Guild Wars 2

I already wrote off the 5->1 exchange rate a couple of posts ago, in the one with the double spoiler tag. (Although it’s in the paragraph right after the math spoiler, without actually being in the spoiler) 5 stones per crystal would absolutely wreck the transmutation crystal market, and Anet would almost certainly see lost sales there.

The more important meat of the thread is that transmutation stones are practically worthless to a level 80 character, yet level 80 characters have tons of them, and so it would be nice if they could do something with them. So I’m attacking that in two ways, by reducing the number of transmutation stones they get and giving them something to do with all their old stones. Whether they’re rewarded with transmutation crystals somehow, or something else, anything is likely more useful to them than stones.

It’s nearly two here, so I can relate. I’ll be lucky if any of this makes any sense tomorrow.

If you’re trading with friends, I don’t see any problem with it, but you’d better be sure you trust the buyer, or at least work out a deposit, because you might just be out of luck if the deal goes bad. 15% of a high price item can be a lot, but there’s something to be said for security, too, especially when you’re dealing with such a high-priced item.

So it’s a catch-22 unless you’re dealing with someone you already trust.

It would take some care to balance the needs of players with 200 stones and those with 2 stones, but I think that could be reasonably done. They could factor a player’s level into their odds of getting transmutation stones from a map completion chest, for example, instead of the current system that appears to use one result table regardless of level. Transmutation stones could be replaced on the “level 80 table” with something simple, like unidentified dye, another daily chest bonus item (mystic forge stones or boxes of fun, etc.) an essence of luck, or even just a little extra coin. It could even be left on there, just balanced against some more options, as the table currently reads “three transmutation stones, or, MAYBE IF YOU’RE LUCKY, a Black Lion key.”

They get rewards they can actually use, so they’re happier, it doesn’t have to dramatically increase the supply of other items, and they don’t have tons of transmutation stones floating around. Meanwhile, level 1-79 players can still get all the transmutation stones they could ever want.

As for getting rid of the old stones, if they reduce the output from map completion, they can just make it a temporary sink. They’ve done it before with Mystic Chests to reduce supply of common crafting materials, and very recently with the Twisted Watchwork Portal Device to reduce the supply of Living Story junk.

Im Mudbone.1437:

4- Again no effing way, sorry, there is nothing epic about riding around on a horsey
or whatever else, you want that, get the broom that is already in the game.

In fairness, I think this is a little disingenuous. There’s a long tradition of heroes with special mounts, from Gandalf and Shadowfax to Bellerophon and Pegasus. One man’s “stupid horsey” might be another man’s something awesome, as with Odin’s horse, Sleipnir, which had eight totally absurd and impractical legs. You might not like horses in video games or feel they make a character cooler, but I really have to object to anyone saying Sigurd riding around on Grani isn’t “epic.”

Might as well just say “cool” if we’re going to discount magic horses, which are roughly as common in the epic genre as magic swords.

Most of the complaints fall into one of two categories:

1) It’s a terrible value, so it’s pointless at best, and insulting at worst.

2) By doubling down on the current system, ArenaNet seems to be ruling out the possibility that traits will become more flexible, such as by implementing a template system or at least eliminating the need to go to a city to change traits.

I think #1 is mostly rooted in a fundamental misunderstanding of the convenience item market, but #2 is rooted in a more difficult problem, in that these players want the system to be different in a fairly major way. The system they want isn’t strictly better or worse than the system in place (in my opinion,) but that just makes their complaints more sincere. They’re sincerely disappointed that a change isn’t being made that they think is for the better, and they’re frustrated because “more flexibility, more convenience” seems like an obvious improvement, while the advantages of a more restrictive system are much more subtle. That’s a fair reason to be disappointed, and if they’re passionate about the game, it’s understandable why a person might get frustrated or angry.

These two things don’t cover every complaint, mind you, and I’ve disagreed with quite a few people on this issue, but it’s wrongheaded to simply dismiss them with a “don’t like it, don’t buy it” attitude. That’s a shallow treatment of the problem, and certainly isn’t going to change anyone’s perspective on the issue.

Sweet rain of golden coins, Aberrant, that crafting guide is much better than the one I’ve been using. Into my bookmarks it goes!

Vayne.8563:

In every other MMO I’ve played, I’ve had different alts to play with different people who level at a different speed.

Been there before, and it was a huge pain in the neck. I’d start a character at the same time as a friend, we’d play for a while, and then one of us would get out of sync with the other because we weren’t only playing in sessions together, and before long I’m choosing between using my main (small challenge and even smaller rewards) and my alt, who is no longer level-appropriate. Ridiculous.

Now, I’ll occasionally bring in an alt if I want to train them (and they’re not too low to match my friend,) but if I want to bring in a level 80 character, I can still earn rewards without making my friend feel like a dog fighting alongside a tank.

Generally, if I see someone guesstimating how much of the GW2 playerbase is GW1 players, or how many have carried over, or how many have dropped off since release, I just ignore the number, because there’s no practical source for that as-is that I’m aware of. Lots of anecdotal evidence, sure, but when we’re talking statistics like this, the only thing I want to trust my own experience to do is remind me of all the times real, reliable statistics have gone against my expectations.

Numbers could be lower or higher than presented, so without sources or a clear methodology, it’s really just guessing one way or the other at the big picture.

Edit: For clarity, this was meant to follow right below Flash’s post, which is why I didn’t quote him or have any relation to what Dante is saying. Probably obvious, but it doesn’t hurt to be clear.

Powerleveling low-level characters is one reason, although it’s less cost-effective now than it used to be, and I wouldn’t particularly recommend it.

This isn’t going to apply to the majority of people, but if you want anything made with Charged Quartz (Celestial stats,) you’re going to have to craft it yourself, since it’s account bound. Of the top of my head, it’s mostly Quartz stuff and Ascended materials/weapons that you’ll need to craft yourself, since most other crafted items are tradeable.

I don’t doubt that some people make a profit from crafting, but, personally, I don’t know the market nearly well enough to figure it out, and I’m not nearly interested enough to make it something I want to pursue. But, hey, everyone’s got a hobby.

Spoiler alert: It’s about to get theoretical up in here. You’ve been warned.

Say I run a bar/club with a cover charge. Once inside, after having paid their initial fee, patrons can dance, enjoy music, hang out, and, hopefully, order food/drinks, for which I also charge money. Generally, I want to make money off the orders, so I don’t give them for free. However, if I offer patrons a way to win food/drinks for free (say, by randomly giving them out to people on the dance floor, offering them as prizes for trivia contest, for participation in karaoke, whatever,) I may be able to entice people to stay longer because they’re having a good time. The more people there are staying and having a good time, the cooler the place is, which entices other people to pay their cover charge to get in, and encourages those who are already there to place food/drink orders. Even though I’m taking a hit on the freebies I give out, if I’m smart, I can do much better business.

It’s a totally workable business model, and, indeed, Anet does give out Transmutation Crystals as rare prizes for Black Lion Chests and Daily Reward Chests, both of which can be earned in game. Transmutation Stones can be earned from Daily Reward Chests, too, (odds 17:1 in favor of Stones over Crystals, ) as well as from Map Completion Chests. 250 stones (as Shades suggested) would take an estimated 4,570 Daily Reward Chests. 50 Stones would take 914 daily bonus items. 10 would take 183. Clearly, that’s not going to dent gem sales.

These numbers don’t seem like they could possibly be right, so if someone would like to check them be my guest. It’s possibly I’ve made a mistake or have bad data.

I suspect most of these Transmutation Stones are coming from Map Completion, then, which, unfortunately, I don’t have usable numbers for, which means I’m finished with the math. Point is, Anet is fine with giving out basic gem store items; indeed, following the club example, it can help boost sales, in that it encourages players to invest more time, energy, and possibly money in the game. The only question is a matter of where the right place to set that dial is. Five stones per crystal might be too low, considering map completion frequently gives out three stones, but I’m sure there’s a reasonable number somewhere.

Given that ~200 transmutation stones are basically worthless to a player who has level 80 characters, but are still being rewarded, that could actually be more harmful to transmutation crystal sales (in that players are being constantly hassled with stones they have no use for, which is worse than no bonus item at all since they take up space,) so I think letting players do something with all those stones could be beneficial. Whether or not it would make any noticeable change on gem sales requires substantially more data and statistical modeling than I’m capable of handling, since there are a lot more moving parts in the game to account for.

1. It’s a matter of personal taste. One man’s “awesome armor” is another mans “children Halloween costume,” especially if it’s Citadel of Flame armor.

2. I actually really love zone level scaling. No matter where I go in the game, I get to feel challenged by the foes, even though my high-level gear, skills, etc. mean I’m still noticeably more powerful than, say, my friend who isn’t downscaled. Some of my favorite areas in the game are relatively low-level, and World Completion would be a absolute nightmare if I could just rip my way through every zone without any risk or strategy.

3. Sounds kinda like WvW, but I’ve only scratched the surface there, so I can’t pretend to give any strong (or even very knowledgeable) opinions there. I’ve never been much of a PvPer in games. \o/

4. Eh, I think your perspective on mounts is definitely reflective of whatever game you’re coming from, where they sound like a major status element, which is a purpose served by some of the more difficult to obtain armor sets, or, certainly, the more difficult to obtain weapons. Do the (nonflying) mounts you’re talking about actually do anything special, like add new combat skills, or just make you travel faster?

I’m glad you’re enjoying the game, at least!

October 1 Patch Notes

Many Gem Store items have had their rarity color updated to better match their cost, value, and availability relative to other areas of the game. The availability of these items has not changed.

I wouldn’t read anything into it. Not really even sure what rarity they were before; it’s kinda a nonsensical distinction.

Ouch, my sympathies. That is odd, though; I’ve gotten disconnected exactly once while fighting Tequatl that I can remember, and that was a day or two after the revamp. That’s some serious bad luck. >__<

Much as I liked old LA, with its cartoonishly tall sandcastle of a city, I think this is a more representative picture of the part of it players actually spent time in. A whole city might be there in lore, but most of our activity is definitely on the outskirts. Compare with, say, Kaineng City (now isolated from the Tyrian continent) or even Droknar’s Forge (underwater ruins now,) and it’s just not the same in the same class, at least as far as how players experience it.

I’m not sure which way this sways the discussion, but I thought it was some fun context for that picture of Lion’s Arch. I totally get why we never get to roam around the rest of Lion’s Arch, the generally more urban part, but that tower has always struck me as a little, well…silly. (Link is ten seconds of relevant joke, followed by irrelevant singing~)

Honestly, the Tail Flail achievement is really sketchy, and I’m still not entirely sure what the move actually looks like, as opposed to Tequatl just waving his tail around. I got it on accident, when he used fear to drive my character away into the water behind him. While I was still swimming away in terror, I guess he must have used the attack, because the achievement popped up.

I don’t mean to be a stickler for language, but what?

I think you’re saying instanced areas should be set up for champion farming? Sounds pretty much like the Crown Pavilion, if I understand it correctly.

Or are you saying that when an event goes up, like the Rotting Oakheart, only 10-30 people should be able to participate, capping the number of people who can effectively participate in the farm?

Sorry, but I’m really just not sure what you’re saying needs to be done, or really even why.

Speaking as an Elementalist who is traited for attunement swapping, I think we’ve got a ton of options already, and I don’t think adding more is a good idea. The more moving pieces there are to a build, the harder it is to balance its power level. More complexity doesn’t always make for better gameplay.

That’s a personal taste to some extent, but I think it’s hard to argue with the balance thing, at least.

As for the visual weapon swapping, while potentially cool, could also lead to some very wonky cases. Characters stow weapons when they aren’t using them, so the first thing I’m going to do is equip my mesmer with three different scepters and foci, just to see what happens. It’s not unsolveable, but do be aware that while “two axes, a longbow, and a greatsword” is an easy case to visualize, there are some much goofier ones waiting to happen.

…Could you rephrase the question? Because I don’t think the video speaks for itself quite as much as you meant it to.

…Is that a real question?

Stubie.5834:

What is power creep?

“Power Creep” is a reference to the phenomenon where the maximum power level of something goes up over time. People like more powerful things, so game designers will often raise the bar with new content, like raising a level cap or introducing new, more powerful abilities.

In this game, the introduction of Ascended gear, is the primary example of power creep, since it’s strictly more powerful than Exotic gear, which was the old top-tier for equipment. Power Creep isn’t entirely bad, since it can give players something new to strive for by raising the bar, but it’s frequently treated negatively, since it means the old “best in show” gear is going to be made obsolete, and not all players who geared up for exotic are willing or able to deck themselves out in ascended stuff.

/themoreyouknow

I recently bought a pair of rings (Solaria and Lunaria) and an amulet (Syzergy,) not so much because I need ascended stats, as because they just seemed cool to me. (And happen to match my armor build.) There are a lot of cool trinkets available for laurels, flavor-wise, so I’d recommend looking through them if you have a boatload of laurels and haven’t upgraded yet.

With that many, might as well get the minis, or at least the Endless Mystery Cat Tonic, if you’re into that kind of thing. Or you could just blow it all on 668 Unidentified Dye. Not gonna lie, the dye tempts me more than it should. If I hadn’t liked the celestial-stat gear so much, I probably would have gotten that cat tonic, personally.

If you have a use for them and would like to save yourself some karma elsewhere, some Obsidian Shards might come in handy. Assuming you’re interested in legendary weapons or ascended crafting.

…At least some of the back items and Super Adventure Box weapons are holo?

No, please, don’t get up. I’ll throw myself out.

(Obligatory on-topic: While I’m not a fan of Anise’s outfit, it does seem to be a popular one.)

Edit:

Onshidesigns.1069:

Agree,

Anet did give us the Lady Kasmeer armor. Even though we don’t have the her swimsuit.

I like Kasmeer’s armor, but I have to admit I’m somewhat relieved we didn’t get swimsuits. I can take a certain amount of fantasy armor cheesiness, but I’d rather not see people running around in swimsuits everywhere. Yeah, they can take off their armor, but I almost wonder if the blandness of the character underwear is why I don’t see people do that more often.

For real? The OP said you can’t buy them on the trading post, so I figured (s)he had already checked there first, and I didn’t bother to check if that was actually true or not. I’m not sure what this topic is even about, if you can just go out and buy the recipes. :/

As for the price, I think I was doing the math with Pristine Snowflakes (tier 5, 26.7s each,) instead of Flawless (tier 6, 8.52s each,) because stupid snowflakes. Arglebargle.

It’s confusing enough to keep them straight without the higher-tier material being the second-cheapest in cost, with the absolute cheapest being Unique Snowflakes, which are…fourth tier, apparently. Thanks for setting me straight.

Snowflake market is screwed up, man.

Chiming in to confirm what Wanze said; if you’ve upgraded it, it becomes soulbound, except for some unusual account bound gear. That seems to be what happened here.

Mystic.5934:

there are berserker’s amulets on the TP… are you sure it was crafted? don’t crafted trinket names look something more like: “Ruby Orichalcum Amulet of the Berserker”?

This is correct.

So, you can sell crafted stuff, but not if you’ve made it soulbound with upgrades. And the two amulets in the OP weren’t crafted in the first place, anyway.

Edit:
On further thought, I think it’s worth pointing out that you could sell the gemstone upgrades you make with crafting, just not gear it’s been applied to. So, you could sell a crafted Beryl-based gemstone (for Valkyrie stats,) just as long as you don’t apply it to something first, which isn’t a crafting process. If you craft an amulet, it already has the gemstone pre-applied, and you can sell it on the trading post.

The exception here is with Charged Quartz and anything made with it, which is always account bound. Hope that clears up any lingering confusion.

Ah, yes, making it optional, like gambits, would fix the problem I was thinking of. Fair enough, Smith, fair enough.

While I can’t help walk you through crafting myself, here’s my favorite guide on the subject. I can’t guarantee it’s the cheapest way to go, because I don’t follow the trading post markets very closely, but following along with it in one or two crafts will give you a very good idea of how the process in general works.

Personally, I didn’t start crafting until my second character, once I had some seed money/supplies for materials, and didn’t actually take it seriously until I used this guide to shoot my third character through Artificer. Used in moderation, it’s not unreasonably expensive, but if you want to power level with it, it’ll help if you’ve built up resources first.

Still figuring out how I feel about power leveling. I think my artificer rocketed to 20 or so (though it’ll be different now, since they changed how crafting deals out XP,) and I remember feeling like I’d rushed it, since I was abruptly overpowered for the newbie areas, before I’d even settled on what weapon combinations I liked for that character.

Smith.1826:

Obsidian.1328:

Vayne

Everyone hates dying. But the downed state just makes the PvE aspect easier overall. There’s very little “fear” of character death. Just another way the game is more casual than GW1.

I think they could definitely add in some features that would encourage players to die less, maybe like a bonus at the end of a dungeon if no one was down or dead for the run, etc.

The trouble with that idea is that as soon as someone goes down, that player or the entire group (depending on how it’s setup) may want to restart the dungeon, possibly because someone got hit with some bad-luck criticals. That gives serious dungeon farmers, who are likely the ones most interested in a hardcore, no-downs mode, even more reason to screen out less elite players, or to kick players who screw up their perfect dungeon run. I think the unintended consequences might shake out to be worse than the benefit.

I can’t comment on how it plays in PvP/WvW, but I really like the downed system. It gives battles more drama in a very organic way, much more than, say, “krait pulls you, second krait critical hits you, dead, way point” would. It does make PvE easier than it would be without it, certainly, but it makes PvE easier in a more interesting way. There’s still the fear that if I die, I’ll have to waypoint and have damaged armor, but it gives me some extra strategic decisions. It won’t win me a fight I’m outmatched on (because I won’t have anyone close enough to dying, or if I do, I’m just going down again until I’m dead,) but it gives more excitement to even matches.

From an angle that might be frequently looked over about the downed state, I carry around Signet of Renewal a lot, and I like how it requires me to act quickly if I want to revive downed players, since it can’t revive dead ones, unlike, say, Resurrection Signet, which didn’t have that ticking clock to put pressure on me.

Giver’s Recipes were available as part of Wintersday, which is why the require snowflakes. They’ll probably return again this winter, but for now, the recipes are inaccessible if you don’t have them already.

You can, however, buy the inscriptions on the trading post (4.4g for armor, 7.7g for weapon,) as well as simply buying Giver’s armor/weapons directly off the trading post. They’re not cheap, but neither are the materials (Flawless Snowflakes,) and only people who participated in Wintersday can craft them, way out here in October.

Edit: Looks like PurebladeProductions beat me to it.

HiddenNick.7206:

To sum it all up: all that what this game is after completing personal story is POINTLESS and really feels like a waste of time. The game has no structure or anything that would keep normal people around.

Without getting into a bit-by-bit reply to everything the OP wrote, whether or not I agree, I think this last line is very telling, and fairly questionable. I’m not sure what you mean by “normal.” The game seems developed in such a way as to appeal to a lot of gamers for very different reasons. I’ve known a lot of people who didn’t like the personal story, and either ignore it or have finished it begrudgingly. I, on the other hand, liked it, finished it in the first month, finished it two more times, and am still hanging around in the game, largely for the personal story and the fun I get doing the World Boss circuit.

I don’t submit myself as an example of the average player, but I think it’s worth keeping in mind that not everyone is going to like the same content, and that’s okay. We shouldn’t be too quick to say “I’m not having fun, so the game itself must be totally broken,” and write off massive parts of the game that we don’t personally enjoy.

It seems like a lot of the complaints in the OP are very efficiency-minded, like saying that only the best farming dungeons count, or that only reason to play PvE is for a particular type of armor. I’m not saying these areas are perfect, but I am saying that they’re being looked at through a very narrow-minded lens here.

On the upside, Heritage skins are pretty cool, and super-convenient, since you can get any number of them.

I wouldn’t change/redo armor that’s already in the game; people get fairly upset when you take stuff away from them. (See: Magic Find Armor, Tequatl, TA f/u path.)

People complain about the number of trench-coats, but it seems like the only chestpieces I ever see that aren’t long coats are Duelist/Named and Tier 3 human. I realize that might be skewed a bit because most options are long, but there are at least a couple short skins that could stand more use.

Also, medium pirate boots are awesome.

I don’t know if it’s practical for Living Story or if it would depend on an expansion, but I’d like to see more done with the Orders either way. Personally, I get fairly invested in them, and I think the Order Headquarters are wonderfully-designed locations…that feel a bit empty. Similar to Divinity’s Reach, they’re areas I love going to, but rarely have any reason to go to besides aesthetic enjoyment.

Tossing out what’s practical to be implemented at this point, I’m really interested in what would have been ideal in this area, more than scattered references like the game has currently. Do you think the 250-year time jump is just too much?

Personally, I liked the personal story. It’s riddled with imperfections, but I got through it three times without getting bored, and I’m working on a fourth. It’s not storytelling gold, but if I want that, I’ll play Ico or Final Fantasy IX, or lots of other things that aren’t an MMO. I enjoyed choose your own adventure books as a kid, but there are reasons the stories they can tell are so limited, and even more so in a video game.

Anyway, with full awareness of the story’s flaws, Veasna’s right: Future personal story updates will do better to tell a new story than to rewrite the old one. It’s simply not practical or a good use of time/money to redo a ton of existing story missions, dialogue, animation, etc., unless it’s fundamentally broken and unusable, which it isn’t. It might be cheesy or underwritten in parts, but it’s enjoyable to some for what it is, and playable to the rest if they want.

I will agree that the rewards are terrible, Pact Weapons in particular. Setting their skins aside as a question of personal preference, they’re Rare-quality weapons with Magi’s stats (a combination that doesn’t strike me as particularly useful, with no option to change them,) and a Major Sigil of Force, which is just plain lame given that the a rare weapon with a Superior Rune of Force and Berserker’s stats is awarded for completing Against the Corruption, four whole story steps earlier. “Underwhelming” doesn’t even do it justice.

While I can see some argument for it, and I’m not generally opposed to violence in video games, killing virtual kids is still, to me, a lot more unsettling than killing virtual adults, even if they were zombies. While in game terms, there might not be a practical difference, in symbolic terms, it’s a lot nastier, and I don’t think GW2 wants to get that dark.

Reason #8 why the Shatterer could do with a rewrite. Without getting into how difficult that rewrite should be (Hello, Tequatl! You’re not the subject of this topic, so go home!) the fight really needs to be more interactive, and give people a reason not to crowd his foot and ignore all of his minions, his attacks, and the long-range guns.

Sounds like a fairly unbearable experience.

While I’d like Shatterer and the Claw of Jormag to get updated, I’d prefer them to stick closer to a slightly more involved version of the Claw in difficulty and organization than to new Tequatl. Shatterer is a cakewalk, but the Claw has the start of some interesting mechanics.

Much as I like the experience of the new Tequatl, it comes down to the fact that I can’t imagine doing Tequatl, Crystal Tequatl, and Ice Tequatl all in one day, especially if they’re on separate timers. Tequatl is hard enough without two other equally-difficult events splitting the interested population between them.

Gotta agree with Donari on this; seeing as a Transmutation Crystal costs 2.2 gold right now (per stone if you buy a five-pack, the lowest denomination,) there’s no way I’m going to risk one of my favorite skins for such a small reward. Most skins, I only want on one character or are fairly cheap to acquire a new one, and the rest that aren’t are too valuable to gamble with.

The ability to give Shattered wings to each of your characters might save you some very mild decision-making, but that’s hardly worth a high probability that you’ll be worse off than when you started, without wings for any of your characters.

Actually, I’m not even on TeamSpeak, and I’ve still ended up doing the turrets once or twice. North Turrets, so they don’t need that as much coordination, but still.

It’s as hardcore as you want to make it, but as long as most people are keeping focused and know their job, I think the “non-TTS to zerg” is just being over-serious.

I’ve written enough in this thread already that anyone can check my other posts for my opinions, but I wanted to note that Obsidian’s criticisms, while not necessarily all ones I agree with, are generally insightful and well-presented.

I spend a lot of my time on these forums shooting at half-formed ideas (“Anet hates money! Lazy devs! Freedom of DLC is a right!”) so it only seems appropriate to acknowledge an unusually good, opposing opinion, and this one cast a new light on some things I hadn’t considered. Props to you.

SpoooOOOOooooky.

I’m kinda curious about this now. Might have to check it out next time I’m in Queensdale.

As Locoman said, if you’re having fun, keep doing it until it’s not fun anymore. \o/

Personally, I like the Personal Story, and if you’re already level 30, you can just jump from mission to mission without the usual couple of levels of exploration/grind in between. If you want the story missions to be more challenging, you might want to do them as you level, however.

Elementalists have a variety of magical abilities based on the four elements, including faster movement (Signet of Air and various Air attunement spells,) some excellent healing (Water spells,) and the ability to conjure elemental weapons. Fire Magic also has some “quick reflexes” skills in the form of Burning Retreat, Burning Speed, Heat Wave, and Flame Leap.

Nothing about potions, which sounds mechanically most similar to Engineers. I only played Engineer and Necro during beta, however, so someone else will have to tell you how well they line up.

What is it you want, exactly, as a continuation of the lore from the old game? Keeping in mind that it has to be fun and intelligible for those totally unfamiliar with the old games, too.

(I don’t doubt there are good ways to handle it; I’m legitimately asking what you have in mind.)

sirsquishy.8531:

Jormag and Shatterer were left alone, they are both very facerollable. So why only Teq is like this. THIS is what feels unbalanced to me!

While I expect them to eventually do some more revisions to the Claw of Jormag and the Shatterer, especially the Shatterer, I think it’s good that they only started with Tequatl.

He’s obviously been a very controversial change, and I’d rather they rock the boat with one dragon and see how it goes than to risk turning the boat over by redoing all the dragons at once. That’s one of the main pros going for the Living Story, that they can learn from biweekly releases rather than having to lump them all into the occasional large release without getting feedback first.

Even once you hit 450 and can refine them, it takes 14 silver and 2 Obsidian Shards to get rid of 100, which is less than half a stack. Given that you only need 500 Bloodstone Dust (5 Bricks’ worth) to make an ascended weapon, I say figure out how many ascended weapons you realistically plan on crafting, then toss the rest. Even if you change your mind later, if you’ve got them running out your ears right now, you probably won’t have too much difficulty restocking if you need them again.

As Grimm suggested, you might consider waiting to see if Ascended Armor uses them before you decide what to do. Currently, I’ve been stashing stacks of them in a more-or-less unused bag on one of my alts, the only one who can craft them, while I try to decide if ascended gear is worth all the cost for materials. (Lots of laurels or karma for Obsidian, crafting exotics to level up craft, salvaging exotics for Dark Matter, etc. It adds up.)

They might be an exception to the rule, but don’t forget about The Pale Reavers.

For a sense of perspective, it might be worth noting that 250 years from our past is 1763. That’s a fairly far back, and while we know quite a lot about it, we also have the advantage of readily-available history books on basically any subject, as well as the internet, movies, and other media that can reinforce and expand history for us. In Tyria, however, if you’re not in the Durmand Priory, you’re probably more worried about putting food on the table and not getting killed by centaurs than about who did what 250 years ago.

Some exceptions include the Charr, who have some enormous statues to their cultural heroes after two-and-a-half centuries of cultural revolution and civil war, and the Norn, who celebrate semi-exaggerated versions of their cultural heroes, including Jora and Svanir, as part of their tradition. The progress-minded Asura don’t seem very interested in history or tradition, and the Sylvari are too young as a species (24 years for the firstborn,) to have much awareness of history.

As for the humans, their day-to-day seems to be wrapped up in their war with the centaurs. Divinity’s Reach, the center of Krytan culture after the destruction of Lion’s Arch, is only 106 years old, and Lion’s Arch has been building a new culture, up from “pirate lair” to “city,” in the past 96 years, after being in ruins for 10 years. That’s a lot of upheaval, and a lot closer to home to the general population than the destruction of the Titans or the Great Destroyer, both of which were practically unknown to people at large.

The only place where you see much cultural continuity is Ebonhawke, which has been withstanding siege for 250 years and is the last unbroken thread of Ascalonian heritage. People there might remember their heroes, but they’re wrapped up in the potential end of their war with the char.

Basically, if it seems like 90% of the world knows nothing about the heroes’ exploits in GW1, that’s because 90% of the world really doesn’t. They’re too busy to study history, even if the history is available (which is frequently isn’t unless you’re a scholar or noble.) Those that do know are pretty occupied with all the other wars at hand, including the war on the dragons.

Sources:
Here is a really fantastic interview with Jeff Grubb, where he talks about the damaged history between GW1 and GW2. Highly recommended.

Movement of the World, a document ArenaNet put up describing the tremendous upheavals Tyria has been through.

Official timeline I used for dates in this post.

I could count on one hand (or, indeed, half a hand,) the number of times I’ve told guildmates to play nice with other people. You’re always going to get a couple bad apples, and these, I think, were just getting overly swept-up in the organization and preparation. We might try to find a low-population overflow to start in and fill up, but that’s because we’re filling up 4-5 servers after reset, and the less strung out we are, the better. Once we’re in an overflow, people don’t bother to hide that fact anymore. (Something I remember a couple times from when the event was new and it was hard to reliably find a low-population overflow.) I was in OF5 last night, which had a lot of non-guild members, and it was a great time once we started getting organized.

As for the strategies being secret, that’s absurd and no one thinks that. Probably because someone, anyone, going over strategy in map chat beforehand is, to me, the clearest indicator that a run is going to succeed, because the key is having people who are organized and not-AFK. TTS is mostly a way to facilitate enough people to hit critical mass, with or without non-members in a zone.

So, I’m sorry for your bad experience, but hopefully that experience is the exception, rather than the rule!

SlappedYak.7489:

Guilds like TSS (not the wvw one) and TKS are not guilds formed out of loyalty or community or friendship, they are a means to an end, to farm a world boss.

They might have been formed for a specific purpose, but I’ve gotten to know a heck of a lot more people in TSS than I ever did in my old guild, and while repping is optional, I’ve switched to repping full-time. In my experience, this shared experience is bringing people together, and I actually recognize folks now, even more than the ones I see doing the standard world boss circuit.