Guild Wars 2

I have had this in previous patches. In the end I had to just let the thing sit while I browsed forums and played solitaire until it finally broke loose. Restarting never worked.

I saw this post, realized there was a patch, and from clicking the GW2 icon on my desktop to patching to getting in game was under 60 seconds. So … didn’t happen to me. I’m sorry it’s hanging up for you

I assume you were not a previous tester, or you would have seen the FAQ and the invite email both of which said that invitation to this one does not ensure access to any future ones.

I would guess it’s just like putting any other exotic weapon in the Forge. But I’m no Forge expert.

I suggest you post this in the bugs forum in that case, and possibly file a ticket with support.

At least it’s just a small pebble, not a face-hiding mask.

I know that recording video game footage was much harder 12 years ago (the video says it’s from 2003). Still, one reason I never played GW1 until a year ago, and still am not into it, was that every time my super-fan friend linked a video of the game it looked horribly blurred and pixelated. I was playing WoW at the time, and GW still struck me as aesthetically barren despite my longstanding annoyance with WoW’s artistic choices.

Even when I got beyond excited for GW2, nothing I saw of GW1 caught my interest. And some of that was, again, the low video quality of anything I saw of it.

So I’m sure this video is a thrill for those who actually played and can mentally edit in the higher resolutions they saw in game, but for me it is only a muddy unwatchable mess

Kal Spiro.9745:

Gobble D Goop.4081:

I dont think that PETA would approve of the vast extermination of all living creatures that is likely going on in the Maguuma Wastes as of about 2 hours ago (well maybe everything except the legendary sand giant). I wonder if Anet is keeping a tab of how many creatures are exterminated in these zones for however long this event lasts. That would be an interesting number to see.

That’s funny because they said the Sand Giant always drops one. People should get on that. I know I will once I get home from work.

I joined a Sand Giant kill when it was under 1/2 health. I don’t recall if I got silver or gold credit. I certainly didn’t get a portal.

Luna Peregrina.5708:

Donari.5237:

Where does it say it goes for a week? It just says starting April 28 and going for a limited time. I’ve seen people sure it’s for two days or it’s for today only, and you’re the first that’s said a week. I understand why you would assume that, as builds with new BL weapons do tend to go for weeks, but I’d love to see any official ANet comment from whatever source (forums, news page blogs, Twitter/Facebook) that has said we have a week to try for the portal.

‘Expansion Beta Loot Drops
Mordremoth is stirring, and the nearby areas of Dry Top and the Silverwastes are feeling the effect. All events and creature drops in this area now have a small chance to drop a Portal to the Heart of Maguuma item that will qualify the player’s account for an upcoming Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns™ closed beta test. These drops will continue for a week or longer to collect a strong player base for the test.’

From the patch notes. ijs.
Doesn’t really get much more official than that.

I don’t believe I missed that. Normally I read every word of those things. I’ll blame the excitement of wanting to get right back in game to start the farm.

It’s good to know this’ll go a bit, now I can take time for RP and such. Also good to know the keys are dropping and in SW, yet, because I really enjoy SW much more than Dry Top.

Where does it say it goes for a week? It just says starting April 28 and going for a limited time. I’ve seen people sure it’s for two days or it’s for today only, and you’re the first that’s said a week. I understand why you would assume that, as builds with new BL weapons do tend to go for weeks, but I’d love to see any official ANet comment from whatever source (forums, news page blogs, Twitter/Facebook) that has said we have a week to try for the portal.

That seems to be a bug. Have you tried equipping a different head piece? Or just relogging to see if that cures it?

The female version is in separate sections divided by skin, yes, but the male version is one long coat. I agree it looks like something that could have been designed as actual mix and match armor, but it’s not made in as distinct pieces as you say. Also, if the Outfit mesh is its own thing, then where the skin is showing is likely just “invisible” and the whole thing is still one piece when you look under the hood.

Edit: For those not yet able to get to their Wardrobe to preview it, here’s some samples along with dyes I chose to show off the dye fields. Those are the field of fabric, the dagged tips, the lines on the fabric, and the gems. I left the male version on default gem color.

Of note, female asura get the female version, female charr get the male version. I didn’t screenie those because, well, they looked ridiculous to me. Sorry

After a full round of SW, with people topping up on MF food and MF bonfires, no one got one. I joined the last 15 minutes of a Dry Top Tier V, and the most I’ve seen in map chat is one person saying “someone in my guild got it.”

There’s rare, then there’s Preserved Queen Bee rare. This may be a small beta.

I just did a full round of SW, starting after the new build. No one linked finding a portal in chat.

Time to hit up Dry Top, I guess.

The build is live. The patch notes say events can also drop the portals, so I’m gonna hit SW for a bit and see.

They said in the live stream it would be before HoT. Clearly it won’t be in the next week or two, but it’s going to be part of the base game.

I also dislike shields, for purely cosmetic reasons. In this game they don’t feel real, and they block the view of your armor. They clip terribly. I normally don’t mind clipping, really I don’t, it’s just part of putting so many disparate parts together. But if you have a nice looking shield like the Aureate, all sorts of things keep poking through the wood face. If you go with a bigger thicker one, then you’re carrying around something I just can’t imagine as useful in a fight.

Hopefully we’ll get a lot of new shield skins that look good with light armor, because the available skins just aren’t going to aesthetically mesh that well.

Or I’ll just do Shield of the Moon on everyone, since it doesn’t block the view and all the open space in it allows me to ignore clipping

It may not mean anything, but the gem store specials will end at 9 am pacific, just over 1.5 hours from now. That usually means they’re clearing the way for something else to hit the store, so there could be a new build around then.

/watches clock eagerly

In terms of when this portal hunt commences, it may be significant that the Gem Store Promotions special sales all end in 1 hour 40 minutes, ie 9 am Pacific.

Or it may not. But it’s something to keep an eye on

Maybe they can drop from chests, either bandit or bouncy?

Until ANet makes it clear, I think I’ll have to haunt DT rather than SW even though I enjoy SW much more.

The reason the Asura doesn’t have the big bow on the back is that outfit gives the male version to Asura and Charr. A male human would have the male version as well.

Clarifying on the Seasons — ANet keeps on experimenting. Season One was all huge open world events, if you miss them they’re history. They got enough feedback on that to do it differently in Season Two, so LS2 is replayable and permanently available to every alt you ever make on the account. LS3 will be further refined in HoT, again based on feedback and on them seeing what worked and didn’t work.

You probably already have the list together but I imagine if this is tailored to ANet staff it should include questions about the development of the game. Y’know, original names for skills, who won the 2010 Ping Pong Tourney, etc.

Hmm, a solid point there. All right, here’s hoping someone in the know swings by to clue us in.

/peers around for Gaile, though she’s likely frantically drafting trivia questions just now

Meanwhile, at least if one drops in DT/SW you know you got in, rather than hoping an email will come later.

Shalloe.4867:

another question is when will they tell players who signed up for the newsletter if they have been chosen for this beta and will it be before this portal dropping event?

it would be lame to grind hours for a drop then get chosen anyway afterwards

It would … except nothing in the announcement says the newsletter is the way in for anyone. The first one needed the newsletter, the Stronghold one was open to everyone, this one requires getting the drop while playing the game. At least as I read it.

Time: It would be nice to know the start but I imagine the finish will be when they have enough invites collected to reach whatever the cap is.

Previous beta: Check the other threads. Check the email you got from the first beta. You are not automatically selected.

Three hours from now it will still be Monday, April 27, 5 pm ANet time. The portals don’t drop until April 28, per the news post. And at that, it seems likely they will begin after a new build shows up.

A: The email from the stress test explicitly stated it did not guarantee future beta event access.

This has been asked many times in other threads. Check the email you got for the last beta, where it says there is no guarantee of future access.

You must farm.

The base llama is in fact adorable. I’m not so fond of slapping human clothes on animals, so the extended version is less adorable to me. However, I don’t sPvP. The Stronghold Beta, which I played once, was my very first sPvP match ever. Nor have I done WvW for quite a long time. So, no mini llama for me, oh well. (Nor Glorious Armor, parts of which are cool).

The thing is, though, they have to make the prizes for successful competitors stand out in some way. The prize must be desirable, even to those who don’t have a great chance at getting it. If the prize is horrible, where’s the pride in earning it? And once it’s set up as a prize for demonstrating ability in one area of the game, it eviscerates it to make it more easily available elsewhere.

I’m far from a proponent of “exclusive” digital items. I’m not envious of those who have them, I don’t stare at them in awe, nor do I feel my own bling is diminished if someone else has it as well. But I do believe that some things should be rewarded only for demonstrated skill. Whether a mini of any sort should have been such a thing, given the collector mania minis engender, well, that’s a different question. This particular prize has been established and won and should not be undone for those who competed.

ZudetGambeous.9573:

What is that armor?

That’s the new Revenant armor.

I don’t see SW as a “grind,” myself, because I can vary what I do there. I can bull escort or fort defend, help with wall repair, tag into veteran fights, dig up a chest or two, then there’s Breach and VW and Labyrinth, each of which have a few variations if I want.

And then I have a million loots. Though unless this portal key thing drops in the bags from those loots, inventory management may change from the cool-down chill-out-in-camp period to omg-I’m-wasting-portal-finding-time. I’ll see!

Good thing I enjoy Silverwastes! Problem though is “for a limited time” — I hope it’s not only tomorrow, since I have so much less computer time on Tuesdays than any other day of the week.

And as others say above, there must be some amount of cap, let’s hope it doesn’t fill up by Tuesday evening. /crosses fingers

Well, you can, you just need to equip ranged in one set and melee in the other, and hit the ~ key to swap between them once you level up to whatever level it is now that allows weapon swap. The swap is freely done out of combat and has a short cooldown while in combat.

Engineers and Elementalists don’t have weapon swap, as they have other things they swap in and out to change their weapon skill bar.

Food buffs, I dunno. Then I have to remember to eat the food all the time. I hardly ever remember consumables (a dedicated UI slot for them might help tremendously, but that’s been suggested enough times over the years that it’ll happen or it won’t but further requests won’t change the outcome).

If your primary weapon is a two handed weapon, you won’t be able to use a one hand offhand with it. You want to pair your offhand with a main-hand or either-hand.

If your desired offhand is an either-hand, then you need to use the drop down — right click the weapon in inventory, and select Equip in Off Hand. Or drag it to the correct slot on your Hero Panel. Just equipping it will swap it into the main hand slot by default.

I run them all the time, Windsagio. I can’t speak for anyone else, I may be the single player who loves them enough to keep them permanently equipped, but I somehow doubt I’m that unique.

Now am I still in a tiny minority that needn’t be heeded in this? Possibly. I’ve certainly seen a number of threads and posters stating they find the fall damage traits super useful and agreeing with my feeling that the current iteration of the new format does not adequately address the need for them.

I know there will be teething pains with any massive system overhaul. Most of us will adapt to however it shakes out. Still, as we are in the feedback stage, I think us free-fallers are pointing out enough reasonable concerns that ANet can take a look at the metrics to see how much the traits are used overall and decide if they want to let a chunk of their player base lose a treasured part of terrain navigation.

Devs won’t respond, they never do when asked or everyone would demand them all the time.

However, the general advice here is to write a mail message along with the gold to document that the money is proceeds from sale of lucky drops, and to say when those drops happened. Then if anything goes wrong with your account, support can quickly fix it after verifying you did get the drops, did make the TP sales, and no gold buying was involved (it can also protect your friend, he can point to the mail to show a lucky friend was generous).

I was a bit unhappy with the comment they made during the Thief reveal, that they want to reduce Initiative sources. I’ve built Donari to have loads of the stuff. It doesn’t make him powerful — heck, I can’t solo escort a SW bull all the way to a fort, because I’ve built him to crap DPS — but it does make him fast paced and fun.

I think I was thinking of the fall effect, the one that fires a spell. The damage reduction is every time you fall, and I’d want to keep that. I can deal with not tracking a cd on when I’ll get stealth from falling, I just know “I just got it, so it won’t work on this jump.”

I think that’s a lovely approach. I’d hate to lose the floating book visual though — it’s one of my favorite spell effects. Still, no reason it couldn’t be a Spirit Book floating the same way the Spirit Hammer does … hmm!

There will be new things in the old areas, and new systems, but going into the expansion maps will be for 80’s. I’d say it’s worth getting an alt to 80 to be ready for that, so long as you enjoy the process.

I’m not sure you really need a printed list, come to think of it. I mean, it’s a nice organizational tool. But so long as you’re in game, you can bring up your dye panel on any alt and see all the available dyes. The ones you’ve not yet learned on your account will have padlocks on them, and a drop down link to the Trading Post if you want to buy them or just check their price.

Plus when you mouse over a dye, the tooltip will say in red letters if you’ve already learned it. If you have, it’s safe to sell.

One also needs to figure in account bonuses. Higher Achievement Point (AP) amounts mean boosts to many things, including xp. So your 17th character will have a boost, all right!

Though indeed taking time to explore, to RP, to do every nook and cranny will slow you down, a good rule of thumb is to expect an hour per level so long as you are actively doing xp-causing actions in that hour.

1 — Fix all bugs .. I’m sure they’re trying without any need for players pointing out that bugs exist. But they can’t wave a magic wand to do it. Bugs happen.

2 — revamp Thief … They’re revamping everyone not just Thieves. Check the Dulfy summary of Friday’s live stream for the current version, which is NOT the final version. It’s open for feedback. You might want to specifically say what you think needs changing about D/D.

3 — new gameplay … see the blogs and videos on Elite Specializations. I’m not sure what a list of other MMOs has to do with this request.

4 — Spend gold … um … game gold won’t buy anything RL, much less advertising space. Publicizing they are doing via third party news site interviews.

5 — They do keep adding things to the gem store, many of which are holiday themed or suit genres that aren’t quite Tyrian (in many players’ opinions).

6 — GvG is sort of coming in the Stronghold sPvP, where there will be Guild leaderboards. More might come, we’ll need to see the Guild Halls blog.

NB — you don’t have to play this game constantly, it’s designed to let you leave and come back as you like. You might miss some content and have to pay to unlock it later, or you could just watch your emails and scan these forums to see if something new has happened and log in to do that until it bores you again.

Hmm, that’s interesting, Crossplay. Though I think they could do the same thing with imposing a cooldown on the activation rather than eating endurance.

However, it would interfere with things in zones where you can glide. What if you want to just drop down a bit to a ledge, but your space bar makes you deploy a glider and you soar away into open space? How do we mesh the two effects so the player chooses which one activates?

I don’t think of a fall damage trait as situation specific, by the way. I think of it as something useful in maneuvering in all areas of the game except a few dungeons that don’t have places you can fall to your death.

As I’ve noted in other Fall Damage threads, Ish, I use it. All the time. I have places I like to jump down to, I have an instinctive understanding of how far I can fall based on having the trait. As I’m not a min-maxer, I haven’t minded investing just enough points to get the trait.

Which is a broader point, actually. Does the new system require min-maxing to get a useful build? If so, there really won’t be a lot of choice involved. All the traits offered need to have a solid use and to dovetail well with other trait choices. A formidable requirement …

And that makes it much harder to integrate fall damage traits usefully. Making them riders on other unrelated traits feels clumsy, and for those like me who absolutely want safe falling, it just means taking a trait we might not otherwise want, losing out on the other two in the tier, and getting stuck in a full trait line that may not suit our play style at all.

I have seen suggestions that they be made baseline or taken as part of a mastery line. Both of those seem better to me than having the need for fall damage reduction torque the whole build when it is so very separate from other build choices. I like baseline the best, though I’d be interested to hear if there’s anyone who actively doesn’t want their fall damage reduced if it costs them no resources to be able to fall further.

They did mention other masteries that you get via the Nuhach and Itzel lore lines, including poison use. We just haven’t seen a lot of detail on anything but gliding and shrooms.

I like your ideas and applaud the immersion they add. I think you might see some of them happening anyway in the mastery lines we haven’t seen much of yet.

As to Ranger range, I recall one of the devs explicitly saying during the stream, “Don’t worry, Rangers, you’ll still have your 1500 range.”

They commented grenades are getting a reduced range but mortar kit will go further (and of course now you carry it around). I think they said the exact range isn’t set in stone yet.

Ahhhhh now I understand, Orpheal. I apologize, I didn’t realize English wasn’t your native language. It makes perfect sense that word connotations don’t translate. I’m not sure what can be done about that, though, as the game is developed in English by English speakers who probably don’t have nuanced knowledge of a lot of other languages.

My point on the other professions not being “creative” was that they are very standard words that don’t do fun things like pun or stretch vocabulary. Their connotations are for the most part very standard across the genre, even though ANet has tweaked their implementations to be specific to the game.

In any case, in English calling a profession a “Tempest” actually does seem fairly creative, appropriate to a controller of the elements, and unique to the game. Perhaps native speakers of the other languages GW2 uses could submit suggestions on terms that more exactly fit the spirit of the Elite Specialization without being a literal translation that misses the point? Once we have the blogs on the specs, anyway, so we know the intended spirit.

I took German in high school and college, back in the 80’s. I’ve sadly lost most of it due to lack of use. I do remember my high school teacher explaining how some phrases simply don’t translate well. Calling someone a “turkey” or saying “a new broom sweeps clean” just comes out meaningless in German. Conversely, “Gemutlichkeit” (sorry to leave out the umlaut) is hard to explain in English in less than a paragraph that even then only approximates the connotations.

BattleCat.2098:

And like you said, if I get a dupe, I can put it in the guild bank for my other characters. But that’s sort of the problem. What if I craft a rare dye I really like, and want to use it on multiple characters? It was difficult to get the first time, so how can I craft it a second time? (then again, aren’t dyes account wide? I unlocked all three starter dyes once, and all my charactefs have all three of those dyes.)

They absolutely are account bound. Get a dye once, all your alts have it forever, even alts you haven’t made yet. That was one of the best QoL changes in the game. ANet was also kind enough to send us an unidentified dye for each duplicate dye we had across our alts when the change went through. I ended up with 4 or 5 stacks of unidentifieds!

So you don’t need to craft it a second time, and if you randomly do, then you can make some gold selling it so as to buy something you’re missing.

Think of it as communal effort. The Trading Post doesn’t spontaneously generate its goods, they all come from other players who have crafted or gathered or lucked into the items they are selling. You can add to what’s for sale so others can nab it, and you can buy the fruits of others’ efforts.

I’ll warn you that yes, all the various story paths will in the end lead to the same point. The first 20 levels are the most distinct. Then you get a choice of three more paths, and any of those you take will lead to a choice of three more. Thereafter there are occasional parallel tracks of story that converge to a point.

However, there are enough variations that you won’t see every version of every step with just three characters. As an altoholic I have managed to see almost everything; I’d have to make one more asura, two more charr, and one more norn to see the rest of the racial stuff. And that’s with 14 80’s, many of them done with PS.

I don’t know how much you want to avoid spoilers. You might want to check the sticky at the top of General about Personal Story Restoration. Right now some later chapters have been badly cut up, and that’s getting fixed in another month or so. The sticky lists the intended order of steps. Also, a huge tech change is coming with the fix: a lot of PS scenes take place in places that don’t look the same any more, notably Lion’s Arch. If you get a PS step that says to go to LA, you may want to wait.

Why? Since launch, instanced PS steps have used current game terrain. It’s rather jarring to attend a quiet meeting of friends in the middle of flaming ruins. When the fix is live, you’ll see the terrain as of the time when the PS is set. So that will be your chance to see LA like it used to be before Scarlet nuked it.

edit: In that final set of three I mentioned, your race determines the exact set of choices you get. As an asura you might not be able to study the same thing a human would, for example.

You don’t need to use them as a vanishing resource. They are getting converted to a currency. In fact, buying any skills or traits now would be a waste, as when the system changes you will have only as many Hero Points as you’ve gained via leveling and doing the skill challenges in the maps.

I’ve seen another thread commenting on the upsurge in people Forging promoted mats and thus driving prices down on the TP. I’d wager the new currency will work to buy the exact same things skill points are now buying, so that’s futile.

Now, if there is a non-Forge way to make money off skill points, I’d be keen to do that since I don’t use the Forge in any meaningful manner. Thus making gold off my scrolls before they become Forge-only would be of use to me. Anyone know if such a method exists?