Guild Wars 2

The system for basic decorations is absolutely ridiculous. I’m no carpenter, but I’m pretty sure chairs are made of wood, not crystalline ore. But here, a basic wooden chair, that can’t even be sat upon all that well, costs money and RNG material. Not to mention, there are no beds, wardrobes, or any of several other necessary items for proper furnishing. I had visions of being able to make enough furniture to at least make an ugly little furnished room after a few weeks, and somehow I thought that was reasonable to expect. This, though, this needs to change.

It’s probably true. But I am selfish enough that I don’t really care that much, now that I an get it.

I do not hate humans, in fact I like them very much as a race. But I am still eagerly awaiting the day when doom comes to DR. I don’t want it razed to the ground, but… I am fully convinced that someday Destroyers will come pouring out of the Crown Pavilion. NPCs were always talking about sounds down in the Great Collapse, and what do we know live under Kryta? Destroyers, yes. Not to mention, I’m still annoyed with Jennah for claiming a whole district of the city for her amusement. She and her people delved too deep and too greedily, and I want to see them pay for it. DR is sitting on a powder keg in more ways than one.

No, not if all else were equal. I would have liked Crystal Desert because it has plenty of old lore and new potential combined, but also because it’s bigger. If they filled a bunch of the area that the Crystal Desert occupies on the world map, that’d be a decent addition to the game. I could say the same about expanding northward into Jormag’s territory and the Charr Homelands as well, and it’s also been a favorite speculation of mine as to what they could do if they expanded towards Janthir and delved into White Mantle lore. Beyond that, there’s the Ring of Fire Islands, though because of their small size and their location, any exploration/content in that area would/should/could include vastly expanded and revamped aquatic combat.
Compared to these, Maguuma does seem kind of small as far as map size goes, and I don’t see as many immediate, easy links to good plotlines that blend old lore/new adventures, but I do recognize that there is potential there. I’m also willing to believe that they could make good story out of it (possibly even leading in the direction of Janthir or Ring of Fire, I dunno). I do remain skeptical, though, since as much as I’d like to hope they’re hiding something amazing and huge from us that will justify full-game price, I doubt it. But although the choice of Maguuma is not what I’d have chosen, that by no means points to it being bad.
As far as Cantha or Elona… honestly, I wouldn’t complain if they did give it to us, but I see it as unnecessary, given how much content remains on the continent of Tyria.

I’d have paid $40 if the character slot was included without a second thought. Or not much at least. While I want to support a game that I like, I’m not paying 50 for how little they appear to be offering, nor for something where I need to pay another 10 anyway.
Point being, if they didn’t decide to gouge us that little bit more, they’d have made more profit and their name wouldn’t have been so mucked up.

New meta build: Pitchfork/Torch.

No, but seriously, this is messed up. They’d better start backpedaling or clarifying fast.

Semantically, Beorn is right. For all practical purposes, I’m with OP. There is no way I will pay full-game price for an expansion. I said long ago, 20, maybe as high as 30. But not 50.
This is downright insulting.

This is nothing short of an insult to every single one of those who have been loyally playing for so long. They’re giving new players the expansion practically for free in comparison!
And it’s not as if they’re offering a full game’s worth of content, either.

InfinitytheSoulWarden.5963:

I completely agree, people who are buying the game, are basically getting the HoT for free at that price, yet we who have been supporting it get to pay for the dlc, kitten is that!!!!

Not only is $50 too much for what they’re offering us anyway, but most of all, THIS. We’ve been playing for almost three years, some of us, and now Anet is spitting on us? Total load of kitten kitten .

The way I see it, some knowledge of anatomy -has- to be important, simply because of what healing magic does. It is accelerated regeneration of the cells in a wound. But if accelerated cellular generation acts in the wrong place, and/or too much, we have a word for it in RL. It’s called cancer.

Filaha.1678:

If you want to play with a familiar community, have a guild and add people to your friends list. Even with megaservers, you are more likely to be put on a map with someone you have a link to than random people.

long sigh + facepalm A: That’s what the devs said. B: That does not actually work, in my experience and that of all those I have discussed this with. C: I said a community. Not a guild. Before things were killed off by the change, you would -stumble on- RPers on TC or PS. Spontaneity was half of the fun, and the sheer number of RPers in that community was far too many to realistically fit in one guild. Furthermore, see A and B again.

Honestly, I can’t speak for everyone else, but I have next to no Ascended stuff…and that’s pretty much okay with me.
What is NOT okay with me is that I -used- to be able to play the way that I wanted, with who I wanted, and that has since changed. I am an RPer. Not a lore-junkie satisfied with the (admittedly improved) Living Story lore; not a PvE zerg/grinder. The implementation of megaservers destroyed all ability to play with a familiar community in favor of maps populated with larger numbers of complete strangers. All protests along this line have been soundly ignored.
THAT is why I, for one, truly cannot play how I want.

Sounds good to me. It’d be much more interesting.

Whether Caithe’s motives were good or not, my initial reaction was, and I quote: “Okay… But I still don’t care, I trust her way more than the rest of those yokels.”

What WvW needs is more maps, more mechanics, and the death of megaservers. The first two for obvious reasons and the last because WvW thrives on server identity and server pride, which megaservers have crushed. Unlike before, you can’t go into a map anymore and say “Hey, isn’t [my server] the best?” And get a bunch of people saying, “By Grenth’s frozen underpants, yeah we are!”

As far as new content… A friend of mine and I had a discussion over the summer about what type of thing would be cool to see in WvW. So, we came up with a rough idea of a brand new map with fresh new mechanics. It was cool.

The simplest way I can think to put it is that RPing allows you to set aside a character that someone else made for you and make yourself into what you want to be.

There’s still a ton of really awesome potential locked up in Tyria, even aside from (Or, I’d daresay -especially- aside from) the dragons.

If you break it down, it wasn’t the giant puppet-bot that made the event so awesome, it was the mechanics, above all else. the Marionette denied the ability to zerg by splitting the horde of players five ways for the lanes and then another five for the smaller arenas. Also, on a side note, having the walls lower would just undermine half of that, which would be counterproductive. They way that it was, you knew that if you completed the Marionette, everyone almost certainly did their part, at least to some degree.
I really wouldn’t mind seeing the same concept applied to future, non-Scarlet-affiliated things.

DeShadowWolf.6854:

Inculpatus cedo.9234:

If we were to go back in time, maybe the Iconics story would have been similiar. They had to be unknown ‘street-level’ nobodies once, didn’t they? Or were they just born world-renown adulated heroes? I don’t know, as I know little of their past history.

Yep. Rytlock and Logan tried to murder each other, then they found Caithe, got arrested, and started fighting in an arena to get free. Then Eir, Snaff, and Zojja beat the crap out of em in a bet with the arena owner.

The Iconics still did a much, much better job of representing their races, though. Logan is a guardian that venerates the Six Gods, and he has a fanatical (IMO unhealthy, but whatever) devotion to his Queen. Marjory and Kasmeer have none of that, as the only connection to human society they hold is a sort of contempt for the system of nobility.
Rytlock always embodied charr values, and he also occupies a rank that makes his actions and thoughts relevant to Charr society. Rox had previously been just a puppy dog hero-worshipping Rytlock, and that type of thing could happen regardless of her race. And now, she’s just a generic, punch-clock hero.
Eir set out to accomplish something legendary by fighting the Dragonspawn, then, upon failing, she sought redemption of both herself and her legend. Braham… has mommy issues and a terminal condition of falling perfectly into the dumb-muscle archetype.
Zojja… okay, so not all of the Iconics are all that compelling. But she did do a good job of representing her race, and her race’s ideals. Taimi… again, for a change, I actually like her. She still doesn’t tell us a whole lot about her race, but at least some of the time, she is an interesting character. Partially because she had the interesting motivation for awhile of learning about Scarlet, a subject that most people wouldn’t even touch, despite being a cute, innocent young girl.
That’s really the key to it, or at least part of it: The Biconics do not have purpose. They have some shallow, simple motivations that go no further than their own lives; Braham with his mommy issues, Kasmeer dealing with her crisis of social rank, Marjory needing to continue keeping up the noir facade which must be exhausting, and Rox and Taimi wanting to impress their respective mentors. BUT, they do not have strong, personal reasons to fight the dragons, or any particular group.

Thanatos.2691:

Marjory’s sister dying was poorly done imo because her character had as much development as Antarctica. I think it would be interesting to see Braham sacrifice his life to save Taimi or Kasmeer forced to kill a corrupted Marjory.

Although the examples given are pretty cliche’d (Nothing necessarily wrong with that, by the way), something like that would do wonders for giving the Biconics motivation. Think of how much more marching into battle would mean for Kasmeer if she’s marching against an entity that forced her into such a situation? For Taimi, if the dragons had taken the one person that truly cared for her away?
Not to mention, such things would make gaps in the ranks that might be filled by fresh, better-designed characters.

Deamhan.9538:

I’ve always been partial to the “Krytan” weapon skins. Seems to have a kind of Victorian style.

I love the Krytan weapon skins. On multiple occasions, I’ve transmuted level 80 exotics to their Krytan equivalents, and I’m not sorry in the least.
I also really like the white weapon skins for almost all of the weapons, because they just look…efficient.

What WvW needs, I think, is new maps and mechanics. A friend and I once sat on a dock in the middle of summer and spitballed an entire design for such a thing, and we found that it did seem like something people would want to play.
Another thing, however, is that WvW team spirit was dealt a severe blow by the inclusion of megaservers, because server communities outside the Mists are now meaningless.
PvE still needs some love, too, though, because despite their focus on it, they haven’t done much that’s actually ‘great’ and living up to their potential.

I had a dervish in GW1, and it was definitely one class that I really enjoyed, except for one thing: Their weapon choice. Scythes meant for combat do not have blades perpendicular to the handle, because enemy soldiers are not stalks of wheat. For that reason, I used a scythe with inferior stats all through Nightfall because it had a blade that looked just slightly better.
The issue of the charr rejecting Dervishes, I think, is somewhat overblown, since Dervishes are meant to be in the thick of combat even more so than Guardians.
Other than the weapon issue, I’d love to see dervishes, or rather, a Dervish-inspired class, come to the game. Personally, I say this: Monks, but kung-foo monks with proper polearms.

I’m not much of a SPvPer, but I do enjoy WvW. Or, that is, I used to. Before megaservers, when server identity existed. People would gather in places like Lion’s Arch and talk about what was currently going on in the current WvW matchup, and it felt good because we were a community and we could cheer freely for our team wherever we went. Now, all that is gone.
Another thing, though many others may disagree with me on this, is that I can find an enormous amount of new content through roleplaying, even now that most of the recent changes (megaserver, leveling, etc) have been crushing the life out of RP.
So…multiple groups are discontented, but the fact remains that it can be fixed and made better than ever before. Better PvP, better PvE, better use of the rich lore that Tyria has to offer, and maybe even a bit okittennowledgement for my RP brethren as well.

My thoughts are as follows:
I love this game. Because I love it, I hate anything that would ruin good things or make this excellent game fall short of its potential. Thus, I hate some of the things they’ve done with it because of how much I care about the game.
I miss, passionately, the days before megaservers, when separate communities existed as divided by the players themselves. Now, everyone is forced together, and all sense of community has been replaced with the feeling of standing “alone” in a crowded room.
I enjoy bits of the living story, but I am still disappointed as a whole, because I know they can do better.
As far as raw game mechanics goes, GW2 has some things that I now consider necessary, and that ruins other games for me. The design of the classes, the style of combat, and the inclusion of optional platforming elements in jumping puzzles are all things that Guild Wars has done better than any other game I’ve played.
The game has great potential, but so far, I’m afraid I’ve seen plenty of steps backwards and plenty of cases in which that potential falls woefully short. I keep my fingers crossed for the future, though. Always.

This was a bad idea. Also, it was a bad idea.

Wow. It’s true. That’s just…unbelievable.

Dervish/Shaolin Monk, BUT with polearms, not scythes. Same basic combat style, far more versatility in weapon choice and combat techniques.

The fact that the devs aren’t listening is truly a shame. It’s abundantly clear that, despite all efforts, RP really is beginning to suffer with how hard it is to even group with guildmates properly, let alone find immersive standalone RP. That, and the griefers are worse than ever. All of these things have been pointed out, and megaserver supporters handwaved them. It’s not so sweet to be proven right.

Trahearne was badly written, but the character itself is not so bad. Only badly executed. For that reason, he deserves better than to be killed off, or at least deserves to do so in a glorious and dignified way.

Trahearne is a victim of two things, mainly: 1) The writing of dialogue, which is mediocre; and even more so 2) His voice actor. Comparing the dialogue and voice of Trahearne during the early Sylvari story with that of the late game shows a huge difference. It’s clear that the voice actor got bored, lost all desire to put feeling into the lines, and therefore made a character that should have been somewhat interesting into a (sadly) bland and difficult-to-connect-with character. I like him despite the bandwagon hate against him, simply because I can see that the character himself is not at fault, rather, it’s that the character wasn’t executed well enough. That kind of goes for Scarlet as well.
I don’t want Trahearne to be killed off. However, they can feel free to do whatever they want to Queen Jennah.

I’m not saying that scythes shouldn’t be in the game. I’m saying that they should be classified under the Polearm weapon type, and designed with that in mind.
Also, the impracticality of unmodified farmer-style scythes is -not- only a matter of aesthetics, in fact. The wider range of attack options that “practical” polearms offer translate into more skill possibilities. Plus, unlike a dedicated “scythe” weapon type, Polearm would fit thematically with more than just Necromancer and [Dervish]. That being said, I think it’d actually be really cool if, for Necromancer polearm, the exact same thing happens as with their staff; that is, a shadowy scythe blade appears and the weapon is then used as such.

Polearms are not meant to be thrown, by any means. The spears that Paragons threw were more like javelins, really. Personally, I think that limiting the design of polearms such that they are all able to be thrown vastly limits their potential in melee, where they belong. Standard spears and javelin-type weapons are throwable, but there are also lots of polearm designs I’d like to see, like halberds, glaives, naginatas, even shaolin spades.

The inclusion of scythes as weapons, since Dervish in GW1, has always frustrated me for one reason: Scythes with blades perpendicular to the shaft are actually tremendously ineffective as weapons, despite the knee-jerk “cool factor” that attracts people. Scythes used effectively for combat have historically been modified to turn the blade 90 degrees, making them more similar to… yes, polearms.
Therefore, by all means, war scythes should be included in the game, but as a subset of the Polearm weapon type. Because Necromancers may be able to get by with a weapon that works by looks alone, but any other class is practical enough to use a weapon that actually works.

This is something I’d love to see as well, although I also clearly see the problem with such a style. Namely, that it increases the workload on the writers. I help to write rules and story for a LARP group, and we have run into the same issues when trying for divergent story.
That being said, I do think that ArenaNet is fully capable of handling the increased workload of a reasonable, not-too-complicated branching storyline, and that this is absolutely something they should look into.

Personally, I say no drops is better than the economic disaster caused by last year’s Crown Pavilion. The lack of experience gain, however, I do have a problem with.

The idea of a large scale battle being broken down into much smaller parts is the best thing about the Marionette, and is a concept that should be brought into other, future things. It allows for a large scale fight with a feeling of teamwork, while also making every single person feel like they are contributing. That, I believe, is the biggest thing mechanically great about this release.
The other thing I admire is that the story, backstory, and other information was given out immensely better during this release, but without making it feel like we were being deluged with information. The effort to get into Scarlet’s lair and open the boxes is also paced well, since it takes a bit of time and work, and some exploring, without requiring too much for more casual players to complete.
Overall, I think that this release has done wonders for redeeming the Living Story. This is the high level of quality that the game deserves, and the devs are fully capable of. Good show!

I am certainly hoping for a good boss battle, but definitely have my doubts. Traditionally, and through no fault of the developers, even good attempts to be more nuanced have fallen before zerg rushes of players that put quantity over quality and grinding for rewards over fun mechanics. Most recently, with Scarlet. I really liked the Scarlet invasions when they first started, but then the champion farmers moved in and any split tactics turned into simple zerging.
This is something that needs to be overcome to have a truly enjoyable experience, and it doesn’t see like it’d be easy. Still, I’ve got my fingers crossed.

People complain about Trahearne, when the player does all the work and the glory goes to the NPC. Now there are complaints about the player -not- having the spotlight?

2H axe sounds nice, but I actually don’t think it would be a good weapon type. this is because the way of wielding a large axe is virtually indistinguishable from that of a hammer, except with sharp edges. Therefore, very few unique skills or animations could be created for 2H axe that were not already covered by GS, 1H axe, and/or Hammer.
However, a viable alternative that could be quite similar, but with more potential, would be Polearm. Various skins for pikes, halberds, glaives, naginatas, and even war scythes (with blades that point UP not sideways. I always hated that in GW1 Dervish scythes.) Polearm would be a more distinct weapon class, and would also satisfy the desire for 2H axe, because that’s essentially what a halberd is.
To get back on topic, I personally do not think that torches or hammers should be Necro weapons, and the new skins certainly don’t suggest it. Necromancers do not need a monopoly on evil-looking weapons, nor do Necros need to be restricted to evil weapons.

One thing I’d like to see in some form in some future Living Story release is a significant attack, coming out of nowhere, that strikes surprisingly close to home.
Meaning, for example:
You’re in Divinity’s Reach. As is your custom, you leave the palace gardens and begin to head south to the bank and Trading Post. When you finish picking up your TP swag, you turn around, and decide spontaneously, why not go for a walk around the city, pick up that last POI or a Slice of Rainbow Cake? So, you head down the magical elevator. Seconds after you arrive, though, an NPC’s shout appears in the chat box and rings across the city. “Help! They’re coming! There’s- Aaaargh!” Just then, a group of [for example,] dredge come running down the street, clashing their resonant blades and drills with the swords and shields of the Seraph. Heralds run through the streets, directing “all civilians, return to your homes! All able-bodied non-essential soldiers, reinforce the Shining Blade and Fallen Angels at the Great Collapse!” From there, you head to the Great Collapse, and at each of the entrances to the district, the gates are closed and a Seraph lieutenant waits for groups of brave reinforcements to delve into the ruined district, and down into the tunnels that the Dredge had been digging and shoring up for so many months.
This is a battle worth fighting. An enemy has appeared on the very doorstep of humanity, with almost no warning. Will humanity’s heroes and their allies of the other races stem the tide? Or will half of Divinity’s Reach forever bear the scars and the burden of Dredge conquest?

…Thoughts? I feel that the dynamic of having a major attack on familiar lands was something attempted by Flame and Frost, but far too slow in its appearance and not fully explored. The Secret of Southsun has no such urgency at all.

Use the “Guard” shout to send your pet to one side of the area. It will stay there for 180 seconds, at which point you can do it again.

I love this idea. It’s the kind of storyline that the Living Story should have been all along. It’s a coherent plot, but with meaningful advances in each chapter. You, ColdEden, restore my faith in the existence of good storytelling; the faith which had been nearly crushed by the mediocre Flame and Frost content and the absolute swill that is Secret of Southsun. If the developers put something half this awesome into the game, everyone would be beyond happy.

I’d really like to see a hood headpiece that I could use on my ranger. I don’t want the mask that comes with the Whispers Mask, and there’s no way to get the skin of the Anonymity Hood. Not just for thieves; there needs to be a generic medium armor hood as well.

When I log in, my mouse cursor doesn’t show up, and so I can’t click anything with any degree of accuracy, since the only indicator of cursor location is the tooltips that pop up. It cost me a spot in Tarnished Coast that I’ve been waiting on for a long time since I couldn’t click the transfer button…
Anyway, any help you could give would be appreciated.

Although this is a rather unpopular view, I have to say it: I’d hate to see scythes show up as a weapon. Dervish, fine, but not scythes as a separate weapon type. Here’s why: scythes with blades perpendicular to the shaft/snathe are for cutting grass and wheat, not enemies. When farmer militias used war scythes, the blade was rotated to point in the same direction as the shaft.
I certainly support the introduction of polearms to the game, and that would include such parallel-blade war scythes, alongside similar weapons like halberds, glaives, and naginatas, the last of which would go great with a Canthan expansion.
To bring my contribution fully back on-topic, picture this: Canthan expansion that includes Tengu race, and a class that merges kungkittenmonk with Dervish. It would use melee staves, the new polearm weapon type, and maybe daggers, sword, focus, and long/short bow.

Stormbluff Isle is top-tier for WvW, if I’m not mistaken. So the main goal of many on SBI is WvW, not RP. Not to mention, for the same reason, SBI is as full as TC, and probably is even less likely to open up.

It pretty much comes down to this: There are clearly a lot of people that want to RP that aren’t on TC and want to be. So we must start a second RP server. All we really need to do is point to one, and people will come.
I for one would be willing to go to any NA server that had roleplayers, no matter what its standing in WvW. All we must do is agree on an open server, and the rest will come naturally, right?

Call it Monk or Sohei. They could appear in a Canthan expansion and be introduced alongside the Polearm weapon type, so that they could use halberds, pikes, and naginatas. (or even scythes, I guess.)

Perhaps that should change. If there are enough RPers locked out of TC, then we should collaborate and fix the problem by finding another “unofficial” RP server.

When I first started playing, I quickly chose Tarnished Coast as my homeworld since it’s the unofficial RP server. And I absolutely loved it, because not only did roleplaying actually occur, but it was good-quality RP, and the enthusiasm that stems from an RP view of the game meant that other aspects of the game were handled well, and most Coasters were mature, helpful, and competent.
Then, last week, a friend of mine bought the game, but TC was full and so I had to transfer in order to play with him. Thus, we joined Darkhaven. And I never expected there would be such a difference. The taverns in Divinity’s Reach that were always packed on TC are completely, 100% barren, nobody ever joins in a spontaneous RP, and truthfully, I’ve seen more immaturity among players in the last week than I saw in the months I played on TC.
Anecdotes aside, I’m sure there are other RPers out there in a similar position. Perhaps we could all benefit from establishing another, equally unofficial American RP world? Or if there’s a better one, just let me know? (I’d prefer not to join an EU server, though, so Piken Square doesn’t count.)