The point i was trying to make is: If there is good character development that furthers the story it is absolutely irrelevant if its a gay romance or not. I am not about to praise or condemn a relationship simply on the fact that it “raises gay awareness” or other such crap.
This. The story is what matters, not some social (or political, or religious, or anything else) agenda. There are games out there that cater specifically to that sort of thing if that’s what you’re into, but I come to Tyria to have fun and escape. 
What world boss is at Bloodtide Coast? I can’t recall any…
Tahida Covington, the “Hydra Queen”. A title that makes absolutely no sense at all to me, since it’s a pirate boss, but you do get an achievement out of defeating her. On the “annoying” scale she’s somewhere between the Fire Shaman and Lyssa.
My female Charr is a warrior, and I was just complaining to my guildies this evening that her voice just doesn’t match her. When she cries “For Great Justice!” she sounds like a disinterested soccer mom. That’s not a slam against the voice actress who plays the part, it’s just…jarring.
What I would love is for her to sound like the Scorch warband near the Fire Shaman event in Iron Marches. A couple of those Charr gals have a raspy growl to their vocals that suits them perfectly. 
http://www.gamerzines.com/pc/arenanet.html
tldr: primordus
__
Thump, Thump. Time to jump.
Wipe all resistance from your mind
There’s a secret deep below to find
If you’d only seen the things I’ve seen
You’d wake up screaming from The Dream
This next part will sting, but it brings me joy
Sometimes to change you must destroy
A fire is rising you cannot contain
Tyria will burn, while I remain.
“Thump, thump”…a clear reference to the Forbidden Thumpers. Is Scarlet trying to annoy Primordus into attacking the surface?
“Something big is coming”?
What’s bigger than a dragon?
I just call him “Clawsie”.
I always try to help new players whenever I encounter them… I do seem to be in the minority, though.
I expect an influx of new players who found a pretty white box under their Christmas tree in a few days. We should all be welcoming and helpful to them, because we’ll need all the help we can get. One day the remaining Elder Dragons are going to get tired of watching that mad salad run around and remind Tyria of who the real world-ending menace is.
That has been there as long as I can remember so I’m not sure it’s a graphics glitch.
Really.
Well, I’m comforted to know I’m not the only person to see this…it had me a bit worried. I suppose it must be connected with some object or event in the area.
My mesmer’s a Priory scholar. She’ll get to the bottom of it.
I wish I had a screenshot to accompany this bizarre encounter of mine, but I was in too much of a hurry to stop for one. So, a description will have to do.
Last night my guild and I were in Dredgehaunt Cliffs, headed for a guild rush location…Spider Scurry, I think it’s called, or something like that. Anyway it’s the one where you transform into a spider and have to contend with the occasional dredge.
My mesmer did not have the closest waypoint, so I’d ported in from the Grey Road WP and was heading north through Steelbrachen, to the west of Dostoev Sky Peak. It took me a moment to notice (I was lost), but I realized that the wintry environment around me had taken on a very Brand-esque appearance…pink/purple light and flashing lightning. Finally it hit me, and I stopped and reported what I was seeing to my guildies (“Hey, what the hell, why is everything out here pink???”), but they were distracted by the rush. So was I, so I went on my way and more or less forgot it.
This morning I headed to the same area to see what was causing this…I assumed at the time it was some dynamic event or other. But instead I found symptoms of the corruption more common to that area—-blizzard conditions. In fact, further to the west is a renown heart where you fight against Jormag’s corrupting influence. And both last night and this morning I could see corrupted ice formations and elementals. So it’s an area tainted by dragon corruption…
…but last night it was the wrong corruption.
And before someone yells, “SCARLET”, I don’t think so. There were no invasions in progress at the time, and no Forbidden Thumpers in the immediate vicinity. Just an environmental effect that seemed to be in the wrong environment.
Is this a graphics glitch? Or has my mesmer been working too hard? Minds that need examining want to know!
Well, nothing has really changed. They are now labeled “Mysterious Probes” and still knock you kitten over teakettle when touched, but now offer no message.
What they’re probing, why they’re shielded so heavily, who put ’em out there…all still a mystery to me so far.
“I feel six feet tall.”
…Then I realized that I was actually saying that and felt stupid.
Well, in RL I’m just barely over five, so for me that would be legit.
Well, we’ll find out tomorrow…right?
Well, here we have a Monday that is chilly, wet, gloomy, and frozen for many of us. I thought I’d make it a little better by starting a thread about the most common phrases we hear in GW2, and the fun “spins” that can be put on them. In other words, the phrases that accompany certain skill activations, or called out by various NPC’s.
And by “fun” of course I mean keep it clean. Don’t wake the kitten, whatever you do. That’s worse than waking the dragon.
Here’s a few of my favorites:
“For Great Dusters!”
“May Kormir frighten you!”
“Take it off!”
“Melissa aid you.”
“Wash the ledges!”
Most of these are misheard in the general commotion of a battle…understandable enough, but still funny.
(cookie for anyone who gets the reference in the thread title!)
But yes, I have a minor, infrequent problem that I’m trying to understand. From time to time I’ll get the “Connection error detected, retrying” message in my launcher. It doesn’t happen often and I’ve found that by clearing my DNS cache and resetting my modem, I can fix it. That’s not the strange part.
When it first started happening, it was part of a major glitch that was affecting many players. Some time after that, it happened to me again, so I came here to the forums to see if it was widespread as it had been that first time, or if it was just me. Nothing on the forums. Nothing on the Facebook feed. Nothing on the Twitter feed. Hmm, I thought, I’ll check the Reddit…
…and I couldn’t get onto Reddit.
Chrome “could not find” the GW2 Reddit, though the site was up for friends. After I got my connection error issue sorted out I could access the reddit just like always. And the couple of times this problem has occurred since then (the most recent being last night), it’s been the same. “Connection error detected” and the GW2 reddit goes AWOL from my browser. Other games (including GW1), and all other websites are fine. And once I reset my modem and clear the cache, everything is fine once more.
There’s got to be a connection, but this one has me beat. Ideas?
As the Elder Dragons seem to be almost Lovecraftian in terms of power and scale, it seems unlikely.
Also, would an ED act so…goofy? i.e. “Yoo-hoo, over here!!!” 
Krait, art is something that many cultures use to express themselves and explore ideas. It can be practical like making clay plates to hold food or it can be just for it’s own sake.
Here, this is a piece of art I made for you to express how awesome you are!
The Community Team is squeee’ing with love over here looking at this.
Really? I hope someone’s recording that!
Seriously, threads like this are what makes me so proud to be a part of this community. We are a creative and talented bunch…not to mention entertaining!
Hey everyone, just dropping in to let you know that we have identified the issue. A fix will be coming with one of the upcoming Living World releases.
Thank you for the update. I actually discovered a fix by accident last night in Lion’s Arch. If you’re plagued by “persistent battle music”, go into the Red Hand, the Lionguard’s tavern near Fort Marriner. There’s an acoustic version of “Bash the Dragon” that plays in there that will take over and when you exit the tavern, the “normal” LA music resumes.
It would be funnier if there were an achievement for not touching them.
I wonder if anyone out there has been able to resist the temptation…
Every time I read “ley lines” I want to cringe, literally.
It is a tired, old, overused “explainitall” popping up in writing since the 60s in relation to magic, shamanism, ancient astronauts, paranormalism, vampires.. oh god.. anything and everything. It first cropped up in the twenties..as sheer speculation based on the locations of prehistoric structures.. nothing to do with “magiks” then.
In spite of the ’concept" being well established in a ton of mostly mediocre fiction, Anet, wisely, chose to ignore it when creating a “magical” world when they wrote GW1. Blizzard embraced it wholeheartedly.
And now, we have it here. No basis, no history, no mention prior… in spite of Asura being able to track things that “bleed magic” (Vekk, on the location of the CTC)
This is just pulling stock, one size fits all common “lore” off a shelf. It’s not good writing, its not imaginative writing, and it is shoehorned into Tyria thoughtlessly and needlessly.
“Tyria: The dragons have always been here. Sleeping deep beneath the earth, beneath the sea; waiting for the time to rise…”
Remember that?
Seems like it’s not that much of a stretch to me. But just what are these “forbidden thumpers”, as I call them, supposed to be for? That’s what I’m wondering.
Kinda hard to miss ‘em. In addition to being surrounded by a force field that glows from a long distance away, the “thumping” can be heard even when the Forbidden Thumper itself is not in sight. And I’m still suspicious of the intermittent “zapping” noise I hear out in the gameworld, but my question in the audio forum has so far gone unanswered.
If the message is for us, the players, why does the “touch” option exist?
The Forbidden Thumpers are a test, I tells ya! It’s some weird Asuran thingie.
Let’s try to be logical for moment, considering these things.
An engineer’s thumper turret damages and cripples nearby enemies. They That Shall Not Be Touched appear to be really large thumper turrets which are thumping merrily away, but otherwise have no noticeable effect.
Unless they’re touched. Then they knock you kitten over teakettle, sometimes kill you, and berate you for being…well, a kitten.
On the interaction scale, that makes ‘em a little more entertaining than Trahearne. However, unlike the prior Mysterious Object that suddenly appeared in the gameworld, there are no NPC’s nearby talking about them. No disappearing mesmers. No nervous quaggans or references to Norn farts.
The only people who seem to notice them and care about their presence…would be us. None of the playable races notice them, and even the zombies of Orr don’t seem to care about them. The karka are uninterested. The dragons are unimpressed.
We, on the other hand, see something marked “DO NOT TOUCH” and can’t stop poking it.
It might be that the Elder Dragons are more cunning than we give them credit for.
My theory does not involve Scarlet on any level.
Somewhere, nestled in ArenaNet’s headquarters, is a special counter that ticks over every time someone “touches it”.
And sitting next to the timer watching it count steadily upwards, is a group of devs. Laughing themselves sick.
They are devices set forth by Lord Cthulhu to hasten his return.
Great Cthulhu does not need thumpers; only for the stars to be right again. All those things are gonna do is annoy UberQuaggan.
Hey everyone, just wanted to let you all know that I’m looking into this. Any specific information about the circumstances under which the music initially triggered would be very helpful. Things such as your character’s race, profession, the map you were in and any events that you were participating in at the time (or if you were just killing creatures in the open world). Listing your audio settings would be greatly appreciated as well. Thank you for the reports!
Okay, I can provide a couple of specifics.
This has happened to me after boss fights…first time it was the jungle wurm (I was on my fledgling Sylvari guardian) and the other evening it happened after the Shatterer, I think. I was on my Asuran mesmer then.
Both times it was “The Hammer Falls”…which is a piece of music I like very much, but it doesn’t make much sense to have it playing when my character is simply standing there sorting through her bags.
Found the particular sound. Got introduced recently, but it’ll be removed as soon as possible.
Thanks for the reports leading to a speedy fix!
Thank you! My poor little mesmer sounded like she was being violently ill every time she cast Ether Feast. Most undignified.
Fluttering capes are surprisingly difficult to deal with. I can remember doing a LOTRO raid or two where the party leader would request us to “turn off” our capes because the fluttering effect generated extra lag.
I just want to say how very, very impressed I am by the level of interaction I see here between ArenaNet and its playerbase. The “collaborative development” threads, the “red posts” I’ve seen in each of the profession forums since the announcement of next month’s balance update…it all gives the sense that the devs do indeed care about how we react to their decisions.
Is the interaction always positive? Of course not, but it makes a world of difference to feel that we’re being interacted with rather than being herded about like a flock of skittish moa birds.
I’m so proud of how Anet works with its community that I’ve pointed out these forums to another gaming community I’ve been in for years, hoping that it will serve as a positive example to them. Regardless of what direction the game itself takes, this is the right direction for us forum addicts.
You have to understand that developers are not at liberty to discuss specifics regarding upcoming releases until we’re absolutely certain that they will make it into a build. Also, we have to be careful not to get in the way of Community or Marketing initiatives. It’s a delicate balance.
That’s understood, I think. Not to mention you’ve got customers with a wide range of interests and concerns. Trying to strike a balance for that has got to be nerve wracking.
Scarlet probably would not irritate as many people as she does if she had more of a unique personality. Right now she just seems to be this generic psycho, with no other purpose apart from causing mayhem. Compare that to Marjory, who calls everyone who crosses her path “Sugar” and makes references to Norn farts.
Now, you say you’ve got an epic conclusion in mind for Scarlet’s storyline. I’m going to trust you on that, and hope to be pleasantly surprised.
You enter the tower. Scarlet’s maniacal laughter fills the air as the poison spores cloud the air with toxins. The next thing you know, everything goes dark. You begin to feel panicked, isolated, where are your friends? Your enemies? And then you spot it, emerging from the darkness swiftly. It’s the most terrible thing you’ve ever seen and you can’t help but experience the sense of impending doom…
… it’s Miley Cyrus’ tongue.
In my nightmare scenario, it would be that little Asuran nutcase from the Lost Shores event who kept screaming "CITIZENS! CITIZENS! CITIZENS!!!
There’d be no escaping save for jumping out the nearest window.
Outworld is becoming one with the earth realm. It’s time to find Tyria’s greatest warriors and unite them for Mortal Kombat!
+1 to this. Has anyone seen Trahearne?
Yes. My Asuran engineer invented something she calls a “salad shooter”, and keeps trying to convince Trehearne to “come test it out” and to bring Scarlet if he can find her.
Seems appropriate, on this Halloween day.
I picked up a collection of H. P. Lovecraft stories yesterday to get myself in the mood for today, and I started thinking about the many Lovecraftian aspects of Tyria…both in GW1 and GW2. The Realm of Torment in Nightfall was one of the most creepy zones I’ve ever seen in any game, with the landscape that “squishes” when your character runs. And in GW2 we have these monstrous dragons who feed on magical energy and corrupt everything they touch (the Brand, in particular, puts me in mind of the Lovecraft tale “The Colour out of Space”). And that’s to say nothing of Orr itself, with its immense ruined temples now swarming with monstrosities.
Have we ever actually had a dev talk about the influences for these zones? I’d like to know if this is my own overactive imagination or not.
Let the speculation commence!
I wonder which Norn Spirit of the Wild is in charge of farting…
C’mon, everybody likes fart jokes. The fact that the word is not even censored on this forum if proof of that.
I personally would have said the mesmeric veil was dropping like Dolly Parton’s training bra, but to each their own.
Well, not, it’s not okay for an allied NPC to revive an enemy. Not unless one of the krait’s gonna come over and revive me when I’m downed…
If it’s come to that, the game needs to be renamed “Civil Guild Wars 2”.
Aw man, don’t mention Tybalt. I had to give my son my Tybalt backpack skin to help him get over that. Little bugger was in tears.
Awwww. 
But you see, that’s just what I mean. Pretend for a moment that Tybalt was a female charr instead of a male. Everything else is identical…same lines, same smiling charr NPC, same quirkiness, and same courage when push comes to shove.
We’d still love “her”, wouldn’t we? I know I would.
Put that way, it does make more sense. I was a little astonished last night when I saw “FINISH THEM!!!” pop up on one of the toxic mobs.
I couldn’t care less about the store finishers. My charr’s “finish” animation is entertaining enough.