Guild Wars 2

Sakri.7234:

Equinox.4968:

Sakri.7234:

Gem price is becoming intolerably high. Clearly Anet needs to tweak their algorithm so that you could get at least 15 gems with one gold. Beyond that, you need to be a super-rich tp player to be able to afford the gem store prices. And let’s not talk about using real money, as the $-to-gems ratio is even more absurd.

There is no “algorithm.” It’s solely based on supply and demand. The reason why gem prices are so high today is because everyone wants to get gems for “free” by buying them with gold rather than with real-world money. Thus, the supply of gems is steadily shrinking, since more people buy gems with gold rather than buy gold with gems.

If you want to actually lower the price of gems purchased with gold, then buy LOTS of gem cards or use your credit card to buy some through the in-game store. Then sell those gems for gold. That will put more gems into the game and lower prices all around. But you probably don’t want to do that, do you? You’d rather have someone else do that, since all you’d be getting out of the deal is gold, and even if you bought gems with the gold you earned from selling gems, you wouldn’t (by virtue of the exchange rate) get as many gems as you had originally purchased with real money. So good luck convincing everyone to buy gems with real money to reduce inflation. Unfortunately, that’s the only option I can think of that would accomplish anything. Anet has no influence over gem prices whatsoever, so the burden is on the players to change things.

Anet could easily influence the price by adding more gems to the supply everytime gem price went higher than e.g. 15 gems per gold, which was the last time that they were reasonably affordable.

They won’t. Anet is deliberately leaving it a free market in the players’ hands. I’m pretty sure that John Smith, the resident Anet economist, said something to that effect on these forums some time in the past. Whether the gems are “affordable” or not isn’t Anet’s concern, and they’re not going to make them more “affordable”—they’re leaving the prices up to us. If people want to change things, they should do what I said above. Otherwise, the way things are going, the price of gems is going to keep increasing. That’s the end of the story, and I can virtually guarantee you they’re not going to intervene.

Avascar.9237:

What happens if… I buy 15,000 gems and convert them all to gold? What’s going to happen to the market?

The supply of gems would probably increase slightly (considering the vast number of gems out there) and thus the price of buying gems with gold would lower slightly.

Note that 15K gems isn’t really a lot in light of how many gems must be out there in total. You’d likely have to spend hundreds if not thousands of dollars in real money to really cheapen the price of gems bought by gold, and even then, the low prices would entice a lot of people to buy them while they’re cheap, thus forcing the price back up towards where it is now.

What do you “have no time” for? I don’t see why switching servers is something you absolutely have to do right now. Please give us more details as to what you’re concerned about.

Sakri.7234:

Gem price is becoming intolerably high. Clearly Anet needs to tweak their algorithm so that you could get at least 15 gems with one gold. Beyond that, you need to be a super-rich tp player to be able to afford the gem store prices. And let’s not talk about using real money, as the $-to-gems ratio is even more absurd.

There is no “algorithm.” It’s solely based on supply and demand. The reason why gem prices are so high today is because everyone wants to get gems for “free” by buying them with gold rather than with real-world money. Thus, the supply of gems is steadily shrinking, since more people buy gems with gold rather than buy gold with gems.

If you want to actually lower the price of gems purchased with gold, then buy LOTS of gem cards or use your credit card to buy some through the in-game store. Then sell those gems for gold. That will put more gems into the game and lower prices all around. But you probably don’t want to do that, do you? You’d rather have someone else do that, since all you’d be getting out of the deal is gold, and even if you bought gems with the gold you earned from selling gems, you wouldn’t (by virtue of the exchange rate) get as many gems as you had originally purchased with real money. So good luck convincing everyone to buy gems with real money to reduce inflation. Unfortunately, that’s the only option I can think of that would accomplish anything. Anet has no influence over gem prices whatsoever, so the burden is on the players to change things.

I agree, even if you’re focusing on something, check the “summary” tab of the achievements menu and note any achievements in the lower right corner that you’re close to completing. It might be helpful to you, or it might not, but if you want to get achievements through normal gameplay without making a conscious effort of it, just see what your normal routines help you work towards and make slight deviations to finish something you’re close to being done with.

Do the personal story with each race, use different weapons and get the slayer and weapon master achievements, explore the entire world, do your dailies and monthlies, and try a little SPVP.

Ngeluz.4860:

To each its own Equinox, thank you for your detail thoughts. I will still disagree on this for so many reason that I’m sure you will have so many other reason of why is not like that etc.
We will have to see until then we move on because as you mention things are not changing for now.
Hush now my pet, now let others post their thoughts please. Sooooooo moving on!

Opinions are fine, but when your “theories” completely contradict everything we know about the lore, it’s just absurd. You’ve posted your “theory” in many threads, even when there’s little connection between the thread topic and your post, so clearly you’re one of those single-issue people who won’t give up on their pet theory no matter how much evidence is presented to discredit it. Go ahead and keep your expectations high, but don’t be surprised when nothing you want to see ever comes to pass.

It’s not meant to be practical, it’s meant to show off the Orrians’ close association with magic. Their whole society took what we would consider amazing and wonderous things as commonplace and part of everyday life. There are some scrolls in-game where a historian talks about his observations of pre-Cataclysm Orr.

Warrior is pretty easy, Thief requires a lot of micromanagement, and Elementalist can be either simple or complex depending on how much you want to switch attunements. Rangers are more of a ranged class that can potentially play more like a TPS.

As for TPS gameplay, it’s a bit of a stretch, but if you turn off autotargetting and autoattacks, your projectiles will fire near the center of your screen, with “bullet drop” over distance for most projectiles other than bullets and beams. Every keystroke is one projectile if you turn autoattacks off.

Healix.5819:

There’s chemicals that can burn underwater. In a world of magic though, you can make anything up. Maybe the casted spell additionally created an area of air around the fire.

As for fire killing fire elementals, a fire of greater intensity will “kill” another fire. You could also assume elementals aren’t just an element, but a crystal-like heart that the element formed around. What you’re actually attacking is its heart.

The chemicals part works for non-magical classes that do burning damage. As for magic, I think we’re supposed to understand that “conditions” aren’t necessarily literal. How do you make a golem or an earth elemental bleed? Clearly, these enemies can “bleed” according to the GW2 conditions tracker, but obviously it’s not literal blood. You have to use your imagination a bit. Maybe when you use a “bleeding” attack on an earth elemental, you’ve physically cut it in a particular spot that leads to the gradual loss of the magical energy animating it, or maybe you’ve used some kind of weakening incantation that manifests itself as a leakage of that same energy. Maybe a necromancer’s curses (scepter attacks) show up differently according to the nature of the target—a humanoid will actually start bleeding or contract a wasting poison or disease, whereas a magical or artificial being will have its essential components start to unravel in some way. That makes underwater combat make more sense, as a spell doesn’t necessarily ignite the outer surface of the enemy, but instead generates a kind of fire or damaging heat inside of the body.

The problem is that people take things too literally in games like this. For example, I’ve heard people complain there’s no ninja or assassin class. What they’re missing is that the “thief” class doesn’t literally mean “a person who steals things” and nothing more. The thief class covers the highwayman, pirate, ninja, assassin, swashbuckler, cutpurse, and duelist archetypes, and possibly others, in the same way that the warrior class could be construed as a knight, bodyguard, berserker, bouncer, mercenary, soldier, samurai, etc.

flasbang.5102:

Can anyone tell me what staff this is?
http://i48.tinypic.com/1z1d7qf.jpg

That’s the corrupted staff, you can get it by combining some components with an Etched Staff. It requires a recipe and some really expensive items though.

Check out dulfy.net for skins. You can look up catalogues of all the weapon skins currently in the game. Example: http://dulfy.net/2013/06/07/gw2-shortbow-skin-gallery/

Personally I don’t like a lot of the bow designs, but some of them are pretty cool. The Ceremonial bows look elegant and old-fashioned, one of the Charr bows is a compound bow (with pulleys), some of the Asura weapons look pretty magical, and Aether/Azureflame is glowing white and transparent. My personal favorite is the Wintersday slingshot skin, which makes your shortbow look and sound like a slingshot. (You still shoot arrows, which real slingshots CAN actually do, but it’s a small slingshot and it makes plunking sounds instead of the whistling you get from bowstrings.) I use the slingshot on my thief because it fits their theme of mobility, and you can move much more easily with a 10-inch slingshot than with a yard-long shortbow.

I agree, Guild Defender with a guild insignia that comes close to the Hylian crest. Or the Mirror Shield design I guess.

It’s called arranging for duels in WVW, or otherwise going to PVP. There is NO open-world dueling in GW2 currently, and there are currently no plans to implement it.

If Arena net really wants player to be part of the Living story the should consider this, if not the should go back to School with their GW1 or MMOs like Final Fantasy 14 that made a spectacular comeback

The “spectacular comeback” was a desperate move to salvage an atrociously bad, triple-A product by a failing company. Guild Wars 2 is fine as it is, and just because YOU want it to be full of edgy antiheroes doesn’t mean it should be so. The average player seems to be at least content with what this game has to offer. To make such drastic changes just to fulfill the desires of RPers is something Anet will not do, period, because that would risk offending everyone who enjoys the game as it has existed since launch.

Well unless they plan to leave this big stuff as expansion and living story would be just for the rise of Dragons… then i guess it be OK as long as the PLAYERS ARE THE STORY…not just part of a Raid Army of nameless soldiers or heroes.

This is an entirely different argument, and one that I do agree with somewhat, but you don’t need to make our characters special snowflakes or lore-breaking antiheroes in order to accomplish this vision.

NOTE: These are meant to be constructive comment, my apologies if it sounds other wise. I’m a big fan of GW1 and what really hook me to it was the whole story of Abbadon, Dhumm, etc. that was very awesome story.

It’s fine to want what you want, I’m just saying that what you want is almost guaranteed never to happen. You won’t see a Halo game where the Chief is trying to wipe out humanity, a Diablo where the main character has joined forces with the demons to destroy the angels and humans. RP it all you like, but it’s not going to change the established, canon lore.

Ngeluz.4860:

I don’t agree, Gods, specially cunning like Abbadon God of ALL secrets just don’t die with out a SECRET to escape his over thrown, we are not talking about any monster, where talking about Gods who transcend that notion, the fact that there are still artifacts resonating with his power is proof of that even if its weak, the story says clearly that it took 3 Gods to take him out…Dhumm is no exception as for Menzies I cant even imagine…

Sorry, but the devs have stated that Abaddon truly is dead. Kormir absorbed his power, but the god himself is gone forever, and while his artifacts and altars might have a little of his old power, it’s not like he’s going to corrupt Kormir from beyond the grave. The only place we might have seen Abaddon himself in GW2 would have been the fractal we could have chosen during the Cutthroat Politics election, and even then, that would have been a reflection of events from the past.

Before the Truth there are always Secrets. These evil Trio embodies the negative aspect of Gods and should not be taken out… they should be active specially now that the world is being destroy. There are the other side of the coin, where there is Yin there will always be Yang, where there is darkness there is always light!

Wishful thinking, but there’s nothing to back it up. As with so many suggestions for Anet that I’ve seen on these forums, you have to have a better reason than “it would be cool.” Dhuum is presumably imprisoned in the Underworld again thanks to our efforts in GW1, and Abaddon is gone forever. So two of the three have already been taken out, and Menzies has never been encountered, period. Menzies is the only character who is even remotely likely to appear in GW2, and the only one whos appearance wouldn’t conflict with well-established lore.

What if your human character was chosen by one of these deities…

Very doubtful. Anet doesn’t want us joining the bandits, the Nightmare Court, the Sons of Svanir, etc. We simply will not be playing “evil” characters in GW2 as it stands. There are no options to be “evil” and support the dragons or the subversive racial factions, or even to be a bad person. That’s the way it is. Sure, letting Link join up with Ganon in the Legend of Zelda series would be avant-garde, edgy, hip, and angstfully postmodern, but that’s not how Zelda works, and it’s not how Guild Wars works.

Example:

RP your heart out, just be aware that your RPing is not and most likely will never be part of the canon.

I know many players feel the same way, Evil Gods must make an Epic come back and like many others I believe that the ones puling the strings in all this destruction, to make them later look like Saviors or which ever could be these Evil Trinity… it should all be a full circle, can you imagine if the Lich servant of Abbadon posses or takes over Zaithans (that is IF he really is dead in which I HOPE ITS NOT because that final battle with the dragon was really a disappointment) corps and uses all that magical power in that dragons body to fully restore his master, or did Abbadon know about these and fake his own demise? Etc etc…

Nope. We have confirmation that he’s really, truly, absolutely gone. As for Zhaitan, he’s really truly dead too, and I believe that somewhere on these forums a dev has confirmed that he’s not coming back.

Point is Arena Net should NOT eliminate such IMPORTANT lore figures and possible awesome game content.

So popular villains in movies should never be killed? That isn’t how the world works. Villains live and die just like the heroes and supporting cast do. When they’re gone, someone else will take their place and fill in the villain’s role for them. Just because you like a character doesn’t mean that Anet has to keep them around. Scarlet, for example, was a polarizing character, but whether you liked her or not, she’s dead as a doornail and definitely won’t return, no matter how many people liked (or, more likely, hated) her character.

marlborz.8243:

Cons:
- Sandbox variety: Guild Wars 2 has crafting but it lacks variety. I was hoping to build things other then weapons and armor. I should mention most of the items crafted all look the same from far away.

You can also make consumable items, including food and dyes (Chef) and jewelry (although rings and amulets don’t appear on your character). As you get more levels in a craft, you can make more and better items. Armor in particular gives you very different looks for different tiers, though each type has to look the part (medium armor is all vests and trenchcoats and masks, that’s how MOST of the medium armor in the game looks). You can also discover recipes out in the world from Karma merchants and Heart NPCs that let you create items with really unique appearances.

- Map recourse: The starting areas for each race are far and in between. One most portal to another race’s city in order to continue the leveling process before continuation of your storyline. This makes the adventure feel off track even though it gives you a feeling of accomplishment. This may not be the case for a hardcore grinder.

There is actually a lore reason for this: asura gates. They’re basically teleporter gates that send you from one place to another instantly. Formerly, Lion’s Arch was the hub for all Tyria, but due to the Living Story it got destroyed and the Vigil Keep is the new temporary hub. But the idea is that the cities, while necessarily geographically distant because of the racial origins of each culture, are closely connected because they all rely on each other for trade, politics, and supplies. So you ARE meant to go to the hub and then go through another gate to reach another race’s territory.

-Pets and mounts versus companions: While Guild Wars 2 has a variety of companions nothing surpasses the notion of having a customizable pet or flashy mount to summon in your adventures in Tyria. The summons they do have in game feel bland and uninspiring.

This is intentional on Anet’s part. In Guild Wars lore, the only real “summons” are spirits and undead minions. Summoning anything larger than that is done by NPCs as part of a quest or the main story. You won’t be seeing demons coming out of Hell or impish familiars that act as personal companions like you would in other settings, or even magical animal pets conjured up out of nowhere. GW1 established this trend, and it continues in GW2. Also, there have NEVER been mounts in Tyria like you see in other games. It’s true there were ridable wurms in Nightfall and siege devourers in Eye of the North, but these were more like environmental weapons than mounts. So GW1 and 2 both break the MMO mold of allowing mounts, and it’s almost guaranteed that the developers will NEVER add in mounts.

If you do the personal story, you can get skins like the Seraph sword, the Winged Spatha, and stuff like that basically for free as rewards.

Dynamic events, heart “quests,” and the personal story are your main sources of EXP. Wander around, explore everything, and do every event you can. I recommend fully exploring your race’s starter city and maybe Lion’s Arch and the other cities ASAP to get some easy EXP without having to engage in combat. After that, just do every heart, DE, and personal story chapter you’re at the right level for. When you exhaust your race’s starter zone (1-15), try the other races’ starter zones too…it’s easy, and you’ll learn more about the other races’ cultures. But leveling in this game IS slow compared to some others, since most of the sources of experience you’ll find scale to your character’s level. Going from level 3 to 4 is about as easy/difficult as going from 78 to 79.

I agree, this would trivialize a lot of content and allow people to get exploration, JPs, etc. done way too easily. Everyone should have to use the same waypoint system—no exceptions.

To clarify: a “skill” is what shows up on your skillbar at the bottom. These are active-use powers that define your character’s basic abilities. Traits are passive benefits that either a) always work or b) are triggered when certain conditions, varying from trait to trait, are met (you get a certain status effect, the enemy falls below a certain health % threshold, you get downed, etc.). Traits modify your basic skillset and are really what make a build work. Skills alone are good, but traits let you specialize and personalize your character and his/her build.

Skills are bought using skill points, which you earn through leveling (one point/level) and doing skill challenges (blue chevrons on the map, each challenge has different requirements ranging from reading something or activating a node to fighting a boss or choosing the right dialogue options). Traits first require trait manuals to unlock their use, but this is being phased out soon, so I would wait until the April 15 feature patch so you don’t waste money at this juncture. It’ll be a lot easier to use, and free, starting at that point.

Why not just buy it on the TP? That’s what it’s there for. Otherwise, make it yourself. The whole point of the TP is to turn crafting, material gathering, and other labor into profit for the people who make things. Asking someone to make the Anomaly for you means they’ll be putting their own resources into it, and making it for you for free means they’re not coming out even, they’ll be losing out by spending their skillpoints on you.

Avariz.8241:

Well, Scarlet is the one who woke up Mordy from deep sleep, we all know that now from the season 1 finale; but this does not necessaryly follows that Mordy is the one who is taking over Scarlet’s mind. For one thing Mordy is inactive while it sleeps. All the evidence we have is that a mysterious controller has slowly and surely took over Scarlet, and that Scarlet is the acting agent who woke up Mordy. I am totally opened minded to the idea that an unidentified third actor could have turned Scarlet in to an agent whose goal it was to wake up the sleeping Mordy. The OP idea is one of the possibilities certainly.

P.S. In addition as Scarlet is the powerful active agent who woke up Mordy, then other Elder Dragons must have required their respective powerful agents to wake them up too. I don’t think Scarlet was around for these other Elder Dragons. It does follow that a third unidentified third actor must have orchestrated these prior awakenings of Elder Dragons before Scarlet was born.

Incorrect. It’s definitely Mordremoth who was influencing Scarlet. We know from GW1 that Jormag corrupted Jora’s brother Svanir through a frozen, dormant champion called the Drakkar they found under the ice. Jormag definitely hadn’t awoken by this point, yet there was plenty of power in its champion (let alone the dragon itself) to mess with Svanir’s mind and body. Unless some lore appears that indicates something to the contrary, nothing in the game suggests there is anything influencing the Elder Dragons; in fact, they’re more ancient and probably more powerful than the Six Gods themselves, and this isn’t the first time they’ve come out of hibernation to destroy everything. It’s a cycle, and they naturally wake up when the time is right. The Elder Dragons are their own respective bosses, and nobody had to act to awaken them—they do it automatically every so often when the cycle of magic reaches a certain point.

Therefore, Scarlet merely hastened the emergence of Mordremoth. Ultimately, as far as we know, it would have appeared regardless, but she helped it along. The drill was not necessary, it just sped things up a little.

Sorry, but no.

First, one of the old gods is gone forever, a second is absent, and a third is probably imprisoned again. Abaddon is gone forever, having been absorbed into Kormir, and Olias’ dialogue from the end of Nightfall suggests that this is permanent and that he will never be able to return. Menzies hasn’t been seen or heard from at all in GW1 or GW2, and he has the highest likelihood of turning up in a future story, but no word on that so far. Dhuum attempted to break out of the Underworld late in the GW1 story, but presumably his escape was foiled by the heroes of 250 years ago and he won’t be able to muster the strength to do so again for a long time, if ever. So no, at most we might see Menzies but Abaddon is 100% gone.

Second, even if they were still around, none of them would be helping us. Abaddon wanted to corrupt and take over Tyria, and I doubt that he would save the five races and their allies just so he could then turn against us. If anything, he would be hostile to the dragons AND to us, which would be even worse. Menzies’ feud seems to be against Balthazar and nobody else, so Menzies would have no reason to support us against the dragons. He did work with Abaddon and Dhuum briefly in the past, but I think that now that Abaddon is gone, he has no reason to work against us, but certainly wouldn’t divert his attention to help us. Dhuum is the old god of death, and where Grenth is just, he was tyrannical, so his only interest would be in reaping and subjugating souls, so like Abaddon, he would be a hostile third party working against everything else on the planet.

Finally, “nightmare” is a vague term. Mesmers can summon them, and Scarlet’s toxin created them. It’s only a coincidence that certain enemies are called nightmares. Moreover, look at GW1—in Factions, you had Kanaxai’s “nightmare horde” of “demons,” but the Outcasts and the Oni were neither nightmares of Menzies nor demons that followed Abaddon. It’s simply a name that’s meant to show how insane and bizarre they are, so take any fantasy-type descriptions and names with a grain of salt.

It’s not new, it’s been there since the release. Most likely it has something to do with either the renegades or the separatists trying to work their way into the city for a surprise attack. If you go to the opposite end of the city near the graveyard, there’s a kid who mentions she saw a strange shadow moving around near a suspicious hole. For this reason, I assume it’s just there to show you how nerve-wracking it must be to live in Ebonhawke.

Just because she’s a Sunspear doesn’t mean she’s a paragon. We would need further details in order to confirm this.

Kalavier.1097:

I’ve heard that Sea of Sorrows states Guardians to basically be Monks, with a bit of Paragon and a dash of ritualistic magic.

That’s basically it, but outside of some possible paragons in hiding in Elona, those old classes no longer exist in Tyria.

Honestly, you have to keep playing, unlock more skills (weapon skills as well as utility skills), and use traits to customize your build in order to really get to know a class. If you haven’t played significantly past level 10 or so, you haven’t even begun to scratch the depth of character customization. Trust me, there’s a playstyle for everyone, and a way to build your character to accommodate that playstyle. To get more experience, try working on crafting and exploration instead of just fighting. Or if you want to mindlessly zerg to get loot and exp very easily, try the Queensdale farm.

I don’t want to see a new class or race, I just want more options for the existing ones. I want Anet to take a stand and NOT bow to peer pressure. Far too often I’ve seen classes and races added just for the sake of adding them. If Anet does come up with a new playable race or class, I hope they have VERY good justifications for adding them and make them fit seamlessly into the core game.

Rainbow Sprint.3215:

You unlock utilities skills as you level and eventually an elite skill.

The real thing that you’ll be toying with as you level up to 80 will be at level 11 you start to get into your traits. Which give you small stat boosts but also things like increased toughness while holding a staff, or having a chance to burn enemies on a crit. Traits make your skills behave differently and will be what makes you stand out instead of what skills you take into battle.

This is 100% correct. Traits modify skills and your class’s unique abilities, and they’re pretty much the most important factor in customizing your character to fit your playstyle. Essentially, you’ll want to focus on one or two things you want to do extremely well, and then choose your traits accordingly so that your abilities synergize with one another and accomplish whatever goal you set for yourself.

First: you can equip a different weapon whenever you’re outside of combat. You SHOULD be changing up your playstyle pretty often. Well, that’s not exactly right…each weapon type gives you different abilities, but all weapon types are generally thematically similar for each class. You should know ALL of your class’s weapon skills and therefore know what weapons are best suited for certain situations. NEVER stagnate on just one weapon, because that means you’re limiting your options and refusing to change even when your setup is completely inadequate for the task at hand.
Second: at level 7, all classes but engineer and elementalist unlock the ability to weapon-swap to another equipped set. Basically, this allows you to (for example) start off with a ranged weapon, attack from range, and then switch to melee when the enemy gets in your face. There’s only a 9 second cooldown on weapon swaps, and using both sets effectively and swapping often is highly enouraged.
Third: as previously mentioned, you’re meant to use your utility skills as well (7, 8, and 9). At level 30 you also unlock an elite skill slot; elite skills have long cooldowns but can completely change the course of a fight if you use them right.

Modern-day Krytans are, as previously mentioned, a melting pot, but overall their culture seems pretty close to the European Renaissance in my opinion. It’s certainly much more progressive than the decidedly medieval feel of GW1. The clockwork machines, flashy clothes, and artistic style are quite close to what spread across Europe in the 14th and 15th centuries.

Heraldusluminare.2946:

Hmm… I’ve always thought ethnic Krytans were based off Polynesians and their culture.

I always thought it was closer to European/Asian Indian, since Tyria is Europe, and the Luxons are Greek/Polynesian, and Anet generally kept different groups inspired by different real-world continents in their separate Tyrian continents. The Krytans of GW1 all had dark skin, but overall their society was European.

In particular, the Krytans of 250 years ago had several notable cities built near the sea, like Lion’s Arch, which may be inspired by the Polynesians of our own world who lived lives with very strong seafaring connections.

It’s because they were originally an Orrian colony. Sort of like how the American colonists didn’t even leave the eastern seaboard until the late 1700s. Like the American colonists, however, they’ve definitely expanded their reach since the time of GW1, and have set up moderate to large settlements and outposts across a substantial area.

Also, some Krytans in GW1 sported body and facial tattoos reminiscent of Maori tattoos. The historian Durmand is a good example.

This is the only hole in my theory, but it might be due to the Elonian influence from when Elona tried to colonize Kryta. The Elonians we met back in Nightfall didn’t have tattoos as far as I recall, but it could be an older tradition that got cast aside in Elona but retained in Kryta.

They had spoons too! http://www.gw2spidy.com/item/23675

Good summary. A few points that might be of interest:

*Kryta was originally an Orrian colony founded by Prince Mazdak (who appears as an undead in the sylvari personal story), but eventually developed into an independent nation. I think it would be fair to compare this to the Middle Eastern groups from the Fertile Crescent establishing the first Western cultures and eventually spreading to other areas in the Mediterranean. Later, Kryta was colonized by the Elonians (North Africans), sort of like how the Moors took over Spain in the Middle Ages. The Krytans at the time of GW1 were dark-skinned, sort of Mediterranean (Italian, Spanish, Greek) mixed with Asian Indian (not Native American). Over time, humanity has become more of a melting pot, but the native Krytans from the time of GW1 are descended from the Orrians, and likely the Elonians.
*The Orrians were, as previously mentioned, extremely religious. The gods first revealed themselves to humanity in certain small villages in Orr. In GW1, the ubiquitous statues of the (at the time) Five Gods each had an inscription explaining the first appearance of each god and (in most of the stories) the god’s choice of his or her first disciples. There are two places in particular, the Village of Ewan and the Village of Wren, that were specifically noted in GW1. Ewan was where Melandru turned the inhabitants of the village into stewards of nature for their failure to respect the land, and Wren was where Lyssa chose her first disciple, Sara, the only person who could see through her illusions and show compassion towards her.
*The architecture of Orr feels extremely weird to me. Virtually every culture on earth has architecture based on straight lines, with arches and domes complementing those lines, but overall regular angles are the bread and butter of human construction. Orr breaks all of these rules. Everything has to do with curves and circles, which are often laid out in impractical ways. There are HUGE ring structures that seem to serve no obvious purpose, and instead of public squares, there are public series of circles that join one another. I can’t figure out if this is a ceremonial or ritual practice related to the gods, or whether it symbolizes the Orrians’ over-reliance on magic to the point that they’ve forgotten about mundane practicality and utility. I’d argue towards the latter, since the Orrian History Scrolls discuss how an Ascalonian merchant is completely bewildered by the grandiosity and exorbitance of everyday Orrian life:

“My early career as a merchant began in Foible’s Fair, in southern Ascalon. Imaging my shock at my first encounter with the enchanted markets of Wren. Fishmongers display live catch in watery orbs above their tents. Porters enhance their strength with spells, routinely carrying loads that would cripple a pack bull. The finest silks ripple in the air, showing their quality: songs play themselves on golden lyres; parents project their voices across the square to find the ear of a wayward child. Yet the real oddity is just how normal all this seems to them. It makes me ponder: How did magic become so common, so everyday? In Ascalon, we apply magic only to things of import-when ordinary means cannot succeed. For the Orrians, magic is like any other tool, to be used at whim and with little concern. I worry at what this means for Orr. Such great feats with so little caution. Surely, even in the land of the Gods, there must be a cost…”

We also have no idea where the scroll that caused the Cataclysm came from, but I would wager that the Orrians were so incredibly talented that they were able to create a magical nuke. The charr, which were a primitive culture at that point, were able to create the Searing with the help of the Titans, so I don’t see any reason why the much more advanced Orrians wouldn’t be able to come up with something similar after more than a thousand years of being able to experiment.

Probably going to start with the next season of the LS. The city is surely going to be rebuilt, but it’ll take a long time, and I’m sure that restoring order and kicking out looters and other undesirables, as well as sorting out what people left behind and removing debris, will be one of the first things they have us work on.

In GW1, there were Canthan (basically Asian) ritualists, a class that used ancestor worship, spirits, and the ashes of dead heroes to fight their enemies. They used stationary spirits to create either field-type effects for allies or attacked enemies like turrets. That’s essentially where the concept of engineer turrets in GW2 came from, and the rest of the class’s design came from the Renaissance/industrial era setting of present-day Tyria.

Guardians are essentially the successors to the monks, paragons, and dervishes of GW1. Monks were healers whose powers were derived from their faith in the human gods, and dervishes were Elonian (North African/Middle Eastern) nomads who used scythes and earth- and wind-based attacks that were also fueled by their prayers to the gods. Paragons were Elonian heavy armor users who attacked with throwing spears and used shouts and chants to buff party members, and had a lot to do with the burning condition. They also had some ties to the human gods, but their powers were more about commanding and inspiring their allies while attacking from the back lines. In GW2, guardians obviously couldn’t be based on the 6 gods because the norn are shamanists/animists, the charr are atheists, the sylvari are agnostics, and the asura are basically Buddhist scientists, so instead of faith in divinity, the class is based on faith in one’s self and beliefs. The guardian has burning from the monk and the paragon, shouts from the paragon, self- and party-buffs from the paragon and dervish, and spirit weapons from the ritualist. There’s also healing from all 4 of those classes, each of which had at least a moderate amount of healing ability (monks were the #1 healers in GW1, and ritualists were pretty good too).

I personally have a sylvari engineer. I figured that since the sylvari are naturally curious and like exploring and learning about the world, it would make sense for at least some of them to enjoy discovering how to direct their curiosity and intelligence towards such things machines and chemistry/alchemy. I don’t RP, but from an RP perspective, a sylvari engineer might have a special insight regarding the natural materials and chemicals used to create gunpowder, flamethrower fuel, and elixirs, and might have better designs for turrets and other devices because of his understanding of how organic structures work and his knowledge of physics in nature.

I agree, this is an excellent post. Anet (and its writers in particular) would do well to pay very close attention to the issues raised here. I wish they could have listened to player feedback more carefully while the Living Story was still in progress. I can’t help but feel that much of the time, Anet’s singleminded pursuit of its own artistic vision comes at the expense of enjoyable narratives and quality gameplay. Having a story in mind is great, but if you want to reach a large audience and draw in more players, you have to make compromises and give them what they want. Neglecting to do so leads to the type of response that we’ve seen from the community thus far. Are some people overreacting and complaining about things that aren’t that significant? Absolutely. But the sheer volume of criticism—and largely valid criticism at that—should have prompted changes long ago. I hope that when and if Anet releases LS Season 2, it will have taken the time to address the vast majority, if not all, of the flaws we’ve pointed out in the last year and a half and won’t create more grievances for the community.

There are no resource extraction skills. All you have to do is have the appropriate tool for the job equipped (meaning your character is a high enough level to meet the requirements, and the tool is the proper rating for the type of node) and then use the node. For example, to mine an iron ore node, you need an iron pick or better (steel, darksteel, mithril, orichalcum). To get leather and cloth materials, you have to salvage items using a salvage kit or open loot bags. For instance, using a salvage kit on a hide or piece of leather armor will yield raw leather materials. Other types of materials (scales, fangs, bones, poison sacs, blood, etc.) have to be found from dead enemies.

Pistol/pistol thief isn’t bad if you trait for it (pistol damage, improved dual attacks) but Unload, your main source of damage, eats up a lot of initiative so you’ll probably want to invest in some initiative-restoring abilities, and P/P is absolutely useless against groups unless you take Ricochet (bullets have a chance to bounce) and/or Sigil of Fire (possible AOE burst on your target on critical). On the other hand, it has an interrupt, a blind field, and an immobilize, so as long as you’re not up against too many enemies, with practice you can control the enemy’s distance and keep them at bay. Thief shortbow is viable too, but it mostly shines up close where you can spam skill 2 (Cluster Bomb), and the shortbow relies on condition damage (bleeding from the bomb and poison from Choking Gas). On the plus side, mobility will never be a problem with the shortbow because you have what amounts to a near-limitless evade (skill 3) and a shadowstep (skill 5) that lets you take charge of pretty much any situation.

CETheLucid.3964:

Equinox.4968:

No. It’s a matter of principle. I’m not against change or shaking things up, but I don’t like what Anet’s choice to further destroy the already-ruined remnants of old LA because of what it represents with respect to their vision for the game.

You’re misguided. I’m pretty sure I can’t help you. So, well, I’m sorry you feel that way in spite of old-LA still being there?

/shrug

I tried.

The lighthouse isn’t there, and what’s left of old LA is barely even there anymore. The wreckage of the Breachmaker takes up half of the old area.

CETheLucid.3964:

Are we about done here?

No. It’s a matter of principle. I’m not against change or shaking things up, but I don’t like what Anet’s choice to further destroy the already-ruined remnants of old LA because of what it represents with respect to their vision for the game.

One suggestion: switch out the Krytan Warhammer for the Aureate Warhammer. The first time I ever saw the Aureate Warhammer, I blurted out “isn’t that the Megaton Hammer from Ocarina of Time?”

I see it as a win-win situation. Anet gets a chance to make a better main hub than what we had at launch, and we as the players will have the opportunity to see a city actually grow over time and potentially respond to choices we as a community make.

And yes, it WILL get rebuilt. LA has already been rebuilt twice in the lore, and I doubt that this time will be any different.

moonboy.1069:

Originally there where only human and charr which both were introduced in the prophecies campaign, the tangu and Naga where introduced in factions, I forgot what was introduced in Nightfall, Eye of the North introduced Norn and Asura (Vekk as the first asura you see, Jora as the first norn you see) and Guild Wars 2 Brought us the Sylvari and made more then just human playable. My point here is Gw1 still has connections to Gw2 in the form of the races, mobs, and various other small details.

It’s not the other connections I’m concerned about. It’s the connections between GW1 and GW2-era LA, which are now on the verge of disappearing entirely in light of the destruction wrought by Scarlet’s invasion. The only extant structure from GW1 that survived into GW2, the old lighthouse, is now gone, and it was one of THE main landmarks of the city in both eras. It was damaged in the Karka attack of November 2012—and that’s fine—but its outright removal bothers me quite a bit because it makes me feel that Anet no longer cares about preserving ties to GW1 as of the release of the Living Story. The core game had plenty of references in it, but since then we’ve seen virtually nothing, and since the Living Story makes up the present and future of the game, that’s a worrying thought for someone like me.

Look at GW1: EOTN. Despite introducing many new races, enemies, and places, there were TONS of references to the core GW1 games, particularly in the dungeons and many of the quests. GW1: Beyond also grounded itself in the core games’ lore while looking forward to the status quo at the time of GW2. The Living Story, on the other hand, has brought up entirely new things with scarcely any ties to the core GW2 game or GW1.

Flameseeker.1563:

Just me or this is like an incredible opportunity to make an LA 2.0, in the regard of a completely new layout with up to date construction and technology?

LA got destroyed once and left to rot for a while. With the pirates it was slowly rebuilt from the wreckage and only then expanded as resources were available until it achieved the status of neutral trading hub.
The money/people influx from trading made the city grow, though the lack of planning results in several disparities in buildings architecture and placing.

Now with a little help from all the races and the orders it should be possible to create a kind of city-fortress that could withstand the future threats that are coming and also act as the headquarters for the races offensive plans.

I’m definitely excited about the opportunity for a new and better LA, and I’m sure Anet is going to come up with a very innovative and interesting way to rebuild it. My issue is that they had to destroy the relics from the past that tied the new Lion’s Arch to the old Lion’s Arch of GW1. To me, it’s the same problem the Living Story has: Anet consistently adds new content at the expense of the past. The Living Story, to me at least, seemed wasted because it was mostly content that was limited to certain periods of time, after which newcomers or latecomers could NEVER access that content in its original form, ever again. Sure, there are new fractals for historical content, but we will NEVER be able to see the Aetherblade Retreat or the Molten Facility exactly as they were—only snippets. Here, destroying LA is fine in my book, but couldn’t they have left the GW1 historical landmarks intact while doing so? I don’t see why they have to destroy the past to make room for the future, when both can coexist.

In other games, the core game could be given a value of 1.0, and new content would be smaller—.01, 0.1, 0.25, etc. Most games simply keep adding to the core game—over time, the overall experience will be 1.5, 2.75, and so forth. In GW2, I feel that the “additions” brought about by Living Story content, at least until recently, haven’t actually added anything. For every 0.1 that gets added, 0.09 gets taken away. The next 0.2 only really “adds” .02 to the overall game experience, and the rest is essentially thrown away, never to be seen again. I have a problem with that; in GW1, I could experience ALL of the content ever created for the game (minus seasonal festivals) at my own pace, at any time I chose, with no restrictions. Here, you have to enjoy content while it lasts, because it may NEVER appear again. That seems pretty wasteful.

But back on track, I feel that the destruction of Old LA is representative of this problem, and that Anet’s choice to further damage the few remaining ruins of the old city is pointless and backwards.

ADDENDUM: There are many player-made builds out there. Some of them are excellent, but you should NEVER feel compelled to copy and paste those builds onto your character. It’s more constructive to figure out how the build works, evaluate its effectiveness, strengths, and weaknesses, and determine what you like and don’t like about it. Instead of copying and pasting it, figure out what aspects of it you like, and consider working those aspects into your own build. Unless you care about getting the absolute maximum possible effect out of a build setup, you shouldn’t feel that you HAVE to follow the posted build to the letter. Just look at how it was constructed, and take the concepts you want from it, and leave the rest. Consider Bruce Lee’s words of wisdom:

“Too much horsing around with unrealistic stances and classic forms and rituals is just too artificial and mechanical, and doesn’t really prepare the student for actual combat. A guy could get clobbered while getting into this classical mess. Classical methods like these, which I consider a form of paralysis, only solidify and constrain what was once fluid. Their practitioners are merely blindly rehearsing routines and stunts that will lead nowhere.

I believe that the only way to teach anyone proper self-defence is to approach each individual personally. Each one of us is different and each one of us should be taught the correct form. By correct form I mean the most useful techniques the person is inclined toward. Find his ability and then develop these techniques. I don’t think it is important whether a side kick is performed with the heel higher than the toes, as long as the fundamental principle is not violated. Most classical martial arts training is a mere imitative repetition – a product – and individuality is lost.

When one has reached maturity in the art, one will have a formless form. It is like ice dissolving in water. When one has no form, one can be all forms; when one has no style, he can fit in with any style."

In short: if it works, it works. It doesn’t really matter how you do it, as long as you get results, and don’t let people browbeat you into feeling inferior just because you chose an alternative, but no less valid and no less effective, style from what they consider “correct” or “the best.” On the other hand, if your build isn’t effective, I urge you to figure out where its weaknesses are and revise the build until it works. No matter how unorthodox your build, you can’t argue with results. But don’t let this make you feel that your build is the be-all, end-all, either. I continually challenge myself to learn new techniques and strategies and tweak my builds to improve them as much as I know how, and I encourage the GW2 community to do the same. Never settle for “good enough,” and you’ll never stagnate.

Geez, I sound like some cheesy inspirational speech, or a self-help book or something. Nevertheless, I hope this helps

The final step is to know when to adjust your build. No build is so watertight that it will be optimal for every situation; when your environment and the rules of engagement change, you should change as well. Is the enemy immune to certain conditions? Change your build so your skills are useful and their effects aren’t wasted. Do you need a lot of damage, or do you just need to survive? Focus on one or the other, depending on what the game demands of you. Is your build solo-friendly or party-friendly? When you’re alone, you can’t rely on others; when you’re with a group, some skills are worthless because there’s an overlap between your abilities and your party members’, and others are of little benefit when your party members are better in a particular area than you are. If you’re a thief, why bother bringing Spider Venom (adds poison to your next few attacks) when the necromancer in your party can keep your enemy poisoned for the entire fight with just his weapon skills? Your utility skills would be better used to do things the other party members can’t do; leave poison to someone who’s already good at it, since your contribution will be minimal compared to his. This final step is one of the most crucial—I’ve seen far too many people who are adamant about using their favorite builds, even when those builds are woefully inadequate for the task at hand. Would you use a hammer to open a can of soup, or a saw to hammer in a nail? Use the right tools for the job, and you’ll generally succeed. Play the way you want to, but don’t be so rigidly committed to your build choices that you doom your entire group. Insistently refusing to use ranged attacks when going melee a certain boss means certain death isn’t “playing how you want,” it’s downright incompetence. Conversely, using only ranged attacks on an enemy that reflects all projectiles doesn’t make you a good, intelligent, or “pro” player, it makes you an idiot who refuses to follow common sense. Play smart, and listen to your teammates!

I know this will probably be a controversial post, and experienced players probably already know about the concepts I’ve attempted to outline here, but I hope that at least a few people will learn something valuable from what I’ve said here and come up with a build that’s fun, engaging, and effective according to their preferences and playstyle. I’m not the type of person who’s interested in min-maxing, optimizing based on crunching numbers, or anything like that, but if anyone has any questions about making a practical build, let me know either here on the forums or in-game and I’ll do my best to help. Good luck, and happy adventuring!

One of the most frequently-asked questions in GW2, at least in my opinion, is “what build should I use?” I think that if more people understood how GW2 works, they wouldn’t need to ask that.

In other MMO games, at least in my experience, there are one or two “superbuilds” for a few (or possibly all) classes, but outside of certain skills, traits, feats, abilities, etc., a lot of the “options” presented to you are absolutely worthless. People therefore fear coming up with a build in GW2 because 1) they suspect that if they don’t know what the current meta/“superbuild[s]” for their class is, or whether their class is even viable, that they’ll waste time and in-game money experimenting on a lost cause, or 2) if they don’t use the current flavor-of-the-month builds or overpowered “superbuilds,” they’ll be at a disadvantage compared to other players. For example, I played Diablo 2 for a while back in the day, and basically, if you weren’t a hammer paladin, a spin-to-win whirlwind barbarian, or some kind of sorceress, you weren’t going to get far; necromancers and amazons were often deemed outright useless. I’ve heard that in WOW, there is pretty much exactly one viable build per class, and some classes are decidedly underpowered.

GW2 is different. While some people will berate you for not optimizing your build for group play, every class is viable, and every class has enough options that pretty much any playstyle is viable.

People often ask me what the “best” build is, either for their class or in general. While some may disagree, the best build is the one you enjoy and that you understand how to use. GW2 is not a game where you can slap on the skills and gear a community-made build calls for and expect to win the game automatically. Yes, some people criticize the game for being too easy and facilitating zergs and mindless autoattacking, but if you’re exploring on your own or in small groups, you’ll lose if you’re not paying attention to the enemy and using a build you understand.

The first step is to find a class that conforms to your preferred playstyle. Other than dedicated healers and tanks, I can almost guarantee there’s a class for you. Ask yourself whether your current class is one that fits the way you like to play. If it is, great! If not, don’t waste your time—switch characters, try another class, and see if it works. Do you like micromanagement? Try a mesmer. Do you enjoy a simpler strategy based on surviving up close and doing heavy melee damage? Try a warrior.

The second step is focusing on what you actually want to do with your class. Each trait line caters to a specific style. Figure out what appeals to you and specialize accordingly. Do you like the guardian’s Virtue of Justice, which applies burning? Choose traits related to burning, the use of that virtue, and anything that works with traits that cause burning or improve the virtue—SYNERGIZE. For example, Radiance is the trait line that emphasizes burning and the Virtue of Justice. The 5-point trait causes blindness around you when you activate Justice. Major trait VI causes vulnerability when blindness is applied. Therefore, using those together gives you TWO extra effects when you use that one ability. Add in the 5-point trait from the Virtues line, and you ALSO grant might to yourself and everyone around you when you use Justice! That’s synergy, and that’s what you want to go for. Ground your build in a concept or two, and work towards achieving a certain goal when you choose your traits and skills. The more synergy, the better.

DarcShriek.5829:

Have you read Piers Anthony’s Xanth novels? They get disconnected real quick.

But that series is based on that concept of disconnectedness, randomness, and things being made up on the fly to create zany, wacky, and unpredictable adventures. GW2 is meant to be a sequel to GW1, and the LS is (or at least I assume it is) meant to follow what transpired in the core GW2 experience. The randomness that defines the Xanth series is entirely out of place in the Living Story in GW2.

Mega Messiah.1734:

Equinox.4968:

CETheLucid.3964:

Equinox.4968:

Anet wants to cut all of its ties with GW1.

Except they don’t.

Then why have they mostly created new lore out of whole cloth, with minimal ties to GW1 lore? Why have they failed to get into some of the truly excellent unresolved questions and plotlines from 250 years ago? They’re sitting on a gold mine of unused and unexplored ideas for content, yet they insist on ignoring it for the most part. Please explain to me how this failure to cash in on everything they set up in the first game is anything but ignoring the GW1 lore. Yes, the core game has shout-outs and references, but the Living Story has absolutely minimal ties to GW1. The only thing I can think of is the reference to the Zephyrites taking care of Glint’s remains, but that’s about it. Indeed, the alliances were highly, highly implausible under the established lore of the core game of GW2 itself. That’s just bad writing that shows that the writers are making up whatever they feel like without regard to the core game or to GW1.

Because all that stuff is 250 years old.

Things don’t usually stay incredibly relevant for over 2 centuries. It’s time for new stories with inklings of the past thrown in. I don’t want to have all of GW1’s plots come front and center unless it is actually relevant and server a purpose beyond fan service.

If they bring back the Mursaat, I want there to be a reason.
If they decide Abaddon DIDN’T die, then I want there to be a reason.
If the Dwarves suddenly make their triumphant return from the Depths of Tyria, I want there to be a reason.

What I don’t want is for these things to happen and have them just be pandering to a fan base that played their first game. That’s why we had the first games in the first place: to tell those stories. Those unresolved questions – like the Mursaat and the fate of Cantha and Palawa Joko in Elona – might get resolved in the future, but as it stands right now, there’s no reason to bring two hundred year old stories back to the lime light unless they mesh with the newer stories being told.

I want for there to be valid story reasons for bringing these things in too. Pandering to a fanbase just to gain favor with them should be avoided. But what I’m asking is why Anet hasn’t even touched its existing lore, and instead has pulled 95% of the Living Story out of thin air.

Imagine writing a bestselling novel. Then you write a sequel that builds upon the original and has shout-outs to the events and characters of the first book. Then you come up with a direct sequel to the second book, but instead of using the old story and characters, you create entirely new characters, ignore or clumsily retcon the story of the first two books, and ultimately come up with a plot that is barely connected to the first two books at all.

Example:

Book 1 is set in late medieval Europe, and the main character, A, is a knight. An invading army is threatening his country (Country), so he works with B, C, and D against the evil machinations of X. A wins, but B dies.

Book 2 is set in early renaissance Europe, and the main character, G, is a nobleman the son of A. He is joined by H and I, the descendants of B and C, as well as D (who is really old at this point) in a quest to discover who’s trying to overthrow the government of Country. There are shout-outs to the past events from Book 1, but the plot is different enough to be interesting while retaining the popular aspects of Book 1 that got the series going.

Book 3 takes place right after Book 2, but G steps down from his noble title and becomes a police officer, the supporting cast in this book is 100% new and unrelated to the previous characters, H, and D are completely absent, and only I is present in a one-paragraph cameo. The plot this time involves G hunting down tax evaders (which is nothing compared to the epic scope of the first books). Plot elements from Book 2 are outright ignored, or otherwise characters’ statements directly contradict what was clearly established in the previous works. The only similarity between Book 2 and Book 3 is that they take place in the same country and feature the same protagonist, G. Other than that, Book 3 has no plot connections to Book 2.

Xiahou Mao.9701:

Equinox.4968:

Yes, the core game has shout-outs and references, but the Living Story has absolutely minimal ties to GW1. The only thing I can think of is the reference to the Zephyrites taking care of Glint’s remains, but that’s about it.

Scarlet’s Marionette could be seen on a tapestry on the wall of the Eye of the North in the original Guild Wars. Is that not a good enough tie for you?

That was mere concept art from Utopia that they just now happened to use in a way that has absolutely nothing to do with GW1. I’m talking lore here, and that’s not lore.