Guild Wars 2

I just find it somewhat grating that the disclosure of information like this by [expletive deleted] youtube jockeys on “shows” I wouldn’t watch if I was paid to do so, is considered “releasing information to the public”.

I like this game, but watching online 3rd party youtube drivel about it isn’t a sacrifice I’m willing to make under any circumstance.

“I am not as I appear to you. This small body is but a manifestation I use to put visitors at ease.”

It’s obvious to anyone who’s not dead set to maintain a useless argument that “body” in that piece of dialogue is just a reference to a physical body. The only way your argument holds any water at all is to interpret everything she says in the most convoluted way possible.

Heck, the thing is even called the “Avatar of the Tree”. Avatars are physical representations of non-physical things, unless you’re talking about the digital age interpretation, and that’s obviously not applicable here.

There’s nothing to clear up as far as I’m concerned.

Everyone and everything in the game is acting as if the avatar is a physical thing. She also tells non-sylvari the following when engaging her in dialogue: “This small body is but a manifestation I use to put visitors at ease.” Bodies are physical things.

The avatar claims she is a physical thing. The behaviour of NPCs implies she’s a physical thing. So, she must be a physical thing. Now, if some other words she uses can mean multiple things, we just need to do what we always do when confronted with words that can mean different things: we use the context to discern the intended meaning. Refusing to do that in this situation is just as weird as raging against the concept of school busses because they transport children instead of fish.

At one point she says she’s a manifestation, at another point she says she’s a spirit. She can be both these things at once, they’re not mutually exclusive.

As I’ve shown in my earlier post in this thread, a manifestation can mean a “materialized” spirit in both American and British English. There’s no problem at all here except in the minds of people trying very hard to find issue.

I once made a point of trying to combine jewels with as many different items I could come up with, short of spending huge amounts of cash. I tried thousands of items, and didn’t find a single thing that combines with jewels. My guess is, nothing combines with them, and allowing us to put one in the MF is a bug.

kta.6502:

The Pale Tree does use the word “manifestation”. It’s interesting to note that word does have different meanings in both American and British English.

In American English, manifestation means the spiritual embodiment of an abstract idea, ghost, or other spiritual being (like God). (See http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/manifestation)

In British English, manifestation can mean a physical embodiment of an abstract idea or spiritual being. (See http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/us/definition/english/manifestation) It seems the Pale Tree is using the British definition of the word. Anet may have used a British writer to create Mama Tree’s lines.

The definition you claim to have gotten from merriam-webster.com doesn’t actually appear on the page you linked to. I guess you’re paraphrasing.

The full definition on that page in fact includes the following:

d : an occult phenomenon; specifically : materialization

Looking up “materialization” (linked on the “manifestation” page) will show you this:

1
: the action of materializing or becoming materialized
2
: something that has been materialized; especially : apparition

So actually, the concept of the avatar being a material being (a manifested spirit) is valid in American English as well as British English. (In as far as Merriam-Webster is considered a valid authority.)

laokoko.7403:

Obtena.7952:

Apology from Anet will look like this:

“We are sorry this game doesn’t attract smarter players.”

I’m not entirely sure what they changed on the transmuation stone, or the exchange rate etc.

But it’s not something he could foresee. Take for example Anet made legendary into a skin, and many people have been screwed to make two of the same legendary. (eventhough they are later rewarded with a title….)

That’s simply not something people could forsee.

One thing I disliked about the transmutation changes is that I used to have hundreds of the cheap stones that I could (and very much did) use to keep my leveling characters dressed nicely while at the same time taking useful runes over to the next armor upgrade. All of that is now a distant memory, and my leveling characters don’t transmute anymore except for the HoM skins that transmute for free. Oh, and I now have more transmutation charges than I’ll ever use.

I’d guess the OP has the same issue, and is taking it harder than I am.

I only have a problem with the sheer anticlimax of getting those gifts of exploration. When I did my first completion, I was stoked to see another wobbly chest pop up in the bottom right. That didn’t last long. I’d have felt better if I hadn’t got anything at all because I wouldn’t have felt the built-up expectation before clicking that chest.

Not being able to get some stuff because of not playing a certain aspect of the game, that’s what this game has been like since launch. It seems a bit out of touch to complain about a single example of that 2 years in. There are a great many things I’ll never have because of that. I’m not complaining.

P2P trading would also put certain ultra-rare items beyond the reach of some people, because you can only reach a very small percentage of the playerbase at a time. And these are exactly the items that people would want to sell off the tradepost, because the tax on them is huge.

Of course, people would find ways around that, through auction websites, and once such 3rd party resources exist, more and more items will go through those instead of the BL TP, because everyone wants to avoid tax where possible.

The end result would end up being exactly what we have now, except split up over several browser-based trade meet-up ‘tradeposts’ where there’s no tax. Buyer convenience would suffer severely and we’d probably end up with other gold sinks to complain about, that compensate for the loss of the current TP goldsinking.

No thanks!

I can understand people clamoring for new content, but the insistent demand for a feature that’s obviously not there because of well-considered design decisions does get old 2 years in.

You can equip a multitude of characters in exotic gear for the same price as putting a single one in ascended gear. If you enjoy playing your alts, I wouldn’t start thinking about ascended gear until they’re all decked out in good exotics. Having said that, if you go the route of crafting to equip your alts, that’s a good way of taking steps toward ascended gear at the same time.

Jornophelanthas.1475:

@Redenaz:
Also, don’t forget that a specific subset of supposedly veteran players also believes it is perfectly okay to haze new players, and to heavily intimidate them into staying out of their dungeon parties.

Which has only been exacerbated by the new trait system which mostly just changed badly traited new players into untraited new players.

What I think is weird is that you have to actively leave a category before you can select another one. None of the other subtabs of the ‘Hero’ window makes you do that.

The ‘Hero’ window design is extremely inconsistent, every subtab has different navigational elements: treeviews, easily selectable subtabs, drop down menus.

Is that fanfiction? It’s certainly not what happened in the Living Story.

Jornophelanthas.1475:

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.

Not only are some of them quite taxing, the totality of the new system completely takes charge of the direction your play takes you, unless you want to pay for them. You have to go out of your way to locations you might not want to visit for a long time to come during the natural course of play. Or pay for them, which you might not be able to if you haven’t got stockpiled skill scrolls and plenty of handy cash.

People like me who like to play many alts, replaying content on different characters instead of repeating it on the same characer will be practically ‘done’ with a character by the time we unlock all traits. And while getting there, the ride was less fun than it was with characters played before the change, because we had far less toys to play with.

Enjoying new characters takes stockpiled skill scrolls and heaps of money nowadays.

Having to unlock traits just kills experimentation, and experimentation is the mother of build diversity.

edit: ninja’d

You must be mistaken. They don’t look like typical trash at all, being exotic with a rather long name. They stand out, a lot. Also, you can’t vendor them.

Nilkemia.8507:

I’ll admit that I’d forgotten about her stupid “you can’t tell anyone” moment. And, admittedly her access to such material may have given her an edge towards the solution. However, it is never shown, stated, or even implied that anyone else was working on a solution, when the vines are all over the place touching the waypoints and/or strangling them. You’d think that alone would’ve gotten at least some of the nearby krewes to look into it.

Phlunt: “I will attend the summit, but only after I verify that this device can protect our waypoint network from marauding vines. Otherwise, I’ll have to return to my lab.”

I think that pretty much implies that they’re working on saving the waypoints themselves. Work he’s understandably only prepared to abandon if a solution presents itself that would make their own work obsolete. A completely rational and reasonable position. We can only imagine how much faster they’d have completed their own solution if they’d had access to Scarlet’s research. Speaking for myself, I would imagine they’d have done it much faster than Taimi did it, because they probably spend less time shrieking and throwing tantrums back in their fully stocked labs where there’s no need to navigate traps while searching random bits of machinery to salvage parts from.

Nilkemia.8507:

Thankfully, she seems to have gotten out of the Scarlet fangirling…for now. And that is not an adequate response to my point about her making the device (with some help from us), and being the only one trying to find a solution.

Answered above.

Nilkemia.8507:

Yes, that’s what he said. That makes him neither obstructive, nor a jerk.

…Yes it does. All the other world leaders at least had semi-valid complaints (semi due to the players having potentially dealt with most of them) Phlunt was whining just because he could.

Even before his role in the Living Story, just talking to him in the Arcane Council chamber showed that he was a total jerk.

Being uncooperative isn’t the same as being obstructive. He wasn’t doing anything to stop or hinder anyone from doing whatever the hell they wanted to do. He just didn’t want to be a part of it.

Nilkemia.8507:

Besides, the Council has also shown nearly all of the traits you just named for Taimi as well. As Leo Paul pointed out, they were willing to withhold the knowledge of dragons consuming magikittenil they could exploit it themselves, as the asuran pre-order arc reveals. Not to mention their ties to the Inquest, along with a certain councillor trying to kill the rest in one mission…

For all of Taimi’s flaws, she’s still more trustworthy (or failing that, easier to deal with) than the Arcane Council.

Well, yes, asura in general are a worthless bunch of rats that evolution had better left alone. Like Leo, I strongly dislike them. But we’re seeking alliance with them, and within the scope of that distasteful goal, Phlunt is the one making reasonable moves while Taimi is a petulant, greedy crybaby.

I never had any significant magic find at all back in the days when it was a stat found on equipment, because I preferred ‘real’ stats. When it became an account stat, I raised it to a little above 180% in very little time as a side effect of buying up cheap greens to salvage.

Going from almost nothing to 180+ overnight, I found that my drops significantly improved. Improvement will be pretty hard to discern if you play with a slowly increasing percentage though.

I usually salvage what I can salvage, and throw into the forge what can’t be salvaged.

Nilkemia.8507:

Manasa Devi.7958:

You make it sound as if something terrible happened. He just took something dangerous away from an irresponsible child that wasn’t being properly supervised. I wouldn’t even want him around serious business like a summit of leaders of nations if he didn’t have enough sense to do that. Who would want to ally themselves with a party that can’t govern itself properly and leave machinery that could do disastrous things to global transit in the hands of immature brats?. Taking that Macgyvery thing away was him proving that he was taking the whole business very seriously.

Need I point out that the “irresponsible child” was the only one working on a solution to the waypoint issue? Never is it even implied that anyone else is trying to make a solution to the vines leeching the waypoints. And we don’t count as adequate supervision, eh? At least we can protect her, unlike Phlunt and his guards who can’t even defend themselves.

Also, the proper term for an asuran child is progeny. If you’re going to belittle her, do it right. And the device is a W.R.D. (waypoint recalibration device) Please remember that, will you?

Need I point out that she was the only one working on a solution because she was the only one with access to very important materials pertaining to how ley lines interact with waypoints, as found in Scarlet’s room in Prosperity? Materials she didn’t want us to report to anyone because she didn’t want them taken away, and that she was mostly concerned with writing a dissertation that would make her famous. Greedy and quite obstructive. (And for some moronic reason, we agree!)

Why would I restrict myself to proper asuran parlance? I’m I human in the real world. Do you bark when you discuss dogs?

Nilkemia.8507:

Also, Taimi created it herself, outside of Rata Sum, on her own time, and made it clear she had no malicious purposes for the device. She has her childish moments, but this isn’t as such. Stop acting as if it is.

Wait, what? She has been a childish brat from the moment she first appeared, and never stopped being one at any time. If I’d had a choice in it, I never would have had any involvement with her and her ridiculous Scarlet-fangirl ways at all.

Nilkemia.8507:

That doesn’t constitute being an obstructive jerk, most certainly not when he lets himself be swayed before a minute had passed.

Yes, yes it is. He demanded to know what the Pact is doing when he could’ve easily found out himself if he cared to ask before this (or even talk to other asura in the Pact), basically said “You beat Zhaitan, just beat this one too!”, and when we point out that Zhaitan took a toll on the orders, his reply is “Oh well, your problem. Many of those lost were asura.” He then goes on to say that they’re safe in Rata Sum, asking why they should bother helping the rest of us (implying that the Council might just choose to let the rest of the world rot, also implied in the asuran order intro arc), and then we mention how the Destroyers kicked them out of the Depths. Only then does he decide to be nice, saying they’ll take part. “For now.”

Feel free to go back and read his dialogue again (either wiki or instance) and see if I didn’t sum up the gist of what he said.

Yes, that’s what he said. That makes him neither obstructive, nor a jerk.

Nilkemia.8507:

There’s only one obstructive jerk in the whole scenario, and that’s Taimi.

Only during that “Imma run away” moment, which was partly caused by Phlunt being an insensitive prick.

Aside from that and her stupid moment of trying to hop into Omadd’s machine, she’s been fine so far. Need I mention again that she was the only one to make a device to solve the major problem with the waypoints again?

Need I mention again that she was the only one in a position to make such a machine because she selfishly kept all of Scarlet’s ley line research to herself, going all hysterical by the mere mention of reporting the room to some authority? Childish, selfish, greedy, vain, obstructive, jerkish. That’s Taimi.

Nilkemia.8507:

Manasa Devi.7958:

Nilkemia.8507:

Manasa Devi.7958:

The whole discussion would be more interesting if there was even the tiniest shred of evidence that Phlunt wasn’t 100% on the up-and-up.

Besides the fact that he changed the deal at the last minute, conveniently didn’t show until the Inquest were gone, and continued to be a obstructive jerk even after he got his way?

He made a completely reasonable demand in light of newly discovered facts. That’s what leaders do. He should be applauded for stepping up and putting an irresponsible child in her place, not lambasted.

At the start, fixing the waypoint problem was the only requirement to get him to come to the summit. After the demonstration to prove that it worked (which was unnecessary since Taimi explained how it worked previously in Part 1), he then changes the deal at the very least minute. Regardless of his intent, that’s an underhanded and cheap move to pull.

You make it sound as if something terrible happened. He just took something dangerous away from an irresponsible child that wasn’t being properly supervised. I wouldn’t even want him around serious business like a summit of leaders of nations if he didn’t have enough sense to do that. Who would want to ally themselves with a party that can’t govern itself properly and leave machinery that could do disastrous things to global transit in the hands of immature brats?. Taking that Macgyvery thing away was him proving that he was taking the whole business very seriously.

Nilkemia.8507:

It would be very suspicious if he’d been there before the Inquest was gone. He wasn’t contacted until after they were gone. Try to follow the plot, it’s not that complicated.

Try following your own advice. He and his “guards” weren’t present during the fight to save Taimi at all, only strutting in after we did all the hard work.

I presume you are referring to Part 1, where we killed all the Inquest to secure the lab first.

When you said ‘showed’ I assumed you meant when he first showed up. I didn’t work very hard to save Taimi though, I have to say. I’ve done that instance on several characters, and always sit back hoping that they’ll actually get Taimi this time.

Nilkemia.8507:

He didn’t do anything ‘obstructive’ after he ‘got his way’. He came to the summit just like all the other leaders.

And then he preceded to whine as much as they did, stating that dealing with the dragon was our job (despite that the dragons will kill/corrupt everyone if they win), implying the asura could stay safe in Rata Sum while the dragons kill everyone else, and only capitulating after we pointed out how the Destroyers kicked them out of the Depths.

That doesn’t constitute being an obstructive jerk, most certainly not when he lets himself be swayed before a minute had passed.

There’s only one obstructive jerk in the whole scenario, and that’s Taimi.

Nilkemia.8507:

Manasa Devi.7958:

The whole discussion would be more interesting if there was even the tiniest shred of evidence that Phlunt wasn’t 100% on the up-and-up.

Besides the fact that he changed the deal at the last minute, conveniently didn’t show until the Inquest were gone, and continued to be a obstructive jerk even after he got his way?

He made a completely reasonable demand in light of newly discovered facts. That’s what leaders do. He should be applauded for stepping up and putting an irresponsible child in her place, not lambasted.

It would be very suspicious if he’d been there before the Inquest was gone. He wasn’t contacted until after they were gone. Try to follow the plot, it’s not that complicated.

He didn’t do anything ‘obstructive’ after he ‘got his way’. He came to the summit just like all the other leaders.

The whole discussion would be more interesting if there was even the tiniest shred of evidence that Phlunt wasn’t 100% on the up-and-up.

I don’t have a tag. I can’t say I see much difference between spending 100g on it, or just throwing away the 100g, so I’m not buying one.

I can only hope that a great many people buy it now though.

Sink that gold, make mine more valuable.

Or by all means, get gold with gems, push the conversion rate more in my favor.

And lastly, when ridiculous amounts of tags start littering the minimap in the near future, maybe they’ll finally add the option to not display any tags.

It’s all good.

I see no upside for level 80 characters. I have an 80 of every class, and it hardly ever happens that I find loot that’s good enough to move to another character. That’s because randomly generated items are drawn from a pool of far too many stat options to have a decent chance of getting one you like.

If none of my characters find exotics that are useful for any of my characters, why would it help in any way if the drops become profession-appropriate? It would actually worsen the chance of getting useful items, from an account based point of view. Because, for example, if my engineer ever rolls a weapon with stats another character could use, the new loot system would make it more likely that such an item would be a rifle, pistol or shield, and not a weapon that other character might want.

Most loot will always be salvage-fodder, or TP ware. This new system, when applied to level 80s, won’t change that. It will only make things more awkward.

Robin Hood robbed the blind? That’s an interesting take on the character…

rhodoc.2381:

I dont think it is truly random. Like the mystic forge that gives you + 1 tier. You throw 250 and it gives you between 40 and 200 right. (40 + 200)/2 makes 120. So i have to get avarage of 120 in the long term. But i can say that this is more likely avarage 60-70.

Those numbers don’t have to be generated with equal chance to be considered truly random. When smaller stacks have a higher chance to turn up than bigger stacks, the average is dragged down. Averages over non-linear sets are weighted averages and involve a more complex calculation than (lowest possibility + highest possibility) / 2.

Consider lotteries: some people win nothing (0), some people win 10 million. This doesn’t mean that participating people win (10,000,000 + 0)/2 = 5 million on average.

And the remaining 10%, those must be characters that are supposed to look ridiculous then, right?

Brother Grimm.5176:

You are 100% at fault for not researching this situation further. ANY search on this issue would have found mutliple complaints on this forum and other sources that this situation IS present and has not been addressed (or even commented on by Anet that I’m aware of). I get your POed, but it’s nobody’s fault but yours.

I vehemently disagree. The lack of in-game information about what can and what cannot be salvaged (or put into the mystic forge for that matter) is ridiculous.

I don’t know what game you’re playing, but I’m playing Guild Wars 2, currently having 8 bank tabs and never having paid anything beyond buying the game itself.

I think you’re right about one thing: apart from some (very) educated guessing, we can’t be absolutely sure what kind of bad things will happen.

We can however be sure about the good thing that will happen. A few people save some gold. That’s it, and that’s definitely not worth it.

Doghouse.1562:

I’d have to disagree with the stat gain comment above. Stat gain from the Ascended back piece is more than twice that from the comparable Exotic. (Cleric’s, for example: Healing +55 vs +22; Power and Toughness both +35 vs +16.

The exotic version has an upgrade slot that can be filled with an exquisite jewel for another +25/+15/+15. The ascended version comes with higher base stats because it can’t be upgraded that way.

The exotic version then adds up to 47/31/31. The difference is then only 8/4/4.

Outfits haven’t had much appeal to me yet. That’s not to say they never will.

The ceremonial armor has parts that I quite like, but man, those shoulders, and the collar… no way in hell. I might’ve considered getting it if it was an armor set, for mix-and-matching purposes.

I got what you meant with your post. I just chimed in to explain why things are how they are in this thread. Merging all threads with this error hasn’t done any of the different problem camps any favors. My own posts and posts similar to mine have been buried deep under the more prevalent loading screen problem posts and new posts in our vein seem like distrations.

I’d prefer it if the state of the tree view was retained between crafting sessions. It would work for everyone. If you want all categories to be collapsed, you’d need to only do that once.

Brother Grimm.5176:

Jigain.8231:

Comments such as “can’t even play for 5 minutes” and “dropping back to character select screen every 3-5 minutes” or “dc-ing every few minutes” hint at the respective issues being distinctively separate from the issue that the thread was created for.

I agree with the quote….I’m not discounting or in any way disregarding people posting here with connection issues, but these issues ARE not the same as the issue that appears to have been (mostly) addressed by the last patch. Characters getting STUCK at loading screens indefinitely with this thread title error message involved.

I get the disconnect error is the same, but that’s like diagnosing a car that wont start and lumping all the potential issues together as “related”. Some may be, but most can have no effect on the others (ex: out of fuel and a cracked distributor cap)

Blame the mods for merging threads. I posted in another 7:11:3:191:101 thread that was about recurring disconnects while playing, instead of character lock-outs at certain zones. All those posts are in this thread now.

I was mostly responding to what I quoted, which is the part where you claim that you had to check the wiki for information about Phlunt, which wasn’t necessary because Taimi acknowledged Phlunt’s position herself while talking to you. For someone so interested in standing up for the little greedy brat, you seem to pay very little attention to what she says. I can relate, though, I tend to zone out as well when she starts squeaking.

Zojja’s position, that we can only guess at, but after the whole mess with Destiny’s Edge, the melodrama it took to get back together and kill Zhaitan, I suspect she wouldn’t let a child’s lack of perspective get in the way of mobilizing her own people against Mordremoth.

Leo Paul.1659:

As a human, I had to check Phlunt’s profile on the GW2 wiki first and it says “Phlunt is an old asura in the Council Level. It is unclear if he is a council member..”

Or you could just read the dialogue of the current living story:

Taimi: "I talked to Zojja, just like Braham asked me to. She got me in to see Councillor Phlunt. It was all great until I made the mistake of mentioning my device. "

He’s on the council. Zojja is in on things. No reason for any kind of distrust.

Why stop at Robin Williams, why not a Dead Thespians Society? A tribute to every dead actor ever. It’s about time ANet got a “dead team” to work alongside their “live team”. Regular updates as currently living actors kick the proverbial or literal bucket in times to come. It will be glorious! Die, and become immortalized, at the very reasonable price of 800 gems.

Ohoni.6057:

I’m going to get around to clearing this one, and like I said, I really don’t think it’s likely they’ll actually change anything about this requirement since they’re too lazy to fix things they already consider “done,” I just want to raise awareness so that they don’t add MORE requirements like this in future content. I don’t want to see any NEW achievements or rewards based on running fractals until such time as they make them faster to run. I don’t want, three to six months down the road, to see another LW update or reward drop that requires going into the Fractals to complete it. It’s too late for this patch, but it’s not too late for the patches yet to come.

They’ve had similar mechanics in the game since launch, and added several more with several LS releases. All of those have been argued against on this very forum with a vehemence that puts this puny thread to shame. ANet knows the objections, there can’t be any doubt about that. And still they just did it again. They’ll probably do it again before long. Obviously, this is how they want things to be.

Filaha.1678:

The current system doesn’t show the vendor price of the item in the same interface as the TP, though.

Yes it does, just mouse-over the icon for the item.

Filaha.1678:

Heck, it doesn’t even stop someone from posting an order for items which are below the vendor price, which it won’t even let you sell to.

Yes it does.

Have you even used the TP recently?

Moltakfire.6834:

In his possession doesn’t necessarily mean he was holding it, that would be absurd! Aerin could have not necessarily been looking for an item on the Master of Peace’s person at the time. He was, of course, looking for the Master of Peace, who would have known where the bloodstone was hidden. Likewise, the bag on the MoP’s back isn’t necessarily the item of power he was referring to.

Trying to get the Master killed in a huge airship crash isn’t a very good interrogation tactic.

Besides, the zephyrites aren’t likely to be connected to another mythical thing. The Glint connection is more than enough.

I just wish they’d dressed this whole process up a bit with some proper motivation.

Why would I want to plant a seed that’s likely to just sprout into another Mordrem monster? How do I know why all the other objects (the “ley line infused stone”, the “phantasmal residue”, etc.) are relevant to the ‘taming’ of this plant, and how do I know where to ‘upgrade’ those objects into their final form (the “weirderd phantasmal residue”, etc.). Where does the notion that carrying this plant on my back is somehow advantageous come from?

All of the information is apparently gleaned from looking at the objects involved. How does that work? Is my character some kind of crypto-horticulturalist prophet all of a sudden? Or a madman with crazy far-fetched notions that somehow actually accomplish something?

GW1 gave us Zho’s Journal to hatch ourselves our very own black moa chick. This process really needed something similar. What we got is just plain weird and out of the blue.

Stormy Dragon.9210:

Manasa Devi.7958:

It amazes me how many people don’t seem to understand the difference between theft and confiscation.

The only difference between theft and confiscation is that the people confiscating things claim there is a difference.

Sure, that’s true. From a childish wannabe revolutionairy’s point of view. “Fight the power, man!”

In the real world, it’s a little more complex.

In the future, they should just split up instances like “The World Summit” into 2 parts: one with the dialogue and one with the action. That way there wouldn’t be any need to add complications like ‘skip’ buttons. We’d just go straight to the second instance for the achievements.

There’s no justifying it.

There is absolutely no excuse for putting disgusting waste products in presents given to you as tokens of appreciation. Try it next time you buy someone a present: wrap it along with your morning stool and see how well that is received.

I’m not opposed to alternate methods to obtain anything really, but I won’t be holding my breath. There are numerous things in the game that can only be obtained in a single way, this is just the next one. Having said that, it would be rather appropriate if this stone could be obtained through EotM as well as FotM. Emphasis on the “of the Mists” part of those abbreviations.

One thing I want to point out though, the new back items are obviously not a reward for the current and recent Living Story chapters. The LS is just the kick-off point for a string of actions you need to undertake to obtain them. They’re a reward for completing that string of actions.