Guild Wars 2

Little Tootlepeg(gy), Scalesy, Awwwblessit, and other such ridiculous names as and when they pop up.

My RL cat has its official, boring name for veterinary purposes, but it gets called myriad other names dependent on who’s doing the calling and what the fur-faced one itself is doing. She may call herself something else (Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats style), but we’ll never know. Aurene will be no different, and yes, I’m just going to ignore the fact Aurene calls herself Aurene. It never happened. Never.

As a small hijack of the thread, I’d actually like a little snow patch with a snowman on, - just after small scale version since I’d love it for the home instance (I don’t have a guild hall to speak of). Earned in game, like the Wintersday tree, and perhaps the patch is something said tree can sit on? Essentially I’m after a permanent, more "winterfied" corner in the home instance, and am quite happy to jump through a series of hoops for it. XD

This is likely a suggestion for another year, however. Still, I hope you guys get what you’re after for your guild halls, and apologies for the thread hijack.

Mea.5491:

Quaggans are overrated. :P -grabs popcorn-

Heratic!!

I don’t have a thing for legendaries as I’m lazy and am relatively happy with my weapon skins as they are. That said, this shield is fun and silly and beautifully done artwork all at the same time. I can’t wait to see other players using it.

I personally hate those things. The sound is irritating, but the flash is worse - it’s not giving me a seizure, but I’m bugged enough by it to become mildly irrational. If I’m at the bank when it occurs, and it usually does, I peg it for the nearest craft station and use the bank there. I don’t think it’s necessary to have sound and visuals for each individual tome consumption, and would support something of a cooldown - it fires on the first usage and at set intervals of, say, 15 seconds thereafter, if possible. Alternatively, that previously-mentioned-up-thread "consume all" would also be nice.

I don’t engi, but when I do, I take my trusty rifle with me. It’s used in amongst kits for fun (in a 5-2-3-4 fashion). It’s that fun factor pistols and shield never gave me.* I have a hammer, but, meh. It doesn’t jump me to places that other weapons find hard to reach ( ) . And, well, kits.

*YMMV on fun factor. Which, I suppose, is the point.

Festive Imbiber is pretty hardcore (drink 10,000 festive drinks and presumably make your liver very poorly). Although you can do it all year round and it’s totally casual, *and* you can chug back 250 in a handy "Consume All" quaff, it’s definitely time-consuming if you’re not willing to throw away gold on it. I am itching for Wintersday to get on with it!

Crimson Clouds.4853:

But isn’t the Deep Sea Dragon named Steve?

The Labyrinthine Horror is the DSD?

Oh my, this could get confusing!

Awesome! Good to hear the boss beasties are buff once more, and that pesky DR has been shown the door.

Lamont.5973:

Wants frog in a jar

Indeed it does. I should’ve figured: my RL cat has favoured frogs this year. :/

Just adding my voice to those missing Lunatic Inquisition, and also bit miffed at no Halloween story progression. I don’t even remember Reaper’s Rumble from 2012, when I was a poor and ineffectual engi who didn’t get out much, but would love to try it out all the same. Shame I can’t.

I love the Lab, but not sure about the nerfs to the beasties - it did give me my first precursor ever last night, though, so don’t want to grumble too much. DR within an hour, however, just feels a bit much.

Still intend to enjoy the sillier side of things with my kid later today, though. She’s very excited!

The text for it is something along the lines of, "Communicate with this cat in a way you don’t quite understand."

Donari.5237:

Reddit folks have spotted another cat source: Use your witch’s broom, summon the familiar, use special action to feed it. But what it wants to eat is still unknown. Since the black cats like ice cream I wonder if that will help narrow it down.

It’s not Candy Corn Ice Cream though, I just tried.

I’ve tried a few different Halloween foods, even the Feline Blessing sharpening skulls, chattering skulls, etc. Single uses of these didn’t seem to work. XD

Those bone minions are just for the cute factor. Look! They’re wee and funny and hop sort-of-like rabbits! Awww!

Any party must have eye candy, you know. It’s tradition!

I love "You brought this on yourself" - said in a way which sounds like he’s not angry, just disappointed.

grimnal.2796:

Endless Soul.5178:

I feel they shouldn’t be 400 gems, but I’ll pay 400 gems anyways. kitten you Anet! I love you!

~so conflicted~

400 is over twice what many other novelty helm skins cost and is ridiculous. It’s highway robbery. The only reason it costs that much is because Anet knows very well that fools like me will snatch them up anyway.

Agreed! I was expecting 200-250 max. Still picked them up though as they’ve been something I’d asked for in the BL thread (or somewhere similar).

Agh! Must go and buy now. Yay!

DoctorDing.5890:

I think it’s an excellent opportunity for them to nerf everything on those HoT maps, get rid of the adventures and move all the mastery points to just next to the way points. That might just about tempt me back onto those awful maps, at least until I get all those precious mastery points ;p

Those maps were never popular. Plenty of players went there but that does not mean that they liked them.

(Vayne – you’re on!)

I like Verdant Brink well enough, adore AB and am in love with DS, and have a grudging respect and admiration for Tangled Depths. I spent the day today pootling inbetween the lot of them, and although my eyes are now dryer than the dust in Dry Top, I had a lot of fun – even in kittening Tangled Depths.

I hated the lot of them when they were first out because I had issues. XD

Then I went back and found I actually had fun, and enjoyed looking for masteries everywhere. I’ve even managed Gold in some of the adventures, some of which I thought I’d never enjoy – and ones like the haywire golem of punchy madness can be quite stress-relieving if you’re not chasing results. I’m even in excess of the green masteries, awaiting new content (although I don’t raid, so something could be said about what’s happening to my XP if I really must pick holes in it all). All I have to do is pick up a couple of the red core masteries (literally, 2), and I’ve finished that side of it too. I shall be dragging my kitten to fractals for those, I think. I can arguably say I don’t tend to enjoy fractals (except for the other week when me and Hubby duoed for a laugh – and actually managed), but I feel the result will be worth it, and maybe I’ll learn something worthwhile on the way.

I play any time from 8am to 11pm, depending on what I have going on in the day. I’m definitely finding the HoT maps keep filling up, over and over, typically for the metas, and you have to get there at the very least 10 minutes before. I was in Tangled Depths half an hour early, and at 15 minutes to go, at least one other map was full (and my map was subsequently filled too).

If it’s not for the metas, I see HP run groups or event + meta groups. Something worth advertising for in LFG if you feel lonely or need to get stuff done.

I also see enough people in the core open world - as an altoholic, I make chars on the fly for transmute runs, etc., and I’m never alone in the tutorial instances or the baby maps.

I don’t see as many in Ember Bay or Bloodstone Fen, but admittedly I don’t spend as much time there myself, and when I do, I see I’m not exactly alone, but nothing will beat the first week of release for numbers and it wouldn’t be reasonable to expect it to.

This means, from my perspective at least, the population looks rather rosy of cheek for a four year old game. It’s doing just fine.

Seconded! It’d be nice to actually do something a bit more interesting for sure.

I support an RP channel for chat, and, if possible, any Emotes in that channel also be broadcast only in that channel.

I’ve seen some stuff in DR and in Rata Sum where no amount of reducing emotes in other channels will fix it:

Exhibit A:
A group stands centrally, amidst the TP and bank and crafting stations and use the Say channel to conduct their conversations. They’re different guilds, and often larger than a standard party, and I don’t think they’d go for making a squad and taking their chat there, or they would’ve done it by now. I’ve ended up blocking the lot of them, and it’s annoying because I do think at some point, somewhere else in the game, they could hold valuable information I may actually want to hear, or be decent in (OOC) map event groups, etc. I don’t think they’re bad people, just a little too easy on the Say channel - which I don’t want to turn off, because if someone uses it to ask a question, or announce an event, whatever, I want to be able to see that.

Exhibit B:
There was also an awesome bit of RP in DR the other month, where the people responsible invited everyone there to come and take part. Again, a few different guilds, and quite a good number of people involved - but then it’s all over the Say channel or their emotes range far wider than is sensible, and however excellent their RP was, it’s simply not agreeable that it turns up in the boxes of uninterested parties. It’s no wonder it’s viewed as spam and again, people that don’t truly deserve it are getting blocked.

I think there’s an etiquette of situation here, and it’s that RPers should have their corner of the world without anyone else imparting upon it or being annoyed by it. They are niche, and thus deserve a further place to enjoy themselves and their art without infringing on anyone else (said as an RPer of old, I’ll have you know, although I no longer indulge). And with an RP channel, if someone wants to listen in, they can select the channel, same as any other. If they don’t, turn it off, but don’t miss anything else in Say, Map, whatever. Sure, someone could troll the RP channel, but then RPers can block and even report a troll, right? After all, I’m fairly sure that’s a better way than me or others blocking largely innocent RPers instead.

All my new cats are fighting!

I suppose it’s to be expected, but still! My other cats still play with the snowball or generally ignore each other. Perhaps I need to start bringing food home for them?

I also vote for a title for acquiring all these felines. I propose "Catfinder General".

.EDIT: I just saw the poor juvenile frog hopping around the fighting cats. I suppose that may explain something. In RL, my own cat recently brought in 3 frogs in one week. Apparently, it’s great sport. :/

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Event_timers <- I recommend this to anyone and everyone.

I do this: Check the above timer, then turn up about 10 minutes the DS start (no later and sometimes earlier), and often find others do the same. If there’s a commander tag, I’ll join their squad, which goes some way to get back into the "right" map when the initial map fails. The majority of the time, I am able to complete DS this way. It also works for any of the other HoT metas. Sometimes I haven’t gotten back into the right map with the squad, and found I couldn’t get back to it, although recently I’ve not had this problem. Those older times, I’ve joined another commander, or advertised on LFG ("DS New map, needs commanders. Come for the cookies! Stay for the meta. Say if map full!" or something to that effect). I find it fills pretty fast.

I know the annoyance when you join something on LFG and the map is full. I try to find time to tell them - sometimes they may not know, so they’ve kept their ad up. If I’m in a hurry, however, I just look for another squad, or start my own requests.

Do I think this is the right way to do things? No, but it’s the way we’ve got right now, and this is the way to use it. I don’t think it hurts to register concerns or complaints, but I think there’s been consistent feedback in the last year or so on this subject. I imagine it’s something that will be being looked at, and hopefully honed for the better.

I have this too. Have for a long time, and it’s not the first or second time I’ve said something about it on these forums (last was under a QoL thread).

Wherever you get up to, the game keeps a tab on it, which is on one hand nice, but if you’re just replaying a short part of story for an achievement (for example), it will still keep that tab on and forever remind you. If you choose to start another part of the story, a new tab is created in addition. I’ve currently got four of the things as a result, and although I can quit the marked chapter, the tab does not disappear. If I do remove it, it appears again any time I move to a new map.

I would really like the option to double click those tabbed stars, producing a pop-up to check if I want to remove them (thereby losing all progress, which I’m totally fine with). It’d also stop someone accidentally removing them when they don’t mean to.

Please take this into consideration, Anet. &lt;3

Hi, kids! I watch lots of Project Runway*, so I know that "boring" = "bad design", and means you didn’t Make It Work and you’re out.

If Hal stopped being so boring with his design, I suspect the judges would’ve been happy and kept him on for NY Fashion Week.

Yes.

*Totally the baseline for design in all aspects.

I don’t have issues with Caithe - I think she’s been in something of an impossible situation for many years where either which way she goes in terms of her secret she’s wrong, and she knows it - and definitely on my Sylvari main it seems odd to be so cagey with her as she (my character) I figured as understanding how difficult it’s been for Caithe. Now Caithe’s trying to make it up, and even with the best will in the world, that’s going to be tough.

I can understand a character of other races being a bit more on edge, but as we operate on a "one-size-fits-all" dialogue, I think it’s one of those times I just go with it and hope the Commander mellows out eventually. Alternatively, the Commander goes completely barking from the bloodstone farming, being all paranoid and short with everyone whilst hallucinating rainbow unicorns and sad souls.

That said, have quite enjoyed the voice acting for all involved, and I do genuinely think the dialogue is improving. I’m very interested in seeing where all of this ends up.

Ph’nglui mglw’nafh Steve R’lyeh wgah’nagl fhtagn.

Obviously.

Definitely all the stuff from the last few years should be in there, including Lunatic Inquisition! No excuses! Plus a continuation of story for the Family Thorn, and some general light relief and silliness. Halloween in Tyria is my favourite GW2 regular festival (Wintersday being a close second), and it deserves the fullest madness! The fullest, I tell you!

Silverstone.4539:

Ceridwen.6703:

She’s just adorable! I’d like to be able to look after her full time. Can I retire from general adventuring about to do just that?

0.o Our tastes clearly differ. I think it’s one of the most ugly dragons I have seen…. i want to care about it and did, but once i saw it……… I could not even force myself to like it.

Fear not! I find necro minions as cute as fluffy bunnies and cats, too.

Soloed it first, and although I managed, it wasn’t exactly smooth on my chrono. For the record, I switch between range and melee and am very, very lazy in my approach. For the first time in forever, I actually bothered to look at my build and beat it into submission for the instance and Ember Bay, and although definitely not the strongest when it comes to DPS (either a personal best, profession best or game best), the fact that I live and remove many pesky conditions with more wriggle room helps. I also had Hubby join in for a re-do of the last instance so we could do achievements. It goes much, much better with just one other person, and a little communication. We got all the achievements we wanted, although I couldn’t be bothered to do the one where you kill 40 of them with the bombs, as it takes a few instances to do it, and only the person with the bomb gets credit (we did get this one for Hubby).

Wouldn’t know what to advise specifically for a thief, but if you have any decent AoEs available, those could be something to look at it. Bring a friend if all else fails.

Bear in mind there’s a part of the instance where you’re scripted to be overrun for the sake of story, but it’s manageable before and after. Use the pod bomb thingies on the general beasties and vets, and then on the boss beastie for an easier time bashing them down.

EDIT: I should probably say, Hubby is an ele, and can probably out-DPS me three or more times over, but can’t remove more than a condition or two (or something) in his current build. It’s possibly a complimentary set-up we used in the story instance, which may also help you out if you run it with someone who does stuff you can’t, and vice versa.

She’s just adorable! I’d like to be able to look after her full time. Can I retire from general adventuring about to do just that?

The puzzle is not my friend because of the lava graphics and general animations. Those who have seen some of my posts before may know I’m epileptic, specifically photo-sensitive epileptic. This means light frequencies are something that, under certain circumstances, I’m going to be a tad bothered by. Annoyingly, this is one of those times (although I’ve done fine with the rest of the episode, so long as I don’t have ley-lines in front of flamey stuff too long when gliding about), and there’s no way I can do the puzzle as a result. I tried going into the place and nearly wigged out completely!

Ordinarily I don’t worry about this stuff, but when masteries and other collection items - Mursaat tokens in this case - are involved, I begin to feel conspired against (because, you know, this game is all about me). I was lucky in that I did a teleport-to-friend to a kind soul parked on the chest last night, so I did get the mastery. And I don’t think I’d ask Anet to stop doing puzzles like this at all (because so many people do find it fun), but please don’t do what some others elsewhere have wanted and take away things like Teleport-to-friends or portals in these rather dangerous environments! People like me sometimes rely on these to complete our wants/needs/whatevers!

I should also say me and my awesome hubby are working on ways to get those four mursaat tokens in the puzzle - he’s actually done the puzzle himself the hard way and picked up all the tokens, so I’m sure I’ll get them eventually with his help.

EDIT: Have just read the post above, posted whilst I was writing mine. They took away the ability to port to the end? As I’ve said here, I’d never be able to do this puzzle without this mechanism. I appreciate that PSE isn’t an everyday disability, but there are others who are disabled who could be very set back by not being allowed to port. If this is really the case, I ask Anet to thoughtfully reconsider that not everyone can take part in this sort of content, and thus you should add more disabled-friendly ways of acquiring masteries. Or simply don’t add a mastery at the end of a hardcore puzzle, but a title, extra-special loots, or whatever.

I have this problem regularly. Is annoying. Usually I try to find some trash to kill, but for someone who’s a Chronomancer, it’s rather time wasting.

Vayne.8563:

Ardenwolfe.8590:

Keep in mind, Dark Wombat, the people you are asking are also the people who stayed. So your overall responses will tilt toward that angle.

Those that would say otherwise have long since departed in most cases. And we’ve seen the statics, as far as forum activity, to prove it.

Either way, no. Your experience is not unique. Far from it.

Actually some of these people didn’t stay. Some left because they didn’t like it, gave it another chance and ended up liking it.

There’s no way to know from the responses in any thread how many people like or don’t like HOT, since the majority of people don’t even post.

It’s entirely possible that the post doesn’t reflect the bulk of the player base. It’s also entirely possible that the thread does reflect a majority. There’s simply no way to know.

I’ll add to this that not only did I come and give it another bash and enjoyed it immensely, in the last fortnight I’ve had my husband playing again after several years’ absence. He always liked a challenge, and each bit of HoT has him a happy bunny!

Today, we shall be doing more events so he can continue to level up his gliding before the new content this coming week. We’re both quite looking forward to it.

I actually did quit a little while after the expansion came out. I then went back in earlier this year, and knuckled down to it. Made myself learn the new stuff, either by following commanders/squads, or checking Dulfy/You Tube for guides. Some of the map areas can be tough and overwhelming at first. Set small goals - play x until have this amount of xp and/or this mastery, etc. It’s a little bit of grind, but if you do things in small increments, eventually it does add up. Use the wiki for event times also helps. I actually quite like it now. It’s still hard - HoT maps tend to make my computer run on the potato setting, and if I stay too long doing the stuff, my eyes dry up (although my tear ducts don’t technically work anyway, but gaming too long definitely doesn’t help!), then I get headaches, and yada yada yada. So as long as I keep aware of my health out of game, it’s all quite doable. You just have to plan a little more, and that’s something which either you’re okay with, or you’re not.

Looking forward to new stuff (Bloodstone Fen and the associated story were rather nice). Some fire stuff in GW2 can mess with my epilepsy somewhat, so I’m preparing for short bursts over long play times.

Gehenna.3625:

I’ll give you an example. It’s Auric Basin I believe. There’s a hero points thing where you need the adrenal mastery to be able to survive the poison. But this adrenal mastery is still 2 steps away for me and it’s a lot of mastery points still. I really don’t like what I’d have to do to get those together, so there it is. It’s very unsatisfying to not be able to complete that map but then the 2 maps after that...well let’s just say I never liked the idea of needing to do group content to get map completion. That’s the worst idea for me in HoT.

IIRC that changed some time back, so you don’t need that mastery for it. I don’t have adrenal (last one I’m working on right now) it and have done the evil bacon (and all the map masteries other than some gold/silver adventures). You just need mango pies and timing your health to the evil bacon heal.

Danikat.8537:

Lahmia.2193:

Inculpatus cedo.9234:

I say, mer – REL – lo.

I don’t remember any videos, off-hand, where the Devs have spoken about Murrelows. Even so, just like with Wyverns, there may be different pronunciations within the Studio.

Oh man. I feel like facepalming everytime I hear them say “Wivern”.

Is it better for worse than “jo-tun”?

I know it’s spelled that way but it should be pronounced Yotun, like in the Thor movies.

slight thread revival

Both the wyvern and Jotun pronunciations pain me – although as I understand it, “wivvern” is an acceptable way to say it. Never heard it said like that before myself, though, which is probably why it sounds all wrong. Jotun with a hard “J”, however, is very wrong in real world pronunciations. Many people here in sunny Norway could be very upset hearing that hard J!

Add in other culprits such as Knut, Niamh, Diarmid (technically a male name, that one). Has me chewing wool, no word of a lie and those are just off the top of my head. Does anyone else have real world pronunciation clashes with Tyrian names?

I don’t have karka pegged as metal. I think creepy crustaceans are the unsettling embodiment of dissonant pizzicato, ergo:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9GdlkYufXgI

Or, just for fun:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qMTrVgpDwPk

The new map could be metal, though. But I’m initially going with:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=na_Zac23b5E

Would’ve included the version with the FedNet march at the start (for our purposes, renamed the ANet march), but the jumping puzzle description suggests I shouldn’t get too prideful.

I’m up for more cat-related content. Cats rock. My guild’s name is Cat Cat Cat Cat Cat Cat [OHAI] - admittedly my daughter named it and she was 6 at the time, but it’s a family guild where the coolest name in the world wasn’t required, and it made her laugh.

I enjoy turning up in my home instance every day to not only farm nodes, but to greet all the cats (I think I got them all), and play snowball with those cats who have the snowball. It must be a magic snowball, by the way. It would explain how it doesn’t ever melt in The Grove. I don’t even mind cleaning the dead bird (real life is rather worse in that scenario, as experienced only last week in my house).

So, yes. Cat emotes, and if you would be so kind, lovely Anet, cat ears. <3

Cat golems, kittens, mini jaguar, snow leopard, stalker, etc.. All the cats. I don’t have Chauncey von Snuffles III as I seem incapable of saving up laurels for it, but if I did manage that, he would be a favourite too.

I just picked up the copper-fed in the recent sale (finally getting my act together on some QoL!), stuck it in the shared inventory slot and life is sweeter now. Is a recommended purchase.

Seconded. Still like this today.

Haleydawn.3764:

Om Nom Berry Ghosts have a chance to turn you ghostly for 5 mins when eaten.

Strawberry Ghosts can give the effect too.

Amadan.9451:

there is still a deep sea dragon alive somewhere...

Stevie will beach itself for our convenience and have an enslaved quaggan army constantly chucking buckets of water over it, keeping it from drying out.

Gaile Gray.6029:

Thank you so very much for such warm and wonderful comments.

Have you seen the 4th Anniversary Video? I love what our team has to say!

I just watched it! Really touching to hear the reminiscing. Heart thoroughly warmed!

Happy anniversary GW2! Still the best game out there. <3

*screams*

*logs in*

EDIT: *glides with new SR glider skin*

Thank you so, so, so much, Anet!! I’ve had my beady ones on this for so long! Happy happy joy joy!

Much love and toodles! Now off to spend an evening gliding about, doing nothing in particular.

I have gems at the ready for a standalone Soul River glider. Hope it turns up!

Yeah, Fields of Ruin is having a bad time. Doing other dailies instead is advice.

Donari.5237:

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

Donari.5237:

Gaile Gray.6029:

I did that, and there are few things I regret moa.

Oh, you want to start that sort of thing up? When will you learn to let things ley?

This thread is going to the birds.

Speaking of birds … I shan’t give any spoilers except to say you guys might want to talk to any cats you see (most won’t do anything special, but keep looking). There’s a reddit thread with spoilers if you’re curious about what is going on with that, you can find it by googling that_shaman and checking the “present” thread.

Cheers for pointing this out. Done and done.

I shall say no more.

<3

Danikat.8537:

Ceridwen.6703:

My charr keeps seeing them. Odd thing is, she’s never been to Bloodstone Fen. She did nick Levvi’s Device off my twig main, however.

This is another part of why I think it’s related to collecting Unbound Magic, which is an account bound currency.

I didn’t see it at all until my main character had been to Bloodstone Fen and I’d trained the mastery track and got my first bits of Unbound Magic. (But before I spent any of it, or got the Bloodstone backpack or mask, which I still don’t have.)

After that I started seeing it on all my characters, even low level ones who haven’t been to Bloodstone Fen.

I’m temped to spend an evening only playing on my free account to see if it appears then. But trying to prove a negative is extremely difficult – if I don’t see it I don’t know if it’s because I’ll never see it on that account or if it’s because I wasn’t in the right place at the right time.

But what I’m more interested in right now is what this thing actually is. We had the elemental style anomalies appearing and attacking things, then we had the big one rushing around warping the world (until we killed it). But this one just seems to stand there for a few seconds and then disappear.

It could be the same one which has simply figured out how to appear in a form we can’t attack and is now safe to investigate Tyria so it’s hopping around checking out different locations. Or it could be something new and different. It could even be something our characters are imagining.

Whatever it is I hope we get to find out soon.

I haven’t the mask or backpack either, but have spent enough time on my main collecting some unbound magic stuff, plus doing the story, in the first week of release. I would be inclined to agree with your unbound magic theory, and have now had my charr assist in taking down an anomaly in Gendarran Fields, so she’s had direct contact and my internal lore is satisfied.

And yes, I’d like to find out what’s going on soon too!

My charr keeps seeing them. Odd thing is, she’s never been to Bloodstone Fen. She did nick Levvi’s Device off my twig main, however.

I’d be up for the glow all the time. They’re my weapon set of choice.