That’s the nice thing about Guild Wars 2. It will be waiting for you at no extra charge once you are no longer burnt out on it.
It’s hard to coordinate. It requires 3 groups of 40-50 players who have to act mostly in unison.
Having said that, on European servers a few guilds organize a weekly Triple Trouble event with good turnouts and decent success.
So it could just be the server you play on.
I would second a vendor where you can spend excess Bloodstone Dust, Dragonite Ore and Empyrial Fragments, because excess supplies cannot be sold for coin.
Okay, there are a few Bloodstone Dust sinks already (Mawdrey and a few crafting recipes for a consumable item come to mind), but we need more outlets, especially for the other two.
Even if it’s just for generic random loot.
But I also would not be averse to being able to buy 1 Obsidian Shard for 100 Dust/Ore/Fragments.
(edited by Jornophelanthas.1475)
@kta:
You are not being helpful. A returning player wants to know what changed in the game. He/she is not asking for your vitriol or your shameless self-promotion. If you don’t like recent developments, that’s fine. But your opinions are off-topic to this discussion.No, what I said is not off-topic. The OP asked about changes to the game, and I’m saying the truth. I’ve played this game for 12 months straight because of my guild’s attendance requirements. Gw2 is still the same game in terms of content and gameplay with changes that decimated the community.
Well, I did forget to mention that we have a new map called Dry Top that makes use of the Zephyrite crystals, Scarlet died back in April, and all 4 LS episodes will cost $2.50 each to unlock since this player missed the free unlock period when the episodes were initially released.
I would love to say great things about the game, but I’ve got to be honest here.
The OP’s question is about changes to the game in the past nine months. It is not about everyone else’s opinions about these changes. Not even mine.
Please do not present your opinions to the OP as if he/she is unable to make up his/her own mind. Pressuring strangers with your opinions about the game is not a good way to find support for your cause.
The Master of Peace’s voice has already been recast since the first Bazaar of the Four Winds. I find the new voice to be a far better choice; previously, he sounded exactly like many snooty male asura NPCs.
(Even the announcer lines in Sanctum Sprint have been revoiced by the new actor.)
@kta:
You are not being helpful. A returning player wants to know what changed in the game. He/she is not asking for your vitriol or your shameless self-promotion. If you don’t like recent developments, that’s fine. But your opinions are off-topic to this discussion.
There was a feature update in April that presented major changes to item transmutation, traits and dyes (among other things).
Living Story Season 2 has started and is currently in mid-season break. Chapters you missed can be unlocked for a small gems fee. The content is repeatable and somewhat akin to Guild Wars 1 missions.
In one week, another feature update will be introduced. Various preview articles have recently been posted on www.guildwars2.com.
You can read up on it on everything on wiki.guildwars2.com (see “Updates” on the main page for a complete history of game updates over the past months). Especially the April feature update is worth checking the update notes on.
I tend to get snarky when people start looking down on others with different playstyles. I am specifically referring to Harper’s quote, which apparently tries to gather support for a “gated community” where “Really experienced players” (another quote) do not have to encounter “newer players” anymore.
I am pretty sure this is against any game developer’s philosophy.
Really experienced players find themselves hanging out in the same areas as newer players because there’s nowhere you can go and apply your experience in order to earn more rewards/better rewards/more unique rewards.
Oh, how terrible! You have to see n00bs! The smell must be unbearable!
Seriously, this thread can be summed up as “I want preferential treatment for my playstyle, and who do ArenaNet think they are by catering to people with other interests?”
The sad thing is that this elite cadre of “Really Cool Veteran Players” is not united in their opinions on everything. It is just rhetoric; if you say that many people will agree with you (regardless of whether they actually do), you sound more important.
Developer response (in a different thread):
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Game-Updates-Traits/page/41#post4358626
The wallet currently holds 16 currencies. There have also been a number of temporary event currencies, as well as things like Pristine Fractal Relics, Black Lion Ticket Scraps and Skill Points.
How many more currencies can be added without a new player becoming confused by the sheer multitude of currencies, and no knowledge of what can be bought with which currency?
I second the vote against more currencies.
The wallet would become totally unmanageable if 20-30 new currencies would be added, one for each explorable zone already in the game.
Yes, it is technically feasible, but it would not be very user-friendly.
That combined with the fact that I’m not going to pay more than what it used to cost to unlock a whole tier for a single trait, and I’m faced with doing HotW with a grand total of two traits unlocked. Does that sound enjoyable to you?
You control this choice. Do not pretend someone else forced you into this position.
After all, coin and skill points are just play money.
Anet forced me into this position when they changed a perfectly fine system into this wreck that you’ve obviously never even attempted.
When the Tradepost price for Linen or Silk quintuples as a result of the addition of ascended armorcrafting, did you refuse to pay the new market price, insisting on the older, cheaper price that nobody is willing to accept any more?
When Unidentified Dyes stopped dropping from plant nodes, and the laurel price at the laurel vendor went up with the April feature update, did you refuse to spend the higher laurel price on Unidentified Dyes, claiming that if you could harvest them for free before, you will not be paying anything for it?
Manasa Devi does have a point, that a number of the trait unlocking accomplishments are quite taxing, especially if you need to do it again for each and every character that wants the corresponding trait. In this respect, I second the earlier poster’s hope that ArenaNet may adjust or rebalance what tasks are exactly required for trait unlocks.
For example, what if the first three adept traits would be unlocked for free, so that all three trait slots in that line can at least be used as soon as they become available?
I think they’re retrenching on underwater. They realize it has issues, so they made it less important where they could, but don’t have time to improve it at the moment. I fully expect at some point though they’ll have a significant underwater patch, attempting to balance the power sets fully, while at the same time delivering a large amount of content that requires it. That isn’t likely to be this patch though.
I second this opinion.
ArenaNet appears to have stopped adding new underwater content, and has actively removed underwater combat from PvP, but the PvE underwater content that is in the game will not be removed. (In fact, removing that would require more work than overhauling underwater combat.)
That combined with the fact that I’m not going to pay more than what it used to cost to unlock a whole tier for a single trait, and I’m faced with doing HotW with a grand total of two traits unlocked. Does that sound enjoyable to you?
You control this choice. Do not pretend someone else forced you into this position.
After all, coin and skill points are just play money.
Unless you like world completion and world bosses. I mean, it is not all that hard to try to actively unlock all traits, just time consuming.
around next year, with games like everquest next, black desert and skyforge i see little to no reason to keep playing this game
Right, and if Aivirth quits, the game is doomed.
You can read what traits do before you unlock them.
Some will be utterly uninteresting. Skip those (unless doing the world exploration thing sounds fun to you).
Some will be interesting enough to try out. Buy those (unless doing the world exploration thing sounds feasible to you) and see if they work for you.
Once you have a complete set of workable traits unlocked for your build, keep those.
Consider slowly expanding your trait kitten nal, either through buying more unlocks, or through doing the world exploration things (if those seem fun to you at that time). Experiment with your newly unlocked traits to see if they could replace one of your older ones.
If you wish to change your build, you can work towards that by first unlocking the relevant traits (in the manner you choose), and then changing your build when you have them all. This is not all that different from collecting or buying the crafting materials you need for a new set of exotic armor with different stats.
Do NOT look at unlocking all 65 traits as something you NEED to do before you can even start enjoying your character. That is simply a mistake.
Some people do this as a sort of “insurance” against disconnects.
If they lose their connection or their game crashes, and they log back in, they will be returned to the same instance of Queensdale that has their party members.
If they don’t enter a party, they have a slightly smaller chance to be returned to the same instance.
@Blude:
This is not about game updates, but about news updates on the Guildwars2.com website.
ArenaNet is aware of this situation, as shown by recent developer posts (earlier this week). I’m not sure if they already have a solution, or will be introducing one soon.
@dekou:
I believe that ArenaNet has consciously decided to tone down the number of new zones to be added to the game. Possible reasons?
1. They want players to keep populating existing zones, to prevent “dead areas” in the game as much as possible. This is good for the game’s longevity.(Guild missions, Scarlet invasions and especially Ascended crafting with its tier 2-4 material requirements all achieved this.)
2. Southsun Cove was not received well. Players complained about the empty feel of the place, the lack of interesting events and the annoying monsters. This resulted in a redesign of the area.
3. During the first year of the game, much of the available game design resources was spent on creating repeatable festival content, to serve the game for years to come. Examples include The Mad King’s Realm, Toymaker Tixx’s Airship, Labyrinthine Cliffs, and the Crown Pavillion. Oh wait, those were all new zones, weren’t they?
4. As part of improving the game world – or at least in order to reflect continuous change – (parts of) existing zones were changed or added to. These include Deirdre’s Steps in Mount Maelstrom, the Bloody Prince’s tomb in the Black Citadel, the Marionnette’s Landing in Lornar’s Pass, the 2nd Aetherblade Base in Gendarran Fields, the Twilight Aetherpath, and all of Lion’s Arch.
5. You are overstating your case. Look closely at Guild Wars: Factions. Cantha contains a significantly smaller playable area than the Guild Wars: Prophecies part of Tyria. Prophecies had 54 vanquishable areas and 25 missions, while Cantha had 33 vanquishable areas and 13 missions.
Elona (Guild Wars: Nightfall) was larger than Cantha, but smaller than Tyria. Eye of the North added the fewest number of zones. I’m not counting the dungeons, because those actually shared and reused significant sections of dungeon maps.
@Lasur Arkinshade:
In this respect, both the “new skins” part and the “pay money” part of a “traditional” expansion are already in the game. This strengthens my point that Living World Season 1 is mostly comparable to an expansion.
Also, do not discount the various cosmetic skins (mostly back items) that have been the rewards for completing a Living Story chapter in season 1.
(edited by Jornophelanthas.1475)
There is an NPC to talk to at the start. They give you the armor you dreamed off.
There is a green star that marks this NPC, both on your minimap and above its head. The top-right of your screen tells you to talk to this NPC to claim your belongings.
It’s only cosmetic, by the way. You start out in a naked “costume” to represent that your character has just been born from the Pale Tree. In game mechanics, your equipment is actually already on your character. Pressing ’ (or the button with the bendy arrow next to your left-most weapon skill) should undo the transformation.
You still need to talk to the NPC to progress your Personal Story.
(edited by Jornophelanthas.1475)
I was hoping this would be a post about the gold-to-gem/gem-to-gold differences. not that I’m mad, I kinda understand the idea behind it, but buying one hundred gems for an average of 13g and then selling your gems for an average of 9g seems a tad lame to me.
am I missing something? can someone please explain how gems work again so I can understand this better?
The conversion rate gold→gems is less favourable than the conversion rate gems→gold. As you noted, this difference is rather steep.
There could be many reasons for this. I can think of a few possible ones:
- It serves to discourage people to buy gems with gold, and encourage them to spend real money if they want gems.
- It prevents people gambling on fluctuations in the gems<→gold conversion rates, which could be unwanted to preserve the integrity of the value of both currencies. (Especially gems, because these represent a real-money value that should remain relatively stable.)
Just because the prices of items are counterintuitive, this does not mean the economy does not function.
Point of fact is that “copper ingots”, “silver ingots” and “gold ingots” cannot be used to craft coins in the game, even though this would work in the real world.
This is not a failure of the in-game economy. The failure is in verisimilitude between the game world and the real world.
Quote from the very first post in this thread (emphasis mine):
I think that what everyone is Really looking for is either an Expansion or/ and some actual end game content like Rides, bosses etc for veteran – non pvp – players to do.
So yes, the OP is indeed claiming to speak for “everyone”. The addition of “I think” does not change that fact.
It could be that Lionguard Auda is stuck in combat, because her position is in the path of many roaming monsters. Try killing all enemies around her, and see if she will become responsive.
The maps in guild wars 2 do feel a bit bigger than their counterparts in gw1, But we are still missing so many areas that were in gw1. Rest of maguuma, Rest of eotn areas, Crystal desert, Ring of fire isles, All of Cantha, All of elona. How was the gw1 dev team able to pump out new maps/content so fast? The gw2 dev team is bigger so you would think they could bring out maps/content much faster than the gw1 team, I would love to know what they do in the office all day.
Bear in mind the following:
1. Guild Wars 1 maps did not have dynamic events. Go ahead and walk around one of the Guild Wars 2 maps and try to count how many dynamic events can take place inside it. Each and every one of those needs extensive testing along every step to avoid bugs and stalling. Also, many dynamic events interact with one another.
2. Dynamic events scale up or down based on the number of players in the vicinity. This needs to be balanced out manually for every dynamic event.
3. Some dynamic events actually change the monster spawns or the terrain in the map. Guild Wars 1 did not have this (because monsters did not respawn, the terrain is mostly immutable (except missions), and there was never more than one party of up to eight players in a map (or 12 in certain elite missions).
4. Every part of every non-80 map has a level cap. Players are automatically leveled up or down depending on their exact location in the map. These lines have to be drawn in a spider web across the map.
5. Guild Wars 1 did not have a Z-axis. All maps are strictly two-dimensional (with bridges being the only exception, but bridges caused all kinds of AI pathing issues). Guild Wars 2 does have a Z-axis and does have rules for falling.
6. Guild Wars 2 was in development for over 5 years. While not all of that time could have been devoted to mapbuilding, I personally believe that for at least half that time, many more people were working on building maps than are currently available at ArenaNet to develop new content (which is not just maps).
Finally, there are certain design reasons why ArenaNet may be reluctant to add many new maps.
1. Player dispersion should not be too high, because having low population maps (“dead maps”) discourages players from ever visiting them again.
2. Player response to the first new map added after launch (Southsun Cove) was distinctly negative. The zone has been significantly redesigned 6 months later, but it will never be a crowd favorite. Dry Top is faring significantly better so far.
(Note that Southsun Cove and Dry Top feature dynamic events that are a lot simpler than those in the rest of Tyria. They hardly chain or interact. The sandstorms and the settlement invasions are the only interactions we have.)
Having said this, we do have distinct clues that more new Maguuma Wastes zones are under development. In fact, I believe that not having a new SAB installment is mostly due to ArenaNet needing their staff to develop actual game maps, rather than new SAB levels.
Honestly, it sounds like your client could be corrupted, causing your game to crash when a certain unique graphic or sound is supposed to play on the death of the Karka Queen. (Such as the rendering of the reward chest.)
The solution in this case would be recompiling/repairing your data files. This can be done easily. Open a command prompt, and launch the game with the command:
“GW2.exe -repair”
This may take a while!
Anyway, I would suggest posting this in the “tech support” subsection of the forum first, and see if people can give you more or better suggestions.
(edited by Jornophelanthas.1475)
@Tanef:
You say that “everyone” wants endgame content.
However, you are not “everyone”, and what you want is not what “everyone” wants.
Guild Wars 2 was designed such that you can play all aspects of the game as early as possible. Attaining maximum level is not some kind of “entry pass” for the “really cool stuff”. No, all the cool stuff was already available to you, and you can keep doing that. Instead, you could go for stretch goals (such as world completion, ascended and legendary gear, PvP achievements, new cosmetic skins).
On top of that, ArenaNet continuously develops and adds to the game world. so that more things to do keep springing up. The Living World Season 2 is a good example.
However, if you want a game where the “fun parts” are only available to those players who have slogged through all the rest of the game (let’s call these the “unfun parts”), then Guild Wars 2 is not for you. Because Guild Wars 2 is not designed to have “unfun parts”.
If all you want out of this game is the rewards, and not the effort that it takes to earn the rewards, then I am afraid I have no suggestions.
One last suggestion:
It was announced yesterday that the feature patch in September will change the loot tables from enemeis to increase the chance that they will drop equipment that can be used by your character.
So if you want to increase the chance of getting cloth drops, you should probably be playing a necromancer, mesmer or elementalist after the patch.
(Even if you are level 80, there is still a chance the level range of the item drops will be in the range of the zone where you are playing.)
In my experience, grawl have a relatively good chance to drop cloth items. You could consider finding a group of grawl in an area of a suitable level for the type of cloth you need, and farming them.
The difference between one big content expansion and gradual updates that each add small bites of content is psychological.
Once the Living Story 2 is completed, I fully expect it to contain everything a traditional “game expansion pack” would contain, i.e. a number of new zones, a new dungeon and world boss (or two), a complete story, and a revamp of some existing content (like Lion’s Arch). Maybe not new races or professions, but it’s not off the table either.
Living Story 1 (up to and including the April Feature Pack) tried to be everything a traditional expansion would be, but failed on a few counts (mostly due to lack of replayability and too much temporary content). However, they did state that they learned from that, and would focus more on permanent content – which they are doing in season 2.
Still, Living Story 1 did contain a few new dungeon instances (that were added to Fractals), revamped open world content (Tequatl, Southsun Cove), a new zone in Edge of the Mists, an expansion of 6 out of the 8 crafting disciplines, and a handful of minigames. Add to this 9 new (healing) skills and 40 new (grandmaster) traits and various new stat combos on equipment, as well as the wardrobe functionality.
When you try to list everything that was added to the game during Living Story 1 (as I’ve demonstrated), you will see that it is actually more-or-less on par with a traditional expansion. This is less visible when it only trickles into a game in small pieces every two weeks, however.
This is a psychological difference, not an actual difference.
Oh wait, there is an actual difference. Traditional expansions cost money to buy.
Wasn’t it confirmed somewhere in living story 1 that they are brother and sister? Same mother but different fathers.
If it is, I would love to see a link.
From the very start, I have had a nagging suspicion that Rytlock’s interest in Rox was more than him seeing some vague promise in her.
My theory is that Rytlock and Rox are father and daughter (but that Rox might not be aware of it). I can only offer some minor circumstantial evidence for this theory, though:
1. The aforementioned matter of why Rytlock would even give Rox half the opportunities he gives her.
2. In The Dragon’s Reach Part 1, Rytlock is surprisingly mild towards Rox’ insubordination. Sure, he rubs her nose in it, but there are no consequences for her. Not even a “we’ll talk about this later”-threat.
What clinches it for me, however, is one other thing in the “Cleansing the Foefire” instance. When Rox spits on the ground for luck right before the final fight starts, Rytlock very uncharacteristically chuckles and comments that she already used to do that as a cub. Not only does this show that Rox has endeared herself to him, but also that Rytlock has known her (or at least observed her) since her cubhood.
Now why would one of the most battle-hardened and embittered charr officers have a soft spot for a young cub in a fahrar, whom he has apparently continued to keep an eye on for most of her life?
In fact, why would a Blood Legion Tribune and mighty dragonslaying hero even be considering a young, inexperienced gladium for membership in his very prestigious warband? Especially if the gladium’s only achievement at the time consisted of surviving a mining accident through sheer luck?
I believe because he is her father.
I also believe that Rox does not know it. Not only is she terrified of Rytlock’s wrath, and believes him capable of killing her on the spot for insubordination (which is legal for charr, apparently) – while a blood relation would warrant her to expect at least the slack he apparently gives her. Rox also does not mention her own parentage with Braham on any of the many occasions when he moans about Eir, while it would potentially be something they could bond over.
The same question is answered in this other thread:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/livingworld/s2/Pile-of-Phantasmal-Residue-missing/
I second LanfearShadowflame’s suggestion. And I would like to remark that things like Bottles of Elonian Wine and Mystic Clovers should then also be collectible.
(besides cooking which doesn’t really count)
Cooking does count!
You only want to play the game.
Living Story is part of the game.
Therefore, you want to play Living Story.
Your logic is unsound.
It is for flavor. This is an online roleplaying game. Tyria is a fantasy world with its own flavor, physics and stories.
Would you like it if instead of any actual dialogue, story NPCs would just say: "Your next goal is to kill X. Your next goal is to move to location Y. Click the “REWARD” button to receive your reward."?
How would you like it if swords were no longer called swords, but just “weapon 1”, and shortbows were “weapon 23”, hammers were “weapon 45”?
How would you like it if humans were just called “race 0”, norn were called “race 1”, charr were called, “race 2”, etc.
How would you like it if you discover cooking recipes (wait, I mean “craft 8 recipes”) by combining 1x Ingredient 62, 1x Ingredient 37 and 2x Ingredient 07?
How would you like it if items had no inventory icons at all?
I would have no fun if the game world’s veneer got removed and all I had left was a dull, faceless database to move around in.
Trahearne back in the story? “This won’t end well.”
And by “many many years”, you mean “one and a half years”, right?
I don’t think it was there to “placate the whiners”. Most likely, the voice recording for the current Living Story releases have been done well in advance.
(It’s far cheaper to get voice actors in the recording studio for one full day per 2-3 months, than to get them in the recording studio for 2-3 hours every 2 weeks. Especially if you also need to rent the recording studio.)
Personally, I believe the “assistant” dialogues were written to illustrate how much the asura are intellectual snobs, and how Councillor Phlunt is even worse than that. Taimi obviously calls us her “assistant” because that is the only reason Councillor Phlunt can imagine why she would ever need a bookah for her experiment. (Other than as a test subject, of course.)
(edited by Jornophelanthas.1475)
Besides, it is mentioned that Omadd’s device is now different from what it was when Scarlet first entered it.
Also, the player character (sylvari or not) did not already hear voices in their head before they entered the machine. Ceara did.
It was in the patch notes.
What could be happening in these kinds of kicks is that the players who join your party do not know who was the one who created the party, and they were unaware that they were kicking the one who (through the LFG tool) asked for their help.
They probably don’t even know that the LFG inviter is the one whose profession icon is the leftmost one in the LFG Tool window.
Of course, they’re still snobs for kicking another player based on profession choice alone. But they’re probably not as callous that they consciously kick the party founder.
I can offer only a general tip to let people know you claim “party seniority” over them (in a friendly and polite way), and that is to not greet them with a “Hello”, but with a “Welcome”, or better yet: “Welcome all”. This lets them know that you were there before they were, and subconsciously encourages them to behave like guests and to treat you as their host.
The above answer is correct. However, if you complete a reward level higher than your own level, your level will go up by 1. That means that you will be closer to getting level 20 rewards the next time you do a level 20 freactal.
The OP asked why people why so many responses are so toxic.
The answer is that many of the people who read this forum never thought the game was bad in the first place, or at least not in all the many ways mentioned by the OP.
It is like going to a meeting for a political party or a religious service, and asking: “So guys, can I join now, or are you guys still wrong?”
My answer to the OP is:
Try the game out, and draw your own conclusions.
(And stop blindly assuming that everyone agrees with every single one of your opinions.)