t.

Want me in the shiverpeaks?

Add some assaults on Svanir camps to draw out a legendary shaman. Killing him drops an ice tablet that you need to get to a Norn shaman to translate before it melts. The tablet is a bundle, so other players need to escort across the map. Drop the bundle or get downed and the event fails. The Norn reads the tablet to reveal locations of two gongs on opposite ends of the map. Players have a time limit to get to the gongs and they have a three second cooperative window to hit them simultaneously. The gongs crack Drakkar late and you fight a giant corrupted octopus. WIN!

How to keep me in the area and doing other stuff? Add a five to ten minute timer between assaults on the bases so I do events during chain breaks. Make the camps assaulted occur in random order so I am active in the map instead of idling in a hot spot.

I would be in the Shiverpeaks for at least an hour every day. And i’m sure a good amount of other people would too. This was sort okittend of experimented with in Southshore with the Karka queen. The problem with that event was Southshore still has a ways to go before it gets rid of the bad taste it left in peoples mouths from it’s launch event, and the general impression I get from /m is that people just don’t like Karka as enemies.

I’m sure my above example probably isn’t possible given scripting or engine limitations. But it gets the tone across. Every map needs something of that scale, interaction and fragility. Not a tiny meta that encourages either being skipped entirely, or everyone crowding the finale because someone can solo the pre-event with little to no risk of failure.

There was as time that player silhouette influenced armor design. One of the considerations when creating the basic shape was whether or not a player observing the character approach could discern if it was a heavy, light, or medium class.

That was very helpful. SPvP moves so fast that silhouettes can allow for quick scanning and breakdown of the action. On many occasions there are so many skill effects obscuring players that their outline is all that is visible.

Did that design principle get thrown by the wayside recently? The radiant, hellfire and aspect helms all look distinctly heavy. If those end up being full sets, or the trend continues, it will make it much more difficult to visually distinguish between player classes.

ZudetGambeous.9573:

It was easier to make that way to make the continuous 2 week deadlines they are trying to keep up with.

Two months. There are multiple live teams working in alternating two month iterations. This doesn’t count the team working on larger updates that get rotated in and the core team that deals with the other areas of the game that are not event related.

Nice attitude you have there though.

This is why we can’t have nice things.

Players take something sufficiently rewarding and abuse it to the detriment of other players experiences. Anet has no choice but to nerf the event so it’s played as designed; then people come in and QQ about unrewarding events.

Farming the event when its up is one thing. But griefing other players in a PvE zone over it is going to lead to developer intervention. Everyone ends of losing out because of players like the ones in Mashiso and Taeks screen shots.

The Gods could not be seen. But some things to keep in mind:

• We play the game in a third person perspective. We shouldn’t assume that our characters can see and know everything we see and know.

• It’s not known exactly how or why Malchor could safely look at the Gods. They may have allowed him to see them. A lot like the Mursaat were the “unseen ones” to most of Tyria in GW1. If that’s the case, it’s reasonable to assume that if our characters see the Gods, that they allowed it.

• The Gods regularly appeared to humans through Avatars. The Dervish could even become Avatars of the gods. We could be seeing the Gods in their Avatar forms in the Fractal, or even be playing as their servants ourselves (like the Ascalon Fractal turns us into Charr).

• Exceptions exist that allow characters to safely look on the Gods (just think of them as “the chosen ones”). Players in GW1 could fight Abaddon without going blind. They could also fight Dhuum, who was the God of death before Grenth overthrew him.

There are plenty of ways ANet could throw the Gods into Fractals and have it make sense. Well…as much sense as players being transported into an ever repeating, isolated point in time during a divine civil war that they can interact with and survive but not permanently affect can make.