Guild Wars 2

sounds nice.
there’s always the possibilty to have it as a extern tool if some fan is willing to program an app or something.

I’m a stupid nerd, so I made myself handwritten fonts of Old Ascalonian and New Krytan for a theoretical short comic project.
And because I wanted to test them, I wrote two limericks and made some quick sketches… I’m not a great poet but perhaps it makes someone chuckle. °w°

the text says:
There once was a lady in Ebonhawke
that loved to write letters with chalk
the rain wasn’t kind
drained away every line
so no one read her letters from Ebonhawke

In Divinity’s Reach there once was a thief
that he was a noble that was his belief
so under the ground
where he can’t be found
he made himself the hidden guild’s chief

I often like the male outfits a lot. My charr and my asura males still wear the wedding outfit, because i think they fit their culture very well.
except for asura and charr I also like my guys wearing daydreamers finery.
In some cases i think it is more difficult to make good clothing for men, because there are a lot more rules what’s socially acceptable for a man in a video game to wear than for a woman.
A woman ( in a non PG18 game) can wear almost everything as long as you don’t see nipples and reproductive organs… men still have to look manly or cool or atleast “funny” to not hurt the delicate eyes and souls of the gaming community.
You’ve gotta do more than design some kind of swimsuit or bikini and overknees and say “there new skin, buy it people”.

i think designer often design the woman clothing first and then they struggle a bit with time and ideas when they’ve got to find an outfit fitting the same theme for the guys. ^^"

I’d love the one on the right (second picture) for my norn girl.
don’t like the third one though… if Norn woman have naked butts and thighs, norn men should have that right as well.

i tink it depends on the surroundings.
Bubbles is probably stronger than Primordus in the sea, but s/he’d be very weak if s/he’d be in Primordus’ realm.
I hope in one of the future expansions we get to see a fight between two dragons.

Divinty’s Reach was a giant ants nest.
Ori has only arrived ten minutes ago and she was already feeling uncomfartable and annoyed.
It was terrible stuffed and the humans were so small, they would be confused with three-year-olds back at home. You had to look carefully to not accidentally step on them or topple over their tiny booths in the market area.
Carefully, trying to avoid steamrolling the citizens of the human city, she made her way to a local pub, hitting her head at the door frame when she stepped in. Disgruntled she looked down on the cute little tables and seats rubbing her aching forehead , then she decided to sit down on the floor instead. She didn’t want get in trouble in the pub and loose this probably not completely terrible source of beer.
Everything had to be handled with care and Ori almost broke the puny stein of beer when it arrived, holding it careful between thumb and index finger and took a sip watching the humans buzzing around her like busy worker bees.
She sighed. It was not even a day after leaving the homely fireplace in the Shiverpeaks and she already felt homesick, dreaming of space to move around, solid people and furniture that could take a friendly beating without falling apart, food that you didn’t need to pay a fortune for and decent sized steins.
“I know that face!” laugh a booming voice behind her and she turned around, looking in the fuzzy face of a Charr that was almost her size, with impressing horns that would look great on the wall next to a fireplace.
She apologized in her mind to the Charr… being a very traditional Norn she mainly thought into two cathegories, “prey” and “Norn”. In the past, if they could find one to hunt, it was considered as something to brag about if you were able to kill a Charr and wear their fur. Their meat tasted terrible though.
The Norn stopped this practice when they had to move south, away from their old homelands and they had to be on friendly terms with other races to survive. Some Norn still inherited old clothing made out of Charr fur though.
“Is this you first time in this city, cub? Feeling a little trapped among the tiny people?” the gray Charr asked and according to the form of the horns and the voice he was a male. He smelled of damp pelt and gun powder.
“Yes, Friend, and I hope for my sanity and this cities’ safety to leave it again as soon as possible. Seems like I’m too tall for this city.” she answers a bit clumsy but as polite as she could manage.
The Charr laughed roaring and Ori fell the pang of sharp claws when he slapped her back.
“I think I can help a homesick girl out…for karma or something.” the Charr motioned her with a feral grin to pay, which she did.
Ori was a strong Norn and a capable hunter and fighter, there was no reason for her to be scared of following the Charr. Even a whole warband couldn’t match a Norn in power.
They left the pub through the backdoor and the Charr, who called himself Mangonel Gearstrip, lead her through a few courtyards (not less cramped with further houses and sheds) until they reached one backyard that was filled by trhe warm light of a big campfire.
At one side there was a giant tree trunk, that was roughly chopped to remind on a counter, with a cheery old Norn. Behind him, in the open door of the cellar, you could see different kinds of barrels. The customers of this makeshift pub where a few Norn, sitting around the fireplace roasting a doe and a group of Charr resting, eating some kind of raw carcass.
Mangonel slapped Oris back and went to the Charrs in high spirits, getting welcomed by his slightly drunk comrades.
Ori made her way to the counter, got a beer and was a lot more happy than before. She sat on one of the Fleeces around the fire, next to one of the Norn who greeted her with a gruff but good-natured winking and a friendly twitch of the corners of his mouth under the remarkeble white blond beard. Someone was singing a heroic epos about Eir Stegalkin and her guild.
Ori got legendary drunk that night.
Perhaps coming to Divinity’s Reach wasn’t that bad start for legend, as it seemed earlier that day.
_____________
Name’s Oreithyia, short Ori.

i can understand the OP.
I’d love to play a female Norn, that looks like it is belonging to the same species as the male norn…like…with muscular arms, neck and shoulders….not necessarily with beards.
they’ve done this for ogre, so why can’t it be done for norn.

i don’t think Jormag is interested in gold.

Thanksgiving is an North American-only thing as far as I know and different than Halloween it’s not easy to be integrate in a game as a fun and light-hearted activity.
mostly because people would stay in houses and clebrated in their families and then the streets would be pretty empty and boring for the PC who doesn’t seem to have such a close relationship with their family.

regardless. i which they’d tell us more about the languages of the other races in-game. it would make choosing a race more than just a skin for the character.
like: if there are several words for hunt in Norn language, why aren’t they mentioned somewhere in the personal story of the Norn. Hunting is important for them after all.
But building a language is a lot of work and if it takes staff away from working on story and/or known issues then I’d rather have them deal with that first.

I personally believe that Hylek have the highest population of the sentient races, since they’ve got the highest the birthrate (i think I remember one of the hyleks in Caledon Forest says s/he’s got to care for over hundred children).
I think second are probably the skritt, because being in a group is essential for staying alive and they all stay relatively close to their burrows, so it is much easier to care for and produce offspring.
i think it is also said somewhere that they reproduce and mature faster than Asura and that this was a threat for the Asura before they came to the surface.
Who’s more of Asura and Charr is very difficult to say, but i can see Asura more having singlet or twins and since their main goal is not the society as a whole but their personal studies, I suppose they get offspring once or twice in their life and then give it in the care of golems or teachers to continue their work.
Charr i could see having a lot more multiples and we haven’t seen the other homelands of the other legions yet, so i say there are more Charr than Asura.
next would be humans, then sylvari (eventhough if you count Mordrems too they were probably higher on the list) and then Norn.
Norn last, because to support their lifestyle as hunters they need a lot of space and prey and a low population density. they probably also have high deathrate in young years.

Zomaarwat.3912:

Anet says no interbreeding. Also, wouldn’t most Humans look like children to Norn? That’s probably a turn-off for the majority of them.

this.
i think the very different size and anatomy (charrsura, Nornsura) will probably be a big turn off for the majority of the races.
not all, because there are always “weird people”.
But with these individuals, when they act on it, it is very likely that one of them ends up either dead or badly injured.
Norn for example are said to be much stronger than humans (to stick with one of the less gross examples) and they’re also said to having a culture of being pretty physical in showing their emotions since they’re robust and can easily handle it.
I think a human, male or female could easily crushed by the fierce way of the Norn showing their love, not to forget the body weight is a lot more.
A single Norn, lore-wise, is strong enough to defeat a whole charr warband. And charr are not weak either.
This problem would be even worse with Asura (eventhough Asura probably would find a golem-solution for that problem…I’m not sure if i wan to think about this).

I think the unjustified use of the mentortag is already declining since it’s not that shiny and new anymore.
I’ve seen it a few times in the starter areas and these people actually answered question in the chat and a few times as a “commander-tag for poor” to coordinate group events in silverwastes…both are totally okay ways to use the tag in my opinion.

I think the idea to somehow inform new players that the metor tag is for get answers on questions would be great. like when you hover with the mouse over the tag on the map it gives a short explanation.

the black Asura is cool.
I also like the charr, but the horns are clipping through the helmet which looks a bit stupid in my opinion.
I also like the first one, whith the hood.
the female characters and the sylvari look a bit generic for my taste, but that just personal opinion. but I suppose it is also more difficult to make a female character look unique, strong, cool and all handsome than a male character, because the different armors looks more alike and there are more females than males around.

if toggle off the headarmor under equipment, the headgear of the outfits also is invisible.

Agemnon.4608:

Neyjour.3921:

I would love to see many more Outfits added to the Gem Store. Specifically, an “Adventurer” or “Explorer” line of clothing, tailored for the various climates/landscapes found throughout Tyria.

I realize there are already a few that would fall under this theme, like the Pirate Captain’s Outfit (which I already own), and the Arctic Explorer Outfit and Jungle Explorer Outfit (both of which I plan to get when they’re available again). But why not expand on this?

I’m not an RPer, but I’m finding that I have an irresistible urge to “dress for the occasion” while exploring the world. And nothing makes me open my wallet faster than clothing choices. Backpacks for each theme would be most welcome as well, either bundled with the Outfit or sold separately.

Also, it would be fantastic if we could have more than one choice per climate/landscape theme. And they could be rotated in and out of the Gem Store (limited-time availability) throughout the year. Don’t like the Spelunking Outfit that’s available right now? Wait a few months until an alternate design for that theme rolls around.

Examples of climates/landscapes that I’d like to see Adventurer/Explorer clothing tailored for:

Desert/Desolate/Arid
Jungle/Rainforest (currently 1 choice: Jungle Explorer Outfit)
Plains/Prairie
Spelunking – General
Spelunking – Winter/Ice
Tropical/Coastal/Oceanic (currently 1 choice: Pirate Captain’s Outfit)
Wetlands/Swamp/Marsh
Woodlands/Forest
Mountain Range
Winter – General/Snowy
Winter – Frozen/Tundra/Glacial (currently 1 choice: Arctic Explorer Outfit)
Volcanic/Lava

I mostly just use the Jungle Explorer outfit and dye it to the appropriate color scheme.

Speaking of outfits…Princess/king outfit! Here are some pictures for inspiration. I originally was only looking for Long Live the Queen’s coronation dress but found some dresses from other pictures in the Google search that’d be great.

Big potential problem though is clipping issues. I do think the military, tutu, and scholar outfits would be great for other outfit sets.

The male equivalent is the king outfit. It’d be inspired by the uploaded picture but with some modifications.

don’t we already have the fancy winter outfit that fits the ballroom-princess?
And the human male wedding outfit looks a lot like a classical fairytal prince design.

Konig Des Todes.2086:

The Elder Dragons have been stated to not even have genders as Tyrians can comprehend. So no, they ’re not all male – none are male.

But none are female either.

They are simply called with male pronouns for simplicity sake. Which is common when referring to an individual who’s gender is unknown – it’s either “him” or “them” (even if referring to a singular).

cool. So when the EDs don’t have different biological sexes, are all Elder dragons able to lay eggs, like Glint? Or are the most of them not able to procreate biologically and only able to build their armies with their respective minions.

I didn’t mean “Ursula” seriously…just thought of the tentacles and deep sea and this together with the sea being female in a lot of mythologies… I was reminded of Ursula from Disney’s little Mermaid.

Agemnon.4608:

The major problem with having too many lesbian characters though is the story beats you over the head with, “This character would not be into you if they were real.” and makes us care about those characters less. I’m obviously not homophobic or sexist but seeing Faolin die was satisfying because she was an extremely rotten betrayer and not due to gender or even race.

this would mean that you define yourself as part of the male gender.
there are tons of female gamers playing GW2.
And we are actually a demographic in the game the devs should not forget. A lot of the females, including myself, like spending time and and gold and often also gems on the appearance of our characters, which brings in money for A.net.

It doesn’t matter what sexuality the character has, as long as a character, that is meant to be seen in a positive light, doesn’t sexually abuse a character or does it with people that can’t consent.
but I can tell you even with the male and presumably hetero characters I wouldn’t be more likely to safe or protect them just because they’re into women.
I feel attached to a character if the design is cool, if the voice acting is not annoying, if the personality and actions are relatable and if it makes the story more interesting. the gender doesn’t matter.

i personally was also not a big fan of Faolain, because of her character and actions, that are kind of unrelatable to me, but it has for sure not to do with her being in a romatical relationship with a person of the same gender.
If caith and faolain were guys and ut the personalities were the same, Faolain would have been “available” to you. Would you have like “him” more than her?

Wasabi Kitty.8247:

They’ll probably change it eventually. If you don’t want to wait, wait until about 5 minutes after it spawns. You should get an empty or sparsely populated map and be able to get turned into a crystal fairly easy.

you can also do it very early in the morning (02:00 CET) during weekdays and do it on a server with one main timezone (FR or DE servers:)).

Adine.2184:

Oreithyia.3064:

Well we’ve got one homosexual pairing kasmeer amd Majory and then we’vre several Silvary pairings of persons with the same gender (I still feel weird calling it kitten "sexual", because the sexual part, kitten or hetero, is not really needed for a Sylvari, I see them more in romantic than sexual relationships. i think sex is not a main interest of most sylvari, emotional closeness seems to be though.) : Caithe and Faolain and Dagdar and Eladus (both male).
All sylvari/sylvari relationships are kind of incesty to since they’re all siblings. ^^"

I like love stories in stories, but they should happen naturally and not forced. Logan is very likely jenna-sexual or at least Jenna-romantic so i don’t think LoganxRytlock would be a good fit.
I actually can’t see Rytlock in any romantic or sexual relationship with any of the DE or DE2.0, including Rox, I can see him having cubs with one or several female charr in some Fahrar though.

Heh you forgot to list Countess Anise who hits on you no matter what you are making her bi

Oh yeah… that one.
well… we don’t even know for sure which biological sex Anise has or how she looks reality without her illusions. ^^"
s/he’s a very mysterious person.
I kind of hope she looks like a male grawl under all the illusions.

Well we’ve got one homosexual pairing kasmeer amd Majory and then we’vre several Silvary pairings of persons with the same gender (I still feel weird calling it homosexual, because the sexual part, kitten or hetero, is not really needed for a Sylvari, I see them more in romantic than sexual relationships. i think sex is not a main interest of most sylvari, emotional closeness seems to be though.) : Caithe and Faolain and Dagdar and Eladus (both male) in the sylvari Personal story.
All sylvari/sylvari relationships are kind of incesty too since they’re all siblings. ^^"

I like love stories in stories, but they should happen naturally and not forced. Logan is very likely jenna-sexual or at least Jenna-romantic so i don’t think LoganxRytlock would be a good fit.
I actually can’t see Rytlock in any romantic or sexual relationship with any of the DE or DE2.0, including Rox, I can see him having cubs with one or several female charr in some Fahrar …perhaps not offspring of a romantic relationship though.
I think Taimi/Zoja would be cute if Taimi was older.
they’re both very intelligent and I can see them having a very even relationship.

Are all elder dragons male?
perhaps naming the Deep Sea Dragon “Ursula” would be more fitting.
I still have the dream of a Hanse-like bond of sea- and trading cities like Lion’s Arch and you’ve got to sail from one to the other to protect trading routes and protect the cities from tentacle monsters from attacking and if you fail, all Blacklion-trading institutions (TP, vendors, you can still open chest of course) fail too.

I use it to send items to guildies.

I think syvari are still sylvari unrelated to which form they take exactly. the only difference between the rest of the trees offspring (Ferndogs) and them is that they are self-aware and sentient.
so a sylvari in form of a sura or a charr would still be a sylvari.
it is not halfbreeding in my opinion.

interbreeding withing the breeds is not possible, and actually i think Tyria is not ready for Charrsura (poor asura girl, especially if the bits of male charr are similiar to that of a cat) or Asurorn. Human norn could also be a bit difficult, not only physically but also cultural. Humans are often smaller than Norn children.
Also, since Norn and Human originate from different planets, I suppose they’re genetically not compartible.
Norn interbreeding with Ogre, Jotun or even Kodan sounds more likely, since lorewise some in-game characters say the races are related, but A.net stated no interbreeding.

…a Norn, Asura or charr child to follow my character around like a mini.
The german voice of Rani in Wayfarer Foothills so cute! \(°o°)/

It would be an adventure movie for children, animated similiar to classical pixar movies, about a Quaggan and a bunch of Skritt saving the world and having epic fights against epic villains.
I’d totally watch that. (OüO)
“cute” animated characters are pretty popular (just look at the minions) and both the skritt and the quaggan are cute in different ways, so I think it would be pretty popular even with people that don’t play the game.

I prefer a smaller guild with RL-friends over a blobby guild.
I just like to know the people I’m playing with in person. It’s more fun for me.
It’ll probably needs years until we’ve everything build the way we want it, but it’s not like the guildhall feature is the main thing that keeps us playing.

one of every class except Necro (never liked playing necro), two warriors (1. will be with greatsword/something the other one will stay with axe and mace…because axe+mace/Bow feels more awesome to me).

biggest DPS doesn’t do anything if you’re dead most of the fight, depends also on what you want to do with it.
So, I’d say depends on the player and the gear.
Thief can deal a lot of damage though.

Tåkebarn Ullkin, short Tåke is an armor smith at the Vigil and later the pact.

She was born, like a lot of norn children, on the hunt.
Her mother was in her last weeks of pregnancy when she went hunting and got deadly wounded.
A unrelated norn found the dying woman, but she died before giving him her name. Ulle Ullson, the man who found her, was a good hunter and was used to gut his prey, so he had not much scruples to cut the corpse open to save the unborn child.
He, as a single Norn, took the baby under his wings, while traveling around Tyria and so she met a lot of people from all kind of races…mainly the drunk specimen though.She has a soft spot for Charr (non-sexual!) because a lot of the drinking and fighting companions of Ulle were Charr.
She respects the strong hierarchichal system of the Charr and their military strategy, which makes her a bit special among Norn that are more independent fighters.
Because of her adoptive father being a bit rough around the edges she learned how to take care of herself very early and so she started to travel without him when she was in her early adolescent years. They are still on good terms though.
She was staying with a warband (drinking companions of Ulle) for a few years, learning how to do armor smithing.
The closest to her, in the warband, was Thalia Crookpaw an old, grumpy charr lady that was teaching her a lot.
When the warband died in field Tåke and Thalia, as the crafters of the warband, stayed back and so survived.
Since they didn’t know were to go they joined the Vigil and continued crafting and repairing armor for them.

Tåke is a quiet person, big even for a Norn, with a deep and raspy voice. She tends to walk a bit hunched over, has chunky legs and strong muscular arms and broad shoulders and back.
her skin is red from being outside so much and full of freckles. She’s strawberry blond with pale grey eyes.
She’s not pretty and cute but in her own way kind of handsome.
She’s very observing, a decent hunter, likes to laugh, brawl and drink and cuddle fluffy Charrs (if they let her)…she likes wearing fluffy fur too, which makes her look even more massive, than she really is. She also likes braiding her hair in intricate hairstyles and put all kind of adornments, like wooden, stone or bone beads, colourful ties or carved hairsticks and forks in it.
she does wood and bone carving in her free time.

Like her adoptive father, drinking sometimes makes her do stupid things.
She also can be ridiculously competitive when drunk.
She’s pretty religious, her spirit is the polecat, but she prays to the main spirits too.
However she usually doesn’t talk much about her belief.
For her, religion is a very personal thing and people shouldn’t meddle with her relationship to the spirits.
Generally she doesn’t like people to meddle with her stuff and doesn’t meddle with other peoples stuff unless she has a very good reason.

Tsagg is a young Asuran thief from the College of Static.
Growing up in an average Asuran family (father and mother work in science, golems care for the child) He has a doubtful moral reasoning.
Starting as a child with sneaking out of the house and stealing stuff from neighbours, he started his carreer in the dark at a very young age.
When he started his education he was very good at what he calls „idea recycling“…with other people’s ideas of course. He also made money with ghostwriting for his fellow students and stealing and selling things from other Krewes.
He is very good at his „job“ and staying low-key and the only one noticing his deeds were a member of the Order of whispers, who made him join the order in exchange for staying quiet about it.
Tsagg doesn’t care though, since he now gets payed for breaking in other peoples houses and stealing things… which he would do anyway.

He’s an physically energetic but relatively unremarkeble fellow of average size with floppy ears and grey-brown skin and big muddy-green eyes.
He always was physically very capable and uses his acrobatic to hide and to get into other peoples houses.
His favorite foods are fruits and roasted crabs.
he talks a lot but tells very few about himself.
In his free time, he thinks about new possibilities to make money.
When he has enough money he’ll build a gigantic robotic dragon and become a new elder dragon…that’s his dream.
almost everything is possible with science. :I

Warrior probably. relatively big healthpool, nice ranged and melee options. You can do anything with it.
It’s also not as slow as the guardian.

hug emote would be awesome but you’d need different emotes for different races, because of the size.
just think of a asura huggin a charr.

Menadena.7482:

SkyShroud.2865:

EU is less casual than NA.

I do not think so. Even though I am in here a LOT but would consider myself a casual player. I want things organized though. So I am one of the ones fighting off champs that are getting a bit too close to the turrets while the majority of the people zerging are completely oblivious to how close they are to the event failing.

I think it really comes down to some fundamental difference in psychology. Not that of just the gaming community, but something more fundamental. Interestingly, I am one of those people who constantly feels like I should apologize when saying I am from the US and can never figure out the ‘logic’ here so maybe my attitudes are more european anyway.

I think one reason is that Guildwars, since Gw1 has a pretty big German community. to me it seems like the German community is pretty great at reacting on organisated stuff and following suggestions and requests of the commanders. (I don’t mean this in a bad way)
Most them play on the EU servers.
It’s not like they are less casual, more like the way they play is well organised in a casual way. ^^"

you forgot to tell in the question "How many hours have you spent playing Guild Wars 2? " about which time period your talking.
how many hours a week, a day, a months…this makes a big difference in my opinion.
i think the most fitting would be per week, because most people i know don’t play every day.

it’s working again.
thanks for the fast fix!

come on… they aren’t that bad.
I kinda like the kids playing Marjory and Kashmeer. they’re kind of cute.

Seabreeze.8437:

Even though this thread is focusing on male hairstyles, this is an absolutely stunning curly hairstyle for females! Perfect for redheads/gingers. Why we don’t have styles like this one is beyond me.

looks like louis XIV.
I think it would clip terribly wih almost every armor, but it would be a nice hairstyle for the guys.

I actually think instead of making a new playable race, they should try showing the “lesser races” as detailed as possible in their cities.
But if there’d be a choice, i think hylek or Tengu would be cool.

well then we don’t need another expansion pack.

I hope so. It would make the world look less static.
Yep sounds good.

charr without armor clipping issue. °___°"

AcidLex.4879:

That is a very nice thought, so we should call it Hansestadt Löwen Bogen ;-)

I always thought of the Black Lion trading company as the equivalent of the Hanse, because of the of the economical aspect.
but I’d love to have something like the hanse when the expansion with Bubbles comes out…like many independent seaport cities that trade goods among each and the cities being controlled by boatbuilding and shipowning companies and traders, like the show already in LA.
The German name is “Löwenstein” (Lion’s stone) I think it is to correspond with the name for DR, “Götterfels” (rock of the gods).
We could call it “Freie Hansestadt Löwenstein.”

mcwurth.2081:

AcidLex.4879:

“buoy” would be a word from the Dutch “boei” ;-p

dont pat yourself on the shoulder jsut yet as it is derived from spanish AND dutch.

probably from Middle Dutch boye, boeie, from a Germanic base meaning ‘signal’. The verb is from Spanish boyar ‘to float’, from boya ‘buoy’.

Well for a long time the Hanse was nautically and economically very strong in the whole northern and baltic sea area and their language was a kind of low German, mixed with english…old Low German and/or Frisian sounds a lot like Dutch.
As a nautic term, it fits that it would come from that region. In German it is “Boje” pronounced “boye” with an unstressed “uh” sound at the end.
When i think of Lions Arch I get remindet of all the independed hanse cities in Europe during the middle ages and early modern times…capitalism at its finest.

no, it isn’t. Pay-to-win is more like having an ingame-shop with items that give you big advanteges in the game, like stats that are much better for example.
GW2 HoT is just pay-to-play. But that was always the case with expansions.

speedyfox.5178:

but do not charge for it, I said I’ve never seen a game charging for skills, and that’s what ArenaNet is doing, for all I know so far to use the new specializations (reaper, berserker, daredevil, Chronomancer…) you have to buy the expansion HoT, or am I wrong?

those are always just one trait line and it’s not like they garant an instant win.
Yes, you need to buy HoT if you want to play the things that are part of expansion, but that’s usual the case with expansions, so that doesn’t make it p2w at all. GW2 was, until recently, also pay-to-play, just that you need to buy the game, doesn’t mean it’s p2w.

reminds me of the mass-dancing-scene in disney movies…I like it.

I hate trains already Rl, I don’t need them in games…waypoints are faster and i have yet to see someone being about to make a mess on a waypoint toilet.

level both of them and try them out until you found a favorite.
they both have pros and cons.

i’m no native speaker, so this could also be my accent showing thrugh, but I’d speak it “Kay”.

I do WBs mostly for leveling characters, the the loot is nice, but not soo great but it bring a bit of gold…I don’t have the hope to find a precurcor anyway.
I mostly do the ones in lower levels right now, because I’m leveling. Shatterer is kind of boring… that dragon just doesn’t feel epic at all. Behemoth is annoying because it needs so much time and you don’t do much except of closing portals and standing at one spot shooting behe…I kind of like the pres for Frozen maw.
Oh and sometimes looking at all the other PCs in their shiny armor can be nice. I like seeing what other players come up with.

You could also just have different toons for different “jobs”.