Guild Wars 2

Talking about Action Cam specifically, which is too new for the (excellent!) list that Donari posted, I don’t think they’ve said one way or another. Because it’s enabled from the options window, though, I’ll be very surprised if it’s a HoT-required feature.

Shinji.8320:

-making it cost LESS than 40 dollars worth of gold to get to rank 400

Crafting all professions to 400 costs ~156 gold if you follow the normal guide, or 201 if you follow the “fast” guide. 1 Gold costs 0.09 USD

156gold * 0.09USD/gold = $14.04
201gold * 0.09USD/gold = $18.09

Crafting to 450? 204 gold, so it’s still under $20. Crafting them all (minus Jewelcrafting which maxes at 400,) to 500 is ~666 gold:
666gold * 0.09USD/gold = $59.94

Either the OP is confused about what level crafting tops out at, or the OP has no idea what they’re talking about. Or there’s a third option that needs clarification.

Edit: Sounds like Enko has a more efficient method of crafting, but even with gw2crafts’s guides, 400 doesn’t cost $40.

I don’t think it would make sense to sell the expansion on a card—Just buy a boxed copy of the expansion when it’s available. A box is what people expect, so a card doesn’t really bring anything new or better to the offering.

Another option is to look around for pre-paid debit cards. It wouldn’t be specific to GW2, but a lot of credit/debit card companies sell prepaid cards that are great to give as universal gift cards that can be spent anywhere that takes credit/debit cards. They’re also good if you’re too young for a credit card, don’t want to give your information to a company, or can’t use a card for any other reason.

If you sold the 5 Crystalline Dust, that’s 0g90s profit right there, after the TP fee. Add1g30s from selling 250 Mithril, and that’s 2g20s profit.

That’s ~65 orichalcum ore, more than you can get by promoting.

I’ve never done the math before, but promotion looks expensive, even if you already have the materials. o_o

There was talk of an official companion app waaaay back before launch, but it’s fallen completely off the radar.

If you ask me, they decided it wasn’t worth the dev time/expense. ANet seems to enjoy being a PC company (plus the Mac version,) so I’m not surprised the app vanished and “GW2 on Consoles” never went anywhere.

They did open up APIs, however, that allow people to program their own apps for a lot of things. Naturally, those are just read-only, so you can’t craft from it, message your guildmates, etc. through it, but they do some useful things.

Promoting from Mithril to Orichalcum Ore:
250 Mithril Ore (assuming you already have this) {N/A}
1 Orichalcum Ore (buy on TP for 3s38c/each) {3s38c}
5 Pile of Crystalline Dust (buy on TP for 21s/each) { 1g5s }
5 Philosopher’s Stone (0.5 Spirit Shards) {N/A}

For a little over 1 gold (1g8s38c), you get 10-40 Orichalcum Ore, which, if you had to buy it, would cost between 33s80c and 1g35s20c. To break even, you would need to get ~32 ore back from the promotion.

If you just sold the Mithril, you’d make ~1g30s after the TP fee. (1.525g*.85) That’s just shy of buying 40 Ori, and you don’t need to gamble.

I got prices from GW2Spidy, but they’re subject to all sorts of variation throughout the day, so these are a guideline, not firm numbers.

tl;dr
Mithril is worth more than you think in bulk, while Crystalline Dust is expensive.

Some changes are coming to the base game, while others are limited to those who buy the expansion. I don’t know of a definitive list, but here’s the impression I have:

Everyone
-Action Cam
- Guild Initiative HQ (not a guild hall, but provides features that are moving out of the guild panel for those who don’t upgrade)
-Hero Points in WvW, Changes to liquid World Experience.
-Minions take 95% less damage from big AoE attacks since they don’t dodge
-Fractal Changes
- Ascended salvaging
-PvP Stronghold mode, Mist Champions (Turai Ossa and Grymm Svaard)
-WvW Desert Borderlands Map
- Multiple Guild Chat Channels
- Changes to guild currencies
- Guild Missions, new mission rotation
- Improved guild claiming in WvW
- Improved commander/squad interface
-Map bonus rewards

Expansion-Only
-Guild Halls
- Heart of Maguuma Maps
- Adventures
- Raids
- Revenant Class
- Elite Specializations

???
*Pact Tyria Mastery Track
—- Fractal Attunement Mastery
—- Pact Commander Mastery
—- Precursor Crafting Mastery

THIS IS NOT A DEFINITIVE LIST. I’m fairly confident about the sorting, but I don’t want anyone banking one way or the other because they read something on here.

I think the Pact Tyria Mastery Track is open to everyone, not just HoT owners, because most of it has to do with Central Tyria, but I can’t say for sure. I’m also not sure about Precursor crafting, for new or old weapons.

I…actually like the male staff stance.

My main is an older character, so perhaps it doesn’t look as appropriate for young whippersnappers, but I’d be displeased if they changed it after three years. Anytime you rock the boat like that, you risk upsetting people.

There’s nothing announced, unfortunately.

How were the other books? I only read Ghosts of Ascalon, and while I really enjoyed it, I heard mixed things about Edge of Destiny, and never got around to looking up the third one.

…Is Dougal Keane anywhere in the new Lion’s Arch? He was a small cameo, but an appreciated one.

I’d be surprised if they did one. It would make more sense, I think, if they launched HoT and had a bunch of people buy normal-price character slots for their Revenant. Then, a little ways down the line, they could do a character slot sale to entice everyone who didn’t have enough slots to make a Revenant, but are willing to to get one on sale.

That’s just speculation, though. ANet never gives that kind of info ahead of time.

It does seem very suspicious. At first, I wasn’t seeing much of a glow, so I thought the OP’s graphics settings must be doing something odd, but eventually the glow appeared. It seems to come and go in brightness, but in a particular spot that doesn’t change at an angle, like a reflection would.

If Mad King Thorn breaks out of it like he did the old Lion Statue, I will be very pleased.

It’s interesting to see the variety of locations people connect with. Some of these, I never gave much thought, but reading about them makes me want to revisit them.

There are quite a few places in Divinity’s Reach where I like to chill out, especially after a big accomplishment, like finishing the personal story for the first time, or completing my bioluminescent armor achievements.

The Hall of Monuments is another great one. It’s so sad, but it still feels like home, too, after GW1.

Oh, and the Chantry of Secrets. That place is fascinating, and it’s nice to visit Demmi once in a while. ~pours one out for you-know-who~

Quite a few of the buildings in the new Lion’s Arch have a sea life motif, like the lobster. There’s a really funny tour guide who leads NPCs around, and she talks about how the design was chosen.

Meanwhile, there’s another NPC on top of it who wants you to bring her a stick of butter.

Azurem.9468:

Redenaz.8631:

Edit:
Ori. Sickles only have 50 charges instead of 100, so you’ll be making 1g8s per ori. sickle you don’t buy because you have the watchwork one, instead of 1g4s. Most of your profit is still coming from sprockets, of course, not money saved on sickles.

The Watchwork Mining Pick mines sprockets. That’s the only infinite tool with an additional function. You can’t get sprockets from plants.

That right? Huh.

Learn something new every day.

Having to transfer infinite gathering tools between characters is one reason I haven’t picked one up. They’re convenience items, and that’s just not convenient enough, since I don’t already end/start play sessions at a bank most of the time. That might sound lazy to some people, but they’re convenience items. Laziness is kinda the point. (Along with flashiness.)

The other is just the cost. At 1000 gems each, that’s 129 gold (if I trade cash for gold) or 209 gold (if I were going to trade gold for gems,) per tool. That’s 3,223 ( or 5,235) Orichalcum picks (4s/each). If I use one pick per day, which is more than I’ll ever use since I’m not a heavy farmer, that’s nearly 9–14 years before I’ll break even. So, for me, it’s not convenient, and it doesn’t make financial sense.

Watchwork tools, on the other hand…If you get one sprocket (~3s) every 3 swings, roughly, you might stand a chance of making your money back. An Oricalcum pick has 100 charges, so that’s ~33 sprockets (1 gold) for every mining pick you don’t have to buy, plus 4 silver saved on the pick itself. If you use one pick a day (still way more than I can do,) you’d make back your original 209 gold in about 201 days, assuming the value of sprockets doesn’t change. You can recalculate from there based on your farming routine: If you use a whole pick every 4 days, it’s 2.2 years. If you use a pick every week, that’s 3.8 years. Whether a watchwork mining tool pays for itself really depends on how much you use it, the (ASSUMED) steady price of sprockets, and whether you paid cash for it or converted from gold to gems.

Edit:
Ori. Sickles only have 50 charges instead of 100, so you’ll be making 1g8s per ori. sickle you don’t buy because you have the watchwork one, instead of 1g4s. Most of your profit is still coming from sprockets, of course, not money saved on sickles.

I can’t tell if this post is serious or not. While I’m skeptical of the claim that the game is sinking into a miserable gear grind, a person can at least make some kind of argument on the topic.

Basically anything to do with Twice-Told Legend isn’t that argument, however. It’s barely relevant, or else completely irrelevant, so you’re going to need to elaborate further.

Kairnabel.1542:

I think they should address cyberbullying in their game.

Cyberbullying is a real and serious problem, and I hope Anet does take reports of it seriously.

That said, not all interpersonal drama is bullying. If you and your friend had a falling out, that’s not really bullying, and if you actually were being bullied, don’t try to get back in touch with the bully. That’s one reason people aren’t taking your notion of cyberbullying seriously: If you still want to hang out with the “bully,” it just sounds like drama.

I’m sorry you had a bad experience, and someone you know doesn’t want to know you anymore, but that’s their decision. Let it go and focus on having a fun time in-game.

Inculpatus cedo is right—This could happen anywhere, whether in an MMO, on a forum, or offline entirely. It’s not a “dark side of GW2” any more than it’s “the dark side of knowing people.”

I don’t know what happened with your friends, but it doesn’t sound like either you or they respect each other very much. The other person didn’t give you a very warm greeting, so you respond by…posting about it on the forum and dismissing their feelings/behavior? (“And they started using that as an excuse to get lolmad at me.”)

Kairnabel.1542:

Why can’t people just learn to have fun?

People aren’t toys, and not all of them will just forgive you over time. They probably play the game to have fun, and if they can’t have fun with you, they’re likely to cut you out of their gaming experience. That’s unfortunate, but that might be them learning to just have fun without the drama you/they were tied up in a year ago.

Part of me wishes they’d just do away with Maize Balm this Halloween. I know there are perfectly pleasant people who enjoy the farm, but it’s been surrounded by conflict ever since it started, and that’s awkward, when the game seems to pride itself on avoiding these kinds of “I was here first!” situations.

Since Maize Balm can be crafted instead of simply dropping from ToT bags, however, it’s not as a simple as just removing them from the loot table. They could remove the really valuable drops (Oontz’s Necklaces, for example,) to make it not worthwhile, but that risks sucking a lot of interest out of Halloween, as long as Trick or Treat bags are being used.

Sidenti.6035:

This is in response to two trending topics as of late: selling dungeon runs, and trading post listing fees.

These are trending topics?

I mean, I occasionally see threads about them, but I’ve been seeing occasional threads about them for years.

I’m sure you’re going to make a difference with this thread. A week from now, someone will think about complaining about dungeon sellers, go back a few pages in the message board, read this thread, and not post about it. Mission accomplished.

I hope they don’t add the effect to any of the old legendaries.

Any time they change a legendary, they run the risk of upsetting people who have poured a considerable amount of time and resources into getting the weapon as it was when they got it. Even a little thing like adding some particles or flashy footsteps is probably going to irritate someone who liked how understated their weapon of choice was. The more noticeable the change (changing The Dreamer’s sound effects, for instance,) the more you rock the boat.

Should they ever rock the boat? Occasionally, carefully. But I think adding an extremely noticeable effect like this one should be reserved for new weapons.

If you’re so friendly,

WHY IS HE BEING TARGETED!

HMM?

I rest my case.

Someone can correct me if I’m wrong, but I believe current precursors will continue to drop. The new precursors won’t drop, but Dusk, The Legend, etc. will still drop and be tradeable, along with the new collection-based acquisition.

Type /age into chat to see how old your character is.

Edit: I see I should have looked at the screenshot more carefully. My bad!

Celestial (all stat gear) has been great on my staff Ele. I’m not the hardest-hitting or most durable member of a team, but I do good damage, keep myself alive, and do a lot to keep other people on my team alive and hitting hard as well.

It’s never going to be the most efficient for clearing encounters quickly, because it’s not pure-offense, but depending on your playstyle, you might not care so much about pure efficiency. I usually do dungeons and fractals with casual-oriented groups, so keeping everyone alive yields better results than going for pure power and winding up on the floor.

You really need to make good use of the various stats, though, to make it worthwhile. If you’re not doing condition damage and healing, for instance, then you might be better off with something more focused.

Zach.2618:

I’m not complaining that legendaries are too common, I’m just saying they lack identity.

Really? That’s part of the impression I got from your original post:

Zach.2618:

If that was the case legendaries would be so legendary now that you won’t see everyone running around with one. Since people wouldn’t have gotten a taste of having a legendary yet they wouldn’t complain about the difficulty of getting one, it would have been the ultimate goal to work towards.
[…]
Imagine that 1 rare guy with an eternity and be like wow dude you really beat the game! Instead of omg legendary effects are causing my fps to lag… Can I have an option to turn them off.

I agree that legendaries could be more epic in their acquisition, and I’m hoping HoT will finally make that happen. What I wouldn’t want, however, is for legendaries to have been so difficult and rare that when you see one, you’re like “OH, WOW, LOOK AT THAT DUDE, WOW,” which is the impression I’m getting from what I’m quoting.

As someone without a legendary, I don’t think they’re too common. The players you see a lot are likely to be heavy players, and heavy players are the ones most likely to use high-end weapons, armor, dye, etc., making them seem common.

fireflyry.7023:

If you dangle the carrot so far in front of the donkey they can’t see it you’re not going to get anywhere very fast.

I can’t say it better than that.

People complain about legendaries being too common, but they’re still indisputably some of the most sought-after weapons in the game. A large chunk of the economy seems to revolve around them, and they’re a very popular long-term goal for players, even before HoT makes getting a precursor more interesting.

I like the look for Nevermore and H.O.P.E., but I’ll have to see more of Astralaria’s effect to decide if it’s too much or not.

I’m okay with them leaving aquatic weapons out of the new legendary pool. Generally, people seem really happy with the legendary aquatic weapons we have now, except for how little they’re used. If you really want an aquatic legendary, chances are good that you’re already satisfied with the existing ones. I’m sure someone out there uses speargun and doesn’t love Frenzy, but, generally speaking…If you’re not happy with how aquatic legendaries right now, nothing but a big focus on underwater combat or the introduction of land-spear/trident/speargun is going to fix that.

Developing new legendary weapons is apparently a very involved process according to today’s blog post, and given how much more use land weapons get, it seems like a bad use of resources to develop aquatic weapons before the other 16 are finished. “We’re making aquatic weapons, but they’ll be coming out last” isn’t an answer that’s going to make anyone happy.

LadyRhonwyn.2501:

ANet forgot how to count… There are 19 weapons in the game, and they’re talking about the full set of 16? Might as well remove any river, lake and sea…

In fairness, I’ve never heard anyone complain that Kraitkin, Frenzy, or Kamohoali’i Kotaki weren’t cool enough, just that they’re pointless to make because there’s not enough underwater content to enjoy them with. Considering how long the blog post indicates it takes to develop the new legendaries, I’m totally okay with them skipping water ones this time. (And I like aquatic combat.)

Yamialexa.5103:

A bit confused about the text though, did I understand correctly that the gift of the mists is made out of the components gift of battle & glory & war for each legendary? Or is it made out of either?

Both paragraphs referring to the Gift of the Mists are pretty confusing. I think the Gift of Battle is made out of the Gifts of Battle, Glory, and War. I can’t tell if " Gift of Battle, which is purchased for Badges of Honor and a special material crafted of ascended and fractal materials" means they’re changing the cost for a Gift of Battle, or if the Gift of Mists is made of Battle/Glory/War plus a nw material. (Possibly “Dark Energy,” from this earlier blog post.)

http://www.gw2spidy.com/item/9369

Looks to me like the price only really started to spike about a year ago.

There’s a couple of bizarre spikes in “Sell” listings, but the “Buy” listings have stayed much more steady. Not sure why they’ve gone as high as they have in the past year, though, just the same.

Nevermore looks pretty great. I hadn’t ruled out the Bifrost for my ele (assuming I could ever afford one,) but the new staff is pretty sweet.

Does it look like the new weapons reskin your character’s arm while wielding them? Astralaria’s wielder has a space-patterned arm, while Nevermore seems to cover the arm in black feathers. Looks like H.O.P.E. doesn’t retexture the whole arm, but covers it in electricity. I like the look on H.O.P.E. and Nevermore, but I’ll have to see more of the axe before I can made up my mind about it.

Also, while I like Quip and the Bifrost, this should be good news for players who don’t.

Manasa Devi.7958:

My thief uses that chest armor and monocle.

Heh, “chest armor”… reaching to halfway between the knees and ankles. Right.

What chest armor are you talking about? The OP is in light armor.

(As for your complaint about medium chest armor always being coats, I’m not touching that old warhorse.)

NPC

No, seriously, I mean it. His coat is a little too dark, but between the dull colors, gold, stuffy shoulders, and monocle, he seems more at home in Divinity’s Reach or Caudecus’s Manor than the field.

sander.5830:

Cyninja.2954:

You don’t even need the laurels for the first set. Just get one of the cheap ascended sets from the trading post.

Why would you spend laurels and more gold when you can buy for example Verata’s off the TP for currently less gold and no laurels? (https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Verata%27s_Armor_Recipe_Book)

Makes no sense.

Because i dont want to use verata’s and i don’t want to convert it to another set

I thought this was an interesting suggestion, so I decided to look at what the process would be like:

5 laurels + 3 gold for a typical Ascended Light Helm recipe.

~3 gold (sell) to 1.5 gold (buy) for Recipe: Verata’s Masque. (I’m comparing this one piece of headgear throughout, but the numbers can vary between 4.5g and 0.2s for the recipe, depending on the recipe and whether you buy right away or place an order.)

Changing stats takes 5 ectos (~2g,) an Anthology of Heroes (10 spirit shards,) and the exotic insignia for the stats you want to make. (5g—6g for beserker, do your own math for anything else.) So, you’re look at an additional cost of 9.5g (2 for ectos, 5.5 for end-insignia, 2 for Verata’s recipe) and 10 shards for each piece, instead of 5 laurels and 3 gold. OP pegged laurels as being worth at most 0.6g, so that’s 9.5g and 10 shards, versus 6g, per piece. If you have enough shards and gold, you can certainly speed up the process.

If you’re making Verata’s gear instead of what you want, you’ll be using Charged Ambrite as the material, so you should probably take that into account. Charged Ambrite (~1.4g/insignia) is cheaper than, say, Powerful Blood (~3g/insignia, for Beserker.) Since you’re paying 3.5 g to convert to the stats you want, you’re probably going to lose some gold on the conversion, as well as 10 shards.

SHORT VERSION:
For every piece you want to skip the laurel-gate on, it’ll cost you 10 shards and (very roughly) 3 gold. If you have a ton of shards handy, great, if not, you’re gated by shards instead of laurels.

You could fight some mobs from the surface, but it seems like anything worth fighting is deeper down, or in an area blocked off from the surface.

I’m actually not sure this would be useful. If you just want to cross a body of water to get from point A to point B, it’s (usually) very easy to just plow through it without stopping to fight.

If you’re in a situation where you would have to fight (story missions, open world events, underwater fractal, etc.) walking on water wouldn’t do you any good.

It would be super neat to be able to walk on water, though, just because it would be cool. Not sure it would change anything, however.

If you’re not in a hurry, might as well wait.

Just keep in mind that people aren’t going to instantly know whether berserker is going to stay the preferred thing or not. You’ll have some people saying “berserker is dead / long live berserker” almost immediately, but people will say either at the drop of a hat. It’ll take some time to figure out if beserker is still recommended, much less whether it’s the right fit for you.

One of the problems with “naming and shaming” (among others!) is that it doesn’t really help. The game is large enough that we probably won’t run into those people, and even if we do, we’re unlikely to recognize them, unless we each keep a personal black list and check their account names against it every time we form a party.

If you have a bad experience with people, report them through the in-game system and block them. You won’t have to deal with them anymore, and their behavior gets logged in case it’s a pattern of abuse that needs to be dealt with by the game’s administrators.

I can’t comment on your own experience, because I wasn’t there, but remember that there’s always going to be a few bad apples, wherever you go and whatever you do. The best you can do is move on and not give them a second thought.

One reason it might be cheaper to buy Eternity than to craft it is that if you create Twilight and Sunrise, you can unlock their skins (account-binding them,) and then forge them into Eternity, which you can sell. You don’t end up with a legendary weapon or the Eternity skin, but you get Twilight and Sunrise skins, and you make back at least 3200g in the process. (Highest buy order: 3793, then take off 15% for TP fees)

With that money, you’re well on your way to making another legendary. You could probably buy any one-handed legendary with the profit, or save up another couple hundred and get whatever you want besides Eternity.

With World Bosses, it’s easier to check out and do it automatically, if I just want to chill and watch/read something or chat at the same time, or between fights. The payout for Silverwastes is higher, but so is the involvement. I’m rarely doing world bosses and not doing something else at the same time. I think that’s a fine balance.

I usually do Tequatl, and if I feel like doing more bosses, whatever’s available. I usually skip Claw of Jormag, though, because it’s just so long and not particularly fun. Same with Shatterer, who is shorter, but even less interesting.

They only one that’ll get me to stay a little longer when I’m about to quit is Karka Queen, because the time:payout is so high, especially if you do a little gathering while you’re in Southsun Cove.

(I don’t even count Triple Trouble in the same league as the others, since the failure chance is so high without serious organization.)

I’m skeptical that there’s a sufficiently large number of people who want to commit to an MMO (making them valuable customers/prospective customers,) but are holding back from a particular game because it asks for an email address.

Rather than funnel people into a temporary, extremely stripped down version of the game, I think it’s better to just ask for an email address and create a real account for them. It’s a completely expected, normal hurdle to get over, and they can present the game in a much better light than what you’re suggesting.

I’m really only familiar with Ranger traps, so maybe other traps work differently, but…what would you do with remote-detonated traps? They already go off when someone walks into them, so what’s the advantage of detonating them early?

I dislike Light armor costing so much more than Medium/Heavy armor, but I don’t mind silk itself, and damask, costing more. While it might throw people a little that crafting patterns are not entirely consistent across material types, plain symmetry isn’t enough of a reason to make them drop silk to from 3scraps/bolt to 2.

Materials aren’t used evenly. Everyone uses silk, for instance, to make insignia, while thick leather sections aren’t used in nearly the same quantity. Metals don’t even follow the same 1:1 pattern as the others, with copper becoming copper/bronze ingots, platinum becoming platnium or darksteel ingots, etc. Materials, in general, aren’t acquired in the same way, either, although silk and leather are pretty similar.

Some people want symmetry in materials, but I think that’s a little misguided and unnecessary. If there is an actual problem, it comes down to differences in what each class pays for the same kind of gear. (Which is affected by all kinds of things, from recipes to the number of players playing those weight classes.)

As Donari says, the preview is inaccurate. With most weapons it isn’t very noticeable, but it’s really obvious that there’s a mistake with the ascended longbow.

When you’re actually using one, the bow is the way you expect it to be. See picture.

He says “only” because 35% more is very different from 100% more.

Both numbers are basically accurate, if you’re discounting insignia costs for the “twice as much” calculation, but they do put a very different spin on the situation.

I’m mostly expect a repeat of last year’s event, including the Mad Prince storyline from the past two years. While I’d like to see something new and different, I’d be very surprised, between Heart of Thorns releasing and them needing to redecorate the new Lion’s Arch.

I am looking forward to see how they put the new city to use for Halloween, if for nothing else but new decorations.

I’m also expecting we’ll have some new candy vendor rewards, like we got last year, along with the Hex Outfit, which I know people would like to see again.

I would love more emotes. I get some good use out of the ones we have, but it’s a pretty short list, even compared to GW1.

Perhaps that character doesn’t exist anymore, so the game doesn’t say? (Your character is Meekzie, and that’s the name that shows, so I wonder what it does with deleted characters. “Unknown User”?)

Just the same, it seems like it should maintain some link to the account of the user who took the items.