Guild Wars 2

So, I don’t know if this is worth asking here, but is there any word on guild halls or player housing? In all honesty it feels like the GD section of the forums has become a place to complain, so I don’t want this to take on that attitude. However, these are two things that I’m excited for and hoping we’ll see, but there has been very little mention of them since the living story got rolling. I’m even prepared for a “not really working on that” answer just to put the subject to rest. So…. what’s going on with all that? Anything? Nothing? Something unspecific hinting at the possibility of some specifics at some unspecified point in the future?

Thanks in advance!

Yours truly,

Tagus

I had a similar theory. Evon was so stereotypically criminal and aggressive in his dialogue that I felt it was a skewed vote from the get go. If it wasn’t for the Abbadon fractal, Kiel would have won by a landslide. Interestingly enough, it was the scoundrel aspect of Evon that gave him a more compelling personality, so it would have been cool to see what Anet did with his story. Its fun to think about, at any rate!

Haha… classic dev response. I like it when they respond like a normal human being would, instead of a corporate marketing drone.

Better than a big hole in the ground..

I can see both sides. To call a game shallow that I’ve played for almost a calendar year is kind of crazy, but it is shallow in a certain sense. It’s easier than most MMO’s to learn. You don’t need a group to complete content. Those things I love. The part that is somewhat dissapointing is the childish nature of the plotlines and the cardboard voice acting. I think they did this deliberately, because they want the game to be family friendly, but it does suck to a certain degree for people with a more “adult” preference. The thing is, GW2 is a young game. If you go back and look at the way alot of MMO’s started out, it was the same thing. FFXI was my experience, and in that game if you looked at the first rank 10 missions that were basically the only content for a year, in comparison to Sky Gods, Sea Gods, Dynamis, and all that came after, it was really those later things that made the game great. The first year’s content became what people did when they had free time in between the fun stuff that didn’t even exist at this point in the game’s life yet. Long story short, as MMO’s progress and time passes, they grow to become “deep” games. Anet has made alot of really impressive moves lately… if they continue down this path we’ll see some awesome stuff.

Edit: Also, they did alot of the “foundation” type stuff right. The game is gorgeous and fun to play. Assuming that the depth comes with age, it’s going to be alot of fun for a long time.

Michael Jordan was the best basketball player of all time, but he can’t run an organization or draft good players. Not saying he’s wrong, but its just one opinion. What’s the alternative? Redesign the class? Reduce stealth? Lower back stab damage? They would all negatively effect a class that already has difficulty functioning in 99% of scenarios.

Yeah seriously! You’ll never hear a thief say anything bad about stealth, because imagine what we would be without it… squishy little worms running around with absolutely no abilities or function worth having. Even short bow sucks now that they reduced the range, so we can’t even AOE to get credit for kills in PvE without being in the middle of a group of mobs. Its funny but I don’t think any job will get more benefit when they give every job access to more weapons, because you know at least one thing added will be worth something. I just really like my thief and spent 3 months on him. It would kind of suck if he got nerfed anymore, because there isn’t a whole lot special about the class already.

If they took stealth away from thief without providing the job with an entirely different functionality, they would make the class completely worthless. As a thief main, I would be cool with either giving thief defensive abilities that let us escape or defend ourselves, or giving classes like Mez or Guardian movement speed so I could play them without feeling slow as hell. Constantly having to boost your movement with weapon abilities is annoying IMO. I don’t really care about the stealth mechanic.. its the mobility that I love. But when light armor classes are running around with 25k+ health points and you’ve got 15k or less on a medium class, of course you’re going to spec for some stealth so you can gtfo.

Whenever I see these threads my first thought is… somebody got killed by a thief in PvP or WvW. I’ve been playing a thief main for a few months now, and there are definitely some advantages to stealth. Mostly its movement and losing hate… for example, its a lot easier to grab skill points that would typically be guarded by a vet or champ. Thief gives a massive boost to making map completion easier. But combat? Not so much. It helps with escape, which is nice because you can’t go toe to toe with anything on a thief. Back stab is strong as hell, if you gear for it and can land it on somebody… which is rare. But honestly the best reason to play a thief is that they’re the only job with melee capability and a 25% speed boost signet, with no good skills that you’re sacrificing to use it.

There’s a lot of things to do, but strangely a lot of it is unnecessary stuff. That’s the thing with GW2. For better or worse, there is no real necessary level of completion. I guess the options are… PvP, WvW, legendary weapons, events, alts, or living/personal story. Not bad for a game less than a year old. Question is, what do you enjoy doing?

Personally, I’m picking and choosing between guild events, dragons, farming, and personal story… with some WvW and alt leveling here and there. Its nice to let real life dictate an MMO for once, instead of the other way around.

Evon is the dirty politician type.. maybe they figured they needed to give an incentive to vote for him. Its almost a shame that the abaddon fractal might not get made though. GW2 could seriously use some god lore!

Idk.. it takes literally 30 seconds to WP over and do it each day, and the reward isn’t a necessity by any means. Maybe they just wanted to limit it while they decide where to take the first new material since release?

I’d like to add that I think its wonderful as well. I really can’t believe all of the negativity on these forums sometimes. The new zone is gorgeous, but its also great conceptually. I think running up the bridge to the zepher airship was one of the biggest “oh wow” moments I’ve had in any video game since I was a kid. I cant remember the last time i felt such a strong desire to simply explore a video game and ignore tangible progression methods. The new movement types are a lotof fun as well. Its rare that a game can introduce a new mechanic that totally changes your gameplay, and you guys have done it more than once now. The new AP reward scheme is really well done as well… I guess I could go on and on, but just wanted to say I think its great work!

So you want an MMO that isn’t full of trolls, annoying teens, or uptight 30 year olds?

Good luck man.

haha that’s so true… I think I got 200 points or so. The thing is, with the temporary content in this game and the changes in how AP is given, people who skipped GW1 are the least screwed. At least you can go back and play that game… you can’t go back to the time that AP was rewarded like crazy for the daily. Those are the people you see high up in the point totals… the ones that went crazy getting AP back when Plinx was popular.

“AP competitive” is really a silly concept. AP is designed to be a system of rewards for doing certain things, not a reason to do them. Obviously it’s important to the devs to remember where GW2 came from by rewarding GW1 players for their time and effort. To complain about such a thing is really quite terrible imo. GW2 wouldn’t exist without the time, creativity, resources, and energy that went into GW1 on the part of the devs and community of players who supported them. How does it effect anyone negatively who didn’t play GW1, that GW1 players get a pointless GW2 reward that you could earn a month after them? You’re all blessed to have those shoulders to stand on, be thankful for the great game you you have… ingrates!

My first impressions… love the new achievement based rewards, new zone is freaking awesome, and the race is fun as hell. Great job on this one Anet. Really well done in my opinion.

should just copy/paste that into every “temp content sucks” thread between now and that blog post!

I didn’t read the thread comments, but I like the original post quite a bit. Its a tough line that the devs have to walk with keeping it casual, yet at the same time rewarding progression, and I feel like they’ve done a great job. Temporary content isn’t a terrible idea either, because if you don’t like a particular storyline, you can just skip it and try the next one. The biggest problem I have currently is that WvW has no long term reward. You could run with the zerg for months and your fellow server mates can’t even see your rank. The rank up chests have terrible rewards as well, at least in my experience. If they introduced exclusive skins for WvW that were only accessible once you hit a certain rank, that would solve the problem… assuming they’re cool skins, of course.

I would build a super computer and run WvW lag free… then I’d invest enough money into the game to create a spinoff personal instance server. I’d hire a team to develop the greatest personal instance expansion ever, with an upgradable dwarf butler who’s voiceover work was done by the actor who played Alfred in the newest Batman movies. I’d create a clothing rotation for my dwarf so he changed clothes once a day, have them based on the seasons and\or holidays, etc…. i’d most assuredly create quest lines where hegets kidnapped and i have to rescue him. He’d probably be an alcoholic and objectify women, but we’d love him anyway. I’d create a quest line where I get married and my wife forces me to kick him out of my personal instance house, at which point I’d have to build him a personal instance shack where he could work on building things and fixing machinery. Eventually my wife would get kidnapped as well, and my dwarf would die saving her life… at which point she would adopt his dwarven kin into our home and realize that his objectifying of women was actually a cultural problem. Of course, his kin would then get kidnapped, my wife would eventually bear me a son, at which point he would get kidnapped… and I’d finally invest in some home security. Perhaps a team of dwarven guards, who perhaps owe my family a life debt for rescuing their nephew from kidnappers. I haven’t worked out the details on that yet.

Yeah, pretty much if you didn’t learn from the rich ori node being taken out that ANET doesn’t want ppl having a huge advantage farming with their alts, then its really your own fault for not keeping your awareness up on the direction they will take moving forward. It was blatantly obvious.

You know I’m kinda burned out on the CoF gear too, but omg that helm is amazing.

Yeah that’s what I was wondering. There was a french article that mentioned a new home instance yesterday, and now this quartz node thing….. it looks like they’re moving towards player housing. God I just want a picture, or a release date!

ha, that picture is great.

God, player housing…. I’ve been wanting this since release. It would be sooo cool to decorate a house with rewards from the game for completing certain things or achievements. Having it tied into crafting or your guild would be awesome as well. Hopefully they give us some sort of official declaration on what they’re up to!

I love the slang humor in this game. This game is so “G” rated that it’s a nice splash of color in a often-times dull landscape.

Gems would be glorious, but what I’d really like to see is a trophy for my characters personal instance house to commemorate my server’s victory! Oh wait…. we don’t have those. Gems it is!

I’d like to see home instances, new weapons such as great axe, and dwarves. I’d also like to see a new set of legendary weapons, along with legendary armor with some lore behind it. The legendary tier has no legend behind it… they’re just really hard to get.

This game ain’t perfect, but this is one thing I feel they did particularly well. If the mobs were harder to kill it would solve the participation problem, but there would be much less solo able content. I’d rather miss the occasional loot because it got killed too quick, than be limited by what I can accomplish alone.

I’m not a fan of the RNG by any means, but it’s a rare skin. It provides no statistical advantage over not having it… it just looks cool. There’s a ton of variety in this game on the ways we’re rewarded… Laurels are a perfect example. The gear that actually makes your character stronger, i.e.- ascended gear, has multiple ways of obtaining it now.

Long story short, you might get one, you might not. Take your time and keep trying! This will probably be an annual event, so don’t freak out and spend $55 dollars on chests. It’s a shame that you could do that and not get a skin, but jesus man… that’s just crazy.

Yeah same here, I just won it and didn’t get credit. The achievement thing popped up in the lower right when I won, but none of my achievements are listed as completed.

Tier 1 isn’t bad at all. I’ve made some negative comments about it in the past, but it’s really been awesome lately. Queues are super long during prime hours, like friday nights or right after a WvW update for example, but it’s not bad at all any other times lately. During the day I can get right on, and on weekends you might get a wait time in a zone or two. As far as trolls and drama go, it’s really up to you if you want to let that effect you. There was one guy acting stupid in map chat last weekend… a bunch of my guild mates blocked him. I didn’t, and haven’t heard from him since, so idk. If you want to ignore it it’s quite easy to ignore in this game. They did a good job on giving you options to limit your exposure to it.

Plus in Tier 1, you know you’re fighting with and against the best of the best. It’s all spread over the zones too, so you can still grab a camp or tower with 5 or 6. You won’t hold it for long once the other side sees you taking it, but it’s still fun to try to steal one. I stole a tower yesterday with 5 other people, and just as this massive zerg was running up the stairs at us we claimed it… it was awesome. Even though they ran through us like nothing, we knew we had really kitten ed them off by taking it!

I can’t recommend JQ though. Go SoR or stay put!

Honestly I think its because stealth is the only way a thief can beat anybody. Call it what you want, but thieves would have a super tough time winning without it, and its frustrating to the player who loses to know that. It seems gimmicky when you don’t understand how hard it is to master. I just hit 80 thief this week and I have yet to win a dual. Sure, I can run away from anyone at any time, which is nice, but beat somebody with my yellow armor and weapons? At this point they’d have to be a lowbie learning a new job. I just don’t have the DPS, and most players have encountered enough thieves by now to respond moderately well.

Yeah I kind of agree. On one hand you want siege to be more realistic in terms of damage to single targets, but on the other you want dolyaks to have a ring of invincibility around them? I know this may not be your experience, but some zerg leaders actually use quite a few tactics that allow them to succeed against larger numbers. It can be a lot of fun the way it is, with a good commander.

They do it that way on purpose. Some time around the “expansion worth of content” comment, they realized that not everything lives up to expectations, and when they fall short, people throw a kitten fit. You guys did it to yourselves, really. I mean, what percentage of the official forums are complaints? 75%? 80%? I get it and all… the devs actually read this kitten so you want them to know what’s wrong, but you can’t blame them for controlling expectations at this point.

Lol curo… that was pretty good. Anyway, the only reason you haven’t been able to do dungeons or WvW is cause it sounds like you didn’t even try. And yeah…. legendaries are out of reach of most people, but who cares? Most of them are lame looking, and they give no statistical advantage. I swear sent just threw them in there so grinders have something to grind for.

I miss having different player housing in each city, with environments you could decorate with rewards unique to your accomplishments. I miss bosses dropping unique items. I miss the more classical weapon designs. You know… bad kitten weaponry. Not bows that shoot rainbows, pistols with tassles, and daggers that are actually a blowtorch. I get what they’re trying to do, but its just not for me. I like more dangerous looking weapons… not the gimmicky ones. Also… regular map expansions and armor variety are pretty important to keep an memo fresh. I know it hasn’t been a year yet, but when your game is designed specifically to be less grindy you have to account for people reaching max level and gear quickly.

Let me just say as a SoR native, I’m really happy iron came to us. They filled a gap in our timeslots that was our only true weakness, and they’re super good at what they do, so its win/win. It’s not the only reason we’re winning though. Where has BG gone? A couple of weeks ago you couldn’t step foot on a map without getting rolled by one of their monster zergs.

They’re creating new WvW dailies, so its probably going to be laurels. Its actually kind of nice… the monthlies have been nice and easy lately.

I actually agree with this. Most of the dagger skins are either boring or ridiculous. And the legendary dagger isn’t even a dagger… its a blowtorch? I guess its not as bad as the pistol with tassles or the bow that shoots unicorns, but that’s not saying much.

I really like the idea of guard defense. The biggest problem with WvW in my mind is that there’s very little to do solo. I find myself always trying to find the biggest zerg to run in, which is fun, but some variety would be nice. I’d love to see them add a bunch more guards with new areas to claim, for example. There’s no reason they couldn’t just throw a bunch in there.

Hate is a strong word. His dialogue was terrible, and his voice acting was monotone and emotionless. The biggest thing that seems to be the case though, is that those things are universally true, and he had such a major role in the plot development. So it wasn’t like “oh, he was boring… let’s move on”…… rather it was “oh, he’ s boring… and he’s the number 1 plot devoloper for the finale of the personal story.”

Its a video game… laws don’t really apply. Its illegal to build an arrow cart and shoot it into a crowd of people last I checked… do you really want laws to apply here? Dumb argument is dumb.

I would the second it came out… and then I’d spend the next 6 months complaining that either dwarves, great axes, player housing, or guild halls weren’t in the game yet. Actually I’m pretty much done with warrior because its so useless in WvW, so I probably wouldn’t even complain about great axes anymore.

is this really happening

The goggles do nothing!!!

Hilarious reference there. Thanks guys, the game has really been great fun lately.

Its good and bad. Gives you a chance to bring your alts to new places, but removes the whole point of levelling them up. I love you the new and improved south sun though. Great use of an empty zone that we’ve been complaining about for quite some time.

Thanks for asking! I like to marvel at the curious absence of great axe.

Idk.. after all this talk, I rolled a thief about two weeks ago to see what all the hubub was about. I’m level 44 currently. So far I’ve managed to kill one person 1 v1 in wvw. It was a ranger who ran away from me in a straight line as soon as I engaged. You guys who think this job is overpowered should really give it a try… I’ve gotten stomped in every other encounter. Obviously I’m under levelled and still learning the job and skills, but its really not that easy.

It’s not just MMO’s… it’s the internet and online games in general. The anonymity of an online environment removes the consequences of being a jerk. My solution is whenever somebody is rude or acts like a kitten in general, I just imagine it’s this 50 year old creepy scumbag I work with, and I’m no longer annoyed and really just feel sorry for them. There’s gotta be a whole lot of unhappiness going on below the surface of somebody when they take such pleasure in acting the troll. I’ve done it a couple of times, and it’s always when I had a bad day of work or my wife was acting like a queen B… so you just gotta laugh it off.