Guild Wars 2

I can’t find an article about it now but I’ve also heard that when City of Heroes did this something like 2% of the names they made available were actually taken. The vast majority of names players wanted were being used by active accounts, so the clear-out didn’t help.

Late For Tea.1846:

Shelved out around 1k gold for the Mini Karka Hatchling, about half a year ago. I wanted a mini that was unique, something that not many people have. Now, a few months later, it dropped almost 90% in value, and in the last week I’ve seen more Mini Karka Hatchlings than I have since the Southsun Cove event.

Saying I’m salty is an understatement.

If you want a genuinely rare mini the Trading Post is not the way to go. Especially not the most expensive ones because everyone else in your position will have the same idea.

If I was looking for a mini not many people have but which is still available I’d go for something like the mini Tengu, Blademaster Diarmid, Nika, one of the Lavish Llamas, or wait until Halloween and get Oxidecimus the Shadow Raven or Gwynefyrdd.

I always put a lot of thought into my character names – they’re always something that relates to the character even if it would only make sense to me. This has two outcomes relevant to this situation:
1) I very rarely try to use a name that’s taken.
2) I would be absolutely devastated if I came back to a game after a break and found my character names had been removed. To me that’s like suggesting randomly changing their appearance or swapping their profession – the name is as much a part of the character as everything else. If a game did that I think that would be the last time I ever played it.

I have to admit it seems like kind of a fluke to me that so few of the names I try to use are taken as I don’t think they’re that unusual. But then when you consider the number of possible names maybe it’s not so surprising. I do have a few screenshots of characters I met with very similar names to mine. But even the ones I use for temporary characters where I’ll use it for a week or two or a few months then delete the character and make a new one with the same name months or years later are usually available when I come back to them.

I think the only ‘original’ name I’ve tried to use recently that was taken was Keitei or Kei Tei. (Probably because someone had the same idea – adapting Katy, it’s not exactly an uncommon name, there were 4 of us in my class in school.) But I was able to get another variant so that was fine.

I just feel bad that new players only get the items and can’t play the actual content. That’s what was special about actually being there for the content. Although hopefully they will one day bring Season 1 back so everyone can play it.

Sure many of the items are cool – but that’s because they’re nice items – and someone else having them does not change that. If you value items because you imagine that someone else might see it and feel jealous that you have something they don’t you’re always going to be disappointed because it’s far more likely they won’t notice or won’t care.

On top of that I think you’re drastically over-stating the effort required to get most of these things. The Holographic Dragon Wings for example – I got 2 of them in the course of grinding out the “achievement” for killing 50 holograms, and I sold the extra one for about 10g because so many were dropping that they weren’t worth much.

Same with Scarlet’s Kiss. I never got one myself (but then my computer was broken for that release so I only played through the fight 2 or 3 times) but there were hundreds being sold at the time. Many of the other items, the minis in particular, were actually sold on the gem store originally. And now it’s completely random which ones you get and they’re account bound so you can’t even swap them – in those cases this is actually a worse way of obtaining them than the original.

Chicksboy.8734:

thank you

so the pre purchase consists:

2 max level to 80 ($100 value)
4000 gems ($50 value)

ill finish the story mode quickly so i can buy the expansion!

thanks

No, the pre-purchase bonuses are a Sunspear Weapon skin, a miniature Balthazar and the Elonian Envoy title.

Everything else listed in the various packages will continue to be available after PoF has launched. The Ultimate Edition of HoT (which was an identical Deluxe + 4000 gems package) was available right up until PoF went on sale.

Also you don’t need to finish the story to buy PoF. You could buy it now and then just wait until you’ve finished the story to actually play it. Or buy it now and play it as soon as it’s released, even if you haven’t finished the original story. It’s up to you.

Also, I know you said your character is fully geared in knights armour with all the specialisations unlocked, but that doesn’t really mean much.

Are they wearing exotic armour? Ascended? Rare? Does it have a full set of matching runes, and if so are they ones that make sense for your build? Have you selected specialisations and traits which suit a knights build and work together? Do you understand what they do and what they don’t do? (Aka your characters strengths and weaknesses.) What about your skills and weapons?

This game is quite different to some MMOs in that it’s not a straight-forward numbers game. There aren’t many tiers of equipment and they don’t actually make a huge difference to your stats – certainly not to the point where a max level character in top tier equipment can expect to effortlessly decimate any enemy. It’s more about creating an effective build – choosing equipment, upgrades, skills and specialisations that work well together and knowing how to use them.

There’s not much difference in stats between a fresh level 80 in level/story reward equipment or the equipment from the booster and a 5 year old character in full ascended gear. But there is a huge difference between a fresh level 80 in whatever gear they’ve come across (boosted, story, drops etc.) and a carefully designed level 80 in full exotics (or more likely exotic armour and weapons and ascended trinkets) with a build the player understands and knows how to use effectively.

Wearing beserker gear would actually make that situation worse since it has no defensive stats at all – whereas knights gear gives a bonus to toughness which raises your armour rating.

Skipping mobs is also likely to make it worse, because then they’ll chase you and you may end up having to fight them and whatever else you run into at the same time. Or in the case of spiders they’ll pull or immobilise you when you attempt to run past, so you lose the opportunity to attack first and they get some extra hits in while you’re stuck.

But yes, mobs in HoT were intentionally designed to be harder to fight than the ones in the core maps because HoT was designed for players who had already completed everything else, and particularly aimed at the subset of them who (at the time) kept insisting the game was too easy and it ‘needed’ harder content to keep people interested. As someone on this forum says in their signature ‘be careful what you wish for, Anet may give it to you’.

The best approach I’ve found is simply to take your time so you don’t get overwhelmed with enemies and learn what works against each one – either by trial and error or by reading the info below their health bar. Or both.

For example spiders do a lot of their damage from conditions, so condition removal is important, and as I mentioned earlier they tend to immobilise you so either a way to break free or using a ranged weapon (so you can keep attacking while stuck in place) will be a big help. And if possible seeing them coming (or standing in your path) so you can attack first – at the very least it gives you a headstart on removing their health before they hit you, but depending on your build you might be able to apply conditions that will continue to injure them even if you’re disabled or you could stun them or something to stop them fighting back.

This is my process for deciding what to do with weapon and armour drops on characters below level 80:

1) Check if the current character can use it
Hover your mouse over it and it will show a side-by-side comparison with whatever you have equipped in that slot, which is an easy way to compare identical items – for example if you just picked up boots which have higher stats than the ones you’re wearing great! Equip them.

Other things, like different kinds weapons, may require a bit more consideration – do you want to use that kind of weapon or would you rather stick with what you’ve got? If you’ve not used it before, or not for a while it may be worth giving it a go to see if you like it. If not then move on.

2) Can another character use it?

If like me you have a lot of characters (I made 4 on the first day) chances are the answer is yes, but it’s worth remembering they will get their own drops too. It’s not worth holding onto every random blue or green item just in case. I only keep stuff for other characters if I’m certain they can use it right now (or very soon) or if it’s really good – an exotic weapon with good stats for example.

3) Can I sell it to another player?

If I don’t want to keep it then I check the Trading Post to see if I can sell it, as that gets a better price than selling to an NPC merchant. Not every item is tradable and some simply aren’t in demand – either there are no buy orders or there are so many sell orders that it’s down to the minimum price (or below). But everything I can sell I will.

(Note, take your time doing this – you don’t want to accidentally sell something you’ve decided to keep.)

4) Can I salvage it?

This works on the same principal as 3 – the materials you’ll get from an item are often worth more than a merchant will pay for the item itself so it’s better to salvage it than sell it to them. Also some items will give you Luck which increases your Magic Find and makes it (very slightly) more likely that you’ll get good drops in future. After salvaging I deposit the materials using the method Trogdor explained.

5) Can I sell it to a merchant?

Some things can’t be sold to other players and can’t be salvaged but can be sold to NPCs – this includes junk items with grey text, low level sigils and some soulbound or account bound equipment. If that’s the case then I sell it, since there’s not a lot else to do with it.

6) And if anything is still left over I delete it
There are some items you’ll get while levelling up – particularly from the level up rewards – which cannot be traded, sold or salvaged and which sooner or later you won’t want to use any more. It’s frustrating but there’s nothing else to do but delete them.

But do not delete anything unless you’re absolutely sure it’s useless. You can check any item by typing /wiki and then it’s name into the chat bar – that will open the Wiki page so you can see what it’s for.

Although sometimes it’s more about what it doesn’t say. For example the Mighty Chainmail Helm which Warriors, Guardians and Revenants get at level 14 has very little info – importantly it doesn’t have a sell price, it doesn’t have a ‘Used In’ section and it’s not listed as being part of any collections. Which means there’s no use beyond wearing it.

If you’re unsure about any items you can always ask in-game or on here.

I have no idea what it took in hours because I never made any attempt to count but my first legendary took me a year and a half to build – and that was using the old system where you bought the precursor from the TP (or wasted even more time and money trying to get it from the Forge) and ‘only’ needed to do the last phase to make the actual legendary. Oh and that was also starting with 60% map completion already done and many materials I needed already obtained before I decided to start.

Legendaries, all legendaries, are supposed to take a lot of time and money to make. They are the ultimate GW2 item – the equivalent of other games super-rare drop your friend will claim he once saw someone using or the top tier hardcore raid gear. Except being Guild Wars they’re purely cosmetic and accessible to more people.

How long it takes to get them will vary a lot between people. I think the first one was completed 14 days after the game was released (but that was a group effort), I didn’t even start until I’d been playing for a couple of years and as I said it took me a year and a half to get it done. But it’s not supposed to be quick or cheap or easy for anyone.

My first thought is that Lion’s Arch is a port city, one of the major ports in Tyria, so there would be a lot of ships coming and going that have nothing to do with us and it’d make sense for Anet to move them around periodically to create the sense that things change. If I remember correctly there was a similar ship out in the bay in the original Lion’s Arch.

Having said that this is where the ship to Claw Island leaves from, but like all Personal Story instances that’s in a ‘flash back’ to the old LA so it’s unlikely thats why the ship is there now. But it’s entirely possible it’s the same ship – it belonged to the Lion Guard who are based in Fort Marriner which is just up the hill from this dock. That might well be their private dock, so they don’t have to navigate around civilian ships coming and going from the main docks on the other side.

I have mixed feelings about Season 1. The pace was a bit much for me – even on a normal day I don’t have much time to play (and I had less time back then, I didn’t get home until 7pm) but I’ll also be away from home or just busy for days at a time. So I often felt under pressure to finish everything I wanted to do (which was never everything available).

Even now I’ll sometimes deliberately not play a release on the first day it’s out, just because I love that I have that option. (Although it’s not always an option, weirdly Tuesdays are often very busy for me.) Or I won’t look at the achievements until I’ve finished the story because I know I can always come back to them later, whereas during Season 1 I was always planning ahead to try and do as much as possible in one go so I could get it done in time. So the switch to permanent content is a massive plus point for me.

The actual content I don’t think is really that different. But the downside to it being permanent is there’s time for it to become boring. The Vinewrath fight in Silverwastes is almost identical to the Marionette fight, but people remember the Marionette as being much more exciting and I think that’s because no one had time to learn it well enough to make it easy. The first time I did the Vinewrath fight (about 2 weeks after it was out) was a perfect run – we killed all 5 breach bosses, lost no carriers and got all 3 bosses down on the first attempt – and everyone was talking about how amazing that was, how they thought we’d be lucky just to win it and they didn’t think it was possible for everything to succeed in one run. The atmosphere throughout was very positive, congratulating each other on each successful step and keeping tabs on how everyone else was doing.

Not long after that perfect runs became standard practice and no one bothered to comment on it, but they would complain if they thought a lane was taking too long to achieve their (guaranteed) victory.

And I think the same is true of other aspects. During Season 1 there was no end of complaining about the story – it’s boring, it makes no sense, all the NPCs are forgettable and the acting is terrible, Anet have forgotten the dragons or are trying to hide the fact that they’re incapable of creating another dragon battle, the player isn’t always the centre of attention but the NPCs don’t do enough, everything is a giant zerg fest which only organised ‘elite’ guilds/servers are able to complete….all the same stuff people say now. But over time that’s been forgotten and everyone seems to only remember the stuff they liked.

It happen with everything – when I think of the time I saw one of my favourite bands at a festival I think of being on the barrier – so close it wasn’t worth trying to see the screens, how it sounded, how it felt to be part of that crowd….I also know that I’d been on my feet for 11 hours and had barely eaten anything and that I was mashed up against that barrier so hard I had a bruise the size of my hand and couldn’t lie on my side for a week. But I only remember that in a vague way – I know that it happened but I don’t remember how it felt, I just remember the excitement.

I’d love for Season 1 to come back. Overall I enjoyed playing it (or I wouldn’t still be here) and I think for me it’d be much better if it was permanent. But I think some people would find themselves disappointed with it – it wouldn’t actually be any better than what we’ve got now and may well be worse than the first time because there wouldn’t be the same sense of excitement and rush to get it done and everyone trying to muddle through together before it’s snatched away again and they can’t complete it.

But on the plus side we’d know that it does (eventually) form a coherent narrative – that all the random groups of enemies do feed into an overarching storyline that does (sort-of) relate to the dragons, which no one knew the first time around.

rapthorne.7345:

PoF is independent of HoT in that neither expanson requires the other, so I highly doubt that there will be any HoT exclusive mastery content in PoF, unless it’s to access easter egg content hidden on maps somewhere

I imagine it will be similar to how the lava tubes and leyline gliding work in Season 3 maps – you don’t need them to get around but they do make things much easier and let you get to some bonuses.

rapthorne.7345:

Would keep everything about the game as it is, but overhaul the engine for better performance all round. The current game engine is very poorly optimised and it’s performance will only get worse as time goes on.

Other than that, I’d maybe make all gem store items tradable. Would give people more reason to buy gems, stimulate the economy, boost GW2’s revenue and allow free players who are unable to buy gems themselves purchase gem store items from other players

I thought free players could buy gems. They can’t convert gold to gems and can’t buy certain gem store items (like gliders) but they can buy gems with real money.

I’d reduce the level cap to 40. The story would be the same length and there would be the same number of maps, but you’d reach the level cap with most of it still uncompleted. Hopefully that would make the point that reaching the level cap doesn’t mean you’ve finished anything, just that you’ve unlocked all your options.

I also think it would help to make every level meaningful. I’d keep (or reintroduce) the concept of level up rewards (which didn’t come into the game until later) and getting enough hero points to unlock all your skills and traits by the time you reach the max level, but because of the lower cap it’d be much more condensed so you wouldn’t have levels where you just get some random items or a slight boost to your core stats.

Oh I’d also go with the current version of the trait system rather than the original version, but maybe bring back the option to put lower ranked traits into higher spots in place of the defaults.

I’d also introduce Order specific dailies – for example the Vigil would have to kill a specific champion, Priory would have to complete a mini dungeon or something and Whispers would have to find and spy on an NPC (stand near them, but not too close, while they have a conversation). And maybe race and profession specific too. But with the current limit that any extra dailies you do after the first 3 don’t get you achievement points so people don’t feel forced to do them all.

Oh yeah, I’d also make all items from Black Lion Chests, all mini pets and the vast majority of other cosmetic stuff tradable. Some things would still be account bound, like dungeon skins, achievement skins etc. but anything with any type of RNG involved or which players may not choose to get would be tradable.

They’re using the shift key.

Try it yourself – change one of your weapon skills from whatever it is now to Shift+1 and it shows up as S+1.

Ctrl and Alt are also available as modifiers and show up as C+1 or A+1.

If you start on a free account and then upgrade to a paid account you get a free server transfer – but that’s because when you create a free account you don’t get to choose your server, you just get dumped on whichever one the game chooses for you and cannot transfer until you buy the game.

There’s also the method RoseofGilead mentioned which is available to everyone buy obviously more reasonable for new players – delete all your characters and you can transfer for free. You’ll keep all the items in your bank, all your gold, wardrobe unlocks, achievements and anything else which is account bound rather than character specific.

Is your friend in the same region as you? If she’s on an NA server and you’re on an EU one (or the other way around) you won’t be able to teleport to her.

You also need to own Season 3 Episode 3 – A Crack in the Ice – to access Bitterfrost Frontier by any method.

If I remember correctly previous anniversary sales have always gone on until the end of August.

Don’t forget Anet are on Pacific time which puts them ‘behind’ most of the world – it’s still only 11am on Monday morning for them so it’s not unusual for them not to have posted anything yet.

No, but you can always re-make them after the demo is over.

The white wings will definitely be back at some point, even if they’re not in the anniversary sale. If those are the ones you really want and you’d only be getting the gold ones because there’s currently no other choice then wait for the white ones.

Because this way if there are any exploits there’s very little benefit to using them. You can’t farm gold or items or any form of progress so there’s no real harm from it.

I agree that this was a great improvement to the story!

I actually play through the personal story fairly frequently and every time I find myself remembering how it used to be and thinking about how much better it is now.

According to the profession forums every single new elite is terrible and proof that Anet hates that profession. Yes, including the Deadeye.

I have to admit I don’t really get the Soulbeast, I can’t see what it offers that I’d be interested in having (other than maybe main hand dagger) but I thought the same about Druid and now I’m thinking I’d hate to give it up (and no, I don’t run a support build, it’s mainly condi DPS).

But just because you prefer one elite spec to another doesn’t mean it’s useless and certainly doesn’t mean the entire profession ‘died’.

In the HoT beta nothing carried over. If you completed a non-HoT achievement (weapon master for example) on a beta character it would still show as uncompleted on all your other characters. If you got an achievement reward chest you’d still be missing it on your other characters and when you got enough points you’d get the chest again.

The Reward Track
If like me you don’t play WvW or PvP (last time I played it reward tracks didn’t exist) the track itself will be confusing. But it’s actually pretty straight-forward. Each track shows 7 small rewards and then the main one. But that first one is not the first thing you’ll get. Each of the 8 sections is divided into 5 sub-sections (you can see these by hovering the mouse over it).

For example the Gift of Battle track will give you 2 Disciple of Balthazar Loot Boxes, 5 Memories of Battle, 2 Acolyte of Balthazar Loot Boxes, a Tome of Knowledge and then the first ‘minor’ reward – 4 Obsidian Shards.

Your progress towards the next reward is shown in a little pop-up menu above the map. The timer counts down to the next time awards are granted and the number next to it is how many points you earn.

You’ll earn more points for higher tier participation (Tier 6 is the maximum) and you raise your participation level by…well, participating. Killing enemies, claiming things, completing events, defending objectives etc.

Other rewards
Periodically you’ll also get WvW rank chests and Skirmish chests popping up above the map. The rank chests contain random loot, but most importantly they mean you’ve got another rank point to spend on the Ranks and Abilities tab. Skirmish chests are shown on the Match Overview page and contain some nice stuff, in particular this is how you get Skirmish Claim Tickets.

Basically anything you do to progress the Reward Track will also progress these two, so you don’t need to worry about them too much.

When you first enter

Look for a commander tag – if there is one go join them. Follow them, attack what they attack, build siege when they place it, claim control points when you get to them. Try to actually pay attention to what’s going on rather than blindly following because you’ll learn more that way, but the important thing is to stick with the group and do what they do.

If there isn’t a commander tag
Maybe switch maps (if there are others without a queue) to see if you can find one. But if not don’t give up. The best thing to do now is explore the map – even just roaming around aimlessly will help you learn your way around, which will come in useful later on.

But there’s also likely to be stuff you can achieve on your own – claiming camps is best but you can also claim sentry points and shrines (this is why I recommend the Desert borderlands, it has more of this stuff) and ruins.

Keep a look out for commander tags – one could turn up at any time. Or you might find a group of players running without a commander– they’re harder to spot (and sometimes don’t want randoms, they’ll let you know if that’s the case) but they can achieve just as much as a group with a commander – it’s just harder to attract new people without the tag.

If there’s more than 1 commander tag
Ask in map chat which one to join, or see which one/s have their squad open so you can just right click and join. It’s likely one is the ‘main’ squad and one or more is a specialist one – a guild doing their own thing or a 2nd group sneaking into objectives – they’re less likely to want extra people. But it may just be that there’s enough people for multiple squads and you can join whichever.

From then on

Keeps going. Keep running with squads, claiming objectives, or exploring solo and claiming what you can until you’ve achieved your objectives.

For the specific items I mentioned in the introduction:

• Gift of Battle – complete the reward track
• Can of Spicy Meat Chili – get a Skirmish Chest, choose the Canned Food Crate from the list of rewards and then choose Spicy Meat Chili from the options.
• Skirmish Claim Tickets – come from Skirmish chests. You get more at higher tiers, you need to get part way into the Mithril tier to get them all in 1 week, but if there isn’t time to do that don’t worry, just keep going until you’ve got enough. As I said it took me 3 evenings to get 100 by getting part way into the Gold tier.

Other tips

Carry supply whenever you can
But do not take it from Keeps or Towers. Camps are the best place to get it. It’s used to build siege and repair walls, so it’s useful to have and by carrying it (and being willing to spend it) you’re helping your team out.

Don’t attack walls or gates unless the commander says it’s ok
This will alert the enemy to the fact that you’re attacking (which using siege weapons doesn’t) which gives them time to come and stop you. Sometimes that’s ok because they’re busy elsewhere or there’s too few of them or whatever, sometimes it could ruin the whole attack.

Try to have fun
You may go in expecting to hate WvW, or at least thinking it’s not for you. But give it a go and you may find yourself enjoying it. I doubt I’m ever going to be a dedicated WvW player but I’ve had some great moments. The other day we were claiming a keep when a massive wave of enemies attacked us – I was downed twice but somehow got back up and out the way, we actually managed to defeat them and finished claiming the keep and it was a great feeling.

And if you really do hate it? Well, you don’t need to go back again (at least not until you want another unique reward.)

Note: There’s a tl;dr version in Illconceived Was Na’s post below.

As you might know there are two new hungry cats, both in WvW. One requires a Can of Spicy Meat Chili and the other requires the Gift of Battle. Both sell mini versions of themselves for 100 WvW Skirmish Claim Tickets each.

For someone who hadn’t played WvW in years (and never played it much at all) obtaining all of that seemed like a daunting task. Then I got started and found I’d completed most of it in 3 evenings, or approximately 6 hours total. (I just need another 100 Claim Tickets.)

If anyone’s interested here’s my guide to getting the Gift of Battle (and the other stuff along the way) for WvW newbies.

Things to know before you start

It doesn’t matter which world you’re on
Leaderboard position has very little to do with your individual rewards so there’s no need to change servers. (I did all of this on Desolation, which is about ½ way up the leaderboard and was often in 3rd place in the skirmish.)

On a related note don’t worry about your worlds score, or potential points, or the difference between a match and a skirmish. The score does have a slight effect on how quickly you gain Claim tickets, but not enough to worry about it.

You will die, and die often
But waypoints and repairs are free so the only problem is having to run back. Do not wait around for people to revive you, there isn’t time. (Unless they’re right next to you and there’s no enemies nearby.)

It’s best to play at peak time & for a few hours at a time
Progress in WvW reward tracks is like HoT meta events – you build it up by doing stuff and then it decays gradually when you’re inactive and resets if you leave the map, so it’s better to play for as long as you can at once than to do a little bit at a time. Peak time is best simply because there will be more people online and so more activity.

WvW often involves waiting, but that’s ok
You’ll wait for a group to form, wait for the group to move off, wait for siege to be built, wait for siege to destroy walls, wait while you claim points, wait for the enemy to arrive, wait for the enemy to leave, wait for people to clear their bags/go to the toilet/get on the same group chat…and sometimes (at least if you’re not on the group chat) it won’t be clear why you’re waiting.

Sometimes you’ll also spend what seems like ages heading towards an objective only to abandon it and go somewhere else because plans have changed.

But that’s ok. As I said WvW participation for the reward track builds up and decays slowly over time, so you’re not really losing anything by waiting and it’s an important part of playing tactically, which will allow you to achieve more in the long-run.

Getting set up

WvW uses the same equipment as PvE, but you can set different traits and skills. I won’t suggest builds because I haven’t got a clue what to recommend, but the option to have a unique WvW setup is there if you want it.

I strongly recommend some type of speedboost however as it makes it much easier to keep up with a commander. (I find Signet of the Hunts passive 25% boost is fine.)

I also recommend unlocking WvW gliding as soon as possible. To do this open the WvW menu and select the last tab – Ranks and Abilities and scroll all the way down to the bottom. You need 3 World Ability Points to unlock gliding and you get those from gaining XP in WvW so you may need to play a bit before you get it, but it’s worth getting as soon as you can.

Also don’t forget to select the Gift of Battle reward track (3rd tab down). There’s no point working towards a reward you don’t even want.

Starting

When you open the WvW menu you have 5 maps to choose from – Eternal Battlegrounds, 1 Desert Borderlands, 2 Alpine Borderlands and Obsidian Sanctum. Ignore that last one – it’s a jumping puzzle. But you can choose any of the others. Lots of people prefer certain ones, but any is fine. I recommend picking one without a queue if you can just because it’s easier to get in. (I also recommend the desert borderland, for reasons I’ll explain below.)

You’ll start off in your team’s home base, which is completely safe from enemies and has a bunch of NPCs offering different services. This is a good time to sort your build out, and check out the map.

The WvW map
At first it’s really confusing, there’s loads of coloured lines and symbols, some of them are moving, and it will probably just look like a mess. Basically symbols are control points and the colour shows who controls them. The lines show the area controlled by that point – important because you can only glide in areas your team controls.

There are 4 main kinds of control points: Keeps, Towers, Camps and Ruins.

• Keeps are the hardest to take over – they have several layers of defences and are the most likely to be defended, they need a big group.
• Towers only have 1 layer of defences, but still need siege to get in.
• Camps have no walls, just a few guards so they can be taken solo.
• Ruins are undefended and often unclaimed because they’re not as useful ownership decays over time.
  There’s also Stonemist Castle in the middle of Eternal Battlegrounds, Shrines in desert borderlands and Sentries on all the maps.

The Match Overview tab on the WvW menu will show you what each team controls on each map. It may seem like a map where your team is winning is best, but that just means you have fewer objectives to take over and getting participation credit will be harder. I find maps where you’re ‘losing’ are often best.

Verthiss.9541:

- put a green story star in the corner of the screen immiedately after tutorial instance. The star could tell players something like “do hearts and events until you are level 10, that’s when your story starts!” or anything like it. People often just get lost after tutorial, they are looking for quests that are not present in the game. Now I know that we have scouts but a short description in the corner of the screen that i s always up would be much more effective

The tutorial ends with an NPC telling them to go out into the countryside and find people who need help, and then as soon as that cut scene ends a scout calls them over and (if you speak to them) points out exactly where the hearts are and what they involve.

On top of that there’s the content guide in the top right corner telling them to speak to the scout and then to find and complete hearts and events.

Do you really think a 4th piece of text saying exactly the same thing is going to make a difference?

If they can find a guy with a question mark over his head and read and follow the on-screen instructions in other games I would have thought they could repeat the process in GW2 with slightly different icons.

I’ve been thinking about this too. The cat scavenger hunt is a bit like mini pet collecting – at first it seems like a fun bonus for casual players but the requirements have rapidly gotten more expensive and difficult.

Part of me thinks it’s just Anet experimenting – they’re seeing how far they can push it and when players will give up. Part of me thinks this was the plan all along and it’s actually building to something that will justify the effort (for people who like the thing) and part of me thinks they’re just making it up as they go along with no real plan and the cats, locations and requirements are just whatever they come up with at the time.

Having said that the blue catmander (the one that wants a Gift of Battle) isn’t actually as bad as it seems at first. I started playing WvW for the first time in a few years on Sunday evening, specifically to get the cats, and I got the Gift of Battle yesterday evening – it took about 6 hours in total and in the process I got the canned chili for the yellow catmander and the 100 skirmish tokens needed for one of the minis. So now I just have another 100 tokens left to get and having reached gold tier it should be quite quick.

I’m going to post a guide in Players Helping Players when I get home from work explaining how to go about getting it – aimed at total WvW newbies.

Ashantara.8731:

Danikat.8537:

If you’re concerned that it might not be obvious what the problem is (e.g. if it’s in a language other than English) you can always take a screenshot and submit a Support ticket so you can explain the problem.

That would be an additional amount of work I am not willing to undertake, because when I once reported players in that complicated manner (including screenshots and time stamps etc.) on a different matter (namely abuse of the kick function), support didn’t do anything about it (at least that’s what they basically told me in their response).

You don’t have to do it if you don’t want to. I just included it because I know some people are reluctant to use the in-game report option because they’re concerned that the problem won’t be obvious and Anet may dismiss it as a fake/spam report or a mistake or something.

Of course it’s not necessary all the time, but I know of someone who found a player with a name that in English was fine – it was just a nonsense made up word but in another language (Portuguese I believe) it was extremely offensive – as in you could be fired for saying it at work, would never be allowed on TV kind of thing.

They didn’t want to just right click and report because since Portuguese isn’t a supported language it’s a pretty safe bet no one at Anet speaks it and wouldn’t be familiar with swear words and things, so they send in a support ticket so they could explain the problem.

If I remember correctly Anet have previously said that when a player is reported for a name violation they check the character name, pet name and guild name.

If you’re concerned that it might not be obvious what the problem is (e.g. if it’s in a language other than English) you can always take a screenshot and submit a Support ticket so you can explain the problem.

I think Anet deliberately chose not to add this information. If I remember correctly when the first hungry cats were added the patch notes just said something like “you should try feeding any cats you see” and any new ones added since then are never listed in the patch notes.

I think they want it to be something the community has to work together to find, or for individual players to discover as they explore if they don’t get told/choose not to look for the info.

It’s possible they’ll add an achievement or some other way of tracking them later, like when they recently changed all the Current Events achievements so you can see ones you haven’t done. But for now I think we’re being encouraged to find them ourselves.

The sale goes on until at least the end of August, we’ve only seen the first half, or less.

In previous years they’ve held back the most popular items like bank tabs and shared inventory slots until the end of the sale – probably because that way the gold to gems exchange rate has gone up, people have spent gems they’ve been holding onto and so people are more likely to spend real money to get gems. If they did it the other way around people would buy the ‘must have’ items and skip the fluff.

Edit: Also insert usual disclaimer about personal preference, some people really like this stuff, people say the same thing every year etc.

DoctorDing.5890:

They were free <shrug>

One is free. There’s also the option to buy more with gems, which is most likely what they were designed around, and what Anet intends players to do. The freebie is as much advertising as anything else.

I agree!

I’m often busy and/or away from home for days at a time, so logging in just to see if there’s anything I want to buy isn’t always practical for me. This way I can plan ahead – if there’s something I want I know when it’s coming and I can make time to log in before leaving or immediately after getting home.

It still doesn’t help if I’m not home at all on the day something is available, but it’s still a big improvement.

I’m surprised it’s dropping duplicate account bound minis. I would have thought since they figured out how to prevent the Guaranteed Wardrobe Unlock from doing that they’d have used the same code elsewhere.

There should at least be a way to trade them in for different minis/other items.

I mean I got junk from my free box (literally – 15 salvageable scraps) but at least I could turn it into materials and use or sell them. Getting stuck with a duplicate account bound item must be really annoying.

Kantid.3571:

ANET, did you miss Zephyr Rucksack Skin?

They don’t include all the rewards from Season 1. As well as the Zephyr Rucksack it’s also missing the Tequatl wings, Fused Weapons and quite a few other things.

I’m not sure why, but whenever they bring back Season 1 rewards it always seems to be a random selection with some omitted.

There is very little difference between you and a veteran player. Certainly nothing that will give them an advantage over you.

The biggest difference is simply that they’re likely to be more experienced with the game – they’ll probably have completed most things, maybe done them multiple times, may have spent more time on each profession…but it’s hard to say. I’ve been playing since day 1 (literally) and there’s still some dungeon paths I haven’t done. I know someone else who started on day 1 and has never played a light armoured profession – simply refuses point blank to make one for any reason. So time played is no guarantee of knowledge or experience.

They may have gotten to play Season 1 of the Living Story which is now gone (it was designed as temporary content and each release was removed when the next one came along).

Other than that I think it’s just that they’ll probably have more skins and items unlocked. When the new Season 1 box appeared in the gem store I got my free one, looked through it and realised I already had everything I wanted. Whereas I imagine a newer player will see lots of things they either want and couldn’t get before (or couldn’t afford to get) or things they didn’t even know about.

I think the boxes are a good idea, but they’d be better if all the stuff that comes from them was tradable. I’m not sure if it was just because I was on a free account but when I got a Mini Twisted Horror, which is normally tradable, it was account bound.

It would be really annoying to get an item you didn’t want which normally you could sell for enough gold to get the one you do want, only to find it’s account bound so you’re stuck with it.

(But given the way prices on the mini pets included have crashed already I’m assuming either they are normally tradable or a lot of horders are panic selling.)

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

FYI those with alt accounts can gift the free one to your main. I strongly recommend that (unless you play both accounts 4realz).

Unless your alt account is a free one, then it doesn’t work. Which is understandable I suppose, but a bit disappointing.

It’s possible the demo characters have just been hidden and are being kept while Anet go through feedback and gather stats of their own. They can apparently pull a lot of info on our accounts when they need to, like exactly which items we got as drops, when, whether it was salvaged etc. but it’s possible that’s tied to the character and once they’re deleted that data is wiped.

If I was you I’d try making a new character 24 hours after the beta ended (which I think is in about 5 hours time, but I’m not sure exactly), and if that doesn’t work try again just before the next beta weekend, or during the weekend if we don’t get the same characters back.

The good news is since the name was free before the beta it’s highly unlikely anyone else will take it in the time between it becoming free again and you getting it. So I don’t think you need to worry about knowing exactly when the character will be deleted, just try periodically and if you still can’t get it after the next beta maybe contact Support and ask if they can find out what’s going on.

Oddly enough I’ve seen quite a few people saying the exact opposite – that they found the enemies, particularly in the story mission, too difficult and they’re concerned that if the entire expansion is like that it will be impossible for them to complete.

My thinking is this probably means they’ve got it about right. There’s always going to be a range of not only abilities but preferences amongst players – some people want harder fights, some want easy fights. We have this debate a lot in my house – I play single-player RPGs on hard mode and have to repeat many battles because I get killed the first time, but I enjoy the challenge of figuring out how to beat it. My husband thinks I’m wasting time and plays on easy mode so the combat doesn’t get in the way of experiencing the story.

Since there’s probably no way to put difficulty settings into an MMO they’re going to have to compromise – it’s always going to be too hard for some people and too easy for others.

Donari.5237:

Not only does he tell us he’s learned to deal with the voices along with seeing things, the devs told us early on that Revenants aren’t actually blind, they just cover their eyes to help filter the barrage of information and rely on other senses to observe the world.

This is the same reason ritualists wore blindfolds in GW1. Being unable to see helped them focus on the things they couldn’t see.

It’s a common concept in fantasy – Discworld books often mention the wizards and witches having the uncanny ability to see things which are actually there. (As opposed to normal people who learn as they grow up that certain things are “not real” and therefore learn to ignore them to the point where they don’t even realise they’re doing it.)

I’m not sure if there’s supposed to be a lore connection between ritualists and revenants like there is with some professions, but even if not it makes sense that the same practice would work for both since they’re trying to achieve basically the same thing – attuning themselves to spirits from The Mists.

If you pre-ordered HoT you got a free character slot for 2 reasons:
1) Players were angry that if they’d already used all their character slots they’d have to pay extra to make a revenant when the profession was a major selling point of the expansion.
2) Players were angry that HoT cost the same regardless of whether you already had the base game or not – many people interpreted it as being charged again for something they already had.

Since the base game had been on sale for $10 (same price as a character slot) a few months earlier some people on the forum suggested that a good solution to both problems would be for Anet to throw in a free slot. So that’s what they did.

Since PoF does not include a new profession and HoT is sold separately instead of being bundled with it there is no reason for them to do that this time around so they’re offering different pre-purchase freebies instead.

When you took your alt into your home instance the first time were you doing your personal story?

The story instances are different to the ‘main’ home instance map – NPCs and objects will be added for the story (e.g. there may be enemies to fight) and others – like the gathering nodes – are removed or disabled.

I’m guessing the demo has to be turned off manually, which means someone has to be in the office to do it. Anet are on Pacific time so it’s about 8:30am for them and I doubt anyone has been in the office since Friday.

martin.1653:

Most of the new hairstyles are just plain ugly and gimmicky. Instead of adding exclusively Elona-styled hairs and faces they could have added a mix of everything.

Well we already had a wide selection of styles for straight hair, and very little for curly hair (none for human females) and not many options for braids (again none for human females). Now we’ve got a good mix of different styles. I think the only hair type we’re missing is curly hair that hangs down – like Merida from Brave.

(There’s also the fact that they obviously made these for the Elonian NPCs and gave them to players because…well, they’ve made them already so why not?)

But I’m sure this isn’t the end of Anet adding new hair styles and more will come in future, for all hair types.

FogLeg.9354:

Zoid.2568:

I think that people that own HoT will have an advantage. They can unlock the elite spec faster as they can gather HP in HoT and save them for PoF.

No. HoT xp and points are different from xp and points you get in PoF maps. Just like central tyria masteries and xp are different.

You’re thinking of masteries again.

Hero Points (used to unlock skills and specialisations/traits) are interchangable. You get enough from leveling to 80 to unlock all the core skills and specs and then can collect them from Hero Challenges in Core Tyria (which give 1 point each) or HoT (which give 10 points each) and use them to unlock your elite spec. (But again they’re interchangable, if you do Hero Challenges before level 80 you can use those points on your core specs and then use the ones from later levels for the elite.)

My ranger has got all the Hero Challenges in Core Tyria and is just missing a few in HoT maps and she’s got over 200 unused Hero Points, so she should be able to unlock most, if not all, of the Soulbeast spec as soon as PoF is released.

On the other hand my other characters have no spare points because they haven’t even collected enough to complete the HoT specs. In some cases I might even end up putting PoF points into the HoT specs because I’d rather complete them first than get the new one.

Gem store items almost always come back around eventually, but it’s hard to predict exactly when.

But the anniversary sale is on now and will be running until the end of August with different items being added daily or every few days so there’s a good chance the Silver-fed will be back at some point soon.

We can’t say exactly when because Anet don’t announce these things until a few days before (if at all) so the best approach is just to keep checking.

It’s a common limitation in computer systems. There’s 2 people at my company called Aaron Smith. So one is on the email list as Aaron Smith and the other is Aaron Smith2 because apparently there is no other way to distinguish them.

And yes people send emails to the wrong one all the time. Same with me and someone who has the same surname and a slightly different first name.

We’ve only seen part of 1 map and the very beginning of the story so far. There is going to be a lot more to it. Having said that I think you’re right that they won’t cover everything in your list within the PoF storyline, there’s too much there. Some of it will be in future Living Story episodes, some may be in future expansions and some may not happen at all.

In particular I’m not sure we’re going to defeat Palawa Joko. I’d very much like to, especially since it was our characters short-sighted desperation that not only freed him but allowed him to re-build his power base during GW1. But it’s been 250 years and according to the PoF announcement video many of the people of Elona consider him not only their rightful ruler but the only thing keeping them safe from the dragons and other dangers.

It’d be like expecting England to overthrow the Normans in the late 13th century or the UK to reclaim the USA today. They may be experiencing a lot of problems that were directly or indirectly caused by Joko taking over but that’s been the normal state of affairs for longer than any living human can remember. To them it’s just how the world is and we don’t know if they even want it changed.

And if real-life history has taught me anything it’s that a bunch of foreigners marching in, declaring their leadership to be unethical and wrong and ‘setting them free’ without the people actually living there wanting or needing their help is not going to actually improve anything in the region.

The Vabbain princes are their bloodlines are another topic I wouldn’t expect to see addressed in PoF. Partially because Joko has been in power for so long and likely eliminated any contenders. But more importantly because they were never a conventional monarchy. Kourna was considered unusual in Elona for having a hereditary ruler – the rest of the continent had abandoned that concept following the fall of the Great Dynasty in 583AE and the Shattered Dynasty Era (described as the bloodiest conflict in Elona’s history).

The Vabbian prices weren’t princes because they’re descended from kings. They’re simply the most powerful and influential people in the region. Likewise there was absolutely no guarantee their children would inherit their positions, even without the events of Nightfall, the dragons and everything else. They might get a headstart by inheriting their parents wealth and businesses, being taught what they know and introduced to their friends and allies, but they would still have to establish themselves and earn the right to rule.

If Joko is removed from power somehow it’s possible Vabbi may revert to that system of government again. Or they may establish a conventional monarchy, or a series of elected ‘elders’ like Istan had…or something else entirely. But the descendants of 3 individuals who happened to be princes at one point hundreds of years in the past would have no more chance of being the ones to take over than any other random Elonian.

As for the other things on your list:

• I suspect you’re right that the sunspears still exist (that’s definitely what The Movement of the World told us) and I’m sure we’ll find out during the PoF storyline.
• We know what happened to the Ossa bloodline – Varesh Ossa was the only living member during GW1 and she was transformed into a Margonite and then killed.
• Not sure what you’re referring to here, I don’t remember anything about a charr hero going back to his homeland in anything to do with PoF or Nightfall.
• Abaddon cannot return – he was destroyed at the end of Nightfall and his power absorbed by Kormir. He’s gone.
• The war between the 6 gods very likely is a major part of the plot of PoF. Well…we don’t actually know there is a war as such. Some things Balthazar has said imply that he is not on good terms with the other gods and given their natures it does seem likely there was some fighting involved and will be more, but we have no idea of the extent of it or even what the causes are. But I assume we will find out.

I’d like the ability to name them too.

Maybe they could make it like mini pets where the name plate doesn’t show up unless you click on them. Or add it to the characters name plate, since the mount will only appear when you’re riding them.

Even if it was client-side only it’d be nice (I always spend time choosing appropriate names for my mounts in Elder Scrolls Online and those only appear in the menu) but I’d really like to be able to see what other people named their mounts too.