Guild Wars 2

Sounds like a wonderful idea. But I think there’s bigger issues for ArenaNet to focus on than the vacant space on the character selection screen. Not that polishing the character selection screen is stupid, it’s actually a pretty smart idea, but I feel like if they’re going to do it, they should do it as an off-handed thing. As in, do it when/if you have spare time.

Steven Kk K C.9413:

I wouldn’t be too sure the murkvale waypoint in Brisban is completly shattered you can look at the shattered parts on the ground if you go visit.

That is true, but I don’t think ArenaNet’s going to stumble into a deep, dark hole and be like “GG. Have fun with no waypoints, guys! ”

Then again I might just be acting naive here and they actually are planning to do that, in which the appropriate response would be…

/facepalm

(Also, apparently the forums don’t think “naive” is a word, and it keeps wanting to auto-correct it. It keeps making the single dot on the letter I into two dots.)

Why do people not care about Belinda’s death? When I saw her dead it utterly shocked me. Maybe I get connected to characters a lot more easily than other people…

Or I’m a special person. The world may never know.

Omg Im Target.3095:

We all know our true savior

Post of the Year 2014. Totally.

On a more serious note, no, Trahearne is not our true savior. Our true savior should be quite obvious.

…

……

What? Don’t look at me like that.

Chameleon Dude.1564:

Then where’s my commando in Orr? We need chopper support.

Your Commando’s gone missing. There is no chopper support. We are doomed.

Stooperdale.3560:

Isn’t that the minstrel who sings so badly, a warrior goes out to kill the risen just to get away from him?

Yes, it is.

I do agree to some extent, but I wouldn’t consider it that bad. Maps in Guild Wars 1 were all pretty much corridor runs, so it’s nothing new to me. I rarely came across a map or zone in the original game that didn’t feel at least somewhat like a maze. The countless wasted hours going on the completely wrong path when trying to get to a destination in post-searing Ascalon. It was a nightmare…

An added note, you have to log in during the two weeks in which the update is “current”. If you don’t, I believe you can purchase previous episodes by going to the story journal and probably clicking on a button there related to the episode you want to purchase. I haven’t needed to purchase an episode yet though so i’m not sure exactly how it works.

Also, the gem price is supposedly 200 gems.

I support this idea! I’ve always wondered why certain choices other than race aren’t more represented in the story, and your choice of profession is a glaring one. Don’t get me wrong, in the Tower of Nightmares they had instances which showed characters that were close to your character in the personal story, such as logan, rytlock, Tybalt, forgal, and trahearne.

The thing is though, that may have been cool and all, but what if they had a scenario where you had to talk to a human character who was on the streets their entire life. Humans have a street rat option at character creation. Wouldn’t it be cool to have a unique “I know what that is like, I lived on the streets of Divinity’s Reach for a large portion of my life.” response versus other characters’ responses of “That’s too bad.”?

Or what about with charr, you meet a charr character who is very loyal to the blood legion. Most characters wouldn’t have any dialogue related to that but ash and iron legion charr could have dialogue saying, “Iron/Ash Legion is better than your legion.” or blood legion charr saying, “I agree, Blood Legion is the best.”

Maybe it’s just wishful thinking on my part. :/

Snowmoon.1758:

As topic.

Belinda or Drooburt?

Belinda:
We only saw her for 1 episode, chit chatted abit then saw her hang in Episode 2.
While she’s related to Marjory, and its sad that she died, i can’t help but feel that Anet
wasted an opportunity to pull an “Aeris” on us. She should have stayed for a couple of episodes more IMO, which would make her death MORE impactful. Really lost a golden opportunity with this one IMO.

Drooburt:
Surprisingly, i felt more sad at seeing Drooburt die then Belinda.
Partly because I know i’ll never see my 1 gold back lol.
He was just there, with absolutely no reason other then asking for money.
While we also only saw Droo for only 1 episode, we have absolutely no idea where he’s from, other then a probably down on his luck quaggan just needing a drink and i dunno, i truly felt sad when i saw him just hanging there, because he truly was an innocent victim of Mordy’s onslaught.

Waddya’ll think?

I think Belinda’s death was more impactful. Why do I say that? I actually got to know Belinda a little. I barely knew Drooburt at all though, so while I could relate to Belinda to some extent, I couldn’t relate to Drooburt at all.

(Although I did have the “Awww, they killed the quaggan!” reaction when I saw him dead.)

My reaction to Belinda’s death was utter shock. I sat there, my eyes staring at the screen and I was like “Well fudge. That was unexpected. Poor Belinda… I feel bad for Marjory now.” I almost wanted to tell Marjory that everything would be okay.

He never moved. He was always in Orr. What are you talking about? O.o

He’s a reference to the Minstrel class from pre-launch for guild wars 2. It’s a different minstrel from the one seen with Hobo-Tron. The song he plays is the same song that was played on the guild wars 2 homepage when the minstrel class was revealed.

And before you ask, the Minstrel class was one of ArenaNet’s April Fool’s Jokes before Guild Wars 2 launched.

Also want to add, that guy’s been there since guild wars 2 launched, so he’s not new.

… /facepalm

Seriously? Season 2 has zero to do with Bubbles, yet you’re “expecting” them to give more information about that?!

And what do you mean by class buffs? Do you mean new skills, or maybe skills that give you boons? If so, be more specific.

And wait, you’re expecting them to give a new playable race or class and then say “I highly doubt it”? What…

Besides, anet has said before that while a new race or class isn’t something they are ruling out completely, the likelihood that it will happen anytime soon is slim. So stop asking! It gets oh so annoying.

Do you even realize the amount of work that would have to be put into a new class, let alone a new RACE? A new race would need an entire personal story made for it, a home city, customization options, and all armor and weapon skins would have to be adapted to the new model.

Also, this is the five hundredth thread to be made with this topic.

HiddenNick.7206:

Are you being serious?

Dry Top content is not about cooperation. Ok, there are a lot of people that help with the event. But there is no need to prepare your build accordingly to other party members. You don’t need to be on team speak or communicate in any other way.

I know that some people whined about content that they can’t do solo. But people will whine whatever you do. I’m not happy about the story instances being solo only. So what about me?! For some reason I’m less important?
There are also a lot people crying that this game(combat) is shallow. And one of the reasons for this is that there is not so enough content where you need to use your skill.

One more thing… If I understand your point correctly you’re asking to not put any story related stuff into dungeons? Or maybe there shouldn’t be more dungeons?

Also. I’m not asking to make story instances group only. I’m asking to make some version of those instances for groups.

I absolutely love the single player story instance format for story content, but at the same time a few dungeons here or there won’t hurt either, in my opinion. For the main story, I would prefer it to be story instances, but for the very major plot points, like incursions into an area to defeat a main villain, then dungeons would seem better suited in my opinion.

The dungeons also shouldn’t be required to understand the story, they should sort of be there on the side, and while they address major plot points like I said, you won’t lose out on all the context if you don’t do them. See what i’m saying, I guess? For example, the majority of the dungeons at launch were not required to understand the personal story.

Until of course you have to kill Zhaitan, and all of a sudden the two stories are thrust together. But eh, while I love single-player instances and think it should be majority single-player as well as open world content, new dungeons would be great too.

Perhaps there could be a compromise?

I honestly think Trahearne isn’t even that bad of a character. The extent of his negative aspects are how monotone he might sound to people, but that’s just his voice. I don’t base a character’s quality purely off their voice. There’s a lot of interesting things about Trahearne that make him unique, such as his quirkiness and nervous scholar attitude.

Another thing to note is he never once stole your story. The people who keep saying that are, in my opinion, utterly insane. At what point does he steal your credit? Only once really, and that’s during Forging the Pact.

Thing is, if I remember correctly, that fight was originally supposed to be a sort of duel, or at least that’s what the npc dialogue implied to me. However, ArenaNet decided to opt out of that and have the player fight it for some unknown reason? I personally interpret it as a mistranslation between gameplay and story. Something was off there, and it didn’t seem intended either.

As for every other moment in the PS, he basically grovels at your feet and is like “Oh, mighty player character, without you, the entire Pact would have failed! You are our HERO!” Meanwhile, the rest of the NPCs stand around and chant at you with the words, “Commander! Commander!”, reveling you as the hero.

Okay, maybe not exactly like that, but metaphorically speaking that’s how the PS came off to me as. Then again, I constantly double-click NPCs, even in the PS missions, and I read the dialogue window. If you don’t read the dialogue windows then yeah, it might appear like you’re not the most important, but reading the dialogue windows in each mission turns that entire perception around.

Ariella Goldstein.3562:

Stramatus.5219:

Janderson.4670:

people NEED to keep in mind that Ascalon was ORIGINALLY charr territory so a rightful king to it would most likely be a charr.

No. I don’t subscribe to that retconned lore. That only came about when they decided to make charr a playable race. Us Ascalonian humans are once again getting shafted by this game and Anet.

You do know that Anet had intended as such as far back as EotN, right? It’s why the whole Pyre Fierceshot storyline existed.

While that is true, ArenaNet also planned for charr to be a playable race as far back as Eye of the North too. The reason Eye of the North was created was as a prelude to Guild Wars 2. It’s why it introduces the norn, asura, and sylvari all in one go, and has a Hall of Monuments that allows you to get rewards for Guild Wars 2.

In-fact, near the end of Eye of the North, there’s a cinematic where Ogden Stonehealer talks about events that would happen in Guild Wars 2 such as “New heroes would rise.” and “A new race would be born.” One refers to the player character and his allies in the story of Guild Wars 2, the other to sylvari. And that’s just a snippet of the cinematic, there was a lot more allusion to Gw2’s story in it as well.

In-fact, if you go to the Guild Wars 1 website, and go to the product page of EotN it says “Forge your legacy now for Guild Wars 2!”

Originally, the next campaign for Guild Wars 1 was supposed to be Utopia, but they scrapped it and opted for a sequel, and used Eye of the North and the Guild Wars: Beyond events as preludes to said sequel.

JerryMain.4371:

Sorann Peace.9056:

Rurik was Adelbern’s daughter

Though I do not agree on that statement,
Baradin was fine with Adelbern being king and Adelbern is a decendant of Doric.

WOOPS! I fixed it, my bad. Meant to say son, not daughter….

A good thing to note here is that in What Scarlet Saw, I believe Scarlet refers to “turning opposing forces against each other.” or something to that extent. Originally, people assumed she was talking about the Dream and the Nightmare Court. She could however be talking about Elder Dragons, in which case, your speculation is absolutely spot on fantastic and coincides completely with her short story.

As an aside, back when Mordremoth was speculated to be behind everything, I sort of speculated to myself about that specific part of the short story and wondered if she was referring to Elder Dragons, and while it seemed to make some degree of sense to me, I don’t think I or anyone else brought it up before.

You know what I find kind of ridiculous?

Is it just me or have Braham and Rox, in the past two episodes, felt sort of… I don’t know… moved aside a bit?

Think about it for a moment. In Episode 1, Marjory and Kasmeer are the ones we interact with the most. They’re the ones we talk to about the issues going on.

I don’t remember a single point in the last two episodes where we’re told to talk to Braham or Rox. In-fact I think the extent of Braham and Rox’s dialogue the past two episodes has been the following:

Braham: “Let’s smash this.”

Rox: “Eh, not a good idea.”

While Marjory, Kasmeer and Taimi is like this:

Marjory: “Hm… what if this sylvari is… soundless?”
Marjory: “Hey sis, we’re out here investigating the vines.”
Marjory: “Have you managed to track down who E is yet?” (talking to the player)
Marjory: “Belinda! No!” -sobbing-
Kasmeer: “I’m so sorry, Marjory, is there anything I can do?”
Marjory: “Just… just leave me alone. I… I need to bring her body back to mother. Lay her to rest… i’ll catch up with you later.”
Taimi: “No no no! Don’t smash this! It’s too valuable!”
Kasmeer: “This is interesting…”
Kasmeer: “Try using this sun crystal to get through the barrier.”
Kasmeer: “This thing’s blocking my magic.”
Kasmeer: “Marjory’s sister er… died…”
Taimi: “If you let me power these consoles, that’d be great!”
Taimi: “Well I found this out and that out about Scarlet…”
Taimi: “This will make me win the Snaff Prize! Eeeeee! Genius!”
Taimi: “I think I can figure out a way to fix the waypoints.”
Taimi: “Leylines are elusive…”
Taimi: “Stop worrying about me!”

You starting to see the point here now?

Oh, and throw in a random:

Rox: “Eh, since we’re here, check out this diary?”

geogyf.5087:

At least in the main story you have 3 dialogue options.
1) Fury
2)Dignity
3)Guile
Now these options didnt affect the story at all, but reinforced the roleplaying aspect.

Now in the season 2 story, so far, you only have one option.
Click to continue.
This creates a sense of detachement from the character.

ArenaNet/NCSoft please reconsider implementing that system again.

While I would love a system based on the personal system for dialogue, like you’re implying, the dialogue we have with the characters right now isn’t necessarily click to continue. I mean, you’re still saying something to the character.

But if you’re referring to the fact there’s often only one option for what to say, I agree we need more variety. While it isn’t something I would place on my top list of priorities, there are a lot of other in-game issues I think could be addressed, it is certainly an interesting discussion to have.

Perhaps they need to bring back and utilize the personality system more. They removed the icon, but the system is still there mechanically, you just no longer have a reference to see what personality type you are anymore.

Given how they don’t use the splash screen dialogue like they did in the PS, they might be able to use it much better now. But then again, it might require resources that would be better spent on improving quality elsewhere.

TL;DR – I agree with you and I think it’s an interesting discussion to have.

An added aside though? It’s Ferocity, Dignity and Charisma, I believe. Not Fury, Dignity, and Guile.

Well I can list several examples where the NPCs actively refer to you being there.

1. In Episode 1, on the second story instance, at the beginning Marjory says, “lead the way, boss.” (referring to you.)

2. In Episode 1, on the second story instance, Kasmeer drops crystals and says, “Can you help take out those machines? I can’t seem to get over there, the magic is blocking me.” (Yet again, referring to you.)

3. In Episode 2, on the first story instance, Taimi, when asked by Kasmeer whether she is allowed to use one of the consoles, says, “Sorry, this one’s for the boss only.” (referring to you, AGAIN.)

4. In Season 1, on the final battle in the Breachmaker, Marjory again says, “Lead the way, boss.” like in episode 1 of season 2.

5. And that’s just when talking about open world dialogue. If you regularly click on the characters and read what they say to you in the closed dialogue window, they’ll constantly talk to you like you’re a friend and an important member of the team. They’ll openly discuss with your character about what’s going on and you can select options to tell them what you think of the situation.

6. And who can forget the Eternal Alchemy cinematic. Really.

An added aside, I recently watched a “story only” video of CoF story. You know what they did? They skipped 95% of all the dialogue you get when you double-click an NPC. They skipped 95% of it! That’s insanity! The ‘only’ parts they listened to were actual cinematics and open world dialogue. What the actual F?! That’s skipping like, 60% of the story context!

It reminds me way too much of people who click accept on a quest prompt in WoW and don’t even read what the window says. What, you expect to get a story when you don’t even READ IT?

And keep in mind, ArenaNet has said that they did away with the old fashioned two people talking against a background splash screen format from the PS. Because of that, your character only converses in click dialogue for the most part now. So, for the people who complain about the lack of your character speaking I have four words:

Read. The. Dialogue. Window.

I want to add on to this because I just watched a WoodenPotatoes video about the subject. To the people complaining about Rytlock being the one to “supposedly” free the ghosts from their curse, WoodenPotatoes pointed something out that I noticed too, which is that the scene takes place in Duke Barradin’s lair.

I didn’t manage to extrapolate anything past that but WoodenPotatoes did! He went into the story of how when the king before Adelbern was king died, Barradin was slated to be the next king. However, the Ascalonian people felt that Adelbern would be a better king so they crowned him instead.

Technically, Adelbern isn’t the rightful heir of Ascalon, but Barradin is. As an aside, he also pointed out Althea was to marry Rurik, and since Althea was Barradin’s daughter and Rurik was Adelbern’s son, the bloodline would go back to normal anyway. However, Althea died in the charr invasion and Rurik died at the hands of the Stone Summit while crossing the Shiverpeaks with other Ascalonian refugees shortly after the Searing.

The fact that Rytlock is doing this in Barradin’s Lair makes me wonder. Like WoodenPotatoes said, what if he’s merely calling on the spirit of Duke Barradin to free the ghosts, and Rytlock himself isn’t the one who actually does it?

Thuggernaut.1250:

Mass Effect:
1. Reapers awaken every 50000 years to consume life
2. Player experiences a vision of the reapers from a beacon (which he inadvertently triggered to save Ashley)
3. Player builds a multi-species coalition to fight reapers

Guild Wars 2:
1. Dragons awaken every 10000 years to consume magic
2. Player experiences a vision of dragons from Omadd’s machine (which he inadvertently triggered to save Taimi)
3. Player builds a multi-species Pact to fight dragons

I think anyone that saw the new cutscene from the most recent episode (that also played Mass Effect) instantly got a flashback to Commander Shepard. At first I thought that the writing got marginally better (compared to season one), but come on… now they’re blatantly ripping off another game with a threadbare plot to begin with?

I’m pretty sure this isn’t the first example of a game using a storyline that has similarities with another game’s storyline. It happens all the time in most media. That includes not only video games, but movies and books as well. I think you’re sort of grasping at straws here…

Plus, not to mention, it doesn’t necessarily have to be stolen either. Games use similar plotlines all the time, that doesn’t mean they stole from each other. Just look at EverQuest 2 and World of Warcraft. They both launched with roughly similar gameplay and are still similar to this day. People accuse WoW of copying EQ2 and accuse EQ2 of copying WoW all the time. The truth is, they were developed at the same time. It was coincidence, as they were released two weeks apart from each other.

And by two weeks, I mean EverQuest 2 was released and then almost exactly two weeks later WoW was released. Though it could’ve been WoW first and EQ2 second but I think you get my point.

I see so many people jumping on the bandwagon to complain and/or speculate negatively about the upcoming update to Guild Wars 2. Here are a few things brought up that I think are absolutely ludicrous and need to be addressed.

1. “Charr personal story would need a re-write!”

No, no it wouldn’t. ArenaNet has already said the living world takes place after the personal story. Sure, the world might change, but the personal story doesn’t need to change at all, since it takes place in 1325 AE, 2 years before the ghosts are in-fact released from their curse (1327 AE).

2. “He’s not the rightful king of Ascalon!” (referring to Rytlock)

Uh, your point? The trailer doesn’t show him succeeding or failing, so why jump on the bandwagon and complain about something that we don’t even know is correct or not? And even if he does succeed, you realize “Rightful king of Ascalon” doesn’t necessarily mean a descendant of Doric, right? It can be symbolic too, and that sort of trope tends to be so in a lot of literature.

3. “This is part 1 of the season finale!”

Wait what? Are you kidding? To think they would wrap up Season 2 ten times more quickly than Season 1 seems ridiculous. Season 1 lasted over a year. It started in January of 2013 and ended in March of 2014, and that’s only if you don’t count the first three events that came out in October, November, and December of 2012 respectively. (Remember the Lost Shores? Anyone? Yes? No? Karka invasion, guys? Southsun Cove revealed? Lion’s Arch Lighthouse destroyed? Huh… now I feel old.)

4. “There will be a new Ascalonian Catacombs path!”

Source? No, you don’t have one? Because to me, that looked like the area you go to to kill Duke Barradin’s statue in the charr tutorial instance. It looked nothing like Ascalonian Catacombs, and the entrance to the place is a dead giveaway, imo. I could be wrong, but I just felt like pointing that out.

5. Final Notes

Do keep in mind that, while I am also slightly skeptical of the patch, it seems stupid to just jump on the bandwagon of complaining for something that we know very little about to begin with. There’s a whole host of plotlines that are possible. The Pale Tree, Rox/Rytlock and Braham/Eir, and more. We even saw Icebrood. Sounds exciting to me, at least. But I don’t claim to know what’s going to happen.

hannah.7013:

Pretty Pixie.8603:

Anet has stated that if you do not log in during a LS episode to unlock it, you can unlock it afterwards by paying 200 gems.

Will Dry Top change a little in the meantime? Quite possibly. That’s what happened during season 1 to LA and Kessex Hills. But that’s to hook to keep people playing, and I personslly love it.

Where would one buy it if you have missed it?
Someone said hero page under story journal in achieves but I do not see it.

I believe you have to go to the Story Journal itself, scroll down to the “Living World Season 2” section, click on the episode you want to buy, and then probably click on a buy button. That’s not the achievements window, it’s the story journal tab, which is represented as a star on the left side of the Hero window. It’s the same place where your personal story journal has been located since launch, and it functions exactly the same way, with only minor differences.

EDIT: To clarify, don’t go to your achievements window. Go to the story journal window itself. The story journal section in achievements is for story journal-specific achievements, but is not the actual story journal. Go to your actual story journal.

Inculpatus cedo.9234:

Hmm…same exact interpretation that Wooden Potatoes posted in his video a couple of days ago.

I guess it’s the popular school of thought.

Actually there were a couple of points WoodenPotatoes didn’t lay out, and yes, I watched his video myself.

For example, he misses the fact that the story journal specifically states the orbs represent elder dragons. Unless ArenaNet is intentionally trying to dissuade us somehow, it goes by extension that you can just assume that’s what the orbs are. After all, that’s what the journal says. But WoodenPotatoes doesn’t seem to know about that part.

He also doesn’t point out what I pointed out in regards to what Zhaitan being the orb that hit the Tyria orb could actually mean. I forget exactly what his stance is, but as far as I know, it was different from mine.

So yeah, it is somewhat similar, but there are most certainly differences. I sort of elaborate on it slightly more than he does on a few points. He also goes into the whole astrolabe thing which I personally think to be artistic license, and I don’t think the orbs represent the six gods either, like he thought they might, because the journal specifically states otherwise.

In the vision of the Eternal Alchemy in Episode 2 of Season 2, we begin with the following quotes:

1. The Pale Tree sees all…
2. I saw it!
3. <inaudible> my/your mind!
4. Do not question the Dream, we must all play our parts.

To clarify, I did sort of get what the third quote was, but the background noise seems to drown it out. It sounded like: “Get out of my mind!” or “I see your mind, Mordremoth.” but the first one makes more sense, since Scarlet did say “Get out of my mind” at one point in Season One.

There are also images we are confronted with, some significant, others not so much.

1. The Player Character drifts through an endless sea of space and time…

I don’t see much here that requires interpretation.

2. An image of the Pale Tree appears infront of the Player Character. In seconds, the player character is thrown into the center of the Pale Tree, where he/she arrives at an image of seven orbs, one in the center, and six surrounding it.

A good thing to note here is that those six orbs DO represent the elder dragons. It is confirmed if you read your story journal after the mission is complete. It says, and I quote:

“She’d also discovered Omadd’s machine, the device that Scarlet used to see the Eternal Alchemy. I unwittingly entered the device and experienced my own cosmic vision—one that included the Pale Tree and a handful of mysterious orbs representing Elder Dragons. I need to speak with the Pale Tree to learn more.”

Now many people have suggested that the six orbs lighting up in what seems to be a particular order might line up with dragon awakenings. It doesn’t, as been shown in the past by people, but I, personally, don’t even think that’s supposed to matter. I think the COLORS of the orbs represent each particular elder dragon, and the order they light up in isn’t really the key of the vision.

Notice that the orb on the far left is green, the color of Mordremoth. On the right is a black orb, Zhaitan. Top right? Purple, kralkatorrik. Bottom right? White orb, Jormag. Bottom left? Red orb, Primordus. Top left? Blue orb, The deep sea dragon. Now as these orbs are flying around, one orb in particular hits the center of the Tyria orb. The green one, Mordremoth.

What that means I have no clue, but there’s also another way of looking at it.

If they are lighting up in order of the dragons awakening, then you have to reverse the orb that represents mordy to represent zhaitan and the zhaitan orb to represent mordy. What happens if you do this? It would then be zhaitan’s orb hitting the center. But wait a minute, he’s dead right? EXACTLY! Could it be indicating that zhaitan’s death might actually perhaps be a bad thing?

After all, isn’t it true that the Elder Dragons are Tyria’s sort of regulatory system, a system to recycle magic before it becomes too much for the world to handle? What if, in-fact, us killing the Elder Dragons is a detriment to Tyria’s well-being, and this cinematic represents that? We know past races such as the Seers and Forgotten defeated the Dragons, but they did not kill them.

How then did they stop them? They put them back to sleep. Perhaps that is the only way to stop them without causing Tyria’s immune/regulatory system to well, crumble.

OR it might just be that it’s telling us there’s something really special about Mordremoth in particular, perhaps in relation to the sylvari? Or both?!

Leave your thoughts and comments below.

Inculpatus cedo.9234:

No longer 4 teams rotating. Now it is just one team of 20 Devs. No idea how long the lead-time is for Episodes. I hope they will inform us how it works now.

Ah, sorry, my mistake then.

Filaha.1678:

If you had a problem with that, why didn’t you also bring up the context in which the comment was made, which was to a person claiming that they should make the living story content malleable based on what the players do with each two week release?

You didn’t have a problem with that?

Also, if you cringed when there was no follow-up post correcting that, why didn’t you post that there instead of trying to mock it more publicly with a new thread?

Also also, I (since I assume you’re referring to the comment I made) was not saying that it took them just a super short time to make the first chapter and all the other chapters will also be a super short time. Again, in context, it was referring to the person suggesting they make content malleable based on what happens from players during the chapter. If you paid attention to the rest of the post instead of taking that out of context, the entire time I held the stance that they couldn’t do that because it would take too long between releases. The comment about the three months was more regarding the story, rather than the development of the maps and such, and the fact that that time would also have been spent planning the direction of the story.

If you were going to try to shame someone’s comments regarding a misunderstanding of time taken, maybe you should have done it to the person suggesting mutable content based on actions taken every two weeks, hm?

I don’t even remember who said it exactly, but i’m pretty sure it was the OP of the thread that I was disagreeing with since he was the one assuming it was two weeks from what I remember. Your comment was something I just used rhetorically.

1. As for your first point regarding context, the reason I didn’t bring it up is because it had zero to do with what I wanted to post about.

2. As for your second post regarding why I posted here instead of in that thread, I did so because it was a new topic. That thread dealt with something different from what I wanted to talk about.

3. I was told i’m wrong anyway, so what’s done is done and the point is a moot one.

EDIT: Want to add that I never actually quoted the guy who assumed it was two weeks for development, for clarity.

I can’t count how many times I see a post that assumes the living world updates are developed on a two week schedule. I was just reading some guy’s post on another thread in this very forum where he said “You don’t really think they took 3 months to develop the first episode, right?”

Here’s my response: No, I don’t think that, because going by what they have said themselves, it’s four months! They have multiple living world teams which each work on upcoming updates. Whilst episode 1 is being developed, so are episodes 2 through 8 as well. I understand if you never read what ArenaNet said about it, but… come on. I cringe when there’s no following post correcting it.

Perhaps these people came in a while after ArenaNet’s comment about it. I mean, if I remember correctly, it was a little less than a year ago (correct me if i’m wrong about that) or so, which is a long time. But still.

Or perhaps i’m wrong and this post is pointless. If so, feel free to /facedesk.

Thoughts?

So here’s a theory I’ve been thinking about for a while now.

Remember the trailer for Entanglement? Well, recently, there has been a bunch of vines tapping waypoints or grabbing them and swaying them around. Here’s the thing… in the trailer, we see Concordia overrun by vines, and just recently Concordia’s waypoint has been seen flickering. In addition, there is a vine right outside Prosperity. What if Prosperity and Concordia aren’t the only places that will be overrun?

Think about it for a moment. What if the vines are sort of an ominous warning about the general areas that will be overrun? Some places I can think of off the top of my head that the vines make their way through are:

1. Prosperity
2. Skrittsburgh
3. Fort Salma
4. Earthworks Bluff
5. Fort Marriner
6. Concordia

And that’s just based off the places we’ve currently seen being affected. What if all six instead of two of those were to be overrun with vines everywhere? Even if it’s not all six, do remember Belinda was stated to be returning to Fort Salma over the course of the first episode. And Fort Marriner is also a very important place in Lion’s Arch, a city that has just been recently destroyed by Scarlet.

As a side note, I personally think that Mordremoth is sending these vines out to strike at the Pact, but is also using them to strike at anything that’s in his path, which would include more than just Concordia. His main target would likely be Fort Trinity, and it’s possible the second episode will begin with us trying to stop them from reaching Fort Trinity.

Thoughts?

I found a character from the human personal story in dry top. Her name’s Riot Alice. I think she’s from the street rat arc for humans.

Vexander.9850:

Did it with my Guardian. Found that it doesn’t matter if you get knocked on your butt, it just matters that you don’t fall off that top part. Knowing that I was able to use dodges and stand at the center when Nochtli used that unavoidable big jump thing. However, Stability and Aegis were major helps.

That jump isn’t unavoidable. There’s a reason an arrow that points up appears when she does that move. YOU’RE supposed to jump as well. That’s how you avoid it, by literally pressing the space bar. As for everything else, it’s just about not standing in the fire. What are you guys doing? Not dodging at all? And it’s not the first time we’ve had a “jump to avoid” mechanic either. Tequatl, anyone?

Dave.1534:

If Queen Jennah suddenly waged war against the Charr to reclaim Ascalon, would you resist or fight for the cause?

(and of course discuss on ‘why’)

Personally I would. Ever since the searing happened in GW1 I yearned for revenge but never really got it :/

I would definitely, at least on my human character, be willing to fight to retake Ascalon. I share the same sentiments as you, I’ve always wanted to retake Ascalon ever since I played through the Searing in the original Guild Wars. Problem is, I don’t see it happening in Guild Wars 2 simply due to how the lore works at the moment.

In Guild Wars 2, the five races (meaning human, charr, asura, sylvari, and norn) are supposed to be allied together in order to fight the Elder Dragons. In addition to that, there’s also the way the game is designed right now. To make it viable for such a thing to happen, the races would have to be somehow divided into factions.

But then how would that work? Three factions? One for sylvari, asura and norn, one for humans, and one for charr? Maybe they could divide them up more evenly somehow, but how? There’s five races, that’s an odd number, and even if they added tengu for example, the racial relations involved wouldn’t make sense for it.

Konig Des Todes.2086:

They have a lot to deal with the Elder Dragons. What if they were investigating Mordremoth’s rise (or intending to)?

I don’t think that was exactly an attack – you often see your enemies before such if they’re coming at you. Yet they were calm up until the explosions. And they know about Aetherblades (whom are hiding out in the Mists under Mai Trin’s orders presently) and have defenses (even if rather primitive looking) so it would seem weird that they’d be caught off-guard completely.

draxynnic.3719:

Actually, there is some minor indication – Fort Koga was supposed to be protecting a western trade route. Who that trade was with was left up in the air – there might be another nation on the coast, for instance.

I had always thought that the trade route was basically Kryta’s way to bypass Orrian guilds in trading with Cantha and Elona, given the state of the Guild Wars (mainly third). It was said to fall into disuse after the Guild Wars ended so it would make sense.

Though a nation to the west could have been the topic of Utopia, perhaps? Which would be placed on the continent west of Tyria in this map.

Sirius.4510:

Yeah, I’m pretty sure this means they’re not heading to Cantha, which is interesting. I hadn’t figured on them having anything to do with Season 2 either.

But no, there isn’t a lot out that way – that we know of. Maguuma was the end of the region we explored in GW1, and it didn’t seem any more inhabited in GW2.

They appeared to have just come from Cantha, and there was a Zephyrite who said they wouldn’t likely return to where they just visited for some time due to distance.

This is a better map, I think, since it shows labels and such. It is fan-made, but the fan is that_shaman who is rather well known, and it does bear resemblance to the one you linked, so i’m sure it’s fairly accurate. Note that this map is the entire planet of Tyria, not just the places shown on the in-game map.

Celestina.2894:

Pray For Kosmos.5849:

Just seems lazy to abandon hearts altogether. It made the game more immersive IMO. Hearts give you a chance to slow down and take the story line in and help common folk with their issues, something a real hero also does. Dynamic events are more frantic in nature. I stopped feeling like a hero in this game after the main storyline was concluded. I didn’t give a kitten about Scarlet and her feelings. Just a bump in the road.

I’m expecting something greater than Southsun cove. That place is a joke. People should be prepared to be disappointed by Southsun 2.0.

They actually never intended for hearts in the first place. The only reason they were added in was due to complaints of players feeling lost IIRC.

You do remember correctly, as I remember something similar. Then again, we could both be wrong, couldn’t we?

SaltyDave.7346:

I remember reading somewhere a long time ago that the devs said there won’t be new heart events, so the requirements for “been there, done that” and the legendary crafting material coming with it won’t change.

This, however seals the fate of the new content forever, because unless they figure out something to fill the (FINALLY) expanding world with life, it’s all going to be like the karka island. A boring, lifeless pile of sand and rocks nobody cares about at all, unless the boss timer is about to reach zero.

A quick hint for ANet: we have golden colored hearts for “heart events”, right? How about add green colored hearts? That’s it. Works exactly the same way as it always worked, just independent from world completition.

To be honest, a map doesn’t need hearts to be eligible for map completion. Take Orr for example. Orr has literally zero renown hearts. It still counts for map completion though as POIs, skill points, and vistas still exist there.

As far as I am aware, hearts were merely meant to be mechanics through which to introduce people otherwise unfamiliar with the dynamic event system to the game. Otherwise known as the people who play World of Warcraft, EverQuest 2 or any other traditional mmo with normal quest systems.

So when they say “no heart quests” they’re referring to the fact that heart quests weren’t even originally meant to be in the game, they were only added late in development to introduce people to the dynamic event system. There very well might still be map completion involved, it would just simply work the way Orr does, where Orr is what the entire world (in terms of map completion) was originally supposed to be like.

Hobbs.9260:

munkiman.3068:

Seems to me, The Gates of Maguuma – Open July 1st, means multiple. If not, you word it The Gate to Maguuma – Open July 1st. If Gates don’t open July 1st, then you can say something like The Gate to Maguuma – Begins July 1st. Wording has a lot to do with what one should expect.

Not true, when refering to a gate it is refered to has a set of gates even though it is just one single “gate”. This is because a gate has two doors, and in actuality each door is considered a gate. Take the gates of heaven/kitten, each place only has one SET of GATES.
For all we know the title isnt a title to be taken literally, it could be that that specific episode is called the gates of magumma because it is the first episode in the season that is bringing us into Magumma, thus the episode itself is the gates to magumma.

What the poster above me said is true. I often find the term “Gates of such and such” to be an over-used term that refers to going to a new place. Whether in the movie, book, or game it entails people heading through the gates makes no difference, as long as it is supposed to happen at some point. This means that it’s meant to either:

1. Introduce us to the storyline and get us prepared to head through the gates during the first patch rather than go through them immediately.

or

2. We will head through the gates in the first patch.

ArenaNet, I know you’ve likely planned the entire season out by now, but if you can find a way to fit this guy in season two, likely as a bit of short comedic relief, i’m sure the entire playerbase will thank you.

As a side note, this is my reaction if you don’t add him in.

Thoughts?

I believe ArenaNet stated somewhere that the purpose of hearts was to get people introduced to the game, especially if they were from other games like World of Warcraft which use traditional quests. They weren’t originally intended to be part of the game, and the reason they didn’t put any in Orr is because they’ve planned from the start to only use them as an introductory system, so it’s not something they want to put into higher level zones.

Then again, I could be remembering it wrong. They did say this, as far as I know, at launch or before launch I think.

I noticed a lot of people are hyped up about the July 1 update, and that’s great and all, but for the love of all that is good, do /not/ hype yourself about things that have no basis.

To address each issue individually:

1. Races: ArenaNet never said we’re getting new races, nor have they dropped any hints at it, at least not for this update.

2. Maps: ArenaNet has definitely implied we’ll be getting new maps, but the number of maps and at what rate we get them is up for debate. There’s no telling if we’ll get a new map the second July 1 comes around or whether we’ll have to wait a little bit into Season 2 to see the new maps.

3. Dungeons: We’ll likely get new dungeons, but nobody should even think to assume we’ll get them right when July 1 rolls around. We got new dungeons during Season 1 as well, but they were temporary. Namely, Aetherblade Retreat and Molten Facility (the rest are actually classified as mini-dungeons, such as Scarlet’s Playhouse).

4. Other: I know I haven’t named every expectation I’ve seen, but please, if you try to expect something from an update in which there’s no evidence it will happen in that update, you will only disappoint yourself. There is a lot to be hyped about, but not necessarily in the way some people are hyping themselves.

Well, the new audio files put up by ArenaNet certainly seem to point towards it, as we already know they /have/ glint’s baby. The glint’s baby thing is old lore from the last time the bazaar was around, the speculation on the other hand is whether that was what the saboteurs were after.

So in the past day or so, ArenaNet put up about two audio files. They go as follows:

Kasmeer: “Between you and me, I think these zephyrites are hiding something.”

Rox: “What is all this asuran googling mook anyway? These symbols and stuff are making me nervous.”

Now rewind to what Taimi says during the Festival of the Four Winds update.

Taimi: “I’m getting some strange readings from these crates.”
Taimi: “I think the zephyrites are taking on more cargo than usual.”
Taimi: “The zephyrites won’t allow me to look inside the crates, because of Scruffy.”
(Taimi quotes were somewhat paraphrased, but still.)

Now, look at that dialogue, and it appears that the whole ordeal could have been an inside job. We also know something else as well, that a sylvari from the last time the bazaar was around got his dialogue changed. The last time, he was not permitted to be on their airship, but this time he was.

Could it be the sylvari named Trader Aerin? He is seen in the cinematic video that anet put up. You can see him walking across a bridge seconds before the explosion.

Maybe, just maybe, someone wanted to either kill or capture Glint’s baby. The hint at asura makes a lot of sense, since that implies it may have been inquest who wanted to have the baby for their own scientific purposes, which is very typical of asuran inquest. And, we already know they’ve tried to study dragon magic before, in the form of the Crucible of Eternity and the Thaumanova Reactor.

Also, as a side note, in the trailer for the Festival of the Four Winds update (which can also be seen in-game when you get to the top of the labyrinthine cliffs for the first time, though I don’t think it played for everyone. The same happened with the drill explosion and attack on LA cinematic before, so I wouldn’t be surprised.), there’s a ship with red sails that has a glowing door which closes mid-way through the cinematic.

In the new trailer where the sanctum is sabotaged, if you look carefully, it’s not the entirety of the zephyr sanctum that was destroyed. No, in-fact, only one part was blown up: The ship with the red sails, the very same ship shown in the trailer for Festival of the Four Winds.

It’s possible that the ship with red sails was where Glint’s baby was being held.

Thoughts?

I have an honest question… one of my favorite songs in the entire game is Fear Not This Night. It plays in the Source of Orr mission, at the end of Arah Story Mode, and in the final personal story instance. Since we will likely be getting a new elder dragon, I wanted to ask:

Will Fear Not This Night be used again? I want to get that same sense of emotion from fighting Mordremoth as I did from fighting Zhaitan, as it’s what kept me playing the game in the first place. Season One was great and all, but it felt like there was a lack of any in-depth emotion to the story. Emotions are what make stories come alive as well as characters too.

I feel like music is a big part of what makes this game enjoyable to me. In the Zhaitan fight it was the music alone that caused me to enjoy that pressing of a single button. Music makes a difference, but I feel like, after season one, there won’t be the same level of in-depth emotion to fighting Mordremoth as there was for Zhaitan.

Charak.9761:

I’ve gotten 2 gold in a pug

its 8 champ bags, 2 greens, some tokens/tickets

its meh

For six minutes it’s better than nothing, isn’kitten

Edit: This filter is awful…

There was a time when it didn’t feel forced. It only started feeling forced recently. Back during Dragon Bash, Queen’s Jubilee, the original Bazaar update, etc. the voice acting felt much more realistic. Or do you disagree? It only started feeling forced since the ending parts of the Battle for Lion’s Arch to me.

Astralporing.1957:

Kirchhoff.5876:

I think Anet finaly found the right formula for gaining rewards

Yeah, it is called “no drops whatsoever”.

Truth be told, I did hear in-game that TTS managed to complete the crown pavilion boss blitz DE and get a gold reward. The guy said it gives you several champ bags if you complete it, but i’m not sure how true that is. I think he said somewhere along the lines of eight to ten champ bags? And seeing as how the gold reward requires you to finish in under 6 minutes or so, well…

Back on topic though, I do like the token system too. Much better than having to deal with RNG, for sure. It is grindy, of course, but in reality it’s much less grindy than RNG isn’kitten Seeing as how RNG is random, that is?

I don’t know how else to say this, but this seems to be the second time I’ve seen conversation that just felt unreal and just… not characteristic of the characters you might say. I played through the new story instance and Kiel’s voice actress makes Kiel sound like she’s reading from a script, no offense. Of course that’s the case with voice acting, but it was much too obvious to feel real. It almost felt like someone was impersonating Kiel.

The tone was drawn out, forced, and to be honest, it didn’t have that “get-to-the-point straight-and-serious” demeanor that Kiel usually has. The last time I noticed this was during the instance that came after the battle for lion’s arch, where everybody met in the dead end bar. Scarlet’s dialogue when she was being killed also just didn’t feel real.

I don’t know what it is, but the dialogue and voice acting never used to be like this. What happened? Is there going to be any effort to fix this? I’m not the only one who has probably noticed this, and in-fact I’ve seen others who have complained about it too in-game (although that is anecdotal, of course).

Comments on this issue, anybody?

CaptainVanguard.4925:

So, you have to come up with a concept for a GW2 expansion, purely for funnies.

You have to give details in bullet points, keep them short and concise, e.g.

Guild Wars 2 Expansion Name Here

- Feature Included
- Level Cap/Skill Additions
- New Race
- New Region
- New PvP/PvE additions/game types.
- Anything else you can think of.

My Idea:

Guild Wars 2: Awakening

- Continue where the Living Story ended, and face Mordremoth in the new Maguma Wastes and Magus Falls regions.
- Level Cap increased to 100.
- New alternative progression system: Skill Unlocks.
- New Dungeon, Bloodstone Fen.
- Introducing Raid Zones for large scale PVE.
- New WvW feature, Siege Towers.
- New PvP battlegrounds and game type: Gauntlet.
- No new races.
- No new classes.

Guild Wars 2: Secrets of the Maguuma

- New personal story, starting where Living World Season 1 ended, with a flash back cutscene to explain what happened inbetween personal stories. In this personal story, we discover Malyck’s Tree, fight Mordremoth, and stop a dark plot meant to turn the sylvari against one another.
- Level cap stays at 80. Forever.
- Four or more new dungeons telling the story of Destiny’s Edge as they help the player and the Pact make their way to Mordremoth.
- New race: Tengu. The tengu begin to feel threatened by an angry menace from below, and offer to help the five races of Tyria fight Mordremoth, if in return, they help the Tengu fight Primordus. An uneasy alliance ensues.
- No new professions… yet.
- 7 new zones, 4 in the maguuma wastes and 3 in magus falls.
- 5 new world bosses: The Bloodwurm, A Champion of Mordremoth (insert whatever name for that champion you have here), Shadow of the Jungle (an ancient spirit of shadow that has lurked in the jungle for millennia), Thorn Colossus (a twisted misshapen form of jungle matter. E.g. thorns, vines, needles, etc.), and finally, Prophet of Sorrows (a necromancer who has been going around and killing the only remaining wildlife in the jungle, through the use of undead magic.)
- New PvP gametypes: Team Deathmatch and Capture the Flag.
- Bar Brawl activity finally implemented, along with Mina’s Target Shooting, both of which are currently unplayable in Divinity’s Reach.
- 2 more zones in additional to the traditional 7, both of which act like instanced arenas where groups can go in and take out some of the toughest monsters in the Maguuma. More than one group can enter a given instance, and they can compete to see who gets the most bosses. The one who does is given an extra reward.

I love the living world. It’s one of my most favorite concepts in gaming. I love the idea of a world that changes dynamically over time, but there’s a problem. Not everybody shares my opinion about the living world, and in-fact a lot of people seem to have the opposite opinion. While I love the game and the living world, I have recently become worried about the game’s population.

Sure, only one NA server, Kaineng, seems to really be dead, but whose to say other servers won’t follow suit? I guess what i’m asking here for is..

Should I be worrying about the size of the population or no?

Hamfast.8719:

Konig Des Todes.2086:

The first good deed Scarlet has done.

Time to diminish the quaggan population some more. Finish the job Jormag and Bubbles started!

Huh? What? Jormag and Bubbles? Bubbles never worked with Jormag! In fact, here’s a pic from one of Jormag’s last days before the “Champ Week” Living Story update. He was just sitting there. No ice wall. No minions. Just giving Bubbles a nice little photo op, and a chance to repeatedly bomb him with meteors. No love lost between Jormag and Bubbles.

…or did you mean this “Bubbles”? http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Bubbles Some good underwater content/attention would be awesome!

That’s a Claw of Jormag. Claw of Jormag is NOT the actual Jormag, it’s a lieutenant of Jormag. This is similar to the confusion about Tequatl’s name. Tequatl the Sunless isn’t an actual name. “Tequatl the Sunless” is a description in Hylek language which means “Risen One In The Darkness”.

At the top of the hour, every hour, three assault knights spawn in Lion’s Arch which you have to kill. Kill all three of them, get all three color buffs, and you’re able to go through the white portal. After that there’s a hologram and i’m not sure what else other than that the ending is awesome (I used the purple portal which skips you to the ending given you have the spinal blade pack and doesn’t require the assault knights to be killed)