Guild Wars 2

Fans: “There is nothing to work towards in this game. Booo!”

ArenaNet: “Alright, here’s unique items that are very hard to obtain and a wee bit stronger than the top tier.”

Fans: “You said you’ll never introduce stronger items. Booo!”

Sorry, ArenaNet… you just can’t win.

I think people should look at ascended gear as the peak in gear evolution. It’s what comes after exotic, and it’s meant to be gear with staying power. It’s not like with WoW where you get the next content and you go from epics back to blues. This is rather the next step in gear.

I like the idea of having a specific gear that you can then customize and work on, while then just applying skins as you see fit. Hope this is something like that.

Paradox.5498:

Imho some of the T1 and T2 sets look better than T3…

My thoughts exactly!

I think these are supposed to be prestige skins, all of them since they all have exceptional racial cosmetic value. I think T3 should be lowered, while T1 and T2 should have a price increase, so it’s sort of a climb but not the 7g to 120g between T2 and T3. More along the lines of 15g between set and T3 being 50g or so.

I think it would be good for the game if legendary items are gained through different methods. Your idea seems like a perfectly valid concept to fulfill a way to collect certain legendaries.

YPC.6349:

so is it everything the same except no overpriced lodestone needed and free precursor?

No, not at all. It feels like people don’t actually read what I wrote.

My proposed legendary consists of 6 gifts, chosen out of 10 completely different ones, each focusing heavily on one aspect of the game. This means that essentially a player can completely skip crafting or WvW when completing their legendary item, of which the current legendary items require both.

Not sure if it’s starting to make sense yet, but this is quite different from the current used.

Being able to choose your favorite dyes is convenient, but I’d really like to see an option to save three or four of your dye “builds” and then being able to switch between them.

@Keiran

I really like your idea. It would definitely have an epic feel to it that I love.

Before anyone else goes off on my idea, the basic premise is more ways to forge your legends. I think the legendary items in game should remain, I’m not saying change them.

I think there should be more legendary items, all that are craftable in many different ways. This would add a lot to the ‘play the game your way’ philosophy ANet believes in, and having that variety would be great fun for us as players.

Think about it.

Infidel.8412:

Azjenco.9425:

I think there should be items in the game (not just weapons) that require “assembly” that really makes a player stand out on personal accomplishment.

Making it easier means everyone will be getting it, you won’t stand out. All the things said there are easy to get. Everyone would be getting a legendary. This doesn’t sound like it will make me very legendary.

The amounts are just loosely throw around, and I certainly hope it will be a lot more than what I stated.

The crappy thing about legendaries now, is that it’s not connected to much of an awe factor. Legendaries consist of thee parts. One is playing the game (which is the good part), the second is made up of luck, and a third requires having large pockets.

The last two points aren’t very innovative. Having gold means grind, or playing the market.

What I don’t like is the forcing you to do a singular thing part, like each legendary requires you to grind WvW and a dungeon. Don’t you think it would make you seem better as a player if a legendary item consists of you excelling in the aspects of the game that you enjoy playing and you’re good at?

insanemaniac.2456:

this is better? youre joking right?

its the same, all youve done is introduced is a couple more ways to grind. not that having them wouldnt be bad, but you really are deluding yourself if you think this is at all different from the current method.

Umm, what…? No, how is it the same?

I actually added options.
Instead of focusing on one dungeon, since each legendary requires you to grind 500 tokens in a specific dungeon, I added the option to do any of them as you like, and trade the tokens in for a universal token.

Each legendary requires two maxed crafting disciplines, whereas I made one path (gift/essence) that requires crafting. Every legendary requires 250 of all the T6 crating mats, where I included choices of which ones you want to include, again all in the crafting essence.

Every precursor is dependent on luck or an expansive pocket. I made a precursor that you need to find in the world by killing an enemy, which harkens back to the days of GW1.

Every legendary forces you to do WvW, and forces you to grind a single path. Again, I added options. There are themed gifts/essences, all that merely hinges upon the way you play the game. If you enjoy killing dragons, like I do, that will factor into a legendary item, if you dabble in dungeons, and don’t feel like grinding one, then you’ll work towards a legendary.

I’m not sure you read my post right, or even at all. You didn’t even give constructive feedback, only stating that both methods are exactly the same, proof you didn’t consider what I wrote.

Like I said, the current legendaries forces you down a set path. Well, keep those there. But I suggested a new set of legendary items, which would definitely promote dedication in however you wish to play. If you have excess mats as a crafter, then one gift will be perfect for you.
Play a lot of WvW, then another will be great for you. Do dungeons, then there will be one or two gifts for you. If there are ten different gifts and you only need six, then you will certainly eventually have enough items to complete the gift that’s more tailored towards your style. All you need to do is just play the game. A person who plays the game a lot his way will get it faster than someone who plays slower in his own way.

The point is, if this method doesn’t appeal to you, then the only explanation I have is… you’re not playing the game…

Like others have said, it will be out when we get the patch.

What you should be asking is, when will we get a blog post. The lost shores page seems mighty lonely over there, what without the extensive list of compiled details that we saw in the Halloween update and all.

Essence of Adventure Meant for players who do everything across the board
- 1 Gift of Exploration – Let’s just keep this one for now…
- 25 Badges of the Bold – Obtained each time you finish a jumping puzzle.
- 10 Prime Tokens – Gain 1 Prime token in exchange for any 100 of any dungeon’s tokens.
- 30 Jugs of Liquid Karma

Essence of Power For players focused on competitive play (the more hardcore players, perhaps)
- 25 Dragon Scales – Gain 1 whenever you defeat Tequatl, the Shatterer, or the Claw of Jormag
- 500 Badges of Honor
- 10 Prime Tokens
- Any exotic weapon

Essence of Ascendance Focused on players who’ve been around for a while
- Bloodstone Shard
- Pact Victory Token
- 150 Mystic Tokens
- 1 Superior Rune (any)

Essence of Craft Mostly aimed at players who craft (the mats may seem griny, but people who call themselves crafters probably have stock of these items)
- 1 Perfect Ingot (400 Armor or Jeweler) – 200 Copper, 200 Platinum, 200 Mithril, and 200 Orichalcum Ingots.
- 1 Perfect Plank (400 Weaponsmith or Huntsman) – 4×200 wooden planks, consisting of 2x either Green/Soft/Seasoned, 1x either Hard or Elder and 1x Ancient.
- 1 Perfect Material (400 Leatherworker or Tailor) – 200 each of Jute/Wool/Cotton/Linen/Silk, Rawhide/Thin/Coarse/Rugged/Thick/Hardened, Gossamer Scraps, and Hardened Leather.
- 1 Perfect Potion (400 Chef or Artificer) – 200 of any 2 T6 fine crafting materials, 200 of any orichalcum harvested materials, and 1 Eldritch scroll

I can probably suck some more essences out of my thumb, but I reckon this paints a clear picture. There can be a lot of these essences, perhaps ten or so, and essentially it would promote players playing the way they want to, but also be a show of dedication.

So, let’s say you have Izor’s Brand and want to upgrade it to the rare Blade of Torment. You take Izor’s Brand, stick it into the Mystic Forge, along with 10 crystals, the essence of adventure, and the essence of power. This upgrades the weapon, and then you can stick in the rare sword, now with 15 crystals, an essence of ascendance, and the essence of craft. Finally you can insert the exotic Blade of Torment, 20 crystals, two more essences (none of the aforementioned, of course), and receive your completed, legendary Blade of Torment.

Each time you upgrade the weapon the look of it will advance, and I thought it would be interesting if the completed legendary sword has some extra effect to go along with it. For instance, whenever you deal a critical hit with the sword, a gory blood explosion would go along with it, just to make other players that much more envious of you.

This is just an elaborate idea of how actually playing the game can be rewarding in an interesting way.

*edited amounts to reflect a more “legendary” feel

First off I’m not saying change the existing legendaries, or make them easier to obtain. What I’m saying is, add more legendary items and have many different ways to obtain them.

Many have called out the fact that obtaining a legendary item merely means grinding, or having huge pockets. It does make sense. A lot of the mats are items that take times to get, but then you can just assemble it from the TP. It says more about the item than the player, meaning, the item has an awe factor, but it doesn’t really reflect a sense of awe toward player’s accomplishment.

I think there should be items in the game (not just weapons) that require “assembly” that really makes a player stand out on personal accomplishment. Let me give an elaborate example:

Legendary Sword: Blade of Torment – A legendary sword of old that has long since lost its luster, though rumor has it a master smith can return it to its former glory.
-If you’ve played GW1, this is a “lost” tormented sword.

First you need the precursor, and to get it you need Izor’s Brand. Yes, this is a throwback to GW1 where you need to locate and kill a certain individual to get an item. He can be located in a dungeon, stalk the world, or require a certain event to spawn. Doesn’t matter, but I would love to see the GW1 ‘kill an enemy to get an item’ method return.

So you kill Izor, and find the green level 80 sword Izor’s Brand.
To start the journey to becoming a legend, you’ll need pieces to reconstruct the item step by step. To do so you need to assemble pieces. Instead of calling them gifts, let’s call them essences.

So, now that you have Izor’s Brand, to improve it you can place it and any three essences (though not the same ones you’ve previously used) into the mystic forge to take it up one step, next being rare, then exotic, and finally legendary.

So what would an essence look like? Well, the idea is to acquire them through gameplay prowess, by being good at the game, or just playing it efficiently. Let me give some rough examples of what I mean, more or less…

I sincerely think that this is a possibility in the future. I’m also certain that dungeons, existing ones included, will evolve in the future, but I considered ANet adding more than three dungeon paths in eventually, and really hope they do.

I’d even like some paths to take more initiative, feel more unique than the rest. Make dungeon runs really interesting when you run one path and then the next.

I would also like to see more options added to dungeon vendors. Perhaps not only stocking full items, but also item skins, perhaps even effects, like the CoF NPC supplying a fire effect that can be added to an item. Maybe even special upgrade components distinct to each dungeon, more than the normal dungeon rune, I mean.

Eadgyt.5987:

Personally I like Orr, a lot..
It’s supposed to be annoying (hard), after all, you’re far behind the arch-enemy’s lines..
Why would there be safe-points?

:)

I still don’t see how people are mixing annoying and hard, it’s not the same thing.
For instance, most waypoints are contested so you need to run where you need to go, that’s an annoyance, not a challenge. I can’t walk five steps without being snared, so I stop and take down the five risen on my back, they’re an annoyance, not a challenge.

Like you said, we are behind enemy lines, of the strongest enemy in Tyria, and yet his forces are a rag-tag bunch of annoyances just standing around? It seems a bit too sloppy to be a zone at war.

Someone else made this suggestion, and I think it’s so brilliant, I’ll repost it.

Let us actually make a push and fight for the zones. Let each zone have a camp, and from there you need to take the zone, fight back the undead in a tug of war. They take, and control territory, that you then need to take back the land. Fight all the way to the temples to actually unlock them, and make it all worth your while to actually stand behind the Pact. Orr should feel cohesive, not scattered. And depending on who controls an area, that side will have patrols.

Xaaz.8472:

Ive read the complaints. It’s nothing more than a bunch of entitled people whining to get everything dumbed down so they can move freely and finish up everything they want as fast as possible so they can pretend their life has meaning. They don’t want it hard. These are the same type of people who will play a game on an easy setting and complain they finished it too fast.

It’s been the same in every single game for the last 10+ years. So before you want to come in and try to lecture someone who’s played everything that’s been out, you might want to do some research. There’s not an MMO made yet that wasn’t nerfed into oblivion because people complained they couldn’t do it, or it was too “annoying” for them to bother with.

I fail to see how the fact that you’ve played everything that’s out is in anyway relevant, besides than to boast.

Anyway, I’ve seen a lot of posts where people said there’s no challenge at all. Even the OP starts with “Disclaimer – Just to make things clear Orr is annoying, not hard.” Yes, you read that right, not hard, how can the ‘entitled whiners’ be asking for it to be dumbed down when they’re saying that Orr isn’t even hard to begin with…?

I have no idea what you’re trying to accuse people of, and this isn’t some other MMO. ANet wont nerf it, they don’t do that, in fact, it’s funny how you accuse me of not researching other companies, meanwhile ANet sated that they never nerfed GW1 when people moaned, and when people said dungeons were difficult in 2, they made them even tougher. Moreover, as the OP stated, it’s not what this thread is about.

Please, try to understand, when someone says, being knocked down and pulled is annoying, they’re not saying ‘take the ability away so I can frolic in the flowers’. They’re asking for the enemies to be turned into an actual threatening force. I suggested that the risen have more meaningful abilities and form constant attack forces. One poster even suggested that the risen patrol in groups to add to the tension. So how exactly do you misconstrue that as ‘please dumb the game down so I can mine and go pretend that I mean something’ when you read our suggestions?

Xaaz.8472:

Most of the folks in this thread simply want Orr to be less annoying so they can farm with ease and faster. It’s pathetic really.

Assume much?

People want Orr to be challenging, rather than the monotonous bore it is now, but some people seem to think Orr is engaging and challenging already. It’s pathetic really.

Read the actual complaints before you make baseless assumptions that have nothing to do with the topic. People don’t war Orr to be dumbed down, to the contrary, they actually want it to be difficult. Orr needs some actual engrossing gameplay, not a bunch of scattered mobs with snares, which to a few seem to equate fun and challenging… as if that makes sense.

kineticdamage.6279:

p.s : There’s only one zone that hard to travel in the whole game, so please people, stop trying to tone Orr down. If you want a walk in the park, just go in the other 90% of the map. Thanks.

You can’t be serious. A few post above I mentioned this, just to paraphrase:

Sorry for singling this post out, but this is a prime example of the “counter argument”.

One group says, “Orr is easy, annoying and bland”, while the next group (as observed above) says “Go back to easy mode, or L2P”. It feels as if two different conversations are being mashed together.

And I love it how some can say “you need to group to survive” and say “L2P or move on” in the same post, and yet I can do Orr quite easily on my own. I’ve downed giants all by myself and can handle four to five risen at the same time.

And now you go and fall into exactly the hole I mentioned…

Again, no one wants Orr to be easier. We just want it to actually be, you know … difficult and fun. It’s not difficult right now, it’s annoying and not all that well laid out.

Here’s what I think Orr should be like:

Each of the settlements should be under constant threat from risen. The risen forces pop up, gather, then attack en masse. When they don’t attack, you reinforce the settlement against the next attack.

Along the roads you’ll find Vigil find patrols, some even taking supplies to the settlements. They would also suffer constant assault.

The Priory would go into the field and uncover a special method of combating the risen, like forbidden artifact, then take it back to a camp where players can use it to push back the risen.

All the while the Whispers would be busy with assassin mission to kill Eyes and Mouths that appear in different places.

The zone should be littered with small DEs that work in conjunction at a constant rate. There should also be no risen standing around, they should be constantly in battle. They need to feel like a threatening force, not shambling drunkards. Instead, let the oozes and risen livestock be the ones out there.

And no more binding abilities, make the risen interesting to fight. Here’s examples I used earlier:
Risen Rogue – teleport behind target, bleeds, throw multiple bouncing daggers
Risen Spiker – charge through target and deal lightning damage in a line, lightning aura does damage when hit and dazes when crit
Risen Darkblood – leave acid pools on death, spew poison that periodically infects nearby players

Some people are unhappy with GW2’s “grindy” nature. The problem isn’t actual leveling, it revolves more around farming for items. One would be dungeons, but I know ANet said they’re working on tokens, so let’s just leave that.

The other problem is drop rates. Let’s take lodestones as an example. Anyone who has gone lodestone farming would know what I’m talking about. To keep it short, I had an idea:

Why not add an item merger system. Let’s stick to lodestones for the example. Some enemies will have chances to drop the precursor to a the lodestone, which will increase in likely hood and worth as the enemy level increases. So when you kill a low level earth elemental, there will be a decent chance that a onyx sliver will drop. Kill a high level earth elemental in and you’ll receive a fragment instead.

A person can trade four of these at a mystic forge for the item in the next step, meaning sliver>fragment>shard>core>lodestone

I’m not sure how well this would work, but if you have an idea to add or can come up with something better, I’ll be all ears.

@Cod Eye
Interesting rant and all, but what does any of that have to do with the state of Orr?

Sonvil.3670:

I love Orr, and the only reason people don’t is because heart-zones are pretty much faceroll. It’s the first time in my whole GW2 experience where I had to group, fight, and was challenged on every corner. Going back to heart-zones after Orr feels like playing the game on Easy. In Orr, its War and you feel it, thats why they are brilliant zones. I do hope there are more zones like this in the future to cater to those who like difficulty. Mobs are meant to stop you from running past them, every inch you move in Orr is a success.

For me the difference between annoying and difficult are slim, at least in this case. I don’t find the zone annoying at all, just accept you can’t run past Risen.

Sorry for singling this post out, but this is a prime example of the “counter argument”.

One group says, “Orr is easy, annoying and bland”, while the next group (as observed above) says “Go back to easy mode, or L2P”. It feels as if two different conversations are being mashed together.

And I love it how some can say “you need to group to survive” and say “L2P or move on” in the same post, and yet I can do Orr quite easily on my own. I’ve downed giants all by myself and can handle four to five risen at the same time.

Sonvil, like everyone, is entitled to his opinion. If the enemies were truly hard though, then you wouldn’t actually be able to run past them at all. But risen are so easy. They aren’t even a threat, I mean, they just stand all over the place and getting by them isn’t hard, it’s a chore. I’ve even mined ori while two or three of them are bashing away at me.

I’ve mentioned in another post that there are far better ways to actually make the risen a threat in Orr. Affecting your movement doesn’t make them difficult or threatening, more like insects hindering you, that’s why they are annoying. They are easy, they spawn quickly, they’re all over the place, and make traveling a pain.

I think an official response is merited on this matter.

Is ArenaNet planning on doing something about Orr, or will the developers just add new ‘better’ content and leave it as is?

Yeah omerk, somehow you’ve confused fear with frustration. These two are worlds apart and if you’ll read most of the complaints, you’d understand that. People are far from afraid of Orr, they just find it bland and uninspiring, and most of all, a chore to play.

As for your points:
1. Exactly, this is a game we paid for, it’s supposed to be enjoyable, and yet the fun moments in Orr are lost amongst the drudgery.

And no, dying in Orr is not like dying anywhere else in the game. Most of the waypoints are contested, so dying during a DE means you’d either have to wait for a rez, or go to a far off waypoint. The second option is made even worse if you consider the fact that risen cover the landscape like pimples on a teen’s face, most of whom have immobilize, chill, pull, stun, or knock down… yeah, there’s very little fun about that.

2. Yes, it’s in the game, and like I said above, this was supposed to be the difficult end zone that really challenges you. Not really. Replace difficult with a monotonous chore and challenge with cheap gimmicky combat, and you have the gist of Orr.

I rarely die, so dying isn’t the problem. It’s the actual playing part. Fighting mobs with pull or launch/knockback and then being flung all over the screen doesn’t equal a challenge, just cheap and annoying. Or trying to get to a DE fast, and then being immobilized by the three mobs at your back, either you stop and kill them, or continue on with the frustrating charade. I fail to see the difficult part.

In another thread I wrote some ideas of what I think difficult mobs could be like, and how Orr can be made challenging. It just seems like ANet took the quick and cheap path, placing easy mobs all over, while giving most of them movement hindering (cheap) abilities.

3. A different approach, in this case, means squat. All I take to Orr are stability and projectile reflection. Not really even ‘survival’ abilities. That’s how easy the place is. I can do three to five mobs, no problems.

The issue is, Orr consists mostly of large, open stretches of land that you need to cross in order to get where the actual decent stuff is happening, which is the temples in my opinion. These ‘open’ pieces of landscape is then littered with annoying risen. No wonder people have grown so adverse to seeing risen in upcoming content.

The thing that gets me is the insane amount of potential you have in Orr, and how much of a let down the zone is in reality. The only decent aspects are the temples.

The ideas I gave in my post above might not be brilliant, but I think there could be something useful in what I mentioned to make the zone a lot more fun and worthwhile.

The most disappointing thing in GW2, for me, is definitely Orr. It was hyped up so much before release, of beachheads, camps being erected and held, making pushes against the undead hordes, while they fight to take the land. Sadly, my imagination screwed me over, as it painted a far more appealing picture than what I finally encountered.

Funny enough, I just left Orr a minute prior to writing this. As I ran through CS to mine ori, I distinctly singled out enemies with chill, pull, immobilize, launch and knockback, all close to each other. Honestly though, how did ANet find this fun while testing the zone. It’s a chore just being there.

What I’d personally like to see in Orr is:

- More centralization around the temples. Create more DEs focused around the temple chains, since this is what Orr is all about.

- More guard patrols. Let the Pact patrol routes between settlements and create DEs where they’re attacked and must defend.

- Fortifying towns against assaults. Allow each settlement to be upgraded by players, until they come under assault from risen. Every settlement should be ‘attackable’. And don’t let the giant just stand next to the town, let him wreak havoc, we can fix the damage afterwards.
This will make the Pact’s defensive feel more desperate and can play well in with the guard patrols bringing in supplies (as mentioned in my previous point).

- No more risen just standing around. As my three points has stated, let the risen be more active, and let the be more DEs. This will mean they don’t have to stand around any more, but this excludes the risen ‘wildlife’ and elementals, of course.
What’s more menacing, risen just standing around, or them constantly being at an actual offensives.

- More veterans never hurt anybody. As my points stated, there will be more DEs, which would be an effective way of gauging player numbers through participation, and be an easy method to determine how many veterans can be thrown around.

- Make enemies tough in an interesting way. And that definitely doesn’t mean by hampering a player’s movement every five seconds. Like I said, centralize combat through DEs, which is your best means of getting players involved in the zone, but then, also make the enemies interesting to fight. Here’s examples off the top of my head:

Risen Rogue – teleport behind target, bleeds, throw multiple bouncing daggers
Risen Spiker – charge through target and deal lightning damage in a line, lightning aura does damage when hit, weakness
Risen Darkblood – Leave acid pools on death, spew poison that periodically jumps between players
Just a few examples of enemies that can be tough and require thought to battle without feeling cheap and annoying.

8.9/10
It’s near perfect, except for a few hiccups here and there.

The largest gripe I’d say was the BL chests. It would have made more sense if there was a token system, where the required items were gained in game as well as through BL chests. Next time, make separate chests, which also use BL keys, but make the chests completely holiday themed.

Natural.7013:

Whole,thing will be Meh. They need to get WvW and Spvp rolling harder or this game will continue to leak players. A little zone isn’t going to do much for some of the dead areas including the mists sorry to say.

Really? They just added paid tournaments and said there’s a lot more PvP features coming. You do know there’s many different teams working on the game, the PvP team is just one amongst many others, or would you prefer them have one huge PvP team and nothing else.

Besides, “a little zone” added to PvE means a boost to PvE, which, as you may or may not know, is also a large part of the game.

Wish there was an event to get them back into the water. Seems so cruel that we can’t do more to help, virtual world or not.

Your summary seems spot on. I think ANet had some hits and misses with this holiday event, although far more hits than misses. Most important thing is, they definitely learned a lot, I’d say.

You brought up a lot of the issues, like the clock tower allowing characters to bar your view, some of the labyrinth fights being a bit of a chore.

Another sore point you excluded was the black lion chest fiasco. ANet saved face with the Mad King chests, so at least it wasn’t a complete mess. I just keep thinking that there could have been a better way.

Say for instance the themed items, the skulls and nougat, could have been traded at vendors for tokens, and then a certain amount of tokens could then be traded in for these rare skins. Maybe MK chests should have been in the cash store as well, alongside normal BL chests, and then functioned in conjunction with the token system.

I don’t know, but it just feels that this could have been handled better.

CelticWish.2314:

So is it a no to a Voting Day event?

Really? Voting Day? I guess you’re trying to be funny here, don’t get why.

At the end of November GW1 had a Special Treats Weekend, so I don’t get the point of your snide comments.

In hindsight, I should not have used Thanksgiving in the title, rather Special Treats Weekend, because for some reason it’s causing a lot of lame comments…

Morrigan.2809:

@ Azjenco- Thanks for the link
That makes it a bit more sense.
I would still love unique holidays though. Halloween is Halloween

Yes, I know what you mean. I do appreciate it that they try to “Tyria-ify” the holidays, but Tyria driven holidays would have been something great though. Like say, during the span of GW1 festivals were created and that would then have passed over to GW2.

For example:
Festival of Night – A week long festival (coinciding with Nightfall’s release date) to celebrate the day the heroes of Tyria battled and stopped Abaddon.
The festivities could be monster/corruption inspired, where the theme of conquering the ‘night’ would be celebrated.

Day(s) of the Dragon – A five day event that recounts when the Great Destroyer first caused trouble in Tyria. The five days could each be themed after one of the Dragons.

Some could even be culture related:
The Unification – A weekend event commemorating the events at Ebonhawke where charr and humans stood together, and would eventually lead to an alliance.

Spring of Life – A celebration for when the firstborn sylvari first set foot on Tyria.

Zeke Minus.5720:

From a dev in the Halloween Event forum:

AnthonyOrdon.3926:

Yes, Halloween should be over tomorrow in it’s entirely. No Thanksgiving or anything like that. As for what’s next, you’ll have to wait and see.

So, no Thanksgiving event, but it looks like something is planned for November.

So that clears it up then. The next big event is Wintersday. I do hope they add the November Thanksgiving treat festival in next year, in fact, I wonder if GW2 will eventually have weekend events just like GW1.

To anyone going on that Thanksgiving has no place in Tyria.
http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Special_Treats_Weekend
Well, an event around the same time is already in Tyria.

Yes, the two update will be separate, since there are two different teams creating the each event, so the design teams wont clash. I still hope they have something interesting planned for the end of November, just before they throw the large Winter update on us.

Lorana.2468:

next event is called Wintersday in Tyria, and it’s a Christmas Themed holiday

http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Wintersday

It’s true, Wintersday, the Grenth vs Dwayna themed holiday, is the next big holiday event. However, like I said, there’s a small Thanksgiving ‘weekend’ in GW1.

http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Thanksgiving_2007

I don’t know why MMOs replicate our holidays. It would perhaps be more interesting if they just created their own and went with it.

I guess people enjoy familiarity above all else. Celebrating a festive time outside the game and then have that same feeling reoccur inside the virtual environment they know and love adapts the same sense of enjoyment from one side to the other. I do think that an MMO should still have its own holidays, like say a large in game event happens and then year after year celebrate that day.

What I do like about GW’s method though is where their own lore is painted over our lore, as with the Mad King, for instance. The names shouldn’t be the same though. As Christmas is called Wintersday in Tyria, perhaps Halloween should be called something else as well.

Just curious, will there be Thanksgiving in Tyria? It wasn’t big in GW1, but there were treats and small things, which would be nice if it crossed over to GW2.

I love how Halloween has it’s own traditions and lore in Tyria with the Mad King and all, and hopefully every yearly event in GW follows. Perhaps Thanksgiving can revolve around the unification of the races, or even commemorate the incident at Ebonhawke when charr and humans first stood shoulder to shoulder.

Let me sum up how I’ve felt thus far…
Phase 1 – Good
Phase 2 – Even Better
Phase 3 – Brilliant!
Seriously though, I’ve bought a Mad King Outfit, Witch’s Outfit, all four minis, finished the clock tower, carved pumpkins, knocked on every door I’ve found, ran through the zones to do the meta events, ate my monthly’s worth of candy… and more.

It’s been great, a holiday I won’t soon forget. Sure it’s had it’s share of problems, but the pros far outweigh the cons, and you’ll just learn from every problem we’ve encountered.
Nice job ArenaNet, and I can’t wait to see Christmas!

All I want to know is, what has caused the gems prices to have sky rocketed.
For more than a week after launch it was 1g=+-300 gems, but a around a month after launch it began to plummet and now 1g sits around 100 gems. That’s an insane price, as I paid for gems while its was around 220 for a gold, but haven’t bought any since.

Now I wonder what was responsible for this radical price increase. Was it because:
a ) The game is two months old and people now have a lot more in game cash available than before, or
b ) Far too many people would much rather pay the in game currency than real money, causing a sort of cascading effect.

SolarNova.1052:

just take your time dont stress.. the more attmepts you have the more you understand how and when and where to jump.

Again, that’s not the problem.

Being in a group of ten players, half of them being charr and norn, it hampers your vision. Seeing a small target while in a bundle becomes more a matter of luck than skill.

ToxicToothpick.4396:

No.
I finished it and I felt like I really achieved something because of how difficult it was.
The difficulty makes it rewarding, without it it’s just a farm.

There’s nothing wrong with the difficulty, it’s fine really.

What isn’t fine is when you miss a jump because a fat kitten norn is blocking your view…

sonicsix.5713:

Grats to those that have completed it, but nonetheless, it sucks… really bad. I have completed every other jumping puzzle in the game, but this one will go unfulfilled unless I can do it without a group.

Yes, very much so.

The puzzle itself is fine, however, being in a group of 10+ players, doing a puzzle that requires precision and speed, while half the group consists of charr and norn blocking your view … it’s nonsensical and removes a lot of the fun.

Yeah, the ghost is the best.

Is it just me, or is chain saw a bit small, even smaller than the skeleton? O_o

I think it’s the small things that add to the gameplay, just as much as any larger addition will. If anyone has something to add to the list, by all means, suggest away.

Updated the thread with a few more ideas I had.

TSLlol.4879:

Sigh, way to cave in to the QQ, Arenanet.

This will either go two ways: 1. if you kept the droprate at a reasonable number (like it was on the BLC chests in the first place), people who QQd that they didn’t get anything will just come back to QQ more that they didn’t get anything again.

2. If tons of players get the skins they wanted now, even more whining would then be about how things are stupid and meaningless because everyone can have them. Which is a legit complaint as opposed to the “OH I OPENED CHESTS, GOT NOTHING, PLEASE GIVE ME STUFF NOW”.
Also players who actually spent big gold to get the skins off the TP will be very angry now that the skins won’t be as unique and that they are gonna crash hard in price.

At least these are holiday themed chests, which I think they should have been from the start. Mad King chests are a great idea, these should have dropped during Halloween, while the keys should have worked on them.

Yeah, I intend to buy the witch’s outfit, the mad king outfit, the phantom’s hood, and the spooky trio minis. That’s all, and I’ll gladly put my money down to get these.

As for the RNG BS… whatever.
My footing remains firm. The weapon skins should have been obtainable through a token system, rewarding you for participation, while the BL chests shouldn’t have been involved. A Halloween specific chest with spooky themed goodies would have sufficed.

Ekera.5281:

If it’s in ANet’s best interest to up drop rates to induce more key purchases then they will. If it’s not, they won’t.

Someone explain why spending any amount of money on keys entitles you to anything other than a series of random chances. Go ahead, I’ll wait.

The thing that get’s to a lot of people is that there could have been a better way to incorporate the rewards into the game rather than tacking them onto BL chests. As many people have pointed out, participation is key, actually doing stuff in the game and being part of the event achievements and goals would have been an excellent way to receive a few of the item skins.

ANet should have changed the BL chests completely if they wanted to incorporate them into the event. During the Halloween time frame, whenever you opened a BL chest, special Halloween items should spawn, or if they didn’t want to exclude normal BL chest items during this time, maybe they should just plainly have created special BLTC Halloween exclusive chests, separate from the normal chests.

You see, there were a number of ways this event could have been better incorporated into the game world, but the way it ended up seems questionable to a lot of players.

kinome.4236:

As fail of an mmo as it was, look to swtor for the correct way to do an event like this. running the event daily nets you costume pieces that are bound to that toon.

That actually sounds brilliant. I mean, being rewarded for participation is a lot better than being rewarded for the size of your pockets, be it cash or gold wise.

As much of a GW2 fanboy as I am (yeah, I’m honest enough to admit that), I’ll lie if I say that I’m not somewhat disappointed by the fact that a good portion of this holiday event is gem driven, especially the great skins. You know, make them obtainable in the world, like Kinome said, as part of a reward when you’ve gone through a large part of the event, I’d say by handing out a token, then redeeming it during the last day. But still have it easily obtainable in the BLTC to those who can’t participate in the full event, or if you just want more skins. As it stands now though, rare or not, opening 25 chests and getting no rewards is just terrible. All trick and no treat.

On a side note, I think ANet should consider giving out a small amount of gems in game. For instance, granting players 3-5 gems for completing the monthly achievement. Or they could introduce weekly achievements with more randomized goals, which is then one of the sole ways of finding gems in game.

Fix: Trahearne swooping in and stealing all the glory in the last quarter of the story. He took mah job!

Change: Boss fights. Less tank and spank, with a dodge here and there bosses and more fights with funky mechanics that keep changing throughout the fight. Make the bosses interesting, let us use the environment and our wits a bit. There’s far too many fights against mountains with a billion health and windup one-shot kills.

Oh good. Thank you, that clears up a lot of things.

When the Shadow of the Mad King was first announced, there was a Tyria Evolving section detailing the extensive content to come, but the article has since changed and it’s no longer displayed. There will also be a large update some time in November.

Will the content referred to coincide with the Halloween patch and be separate from the November content patch? Or was the whole Tyria Evolving thing actually referring to the November content?