Guild Wars 2

CureForLiving.5360:

Vix.6730:

And the fact that Colin stated HoT will have just three maps (overlapping) the price is put into question.

I kinda have to point out that we don’t know how many maps their will be, we only know that the maps will have 3 biomes. There might be 1, but there might also be 2 or 3 or 4. Mind you ANet has indicated they plan to focus on few number of more content dense maps.

Actually they have repeatedly talked about maps as plural so it seems reasonable to suspect that there will be at least 2. Most people are expecting 3 to 4.

Gaaroth.2567:

All correct except Masteries, only the Maguuma one will be out of reach, the “old tyria” ones will be available and usable.

That doesn’t seem to be true. It seems to be the case that even for masteries that are part of ‘old tyria’ you need HoT. For example, in their blog post explaining masteries Anet said:

The ability to train Masteries is unlocked at level 80 for all players that own Heart of Thorns.

Gibson.4036:

Crowd-pleasing Guardian? Wonder if that means a strong ranged option.

It might also be a hint pointing at a Paragon-like specialization, using a warhorn (crowd-pleaser, get it?). Though personally I am hoping for a longbow.

Novuake.2691:

BrunoBRS.5178:

TheMagickDoll.7594:

And Kodans might just be norn who lost the ability to shapeshift back, Maybe norn did travel from the seas before settling into the mountains. Notice a lot of shapeshifting races seem to involve the sea. Random theories of course, but fun to ponder.

actually the kodan believe it’s otherwise, that the norn are kodan that were cast out and can’t permanently retain their “superior bear form”.

Interesting! Source?
If that is in game dialog that is pretty kitten cool.

The kodan do not claim any connection or relationship to the norn race, but some Voices choose to interpret early stories of a lost group of kodan as an explanation of the origin of the norn. If this is true, they argue, then the norn are failed kodan who have forgotten their place as judges and protectors of the balance, and that is why their true “bear” form has been replaced with a fragile, furless state. Because of this pressure from their shaman, the kodan often treat the norn as spiritual failures, possibly even a race moving backwards in the cycle of life, toward primitivism and destruction — and that even as the dwarves before them, if this is true, the norn are a race on the edge of extinction.

From The Wisdom and Power of the Kodan.

I think Tengu are the most likely race to be added by far. They are popular, they have a bit of backstory, they have four houses which are candiates of racial choice during character creation, they have a capital city close to the currently playable world, they already trade with the other races and they were considered as a playable race during GW2’s development. Although after tengu I think Largos and Kodan are roughly equal contenders.

Concerning your 1st positive point: Tengu can easily be linked to either Primordus (who’s minions are already attacking the Dominion of Winds) or Bubbles (due to proximity to the sea). Alternatively Tengu could be included if the story is developing towards Cantha (which I think is unlikely but still..).

Concerning your 2nd positive point: It seems like Arenanet is pulling back a bit from underwater combat. No new zone has had any underwater combat (excluding South Sun but that was very limited) and there won’t be extensive underwater areas in HoT, underwater combat was removed from WvW and it has no place in SPvP.

Concerning your 4th positive point: Tengu actually share character models with the charr so tengu shouldn’t be that difficult either.

In general though, Arenanet’s stance on adding races is the following:

Shacknews: You’ve added a new profession, however you did hold off on adding a new race. What led to this decision?

Johanson: For this one, we looked at what we would get out of adding a new race and what benefit it actually brings to the players from a gameplay standpoint. It’s very limited in Guild Wars 2. A new race adds a racial skill or two and a little bit of story, but it doesn’t give that much meaningful gameplay in the grand scheme of things. The race is more context for the early story that you experience. So we wanted to focus things that would provide a lot more gameplay and address parts of Guild Wars 2 that we felt like we really wanted to be able to make a better experience and grow. So right now, we didn’t feel that a new race was a key need for the game, whereas the other things that we’re adding really provide fundamental building blocks for the future.

VodCom.6924:

BFMV.3198:

Chances of Revenant getting stealth??

We have a lot of blast finishers so hoping for some sort of access to a smoke field or a way stealth.

Yes or no?? >:]

How do you know rev have no blast finishers ? DO you know the entire list of utils/weapon skills of the profession ?

Oh wait! Baseless speculation…..

I think you misunderstood what he was saying. He was saying Reventants do have blast finishers. He was hoping the revenant also gets a smoke field or some other way to get stealth.

inch.3769:

I guess heart of thorns is going to continue the story from Season 2, but is it going to be “season three”, or is it going to be one big story like the personal story was?

I don’t really understand the question. There will at least be some story included in the expansion. However it is possible that some of the story will be released via updates after it’s release. We haven’t heard anything about Arenanet’s post-expansion plans.

Also, another question. Will the HoT map be loads of zones, or just one zone, as it would be cool if it was a few new zones, so it is a Truly MASSIVE jungle.

There will be at least 2 zones, each with three levels (canopy, jungle floor and roots) and each with a high content density. How many zones there will be is unknown at this point.

JoshuaRAWR.4653:

Ice of Dragons.1637:

They used to be a lot more than 8 professions in gw2 before the release.

No there wasn’t.

Yes there was: http://tap-repeatedly.com/2011/06/exclusive-interview-arenanets-jon-peters-and-jonathan-sharp/

ScarletScissor.7149:

Diovid.9506:

ScarletScissor.7149:

$25 is just sweet spot for this content anything beyond that is not cool.

Ah so you know how many maps, events, story instances, masteries, adventures and so on are included? If so, please tell us!

If you want to pay $40-$50 for 3-4 maps by all means go on and pay. They are clearly stated that this expansion is heavly lean on features than content. Also “story instances” is funny thing to pay for.

You seem to be saying that more maps is worth more money and less maps is worth less money. And that might be true for you but it isn’t true for me. It’s everything together, both features and content (in any shape, including story instances) take developer resources and both give or improve player experiences.

ScarletScissor.7149:

$25 is just sweet spot for this content anything beyond that is not cool.

Ah so you know how many maps, events, story instances, masteries, adventures and so on are included? If so, please tell us!

rgraze.5169:

I also remember them saying you master it once and its open on the account to avoid doing the same thing over.

What they said was that mastery points are account bound but I’m still hoping that what you spent the points on will be character-bound.

It really depends on what is included in the beta and since noone knows what is included we can’t tell.

Things I expect to be in the beta: stronghold, the new wvw borderlands map, the revenant (to the extent that it is finished), (some) specializations, (some) masteries, the first map of the expansion (or at least a decent part of it), guild halls.

Things I don’t expect to be in the beta: All maps, all story content.

thefantasticg.3984:

I don’t remember anyone that got to play the Demo’s said that Druid has the pet as the class mechanic still.. If they did can you kindly post a link to that article

You’re being a bit dense. Of course no-one who played the demo said anything about the druid because specializations were not playable. However, the footage shown of the spear was not in-game, while the footage shown of the druid was.

We know the druid has a changed mechanic but that is not the same as an entirely different mechanic.

Rin.1046:

As much as I would love to have Tengu as a playable race, among others, it would require a heck of a lot more work than creating a new profession. Not only would they have to create new personal story elements and dialogs, and various other NPC dialogs,

This is true, at least to some extent. I mean professions take way more time in terms of balance, bug fixes, getting it’s own niche and so on (not just before they are added to the game but also afterwards). Professions also have their own animations. Adding new professions gets increasingly difficult. I have little doubt that the Revenant is the last one to be added, especially since we now have the same number of light, medium and heavy armor users.

they would also need to rework all existing armour and weapons to fit them. On top of that all future armour and weapons would need to be designed for the new race as well, potentially slowing down how long it takes to design and release new armour and outfits.

As I said above this actually does not really apply to Tengu.

I think a race changer (for the existing races) would be a much more likely thing to see in the future than an entire new race. But who knows what the future holds.

Actually Arenanet has said multiple times quite clearly that they will never add a race changer since they value story and story is so intimately tied to your race.

There has been quite a bit of discussion about the website stories (sounds like a westside story parody). Some people loved them but other people hate out-of-game lore sources and would rather see the short stories integrated within the game somehow (which Anet somewhat did with the library).

kokiman.2364:

Tengus are just unrealistic as a playable race, sure A.Net wanted to implement them before the release but there had to be reason why they decided against it.

That reason might have been that they wanted to save Tengu for an expansion.

And I think the reason would be the problem of having another non-humanoid race. Why would that be a problem? Because of armors and outfits.

Tengu actually have the same body structure as the Charr, thus I don’t think this concern is justified.

thefantasticg.3984:

Still, even if I was interested in WVW that whole “let’s drag this out as long as we can” cr@pola gets old… and it is old.

Anet does whatever they feel will bring in the most customers, whether we like it or not.

In addition, they don’t show things unless they’re finished enough so that they can fully talk about them. So it might be that, like the other revenant legendaries, specializations for example are just not yet in the stage where Anet is happy to talk about them.

thefantasticg.3984:

Hype train has run out of fuel.

At least until they reveal any of the following: 1) starting moment of closed & open beta and ways of getting into the beta, 2) release date, price and boxed content, 3) specializations, 4) the new borderlands map (which we know we will learn more about at Rezzed), 5) whatever it is that ‘challenging group content’ entails, 6) guild halls. Am I missing anything?

Specializations. And I don’t mean what each class’s specialization is either. Instead I mean how specializations are going to work exactly.

Admittingly this is followed closely by knowing more about which maps we will go to and what we will find within those maps.

Andred.1087:

With ANet, the answer is always “no” unless/until they’ve said anything about it, i.e. if it’s not being talked about now, it’s not happening in the expansion.

But Anet has not said no. Instead, they have gone on record and said that they do not want to invalidate ‘zekers’ but they do want to promote diversity in builds, mostly through the design of creatures. And there are places where you already see that with Husks and what not. To what extent this will actually play out however is a different matter.

McWolfy.5924:

They should sell race change potions for gems and time to time add some unlockable races.

You mean add new races as temporary skin change only? No thanks. I’d rather wait two years to have them add Tengu as an actual new race than have Tengu tomorrow as a skin.

You know you are free to play different games and come back when the expansion hits right?

Furthermore, there will be (non-living world) updates between now and HoT. They will focus on things like features (1st person view, new streaming client), balance updates and bug fixes (such as the stability change) and things like that. Otherwise I don’t think we’re getting much.

DevilishLyx.2340:

Prove to me that WvW will get a half, even a quarter of what PvE gets, and then I may consider investing more in this game!

Things like feature updates, balance updates, bug fixes and so on affect WvW as much as any other aspect of the game. This also goes for the introduction of specializations and the Revenant.

Furthermore, they are planning on changing things for WvW aside from the introduction of the borderlands map. We’ll have to wait and see what those changes are. However EotM and the recent temporary rules change were testing grounds for the future of WvW.

CETheLucid.3964:

Of course since when HoT comes out, every level beyond 80 gives you a mastery point, you can ultimately master everything given time.

Not quite. Mastery points come from specific activities or specific places. See this video for a good description of how the mastery system works: https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=JlBFoHs_siY#t=175

So there was some confusion about how masteries worked exactly. Specifically there was confusion about how on the one hand mastery points and on the other experience contributed to unlocking masteries. Here is a video (with dev confirmation) which should clear things up: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JlBFoHs_siY

Being able to use two healing skills in succession says nothing about the power of those heals.

Just because they are not focusing so much on a long personal story or a lot of maps but are instead focusing on ‘end game’ i.e. masteries, specializations, repeatable events, adventures, pvp, guild halls and so on, doesn’t mean it will be quick to be done with it all. You might reasonably quickly be done with map completion in the jungle and defeating Mordremoth but if things like the new pvp map, the new borderlands map, adventures, the Revenant and specializations keep you playing and enjoying yourself then that could still be counted as being part of the ‘length’ of the expansion.

Linken.6345:

Diovid.9506:

lordkrall.7241:

We already have two zones confirmed. Verdant Brink and the Golden City. Unless the Golden City is connected directly to Verdant Brink there will be at the very least another zone there.

Where was the Golden City confirmed as a zone? Are you sure it’s not just a region within a zone?

Here’s an indication for the size of verdant brink: http://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/2xsq76/map_size_of_verdant_brink/. It seems to me that Verdant Brink is actually bigger than any zone in the game right now, considering it’s verticality.

Mate you see a small part of it and name to the left no indication at all how big the zone is really.

This might be of interest to you: http://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/2xwgfa/updated_verdant_brink_maps/

Muesli.9104:

GW2 needs new people, not you, you’re already on board.

Living story is not there for new people, it is there for customer retention. So yes, it is for us.

lordkrall.7241:

We already have two zones confirmed. Verdant Brink and the Golden City. Unless the Golden City is connected directly to Verdant Brink there will be at the very least another zone there.

Where was the Golden City confirmed as a zone? Are you sure it’s not just a region within a zone?

Here’s an indication for the size of verdant brink: http://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/2xsq76/map_size_of_verdant_brink/. It seems to me that Verdant Brink is actually bigger than any zone in the game right now, considering it’s verticality.

My guess is that the name ‘Exalted’ was used for the Mursaat in order to prevent spoilers about the story and the presence of the Mursaat in it.

http://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/2xshqw/complete_text_guide_of_every_mastery_description/

I am quite excited about the mastery system, specifically the Exalted, Itzel and Nuhoch lines.

Elias.4028:

I am eagerly looking forward to playing Heart of Thorns, I will not be looking forward to playing the new Revenant profession because of the lack of diversity in the profession.. From a dev post i read earlier, it seems that the customization capacity of the Revenant will be the players ability to choose 2 of 5 “legends” and that is about it. The healing skill, the elite, and the utility skills will be forced onto you and you will not be able to swap them with the exception that you might be able to switch one utility skill (4 utility skills for 3 spaces).

This does seem to be the case at the moment however the devs are still looking into this. It is not fully set in stone.

Elias.4028:

This is the confirmed information right now, but what if this also extends into weapon choices? Is the Hammer only be usable with the dwarf legendary? or can it be used with Malik? And vis versa, can we use the mace/axe with the dwarf legendary “stance”? It would seem that weapons are also tied to each legendary “stance”.

Nope, wrong. Weapons are not tied to your legend at al. Though of course it might turn out that certain weapons combine better with certain legends than other weapons.

(but to be frank, you will choose the traits that support your legendary).

A dev quote seems to suggest that you will have a reason to invest in corruption when choosing Jalis and to invest in Retribution when choosing Mallyx. Whether that’s true or not remains to be seen of course.

To recap, the choice seems to be 1) choose 2 from 4 or 5 legends, 2) choose two 1-handed weapons or 1 two-handed weapons from an unknown number of weapon options, 3) choose traits, 4) choose equipment and 5) choose whether to use your specialization or not. All in all it is somewhat less than other professions, though it’s not as terrible as you make it sound.

It’s interesting that Anet has not mentioned anything about the living story in combination with HoT. However I think it’s likely that the story requires you to have access to the expansion (aside from some changed dialogues and so on which will no doubt be visible for everyone as the entire world moves forward in time).

There will not be a new race in Heart of Thorns. Anet has said this about adding new races:

Shacknews: You’ve added a new profession, however you did hold off on adding a new race. What led to this decision?

Johanson: For this one, we looked at what we would get out of adding a new race and what benefit it actually brings to the players from a gameplay standpoint. It’s very limited in Guild Wars 2. A new race adds a racial skill or two and a little bit of story, but it doesn’t give that much meaningful gameplay in the grand scheme of things. The race is more context for the early story that you experience. So we wanted to focus things that would provide a lot more gameplay and address parts of Guild Wars 2 that we felt like we really wanted to be able to make a better experience and grow. So right now, we didn’t feel that a new race was a key need for the game, whereas the other things that we’re adding really provide fundamental building blocks for the future.

It seems like they want to focus on expanding end-game first (i.e. specializations, masteries, challenging content, pvp and so on). In the future they might see more room for adding new races.

In terms of which races they would add. The Tengu seems like the most obvious choice. The Tengu are bipedal with a humanoid physique. They already interact with other races, have their own city, quite some backstory and so on. In fact, before the release of Guild Wars 2 they were considered as one of the playable races for the initial release. However we don’t know how far along their development was before it was decided not to include them. Oh and they also seem to be quite popular amongst the fans.

saventis.1485:

yea im pretty sure i heard it in that poi that talked about adventures… the one pop, our lord and saviour was in

I don’t think Polymock specifically was mentioned. Target shooting was mentioned though (which was another example of an activity before GW2 was launched but which never made it into the game).

I think it’s interesting that the most likely sylvari candidates of Mord’s corruption (Scarlet and Aerin) were both soundless instead of Nightmare Court. Still, I think some connection between the NC and Mord is quite likely. We’ll have to wait and see I guess.

StickerHappy.8052:

• So What are the base professions getting?

One specialization, new weapon and armor skins, masteries.

• What if I don’t wanna play Chronomancer, What is my mesmer getting?

Nothing much aside from the above. I don’t see why they would get anything else though. What you’re saying seems to follow the following logic: Anet gives the mesmer a new trait but I don’t like the trait so what is my mesmer getting?

• Is there any advantage on playing the base profession over the Specialization, if the latter gets all new stuff? (i.e mechanics, skills, traits)

The specialization is not an upgrade, it is a sidegrade. It gives options, not power. Thus specializations should be as strong as the base profession. And no, as I said, it doesn’t seem like the base profession is getting any new skills, traits and the like.

• Are we getting some useless traits (ESP. GM TRAITS) Revamped? +1000 Healing power on interrupt anyone?

There will no doubt be a balance and bug update surrounding HoT.

So basically what you want is for people who haven’t unlocked season 2 yet to get more from buying the expansion than those who have unlocked season 2?

I’m expecting the new WvW borderlands is next due to fact that next week there will be another Ready Up. However, noone besides Anet knows.

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

As for “support” archtype, I’m betting Glint. For evidence, look at the final pic here: https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/revenant-the-master-of-the-mists/

That might also be related to the Revenant’s specialization. We’ll have to wait and see.

Aomine.5012:

My guess is there’ll be 4 types of legends on release of Revenant.
We already know there’s a tank one and a condition one.
So by logic, there are two types that’re missing: offensive and mobility.
The mobility and swiftness will be on the legend that features mobility.

I actually suspect the following:

- 1 trait line which gives power and condition duration. The corresponding legend will be dps-focused.

- 1 trait line which gives vitality and boon duration. The corresponding legend will be support-focused.

Next week there will be no POI, there will be a Ready Up. Thus I expect next week’s update to be about the new WvW borderlands map.

I think you have confused the mastery system with specializations.

Benjamin Mahir.7986:

I would imagine we would get eight legends in total. Six for the base Reverent profession, and two more for the specialization. The two from the specialization would of course replace two of our base six.

I’m actually expecting quite a bit less. Specifically I expect 4 or 5 for the base profession and 1 for the specialization. With too high expectations comes the risk of disappointment.

Here’s what Anet has said about the number of legends:

ArenaNet promises more legends are coming — though it isn’t sure how many yet.

“More than two, less than a million,” Peters jokes. "If you look at the number of utility skills and heal skills and elite skills on other professions, you’ll get a ballpark idea of the number of legends.

“We aren’t sure yet, because we’re shipping the ones that we’re happy with. We’re announcing these ones right now because we’re super happy with them. There’s a bunch that we worked on and threw out. There’s some that we worked on, threw out and now we’ve come back to them. It’s hard to say the exact number right now.”

No doubt there will be a balance update / bug fix update before or right after the expansion hits. There is no information from Arenanet about this however.

Next week will probably see a new ready up so my guess is WvW.

I think a problem with a lot of legends mentioned is that probably over 90% of them are humans. Now, I can imagine us getting one or two human legends but any more than that would make it a bit… weird, for non-human revenants that is.

Nephziel.6053:

I think when they said “there will be more” it was meant as in “We have few more legends but we will showcase them in the future.” But that is just my interpretation.

No, in the Polygon interview they said that they haven’t decided yet on the which legends to include (i.e. they are working on a higher number of legends than the number they want to include). The only ones they are certain about are Mallyx and Jalis.