Guild Wars 2

I find it odd that Humans can spend a game and 3 expansions dominating a continent and then get overthrown.

Konig’s right – humans were already on their way out in GW1. They had spread across the world and settled into a range of cultures and nations, but all of them were beset by problems; I’d say Cantha was the safest, maybe, but the events of Factions had lingering consequences.

The thing you need to know about GW1 if you haven’t played it, particularly about the first campaign (which was set in the Tyria we now know), is that the main characters often made things worse. Sure, we stopped the lich and the titans – but only after accidentally handing the lich the powerful artifact he needed, because he helped us escape the cult that we’d accidentally joined thinking they were the good guys, because we needed help after following a rebel prince out of our country. We heroes caused half of our own problems, haha.

Here’s the dialogue from the cinematic you get when coming to Tyria from another continent:
Kryta. The City of Lion’s Arch. 1582 CC.
Of the great kingdoms of old, Ascalon has been all but destroyed by the invading Charr army.
The Shiverpeaks…home of the Deldrimor Dwarves…are torn by civil war.
No outsiders may trespass there.
The lands of Orr lie at the bottom of the ocean, destroyed in a cataclysmic explosion.
Only Kryta remains…the last hope for the great kingdoms of Tyria, and new home to the refugees of Ascalon.
And now, evil turns its eyes to Kryta.
An army of undead threatens to bring destruction to the last of Tyria’s great kingdoms.
The people of Kryta and the refugees of Ascalon turn in search of heroes who can bring peace to Tyria.
But who shall answer the call?

…so as you can see, the whole continent was pretty badly off even then!

Cancer already said what I was going to say – it was a little heart-breaking the first time I ran around GW2 Ascalon, seeing it look so much like before the Searing, but only long after all the humans who lived there are dead. The land’s finally recovering. Those autumn-coloured trees everywhere? Totally pre-Searing.

Finding the ruins of the old city of Lion’s Arch in the harbour of GW2’s Lion’s Arch was pretty cool – the city was a hub in GW1 as well, and I ran around there a lot, and hung out for festivals, so the landmarks are recognisable.

One of my coolest moments in Eye of the North (the GW1 campaign that introduced norn and asura and started the links to GW2) was stumbling across the seedling which would one day become the Pale Tree. I’d already decided to play a sylvari first and I had a little lore-squee!

I suspect mesmer would grow on your with time, as most of the classes have for me, even the ones I wasn’t very good with at first. The more you unlock, the more of a feel you get for a class.

That said, I agree that warrior is the most simple to play and rather fun I hear good things about engineer, haven’t tried it yet. Thief can apparently deal some pretty great damage but relies on quite a bit of dodging and such, so might be a bit delicate.

Maybe try a warrior or an elementalist?

it is extremely frustrating when you have absolutely no control over it and there’s nothing you can really offer a person that you guild is better, unless it’s PvP oriented.

You can’t control people. That’s an unfortunate part of life. If you don’t make it a rule, you kind of have to accept their choices.

If there’s no “guild content”, don’t make a guild for running content. Make one for a social group – that, to my mind, is what a PvE guild would be for. People who like to chat together while they play and can run around areas or events together if they feel like it. If that’s not your thing, maybe guilds aren’t in this game.

In my experience yes, MMO forums are generally like this. Long lists of complaints, a tone of “how the —-- has this not been fixed yet?!”, and whenever a change is implemented a bunch of complaints about how it’s the wrong change, doesn’t go far enough, and ruins everything.

At least the Players Helping Players forums is usually pretty polite and helpful!

The two reasons I can think of for why younger players might not click with GW2 are a) they play with a group of friends who enjoy a certain kind of gameplay together (and this isn’t it, or not all of them like it), or b) they started gaming at a different time and have different expectations of what an MMO should be.

Personally I’m 23 and love it, but I’m also inclined towards lore, role-play, and casual play, so of course I’m a GW2 fan :P

I save silver by not using the waypoints all the time. I prefer to run through zones, take in the scenery, and see if any events are happening on my way there – it’s the same reason I will often walk rather than take a bus somewhere. It’s nicer and saves me money!

At the same time though, regular waypoints make it MUCH easier to meet up with friends to help them, for example. I like having them there, but I’m quickly realising that they work better for me if I don’t use them for absolutely everything. I’m happy to make that choice myself.

Dont mind the fanboys OP, they will keep using the same old and weak “arguments” to stand by ArenaNet on the terrible developer choices like the skill system.

I’m still enjoying this game and all my alts. Kitten me, right?

It’s fine to not enjoy Guild Wars 2. I’ve always figured that not everyone would. But please don’t reject anyone who likes the system out of hand because it doesn’t do it for you.

The truth of it is, I don’t think any of us know what we’re getting, so this is all speculation. It could be new world content or it could be all instanced, and more like GW1 festival quests (a series of instances seems like one of the easier ways for them to do it). I would like to see some season-specific dynamic events, but that’s just a hope. We’ll have to wait and see!

Yeah, Mad King Thorn traditionally returned to Lion’s Arch each year – I don’t imagine he’ll change that habit, even if it is now full of strange non-human residents and isn’t technically part of Kryta!

LA is sure to become the centre of a lot, if not all, of the festivals since it’s the central hub. Although I’d love to see racial festivals one day, something for each race that’s not necessarily tied to a real world holiday.

Firstly, this would have been better in the Players Helping Players forum. We’re helpful over there!

Secondly, I believe that you can check back later and probably slip into Tarnished Coast when it’s not totally full. I think ‘full’ refers to the number of people logged in now (someone may correct me on that).

In the meantime, world transfers are free right now (that will end eventually) so you play somewhere and then switch later. Overflow servers are temporary spaces you can get put into if a map is full, and they’re shared across servers, so that’s possibly a way you and your friend could meet up.

To my mind, your guild members should be responsible for checking the guild announcement if they want to be involved in things. I haven’t played many MMOs but it never even occurred to me that we should be able to mail guild members en masse… anyone who needs that much organisation has a website in my experience. But that’s not much experience.

I’ve seen it rain, once or twice, ever. Lol

Maybe it’s summer in Tyria? :P

I’d insta-buy an expansion that’d let me play a Tengu, so long as they weren’t made more humanlike (waters down the uniqueness of the race)!

I’d be very interested to see what they did to make tengu more customisable and different from each other if they became a playable race (different breeds of bird seems the obvious starting point). I don’t think you have to worry about watering down though, because a) well, ArenaNet, and b) the tengu look less humanoid in GW2 than they did in GW1 (more of a unique body shape), I can only assume their design here was quite intentionally more bird-like.

I can’t help but love the quaggan. Once I was exploring around a bugged event which couldn’t be finished, and quaggan kept coming up to me and begging me to help because their friends were dying. And I couldn’t! It broke my heart

As for the tengu, I like the suggestions of a bushido-like code of honour underlying their ‘warrior race’ attitude – it’s quite different to either the norn or the charr. I look forward to seeing what kind of political structure these mixed-tribe tengu have. And personally I don’t have a problem with them brushing me off – they’re not rude, they just don’t want to mix with other races. It’s a valid attitude. I do love the complex species relations ArenaNet creates

So I don’t think any races need to be likeable to be done well, but each to their own!

Guild Wars (both games) has always rejected the option of giving us heaps of different skills available at once (which offers greater versatility) in favour of making us pick a set under certain restrictions, having limited versatility but having to be clever with it. Maybe one of the things you’re having issues with is that some skills are very situational, but they take up a precious slot? In games where you have all your options available at once, it’s ok to have those situational/occasional ones just sitting there, but in GW2 it’s a more difficult choice as to whether you want to keep that option.

I’ve played everything except for Engineer (I hate the concept of steampunk/mechanical in a fantasy setting, so I don’t think I can go there)

I understand! You should have seen the lore-rage I had when engineer was first announced. However, I must say it has grown on me over time, and pistol thief is fun. My warrior even ended up using a rifle, despite my initially thinking I would avoid guns! Still, I respect your dislike of them and I see no reason why you should have to compromise on it.

It may not be useful to hear this now, but things do seem to open up as you progress. Traits can actually define a playstyle and role for you in time, even though a lot of them seem like minor changes at first. The trait lines I went down started to shape my utility skill choices. You really have to decide what you want to focus on and build for that – and be aware that maybe two or three of your ten skills will only come up in certain situations, but if they help your objectives there it can be worth it.

Oh, and think outside the box a little – e.g. guardian single-hand sword has a short ranged attack skill, and greatsword has the leap which closes distance instead. I tend to go one ranged/one melee for my weapon sets, but my guardian currently uses greatsword/sword+torch, and the latter is like pseudo-ranged.

I suspect it won’t be level restricted, just based on design strategies so far. They used to do mini-game things in GW1 that would give everyone the same health and stats temporarily to even it out, so they may do that.

Not everyone enjoys the same things so my answers won’t necessarily work for you, but if you got bored of PvE around level 30 I would say go somewhere else. Find an area you know nothing about, and explore – that reinvigorated me, after running around the same areas all the time. Or take a couple of weeks’ break and come back for the Mad King, which should give you some new stuff and a goal, as CMF said.

Right now my goal is my obsessive search for new cooking combinations. It’s not what I expected to drive me forward in this game, but it works! Good luck finding your own motivation – or not. You don’t have to like it!

If I were to offer one piece of advice, it’s just go with the flow. Do stuff as it pops up in front of you, or based on what you feel like at the time, and don’t worry about efficiency or progress at first.

If you have questions about specifics you can ask map chat (/m) and you’ll usually get answers – but a lot of it is best learned by experimentation. Just do stuff!

Short answer is that he was an ancient king of Kryta, totally mad and destructive in his lifetime (think a more light-hearted Caligula or Nero). After his death he became a figure of some note in the Underworld, and once a year when the boundaries between that world and ours are thin, he liked to come and party in Lion’s Arch. He expected everyone to treat him as mighty and awesome royalty, of course, and do everything in their power to please him.

For the full details though, definitely consult the GW1 wiki. Oh, and his most noteworthy attribute when he visited Lion’s Arch… was his terrible jokes. Except you had to laugh at them, or you died :P

I am an anthropology student and I approve of this document!

It makes me want to write an analysis of the asura from the perspective of a skritt community, haha.

I don’t think it’s useful to compare GW1 to GW2 in this regard because they work so differently – ArenaNet did get large new campaigns out at 6 month intervals for GW1, but they were like separate games rather than ‘new content’ added to existing campaigns, which was MUCH rarer.

As for dungeons and such… I think the less vertical progression will make a difference. I’m also not sure more dungeons is necessarily what we’ll get in major updates, certainly not all the time. In the meantime, watch what happens with Halloween, since it seems they have significant stuff planned.

Press ‘h’ to get to the hero panel, and then click on the crossed swords icon down the left side – at the bottom. That should show you the sPvP stuff and give you the option of teleporting to the Mists for it.

And no problem, humility will get you far!

It’s generally called ‘guesting’ on another server, and it’s still going to be in the game, but I don’t think they’re making it available until they end the free server transfers.

Thorp is correct. One of the tier 3 racial armour sets for each race is the same as that race’s iconic character, so tier 3 medium for sylvari is Caithe’s outfit, tier 3 light for asura is Zojja’s. Tier 3 heavy for humans is Logan’s Seraph armour.

ArenaNet have picked up player initiatives in the past, and supported them or built tributes to them into the game (there are a bunch of NPCs based on prominent fans in GW1). I don’t know if they have any interest in taking player ideas into account when it comes to shaping the overall story or lore… but who knows? I wouldn’t rule it out!

250 years is a pretty short time in the history of a world, too. That’s almost like if folks in the US ran around without much of an idea about anyone involved in the establishment of the nation.

Forgive my ignorance, but…don’t they? I mean I don’t know how often US history is taught in the US, but I can’t be the only one who’s been taught about her own nation’s history throughout her childhood and has still forgotten all but the bare bones of it.

I think a lot of the major events of the GW1 campaigns happened out of the public view. I mean, most Krytans (for example) probably didn’t know anything about the lich lord or the Door of Komalie or all that even when it happened. We stop threats before they get that far. Most of Cantha didn’t really know or believe that Shiro was returning. Abbadon’s incursion was more obvious and undeniable, but only in Elona.

I imagine that names like Varesh Ossa, Master Togo, Evennia… people would know who they were, vaguely. That doesn’t mean they’d know all the details of the events they were involved in, though, especially not the average person on the street.

Having said that, it would be cool to meet a Priory scholar who was obsessed with this band of mysterious heroes who seem to pop up everywhere (but everyone else in the Priory thinks he’s connecting unrelated incidents, perhaps) … :P

Yeah, from what I recall of past festival quests in GW1 (which I did not play that thoroughly, so I’m sure someone else will have more info) Mad King Thorn was generally tied up with the Underworld conflicts – Grenth and Dhuum, and suchlike – which have been brewing for a long time. Then again, we’ve had hints of festival or one-off events which may change the world, so I wouldn’t rule anything out.

I doubt they have Elona to show us this year, though :P

Sometimes it’s ettins or other large creatures, but I have noticed that vegetables that grow in patches – spinach, cabbage, pumpkins – are eerily well guarded by these folks.

Things which give effects while only in that element are meant to reflect some degree of specialisation, i.e. if you sink traits into Earth, your earth magic will be particularly useful (or at least more so than someone who didn’t trait for that element).

It depends on the situation, but I can’t imagine that staff wielders never have mobs attacking them while they attack a distant target. Switching attunements could help to shake them off you or at least do a little damage around you without you having to change to attacking them.

Trait lines lend themselves to different play styles. I’ve found that to be true for all professions; strangely enough, you can’t do everything all at once. Anyway, just throwing in some ideas about the logic behind these.

On the bright side, they did explicitly say in the patch notes that this was a first step and they were looking at more comprehensive changes to address various camera issues… so be optimistic

Hours per week is difficult to answer since it really depends on the week for me… but I’m 23 years old and I would say, hmm, about 17 hours per week at the moment? (That’s certainly more than I’d usually spend on an MMO, haha!)

Yeah, pretty sure that if she’s logged into her account she can play wherever she likes!

One of the instanced areas I think – the norn home area perhaps? I’m not able to check right now. If that’s the case, the entrance is on the left when you first enter the main hall through those massive doors

Not as far as I know.

Yes, they’re nomadic, they don’t organize into traditional armies.
Guess who else is nomadic and doesn’t organize traditional armies?
Huns
Goths
Mongols
etc.
Norn require the same food and water humans have in abundance in Kryta. Realistically, they would be continuously raiding into Eastern Kryta as there are few resources in the mountains.

First of all, norn are not nomadic. Nomads do not build gigantic halls like you see in Hoelbrak! They build simple structures which can be knocked down and rebuilt on a regular basis because they move a lot, because that is, in fact, what nomadic means. Hoelbrak is a sign of a people who have every intention of staying right where they are.

The norn are refugees, in some senses – they made a forced migration south because of Jormag’s activity. They tend to be quite independent but gather around central shared places – steads and cities, places to share tales and company, and probably to trade what they have for other things they need. They are strong and can be violent, but they don’t have an army – the ‘norn nation’ rarely unites for anything. Why do you think they tolerate the Sons of Svanir in Hoelbrak? Each to their own. The norn ideal is the hunt, not the war – one norn, or a small group, pitting their strength and their wits against a powerful for or prey. They fight to prove how awesome they are, not for land or wealth.

And that’s just the norn. The charr are warlike, and funnily enough, it’s led to a lot of war! Their society is organised around legions, for kitten’s sake. They are in a truce with Kryta/Ebonhawke now, but it’s a delicate one, and they’re still fighting ghosts and the like.

Sylvari believe “all things have a right to grow” and thus are unlikely to wage war, except on dragon minions. No one knows how long their natural lifespan is, yet. Humans have armies and do fight wars, but you may have noticed the centaurs are their pressing concern. They can barely handle them plus bandits, let alone launch an offensive somewhere else. And asura? War is for big dumb louts. There are much better ways to take over the world. Make everyone dependent on your asura gates, for instance (they have Ebonhawke in their pocket, if they want it). Profit from selling your unique technology, then buy out whatever you need. Physical strength is not an asura strength, so they don’t rely on it.

And Lion’s Arch? It’s supposed to be special. It’s a neutral place, somewhere people can go if they’re sick of their own race’s conflicts or, as someone said above, to make a profit. Merchants often won’t worry about who they’re selling to, if their coin is good. Originally LA was a pirate haven, thus a lawless place. Now there are people raised in Lion’s Arch, who don’t see why charr and humans and whoever else shouldn’t hang out together – they always have.

In short, there’s plenty of conflict in Tyria, just usually on a more local scale than one entire race against another entire race. The races aren’t monolithic; not all asura, or charr, or whatever feel the same. And most region sof Tyria are sufficiently well-supplied with natural resources that a little trade is sufficient – no need to raid others.

Sorry for the wall of text -_-

You don’t lose the skin when you transmute… you just transfer it. You buy/make one set, you can only have one set – but you can put whatever stats you want on it. Makes perfect sense to me. If you want two sets with the same appearance (which seems like a waste to me, with so many cool skins out there that I like) then yes, you’d need to buy/make two sets. Sorry, I guess.

It can vary greatly, and I do think that events happen more often if there are more people around. Some days I have trouble finding them and some days (usually just after I complete daily quests!) I run into them all the time. I would agree with above recommendations to watch map chat if you’re having trouble, and use it the other way too – if you come across a champion mob, mention it in map chat in case someone else wants to come and help with it.

If Nietzsche is right about humanity, I think we all have bigger things to worry about than whether or not our favourite MMOs succeed or fail :P

Since you posted this, though…

Some people thought this unfair but guess what? LIFE ISN’T FAIR. Expecting a game to be fair and balanced is expecting an experience that will run counter to your own human nature to excel.

Interestingly, in my own academic work on MMOs, I have been arguing that one of the reasons people find them satisfying (and I’m not writing about GW2, but another game on a similar model to WoW) is that they present a world that seems more fair. In MMOs, if you put in x amount of work and overcome y obstacles, you know you can get z reward. In real life, you can do everything right and work hard and get very little. If this happened in a game, people would ragequit. Especially in a subscription game, where they feel entitled to make demands of the developers because they’re paying for a service.

Just my two cents Nice work getting to write about video games!

Charr’s are felines aren’t they? Practically all felines have the ability to retract their claws (Cheetahs excluded but that’s because they need them for running.)

Lore-wise, I’m pretty sure there’s reference in Ghosts of Ascalon to Ember’s claws retracting, because she brings them out when she’s angry or being threatening. With that and thumbs, I don’t see why charr wouldn’t be able to craft, since as Danikat says they are of course used to their own bodies. Also, have you looked at the Citadel lately? The charr may be capable of fine metalwork (you can’t really have guns, even rough guns, without very fine attention to small details) – but they leave their metal in simple sheets riveted together quite often. A lot of what they use is pretty rough. I’d say they don’t bother with craftsmanship unless it’s functional.

Everyone draws the conclusion Logan is one simply due to the writing that does not give the idea that Jenna was in any real danger from Kralkatorrik at the time. If you ask me J.R. King wanted us to detest Logan.

Actually, while I do think that Logan mad a really dumb decision there, I blame Jennah for being incredibly small-minded and selfish in calling him to her at that point. Maybe she didn’t really comprehend what she was taking him away from… but in that book she seemed to expertly manipulate Logan at every turn. She encouraged his infatuation with her, possibly enhancing it with her magic to make him more slavishly devoted than he would otherwise be. Then she summoned him; of course, he came.

I don’t think Jennah is evil or anything, I just think that she is more cunning than she lets on, and very concerned with keeping her throne and doing what she thinks is right for her nation (not the world, necessarily). While we’re making Ice and Fire references, I can see her using the “I am but a young girl, and know nothing of the ways of war, but…” line that Daenerys so often shoots people down with.

Role-playing is, to my mind, something you do alongside and around an MMO, not necessarily while completing content. If you restrict your rp options to what you can do in-game, you’re going to end up with a sadly impoverished character and story – even if the game tries to give you options, as with personal story, they’re always pretty limited.

Also, bear in mind that we have a few years at best between GW1 and GW2, with nothing in between in our own experience. It’s 250 years in-world. What was your nation, or your ‘people’ doing 250 years ago? I’d imagine most Krytan-born humans (regardless of ancestry) would have to read a book to tell you anything more than “Ascalon used to belong to the humans, and then the charr invaded.” It’s not personal to them, unless they come from as Ascalonian settlement family who pass down impassioned stories to every generation I suppose.

Killing human ghosts could be rough on a character, sure, but when they blindly attack anything that comes near them, assuming everyone to be charr enemies (as they do in Ghosts of Ascalon), I think you wouldn’t hesitate to fight back – especially knowing the ghosts will re-form soon enough.

kKagari – was he in the middle of some calibrations?

GW2 goes for stylisation rather than realism in many cases, and this is an example of it. Instead of trying to render a complex scene or full cinematic, they don’t even try that and go for a simplified representation instead. It’s the same theory as the ‘animated concept art’ video sequences.

I have no problems with it, but it’s really a personal taste thing, and I can understand some people not liking it.

But there are limits on physical power, and to a lesser extent on how skilled a person can get in one lifetime (a level cap, if you will). Norn have a pretty high limit on their personla strength/growth compared to most!

Their social organisation and culture do all encourage individualism, but they’re quite capable of joining together if they feel a threat justifies it. Jormag was a problem for everyone, so everyone will fight him. This is especially different to going on a hunt to seek an enemy – the dragons are a threat to be defended against. Anyway, my point in the norn can band together, they just don’t unless they have to. Why share the glory if you can do it alone?

The OP’s argument seems to rest on the assumption that pre-Searing charr were simple, animalistic savages. Despite having language, culture, the ability to make weapons, armour and tools…

Your definition of ‘uncivilized’ is pretty loose. ‘Tribal’ may mean ‘uncivilized’ by some definitions, but that doesn’t make tribal people any less people. They have complex cultural and practical systems suited to their sustainable way of life, and often more complex family/tribe/totem relationships and obligations than ‘civilized’ people do. The charr are, and were, the same.

Humans are charr are at war. Have been for centuries. Neither of them is right, that’s kind of how war works after this long.

Never post a thread that’s not meant to be seriously discussed in a lore forum. We don’t know how to just leave things alone :P

I don’t think Logan is dumb – I think he’s just kind of down-to-earth. It’s easy to forget that before this whole Queen’s White Knight gig, he was a common mercenary, not a nobleman or general. That shows through sometimes.

I also don’t think Logan’s simply been in denial all this time. I think he knows perfectly well that he abandoned his friends and may well have sacrificed the only chance they had to kill Kralkatorrik in order to save one woman. He’s been telling himself all this time that it was the right decision because otherwise he couldn’t live with himself.

In the end though, someone has to comic relief, Snaff isn’t here, and it’s not always appropriate for Rytlock to do it (since he’s pretty kitten angry) so Logan draws the short straw with the sillier lines :P

…beg? :P

Seriously, I’ve sent silver to people before when they’ve asked nicely in map chat for emergency waypointing or repairs, and I don’t think I’m that exceptionally altruistic. Otherwise…naked runs are a challenge! Find a starter area and beat up some moa birds or something until you have some cash, you may find other players will help you out.

I just went to find an image of the legendary dagger and I agree it’s kind of odd – would only work with certain kinds of looks! However I don’t want a large dagger, and that’s the real problem for me. I want my dagger ele to have weapons that look awesome, but I also want them to be small and discreet, because they’re daggers! It’s going to be very hard for any designers to fulfil both of those criteria at once!

Oooh, crafting professions! Yes, I am fairly certain that you keep and progress on a crafting discipline even if you switch. It does cost more to switch back depending on how far into the discipline you got, however. You’re safe to switch though!