Guild Wars 2

One suggestion someone in my guild just made: They could be profession specific armor sets and each box contains one piece.

Hopefully if that is the case then either 5 crowns will be really cheap and the armor will be tradeable/sellable (or at least salvagable) or there will be some mechanic in place to make sure you don’t get repeats.

Anything that has an achivement under the Jumping Puzzles tab. Or anywhere you’re doing a lot of jumping to follow a path then find a chest at the end (and get an achivement if you haven’t done it before).

They’re a specific catergory of object/activity, not simply anything with involves jumping to get to a goal.

Melchior.2135:

MorceluLebeau.5109:

Was reading the blog and now they wish to make you pay for a server transfer?? Why..only a excuse to get more money from the player base, whats next a subscription to post on the forums..this game has quickly turned into a Much more costly game than when it was pre-purchased.

Server transfers were always intended to go to the Gem Store, and clearly expressed as such from the beginning. Just as clearly, they explained that they were only allowing free server transfers for the first few months of the game until populations settled. At no point was it suggested that free server transfers would be a permanent part of your initial box purchase, and again, they clearly stated the precise opposite whenever asked. You have no one to blame for your ignorance but yourself.

Actually if the OP pre-purchased then they should have been expecting to pay for transfers from day 1 because that was the plan at the time pre-purchase was launced. It was only during the betas that it became apparent there could be issues with this and fairly close to release that they announced that transfers would be free and unlimited at first to allow people to find a server they liked.

I’m not sure what all the issues were but I know a lot of people (myself included, which is why I remember it) picked a server at random thinking it didn’t matter and found themselves on one where very few people spoke their language, even if that language is English. (In my case I ended up on the unofficial Russian server.)

At the time I was extremely vocal about the need to give players an alternative to picking a server based on no information and then having to pay to try again, which would effectively be a gamble since there was no way to know what you’d get on any server.

IMO they could still do more to help with that (like labelling the unofficial RP servers and acknowledging the servers for unsupported languages or designating an Oceanic server, even if it’s actually in the US) but the problem is a lot smaller than it used to be. The majority of players have had time to find a server and since populations have stabalised newcomers have a better chance of finding out what they’ll get on any given server without having to resort to paying for trial and error.

Keiran.1896:

That’s weird cuz in WoW it was expensive to switch server.

And then GW2 came and made instant unlimited free tranfers… My point is, it proves that it cost them nothing to do this and it’s a shame to make us pay for it.

I can’t comment on why WoW does it but as far as I understand in GW2 the main aim is to encourage people to stay on one server and form a solid community, as well as prevent server hoping issues in WvW. To do that they need to give people an incentive to not keep moving, making it profitable for them is a bonus.

I do wonder how much it’ll cost though. It’s probably difficult to strike a balance because if they put it too high it could discourage innocent players who just want to find the best server for them, but if it’s too low it won’t discourage people from server hopping to take advantage of WvW (or to cripple their opponents). I would guess the fact that they’re also keeping the limit on how often you can transfer means they’re leaning towards making it cheap and using that to restrict WvW issues.

I’ve been planning on at some point trying to run from Rata Sum to Ebonhawke. I did something similar in GW1 – going from The Wilds (north of Rata Sum and the most westerly outpost) to the temple in Ascalon which I’ve forgotten the name of (north of Ebonhawke and the most easterly outpost).

So like other people said if you want to do it just to see if you can, or for the experience, I think you should go for it (although I strongly recommend planning your route first). If you just want to get there however take the asura gates.

I almost always wait to see if someone will revive me. I always play in window mode and I’m usually on the internet at the same time as playing so it’s not a big waste of time to me, often when I’m on here I’m downed. If I do get bored I’ll go to a waypoint, but I find it interesting to wait see if I get ressed.

I also always try to res people who I see downed as well. On rare occasions when a lot of people are doing the same things I wait around in areas where people are likely to die. I remember during the head start weekend there was kind of a res chain going on at the bottom of the drop in Sharkmaw Caverns. People would fall down, die, get ressed, and every so often someone would join in with the resurrecting so someone else could carry on. It was surprisingly fun waiting for corpses to drop on you so you could save them.

This is one of the most annoying things about the current skill system.

I have no problem with attack skills being defined by the weapon but I’d love a way to change the order they appear in the bar or have specific key-binds for each weapon/character.

I keep hoping it’s something that will be changed in a future update. I’m not sure how it works on a programming level but I’m sure there would be a way to do it.

For one thing it would open up a lot of potential for griefing. Imagine how frustrating it would be if you were trying to level in a low-level area and every time a DE started a group of level 80’s came through and 1-shotted everything before you got a chance to even hit it so you couldn’t get any credit for the event?

I actually experienced that during my brief time trying out WoW – I was trying to do one of the “Kill 10 rats” type quests outside Stormwind and 2 higher level players came through, killed every single one of the enemies we were supposed to find, laughed about it and then stood there openly debating whether they should wait for them to respawn and do it again or move on to griefing someone else. Personally I’m very glad it’s not really an option in this game.

gennyt.3428:

To tell the truth, alts are what keep me playing and I haven’t bought character slots, I lose a lot of interest in my characters when they hit level cap because I don’t really know which direction this game is heading and anything that interests me is a waste of gold at that level.

The lack of trinity isn’t something I mind in open world, but it can make dungeons a nightmare, too many times I’ve seen who people don’t even dodge or look out for the team and the party wipes.

I don’t think bringing back the trinity would eliminate bad players. It might make it easier to tell them what their role is supposed to be, but that doesn’t mean they’d have any more idea of how to do it.

Sorkas.1865:

So many areas to explore you can level up several characters and still see new stuff. Also so many different class mechanics each with their own playstyles…. Loving alts.. also makes for different grouping options/dynamics with family/friends.

This is the main appeal for me. I have 5 permenant characters – one of each race – and a slot for a 6th when I feel like trying out something different.

I’ve found going back over the same areas often leads to discovering things I’d missed the first (or 2nd, 3rd etc.) time round. Especially since different characters will get different dialogue options with several NPCs. (One of the things I’m really enjoying right now is taking my Order of Whispers character around the main cities and finding out who’s an agent.)

I also find that even though in theory I’m doing the same thing on each of them my playstyle is very different so it’s still fun to switch between them. (Also I realise you probably didn’t mean it literally but if you simplify it to the point of ‘kill the other guys’ then you could argue that playing GW2, on any profession, is exactly like playing Call of Duty. Obviously that’s not true and the same goes on a smaller scale – even if your goal is the same playing an ele is not the same as playing a guardian.

Finally I haven’t done it in GW2 (yet) but I can completely understand why people would have multiples of the same profession. Yes you can respec when you need to, but if you’re regularly switching between the same roles it’s easier to have seperate characters.

Have you done all the skill point challenges? They’re probably the easiest way and there’s 202 in total.

In general I don’t like this recent trend of simplifying RPGs (MMO and single-player) to try and draw in new players. I don’t think it’s necessary and I think it sends the wrong message about the genre in general and could put people off branching out from their initial game by giving the impression that anything else they try is going to have another very steep learning curve.

But part of that might be because I went completely the other way – I started out playing Eye of the Beholder when I was about 7 years old. Didn’t have a clue what I was doing and I don’t think I ever got past the first section but I loved it anyway and the ability to customise your characters was a big part of that (even if I didn’t know what the options really meant).

But if you’re going to do it I think GW2 has the right approach because a lot of the depth and complexity is still there, but it’s introduced gradually. You start off with a very simple build – 1 weapon skill and one heal – and then work your way up to playing with traits and bonuses from armor sets and so on. By the time you hit level 80 you’ve got most of the options you’d see in any RPG, but you’ve also got enough experience with the game to know what to do with them.

The one thing I do like is that aside from the fairly basic choice of race and profession you’re not stuck with your choices if you don’t like them later on. I think I restarted Dragon Age about 20 times because I kept wanting to adjust my build but the only way to do it was to start over from scratch.

I do think the other option would be to add more stuff at the start/in total and include a tutorial zone to walk players through it, as well as basic options like the various F key functions, dodging, combat basics etc. but it seems Anet and I have very different opinions there. I think they got it exactly right with the Factions and Nightfall tutorials (especially since you could skip it if you wanted to) and they apparently hated feeling like they had to put it in and were determined to avoid it with this game.

I think you can do it either way.

I don’t recommend going into a personal story quest or a zone when you’re more than a few levels below the recommended minimum unless you’re really confident you know what you’re doing because you’ll really struggle.

But because you’re automatically down-leveled to match the area you’re in I don’t think it matters too much whether you work your way around all the starting areas before moving on or focus on your race’s ones (and ones your story sends you to) and then come back to the others after you’ve finished the personal story. Either way you’ll never be locked out of content or find yourself so over-powered for an area that everything is too easy.

As for your other question yes it does eventually all join up. At the moment there are 2 level 80 areas (Orr and Southsun Cove) and I think 2 level 70-80 areas. I think in terms of the storyline it starts to join up around level 30 when you go to LA and pick an Order, but I’m not sure when exactly the zones join up.

I don’t think there’s anything wrong with the name. I also don’t think the name is a big deal for a guild, people are more likely to join a guild with a name they don’t like than one with a cool name that’s no fun to be part of.

I also think what you really need is something to set it apart and give them an incentive to join. Everyone says their guild is helpful and talkative so that gives them no reason to pick your guild over the hundreds of others out there.

What exactly you pick will depend on what YOU and the other existing members want from the guild. You should tell people about the stuff you normally do together, particularly if you tend to have regular guild activities.

That way you’ll give people a reason to join your guild over the others out there, and you’ll be attracting like-minded people who are more likely to stick around.

Also if you click on them players will have a profession symbol next to their portrait and probably a guild name below their name, whereas NPCs just have a name, portrait and maybe some skills in grey below their health bar.

But generally you can tell by the way they move and act. NPCs will be much more ‘mechanical’, they follow paths exactly and generally walk rather than running outside of battle. In combat they don’t dodge or move as much (at least as much as players should) and will use fairly simple tactics. They don’t move around when they don’t need to and I don’t think they ever jump.

Also all NPCs have lore appropriate names so that can be a hint sometimes.

DancingPenguins.9875:

Danikat.8537:

I could never seem to get people to understand that I wanted to actually play through the content, not just be rewarded ASAP for stuff other people had done.

The problem with this is that you are asking 4 other people with different goal in mind to make a sacrifice for 1 person. It’s bound to turn out ugly. People do understand when you want to take the scenic route and see the content. They are just as selfish as you are.

Thing is I wasn’t trying to join a speed clear group and then asking them to change their entire game-plan for me. I was standing there trying to find like-minded people to form a group of our own to do it. And instead I kept getting whispers from people insisting I should want to do it their way because, in their mind, the only reason to do it was to get the reward at the end so the only valid way to do it was as quickly as possible.

I never asked them to join my group, if they weren’t interested that’s fine by me. But since they asked I tried to explain my perspective but none of them ever seemed to accept that there could be any appeal in actually playing the game. Only in being rewarded at the end of it.

My guess is either they said the game itself will always be free after purchase (ie. no subscription) or that they will be adding free content, as they have been, as well as paid expansions and someone got it mixed up and misquoted them.

Speed clears were one of my least favourite things about GW1, especially when it got to be the norm for some places and it was virtually impossible to find a party to do it any other way.

It was especially frustrating for me with things like UWSC where each person only does one specific part and then just collects the quest rewards for everything else. I could never seem to get people to understand that I wanted to actually play through the content, not just be rewarded ASAP for stuff other people had done.

In the end I did both FoW and UW with heroes instead. Which isn’t what I would have chosen but seemed to be the only way to do it.

If you’re in the UK I’d recommend http://www.chillblast.com/

A few people recommended them to me a few years ago when my old PC fell apart. Apparently their PCs are basically the kind of things people might build for themselves, but they do it for you. (And give you options to customise it if you want to.)

I got mine about 2-3 years ago and it’s still playing top of the line games with no problems and I haven’t had to upgrade anything. But unlike a lot of pre-built PC’s when I do need to upgrade it should be possible, unless I leave it long enough that parts are obsolete and incompatible with anything new.

Tarnished Coast and Piken Square are the unofficial role-play servers.

You can find people on other servers who will RP though. My advice would be to just try it and see what responses you get. If no one replies or if they reply out of character don’t force it, but you’ll probably find at least a few people who will join in.

Also remember that the NPCs in this game use fairly modern and often informal language so you should too. “Oh my gods that was awesome!” actually looks a lot less out of place than “Tell me good sir, where doth thou findeth an inn?” in this game and is a lot easier for people to respond to.

I don’t think you could get banned because it’s not against the ToS.

And really it’s a fairly obviously possibility that guilds should consider when defining ranks and permissions. Guild leaders can decide who has access, not just to the guild bank as a whole but to each section of it, so it’s their responsibility to make sure members only have access to items the leader is willing to let them have. (I’d also say regular guild members have a responsibility, to a lesser extent, to consider who can withdraw items they deposit and what they might do with them. If you’re not ok with someone selling it on the TP for personal profit don’t deposit it unless you trust everyone with access not to do that.)

Same way you have to accept that if you give everyone permission to claim/unclaim WvW forts someone who doesn’t know what they’re doing might come along and mess things up.

I’m not sure exactly how auto-detect works but it seems to aim for a good compromise between performance and looks. For example I get laggy patches if I set it to max and there’s a lot happening on screen, if I pick auto-detect the graphics drop a little bit and the lag dissapears completely.

I’m not sure what it defaults to when you first install but I don’t think it’s the same as you get using auto-detect. I’d recommend playing around with it anyway because however it does it you can probably improve on the default.

Donari.5237:

The start of your answer has just been posted at
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/players/The-Server-Choice-Thread/first#post1194746

Unfortunately there’s not a lot there yet, just a few things I could remember off the top of my head. But I’m hoping it will get better with time.

I think this is a problem with your approach to what’s on offer rather than the game itself.

Just because you can rush quickly from point to point doesn’t mean you have to or even that you should. If you would prefer to take your time, look at the scenery, talk to the NPCs and generally enjoy the world then you can do that too.

Personally I use things like vistas, POI’s, hearts, skill points etc. to give me a general idea of where to go and then I explore as I’m going. Sometimes that just means stopping to look at the scenery, sometimes it means talking to NPCs in a village before moving on, sometimes it means I discover a jump puzzle which leads me off in a completely different direction and I suddenly realise I’ve been playing for 2 hours, done about 15 things and still haven’t gotten to the POI I was heading to in the first place.

When you start really exploring there’s a lot on offer. There’s even some little stories you can get involved with which would be side-quests in other games. Some of them involve DE’s or event chains but others you just do without any prompting.

EU Servers

Abbadon’s Mouth [DE] -

Arborstone [FR] -

Augury Rock [FR] -

Aurora Glade -

Baruch Bay [SP] -

Blacktide -

Desolation – Unofficial UK/English server

Drakkar Lake [DE] -

Dzagonur [DE] -

Elona Reach [DE] -

Far Shiverpeaks -

Fissure of Woe -

Fort Ranik [FR] -

Gandara – Unofficial UK/English server

Gunnar’s Hold -

Jade Sea [FR] -

Kodash [DE] -

Miller’s Sound [DE] -

Piken Square – Unofficial RP server

Ring of Fire -

Riverside [DE] -

Ruins of Surmia -

Seafarer’s Rest -

Underworld -

Vabbi -

Vizunah Square -

This thread is an attempt to help new players and those looking to switch servers get some idea of what they’ll get on each one. In order to make it accurate and useful I’d like you to help by replying with any relevant facts about your server, or any others you know about, which you think someone might want to know.

Relevant facts are things like “unofficial Russian language server”, “Very busy during peak times EST” or “Usually top of the WvW rankings”. I’m not going to include things like “Everyone is really helpful” because everyone says that about their server. I may include specific guilds, but only if a lot of people think it’s relevant and their activities are likely to impact on the world in general.

Edit: Here is a link to the World vs World rankings, which some people might also want to consider when picking a server: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/pvp/wuvwuv/Updated-World-Ratings-Jan-11

Now on top to the list:

US Servers

Anvil Rock -

Black Gate – Unofficial Australian/New Zealand server

Borlis Pass -

Crystal Desert – Unofficial Australian server

Darkhaven

Devona’s Rest -

Dragonbrand -

Ehmry Bay -

Eredon Terrace -

Ferguson’s Crossing -

Fort Aspenwood -

Gate of Madness -

Henge of Denravi -

Isle of Janthir – Unofficial Oceanic server

Jade Quarry -

Kaineng -

Maguuma -

Northern Shiverpeaks -

Sanctum of Rall -

Sea of Sorrows – Unofficial Australian/Asian server

Sorrows’s Furnace -

Stormbluff Isle -

Tarnished Coast – Unofficial RP server

Yak’s Bend -

There were a few sites up before launch that gave you some idea, generally by listing big groups of people who had picked each server, like where most of 4Chan or GWGuru were going to be.

I’m not sure if any of them are still up, or have been kept up to date. Might be worth someone starting a topic here for it actually.

Personally I’d like them to have a full range from extremely revealing to full coverage so everyone can choose exactly what they want. And that should go for both genders and all races.

The female rangers in GW1 are a good example. They have everything from Elite Druid, which is literally a bikini: http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/File:Ranger_Elite_Druid_armor_f.jpg

All the way to Norn where the only skin showing is the upper half of the face:
http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/File:Ranger_Norn_armor_f.jpg

And here’s the full selection, so you can see there is a variety in between those two: http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Ranger_armor

For me it depends entirely on my character. My human female I couldn’t imagine in anything particularly revealing, she’s more likely to go for full length but decorative. Whereas my sylvari spends as much time as possible in town clothes because a few leaves is about right for her. (Plus one of the best things about the sylvari is the bioluminescence but you don’t see most of it if they’re wearing non-skimpy clothes.)

Psybunny.8906:

Asglarek.8976:

Psybunny.8906:

919h+ on main, 1172h or smth overall, player since beta. Who cares how people obtain their legendary, they can pay for it if they want to, I finished my Sunrise last week and I know how much effort I put into it, so it has a much bigger meaning/value to me. I think it took me around 2 months. It’s not a status symbol, you won’t get any more respect if you suck. It’s just a nice looking skin that only costs a lot of money and RNG.

About the unobtainable legendary for casuals, I have a full time job and I enjoy my weekends, there are times I don’t have time to play at all after work. Since I value my time I have for playing, I spend it only on stuff I enjoy. For getting the mats needed for legendary, I didn’t farm Orr, never touched TP, did flipping/etc, never spent a dime on goldsellers/gemshop. I don’t enjoy that. It’s like having a second job, that actually doesn’t give you any income. I got all of my gold/karma/half of lodestones from dungeons and casual gameplay. Also jumping badges ftw.

It required quite a bit of dedication and more grind that I liked, but OP is wrong, you don’t need to be some überrich/TP playa/goldbuyer to get yourself a legendary as a casual. Since the addition of karma jugs/dungeons giving karma/etc 1mil karma is supereasy to obtain. Skillpoints are a bit of a problem, but you should have enough as a long time player and you can always use fractal tokens to get those faster aswell. Alternative is just to create a new character and explore a bit. Atleast 1/4 T6 come from clover recipe, depends on how unlucky you are with clover RNG, rest can be bought from TP. Ectos come from random rare/exo drops from dungeons and guaranteed rares you buy for dungeon tokens. Getting 100g for icy runestones shouldn’t take you more than about a 1-2 weeks of casual gameplay. Lodestones/precursor are definitely the most painful part of legendary. I’ve pretty much mastered CoE thanks to farming charged cores/lodestones and I know the pain to buy them from TP. I lucked out with the precursor, since I got it for free and I didn’t have to spent time with it. Would have probably added another month in RNG/gathering gold for it, but still doable.

LOL dude 1200 hours in a game thats not even 5 months old I call shenanigens on you having a job or “enjoying your weekends” unless your job was gw2 and enjoying your weekend meant playing it.

Sorry for knowing how to manage my time effectively?
Do you want my yearly income as a proof or smth?

1172 hours over 5 months comes to roughly 8 hours per day. To allow for days when you don’t have time to play at all there must be several other days when you did nothing at all except play GW2. However you do it that’s not casual play.

Shear Force.9154:

At the same time however, grinding mindlessly for it for weeks or months however long it takes was just not the way to go about it for Anet, not for the company who said that they don’t what people to ever grind in GW2, well if it’s not a grind I dont know what is.

They never said that they don’t want people to ever grind in GW2. I don’t remember the exact wording but esentially what they said was if you want to grind for hours to get a super-special-ultra-rare item then the only difference between that and a more easily obtainable one should be the appearence. You shouldn’t be required to grind in order to play the game.

Which is exactly what they did with legendaries.

Sollith.3502:

It’s funny, in my opinion there is no “progression” with gear progression (or even levels for that matter); they only provide an illusion of progression. All they do is burn time in most games, because people don’t really care about the “role-playing” part of games anymore; all people care about is their kitten kitten.

They could easily have implemented some sort of horizontal progression instead of a vertical with Ascended. Why not have special equipment (maybe even add in an extra slot for certain “special equips”) that do certain things:

Vindictus

• Chains: groups can use these to “pin” bosses temporarily. In easier battles they only take one player (and sometimes quite a bit of skill to hit the right spot), but in more difficult boss battles they can take two or three players chaining simultaneously to get that pin.
• Spears: Can be used to break off certain pieces of boss armor to obtain special crafting ingredients in certain battles. Also, can be sometimes be used to stun an enemy.

Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time

• Hookshot: Used to get to certain areas
• Hover boots: Boot equipment used to float and cross certain areas.

Why can’t they just do this kind of stuff here? Have special items that grant a special skill or power (hover boots) to overcome certain challenges in dungeons (even have some areas that require them in open world too)?

Also, you wouldn’t have to require all members in a group to have the item either. I mean wouldn’t it be cool to have special paths that can be opened by having someone have an item like a hook shot? Kind of like official versions of certain glitches where players get to certain areas they couldn’t normally by using certain skills.

Have them be obtained through long quest chains, maybe a bit of dungeon grinding for a different item, crafting for another, maybe a mix for that other item; vary it up a bit.

What you’ve described is vertical progression.

Especially in the Legend of Zelda games where you literally cannot go to the next dungeon and therefore cannot progress the story until you’ve got the special item from the one preceeding it.

Marcin.7250:

I can not do that here but it did make me appreciate the game more; the level of detail was very close to reality; which was a huge bonus. I hope in the future the game companies can become more open minded about this, I really hope so.

I don’t think a lack of nudity in games is down to closed minded developers. It’s more an issue with ratings boards, and to some extent marketing.

Developers can and have put nudity into games but it almost always guarentees that the game will be rated 18+ in most countries. If the developers (or the production company) think there is potential for the game to do well with a younger market they have to choose between losing a chunk of their playerbase or putting some clothes on the characters.

In games that are going to be 18+ anyway it’s more of an asthetic choice. A lot of them are not the kind of situations where you’d reallly expect to see naked people and including it could ruin the immersion. Or just make it impossible for people to take the game seriously.

Tarvok.4206:

Come to think of it, I’m actually surprised I haven’t seen what I always used to see when I’d try out WoW: a tavern full of stripped down female characters consantly /dancing.

You see it occasionally. During the Lost Shores event when everyone was crowding into all the same places I saw two female norn posing in their underwear in the house in Wizards Fife that everyone was visiting. I’m sure there’s been others but that’s the one I remember.

But it seemed to be relatively rare in GW1 as well. Although there did seem to be a tradition of female ritualists dancing in various stats of undress (and most of them didn’t wear a huge amount beyond tattoos and jewellery anyway) dancing at special events. (In my defense mine only ever did it when she was drunk. It’s not her fault special events in that game almost always included alcohol drops.)

Hellfire.3521:

Regardless of how this would affect the current player-base, it would look pretty bad from a PR perspective. It’d be pretty darn easy to put a negative spin on the whole thing, Ex: “Anet desperately trying to find players; CREATES EXPLICIT NUDITY SERVERS!”. Not to mention it would obviously require a rating-change, because honestly, you can put in as many “you must be 18 or older to continue” windows as you want, the kids are still gonna click yes.

Just wait till that lawyer in Florida hears. Then it’ll be “game developers lured kids in with false promises of a teen friendly game only to turn it into a giant online orgy with strangers”. Probably something even crazier, this was afterall the guy who claimed Mass Effect was a kitten simulator where you could have sex with any NPC or create characters for the purpose.*

(* The censor will have turned that into “kitten simulator”. I left it deliberately because “kitten simulator” is funny. But if you don’t know and can’t guess lets just say it’s “forcing onself upon an unwilling partner”.)

Also look out for other players who are good at kiting/dodging and watch their movements. Obviously you can’t see how they’ve got their keyboard set up or if they’re using mouse/keyboard to turn, but you can see how their character is moving and you can potentially learn a lot from that.

I was watching a level 2 sylvari fight a level 6 boar the other day, I don’t think the guy ever stood still and I don’t think the boar ever touched him.

I’d recommend Desolation.

I actually gave up on the charr starting area the other day because there were too many people doing the same events for me to see what I was doing. Instead I started exploring Hirathi Hinterland (or however you spell it) since everyone on here keeps saying it’s always dead and saw quite a few people running around there too (although a lot less than in Ascalon).

We do pretty well in WvW too as far as I can tell.

Alf had some good advice, not just for moving in combat and dodging but for controlling the game in general – always remember you can re-map any/all keys so if you find something is awkward or uncomfortable, or you keep thinking a key should be somewhere else move it. It will make the game much easier!

So, I was thinking – the Charr mention repeatedly that they want to get rid of the Ascalonian ghosts permenantly, and keep hoping they’ll find/create a weapon that will allow them to do that. But it seems to me they’ve already got one – Sohothin, Rytlock’s (and previously Rurik’s) sword.

Supposedly if a descendant of King Doric brings the sword to Ascalon City it will send all the ghosts to their rest permanently.

Until the start of GW2 this presented a big problem – the sword is owned by a charr who is not willing to give it up, the only known descendant of King Doric is Queen Jenah, and the city in question is in the heart of charr held territory where she couldn’t go.

However since the two groups negotiated a truce it seems like they have a solution. Rytlock and Jennah go together (with a large group of guards to help fight off the ghosts) to Ascalon City, he hands the sword over to her, she does whatever needs to be done with it and then gives it back.

The Charr gain themselves a land free of murderous ghosts, the humans gain a lot of goodwill from the Charr and increased safety for Ebonhawke and everyone is happy.

(I also think that with a little research it may not be necessary to risk the Queen. In GW1 we were told Salma was only one of the previous king’s illigitimate children, the others may well have living descendants too. Plus Adelbern was a common soldier for most of his life and yet he is apparently a descendant of King Doric. It’s entirely possible there are a lot of people who fit the bill. Honestly if/when this prophecy does come into play it wouldn’t surprise me if the list “happened” to include every single human player character, the same way we were all Chosen in GW1.)

Thoughts?

The only flaw I can see is that I might be taking this whole ‘bring the sword to the city’ thing a bit too literally. It’s possible it means she has to be going there to reclaim the city, and all of Ascalon, as a human kingdom and the sword is simply a sign of that, rather like Anduril in Lord of the Rings. But I haven’t seen anything to clarify it either way, and it seems like it should be worth a try just in case the simpler and more literal meaning is the correct one.

mercury ranique.2170:

hmmmm, there are some globes showing the world, and if I look at the parts we know of, they are tiny compared with the rest. then again you might be right, but there are other games calling the playable area the world but wich are actually a lot smaller. in the end this is a fantasy world. no need to make it bigger then needed.

It doesn’t just happen in video games either. For one example the name Mediterranean Sea means ‘sea in the middle of the world’ (Medi = middle, Terra = world/Earth). To the people who gave it that name it was perfectly true, their world was most of Europe, the Middle East, the northern edge of Africa and a vauge awareness that there were places beyond that. When those other places were depicted at all they were always assumed to be relatively small (for example there are medieval European maps which show the entire of Asia as an area slightly smaller than France).

Any map we see in-game, particularly an actual map object as opposed to one that’s part of the UI, is going to fit with the lore, which means it’s going to fit with the perception of the people who made it, and even if they know about areas beyond what we’ve seen they might well depict them inaccurately or make the classic human error of assuming what they know is everything there is to find. If they know the world is a globe (which they seem to) they might well assume the area they have discovered so far is the total of that globe and made maps depicting it as such. It’s only later on when they (they probably being asura) do the math that they’ll realise it’s impossible and the world has to be bigger than they thought.

Yes. If you go to the ‘Game Releases’ section of the main site they’ve got January on the list, but no details yet.

Apparently they’ve said somewhere or other that it will focus on improving what we’ve already got rather than adding new stuff, but I don’t know where that was, I’ve just seen it said around the forum.

I think it was an attempt to please the people who were demanding a dungeon grind for vertical gear progression (which is apparently the only acceptable form of “end game” for an MMO to a lot of people).

They’ve got their dungeon, they can grind it indefinately and earn drops with better stats if they do, which then allow them to grind the dungeon even more. But the difference is minimal enough that everyone else is free to ignore it and get on with playing the game.

Torvic.8256:

Jeremy Soule’s music in both the Baldur’s Gate and Icewind Dale series was very good.

I didn’t realise he did the music in those games as well! Although I probably should have guessed.

Incidentally it’s a bit off-topic but I love the fact that the racial capitals are all unique. I have to admit my first impression was negative – I thought Divinitys Reach was too much like your typical ‘ye olde fantasy towne’ and the others were too weird and confusing. (I still get lost in all except Hoelbrak.)

But when I actually started thinking about it I realised that’s exactly how it should be. Divinitys Reach is like the archetypal fantasy human city and the others are like something created by an alien race – the layout and the architecture is like nothing on Earth (literally, although each has some real-world influences). It really feels like each city suits and reflects the race that built it.

I’ve been playing since the headstart weekend but I only get about an hour a night on weekdays, so I’ve only played for 290 hours in total. My highest level character is level 51 (my others are 19, 16, 7 and 4).

I spend most of my time exploring, absurdly thoughly. I don’t just go for the waypoints and POI’s and things, I’m actually aiming to speak to every named NPC, I climb everything I can watch the dialogues and other interactions between NPCs….today I spent about 10 minutes watching a dog in Nightguard Beach randomly attacking crabs.

But in terms of goals I’m working towards 100% world completion and planning to start doing dungeons soon. When I get to level 80 I’m going to work out what armor I want, which will probably be a mix of different sets and will probably involve transmuting at least some pieces, and then get that. Then I’ll probably start working on a legendary.

Oh, I’m also working on levelling crafting, but at the moment I’m only doing it when I have the materials, rather than buying them. (Except the stuff you have to buy obviously.)

I think if you only do it once, or once in a while you’ll be ok. The only people I’ve heard of getting banned were “giving” gold to lots of their “friends” either all at once or repeatedly over a period of time.

If you want random people to join up with you I’d say the most important thing is to speak to them first.

I often get random requests to join a party when I’m doing PVE, especially in lower level areas, and I always ignore them. I have no idea who this person is or what they’re actually asking. Do they want my help? Do they want me to just follow them around doing the same events? Do they want to follow me? Are they expecting me to run them through something or other? Do they just want to be in a party while we both do separate things?

On the other hand if people start a conversation in map chat I’ll often reply and that has lead to forming a party for certain things. Or just going and doing the same things in the same place(s) without bothering with a party.

Thraxas.6354:

This is really the one thing I find disappointing about GW2, I’m more used to MUDs where most players are frequently chatting and building relationships and discussing ideas, to say that this is guildwars there is very little focus on the guild and building community or relationships with other players.

Even in WOW / ROM / similar chat among guildees is far more prevalent than here. In my active and good guild 50+ players online at any time theres rarely more than 2-3 players who ever use guild chat.
I therefore dont feel I know more than a small handful of other players in the game, and none of them well enough to go to for advice or to bounce ideas off.

I would say this is an issue with your guild (regardless of how good it is in other respects) rather than the game. I’m in a guild that normally has about 20 people online at peak times and there’s almost always a conversation going on in guild chat. Which is in addition to whatever might be going on over Vent (I don’t have Vent but I know the guild uses it.)

Personally I really like the way guilds are handled in this game (aside from a lack of GvG). Guilds aren’t given specific functions, or activities to do together so it’s entirely up to the players to decide what they want to do.

IMO the daily and monthly achievements should only reward points the first time you do them. Although I think achievement points are pretty arbitrary in general and don’t mean much so it doesn’t really bother me.

As for getting points I think the best way is to forget about it and focus on other aspects of the game. A lot of the achievements looked like a lot of grind when I first saw them, but if you ignore them until you’ve finished everything else you want to do then you’ll be a long way along with a lot of them (especially the “Kill X number of Ys” and "X kills with Y weapon ones) and any you do want to finish should be fairly easy.

I seem to remember early on they said they might raise the level cap in GW1 as well, and part of the reason for setting it at 20 was to give themselves room to do so without having absurd numbers. I think it was after the first expansion they started saying they probably wouldn’t (and probably during it’s development that they made that decision). So the fact that it’s possible in this game doesn’t necessarily mean they will do it.

Personally I’m pretty indifferent to the idea. I’m not against a level cap increase, but I think since levels are pretty arbitrary and more a way of keeping track of progression than a form of progression in themselves there has got to be something else to go along with it – new skills/traits/whatever to unlock or new content to go alongside the levels, and personally I’d be happy with that being added without the extra levels.

Actually that might be a good way to do it because then it’d qualify as “end game progression”. You get to 80 and you start unlocking a new set of skills or something. It fits with the current system of unlocking new skills and skill sets (as well as mechanics like weapon swapping) as you progress, and it’d be something to do after hitting 80 for those who want to continue the progression, like the gear grind in other games. (But with the difference that these skills wouldn’t be hugely more powerful, you could still be competative in WvW without them for example.)

Of course some people will still fly through the content then complain there is nothing left to do. But IMO trying to keep those people occupied is a waste of time for Anet because it’s impossible to make (good) content in a video game that takes longer to complete than to create so they’ll always be lagging behind the demand and they may as well spend their time making something that’s actually fun instead.

I’ve found the easiest way to get around the chat filter is to type, or at least edit, what you’re saying each time.

I did some experimenting while I was attempting Dark Reverie (and therefore spending a lot of time dead on the floor reluctant to go to a waypoint and start over) and I found that if I kept a message in my chat bar (usually ‘Thanks’ ready for when someone did rez me) then I’d be hit with the spam filter, even if I hadn’t actually said anything for about 10 minutes.

It also hit me if I scrolled up and reposted the same thing more than once or twice.

But if I edited it then it was usually ok.

It depends on what that new setting is. I play RPGs, MMO and otherwise, for the lore as much as, if not more than, the gameplay and it’s almost always the lore that first gets me interested in a game.

I think the gameplay is good enough that it’d make a great game with different lore, but the lore needs to be up to scratch too. I’ve seen several games where the developers made the mistake of thinking it doesn’t matter, you throw together some vaugely fantasy related things, say some big evil is attacking the world and as long as combat is fun you’ve got a great RPG and it just doesn’t work that way for me.

OP are you really suggesting this is the only MMO where people choose to play the market to get rich in-game? Or are willing to put a lot of real money into getting in-game items?

It was the same in GW1, some people spent all the time in Kamadan buying and selling to get money and rare items, which they never really used because they spent all their time stood in town. It was the same in UO (with the added amusement that back when I played some of the rarest items were things like rock and snow) and from what I’ve heard it’s the same in most MMOs (and apparently the main focus of EVE).

And then you have “free” to play games which are almost entirely built around that mentality.

I see it as just one of the things you have to expect from the genre, and if it’s not your thing then you just set your own goals and get on with them your own way and don’t worry about what other people are doing.

Dreamslayer.7659:

Considering you could do this with a silly holiday hat in Guild Wars 1, it does not seem like too much to ask.

The basic idea is to create a skin library that is disconnected from item stats.

It sounds fun, but it would actually make legendary weapons even more common which I don’t think is the best idea.

This.

Legendaries are supposed to be rare and impressive, which means they’re supposed to be hard and/or expensive to get and not something you see everywhere. If you just had to unlock the skin and then you could make an infinate number on all your characters, even if it required the same process they currently have, it would make legendaries far more common and therefore less impressive. Which defeats the point of having them.

That’s the point of the questions.

Every character gets a profession specific question which defines a piece of starting equipment (ie. ranger pet or warrior helm), a universal one which determines your starting personality, then 3 race specific ones which determine your personal story to level 30.

For the norn these are the “My most important quality”, “At a moot I” and “I had a vision of” questions.

But after level 30 your story is determined by which order you choose, so you’ll need to pick a different one to get a different story.

I think the downside is you don’t get the same degree of control.

I use the mouse to move most of the time when I’m exploring so I can hold down ctrl+alt with my other hand (although for long distances I use autorun) but then when I’m in combat or jumping I’ll usually switch to WASD or the arrow keys.

Normally the arrows because otherwise I’m either using the same hand for my skills and movement or I’ve got one hand on top of the other and that’s just awkward.

Cato.5970:

Does there need to be a ceremony or public declaration to make a recognised mate-bond? We know there can be a feast with boasting, but what’s the status of what historically would have been private marriages? Does there need to be a ceremony or public declaration to dissolve a mate-bond?

If human societies (all of them) are anything to go by then yes there does. Most marriage rituals started off as almost entirely a public declaration and/or celebration and then specific rites and ceremonies, as well as the legal aspects, grew out of that over time. The ones that didn’t typically grew out of existing rituals.

Even today the core of pretty much any wedding ceremony is declaring to a group of people representative of your society (either your friends and family, authority figures or a combination of the two) that you are now married.