Guild Wars 2

I’ve been lucky enough to be able to run the game on very high settings from the get-go. But I had a couple of guildies playing on minimum due to old computers who then got upgrades. They posted before/after pics in the same location to demonstrate just how wonderful it was to go from a muddy smear to a fine-grained sandy beach.

I remember a beta-era video where a reviewer stood near a book case and slowly notched up settings. From a flat surface with some vertical marks it resolved into a textured piece of furniture with every book spine distinct and the surrounding wallpaper filigree delicately detailed. I love when I can zoom in on armor to see the fine texture; the Noble’s Coat in particular has the most marvelous herringbone weave in the cloth parts.

While I’ve been playing some WoW WoD recently, I just grimace at the aesthetics and zoom out as best I can so as to ignore them. GW2 makes me linger on the looks.

First up, if you still have your characters from a year ago, do not delete them. They are grandfathered in to the trait unlock and you will be able to gather your traits via skill points.

Second, the main barrier is getting past preconceptions from other games (as you learned on your first attempt). ANet’s turned a lot of things upside down. There is no kill stealing (other than killing something before someone else can get to it, but the only time I ever saw that being an issue of contention was when Queensdale had champion mobs and one camp wanted to kill them in a particular order and others wanted to stop that so they went and killed them before the large group could get there), no node stealing, no required gear grind.

You do need to be active in combat, there is no purely stationary ranged, and support is aimed at buffing and cc, not healing. Don’t only do heart quests, those are a guide to areas but not the primary way to get xp. What is the primary way? Everything. Do it all. Hit up events, do hearts, explore zones completely, gather all the nodes. If you can do a daily task, you get bonus xp for that.

And make sure to explore. Let your O’Shinies dominate. See what’s in caves, up cliffs. Never think it’s impossible to get to a spot that catches your fancy. There just might be a (minor) chest when you get to it.

One can only speculate until someone posts a screenshot of getting a precursor.

I selected the Mesmer Box, assuming I’d get something with cloth. I got a named exotic spear of no especial note (I’m not complaining, I’m keeping it to give to an alt who’s not in exotics). Gungir or something like that, very cheap on TP. However, getting an exotic weapon makes me think that maybe, just maybe, those with more blessed accounts than mine might actually get a precursor unless ANet has deliberately specified a loot table more precisely than “exotic with profession appropriate stats.”

I suppose one might be able to tilt the odds slightly by picking a profession box with stats that go to desired precursors, assuming one has the faintest idea what stats go on what.

Again, I’m not the be all and end all when it comes to mesmer. But the flavor of it as I play it is that you keep on creating clones and phantasms via weapon and utility skills, you can trait to be more effective with more of them out (max 3 at a time I think) and/or to make them do nifty things when they shatter. Your F1-F4 are the shatter command keys and each has a specific thing to do to the enemy on shatter (damage it, confuse it, interrupt it, or make you invulnerable to damage briefly). In PvE, my bailiwick, mobs tend to aggro the images rather than you, and timing the shatter is fairly important so you can get more images up in a hurry before you get swarmed. In PvP I understand a good mesmer can emulate clone activity and make it very hard for other players to target the real one.

They also have a portal skill that I suppose works in combat, but has prime use in getting up JPs. Either you plunk one down when doing a tricky leap that gives you problems, so if you fall you can hop right back up, or you get to the end and then can portal other people up if they need a boost. And Decoy is a permaskill for me on all three of my mesmers, I love a stun breaker that makes me invisible and drops a clone to taunt mobs while I keep on running. And underwater, mmmmm. I used to go out of my way to do aquatic fighting on my first mesmer, it really felt like the absolute strongest underwater fighter I had when using a trident, and the most mobile when holding a spear. I still have fond memories of soloing the river drake queen in Bloodtide at level; that was the fight that really taught me fast swapping between the two weapons and how to synergize them.

I will say my first mesmer felt clumsy to me (and this was long before the trait unlock revamp) for a good 30 levels or so. Then she just took off. My other two are both grandfathered in traits as well, I’ve only made one post-revamp alt. So you might have a lot more trouble finding the fun until you can gather the traits.

Hmmph, I was two years out of college and heading to law school when I saw that in the theater. Gimme that there cane. And build me a lawn fence to save my vocal cords, they twinge bad when I raise my voice — legacy of a bad car accident followed by intubation.

OT, yes, this really is a game designed for people that like to be helpful. I think one reason trolldom and griefing hasn’t caught on nearly as much in other games is that there’s just not much you can do to ruin other people’s fun without hosing yourself in the process. And when something does arise that promotes toxicity, ANet stomps on it very hard.

That goes to what made so many of us think this would be the Second Coming of MMOs, back around launch. That the devs made this a game meant to encourage cooperation and kindness. Despite some erosion of that, it remains a core value of the game and keeps the community excellent, in part thanks to deliberately attracting people that don’t want to keep ahead of the Joneses and are quite fine with others also getting the pretty shinies.

I’d say Elementalist is the more adaptive and reactive one, given how quickly you need to pick the right attunement and know what the skills do in it when you click it.

But personally I find Mesmer much more fun (I have 3 Mesmers at 80, and one Ele that I ground to 80 much later despite making her at launch). I don’t claim to play them brilliantly, or even to specifically choose shatter vs. phantasm builds, but they seem quite effective in all the PvE content I do. Different weapons will give them significantly different play as well. And the key tapping is just the standard 1-0 + F1-F4. (I fully understand your Engi complaint, believe me, far too much piano playing needed).

Huh, I’d assumed you just needed to unlock it and then the chests would drop the grubby boxes whenever. Well, at least it doesn’t take days once you’ve unlocked it, just getting to the right chests. (My mesmers stand ready to assist if I am alerted to the need).

I think it’s been on the store 3 or 4 times now, but not on any particular schedule. Most recently was a few months ago in the anniversary sale? Or maybe one time since then, at Halloween. There’s not a lot of notice, you need to just check the store whenever you log in to see if something new has appeared that you want.

You do not have to buy it multiple times now. The skin itself is free to apply once, at which point it will appear in your wardrobe and be available for one transmute charge per application.

I don’t know thing one about the scythe and its clipping.

The OST was released around launch as a 4 cd set. It turned out the company selling it was the composer’s own company, and was a complete nightmare to deal with. Many orders were never filled or refunded, and only the lucky actually got their set in anything near the time promised. Mine came in eight weeks rather than four, and that made me supremely lucky. Subsequently the composer has called it quits with ANet and the OST simply is no longer for sale. You can hear it on YouTube or find someone willing to send you copies, but you cannot buy it from the source.

ERP is not appropriate for public channels, period. But what counts as “ERP” may be subjective. To me, if you could see it in a PG-13 movie (kissing, brushing hair off another’s forehead, double entendres, etc), it’s not ERP. I also don’t think it should be the entirety of a scene, there needs to be some plot advancement or character refinement, even if it’s just a social chat to reinforce IC ties, but that’s my personal preference for effective use of my RP time.

Graphic descriptions of intimate acts one simply would not do in public, however, need to be kept in party or whisper chat, or in instanced areas like the home instance. (For me, as I don’t do ERP since fade-to-black works just as well for the story, I like the instanced areas to avoid RP collision. Screenshotting the chatlog to preserve a story is much easier if the only say and emotes are part of your scene).

Many years ago, in another game, I had a friend running an IC tavern in a public area. He went in one evening and discovered two people emoting in the basement, unaware they were “audible” upstairs. He proceeded to screenshot it and relay it to the rest of us in the guild as it happened. The best bit was where the guy lovingly fondled the gal’s “love mountains.” That phrase is still a running gag for us to this day.

So don’t ERP where unconsenting people can see it. You might become a laughingstock. Or banned, if it’s x-rated and you get reported.

On the fifth day of Wintersday, ArenaNet gave to me
Five Gold Doubloons
Four Norn spirits
Three easy dailies
Two greatswords glowing
And a precursor for my legendary!

I would suggest you find posts by DreamyAbbadon (I may have spelled that wrong). I’m surprised he hasn’t already pounced and offered you aid! He regularly does so along with a Skype name so he can talk you through stuff in game. Best of luck to you, may you find a long time of enjoyment in Tyria.

Also check the Players Helping Players sticky section, it has a plethora of helpful notes.

In early days of the game people asked about the point of the junk loot, and the answer was that in testing players were far less pleased by mobs that just dropped a few copper than by mobs that dropped an item, possibly amusingly named, that could then be turned into copper. It didn’t feel like they were getting enough loot if it came directly as coin.

You can have up to 19 letters in the name, including spaces. Add a last name, an honorific, a title, double a letter. Design a name that is lore appropriate rather than something from modern Terran popular media. Use sites like http://www.behindthename.com/random/?number=2&gender=f&surname=&all=no&usage_ita=1 for ideas, and modify the sound of names you find until they suit you.

Server makes no difference, names are game-wide.

Here are the names I’ve got, to give you a sample of what’s doable. Only four of my alts didn’t get first choice of name. I will concede some were made in the first seconds of early access, and most in the first year or so of the game:

Human
David Raffino – made in Sept 2013
Donari Mal Di Bette – made at launch
Jin Macklin – made in Oct 2012
Lord Arlos Victor – made in April 2013
Mirth the Mouse – made at launch
Salvina Lucia Bette – made in July 2013

Sylvari
Andret – Oct 2012? 2013? — did take several tries using http://philriley.tripod.com/otngarthur.html for ideas before I found an untaken Arthurian name
Briamor – July 2013? 2014? — Also took some tries before I just mushed together syllables on my own
Briara – made at launch
Ysethe – May 2013

Norn
Altdragg Splitstack – Feb 2013 – “Altdrag” was taken so I added a g.
Ylfa Aetlaveidr – May 2013? 2014? – used http://www.vikingsofbjornstad.com/Old_Norse_Dictionary_E2N.shtm to find names for her and all her pets. This one loosely means She-Wolf Fated Hunter.

Asura
Froblekk – June 2014 – “Blekk” was taken so I tossed on a syllable
Merra – made at launch

Charr
Talani Stormburn – made at launch as Talani Razorstorm, name changed when the Razor Warband guild collapsed a year or so later.

Well, spamming /sit a zillion times is annoying. But if you see a handful of /sits in a row, especially surrounded by custom RP emotes, it means the RPer is trying to sit on a chair or ledge or just to sit down in a position that makes sense compared to the person to whom they are talking. This game makes it very hard to do that and sometimes you have to reorient and move a few times so you sit ON the chair, not under it, or you want to be shoulder to shoulder with someone against whom you are companionably leaning and have to keep shuffling a step or two closer and turning in place to achieve that.

That’s how it’s spammed for RP, anyway, but seldom as many as 10 times before the RPer either is satisfied or gives up.

As to the couple dozen of the same stock emote in a row? Yep, that’s super annoying as it scrolls the real RP chat away! Hurray for the block list.

Maybe you could have done the Good, the Pretty/Beautiful, the Bad, and the Ugly?

That is a very large tin hat you’re flaunting there! Given how much is talked about on the forums, and how much more gets discussed in CDI focus threads, if they implement anything that generally fits a CDI topic someone will have mentioned it in the thread. I think it’s more they are working on a thing and using the CDI discussion to refine their approach.

And they absolutely aren’t doing proxy fake posts. That’s just … why would any rational person imagine that’s going on? They have plenty of people who enjoy the game and post positives (me, for one, though I will happily comment on negatives where I see them such as my dislike of the new trait unlock system, and the whole ruination of town clothes). They really don’t need shills, especially if they want the forums to give them some rough-hewn feedback that is any way representative.

I have confidence guild housing is coming, or they wouldn’t have used up so much dev time getting community input. The CDI’s are only a waste if the community turns them into flame wars and other nastiness.

Now I want to take an alt through that LS just to see that myself. Very pretty, thank you.

I’m amazed they offered the digital copy. That company’s practices are downright legally actionable (which I don’t say lightly, I’m not one to suggest running to the courts for every little thing). Many many people never received paid-for cd’s or any customer service response at all.

Also I believe Soule has utterly divorced himself from ANet and has no interest in providing the cd’s. So yeah, ripped copies is all you are likely to manage, or a high priced used set.

I don’t know. I’d have to put on the armor style and go stand near them in order to get the correct lighting so I could match, which is quite a bit of work between gathering the pieces and wrangling the dye window. There aren’t “official” colors as such. What you see on the wiki is what a player managed to come up with, and ANet is highly unlikely to provide the information.

I had a guildie who put together “uniforms” for every organization in the game, and she knew the colors, but she’s been gone from the game for quite a while now. I hope you find someone to help.

I’d say either new race/profession, or reversion of the traits system. I used to make new alts all the time, I always had someone I was leveling at least via the dailies. But I decided to test the new system and made a male asura necromancer (I hadn’t done male asura yet, and wanted to see the alternate future PS). It may be because I’m really not into RPing asura (I can’t do really good science babble), but I have felt little joy in playing him even though I have had some RP scenes to inject interest. I look at what I have to do to get my desired traits and it’s just not doable — like level 80 content to get a level 60 trait. Or the WvW JP — yeah no. I flat out bought my fall damage trait, but I’m not pleased at using up all my skill points getting traits while I’m still getting utilities.

So I’ve just stopped on him. Now and then he gets the XP scrolls out of the new dailies, but I don’t see much future in him nor have I interest in making another alt under the new system. The only reason he’s 60 is I got him 20 levels in the Mad King’s Labyrinth.

I have 13 80’s, guess that’s it for me for a good while.

It’s not easy to avoid the coats, but here’s my thief in his swashbuckling adventurer clothes. Too bad it’s humans only, because coatless medium armor wearers are so rare they turn heads when they appear in Tyria.

It works with candy corn/cobs, as I found out when getting a 20 slot bag.

It’s been available every Wintersday patch and not outside those as I recall. So likely you’ll have a chance at it next year but not during the year. I’d try to get it now if you really want it; just because it’s been here for three Wintersdays doesn’t mean it’ll come back for the fourth.

But the scarf is there … though I admit I only checked after buying the scarf, which unlocked the skin. Do a wardrobe search using “scarf” — by the time I type in “scar” I have the new item and the adventurer scarf showing, in all three armor weights.

I agree it’s a problem if it doesn’t show without purchase.

Have you done the 12 JP’s option, Kal Spiro? That’s usually a good fast monthly achieve, and should be even easier with all the mesmer ports to ornament chests right now.

I can get you up 12 JP’s quite quickly tomorrow if you’re on NA and available between noon and 5 Eastern time.

Thanks for starting this thread. I think it picks up nicely on the discussion that had been trucking along in the New Narrative Director thread. (That thread had gone very much off topic from the OP but was delving into some excellent story-crafting theory. Now it isn’t even archived, it’s 404’d). I’d been meaning to start something to springboard off that.

The larger frame of the discussion, beyond cliffhangers, is how to tell an ongoing story in the constraints of an MMO that uses LS as its delivery mechanism. There were comments on pacing and continuity, which the cliffhanger part addresses.

There was also a sub-discussion on “show don’t tell,” and that’s the thing I wanted to look at. The night of the forum reorganization I saw How To Train Your Dragon 2 for the first time, and a scene in that provides a beautiful example of the concept. Now, I’m not sure it would work in this game because perforce the writers have to use mostly dialogue, not body language. Still, think about:

Hiccup has gone flying off exploring and lands on a high pinnacle overlooking a new land. He gets out a map he's been working on and starts drawing. We know it's been 5 years since the first movie thanks to the opening narrative (and to understand this scene we need to have experienced Hiccup and Astrid's courtship in that one). Astrid arrives and it's almost instantly obvious the two are now very close and very comfortable with each other. She plops right down to take over working on Hiccup's map in progress, they tease and banter and hug and cheek-kiss like it's no big deal. In the few minutes of that scene we can see five years of becoming lovers, all just from how they interact, without one word discussing the past years. Also in the whole movie there's no foolish misunderstanding leading to tension and tiffs, they remain solid companions against the bad guy.

I like the first one better, as the second one is too close to “atrocious.” Do you really want to call yourself bad?

Though now it’s starting to grow on me, especially if it has a good last name (assuming not Sylvari — I’m guessing not Asura as it’s not a very asuran name).

I’ll stay away from the horse part. For medicine, I figure if you have necromancers who sense stuff in blood and can pull life force out of things, you have people who can magically detect bacteria and how they are ravaging a system. I don’t think it’s a stretch to have germ theory known at least to some scholars, though the general populace might just be in the “cleanliness is health” level.

Since I never like to just hand wave magically and heal everything, in my RP my healers can accelerate healing, purge toxins (including alcohol) and such, but they can’t turn someone deathly ill into a paragon of health in seconds. The body needs time to truly heal and shore up the bracing the magic gives it. So protein-rich foods, bed rest, salves, etc, they all come into play to synergize with the magical part. Your non-magic healer could be great at stuff that just takes herbs and bandages. My thief certainly has no magic heals, he just does first aid when no healer’s handy.

Side note: Glucose concerns are very real to more than one person, btw, I know at least three people in my immediate circles (including my mom) who suffer nasty effects from it. It can’t be that rare. Which doesn’t mean Tyrians would have any idea about it other than as an allergy some people have to bready things.

Lots of good advice in here! I’ll add that you should go for the Lower octave choice where you can, as you get far fewer notes to hit in that one. The first song of a round is a nice slow lob of notes 1-2-3-4 in Lower, so that’s 4 free ones for you. Look at the notes as they appear at the top — that’s when it’s easiest to see which “lane” they are in — and prep yourself to tap with the corresponding finger as the note crosses the white line.

Don’t fret over missed notes, any correct note heals you and once you are between songs you can spam a note to heal (make sure the game thinks you are between songs, last night I was damaging myself during the free-play moments so I learned to tap just once to check).

I’ve been enjoying using it. Sweet, sweet bank space. Though it won’t detect the stars in my bank, so I have to nab enough into my bags for it to nosh on. The ornaments themselves are rather nice as well, I’ll have to find lesser alts to use those, and I do like having a Wintersday tree. If only it weren’t in the smithy in Salma …. that just seems an odd place, I’d love it in a yard in the noble area.

I beg to differ. While I don’t die (despite being horribad at anything musical, I can see colors and position just fine, and seem to hover around 5th place in my Choir rounds), I absolutely welcome the lulls long enough to open my reward chests, take a breath, adjust my glasses, say something in gchat, quick check a forum on my other monitor, etc. It makes multiple rounds much more sustainable for me.

Uhaen.9876:

Branden Gee.2150:

I assure you, Radiobiology, Bluefox. We have Top Men working on it right now.

Who?

Top. Men.

My bank’s already both maxed and full of stuff. I’m such a pack rat. I had to buy the 3 boot boxes just to clear up bag space for Wintersday goodies; I’m now working on my 4th thousand crests so as to get the trinket and hoping no boots decide to drop during that process. I was going to wait until close to the next patch to give the most chances for things to drop, but had no real option — would have been nice to get them in the wallet!

Still, this is nice in that my alts can drop off crests (if I can make room) and I don’t have to do the extra step of collecting them.

I’d like this if it wasn’t a global checklist — that would be enormous — but just listed what you had done on your account for the day. That could of course become a very long list for some people, so there’d be some UI magic needed to keep it organized and legible. Still it would save some headaches for those trying to remember which JP’s, dungeons, and daily event rewards they’ve done.

As I mentioned in another Choir thread and don’t see here, the one thing that you just won’t know unless you stumble on it or are told is that you can heal between songs. Once the event bwomp sounds so you are no longer in song-play time, spam any note to heal back to full before the next song. As long as you hit a few right notes in the song, you’ll stay alive.

I’m someone with negative musical ability and rhythm, and very low twitch skills. I’m just lucky not to be tone-deaf, so I can appreciate beautiful music, but heaven help the sanity of anyone listening to me sing or do anything music-oriented. Back when I waltzed I did it by muscle memory, and had to ask when hearing new pieces of music whether they were waltzes or one-steps or polkas … I really can’t hear the measure.

Yet I can do ok at this. Left hand on 1-4, right hand on 6-9, and I let the color coming trigger which finger is going to hit. I remember blue is left forefinger, the yellow next to it is right forefinger, and then just track how far from each the descending note is. I tap as the note hits the white bar. Maybe my lack of musicality helps, along with my near-perfect color vision, so the sounds of my platform companions and my own notes become utterly irrelevant. I’m still messing up on the fast songs, even playing the low octave which is the easiest, but last year I vaguely recall getting a perfect score at least once.

TLDR: aim your camera down from above, keep your hands on the keys no matter how much you want to /say or /g a comment, don’t take time to open the event chests until you are in free-play, and go by color not by sound or rhythm. Tap when the note kisses the white line (adjust to fit your ping), and heal up by spamming a note between songs.

I think I’d a) get 1 1/2 bank tabs back and b) actually use the tonics. Me likey.

Someone did link a Fancy Beverage Something or Other in map chat this afternoon. They said it came out of a Giant present.

Here it is (from the preview code in the OP), on a male human medium. First shot is with my current shoulders dye (shoulders are hidden so the green doesn’t matter), second is with White Dye previewed. I tested with another dye in the second slot and the stripes are also dyeable, so there are two color channels for the scarf.

Shinji, how will you stop it being used as a filter to bar people from dungeons if they don’t “measure up” by the numbers? This would act as an inspect tool and bring a lot of the nastiness that entails.

Also, my tiny paranoid side says it would help hackers target the “rich” accounts.

There are two types of wintersday weapons, the ones bought with tickets and the ones that drop from gifts. The latter, the cheap wood ones that are a dime a dozen on the TP, go to the collection once you buy the starter from the gift-exchange vendor.

I didn’t know about the tonic, and am keenly interested in knowing how to start that.

Festive Lord Faren? I must see this and maybe own one! (I got the Skritt quite quickly, thanks to a gbank full of the weapons — they aren’t the BL ones, they are the basic wood ones like the slingshot and toy staff).

Don’t worry that you’ve unlocked the skins too soon, you’ll have credit for the unlocked ones once you spend 45 sweaters or so at the vendor to open the collection.

Side note: The special gathering tools you can buy are not permanent! They are just like ori tools except with a frosty effect when you gather and you occasionally get a tiny snowflake.

Drat, I was hoping for new ones. I haven’t been pushing that hard to reach Breaches (I don’t map-hop and I seem to always show up at the start of a cycle, so one or two a day is what I get), but I’ve gotten one spleen and no bladders. It’s a bit aggravating to see those tendons drop when I was done with them weeks ago, and the fangs aren’t much more welcome save only for being a change from tendons.

There’s a metronome tick in the beginning of each song to warn you how slow/fast the notes will be coming. Also if you take the lower octave, you’ll have less notes overall to hit.

Oh, I don’t buy nearly as many as I used to, not since the town clothes change. Instead I specifically buy when I want a particular item and keep close to a zero gem balance. I also less-want some items, such as the various gathering tools. They’ve looked cool, but I haven’t felt like spending on them when I likely would have before the town clothes thing kicked me in my fashionista gut.

I bought the outfit and the gift carrier. And a few keys, as I was one scrap shy of 5 tickets and I adore the new BL weapon set.

Something that isn’t obvious: between songs you can quickly spam a note to heal yourself to full. You heal on every correct note, I think, even during the song, but for sure when it’s done you can be all set for the next song with just a few key taps.

I typed a comment to that effect in Map today which meant taking my hands off the number keys .. hoo boy did I mess up the next round. But I saw others healing up that hadn’t been, so it was worth it!

Teratus.2859:

Another mount thread?

lol how often do we keep getting these?

Hopefully this is the last one because this is the merged Mounts thread. All of them in one convenient spot!

4498 hours, no precursors. I don’t do the Forge or the champ trains, though, and some of those hours went to RP.

I’ve seen two guildies get precursors. One was in the first karka ancient kill (in game, not in the make-up mail), and one was in the last year while killing trash spiders on the way to the spike traps with Detha in AC. Karka gave the GS precursor, spider gave the mace precursor.

I do rarely get an exotic or something unusual (I’ve had some luck with dyes) but I would not consider my account to be anywhere near one of the “blessed” ones.

CMM.6712:

The same posters and their friends wanting the same things posting over and over and bumping each others threads is not passionate it is childish.

I’m curious, has anyone actually compiled a list of who’s started and bumped the threads? There’s certainly a community feeling that a tiny subset of posters do the majority of “mounts please” chatter, but is there anything solid to back that up? And for comparison, how varied is the demographic on anti-mounters?

For the record I lean to the no-mounts side (other than the things like the carpet and tunneler). For one thing, I’d rather just start running than have to open my bags, click an item, and then get going. For another, I agree with all the reasoning presented in previous threads as to the utter lack of need for them in this particular game.

As to housing, do want. I’m psyched to see what comes of the Guild Hall CDI, which included some personal housing ideas.

When it first showed up in the gem store there were several threads complaining about the shoulders.

I don’t think hiding the shoulders and gloves does anything on any outfit at all. Only the head can be toggled.