Guild Wars 2

Indeed, I add the same opinion as above. The Arah set is really only there for the looks. There are plenty of much easier ways to obtain exotic armour if that is all you are after.

What server are you on? Someone may be able to tell you when daily Temple and Boss raids are done on that server which will help as well.

Never, bumping is against the terms and conditions of the forums (I just cant remember where the rules are at this time)

In comparison to proper, decent fantasy books (and no I don’t mean Game of Thrones..), the GW2 novels like all tie ins are poor literature I agree. However, if 14 years in bookselling taught me anything, you benchmark a read against what it is, not what it could be.

As I and pretty much everyone will agree in this thread, they are fun source of lore. Beyond that, they could easily be dismantled if one wished.

On a side note, I’m reading a set of short stories called the Dragon Griaule. It’s about a 6km long dragon frozen in magical animation whilst communities and people grow up around it. A fantastic read if the lore of Dragons and the epicness of the GW2 Elder Dragon sparks your imagination.

Destinys Edge is poorly written but a great intro in the lore of the second game. And somehow succeeds in making Logan heroic. A great feat for which the writer deserves to win the Man Booker Prize

Ghosts of Ascalon is by far the better written of the 3 and interesting to read, with plenty of lore from GW1 and GW2 (but not necs related to the main story)

The third also isn’t particularly well written – good fan fiction at best and with an absolutely dire lead character. It is also incredibly dull. It’s main redeeming factor is that is has some decent lore about the rise of Zhaitan and particularly LA (which added a lot to the city when I explored it on an alt)

Don’t buy any for the literature, but I’d value the first 2 books more than the third personally.

Leshain.6720:

Prophet.6257:

kalzana: I’m not your friend buddy!
Kasmeer: I’m not your buddy friend!

Braham: Uh-huh

Is Braham’s “Uh-huh” a thing now?

Uh-huh

Was a bit small to read, but #9 stands out for me as a major bugbear. It’s a flaw in so many films and TV series these days as well.

Some interesting points made in these tips. The key is realising that this is a different medium to a TV series. Trying to copy “your favourite TV show” is madness, because the principles are different and the timescale shorter. Look at HHGTG. It is different in radio, tv, book and film form. I’ve enjoyed all 4, but each were adapted completely differently into a way that worked for each format.

Jamers.1629:

Brother Dulfite.5793:

The fact that players voted for some nonsense science mumbo jumbo over getting to see a being like abaddon (and probably other dieties in the game) and his fall is beyond me. How could ANYBODY want the first over that?

Was there ever confirmation that the dungeons were one or the other? I seem to recall getting the impression that the vote was mainly for which one would be released FIRST. Winner got released 2013 – but there was nothing (at least on the release page) that suggested we wouldn’t get the Abaddon fractal at all (eg, 2014). If there was a confirmation somewhere else, then I missed it.

Also, there wasn’t elaboration on what the Abaddon fractal would consist of? I don’t think we’d actually get up close with the big bad himself. The gods are supposed to be these untouchable beings of immense power and playing on their level would just negate that feeling. And if you got to play as the other five gods, your party could be dying all over the place, again, removing the feeling of them being these powerful entities. If that’s how the fractal was going to be implemented, I know plenty of players who wouldn’t have wanted that.

It was confirmed in various dev posts and during the hype that it would be one or the other and that would be it. Neither was to be started until after the vote, altho they had working ideas (obviously) for both in readiness.

Only the devs can truly answer what was going to be involved in the Abaddon fractal, altho one dev suggested what they were thinking of for the Thaumatover was more interesting

Seems to be the next logical and natural step from the traits changes. Whether it comes out with this feature patch is unknown, but I would expect it to come down the line

Oh that would be really cool if they did. Maybe “your choice of gifts up to 1000 gems in the gem store” sort of thing.

A really good reward scheme. Good luck to those participating

Ascalonian finisher?

Aftertouch.5437:

Randulf.7614:

I don’t play a Sylvari, but I hear NPC’s can give hostile responses to Sylvari players talking to them (even if they are the hero – a bit odd, but prob difficult to programme out)

From an RP perspective, this is an interesting development. And is much more in keeping with the Living World ideals as well. Perhaps the world will turn on Sylvari hrto further actions from the Nightmare Court. A hostile uprising against the Pale Tree or maybe just a racial story of redemption. Some interesting possibilites could lay ahead.

Last year it was said Sylvari were going to get a big lore drive and we look like we are heading into it. They are by far the most under developed race right now.

I agree with what you said, and all those story tracks would be incredibly fun to see. I just hope the writers can give the situation the nuance it deserves whichever path they take so it’s not the stereotypical tropey stuff that tends to happen with arcs like this?
I know the Living Story’s been a tad hamfisted with the plot devices but I’m optimistic they could pull off something incredible.

Riots of angry Lions Archers outside the Grove would be jawdropping, as per your example. (Also rather heartbreaking but that’s just me)

I couldn’t see it happening, but it would be more impactful then burning LA I believe. What they did with LA was big and epic, but it never sparked any real emotion for me. Just not sure LA really had the soul to do it. Burning The Grove would fire players up a lot more I think and in differing ways.

p.s I am not actually leading a rebellion against the Sylvari or Pale Tree btw, just exploring an idea…before my Wanted poster goes up in Caledon Forest

The cutscene is very short. What Donari describes is all of it

I don’t play a Sylvari, but I hear NPC’s can give hostile responses to Sylvari players talking to them (even if they are the hero – a bit odd, but prob difficult to programme out)

From an RP perspective, this is an interesting development. And is much more in keeping with the Living World ideals as well. Perhaps the world will turn on Sylvari hrto further actions from the Nightmare Court. A hostile uprising against the Pale Tree or maybe just a racial story of redemption. Some interesting possibilites could lay ahead.

Last year it was said Sylvari were going to get a big lore drive and we look like we are heading into it. They are by far the most under developed race right now.

and click on the videos;

https://www.guildwars2.com/en/media/videos/

Escape from LA
and then
Battle for LA

As for permanent? Well I don’t expect it to recover anytime soon, it was a pretty massive invasion and battle

Season 1 was very much an experimentation – I dont think they really hid that either and a couple of devs came out and said it too, since this was new ground for them to tread.
Lots of mistakes were made, lots of successes were had also (something often overlooked) and some successes reversed. The inconsistencies were perhaps the most notable part of the whole season for me.

One of the big reasons for this came down to the speed they push out updates and that they were always working behind on the feedback. By the time we feedback on a piece, it will be roughly 4 months before that ever kicks into an update.

They tried a lot of different things with season 1, so hopefully season 2 will be smoother and less about trial and error.

Expect an announcement in the coming week. I believe they are putting together the big feature patch announcement and it would make sense for info on the rune/sigil changes to be in that.

I’m not sure I miss it, but it feels weird not having anything specific to do for a change. I am curious to see any changes to the format though.

For now…it’s back to my neglected alts!!

HoM and Priory Library are ideally suited to this idea, which has a lot of potential and merit.

the +5 only applies whilst the weapon is wielded, not stowed

This def applies to the Commanders on Gunnars Hold who tirelessly keep events going on the server – whether it is nightly World Tours, weekly Teq runs or Wurm runs at the weekend. They’ve definitely changed some of my attitude towards commanders and their efforts have earned a huge amount of respect through the community.

God job guys! (you know who you are – I’m rubbish with names!)

I had the same – only the aoe blast hit me and it didnt tick the achievement, so I am guessing that needs blocking or dodging too

Tequatl did get buffed massively yes. It has elements of the original fight, but it was overhauled and aimed at the 70-80 ppl mark.

As for caps, that I don’t recall there being specific numerical info on, but anecdotally bosses appear to have diff caps, although it really only applies to their health bar. Eg Behemoth doesnt seem to scale much, whilst Maw and Golem are visibly noticeable when a zerg appears – the boss fight just drags on for ages.

I sort of agree with what you say about scaling, but not on Maw/Jungle Wurm/Fire Ele/Behe. They are starter zone or introductory bosses and it would be inappropriate to make them too hard. The rest? Well a balance needs to exist between face roll and hard, but bosses like Shatterer def need work…

I always thought it would be an impossible task to outdo Jeremy Soule in the GW franchise, but I’ve preferred some of the newer compositions to the GW2 specific stuff he did.

This is one of my favs, esp the music change at the 2nd phase.

I’m very intrigued, but also curious as the overwhelming and slightly over the top amount of secrecy behind it all. All other MMO’s I play have had 1-2 announcements about major features coming out in their games since Jan. I understand Anet works to different comms practices, but this isn’t story spoilers, it’s just gameplay features – no high secrecy is needed

Dwarves definitely, although I appreciate that will probably never happen
Hylek – I like their animations

Not a fan of Tengu myself. Would rather play an ooze!

Karizee.8076:

Looks like Bazaar of the Four Winds is next.

https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/the-final-countdown/

That’s just advertising a bazaar reward you can earn in the Scarlet battle.

The break between story is great for me – gives me a chance to take an alt through at my own pace without interruption.

That’s one of the reasons I love Fractals so much and why (for me) it’s such a cool concept for an MMO to have. I can happily pootle around on the lower levels and enjoy the story and not having to push myself too much after a hard days work, but shoudl i ever want that challenge…the skill climb is there with no loss to any other aspect of the instances.

Sure a couple need a bit of shortening to bring them in line with the above pillar and there aren’t that many scenarios at this time, but personally i think fractals is in a great state right now and most of the extra tweaks suggested in this CDI would take it from from being a great gaming concept to an amazing gaming concept.

Not a bad place to be in my opnion

I couldn’t tell you I’m afraid. Didn’t see any menders, but that isn’t to say they didn’t appear.

Blue is full healing again

(Gunnars Hold server)

Seconded! We need these announcements on a regular basis going forward. Would cut out much griping from the community

I particularly liked the plinky plunky bit when the 3 coloured holograms appeared

Naus the Gobbo.5172:

They are not bringing it yet.

They are giving people a chance for the rewards that were available in that zone, as well as other rewards that were available during previous Living Story patches, such as the molten jetpack, skypirate monocle, gas mask etc.

I think it’s for the hologram fight in the Breachmaker.

Correct. Some of the exclusive rewards can drop as a rare chance (as the artcile says). The zone is not scheduled to return at this time (although hopefully it will in time).

It is safe to assume you can upgrade it later. The only thing that will likely go is the vendor with the gift of blades, but u can also buy that from the Mystic Forge vendor anyway.

Highly likely to stay account bound. Blade Shards will be tradeable for other things post-March 18th one dev posted, they just haven’t said what for yet.

My elemental in his immaculate blaze themed suit.

Massively overthinking it – I’ve learnt to never expect a complicated plot in a fantasy mmo. It’s why it was pretty certain before this patch Primordus or Abaddon were not the antagnosit behind the LS – Mordremoth was the “easiest” answer.

However, 100/10 for the speculation and putting forward an enjoyable theory

Nike.2631:

How would people react to “One try” fractals – fractals with maybe a timer or other obvious fail condition, and if you do fail you are moved on to another fractal in the same ‘length tier’ (the failed fractal does not count towards getting three before doing a boss fractal).

So if there were a second tier “rising lave race” and the whole party gets swallowed by lava, instead of resetting the whole encounter, you roll for a new fractal from the tier 2 list (possibly getting the lava race again?).

These could be fairly tough but also fairly short for their tier – so that you’d feel an immediate desire to complete it since you’ve been given the opportunity.

I think it would over complicate something that doesn’t need it. Fractals work as they are and this would likely frustrate players needlessly.

Perhaps at the highest of tiers where challenge is more paramount it would be viable, but even then I’m not sure if this would be something fractals would benefit from.

I destroyed all the ones I had under stacks of 25. No more can be earned, so I saw no use for them.

phys.7689:

xXxOrcaxXx.9328:

I think every content should tell a story. This storytelling could be divided into small parts, a puzzle which you have to put together on your own and epic story which should be satisfying.
I want to talk about this “epic moments” a little bit more since our personal story did it all wrong. 1. The animation didn’t fit into the context. You’ve always used the standart animations which are not convincing to say atleast. The new approach as seen with Kasmeer and Marjory would be the way to go.
2. The current music doesn’t reflect what’s happening. The music has to be as satisfying as the animations have to be.
Speaking of which: This game need new music. New good music. The music has to fulfill two criteria: 1. It has to be matching the content. 2. It has to be “re-listenable”. Play the music one week at work every day. If noone goes crazy, the music is good.

i dont think the stuff we see now in LS would be good for fractals IF it takes too much time, remember fractals replayed alot. I do think its a good idea to have lots of little bits you put together for the whole story (if you choose to hunt it) like scarlets hideout, etc. Or perhaps pieces you can observe in background if you choose. It may also be good to have some hidden areas with some interesting side things happening maybe even hidden chests (like SAB but with lore and loot/events)

and yeah was just talking about the music the other day with a friend, its not bad, just way too random, and very often not related to anything happening. It doesnt serve as a storytelling element that often. Selecting specific music for certain events/places would help the game ALOT imo. But thats probably a totally different issue.

I’m fairly certain I saw a similar post from a dev in the audio subforum. This issue of the wrong music in the wrong place sounds like a big focus for them in the year ahead, which is great.

One of the the things I was thinking about the other day was how to keep linking the LS to the fractals and keep it permanent. I’m not sure how it can work to backdate the current LS beyond what they did with the 2 new boss ones (which I enjoyed immensely btw).

Lets say we had a new story beginning our journey to rid the world of Jormag and one of the first things we did was go to the tooth at Hoelbrak. Before we could damage it, an NPC would send us to the fractals to experience the first battle Vs Jormag where his tooth was knocked out. Much like the Ascalonian fractal, we would be amongst the troops (as Norn tho), perhaps protecting Asgeir Dragonrender whislt he hacks off the tooth from Jormag and then we flee from his hordes.

Much like the last fractal update, it could be the “story” one we first experience in the fractals and then would be added into the rotation.

This is just one example, based on how they did the last fractal story and is great for developing background on a story whilst keeping fractals introduced on a regular basis

Only correction I’ll make is that you don’t need the exotic version of the back pack to skip the battle sequence of the story. The basic, blue version is fine.

Not really and they will usually scale you to the relevant level. For example, the events in LA are level 80, but you are scaled to level 80 when you enter the zone.

Some LS chapters have been in multiple zones and you may have to have been the right lvl or map completion to reach certain areas, but never to the extent you will be locked from doing something that isn’t repeated in a lower zone.

Yeah, if you are in a small population room you can save 5+mins not having to fight any adds if you take the 3 holos down together and go straight into the Ultraviolet stage.

Its a gamble, but can pay off it you are running out of time from low numbers in your side of the drill

Lore will enhance the experience rather than be the reason for playing. It’s often the “cool” or “wow” factor of the instance. The gameplay itself – ie mechanics, challenge, thats the reason to keep playing.

Combining great lore and having solid replay value from core game mechanics – that is where the sweet spot lies.

And I loved the falling fractal idea btw!!!

I think what it boils down to is that the team are clearly working their backside off to produce something excellent and epic – and by in large I do think they were achieving this more and more each patch. However, what this patch showed to me was that time constraints were the problem and a rushed out patch caused;

- bugs and repeating bugs
- QA not being able to test all tactics. There was a QA dev post saying that the Knights were intended to kill together not one by one. Well, I expect further time allowed for testing may have taken that more into account.
- no directional information. It was unclear within the game what people were meant to be doing and where they were meant to be going etc. That had the hallmarks of being something that was removed due to time constraints.

Like I said, the massive hard work the team put into the releases is laid out bare, but I think the big learning curve from Season 1 is scheduling – releasing something when it is ready, not to a pre-detremined and very tight schedule.

My 2-penneth

If my memory serves me correctly it is a bug, which the devs decided not to fix.

There are all sorts of exploits which could be had if a rare or exotic could be taken from soulbound acquire – use via a transmutation stone. The stone worked as intended – they are designed only to to transmute stats (power, vit etc) and skins, nothing else. The fact that whites work differently is just an oddity not an intention.

Neither, just astonishingly rare, so gratz!

Tanith.5264:

Lankybird.8149:

Sweet baby jesus it is ROSTER not rooster…

Ah say, ah say, we are aware of that, son! We’re just having some gentle fun with the OP’s typo, dadrattit! Did you get your sense of humor shot off in the Battle of LA or something?

Uh-uh-uh, I know what you’re gonna say, son. When two halves is gone, there’s nothin’ left. And you’re right, it’s a little ole worm, who wasn’t there. Two nothin’s is nothin’.

If the patch is coming a later point, does that mean this is staying around beyond March 18th?

Thanks for the heads up btw. A known issues thread is an extremely useful post for us

That’s a shame. I liked her tweet about the rocket dolyaks and half expected to see a protoype in game