Guild Wars 2

Wait, what? Legendary wyvern mount? What am I missing here?

The Living Story is basically GW2’s version of DLC. And just like DLC packs in other games it’s purchased separately.

I’m surprised they give it to anyone for free (I’m not complaining, just surprised). It seems like an odd system but I guess it’s a hold-over from Season 1 when each update was free to play but once that two week/one month window was over it was gone forever and no one could play it.

maddoctor.2738:

Arden.7480:

So to summon the Gods we can gather some aspects?

That’s what I was wondering and it sounds rather silly but that’s what happened, unless of course they didn’t tell us the whole story (which is more likely).

He consumed the Bloodstone who might have a connection to the Gods, then he discuised himself as Lazarus

You got it backwards. By the time the Bloodstone exploded, and then he consumed its magic, Balthazar was already awake and disguised as Lazarus. The White Mantle performed a ritual to destroy the bloodstone, to power him up, which means he was already up and running and the White Mantle had already finished the ritual to summon him, before the explosion of the Bloodstone.

Which is one of the parts that make no sense. The White Mantle used the fake aspects to revive something, then that something proved to be Balthazar. What happened in that summoning ritual? How come the White Mantle didn’t notice it wasn’t Lazarus? Did Balthazar already possess Lyssa’s mirror when he appeared after the ritual? Otherwise wouldn’t the White Mantle know it was Balthazar and not Lazarus? It’s a really hazy part of the story

That’s my understanding. Basically the White Mantle got cheated. There’s two sides to how it happened however:

1) There was a schism within the White Mantle.

One group, lead by Xera, were religious zealots who wanted to focus on resurrecting Lazarus. They don’t seem sure how to accomplish this so they were trying a variety of methods – harnessing power from the bloodstone to ‘feed’ to Lazarus in various ways and collecting all the aspects for a resurrection ritual among them.

The 2nd group, lead by Caudecus was only interested in taking over Kryta. They wanted to turn the bloodstone into a weapon and/or a source of magical power. Caudecus didn’t want Lazarus resurrected because then he’d lose his authority as the head of the order and the focus would shift back to worshipping the Unseen Ones.

So Caudecus sabotaged the attempt to get all the aspects back together. What should have happened as a result of that was…nothing. It just wouldn’t work and Xera and her followers would look like fools, discrediting them.

2) Entirely separately Balthazar was looking for a way to obtain huge amounts of magic quickly and easily without being noticed.

So he returned to Tyria with the mirror which allowed him to disguise himself, found the White Mantle and when their ritual caused the bloodstone to explode he absorbed its power. While doing that he discovered they were trying to resurrect Lazarus and it hadn’t worked, so he used the mirror to make himself look like a Mursaat and took his place – gaining an army of followers to help him gather more magic.

Everyone had a plan which would have worked, but they were all sabotaged:

• Xera’s group did find out how to resurrect Lazarus, but Caudecus stole one of the apsects (or rather had Justicar Bauer steal it) so it didn’t work.
• Caudecus did find numerous ways to weaponize bloodstone but was then defeated.
• Balthazar did absorb the bloodstone’s power, but then – tipped off by Caudecus’ notes – we discovered he’s not Lazarus and set up a ritual to reveal him.

So no – gathering the aspects did not summon Balthazar. He turned up for his own, entirely separate reasons ( currently unknown to us). As far as we know there isn’t a reliable way to summon the gods. Which makes sense, they’re gods, not servants – you can ask for their help, try to persuade them…but ultimately it’s up to them whether they answer and what form that answer takes.

FrostDraco.8306:

Doggie.3184:

Most important re-balance is armor designs. Replace the designers please with people who aren’t anti-diversity.

Anti-diversity? I please hope this is in regard to armor, and not something political.

Considering the entire post was about armour design I think any political interpretation is your own.

A common complaint about armour designs in GW2 is that the overall ‘theme’ is always the same for each armour weight:

• Heavy is plate, chain or scale mail over a tunic (aka ‘butt cape’)
• Medium is a trench coat trousers and boots
• Light is a long tunic (aka ‘butt cape’/dress) over trousers or leggings.
• Males are fully covered from neck to wrists and feet, females have random patches missing.

Which limits players choices. If you want a light armoured character in plain trousers you’ve got one, maybe 2 choices. If you’ve got a medium armoured character you’ll have a hard time finding anything else, but you’re also going to have a hard time seeing it under the coat.

If you just want to play Path of Fire you do not need HoT or the Living World/Story stuff. You can just buy PoF and (when it’s released) you’ll be able to start that storyline on any level 80 characters you have and go to the new maps.

If you want to understand the story however you may need to play through the previous releases. (Alternatively you could find a video or a summary online that will tell you what happened. For some people that’s enough, for others it’s no good at all.)

The full order of the story is:

• Personal Story (included in the base game)
• Living Story Season 1 (currently unavailable to everyone)
• Living Story Season 2
• Heart of Thorns
• Living Story Season 3
• Path of Fire

The Living Story is basically GW2’s DLC – each one is a short storyline complete with new items and achievements and (in Season 3 only) new maps. Unlike some games however they tie into the main storyline of the expansions. Season 1 and 2 provided the setting for HoT and Season 3 sets things up for PoF.

The Living World is a more general term which includes both the story and related changes made to the base game maps (which will be there for everyone, even people who don’t play the story). They periodically add new events and achievements, or new NPCs and dialogue and things. Sometimes it’s bigger changes too – the major example being when Lion’s Arch was destroyed at the end of Season 2 and then rebuilt.

That’s a good point too – once you’ve completed all the masteries the only thing you get for your XP is 1 spirit shard per ‘level’.

It maintains the illusion of progression in that the bar along the bottom of the screen will keep filling and resetting, but you don’t really get anything from it. Unless you’re crafting a lot of rare skins you’ll get more than enough spirit shards from other places.

You’ll also need to say whether you play on NA or EU servers (or both), and if you’re offering WvW help which specific server you’re on.

sorudo.9054:

i actually want the radar (as it is called) on the top right just like GW1 has it, the lack of UI customization really gave me some frustration fits.

Luckily that is the one option you do have. Click and hold on the right side of the map, on the black bar but in between the + – icons and the waypoint icon, and you can drag it up to the top of the screen.

Kal Spiro.9745:

I feel like you’re doing it wrong. Why do you need to spend more than a glance at the minimap every so often to get all the information you need? Nodes pop up pretty far out.

They specifically mentioned farming. If you’re farming gathering nodes for example then you need to look at the mini map a lot to see where they are.

Having said that if the OPs diagram is accurate I recommend a smaller screen, one of those curved screens or sitting slightly at an angle (swivel chairs are good for this), it’d be a lot more practical.

But I also agree that it would be nice if we could customise the UI more. Ideally I’d like to be able to move everything around freely (but also lock it in place so I don’t accidentally drag stuff out of position).

Ashen.2907:

Danikat.8537:

The main rewards in GW2 are cosmetic – that’s how the game’s always been designed (it was the same in GW1). You’re not supposed to be constantly getting better and more powerful equipment, just things which look different and potentially nicer/more interesting. That is of course subjective, but I think there’s a wide enough variety that everyone should be able to find something they like.

What if that, “something they like,” is best in slot gear for the various builds they like to run? Not increasingly stronger, just BIS. An average of one weapon per year does not seem particularly rewarding to me either.

Remember, ANet decided to implement a higher tier of gear, a performance increase, as part of the reward model of the game.

That ‘something they like’ was specifically referring to the different styles of equipment. I didn’t want to imply that there’s a set progression to the cosmetics – that newer or harder content will always award better looking items, because as I said that’s subjective. One of my personal favourites for my main character is the noble coat – a mid level crafted piece, another is the carapace coat. I haven’t found anything in HoT or Season 3 I like as much as those two.

But even if the newest/most ‘impressive’ items aren’t right for you I think there should be something available to suit anyone. (Although we are still missing some styles, like trousers on female light armour without random holes in the sides.)

Oh, I thought they matched the achievements so you got mastery points for doing the different race and order stories.

Have you looked at where you can get mastery points from?

A lot of them come from open world stuff like defeating open-world bosses, finding hidden things like the coins in Drytop and Silverwastes and completing jumping puzzles. A lot of others come from stuff which is quite straight-forward, so even if it’s not content you enjoy you should be able to get through it quickly, like doing the personal story on multiple characters.

They also recently added a bunch of Central Tyria mastery insights – you literally just have to find a spot on the map and you get a mastery point.

You probably will have to do some of the ones from other content if you want to completely train up all the mastery lines. But then you may not need them all. For example if you’re not doing Fractals you’ll miss out on a lot of mastery points, but can also skip putting points into the Fractals line because it has no use outside of the one dungeon.

Alternatively if it’s just about doing content which gives you XP you can use the expansion is coming in 3 weeks and that has a whole load of new maps, with new mastery lines and mastery points to go along with it.

I love the idea of a Schrödinger’s Cat as one of the home instance cats, but I agree it would be a hard thing to portray and if it actually involved the cat being dead (even temporarily) it could be controversial.

I think making it an undead cat in a box could be the way to go. Because then it is both living and dead at the same time – which is what Schrödinger’s Cat is supposed to be, and in a way that works within GW2.

starlinvf.1358:

I’d guarantee 4 out of 5 players wouldn’t get the joke without looking it up.

Schrödinger’s Cat is pretty well known. I think most people know the basics of it being a thought experiment involving a cat in a box and there being no way to know if it’s dead or alive until you look.

What’s less well known is why this concept even came up or what it has to do with quantum physics. On more than one occasion when I told someone I studied behavioural biology they gave that as an example of what they thought I was studying. That and teaching dogs to ring bells when they want food.

To be honest I don’t fully understand it myself. But then I could never get my head around quantum physics. I’m a biologist, we deal with the real world, not hipster maths pretending to be relevant.

That’s an extremely broad question that’s not easy to answer. I’m not even sure it is a question. I suppose it might be possible to give an overview of everything that’s currently going in PvE, PvP and WvW but honestly a lot of it would be highly subjective, and I doubt you’d be interested in all of it.

Best thing would be simply to jump into the game and see for yourself. That’s one of the nice things about games without a subscription fee – you don’t have to commit to anything, you can log in just to see what it’s like.

I recommend taking a look at your traits and skills though. I doubt you’ll remember what you were using but there’s been quite a few updates so some/all of them will have changed and you might want to pick different ones.

Alternatively it might be better to start a new character (keep the one you’ve got though) so you can be reintroduced to the game gradually, rather than jumping straight in at level 50.

sorudo.9054:

reapers can pull whole groups and PBAOE them, it all depends on what you want tho….

Be careful with pulls as well though. That can be as annoying as knockbacks.

If everyone else has placed their AoEs and/or run to the spot where the enemies spawned and then you suddenly pull them towards you…it might be great for you but it messes up the rest of the groups attacks.

The main rewards in GW2 are cosmetic – that’s how the game’s always been designed (it was the same in GW1). You’re not supposed to be constantly getting better and more powerful equipment, just things which look different and potentially nicer/more interesting. That is of course subjective, but I think there’s a wide enough variety that everyone should be able to find something they like.

On Windows:

Find the Guild Wars 2 folder.
Right click.
Select Cut.
Go to the folder you want it in.
Right click.
Paste.

Unlike a lot of games all the files are kept within the one folder so there’s no issues with broken file paths if you do it that way, you can just move it like any other folder.

Anything that doesn’t have knockbacks.

(Contrary to popular belief, which only seems to come up at Halloween it is not just rangers who have knockback…and it’s also not true that all ranger weapons and/or pets cause knockback.)

AoEs are good, fast casting AoEs which you can place or fire at range are better.

Other than that I don’t think it matters.

STIHL.2489:

Here is the way it works.. if are a player that enjoys PvE, eventually.. you will be forced to raid to continue your progression in this game, it’s really just a matter of how long you can occupy your time doing other stuff before that happens.

Other than running out of other stuff to do (which is just a matter of waiting for Anet to add more content) what is there that forces you to raid?

DeadTreeJig.6714:

Danikat.8537:

But I also collect mini pets which takes a lot of time because some come from specific achievements and others need specific currencies, or are just very expensive.

I do this too, I have a long way to go. I’ll never have enough gold for the karka mini.

Have you noticed the karka has dropped in price a lot recently?

It’s certainly not cheap but not as impossible as it was. But even then it’s possible to do eventually, just takes a long time.

For most of the games life I thought I’d never be able to afford all the minis on the TP. Now there’s just 3 left for me to get – the Oakheart, Undead Chicken and Flame Legion Effigy and I finally feel like I might be able to do it. Just need to keep saving up.

Well I’ve never done raids and I’ve only ever played 21 PvP matches but I’ve managed to spend just over 4,000 hours in this game, and over half of that on one character.

I spend a lot of time playing through the various storylines and doing map completion. But I also collect mini pets which takes a lot of time because some come from specific achievements and others need specific currencies, or are just very expensive. I also complete achievements to get skins and items, or simply because an achievement sounds interesting. (I was literally in the middle of doing another one when I discovered there’s an achievement for finding a golden chicken in Tarir, so then I dropped everything to look for it, and refused to resort to using a guide.)

And then there’s random things like trying to break out of maps or reach points I don’t think you’re supposed to get to, taking screenshots of the scenery, replaying the personal story on alts so I can do every possible variation, helping friends with whatever they’re doing. At some point I’m going to finish doing all the dungeon paths and Fractals too…probably.

The Greyhawk.9107:

Redrobin.5627:

I’m honestly hoping for more desert inspired hair and to see if the dragon minion thing racism thing grows.

Eh, probably not, the anti-sylvari story branch is a dead one. HoT was the Xpack with a strong sylvari theme, PoF is looking to be a Human themed one.

And already some people are claiming the entire game is, and always has been, humancentric, like they claimed it was entirely sylvaricentric during HoT.

I think you’re right though. There was a lot of distrust of sylvari after Scarlet, Aerin and then the whole revelation with Mordremoth. But I think it’s calming down now that Mordremoths influence is gone and we’re back to threats coming from all angles.

Also none of that affected Elona, as far as we know. I think they might be suspicious of the sylvari, and I don’t suppose hearing that they were meant to be dragon minions will help, but I think in general Elonians would treat them like any other outsiders.

IndigoSundown.5419:

Now, why is there more melee hate in GW2 PvE than was true at the start of the game? A long standing complaint about dungeons was that groups would stack in melee, max out offensive buffs and burn bosses down in little time. Accusations like “face-roll.” “boring,” “silly,” and “stupid,” flew regularly. Add in that core PvE in the open world was also labelled too easy. ANet apparently decided to do something about the situation. Thus, we see a lot more AoE starting with the introduction of the Mordrem army in LS2.

It’s also because at launch the situation was pretty much the opposite of what the OP claims it is now. Many groups would kick anyone using a ranged, condition build, no questions asked. The simple fact that you attempted to use such a build was considered proof that you had no idea what you were doing and should not be allowed into group content.

It wasn’t any more accurate than the OPs claim that melee builds are useless now. (Ok at launch ranged, condition builds weren’t as good as melee power builds, but they were still good enough to get the content done.)

But that’s why there’s been so much focus on encouraging everything else, because for most of the games life a large chunk of the player base considered pure-power/beserkers DPS builds (which usually meant melee, or at least staying in melee range) to be the only option for every single profession.

Now there’s a lot more variety of ‘acceptable’ options. Which I guess if you favour power melee builds looks a lot like you’re being punished and forced to change.

Endless Soul.5178:

I’ll never understand this cape obsession.

Same here. Capes are ok, for certain characters. But I really don’t get why some people keep on asking for them in every single game (seriously, it’s not just GW2, it happens everywhere).

DeanBB.4268:

Your cape would get caught on a cactus and yank you right out of the saddle. “No Capes!”

Technically cacti should be rare or non-existent in Elona since it’s based on north Africa and the Middle East and there’s only one cactus native to anywhere outside the Americas, and that doesn’t look like what most people think of as a cactus.

But…it’s a game and ‘Hollywood’ rules apply, which basically means everywhere is America and all deserts have cacti.

I’m pretty sure they haven’t made any changes since the last beta. So it must be something else – like other people said different races do have slightly different animations so that could be a factor.

If removing it completely isn’t an option maybe it could come up briefly when you first enter beastmode then disappear? Or fade in and out?

Alternatively it could be made more subtle. Remove some of the green haze so it’s mainly just the leaf and vine effects maybe?

StinVec.3621:

Here are some of my female sylvari characters.

Despite some of them not being rangers and are light/heavy armor professions, and that several do not have their glow visible due to my recording these during daytime in-game, you may still be able to use some of their colors and dyes for some ideas.

Any more details wanted for sliders or armors/dyes, just message me here (or in-game to see them in person).

Are you able to post screenshots of the ones you’ve got as gifs? The thumbnails look great but (at least on my PC) those gifs are barely bigger than the thumbnail so it’s impossible to see any detail, and even harder when won’t stop moving.

Here’s my latest sylvari, for the beta test. Gaile’s post may have had some slight influence (although blue and purple are also my favourite colours, I usually have to make a concious effort to pick anything else).

The Greyhawk.9107:

I’m a little concerned that the suggestions of Celtic and Gaelic naming isn’t going to do much for the OP, if they didn’t like the sounds of the Welsh names (I believe throaty and guttural are the words you used, which I can sorta see...hear) as Welsh is a part of the Celtic language group, the Brythonic sub-group to be more specific. Gaelic is the other Celtic sub-group, and while the two subgroups are very different, they are also probably going to sound very similar. You may have the same problem as before.

Oh yeah, the same issue can happen, but with more languages there’s a lot more choices for each word.

For example I wanted to call one of my sylvari ‘silver birch’ (because it fit the white and black colour scheme and I like those trees). I like the Welsh word for silver – Arian. But the Welsh for birch is Bedw, which didn’t look great. So I did some investigating and came across the Old Irish equivalent – Bethe.

So she became Bethe Arian.

As Amaimon said the real reason we haven’t seen Zojja since HoT is that her voice actor – Felicia Day – has been too busy with other things. (Amongst other things I believe she had a baby earlier this year.)

(I suspect this is also why Logan was injured and therefore out of actor for a long time and then given the desk job version of the Pact Marshall role – he’s voiced by Troy Baker who is in basically everything.)

In-universe I think the situation is that she’s recovering (and those gossipy asura were exaggerating) but taking things slow and staying out of the action for now.

I’ve been fortunate enough that I’ve rarely needed to contact Support, but every time I have they’ve been very helpful. Compared to what I hear about other games customer support I think Anet are doing a great job!

Gaile Gray.6029:

Purple.

That is all.

:D

As soon as I saw there was a mod reply to this topic I knew it would be you and you’d be recommending purple.

I use them when I know I’m going to be in combat a lot, like when I’m doing a big meta-event or I’m in WvW. If I remember. When I’m playing normally I spend too much time gathering, talking to NPCs, falling off the scenery and doing other things where the consumables would be wasted for it to be worthwhile.

But I don’t go out of my way to get good ones, it’s just whatever I’ve got.

I don’t think they make a big difference. Unless you’re really serious about getting the best possible stats it doesn’t matter too much whether you use them or not.

This would be great.

My personal preference would be a custom order, but I imagine that’s a lot more work to implement. Alphabetical would be good for me though.

I’m not a big fan of Orr. It’s so…grey.

I like the map design, but not the colour scheme. Whenever I’m doing map completion I have to do those maps in bits because I get tired of seeing the same stuff over and over, so I go somewhere else (or play a different game) for some variety and come back.

No, pre-purchasers do not get early access.

We get exactly what’s listed on the purchase page: the Elonian Envoy title, mini Balthazar and Spearmarshal’s Gift (Elonian weapon skin). Plus whatever comes with the version of PoF you choose.

I love making sylvari, partially because they have the widest variety of skin and hair colours and I like experimenting with them. Here’s some examples of ones I’ve made.

The first one is loosely inspired by the Maguuma Jungle from GW1 (particularly Silverwood and Tangle Root). It took me ages to find the right dyes, especially for the skirt. I think I’ve bought more dyes for this character than any other, but that’s ok because she’s one of my main characters.

The rest are just based around a colour scheme. The black and white one in the 2nd photo has a pale green glow and the gold & red one in the 5th photo has a bright yellow/green glow. I don’t remember for the others because they were temporary characters (the bottom photo is a set of examples I made for someone else of matching sylvari armour to their skin and hair).

I recently noticed that I always make their eye colour match their glow, I don’t know why, it just seems right to me.

Narrrz.7532:

My sylvari are named Vysuja Deathseed & Amyleis Auriaceae. Lore friendly or not, I like to give my characters surnames – I think of it as a ‘nickname’ that my character has taken for themselves.

So i might try Allondyn Zephyr for your character.

That’s what I did with my 1st sylvari.

Her name is Alleria Wildrunner which is obviously not (GW2) lore friendly. (And not even that appropriate since she’s an ele, not a ranger and I’m one of the people who will insist sylvari are not “just GW2 elves”. But I had the name in GW1 and liked it and wanted to re-use it.)

My excuse is that the surname is a nickname/informal title she picked up for emerging from the dream with a Wyld Hunt and then proceeding to ignore it for several years while she explored the world.

I don’t think the Wiki has a single list of obsolete items, but if you search for a specific item the page should tell you what uses it currently has.

For example the page for Found Heirlooms has a banner at the top stating that it’s no longer available and the text at the start of the Usage section explains that all the merchants for it have been removed.

What would an /afk emote do?

I know some people use /sit or /sleep if they want a visual indicator that they’re not actively participating in whatever’s going on. But I can’t think of many situations where you need a clear sign that someone is afk, maybe when starting dungeons but that can be worked out by process of elimination – if you ask if everyone’s ready and they don’t answer then they’re not there.

I spent what I suspect is a higher than average amount of time in-game looking at other peoples characters (I even have a folder for screenshots of ones I really like) and I get the impression that most people are genuinely trying to make their character look good.

But of course ‘good’ is subjective. 3 of my guild leaders like to make their characters as shiny as possible. But even then there’s variation, one goes for sparkles on top of an otherwise normal costume, one goes for all-out shiny (I think if she could she’d look like the ley line anomaly) and one is genuinely going for over-the-top obnoxious because he finds it amusing.

But there’s plenty of people who go the other way too and make their characters not just dark but like some kind of darkness wraith (often involving the Phantom Hood).

And people who try to make their characters blend in with the world. Sometimes to the point where I mistake them for NPCs.

I’d post examples but I’m never sure how people feel about someone else posting their character on the forum. So as an alternative check out this topic: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Post-a-pic-of-your-character-only-if-your-armor-is-mix-n-match/page/52#post6720644

Edit: But by request is one of the aforementioned guild leaders. Can you guess which one?

Yes they all come back sooner or later.

The noble count one is classed as a halloween outfit so it’s usually available at some point in October (and sometimes at other times of the year). I’m not sure about the Imperial one, I don’t think it’s tied to a specific event.

You don’t need to see the reticle to shoot at it and shouldn’t need to see it to select it either – just click in the area you know it appears (aka the dragons neck) and it should still select. As long as you’ve got the dragon selected as your target that’s where the cannon will fire.

You can keep firing for the entire time the dragon is hovering and it will hit, regardless of whether you can see the reticle or not. The only reason to stop firing during that time is to apply the shield to reflect his attacks – which does help a lot because then you’re not standing in a cloud of poison.

And as Randulf said you can use the time while he’s flying around to clear the other enemies so you’re not getting attacked so much while fighting him. If necessary skip a round of attacking the dragon to clear them – you can’t run out of time in this fight.

If you’re not fond of Welsh have you looked at the Gaelic languages (Irish, Scots, Manx)? They share similar origins but the modern languages are quite different so you might find some good alternatives there. A lot of sylvari names are Gaelic or derived from it.

I love Welsh as a language (although I’m far from fluent) but I know what you mean, it’s not necessarily the prettiest language and can look a bit of a mess written down if you’re not familiar with it.

Having said that I like a lot of the names you’ve come up with, both the name and the meaning. My first choice from your list would be Calderyn, with Calomyr as a 2nd choice.

BTW have you checked whether all/any of these names are available in-game? It’d be a shame to decide on one only to find you can’t have it.

cymn.7384:

Danikat.8537:

Having said that it would be nice if at least some people (particularly children) did react to them as I doubt everyone will have seen sylvari.

They already did that!
In Amnoon city’s streets, there is a Priory sylvari walking around. Behind him, you can find 2 kids being obviously curious and following him, asking themselves what he is. (“Are those leafs under his armor?” or something along those lines). So at least the children don’t really know about the sylvari.

Oh cool! I missed that, but then I don’t think I spent much time in Amnoon as I was busy falling off cliffs exploring the desert and trying out the raptors jump ability during the beta.

Purgatori.3645:

It takes less than a minute to log in to get your daily rewards and check the trading post for promos …. While agree that something labeled “customer appreciation” should be around longer, maybe even mailed out to the community, Im sure you could have found one minute to log in and snatch up the freebie

Dont even get me started on all the laurels and mystic coins flipped = gold that you are missing out on ….. jeez lol

It only takes a minute or two if you’re already on the computer. If you need to stop whatever else you’re doing, turn on the PC, wait for it to start up, log into the game, wait for it to load and then open the gem store it takes considerably longer. And on most days (Mondays especially) there’s a high probability you’ll find that nothing at all has changed since last time you logged in.

Not to mention the fact that I suspect for many people, even long-term devoted GW2 fans, checking the gem store for new promotions comes very far down their list of priorities in life. Taking those few minutes out of whatever else you’re doing may be disruptive enough that it’s just not practical, even if it’s not a long time (for example if you’re trying to pack and get everything sorted to go away, or you’ve got family over).

Or you might just not think of it at the right time. On Saturday I was thinking I really need to do guild missions more often and I’d make sure I did them on Sunday evening. But come Sunday evening I was walking around the lake outside of town with my husband and didn’t even think about guild missions until I got home and they’d been over for hours.

Ultimately it’s a game. It shouldn’t be something you have to go out of your way to keep up to date with. Sure this is a relatively trivial example, but it’s easy for the same thinking – that we as players should be making an effort to log in at least part of every day – to spread to other aspects of the game. They did a good job with the login rewards by making them pick up where you left off instead of resetting if you miss a day, it would be nice if they could make similar allowances for less regular promotions too.

If it helps at all the package was just a black lion key and chest. So you’re not missing out on anything you can’t get normally. It does still seem unreasonable that it was only up for 24 hours (I nearly missed it too until someone mentioned it in my guild).

Alternatively you could always convince yourself you did get it but the chest dropped something entirely forgettable like mine. I think one item was a transmutation charge but I can’t remember the other one. I suspect one of the single-use express items.

Those aren’t titles, they’re just achievements. Unlike in GW1 most achievements don’t give titles.

The ones that do have a little crown icon next to the achievement point display and the chest (if there is one). But even then you need to be careful because the achievement name and the title aren’t always the same (for example the Wurmicidal Maniac achievement gives the much more boring Wurm Slayer title) – you can see what the title is by hovering over the crown icon.

Alternatively you can see a full list of titles and how they’re obtained here: https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Title

As Konig said it’s likely at least some Elonians have encountered sylvari before, or know about them. So I doubt they’ll be totally confused. Especially since plant people aren’t a big step up from the Jacaranda, Iboga and other plant ‘animals’ in Elona.

If anything I expect them to be more surprised to see Krytans and charr on such good terms.

Having said that it would be nice if at least some people (particularly children) did react to them as I doubt everyone will have seen sylvari. A white friend of mine is currently travelling through some remote parts of Indonesia and even though everyone she meets is obviously aware white people exist and has almost certainly met them before a lot of people stop her for photos, or want to tell her exactly how many white people have visited their market/village/island before. (Or ask if she knows where she is, where she’s going, how far away it is and if she’s absolutely sure she’s not lost.) There’s certainly an element of novelty to it. I imagine it would be similar with some Elonians and sylvari. Possibly asura, norn and charr too since I doubt many of them live in Elona.

It won’t mess up your story progress, but you also can’t progress your story in another race’s zone – you’ll have to go back ‘home’ to do your story.

You could take turns: do one person’s level 10 story then the other, or if one of you is less interested in the story you could just skip that one, it’s up to you.

If it was me in that situation I would probably try the ‘adding random things to it’ approach first. Zephyr, Zephyris, Zephiyr etc. But just because I think I’d be able to make up a name I like, even if it was a bit of a step away from the original. With other names I’ve made up that would be absolutely out of the question for me.

The problem being I’d want to be absolutely sure I liked the combination I choose before using the contract and that it was available. Which needs either a free character slot so you can make random characters to see if you can get the name or trying to add the name to your friends list (if it works then the name is taken). Trying to find a name I liked which is available could be difficult.

Alternatively I think it’s important to remember that the lore says sylvari do not have family names (because they don’t have a family…or are all one family, depending how you look at it) but that doesn’t mean all sylvari can only ever have 1 word names.

They could have a title – for example you could call them Commander Zeph, or Lightbringer/Magister/whatever Vigil rank you get Zeph. Or something more personal like Zeph the Wanderer.

Alternatively you could give them a two word first name, along the lines of Zephyr Anthes.