Guild Wars 2

Assassin’s Creed games generally promise 40 hours of content for the same price as the core game of Guild Wars 2. Good deals over here in Tyria. ^.^

• Also I loved the story. Only buggy part was the end.
• I love the new specs for my main characters.
• I love the gliding and the multi-layered jungle, though they could improve map visibility for team/squad members and also team members UI names when they are above or below you.

If you’re feeling burnt out with all GW2 has to offer, you might be playing the game in too much of a grindy way. There are plenty of things in the game that aren’t grindy. You might be treating the game like a second job trying to go for all the fancy items in the game, when you can just be more leisurely and run about seeing the sights or doing fun community events.

If you don’t want to unlock lots of waypoints for all characters, go play sPvP and WvW.

The game is quite small. It’s not that hard to unlock waypoints when you’re not with your guild. There are only so many guild missions in so many locations. In only takes a few key waypoints to be able to get where you need to if you’re trying new content for the first time.

I’ve got 22 alts and I still don’t think unlocking all waypoints would be something meaningful to add to the game.

You really want a bunch of lowbies scrambling around in all the high level areas they suddenly have access to?

I’ll bring my level 15 with it’s bags full of frosty picks into Orr and chase down those orichalcum nodes begging for a res all the ways along.

You go into the LFG window and look for the word taxi then find AB or Auric Basin taxis. What time zone are you in? Most times of day should have some taxi groups going throughout the day.

tbh yeah. If they could program a trait saver into their first game over a decade ago, not sure why it can’t find it’s way into this game.

I really love HoT, the maps, the monsters, and the way they did the story.

And many HPs are soloable. I believe there are enough or nearly enough throughout all the HoT maps to get your elite specialization unlocked. The rest can be unlocked by simply asking for 2 people to help you in map chat.

If you absolutely can’t find anyone to help you in-game with HPs, just come ask for help in the “Players Helping Players” section or go to Lion’s Arch and ask for help there. There are tons of helpful people who will stop whatever they’re doing (which is generally just lolly-gagging if they’re in Lion’s Arch) to come help you with a few HPs.

It’s not a big deal.

So, the cutscenes like the one you refer to where Rytlock returns are actually video files, so you’re not going to see your character in any of those videos. I can’t remember each cutscene, but mostly your character talks in the open world like you’ve mentioned with the speech bubbles. There might be some instances where your character is shown in an in-game rendered cutscene, but I think not. If it IS shown, it’d be in one of those layered 2D elements cutscenes like the opening cutscene you see of your character upon creating a new one.

I imagine with characters of various size and shape and color it’s difficult for them to create cutscenes where your character is actually doing something because there’d be too much opportunity for glitchy mispositioning and bad camera angles.

If you want pretty things you gotta play for gold or pay for gems. We still live in a society that uses currency. If you don’t have currency be mad at the system, not ANet. :P

Hmmz. I honestly don’t think there is an option. What is your issue with having a guild emblem? You could always try making a neutral guild emblem by choosing a simple emblem and then making it and the background colors all the same so it’s just a solid colored square or something.

So first off you can make it so your co-leaders have all the same permissions as you. Even so far as they could demote you if you don’t make a separate rank for yourself to retain “ownership” of the guild. :P So go for that multi-leader structure if you want.

Secondly, if you’re going to fin co-leaders, there are two important requirements they should meet:

1. You need to be able to trust them.

2. You need to share your vision of the guild with them, and they need to share that vision.

As for where to find them, you can try interacting with people and forming friendships with either people in this or another forum community, or with people in the game who play the same content you’re interested in.

I’d suggest starting the guild by yourself and getting a few members and “officers” and then see who among your guild seems like a good fit for co-leadership.

Class options-

Ranger: Has speed buffs. Straight-forward play. Pet draws aggro to keep you alive while running about. Quite durable in PvE and ranged weapons make it easy to kill enemies before they get close enough to hurt you bad.

Necromancer: Has speed buff options. Playing with a minion build literally plays itself. You can afk in most places and your minions will slap down anything that comes near you. Like others said, necromancers pretty much don’t die.

Warrior: Combining Greatsword with a second weapon set of sword and warhorn you can really cover a lot of distance. It takes active skill use though so if you’re multi-tasking you might consider necro or ranger before this. Warrior’s are durable.

If you don’t want to get invested in learning the game mechanics and details of highly effective builds, just go with one of the above three.

Ohoni.6057:

Flash is right about being able to store them now, although I will say, they are still a minor issue of inventory management, because if I get a “skin” that I could apply, I tend to keep it around in case I need it, just to save the transmutation cost it would take to apply it otherwise. If they removed the Transmutation charge fee, I would be able to burn all of them, and would change looks much more often, even though I do have like 150 charges. I’m such a hoarder.

Yes

Behellagh.1468:

Ohoni, what they really need to do is if you send an unused gem store outfit with baked in transmute charges to the wardrobe, it credits you with the charges still baked in.

And yes.

The transmutation stones are obviously a way for ANet to harvest some income, but the one complaint of impracticality I would have would be this one. I have more than a bag slot full of skins I’ve yet to use that should really include a transmutation charge with them. If they really want to be stingy they could credit that transmute to only the skin in question, but really it’s a lot of trouble.

I even don’t get around to using a skin sometimes because I forget it’s there on my random storage character.

I don’t hate this game since nerf. I rather enjoy it greatly.

What’s so bad about WvW? People have been WvWing so long on the same maps, are they just too stuck in their ways to learn new strategies? What’s the issue they’re facing?

I’ve heard players complain about wanting new content in WvW for months, but now they’re not satisfied with a chance to learn a new approach?

Well the height of the Norn doesn’t actually seem to have changed much.

I’ve put together a side-by-side height comparison between GW1 and GW2.

In both I have my minimum height human characters standing next to a Norn. The GW2 Norn is a max-height character, and the GW1 Norn is Olaf Olafson. (The GW2 Norn player happened to be named Olaf as well, :P )

I tried to get the resolution about the same, but the resolution isn’t really the important part. What’s important is the ratio of height between the Norns and the humans. Olaf has some poofy hair so I drew his line slightly below the top of his hair. Even if I hadn’t, the size of the Norn seems pretty steady throughout the 250 years.

Lol, did I miss the post where actual factual numbers were used to debate the usage of time and labor to produce various types of content in the game? If I did then everyone else here seems to have missed it too.

Tell me just how much imaginary budget is too much imaginary budget for Esports development? If they reduced their investments in Esports by umpteen percent then how many extra gemstore outfits do you think they could produce with all those liberated wads of cash floating around?

The most efficient grind is going to work and buying gems. If you could find a part-time job and do that for a while during the free time you would normally be willing to spend grinding in the game and you’d be making 100’s of gold per hour.

Not everyone has the opportunity, energy, time or ability otherwise to get a job just for grinding, of course. But still it doesn’t change the fact that working IRL is quite an efficient means of getting ascended armor. :P

stale.9785:

Thankfully we behave with more rigour when it comes to mathematics and sciences than we do with languages.

Language is an art though, not a science. It’s an abstraction of thought where two or more unlinked minds attempt to convey ideas between each other using an indirect medium. And it operates under the variably dubious assumption that our minds are similar in the way they associate multiple ideas and attribute values to those ideas.

Of course, attempts at language preservation are vital for the sake of trying to preserve and perpetuate knowledge, but ultimately it’s like trying to prevent a sand dune from migrating across the desert.

The two opinions of language usage and rules never seem to agree though. :P It seems inevitable.

But as far as staffs goes, I’d prefer staves but won’t hold it against the game designers for choosing staffs. And the “proper” pluralization seems pretty up in the air based on the discussions of this post and outside sources.

I love Turtle Beach sound, but if you’re doing voice chat be sure to avoid any headsets that play back your mic into your earphones. I have some Turtle Beach ones that do that and while it seems convenient because you can hear what you sound like, what it really keeps doing is causing a weird echo many times when I use VOIP because the headphones are not soundproof and some sound leaks out that the microphone can pick up. It’s really quite strange…

In all the years of playing Guild Wars 2 I’ve only used a repair canister once, and that was really just because what the heck I’ve got a million of them.

Pretty much every place where you would die a lot has an anvil nearby your respawn point. In WvW a permanent repair canister would save a player about 3-5 seconds of time every time they respawned by letting them avoid the anvil detour. That minuscule convenience is hardly worth a gem store item.

And dungeons have anvils, where else would you need to repair a lot? You’d need a permanent revive orb to benefit from a permanent repair canister…

I learned when tutoring an exchange student from Saudi Arabia that Arabic isn’t anyone’s primary language, it’s more a common second language used in a wide area to communicate with people who don’t speak your primary language. From what I was told, Arabic is more preserved and unchanging as a language because it is used for religious purposes on top of used as a common tongue among various regional languages.

Any primary language will change over time. Languages are living. Look at Middle English. Such a different language from today’s English! And you can even see conventions in preposition usage change over the time period of the early 20th century to the present. Even an ocean’s separation has changed American, Australian, New Zealand, South African, etc. English from English spoken and written in the UK! And don’t go thinking people in the UK speak English in the same way as back when British people first started colonizing various parts of the globe.

The only way for English elitists to preserve their precious rules and grammar would be to make it a second language that’s only used for more formal scenarios . Then it would be more preserved and it could be taught in a rigid way without changing so much over time. Look at Latin. It’s a dead language that stopped “living”, a.k.a. changing over time, when the last native speaker died.

The only way to keep English the same is to stop using it.

stale.9785:

Reading through this thread, I’m reminding of a rant from a friend of mine. She is a languages professor at the University of Toronto.

Languages are linguistics? Because any linguistics professor I’ve ever taken a class from doesn’t pretend that English or any language has any hard-set unchangeable rules. They would be more prone to say no one speaks the same language then say everyone is “illiterate” in English usage.

Gaile Gray.6029:

I’m not budging on “Will everyone please put on his or her jacket?” “Their” just isn’t right.

Not everyone is a “him” or “her” though.

I think last time I brought up the “staffs” issue I was told by someone that “staffs” just how the designers liked it. When it comes to a fantasy game with fantasy objects I think everyone has to just bow to the word aesthetics of the designers.

After all we don’t go around arguing about aether vs ether vs æther.

Caithe’s not dead but…
I really wish they would've given a little more character depth to Faolain and made her struggle vs. Mordremoth at the same time as struggling to uphold her desire for freedom from the Pale Tree's values. At least draw it out a little instead of making her a literal puppet at the end. :S But actually who knows as the next Living Story comes out. Mordremoth's heroes are supposed to be able to be reborn...maybe I forgot some fine detail in the ending story chapters that counteracts this possibility.

Why are my spoilers showing up as black text when everyone elses show up as a button you can click?….

I’m pretty sure GW2 accounts are entirely unlinked from NCSoft accounts at this point. I remember an email a while back telling me that all NCSoft Accounts were being phased out or something and moving to a new system. There was something about transferring my Aion account to some other system that I forgot to do since I don’t really care about Aion.

All Twitch’s ratings say are how many Twitch users like a game. Also Blade and Soul is a Korean game. I wouldn’t really call it a Japanese style game. It’s really just a bizarre-shaped-body fighter game style art. >.<

Dor Bell.7368:

My friend bought gw1 ,, but not gw2. Recently I was able to “take” one of his screen names for my own.

When the game was in development the deal was something along the lines of that Guild Wars 1 names were reserved for a year if you linked them with your account, then after that others could take your name even if linked. I believe they also made all GW1 names reserved for a period of time no matter what.

The one word names were ALL up for grabs though since in GW1 you couldn’t have one word names.

It’s kind of a rite of loyalty for older accounts to be able to take more commonly desired names. A bonus for getting into the game first.

Even at launch you can’t have every name you want. I nabbed the name “Mo Mo” at pre-launch but “Momo” was taken before I could turn around and make a second character. :P

I like that common names are all taken by this point. Makes it more fun having to think of something truly original and interesting if you’re wanting your character to stand out.

If you don’t like last names, I like going with descriptors or titles. like Bob “The Great” or something like that or Jane “Of Kryta”.

The Arcane Sliver seller got a great deal. Look at the price history on the GW2TP page the OP linked. They essentially sold an item that was selling for 9 gold and ended up making a 166 gold profit instead. There’s nothing to complain about. If a RMT hadn’t bought the player’s over-listed item, no one would have and their listing fee would be a total loss.

Regarding RMTs on the TP:
When free accounts first came out, buying uncirculated items on TP was the only thing I could think of that might have the ability to transfer gold from free botting accounts into the open market. There are all sorts of items that don’t have circulation on TP. You can see many random items of varying usefulness when you check to see unavailable items.

It’s interesting to see RMTs are even willing to try and buy out items that have ridiculous listings like the Arcane Sliver. Seems like kind of a desperate move so I’m guessing ANet has been running good interference on the other uncirculating items that are out there. Cool!

I certainly want gliding in the core game.

I’m sure it will be easy as pie to disable gliding in places like any jumping puzzles that would be cheesed up by gliding, or just redesign the JPs. (Oooo redesign!)

I’d like to see much more in depth detail like what the OP is looking for on the wiki.

Is there like a newbies guide to editing wiki pages? I don’t know a ton about html so I’ve been scared of getting into putting info on the wiki.

This is the kind of stuff I always loved to see on the guildwars wiki. Seems like the wiki community for guild wars 2 isn’t as committed to rigorous detail. I found every question I ever had about the game on wiki.guildwars.com. The GW2 wiki is…blegh.

What about the skill system is off-putting? The way you get weapon skills or utility skills? The time it takes? Something else?

Also a lot of issues with getting into a game can be solved by joining a supportive guild. Plenty of guilds around are open to taking in newbies.

Sorry ya’ll, I got em and I filled up each slot with the basic necessities I can’t live without. ^.^

I have 20 char slots so…that definitely makes my value per slot a bit higher than most…

I did the free trial for WoW a while back and couldn’t get past the starter zone. I’m not sure how you didn’t feel the grind. After killing a bunch of pigs for my first quest then killing a bunch of spiders for a random drop I needed to accumulate the next quest turn-in requirements I saw where the grind was going. And dang I would play SRO if the game was functioning in any practical way, but at least that game had interesting animations.

Dang. Thought I could redownload the client from the My Account page here on the forum but alas it isn’t the most recent version and it wants to update still :S

I’ll see how long I get going on the 32-bit client before it crashes

Zoltar MacRoth.7146:

What about an animation instead of a loading screen? For example, if you enter an Asura gate (or one of the inter-region portals) you fly through a simple ‘stargate’ like effect. Same loading time, but it feels like you’re actually moving.

I’ve either heard this suggestion before or had a similar thought. I really like it. Animated loading screens would be quite exciting. A transition into the portal and then a transition out of the portal once the new map loads, and in between a twisting turning tunnel of lights?

I don’t know if lore people would freak out though? The gates are supposed to be instant, as described in the novels and otherwise.

Labjax.2465:

Gaaroth.2567:

HoT is not a grind, you made it by wanting everything immediately.
Instead why woudln’t you just explore, do stuff and events, clear achievements and do story? I’m 1 month in, basically al masteries unlocked and never felt the grind.

Also: can i haz ur stuff plz?

Where the hell do people get off with this notion that it’s the player’s responsibility to figure out how to enjoy the game. How far have we fallen from classic video games?

Ocarina of Time isn’t one of my favorite games because I played it the right way, or changed my mindset so that I would enjoy it. It’s one of my favorite games because from start to finish, it exuded playful joy at every turn.

But these modern games, they condition you to focus on the grind. You try to put it on this guy, but the game pulls your eyes to the numbers at every turn. Pulls your eyes to the currency costs and coin gain and mat requirements. I don’t know how anyone “ignores the grind” in a game like GW2 other than through active forgetfulness. Like self-induced memory loss or something.

I can only assume it’s a matter of playing with other people in such a way that the presence of those people distracts you from the gameplay. Because if you pay full attention to the gameplay, the numbers are in your face all the time. They call that “good UI design,” ha.

Seems like nowadays the average consumer of video games wouldn’t know quality if it bit them in the neck and stayed there. Somehow people have been hoodwinked into believing that it’s their responsibility (and by extension, other peoples’ responsibility) to enjoy the product, and not the product’s responsibility to deliver.

I feel old talking about this, even though I’m not. It feels like there’s a generation of gamers that has replaced the one I was once a part of. Some of them even people who played back in the day, but have forgotten what it was like. The new generation is desperate to prove to themselves and everybody else that games are amazing right now. Because they so want to believe it, in the way that the guy who paid $20 for a theater ticket wants to believe that what they just watched was good, even if it was crap.

Some days, I really feel like a stranger here.

Everything revolves around money. The game is structured to encourage you to spend money in the gem store, because money is required to produce such an elaborate virtual world.

If it wasn’t for money more games would be just as creative and unique and fun as the games of old. But that’s the current system.

You said:
“Where the hell do people get off with this notion that it’s the player’s responsibility to figure out how to enjoy the game. How far have we fallen from classic video games?”

At this current state of the game market, it unfortunately IS the player’s responsibility to not go along with the guidance the corporate hands that are perpetually resting their palms on our wallets. It’s the players responsibility to resist the urge to be a rampant consumer and play the game like it’s a job, because the producers who have a leash around creativity’s neck sure aren’t going to take responsibility.

It’s the state of the world. People have to make a conscious choice about what and how to actually enjoy their free time, because modern society’s values are entrenched in capital gain and productivity, and if anyone goes with that mechanical flow they’re just going to keep falling into the grind mentality that makes them tend to treat even their leisure time like a full-time job. Happens to me sometimes. Happens to most of us.

If you want your classic games without all the stress and brimming with fun, you’ll have to wait for artists and creative minds to escape out from under the weight of the imaginary numbers MMOG we call “the economy”. :P

lol it’s late at night.

“Dear ANet: Why I’m logging off today. I played the game a lot the past few days and I got kind of burnt out.”

You’re playing the game wrong. It’s ENTIRELY in your hands when it comes to grind or no grind in this game.

I’ve played this game grindy many times, it’s in my nature after having played games like Aion and before that the ridiculously grindy SilkRoad Online.

But then I get burnt out for grinding. There’s an amazing solution though. Stop caring about progression. Just log into a character and start playing something you haven’t done before. A dungeon, a storyline, leisurely map completion.

This game requires no grind. When you start to feel like you’re grinding, you only need to stop caring about that ultimate reward thing, realize it won’t enhance your gameplay THAT much no matter what it is, and just play without thinking about the value of your time and energy spent in game. Because it’s a game after all. Your time is being completely wasted every time you log in.

To stop feeling grind, stop grinding. In GW2, it’s actually that easy!

P.S. It’s entirely on you if you game on a Mac. Apple likes to act like the world revolves around them, but that seems to rub off on some of its users who start to believe the world should revolve around Mac… makes no sense.

Don’t complain that ANet doesn’t program the client twice just for you. Every other marketed consumer computer besides Macs can function using a common set of languages. Macs require an entirely different programming approach and programmers have to pay Apple for the privilege of even programming in their special Apple code. (Apple certification B.S.)

If you have a problem with the Mac client, complain to Apple, not to ANet or any other developers, for not being willing to play nicely with everyone else.

You pay extra for the convenience. Bag slots fit into the convenience category of the gem store items.

Another example is the infinite gathering picks/axes/scythes. Those things aren’t worth 1000 gems to me since I have tons of alts, so I don’t buy them. But it’s totally worth the convenience to some other people. The price stands accordingly.

Given how the price of inventory bags raises exponentially as you get larger capacity bags, the price in gold converted to gems you would pay to purchase an extra bag slot makes total sense.

If you want to pay a subscription to Guild Wars 2, then do. I often end up spending $10-$20 a month in the gem store but for a while I spent a set amount on gems each month.

Just buy $10 in gems once a month and use those gems when you see fit. Call it a subscription and reap the benefits of gems.

Grumpy casuals need to stop trying to take the “legendary” out of Legendary gear. I’m a pretty casual player and I don’t go for legendary gear because…I’m a casual player.

There’s nothing wrong with not having the same things or as many things as the people who play the game a ton. You’re perfectly fine with exotic. I’ve gotten to the point where I can sometimes make an ascended weapon here or there but mostly I’m just dominating the game with exotics on all my alts.

Do I sometimes think about trying to get a legendary? Yes. Definitely
Do I get angry when I realize it would take way too much time or energy? No. Absolutely not.

= Give up on Legendaries if you don’t want to put the time or gold into getting them. = They are just weapon skins with a bit of convenience tacked on. You’ll enjoy the game a lot more doing things that are actually fun.

I loved the story.

I think Masteries are well worked out.

You don’t have to put effort towards unlocking the highest tier masteries if they aren’t worth it for you.

Grind-able content has always had an exponential gap for the final tier(s) of unlocking i n pretty much all games. Even in this game, Exotic vs. Ascended is a big cost and energy difference. But grinders love that stuff.

Not everything in the game is tailored towards every single player. There is a broad spectrum of content to appeal to different wants and interests.

Just don’t get gliding top tier mastery if you think it’s worthless.

Leveling Masteries is done the same way leveling was before.

As before, you could always take the grind approach: Dungeon repetitions, (apparently quite popular with those mastery lvl 100+ people) Edge of the Mists, Killstreak boosters, etc.

If you want to do something fast, grind is the way to do it. But the Masteries weren’t made to be “mastered” in a day. :P

Getting the basic masteries you need to progress in HoT only takes a little while, and the rest of the masteries are just nice conveniences. If you want them fast, grind away. But if you just play the game to have fun and do whatever you feel like each day, you’ll find your leveling still isn’t that slow.

Well, at least one person agrees with me.

“Legendary”. It’s not legendary if everybody is running around with these things, particle effects crowding up the screen.

This game is built so casual players can play and succeed without being ground into dust by hardcore players. But hardcore players need something to go hardcore for. And it’s in ANet’s best interest to give hardcore players something to grind for.

Hardcore play feeds gem sales by either driving gem purchases from hardcore players, or driving gem purchases from people buying the expensive items that only the hardcore players acquire through traditional play.

Easy HP Acquisition Strategy:

1. Level up once in the core game to get your mentor tag.

2. Wait until it’s not night-time or there isn’t another major meta-event going on.

3. Go to the HP and put up your mentor tag.

4. Ask in /map for help doing the HP on your tag and ping the nearest waypoint or landmark, giving your location with respect to the waypoint/landmark you pinged.

5. Wait up to 5 minutes for 2-5 people minimum to show up.

? ? ? ? ? (No mystery here)

6. Profit.

I’m pleased with the challenges. I’ve had to adapt the playstyle and build of some of my characters, but that’s how it goes when you learn to counter a new enemy.

Hi,

So the 64-bit client is a totally separate .exe file that you just put in the Guild Wars 2 folder alongside the normal client. It uses the same GW2.dat file and everything.

I’ve been using it and there haven’t been any problems. If you used it and you encountered issues, you could bug report it or just stop opening the 64-bit .exe file.

If worse came to worse and your 32-bit client stopped working for some very odd reason, you would just want to delete everything in the Guild Wars 2 file EXCEPT the GW2.Dat file and redownload the client. Then you’d have to reset your graphics settings and re-input your email and password if it’s saved in the loader.

If you’re really that worried, make a backup of everything in your Guild Wars 2 folder and revert to that if your 32-bit client stops working for some reason. But really the 64-bit client shouldn’t affect anything except itself in terms of whether or not it breaks.

As title suggests, I think we should move keys/crowbars/etc. to the currency storage so my numerous alts can open chests without having to do an inventory shuffle every time I switch characters.

If they can put bandit crests and geodes in the currency storage, I think it’s not too much hassle to put keys in currency storage to make it easier to play the game without popping in and out of HotM so often for inventory shuffling.

The costs are boomed up because everyone is crafting at once. Crafting exotic gear is cheap enough I’d recommend waiting it out for a while until the TP prices go back down a bit.

btw where’s my ascended jeweler crafting. I don’t have enough laurels for the multitude trinket varieties I need, and crafting exotic jewelry makes me sad.

I just use range all day every day in HoT.

The final battle was annoying because of the total server breakdown and a few annoying mechanics. I might’ve won it by the end alone, but I ended up playing through with other people.

I think your best bet is to go in with a group.

I bet OP is one of those people who asks for help at an HP and never tells people where it actually is or how to get to it. (OMG HELP AT GUANO HP!)

Or OP is one of those people who spams for help at an HP during a big meta event. (There is plenty of gap between the major events where people are free to help with stuff)

You can kill a champ HP effectively with three people. All you need is two more people other than yourself.

If you’re asking for help at appropriate times, during times when people are actually playing, and helping people get to you who maybe don’t know all the content by name since it’s totally new content, then you shouldn’t have a problem with HPs.

And you’ve got a mentor tag to boot. Sometimes I have to wait up to 5 minutes to get help on an HP, but people always do come when I pop my tag and ping the nearest waypoint or landmark. OP must be doing map chat wrong.