Guild Wars 2

I’d be greatly impressed with the writers if this turned out to be the case. Hints and foreshadowing of a subtle nature, and a great twist. I’d be very happy with it.

…it’s just that the writing we’ve seen so far, both in the main personal story and the LS, has been quite straightforward. No twists.

I’d love it to be true, though; it’d show they have bunnies under their hats and tricks up their sleeves after all.

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

That is correct. How ever, for some reason I thought of Atlas, being forced to carry the world.

(Just a minor correction: Atlas did not carry the world, but rather the sky. The popular image, with a globe, is a misconception).

That Gamebreaker article, I’d like to point out, is from quite some time before Mike Z said they were aiming at LS instead of an expansion, and Colin then said they were still deciding how to release content.

An expansion is looking less likely than that article makes out, essentially. If it’s LS all the way, then… well, I can’t see any more dragons being introduced for years.

Gehenna.3625:

It’s quite common that people complain about leveling zones being empty. I’ve heard friends complain about it in games like EQ and WoW and last year SWTOR certainly was no different.

It isn’t so much that the world is large, but the leveling area is so big that it adds to the issues of empty zones. The players are (LotR quote) like butter spread over too much bread. And Anet recognised that issue in GW1. That’s one of the reasons quoted back then for not wanting to go on with new continents. So EotN was not a new continent and they didn’t want to make the same mistake for GW2.

The sense of progress is exactly why there is no need for those levels. The reason I call them unnecessary is because it delays players unnecesarily long from doing dungeons and such and because after level 30 or so, there isn’t much progression happening. It’s the most devoid progression I’ve experienced in any game.

You can have everything unlocked, except trait points when you unlock that elite slot. Skill points you keep getting. In GW1 there were only 20 levels because of a simple reason: most of the game was considered endgame.

Now if had level 50 as max level and more max level zones and activities, I think the balance would make more sense. But that’s just me of course.

I can see this, certainly, as an argument against creating numerous new leveling zones upon the hypothetical introduction of a new race.

If a “true” expansion were to focus on a dragon, or Joko, though, I’d presume it would be primarily lvl-80 content.

If such an addition were delivered via the LS, though, then (to continue your analogy) each bite of toast could quite likely be absolutely smothered in butter.

Vayne.8563:

I don’t disagree with this. However, that’s how it was at launch too, and that’s how it would eventually be with an expansion.

You’re making an assumption that a new zone released during the personal story wouldn’t be permanent. But I’m thinking it would be.

Well, on launch, at least players were split over numerous different areas, and advancing at their own pace. That’s one main difference with the LS.

Vayne.8563:

Sure, a lot of people congregate in low level areas….why? Because it’s the easiest place to do dailies, or farm champions. Again, Anet has directed traffic with dailies and the champion rewards.

It’s not an accident that you run into people in low level zones. It’s part of the structure of the game that encourages it.

And in an expansion, it’d be the same way— the new zones would be about as populated as the existing ones were during launch, and then it would dwindle, still leaving a reasonable number of re-visiters.

In LS, it’d be different. A new zone introduced via LS would be, during its first fortnight, utterly choc-full of players; and every encounter would be swamped by dozens of players (meaning your own personal impact would be near-impossible to recognise). The fights would be just like those in Southsun’s early days, or those against the Twisted minions now. A hundred people dog-piling the same enemy.

Vayne.8563:

You put that number of people in a zone, there’s a relatively big chance they’ll never run into each other.

Now I don’t know server caps, but once you start thinking about people who play at 4 am and you can’t make a world small enough for them. The only solution is to direct them to all be in a certain place at a certain time…or encourage them anyway.

I don’t know about you, but I revisit the earlier maps frequently (either playing on alts, or picking somewhere random to do my daily), and I still frequently run into people playing.

I like to play things at my own pace, and LS wouldn’t really allow me to do that. I do not find it fun when every encounter is swamped by dozens of players (because you have little-to-no impact on the fight)— that’s exactly how it was when Southsun was first introduced. It could very well be the same if LS is the mode of delivery for new zones.

Lance Darkrage.1398:

@Neilos – Right, they would certainly have to expand the map and world of course, as of yet it has indeed been mostly self contained, but I can see how it could be applied to expansionary content, almost episodic. Such as every couple of weeks with an Elona campaign release a new zone including missions, events, etc… were added as the story moved through towards the objective. Like the way we moved through GW1 campaigns through zones and missions. However this would be time gated due to a release schedule. I can see how it would be cool to episodically follow a main storyline like nightfall through missions every 2 weeks. One release we follow the story arch of the invasion of Kourna, next the recovery of Koss, the treaty and saving of centaurs, asking for the aid of Vabbi, etc… This could be followed by several sub storylines and growing characters like a normal campaign. I’m sorry if I’m not quite explaining it clearly, but that’s my vein of thinking.

There are some benefits I can see— certainly, if new zones and storyline were released in this way, we’d never be short of people to interact with.

But it would also mean we couldn’t really complete the content at our own pace. A new zone/ story chunk would be released, and would be swamped during its release. Those who played immediately would be part of the “Living Story”; those who took a month’s break from the game would have a totally different experience, and would have to “catch up” with the others if they wanted to experience it in the same way.

My main fear, though, as always, is just that it couldn’t match the scale of an expansion. There’d need to be new zones every fortnight or so. And, since I imagine that many LS releases would continue to be events, or temp dungeons, this wouldn’t be the case. Plus, I can’t see a LS release taking us to another continent— and, if it did, we couldn’t explore it at will.

There’d be no sense of large-scale exploration.

Chewablesleeptablet.3185:

More than half of you only do LS for the achievement points and the get rich quick schemes…. None of you actually care about story.

To be honest, I care a helluva lot about the Lore and the story in this game, just as I did in GW1.

I have problems and worries about that, too, but that’s a completely different issue.

Lance Darkrage.1398:

I’d like a poll on this, but in my opinion I would prefer to have an expansion, however, like another post I had written, I can see how a living story release could be viable. Similar to the GW1 winds of change/war in kryta storylines but the quality and cohesion of those releases would have to be vamped up greatly in comparison to the current living world updates.

War in Kryta & Winds of Change were great fun, brilliant for free content, but they only gave us more stuff to do in the existing world. They did not grow the world. The LS is the same, I feel.

darkace.8925:

A lot of people keep bringing this up, and it’s certainly not untrue that he said as much. But there’s only so many times you want to hear your waiter to tell you the chef is still preparing your steak when you’re hungry for a substantive meal. This is particularly if you’re getting tired of eating the complementary bread.

It’s true; I can see why people feel this way.

Personally, at this point in time I’m still satisfied with the content there is, but only if I know there are big releases coming. And, I find it harder to be excited for years of LS releases than I do about an expansion; I can’t see the world growing on the same level.

I think we’re probably both in the same boat with regards to what we want, though.

I don’t think it’s terribly productive to compare this game with WoW all the time. There are a million reasons ANet don’t want to ape WoW (and they’ve done a kitten good job, imo).

Let’s talk in terms of GW2, not GW2-vs-WoW.

Now, Colin’s told us that there are bigger projects going on in the background, and the LS is in its infant days, to be sure. It could very well ratchet up and give us bigger releases; maybe even new zones, and work on the campaign against the dragons. It could even take us into Elona or Cantha.

But a year contains 24 LS releases, if they remain bi-weekly. Two years would give us 48. Can you imagine the same scale of content in 24, or even 48, LS releases? I can’t imagine us getting the same experience of a continent, or a new dragon, or new areas to explore.

As I’ve said before, the LS has given us really great stuff; I am one of those who is consistently enjoying it. I simply doubt the mode of delivery for anything on the same scale. It would be piecemeal; it would take forever; and it would never have the same feeling. A zone would be released, and be swamped in the first day or so. The LS seems better suited to enriching the world that exists, not significantly expanding it.

I can see some people in here (such as Oxstar, above) acting hostile towards Colin. That’s not on. If that’s how people are going to behave, I’ll just turn this thread around and drive us straight back home! Colin’s talking directly to the community— that’s exactly what we want, we shouldn’t discourage it by being insulting.

OT: Look at it this way. An entire year would see 24 bi-weekly LS releases. A number of those would be linked around the same content (as with Flame & Frost; as with Queen’s Jubilee + Clockwork Chaos); a further number of them would be themed events (such as Halloween. Fun, I enjoy them, but they don’t expand the world).

Looking at the above, I can’t see how that model of delivery could give us the same sense of scale, exploration and novelty that comes with a traditional expansion.

I’m usually a very non-traditional person, but in this case, not so much. As I’ve said, though, Colin’s comment has reassured me a bit.

Lambent.6375:

I don’t see the problem.

Most mmorpg expansions include the following.

- new zones including new bosses, monster types, quest, dungeons, items, etc.
- new races
- new classes
- sometimes a graphics or UI update
- etc

^ All of this can be delivered in story format through the living story, and regular patches in small o r large doses.

That stuff can be released via LS, you’re right.

But I can’t see us getting that kind of content on the same scale.

For example; imagine a full year’s worth of LS releases. Do you think it’ll amount to a single full expansion’s worth of permanent content?

I’m not convinced that it would. We WOULD get great events (like these invasions), but at the end of the year, we’d still be left with far fewer zones, and a much smaller world. I just can’t see it building anything on the same scale.

Perhaps I’ll be proven wrong.

Thank you for the clarification Colin (and quick reply too)! Much appreciated.

I’d still be in favour of an expansion as the means of delivery myself, but this has alleviated my fear a bit.

I just doubt the LW mode of delivery could give us anything quite on the same scale— many new zones, a new dragon, etc. It’s good at keeping the world we have alive, but expanding it to a significant degree? I’m not sure about that.

Many of you will probably have already seen the July Eurogamer interview;

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2013-07-03-its-unlikely-guild-wars-2-will-ever-get-an-expansion-pack

…This thread is less to bring the news, and more to gauge how people would feel if this turned out to be the case.

Zadorojny (the developer, not the Dredge general) has explained that, as they currently have it planned, the Living World may take the role of the Expansion. That is to say, GW2 may never have a full expansion, but the Living World instead.

Living World updates have given us some great bits of content (I loved the MF), but that said, I’m really saddened by the possibility that the LW could replace true expansions. I don’t see how the Living World could give us anything on the same scale as an expansion could— dragons, continents, playable races. It raises the prospect of never having much more land to explore.

Even if the Living World did give us new zones (as it did with Southsun), they would surely be swarmed by players during the first few weeks of availability— rather than the more organic experience of the players spread over many new zones in a true expansion.

How do people feel about this?

I, for one, would be a little put-out if Kuunavang, Kanaxai or Urgoz turned out to be related to the ED.

Not everything must be related to them— I’d prefer at least a little variety in the threats we face. This is why I dislike the fact that in the GW2 dungeons, the storylines frequently default back to “dragon energies” (SE, CoF and CoE all do it, and the new Thaumanova fractal is likely to do the same). Its a lack of imagination to use the same plot device for every threat.

Singer.8740:

quoting a quote of a quote what does it all meen? give me a second while I consult god.

We know the “what” of both Thaumanova and Abaddon. We know the “how” of neither.

That was quite clearly his point.

…This is just mad.

Kiel is winning in the polls, and still people post that it’s “rigged” and that our “choice is just an illusion!”

I thought it was in Evon’s favour, because he has things I care more about (I’d far rather see Abaddon’s fractal than yet another story about “dragon energies”. By the polls, many others disagree with me. Isn’t that what this entire update was about…? People voting according to what they’d like to see get introduced?

I imagine that if we ever head towards the Crystal Desert to deal with Kralkatorrik there, we’ll encounter Palawa Joko’s minions and influence, at the very least. It’s too big an opportunity to miss.

Dhuum was the God of Death before Grenth took over, with a tower in the Chaos Planes in the Underworld. He was described as “unjust”, and disallowed resurrection and the undead.

With the help of the seven Reapers, Grenth defeated Dhuum (the site is reachable in Malchor’s Leap) and supplanted him, becoming the new God of Death and Ice. Dhuum could not be destroyed, only forced into dormancy.

In Nightfall, it was revealed that Dhuum was aiding Abaddon and Menzies (another dark entity). In one of the missions, players witnessed Dhuum’s emissaries dealing with Abaddon’s minions, and also saw Dhuum’s Tortureweb Dryders working with Abaddon. Dhuum’s minions also played a part in the Domain of Anguish “Elite” mission, but we never saw Dhuum himself in Nightfall.

In a later release, it was revealed that every death in the Underworld strengthened Dhuum, and he eventually reawoke. Players had to defeat him in the Hall of Judgement in the Underworld (after a whole lot of other quests). It was a tough fight. Again, he was only forced into dormancy, not destroyed.

And, that’s all the information I can recall about him! He’s an element of GW lore that I find very interesting

Falkor.7932:

As for the female behind the alliance, both dredge and flame legion see females as lower than males

Where do we know this about the Dredge from?

There was a greater trend for female participation in the military in the USSR than in most of the western democracies. It’d be a bit odd if the Dredge were characterised as misogynists too much.

MasterGeese.4756:

1. Ascended gear is a horrible idea. You’ve effectively pigeonholed anyone who wants to stay relevant into only doing dungeons and dailies. It’s too late to remove it from the game. The only upside to this is that most of the “tryhards” are now all put into one place, where I can avoid them.

Must disagree with this, I’m afraid. The practical difference between an Ascended piece and a fully-upgraded exotic is negligible, unless you want to infuse against agony, which is only necessary inside the dungeon that rewards such pieces.

Only real problem at the moment is how a lot of armours don’t work on the Charr model.

See SE medium shoulders & helm, as well as AC medium (when running). The armour sets don’t fit together properly, or have poor textures & such.

A lot of armour hasn’t been properly fitted for Charr (& the SE medium Helm looks pretty bad on anybody due to textural problems).

That said, I guess if this is my biggest gripe at the moment, they’re doing kitten well

Konig Des Todes.2086:

It’s rude, yes, but not inhumane. Inhumane would be like poisoning their food to see how the poison affects skritt. Roughing them a bit to get their (unwilling) cooperation then asking them a bunch of questions after they’ve healed is far from inhumane.

I think we’ll have to agree to disagree on this one. I’ve always thought of the Zimbardo experiment as more than a little rude, for example.

Konig Des Todes.2086:

Yes, they’re tricked into becoming subjects, but they’re far from slaves, nor are the testing inhumane.

Some of it’s kitten inhumane. The Heart that takes you through Metrica Province, gathering Skritt for a group-intelligence test, has you beating them down when they were just minding their own business in a cave. I had much the same uneasy feeling about the Heart in Wayfarer that rewards you not only for killing Dredge soldiers, but also the (non-aggressive) Dredge workers.

OT: I must say, we don’t “support/ rescue evil” in GW2, though we take part in some dubious practices for Hearts at times. As has been said, though some Bandits are convinced they fight for right, we see a lot more attacking passersby or allying with the Nightmare Court and worse in Brisban. As for Caudecus, I’ll add to his list of crimes by mentioning the assassins he sends after you if you take his daughter for the Whispers storyline.

If you want real “supporting/ rescuing evil”, think about when our ancestors sprung Palawa Joko back in Kourna. Now he’s closer to real evil. We did it to fight an even greater evil, but it’s true, nonetheless.

Well, since an ANet rep has encouraged us to voice ourselves…

I’d absolutely love to see Cantha. Stylistically, it included some of my favourite areas, ideas, architecture, cultures… everything.

I’d love to see it. Even more than Elona.

Konig Des Todes.2086:

the Flame were then intending to enslave the dredge afterwards;

Where’s this little snippet from?

I don’t doubt you at all; you tend to be very well-informed, I’ve noticed.

But I must have missed this snippet. The dialogue from the Black Citadel Stockade seemed to suggest post-alliance anger & mutual blame, but I don’t remember anything suggesting an existing enslavement plan.

OT: The lore behind this installment does seem to have been lacking, in terms of fleshing out their motivations and drives. The Dredge, in particular, feel like a missed opportunity.

I think you may be projecting.

Go tell that Skritt NPC how you feel.

Henge.3907:

However Cantha is dead (thanks NC Soft)

Cantha isn’t “dead”— they dropped the Canthan District of Divinity’s Reach, due in part to bad feedback from Asian markets regarding the mixing of different Asian styles in one place.

Cantha, itself, has not been dropped as an possibility for an expansion or future content— we’ve heard nothing to that effect.

Related issues have been brought up in another thread before, but the poster there was discussing something relatively specific (“floating” shoulders on the Heritage set, IIRC)

My issue here is Armour with textural or clipping issues that reduce the visual quality of the item.

My example is the Medium SE set. Being my first dungeon set, this took a relatively long time for me to save up the tokens for. I’d seen the look on an NPC and wanted it straight away. Only after I’d got myself the whole set did I try it on, and discover there are numerous issues with it.

The problem is, almost every Armour set is very well put together, well designed etc. The medium SE set is put below the standard because of this. Given the already-existing lack of variety in Medium-Weight sets, this really limits what I can go for.

((See what I’m talking about below. The Helm has poor textures, and the Shoulders clearly don’t fit onto the rest of the armour. Feel free to mention other Armour sets with similar issues, textural, clipping, whatever))

So, I’d like to ask whether there are any plans to polish up existing visuals like this? ANet have been updating in-game Icons for items like the Krait weapons recently; hopefully, polishing up Armour sets with poor textures & clipping wouldn’t be too difficult.

It would be a perfect opportunity for lore-loving Devs to give us details that are difficult to get into gameplay.

I’m really conflicted towards them. I loved them in GW1; they were tragic, they were morally ambiguous.

In GW2, there are elements I really love— the Dredge rebellion, the mining suits, the communism. Their voice-acting in F&F has been brilliant as well.

But, at the same time, they’re also a huge missed opportunity. The Dredge rebellion notwithstanding, they’ve become far too one-dimensional.

They were such a tragic race. I think GW2 is forgetting their tragic history, turning them into one-dimensional villains. It doesn’t suit them. I really, really hope they develop the Dredge, develop their government & start presenting more rebel/ friendly NPCs.

KorKor.9452:

Gotta love the RNG dyes that go with this as well. Now already at 50g and I am not even close to having all of them let alone multiple characters out of STINKING 8!

Why d’you need every new Dye?

The boss encounter in the Molten Facility is just brilliant. It’s just the right difficulty to end the instance, & it requires intelligence & skill rather than just a lot of time whittling down HP.

It’s got variety (in which you choose to take down first), it’s got environmental stuff, it’s perfect.

The size of the Charr character doesn’t make a difference, but there is a difference between male & female Charr— females suffer more than males.

((Bought a complete makeover kit for this very purpose, in case the only way to wear the armours I want turns out to be to turn my female character male))

I’m guessing it’s the perfect environment to introduce the minions of the DSD. The Consortium are going to be in just as much trouble as the adventurers & refugees by the end.

Similar issue happens with medium SE shoulders on Charr. The piece comes with a section that widely surrounds the neck, but on a Charr, it’s just unconnected to the body piece.

Hey, I thought this would be relevant here, being a textural problem;

The Medium SE set still has textural problems with the Helm and (if you’re Charr) with the Shoulders. Pretty much every other set has been created almost flawlessly.

It’s bothering me quite a bit, given the already-existing lack of variety for Medium armours.

Just putting this here, because I’d like to know if there’re any intentions to “polish” old armours with existing problems.

It’s unlikely to be Kudu; he was killed in the Crucible of Eternity.

I’d like to know what the availability of these things will be after May 12th, personally.

Got an exotic one & a couple of rares in storage.

I’m planning on using the gauntlets with a heavy SE set, myself

Hey, I did a look around, and though I found somebody mentioning a similar error code (42:0:9001:4116), I didn’t find anything that related directly to what I’m experiencing.

Over the past couple of days, I’ve been having incredible skill delay, rubberbanding & lag, particularly in WvW, as well as disconnects (error 7). Initially it was only WvW battling that was unplayable, but today the skill delay and disconnections kicked me out of a dungeon, too.

On trying to log back in, the error code 42:1000:9001:4116 prevented me from doing so twice. On my third attempt, I managed to get in, but experienced incredibly long loading screens (several minutes). I tested my skills, and the skill delay seemed to be fixed… but this did not last.

(Final note: even when experiencing the worst of the skill delay & lag etc, Chat seemed to not be affected too badly)

Some others in my dungeon instance, as well as in Lion’s Arch & WvW, reported similar problems. I initially put this down to the strain of large-scale battling in WvW, but when the problems popped up elsewhere, including non-demanding areas, I re-evaluated.

Is anyone going through anything similar? Can somebody tell me how to fix the skill delay & lag, & avoid the errors that prevented me from logging in?

Thanks!

I remember this dialogue, though I couldn’t remember where from.

Many ghosts we encounter in GW2 are “reliving” events of their lives (I remember one Ascalonian ghost “reliving” the events of the Great Northern Wall mission, for example).

It makes sense; I imagine these are the ghosts of Orrians reliving their fear at hearing about the Charr invasion of Ascalon, knowing that a Charr army is then heading to Orr. They probably perished in the Cataclysm.

Played as an engineer since launch, and have never lost a spot for a different class. I play Fractals and every other dungeon, both in PUGs and organised teams, and I do it all the time.

Never seen this happen.

I believe it does happen, but it’s not often— keep looking around, you’ll find it’s not that big an issue.

Why’re we counting out Kralk? Kralk’s effect on the environment, creating the Brand, is pretty drastic. And from the map, it looks like he unleashed incredibly destructive force in killing Glint.

I would previously have guessed Zhaitan for strongest, but wouldn’t say so now— partly because he’s the first we face (so it would go against tried-and-tested tropes to make the subsequent threats less), and partly because I imagine ANet are aware the final boss fight was underwhelming for a lot of people.

Indeed. Remember, we’re all related to one another, distantly.

The bosses in WoW never die? Really? I wouldn’t know, I played it very briefly on a free trial.

I’m not sure what you mean by “emergent”, but as for player-driven, I can see where you’re coming from. I’d like the events to be more dynamic, more varied, etc— that’s very much the direction I want them to go.

What I don’t want is a never-ending cycle of war-events to replace personal progression in a linear story altogether. That would be the death of meaningful storytelling.

Gaudrath.6725:

You confuse mechanics with story consistency. A damage formula is a game mechanic. A loot system is a game mechanic.

Shoddy storytelling creating impossible and contradictory situations is bad storytelling, not game mechanics.

There are no contradictory situations for anyone capable of suspending their disbelief even the slightest bit. It’s you that’s mistaking mechanics with storytelling. I’ve explained why countless times.

May I ask, when you (in-game) find another player who’s chosen the same facial model as you during character creation, do you have any choice but to roleplay “long-lost twin”? Is it a paradox? Why are there so many others running around with the same face as you?!

Seriously, THAT is the level of disbelief-suspension that is being asked of you. Pretty much the same amount that’s asked of anyone playing any game.

And the problems with that model have been pointed out more than once.

I’m not looking forward to a world in which the linear storyline is thrown away in favour of a never-ending war in which no meaningful characters can die (enemies being generically-named and meaningless story-wise), no meaningful progress can be made (take a keep, and log on the next day to find that it’s all been lost or everything’s moved on without you anyway— and besides, you’re progressing towards nothing, in terms of story, you’re progressing only towards being thrown back), and your personal intervention is worth squat.

It worked in WvW because of the competitive nature of the league table. You’re progressing towards a higher score than your rival worlds, and even if you hold a keep for only an hour, it’s still helped your point tally. Transfer this to PvE, progressing towards nothing but a huge boss fight with no story implications? When most people who’ve taken part in the war to get there won’t even be present at the end, because people leave and re-join WvW all the time?

Besides which, such a massive war would consume the majority of explorable areas, the way you’re describing it. It would be very restrictive to playstyle. To do away with the linear storyline completely in favour of a constantly-cycling dynamic world populated by repetitive events and meaningless NPCs would be a very unpopular move. And what would happen if huge numbers didn’t happen to be waging the war at any time…? Well, then the individual would be unable to progress.

And then, imagine if ANet want to continue with Jormag and Kralkatorrik and the others. Do we just keep up piling the wars against dragons, each and every one never-ending?

And all of this is ignoring the fact that this is simply totally alien to the game ANet wanted to make, which is one with a linear story and an open world, one that the vast majority of people find completely agreeable.

I didn’t have much trouble with that quest, because I assumed the “suspicious doors” led to hide-outs or criminal hideaways.

I did have a bit of a problem with the Norn quest in Wayfarer Foothills that has you raiding a Dredge mine and killing the workers. Not just the soldiers, the workers too— the ones who spawn unaggressive.