Guild Wars 2

Casual in that you don’t need to grind out gear for weeks or months before you can access content, sure. You can roll a new toon and be playing maxed out fully geared PvP 10 minutes later. Skill is the defining quality, not how much time you’ve invested.

PvE-wise it’s very accessible. You can access all level appropriate content immediately without needing to grind out weeks or months to gain ilvl or gearscore. Again, skill is the defining quality.

You can however spend a lifetime (hardcore) tweaking builds and gearsets or going for the most desirable skins and of course, improving your skills. As UnderdogSMO said, it’s easy to pick up play, difficult to master.

interpol.2397:

I liked the Modern Pirate General song Captain Penzan does.

I could not have been more surprised and delighted than when after chasing the Captain throughout darn near of all Bloodtide Coast he burst into song. Thanks for reminding me

I am the very model of a modern pirate general,
I’ve information magical, mathematical and mineral.
I know the Queens of Kryta and can cite matters historical,
From Bloodstones to the dragon spawn in order categorical.
In fact, I write my washing bills in old Canthan cuneiform.
I’ll tell you every detail sewn on Caudecus’s uniform.
The skills and builds of warfare are essential to my strategy,
You’ll say a better pirate general has never sat-a-gee,
For when you know the habits of the Charr and the Elonians
When you can tell at sight a Kurzick from an Ascalonian,
You’ll know my martial knowledge, quite extensive and still myriad,
Myriad…myriad…myriad…ah!
Has only been updated for the Interregnum period!
But still in matters magical, mathematical, and mineral,
I am the very model of a modern pirate general!

Rally to me Ascalonians!

Not yet, but they posted recently that it’s coming soon and the name change contract is in the database.

Funny bounty story.

So I’ve got a lock on one of our bounty targets and I’m just holding him there waiting on the GO word from our raid leader.

A guild goes running by – about 50-75 people, all heading north.
About 2 minutes later the same herd runs by, all heading south.

I have no idea what they were doing but it cracked me up.

Zinnia Rose.9425:

Karizee.8076:

Since there were only 500 units, I’m sure it’s less about making money and more about expanding their social media.

It was the only flash sale so far I’m aware of, but they did say there would be more.

While I do see your point, I wonder why ANet doesn’t publicise their Twitter based offers more widely, if drawing people in to their social media was the intention?

It seems to be their style. Remember, this entire game was sold from word of mouth and social media, they didn’t spend millions of dollars on Superbowl advertising or anything like that.

As stated in the other thread on the same topic:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/No-GW2-Expansions-or-Sequels-Anytime-Soon/first

Martin Kerstein.3071:

This isn’t actual news, it is something we have mentioned multiple times before. As the original interview says, and I quote:
“Expansions are definitely something that we’ll potentially look at in the future,” he explained. “We don’t have a timetable on it. We’re open to it, but I think our major focus as a studio is making the living world concept as strong as possibly can for the players that we’ve got.”

No one said we will never do an expansion, all Colin says (again) is that we are currently focusing on Living Story and other ongoing to the live game.

You can see that the IGN title was a bit misleading, Colin wanted to focus the interview on what they are currently doing, not talk about an expansion yet.

Vorch.2985:

TheDaiBish.9735:

What about the mini dungeons?

I was gonna say that.

Also try these for a challenge:

• Solo Queen Spider at the beginning of AC (It’s proven possible)
• Solo group events in areas between 1-60 (they highest group event I’ve soloed was level 60; I’m sure there are others who have done better)
• Solo Cave Troll in Queensdale (it’s possible, but there may be other people around)
• Soloing champions in general.

Danielapsama.1672:

I’m looking to things to do by myself. If they had instanced mini dungeons, i would be happy to challenge myself to solo them.

You can solo most of them:

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Mini-dungeon

I don’t think Flame Temple Tombs can be solo-ed due to the flame spouts in the casket room. But quite a few of them can.

Champion Victurius and his Branded Army in Iron Marches might be a good challenge for a solo encounter.

That’s a pretty cool idea.
You might want to put it on the Suggestions forum.

Well we all have opinions, but I’m bored silly with trinity games and quite enjoying the change of pace and challenge offered in this one.

Sitting there pewpewpewing through a rotation while a tank takes damage and healers fill health bars is just zzzzzzzz to me now.

It’s a social event as much as a treasure hunt, it’s fun to chat/dance/play games with your realmies while you wait.

If you want something more challenging, do Grenth or Balthazar.

Zinnia Rose.9425:

Huh, I was completely unaware of this sale until now. Does anyone know if it was advertised at all outside of Twitter? Are these kinds of ‘limited supply’ sales a common occurrence?

The limited stock seems bizarre to me. Surely ANet (which is after all a business and needs to make money) sells far more Salvage Kits etc when they are at a reduced price? Why not do it on a 24 hour timer? We’ve all seen the huge gem spikes that take place when they put a genuinely valuable item on sale (eg: character expansion slots in January). What is the advantage of putting a finite number on sale to an international audience who will not all see the announcement at the same time?

Crash you are totally right that they should have learnt from Lost Shores how much privileging one time zone over another gets people rather wound up!

Would love to hear the rationale behind this one ANet!

Since there were only 500 units, I’m sure it’s less about making money and more about expanding their social media.

It was the only flash sale so far I’m aware of, but they did say there would be more.

Rfreak.6591:

@Karizee.8076

Yes but the problem is some of those are not available in any way in PvE and some others are quite easily missable so… here’s the topic.

There’s just a couple that are Glory vendor or PvP reward only.
I’m ok with that. Those guys earned those.

http://argos-soft.net/GW2ArmorGallery/index.php?sex=0&weight=3&race=2&color=0

This is a good site to find armors, shows acquisition and stats.

There is close to 60k average accounts per server and I think maps are capped at 500 people. Everyone wants to do the events now that the loot is so good. You can:

1) Get there early.
or
2) Seek out the other 20 events that award the upgraded chests.

Supergratz!!

How many tries?

Dulfy has put together a guide, not sure how complete it is.

http://dulfy.net/2013/01/16/gw2-useful-and-fun-consumables-guide/

Orion.7264:

Karizee.8076:

Orion.7264:

Easy solution:

World bosses spawn at the same times across ALL servers, including overflows.

Problem solved, now no one misses out due to overflows, everyone gets boss, yadda yadda yadda. And before someone misunderstands and says “What about EU players or players in different time zones?” Bosses spawn ever X hours or so, so regardless of your time zone you will still have an opportunity.

So many stupid things in this game have such simple solutions…

Such a system would not work within the living breathing world of Tyria due to dynamic event chains.

Any event in a chain can take a different amount of time due to the skill and participation of players. Events can fail, causing other event chains to start which must be completed before the event cycles in again.

It sounds like you want instanced content, not a dynamic world.

Not even. Sure, it can take different times to complete, whatever. All I’m saying is to have the kickoff chains automatically trigger at set times, as they already do (though not currently all at the SAME set time). People will figure out the times as they already have, and show up at those times to complete the events; the only difference being that those screwed into an overflow have the same event chain kicking off at the same time.

Some of the events have a complicated web of events that lead to the meta event which rewards the increased loot chest. Look at the Balthazar chain for instance. It’s impossible to put it on a global timer since there are so many links in the chain that can fail or take a different amount of time to complete.

There’s something like 20 meta events (that I know of) that reward the big chests, people just need to spread out more and do those events.

Orion.7264:

Easy solution:

World bosses spawn at the same times across ALL servers, including overflows.

Problem solved, now no one misses out due to overflows, everyone gets boss, yadda yadda yadda. And before someone misunderstands and says “What about EU players or players in different time zones?” Bosses spawn ever X hours or so, so regardless of your time zone you will still have an opportunity.

So many stupid things in this game have such simple solutions…

Such a system would not work within the living breathing world of Tyria due to dynamic event chains.

Any event in a chain can take a different amount of time due to the skill and participation of players. Events can fail, causing other event chains to start which must be completed before the event cycles in again.

It sounds like you want instanced content, not a dynamic world.

It was in the patch notes, btw – under Reward Updates.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/info/news/Game-Update-Notes-February-26-2013/first#post1594129

You can only get one chest per world boss per character a day now.
But the loot is much better.

Rusts wins the worst color combinations.

Overflows are happening regularly on the meta events that are tracked on dragon timer websites since the loot was increased. There’s now a guaranteed rare + a chance at an exotic (possibly precursor).

One thing I’m doing is running the other 15 or so events that aren’t tracked on websites and also sticking around to kill the boss on overflow. I got a Jormag kill on overflow yesterday and Teq the day before that

When in doubt, Dulfy is your go to person

1st chapter
http://dulfy.net/2013/01/29/gw2-living-story-refuge-volunteer-events-guide/

2nd chapter
http://dulfy.net/2013/02/26/gw2-lost-and-found-living-story-event-and-achievement-guide/

http://argos-soft.net/GW2WeaponGallery/index.php?itemType=6

http://argos-soft.net/GW2WeaponGallery/index.php?itemType=0

I don’t see anything exactly like it but the Kymswarden GS might be close.

You’ll get your first back item through your personal story:

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Back

WoW is pretty terrible. Ugly graphics, stale combat, brain-dead leveling, can’t move while casting, nodes + mobs aren’t shared, no jumping puzzles, ilvl gates and gearscore gates, monthly fees, loot masters and ninjas steal your loot, they arbitrarily lock people out of content to keep them paying longer, one of the worst communities in gaming history, just yuck.

No wonder they are trying to recruit off the GW2 forum, I hear it’s getting mighty dead over there.

Grats, aaron!

Griffonrook Run still eludes me but it’s been awhile since I tried it. Now that Ele’s have a fall dmg trait I should give it another go.

That cute little elementalist that just ran by you and gave you the speed buff? That was me

What buffs do you like to give random players?

Dungeons and Fractals are probably the best way. World events (if you don’t have to spend much time waiting) are good also. Certain areas in Orr have events that repeat fairly rapidly, those are good – just don’t stay in one area too long or you get hit with DR. Mix it up

I can roll a new toon and in 10 minutes – BAM – I can be a max level 80 with full access to all gear/weapons/traits/abilities/sigils/runes/jewelry, etc. and happily pvping my heart out. It doesn’t cost me a single copper to do this.

If I’m only interested in pve I can level through the world/crafting/gathering -whatever- cuz this game rewards me xp if I so much as sneeze and at max level I have access to all 26 zones, 25 dungeon paths, fractals, wvw, guild missions, etc. There are no outdated concepts like gearscore or ilevel, there is no grind before I can participate in any content in the game.

I can choose to tweak my gear or chase after the most desirable skins but there is no required grind.

Maybe your friends can help out with donating some gold to help you transfer over

If your colors are boring darling, it’s on you.
/swish

The servers were stable, only going down for a couple hours about 3 hours into launch since they had to increase server capacity.
The trading post was down for the better part of 2 weeks and then sporadic for another couple weeks.
A couple skill points were bugged and a handful of dynamic events.
Overflow was a bit clunky, there was no “Join in (location)” function, we would re-zone until we got into our friend’s overflow.
The overflow issue spilled over into dungeons, you’d often get split into different dungeon groups.

All in all very smooth launch for a MMO.

Josh Foreman, the maker of the Mad King Clock Tower, posted some hints about what he’s working on for us now in this thread:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/What-s-your-favourite-Jumping-Puzzle/first

“Can’t wait for you to see what I’m working on now. You may never leave it.”

I’ve been playing since the 2nd BWE and now, 6 months deep into the game I can tell you it just keeps getting better, deeper, more brilliant.

• The artwork is a no brainer, it’s simply stunning.

• The combat is genius, you can play on a superficial level or go deep into theorycrafting. Movement/casting in combat feels effortless, I can never play a turret casting shadowbolts again.

• The community is hands down the best bunch of people I’ve ever had the pleasure of playing with. It’s interesting how the game systems and mechanics are designed to support teamwork and a positive community – these folks really put some thought into this.

• I am continually delighted, surprised, touched and horrified at the stories within the game. Learning about Malchor the Sculptor, his love for the goddess Dwayna and his subsequent blindness, madness and suicide – I still get chills when I’m in that zone and hear his cry, “DWAYNAAAA!”

• They’ve done a great job with balancing no gear grind vs. endgame goals. I don’t feel like I have to work towards my endgame goals every session, yet there are lofty ambitions to satisfy.

Of course no game is perfect but I’m impressed with how much work and polish they continue to put in the game. Monthly content patches is impressive. No subscription fee is darn near unbelievable.

Per Anthony Ordon, Sotzz has 300 spawn points in Gendarren Fields.
Anthony, you are an evil, evil man. :P

Conner.4702:

stop dilluding yourself

I have it on good authority that dilluding oneself can lead to blindness.

Soulmyr.8094:

SandraSolace.7682:

Yes.
(But what really is the problem here?)

The problem is i can’t get on my server because people camp behemoth 2 hours before its spawns so they don’t get stuck in overflow when it does. This never happened before the latest patch.

It happened a lot in the starting areas during the first month of launch (when 2 mil ppl were in 5 zones)
It’s been happening ever since in Lion’s Arch.

Spots usually open up fairly quickly as there is a lot of traffic through those zones.

You will get a pop-up notifying you as soon as a spot opens on your home server in Queensdale. You aren’t stuck forever, just a few moments

Heylo.4938:

I’d really appreciate it if they’d just make chests once a day per char, regardless of server. Some people keep calling for guesting to be removed entirely, but that seems rash and ridiculous.

They are once a day per character. They are just extremely popular right now.

Jormag
Shatterer
Tequatl
Maw
Shadow B
Fire Elemental
Grenth
Lyssa
Balthazar
Dwayna
Melandru
Path to Arah
Zho’qafa
Fire Shaman
Wurm
Harathi OL
Inquest Golem
Hydra Queen
Dredge
Rotbeard

Salacious.7358:

I know they did, I was here for launch. I want it back. They should do what they did for GW1, PVP or PVE characters, PVE don’t have to pay while PVP do.

1800 gems is far too much for high populated servers, that like 35$ , Money I have, but not that I wanna spend

It’s ~$23 if you use cash to buy the gems.
Or you can use ingame gold to buy the gems – not sure what the conversion rate is now.

My gawd, it’s huge.

That was hilarious watching the slow fall to SPLAT!

Vol.5241:

Conncept.7638:

Vol.5241:

Pro-tip: If you have a guildmate or a friend in the zone, party them, zone in the server and right click on their portrait and you can join them on the original server.

#notanexploit

This doesn’t always work, areas can fill to the point that it won’t allow anybody else in, even through party invites.

Alternatively, and my guild just did this last night, you can have someone camp an overflow. A guildmate missed The Claw by being pushed to overflow, and volunteered to stay in that overflow for three hours until he respawned. He systematically invited everyone in the guild to the overflow just before The Claw spawned. Apparently as overflows age they tend to clear out, and our little guild had a dragon fight all to itself, no guests, no lag, it was glorious.

People really need to think this through. Is it worth waiting 3 hours for a dragon in order to get, on average, 2-3 rares?

Maybe farming up some mats while they wait.

Sounds fun to have an overflow event just for your guild, will have to give that a shot!

Recipe for fun with Guild Bounties:

1) Get 100 people on Teamspeak
2) Try to locate all targets before they despawn/reset
3) Find other guilds camping your targets doing the same thing. The longer it takes to locate your targets the more guilds show up.
4) Strategize! Which guild will kick it off first? When X guild kicks off do you take the chance to start yours before you’ve found your targets? What if you’re missing one of the difficult to find ones like Sotzz? Split second decision, go NOW!
5) Madness and much hilarity ensues.

Hey Don,

I found the waypoint costs to be insignificant at lower levels, burdensome at mid to cap, and once I hit level cap to be insignificant again.

There are some free ways to travel around – use the Heart of the Mists (crossed sword icon) for a free asura portal to Lion’s Arch which has free asura portals to all the major cities.
You can do the same thing by entering WvW.

There’s also a HoM portal stone you can pick up for free from the karma vendor in the smuggler’s cave in Lion’s Arch – this will cut waypoint costs in half when going to the northern zones.

Once you get to a certain point in your personal story there’s a free portal to Orr from your Order’s headquarters.

Curious, is it ALL events or just the ones tracked on the timer?

The timers only track a handful of the large chest events with upgraded loot tables. There’s easily 4x as many events in the game that have those chests.

This daughter of Ascalon has taken a step back from dragonslaying for the moment to diversify into other, less known events.

“Expansions are definitely something that we’ll potentially look at in the future,” game director Colin Johanson told IGN. “We don’t have a timetable on it. We’re open to it, but I think our major focus as a studio is making the living world concept as strong as we possibly can for the players that we’ve got.”

When the possibility of Guild Wars 3 was broached, Johanson deemed it unlikely, at least for now. “We want to be able to have teams that are literally developing new, innovative features that change the way that you play our game and grow that experience so it literally feels like you don’t leave Guild Wars 2,” he explained. “Guild Wars 2 becomes Guild Wars 2.5 or Guild Wars 3 and it continues to grow.”

I like!