Guild Wars 2

Stooperdale.3560:

I agree, she died too fast, and she had put on the Star Trek red security suit as soon as we met her in the Dead End, but there might be a bit more going on behind the scenes. I suspect there’s some story line brewing with the rest of Marjory’s family, specifically why she doesn’t want them to meet Kasmeer. This might be part of a long running plot line and it needs to start early, albeit too early.

She’s the unknown heir to the throne of kryta.

chronometria.3708:

Perhaps he drank the water of life and is meditating in a near death state to become – Poo-a-D’ib, leader of the desert Quaggans – the voice from the outer world.

I… we need events now… with sandworms and helicopters. This is an A+ idea.

Honestly, I was really concerned at the implication of taimi using the thing, and subsequently relieved that the mission goals lined up with what I’d been manipulated in to feeling “oh crap, we gotta get ther out of there, no good can come of this”

Though I’ll echo what others have said, our PC seems a little obsessed with talking to the tree, more than the normal one line of “we should do this” that we normally utter.

I was more sad at droobert, simply because droobert was a suprise, wherin belinda was an obvious redshirt from the jump.

I get the feeling that they really WANTED to do a full cutscene including the death but it just wasn’t in the episode’s timeframe and animation budget.

Shame really. It would have been a bit more impactful to see her die, with the PC sprinting back to the fort in vain after killing the boss outside and watching it happen. At least then it would have felt like we were in a small part involved in the event.

edit: Basically, what I’m saying is put me in more cutscenes. Actually, put me in all the cutscenes. They seem more important when I am in them.

TBH, assuming you’re not sylvari, the only theoretical reason you talked to the tree was because you showed up with traherne.

However, they could have couched this cliffhanger a little better by having the tree’s holo-vision or whatever that this is turned off in the open world and the stewards explain that she’s “deep in thought” or something. That would have easily placed a logical block to all players in terms of directly speaking to a tree and getting an awkward lack of current events.

Marjory flat out tells you to head along the wall, and there’s a big green arrow on the minimap. How anyone had trouble locating the arrow cart is beyond me. Speakers muted maybe?

As for Kas and Marjory bugging out, that’s gotta be annoying. Hope they fix that for those affected.

I was playing a new alt the other day and was suprised to meet DE in destroyed lion’s arch. I think they can instance the old maps without screwing up open world play if they’re a little more clear with the disconnect:

On opening each non-current story step (either personal story or out of date living story) tag the screen with the date and time difference from current day (e.g. "1325 AE – two years ago) so that it is clear to the player they are re-living the past in these instances.

Doing this makes it pretty clear to the player that they are living in the past in these instances, which would make using the old version of the maps feel much more natural.

The overarching theme that dragons are a natural phenomina is the one that the recent information has been driving at.

Problematically, we killed one of them, and thus, fundamentally broke the natural balance of the world.

There are two possibilities here:

1. The dragons serve to naturally counterbalance each other, and after they rise and suck up magic they fight each other to a standstill and go back to sleep.

2. The dragons are tyria’s natural response to the intrusion of foreign beings, the human “gods” who, as we know, are not native to tyria but come from elsewhere in the mists.

In situation one, we’ve killed zhaitan, and thus unwittingly empowered the dragon he counterbalanced (possibly mordremoth) This could be problematic, but it’s a contained problem, as we’ve already proven capable of dealing with threats of this magnitude the peoples of tyria can step in the place of zhaitan and preserve that natural order.

Situation two is fundamentally more dire. If the dragons exist as a natural immune response to the human gods (which would explain their absence, as they’ve been driven away by the rise of said dragons) then we have effectively unshackled one of those gods.

Despite being worshipped by humanity for generations, history shows us that the gods are not by nature benevolent. Rather, their spheres act as a reflection of their personalities. If Zhaitan counterbalanced, say, melandru or grenth, we might have instigated a chain of events allowing one of these beings to effectively wrest power from another, and once that happens, a domino effect of increasing power would allow this being to usurp the spheres of all other gods.

Remember, the human gods aren’t “gods” as much as they are phenominally powerful extraplanar entities, subject to the same moral flaws as mortals. One of these beings, allowed an unchecked rise in power could effectively end the natural order of tyria and be a far worse threat than all dragons combined.

Fluffball.8307:

It seems like a stretch they aren’t descended from centaurs influenced by Ventari. He obviously told others about his ideas and someone somewhere must have listened. Why would they quote something so similar to what Ventari said? And have the same mindset?

Because ventari’s viewpoint descended from the same ancient centaur traditions these centaur talk about. It’s not a matter of being influenced by ventari, but rather ventari and these centaurs drawing from the same, even older traditions.

That’s what they say when you ask them about it anyway. They’ve never heard of ventari.

And another one for posterity!

Fluffball.8307:

Shirogatsu.3150:

We know about Ventari from wink-wink Maguuma Jungle

Their greeting occasionally plays something that sounds similar to one of the tenets on the Ventari Tablet. The tablet says “Act with wisdom, but act,” and the centaurs say something along the lines of “always act with wisdom.” Makes sense because the centaurs don’t have the tablet anymore.

Centaurs never had “the tablet” in the first place.

Ventari was a solitary voice for peace in the region a long time ago (even had his own town, named after him. despite the fact that everywhere else in dry top it was all white mantle and magumma centaurs massacring each other.

Ventari failed in convincing the local centaurs of his outlook, which is why he went on to live in isolation and nuture the seed that eventually became the pale tree.

These new magumma centaurs are, if you talk to them, obviously the offspring of an independant idealogical splinter group which stem from the same older centaur tradtions that ventari believed in, however Ventari was never their leader. In fact, Ventari was never a leader of any group of centaurs. He was a hermit/monk that humans respected because of his beliefs, and centaurs didn’t bother murdering because he was a crazy old man.

“The tablet” is simply Ventari’s manifesto which was left specifically for the sylvari that would come after he died, as he realized he would not be around to teach them those lessons himself. It’s only a revered artifact because the sylvari believe it to be so. It has no significance or relevance to any centaurs anywhere in tyria.

Tinfoil hat time:

The unique sword is a symbolic family heirloom (Marjory and Belinda had at least one canthan parent, judging by hair color and facial features)

Marjory will use said sword to kill something important, probably stick it in some meaty part of Mordy before it’s all over (NPC necros have greatsword skills!)

That sword, soon to become a thing of legend will become a new symbol of krytan office because:

Marjory’s non-canthan parent was of krytan lineage, and Marjory, unbeknownst to herself but knownst to said krytan parent, is the unnamed heir to the krytan throne.

But wait! There’s more!

Marjory’s Canthan parent was actually descended of Kisu’s line, which makes Marjory not only the legitimate heir to Kryta, but indeed all of Cantha as well, where we’ll be going for season 3, after bubbles eviscerates the current canthan ruling class who conveniently get one stammering survivor to tyrian shores to give us the heads up on the situation.

Feature pack 2, between LS2 and LS3: underwater combat revamp.

Keep in mind that a lot of the loot decisions are structured around account based MF now, as stacking MF is basically the “endgame” stat progression for GW2. Thus, the idea is that you start out on blue/green drops and luck them out until eventually those drops start to poop out better stuff.

It would not at all suprise me if inventory bags were subject to MF.

Also, the “good” rewards are in the secondary mission achievements, wherin the main reward from the primary plotline is unlocking said achievements. Makes sense really, as the story itself, unlike the GW1 story is “designed to be beaten” rather than “Designed to be a challenge” wherin the secondary achievements are the loot generators due to their more nuanced or challenging mechanics in most cases.

Also note that the open world mechanics were overhauled a lot to make it a much better source of rewards as well as much more replayable form a content standpoint. Anet really wants players doing theri farming in the open world, wherin the story instances are purposely designed to not be a “farm” but rather an ongoing narrative. This is why they don’t recycle the rewards, and generally only pay out big at the end of big plot threads.

Far northern shiverpeaks with the same mechanics as the fractal sounds like a lot of fun actually. You could even tie it to an elite world boss that can be killed to turn off the bad weather now and then.

You know, you’re not really supposed to want these things to happen. You’re supposed to feel a sense of loss when it happens. After an entire season of the living story, I think it should be pretty clear at this point that nothing is sacred.

That’s a good thing really. It’s much more reflective of how things operate when “the lands are in dire peril” and whatnot.

Plus, you get to go all hot an vengeful when they blow up your favorite stuff. I was extremely involved in the LA fighting because I liked that place so much. It felt right and made me feel just a tiny bit closer to my character in that time.

Luckily, it seems that adding new zones is going to be a regular occurrence now as well, so there should be no shortage of new favorite places to discover in time as well.

Elden Arnaas.4870:

re: In either case your “some people can’t do the content so it shouldn’t be there” is a flawed argument. – I haven’t seen anyone saying that jumping, or Zephyrite Aspects should be taken out of GW2.(Though I may not have actually seen it. There are a lot of posts about this.) What we’ve generally been saying, is “Please don’t make Zephyrite Aspects required to progress in mainstream content.”. I think that there should be all kinds of optional jumping/Zephyrite achievements for those who like, and can do that sort of thing. But please don’t make Zephyrite jumping mandatory, especially in the first part of the new zone. This gives people the wrong impression,(that this sort of jumping will be required throughout the map) and makes it hard/impossible for them to progress in the new content. And that is probably the source of much of the strife related to this topic, the way the starting section of the new zone was designed.

That’s exactly the type of post I’m addressing though. The zeph crystals required just for progression, assumung you are playing under expected conditions (no crazy lag or low framerate issues) aren’t even remotely challenging, but they do allow the zone to be designed in a way that fits a very specific aesthetic. I agree that it would be bad for to introduce a series of complex timed jumps that require a great deal of skill to get throguh, but that’s not how it was implemented. it’s literally a handfull of zeph crystals set up as a tutorial so players not familiar with them know what they do.

The posts complaining about it are kneejerk reactions like “i shouldn’t have to do a JP” when the reality of it is that it’s not asking you to do a JP as much as it’s asking you do do a simple jump. They’re not what anyone would consider difficult jumps, leaps, or blinks until you get to optional content like achievements. The only people that can’t complete those simple actions are players who have framerate or lag issues which are completely unrelated to the content itself

Why do people continue to expect the game to be designed around conditions it isn’t designed for. Specifically, poor framerates (which are a symptom of your hardware, or a bug in rendering code) or latency (which is a symptom of your poor connection speed, and Arenanet’s decision not to locate a hub that would provide you with a playable connection)

The issues people have with the limited, simply jumping in dry top either fall in to the “I don’t like jumping” camp, or the “I can’t jump because my client doesn’t work properly” camp.

For those in the first camp: The amount of crystal work required to access content is minimal and easy. I’m sure there are other things in the open world everyone doesn’t like. I hate that the devourers have autohit life leeches for instance. It’s not as if you have to perform some death defying super-hard jumping puzzle just to get through the zone.

For those in the second camp: The problem isn’t with the design of the content, it’s either your computer, your connection, or arenanet’s backend not supporting your configuration. If you have framerate issues on a machine that shouldn’t have them, you should be complaining about the bugs in the rendering code that cause that. If you have latency issues because you live in a place that isn’t well served by anet’s server locations, you should be complaining about that.

However, if you simply have slow hardware or a bad connection, don’t demand the game be designed around your sub-optimal situation. The game is designed to work within certain constraints of processing, GPU, and connection speed. If you don’t meet those requirements because of your rig or connecton, the game isn’t the problem, you are. If you don’t meet those requirements because the game IS the problem then it isn’t the content, it’s the backend.

In either case your “some people can’t do the content so it shouldn’t be there” is a flawed argument. The content works well for people that meet the expected user conditions, and the expected user conditions are the design target for any game.

BobbyStein.2315:

Thalador.4218:

BobbyStein.2315:

The best is yet to come.

So more massacres, mayhem, and destruction in your words. Why is that since the start of this Living World (although I may risk saying that there were signs of this in the vanilla game as well) the only way you guys seem to be able to drive the story forward is through mass killings and calamities (that often draw parallels with real life modern attacks on innocents)?

Remember this picture attached to the Story Journal reveal page? I can’t decide whether it’s hilarious, ridiculous, or outrageously imbecile and depressing that it’s a spot-on summary of your entire storytelling to date…

What sort of stories would you like to see?

it would however be nice now and then to return to the intensely personal stories from the early levels. perhaps not with the same amount of variation (because work) but now and then an antagonist with a specific agenda to target the player character would be nice. I’m just imagining the possibility of our friends and contacts being used to shelter us from some shadowy assassin or other dire peril that has a specific agenda targeting us rather than world domination. I’m sure along the way we’ve made more than a few accidental enemies and collateral damage that may incite semi-justifiable revenge from a few characters.

DeWolfe.2174:

PopeUrban.2578:

DeWolfe.2174:

multiple accounts and 20’ish alts
…
This just added a ridiculous amount of grind to the game.

I think I found your problem.

No, with so many races, professions, and build types, why wouldn’t you have alts? Also, this is what happens when they keep changing aspects the game around since launch. The Dev’s need to get a grip and stop flip flopping on character vs player(account) progression and time gated resources. I believe the majority has been asking for more player progression. This living story is now back tracking toward character progression.

The capacity to replay the Living Story was enough to give players a choice for character or player progression. Forcing character progression wasn’t called for.

My point is that choosing to have multiple accounts and 20 alts was choosing an insane amount of grind. It’s not as if the game is balanced or designed around that sort of abnormally high amount of task repetition, but rather that you chose to create that problem for yourself. It’s like complaining that you have to level all 20 alts to 80, or that you have to rediscover waypoints for all 20 of them. Story progression is character progression, and the secondary achievement system we have now is part of story progression. That’s why it happens after you complete the story on a character.

Furthermore, as achievements, why would you need to do them on more than one character? This is precisely why achievements are account bound in the first place. So you don’t feel compelled to do them on every single character.

Thalador.4218:

BobbyStein.2315:

The best is yet to come.

So more massacres, mayhem, and destruction in your words. Why is that since the start of this Living World (although I may risk saying that there were signs of this in the vanilla game as well) the only way you guys seem to be able to drive the story forward is through mass killings and calamities (that often draw parallels with real life modern attacks on innocents)?

Remember this picture attached to the Story Journal reveal page? I can’t decide whether it’s hilarious, ridiculous, or outrageously imbecile and depressing that it’s a spot-on summary of your entire storytelling to date…

To be fair, the meat of this episode WAS detective work. Also, calamities and mortal peril are sort of the core content drivers for all armed conflict, and the core design of the guild wars franchise revolves around armed conflict as a game play focus.

Your character is a tool for violence in these games, and thus, the responsibility of the writing is to give you the player, and your character virtuous motivations to engage in said violence. Rescuing refugees and defending the innocent are some of the most noble motivations one could ask for. Harken back to GW1 and you’ll see less unaviodable death of the innocent in a direct sense, sure, but it was always there as an implication and driving motive as well. The white mantle section of prophecies was especially more disconcerting than anything in GW2. Your character actually escorted human sacrifices to their deaths before the veil was pulled back.

There’s obviously only one way to settle this. I think I finally figured out why the game is called guild wars 2. We’re long overdue for a massive sociopolitical time of unrest.

Let’s just wrap it up before the dragons arrive.

DeWolfe.2174:

multiple accounts and 20’ish alts
…
This just added a ridiculous amount of grind to the game.

I think I found your problem.

Ayrilana.1396:

Maybe the assassin in Mai Trin.

I hadn’t thought about it before now, but where IS Mai Trin? I assume she either escaped or was killed during the fighting in LA, are there ingame sources to confirm either?

Laylie.5703:

Previous LS have lasted 4-5 days all the way to the full 2 weeks with content

No they didn’t. They just had achievements and rewards that took 4-5 days to farm. Most releases had one small instance and a lot of open world farming of zerg beatdowns. This one has several connected story instances, unique achievements for each, and the same amount of scavenger hunting and special widget grinding as any other release. The difference is that it isn’t time gated, and doesn’t expect you to grind out achievements for a meta reward, both things that the player base asked for specifically.

This episode was pretty straightforward. There is one bad guy. You figure out who he is. You stop him. There’s a brief epilogue to raise questions about why he did it so that there’s a hanging thread for the next episode. The “factions” in question are no more complex or relevant than the various societies/factions in tolkien. Rohan is horse people. Zephyrites is kite people. Dwarves live in mountains. Inquest are evil scientists.

There are details that are interesting, but they aren’t necessarily important to the plot.

Khezekiah Bellamy.5016:

I’ll just leave this here. Let you all speculate and question.

200 years ago (in GW1) This area was heavily settled by centaurs. In fact, it was this violence that spurred Ventari to his pacifist manifesto. In fact, you’ll find Ventari’s Refuge, the first place players could talk to or interact with him (and his 1 page of text) pretty close to dry top. Here’s the GW1 map, where you can see the location of both dry top and Ventari’s refuge.

http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Maguuma_Jungle/Map

Agree. T4 needs a little something extra. Geodes>t6 crafting mats at a good rate would do the trick. Unique skins would also do the trick.

Smooth Penguin.5294:

1 – It’s thanks to him and his goods that we were able to defeat Scarlet. He provided the Lionguard with their equipment.

He was forced to do so by the Lionguard. Or be executed.

Smooth Penguin.5294:

2 – Evon tried to warn the Captain’s Council, but no one listen to him. If he were elected last year, Lion’s Arch would have had air defenses. The citizens were slaughtered thanks to Kiel. Your friends, your family, all gone. And this is mostly because more players wanted to temporarily save a few silver on WP costs…

To protect his profit margin. Mind you he was in the first group of refugees to flee. Kiel fought on the breachmaker. Hobo-Tron has done more for the people of LA than Evon Gnashblade.

Flash.6912:

For me, an mmo should be fill of contents ( hard stuff and casuals stuff) so i can have tons of stuff to do in game. If u want a good story, just go read a book or something. Story in an mmo is just a side-dish tbh, if no added contents the game is going to die fast.

Anet has always been pretty clear that they are building an mmo_RPG_ and that they consider the character development and plot elements core to their experience. Hence the term “living story” the entire opening monologue about this being “my story” and the entire section of the character page devoted to… you guessed it… the story of your character.

This was core to the first game, and they intend it to be core to this one, too. What they’ve done with this release is a refinement to the same exact formula they’ve been pressing since release. Moderately easy open world with an emphasis on exploration, expository story instances, and a core focus on open world play with the occasional “hard mode” content for people who like it.

They intend the game to be something you can drop and come back to each living story release, and this is how their entire business model is structured. It isn’t now, nor was it eer designed to be “that one game that takes up all of your gaming time” Some people (a lot of people) play the game for exactly this reason. I play it for this reason. I’m ALLOWED to get bored with content I don’t like, I have time to play other cool games, and there’s always content just around the corner that will make me want to visit my character again and experience a new chapter in his tale of being Tyria’s most awesome homeless person.

It is a game designed for casual play schedules and individual rather than game enforced goals. It always has been.

Anyone still complaining about that at this point seems to have missed the memo. You’re supposed to have fun in short bursts with GW2, and stop playing it when the fun stops, then come back when they add more fun. Hopefully, if you like the fun enough you give them more money. Thusfar it seems to be working out pretty well for them so I wouldn’t envision that core content model changing.

Venbloodblade.1093:

1. You call an open rocky desert the jungle?
2. Yes she woke up the dragon, but that doesn’t imply we’re going to see the elder dragon immediately. We didn’t see Zhaitan the second we set foot in Orr.
3. Most likely the vines are minions/creations of the dragon.

1. Had you played GW1, you’d know that dry top is an elevated dry mesa that sits at the center of the extremely dense and frustrating to navigate magumma jungle. Though the unrevealed map seems to indicate that in the past 200 years erosion and the uprising of Orr have expanded the frontier of these wastes, keep in mind that if Mord went to sleep in a jungle, this is precisely the place he would have done it, as at that time dry top was also covered in similar dense foliage (as evidenced by the massive husks of dead vegetation in the area 200 years ago, in GW1) In fact, dry top may actually be the result of mord altering the landscape as he settled down to sleep.

2. Excellent point. Mord is coming up, the question is whether we put a stop to it before or after it happens.

3. Another possibility exists. Scarlet “patched” the leylines like bridging electrical conduits. Those vines may be previously dead tendrils of mord animated by the new magical energies of the leyline flowing through the area rather than new creations of the dragon itself. Essentially, imagine that mord weaved its tendrils all throughout Magumma the last time it was awake, and when it slept these tendrils, still attached to it, atrophied in to the barren thorny husks we saw in GW1. Rather than Mord creating new tendrils, the situation may be reversed, and those old atrophied tendrils may have served as the conduit by which the ley energies reached the dragon and awakened it. If this is the case, then scarlet’s patch job is doing what Zhaitan required an army of the undead and several specialized units to achieve: They are feeding the dragon with magical energy to accelerate whatever end condition the dragons store all that magic to do.

If this is true, it raises an interesting question: does mord even need to rise at all, or can it accomplish whatever prupose the dragons have by simple enjoying that sweet leyline IV drip? Would we be doing MORE harm by cutting that flow, and forcing the dragon to rise to continue feeding? In fact, are we accelerating its rise by chopping all these vines?

E is Evennia

Livia was last seen with the Scepter of Orr during the end of EOTN. Though little is known about the scepter’s power, we do know that it, like presumably any of its sister items can compel titans, but more importantly, control the souls of the dead. It’s last known holder, Livia, was a member of the Shining Blade alongside Evennia. no record of Evennia or Livia’s death exists. The Shining blade of today is the continuation of the shining blade of old, but certain persons who have firsthand experience with global-level threats like the mursaat, titans, and the dragons may very well have splintered off. These would most likely include both Evennia and Livia, and with their respective talents and the acquisition of the scepter could easily be alive to this day, having quietly engineered tyria’s security from an as yet unknown number of threats to this day, possibly including the human “gods” and any number of other beings from other parts of the mists.

lnguy.5127:

The closer the sylvari are to the Maguuma, the closer they are to Mordremoth (now that he’s awakened)…so his influence is stronger. So Aerin could’ve very much been turned during his trip to the Maguuma.

So looking ahead (if this holds true), sylvari might have a hard time fighting Mordremoth in the future since they could easily be turned once they are near Mordremoth. So we might have to find some “ancient magic artifact” to help combat corruption on sylvari from Mordremoth. Which is similar to how we handled Zhaitan’s corruption using the krait’s artifact so that the dead within the artifact’s range cannot be risen by Zhaitan (during personal story).

It occurs to me: There are no sylvari in the Orphan Warband. (except possibly the player, who is immune to dragon corruption because of plot armor)

I don’t think this is a coincidence. I also recall a certain “secret” regarding caithe that has been mostly overlooked since we last saw her.

I don’t want to be that guy, but the evidence keeps piling for there to be some connection between Mord and the Sylvari. What that connection is there still isn’t enough evidence to say, but it’s clear there exists some sort of relationship.

The “sylvari are dragon minions” theory has some holes, but perhaps we should be asking if the sylvari (including the soundless) were intended as minions and something intervened. Or perhaps they were designed as a weapon against competing interests by followers of Mord during the last rise of the dragons, designed to sprout before the next rise. Or perhaps they zephyrite undestanding of the dragons has things to teach us about them. Could they simply be an aspect of a greater natural force that includes both the sylvari and that dragon? Could they be the first example of the purpose of the dragons in tyria? We now know that dragons don’t simply consume magic, they hold it. Why? Is their role like that of the tides? To prevent the exterior forces of beings like the human gods, the titans, and other such beings from disrupting the natural balance of this plain? Perhaps the sylvari are the first example of not only what happens when dragons consume, but even why they sleep at all, as a natural cycle of destruction and creation to preserve rather than destroy tyria.

One thing is clear. Sylvari are still an as yet unsolved mystery, and that mystery involved the dragon mordremoth. Tyrian history teaches us races of sentient life are not born over night for no reason. This is precisely what the sylvari are. A race of people unleashed on the world at a very specific time. The question is why.

I’ve got to say I’m really pleased with this release.

The Living Story is actually leaning pretty kitten being a story.
Simply put, the way it flows feels like a more robust personal story. It’s natural, the encounters seem sensible rather than just forced in to shove more combat in to each instance, and the entire episode had a definate and satisfying beginning, middle, and end with enough of a hanging thread to drive continuity. It didn’t feel like a wholly disappointing forced cliffhanger and I appreciate that.

Building on the world that is
Several characters who had since fallen to obscurity popped up. I was thrilled to reconnect with my BFF Riot Alice and learn what she’s been up to all this time, and while sad the inclusion of the zephyrites, and inquest, and the inhabitants of prosperity and all of their motivations and respective struggles seem natural and fitting unlike the contrived alliances of season 1. Prosperity, especially is a great example of a place with easily understood but important derived history drawn from existing lore. Right next door is the “hell’s triad” of the GW2 underworld, and prosperity is sensibly positioned and inhabited to reflect this place where people go to get off the grid but find themselves in indentured servitude to the bandit overlords whom they rely on for survival. It’s well written and presented, it makes sense, and it feels like a natural part of the world.

Mechanics, Mechanics, Mechanics!
The new monsters, the trigger conditions, the Zephyrite reward tiers, the sandstorm chests, everything in this release is an obvious progression from what was learned about event, zone, and reward design from the past. The open world is actually fun again because of the fun rather than the loot, and the small use of zephyrite crystals and z-axis play found here breathe new life in to what was for many a stagnant and boring overworld. The sandstorms and inquest mine door, especially are the sort of thing we should see more of. Events that have important rather than trivial impacts in the zone mix things up admirably and keep it fresh. Little details like sifting sand or the quicksand river are peppered everywhere and display a level of care and attention to detail that even GW2’s release content doesn’t have.

The Journal and achievements
Again, this is an instance of “feels right” and it harkens back to the design of GW1’s primary and secondary missions. It was a good system for GW1, it works extremely well for GW2, and it feels more guild wars than GW2 has in a long time.

Overall
The best parts of the open world are massively improved, and the living story/journal stuff now bears a much tighter and more focused GW1 style design that feels much more true to the roots of the franchise. While I’m sure there are some that will bemoan the lack of “good farms” or have framerate issues, or, simply, can’t be asked to jump, dodge, or otherwise learn to play anything that isn’t zergball, the overall forward momentum is consistent with what GW2 is at its core as a refinement, rather than an obvious attempt to tinker with or fix something percieved as broken.

Personally, I love it, it feels like the game has finally “found its legs”

Sariel V.7024:

PopeUrban.2578:

I think it merits further investigation. Maybe we should go have another chat with the tree and ask what she knows? I mean, it’s not that out of line for the (functionally former although still technically current) commander of the pact. We’ve done it before.

In fact, how come nobody ever asked the tree about scarlet? Or did we? I don’t seem to recall ever quizzing the tree on that subject.

In the aftermath of killing Scarlet, you could talk to the Pale Tree about her. The dialog is probably still there.

I haven’t gotten this far with the story. What feels likely to me is that Aerin spent time among the Soundless and studied them, but wasn’t one himself. This would explain his personality, how he was able to resort to Soundless techniques, and highlight his meaning about writing a journal for ‘those without access to the Dream’ as being specifically to Sylvari without access to it.

When you grill the Pale Tree about Aerin, swing by the Soundlesscamp… we’ll probably see a dialog update there first.

I’ll have to go check that out. Thanks!

Though I don’t personally have any issues with it, I agree that this is one more instance of why we still need much more granular control over particle density in the client.

I’d just like to have it so I can read enemy tells in zerg events. Find the guys that wrote the excellent particle scaling for the City of Heroes engine, they all got downsized right?

It MAY also be that during a sandstorm they’re using some poorly optimized volumetric fog of some sort, which could chug due to optimization issues on older GPUs. Wasn’t there a similar problem in the clocktower the first year that they eventually fixed that had to due with fog as well?

Not much you wouldn’t have already figured out. Zhaitan dies and you helped kill him.

Lucky.9421:

His antics could have been a charade. Don’t you think it was just a little too much? A little forced?

Honestly (and it pains me to say this) It’s impossible to tell due to the incosistant quality of dialogue writing, and the fact that we had not met him before to have a basis for comparison (as we did during the “evil traherne” personal story mission where it was possible to intuit such a ruse)

At the end of LS2 he strikes it rich in the mine and repays you with interest.

Then he stages a hostile takeover of the BLTC, rebrands it as a low-interest mortgage shell corporation, and plunges us all in to massive housing debt for the new player housing feature. LS3’s plot is all about solving the tyrian mortgage collapse.

I like it the way it is. You get the “first run” loot on each character, and down the line, when there are multiple episodes it’s going to give a really nice extended bonus for rolling a new alt, as you get some pretty hefty rewards just for doing personal>living story.

I do wish they’d at least put a text summary of LS1 in the journal though, even if they can’t ever implement it as playable. As a functional journal it feels like it’s missing a chapter.

I think it merits further investigation. Maybe we should go have another chat with the tree and ask what she knows? I mean, it’s not that out of line for the (functionally former although still technically current) commander of the pact. We’ve done it before.

In fact, how come nobody ever asked the tree about scarlet? Or did we? I don’t seem to recall ever quizzing the tree on that subject.

They had the chicken/feed code already implemented for that one heart that has you feed chickens and said “hey, why not?” most likely. It’s like the zelda chicken swarm in ebonhawke, or the ability to harpy tonic other players, there’s not a mechanical or reward reason for it, it’s just kinda there for fun.

I have a few.

Siegebreaker trap
Solves: Static siege emplacements
Encourages: Creative siege locations and preparatory tactics
When placed, this trap invisibly marks all siege weapons placed within X distance of its location. When fired, the siege weapon explodes, dealing moderate damage to its operator and knocking back all enemies in range.

These traps may be used to booby trap common enemy siege spots, or for flanking operations to counter hardened siege camps when force of numbers or friendly siege are proving insufficient.

Skritt Sapper Team
Solves: lack of defensive reward play
Encourages: Defending owned assets
Used by targeting a wall section within 1600 range, this trap summons a (temporary for visual effect) team of skritt sappers to burrow and sap the target. While active, this wall section experiences constant degenerative damage. Players within 300 range of the trap can see a usable “sapper burrow” interactable object. Channeling this object for five seconds will allow the player to collapse the burrow, clearing the trap and rewarding some wxp.

These traps allow smaller bands of roving adventurers to support the assault and defense of key structures, as well as efficiently ‘backdoor’ unattended assets.

Brushfire Trap
Solves: Lack of tactical anti-zerg options
Encourages: Creative positional play, ambush play, and non-point conflicts
When triggered, the brushfire trap lights a 600 radius non-damaging brush fire for 20 seconds. Entities within this brushfire are unable to see other units, both friend and foe as if they were stealthed, and are afflicted with 1.2s of cripple and blind each second they remain in the brushfire.

This trap allows powerful area denial for defensive use, encouraging players to seek out as well as dictate alternate transport routes.

Konig Des Todes.2086:

Lucky.9421:

What was the original citation for Kryta being colonized by Elonians? I see it in the wiki but don’t recall where it is in the cannon.

the timeline in the novels.

It has been known since Prophecies that Kryta existed since the time of King Doric (though it’s size is unknown), but it was “established as a colony” in 300 AE. GW2 and the novels has since clarified that it was founded by Mazdak, a prince of Orr, and was at war with Orr during said founding, and that Elona colonized it and expanded Kryta’s territories, beginning the 1,000+ year long Centaur War.

Not only that, all of the elonian desert portion of prophecies is pretty clear about elonians and possibly orrians predating tyrian and krytan civilization by a large margin. The desert is littered with ancient cursed elonian ghosts and skeletons and ruined settlements of Elonian pilgrims, and it’s the central plotline for that area of the game. Though, to be fair, a lot of the Orrian stuff was conjured up specifically for GW2 as in the first game it was an intentionally mysterious lore black hole.

Reikou.7068:

Nice ideas I guess, but a lot of these are beyond ridiculously overpowered.

Especially “Abduct.”

Personally I’d like to see more traits that work with Revealed like “Revealed Training (DA XIII)” that we currently have.

I don’t think they’re that out of line, as they’re balanced primarily against what you’d have to give up (other GM traits, or shifting your build 30 in to something you wouldn’t otherwise prioritize) to use them, and most are utility focused with clear counterplay.

Abduct, specifically, is a better version of scorpion wire that requires a full 30 in trickery, prevents you from using stolen skills, and prevents you from taking the other excellent steal-boosters at the GM. It’s no more overpowered than Sleight of Hand.

A lot of the others, if they’re over the top could be better brought in line with an increased ICD, but honestly when compared to some other classes abilities to perma-stack all sorts of offensive or defensive buffs, thief utility is quite lacking, and our build options don’t lend themselves toward creative trait use like what warriors, engis, or eles enjoy to define specialized builds beyond “damage” These are primarily defensive or utility buffs and largely conditional and easily counterplayed.

GM traits, IMO, should be about value choices. There’s a lot of value judgement if you have to give up the excellent damage from Executioner or Hidden Killer for instance, so the alternative should feel equally as rewarding. You can give up 10-15% of your damage, but in return you gain leading-edge chasing ability, a think that thieves are supposed to be excellent at and are currently sub-par.

Similar considerations go in to all of the proposed designs. Look at what you have to give up to acquire them, and think “what would it take for my to trade in my current GM traits?”

What thieves lack is a core weapon-based defense, so I’d say that sword, being the largest implement a thief could reasonably wield, would be used in the offhand a lot like a shield, and place the dual skills as heavy AoE damage spenders to supplement where thieves generally lack in that area.

Note that mainhand/offhand assignments are conventions of gameplay, so I don’t see much of a problem with it as an offhand to the smaller weapons thematically as it would look no less “wrong” than the current pairings.

4: Focused Defense – 5 init channel
For up to 4 seconds, deflect all projectiles back at their attackers and deal minor damage and bleeds to nearby enemies. Focused defense ends if you use another skill or dodge. You may move while channeling this skill.

5: Sword Sweep – 6 Init Melee AoE
Do a low spin with your sword, inflicting moderate damage, cripple, and weakness on all nearby enemies. Enemies already suffering from cripple or weakness are knocked down.

D/S 3: Distract – 4 init
Twirl in place with your sword, dazing nearby enemies for 1 second, and stab your target with your dagger for moderate damage.

P/S 3: Deadeye’s Defense – 4 init channel
Fire a volley of five bleeding and burning shots from your pistol while deflecting projectile attacks with your sword. (This is a more defensive, condition-based version or unload.)

S/S 3: Focused Assault – 4 Init channel
Swing both of your swords in an impressive display of acrobatics, dealing moderate damage to (up to 5) nearby enemies (for up to 4 strikes) and shortening cooldown of a random recharging utility skill by .3 seconds for each enemy hit. Focused Assault ends if you use another skill or dodge. You may move while channeling this skill.

As extended traits and acquiring them is a large part of the game going foward, I got to thinking about what sort of traits thieves could benefit from in order to open up more types of builds and provide more build options.

Master Plan
Deadly Arts – Grandmaster
Ambush, Needle, and Tripwire traps may be used twice, and these charges refresh whether or not traps are currently deployed.
Shadow trap applies 4 seconds of revealed in addition to marking the enemy it triggers.

Essentially, this works like the steal cooldown. The second trap remains on the button, but its cooldown starts as soon as it it used. This means thieves can use traps twice to burst, or use them twice as often as the situation dictates, a very opportunistic and thief-like mechanic, and I believe this would make trap-heavier builds much more viable for all gametypes. The shadow trap change is to allow thieves the thematically remain at the top of the stealth food chain as the stealth mechanic is being proliferated to other classes.

Pursuit of Excellence
Critical Strikes – Grandmaster

Your critical strikes with melee weapons have a 20% chance to inflict 10s of crippled. If the target is already crippled, remove 5 seconds from the cooldown of steal.(10 second internal cooldown)

This trait is intended to allow thieves to trade some burst DPS for superior chasing ability, and add interesting synergies to allow for more steal-heavy builds.

Deadeye
Deadly Arts – Grandmaster
Your pistol skills now have a range of 1200.

I don’t think I need to explain why this is needed, or why it should be deep in DA.

Deadly Paradox
Grandmaster – Shadow Arts
All stealth you apply lasts twice as long. Revealed caused by your stealth skills lasts twice as long.

This trait creates a powerful reason for non-dagger builds to use the SA line, by significantly increasing the impact of individual stealth skills, but making it effectively impossible to spam them. This build changer allows builds that feel trapped in to shadow refuge to opt for another, more utilitarian stealth, increases the viability of “ninja medic” style builds, and overall creates a lot of build-changing interactions.

Show Off
Acrobatics – Grandmaster
Daze nearby enemies for 1 second when you successfully evade. (10 second internal cooldown)

This trait adds some much needed core survivability to the end of the acrobatics line, and creates a skill-based incentive and interesting counterplay opportunities for acrobatics-based thieves.

Abduct
Trickery – Grandmaster
You no longer steal items when using steal. In stead, you mark your target with the “abducted” debuff, and steal becomes “Abduct” for 20 seconds. When using the “abduct” skill, both you and your target are transported to your original location.

This allows thieves to more easily single out targets at the cost of other steal utility and a 30 point investment in to trickery. This unblockable pull has powerful utility in all modes of play, allowing thieves to isolate weak targets or remove powerful support and bunkers from allies or entrenched positions, giving the thief an alternate utility role.

Turrets are cool, but for their investment they’re prone to some problems. Now that we can trait on the fly, I was thinking it would be nice for turret builds to have a way to sacrifice turret utility traits for a little mobility.

This would alleviate some of the problems with WvW and dungeon turret use, or simply add a new way for engineers to use turrets.

Backpack Turrets
Grandmaster – Invention

Picking up one of your turrets no longer reduces its cooldown. In stead, that turret is equipped on your back.
Backpack turrets may not overcharge or be repaired with a wrench, but fire 30% faster. Backpack turrets take the place of kits, and you may only wear one at a time. The cooldown on turret skills begins when the turret is picked up.

This would allow engineers to drop->overcharge->pick up a turret and create some interesting strategies and uses for one-turret and even no-kit builds. Thoughts?

Would you use this? Does it feel balanced?

All champions replaced with Champion Trolls (AC version)

All breakable objects have a 20% chance to break apart, spawning a champion troll (AC Version)

Champion trolls do not drop champion boxes. They do, however drop Troll Brew.

Troll Brew:
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Hylek_Red_Hue_Potion
Adds 5 stacks of drunkenness
You deal 500% damage to all environmental objects.

Really all that we lack is diversity. I play a half-bunker d/d condi build, a style that has problems due mostly to nerfs to deathblossom way back when. Originally, when it evaded for the full animation, it was a bit overpowered due to the spammable nature, but the core of the skill was an amazing thing that kep me playing it: It’s the only thief setup in which playing defensively is is most efficient way to kill an opponent.

Currently, it’s difficult because smart player know they can time CCs on the end of a DB animation and hit you while you’re locked in. If you time things right, you can still paly defensive bleed, but it’s lacking in that to play this kind of evasion-based setup you have to sacrifice tools or traits you really need to make it effective as a build.

In PvE it’s a fantastic build. It scales healing against large packs of trash, and it’s got plenty of evades to solo even the toughest champs, or melee the gnarliest bosses. It still, however, suffers from damage problems due to limited condition caps, and almost nonexistant condition removal (though some of the new sigil changes should help this a bit.)

Most of this stems from our poor trait selection. Traits available in critical strikes and shadow arts are by and large solid, meaningful, and impactful additions to the kitten nal of most thief builds. The other three lines, you end up taking a lot of filler that doesn’t help your build much just to get to the one Master or GM trait you actually wanted to use.

Evasion: This line is our alternative to stealth, but it lacks working and usable condition removal that makes it a viable option on the scale that we can use stealth.

Deadly Arts: For one half of our condition damage trees, this doesn’t provide nearly enough access to conditions. It’s also saddled with odd or broken traits that could be awesome if they were just given a slight facelift (hi, improvisation!)

Trickery: Not enough versatility in the early tiers. This is a condition/steal tree, but it is conspiciously absent of desirable condition-enabling traits. It’s great that we have some support options here, but there’s a lot of stuff here that’s so situational it’s gnerally worthless. Trickster? Maybe if it were viable to run a full 3-slots of those skills. Ricochet? Why does it feel like this and improvisation got switched on accident? Initial Strike? How isn’t this an Adept trait? Instinctual response? This is basically a choosable version of all of the problems with last refuge.