Guild Wars 2

Linken.6345:

Kaiden Valor.7163:

Just to add on to what the others have said and to directly answer your first question:

You’ll still be able to play anything currently in the game. You will also be able to play on the new WvWvW borderland map without HoT, same with any additions specific to PvP such as the new game mode.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sG5oUKqbIVM

check this video. from 11:00-12:15
You will be able to access those maps but not use all of the features.

Right but it sounds like those features are ones that branch off from other features, such as the new Guild stuff. The new game mode itself & the map will be fully playable for those that don’t own HoT.

It’s also possible their plans changed since then (given that was an early interview)as I don’t think they’ve made any mention of that in the more recent reveals? Maybe I just missed it?

The pre-purchase page includes requirements for the mac beta BUT that might be because HoT has the base game packaged in.

As far as I know there’s been no official response from Anet about it beyond Gaile saying she would ask the team.

Just to add on to what the others have said and to directly answer your first question:

You’ll still be able to play anything currently in the game. You will also be able to play on the new WvWvW borderland map without HoT, same with any additions specific to PvP such as the new game mode.

Oh, in that case I’ve not found it.

Assuming it is midnight ingame time you could use this page (http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Day_and_night) to calculate roughly when midnight should be as it shows when night starts and ends and updates for each day-night cycle.

That’s the only Skritt meeting I have encountered, but when I was stood nearby I heard them have that dialogue several times. So if that is the secret meeting then maybe they appear at midnight and just repeat their dialogue a few times?

Emergencee.8259:

I prepurchased standard. There’s an additional slot on my startup screen labeled “BETA.” You can’t currently touch it for the moment except, presumably, for beta events. But it’s definitely there.

That is your Beta slot that is independent from any additional character slots you’ll be granted.

For example, if you pre-purchase the deluxe edition you will get that slot PLUS a normal character slot.

The veteran bonus slot will get added at some point, but you don’t get it right now.

Shockstar.6290:

Ok thanks for the replies. Silly question: how does the living story work? Ive read a little about it but still confused, is it an extension of the personal story that im supposed to do after completing story, or is it an activity that can be done at anytime. Like i said i plan on starting fresh with a new proffesion and really want the know the order in which they do things kitten much has changed/been added

Season 1 is currently unavailable. It was originally released as temporary content, though they are investigating ways to bring it back.

Season 2 is designed for level 80 characters (I believe?) and you need to buy it from the gem store if you weren’t around for the initial release- each episode was free for two weeks after release. You can play it without ever having finished the personal story, however I think there are references and continuations of lore elements that might get spoiler’d should you choose to skip to Season 2… However with Season 1 currently missing you will find some plot threads confusing, because it sort of relies on you knowing the story from Season 1.

EDIT: Just to clarify, chronologically the Living World storylines occur after the Personal Story.

EDIT AGAIN BECAUSE OF TYPOS!

They have said there will be. Speculation is that they’ll get Glint as a legend for their elite spec, but chances are they’ll leave this elite spec reveal until after all the others are done.

Kal Spiro.9745:

I also love that NPCs are actually using waypoints. I’ve never seen that before, and have often wondered about it.

They’ve done this a couple of times before, I remember during the three headed wurm update they had Rytlock leading a warband around the zone using waypoints (they’d walk to one, then teleport to another from it).

I always think it’s pretty cool to see though.

Well people had to find them all and kill them all for there to be a guide on Dulfy.

Given Gaile made this post I think the intent was for this to be a collaborative event for the community, find them all and share it with each other.

Zyme.1492:

Kaiden Valor.7163:

I’m guessing you didn’t buy from the official store? If you did you can get a full refund on the base game if you pre-purchase the expansion.

You mean I should erase 6 months of work on my main account?

Nothx. Then I rather quit the game.

Not true. They clearly said all progress remains if you upgrade and take advantage of the offer.

For all players who purchased the Guild Wars 2 core game from our website and registered it between January 23, 2015 and June 16, 2015 in anticipation of Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns, we will automatically refund what you paid for the core game should you decide to pre-purchase Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns from our website or in-game store any time through July 31, 2015. If you take advantage of this refund and pre-purchase Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns, all of your current account progress will be kept intact.

I’m guessing you didn’t buy from the official store? If you did you can get a full refund on the base game if you pre-purchase the expansion.

Edit: Or just a full refund and account closure if you want to stop all together.

You can upgrade from Standard to Deluxe at a reduced price. You cannot upgrade to Ultimate, you must pay full price for that one.

As far as I know there are no dates yet.

Their latest blog post suggest you can pre-purchase all the way up until release date, which again we don’t have yet.

Hulkmaster.1724:

but it seems Anet have some dignitiy about those things )

They’ve only offered the free character slot & game refunds because they had unintentionally mislead people to believe that HoT would require a separate GW2 purchase as opposed to be packaged with it. They did not do the same thing with character slots, up until the pre-purchase started we had no info to suggest if we would or wouldn’t be getting one.

I feel for you, because I’ve made similar mistakes in the past (which is why I don’t now), but as I said you took the risk without all the information. The lesson for next time is wait and see before buying something you don’t need.

They have a policy of not dealing with support issues like this on the forum so it’s unlikely you’ll get any official response here.

I guess as Entenkommando said, just use it to experiment with the new specs and stuff.

If they won’t refund or give back the gems then there’s nothing you can do. It’s never a good feeling when this happens, but you did take the risk in buying the character slot before knowing if HoT would come with one.

You probably won’t get an answer on the forum, but hopefully they’ll at least see this thread.

I’d love either a downloadable or CD soundtrack for the expansion.

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

We were supposed to have guild halls with the original game. GW1 also had guildhalls, so why would GW2 be different? The game is literally called Guild-Wars. And the emotes are also clearly missing. Just type existing emotes from GW1, and you’ll notice that they are recognized. So that’s missing content that was supposed to be in the original game.

None of this was promised. They’ve said they wanted Guild Halls from a very early point, but they were never promised.

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

It’s also quite obvious that a lot of explorable areas are missing in GW2. Rata Sum for example, is completely isolated from all the other explorables. And there’s even a gate towards the south in Ebonhawk. The portal to Drytop was visible since the release of GW2, and only recently this zone was added with the Living Story. These are all signs of scrapped content. GW2 was clearly meant to have a lot more landmass, than it ended up having. GW1 had these areas, so why are they missing? And are there no elite endgame areas, such as the Underworld, or Fissure of Woe? Will these be expansions too? Because GW1 shipped with them, and we’re paying full price here.

Content gets scrapped for games all the time, GW2 is not unique in this. There comes a point in development where you have to say “ok, this is enough to ship with the game” otherwise it could go on forever. It’s generally agreed that GW2 felt rushed out the door at launch (the Zhaitan fight for example)… But ultimately there was no promise of any of this stuff.

I can understand people being upset over the FAQ being changed literally as they released pre-purchase because that was a really bad thing for them to do, it mislead a lot of people. I can understand people being upset about the base game being included for new players whilst we have to pay extra for a new character slot… But there was no promise or confirmation that these things would ever be in GW2, so your claim that they promise stuff, don’t deliver and then sell it to you in an expansion is just plain wrong.

The GW2 pre-orders specified a headstart whereas the HoT pre-purchase makes no mention of it so I’m guessing there isn’t one currently planned.

Phos.2341:

why for the upcoming expanaion do we have to buy, appart from expansion, the original game which i have bought before? sorry but seems nonsense. Please tell me if it is an error, a bundle price, pre-acces….

$50 is the price of the expansion and all you’re paying for:

Regina Buenaobra.6193:

To clarify: $50 is the price of the expansion. We included the core game as a free bonus to make it easier for new players to get into it.

I realise people feel that is up for debate as I’ve seen all the posts around, but that is the official answer. You’re not paying for the base game, you just get it for free if you’re a new player.

Widowmaker Z.4802:

Ultimate here, was going to buy gems when the xpac released, now I don’t have to.

Yea same, I was going to buy some gems anyway this week and then they release the pre-purchase so I just figured might as well get both in one

We’ve seen that new revenant themed armour is in HoT. We also know Elite Specialisations (British, no Z, deal with it) each get one cosmetic item.

I think on top of those it’s a very safe bet to say there will be plenty of new armour in the expansion. It has probably even been said somewhere.

Don’t quote me on this but I think they said anyone can access their guild’s guild hall, but guild leaders/officers will need HoT to create one and do certain things with it.

Well thinking about it. You could use the staff healing to help counteract some of the conditions Mallyx will impose upon you. Or use the healing to help tanky Jalis tank some more. Just as an example for the staff.

People may find they play Ventari legend better at range and thus need to use the hammer.

I agree at first glance they look like they’re designed for specific legends, but I think they’ll work in various mix and match setups.

Donari.5237:

I believe there was even a dev post stating Revs would get the same race-based start as anyone else, so there was no need for us to “call it.”

What does seem wonky here is the bit about Rytlock has already come back and passed on the secrets. He did all that in 10 minutes? Or are we getting a ret-con and somehow that’s all happening “now” without DE and the biconics knowing about it before they leap into the jungle?

Yea, they made it very clear there was no Revenant exclusive story content right from the first Revenant info reveal.

It would be very weird for them to use Ventari as a teaser for challenging content, even if people feel the quote loosely sounds like it might be related.

It’s likely Revenant related as Ventari was datamined as a legend and the quote seems to suggest Ventari.

I always like reading the theory crafting on the forums but I think the whole bloodstone foods thing was fan service.

There were running jokes for a while that if cooking got raised to 500 it could use bloodstone dust, which sparked conversations about how horrible the food would be, possible side effects, etc. I’m pretty sure the living word scene was an easter egg referencing this (plus anet’s way of saying it ain’t happening). The Wintersday quest was just a continuation of the joke.

As far as I know they haven’t said when they’ll resume the Elite Specialization reveals. Personally I’m hoping for next week.

There’s also 6 more to go, not 5, as the Revenant will have an Elite Specialzation too (plus we’re still waiting for the rest of the Revenant to be revealed).

lordkrall.7241:

She NEVER said special.
The exact statement she made was: “Next week we have something extra cool to reveal”.

People always complain about ArenaNet hyping up stuff, but they always use statements that ArenaNet themselves have never actually used to described the upcoming things.
In 99,9% of the cases it is people on the forums and on reddit that overhype stuff and then they blame ArenaNet for it.

Indeed!

And I think when you look at what they’ve announced this week it would meet the description she gave:

1. Lion’s Arch news + community vote on naming areas.
2. WvWvW update details.
3. Dragonhunter demo in Ready Up using builds theorycrafted by the players (https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/this-week-on-the-ready-up-livestream-wvw-automatic-upgrades-and-dragonhunter-pvp-demo/)

If nothing else that last one is cool and they’ve said they’ll be doing it in future Ready Ups so I’d imagine they’ll cover the other elite specs.

It’s just going to be a stream of them playing Dragon Hunter and discussing it.

I saw no mention of the word beta…

Edit: Just so no one gets confused. I wasn’t the OP, the OP deleted their post.

Trinn.6592:

WoodenPotatoes on YouTube said in one of his beta playthroughs of HoT has your character fully voice-acted and being a boss at it too, giving commands and orders, and having everyone deferring to you, the Commander of The Pact.

During the stress test the story instance definitely had new voiced dialogue for the player character. I’d assume they got them all back in to voice the new skills, story instances and any other little bits.

Seyta Hamon.8071:

Also screen shots of Revenant skill bars show the quick-slot arrows above the utility skills showing that the skills are not completely locked to the channeled spirit.

During the stress test & demos all this did was let you re-arrange the skills.

If every legend gets 5 skills unique to them, that’s 25 utility/healing/elite skills for the profession which is roughly what the other professions get (although not as even spread). I suspect that the quick slot icons will stay as being just for moving the skills around & each legend will get a set skillbar.

Loex.5104:

Ben K.6238:

Because it’s not consistent with the rest of the environments in GW2. If the whole GW2 world ran with a surreal theme, it wouldn’t seem so out of place. Right now, though, you’ll be stepping out of the Silverwastes, which looks like a fairly reasonable network of arid canyons, into a place that looks like it has no ground. It doesn’t seem to fit.

it was told that the void area is for the demo … there is something beneath so dont Panic … and obviously you never did the SW jumping puzzle?? it is VERY deep below the surface of SW so the Demo-Map perfectly fits into that theme – SW is not just the canyons

From what little we’ve seen so far the initial part of Verdant Brink seems to be working on the idea that you come in fairly high up on the map, so the sudden drops I would assume are there to reinforce the idea that you’re on a cliff edge.

Based on Anets description of the three levels, I would say this is the canopy level with pact ship wreckage and such. Assuming this map has the three levels.

Just a flesh wound.3589:

I wonder what those new icons are. There is a yellow and white squarish icon with a gray stick like object on the right side and there is something that looks like a building and has a lock on it. Both of these icons are near the Itzel grounds waypoint.

Edit: one of them may be on icon for an Adventure event location.

During the stress test:
The dome building icon was for outposts which as we know are what events will generally revolve around. It seemed like these can be lost if events are ignored.
The ‘man with spear and yellow cape’ icon was for adventures
The ‘sun with white circle’ was mastery points.

Tachenon.5270:

Anet made a bunch of cardboard cutouts of eligible players, then stood them up in a field, and then Colin carried a big triangle with an eye on it around the field and whichever cardboard cutouts fell over a certain way as he passed by determined which players were ‘Chosen’.

:/

Does that mean when we get to the beta we’re actually going to be sacrificed?

Mafetix.9857:

Kaiden Valor.7163:

There are two tests scheduled for Tuesday. One is at an EU friendly time (7pm to 9pm GMT) and the second is at an NA friendly time (12am to 2am GMT).

Ah thanks, an EU-resident guildmate told me the NA friendly time because that’s what was in her email so I didn’t know about the other one. She plays on US servers despite living in EU timezones though, so that might explain why she was given that time instead of the EU friendly one. Luckily it works for her (…though, being in the same boat, it doesn’t bode well for me if this was the reason).

Not sure, I play on NA servers but live in the UK and my email had both times (although they were in PST so I had to convert them myself).

The stress test is scheduled for Tuesday, March 24 from 12:00 p.m. to 2:00 p.m. Pacific and 5:00 p.m. to 7:00 p.m. Pacific.

That’s what it says, maybe she misread that first time to mean midnight till 2am? A lot of people do confuse 12pm and am.

Mafetix.9857:

EU players got invites too, though midnight-2AM on a work night doesn’t seem to be the ideal time for players in that timezone anyway.

Hopefully there will be some more EU-friendly times later.

There are two tests scheduled for Tuesday. One is at an EU friendly time (7pm to 9pm GMT) and the second is at an NA friendly time (12am to 2am GMT).

Gaile Gray.6029:

Are you sure you’ve gotten an official mail?

According to this post, it clearly says Tuesday:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/BETA/4903072

Buster’s email shows GMT times but the linked one is pacific time, could be the Europe email has the wrong text?

Charr, purely because I’ve grown to like playing as one.

It was definitely said in one of the many presentations/interviews they’ve done that the new weapon unlocks are tied to the specializations, so ranger can’t use a staff. Unfortunately I can’t remember which (probably the original announcement).

thefinnster.7105:

I’m bringing this topic up coz lately i have been bored as hell with the patches and the fact that there has been no real content, sorry but reusing an old mini game and sticking decorations up in divinity’s reach dose not pass for content to me

We have had similar downtimes even with the Living World releases, like the large gap between Season 1 and Season 2 or the break half way through Season 2. So this is exactly something new just because of the expansion pack.

I suspect we’ll have a Spring WvWvW tournament like we did last year, possibly they’ll announce it this week and do it next week or it’ll be the start of April but I would imagine it is coming. (But I should stress I am just speculating here).

thefinnster.7105:

but at this time I’m feeling like a regular and free installment of living story was better what do you guys think ?

I think a hybrid model would be the coolest way for them to go about it. Paid expansion packs with free Living World seasons in between to help fill the time & build the story towards the next expansion pack.

But ultimately, if there’s a few months where you’re bored of GW2 then just play something else for those few months and come back when something is happening that you’ll enjoy? There’s no obligation to play GW2 all the time, especially if you’re getting bored during the downtime (which as I established at the start, exists no matter what model they go with).

I don’t think that the Mursaat hid in the Mists. I can’t recall exactly what was said about it, but I’m sure it didn’t involve the Mists.

At any rate, even if they were forced out of hiding I don’t know that they’d show much loyalty to humanity as they cleared viewed humans as being beneath them. I just don’t think, from what we know of them in GW1 and GW2 lore, that they would care for the fate of humanity enough to stick by us and help. The only example we have of them helping humans is during the Charr invasions of Kryta, but I would assume that was to ensure that they got control of Kryta (which they needed so they could find the chosen and prevent their own demise).

Maybe I’m wrong, and I guess we’ll never know either way since history turned out differently for the Mursaat, but they didn’t seem like a caring bunch

Seishiro.7468:

And about the humans: It might actually be a good thing if the Mursaat would still be in command, after all we are talking about one of the few races that actually was there when the dragons awakened last, and while the Jotun lost to much of their history to share this knowledge with us, the Mursaat might actually be usefull if they were in charge.

Aaron Ansari.1604:

At the rate they were sacrificing humans, I don’t think Kryta would have survived to GW2 under the mursaat.

Assuming for a second that Kryta did survive into GW2 under their rule. I’m inclined to believe they would have just abandoned humanity to the dragons and hid from the dragons, it worked so well for them the last time that there’s little reason for them not to do it again (unless they’d managed to develop some sort of attack plan in the time between rises).

Can confirm the OPs solution worked for me too

A m b Y.9704:

I wanna know what is the size of the left 1 file????

I closed and re-opened my client when I got onto the final file… Currently the last file is 891mb and rising. The main issue (for me) is the download speed seems to fluctuate massively once it hits this file.

Devs already confirmed they start at level 1.

Edit for source:

Roy Cronacher.1576:

Just like on the current professions, you will start at level 1 when you create a new Revenant character. We want it to be easily accessible for anyone with Heart of Thorns which means not putting it behind unnecessary content gates.

It’s an NPC from the new Stronghold PvP mode. Some of the press event videos showed them spawning.

As you said we can’t know for sure, but I think I would go with your image as the safer guess at this stage. They have already effectively confirmed the new zones will take up less space on the map, but they say the vertical layers & amount of content in the space will make up for it. (Edit: I don’t think they’ve officially said the zones are smaller, but their answers when asked seem to imply it.)

We also still don’t know how many zones we’re getting.

Zone names & levels are always in the dead centre on the map, you can also see a clear line where the top border of the map is and the right border is obvious. From that you can work out a fairly accurate guess as to the size (which is exactly what this person did in the image).

Edit: from the same reddit there’s this http://i.imgur.com/olGfJfu.jpg (I personally think they’ve got the top border a bit too high but it might be a visual thing that’s causing the line I mentioned).