Guild Wars 2

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

Danikat.8537:

I’ve got a free pass to the Captain’s Airship which came from my free Season 1 Memory Box, and after that I’ve got one from the 5th bithday (going to pick the Mistlock Sanctuary) but it’s definitely not something I’d miss once it’s gone.

Just wait until you’ve lived without Nova Launch, Low Gravity, or return-to-last-location. Or, for that matter, the convenience of all those services within a few clicks (i.e. Nova Launch) of each other.

I’ll let you know in 3 weeks then, when I’ve used it up.

If you’re worried about not having anything to do after level 80 because you don’t want to play raids you should know that’s only one tiny part of the game.

Especially if you’re interested in the story – you’d be better off finishing the Personal Story and then doing the Living World, Heart of Thorns and Path of Fire story missions, and of course the open world content that goes with them.

If you got to level 80 and focused exclusively on raiding you’d miss the vast majority of the story (and the game) whereas you can play everything else without ever entering a raid and won’t miss anything except a few details of the story (which can be found elsewhere but not as obviously) and of course the raid exclusive items which are all cosmetic – there’s no special raid gear which has better stats than anything else, or anything like that.

Ashantara.8731:

Danikat.8537:

Sorry for the stupid question but as someone who has never played WoW: What is raid story mode? How is it different to the existing raid?

Probably similar to the dungeons’ story mode. By the way, I would support raid story mode — just so one understands what the heck is going on in those raid instances story-wise, who the bosses are, where they came from and what on earth they are doing there now.

That was my thought too, but the OPs post made it seem like something more than that. Story dungeons are just side-missions to the main story which take place in the dungeon instances. The end of the personal story makes more sense if you play them, and of course it enables you to be the one who opens the explorable path and unlocks the reward tracks, but I know a lot of people skip them because they don’t see any point in doing them.

Sorry for the stupid question but as someone who has never played WoW: What is raid story mode? How is it different to the existing raid?

I certainly wouldn’t be opposed to it coming back, but I think a lot of the people who keep asking for it would be disappointed.

I think the big difference to the Vinewrath fight isn’t the mechanics involved to fight the boss, it’s that it wasn’t around long enough for that to be familiar. The Vinewrath bosses also have special mechanics which everyone needs to understand and use to beat them and early on that felt like a real challenge. Now almost everyone knows it to the point where they don’t even think about it.

If the Marionette was permanent the exact same thing would happen. It wouldn’t be this special, epic fight, it would just be another world boss.

Turning 150 softwood planks into dowels. I’d spent weeks saving up that wood!

Also the time (very early on in both the game’s life and my learning to play it) when I actually told my guild “I don’t need to worry about dodging, I play a ranger”.

Puma.3645:

Danikat.8537:

It’s definitely harder to get to know people via map chat because now all PvE maps are shared you’re less likely to run into the same people all the time and (on EU servers especially) there’s a good chance a portion of the people on the map will not understand anything you say, unless you happen to be fluent in English, French, German and Spanish and feel like posting everything 4 times.

Yeah, for some reason i forget that other language speakers play this game, and I also did not know that f2p people cant type in map chat..interesting change o_O

I think they stopped free accounts being able to use map chat so people can’t make a free account, spam abuse/gold selling messages and then when it gets banned just make another one and start over. They could still spam say chat, but obviously that has a lot less impact.

It’s definitely the restriction that bugs me most when I play my free account, mainly because I keep forgetting until I try to write something and can’t, but I also understand the reason for it.

This is the main reason I never had a pass before the PoF one (and only got that because it’s part of a bundle).

If you’re finished with the area you’re in and want to access some/all the services in a city before heading somewhere else it’s slightly quicker than going to WvW/PvP and then to Lion’s Arch and cheaper than a waypoint to LA/another city. And it means you’ve got all the services in a relatively small area.

But it never seemed worth the cost to me.

I’ve got a free pass to the Captain’s Airship which came from my free Season 1 Memory Box, and after that I’ve got one from the 5th bithday (going to pick the Mistlock Sanctuary) but it’s definitely not something I’d miss once it’s gone.

You’re right except for the last part – the passes do not send you back to where you entered from. To leave you either walk out the entrance into Divinity’s Reach or use the asura gate to go to another city, or use a waypoint.

It’s an article about upcoming blog posts.

It says they’re going to have several about the elite specialisations, then from today there will be a week of posts about mounts and then a week of posts about the story and the Crystal Desert.

No mention anywhere of any type of beta.

My advice would be to join a smaller guild. I’m currently in two with about 150 members in each and usually about 60 online at one time. Even though I’m not the most sociable person – I’m often only on for short periods of time (less than an hour, often just a few minutes) and I don’t always talk when I am online – I feel like I’ve gotten to know some of the people in my guilds simply from it always being the same people I talk to.

It’s definitely harder to get to know people via map chat because now all PvE maps are shared you’re less likely to run into the same people all the time and (on EU servers especially) there’s a good chance a portion of the people on the map will not understand anything you say, unless you happen to be fluent in English, French, German and Spanish and feel like posting everything 4 times.

So I think guilds are the way to go and if you feel like your guild is too big to facilitate that the solution is simple – join a smaller guild. There’s a lot of them out there but you may have to go out of your way to find a good one as the small, close knit guilds are unlikely to be the ones spamming map chat for members. That rarely leads to a close community as it’s pretty random who you find to join and it’s unlikely they’ll feel any attachment to the guild.

My current guilds were both recommended to me by friends in-game when my previous guilds went inactive, and that’s one approach I definitely recommend. If you know someone you get along with and/or who has similar interests to you ask if they’re in a good guild which might take you.

If that’s not going to work then it’s time to go looking yourself. Think about what you want from a guild then look through adverts on this forum, on fan sites, or ask in-game for one that suits you. In my experience guilds with conditions on who can join are actually better – it means they’re taking the time to make sure new members are a good fit and means you know as soon as you join that you’ve got something in common with them.

After that it’s just like making friends with people in any situation – you need to spend time talking to them, doing stuff together, find out what your common interests are and focus on those. It will take time of course but hopefully it’s something you enjoy.

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

Every month or so, someone starts a thread about this topic and the responses quickly fall into three categories:

• Those who think multi-guild hurts their guild’s ability to recruit, retain members and to be the go-to place for guildies.
• Those who think multi-guild is great for recruiting, since folks can e.g. be in fractal guild and a wvw guild, without getting frustrated by being in one guild that doesn’t do both.
• Those who don’t care because they don’t join guilds, they only join with a small circle of friends, or they only join one guild anyhow. For them, multi-guild = one guild per account.

There are digressions about storage guilds and per-character guilds, which don’t really change the main points above. Multi-guild supporters don’t see why the game should restrict choice, because guilds can choose to be 100% rep (or nearly so); one-guild fans don’t see how it’s even possible for someone to belong to multiple guilds and be a loyal member to them all.

I’ve yet to see one of these threads end up with someone changing their mind about the topic.

What he/she said.

Personally I’d say it’s good that people have the choice and it’s up to each individual guild to set their rules and each person to think about what they want and find (or create) a guild that suits them.

For the first 3 years or so of this game I was in just one guild – the same one guild – and never felt any need to join more. Then that one went inactive so I joined another (and very much appreciated the multi-guild functionality because it allowed me to stay in my first guild while also being part of an active one).

When that one went inactive I wasn’t able to find a 3rd guild that really suited me, so I ended up joining 2 different ones and for now that’s working well for me.

In some way it’s purely practical: one of my guilds is based on a different time zone to me so they start guild missions about 10 minutes before I get home from work so I almost never get to do missions with them. The other does them at a much more convenient time. But it’s also about the social aspects – I have very different conversations with each guild and I enjoy chatting to both groups of people, even if I know many of them probably wouldn’t get along with each other.

I think given the choice I’d prefer to be in just 1 guild at a time, but it’s nice to know I have the option to join more than 1 if I can’t find one guild that suits all my needs. (And I really do not have the time to start my own, I couldn’t possibly give it the commitment it needs.)

I’m confused, the concept art the OP posted is a trenchcoat.

It’s done up at the front rather than hanging open like some, but you can very clearly see the bottom of the jacket between the characters right hand and knees.

Admittedly we don’t have that exact style in game (to me it looks like a cross between ascended armor and either the assassin or Order of Whispers coat), but it’s not fundamentally different to the ones we do have. It’s still a knee/calf length jacket (with a shirt underneath) over trousers and boots. Which is basically the template for all medium armour.

Yes, that would be it. I think I had some of those salvage scraps in my inventory. Odd that I’ve not noticed the warning before though, I must be paying even less attention to that window than I thought.

(I never use that option until I’ve sorted through everything to see what I want to keep or sell, so I don’t worry about what it says because I already know what’s going to get salvaged.)

You are correct. There are no purely ranged professions, and likewise no pure melee ones. I think the nearest you can get is an engineer without the elite specs – then all their weapon choices are ranged (shield skills both work at range).

But you’d still have to move into melee range sometimes, even if you’re still using ranged attacks. Especially in dungeons and Fractals where there often isn’t room to stay far away from the enemy and PvP where they will close with you even if you try to stay away.

I was surprised by how much trouble I had getting to the Yellow Catmander. I’m normally ok with jumping puzzles but dropping from the upper ledge below the waterfall to the lower ledge gave me a lot of trouble, I just couldn’t seem to get the right spot.

But I do think it’s appropriate that these cats are harder to reach than the previous ones, since they’re obviously intended to be something special. (And they’re not as bad as the Super Adventure Box cat.)

Also it effectively killed all the complaints about the catmander tag ‘watering down’ commander tags and making it so any idiot could have one just to show off. They cost the same (if you don’t have a commander tag already, they’re 1/2 price if you do) but are much harder to get to than the default tag which can be purchased in your camp in any Borderlands map.

Just after completing the Silverwastes meta-event chain I was sorting out my inventory and used the Salvage All Masterwork and Lower option. When the window popped up showing what I’d be salvaging there was also some red text that began with ‘Warning:’

But (I bet you can guess where this is going) I didn’t read any more of it. I was already moving to click on the confirmation button when the window popped up and literally just glanced at it as I was pressing the button so I didn’t have time to read the rest.

I’m not too worried because I’d already checked my inventory so I know there was nothing I wanted to keep and nothing super-valuable. But I am curious about what it said. As far as I know I don’t think I’ve seen that warning before and it didn’t come up when I opened some more bags and then salvaged everything again.

Does anyone know what it might warn you about? It’s not that my inventory was full or that the kit didn’t have enough uses, but I’m not sure what it could be.

I agree it would be nice to have more options for male armour.

I was really disappointed when I started looking for something for my charr thief – I’d spent ages deciding on a fur pattern and colours for him and I wanted it visible, but the best I could get was the Order of Whispers coat which has 1 bare arm, 1 arm partly covered and a random opening in the back.

It’s the same with my norns tattoos and sylvari bioluminescence. On female characters we have plenty of opportunities to show it off, but on males it’s difficult to find anything that doesn’t cover everything except the face and hands (and that’s only because we can hide those pieces).

It doesn’t need to be sexual – I’d be happy with sleeveless tops and shorts or the random ‘windows’ so many female sets have.

Yeah I think that would work perfectly.

There may have been some drama around his ancestors marriage. Ascalon, Kryta and Orr were all at war with each other (the actual guild wars) right up until the Searing and the Cataclysm, which if I remember correctly happened within weeks of each other.

It’s definitely not out of the question that Orr would have sent diplomats to Ascalon – the respective royal families were very concerned about the effect of the war, but by that point so much power had been devolved to various guilds (who allegedly were acting on behalf of their nation and monarch but many seemed to put their own interests first) that they couldn’t do much about it. But for him to marry an Ascalonian woman, especially a noble, would be controversial.

Or maybe the marriage was part of an intended long-term plan to form closer ties between the two nations which would have helped smooth over some of the inter-guild grudges, but the charr invasion put an end to that.

It’s definitely an interesting idea, there’s a lot of factors to explore, depending on how much you want your character to know about his family history.

It’s extremely unlikely. My main has been a ranger since the game was released (and before that I played a ranger in GW1. And I play similar classes in most other western RPGs too).

But I do also have 1 character of every class and I just play whichever I feel like when I log in, so I could easily end up playing a different one more if I find myself enjoying them more.

I’m not going to deliberately swap though. The new elite specs are optional – if I don’t like soulbeast I’ll just stick with what I’ve got now.

It’s highly unlikely they could be of 100% Orrian heritage simply because not many Orrians survived and I don’t think they ever made a concerted effort to find each other or form their own communities, so they wouldn’t be marrying and having kids exclusively with other Orrians.

But there’s no reason they couldn’t include some Orrians. Maybe their family name is Orrian but they’re also a noble through their mothers family or something like that?

At the moment I’m thinking the best solution would be to make crystalline ore tradable.

It’s needed for a lot of different things, and offering an alternative way to get each one would be a lot of work for the developers and only helps people going for that one specific item or set of items.

Whereas my understanding is that making it tradable is a relatively quick change and all it does is shift the effort of farming Dragon’s Stand from people who need the ore to make stuff to people who like farming Dragon’s Stand. I imagine it would sell for quite a bit so it’s not like it’d make the end products quick and easy to obtain.

First thing to know: the Trading Post is shared across all servers in both North America and Europe – so there’s a lot of people using it and therefore a lot of activity. It’s not at all unusual for things to change much faster than you’d see in other games trade systems, or to see large numbers of buy and sell orders.

In this case however there is something unusual going on, but it’s not some nefarious plot by gold sellers (of any nationality).

Permafrost Dye was only available as part of the Jormag dye kit, which is the newest one to be added to the game but which is now unavailable.

A lot of people expected that the 5th birthday gifts – which players started getting on the 24th when the oldest possible characters turned 5 – would offer the Jormag dyes as one of the choices from the Exuberant Dye Kit (which unlike the gem store packs allows you to choose a specific dye). So they were holding off on buying it and similarly many people who got one from the Jormag kit were trying to sell it before the expected drop in price when the birthday gifts hit.

Then the 24th came and everyone found that wasn’t the case – you can’t get any Jormag dye from the Exuberant Kit. So people who wanted one had no reason to keep waiting and put bids in to buy it. Which of course caused the price to jump up.

The price might dip again once the initial rush of demand dies off, but it’s unlikely it will go back down to what it was unless the dye is made available another way or a brighter white is released. (White dyes, along with black, are almost always among the most in-demand.)

I think your best bet is to get a cheaper white dye like Celestial or Eternal Ice.

Zet.9130:

demitel.1340:

That’s a good thing that we can’t fly in this game, gliding is fine. It would totally ruin immersion

While standing around the storage in LA – I SAW A BEAGLE PUPPY IN KERCHIEF AND COWBOY HAT! and you are going to talk about immersion? Naw those days are long past.

I guess it’s a good thing I never took real life seriously to begin with?

(P.S. google ‘beagle cowboy’, apparently it’s a common thing.)

Just to clarify, no I don’t own most of those skins or dyes – that’s why I took the screenshot in the preview window. And if I did I wouldn’t wear them all together.

Below is an example of what the character normally looks like. Whether that’s better is up to you, I’m sure the Dreamer and the cat ears will count against me with some people, but it’s my character and I like it.

This was just an experiment to see what I could put together and how it would look. The way some people talk this is everyone’s goal – to obtain and use all the most impressive skins they can and if they’re wearing anything else it’s because it’s the best they’ve got so far. So I thought I’d see what they’re going for.

If you pick ‘Protect the Spirits’ as one of your biography choices the level 10 story revolves around the Minotaur spirit. Eir is initially sceptical that the spirit could be involved in current events because it hasn’t been seen in generations, and no one seemed to think there needed to be a reason for that.

I think that’s a key difference between the human gods and the spirits of the wild. The gods are gods of the human race first and foremost. Whereas the spirits of the wild are primarily representations of animals (and natural forces I think). The norn admire them and choose to worship some of them, but it’s not reciprocal to the same degree – most of the spirits don’t feel any need to show themselves to the norn or to interact with them on a regular basis. (Even when you do work with Minotaur during that storyline it’s only because large numbers of minotaurs are also involved.) They will come and go as it suits their purpose.

So the fact that we haven’t seen Wolverine or Ox may simply mean that their focused elsewhere. Unless I’ve somehow missed them there aren’t even any wolverines in the parts of the world we’ve visited, and most of the dolyaks are tame – the spirit may feel they’re fine with the protection they’re given (or alternatively may feel they’re a lost cause due to being domesticated).

It could also mean that they’re dead, or too weak to show themselves.

From a story perspective I think the uncertainty is deliberate. The norn know the spirits confronted Jormag – at great risk to themselves – to give others time to flee. They know Jormag wasn’t killed but otherwise the outcome is unknown. They don’t know whether to mourn the dead spirits or hope for their return, or try to free them somehow.

I’m indifferent to it honestly.

I’m one of the people who rarely uses waypoints – I may use one to get to the right map but then I’ll run from there. But I’m also one of the people who has been reminding people from day 1 that they’ve always had that option and if they feel waypoints are ruining their immersion or causing them to miss out in some way they can simply not use them.

I do think it’s a valid point that all of the maps we’ve gotten since HoT are very small and so don’t need many waypoints (in Bloodstone Fen for example the only one I use is the one on the airship because you can glide from there to everywhere else).

But I also think it’s a design decision to make the maps feel more challenging by forcing you to actually travel across them instead of entering right by your destination. And of course an opportunity to introduce alternatives in the form of masteries and in Siren’s Landing the shrines which are a throw-back to how it was done in GW1.

I wouldn’t be opposed to the new maps having more waypoints, but I also wouldn’t miss them if they weren’t there and in most cases I’m unlikely to even notice that they’re not, I’ll have a point I typically enter each map and I’ll learn my way from there to everywhere else and then keep doing that.

There’s certainly not going to be a collectors version with any physical bonus items, otherwise they would have announced it already. (Because the people most likely to buy it are also the people most likely to pre-purchase and they would be extremely angry to buy the game and then find there’s another version they may prefer.)

It’s possible that from September 22nd onwards stores may sell boxes copies, with or without a disk, but that would just be the standard version of the game as it was for HoT – no pre-purchase or digital deluxe items included.

Random idea I had while at work today, which may actually be two related ideas: Is it possible for a sylvari to misunderstand their Wyld Hunt? Could they set out to do something which is actually impossible? And could they think they’re on a Wyld Hunt when they’re not?

During the early part of the sylvari storyline (I believe it’s the start of the level 20 stories, but not sure if it’s in all of them) Caithe expresses the concern that Traherne’s Hunt to heal Orr and start it’s regrowth is ephemeral and may not have an actual solution. But of course that proves not to be the case. It may not have been easy (I get the impression a lot of time and effort went into creating that ritual, even before we got involved) but it was possible.

But are there any cases of sylvari attempting a Hunt which, at least for now, appears to be literally impossible? For example seeking a person or place which does not exist. And if so is it really a Wyld Hunt?

I know there are examples where the individual in question only seems to know part of the Hunt, and not the end goal (unlike the PC and Caithe who started with an end goal – kill dragon/s and worked backwards). If I remember correctly there’s a sylvari Lionguard in one of the havens (but I can’t remember which) who says her Hunt lead her to visit the haven and join the Lionguard and she gets the sense it’s not over but doesn’t know what comes next.

Which brings me on to my second point. Sylvari have trouble describing how a Wyld Hunt feels, even to other sylvari, except for saying you just know, you feel like you have to go somewhere and/or do something and you cannot feel fully relaxed or happy unless you’re working towards that.

But could they be wrong? If a sylvari has never experienced a true Wyld Hunt is it possible they could mistake other feelings, like a normal desire to visit a place you’ve heard about (or saw in the Dream), or feelings for an individual (love, hate, protectiveness etc.) for their Hunt?

Oh yeah, I meant to say that auras can’t be previewed so I wasn’t able to include them.

Also I was trying to avoid including too many skins that can be purchased on the TP because my understanding is that’s not considered as prestigious as something you have to earn. I included the Invisible Boots because there’s not that many options for boots and they are one of the most expensive items in the game, and Eternity because I couldn’t decide on another option, but I didn’t want it to all be stuff you can buy.

Just for fun I set myself the challenge of putting together GW2’s most prestigious costume – all the rarest, hardest to obtain skins and most expensive dyes together. Surely a thing of glory to behold!

My attempt is below and since a lot has changed since I last tried this in 2014 and I think there’s many more options now I’d love to hear your thoughts and maybe even see some alternate takes on it.

Featured in my attempt is:

• Celebration Hat (free give-away during the headstart weekend)
• Glorious Hero’s Shoulderguards (place 1st in a PvP tournament)
• Perfected Envoy Jerkin (legendary armour)
• Fire God’s Vambraces (30 Hall of Monuments points)
• Mistforged Triumphant Hero’s Legguards (1900 WvW rank + purchase earlier versions)
• Invisible Boots (about 2,000-3,000 gold)
• Eternity (combine both other legendary greatswords)
• Warbringer (legendary WvW backpack)

Dyes are Permafrost, Shadow Abyss, Scorched and Bloody Red with a combined price of about 1,550g (and that’s using buy orders).

I agree that it would be helpful if you could give specific examples of the bosses you’re having trouble with.

A lot of story bosses, especially in Season 3, have specific mechanics which make the fight much easier. In some cases I’m not actually sure you can beat them without doing it that way, no matter how many people you have or how good you are at combat in general. (If you’ve ever played a Zelda game it’s the same idea – you have to avoid their attacks for a bit, then you get an opportunity to stun them or break their invulnerability, a short time to attack normally and then it starts over.)

If you can tell us which bosses they are we can help you work out what to do as I know it’s not always clear.

No PoF will not bring better gear, so yes you can farm it now and it will be fine for PoF.

This is one of the fundamental design decisions behind GW2, there is no ‘gear treadmill’, instead the best stats are relatively easy to obtain and new tiers come out very rarely/never (and the level cap doesn’t change). Anything harder to obtain is intended to be optional.

For example you can craft ascended weapons relatively easily or get them as drops from certain places, or you can make legendary weapons which are much more expensive and take much longer but have the exact same stats, just with fancier skins.

So far the only new tier to be introduced was Ascended, and that was about 2 months after launch. And now they’ve got the mastery system to provide a sense of on-going progression without actually making characters more powerful.

Just a flesh wound.3589:

Glacial.9516:

Just a flesh wound.3589:

In fact, one thing I’m going to do once I have a mount and some time, I’m going to try to get a level two down to the most southern corner of Orr by simply running past them on my raptor. I’m curious if it’s possible, and I think it is.

Interesting. I’m going to guess that this may be impossible (not because of the mobs but because you’ll probably get at least one level from map exploration). I wonder how low you could be if you optimized your route to get as little exp as possible on the trip there. That would mean unveiling as few areas as possible and avoiding WPs and POIs I’d imagine? Which might be exceptionally frustrating if you die.

I’m guessing the XP from getting down there would be at least level 3 if not level 4, so level 2 can only be the starting level.

Probably wouldn’t be too frustrating to die with the changes to revive orbs. If you can summon the mount fast enough and get going, probably can get away.

That’s when a flying mount would come handy.

I really like this idea.

Soon as I get the raptor unlocked I’m going to make a norn and head off from Hoelbrak, see how far I can go.

Vavume.8065:

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

. I’m also happy to see people get a chance to to check out the VIP areas for ‘free’.

I insta deleted it, I do not appreciate them trying to coax me into buying something and calling it a birthday present…

Tiger Ashante.1792:

Amazing 5th birthday rewards, thank you for everything you do, you guys are 2nd to none.

They are 2nd to Blizzard.

Just out of curiosity do you also delete any Black Lion Keys and chests that drop and refuse to get any of the gem store items that are put up for free?

Because it’s the exact same idea there.

Alternatively you could have used your free gift, safe in the knowledge that the marketing strategy will not work on you and therefore you lose nothing by taking advantage of the offer.

Sarie.1630:

If the NPC was called Kitten, Kitten, Kitten the Kittenable, Tactician Kitten or Kitten Briar, then sure., report away.

Sentences like this are why I sometimes love profanity filters.

But I don’t think anyone was suggesting Anet should, or would, search through every conceivable word in every language to check for possible offenses just because one word has been shown to be problematic.

It’s more likely they could set up an exception for that one word. Many profanity filters allow that – for example you could set it to censor all uses of D, U and C together except when followed by K, so abduct or duc is censored but duck is not.

(No, there’s nothing offensive about duc as far as I’m aware – I was deliberately using a random example that wouldn’t get changed to kitten.)

The language filter is optional.

If you run into this problem again you could ask the other person to open the options menu, disable the filter (3rd drop down on the first page) and then turn it back on again once you’ve said what you need to say.

Admittedly it’s not ideal, but it’s a ‘fix’ everyone can use, rather than hoping Anet will get the profanity filter working perfectly, something which (as far as I know) no one has ever been able to do.

P.S. I’m mildly surprised the conversation has gone on this long without anyone mentioning a certain Kournan general from GW1. I can’t even search for the page because I’m on my work computer but lets just say if you think GW2 NPCs have some inappropriate names you’re in for a surprise.

This is just a random character I made for key running/story completion, but I really like this outfit and since I won’t get to show it off in game much I thought I’d post it here.

Feathered Headpiece
Carapace Vestments
Fire God’s Vambraces
Leystone Pants
Heritage Shoes

Dyes are Heritage, Blood and Redemption with Illumination on the Vambraces.

Ashantara.8731:

HighStoned.5961:

hello guys i just want your opinion about this name, Highstoned or Highstoner could be unapropiate? it could be offensive or break any rule?

Wouldn’t “Highstone” be a better name anyway than “-stoned” or “-stoner” (whatever the latter is supposed to mean).

That’s exactly what I was going to suggest. IMO Highstone sounds much better.

Anela.3867:

Ayrilana.1396:

Anela.3867:

Ayrilana.1396:

Useful to me for weekly key farming.

Please pardon my ignorance but could you tell me how you do that?

Thanks,

Anela

Once a week I create a new character, use a scroll, and do the first personal story arc after which I get a key. I think most people do the human commoner one since it’s the quickest but the others aren’t that far off in case you want to change it up.

Just went and found a wiki page dedicated to it.

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Key_farming

Thank you so much! I am going to start doing this!

Just so you know, you can only get 1 key per week by doing this. It resets on Monday (I can’t remember the exact time but it’s on the Wiki). So make sure you don’t do it more than once a week or you’ll waste a scroll.

You also get keys from the first step in the level 40 story and from the level 60 one, but obviously that requires a lot more time to play through the story. I typically go up to level 40 at least, but that’s because I’m also working my way through every possible variation of the Personal Story so I “need” to do it anyway, I think most people don’t bother going above 10 even if they’ve used a higher level scroll.

I find them very useful, but then I make a lot of new characters and often want them well above level 1. Sure I have tomes as well, but I don’t do much WvW and no PvP so I don’t get as many as most people and would use them up extremely quickly if I had to rely on them exclusively.

Having said that it would make sense if they had an alternative use for people who don’t want more characters.

If you look up any tradable item on the Wiki the info box on the right side of the page will list 3 or 4 different sites that provide this info.

Which one you use is up to you. They all get the info in the same way so they’re all as accurate as each other, they just present it differently.

So frustrating! I still have another 2.5 hours before I get home and get my birthday gift/s. (Some years I get 2-3 together, some years they’re as much as 2 days apart, not sure why.)

I’m really excited to check out the new weapons especially, but the other stuff is nice too.

As Trogdor says it doesn’t matter which world you’re on because PvE maps are shared.

What might help though is using the LFG tool to find squads (or parties, but it’s more likely to be squads) advertising HoT map completion runs. You’re most likely to find them at peak times (evenings and weekends US time) but they can come up at any time.

Alternatively any map where people are doing the meta events will work. You may still have trouble with some things, like the Balthazar Hero Point in Auric Basin, but a lot of things are much easier to do on meta-event maps because the events unlock access to the areas you need and there will be more people around.

The Birthday Blaster is still, genuinely, one of my favourite things from the birthday gifts. I know it’s not the best food boost but it’s free and more importantly it comes from a cake gun.

I’m also looking forward to getting another backpack this year. I had a really hard time choosing between them last year (and that was before I realised you only got 1). But if the Wiki is correct I’d like to see these weapons as well.

Short answer: It sells.

Longer answer: Different people have different priorities. I didn’t get the Royal Terrace pass because I can already get to DR quickly. I didn’t get the Captain’s Airship pass because I find the airships cramped. I had various reason for not getting the others. I did get the one in Amnoon because it will act as a free teleport to the new maps, saving some money on waypoints as well as the other services.

Other people have their own priorities. Every time a pass is released there’s debate over what makes it better or worse than the existing ones. Having options allows everyone to choose the best for them.

If stat combinations are going to be re-named because of unfortunately connotations surely Rabid should be top of the list? I mean, as much as I find my rabid fuzzy panda hat amusing it’s not a great description for a character is it?

Fortunately it’s not a description of the character – it’s just a name given to a set of stats and doesn’t mean anything really apart from being shorter to type and easier to remember than the combo it represents.

Just to clarify I do not like that these are in gem store RNG boxes. I think that’s a horrible way to make any item available, new or old, especially when the drops are account bound.

But having spent 5 years arguing that point, both with Anet and with players who complain that they wasted $150 on them and have to spend more to keep trying then act like it’s some great mystery why companies release these things, I just don’t have the energy to do it any more. I can literally run through the whole topic in my head – what I’d post, what other players would post, the fact that Anet would totally ignore it – and know that in the end nothing will change. So I’ve given up.

It hasn’t changed how I feel about them, I have never and will never spend any money (even gold converted to gems) on these things. But I’ve given up arguing that they shouldn’t exist.

As long as there’s idiots convinced they’re so special that the laws of probability do not apply to them and willing to throw their money at the screen to prove it developers are going to keep giving them the opportunity to do so.

But to me that’s a separate issue. I don’t like gambling boxes regardless of what’s in them. But I also don’t have a problem with new players being able to get the same stuff I have, regardless of how I got it or how they got it.

For example when the mini Llama was introduced I entered the Tournament of Legends to try and get one. I had never played PvP before but I was lucky enough to have 4 friends from my (officially inactive at this point) guild crazy enough to sign up with me, we practiced for a week and then it was the tournament. We got through the first round on a pure fluke – the other team didn’t show up. We were absolutely decimated in the 2nd round but I didn’t care – I was literally dancing around the room because I was so happy I’d got my llama.

A week later a friend told me he’d got a code for one at some event and would give it to me for free. A few months later I saw a mention in the patch notes that Anet was going to give PvPers something to do with ‘all those mini llamas you keep getting. Now there’s about 15 different llamas, many of which I’ll probably never be able to get, and the original is considered the boring one that ‘everyone’ has.

And you know what? I don’t care. It doesn’t change the great memories I have of doing that, the gratitude I feel that my friends were willing to be humiliated alongside me for something so silly or the great story I have. I still love using my mini llama, even if everyone assumes I just got it from grinding a reward track.

I understand the frustration, but I also understand why they made it exclusive to WvW and have repeatedly updated how it’s obtained to ensure that you have to play WvW to get it.

I recently got one through the reward track after not playing WvW for years, and never playing much before that. I honestly didn’t find it that bad and got the whole thing done in approximately 6 hours. WvW is not a mode I especially enjoy and it can be very inconvenient for me because ideally you need to be able to commit to being there for a few hours at a time, and at peak times, but completing 1 reward track is certainly do-able.

If anyone’s interested here’s a guide I wrote which is aimed at people who have never played WvW before but want the Gift of Battle: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/players/Gift-of-Battle-Catmander-for-WvW-newbies/first#post6703914

Sorry, you lost me at mashed potatoes. Disgusting food (and yes I have had them made really well) that ruins any meal it’s part of.

But also I’m not sure any of the dragons are made of meat. At least not meat you’d want to eat. Zhaitan was undead and looked quite rotten so I can’t imagine he would be hygenic or taste particularly nice. Same goes for Tequatl and the other Champions we’ve seen. And Mordremoth was a mass of vines which are probably poisonous and certainly looked very tough and fibrous.

Aurene appears to be at least partially made of crystal, like her mother and the Shatterer. Which oddly enough might make her the most edible so far as there are some edible crystals – best known being salt and sugar.

Even so I don’t imagine it’d be something you’d want as a main ingredient. I’d say make a curry or a stir-fry and use little bits for flavour.

I agree.

I’ve been lucky with my 2 free boxes – my only duplicate was an Endless Mystery Quaggan Tonic, which is tradable. But then the other stuff was a 2 week Captains Airship Pass and some consumables. So in a way I only got lucky because I was unlucky and didn’t get any of the rarer rewards.

I’m especially confused by the number of mini pets which are normally tradable but are account bound if you get them from these boxes. I can’t see any logic to that.

The existence of the Guaranteed Wardrobe Unlock makes it especially odd – that proves they have the tech to avoid giving players useless duplicates because it’s designed to only drop things you don’t already have (and even has a “hidden” drop – a black lion key – for players who have everything). I don’t understand why they didn’t do the same thing here.