Guild Wars 2

People wanted druid to get support, now it’s in the top of support (if not best). And to be honest, Verdant brink if you get 5 elite mobs on you ouch! zerker, or no zerker, tanky or no tanky, OUCH. Druid seems nice in this setting. Even more so in raids.

It’s amazing, it puts variation in a ‘zerker’ only meta. Having played the beta i can say, healing is underrated now.

So what do you think? “Druid will bring powerfull healing you never seen before in gw2 that will be very powerfull in Raids.”

So far love it (after seeing t he 5 skills) a very strategic weapon, druid staff!

The recipe is super cheap however (come out of champ bags that have been farmed a lot of times). I think you need crystal lodestones to craft these runes (just info).

To be honest if quick waypointing is priority (and less loading time) and a activity npc, airship is better.

Terrace is better for being in town, close to human home instance, and close to some events (the 888 chinse luck event thingy, wintersday, gold pavilion).

I have the luxury of owning both. If you own both you’ll realize how good, the captains pass is if you need to portal often. In the end either one can suffice for one player. But choose wisely with the advantage/disadvantages i listed.

I think so. The white ones are single use. The golden icon one is permanent. The permanent has a simple name (Captain’s Airship Pass), the other one (is white) should clealry list it’s consumable.

And I see it’s in cash shop now, so yes.

If it costs 1000 gems (Captain’s airshop pass, or Royal Terrace pass) it’s garanteed permanent one. The consumable ones (sometimes for sale) cost less (something like 100 gems each).

If it’s fast like real life, to many ‘hard to reach jumping puzzles’ would be way to easy to reach cause you can ‘speedhop’ onto them. Now you actually gotta manage a bit to get to certain area’s, or you fail. Works as intended. (easy to use, slow enough to let you enjoy the area, and don’t eat your graphic cards to much -speedclearing true area’s, really eats gpu power, wich a lot of people lack – and keep the exploraring cababilities within line, so you have to do a good job to get it done.

I think Babaz also means retaliation. There’s a trait that gives illusions retaliation. If mesmer also has this, then he can hit you hard back. With the bounce, it would hurt you more, then intended. Without the bounce you could focus main mesmer.

That being said, I used this trait a few times, and it was a hell of a lot of fun. Let me put it in bold: FUN. Isn’t that what the game is about? Getting +10% damage trait is barely fun except for speedruns, but this weapon is subpar dps, so it doenst matter on it anyway. Bring some fun into the p/p on thiefs Karl! Weither that’s ricochet or not xD Leave it up to you.

Level of gear is what matters, not level of character.

To be clear: A green light armor level 80 is gonna salvage into silk (level 80 material) (not linen – lvl55).

It’s good to have this ‘as option’. The Issue? It’s not an option, but a white text spam for (some) people who don’t want the clutter on the screen. In past a party member could ‘control+T’ (mark) you, in this way, but now having this on top of it, first I thought it was a bug, caused by that Ctrl+T action, but it was way to continuous to not be a bug.

I think gw2 will last longer then then gw1, so Gw3 is long out.

Gw2 is already harder (takes more effort to bug fix, cause more complex ghraphics/skills (jumping/dodging etc). Content wise (weither you like that content or not) gw2 base game is huge, but there’s so much room to (perhaps slowly – see HoT) improve, and create new content.

Also the graphics, while not perfect, are (for an mmo) on a very high level. It would really tear down graphic cards, if they release a gw3 (it’s no use to make gw3 if it isn’t very renewing on graphics). Hardware has stagnated (less competition, nanometer procedures almost cannot be more improve – thus made smaller). With this in mind, and the way how windows will evolve, I doubt renewing mmo’s, is the way to go. Even wow is still the same old engine, and it’s older then gw2.

It last not that long because of the break. The 90 min break after 3 invasions just happens to be the last part of the how long the event lasts. Wich means last hour it will be also useless already. Basically last invasion happens in 25 min. Then no more events. (Mordrem are retreating will pop up for another 90 min, then Anet shuts down event).

I have to admit here: 2nd year ‘birthday sale’ was WAAAY better. That sale had about 90% a player could wish (almost every single armor skin on discount, lots of outfits on discount, char/bank/inventory slots on discount, collection expander on sale. So good it was last year. Now? Quite bad. I know Anet needs money, but hey, i’m litteraly holding my gems for me still. They are meant for Character slots, discounted ones only. So either you sell char slots, or the gems sit in my bank.

Also second year sale had no amount limitations (now it did).

22 at the moment, expanding when I can Having another ‘face on the job’ and personality is just nice. Gearing that new character + storymode and leveling, is also fun. Gives some ‘new’ sense of progression, instead of just playing the same char over and over. Then I play the game a lot so playing sylvari elementalist, or norn elementalist are two different mini games for me within guild wars 2 xD

The problem is the difference between professions. That’s why people feel left in the cold.

Revenant: Best communication ever (and don’t say Roy is good at communicating because of this, i mean he is, at this very moment, but at launch, post launch, balance patches, Roy was quite silent to be honest. It seems he evolved into a better developper. Wich can only be commended).

Necromancer/Mesmer: Passion shown by Robert, feels like he put more time in it then other devs (like even at home he’s brainstorming how to make them) cause he was way faster ready with them then any other developpers. But that’s not really the point, the point is, he communicated well, though not incredible much; But hey that’s all we player want. We dont need 50 post answering 50 feedbacks. Even ONE would be enough.

Adding onto that: Tempest/Dragonhunter and Karl Mcclain. He didnt communicate like hell, but he started two ‘general DH/Tempest’ discussions, to assemble all feedback, and said he would read it all good start. He even had some limited comments (like – Feedback A is already implemented and being tested, Feedback B we are thinking about). Relative short posts, but they mean a huge difference to the community.

Still Karl but Daredevil: Pretty sure this got overhauled quickly (they might still use their first idea for later rifle spec, but they last minute changed to staff (to many indicators of that being so). That however is not that bad, the idea is great, and most important we got it before the launch date announcement and BWE 2. Karl communicated pretty well here (if i have to choose from his 3 profession, this is his best communication effort).

Warrior: Haven’t really looked deep into it and seems interesting. Anyhow Warrior is hardest profession ever to give specialization, cause they already got the most weapons, it will be huge challenge in future. Roy did communicate minimally but okish. The idea of berserker seems rushed, but how it’s worked out is actually quite well. Not amazing, but hey not all core profession traitline/weapons ‘shine’ either. Perfection doesn’t exist.

Now Druid/Hammer engineer

What is there to say about it? Delayed like a lot. A lot of silence. No feedback. And then they launch HoT sooner then expected. (Signs showed to november/december). And then people watch the other professions feedback, and see how much gets implemented (especially revenant is crazy in here how much player feedback clearly got used). There is no way to overcome the bad feeling, when thinking about the silence on these professions.

There’s some possible scenario’s:

Druid got overhauled and is now in alfa stage. But why be silent about it, sure some people will rage, but forums have always raging people, no way around it. In fact it could open a feedback loop from players to faster get brainstorming going, faster get on the right track, and finalize good ideas, and idealy test them to finetune the feedback. But now there is silence, in this case definitely not good idea, even though admitting it, would also perhaps feel bad for anet.

Druid is complex to finalize. Huh why complex? My thought is, rangers have at the moment something like 25-40 pets. (not gonna count them for this post). All with 4 skills, and their own stats (of course there ‘s a lot overlap, but still), that’s 25 textures to make, and about 60 unique skills. Now there’s talk about facets. If facets replace every pet, then it would mean they have to work on 25+ facets. Pretty much. But is silence the way to go here? Maybe, to be honest of all the option to be silent, this is the one I would understand it the most. Still, silence, slows Anet brainstorming down, slows, correcting them, and the many bugs (more features – or choices rather aka facets), means more bugs anet will not detect, and more work to fix. To pipeline this into efficiency, they should include the player somehow to help/test it before Launch. Everyone knows postlaunch people go on vacation, do something else, take other responsibilities and end up only fixing the major bugs. This is another reason why peopled are worried.

Last option (unlikely in my opinion): Druid is so crazy amazing, that they want to fill the last void of the weeks before HoT with some small hype first, ending with big hype, with a huge specialization announcement. Now some problems with this situations. First of all: How can it be amazing, without server wide bug testing? We all know, that test servers with very low numbers of players, will never replicate or show all bugs. Keeping druid secret till last week, will end up (very likely) to release a lot of bugs. Another mistake in this, is that instead of hyping people, you are worrying people. You had no scare to tease other specializations, why not show Druid? It shows certain kind of fear. For instance Tempest is far from perfect (in my opinion and many others) at the moment. But is that a reason not to show it on POI? On contrary! Look at rebound already being changed. Changing a skill to completley do something else, will rarely happen once it’s launched. This opportunity only existed, cause tempest was released on time and people were allowed to have feedback. Druid might be perfect in eyes of Anet, but players (they are to many and to creative) will always find stuff that Devs won’t. To strong builds, to weak builds, good feedback for simple quality of life improvements. In fact in this case it would be overconfidance that would seem to be the problem.

This is all hypothetical and speculating. The opinion on the hypothetical situations however are not speculations, and carried by a lot of players. It’s meant as feedback to Anet, so they understand why the players feel this is the wrong action.

I says ‘we detected a problem with the page you are trying to open’. Did Tentonhammer take it down?

Wondrouswall.7169:

Linken.6345:

oh i thought this was a thread about to many old veteran players

lol I had the same thought going into this thread.

Hahaha Same first tought when reading title.

VictorTroska.3725:

Hello,

Just my own thoughts and feedback; HoT expansion price is too high. For me who mostly prefer play solo and adventure around Tyria HoT is not bringing much areas to explore compared to original game. In Guild Wars, expansions offered vast new lands to explore and adventure in and thus I had no doubt to purchase the product. Once Guild Wars 2 was announced I bought it as soon as it was avaliable and exploring and adventuring across so many lands was simply amazing. The best experience I ever had in mmo’s hands down.

Now I really have doubts about HoT. There seem to be too few areas and I wouldnt have big problem with fewer area expansion if price was right. I love Arena Net and I love Guild Wars and its world and community but I just cannot pay 45 euros for HoT. HoT brings a lot of new exciting features and specs but I have been paying my Warrior since day one and its the only character I have and love, so for me expansion does not really bring much, at least not as much as I got from Factions, Nightfall or EotN.

Thank you.

I played beta in Verdant Brink. Lemme tell you, it definitely surprised me. While in true sense smaller then a normal map (say lion arch), or a complete area (maguuma Jungle), the amount of 3D stuff to explore on a relative small map is extreme. Add on that, that this is the first map (basically way more then silverwastes and dry top), that has so much exploration in such a 3d way. And it’s certainly Expansion worth. And verdan brink is only ONE of the maps.

Everything is also more challenging (like getting to the top, jumping, (surviving the elite mobs there) etc. So it will take more time, and perhaps also make you enjoy it longer. Masteries are something not in game yet. Farming the gliding, then making it even better is amazing. But even more amazing, is using Gliding itself. What an experience (on the first small beta map it was ok), but now on the (almost?) complete verdant brink map, wow wow wow wow wow. Just this feature alone. Exploration a la carte.

You might not care for the specialization and new profession (revenant), but it’s huge. Gw1 just had 2 prof (much simpler to make then here) per expansion, now you get 1 prof + it’s own spec (right of the bat) + 8 specializations. And while not all are similar cool, they give a completely new feel/option to your existing profession. It certainly made playing my thief, Ele, Guardian, Even revenant (played first beta without herald and now with herald) a lot less boring, so much more fun! Exploring new traits = a whole exploration in itself imo.

Is it perhaps smaller then usual expansion? Yes. But it got so much feature (that are usually not that much supplied) in the expansion.
Is it expensive perhaps? Yes. But then you don’t pay a sub, and we played ‘free’ (after buying it) for 3 years. Hell even the intermediate content was all free! What’s paying a little more then, to continue that free to play thing? Not much.
Might you not like WHAT they offer in this expansion? Absolutely. But hey then the fault is more on your side for having no interest in expansion. Anet dit a hard job, and gave something that at least has something going for it, for a lot of people that tested beta. That you don’t like it, is not anet fault.
Is perceived price and content an issue here? Yes. For me the amount of content is amazing. But then I played for 3 years, 9000 hours (some afk ofc), and have collector’s edition. I play all game modes, so every single addition is new content for me. You might be different (say only play wvw). That might tip the balance for you in favor of finding HoT to small. But that’s more due to your own preferences then anything.

Revenant and specializations (and trait overhaul that we got for free) is content that is usefull everywhere. So everyone will enjoy it. While it may not be good enough as a whole expect, add your added maps to it (new wvw map, stronghold, Verdant brink, etc), and I think you got a nice package!

Basically the question if how much is this content in your true desire. If a lot, buy it (definitely worth 50$), If less so, wait for discount buy then. If almost nothing to desire, wait for (not garanteed) it to become free.

If they don’t do char slot sale I will be very dissapointed (I even did not buy some stuff, to make sure I could buy them). I know it’s close to HoT and they want char slot to a be a surplus item, but c’mon. I’ve had these gems more then half year just for char slot, and still no sale (I don’t buy stuff that is not on sale, personal principal, unless I want it badly. Especially repeatable purchases (bank, char slots, inventory, expanders, etc, I only buy on discount).

If there’s server lag, mobs rubberband. Wich means you see him far away, but he’s closer, and to fix this, the server teleports it to actualy position when he is (finally) ready to calculate it (but then sometimes bugs, back and forth again wich is rubberbanding). But basically ‘lag compensation’ as I call it (sometimes is close, but far on screen, to compensate, a ‘teleport’ happens, synchronizing reality, finally with you graphics, killing you in process. Could be this (been some nasty lag this weekend, during beta weekend).

I don’t think the skill is overpowered, but IF (big if) I have to take a nerf (a poison to me as it’s not needed), then this one is the most reasonable one. It doesn’t nerf pve potential (very important, I know you pvp guys hate pve, but If you fought against some of the teleporting mobs in Verdant brink, you’ll learn to appreciate, how good (and necessary) unrelenting assault is, as it is in pve now. All this ‘nerf teleport, range, this this, nerf that’. geez. It’s a new skill with new possibilities and weaknesses. People should not try to safe their spot in the meta (like stealth thiefs/mesmers). Meta is changing, deal with it.

You could do a an energy cost increase in pvp. 20 instead of 15. Like pistolwhip is atm (6 pvp, 5 pve). Either way. I’d like Anet, to let stuff like this first Sink in the game, before they do huge unnecessary nerfs. After the huge mortar kit nerf day 2 after it’s launch I have not used engineer at all, and I was all set to main it. Yes that one kit, now lacks steady pressure, and makes it useless. Since it took grenades 1500 range place, having no pressure = making the class death for me. I’m not saying it will turn me away from revenant, but It might in the end, nerfing Unrelenting Assault.

All I see is perceptions issues here (no offence meant).

1) No beta tests at all, OP is happy. Not true. He will be super kittened at HoT launch because then he will still be beta testing (Anet had less preparation time, more bugs, less balance, more match blowouts. OP clearly doesn’t realize, he now has to play ‘less beta tester’, then he would have to do at launch if we follow HIS non (live) beta protocol.

2) You PERCEIVE this as beta test. Well maybe you shouldn’t. If HoT launched now (they could have to be honest). What then? You still would have to alter your playstyle. You still would have to alter strategies against specializations. Sitting back in your ‘safe old environment’ would not have safed you. On contrary. Some specs are really close to ‘release worthy’. In other words, if you look at how much time Anet took, to nerf/boost some base profs, you could conclude that if at launch was possible, Then it it would also be possible with specializations. The live experience would be worse, then this beta test for you. But you clearly perceive things as black and white. ‘Beta is black, live is White’. So not true. They both overlap. Pick your poison. But POISON THERE WILL BE. There’s no escaping that. And that’s where op is so completely wrong and of the charts in his ‘I want and shall have this’-quest.

3) Go to practise pvp (hotjoin) for weekend. Leave matches with ‘beta’ character. Join another. Little effort, and there is your ‘non beta’ weekend time. Or is that again to much to ask? Perhaps there’s other issues then beta in play here. Perhaps Entitlement?

4) You can’t have everything in the world. You have to make a compromise. Guild wars 2 is just the same. Either you pay 100 euro’s, Arenanet have loads more employees (who still can make mistakes btw), Beta test harder to do it themself instead of public (wich btw is not perfect, as said above here by other players, live environment shows bug, closed server never will), and there you will have ‘non beta’ gameplay. But you can’t. The current situation is, Gw2 is buy to play model, that needs to be economicly balanced. Economicly a Live beta weekend test is way better, then a permanent closed beta test. First of all, the first one takes less work (the player find most of bugs, not employees), secondly, the first also finds bugs more efficient. Both are a win for Arenanet, and in the end for you (either in content, or in less money to pay for what you want). If you can’t see this, then you are definitely entitled. And what are about 6 days in a 3 month period, for you to have to endure live beta test? Nothing. You clearly want to much.

In the end you have to pick a poison. That’s the nature of the world. If you have a lover, he/she will have good and bad points. There’s no escaping that. Same here in this game. But seems that you live in a cloud of your own expectations, not realizing the repercussions they have on other players (wich is very selfish), or economicly not realistic (wich is just not being very realistic of you).

Raven.9603:

Taldren.7523:

The ability shadow steps and then does an AE … so after the shadow step you could just move out of range of it via teleport, RTL, double dodge, ect.

thats not actually how it works. if you start it on someone and they blink, mes portal or shadow step away, you go with them, no matter how far. hopefully thats just a bug…

that’s not a bug. If you shadow step BEFORE they use it, guess what they wasted their skill. If you by split second, time it correctly, they lost almost all their energy (if using upkeep costs), and they are a free target.

Also the skill lasts quite short. Just use blurred frenzy, burning retreat or something like it.

And huge counter to this: Traps. The moment he starts the cast, you cast A TRAP. (one with Heavy CC to boot, or multiple). Revenant cannot get out of the traps in time, cause his skill will stalk you into the traps, and by the end of arming time, kaboom.

If the ‘free to play’ players love it so much they want no restrictions: solution is easy, buy the game. And don’t give me ‘but some players can’t afford crap’. While it’s true for some player, those are a huge minority. The permanent ‘test account’, that’s free to play basically fixes a bit issue: People don’t want to spend money on something they are not sure of. With the current f2p account, and if you are serious enough to want to wvw (wich is pretty much endgame content), then you gotta pay the bill. Make Anet a healthy company. That’s the sign ‘ok i like the game enough that I shoudl buy it’. 45 euro is a steal for f2p player if you consider how much they get.

Here’s your answer (though might be spoiler).

I don’t get how the 5k hammer auto attacks, could have been done in pvp. Using Hammer bolt in HoT (both on trash mobs , and bosses) in full zeker gear, yield 1700-2500 damage attacks. (Never a single one above 3000), and here you guys are showing off 5000+ damage strikes. And yes I often had full might stacks to boot!

To me sounds like an exploitable damage bonus trait, that triggers to often, but that only pvp people use (like next attack after blocked attack is stronger, perhaps it’s bugged).

Thiefs and mesmer hard counter revenant. Just like other professios hardcounter thief and mesmer (although last one is in very strong position atm).

Devildoc.6721:

Orpheal.8263:

people seem to forget, how many extreme ways exist in this game to increase significantly your Exp gains …

You seem to forget that kills offer literally the lowest exp amount that you can possibly get in game. Ressing a dead NPC gives more xp than killing a mob that just respawned, mining a mithril node gives more xp, discovering a new recipe in crafting, finding a POI, viewing a vista, all of these give more xp than killing mobs.

So sure, you can get bonus xp, but it is on the lowest source of xp in the game.

Get some more achievements + use permanent food and oil. Not so bad exp from mobs. Heh some mobs give me 5000 experience. (Double with exp boosts).

I have more things then you, (permanent merchant, airship pass, royal terrace pass, home portal stone etc) then you, and Even to me it doesnt bother. Keep the top bank tab clear. Send all your items there, reveive on other char, set, takes like 3 min.

That’s only 16 levels. Do you know how fast I got those in past? That’s like 1 day of serious play (less even). 2-5 days of casual play. Nothing wrong with it. In fact, with the limited masteries coming, I think that’s on the low side, but then I play a lot.

Is it really that hard to understand?

Pay to win:

You get rappelz for free (it’s f2p game).

You use basic pet. You are like ‘omg this pet is crazy weak, why does it die so much’. You see someone with a dragon pet. They kill the same mob 20x faster. You decide you want that pet as well. But on average it costs 2000$ dollar to tame that pet and get decent gear for it (yes both cost money and a lot. Just one attempt to ‘safely tame’ (don’t loose next attempt) = 12$ and they put succes rates very low.

2000$ for a much stronger pet (some even cost more now). That is pay to win.

Is gw2 even remotely close to this kind if pay to win? No. Deal with it. HoT is buy to play. Pay for features. What you see as powercreep are meant as features (and will if needed be re-balanced).

I wouldnt say ’new skills ’ are more powerfull. Especially Ele warhorn is weaker then existing skills. Thief daredevil is cool, but mostly evasive based prof, damage, and cool stuff is not that much on that weapon (though new finisher is cute).

Revenant feels weaker then guardian/warrior (tanky/dps) but has more playstyles/sort of skills. Master of noone, practiser of all arts kinda. But damage on most weapons feels on the low side.

Cool animations is NOT the same as high dps. Keep that in mind.

And: If something is out of wack, weither HoT specializaiton, or base game profession, Anet will tone it down. So pay to win? no.

And you got a chance to buy HoT and get that stuff. Wich is buy to play (not pay to win). You buy for features. Those features may in some cases be advantageous, but that’s the nature of the deal, it’s expansion after all, it expands on the existing, trying to bring new fun into the game.

I tested the beta achievements, and at the moment they do not transfer to main account (non beta characters). So even those are ‘not safed’ at the moment, though it’s weird then why they are in main account shown in first place.

Crystal Reid.2481:

They will be disabled.

You should think twice about that. Fractals (wich i guess is waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay easier then a raid), most of time makes you waste ress orbs. Why? you are STUNNED for 1-3 secs (not sure) after using the orb with crazy low hp. Result? wasted most of time. In raids with even more crazy aoe stuff, this will be waste anyway.

To be honest this is not clever from a business point of view (orb = money, and raids will waste most of them).

All ap (and loot, and progress) earned by Beta characters is not saved on main account/chars.

Though there are 5 ‘pure beta’ achievements, wich seem to imply that you can get them permanent by participating in beta. (Any others you cannot copy, say ‘Flame legion slayer’, getting it on beta, will not transfer to main account.

I partly Disagree with gest of Gaile post (and hey that doens’t happen many times). Wvw at first also had a straight reset for the world. No longer! EU and USA happely. ‘but but server in USA AND USA times our devs present’ doesn’t apply there.

There’s achievements (some seem grindy) that have to be completed in this beta weekend. Yeah achievements are not end of the world but still, americans are definitely handed them a 3 day event (while eu is 2 day event).

Some people hoped for beta weekend and were dissapointed now you push it out of EU cititizens time.

Last: Even the oh so mighty devs cannot 24/7 watch the events. They HAVE TO SLEEP. Conclusion, playing during peak interest hour will yield best moments for them to ‘engage in the test/change where necessary’. But here comes the but. The first evening is a bust on that part already cause no EU presence (wich means low test attendance), And something tells me you people ‘sleep’ already then.

Ruby often says during ‘Point of Interest’ omg it’s almost 5 pm already, we gonna have to cut short. The start of Beta weekend is 3-5 hours later wich even for working people in NA is weird. Starting it early would make more sense in the way of ‘we are devs and want to be there during the beta’. The weekend starts right AFTER The dev hours, not much sense there doesn’kitten

Sorry for being negative, but to much stuff doesn’t make sense here for it to not be discussed.

To end on positive note, it started 9 pm, not to bad. Thanks for that Anet.

Base game (with restrictions) even became free. Free base game means only expansion cost money. But to live the restrictions you must buy A VERSION of the game, any. Since HoT is the box that now costs money it is the one that removes the restrictions.

Is that clear now?

You cannot create revenant till 23th october.

You can create test revenant but ONLY during BWE. Even the creation of it is limited to beta weekend. So yes you have to wait. Just a little of patience in about 5-6 hours (guess, based on last times), you should be able to do what you want.

Ah yes same for me, all dulfy pages down.

I never had trouble with Taidha’s skill point. Do some skill jumping, get to the right cabin and walk down. If there’s champ, play smart, lure him away, put chill on him, sprint to point and cast it.

That’s because like ‘black lion introductionary package’ it’s permanent. It’s a permanent one time deal. The thing is that the key sale and now the slot sale, affects it’s price. They basically corrected the price of the package to reflect the inclusion of the other items discounted price. These packages will stay forever in shop, but at the 2000 and (4000?) gem prices. Sometimes they might drop due to sale that affects one of it’s items.

Thing remains, you can buy these packages only once per account, but the sale offer is ‘permanent’.

It’s now 6 hours and 27 min left Chaos. In EU (+1 gmt) it’s 18:00 (6pm) every sale ends.

I hope all the weird thigns Anet did (lots of mistakes in wvw, like superior much promises, then over a year Silence of Devon Carver), are because of ‘Ncsoft’ and not themselfs, and In that case i hope this shift, is actually a shift of decision power. Still up to them to make mistakes. We’ll see.

Menadena.7482:

Random Wax Orc.7695:

The Character Slot sale better not be limited to one or two. That would just kill me, and then Anet would be guilty of murder. :p

I am certainly hoping not! I plan on buying 8 of them unless they limit them. In which case I would buy more at the following sales and anet would lose the money they would have gained over the interest of my paying for all of them at once.

+1 I have these gems for over 6 months now waiting for char slot sale. If they don’t do it, might as well cash in on gold…

It depends on if you see ‘disc included’ or ‘box’ as ‘physical’ edition. While i would want a collector’s edition, Arenanet stated mutiple times it won’t come. And at least i got a box (no disc though) for purchasing from official pre-purchase partner. Your best bet in my opinion is to do same as me, and take ‘peace’ you won’t have a disc. Unless of course downloading is incredible restricted in your area.

Of course they will. And since they can’t sell on trading post (i think), they can’t take advantage of bolt of damask etc. But they can make their own ascended armor without problem, that’s for sure.

Zalladi, you forget one thing. A consumable has to sell, to be profitable for Anet. I’m almost absolutely certain that upgrade extractor is almost never bought. Only for huge agony resistance updates (+10 and higher) is might be outcome. Anything else, just paying the gold for new rune (yes even 10g) is cheaper in the end. Wich is kinda stupid.

The bigger problem with the item suggest is the ‘rune market’. Now it doesnt crash cause of the continous demand of high end runes. And the cheap runes go slightly up cause of mystic forge attempts for the best runes. This keeps the market alive. An item like op suggest would kill that. There has to be ways to ‘consume the rune’, but also change it on the fly, or something. Like once a year you pay for a rune, consume it, then it’s added 1 year to your legendary armor as choice. Just a thought.

Let me begin: I am sceptical against free to play. Why? Long story short: Rappelz is free to play. And it has some of the worst ‘pay to win’ mechanics, worst RNG mechanics (like black lion chest, but for necessary ‘good gear, with much higher failure chance, and cost per attemt, 4 dollar at least), much more elitism, much more greedy company (if you find a secret good loot source, they nerf it next week), 1000 spam messages per minute, in all populated area’s (inlcuding newb area’s), hacking + then using the gold from those items to ‘sell gold’ happens a lot, etc.

If the game wasn’t free to play, a lot of this wouldn’t happen, or happen a lot less. PERIOD. That’s simply how it is. Something Arenanet must remember at all times.

Now today I met 5 people who gathered in a cute spot in Hoelbrak. They grabbed my attention and I joined them for fun. Guess what! All were lvl 10-14. I suspected new players. They were very kind, and were enjoying gathering there. They asked me 1 gold to start a guild. My first instinct was ‘no no no no no, it’s a scam’. Mind you I’ve been scammed a precursor before, so that has made me suspicious of any kind of scamming. But they all talked dutch. A language that you can’t just ‘fake’ with google translate. Asking about them they came from Counter strike and Call of duty. And the free to play attracted them to try the game. And they all didn’t have a guild tag, and were clearly friends. I thought, heh what about it, I earn that back in 10 min (cof p1). ’Ok I give you the gold, on condition you show me your guild tag, as proof of not scamming. They understood this without problem and did as I asked. They were all very gratefull, and showed a lot of respect for me offering this chance for them to open a guild. I answered them a few questions, like how Pet Taming works, or how to do personal story together (they were 6 people , but limit is 5, I suggest doing it twice, once as guest, and once for yourself, so they all could play together).

In the end, this was a surprise for me. I didn’t expect people from the kind of games like Shooters to come to gw2. Especially not so fast. I know internet travels fast, but there’s news about 100 games, every day, i didn’t expect Gw2 news to travel that fast and increase in hype.

With all this in mind: my concerns still stand, But now I agree the (limited) free to play accounts can be good for the game. For me it’s incredible important that the limitations are NEVER dumbed down, they must stand, and even made more strict if needed (my biggest concern is wvw trolling. Power leveling for 1 week to 60, to then become the biggest spy/troll on your enemy server, is just to easy, and with the current state of wvw, garanteed lot of people will do it). My second most concern is pvp. I know pvp guys are absolutely desparate. C’mon 3x tournement 50 000$ x3 already wtf. This is throwing money away faster then gambling people do! I know they have appeal and perhaps ‘little’ strengten the community, but look anet, your queues are horrible, 18/25 match lossses are common strikes (and don’t give me the ’it’s player skill’ answer, i know it isn’t). This means either you left pvp in terrible game code state, or it’s having a crappy low amount of people. Making accounts free is NOT the solution for this. I’m afraid it will have opposite effect (fracturing elitist, like the tournement joining people) versus new people will have toxic fights bigger then ever.

For pve I have no qualms with new players AS LONG AS the limits are kept intact, they are increased if hackers, scammers, gold sellers, trolls etc find a way around them. Keep features also minimal. 1-2 char slot is plenty to ‘test a game’. If they want more buy account. If they want cheap, your temporary sales will achieve that. But don’t go free all the way please (that means, full account, no limits, all features (5 char slots, map chat)). Not now, Not ever. Political, and economical suicide. Period.

But to end on good note: It was good to see those 6 dutch people join the game, and have so much fun. I’m glad I gave them a guild, cause a guild is what creates a good feel of community in guild wars 2. So new ‘free’ players is definitely not all bad. But getting to soft is not good, and i’m afraid Mike obrien (or pvp team) might get to soft to fast, hence my overall quite negative tone in this post, to keep them rallied to all the possible issues at hand.

Good luck getting Avatar of pale tree mini, Null Shock. I <3 mine. Always sucks to not have gems when something is on sale that you want.

I think meeflak is sarcastic.

/15chars.

I’m amazed new players are joining now. Only two days rumors and 2 hours confirmation. + a whole new procedure to get in. How could player get here so fast? It’s like they knew to much to early. (Not that this is a bad thing).

Still have small issues with it (like wvw, spying is to easy, realy big issue).