So if anyone was going to be building prison camps it would be one of the forces fighting against Mordy (Divinity’s Reach, Black Citadel, Rata Sum or Hoelbrak, not the Pack of course since they’re pretty much in ruin). Judging by the trailer the Charr seem well inclined to locking up every Sylvari they come across. So if anyone was going to build prison camps I’d say the Charr would be the likely candidate.
From the trailer you can see that Rytlock is inclined to mistrust all Sylvari, I don’t think you can say that the same applies to all Charr. I’m sure he’ll come around when Caithe saves him… somehow.
Also, I think that those Sylvari who turned to nightmare are Mordremoths minions, those who remained in the dream are not (hmmm… the soundless will be interesting), hence why it is still safe to walk around the grove. Although the Sylvari from the other "pale tree" may be fully under Mordremoths’s command too.
As for the question: Yes, you’ll be left behind in story and content if you don’t get an expansion for the game. Welcome to MMOs? That is how it has always been as an expansion expands content of the game. To not get so means you don’t expand content and don’t get more options to the game. It’s the most basics of expansions for games.
Exactly, and just to underline the point; that’s the way it’s been in all games with expansions, not just MMOs. You buy the expansion to play the content. I don’t see why an – going by the names repeating in these threads – apparently quite small portion number of people here seem to think this should be any different.
People can still play GW2 once HoT comes out but they cannot play HoT without buying it and HoT will most likely be the basis for new story content. That seems neither controversial nor unfair to me.
The biggest advancement in underwater combat will come when we get the Bubbles dragon expansion.
You mean Guild Wars 2: Bladder of Water? That’s great and all but that won’t be here until long after they release Guild Wars 2: Hear of Thorns, Guild Wars 2: Kidneys of Ice and Guild Wars 2: Liver of Crystal. That’s like… years away. ;/
It’s interesting to nite the lukewarm reaction to the expansion, being someone who had fallen out of playing the game. A few people I know who’d ripped out of GW2 were lukewarm about the announcement,
The main thing is there isn’t too much oomph for the new or returning player, it’s a expansion that seems more tailored for existing players. Not a bad thing, but a thing nontheless.
Isn’t that usually the point though? Adding an end-game expansion for the people that actually play the game?
Pretty much. I think that producing any expansion for any game is as much about retaining players as it is about drawing people back or attracting new players to the game. It has to be.
The new content will either be enough to draw back players or it won’t, (that depends entirely on why those players left) but if the content isn’t tailored towards the players playing the game now then they risk those players leaving the game too.
Revenants are going to be able to use their based Weapon skills, and channel spirits that change their Heal, Utility, and Elite skills. With this idea, there’s concerns that they have more playability than any other class. If you can Weapon Swap, that allows you to have a nice variety of skills to use strategically. But if you can “Utility Bar Swap” in combat, that might give too much benefits for smart players in SPvP.
I would speculate that the utility bar abilities while channelling will have a shared cooldown with the base abilities, or at the very least with other channelling versions of those abilities. So you can’t heal, channel legend 1, heal, channel legend 2, heal, for example (assuming it is possible to channel more than one legendary at a time), instead you could use heal (20 second cooldown) channel to legend 1, wait until the 20 second cooldown is up, then heal (15 second cooldown), channel legend 2 or drop back to base revenant and, have to wait until the 15 second cooldown is up before you can use your heal. So you would have a cooldown on your ability and that cooldown would also lockout any other ability in that slot for that time, regardless of channelling.
That would seem to be OK to me. That or the channelled versions will have to be weak as hell.
I hope the SPvP Devs keep this in mind when they have their brainstorming meetings. I’m going to LOVE trying out this new class, but I hope there’s some balance as I don’t get ROLFstomp’d in matches.
I’m quite confident that they’ve considered the need to balance the class. I’m sure it came up once or twice. :P
Let’s wait and see if it is a real problem when the beta arrives.
SO basically what anet wants to do is do free living story all the way up to the climax and then put the end behind a pay wall.
Brilliant.
Season 2 ended (on a cliffhanger). The Season 3 will either need the expansion or be the expansion. Almost 3 years of content for €50 seems reasonable to me (€75 in my case, as I got the digital collectors edition). I think we’ve all got our moneys worth.
It’s going to be odd for the Revenants, which is new expansion content, so to be leveling outside their expansion. That’s not something that’s normally done in games.
In my experience that’s exactly what happens in MMOs. If they add a new race they add new starting zones, but new professions don’t generally speaking get a new zone; they start wherever the rest of the level 1’s do.
Yeah, it’s definitely worthwhile. The campaigns are brilliant.
I’d recommend creating a Prophecies character (as that’s where the whole story begins) and playing through that until you get to Lion’s Arch at least but if it feels like a bit of a slog then create a character in Nightfall or Factions (they’re much better campaigns, IMO, especially Nightfall, as that’s where you begin to get heroes).
As I came very late to GW1 (I started playing about a year before GW2 released) I also bought the skill unlock packs to quickly kit out my heroes, it made a huge difference.
It remains to be seen, what the current system will be replaced with. I am not celebrating yet.
The current system was hailed as being this new, awesome, and improved thing. I feel quite the opposite, personally. So, I have become a skeptic and reserve judgment . We have been told the current system will be removed but what will we end up with?
Very welcome news that the current system is going away but as I do not know what this truly means I am still not excited. It would be very easy to get excited about this, but I have disliked everything that has been done since the trait change except the free and immediate respec. Experience has made me quite wary.
My thoughts exactly. So the current system is going away, +1 for that. However, what exactly is replacing it? And not in generic dev speak/PR, but in actual, precise details. I hope they provide meaningful details soon enough. Also, what is the ETA for the change?
Well, given that Colin mentioned Traits, Masteries, Skills, Specialisations and the release of HoT in his post I think it’s fair to say that this change (whatever that change is) will be coming either with HoT or the major patch that precedes it.
Like you both, I’m cautiously optimistic but I won’t be cracking open the champagne until it’s revealed what will replace the current system.
From the mention of masteries being involved I’m guessing that this’ll mean an account wide unlock of traits in some form, hopefully.
After the whole only one specialization thing, they’re making me really nervous. I’d like to think its one massive map, but they’ve got me second guessing them.
I know right! Why even call it a specialization if it’s going to be the only progression? Either specialize or not. It’s technically a choice but not a good one. That’s like going out to diner and being offered a raw t-bone or no t-bone or all. What if I like my t-bone well done or medium-rare? No not a option, ok then… I’ll just sit her nursing my drink then.
EDIT: reading the article they do promise to expand on the system… eventually.
Well, they said that specialisation changes your core abilities, traits and so on, so you will be able to do things as a druid that you can’t do as a ranger, and (I’d imagine) that means you can do things as a ranger that you can’t do as a druid.
Johanson: Specializations is a new system that allows you to take each of the professions we have in the game and grow them almost into a new sub-profession or secondary profession. An example of this is, a Ranger can become a Druid. Once a Ranger becomes a Druid, they have the ability to use the powers of the jungle and that gives them new skills, new traits, they can use a new weapon that a Ranger could never use before, and they get new profession mechanics that fundamentally change the way a Ranger plays when they become a Druid.
Now they say you can switch back to be a Ranger at will. I think that’s the core of the specialisations, the change in profession mechanics and traits and the ability to switch between “vanilla” Ranger and Druid.
Mind you the specialisation does sounds like it’s more than the base, so we’ll have to see.
After the whole only one specialization thing, they’re making me really nervous. I’d like to think its one massive map, but they’ve got me second guessing them.
On the expansion details page they say “maps”, specifically “Explore new open world jungle maps.” I think that’s all you really need to discount the “our map” concerns.
Obviously one man can’t take on an Elder Dragon single-handedly and hope to defeat it. Detsiny’s Edge couldn’t defeat the Shatterer with the help of Glint. And that was just a general of Kralkatorrik.
(But Rytlock could definitely pull it off:P He’s just too kitten:)) )
However if the fight is like the current battle with Zhaitan. You on a ship spamming button 1, even a monkey could beat Mordremoth, not to mention Rytlock.
Only if Logan didn’t ran away.
Hey, buddy! I dare you to say that to his… rapidly retreating back.
Well, that’s the Guardian specialisation identified: long-distance runner.
he can wield sword/pistol and heavy armor at the same time.
(this comment isn’t meant to be taken seriously)
Actually the “hidden pistol” is a charr race skill. ;-)
it’s not “hidden” if he’s holding it all the time.
Yeah, Rytlock is a Rytlock, he has whatever abilities they want him to have. If they want him to dual wield canoes while dressed in only a “kiss the cook” apron then he can dual wield canoes while dressed in only a “kiss the cook” apron, doesn’t mean player characters can.
Q: When is the next big feature reveal for what’s coming in this expansion?
A: We wanted to reveal Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns when we were ready to talk about every major feature we’re planning. That’s why right now, every major feature planned for Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns is there for you to check out at http://heartofthorns.guildwars2.com. That said, there are so many details left to uncover and share with you, to show you, and to eventually let you play as we take you on the journey from now through launch.
“So many details left to uncover….” Indeed. Again. Who’s to say they did give us everything. They say they do but Anet does like to tease. A new playable race could very well be one of those “details to uncover” they are referring to. Just saying. I am remaining hopeful for another playable race, as Sylvari are the only ones I care about right now and I really don’t feel like making my Revenant a Sylvari as well. They are sort of shimmying Revenant in here as a new class. Why not try to Jimmy Rig a new race in here as well. Even though making Tengu playable right now would make WAY more sense than Revenant being a playable class. Just saying.
Shacknews: You’ve added a new profession, however you did hold off on adding a new race. What led to this decision?
Johanson: … “So right now, we didn’t feel that a new race was a key need for the game, whereas the other things that we’re adding really provide fundamental building blocks for the future.”
Sorry, Vyriis, I’m not trying to be a spoil-sport. I’d love a new race too but I think that they’re being very clear here in order to manage expectations and avoid confusion and I think that’s a great idea. It’ll mean fewer angry posts later on.
Guess what else isn’t mentioned on the site that we clearly see in the trailer. New allies, the Mursaat. They may say they are going to divulge all the major information on their site. But not everything they think is major is the same that we think is major. Also. This is Anet we are talking about. It’s a well known fact that they like to tease the information. So, again, to write anything off as of right now isn’t the best idea.
Umm… it is mentioned on the page, under The Heart of Maguuma “discover allies from ancient civilizations, and battle new enemies.”
Q: When is the next big feature reveal for what’s coming in this expansion?
A: We wanted to reveal Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns when we were ready to talk about every major feature we’re planning. That’s why right now, every major feature planned for Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns is there for you to check out at http://heartofthorns.guildwars2.com. That said, there are so many details left to uncover and share with you, to show you, and to eventually let you play as we take you on the journey from now through launch.
I know, but if not a sneaky put in in this expansion, when will we see that new race?
There is NO new race for this expansion.
Just going to point this out. But we actually don’t know if there will or will not be a new race added in this expansion. Where as the trailer pointed at “New Civilizations” and “New Group Content”. But neither were touched upon within the information Colin handed us. So it is best to keep an open mind rather than to just write no explanation off as “it’s not happening”. In fact the “New Civilization” the trailer referred to could very well be a new playable race. Or maybe just a minor race. Just a little food for thought.
They’ve also said that they’ve put all the major features that they plan to put in HoT on the page on this website, that page mentions the new class, new maps and so on but does not mention a new race.
I think that we can agree that a new race would be a major feature so it’s safe to say that there won’t be a new race.
People who speed level aren’t going to have as good a grip on the class, and especially not as good a grip on the more unusual skills.
That’s only true if you’re comparing a “natural” level 80 and a speed-leveled 80 while assuming they reached 80 at the same time; in this case if you spend 40 hours (completely arbitrary number here) leveling your Revenant to 80, I would have spent 40 hours playing with a level 80 Revenant with all of its traits and skills unlocked, so I would actually have a better grasp of the class than you would.
Really? You’re accusing Arena.Net of plagiarism because they have a character design with 4 horns and some character from a recent game has a hair style that looks like 4 horns? Do you not know that Charr have had 4 horns since GW1 which was released almost 10 years ago?
Just saying, if I have to buy an expansion pack and an additional character slot on top of the expansion pack just to enjoy the new class then it might be a no go for me.
You are going to be paying for an expansion pack anyways. It’s not too hard or asking too much for at least one character slot to be included. In fact, it could almost be seen as ‘greedy’ not to include one and ask players to purchase an additional slot.
I personally don’t mind either way as I have a spare slot (my 13th or 14th), but if they are adding a free slot then I think it would make a great “pre-order bonus”.
It’s also quite possible revs have a new fast track leveling area for them only.
It would be very weird to introduce a new prof and expect people to do something that involves no lore like use tomes.
I’m hoping for a revenant specific starter instance instead of the standard racial starting instances (like Shaemoor Village etc), maybe a bit longer than the standard racial ones that explains your superdupernatural origins but, if they do add a longer revenant starting instance, I expect that leaving it we’ll be no more than level 10 or so.
I’ll just level up normally then, I like levelling in this game, although I didn’t particularly enjoy levelling my last character with the way trait points are distributed now I’m hoping those are the kind of things they’ll adjust in the expansion pack patch.
So you think they would not have done the presentation on PAX if not all the major features were ready? hmmm I doubt that they’ll let an event like that pass for 1 or 2 major features that weren’t ready yet
Why would the timing of PAX have any impact on the planned features? After all, everything they talked about at PAX is “not ready yet”. If it was ready then they’d have announced a release date, wouldn’t they?
They have said, and I quote, "We wanted to reveal Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns when we were ready to talk about every major feature we’re planning. That’s why right now, every major feature planned for Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns is there for you to check out at http://heartofthorns.guildwars2.com.. "
That’s pretty clear, every major feature planned for this expansion is listed on that page. I don’t see them adding any new major features (especially nothing like a new race) between now and release. I think they’re doing quite well at managing expectations here.
Asura or human male. Human probably because I have light medium and heavy asura characters already and because heavy armour looks best on male humans, IMO.
I think it sounds the expansion sounds a bit “light” based on the HoT page (but we’ll see what details they add further down the line) but so long as there’s enough new story content and the price matches the content added, then yeah, I’ll buy it.
Even though I haven’t played the game since Season 2 took a break in August (precisely because it took another break so soon, but I digress), I did log in to unlock the story instances (have to make time to play them), if they add enough of those then I have no issues with paying to play them.
According to the FAQ all the major features are already on the HoT page so I’d say there’s absolutely no chance at all this expansion of getting a new race.
Q: When is the next big feature reveal for what’s coming in this expansion?
A: We wanted to reveal Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns when we were ready to talk about every major feature we’re planning. That’s why right now, every major feature planned for Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns is there for you to check out at http://heartofthorns.guildwars2.com. That said, there are so many details left to uncover and share with you, to show you, and to eventually let you play as we take you on the journey from now through launch.
Expansion launches are the perfect time to fix these kinds of issues, I hope they do tackle this in HoT and don’t just continue to sweep it under the carpet.
Does this elude to the fact that the game is making way for the leaked expansion (unconfirmed?) and that this indicates a possible faction system (ala WoW or…well…most other MMOs)?
If the game added factions and open world PvP I would be all over it and I would venture out of HotM. I know most of my friends would at least try it out as well.
So, am I reading too much into it or has the game decided to do something drastically different in an effort to bring in my type of player?
Isn’t open world PvP already covered by WvW? Sure it could use more maps and variety but that’s where people do open world PvP.
Splitting an existing player base into sub-factions is a terrible idea. Imagine the effect that would have on guilds alone.
People need to stop using the “First they say this, then they say this” argument. What “people” say is irrelevant to what one “person” is saying, unless that one person was initially part of those people. If this person wasn’t one of the people that complained about them not putting information in the game, then it’s irrelevant that other people wanted it in there.
Amen sibling, preach on! I find it hard to believe that people find it difficult to grasp this simple concept so nice to see that I’m not the only one.
While we’re on the subject, even if someone was part of a group complaining about a problem it doesn’t automatically follow that they are not allowed to complain about the proposed solution for that problem. The solution can in fact make something worse.
For example, if I complain that my company has installed a machine on my desk that punches me in the stomach every 5 minutes, it doesn’t mean that I haven’t got the right to complain about it any more just because they change it to only punch me in the face every ten minutes.
I like the sound of splitting it up into chapters, makes a lot more sense to me than the way it was before!
Sounds like there’s been quite a few big changes since I last played then…
Anything else I should be aware of?
On the personal story, because the story wasn’t originally intended to be divided up this way the chapters tend to end somewhat abruptly, so for example, you might finish a step where the characters say “we should meet up back in Lion’s Arch” but the step where you meet up in Lion’s Arch won’t unlock until the next chapter does, it has caught more than a few people out (I’ve seen a load of posts by people that think there are bugs here).
Anyway just so you know, if the story seems to just end when you think it should continue it’s probably just cause you finished the chapter.
Nope, youd sacriffice a teammate, or even one of your multi accounts if were including that, when score would be 490-300 with safe 2 cap to get bonus points
I think you should get bonus points based on the how long you were down a player (calculated from score, time or both). So if you are winning 450 to 0 and someone leaves for whatever reason and win then you shouldn’t get as much of a bonus as you would if you were 4v5 since the start of the match and managed to win.
What if someone has a completely full block list? Would it bug out and not report in that case? If it does, will people know the report failed and why?
That sounds like you’ve helpfully specified an acceptance criteria for the QA team: if the user’s block list is full (if that’s possible, of course) the report must still be completed.
That’s the kind of requirement that’s easily supported once it’s clearly specified and understood (it can be met simply by reporting the user first and then trying to add them to the block list).
Also, if it’s an issue then adding it as another option would be good; “Report”, “Block” and “Report and Block”.
Funny how people have been demanded that information should be shown in-game since released. And now when it finally is it is the worst thing ever apparently.
“You can please some of the people all of the time, you can please all of the people some of the time, but you can’t please all of the people all of the time”.
Personally, I like that they advertised it in game. It’s big news and it should be relayed to the people in the game because of that, I certainly can’t understand how it can be thought to be in bad taste (my own monocle certainly didn’t fall out and shatter on my mahogany desk or ivory keyboard) but it takes all sorts.
Edit: also “a nice kick to the groin”? Really? I’d expect shockingly uncouth language from a ne’er do well or corner boy, not on the august pages of this fine website! I bid you good day, OP!
Well I’d approve seeing overflow damage being applied direct….
bleeding would trigger heamoraging
burning would trigger immolation
poison would trigger fatal dose
torment would trigger haunted
confusion would trigger panic
terror would trigger horror
dropped/overwritten stack woul be applied direct….
Damage could just be applied as physical (imagine a 24 second stack of high condidmg bleed being released 24*150…3600 dmg hit…) It would fit… at least for PvE
I like those names. Even if it only caused half that damage it’d be brilliant (1800 damage is worse than 3600, sure, but it’s a whole lot better than 0).
I’m kind of surprised they haven’t done something like this, but as I said, I don’t think they consider it that important: imagine if there was a bug where only the first 25 sources of direct damage were processed each second, these condition caps are like that, just not as obvious.
It would involve retuning the mob health/scaling algorithms but that’s not a bad thing, IMO.
A simple suggestion that I’ve seen a few times, is to convert excess stacks of conditions to direct damage rather than simply losing them. So if your ability would apply a 26th stack of bleed it’s instead converted to direct damage (multiplied by some appropriate coefficient, as needed).
I would say that should apply only in PVE the current behaviour should remain in PVP.
Anyway, to my knowledge there has been zero movement on this issue so I don’t think that they really consider it a problem at all.
Interesting, took a break for the last five or so months (apart from logging in to unlock the last 3 Living Story episodes so I can play them at some time) and I came back to the forums today to check for news so I’m eager to see what they announce here.
However, I think that unless it’s an announcement with actual details and at least a rough time-line then it’ll be a waste of everyone’s time; they can’t keep telling us how excited they are and how they wish they could tell us all about all the things that are in development forever.
This article makes a lot of sweeping claims and reads like something I would’ve written in 5th grade. Keep in mind that Season 1, while it had 20 LS episodes, took place over 1 and a half years. In comparison Season 2’s projected 9 episodes will take place over a period of 6 months.
Erm, season one ran from January 2013 to March 2014 and that isn’t a year and a half also apart from a break for Christmas they kept their 2 week schedule with special events along way.
Since ending season one they’ve taken two large breaks from the living story (about six months in total) and are likely to end season two before Christmas after seven episodes.
My issue isn’t with that anyway. My issue is with the attitude that somehow anyone should be encouraged to leave the game by X date. Why X date? Why not Y date? If there’s nothing new on halloween that means the November 4th update won’t be great? It makes no sense at all to me.
I think that people should leave or stay because they want to leave or stay, not because of some kind of “call to arms”. Personally, I haven’t played since the last feature pack. There isn’t anything in the game to interest me anymore so I doubt I’ll log in until November 4th when I will log in, I’m looking forward to season 2 continuing as the first 4 episodes are the best content they’ve added for the Living World, IMO.
I just hope that the season won’t end on December 2nd, seven episodes for a season is just too short IMO. Likewise taking six+ months a year “off” from the Living Story is not going to work, for me, at least.
Ultimately, regardless of whether or not I’m missed I simply won’t log in and won’t be buying gems and those may be missed if enough others feel the same way.
So can we get some confirmation that season 2 will run for more than three more episodes? Or will it be the 4th and 18th of November and December 2nd then another break?
Season one must have had twenty, thirty episodes, season two will have had seven. Not exactly going in the right direction IMHO.
Yes those numbers account for the launch and the China release and include subs (which most likely are not there anymore).
If you look at glassdoor and several recent ex-employees that have made comments on the matter, the actual base is nowhere near the size of those numbers (300-350).
I’m actually stunned that people think 300-350 people would be able to keep their jobs if their jobs resulted in what we’ve seen in terms of this game. That many people are capable of so much more.
Those glassdoor reviews are fascinating reading, a real eye-opener!
Reading a few of the reviews I was pleased and worried (but not surprised) to see just how closely they are to my own suspicions about ArenaNet.
I wholeheartedly recommend that everyone read them, just google “glassdoor arenanet”.
Well Chris was supposed to provide a list (10 items I think?) that came about because of the CDIs, but he’s been busy and had some kind of family issue so he hasn’t gotten to it yet.
Ah, I just came back to the forums to see if that had been posted (was half expecting that to be a blog post on the main site).
Is he still planning on doing this does anyone know? Seems a bit odd if it’s just been quietly dropped by him.
