Guild Wars 2

Ascended Creme Brulee FTW.

Why hasn’t this thread been locked? It doesn’t serve any purpose except to be inflammatory.

I would really love to see what is happening to Arah happen to all the other dungeon story modes. Just allowing for difficulty scaling based on number in the group would be a wonderful thing.

Board with a nail in it…

Puts on the “Been there, done that.” title…personally I’m waiting for release day before I do anything HoT related…

Gaile Gray.6029:

MokahTGS.7850:

In case people don’t know, the golden pig on the Gem Store is an obvious nod to the Pike Place Market Piggy Bank in Seattle where ANet is based. I personally would have preferred a gem store mini doughnut machine that is located right next to the pig, but oh well.

Mini doughnut machine, eh? What better way to build strength, endurance, and a sugar high for encounters with world boses!

~quietly flags post for review of gem store team~

Ok, ok, I jest!

I would accept this ONLY if they included the maple frosting with bacon version.

In case people don’t know, the golden pig on the Gem Store is an obvious nod to the Pike Place Market Piggy Bank in Seattle where ANet is based. I personally would have preferred a gem store mini doughnut machine that is located right next to the pig, but oh well.

Shinzan.2908:

lordkrall.7241:

It will be permanent.

But the reason for time-limited sales is because they work. People feel rushed to buy stuff and they do it. It is simply good marketing.

That’s the kind of treatment I would expect from crappy freemium facebook games and not from an AAA MMORPG I actually bought and continued to support though.

Like it or not, it’s how any store works…limited time sales are a thing. You don’t need anything that they are selling…the fact that people feel that they do need it illustrates the fact that this strategy works and will continue. Even this thread encourages, not discourages them from doing it.

If you can’t rub it’s nose for luck or a bacon drop every 24 hrs then what is the point?

Speaking from GW1 experience I look forward to this feature…although truth be told, this feature is less needed today with faster intarweb speeds then it was back in the early days of GW1. It’s still welcome of course.

Boanoah.6719:

MokahTGS.7850:

Statements like in the OP just don’t seem to make sense and really just need to be ignored. HoT is a B2P expansion…it requires you to buy it to play the content. There aren’t any MMOs that release B2P expansions that work any differently.

GW2 is NOT F2P…never has been, never will be. It is B2P. They will continue to work on content for all areas of the game…they even have said as much in all of the interviews so far. There are pictures of Mastery’s for the vanilla part of the game…they are adding content to the vanilla part of the game…they said that there will be adventures added to ALL parts of the game…there is PvP and WvW content being added to the vanilla part of the game…just do your research and then buy the expansion…why?

Because you like the vanilla part of the game and you want to support ANet making more content. If you don’t agree, fine…don’t buy it, but please stop QQing about how your ball is being taken away from you…it’s not…in fact your being given a bunch of free new balls on top of the opportunity to buy a new playground to play in.

Some people…

I swear some people don’t read before responding.

PvE is not getting any ‘new balls’, all updates to the world will be happening in Maguuma, the living world [which brought us such great hits as season 1 and season 2 of the living story as well as Silverwastes, Drytop, Tequatl Rising, Toxic Alliance, Flame & Frost, the Karka Invasion, the destructio of Lion’s Arch and any such map updates] will no longer be happening in Pact Tyria.

The world of Pact Tyria, the game as it is now, will no longer be changing with updates to the Living World, there will be no Living Story seasons for vanilla players to engage in.

“The world will be as it is today.”

So you definition of new balls only includes Living World story…ok…then we don’t have anything to debate since I use a different definition that includes all content added to the game.

Collin stated that the LW story will be HoT dependent and that completely and totally makes sense. You might not like it, but it does not mean that the vanilla game won’t have new content added (new balls). Just not new story.

If that is what you are QQing about, then fine…just know that most people do not agree that GW2 should move forward the way you want.

I personally would love all of the OPs suggestions as well as a +1 to a consumable hotbar slot.

Pretty sure on release day they will just be called “ohcraplookoutimonfireimonfireimonfirecanigetarezplz”

I made sure I flew right to the gem store and snapped these up…no need to debate feather or not you’d want them.

Statements like in the OP just don’t seem to make sense and really just need to be ignored. HoT is a B2P expansion…it requires you to buy it to play the content. There aren’t any MMOs that release B2P expansions that work any differently.

GW2 is NOT F2P…never has been, never will be. It is B2P. They will continue to work on content for all areas of the game…they even have said as much in all of the interviews so far. There are pictures of Mastery’s for the vanilla part of the game…they are adding content to the vanilla part of the game…they said that there will be adventures added to ALL parts of the game…there is PvP and WvW content being added to the vanilla part of the game…just do your research and then buy the expansion…why?

Because you like the vanilla part of the game and you want to support ANet making more content. If you don’t agree, fine…don’t buy it, but please stop QQing about how your ball is being taken away from you…it’s not…in fact your being given a bunch of free new balls on top of the opportunity to buy a new playground to play in.

Some people…

AnthonyOrdon.3926:

Given that the expansion isn’t released yet you guys have the chance here to give your feedback on what you’d like to see in Adventures.

Bear in mind that the we what we’ve seen so far is content tuned for the show floor being played by someone who’s already had a few tries.

First and foremost, if the content for adventures is mini-games, JPs, and contests then they should not be called “Adventures”. This is misleading. They are challenges.

Calling them adventures leads people to believe that they are quests or missions akin to GW1 style of play.

If an adventure opens up to finish a JP in a certain amount of time….that’s not an adventure…its a challenge.

Personally, I’d like to see more actual adventures show up and fewer challenges. Surviving a pub brawl isn’t really an adventure. If a new NPC shows up and wants me to help them defeat a new boss that will spawn in a cave to rescue his daughter or some such trope…that’s an adventure.

Agreed. The design of the Silverwastes is what I hope they will continue going forward, and from the recent blog posts, it sounds like it is.

So reading through the blog, I saw the word “maps” used twice which means at least two maps with HoT. I personally believe that there will be more than two and each map will have multiple levels as shown in videos and in the game design of the Silverwastes map that we currently have.

Will we get as many maps as EotN for GW1? No. I’m not expecting anything close to that. Truthfully though, those areas were large but sparse in content and created for a different game design. GW1 didn’t have open world content so map design really can’t match.

When looking at the Silverwastes as an example of what we will be getting in HoT, then I am happy with the design scheme for the most part. I do think that the Silverwastes are a bit small for all that is going on, but hopefully HoT will address that.

Really my biggest concern is price, not number of areas, as we KNOW HoT will not have the same amount of content that GW2 came with…so hopefully the price will be comparable.

There are people on the forums talking about $50 as a good price point and I think that they either have far too much disposable income or are just NCSoft investors. Paying over $25 for what they have announced is unreasonable in today’s market.

Maybe it’ll be the pistol…and they will be called Lawman…

Murderous Clown.9723:

First off, I agree with most of the comments here that OP is jumping the gun here. Heart of Maguuma will almost certainly be a new region with multiple zones and the rest of the features (subject to what challenging group content actually means) sound comparable to what you’d expect from expansions in other games.

I have one bugbear from this thread though. Sure, Factions and Nightfall were technically stand-alone campaigns rather than expansions, but so what? If you already owned GW and chose to link the new campaign to your account, which is what most people did, it would then function exactly the same as an expansion.

The fact that those expansions (yes I used that word intentionally) had the additional feature that they could be played without linking to the original game doesn’t mean we can’t cite them for comparison or should somehow expect less of HoT because of it.

The reason I think you shouldn’t cite them for comparison is that ANet does not call them expansions. They are calling HoT an expansion and really the only thing they also called an expansion is EotN.

If they gave us the same amount of content in EotN then I would be happy.

Nunchucks of Justice

Q: How many areas with the HoT expansion comprise? Not zones…biomes, regions.

Areas are defined as Queensdale, Kessex Hills, Plains of Ashford, Silver Wastes, etc….not Kryta, Ascalon, Maguuma which are regions.

butch.8136:

MokahTGS.7850:

butch.8136:

^ Again, you seem to have all the details. Enlighten me.

Why do people keep saying 1 zone? Like wtf…

From this interview:

http://www.shacknews.com/article/87848/guild-wars-2-director-discusses-heart-of-thorns-revenants-guild-halls-and-more

Colin Johanson says: “From an environment standpoint, this is the largest amount of vertical space we have ever built in the game. Our map spans huge distances up in the air. We are actually able to climb to the very top of the jungle and look down on everyone below. We’re adding hang gliding, so you won’t have to fall to your death every time. We’re adding a lot of abilities that will take advantage of the amount of 3D space that we’ll make use of as part of these adventures in the jungle.”

He says map. Not maps.

He doesn’t say zone, area, region, biome or anything else. He says Map.

Take that as you will of course.

“Explore new open world jungle maps.”

From the official site:
https://heartofthorns.guildwars2.com/en/?_ga=1.36372064.1353438721.1422012130

Take that as you will of course.

And again:

We were maybe intentionally vague when we didn’t talk about what types of content you’re going to experience specifically in the jungle, but the most important messages we want people to take from today are that you’re going to be able to explore a new area, and we know that Guild Wars 2 needs more challenging encounters and more challenging group encounters, and it needs extremely challenging encounters for groups to build up to and defeat. We’re going to be providing all of that with our Heart of Thorns experience.

http://www.mmorpg.com/gamelist.cfm/game/473/feature/9340/page/1

Realize I would love to be proved wrong and hope intensely that Colin is just using the wrong words here.

butch.8136:

^ Again, you seem to have all the details. Enlighten me.

Why do people keep saying 1 zone? Like wtf…

From this interview:

http://www.shacknews.com/article/87848/guild-wars-2-director-discusses-heart-of-thorns-revenants-guild-halls-and-more

Colin Johanson says: “From an environment standpoint, this is the largest amount of vertical space we have ever built in the game. Our map spans huge distances up in the air. We are actually able to climb to the very top of the jungle and look down on everyone below. We’re adding hang gliding, so you won’t have to fall to your death every time. We’re adding a lot of abilities that will take advantage of the amount of 3D space that we’ll make use of as part of these adventures in the jungle.”

He says map. Not maps.

He doesn’t say zone, area, region, biome or anything else. He says Map.

Take that as you will of course.

Sirendor.1394:

Lord Trejgon.2809:

Eye of the North – the only GW expansion we have ever seen:
no new classes
no new playable races
phew new maps but nothing close to the size of continent
maps had terrible textures
a little new skills
some new armor sets

Only expansion? What GW have you been playing? Factions and Nightfall were expansions bro.

Not by Anet’s definitions. Factions and Nightfall were stand-alone releases. Stand alone games. EotN was the only real expansion.

You could buy only 1 of all three Prophecies, Factions, or Nightfall and play them independently.

Plus the Mursaat in the trailer look like Mursaat.

Crise.9401:

MokahTGS.7850:

IMO, $50 is insane to ask for an exp with only one zone. The main game doesn’t cost that much.

Personally, I think between $10-20 is fair for the amount of content being described. If it is true that there is only 1 new area added to the PvE side of things then $9.99 is fair.

Depends on your definition of an area and zone.

They used the word region when referring to the Heart of the Maguuma, in the base game regions are larger geographical or geopolitical areas like Kryta, Ascalon, Orr, etc. all of which contain multiple maps or zones.

For the three way split of the new region they used the term biome that is not strictly defined in the base game but has common definition of areas separated by distinct terrain types and life forms. Seeing as how the split is vertical and knowing that the map system in game already has three vertical layers this can be taken to imply that each individual zone of the new explorable area contains or can contain a representation of each of these three biomes.

We don’t have enough information to judge the landmass added to the game by HoT at all, but we have decent examples of vertical maps now starting from Labyrinthine Cliffs and ending with The Silverwastes which show that the area a zone occupies on the map does not necessarily accurately indicate its real size.

For comparison currently what I believe is called the Maguuma Wastes is a region that contains two zones Dry Top and the Silverwastes, Orr is a region with four zones and these are the two smallest regions in the game as of right now whereas the largest regions go upto circa 7 zones (writing this from memory).

Which is the main reason why I asked for ANet to define their terms:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/hot/Please-Define-Your-Terms/first#post4734417

IMO even adding an area like the silver wastes would be too little for an Expansion pack priced at $30-50. If the price is close to the original game it should have close to the same amount of content.

In the immortal words of Inigo Montoya “You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.”

In Colin’s recent article he was quoted as saying “Our area” refering to new PvE content in HoT. Many people are taking that to mean that HoT will only have one area released for PvE. It would be nice if ANet would define some terms so that the community doesn’t jump ship at a mis-quote.

Please be so kind as to define the following:

1) Zone –
2) Area –
3) Region –
4) Map –
5) Biome -

Abdulaziz.1496:

well, do you know what “one zone” means?
it’s not “1 map”.. ascalon for example is one zone..

the maguuma jungle\wastes is even bigger, let’s just wait and see…

I was thinking this too before I read Colin’s interview. The language he uses equates to 1 map. Not a zone like Ascalon or Kryta. Granted, I’m thinking it will be a large map…but still…no where near the amount of explorable areas as when GW2 came out. HoT seems more and more like a mini expansion, and not what people were used too with GW1.

IMO, $50 is insane to ask for an exp with only one zone. The main game doesn’t cost that much.

Personally, I think between $10-20 is fair for the amount of content being described. If it is true that there is only 1 new area added to the PvE side of things then $9.99 is fair.

Yeah…if that is true it is very very disappointing.

Yeah…region does not mean map for sure. Granted, I do not believe that HoT will have many more areas then a normal region (5-6) but I also don’t believe that there will only be one.

I disagree that you need to lvl slowly to learn class mechanics. Maybe some people do, but so much time is spent in the game at lvl 80 that it just doesn’t make sense to me to indulge in the NPE. The NPE is so bad and completely unnecessary so I will be skipping as much as I can. I have younger children playing the game that chafe at the NPE. Tell me again why they can’t learn skills until lvl 20?? All the feat points until lvl 80??

Most likely will be eating a lvl 20 scroll and tomes and taking the rev straight into EotM to lvl or the new WvW stuff.

I bought two more copies of the game this weekend bringing our household number to 4 which means 4 exp packs for us as well. Spendy…yes…but I want to support exp packs. The living story is ok, but not really worth paying for.

My concern however is size/quantity of the explorable areas. GW1 exps were well worth the money. The size and amount of content for each one is what I’m hoping for on HoT. Right now however, what has been announced is not as big.

Not really sure why this is so hard. JPing puzzles should give better rewards and not be farmable. How?

JPing puzzles are areas. Make any disconnect inside the area port the player back to the beginning of the JPing puzzle just like how EotM dump the players that log off or disconnects.

Make all JPing puzzle chests a once a day thing and up the loot. I’m not going to bang my head at a puzzle for a blue and a green.

Parking a character at locations for easy loot grabs is lame and not intended behavior. Ask any of the devs if that’s how they intended the JPing puzzles to be used and you know they would agree with me.

Will this be fixed any time soon? I’m not holding my breath.

One-Way Base Jumping is one of my favorite pastimes in GW2. Rata Sum is good and there are a few other places that offer a satisfying view on the way down.

I also like to Cube Surf in Rata Sum trying to make it down to the ground without dying. That of course lands you in jail.

Dinner is served?

mtpelion.4562:

Greetings, time traveler! You’ve arrived in 2014!

Unfortunately, expansions in this day and age are a bygone thing of yore. We still pine for them due to nostalgia, but game publishers have learned that they can make substantially more money doing substantially less work and with substantially less risk by simply nickel and diming the market with DLC.

If it is an expansion you seek, I suggest you return to your original timeline. Here, we just read about them in history books.

I’m amused how this thought process is believed to be valid. There are several MMOs that still use the paid expansion model and are doing quite well. DCUO and WoW to name two right off the bat. Both of those games sell expansions on a regular basis and do actually exist in our current timeline. WoW also currently posted and INCREASE in membership over the last quarter by 600k or so. Increase. Wonder if that has something to do with their paid expansion getting released soon?

Just because ANet seems to have abandoned the paid expansion model doesn’t mean that it isn’t a valid point of discussion or valid market model. Evidence says otherwise.

I really want to stress my support of the NPE system only going into effect for the first character a player creates. There is no reason why a player with a lvl 80 character that creates a new character should have to use this new system.

I don’t know if it is at all possible to revert to such a system, but that is what I would want as a player.

Please do what you can to remove the Saturday morning/Degrassi High vibe form the current living story. GW lore is an epic story spanning hundreds of years and there is no place for these meaningless politically correct character tropes.

The characters need to suck it up, and get darker, stronger, and less wussy. These are fricken elder dragons…people need to be dying…especially the more annoying ones.

Ayakaru.6583:

The staff on LS is pretty small (about 15 people I heard) so it’s likely a second group is actually working on an expansion and taking their time to make sure it’s a good one. And the living story will keep us busy in the meantime

This was said where exactly? If you could provide a link to confirm either of these rumors, I’d love to see it.

Stephane Lo Presti.7258:

Hi everyone,

The article about profession system only presented the idea behind this system and we generally don’t give precise details about these systems unless these details are needed to understand the idea. In this case we can’t share details but we want to reassure players that they’re not going to see changes in loot so visible that some components are going to “rain” or they’ll stop seeing loot variety. It’s more complex than that.

The adjustments to the loot system are fairly subtle and the goals are that, after a certain time, your characters will effectively have more components you can use. So it may take some time for you to see a difference, or not, but it’s not going to feel like a very visible change each time you loot a mob. We want players, in particular new ones or those creating alts, to more often be able to use the items they loot directly or get something that is relevant to their profession. It does not mean that you’ll get less varied loot overall. We’ll keep monitoring the changes to kitten its affects.

Thanks for your early feedback!

So basically this will either change the market making it harder for heavies and mediums or it will have no affect that anyone will notice or really care about. This is an item that you feature? Again…your communication-foo needs some work.

If you want to improve the loot system, try removing the unidentifiable items from the champ bag and replace it with an actual useful reward.

Also…

Stephane Lo Presti.7258:

We’ll keep monitoring the changes to kitten its affects.

Your forum swear filter needs some work or you are saying things between the lines that I don’t think you mean too.

My wife and I are looking for a PvE focused guild with Tarnished Coast as a home that is active, friendly and just want to have fun playing. We don’t like a lot of rules or drama and are just looking for a bunch of like minded people to play with. Mature players are preferred. We are PST time zone and really just want to be in a guild that has people playing.

We also have played a bit of WvW but to openly seek that type of play style.

This must be different for HoM players as I can change to any of the Legacy skins for free at any time on any character.

At least they didn’t take that away from us GW1 players.

Foosnark.1784:

Why is it always fishing?

Why not add knitting, or rock collecting, or calligraphy, or bobsledding, or taxidermy, or…

wait. Bobsledding would be awesome!

I would pay piles of good money for a Taxidermy profession…but only if you could do quagans.

Kain Francois.4328:

Cotheer.2806:

How fun >_>
Create character, get 100% in RS, delete character, rinse and repeat..
Is this really how this (or any other for that matter) game is supposed to be played?

You could also buy more gems if you want variety!

Fixed that for you.

With the new changes to the wardrobe will the skins that GW1 legacy players have unlocked still be free to transmute into or will we have to spend charges for those skins as well?

you are supposed to grind dungeons/fractals or zerg running with champ trains or ZvZvZ.

This is GW2’s end game.

hahahahah…..modding…in an mmo environment…with an economy….yer funny.

Yup…this pretty much confirms the total gem shop takeover that will happen to GW2. All these QoL things that we have been asking for since early beta are going to be turned into cash shop schemes. Its sad, lame, and totally a lie from what the devs were pushing pre-release.

Well, they could have done something spectacular, but instead they sold out, got greedy and totally lost my business.