Guild Wars 2

It’s supposed to skip you to the ending if you go through the purple one. The other entrances require the attunement buff, not the blade pack, and while the purple entrance skips you to the ending, the other entrances give you the entire thing.

You DO NOT NEED the spinal blade pack to do the story. You ONLY need it to go through the secret entrance. The regular entrances to the drill just require attunement buffs from all three assault knights which spawn at the top of the hour in Lion’s Arch. Going to the SECRET entrance is just for people who want to skip straight to the ending so that they don’t have to worry about the assault knights or the hologram fight failing. The secret entrance does NOT give you the whole instance, it merely shows the ending where Scarlet has already been wounded and you can finish her off and see the final cutscene!

TL;DR no, the spinal blade pack isn’t needed to participate.

It showed butterflies and mushrooms. It was Mordremoth. I first thought Bubbles too but after looking at it for a 2nd time it is definietely Mordremoth.

Also the bubbles were more likely little wisps of light, i’d say.

Thoughts, anyone?

Kalavier.1097:

Jocksy.3415:

The timeline only states

1325 AE Guild Wars 2 story begins.
1326 AE Guild Wars 2 Living World begins.
1327 AE Present day during Guild Wars 2 and the continuation of the Living World.

The fact the GW2 story begins does not means it all happens in the past…

And wiki is fan-generated content; it does not come from developpers or any Anet staff…
I can create a Wiki page that says anything that comes in my mind, it won’t make it true…

Personal story begins. I have heard that a developer explicitly said the PACT is in rebuilding and planning phase as of living story timeframe. How can they be if they haven’t killed Zhaitan yet?

BobbyStein.2315:

DragoTheWise.7256:

Regina Buenaobra.6193:

Because members of Destiny’s Edge are so entwined with your Personal Story as well as the over-arching story with Zhaitan, and because the Living World plot lines are taking place at the same time all those other story threads, we couldn’t have the members of Destiny’s Edge splitting themselves between these other areas and what was going on with Living World. This is partly why we introduced these new characters.

I hope you folks are seriously not considering the LS is happening at the same time as the Personal Story, and this is just a slip up on the post. I also would hope that everyone on the team can get this stuff straight so that this confusion doesn’t happen.

What Regina means is that for players who are currently going through their Personal Story, the LW timeline will seem to be happening at the same time. Technically, they happen at different times in Tyrian history. Personal Story predates the current Living World season by approximately one year.

So when you’re playing your Personal Story and are in an instance with Rytlock, etc. the assumption is that this is happening “in the past” whereas LW events are happening now.

Our hope is to provide better distinction of these timelines within the game, but that would come with the release of a planned feature that we’re not ready to discuss in depth just yet.

Dev post. Personal story predates living story by AT LEAST one year.

That dev post actually intrigues me now. What new feature is this? That post actually makes it seem like they’ve been aware of the problem, and are developing something to fix it. I just hope it comes soon.

ZudetGambeous.9573:

PookieDaWombat.6209:

Psst, technically its not happening in the past. Its all happening at the same time.

Granted, it does feel a lil goofy, but their only other option was completely re-doing the whole thing, which means getting voice actors to re-do lines possibly in a new setting, and yeah…just not worth the actual money and time to re-do that content. Go with it.

Huh… it’s been confirmed like 100 times that the personal story takes place 1 year before the current LS.

OP report this as a bug, it can’t possibly be intended, not even Anet is that lazy.

It isn’t a bug. Like one of the other posters said, the PS uses the live map for its environment. The only thing that changes is the NPCs and objects you can interact with inside the little area of the map within those orange lines you can see. I don’t know why they can’t copy paste ALL the original maps from the original version of the game, assign relevant PS instances to the maps, and then be like “Solved!” because that would be easy, right?

Hell, they could also just take the PS entrances out of the game world and update the UI to support buttons to let you enter your PS. That’d be a great idea!

A bit off-topic but not totally off-topic note: There are loads of typos in the My Story log that have been there since launch. For example, Armor Guard and Through the Looking Glass both say Tegwen dies, but she only dies in Armor Guard. Seriously, I looked it up, because I was like “She can’t possibly die twice?!” And the Battle for Claw Island description is cut off mid-sentence.

This is stuff I’ve been waiting for them to fix somehow since launch, but they never have. And now it’s gotten to the point that the PS has started to make little sense in some areas.

And i’m not surprised they removed the Personal Story forum either… at least this forum is relevant, since the issue relates to the current update…

So yeah, you put a new entrance to the PS so people could get to their story. Great job! One problem though:

The heck is Destiny’s Edge doing meeting in a burning city with a giant drill in the distance and miasma everywhere along with some playing kids and some npcs just standing about like the burning city is nothing at all?

And then there’s the order mentor. I go to meet my order mentor right after and the city is STILL burning! And all the order members are in the burning Trading Post building, I think. What did you just do to the PS, anet? I thought you said you had a solution for this, but it seems waaay too weird to be in LA doing the PS with a bunch of burning buildings.

I cringe when thinking about the preliminary missions leading to Claw Island…

And a side note, back when I did the overlake haven mission as a sylvari, where Mazdak first appears, during the Tower of Nightmares update a while back, there were spores everywhere, which felt out of place, but not nearly on the same level as this Anet. Come on, surely there’s a way to make the PS use the old version of the map rather than have it make no sense? Hell, you can even put a disclaimer saying “This happened in the past!” but you didn’t.

I’d like to see a response to this. This isn’t intended to be an insulting post, it’s more like a “What were you thinking?” post. I hold no ill regards for ArenaNet themselves. The game is awesome, so is the update, but this PS issue really bugs me.

But jumping puzzles have always been a part of the game. And they’re enjoyable for a lot of people. Also, i’d like to know something: Where have you been in the past year? ArenaNet has constantly been expanding the lore and adding new story. Sure, it may not be as good as some people may like but it’s still there. Unless you are referring to lore that you consider more interesting?

That would be awesome, but like one of the above posters said, it’s unlikely to happen.

As an atheist I see no problem with them putting Christmas trees in the game. The trees aren’t exactly related to Christ, y’know. Besides, most atheists could care less if you have a nativity scene in your back yard (e.g. private property, which this game basically is), it’s when government facilities host them that atheists tend to get on the offensive. I personally think it was more of an oversight really. Here’s to hoping they put them in, as I love Christmas trees myself.

It’s probably that we simply wouldn’t get that fractal and the Abaddon fractal would indeed be unrelated to the current story with Scarlet, in the same way Blood and Madness or Tequatl Rising was. It could however, still touch on ley lines since the fractal was about Abaddon being sent to the realm of torment by melandru, dwayna, balathazar, etc. for creating the bloodstones. Said bloodstones are what caused magic, and the ley lines are basically currents of magic. So it could’ve still been connected, it just wouldn’t have Scarlet in it.

P.S. The Fall of Abaddon fractal was NOT about Kormir killing Abaddon and ascending to godhood. There were two “Falls” of Abaddon. One by Kormir during Nightfall, the other by the human gods much earlier in history shortly before the Exodus of the Gods. (AE being “After Exodus” and BE being “Before Exodus” in the Tyrian dating system. The current year is 1326 AE, and in 2014 in real life it’ll be 1327 AE in Tyria. The Guild Wars 2 story began in 1325 AE with the fall of zhaitan.)

So I would like to let ArenaNet know first, I am extremely happy with this update. Awesome cinematic at the end of the instance, wintersday is fun, and the amount of references to Scarlet’s short story at Thunder Ridge Camp is amazing. But I found a treat on the other side of Kessex Hills in Black Haven. Look!

P.S. Pay close attention to where the minimap shows me being. That’s Black Haven, right near the zone-in to Gendarran Fields from Kessex.

EDIT: I want to add, there’s an asura that talks to the quaggan about the tower but a lionguard shoo’s the asura away, accusing the asura of harassing the quaggan.

So I re-read the short story (What Scarlet Saw) on the wiki and something hit me. She’s constantly put forth as someone who wants to ‘change the rules’. A rebellious personality, you might say. She wants to bring herself above everybody else, to make herself more powerful than others, because she’s wanting to rebel against the fundamentals of nature, “birth, life, and death.”

This might imply she’s looking for a way to, say, live forever, as she does not want to know what happens after she dies. She despises the rules that the world has put forth infront of her, and wants to change them. In other words, she’s built an army in order to make a mark on the world all the while looking for a way to meet her end goal, ‘eternal life.’

Essentially, she has an ego the size of a mountain because she feels she can and WILL in-fact be able to defy everything in nature. Hence why the Eternal Alchemy enticed her so much, as the Alchemy is essentially the fabric of nature itself in the Tyrian universe. Seeing the Eternal Alchemy, in her opinion, makes her more knowledgeable and superior than anybody else, and she’s become prideful and arrogant.

And, I also noticed that she must have been born anywhere from 7 to 10 years after the firstborn appeared. She took 1 year for dynamics and 1 year for statics and ‘significantly longer’ for synergetics. It’s likely she wasn’t very interested in the other two colleges so she passed through them without actually paying attention to much of it. Synergetics however, one of the most arguably difficult asuran colleges, also enticed her the most, hence the longer time period to complete it. Possibly it took 2 to 3 years for synergetics, making it 4 or 5 years total, but that’s just an educated guess.

And, she may have had ‘special’ courses for each of the colleges too, even if that’s not explicitly stated. I present to you:

Scarlet’s Motive!

1

Because there is lore in Guild Wars 2 that I genuinely find interesting, such as about …

• The Elder Dragons
• Eir’s relationship with her son, Braham.
• How Rytlock managed to get Sohothin
• Why Tequatl got more powerful
• What the Genie of the Box was
• Where the steam creatures come from
• What happened in the Thaumanova Explosion
• Why the Tengu fled Cantha
• Why the Sylvari are immune to elder dragon corruption
• Whether Zhaitan is truly dead or not
• What the bandits at Fort Vandal are doing guarding the entrance to the Maguuma Wastes.
• What Bubbles’ name is.
• What caused Scarlet to go insane.

Just to name a few.

So, I never completed the meta for Queen’s Jubilee or Clockwork Chaos, but I did both the Closing and Opening Ceremony story instances. I didn’t do Scarlet’s Playhouse, but I did defeat her in the invasions. Will my character be recognized from those events without the meta?

EDIT: To clarify, I mean recognized by the characters from those events. e.g. Rox, Braham, Scarlet, Emissary Vorrp, etc.

So I overheard the npcs at the camp to the west of Viathan Lake speaking about a woman named Mistress Kari who has gone missing. I wiki’d her name, but nothing came up for MISTRESS Kari. Something did come up for “Kari”. There’s apparently an event in the Dominion Killing Zone called “Help Kari get back to her mother in Overlake Haven.” which is also located in Kessex Hills. Who is she, and what happened to her?

I would like to learn more about Scarlet’s actions, but at the same time I would probably rather have that in a different update than one about krait, personally.

I would like to have several solo instances to play through. Those are my favorite parts about Living World updates. I loved the Flame and Frost instances, and the Dragon Bash instances. However, they are the only two updates with any notable instances, where the majority of updates have maybe 1 or 2 of them that are extremely short. Take Blood and Madness for example. Way too short, and way too few.

Dungeons are fun as long as it can be completed without people leaving and cause the group to be kicked out.

I would love to see more lore directing us closer to fighting another Elder Dragon. That’d be great to see.

A jumping puzzle would be nice as long as it’s not too ridiculously hard.

For all of these, a challenge is good, just don’t destroy me with the challenge. Aetherblade Retreat is really the only dungeon I have a problem with, since it took forever to get finished. The boss fights were fun, but it’d bug out and party members would leave and/or the boss fights just were too hard.

So to summarize:

1. Learn more about Scarlet (In another update though preferably.)
2. Lots of Solo Instances
3. Some fun, difficult dungeons.
4. A clear hint about the next Elder Dragon we’re going to be fighting.
5. A jumping puzzle is fun too.

Ambitiously speaking however:

1. New zones
2. New dragons

You get the idea.

Redenaz.8631:

It’s got to be an intentional Zelda reference. Wiki says they only spawn after attacking a normal chicken, which makes it a sure bet it’s a reference.

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Angry_Chicken

There’s a guy in Divinity’s Reach who asks what you’re doing inside his house. You can answer “Looking for treasure?” and he’ll laugh it off “awkwardly”. That’s more of a general RPG reference, though, not just Zelda.

Then you have Super Adventure Box, which has more than a little Zelda in it.

Edit: Really? You’re going to censor that? Word in quotes to fix it.

Yeah, it’s a Zelda reference. A friend of mine also looked it up on the wiki. Still cool though!

Some more images from my awesome battle with the chickens!

So, I was in Ebonhawke, and I saw some very angry chickens attacking each other. Thing is, they’re all hard to kill, even as an 80. They won’t die!

Reminds me of the talking pig I saw near launch over a year ago… or was it a warthog?

There’s a problem with your suggestion, OP. The personal story and living world directly conflict, not just storywise but mechanics wise as well. The personal story requires the world to not change. The Living World makes it change. You’re right, they’re dancing around the elder dragons because of this issue, but I think I need to add another detail to your solution.

I was thinking back to World of Warcraft, specifically its phasing technology. Some might say, “But then you have to create two separate zones!” But that’s not what I mean. In Mists of Pandaria (and yes, this is a true story), I was next to a group of people at an Alliance camp in one of the zones in Pandaria. Thing is, we could see each other, but we saw totally different things due to the fact I had not completed the corresponding quest chain. To me, the camp was in flames. To him, it had been fixed.

This would allow the personal story to make changes. But then how will people still doing the personal story see Living World content in Orr that takes place post-Personal Story? Simple. Bring on the time travel NPC! The time travel NPC storywise could be some powerful wizard, and is simply a way to transition in and out of the two phases. Or maybe a time travel orb sitting on a pedestal? Use the orb, and switch between post-Personal Story Ending and pre-Personal Story ending.

Combine this with your changed personal story ending and the other suggestions you made, BINGO. Perfect solution, though very ambitious. One problem though, you’d have to change more than just the last two personal story steps. There are entire steps related to pushing towards Arah. So unless you change your ending to taking place in Arah you’d have to retcon a large chunk of the Orr campaign, which isn’t very feasible.

A side note: There are areas below the Zhaitan fight in Arah which appear to be there for what was supposed to be a ground fight. ArenaNet could use those areas and put in what you described, without retconning the Pact. What do I mean? Have Trahearne step down! It’s so simple! Why jump through hoops when you can have Trahearne step down from his position in the final chapter? (The Celebration), and have you become the highest rank in the Pact? His wyld hunt was to cleanse Orr, not kill dragons, y’know.

To clarify, i’m not saying keep the entire final chapter as a ‘celebration’. Let it end up having Trahearne feel ashamed for not being there, and allowing the Pact to be cut through like scissors by Zhaitan. In shame and humility, he relinquishes his title as the highest rank to the player character, and a deep sorrow is felt for those that are lost. In the final cutscene, you, the player character, who with the help of only a few party members slayed an elder dragon, give a speech to the remaining soldiers of the Pact promising to rebuild the Pact and take the fight to the other Elder Dragons. From that point on, you are once again the center of the story.

Also, as for how Zhaitan cuts down the Pact? When the megalaser takes Zhaitan down, have Zhaitan crash into the ship the player character is on. In the midst of this chaos, the ships in the background can be seen crashing to the ground in an explosive cutscene, destroyed by the dragon champions attacking them. (Yes, the dragons flying in the background during the Arah mission that you don’t fight.)

Finally, when you crash to the ground, all of the members of Destiny’s Edge and each party member will have been scattered across the ground. All of the Destiny’s Edge members will be unconscious, but the players manage to rise up off the ground. You, the player characters, are forced not only to defend the unconscious Destiny’s Edge members but to slay the elder dragon by yourselves.

Or the Destiny’s Edge members could fight alongside you in melee combat. Whatever works best, I guess.

So, with this new update, there are obviously some things to point out.

PART ONE

1. The krait have changed into a more green, glowy appearance. (Edit: There is lore stating that krait can change their appearance, but this has not been represented in-game so far. We’ll have to wait to see if this is the case.)
2. ArenaNet has, in the past, made allusions to the idea of introducing a “jungle dragon”. (Edit: I removed “as the next elder dragon to fight” from the end of this sentence, as I realize now I made an incorrect analysis. Thanks to the people who let me know about that.)
3. The video speaks of nightmare, which rings a bell. What is that bell? The sylvari concept of the Nightmare, the polar opposite of the Dream.
4. I remember hearing that ArenaNet said they may introduce another elder dragon in 2014.
5. The sylvari have long been speculated to have a link to Mordremoth, the jungle dragon. (Edit: It is less likely that all sylvari are minions of Mordremoth and more likely that the Nightmare Court is specifically influenced by Mordremoth.)

Now, keeping all this in mind, I have come to speculate the following:

Could the krait have been corrupted by Mordremoth, through what the video calls “whispers of power”? To me, the krait are the most likely to want power, and so that mention of those whispers strikes me as odd. It could however, be their krait prophets. We’ll have to wait until the update to see. Nevertheless, I would love to hear other people’s thoughts and opinions, so post away!

PART TWO

Some other things I just realized (thanks due to the OP in “Possibility of tying the story together?”) are the following:

1. Scarlet, in her short story, emerges out of her ‘vision’ with the ability to grow vines out of her hands. She uses those vines to choke her mentor to death and strangle him.
2. Sylvari are resistant to Zhaitan’s corruption. Could this be because they are already linked to Mordremoth somehow, and therefore can’t be turned into the minion of another dragon? (Edit: It’s been stated that elder dragon minions are not resistant to the corruption of another elder dragon. However, I have not found or been given the source for this information.)
3. Why did Scarlet go into her vision with a friendly attitude towards her mentor, and then when she came out, she strangles him?
4. The Pale Tree warns Scarlet that what she is doing could have far worse consequences than she even realizes. (Edit: The vision Scarlet has was mentioned to be a sensory deprivation device. This could also lead to insanity, though, I would think.)

This might mean Scarlet is acting as a minion of an elder dragon. If this is the case, what’s the story behind the Aetherblades or the Molten Alliance? The Aetherblades are hired pay, but nothing says they can’t be forced into submission by Scarlet who is in turn working for an elder dragon. The Molten Alliance might be a different thing altogether though. They were supposed to have been formed out of opportunity, but it is possible Scarlet promised them something as well in return for their help.

So lately I’ve noticed that the achievement categories for “Clockwork Chaos”, “Queen Jennah’s Jubilee”, “The Queen’s Gauntlet”, and “Emissary Vorrp’s Field Assistant” have been duplicated. There’s two of each except Clockwork Chaos, where Clockwork Chaos has three of them.

wookiee.4631:

I suggested something sort of similar…

I never talk to Heralds. Newspaper idea could be cool. Maybe a Newspaper business is set up in LA and newspaper stands are located in the various cities.

Though, I wish more information period was available in the game. I hate those short stories that we get on the Guild Wars 2 site, but never in game. Why would you spend the time characterizing someone who’s in the game outside of the game? I don’t know about other people but I never read those story posts.

Why not have the Newspaper stand be a book store that contains those short stories as well as the newspapers?

…in this thread. There’s some good suggestions in that thread.

Yeah, I believe I saw that post some time back. I figured however that making my own thread would make the idea more noticeable. Still, I suppose I can add it to your thread if you want. Also, ArenaNet has stated that they’re looking into ways to fix the current Living World by adding more permanent content and by allowing people access to knowledge of what happened previously in the Living World. Because of that, I wouldn’t be surprised if a player-suggested feature or a combination of them were implemented by ArenaNet.

Introduction

So I thought of this great idea. I realized that a lot of the important story content of the Living World was mostly based in instances or short stories. So I decided to make this suggestion:

The Historian

I was thinking, we have a reference to the Personal Story already in our Hero window. Why not add an npc for Living World in a similar fashion or even a tab for that matter? Here’s what I think should be added to such a window:

Short Stories

We have so many short stories on the website, why not add them to this Living World tab? They could help people understand the story a bit better by utilizing things that have already been made.

Summary of Events

There should be a section for each Living World chapter (e.g. Flame and Frost, Secret of Southsun, The Aetherblades, etc.) that include specific summaries for those events.

Playable Content

Assuming ArenaNet still has the data from previous Living World instances still available, they could add in some buttons in each chapter tab where you can play the Living World story in chronological order. I say this because the majority of story content is in instances, and anything that is not in instances can be explained in a Disclaimer as well.

Solo Instances

Much of the story takes place in story instances, beginning with Rox and Braham trying to get help, to retaking the hatchery and cragstead. Add in the instances for playability by accessing the Living World tab or Historian NPC. Heck, you can even do this for the Personal Story! (How i’d love to replay my old personal story missions…)

Dungeons

There were also many dungeons in Living World as well. You can make this content available by putting in a Historian NPC and allowing a group of 5 players to experience the content through said NPC.

Conclusion

This is about all I have so far, if anybody else has any suggestions, please feel free to make them!

Use the turrets to remove the stacks of armor off of Tequatl, otherwise it’s pretty much impossible to defeat him. I’m pretty sure that’s the problem here. If you guys can only get him down by 5% of his hp it’s likely people are not using the turrets right.

I’m just curious as to how fighting the other dragons will work in the Living Story? Given that The Pact is a part of the Personal Story and they’re supposedly the fighting force against the Elder Dragons, how can the other dragons be worked in when people don’t like Trahearne, and unfortunately, Trahearne leads the Pact? Will another fighting force emerge as part of the Living Story, or will The Pact be scrapped altogether?

I sure wanted to get involved in whatever crazy shenanigans you had going with your old krewe, what with your Genie of the Box and all…

Ah, okay. I see. Thanks for the quick response, by the way. I appreciate it.

Well this sucks. I remember after Flame and Frost ended that whenever I went to Cragstead or North Nolan Hatchery, I would be recognized by Rox and Braham. I haven’t checked to see if this had changed, but what I did notice was that after the story instance for this update came around, Rox and Braham felt the need to ‘introduce’ themselves to me. Wondering what happened, I asked in map chat and others said the same thing happened to them. What happened, anet? Is it a bug, a glitch, an oversight? Even now, after the instance, I open dialogue with them and they will still introduce themselves like they’ve never met me before. Perhaps they had a case of amnesia mid-instance? xD

I’m quite the contrary to most people anyways. I like Kormir, Trahearne, Logan, Destiny’s Edge, Ellen Kiel, etc. But that is because I don’t seem to perceive them the same way everybody else does. To me, Logan made up for the death of Snaff by nearly sacrificing his life to save the rest of Destiny’s Edge in Arah. I think Kormir and Trahearne are likeable characters, and I actually LOVE characters that make wrong choices or mistakes, because to me that shows the character is more real. It shows even heroes can make mistakes. In the case of not getting credit for anything, I call that complete and utter kitten. Home Instance shows you reverence. Trahearne calls you a friend and invaluable ally. Destiny’s Edge literally thanks YOU for getting them back together. Just because you’re not Number One doesn’t mean you don’t get credit. There’s multiple heroes in the story, not just you, and I actually LIKE that. So meh.

EDIT: This post should’ve quoted Mathog.3157 but I forgot to do that. Oops.

Soulstar.7812:

Kiel supporters are the people whining about WP prices…

if they actually did events they could afford to port…

Hence thy will not lift a finger to dig themselves out of that rut, they will not lift a finger to put her into power.

/argument

I have no problem with waypoint prices. For me waypoints are dirt cheap. But i’m still a Kiel supporter. Your argument is invalid. >.>

Saelune.5316:

Its simple to solve really. Treat the player like they ARE the main character,since they are. When I play my story, in my eyes my character is the hero, and every other player are just other adventurers. Just as im sure most other players do. It hurts immersion more to try to canonize every player in every other player’s eyes. Elder Scrolls and Fallout give a nickname to the player, so in future things they use that, so if they make GW3, youd hear about “The hero who stopped Zhaitan” and youd know it was you, and each other player would know it was them, etc.

Also I like Kiel. Obviously she steals the spotlight, but atleast she doesnt make you feel bad about it.

Actually technically speaking the hero from GW1 is mentioned in GW2 in several places, so it’s not just “Elder Scrolls and Fallout” that give a nickname to the player, so does Guild Wars. In-fact, in Divinity’s Reach, there’s an npc conversation between a scholar and a man about the “hero who led the ascalon refugees to kryta, fought the white mantle, and struck down a lich lord” and the man is all amazed and says “I hope one day we meet heroes like that.”

So yeah, the player gets credit in everything in Guild Wars, it’s just that the player isn’t the only person involved in these situations. There are times where Trahearne acknowledges you being there to fight Zhaitan with him, and acknowledges you as a friend and ally, and even a necessary component to the fight. You’re the Commander too, just one level below Trahearne, everybody else is below you and Trahearne. So technically, you’re still pretty high up there, and still quite noteworthy.

BlackIce.5276:

I’m willing to give this a chance, but I foresee a drastic increase in the number of full party-wipes, and losing out on boss loot more often than obtaining it. If it turns out that way, I may have to stop playing dungeons altogether—and then, what point is there to playing the game at all?

Well, you could always do the dynamic events out in the world for fun. Or you could do World vs World, Player vs Player, Tournament Play, Roleplay (if you’re interested in that), or even heck, you could do map/world completion. And then there’s also the daily and monthly achievements. To tell you the truth, dungeons, as far as I can see, are not the only endgame out there. Now, back onto the topic of patch feedback before this whole conversation goes waaaay off-topic.

Nay of the Ether.8913:

Don’t misunderstand me, I was not a fan of the rez zerg method for cof p2, in fact I hated it but we did what we had to do, I do think the new waypoint system was the way to go, but they also said they would adjust the fights accordingly, and this seems to go in the exact opposite direction. and since you pointed it out pdfrod.1948, yeah, if you fill the room with aoe you can probably clear about anything given enough aoe, but then you’re doing something we were promised we wouldn’t have to do: look for specific classes and builds just to be able to do the content, and they just said aoe needs to be toned down because it’s too op. So its either one or the other, you’re saying we can have our cake and eat it too, which we can’t.

I believe what they meant by ‘adjusting the fights accordingly’ was to make the fights easier so that it would NOT be hell to get through. Just my take on it.

There are no PvE or PvP servers. Also, a high population server usually has the tendency to have more players. Not always though, if what people suspect is true and ArenaNet made the population based off of accounts on the server rather than currently playing users. Then again, it might be based off of currently players users. Nobody really knows for that one except ArenaNet. Now, at the moment, world transfers cost nothing, but you can’t transfer again for a whole week (or 2, I forget).

The reason there are no costs at the moment is due to ArenaNet wanting the server populations to settle first. At launch, you didn’t need to wait at all. Then it went to 1 day wait, to 3 day wait, to 7 day wait. Eventually they plan to add in costs but the game launched at the end of August and they still haven’t introduced any cost for it. So, the cost is something you won’t have to worry about yet, I don’t think.

Also, the cost for a world (server) transfer is paid for by buying gems in-game and then using the gems you bought on your character to pay for the transfer at the character selection screen. Gems are a virtual currency kinda like microsoft points (if you’re familiar with Xbox Live). Basically, here’s a summary of what i’ve said.

SUMMARY

Q: Should I pick one world over the other?

A: In essence, the only reasons to pick one world over the other is for the population size, to play with friends, or to be with a certain community of players or to be on a specific World vs World server team, since World vs World is basically 3 servers fighting each other across huge maps.

Q: How much does it cost to buy a ‘world transfer’?

A: In essence, it does not cost anything to buy a world transfer though you will have to wait a period of time before transferring again, though ArenaNet does plan to add in costs later on in the game’s lifespan.

Q: Should I go with a low, medium, or high population?

A: That really depends upon how many players you want to be playing with. Low populations means there’s a minority of players on that server. High means there’s alot. Medium is inbetween, really.

Q: How do I tell whether a server is a PvE server or a PvP server?

A: There are no distinctions between PvP or PvE on servers. Infact, there is no difference between them in that respect, other than populations, World vs World teams, and communities.

Hope that all answered your questions!

Make karma vendors give out ascended gear. There, problem fixed! You want to know why? Because in the first few months of the game, people played the game for the world. It was like this from launch until the lost shores, which had many problems. Those problems included the timing for it. I think it would’ve been better had they extended it over a longer period of time and maybe opened it up for some short testing beforehand. (Testing by players: Do this for all updates. Trust me. It works.)

But you want to know what else The Lost Shores implemented? You guessed it, Fractals of the Mists! Now, this likely would’ve been fine had they not put in ascended gear. You see, since Fractals of the Mists is the only place in which you can obtain ascended gear, and since ascended gear is just a better version of exotics, technically. (AKA another tier of gear), and since karma vendors only give out exotics, as do the rest of the dungeons, that is why everybody does fractals.

So my solution? Add ascended gear to karma vendors throughout the world for level 80s, in addition to exotics. To make a reason for exotics, make them more visually appealing (AKA more ‘exotic’), and make the ascended gear more literally appealing (AKA better stats OR more ‘ascending’). That would allow people to get the exotic gear for the looks and the ascended gear for the stats, and combine them to make awesome gear.

Not only by providing this through karma vendors and token vendors bring more people out into the world, it will allow people to say “Hm, I can do dungeons for gear, or I can do dynamic events and get the same rewards. Hmmm… choices. I feel like doing Dynamic Events today, so let’s do that.” instead of saying “Hm, I can do dungeons for gear, or do dynamic events for less gear. Yeah, i’ll do dungeons.”

So in essence, by providing the rewards in fractals to the karma vendors and token vendors for Dynamic Events and for the other dungeons, you’ve just allowed people to make the choice, and the likelihood is that people will switch based on which they ‘feel’ like doing, rather than what they are ‘forced’ to do in the sense of getting better stats. Anybody else agree?

In Summary:

• Make karma vendors for Dynamic Events and token vendors for Dungeons give out ascended gear in addition to Fractals of the Mists. (Most Important)

• Make exotics more visually appealing than ascended gear, but give ascended gear better stats than exotics. (Least Important)

I think the problem is that everybody is trying to download the patch at the same time, so therefore it overloads the servers and the servers that you download the patch from have to kick people off in order to not crash. This means that the people waiting are probably in a ‘queue’ to start downloading, per se. But that’s just my theory, i’m not an expert. xD

I have this problem too. However, i’m not going to get upset because honestly, they WILL fix it eventually, especially with all the complaining. So personally, i’m just going to leave my launcher running and see if it eventually connects while I browse the forums.

P.S. So it started when I went to teleport to a waypoint in Lion’s Arch. I got disconnected at the 2 minute, 15 second mark of the reset countdown, and up came my launcher. So, i’m downloading the patch, but then it suddenly stops. I restart my computer first, and when I start up the launcher again, it gives the connection error message. Just wanted to say that incase Anet sees this and wants to know more. xD