Guild Wars 2

Slowpokeking.8720:

Kralkatorrik might have some connection with Mordemoth.

At the very least we’re going to go spelunking some crystal caves.

Thalador.4218:

Dirame.8521:

Glint’s Baby is the chosen one.

Pretty much this.

Also, the golden city with the pillars and towers far out in the Maguuma?

Abandoned. Mursaat. City. #YouHeardItHereFirst

I’m praying that the very theory with which I first appeared on Guild Wars Guru in 2009 will finally be proven correct… .

I though those pillars and towers might have been Orr.

Kyrel.8942:

Just because it’s crystal like doesn’t mean it has to be Kralky.

Better than likely probability though.

Wanderer.3248:

Mickey Frogeater.1470:

Either way it was the Sylvari players’ Wyld Hunt and as such was their Archnemesis from the beginning!

<cough>retcon</cough>

Not necessarily, most likely just ANet deciding that reusing models is easier than creating new ones.

BrunoBRS.5178:

also glint’s baby is involved somehow, because why not.

Because players have been calling for glint baby since episode 1.

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Wanderer.3248:

That doesn’t explain how she lost her title, unless her father sold it to pay debts.

If it’s anything like European nobility you don’t technically need to be rich to have a title.

It’s not like that at all, it’s like Krytan nobility. You’re only a noble until someone decides you’re not. Then you’re a walking target.

. . . gods I miss Ascalon. Insane rambling kings, rocks for breakfast, but at least you knew who was a noble and who wasn’t.

Yeah, seems Kasmeer’s father dishonored the family or something, so their nobility was removed. Apparently (based on the new episode) Jennah can simply be convinced to nobilize or renobilize you!

Shiren.9532:

Is Kasmeer’s story suggesting that nobility in Kryta reflects your value to the Queen or your service to Kryta? Isn’t that insulting to all the commoners and street rats who serve Kryta every day? What makes Kasmeer special?

Yes, in fact all medieval forms of government are insulting to the commoners who get relegated to a role slightly above cattle. The very nature of the nobilis creates a inherent society wide classism where ones value is measures by whom you were born to (cough Jennah cough) or whom you kiss up to.

Spyritdragon.6048:

I’ve heard they’re working on a second feature pack of sorts.

Well unless a break in the LW also means holiday for all ANet employees, this is probably a good bet.

sAdam.5876:

While I’m a bit worried about such prolonged absence of new content

Meh, most MMOs have tend to have content droughts. It’s an opportunity for players to grind for something, or level a couple of alts, or even take a break (you know to prevent burn out).

Donutdude.9582:

A “Living Story” model is very difficult conceptually. The amount of work and imagination that goes into it is both stressful and complicated. The ArenaNet staff have to constantly be at their AAA best to ensure that their audience (have to have an audience to tell a story) remains interested in their storyline.

True, true.

Donutdude.9582:

Additionally, ArenaNet have been quoted* saying that they have other plans besides the Living Story in 2014.

They’ve been saying that since a few months after launch. Since they never reveal what they’re planning, it’s hard for (well me at least) to really know if these plans ever come to fruition. I guess the feature pack was one of these plans, or maybe it wasn’t…

A focus on the Pale Tree? Well I guess, although by that merit S1 was focused on LA.
The Pale Tree initially got involves because of the vision from Omadd’s machine and stayed involve because that’s where the summit was being conducted. If by Pale Tree you mean Sylvari, in which case I guess you can add Aerin. Still not a lot of focus.
So I don’t see this big focus on the Pale Tree, well in game in anycase. A lot of focus on the Pale Tree outside the game (like in these forums).

Thobek.1730:

Those dialogue choices made me sound like a right prick

Well as my main is a Charr Necromancer dressed like Satan kittenolves most issue by killing things I found that the dialogue fitted rather well :P
Although some variety would have been nice, even if you’re given 3 dialog options which all lead to the same response. Of course I’ve been asking for more complicated dialogue trees for a while now, and it seems ANet has decided rather to simplify it (which does lead to situations like this where “my” character doesn’t match “ANet’s” character).
Still spoiler it seems Canach might be joining DE2.0, or at the very least will be playing a more prominent role.

alcuin.1257:

So does this mean that from Season 2 onward all seasons we’re going to be able to play through… as in a game design change that fixes what I suspect is a sad but necessary consequence of living stories?

yes

Zaxares.5419:

Easy. Dredge are so ugly that even Zhaitan doesn’t want them in his armies.

Quaggan? No problem.
Hylek? The more the merrier.
Krait? Oh I’m sure we can fit them right in.
Dredge! Get their ugly kittens out of here, even zombies hordes have standards!

Vexander.9850:

Filaha.1678:

I hope not, since that would trivialize the time people who actually earned it spent on it.

It was a reward purchasable during the attack on Lion’s Arch.

Got it myself. Would not care if it was put up on the Gem Store or Laurel Merchants. It wasn’t hard to get at all. People need to stop acting like everything you can’t get anymore was as hard as pulling teeth to get in the first place, Geesh!

It’s wasn’t hard, just very very grindy.

Well it becomes easier to handle when you realise that ANet will never be able to produce content faster than players can consume it.

Blaeys.3102:

They never said the living world was all they had planned for the future – in fact, theyve said pretty much the opposite of that.

But unfortunately have been somewhat tight lipped about what these other plans might be. Would be nice if they could tell us, just to keep the hope alive.

LanfearShadowflame.3189:

I’ve only done each installment once, though not due to lack of desire. I just don’t have enough time!

sigh

I have 6 other lvl 80s which can do them. I’d like to get all of them through eventually, but there just aren’t enough free hours in my day.

Same problem, but I at least did the first 2 with my main and one of my alts (who’s still busy with the third).

Well I don’t really mind if Trahearne live or dies, I just want ANet to do something meaningful with him.
Although Trahearne’s death can be rather interesting if done right. Remember Traearne’s wyld hunt is (basically) over. He’s started the process of cleansing Orr and ion time it will be. For Trahearne or any Sylvari the end of their wyld hunt is probably some sort of an existential crysis, from the moment they’re ‘born’ they have a purpose a goal to achieve. But what does a Sylvari do when that goal has been achieved? How much experience could Trahearne have with being the captain of his own life? It seems to me more that he’s just been falling from one ‘destiny’ to another. Even becoming the leader of the Pack was preordained by the Pale Tree (so he didn’t choice it much like he didn’t choice to cleans Orr).
So yeah, this could be a story of Trahearne learning some agency in his life (and possibly realizing that he should or shouldn’t be leading the Pack) or if you want to go darker realizing that fate is inescapable and now that he’s fate is played out there is no role for him and that without a preordained plan for his life he has nothing to do but wither and die, essentially what each of us much do eventually come to grips with our own mortality.

But that’s just my thinking, I’m sure there’s a bunch of other more interesting ways he’s story can play out.

Lheimroo.2947:

I suggested separating developer posts from tech support posts back in the beta forums.

Nowadays there’s not enough ‘developer’ posts as opposed to tech support posts to warrant the effort.

Well I still think it’s a useful idea. I’m not really all that interested in support tickets but I’m very interesting in what the devs have to say (even if they do it so infrequently).

Well I don’t really disagree with anything OP suggestions (however not sure if all of them are necessarily realistic).

Ayakaru.6583:

- Order Missions
-Second Wallet
For stuff like living story collectibles (geodes)

We don’t need a secondary wallet, geodes (currency for permanent content) should appear in our current wallets. Not sure how scalable the current wallet is, but I foresee ANet adding a lot of new currencies in the future (it’s a easy way to allow players to start at even standing, where something like gold or karma would give advantage to those who have been forming it since the start) and having them inventory bound is inconvenient (when we have something as convenient as the wallet).
Although such a system will eventually become difficult to manage as currencies keep getting added…

As for new dungeons, weapons, classes… that’s like asking for sunshine and rainbows, it kinda goes without saying. Who doesn’t want more of those :P

Halvorn.9831:

Orpheal.8263, you know the effort of things to implement without ever having seen a single part of the code base? You know how much time it took to implement the first feature patch without even knowing the team distribution?

You’re my hero. I am working as a software engineer for more than 20 years now. Can you please come over and do my estimations? I seem to do much worse after all this time and I know our code base quite well.

Long story short: we all have way not enough in-depth information to know what change might take how long. Please, all of us, do not let shots in the dark appear as if they were based on knowledge.

Pretty much this. We on the outside have limited understanding of what goes on behind the scenes. Depending on the architecture things that seem easy could be difficult and things that are difficult could be easy. Overall what we need to keep in mind is that inherently any new features they add are new, the code might not have been structured to allow for such features (it’s a programming issue, you can’t code for all eventualities since you’re not clairvoyant and it takes too much effort) requiring a lot of changes in a lot of different parts of the code.
Would however be nice to hear from ANet every now and then about how difficult something would or wouldn’t be (since they actually know what’s going on behind the curtain).

Orpheal.8263:

@
And even these Stand Alone games took Anet *6 Months to produce and that under a game engine, technology ect. thats meanwhile 9 years old!!

Shiny pixels are expensive. Just look at the video game market these days… good luck getting more than 10 hours out of a FPS (well outside of multiplayer of course but even that’s basically a handful of maps being played over and over).
Or look at the 1 year content droughts in some other MMOs with much larger budgets and development teams (I’m taking about WoW).
It can be rather frustrating though…

Dusty Moon.4382:

You cannot compare GW1 to GW2. GW1 was an Instanced game, meaning that the maps were isolated for just your party and once the mobs died, they didn’t respawn.

Although GW2 does run on a heavily modified version of the GW1 engine if I’m not mistaken, so some (very limited) comparison is possible at least.

kristof.7182:

What are you talking about? They’re creating mobs and maps not new engine.

Well you see that’s kind the thing. We don’t know if it’s really that simple. We suspect that all they’re doing is creating new mobs and maps and loading them into the game (although modeling, animating and programming those new mobs and maps is already a time consuming process). It could be more complicated.

Ayakaru.6583:

rip serious thread -.-

Thread was already basically knee capped by the subject matter and by the format (too many suggestion in a thread automatically means that most of them will be ignored).

Afyael.1740:

Allowing them to be sold to merchants or salvaged for something would be a good idea but for now its best just to delete them. I keep 4 stacks of each material(1k total) – a decent amount if I want to make something on impulse.

Yeah, keep it account bound but sellable for a few silver. Not a perfect solution (ideally you’d expand the number of uses, add more recipes and stuff but the rate at which ANet adds new ones will never match the rate of mat acquisition) but it’s the easiest to implement.

Romek.4201:

hope arenanet remove this someday

blacklion skins nothing worth anymore

On the bright side their TP prices don’t look all that bad… so the other grind keys while I just have to grind gold!

jctp.9170:

Hi guys, my friends and I have been trying to play GW2 for a while now and never seem to be a high enough level to move on to the next area safely even though we have just completed the previous one; we have also tried crafting. What do you guys do to level? Do we have to do more than just area events and the map’s hearts? Would getting everything on the map level us up to where we need to be?

Still kind of new to the game

All replies are appreciated

Simplest way to level, do map completion. Remember there are several starter areas, so when you’re done with the one go to the other. When you’re around level 60 start doing your Personal Story, that should carrying you all the way to level 80.
Of course this is a bit grindy and boring (I have I leveled most of my alts like this), so I’d rather advise you to take your time, explore the world a bit don’t rushing from heart to heart etc. Since you down-scale you’ll never not get experience from events or mobs.

Ayrilana.1396:

And doing the personal story as you level.

I personally, on my main, used personal story more of a direction as to which area I went to next. The experience is good though, a personal story mission can give you around half the experience needed to level (if I recall).

Pixelpumpkin.4608:

A.k.a. The least fun way to level up ever. Why would you send a newbie through the repetitive and dreary hell of key-farming? They have so many awesome things to discover. Next you’ll send them on the champ train.

Yeah, don’t farm or grind all you’ll do is learn to resent the game (since that’s completely not fun). Besides there’s no real end-game end-game in GW2, so there’s no reason to rush to 80 (other than opening new zones and new PS instances or doing the new LW content).

Mea.5491:

EotM. Always EotM. :P I leveled up 5 times with hearts and random events… Then I tried EotM… I am still kicking myself for not trying it earlier! -_-

EoTM is a massive event grind so it’s effective, but boring! You run in circles in a giant zerg doing the same events over and over.

Morsus.5106:

Do dungeons, complete events, 100% maps, etc. and you ought to be in good shape.

Dungeons aren’t bad, but they unlock only much later on. Still a single dungeon run can give you a pretty big chunk of a level.

DeWolfe.2174:

IF failing an event is more profitable, then it certainly should be allowed.

No, it’s still technically classified as a exploit (potentially). As noted by:

Astral Projections.7320:

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Exploit"
An exploit is the misuse of a software feature or bug in a way that allows a player to generate in-game benefits without the risk or time expected by the game’s designers. It can involve the use of a third-party program and it includes generating currency, experience, or other things of value to players. It also includes actions that allow one player to gain a gameplay advantage over other players.

ArenaNet will temporarily suspend players for using exploits deliberately and permanently suspend those who purposefully and repeatedly make use of them, depending on the severity of their actions".
———————————————————————————————————-

If people are failing events (features) to get ingame benefits (loot) which is more than what the Devs expected from this feature, then it’s an exploit. It is expected that the event run to its scripted conclusion and end. Not run while people purposely avoid the scripted ending and farm loot in excess expected for that event.

They have spelled out the rules, don’t exploit. They have said that exploiting is misusing features of the game. They have banned people in similar situations. What more does anyone need?

They will never spell out specifically what not to do. They never discuss ongoing exploits. For one thing, this gives too many people ideas on how to exploit. A fair number of people are like 2 year olds. You tell a 2 year old, “don’t stick beans up your nose” and it gives him ideas he never thought of before. In addition, if they spell out what not to do, people find something new that ANet didn’t think of then argue that it’s not covered.

If you see something that looks like an exploit, report it. Don’t join in.

BlueZone.4236:

Yet here we are with champ farming, EotM karma train, black lion key farming, as well…
I don’t think failing events counts as an exploit.

just because it’s not presently being enforced doesn’t mean that it’s right…

Vayne.8563:

It is bad game design. There should never be a time when failing an event is more profitable than beating it.

True enough although given the number of events overall it’s understandable that some might be buggy. However since ANet doesn’t have a resident psychic, we as players are suppose to report such exploits and allow ANet to fix them (or not). The issue is of course with the ‘nor not’ part (since players don’t know if they should or shouldn’t, possibly getting a ban).

kokiman.2364:

Astral Projections.7320:

If you see something that looks like an exploit, report it. Don’t join in.

And yet A.net won’t do anything about it. I reported a bunch of them because they affected my gameplay experience. It seems to be an unwritten rule to not defend jofast camp in cursed shore, I did that because it’s easy karma + bags. Guess what happens? Commander tells the farming zerg to stand right next to him to upscale the event to a level where I just couldn’t do anything anymore, me and 3 other guys who tried to do the event were slaughtered and the zerg left. I reported the commander and he never got banned.

Well the question is, are you reporting the right thing? Instead of reporting the commander, you probably should be reporting the event. Also ANet doesn’t ban without investigation (well permanent bans in anycase, looking at you foxfire-farming-botting-bug-thing) and they certainly don’t report to the reporters on whether someone was banned or not.

BlueZone.4236:

I guess you missed where people complained where no one was killing Scarlet anymore because the main zerg was only going for champs.
In any case, I’m not defending their actions. Anet condones it. They participate in it.

Just a general comment. Just because something isn’t being openly condemned doesn’t mean it’s being condones. The same way there are certain laws which my seem silly or stupid and never get enforced, until that one day when that one cop decides he’s going to do so.
For example there’s this stop sign where my mum lives, should by all accounts have been a yield sign since you can clearly see oncoming traffic in both directions (so really no one stop stops there), didn’t stop the traffic cop for randomly enforcing it one day however (luckily I wasn’t the one who got busted).
In other words, just because ANet doesn’t take immediate action doesn’t mean they never will, or that no-one will ever suffer the repercussions.

Well the question is, is Gamescom the sort of event that devs and publishers make large announcement at? If not then expect the usual PR-stuff. If so, then we might learn something new and exciting! But I’m not holding out for the that.

Essence Snow.3194:

If there were a gem shop item that would reseed my account, I’d buy it in a heartbeat.

Assuming of course ANet has a random number generator running for every single account…

nikdik.1934:

This game should go the Diablo 3 route of having random loot but every drop is usable by your class.

Would suck for those of us with alts. Most of my alts have been equipped with items I couldn’t use on my main. Also of course those types of items can potentially net you a couple of gold in the AH.

Manasa Devi.7958:

Recently, I’ve had something happen to me a few times that makes me doubt the RNG. When I click through piles of sand, I sometimes get groupings of 3: 3e geodes from 3 subsequent double-clicks or 3 lockpicks. Both have happened several times.

This could of course happen with a fair and proper RNG, but given the droprates of those things, it should be very unlikely and I wouldn’t expect it to happen several times in a short period of time.

Probably just your perception playing tricks on you. Although I guess if you want to scientifically document it after a few thousand piles of sand we might be able to see a tentative pattern, although we’d ideally look for a far far larger sample size :P

cesmode.4257:

The system actually looks at your forum posts, and based on your positivity in the forums, it favors your chances.

Me…I get…nothing.

I don’t get nothing either, although I don’t think it has anything to do regarding the sentiments expressed on this here forum. Also such a system would be more complicated to implement (to run autonomously) then a better pseudo-RND.

Morsus.5106:

nikdik.1934:

This game should go the Diablo 3 route of having random loot but every drop is usable by your class.

Then playing a light armor class would be more lucrative since that’s how you get silk.

Oh I need silk so much… so I might be seeing the upside to this system…

Fyrebrand.4859:

Kaldrys.1978:

That’s what happens when Anet tries to shoehorn instanced content into an open world setting.

Uh… dungeons say hi. This happens in instanced content as well.

Allelya.6830:

Make it instanced, requiring 15-25 people. Problem solved.

The “solution” is to not have open-world bosses anymore?

This is pretty much what it comes down to. People want raids. The reason for toxic players (as mentioned by OP) is because some players wish to turn the open world content into instanced content and they do so by attempting to chase people away.
In essence the problem is not with ANet wanting to put instance content into the open world, the problem is that players kept asking for harder content and then ANet gave it to them and now it’s so hard that you need to ensure a certain level of participation. I won’t say that chasing players away is necessary, but is certainty does help. Anet could scale the difficulty down and this would solve some of the issues regarding toxicity, but then we’d people asking for difficult content again. Some players won’t be satisfied until GW2 is a raid treadmill.

Lightsbane.9012:

Kaldrys.1978:

That’s what happens when Anet tries to shoehorn instanced content into an open world setting.

going to have to agree. open world raiding relies on tons upon tons of randoms cooperating(my cringe just cringed) and it almost never works out that way.

Not necessarily, I think Marionette was a fairly well balanced open world encounter. It basically broke the cooperation into smaller chunks. Cooperation was mostly broken up into lanes, with the only inter-lane cooperation being that no one should mess up.

In the case of something like Tequatl there isn’t such a clear distinction, you have those dps-ing tequatl, you have the turrets taking off stacks and cleansing the dps-ers and you have the defenders defending the turrets. A failure at any point means an overall failure. The defense phase is a bit more in line with what we saw at marionette.

In marionette it was basically defend the lane (which doesn’t require any support from another different group) and then attack the bosses (which doesn’t require any support again). It was a large open world event, but the cooperation was kept small scale (sort of).

Lady Deedra.3126:

Keep doing what you’re doing. If they don’t like you playing your game how you want to play it then its really just too bad.

A good piece of advice.

RoxBuryNine.4210:

Two nights ago I was mapping Sparkfly Fen with my Sylvari Ranger. I happened to be on the map when players were organizing for Tequatl. All I saw in map chat was general banter and people asking others to come and help. I never saw any rudeness whatsoever. There was also a guild group exploring the area and doing bounties. My Ranger stopped mapping to participate in Tequatl’s event. Tequatl was defeated, not once but twice, because a guild spawned him right after the regular event. It was a lot of fun.

Later in the evening, I returned to Sparkfly Fen as players were organizing for another Tequatl run. Again, no rudeness, no yelling, no cussing. So, my Ranger participated in three successful Tequatl events, got lots of boxes, and finished mapping the zone without ever experiencing any of the allegations cited in the OP. Just lucky, I guess.

Then he went to Bloodtide Coast just in time to load near where the Cobalt Wurm spawns. I got some Egg Scrambler achievement. That event was a disaster but no one was yelling or cussing. Again, I must have been lucky running into players having fun.

I have run into rude players before and they do taint your play. I either block them or try to get on another map if they’re really toxic.

What region are you in? Generally I’ve had no problems on the EU servers, although I am hardly ever around in those maps at those times.

Dakota.4591:

Ben K.6238:

There’s another Pale Tree out there. But rather than Ventari’s tablet, it has Mordremoth. It’s sending Malyck to say hello.

(And hopefully the Pale Tree sends the Iron Legion to say hello back with hundreds of flamethrowers. Can’t wait for that boss fight.)

Knowing ANet, the flamethrowers are stationary and you spam 2 to fire them.

Haha… ANet makes 1 kitten end-boss fight and people never let them forget about it :P

chemiclord.3978:

I dunno. I honestly think an easier solution to implement would be to remove capitol cities (and other non-combat zones) from the Megaserver system. I think that would also help guild and WvW recruitment as well.

A sort of “selective culling” would probably take a lot more effort on the development side than you think.

Yeah, my thinking as well. Since you practically can’t do anything of importance (no events and such) in the capital cities the inclusion on the megaserver was always a bit odd. I guess they didn’t want new players walking around a ghost town.

However a better solution would probably be to allow players to provide criteria for their megaserver sorting. At present the variables used are not user provided (language, region, guild, home server etc). Allowing players to go into their setting and select ‘please sort me with other RP-ers’ would be a nice addition and potentially allow for future scalability (so you can eventually adding more options).

Beldin.5498:

CureForLiving.5360:

Beldin.5498:

WoW 2.0 is already out and has “killed” GW2 .. so who cares about WoW 1.6 .. lol

Wait I’m confused? Wasn’t WoW 2.0 Buring Crusade? And what was 1.6… Blackwings Lair right? http://www.wowwiki.com/Patch_1.6.0
I don’t really see why anyone would be interested in WoW 2.0 anymore.
Unless you tried using the numbers in some sort of a ‘witty’ fashion, in which case I have no idea what you mean.

WoW 2.0 -> Wildstar .. WoW in Space

1.6 or 1.7 .. whatever was just a generic number because its maybe expansion 6 or 7
of WoW 1.0 (original not Wildstar, but older .. thus 1.0)

I need to get out more (in a non-literal sense) haven’t been perusing the MMO sites like I use to. Thanks for clarifying that. Most of the reviews of wildstar I’ve heard (I’m not really into sub-games) have been a bit mixed so I didn’t really ever perceive it as being a GW2 killer.

Curunen.8729:

GW2 camera and targeting is still kitten.

Hopefully by GW3 they can drop this archaic targeting/camera system for full action combat. I’m not asking for a TPS, but manual aiming of skills, soft lock targeting of skills (such as mass effect did with powers) and so on. I’m aware ESO has this, but I’ll wait for that to go f2p/b2p before trying it.

Yeah, the current combat system does feel like ANet decided: ok we want action combat but let’s not go full action combat because that might scare away the usually MMO crowd. Of course it’s not a bad system, I think most of the issues are in how encounters are designed more than how players ability and skills function.

ocirne.7915:

Being able to attack and move without pause removes a massive amount of the positioning decisions from the game that could have added a lot of depth.

Instead of: “Hey, I’m standing in AoE but my target is almost dead, should i take some more damage to attack once more or get out of the AoE right now?”,
Its “non stop kiting and circling and spamming skills.”

Nah, the positioning thing (recalling my wow days) really didn’t add much depth, encounters were so predictable (by design of course) that positioning became little more than learning a set of steps. The GW2 system adds a bit more dynamic-ness into the mix, constantly having to move, being aware of surrounding dangers, ensuring you dodge out of AOE etc. I guess it’s a matter of taste really, but I never found “stand here, oh look fire, move a bit to the left” to be all that engaging (although it might also have been WoW habit to turn all dps into an fixed ability rotation).

Beldin.5498:

Smith.1826:

And I find the amount of movement in GW2 to be just as non-immersive. More importantly, it’s what makes the game feel closer to WoW to me than any other action game or RPG.

Ehhhmmm .. what ? The movement makes you feel like a game where everything
roots you … why other games that root you are better than a game that roots you ?

Next you tell us the graphics from GW2 remind you at WoW and Dragons Nest
has the most natural graphics .. lol

I don’t think immersion is the right word to be using in this conversation, rather engagement. Small difference, really but immersion relates to the blurring of the boundary between you and the game (so this involves a lot more than mechanics) while engagement relates to ones interest and involvement (how does one define engagement other than to say engage?) with the mechanics. Of course these definitions are more my own view than anything else.

Vayne.8563:

Why do people make statements like this?

It’s called black and white / dichotomous thinking or splitting. I haven’t found too many really useful discussions on the subject (mostly you’d find it come up in relation to depression and bi-polar), but for the most part it is characterised by only thinking of things at the extremes (no gray areas). It also goes hand in hand with a over simplification of things (thus allowing for it to be thought of in the extremes).

In such a way of thinking a statement such as: GW1 an expansion or it will fail, would comfortable fit in.

Beldin.5498:

WoW 2.0 is already out and has “killed” GW2 .. so who cares about WoW 1.6 .. lol

Wait I’m confused? Wasn’t WoW 2.0 Buring Crusade? And what was 1.6… Blackwings Lair right? http://www.wowwiki.com/Patch_1.6.0
I don’t really see why anyone would be interested in WoW 2.0 anymore.
Unless you tried using the numbers in some sort of a ‘witty’ fashion, in which case I have no idea what you mean.

Neurochazm.5370:

I for one can’t wait for the WoW expansion, not to play it of course, I won’t go back to WoW ever. I detest it so much now I deleted every single one of my Lvl 90 Characters & gave away everything I had.
I’m hoping all the people that want to turn GW2 into WoW will leave & let those of us who love GW2 play in peace.

Problem is WoW has a very bad habit of having long content droughts. At release it probably has enough content to satisfy a casual player maybe a month or two? Oh they get some life out of the old gal by releasing new raid content, but that too has a release schedule that can’t satify the hardcore crowd for long.
What I’m saying is with GW2 being a b2p those players will probably just return after they’ve chewed through all the content.

Naus the Gobbo.5172:

Don’t diss the moo-moos. They’re hawt.

Not as hawt as some of those charr ladies :P

HHR LostProphet.4801:

Sooo… am I right or am I right? The Sylvari can be corrupted by Mordremoth and it’s already in them. For now it seems like the Pale Tree is fighting the corruption (as glint was fighting Kralkatorrik). No clue that the nightmare court is the direct outcome of the corruption of Mordremoth but it isn’t that far off either.

Well if you could point me to some of your previous posts that would help in me knowing your right-ness.
Although Sylvari can be corrupted there is so far no indication that the corruption is in them, or for that matter that the Pale Tree is actively fighting the corruption in anyway that could resembled Glint. So (lacking previous posts I’m going to guess as to your intentions) we don’t have explicit evidence of the Pale Tree being Mordy’s champ. Not yet anyway :P

EDIT: didn’t see your edit

Shiren.9532:

Technically the PC did develop during season two (one?) it just happened off screen.

Angel McCoy.1832:

The whole “Commander” topic is another discussion entirely.

Bottom line is that, at the beginning of the Pact (almost 2 years ago in-game time), you were “The Commander.” After Zhaitan was killed, the Pact continued on and you went off into the world to do stuff. At that point, other commanders were brought on, and you become “A Commander.” And you became a commander who had lots of other things to do besides running an army that was repairing, preparing, and stocking up for the next big battle with the Elder Dragons. We could not build a story on that alone, not a good one that made sense, not considering where we want the story to take you. Any time anyone calls you “The Commander” now, it’s someone being nostalgic. It’s perhaps more correct to say you were “The First Commander.” That helps us explain why you’ve been running around the world saving people as opposed to being locked in a war room with Trahearn. I’ll see what I can do to get this explanation into the game.

Similar to Mordremoth’s reveal happening off screen, to me this development happening off screen was really bad. Not only does it not make sense and has no supporting context (imo) but it’s arguably one of the most significant character development moments/decisions in GW2, and we only know about it because of the forums. When the writers of the current story thought it was OK to reveal Mordremoth off-screen then dramatically alter the PC’s role in Tyria off screen simply because it didn’t fit that writer’s vision for the story they wanted to tell, it’s very concerning about how the story of the game is being handled.

Stuff really shouldn’t happen off screen, especially not to the PC (our characters!)

Personality is still technical there, just with the changes to the UI brought on with the wardrobe system the UI no longer shows it. Of course it’s not like it was ever a thing. I do agree that having some variety in the dialog would help a bit with the R of MMORPG, but so far ANet has oddly been trying to keep their dialog trees as simplistic as possible (thus the next – next – next thing).

This is ideally what agile development is about, but although ANet states they follow an agile methodology… well in the agile methodology you have constant customer feedback to ensure you meet the customers needs. Well ANet doesn’t have an open beta so the first time most players see the content is on release, in which feedback is given. now in agile this feedback is intended to guide the development and refinement.

However I think ANet perceives a release not in terms of a service but in terms of a product. What do I mean? Well lets take a book for example. You write a book and then you sell the book, the product is no longer under your control. You can still make changes but these changes will only appear future product versions. Maybe a movie is a better example, think of it as the difference between the cinema edition and the directors cut edition. Changes can be made but there still conceptually a difference between the one and the other.
Classically software and video games were treated less like tangible products but there was still a line drawn. For example things like service packs or updates could allow for changes but since the software ran independently on people computers (because it was sold as a stand alone product) the creators didn’t have the ability to ensure all versions of their product was at the same version.
There’s also the nature of projects to consider, each episode is probably considered a project in and of itself. They might follow and agile approach but once the product (episode) has been releases it’s on to the next project and only bug fixes are made (in line with the stand-alone software product idea).

For something to work like OP suggestions will require ANet to change their mindset regarding episodes and content as being products (once delivered only bug fixes are allowed) and rather as a service, something that’s continuously being provided which they have full control over what the player can or can’t see. In such a mindset none of the episodes will ever be officially completed, they’d always be open for refinement, tuning and expansion. When an episode is released feedback is gathered (on more than just the bugs) and plans are made to change the already released episodes. However this does make thing difficult to manage, so usually change and expansion is treated like a separate project with a start and an end, and when comparing what needs to be done (new episodes) with what could be done (adding a few lines of dialog, or some text or a new section to existing episodes) the new content will always win out.

Yossitaru.3045:

I’m not entirely sure that Jennah’s death would completely destabilize the humans. It would certainly be a huge morale killer, but the Krytan government would be thrown completely into disarray. There’s several ministers, as well as the whole of the Shining Blade. Day to day politics would most likely continue as usual, with most likely Master Exemplar Countess Anise standing in for Jennah. Government infighting will probably escalate slowly (though more quickly than it is currently when rumors spread), but no mass hysteria would break out since the death of the Queen is probably something they’d want to try to keep secret until contingencies can be carried out.

What exactly does Jennah do except appear at events and stay in a big fancy house? It seems to my Jennah is like the British royalty.

Yossitaru.3045:

If Scarlet is the standard for high ranking Mordrem, then we very well may be in huge trouble. She was able to gather power of most of the antagonist groups; Inquest, Flame Legion and Nightmare Court; as well as asuran colleges and charr engineering groups.

Well I guess things have changed a bit since then, sure the Nightmare Court, Flame Legion and Inquest are all rather evil but they’re also at threat from the Elder Dragons. If they knew they were actively working for an ED they might not have joined up.
Although yeah the potential danger of hidden agents is rather… scary.

Shiren.9532:

The latest trailer seems to suggest that is a possibility.If they were to have a summit gathering the world’s leaders, why make it take place in the home city of the one race we know Mordremoth can corrupt without any physical signs of corruption? Why have it in a location so close to Maguuma?

The Sylvari ahaven’t finished building a flowerpot big enough to hold the Pale Tree yet :P

Shiren.9532:

Elder Dragons in general are described as viewing the races of Tyria as ants, they don’t really think about them. It would seem strange for Mordremoth to care about human, norn, charr or asuran politics. I’m not even convinced it would care about sylvari politics. I find the “you’re just ants” portrayal of dragons to be really boring, so I’d like them to be more calculating, but so far I don’t think we’ve seen them portrayed as master planners or big thinkers.

We don’t know if dragons are intelligent and not just animals fueled to base desires (mostly eating) and driven by primitive emotions (hate, anger etc.). In the case of Zhaitan every single time the Risen demonstrate any form of complex tactics or behavior they are always accompanied by a high level Risen.
Now of course this doesn’t mean they are stupid animals (although I’m personally more prone to thinking of them that way), but what is certain tells us is that the ED champions are responsible for the majority of tactics and complex plans. So either the EDs are intelligent and they send their champions to oversee the field work or they’re not and the champions act autonomously in service to their masters overarching goals (mostly corrupting and eating).
What this means is that if Mordy has a particularly bright champion hiding somewhere it’s not impossible for that champion to come up with a plan that involves political maneuvers. As an example in the personal story we see a Mesmer Risen framing you for shelling Pack troops in order to destabilize the Pack command structure. http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Shell_Shock

C – I wouldn’t mind more classes, but I’m not sure kickstarter is the way to go.

clarkcd.6532:

I find that by turning down the number of characters drawn I can max all other settings and not have any FPS issues.

Same here, for general PvE turning down character limit works, for WvW turning down character quality might sometimes be requires to ensure optimal FPS (depending on zerg size of course).

Well (lacking some examples) I’m not exactly sure how well it would fit into the current armor system. A ring or amulet wouldn’t be too difficult but it would probably get covered by your cloves, same for a necklace. But I guess anything to help make your character visually distinct.

Omar Aschi Popp.7496:

Wow…

Always the topics that are actually interesting and don’t have to do with RNG/hate-of-the-week just get lost in the shuffle.

115 views and no-ones got any input?
I could start a(nother) topic about how I hate Cashmere and Majoram, and BAM instant replies.

My timezones +2, 16 hours ago I was asleep :P

ghtchill.7613:

Interesting. Perhaps Braham gets taken out while saving Taimi, possibly in a history repeating itself scenario. Eir apparently couldn’t save another Asura (cant remember the name) with Destiny’s Edge, perhaps this time her son does save Taimi, but doesn’t make it out alive? Just a thought…

The other scene seems to feature a group of 5 players. Possibly open world, or even dungeon type instance requiring a 5 man group?

Snaff. And for that to work (i.e. history repeating itself) Taimi is the one who needs to die
Also Braham would need a bit more characterization before we kill him off, you know get us to really become emotionally invested in the big guy.

I See No Tomorrow.7302:

Rym.1469:

Whenever I see more Inquest and magitech I yawn. Such boredom.

Besides, when will we see the dragon himself? I seriously doubt that the last scene of trailer (something getting closer to NPCs) is Mordy, more like one, bigger vine or flower or something. Do we have to wait for the end battle to see who are we even fighting with ?

Well to be fair, we didn’t see Zhaitan until a few minutes before we killed it. Why do you expect we’ll somehow confront Mordy so soon and fully?

Besides, it’s been established that the vines attacking waypoints are Mordy itself. So in a way, you already have seen our newest leafy dragon friend.

At the very least we have to see him once, maybe even try and kill him but fail just to ensure we know that this isn’t going to be more confetti-business. Mordy shouldn’t be the one running away we should!

Ok that’s a lot of text, so I didn’t read too many of the posts but any regarding the problems mentioned by OP.

Problem 1: I’ll admit this is true, ANet could have done a slightly better job of justifying why we’re with them. I think the problem is simply that during S1 we didn’t really see or feel us and the biconics growing together forming a group. Maybe because our characters never (well basically never) talk so we’ve been mostly passively viewing events as they occurred during S1. We stumble upon Rox and Braham, we stumble across Majory and Kasmeer, we stumble across Taimi (although I will admit the Braham and Taimi interplay was well handled). We do a lot of things with them but given the format of S1 (not a lot of story instances I’m afraid) our characters don’t really interact with the biconics and thus for us as players there is no real reason why we’re with them (as OP said).

The fix for this is rather simple: give us a proper S1 in the new S2 format with story instances and lots of dialogue which shows and details how our characters came to join the biconics. This isn’t such a big issue with the current S2 content (since we start off already established as being a in a group) but we’re missing the prelude, the foundation of how we became part of that group. And again there are several reason why players might feel this way (how story was handled in S1, the mute PCs etc.) but it is fixable.

tl,dr: give us a S1 in the format of S2 that properly tells the story of how we joined the biconics.

Problem 2: Loved the little sketch lol. Yeah have to admit this is a problem and I’m not seeing how this can be fixed within the current or previous living story narrative. But the fix isn’t that hard. Something like mission packs, small chunks of content set during the period of LW S1 (that is year 1326) that shows us actively taking part in pack missions (maybe a hour or two’s worth of content, some achievements etc.) or even order missions.
These mission could be things such as: helping to clear out Orr of some remaining risen champions, helping to restock the warfronts against the other dragons etc. or order specific missions such gathering intelligence for the OoW or raiding some tomes for the Priory etc. This would allow ANet to demonstrate that although not fully active we were still part of the packs and orders and give ANet an opportunity to reintroduce some characters from the Personal Story.

tl,dr: Mission Packs for the Packs / Orders set during S1.

Problem 3: Yes at present we’re not really exploring the world or the people in it. The biconics could be changed (given more dialogue) to flesh out the world a bit but since the narrative is currently set in Dry Top (mostly) we’re only able to learn more about dry top.
Possibly the mission pack idea could work here as well, we might also have racial mission packs, so if you’re a Charr you get missions from your Tribune to go and go things, and again giving ANet an opportunity to introduce some new characters or old ones and explore the world a bit.

tl,dr: Don’t really have a good answer for this one except more mission packs for the racial factions

Problem 4 :I don’t actually think this is a problem. Not having major characters in the biconics isn’t really a problem for me. But I think what you’re getting at is not the importance of the biconics in the world of tyria but the importance of the biconics in the narrative (or so I’m guessing from the Luke Skywalker thing). We’ve seen some of that being done in episode 1 where we see Kasmeer and Majory use their unique gifts to help us process and move forward. It’s a small thing at the moment but I think more of this would help to turn them from random hangers-on to important characters in the narrative.

tl,dr: Give the biconics things to do that make them useful.

Problem 5: You gave a good suggestion yourself :P Although this is something that can still be turned around though, although the biconics are underdogs we don’t have to be. It’s just that (particularly in the current episode) we Kasmeer, Braham, Taimi and Rox to do the diplomatic thing. This could have been changed to instead have us accompany them to see the racial leaders and having them acknowledge our status and roles. The Pale Tree sort of did this, although it was a bit on the small scale to really carry across the feeling of our importance.

Problem 6: ANet simply needs to change how they portray the characters, although I don’t fully agree with the analog (although I do see the resemblance).

Levistis.8356:

I do wonder if we’ll get to see Mordremoth, maybe that is his shadow overcoming the grove? Please yes Anet.

Doubtful current lore seems to indicate that Mordy is literally planted into the earth (all those way point vines are growing out of his body).

Sodeni.6041:

I knew it: the pale tree is the target of mordremoth. Seemed obvious to me anyhow…

Could be an coincidence, maybe the summit is the true target.

Nihilus.3015:

or OR she gathered them together for Mordremoth to kill

No we gathered them because we’re secretly Mordy’s champions (so secret we don’t even know about it!) :P

No just an attempt to create a slightly different aesthetic. Would have been boring if all of Orr was exactly the same.

saventis.1485:

the thing u speak to is the avatar of the pale tree… i dont think u can really kill the pale tree…

Give me some gasoline and some matches…

Rym.1469:

I’m curious about the other Imperators of Charr.

Are they out of the story? Smodur can speak for the Iron, but I believe he’s not decisive. By our mother Logic, he’s only able to manage the forces of Iron Legion.

He can be kind of emissary, but I seriously doubt that Blood Legion, especially, would let Smodur decide about their troops.

If we’re trying to gather all the leaders, shouldn’t we invite Blood and Ash Legions’ leaders to the summit?

Putting Smodur as the decisive of Charr would be a serious step for him in a way of becoming Khan-Ur. If I were a Charr leader, I would never let him do so.

Smodur is in possession of the Claw of the Khan-Ur which he received when he brokered peace between charr and humans. This put him into a position of basically being the Khan-Ur (sort of, having the claw is only part of becoming the Khan-Ur) although he hasn’t officially claimed the title yet. Either way he has a lot of sway over the legions. Of course since we’ve seen basically nothing of the Ash Legion or Blood Legion homeland (or their leaders) I think it’s save to assume he’ll be doing the speaking for them.

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Smodur_the_Unflinching

JusticarArkiel.1564:

ummm…….im not a lore person, so i can’t be even 50% sure, but isnt imperator pretty much the “leader of the charr race because we dont want a khan-ur” rank? kinda like a general while the tribunes are his commanders? could be wrong, just what ive taken from what he’s said and what others ingame and in the forums have said

The Charr have the largest combined armies and territories of all the player races (although the Charr as a race aren’t a united nation or force). What we see in game is only the Iron Legions territory (Ascalon). From what I can tell each region / legion has an Imperator and the tribunes govern their particular legion within the other legions territory.
Smodur is probably the highest ranked because he has the Khan-Ur.

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Charr#Government

Anmida.4058:

… This just made me actually think. The logic behind the main character and Destiny’s Edge 2.0 is…

“Boss! They are targetting world leaders, and we do not know which!”
“Quickly! Gather all of them in a single place with minimal reinforcement!”

I’m telling you we’re secretly being manipulated by Mordy… we did go into the crazy box after all…

EDIT: Just watched the new trailer so spoilers, seem the meeting is going to be attacked.

Erukk.1408:

Image attached. Jip appears yellow, but one could argue that the ambient lighting and artistic style could account for that.

Shiren.9532:

I
As others have noted, Mordremoth’s reach is really the only impressive thing about it. So far the areas of impact are relatively small, but the distance they cover is not. It’s still very isolated and personally I think Mordremoth’s corruption is the least threatening. Zhaitan corrupted the dead, Jormag corrupts the living, same with Kralkatorrik. Mordremoth strangles you, it doesn’t even feel like corruption tbh.

The ability to by pass any land or air based defenses and pop up in the middle of your troops or cities. Yeah, that’s something that needs to be dealt with.
As for his corruption… well looking at the http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Mordrem_Wolf I’m not sure all he does is strangle.

Kalavier.1097:

CureForLiving.5360:

Well Scarlet did give him a nice leyline breakfast, so that might have helped. However in terms of strengths we’ve not seen Mordy being all dangerous yet. All he’s done is spawn a couple of mobs in Dry Top, wrap his tentacles around some waypoints and send a little invasion force to ascalon (although not a particularly big one).

Yeah, missing the assault on the mining town that killed a good chunk of the people there.

The destruction of Fort Salma and Concordia…

And “The little force in ascalon” has some pretty huge vines involved.

In my defense no one really cared all that much about Fort Salma and Concordia, Mordy basically did them a favour by landscaping it a bit :P

Wanderer.3248:

Scarlet is a massive reversal in what a dragon minion is, in terms of story, plot and lore, appearance, actions, motives, personality, demeanour. If they’d given a dragon minion a leather jacket and put it on water skis it could hardly have made a less jarring disconnect.

In the human personal story we see a human soldier (forgot his name) that’s being slowly corrupted by Zhaitan. He’s driven mad and acts out of character but for the most part isn’t directly being controlled by Zhaitan (although he sure wasn’t working against him). He systematically seeks out a cure for his condition and even spoiler seeks to kill Jennah to cure himself.
Granted not a perfect fit but we do have examples of corrupted working relatively independently and performing relatively complicated tasks. Usually though it seems that the corruption catches up to them too quickly, so their sanity does hold out that well.

Rhaegar.1203:

Times are real sad if we have to justify it for the writers/designers every time a complaint like this arises. It’s one of the main problems I have with GW2, the story is not engaging because it lacks urgency or drama.

Not really a justification so much as a counter point.

justkoh.4073:

In the race select screen, the option to make our new characters Sylvari will be removed.

Well lore wise new Sylvari exist in the past, so no not really.

MaesterTed.6571:

Yargesh.4965:

We can see an ancient pale tree in the new zone, they seen to coincide with the dragons waking from the little I have seen. If it dies the magic it holds would be fair game to the dragons.

Do you happen to have a screenshot?

Wouldn’t mind one either, this could be massive lore-wise.

gamersuman.6943:

Beldin.5498:

gamersuman.6943:

“During character creation, the Commando must state what Call of Duty game they prefer.” Is this sarcasm or real lol?

Just read the “note” on top of the page ^^

kitten Anet got me. On serious note, are there actually any new class coming?

No one except ANet knows the answer and they’re not telling.

Oh we’ve had this discussion regarding ANet transparency several times. ANet seems to be allergic to announcing things.

FrostSpectre.4198:

Well, we’re still waiting for the fixes for Megaserver, them being:

• Megaserver selection list (GW1 District selection) to choose map copy to enter. (Propably simplified to “Mixed” and “Home”.)
• Reconnect feature (GW1 Reconnect) to help players to reconnect to the last map they were before disconnect or crash.
• Queue system (Re-introduced, used to be old GW2 function with overflows) to help players to join other maps through their party or Megaserver selector.
• Better sorting parameters, since players in parties have experienced serious splitting of party into different map copies, among other inconveniences…

Tri-Wurm, on otherhand requires over hour to organize. Having better control on choosing map copy, would make it easier to do.

Well for these world bosses we do need a better system (no idea what though). Not sure queues/selection would work since we’d again run headlong into the issues of some servers just being full. Better sorting algorithms would work but that’s not exactly a definite solution either.

MrIllusion.5304:

I previously posted my suggestion on Reddit. Might as well repost here.

Assuming that Anet is philosophically opposed to giving guilds direct ownership of an instance:

1) expand the squad size for commanders to 100 or 120 or whatever magical number.

2) give commanders the ability zone into an area wih everyone in his squad.

3) if the commander’s squad is under the cap of an existing map, then zone into that map.

4) if the commanders squad cannot be squeezed into an existing map, then create a new one.

I was informed that squads have a limitation where you have to be in the same map. So this has to be addressed first.

Not sure how effectively that resolves the issue, something like this should be implemented if only to steamline the logistical issues of getting everyone on one map but it doesn’t fix the issues with some maps simply not having enough people because everyone else is in the full maps.

Darkobra.6439:

For every person who complains about not being able to join someone else’s work, they could have joined up and did it themselves. You all just sit in another server spamming join instead of trying to do it yourself.

Make your own guild, get people in that map, start organising amongst yourselves and you will do what “only three guilds” have managed to do.

Bah with your suggestion! ANet should fix / tweak / streamline everything so I don’t have to do anything :P

As a software developer I can promise you that “when it’s done” is some sort of fabled mystical country that you’ll never come to know of. Deadlines are important since (even if harsh) give people goals to work towards.
That being said I would be willing to wait longer for more comprehensive and verbose LW content patches. Although I’m sure ANet works on content for more than 2 weeks having a 2 week breaking schedule means you’re basically constantly on the death march (because I know a piece of software is never done, it never stops being tweaked or modified or improved up until release).
However I do prefer these rapid content releases (a 2 week release schedule is already barely holding my attention), but I also want higher quality, more verbose releases… wish I could have it both ways…

Alerno.1425:

They really should boost the rewards of bosses that take ten times longer to kill.
Why would anyone kill the giant when they can kill multiple champions in the same time frame and thus get much more loot and bigger chance of nice items.

And I’m not talking about giving and extra champion bag. The chance for rare loot should be much higher on legendary opponents.

I’m contributing to this myself. Out of fear that in the future T4 will be impossible to achieve (player already having moved on to the newer content) I’m farming geodes for recipes. If I don’t do sand giant and rather go: dust mite farm → haze → dev queen → dust mite farm → haze → hostile dust mite (and maybe a skritt burglar if I’m lucky) I make (at T3) 46 geodes (at T4 60). If I go Sand Giant and kill him (if I’m so lucky) I get 8 / 10 geodes (T3/T4) and a rare bonus chest.
Guess where I’m farming like mad to get those recipes before the T4 death knell comes…

Carighan.6758:

It just totally breaks immersion for me. I know there’s lots of other players around. I mean come on, it’s why I’m playing a MMORPG instead of a single-player RPG in the first place.

Nothing ANet can do about your out of game meta-cognition of the fact that you’re playing an MMO I’m afraid :P
Also players were complaining about not feeling like a hero, and now players are complaining that they feel like a hero. Catch-22 I guess.

daros.3407:

Agree. Story needs to remain in instances. I don’t want anyone around my story it takes away immersion. This chapter is just one big zerg run. Nothing more, nothing interesting.

I think it can be done better, but I’m not sure completely removing it is the better options. I’d rather say they attempt to change how you interact with NPC in the open world, or how you react to other players. What I’m saying is, lets try some innovation before returning to the same-old-same-old.

Asmodeus.5782:

If an MMO’s mechanics are able to comfortably accomodate dozens of players in one event, it’s fine. But if a zerg removes any need for tactics and and thinking, replacing it with mashing autoattack, then the MMO should stick to the mix of moderately large groups and instances.

If I have to type “Attack the small tentacles first” I’m going to… well probably not do anything. But I’d be extremely annoyed! And that’s just for a single small event.
Zerg tactics… currently it’s feeling like a oxymoron. Did a tripple worm pug earlier (I was leveling an alt in the area). No one knew the tactics, just aimlessly running around. In fact iuf my time in other MMOs (primarily WoW) has taught me anything is that MMOs aren’t synonymous with tactical fun.
Most MMO encounters are about rote-learning. Events that require dynamic reaction would be a horrible failure. The zerg content is difficult to balance as a simple auto-attack spam isn’t very engaging but something that requires more complicated tasks tends to fail when a noticeable portion of the zerg isn’t following tactics. These encounters tend to thus go 1 of 2 ways: very easy (no need for strategic complexity thus majority of the zerg can be clueless) or very difficult (where strategic complexity is requires and having clueless zergers leads to failure).

ShinjoNaomi.1896:

Have you actually fought any of the Mordem Champions in the Iron Marches? You stand there, stupidly ‘mashing autoattack’ as you say, and the vines that come out of the ground will down you, then a short time later, kill you with zero chance of rallying.

Well at least the one event requires you to kill the vines when they popup, others require you to constantly be moving (oh man I hate those vines that follow you, sometimes dodging works other times they just keep coming). So these are overall on the easy side of zerg content spectrum but have an added element of individual strategy.

Katai.6240:

I don’t understand why everyone wants everything to be instanced. It sort of takes away the point of being an MMO, doesn’kitten

Instanced content allows you to control who you bring along, this means that if you have zerg content that falls on the hard side you can ensure that everyone knows the tactics at least, otherwise other players who don’t know the tactics join, scale up the difficulty but don’t bring any benefit.
Although I don’t agree with instancing the content as a solution, I think content should be better designed (as we’re slowly seeing ANet do).

Manasa Devi.7958:

And then Eir compliments you for doing all of it alone. Laugh out Loud! Immersion needed a mercy killing at that point.

That’s actually called ludonarrative dissonance. But yay it can be immersion breaking.

Ravion Hawk.4736:

Now you are on Chapter 3 and you have to do Open World Group Event stuff to progress any further.

NOBODY is playing LS: S2: C3 and trolls just pop up and scale up the events.

That’s a scaling issue, content that is required for progression should be solo-able but also scale to zerg levels (in fact almost all content except dedicated group content should do this. In an ideal world). At present I think this is the case actually.

SweDreams.6984:

So my friend just recently got back into Guild Wars 2, which has been exciting. However, she’s found herself unable to enjoy the living story bbecause for some reason it will not unlock for her, despite being online for this segment. She’s under the impression that she needs to buy the previous chapters in order to play the current chapter of the living story.

Is this the case? Because if it is, that’s ridiculous. What sort of reward is that for returning players? Sure, at some point she might wanna see the beginning, but should she not be allowed to play the content she’s here for -now- without a pay gate?

Someone please tell me this is some sort of glitch or mistake on her end. Anet, is this truly the business model you’re now presenting us?

She couldn’t perhaps upload a screenshot of the story window?
But yeah, if she wasn’t around for the previous episodes than they won’t be available, but this current episode should be available.

Morsus.5106:

CureForLiving.5360:

I don’t think lazy is the correct word. Certainly it would take a lot of effort to revamp Ascalon, probably months worth of effort…

Ghosts are so integral to the plot they couldn’t remove them. They could remove them story wise. Since Zhaitan is technically dead, the risen are becoming weaker and dying out. Instead, we see the pact losing temples because the players failed to defend it. I think even if they removed the Foefire, we would still see the ghosts because they are so integral to the experience for players playing through for the first time.

It would create a large tonal shift, and change the the general feel of the zone. Which I guess would be a bit of a waste.
Although I do think it’s possible to have partial successes. Adding new events chains in which we partially cleanse an area (much like how we capture Temples in Orr, and just as temporary). It would at least create the feel of Ascalon being cleansed without having to remove all the ghosts, hearts and events.

I also though they could add new ascalonian maps that show this cleansing, much like how I always wanted Anet to add new Orrian maps that also depicted it being cleansed (new maps that progressively have less Risen and more green meadows). Although unlike Orr (which is only half explorable) I don’t see a lot of extra room for new maps in Ascalon http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/File:Tyria_map_with_zones.jpg

Zaxares.5419:

The old style wasn’t BAD, but I like the new style much better. I think the main advantage of the old cutscene style was being able to hear your character talk, something that’s missing in the new style.

The new style is better in principle but is currently less refined than the old style (unable to skip dialogue, no player character dialogue). I would have preferred that ANet use the old system until they got the new system up to the same level of functionality.

zityz.6089:

Here’s what I say to Arena Net; Keep both. There is a good time and place for the 1 vs 1’s like when talking to Rylock for example. However when showing an overall over arcing cut scene spanning a larger sense of what’s going on, keep the “new” style and the flashy cut scenes as well.

I know in some ways the “new” style is somewhat easier but I find from an artistic stand point there isn’t anything wrong with the old way of doing it either. It only means more VO for the story character more so than art work.

In essence I do agree with you, although the reason why the removed it is because player (presumably the majority) felt otherwise. I think outright removing it was probably a bit hasty, I’d have preferred it if they played around with it and attempted to address some of the issues players had with it (although some of those issues did relate to the very concepts underlying the old system).

JayMack.8295:

I miss my characters talking, sure, but the old style personal story and dungeon cutscenes were just awkward and uninteresting to look at, in my opinion.

Visually they were interesting, although the lacked a lot of context (you could only see two people, so you didn’t know who was there, the character animations and interactions were rather limited so you couldn’t tell the story via actions etc.) however the new system lacks a certain cinematic quality. Because I control the camera during most of the dialog I still more often than not don’t see what people are doing, and since it’s all zoomed out I don’t see a lot of expressions or animations so again the means of story telling is limited only to big actions (go where, attack etc.). Honestly I kinda wish ANet would wrestle the camera away from me and give me a close up view of the characters talking and interacting.

darkace.8925:

How is the problem is technological?

Word of god (well word of ANet) is that it’s technical issues (most likely they’re having issues fire off dialog, and dialogue bubbles from our PCs or something equavalent). Remember initially Anet used a different system for character interaction so they never built the underlying architecture of features to support our characters talking and interacting outside of the puppet theater.

Kurrilino.2706:

The chat box click through makes the dialog uninteresting ????
The nice parts are when the characters actually talking.

In my case limited options and simplistic dialogue trees make the chat box clicking uninteresting. Having only one dialogue option isn’t very engaging. The value of non-voiced over text boxes is that you can go into detail and depth (since text is cheap compared to VA work).

kta.6502:

It’s not appropriate for the US market due to how folks in this part of the world communicate. We Americans …

You do realize body language is a common communication trait among the human species? It’s subconscious, instinctual. Same goes for looking at faces, you see our faces show a lot of emotions so looking at them during communication is pretty standard as far as humans are concerned. A smile in Bangladesh doesn’t look all that different from a smile in Holland. Tone of voice is also pretty universal, trust me shouting is shouting.
Humans actually have a very small gene-pool I’m afraid, and we’re not particularly genetically varied. You and I for example only vary about 0.1 percent. Which I’m afraid renders us similar in many regards including how we communicate.
http://science.education.nih.gov/supplements/nih1/genetic/guide/genetic_variation1.htm
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/1416706/DNA-survey-finds-all-humans-are-99.9pc-the-same.html

Ah if only that volcano didn’t explode, things might have been a lot more interesting… http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toba_catastrophe_theory

I thought I’d point that out just in case you though that someone like myself (a Afrikaans lad from the platteland) communicated in some weird alien luminescent, scent based fashion :P