Guild Wars 2

Here’s the thing Ren, I didn’t see any “toxicity” but I did see a lot of annoyed and disappointed people, and those people who are annoyed and disappointed actually are the community. The new players are seeing just what they’re getting into. That’s actually a good thing.

Well, it’s rare that I find myself in complete agreement with another person on the internet, but I completely and utterly agree with Iason Evan. This trend towards scalable events with no rewards is seriously concerning (the blooms themselves seem to unlock a bill or further fee to get anything). This event is a gold sink.

Yeah, apparently it’s a bug, half the people got their blooms the rest of us got nothing. Any way to tell which one we’ll be ArenaNet? Lucky or unlucky?

I got nothing either, had 13 stacks. Got nothing.

Paulytnz.7619:

Inculpatus cedo.9234:

Won’t it be only 3 or 4 days…(if they are released before the next BWE)?

Perhaps, the last two Elite Specializations have been worked on the longest, and will turn out to need less adjustments. Who knows? =)

I shouldn’t think so. I have a feeling this event in these old maps has two reasons.

1 to test these new monsters and the fight mechanics in a live environment against greater numbers of people (including those who don’t have access to the betas).

2 as a sort of advertisement to both new players and old players who have not bought HOT yet to say “hey, this is how cool things will be in HOT – buy it now!”.

I think no 2 is the reason especially as the mobs shown in the screenshots are those already in Silverwastes. Personally I’m not expecting too much from these events them be like the Scarlett invasions: a bunch of mobs will teleport into the middle of a field and will wait for the zerg. With no loot. But it’s mainly there to sell HoT and the game to the new P4F players, that’s why they’re using it as a guild recruitment drive too.

Still at least it’s new mobs standing in those fields.

Mitch.4781:

Pifil.5193:

Mitch.4781:

Substatic.6958:

Trinity is better than whatever the hell it is that dungeons have now.

Ok…Why is it better? I can tell you that the thought of having to wait half an hour for a healer for Cof1 and then abandoning the dungeon halfway in leaving us to wait another 30 mins for a healer, or a tank that keeps failing at tanking Alpha in COE; would be beyond frustrating.

They did away with the old mechanics of trinity for a very very good reason. That you prefer the old way of doing things should tell you that GW2 is not the game for you.

Rather than expect Anet to spend time and money developing the game around your personal needs, why not try out SWTOR or a little game called World of Warcraft. One is a sci fi setting, one is a fantasy.

I am sure either of those will be perfectly appropriate for your needs and other people like you.

They removed dedicated healers and tank professions, they renamed those roles to support and control, so the point is that any profession can “heal” (support) or “tank”. So you shouldn’t be waiting 30 minutes for a healer ever as people can switch their builds on the fly. In fact I haven’t played any MMOs where I was waiting 30 minutes for a healer since vanilla wow; they fixed the tank and healer shortage by making other classes effective at tanking and healing in TBC.

Also, this may come as a shock, but you telling people to go play wow or other games will have no effect on whether or not they introduce a need for “tanking” in this game. I know, I know, it’s almost as if they’re not creating this game_ just_ for you, but hey, that’s life.

So basically you’re advocating the current GW2 system right? So why are you crying? This will obviously come as a shock to YOU, but the point went waaay over your head. The poster was advocating the old trinity system from old gen mmos. That is, the Reintroduction of SPECIFIC Healers and tanks, no doubt removing those functions from dps classes. I don’t know when you last played WOW, but judging by your TBC comment it must be 7 years ago! I played CATA and MOP and guess what, there are STILL queues for healers and tanks. Just like there are STILL queues for healers and Tanks in SWTOR. Fixed the healer and Tank shortage? What utter GARBAGE! The old flaws still remain and guess what…people don’t like waiting for very specific roles. We want to get in and PLAY.

They aren’t creating this game for me, they have created this game for themselves and people like me who were incredibly bored and tired of the old outdated trinity system. I know that sucks for you, but hey, that’s life.

I’m not “crying”, I’m neither for nor against the classic trinity but you continue making wild kittenumptions about what people want or believe if that makes you feel better. I was also not advocating anything just explaining what we have in GW2 now. The poster you quoted merely said that the trinity was better than what we have in dungeons now (and I think he might have a point there, GW2 dungeons are terrible IMO) but you somehow managed to craft an entire agenda from that that apparently includes removing the ability to DPS from certain professions. Maybe you should spend more time reading what people are actually saying and spend less time making up stuff they aren’t?

I also played wow in every expansion including this year and I haven’t been kept waiting for healers since vanilla so I don’t know what you’re doing wrong.

Edit: bloody predictive text

Mitch.4781:

Substatic.6958:

Trinity is better than whatever the hell it is that dungeons have now.

Ok…Why is it better? I can tell you that the thought of having to wait half an hour for a healer for Cof1 and then abandoning the dungeon halfway in leaving us to wait another 30 mins for a healer, or a tank that keeps failing at tanking Alpha in COE; would be beyond frustrating.

They did away with the old mechanics of trinity for a very very good reason. That you prefer the old way of doing things should tell you that GW2 is not the game for you.

Rather than expect Anet to spend time and money developing the game around your personal needs, why not try out SWTOR or a little game called World of Warcraft. One is a sci fi setting, one is a fantasy.

I am sure either of those will be perfectly appropriate for your needs and other people like you.

They removed dedicated healers and tank professions, they renamed those roles to support and control, so the point is that any profession can “heal” (support) or “tank”. So you shouldn’t be waiting 30 minutes for a healer ever as people can switch their builds on the fly. In fact I haven’t played any MMOs where I was waiting 30 minutes for a healer since vanilla wow; they fixed the tank and healer shortage by making other classes effective at tanking and healing in TBC.

Also, this may come as a shock, but you telling people to go play wow or other games will have no effect on whether or not they introduce a need for “tanking” in this game. I know, I know, it’s almost as if they’re not creating this game_ just_ for you, but hey, that’s life.

Random.4691:

Doggie.3184:

People who enjoy playing healing classes are just lazy. :| I don’t see the appeal or desire, it’s so intensely boring in MMOs and waiting around to find people to fill those roles is annoying. Anet were one of the few developers smart enough to understand that.

That’s quite the opinion you got there. You do realize babysitting 4+ other players is much more difficult than mashing a set rotation while relying on that lazy healer to make sure you’re still alive to mash that rotation. Then again most dps usually play dps because they can’t wrap their minds around having to multi task.

Back on topic, what others said, toughness doesn’t mean tank.

But… but… I’m winning on damage and the healer is doing no damage and that’s the only metric for laziness!

Tanking and healing are so much less lazy than DPS but you’re right toughness is not the same as tanking.

Building toughness is one of the main ways to draw aggro in GW but it’s not a “hard” tank, far more interesting to me is the ability of all classes to fulfill the the roles of GW2s trinity; control, support and damage. That’s what they need to bring in these new encounters, the need for builds other than might stacking DPS. If they do that then they might succeed in creating challenging content. If these encounters can be beaten by 10 berserker equipped characters who stack and then DPS the bosses down then they’ve failed.

Starfall.6813:

Is there any phrase more overused on the Internet than “a slap in the face”? I can’t even take you seriously after that.

Yep, my feelings exactly.

AVM.5746:

Cause right now, I personally don’t think they practically do anything.

That’s completely correct and also a good thing. They’re not supposed to do anything.

My recommendation if the TP is not an option is: wait for HoT. Then do your Bifrost pre-cursor scavenger hunt and farm the T6 mats using the map event completion system.

While you’re waiting for HoT you can work on getting the other components on the wiki page. You will need about 200g for the Icy Runestones, recipes and 100 unidentified dyes. You will also need 500 shards of Zhaitan and a bunch of other components.

Honestly, I would recommend just going through the wiki page and work on either gathering or making the components seems like the best way.

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/The_Bifrost

Not-so-stealth “I got a precursor lol” thread?

Mitch.4781:

These tools would be a welcome and fair addition to the UI.

No they wouldn’t. I have no problems with a personal DPS Meter though.

Damage values and even the way skills work may be adjusted down before or after launch. And they will if they need adjustment.

Miellyn.6847:

Pifil.5193:

Dreggon.6598:

I’m honestly baffled at the people arguing against this proposal. Why would you object to something which can only help people?

It is amazing alright, I was disappointed to see that they’d introduced fixed raid sizes it seems so against the inclusive policies they have.

I can only hope that in future they do turn these into flexible raids (leaning the same lessons that blizzard did sooner rather than later).

yeah Blizzard learned their lessons, highest difficulty to one fixed raid size down from 2 from WotLK until MoP, our raids still don’t have multiple difficulties

I’m not sure what you’re saying. But yeah, they learned numerous lessons, 40 man raids are too large, your first raid in an expansion being a10 man raid followed by a 25 man raid won’t work, hard capping raid sizes causes further problems for guilds.

Ultimately they learned that people (vets especially) don’t have the time to play that they think they had. The same lessons that the WildStar guys learned now.

I would have liked to see GW2 raids be for 10-19 players. The hardcore can go in there with 10 or 9 or 8 if they feel they have something to prove.

Torolan.5816:

Harper.4173:

You guys do realize you can field multiple raid teams right?

This is an even more hillarious and therefore even better idea!

" Yeah uhm, let´s make two raid teams because we have so many people!
Carl, Linda, Frank, Steve, Cathrin, Mark, Anthony, Bill, Marcus and Fiona are team 1.
Francine, Colin, Matthias, Greg, Sam, Ben, Darla, Darcy, Chris and Ricky are team 2.
Francine: Wait, I am team 2? But why? I was really good at the last attempt!
Guild Leader: It doesn´t matter, Francine. Team 2 is not a badder team, I just called it this to separate it from team 1.
Bill(whispers to the leader): Why do we have to bring Steve along? He´s bad and slow! Move me to team 2 please!
Sam(whispers to the leader): Hey, can you please move Darla out of my group? You know I don´t like her…
Carl: Yeah, thanks a lot guys, what do I have to do here? You know, my grandson is coming to visit us today, and I want to show him what we do here!
Mark: I can´t stand this anymore! I want my legendary armor! Get yourself together folks, or I´ll leave right now!
"

Oh god, that all sounds so familiar, I feel like I’m back in Burning Crusade!

Dreggon.6598:

I’m honestly baffled at the people arguing against this proposal. Why would you object to something which can only help people?

It is amazing alright, I was disappointed to see that they’d introduced fixed raid sizes it seems so against the inclusive policies they have.

I can only hope that in future they do turn these into flexible raids (leaning the same lessons that blizzard did sooner rather than later).

Thanks for the third birthday present ArenaNet, I’ve got three dye kits so far, need to choose which ones soon. The finisher is fantastic too!

CureForLiving.5360:

Pifil.5193:

Steinpilz.5078:

Will we have the possibility to invest in 3 traitlines and 1 elite traitline or will we have only 3 to choose from?

Only three, also an elite trait line can only be put in the third slot so, in the future, when classes have more than one elite specialisation you’ll still only be able to equip one elite and two core ones.

It’s purposefully designed that way. The elites (as was so far explained) was not intended to be a direct upgrade and as such a must have. So the thing is you have to ask yourself: is the new weapon and mechanic worth giving up one of my other traitlines. And depending on how you want to play that might differ.

Oh I know and I think it’s a very good idea, it will also be much easier to balance the specs in the future knowing you don’t have to worry about a ranger being a druid, warden and a hunter (or whatever they call the other elite specs).

Steinpilz.5078:

Will we have the possibility to invest in 3 traitlines and 1 elite traitline or will we have only 3 to choose from?

Only three, also an elite trait line can only be put in the third slot so, in the future, when classes have more than one elite specialisation you’ll still only be able to equip one elite and two core ones.

Diovid.9506:

Morfedel.4165:

You’re assuming that because the druid hasn’t been announced yet it will suck. On what logic are you connecting those facts into that conclusion?

I guess the logic for some people is that elite specs which are announced later will be tested less because they will be available in fewer beta events.

Yes, and that’s particularly odd because that would only make sense if they planned on stopping developing and adjusting the elite specs after HoT launches. Balancing and development will continue after launch (weeks and months of post launch data from the entire player base will be a lot more useful than a couple of weekends with a fraction of it).

It also ignores the fact that the other specs will already have been tuned and tweaked after the first two BWEs (especially Mesmer, Elementalist and Necromancer) so the team will be able to concentrate more on Druid and Forge when they are added in BWE three.

I think drama and nursing hurt feelings is more important than logic to a lot of the people on these forums.

AdaephonDelat.3890:

There’s one in game reference to the Goonies (least that was the way I interpreted it). The jumping puzzle in Harathi Hinterlands called Fawcett’s Bounty.

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Fawcett%27s_Bounty

But yeah I agree. The Goonies rock.

Oh, I forgot about that!

I demand at least six more Goonies references in HoT! No matter how contrived! Do it ArenaNet, otherwise I’m cancelling my non-existent subscription.

Think of all the imaginary money you’ll lose from my non-existent subscription!

We’ve been doing the same content for about 3 years (well apart from SW and Dry Top) so it’s bound to be a bit boring.

I’m mostly just logging in for daily rewards and doing my dailies most days. I’m also logging in on all my alts to do some tree farming for Foxfire and I also went through a material farming spree with them for ascended crafting but that’s just waypointing about to harvest materials so it’s not really playing that much.

On a positive note it’s a real sign of how enjoyable the core gameplay in GW2 is that we can still stand to do the same content after 3 years. I hope that HoT gives it a much needed shot in the arm for another couple of years.

Hmmm… my main has my Silver-Fed Salvage-o-Matic but I’ve been playing on my alts recently and they use Mystic Salvage kits. It’s kinda concerning that there may be a problem with the Silver-Fed Salvage-o-Matic but it’s impossible for us to to prove it one way or the other.

There’s no real advantage to the Silver-Fed Salvage-o-Matic over Mystic Salvage kits anyway so I think I’ll just leave it in my bank, for now.

Langdon.9738:

“mudamudamuda” , “oraoraoraora” and “wryyyyyyyyy” also work.
Engi gets gadget goonies reference, why can’t warrior get a jojo reference shouts?

I don’t… know what any of that is but I’m willing to bet that it’s some anime stuff that has nothing to do with the spec.

The concept of a “berserker” pre dates whatever anime you’re referring to but the tool belt was actually inspired by that Goonies character. That’s the difference also there are no in game references to the Goonies at all.

Finally, the Goonies rock.

Ok I Did It.2854:

TJgalon.5012:

Sometime the goddess does not favor you. I had a good run today, 10 rares and 20 ectos, some days it could be less or more. It just how things are sometimes.

Uh huh, im saying no way on hell that happened, if you got 20 ecto from 10 rares then you have the best RnG from the entire game,

Given that the people who have salvaged thousands of rares to get the average and it came back at just under 1:1 your ratio of 2:1 seems a little off,

He was lucky at that particular time. I’m sure he’s had bad runs too. If we took all the salvages he’d ever done into account then I’m sure it’d come back close to that 1:1 average.

It’s important to remember that although we think of these salvage chains as a “run” each salvage is a discrete event that’s completely separate from every one that came before and every one that comes after.

After a daily boss run I’ve gotten 13 from the first 5 I salvaged then nothing from the other 8 or so. If I’d only salvaged the first 5 then I’d have had a great run.

Also depending on the server architecture he probably shares the same RNG as the rest of the people on the megaserver he’s on. At the exact same time that he was salvaging his 10 rares getting his 20 ectos lots of other people could be salvaging rares and getting a single mithril ore or killing mobs that were dropping nothing. Also, given the nature of the average RNG, if he’d started salvaging a second later or waited a bit longer between salvaging he’d have had completely different results.

RNGesus definitely smiled on him but in the real world as much as in the game world.

Ok I Did It.2854:

I salvage a lot of rares everyday and you do go threw streaks of bad luck, but if you do actually count it out it will average out at around just under 1:1, do not use a black lion salvage kit on rares, its a waste just stick to the master kit, also remember that its not always worth salvaging them sometimes its better return to sell the rare, keep an eye on the market.

What do you use to determine if it’s better to sell or salvage? Is it if the market price is above the cost of a single ecto?

Yeah, I’ve found the hero points on the three screenshots with some searching. I can understand why they wanted to change the icon when they changed the system (it’s a good idea to visually indicate that the system has changed) but I much prefer the old skill point icons to these new ones.

The “little man” in the middle of the new icon is the problem here, I think. If it was a solid block of colour it’d probably be OK. Even a thicker border would probably do but I’d much prefer blue to yellow as yellow tends to blends into the background a lot more than blue.

Zetsumei.4975:

Is this only in cities or anywhere? That suggests that if they blindly implement it, it will also work in wvw too.. #balance.

They said it would only work in cities. Seriously, I mean, think about it, it would invalidate so many traits and skills if it worked everywhere.

Wwefan.4982:

Pifil.5193:

October 15 is a Thursday. I’d expect a Tuesday release.

Just because tuesday is normally patch day it doesn’t mean Anet needs to release the game then they can release it when they feel its ready.

It has nothing to do with it being patch day and everything to do with the fact that these days most games release in the US on a Tuesday not a Thursday.

I know that HoT is mostly going to be a digital release but I see no reason for them to stray from that general pattern.

October 15 is a Thursday. I’d expect a Tuesday release.

I wonder if this is actually challenging group content or a system by which they will add challenging group content in the future. That will be quietly abandoned.

“GW2 the journey ahead " hmmm, could be taken either easy.

Killing any mob on a level 80 can drop spirit shards. I’ve seen quite a few that way so I’d say just play the game, champ bags are a good way of doing it too but a lot of more recent events mob kills don’t seem to drop any loot so you’d have to be in the right area.

Yep, sounds like a good idea to me, it’ll save us having to waste gold on mats for these headpieces and on the runes for them. Just let us use our actual helm underwater with its actual stats and rune (and yeah, I know they’re not actually needed for most content before someone chimes in with a “you don’t have to anyway” comment).

If they’re not going to do that then what they should do is make crafting re-breathers a “full” feature: what I mean is that if they’re planning on adding ascended recipes then they really should add the missing exotic/rare/masterwork and fine recipes too. I never understood why these recipes weren’t in the game at launch. Adding recipes for these should be pretty trivial, especially if it just reuses the same skins.

rapthorne.7345:

It makes sense for auto loot to be locked behind a grind wall, or bots could easily be scripted to farm mats such as T6 endlessly. By putting such a feature behind masteries, you restrict the feature to players who are most likely to be genuine accounts, not botters.

Why are they “most likely to be genuine accounts, not botters” I mean what’s to stop someone from turning this mastery on for their bots? As far as we know there’s very little to prevent someone from turning this mastery on and then ignoring other players.

GuzziHero.2467:

Why is this? It just seems that EU players are more ignorant but I want to think differently. There is certainly a very different attitude between the 2 regions. It seems every time I play on EU, something happens that makes me regret not having logged into my US based account instead.

Thoughts on this?

It would be a good idea to change the way you think because the current way you’re thinking is close to ethnic or racial discrimination.

Also, I haven’t seen the issues you report on EU servers. I get ressed, I res, I see people call out events (especially in the regions for daily events) and so on. Maybe the US servers have “more” of all that but I haven’t seen any problems on the EU ones.

Perhaps it’s the time of day/night that you’re playing at?

They drop off random trash mobs now. Skill scrolls never used to do that. If it becomes a real problem they can simply change the drop rate.

Hey, they still don’t remember Ranger pet names so although I do definitely want it I’m not at all surprised they haven’t delivered this yet. They simply don’t think of it as a priority.

CodeHavoc.7926:

In a way you’re kinda one less spec line because you HAVE to use the elite.

No. That would only be true if the elite traitline didn’t have any traits.

You seem to be assuming that the elite traitline is useless. Sure, you have to use the elite traitline in order to get the weapon, but as that traitline is custom designed for the weapon I don’t see it as a problem.

In fact, chances are you’d want to be using that traitline anyway as it’s the only traitline with traits for your new weapon.

blackoil.2673:

Yup, now i’m sure we don’t get an extra account…. I still have to rethink if I should or not buy the expansion then ;p

However, let’s analyze their text. The thing that really gets to their balance is that “A game serial code”, but even that “or” and “and” mess that up:

(A serial code for account creation or upgrade for HoT) and (the award-winning GW2 core game)
- Then I choose the serial code for account upgrade (and i get the core game as well)

If you put the parenthesis the other way… it’s still wrong
(A serial code for account creation) or (upgrade for HoT and the award-winning GW2 core game)
- Then I choose the upgrade for HoT and the core game.

Maybe I can buy it and ask them to give me as well the core game, because their purchase page it says it includes both? =D
I’m just not taking that risk

I apologise if I’ve been rude or brusque with you, I try not to be. I can definitely see that the wording could be clearer.

If it was me, I’d have said something more like:

A serial code that will allow you to either upgrade an existing GW2 account to HoT or to create a brand new account that will include both HoT and free access to the award-winning GW2 core game.

After all, it’s not like they’re paying per word or anything, they can afford to elaborate a little.

blackoil.2673:

Pifil.5193:

I think it’s quite clear:

You get one code that can be used to create a new account or to upgrade an existing one.

Lemme just put in bold just a bit more:

A game serial code for account creation or upgrade for the GW2: HoT expansion and the award-winning Guild Wars 2 core game

It seems like it says that it includes the GW2 HoT and GW2 core game

Well, if you ignore the OR there I can see how you’d get confused. All the words are important.

Their use of “A game serial code” should make it obvious that don’t get two separate serial codes. Similarly their use of OR should make it obvious you can either create a new account which will have both the base game and HoT OR upgrade an existing account to HoT.

Anyway, lots of people have already pre-purchased the expansion and there was only one key.

I think it’s quite clear:

A game serial code for account creation or upgrade for the GW2: HoT expansion and the award-winning Guild Wars 2 core game

You get one code that can be used to create a new account or to upgrade an existing one.

xuse.6817:

it’s just people who started when game opened, took all the good names
and now sit on them thinking it’s ok

The bit that you don’t seem to get is that it is OK. You wanting someone else’s name doesn’t change that. ArenaNet have said that it’s OK. In fact they even let us reserve our GW1 names in GW2 for three months.

RoseofGilead.8907:

xuse.6817:

Everyone in my skype room agrees with me.

And (almost) everyone in this thread disagrees with you.

I’d like to join the thread to say that I too disagree with this. It’s not unreasonable to expect an MMO to keep your character name if you take a break. Most MMOs that ice played will do so indefinitely. Acting like it’s somehow taking away from your game is absurd. As is asking someone to give up a name for you.

Also (to xuse) perhaps they agree with you or perhaps they’re showing solidarity with you or maybe they just want you to stop talking about it.

Xillllix.3485:

Sounds like a new beginning for some end game content, but there is no talking of new fractals. There is a limit of how much you can recycle material just by making a nice backpiece skin. All of this but no new fractals?

That’s very telling, I think, no mention of new fractals at all. Maybe they’ll mention them in the future articles but you’d expect at least a mention of new fractals in this article if they were adding any at launch.

From the article:
“while we view fractals as our infinitely expandable, endgame version of 5-man dungeon content”

Yes, I remember them saying something like that before when they first launched back in 2012. They’ve expanded upon them once, when they added mostly reworked LS1 content to them. Infinity is apparently quite small.

I have to say though, that they have a track record of not adding all that much to these systems after launch, moving onto the “next big thing”, same happened with guild missions. Changing the rewards or they way we access these features is appreciated but not itself a substitute for adding new content.

I log in for the login rewards and do the dailies some days but they haven’t added any new content in over six months (as in stuff you can do) so there’s little incentive to do anything. I parked a few characters by some cypress groves for foxfire clusters (assembling mawdrey now) but pressing F at some trees is about as exciting as it gets these days.

I miss the living story one release cadence; I didn’t like how they removed the content so quickly but I did like the content, zergy though it was. LS2 was good but too sparse and with far too long breaks. I hope that HoT can actually deliver content at launch and afterwards at frequent intervals without long breaks.

Muusic.2967:

^^^ THIS X 1000 ^^^

There’s no such ting as a perfect product upon release. The absolute best way to test something is to put it to it’s intended use which isn’t possible on any type of “test” server given the dynamics involved as well as the ingenious ways players will find to break something.

Even the most obvious mistake can slip by on a tester who is tired and has been working all night in a hurry to get the content out to the players and by coming here and throwing a tantrum about it you just guarantee it will be longer til we see the next update.

Get over it.

Yes. QA is a thankless job don’t make it worse by trashing them.

Also, don’t assume that they don’t notice a bug, I am a software engineer and ultimately it’s up to management to make the call over whether or not to delay a release to fix a defect. I’ve seen the frustration on the faces of the QA members of the teams I’ve worked in when the defect they worked their kitten off to reproduce gets bumped out of a release because it needs to be today and not next week. They don’t need to hear from the armchair experts over this.

As for this glitch, it was probably fairly obvious what the cause was once it went live but it may not have occurred on their test environment at all due to a variety of factors including the age of the data.

Arobain.8274:

my speculation is that the reason they are kinda getting rid of all the extra things like teaser trailers, and no gemstore updates, and stuff like that, is because

A) they are trying to get the expac out on the anniversary, or near it
B) they want us to get our hands on it as soon as possible

More likely they’re working on something for gamescom. There was a similar lull before e3. I think there is practically no chance of a release on or near the anniversary: that’s about a month away and there is no release date yet, I imagine they’ll announce a release day about 2 months before it releases (based on how they announced the GW2 release date). I hope they announce it at gamescom. Is been too long since we had any new content, I’m eager for something new to do.

I would expect a beta weekend during or immediately after gamescom though.

No, they’re fine the way they are. The ability to change stats on the fly is enough, IMHO (if people don’t think they’re worth the effort over making ascended equipment then they simply shouldn’t bother making them).

jheryn.8390:

When she made that comment she also said that players should try and play through with a Sylvari at some point.

I think all “turning” will be done in instances rather than in open world. Someone above mentioned this as well.

It seems obvious to me that ANet has been very diligent about keeping any PvP/WvW and PvE separate.

Yeah, there will never be any “open world” PvP (apart from possibly duelling if you count that) that’s what WvW is for.

I think you’re quite right about any possible “turning” being in story instances. I don’t think that the player character will be able to end the instance after having “turned” to Mordremoth, maybe they will be tempted or almost turned.

But there is no possibility for players to “serve” Mordremoth in the open world and work against players, gods, can you imagine how much worse the griefers would be if they have a “legitimate” reason for their crappy behaviour?

Sifu.9745:

But if you can buy preorder now, i would expect it to be released very soon.

Why would you expect that? I mean it’s possible to pre-order games on Steam (for example) that don’t come out until 2016. Just because they’re willing to take your money now it doesn’t mean they’re planning on delivering anything any time soon.

Given the lack of any details on the content in the expansion I don’t expect it’ll come out soon. The GW2 release date was announced exactly two months before it came out, I’d expect a similar pattern for HoT.