Guild Wars 2

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.

I mostly just created this thread as an observation, but I’ll step in here since my point seems to have been misunderstood. I know there are tons of GW1 references in this game, but the problem I have with this most recent update is that two of the few remaining traces of what was the central city in GW1 are now gone. The lighthouse has been obliterated, and the fountain, even if it’s still there (I haven’t personally seen it yet) is in a location that’s nowhere near as prominent as before. That fountain used to be THE symbol of old LA, and it was a gathering place for pretty much everyone, and now it’s been shoved aside. I can’t help but feel that this is symbolic: the way I see it, Anet wants to cut all of its ties with GW1 so they can shove their vision of GW2 on us, and doesn’t want to be burdened by old lore. Destroying some of the few remaining symbols of GW1 LA seems to validate that belief. LA will be rebuilt, as it was after the rising of Zhaitan, but I have this nagging doubt that the city’s origins will be forgotten and conveniently swept under the rug to make room for whatever Anet decides to come up with next. In my mind, it would be the equivalent of some foreign power taking over Washington, D.C. and creating some splendid new capital over the ruins of the American city, deliberately ignoring all the history that had transpired there in the past and covering it up with cheap populist propaganda meant to placate the masses.

I checked in after the patch…the lighthouse is completely gone, and the only parts of old LA that are left are a few ruined brick buildings and the two lion statues where Sergio used to be. The old fountain is gone, the lighthouse is gone…we now have no noteworthy connections to GW1 anymore in LA, not even the museum-piece sorts of references that existed at launch.

kta.6502:

Equinox.4968:

It’s not about balance, it’s about spending tons of resources modeling, texturing, and writing a story that would have to take into account the PS and LS so far. If they wanted to add tengu, they should have done so at the beginning, when the game was first released.

Anet does have the modeling and texturing resources for the Tengu. The birds were in the last game, so they should have the files for them.

Anet does use Maya and Zbrush. Both programs are standard in the worldwide video game industry. The files can be imported into every existing video game software program (Unity, Unreal, Havok, etc).

I know that Anet uses Havok for GW2 (http://www.havok.com/products/physics), so it wouldn’t be hard to import the stuff from Maya and Zbrush.

The problem is making the models more unique. Notice how there are TONS of options for character creation with the playable races, wheras tengu, kodan, hylek, largos, etc. all look virtually the same? Honestly, I challenge you to tell the generic NPCs apart. They’d have to put a lot of effort into making the tengu as unique and customizable as, say, the sylvari (which went through MANY different redesigns before they settled on what we have now).

Dante.3780:

I see your point Equinox, but race is not really a factor in PvE balance.
Mesmer, Dervish, Paragon, Ritualist – those professions are unique to gw universe (though dervishes existed in real world), ANet can always come up with new idea and i’d love them to do so

hannah mee.7925:

CaptainVanguard.4925:

6. The Tengu don’t really have any interesting lore going for them, since they were added mostly as a Cantha thing which means the real strength of their lore actually came from the Canthan Empire fondly trying to obliterate them.

Firstly, I agree 100% with this point. I think Tengu would be better rolled out if a Canthan expansion ever happened. Maybe helping them re-establish a role in Cantha after the injustice that occurred, either as a foreign visitor, a domestic rebel or a Tengu.

Secondly though I would disagree they don’t have much lore. Quests in GW1, including the Tengu Accords and Winds of Change quests, gave some insight to the Tengu. While they are a bit like the Charr in a way, they are also a bit like norn in their sense of honor and loyalty. Comparing them as bird-Charr seems a bit off.

Basically, the Tengu can be seen as stereotypical samurai – loyal to death to those who prove themselves worthy of their loyalty (such as Talon’s loyalty to the humans after Togo’s exploits in the Tengu Accords). Then there are the outcasts who only have loyalty for their fellow Tengu, not necessarily aspiring to flame legion shamans or anything.

Agreed.

It’s not about balance, it’s about spending tons of resources modeling, texturing, and writing a story that would have to take into account the PS and LS so far. If they wanted to add tengu, they should have done so at the beginning, when the game was first released. Adding the tengu now would have to involve tons of retconning (especially in light of the LS), adding tons of tengu to the world in general so that they’re equally as present as the current five playable races, and adding more hearts and dynamic events to flesh out their culture.

Would you rather have an extremely shallow sixth playable race, or none at all? I’d prefer none at all.

As for new classes, fine…but you have to sell me on a unique class mechanic that hasn’t been used for any of the existing classes, and wouldn’t be better served by adding new weapons or existing weapons to classes that don’t currently have access to them. Monk (martial arts) class? Just add hand-to-hand weapons like brass knuckles, gauntlets, or the cestus. Stances have already been taken by the elementalist’s attunements, ki-building has been taken by the warrior’s adrenaline, and any resource-based, self-regenerating skill setup belongs to the thief, so to reuse these systems on a new class would be overly repetitive. Ritualist? Add some more weapon skills to the necro and/or ranger to flesh out the spiritual side of things, you don’t need a whole new class to add more skills, especially when nature spirits and turrets, especially when traited, more than cover the traditional ritualist spirits. Cannoneer? Give us a new cannon weapon, or give rifles to existing classes, just because there are only 2 heavy classes doesn’t justify creating a whole new class “just because.” Magic knight/spellsword? Already covered by the guardian (and possibly mesmer), and if you mean a heavy armor user that taps into life-force powers or elemental spells, the elementalist and necro are already the classes for those domains, so it would be unnecessarily duplicative.

Well, I figured out today that I have fewer heirlooms than I thought, and if I get all 40 for both tomorrow and Tuesday (pre-patch) I’ll have a few over what I need. I just wanted to make sure that getting more supply bags in the mean time will at least give me a chance at a few more heirlooms so I won’t have to get all 40 both days.

The official wiki page for Found Heirlooms (normally obtainable from rubble) and the talk page both seem to indicate that those items have a chance to drop from Alliance Supplies. Can someone confirm whether this is true? I’ll be able to get my 250 heirlooms by the patch for my selfless potion, but I’d like to know whether I’m wasting my time killing aetherblades in LA for the heirlooms to speed up the process.

I really hope they don’t add any new races. GW2 was created and balanced around five playable races that each have an advanced, comprehensive culture and beliefs. Keep in mind that just because something seems cool, fun, or interesting doesn’t mean it can or even should become a feature. For example, some people want the ritualist from GW1 to come back, but the ritualist’s spirits and bundle items (ashes) are now features unique to the engineer. Likewise, paragons aren’t coming back because their shouts and fire-based attacks have been given to warriors and guardians, and dervishes’ faith-based attacks are now the guardian’s virtues (not to mention that dervishes are followers of the human gods, whereas Norn are animists, Sylvari are agnostics, Asura are Buddhist/rationalists and Charr are atheists).

Tengu aren’t developed enough, Kodan are too isolated and look too similar to one another, Largos also have too-similar character models, live underwater, and might end up being villains, phoenixes are tamable pets, not civilized beings, and kitsune have absolutely NO foundation in the lore. Are some of these ideas interesting? Absolutely. But it takes more than being interesting to justify adding something as significant and difficult to implement as new playable races.

Carighan.6758:

Tommyknocker.6089:

My advise, skip it, life goes on my friend, I know I won’t lose sleep over not getting mine.

Best part is, ANet did listen to complaints about this in previous patches.
The achievements giving some form of reward are always either really easy, automatic, or fillable with dailies. Moreover, they’ve removed the unique rewards from the meta-achievements too, recently.

That way, failing to get anything still doesn’t really put you back in rewards. You can easily get your title or node or helmet skin or backpack or whatever, without having to fill any achievements at all.

Again, it’s about completionism, not rewards. I could care less about meta-rewards, because all I care about is getting 100% on every time-limited set of achievements. But I (very narrowly) got the achievement yesterday, so it’s a moot point.

BARELY made it at the earliest primetime hour TTS was doing its LA runs. Blue must have been right on the line when it went down. I’ll still be doing my best to help other people get the 6 min achievement during daytime hours over the next few days though.

For the record, my wife had a migraine last night so I was able to be in BG main during prime time while sitting next to her to make sure she was ok. We failed 4 times in a row, simply because people were lazy and didn’t get buffs or didn’t stack might. This sucks. Maybe I can try to get on at the top of the hour for a few hours tonight, but that might have been my best chance at getting the achievement, and now it’s gone. Anyone able to help?

I guested to BG during primetime yesterday, and there wasn’t a single successful 6 minute attempt out of the three consecutive events I participated in. People were AFKing and taking up space, scaling the events without contributing to them. During the first attempt, only 7 people out of around 40 to 45 at the Static knight had buffs. For the other two, there simply weren’t enough people in the zone. We’re taking BG primetime here. I don’t have a problem with this achievement requiring organization, but when the most heavily populated North American server can’t regularly complete the achievement, that should say something. These events should be readily completable with any reasonable number of people. Maybe 5 or even 10 people per knight shouldn’t be enough, but 20 to 25 seems like a much more realistic and reasonable amount to expect from non-full servers. That’s an amount you can scrounge up pretty easily, generally speaking.

Carighan.6758:

Absconditus.6804:

You’re not alone with the frustration of this achievement. Again someone on the ArenaNet team thinks it’s a good display of individual skill and ability to achieve, to force each individual player to rely on about 149 other players to get an achievement done. I only pray I can get it before it’s too late.

They might also have – correctly – thought that with the achievement having absolutely 0 impact, it’s really not a requirement for everyone to be able to get it.

Not a requirement, and I know that being a completionist is my own fault, but they should still make achievements accessible with a reasonable number of people. The average number of players who show up in BG, JQ, and TC in non-prime hours is usually around 60 to 70, so why not just balance the fights so they scale and would allow those sorts of numbers an even chance at getting the 6 minute requirement?

Earlier today, I guested to JQ. We rallied a bunch of people around 12:00 EST and beat two out of three knights in around 7 minutes, with about 30-35 people per knight. That’s a lot more reasonable and realistic than 50+ per knight, and the 6 minute achievement should be just as doable with 60 to 90 people as it is with 150.

guardian.6489:

Equinox I’m surprised your in TTS and still can’t do this achievement. We’ve started doing the event again since the achievement is unbugged and a lot of our members want that achievement.

Keep in mind our 2 primary peak hours are during both Oceanic and NA prime time which for NA would be 4pm-11pm server time and for oceanic would be 1:30 am server time to 4:00 am server time (maybe later during the weekends). If you can’t make it to NA prime times, I’d suggest attempting to wake up early for Oceanic prime times especially during the weekend, there might be more effort from TTS to get that achievement since a lot of members don’t have it because of the bug.

Again: I’m not available during those hours. That’s the problem. I’m looking for a guild or server that’s willing to organize something between 6 AM and 3 PM server time. TTS is helpful, but their hours don’t work with my own, except for the 6:30 AM Tequatl runs.

I am in desperate need of help for the 6 Minutes to Knightfall achievement. I was unable to access the Battle for LA content during the first 3 days it was up due to internet connection problems, and I am more or less unable to play during prime time hours. I can be on at pretty much any time during the day (6 AM to 2 or 3 PM server time), but of course there are never enough people to kill all 3 knights in under 6 minutes, even on BG and JQ. I am newly married, and the little time I have to spend with my wife, who is a caregiver and is getting really burned out at her job, is between 3 and 6 or 7 PM server time.

Are there any guilds or servers that would be willing to organize a serious (meaning there are 150 people on the map all dedicated to getting the 6 min achievement) attempt or attempts during daylight hours? I’m a TTS member, but there are never more than about 40 or so people on in the TTS Teamspeak server during the day. Please let me know if you’re interested in doing this, and let’s coordinate a server and time for getting this done. I’m really frustrated with this event, since I’ve never missed a single limited-time LS achievement so far and I don’t intend to have only 14 out of 15 this time around. Please help if you’re able—I will be eternally grateful if someone is able to step up to the plate and help me organize this.

Same on IOJ. I’ve even guested to a few other servers but Drottot Lashtail is stuck near the right-hand wall as you’re entering the devourer pit, and the event chain never begins.

Unfortunately I’m in North America part of the problem is that I can’t be on during prime time. Blackgate has barely been getting the knights done in time during the daytime hours, though.

Any tips on which server(s) to visit to get it done, given that a lot of them have more or less given up on the event by now?

I got it pretty easily today on my elementalist. The trick is to turn of autoattack on water attunement (I use a staff so I can lay down water fields to support instead of attacking) and only hit the prime hologram a few times for credit. I got the prime light attunement right at the start of the fight, used Frost Bow skills 3 and 4 (both of them multihit skills), added one 5 and one 2 (vuln to help the other players on the platform), and then dropped the bow with at least 15 seconds left on the attunement. I didn’t hit anything for the rest of the fight up to the ultraviolets, at which point I switched to the fire attunement and autoattacked them until we won. I somehow failed to get No More Tricks because of slight lag and invisible lazers/scorch marks, but at least next time I’ll be able to attack without worrying about it costing me an achievement.

I used my elementalist precisely because it could support everyone without having to attack. I first attempted the Scarlet fight on my warrior, but I have the Reckless Dodge trait (cause damage at the end of your dodge roll while in combat), and I accidentally hit Scarlet a few times while trying to roll through the center of the arena to reach some attunement circles. Be sure that you don’t have any traits that automatically use a damage-oriented skill, leave a field, or inflict a condition under certain conditions, because these are just as bad as pets/minions if you’re trying to avoid hitting enemies.

HolySylent.8160:

A leader with bad communications skills is a terrible leader and should be removed from his position. That is hardly the soldier’s fault.

Correct. Anet is in the position to tell us what we need to do. They haven’t exactly given us clear orders all the time. In fact, they have given us rather mixed signals at times, and often haven’t provided us with the guidance we need to get things done. We shouldn’t have to rely on Dulfy to figure everything out; hand-holding is certainly not the answer, but we need more and better guidance and feedback from Anet. It’s partially players’ fault when people don’t read enemy descriptions for hints on how to win an event, but Anet needs to make sure that when people fail because they don’t read, they are made aware that they’ve messed up, so that the only way a person could possibly fail the event after that point is willful ignorance. Anet is the general, and the orders we’ve been given haven’t been too clear, so it’s at least partially their fault.

An armor “skin” generally refers to the appearance of an item, whether that item is standard (it has its own stats) or is a literal skin (transmutation only, it has no stats and must be applied to another item). For example, someone might say “I want the Ascalonian Catacombs heavy armor skin for my Guardian.” The item in question is a statted piece of armor that you can buy with dungeon tokens. It has stats, but they aren’t max, so people generally only use that armor piece to transmute onto exotic/ascended max-level armor.

Now, if you got armor with stats, then that’s actual armor. It can be worn. But if something says “double click to apply this item’s appearance to X” then that’s a transmutation only item, and you have to use it ON another item to create that item’s appearance.

You said you got both blue statted armor and transmutation-only pieces that must be applied. I recommend saving both of them. You can apply the transmutation-only items to any armor you want. You can use a transmutation stone to apply the look of the statted armor to any other type of armor.

Let’s say you have a level 80 Acolyte Pants item. You want to keep that item’s stats but change the appearance to Profane leggings. You have two options:

1) Use the Profane armor transmutation-only item to apply Profane armor’s appearance to the stats of the Acolyte Pants.
2) Use a transmutation stone and put the appearance of lower-level Profane armor onto the stats of the Acolyte Pants.

In other words, you will end up with the appearance of the Profane leggings and the stats of the Acolyte Pants on the same item. Same result, just different methods. I hope this helps and wasn’t too confusing.

FINALLY: transmutation-only, “apply to” items are one-use. Don’t waste them, but remember that you can always transmute the item you applied the skin to onto a new item. So take the Acolyte Pants-statted, Profane-skinned items from above. You could transfer the Profane look onto a different set of pants using another transmutation stone, and so on and so forth, onto as many items as you want. Just be careful that it isn’t soulbound if you want to transfer the skinned item onto a different character.

Easy: make it so that if you don’t use the mechanics, you (individual) die. Don’t penalize the entire zerg by killing everyone just because a few people screw up, and don’t put big events on a timer. Instead, punish individuals for failing to learn and utilize the mechanics created for that event. If you want to make people dodge, kill them until they learn how to dodge. I disagree with the way the assault knights have been handled by hotfixes, but the fact that they are now only damageable if you have the right attunement is a good step in the right direction—if you aren’t attuned and therefore aren’t paying attention to the mechanics, you do NO damage.

I think that something that might help is if contextual hints pop up when you keep trying to do something contrary to the way a fight was designed. If people are supposed to be dodging, a message should alert them to the fact that they’ve died several times due to failure to dodge. If they’re doing no damage to an assault knight because they don’t have the right attunement, they should be notified that they’re accomplishing absolutely nothing, and that they need to take steps in order to help the event progress. Anet should make it blatantly clear to people who ignore mechanics that they aren’t paying attention and aren’t doing what they’re supposed to, so that the only person a mindless zerger can blame is himself.

Sun Tzu famously said that if a general gives orders, and his soldiers fail to carry out the orders because it is unclear what they’re supposed to do, then it’s the soldiers’ fault. But if a general gives clear and unequivocal orders, and yet the soldiers fail to follow them, the soldiers must be disciplined. Anet hasn’t always been the best at giving clear orders, but much of the blame does lie with players ignoring mechanics. Making them personally responsible for their own success or failure, and leaving no doubt as to what the individual is required to do, will force people to learn mechanics the way they should. I understand that this is a game, and that people can “play how they want,” but people shouldn’t be allowed to be willfully blind or ignorant insofar as they impede the success and enjoyment of others.

Use whatever class you like the best, because there’s no objective “best” other than what you prefer. If you understand a class and it makes intuitive sense to you, stick with it. If not, then try something else. There’s a playstyle for everyone, and traits only make your build even more personal as you choose them.

It all depends on what you personally prefer, since enjoying a class and understanding it intuitively is the only real consideration that matters. With that said, Elementalist can do a ton of damage and has great access to support if you use a staff, and conjured weapons are always useful in PVE. You could even run a signet build that lets you retain the passive benefits of equipped signets even after you use them, which is a good way to stay alive (at least from my experience). Engineer is also a solid choice because you can choose which kits you want to specialize in, and there are tons of support options. Engineers are excellent healers and supporters and have some of the best bunker builds in PVP.

Mesmers are a bit harder to use, but if you like the Mesmer’s playstyle then go for it. However, they play rather differently from the other classes and aren’t intuitive for a lot of people. It takes more planning to come up with a good Mesmer build that uses skills and traits that synergize well than most builds with most other classes. I would highly recommend reading about different kinds of builds in the profession subforums to get an idea of what each class is capable of and to figure out what tactics appeal to you the most.

I’ve heard this too. I always assumed it was just a glitch with the GW2 client. I often alt-tab out of the game to read the forums during downtime between events or to look up crafting materials or NPC locations. When I do, I’ll sometimes hear a loud sound that definitely isn’t coming from my browser, and only when the GW2 client is open. The sound is usually either 1) a dull ringing sound like a hammer hitting porcelain, 2) a sharp hi-hat cymbal that reverberates or echoes slightly, or 3) a bass drum thump that reverberates slightly. I also sometimes hear a slight echo when I alt-tab out during a certain sound being played in the game. For example, if I’m in a personal story cinematic, and alt-tab out while an NPC is saying something, the last syllable the NPC said echoes and fades out over about 1.5 to 2 seconds. The main thing that all these glitches have in common is that there’s a definite echo involved, regardless of the sound.

I know this may sound like a strange description, but I’ve become accustomed to these minor audio glitches and so it’s not really strange to me anymore. Hope my feedback helps in diagnosing the problem.

Mystic.5934:

I got this ach last night.
I attempted it a couple times before success. one thing I’ll say is that the telegraphing and aoe circles are wrong. many times, I would be well out of the red circle and still would be kb’ed.
anyways, on the success, I got near here, but got kb’ed, blinked back to her, and downed her. I would of thought that wouldn’t count, but it did. My plan was to use Distortion to not get kb’ed, and TW to speed up the finishing, but I was a moment late in casting Distortion.

Wrong achievement, you’re talking about Nowhere to Hide.

I can confirm that In Tune and No More Tricks aren’t working properly. I went through the entire Scarlet fight without getting hit by the lazers (only the reflective bubbles and a few torment stacks from the Synergetics hologram hit me), and I did not attack at all unless I had more than 10 seconds left on my light attunement. However, I (and EVERYONE ELSE on the platform) went down several times during the microprime fight due to the overcharge meter filling up and hitting us with the blast. I didn’t die, but I was downed briefly. Apparently, being downed by ANYTHING at ANY POINT during the fight makes both these achievements impossible. Please fix this, because I definitely fulfilled all the requirements yet failed to get credit.

All AOEs trigger on the target (unless the skill is untargetable or ground-targeted) and can reach up to 4 additional targets within range. When you use a beneficial AOE, if you’re within the effect range (including point blank AOE) you count as a target. So, for example, the Thief traits “Thrill of the Crime” and “Bountiful Theft” give boons to you AND up to 4 nearby allies. It’s easier to see the effect when the skill points out that you count as a beneficial target. They should probably rework some of the skill descriptions to make this clearer.

I’m not much of a crafter, but I’m assuming they’re referring to the ability to use karma to buy ingredients from heart vendors after you finish the heart quest in an area. Different vendors sell different things, and I’m pretty sure some ingredients are either exclusive to one NPC or are only available from 2 or 3 NPCs. So “no hearts” refers to just stuff you can get by exploring and regular vendors, “top 5 hearts” means you have access to the 5 NPC vendors who ingredients are some of the most cost-effective for leveling cooking, and “all hearts” presumes access to every ingredient in the game.

The “greater rewards” means the fact that succeeding at all 3 miasma events adds significantly to the “citizens saved” counter, if I heard correctly. That would make it easier to get the 1500-citizen bags, which can hold really, really rare items from previous LS events.

As for the overflows, when I so much as ask people if they want to do the miasma events for the achievement, they immediately tell me “too bad, so sad, we don’t care that you don’t have the achievement yet” and keep farming bags. I ask politely, but nobody bats an eye. Even when we do get enough people (usually 5 or 6 and most at one event), we don’t have the recommended 8 to 10, and that’s only one of three events that we’re marginally succeeding at.

Hence my question: are there servers where people are dedicated to doing achievements and not just bag farming?

Any servers out there that are consistently getting these achievements? I was unable to play GW2 for the first three days of the event because of connection issues (which weren’t my fault, a lot of other people complained of the same symptoms I was getting). Every time the miasma events pop up, everyone wastes their time with other events, or zergs one or two of them and the third never gets touched. I really want to get 100% completion for this LS, and it already seems like people are ignoring those events because they’re doing nothing but bag-farming. Please let me know if there’s a server or group that generally is able to complete the requirements for those achievements, because I’m worried it’s already too late for me.

“The Seraph.” It’s played during the next-to-last personal story mission.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RBOv-W_aPjg

I have to agree with the OP here. I think the achievements are just fine in terms of individual skill, but requiring the entire set of platforms to complete the event successfully is ridiculous. I’ve attemped this boss about 30 times so far, and only once has the platform I’ve been on failed to destroy the node in time (for the record, I was experiencing excessive lag and rubberbanded or stayed in place for 15-20 seconds at a time). So I have basically never failed to take down the node, and numerous times I’ve dodged all the marionette’s attacks, yet I don’t have the achievements. In fact, I’ve never seen the marionette defeated even once in any of the maps I’ve been to. Not to brag, but my personal skill level is just fine, and it’s annoying that I really do have to depend on everyone else, including people who either can’t read or are trolling, to get the dodge achievements done. The other day, I even saw a player using a SUNRISE running around the perimeter of the platform on Warden #2 and completely avoiding every mine the boss laid. That should tell you something right there.

Reverence.6915:

Did I just walk into an English/Literature class…?

Rhetoric is taught under English, but it’s something everyone should know about. What many people don’t realize is that “argumentation” and “discussion” originally didn’t mean a win/lose, competitive situation where tempers flare and egos battle it out. The purpose of discussion is to determine the truth of a situation: one side or the other might be right, but both might be right or wrong, too. The problem is that people today, especially on the Internet, want to be right and rub it in everyone else’s faces that they’re wrong. It’s not about truth anymore, it’s about taking your opinion and forcing others to accept it while denying what others have to say. What I’m saying is that due to a failure to understand rhetoric and a failure to compromise with others in order to pursue truth, it’s very difficult to find good discussions these days, including on these forums.

Maybe that sounded like a lecture, but it’s a very serious topic and one that I hope (probably in vain) people will try to understand for the betterment of the community.

I actually just posted a thread about the same thing. I think it might be tied to the in-game clock and happen once every hour or half-hour. There are other sounds for the other starter zones too.

Unfortunately, this is the Internet. People will make fun of you for caring about the game enough to voice your opinion one way or the other. They’ll make fun of you if you say nothing because “you’re just another mindless sheep.” They’ll make fun of you for following the crowd, or for opposing popular opinion. Basically, whether you say something, or nothing at all, it seems to me that it won’t do any good. People will, as you said, act as though their opinion is the only one that matters, making genuine discussion impossible. As much as I admire your efforts in promoting civil conversation, it’s just not going to happen. On the Internet, the combination of virtual anonymity, open forums, and the psychology of writing (as opposed to speech) makes good discussions nearly impossible.

There’s something I’ve noticed that I’m curious about. I’ve been playing since the beta weekends, and it seems that in starter zones, there are occasional musical motifs that you can hear from a distance. In Wayfarer Foothills, for example, I’ve heard a loud horn blown off in the distance that plays the first 7 notes of the Norn theme. In Caledon Forest, I’ve heard bells play the first 4 measures of “Fear Not This Night.” And of course it’s well known that in Metrica Province, the golems play an electronic version of the Asura theme. Are these sounds tied to anything in particular, and has anyone else heard them?

First, thanks to Falunel for adding me to the list. I’ve always enjoyed helping people, so if you have questions, ask away.

Second, some advice for anyone who’s new to GW2: I strongly suggest that you make every effort to lay any previous MMO experiences at the door and let the game be what it is. Time and again, I’ve seen people get frustrated, intimidated, or bored with the game because they’ve played other games and have expectations based on their time with those games. Beyond anything else, take your time, don’t rush, and stop to smell the roses. This game isn’t a race, it’s a journey. There’s no need to rush through content just to get more content. Enjoy the world, listen to silly and/or deep and/or tear-jerker NPC conversations, talk to NPCs to learn about Tyria, step back and look at the amazing environments and architecture. Players who rush to level 80 often find themselves lost, confused, and bored because they expected that leveling was just a time-wasting, filler kind of process. In GW2, leveling isn’t a means to an end, it’s something to be savored and enjoyed while it lasts. Don’t be afraid to slow down, experiment, explore, and ask questions. Approach this game with a fresh mind, open to observing and learning new things, and you won’t be disappointed. Remember, there’s only one first time for everything, and this is one you don’t want to miss.

Welcome to Tyria

Tweek.5391:

Every server is different, I only put it the way it is on my server. I’m not responsible for how any other server does it.

I agree that my server’s way of doing it isn’t optimal. What I meant was that we must be the most stubborn and stupid server of them all because the community adamantly refuses to follow the optimal pattern and instead cuts out a whole champion (Bandit) because they’re lazy.

On the Isle of Janthir server, nobody ever does Bandit after Troll. It’s an optional step after Spider and before Boar. I think we’re the only server that completely refuses to make the Bandit an official part of the train. I think that says something right there…

Thanks for the responses!

Suppose I’m the leader of a guild on the Isle of Janthir server. I have a guildie who’s in the Ehmry Bay server. If he guests over to IOJ and we do a guild mission together, both representing the same guild, what rewards will he receive, and where will the influence go—to his server’s chapter of the guild, or mine?

I think the OP is assuming this was originally a Korean game that got imported to the West. It’s not. GW2 is a 100% Western product, and they hired a ton of well-known American, Canadian, and English voice actors.

With a new year come new players. Check us out if you’re looking for help getting established in GW2!

I’m guessing you mean the track that’s actually called “Plains of Ashford.”

Scales of Issormir: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=odnzyU9Yh0A

Recycled (and previously unused) track from GW1:EOTN.

It’s also the boss music for the final encounter in the Snowblind fractal.

Head: Scout’s Mask (human cultural tier 1)
Shoulders: Aidan’s Pauldrons
Chest: Ascalonian Leather Chestguard
Gloves: Falconer’s Gloves (human cultural tier 2)
Pants: Karma/temple pants
Boots: Whisperer’s Boots (the pictures were taken at a time there was a missing dye slot for the dagger, so it shouldn’t have been red)

My idea behind this armor set was to make a “duelist” type outfit for my thief. As most people agree, there are too many overcoats and dustmasks and not enough interesting stuff. I don’t really use much stealth on my thief, so I figured it would make sense to give him gear that looks like it would actually offer some protection. This is about as “heavy” as medium armor gets, with a lot of metal plates instead of leather and a full facemask instead of a lame bandanna.

Here’s the main problem…

This is how she moves:

Hold the up arrow key
stop
tap the left arrow key a few times to change direction
stop
hold the up arrow key
stop
tap the up arrow key a few times until she’s right next to the NPC or body she’s trying to loot
stop
take right hand off of arrow keys and use it to click on body
hold up arrow key
etc.

I guess we just have to keep trying, but in the mean time I’ll try getting her to customize the controls for herself. The difficulty in that is that she wants to go out and do stuff, not waste time on menus or learning what things do. I still haven’t been able to get her to stop and read skill descriptions :O

Also, she doesn’t like the camera because, since she isn’t familiar with it yet, it gets caught behind tree branches and hills, and she has to keep adjusting it as she moves. I think she was expecting something more similar to the fixed behind-the-shoulder views of a Zelda game or something like that.

I’m a very, very experienced player. I’ve played video games since I was around 4, and now I’m 24. I played GW1 from July 2005 until GW2 came out, and GW2 since the beta weekends. But this thread isn’t about me. It’s about my wife :O

My wife expressed interest in trying out GW2 recently, and yesterday she made herself a blue, agave-looking sylvari ranger. that was all well and good. Then the prologue instance started, and she had no idea what to do. I tried explaining the controls, but she was obsessed with killing things and getting out of there. After the prologue, I explained a few things, and she started to enjoy killing spiders with her throwing axe and summoned hawks. But she’s having trouble figuring out how to control her character in a way that’s comfortable to her. I changed my setup a bit so the left and right arrow keys turn instead of strafing, and that’s helped her a bit, but she keeps using both hands on the arrow keys and is obsessed with tapping the keys until she’s right where she needs to be. Also, she doesn’t like using the mouse to move the camera. Can anyone recommend a control scheme that might be easier for her to use, or a good way for her to get used to using the mouse and keyboard at the same time? It’s been so long since I started gaming that I really can’t offer much useful advice to her—it’s like second nature to me, but she’s never touched a game before (other than Angry Birds).

On the plus side, she got really excited at some points and wants to keep trying. She likes her character and the way everything looks and feels. I’ll never forget my normally cute and perky wife viciously screaming “die you [expletive]!” at the spiders in the cave in Caledon Forest :p

EDIT: I use arrow keys and the mouse personally, but she’s a blank slate. Recommend anything you might think of.