Guild Wars 2

They might have gotten the same IP at some point, one a goldseller was using, and all accounts associated with it got banned, just to be sure.

Zera Allimatti.2541:

LucosTheDutch.4819:

locoman.1974:

I’m going to just leave this here..

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OTGh0EMmMC8

That was funny. But on a more serious note:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0eN-Gmmfd0E

Yep, a 20k eviscerate from a warrior dressed in skimpy armor is just as effective as a 20k eviscerate from a warrior dressed in full plate armor. More skin is not an attack on women. Making said woman nothing more than a ‘sexy lamp’ is, though.

Problem is, more often than not, female characters in media are designed in ways to highlight the “sexy” aspect of their character while ignoring everything else. And by doing this to a lot of female characters, or even all of them, “sexy” becomes standard and worthless as a tool of expression. I’d like to mention DA:O’s Morrigan here. She dresses in something I can call a shirt if I squint really hard, visually coding her as a stereotype (“sexy witch” in this case). As soon as she starts talking, though, we need to revise this impression. She is a good character with emotinal depth, and I can believe that she dresses the way she does because she wants to, not because a designer thought “Needs more boobies”. But. Then I get a set of armour, put it on a male character, and it looks fine, but as soon as I put it on a female character, it gets major cleavage and a bared midriff. Not only does this not make sense, it cheapens Morrigan’s character. Her attire vs. her attitude was part of what made her character interesting; but as soon as “show lots of skin” becomes the default, it’s nothing special anymore. It does two things: It makes me roll my eyes really hard, and it deprives the creators of the game of something they can use as a tool in storytelling. Neither of those things is good. Morrigan on her own is a great character, but if you put a character who confidently flaunts her sexuality and doesn’t take crap for it in a world where every woman seems to do the exact same thing for no reason, it flattens this character.
So while I’m fine with “skimpy” being part of the wardrobe, and I’m not going to bash anyone who likes skimpy armour, I’d like anyone who justifies unholy amounts of it (or female-skimpiness-only versions) with “it’s fantasy” to think about what I just wrote. As a creator, I am resposible for the impact my product has on those who consume it. But if I say that “I support gender equality”, but go on creating ridiculous armour for female characters only because “sex sells” or whatever (not true, by the way, unless you’re selling sex), then I should prepare to not be taken seriously. If you want to see boobs, just own it, but don’t pretend it’s “for a good reason”.

Zera Allimatti.2541:

It’s the same reason skimpy armor provides the same protection as full plate armor: IT IS A FANTASY GAME! It does not have to be realistic. The game lacks momentum physics for goodness sakes, you think logic will apply to lumber in a fantasy game? Nope. The only reason for the quantity required is purely economical.

I keep seeing you throw the “it’s fantasy” argument around, but have you ever considered that even in fantasy some things still need to be grounded in reality to make the entire thing work? Suspension of disbelief isn’t just a fancy expression we writers use to sound smart. If nothing in your fictional universe makes any sense, it’s pretty uninteresting, since anything can happen.
Since you mentioned skimpy armour, let’s take this example: I willingly accept the dragons, so long as their existence follows certain rules that make sense within the fictional universe. If Zhaitan and gang are so deadly and dangerous, why would anyone go fight them in a bikini? And if fighting dragons in a bikini is totally fine, it takes away the sense of urgency and danger the dragons are supposed to create, and thus invalidates the entire story of GW2.
The wood plank thing might seem small, but if lots of small things don’t add up, it rattles and cheapens the whole experience.
In short: For us to believe something illogical, the background has to provide the logic that thing lacks. I can believe a historical novel about a character going against the rules of their time so long as a) the background makes sense and b) there are appropriate consequences. I am willing to believe lightsabers in Star Wars so long as they are logically explained in-universe. Likewise, to accept Zhaitan and Mordremoth as threats, I need to see the consequences their presence has.
And to believe humongous weapons that still only take one hand to swing around, I need a logical explanation for how they are made. Which is provided by the logical wood planks.
Make sense?

Wasn’t there just a fun discussion about adding a “manly” legendary shortbow…?^^

Anyways, we don’t know any details yet, but the most logical thing to do with the new legendaries would be to add a “serious” skin for every joke weapon, and a “joke” skin for every serious weapon (and maybe a greatsword that doesn’t outshine the sky…). Personally, I’d like to make a staff, but Bifrost is just… nah. Thanks, but no.

I think there’s a post somewhere where they said that at PAX East, the major features of HoT will be presented in detail, and since the precursor scavenger hunt/mastery is one of those, there might be more info then.

1) Try a time when few people in your time zone are online. Though few people had any luck with that lately.

2) You’ll get sorted into maps woth your guildies, if the map isn’t full (well, in theory, anyway; in practice… well, let’s just say there are still a few hiccups in the system). The sorting hat prioritises your guild and friendlist over random players if possible. And if you end up on different maps, just use the “Join in [map]” function in the group menu. That’ll always work unless the map is full, then it doesn’t matter anyway.

Jesus, not this again…
And by “this” I mean the debate about what does and does not count as “objectifying” someone, wherein most people completely ignore the fact that while a person can choose to dress any way they want, a video game character is subject to the whims of designers and players and therefore cannot choose, which dumps the repsonsibility for the objectification, if it’s happening, on the shoulders of those real human beings who so vehemently deny that they have any responsibility at all.
Long-kitten sentence is long.

Aaand with that out of the way: Heck yes, more armour choices please! Preferably implemented in a way that balances skimpy and non-skimpy choices for everyone, and for god’s sake, please don’t make more stuff like Grasping Dead, where the female version is godawful to look at AND makes no sense, or Sneakthief, where female characters get a nice assassin-esque outfit and the guys get… another trenchcoat.
GW2 is at the top of the list of games that do their armour right(-ish… like I said, Grasping Dead. And also human medium T3 -.-). Apart from some wtf-worthy things, there’s a nice, broad choice of armour available that looks good on all characters. But. For the love of all that is holy. Stop making armours where one version looks nothing like the other. That I have a beef with. Because that’s double standard at its finest. Want a skimpy set? great, just make it skimpy for both genders. Want to make a heavy armour that looks like you’re a tank on two legs? Go for it, but do it for for everyone, and don’t give my female characters boobplate and chainmail g-string just to remind me that, why yes, that character is female, don’t you forget!

Somehwat related: I just wished they’d put Faren’s speedo in the game. Karma skin, gemstore, I don’t care, I want this thing for my warrior^^

I don’t get all this necromancer hate. I have tons of fun with mine

The “play what you like most” thing has already been mentioned. I’d add that the “meta” is not necessary at all to play PvE. If DPS is what you’re after, I suppose it can’t hurt, but there are other viable builds out there as well, up to and including a PvE condimancer. Granted, you might need to look for a bit to find a relaxed group for specific content (or make your own lfg), but in this game, there are very few “wrong” ways to play.
The necromancer subsection has some threads about different builds that you can check out before diciding on anything.

Psh, screw capes, I want those wings oO
Preferably recolourable, but I’ll settle for the black ones to tack onto my Raven spirit norn elementalist.

Might not be hacking after all. I remember having similar problems in WvW a few times. Once tried to stomp somebody several times, it didn’t work (or so it seemed), but from the TS I figured out that it indeed had worked, only I didn’t see it while everyone else did and thought I was being stupid. Don’t know about the guy I stomped, ‘cause WvW, but it might be something similar. If they left the game right after, might be that they really lagged horribly and then DC’d. It would also explain the mistform – if they had the rune of vampirism equipped and lagged, then there might have been a delay in triggering the mistform, making it seem like they used it after getting downed.

Okay, so this screenshot tells us nothing except that you have an unholy amount of loot bags in your inventory.

Are you sure you haven’t overlooked a new stack?

mtpelion.4562:

Astral Projections.7320:

Well, now that Smooth Penguin managed to drag Godwin’s law into the argument (by the way Smooth, that’s a sign that that person has lost the argument and can’t bring up anything rational to say) I would say it’s time to close this thread down.

I just want to nitpick this point a bit. Godwin’s law merely states that in any discussion on a forum, the German political party of the 1930s will be brought up. It does not imply that the arguments are no longer rational. That being said, references to that German political party of the 1930s often tend to be out of scale, subject to slippery slope fallacies, or are appeal to emotions, but there are legitimate applications of such comparisons.

Of course there are, but I’d wager those have a better place in discussions about history and/or violent conflicts of similar nature, and not in a discussion about someone doing an event “out of order” in a video game.
And to be honest, most times, the 3rd Reich Germany argument’s only purpose is to paint the other side as bad as possible so that no-one can argue in their favour without seeming like a 3rd Reich German party member.

I’m pretty sure this is the strawman that is supposed to help him win the argument? Making it seem like the OP is at least responsible for a civil war among the players, and then convincing us all that civil wars are bad, only this isn’t really about a civil war.
Or whatever.

Only history is never this black and white.
And this is still a video game.
Jesus.
*waits for mod to slap a lock on this thread*

Only, you know, this is a video game, not genocide.
But nice way of bringing the kittens to the table.
/Godwin’s Law

Edit: Ahahaha, what? The short term for National Socialist gets kitten’ed? The hell? oO

Wolfe.9850:

I admit, who doesn’t want frikken sharks with frikken laserbeams attached to their heads? Especially the Asuran Rangers!

Pet robots!^^

Wow. It’s kind of rare to see the other side of a “scam”.

Thing is, trade is supposed to happen via the trade post. People who try and circumvent that (to save the fee, for example) and then get ripped off can report the scammer, but won’t get anything back, and no-one knows whether or not the scammer actually gets banned/suspended.

Now you got the skin, but never agreed to trade. If the chat logs say so, too, the guy sending you a skin without confirmation that you’ll pay can’t even claim you scammed him because you never said you’d pay a certain sum. Since there is no trade outside the trading post, it’s his own fault. Though, keeping the skin and not paying is morally questionable, even under these circumstances. Just saying.

I doubt you’ll get official word on this, since it would set a precedent for other scammers (not saying you’re scamming, since you technically didn’t “steal” the skin – yet ;P ). Though, to be in the clear, I’d refrain from just keeping the skin. Also because giving it back or paying would be the decent thing to do.

Everybody downs a bottle of vodka and joins the conga line.

Seriously though, this is why “unwritten rules” are silly. They’ll always conflict, and either way, someone will be left out in the cold. So, so long as no-one is breaking actual rules, there is very little one can really complain about.

segman.3560:

So while the title fits 1st game lore (well Prophecies at least) the second game has nothing to do with Guild Wars since Ascalon is in ruins, Kryte is reformed, Orr is no more a human kingdom… so the title has nothing to do with anything now.

Yes I want GvG in GW2.

1) There’s guild halls in HoT, so there might be GvG in the near future, too.
2) So, even though GW2 is a sequel to GW1 in every possible way, the Guild Wars never happened. Got it. Alternate history it is.

Which makes me wonder why, if the general boss train is so unorganised, an organised group is required to double their effort to get the chaotic bunch more loot.

I’d be all in favour of making the ogre a boss in its own right, or outright part of the FE chain (in that, for example, any key dissolves after ten minutes and can only be used right after the FE died. Also, scale the poor creature so it stands a ghost of a chance). With a slight redesign of these two events, it could be possible to squeeze it all into the time it now takes to do the FE event and have everyone be able to participate. Or don’t make the FE a requirement for the key in the first place; that way, the events wouldn’t be tied together anymore, and maybe this irrational expectation that everyone follow some “unwritten rule” would go away.

Behellagh.1468:

Not to go all Spock on you Red Queen but “the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few”.

And Azhure, your guild is way to serious if you and others scout IP addresses for an event. This is suppose to be fun, not a military campaign to maximize every moment so there isn’t idle gameplay. This isn’t a place for “if you can lean, you can clean” mentality. Do you preplan ride order and bathroom breaks when you visit an amusement park? Do you live your life by itinerary?

Dude, relax, be spontaneous.

Okay, a little “yay” for Spock here.
Still, what needs are there, in a video game, that need so much consideration? I’m not going to lie, I get annoyed when I “miss out” on loot (for whatever reason, usually my own tardiness ..), but in no way does that ruin the game for me, nor do I have this _need you speak of to get as much loot as possible, no matter the cost. So I really, truly don’t understand why people (okay, mainly Smooth Penguin) get so upset when a guild have their own schedule and play by it, just because it means other people may or may not need to wait for an event a little longer (or just not do it). In this case, someone has to wait (or not, but lets pretend this is about a specific evening when this happens), and why should that be one group more so than the other? It’s literally impossible to make this convenient for everyone. There will always be someone who does something which then means someone else can’t do it. And GW2 is really tame in that regard, since there’s no kill stealing , we have instanced chests and harvesting nodes and the guaranteed loot for big events.
And since the OP and their guild go the extra mile (yes, they do, since they don’t have to) and announce the event in mapchat, that’s really all anyone can ask for.
Of course, this situation wouldn’t exist if the ogre were actually part of an event chain that starts with the cleaning golem, continues with the elemental and then ends with the ogre, with either both bosses counting as separate world bosses with separate world boss loot or the ogre is the final boss (like Ulgoth) who drops the chest. But since that’s not the case, and the ogre can be done “out of order” because the game allows it, it’s hardly trolling or griefing to make use of that when it’s convenient for an entire group of people.

Why would one group be more entitled to this event than the other, anyway? “Because we are more” is not a good argument, because horrible things happen when someone justifies their actions with this. Being part of a majority doesn’t automatically mean one deserves something more than the minority does. Especially if the minority is way better organised. Which, in a video game, is no small feat, mind you.

http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/The_Guild_Wars

Just in case you want to read up on the lore the name comes from.

Sooo… you want one class to be better than others while simultaneously complaining that another class seems to be “better” than that class?
Stellar logic.

Nobody is dictating the population. It’s just that for a while, warriors could be made to really be “better” (in terms of DPS) than most other classes, so lots of people rolled warriors. When the class got balanced (and nerfed in the process to be more on par with other classes, not worse, mind you), people perceived this as “making the warrior worse” because suddenly, other classes could compete in the field of raw DPS. Just because this means that you need three seconds longer to kill something big doesn’t mean warriors suddenly suck.

You’re still free to roll warrior, just as everyone else is free to roll whatever they like. Also, nobody forces you to play with pure berserker gear/traits. If you want survivability, you can get that, too, but you’ll have to sacrifice damage for that. That’s how it works. You don’t get to have everything in one class while all other classes have to compromise.

Azhure, you really deserve a gold star for still being this calm.

At this point, I’m pretty convinced Smooth Penguin & Co. are just trolling. Their arguments can be used to “justify” both playstyles (Really? People have to justify the way they play a game now? What, are you going to call the game police on me for turning on godmode in Skyrim and going on a rampage in Solitude? Bring it on!). Only they never once acknowledged this and are still pretending everything they say is in their favour and their favour only. Christ, our resident political whackjobs know better than that.

And to the people arguing that “this is the way things are done”: Gee, you know, I was just thinking about how being gay used to be illegal. Good times, eh? Should’ve never changed, since that’s “just the way things were”. And wasn’t that nice when being a racist moron was “the norm”? Why did we ever allow anyone to “go against that norm”?
Point being, just because a lot of people are doing something doesn’t mean it’s okay, nor that everyone must do the same, or adhere to “unwritten rules”. As long as this event can be done the way OP and their guild do it, without breaking or abusing the game’s mechanics, they are fully in the right here.
Now you can call them inconsiderate, which is your right, even though I don’t agree with that observation. What is not okay is harrassing them and claiming that what they do is “wrong” and that they’ll get reported, or trying to bully them into changing their (carefully crafted, I’m sure) schedule so things are more convenient for you. Your group of players are no more or less important than another group of players, so quit trying to make it seem so.

And Smooth Penguin, know that, if you keep calling a group of players prioritising their schedule over yours inconsiderate and wrong, I (and I’m certain many others) will not take you seriously until you admit that you are just as inconsiderate and wrong by prioritising your schedule over that of another group. You can’t use this to argue one way and “win”. By the way, your ability to win “strawman arguments”? Bwahahaha, really? Winning arguments like that usually only convinces you of your “victory”. You probably “win” these arguments because everyone else is getting sick and tired of your twisting their words, ignoring their explanations and claiming arguments as yours that can easily count for both sides but disgregarding this fact completely (as you are doing here). Getting the last word in because everyone else left to do something better with their time hardly counts as winning.

Dear god, I just noticed your signature.
In this context – priceless

And I still find it funny that you expect everyone to understand that your way of playing the game is the most important and adapting their playstyle to fit yours while you rage at anyone else mildly “upsetting” your schedule.
I don’t think any amount of meditating and/or mind-bending will help me understand this way of thinking.

Smooth Penguin.5294:

Red Queen.7915:

Also, you purposely killing the ogre to spite the OP? Yeah, that is griefing.

Actually, according to the others, this isn’t considered griefing. I’m within my rights to play the game how I want, on my own schedule. Sounds fair to me.

Smooth Penguin.5294:

It’s not about the 1 single Champ Bag that we’re missing. It’s the fact that a group of people are purposely ruining the train. And no, this isn’t the same was the Frost Gorge train. Champ bosses respawn every few minutes while you’re on the same map. Bosses spawn every 2 – 3 hours, on different maps. If my zerg is at FE, and we can’t do the Steam Ogre, we move to the next boss. By going back when the Steam Ogre timer is up, that ruins the Boss train. OP seems to understand this, and doesn’t care. Ergo intentional griefing.

Your definition of griefing; it’s apparently all about intent. And logic. Just saying.

Penguin, one thing: I am part of the map. Just because not doing the event doesn’t bother me doesn’t mean I’m not part of the players who get “cheated” out of loot. Plenty of times no-one even has the key. Do I rage about this? Nope. I take a peek, see if someone opens the field, and if not, I port away. You can be upset about “losing” loot, but that doesn’t mean everyone is. Those who shriek and howl are usually part of a very vocal minority.

Also, you purposely killing the ogre to spite the OP? Yeah, that is griefing.

Does the blue appear for every hair colour you select? Might be that the tips of your leaves are like accents that change depending on the hair colour, and Dark Cotton Candy’s happens to look blue/purple.

Well, an average norn is about nine feet tall. So, if you have a norn with the slider in the middle, that might count as nine feet, and you can go from there, maybe?

Never heard of anything to measure height, but I suppose it would be fun to know just how tiny my asura ladies are

Smooth Penguin.5294:

It’s not about the 1 single Champ Bag that we’re missing. It’s the fact that a group of people are purposely ruining the train. And no, this isn’t the same was the Frost Gorge train. Champ bosses respawn every few minutes while you’re on the same map. Bosses spawn every 2 – 3 hours, on different maps. If my zerg is at FE, and we can’t do the Steam Ogre, we move to the next boss. By going back when the Steam Ogre timer is up, that ruins the Boss train. OP seems to understand this, and doesn’t care. Ergo intentional griefing.

Again, players are Entitled to play how they want, but they’re not Entitled to ruining the game for others.

So, you’re saying that your train is more important than somene else’s train.
I’m glad that’s finally out in the open.

If you get riled up about this on principle, you must be a very angry person. The point here is, this is a game. That people play on their time to relax. If adhering to someone else’s schedule isn’t relaxing for them or cuts into the time they have to play this game, then they don’t have to do it.
You keep saying that inconvenience=griefing, which simply isn’t the case. You can still do the event. Just later. No-one is stopping you. If it’s all abolut your timing and your rotation above anything else, then you are griefing anyone who wants/needs to time their bosses/events differently, too.

Azrael.4960:

The simplest fix is to just remove the timer from the Steam ogre.

That would make it possible to have lots of people get lots of keys, then farm the ogre until all the keys are gone. Rinse and repeat.
After nerfing the champ trains, I doubt this timer will be removed.

I hate to break it to you, but this game eats CPU, not GPU. A fancy video card won’t do much about “low” FPS (low? Really? Try playing the game at 20-30 on good days…). With your i5, you should get a little more, but that might be for different reasons.

Actually, it’s Alice in Wonderland, and evolution. But I’ve heard good things about Smallville, just never got around to watching it^^

http://howar31.com/GW2Timer/
That would be the new timer. The bosses don’t have windows anymore, the events just start.

Smooth Penguin.5294:

Griefing = Purposely doing an event that locks everyone else out of it.

When 99% of the population WPs in to do the FE event, then runs to the Steam Ogre right after, only to find it finished and locked by the 1%, there should be punishments.

So, literally every event, ever? Griefing would be taking place if, say, the ogre could be pulled to the FE where it would start rampaging and killing every player in its way. Doing that, all the time, for kittens and giggles, would be griefing. Doing an event outside its “schedule” is not griefing. Announcing it so any lazy bum who idles until FE appears can participate even less so.

And I find it hilarious that doing the ogre event at the “wrong” time is supposedly griefing, but WPing two minutes before FE (or any boss) appears, killing it and looting without lifting a finger for the preevents, every single time, counts as perfectly normal behaviour. Just mentioning that again, for laughs.

Uhm. That’s a lot to put in a few forum posts…

Basically, Living World is the “sequel” to your personal story, and will eventually lead up to the reveal of the next Big Bad. It comes with replay value for those who want the achievements.

Traits have been redone a few times, you might want to check that, it’ll tell you whether or not your old build still works.

The daily achievements have been changed, and there is no monthly achievement anymore.

There are collections now, where you get stuff for… getting other stuff. They’ve got a spot in the hero panel (Achievements → Collections).

Tequatl is new and shiny, and there’s a new world boss, the Three-Headed Wurm.

Also, ascended armour. Expensive and kind of useless, unless you want to look like a clown. I mean jester. A noble court jester. But maybe you want the skin, or the +5% stat increase. I don’t know.

Minis don’t need to be in your inventory anymore.

Also, new maps. West of Brisban Wildlands.

Neural.1824:

He’s obviously been playing around with all those ancient relics the Durmond Priory keeps locked up for good reason.

Isn’t that the reason anyone joins the Priory? To get to mess around with ancient magical artefacts that can and eventually will cause the entire universe to go haywire?

Smooth Penguin.5294:

Azhure.1857:

That’s the thing – I don’t deserve the abusive messages.

Actually, you’re the one inviting it because you admit to not caring what the rest of the map thinks. If you don’t like people getting mad at you, stop doing the things that make people mad in the first place.

Edit – The #1 Rules of Conduct is as follows: “While playing Guild Wars 2, you must respect the rights of others and their rights to play and enjoy the Game.” By purposely ruining the Ogre run for everyone on the map, you’re not respecting their rights to enjoy the game. Of course, that’s just my own interpretation of the rule.

You could just as easily say “By demanding they do the Ogre at a time that is inconvenient for them, the general population is disrespecting this group’s right to play and enjoy the game in their own way and therefore violating the ToS”.
Also, missing a single event does not justify hurling abuse. Gross overreaction.

Edit:

Behellagh.1468:

No by opening the Ogre portal while everyone is distracted fighting the inquest in the next room. Like anyone is going to see that message in the midst of a fight.

Come on. How many people are actually doing the event, as opposed to the people just idling and waiting for the elemental to spawn?

Oh noes! Someone is playing the game with their friends and uses game mechanics to make that happen! How terrible! How selfish! How cruel!

Just for those who need it spelled out, I’m being sarcastic here.

Playing the game in a way that just so happens to be “against tradition” is not selfish. They even announce it in the mapchat. And if people don’t have that open, they can’t complain when they miss the announcement. Tough luck. I was completing Blazeridge Steppes last night and kept waiting for someone to announce the Shatterer. Nobody did, so I missed it. Guess what? The world didn’t end. You can’t blame a player for using content in a way that’s perfectly fine and intended for being “selfish” because you miss out on loot or something. Nobody is denied their reward because nobody has an inherent right to said reward. Same thing could be said for starting the fire elemental preevent in the first place. If people start it right when it spawns, those who arrive a little later because “traditionally”, the fire elemental takes some time to arrive, miss out on it. It happens.

If people really get this upset about “missing out” on a single event migth want to reconsider their priorities. It’s not the moon landing. It will be up again in a bit. It might be annoying for a split second, but that’s about it.

SnubdubLuskon.1795:

Now they’re going to do it just to spite you.

If I hadn’t already be planning on doing it, I would do it now.
I can be a petty kitten if I want to >:-D

Edit: Wow. So I can’t even reference a child out of wedlock now? Stupid profanity filter…^^

The game needs to generate a profit somehow, and thus anything not gameplay-related is locked behind a paywall. Which I think is fair, considering that everyone should be informed enough to make the best possible choice, be it for a server or transmuting armour skins.

It is unfortunate that you couldn’t predict your desire to play WvW with people from a different sever, but that doesn’t change the fact that it is still within Anet’s rights to charge cash for a server transfer (if you don’t want to pay in ingame gold, which you can, since you “pay” for the transfer in gems). Otherwise, people would merrily hop from server to server, unbalancing/killing WvW entirely.

There’s Living Story to be played, traits got reworked, there’s new leveling rewards, new daily reward system, zerker is pretty much still considered THE meta, and if you start a new character, prepare for a very confusing New Player Experience.

Classes to avoid? None? Why would there be? Unless you mean “I want to do X content, which class do I need to get it done the quickest possible way”?

I’m not going to lie, I sorely regrettet not buying gems with my first gold or two to exchange them back into (what would have been) a metric kitten-ton of gold a few months later to buy kit for my first 80. And since stuff has only become more expensive, you can easily look at 20-50 gold in equipment for a new level 80 (depending on stats and weapons of choice), so having that gold from selling a precursor would be nice, especially since the OP doesn’t want the legendary.

I’m more jealous that the OP is so new to the game that s/he didn’t know what precursors and legendaries are, but already got Dawn before finding out XD

What Silmar Alech said. You can’t sell it anymore (and that’s really your own fault for ignoring the warning, I doubt CS will help you there), but you can use the character it’s bound to to create a legendary, and then sell that. Since the other legendary components are accountbound, that should not be an issue.

Don’t get too hung up on racial skills, they are barely, if at all, relevant once you have all your profession skills at your disposal.

That said, asura are awesome^^ They don’t look like your standard RPG humanoid, and their racial storylines are pretty fun to play. And funny. And crazy. Just… try them.
As for classes… funny enough, I find the “bash your skull in” warrior harder to play than, say, an elementalist or necromancer. But that’s just me. In GW2, you really can play anything and not depend on someone else to help you complete the PvE content (aside from activities that are designed as group content, obviously). Mesmers can be a challenge in the early stages (because they are really squishy without their traits grumbles), but other than that, you should be good with all the classes.

I never tried that, but it might be, with the right weapons (sword/dagger, maybe sword/axe, greatsword) and traits, similar to the thief – never getting hit also is a viable option. Though a ranger has a pet to tank for him, so there aren’t that many options, and the damage output probably isn’t that great anymore.
Though you can certainly try to find a good build on your own.

Most classes can be played tanky; personally, I play a tanky guardian and necromancer.

In terms of fun, well, most fun would be what you like to play most. Again, personal opinion, but I love necromancer and elementalist, and I also have three rangers^^
There’s no holy trinity in GW2, so, unless you’re specifically after a speedrun build or whatever, you can pretty much play whatever you like and still play all parts of the game. Sure, there’s a demand for meta warriors and such in dungeons (for speedruns mostly), but if you don’t really care about that stuff, you’re fine playing what you want.

tl;dr: Necromancers are fun, as are elementalists and rangers But since you can go right into PvP and goof around with what’s essentially a level 80 character there (to see what traits there are, how to combine them and whatnot), you can try that for yourself.

Xiahou Mao.9701:

It’s not an armour skin, it’s the Vestments of the Lich outfit.

*Raiment Vestments is the Arah dungeon light armour. Just to avoid confusion. But yes, it’s an outfit.

Funny, I feel like I’m getting more than usual, too.

It’s RNG, like some people have gotten half a dozen precursors by now and I have looted and forged exactly zero. Nooo, I’m not bitter, just mentioning a fact^^

It’s so you can always have armour appropriate for your level without having to buy it on the trading post. You don’t have to buy it, so why do you have a problem in the first place? oO

Seera.5916:

For me the keyboard shortcut for my Contacts and LFG is Y. So check your keyboard shortcuts.

I keep forgetting the different keyboard regions^^
But I suppose with the name of the category, it should be easy enough to find.

Currencies: Well, you get something for everything, that’s for sure^^ Generally, dungeon tokens get you exotic armour and weapons with various stats, depending on the dungeon. Badges of Honour also get you gear. Karma is good for a variety of stuff, weapons and armour (though primarily for the skins), converting karma items into crafting materials, that sort of thing. Things like geodes and bandit crests are specific to one area, and you can exchange them only in that area.

Salvaging: Depends on what you want. I always salvage whites and blues (the latter because I like the AP the Agent of Entropy thing gives me, but you can also vendor those). Greens go to the vendor. Rares get salvaged with a mystic salvage kit for ectoplasm. Exotics go on the TP or get salvaged with Black Lion salvage kits (if runes or sigills are expensive) or with a yellow one for dark matter.

Lunar stuff: It’s a seasonal event, envelopes etc. come from chests.

Trophies: Useless, just vendor (Via “sell junk” preferably, that way you’ll know what’s worthless and what can go on the TP).

Crafting guide: http://www.gw2crafts.net/

WvW: Pretty much, yes. You can roam solo or with guild groups, too, but PvP with small groups is for, well PvP.

Dungeons: LFG system or guild groups. LFG is under Z→Looking for Group (the category that is aptly named “Contacts and LFG” )