Guild Wars 2

Fred Tatasciore. You may know him as Ogden in Guild Wars. Or as Hulk and Beast. (Not in Guild Wars )

He also voiced the Infected in L4D. Now that’s versatility.

… why would they google for someone else’s voice when they liked Thorn’s voice?

WvWvW

Doing WvW will
a) give you several dynamic events you can complete on your own, for Karma and for your Daily Achievement
b) give you a wide variety of enemies for your Daily Achievement (unlike Orr)
c) give your the player kills needed for your monthly achievement

No other option offers you that many different ways of working toward Karma rewards in one place. On top of that, WvW drops aren’t too shabby (both from PvE and from PvP enemies), so you’ll also make some gold.

The price you pay is of course that you may get killed by other players more than you’d like, so stay attentive while you play.

People people… you may not have noticed it yet, but the whole Priory is awesome. They’re raising their nose at the common idea of ‘knowledge seekers’. There’s no book nerds wasting away in dinky dark rooms here. It’s all tomb raiding and experiments and whacking others over the head with whatever ancient weapon they last discovered.

Tassi’s representing.

Your title confuses me. Are you referring to the voice acting, or the whole character?

Either way, I prefer Thorn. He is more of an actual character, rather than a concept.

Absolutely the actual emoting.

Having to hover over skills, waiting for the tooltip to pop up, reading it (and not getting confused by the strange way tooltips are currently formatted) and then pressing the right one, all under time pressure, is not fun, it is combat.

Using the oft-neglected emote functionality instead is amusing, unusual and reminding us that there is more to an MMO than pressing 1,2,3 and typing “Champion up!”

I couldn’t finish the clock tower because it brought my issues with GW2’s camera too much into the foreground (specifically its collision behaviour). So I’m hoping that the camera will be fixed next Halloween, because I would like to do this again.

I found the tower itself pretty awesome, actually. The atmosphere was flawless (especially thanks to the music which gets entirely too little credit), and the jumps were challenging, but in a consistent manner. I did notice that it was rather annoying to run it with a group of bigger characters because it became hard to see the borders of the walkable ground, but on the other hand, running with a group meant I could see where others jumped or failed, which I think was good compensation. Mind that I can’t speak for the last part, as I never reached it.

Josh: please don’t feel bad about your creation. There are more factors to an event’s success than the design itself. How the event is integrated, how it is advertised, how it interacts with game mechanics, these are all things that the whole Halloween team has an impact on. If you scour the forums, you will find that most people who had trouble with the tower are pinpointing one or two details that gave them these troubles, not the entirety of the puzzle. Don’t be discouraged by people throwing around strawman arguments in a black&white mentality.

Combo Fields are fields (or walls) that allow other attacks to create additional effects when going through that field. A combo always consists of such a ‘field’ + a ‘finisher’.

F. Ex. Your ring of fire you can create when wielding daggers (I don’t remember the correct name of the skill right now) is a Fire Field. If someone else uses either projectiles (like arrows or bullets) or a big slam attack (like the Warrior’s Whirlwind) inside or across that field, their attacks will get an additional Burning effect when they hit the enemy.

Everyone works differently, so what improves Player A’s skills may not work for improving Player B’s skills.

That said, for me, personally, the best practice was sPvP to improve my solo skills (knowledge of my profession and skills, strength and weaknesses), and Dungeons to improve my group skills (combos, positioning with other players, tactics).

I am playing on 1920×1080, with a GTX570 and an AMD Phenom II X4 at 3.2 GHz, with my graphic settings on near maximum (only native sampling instead of supersampling).

- it works without problems
- it’s a substantial improvement
- the performance drop is so negligible for me, I’m not even sure it’s because of the FoV, or simply because of how many people are on right now

That said, this is only a first step, please do not rest on your laurels. The camera still needs to be higher, still needs to have better collision behaviour, and ego-perspective is still indispensable.

Thank you for starting to work on it.

Am I understanding you right that you enjoyed the non-repetitive progression while leveling up, and aren’t enjoying the options for max lvl (like WvWvW) because it’s repetitive content that does not actually ‘further’ your character in any way?

If so, I would have to agree with the above poster who recommended to take a break. Not because of burnout or whatever, but in order to wait for new content (I heard talking of a big content update in November?). See if that content piques your interest again.

Basically, you are wearing guild armour when you enter the heart of the mists. So, if you are in a guild, and that guild has ‘guild armour contract’ unlocked, you can go to the guild armourer (who should always be somewhere near the bank and/or trader in the capitals) and get yourself the guild armour skin.

I find Ranger to be the simplest profession of them all. Use Shortbow/Longbow, and you’ll never do anything else but pew pew. For your utility skills (on he right of your HP bubble), you can even use all signets, which just sit there passively 90% of the time. Or you can fill it up with Spirits, which you just spawn whenever you can, and which are very helpful in a party (for when you do dungeons).
All you really have to remember is to switch out your pets before they die in longer fights.

If you don’t know what stats to spec and gear for, aim for Vitality and Power. You really can’t go wrong with that, no matter your profession. (Alternatively, if you can’t find any gear with that, toughness or precision.)
And don’t be afraid to just try out whatever traits sound interesting to you as you level up… each time you learn a new trait book (aka at lvl 10, lvl 40 and lvl 60) all your trait points are reset for free, so you can change things around if they didn’t work out for you. Aside from those opportunities, resetting your trait points costs only a little silver, and you can also change around those 10/20/30 point traits at any time for free. So just go ahead and try things out.

So that’s the root of the problem.

Sell EVERYTHING.

Equipment (except for Gold and Yellow) to vendors, resources and the remaining equipment on the Trade Post.

Sounds simple, but unless you enjoy ‘playing’ the TP (aka buying and reselling for profit), that is really the best way to go about it. Play the game, do whatever you enjoy, and anything that drops on the way, sell.

Also, never waypoint. Those costs rack up really fast. If you have to travel really far, you can go to the Heart Of The Mists through your sPvP interface (for free), once there enter the portal to Lion’s Arch (for free) and once in LA, grab a portal to the nearest Capital (also for free).

Purely graphical UI addons, yes, absolutely, as this is a huge step to making the game more accessible.

Anything else, nah, I’d rather not.

Of course, I have no idea how isolated their UI graphics code is from the rest of the game’s code, and therefor can’t say if maintaining such a distinction would be feasible for the team.

bri, you are not fully correct.

The introductory quest to Destiny’s Edge (which also includes a subtle little background explanation for the group, for those people who haven’t read the novel) is in fact part of your Personal Storyline:
it is the very first lvl 30 storyline mission, that sends you to Lion’s Arch to meet your racial mentor. Doing this mission will also prompt you to receive a letter about going to the dungeon.
Also, the final mission of your Personal Story sends you to the final dungeon and reunites you with Destiny’s Edge.

So while the vast majority of your Personal Story is not directly related to Destiny’s Edge and the dungeons, the aforementioned two missions absolutely are.

Candlelight, if you have or had a mission for level 30 to meet whoever is your mentor (Caithe, Rytlock, Eir, Zojja or Logan) in Lion’s Arch, that’s the one. Like I said, it’s not a requirement to do the dungeons, but if you like seeing the whole story, this is it. (It’s simply a dialogue mission, btw, so you don’t have to worry about the level. No fighting involved.)

You can enter AC any time you want, once you have a high enough level . (I think, technically, you can enter them no matter your level? But of course you wouldn’t be able to go one step without being slaughtered.)

You do get a letter and a mission in your Personal Storyline that kicks off the Destiny’s Edge storyline that the dungeons progress, but they are not a requirement, they’re just meant to give you some guidance and backstory.

Ascalonian Catacombs is in the Plains of Ashford (the Charr 1-15 area), by the way. The dungeons are marked with an icon of a wooden door on the map.

No, the word ‘guardian’ refers to actively ‘guarding’, yourself and your teammates.

I understand how you feel this way. Ending even the quickest easiest fight with still having lost half your health feels wasteful and ineffective. It’s not what we’re used to as gamers… losing as little of our own HP as possible is something we’re used to consider a measurement of our progress/power.
You will have to get used to this feeling… it’s by design. Healing ourselves all over the place, losing HP every time we fight, that’s what the game is balanced for and built on. You will always have low HP and you will always lose them comparatively quickly… but unlike everywhere else, here that’s not a sign that something is wrong with your playstyle.

If you absolutely cannot get yourself to get used to looking at your health this way (which is perfectly okay, many people don’t enjoy feeling like they’re at the edge of losing every single fight), you might have more fun playing a ranged profession?

It means they are on a different world (aka server).

Thank you for the grats, everyone.
I have received Dawn today and am still kinda just mousing over it every now and then in awe.
I’m not 100% sure what I’ll do with it, actually (since I never honestly expected to win). On the one hand, Sunrise looks amazing and would be quite the challenge to work toward, but it would also be something that only I on one of my characters would benefit from. On the other hand, if I sold Dawn, I could use the considerable gold for plenty of things that would benefit not also me but also my guild and friends… but selling it seems kinda shallow and callous to LoneWolfie and all the other people who were hoping to win it for making their own Sunrise. I’ll have to give it some more thought.

The easiest armour to get would probably be your Order’s armour. You will find an armour vendor in your chosen Order’s headquarter.
Each piece costs around something under 2g (all pieces together are 8g 88s), and the looks are unique. Of course, whether it has the stats you want is a different question.

asdfghjkl! I normally never win draws like this!

Thank you so much, LoneWolfie! I am ridiculously excited! I was convinced I’d never get even a chance at a shiny like this, because I have the worst loot luck ever.

The thing is that no matter how many hard cold facts people give you… what will keep you playing a profession in the end is whether it ‘clicks’ with your personal taste. And that can be cause by the most random things.
(For example, I really like playing Ranger with a sword because doing his sword attacks while wearing Medium armour just looks super stylish to me. Thief would look just as stylish, but I don’t like the Initiative system. As you can see, none of it has to do with actual stats or tactics.)

I second the suggestion to just try them all. Get each class at least as far as needed to unlock all on-land skills. Preferably, far enough to be able to also check out some slot skills (the ones on the right side of your HP bubble.) If you are focusing on it, you can get a character to level 15+ really really quickly, so making temporary chars you delete afterward is no big deal.
Then decide on your own which one seems like you will enjoy playing it repeatedly for a long time.

No, it doesn’t.

Sadface for obvious reasons

I don’t know what is up with the constant invulnerability and resetting either. I never had these problems during the Betas or the first two weeks of release, but all of a sudden, every third mob will go invincible and reset right in front of me.

I used to like most underwater combat (Orr being the only exception), but nowadays, I avoid it like the plague because it is nothing but a waste of my time.

Also, melee will not be remotely acceptable underwater until the camera is finally fixed. With the exception of a few battles where the enemies are very stationary, it is impossible to properly judge the distance on 3 axis when half my screen is covered up by my character and/or the environment.

Welp, I have less playtime than I thought I would.

Gullik also visits Killeen’s grave sometimes. I have yet to catch him though.

Does it really matter why Sylvari are imitating humans? The fact is that they do, and that effectively answers most questions about their biology.
“(Why) do Sylvari do [this thing]?”
“(Yes/No,) because humans do [this thing] and Sylvari imitate humans.”
(Why do Sylvari use their heart as a metaphor for their emotions? Because humans do and Sylvari imitate humans.)
I think the reason for that is pretty irrelevant (except for speculation funtime of course).

As for gender, I doubt we will ever get an in-depth answers about that from the game/the devs, because gender is an incredibly touchy topic in our society, and upsetting the cis gender binary can cause way more backlash than a video game company would ever want.
For what it’s worth, my personal view is that gender is just as innate to Sylvari as it is to humans. You are [gender] because you know you are. But unlike humans, Sylvari society does not attempt to dictate the genders of others because of physical details, so unlike humans, Sylvari would have no troubles at all with that flat-chested Sylvari with dangly bits actually being a woman, or agender, or androgyne or anything else not ‘man’. If a Sylvari says “I am [gender]”, the other Sylvari simply take them by their word.
I’m not basing this on any sort of ingame hints, because as I said, ArenaNet can’t afford to publicly shake it up too much, even if they wanted to, it’s just my own basic reasoning. (And a little wishful thinking. It’s theoretically just as possible that Sylvari, in their move to imitate humans, also imitate the human society’s treatment of gender, and the only thing they deviate in is their treatment of sexuality.)

You’re missing 6 waypoints for what? World completion? If so, the WvW maps are part of world completion, you may be missing something there.

Yes.

I have many, many problems with the game, and it has let me down severely in some aspects. But there are other parts about it that are so important to me, they make up for the negatives and then some.

Q. Crystal Desert is always full, why aren’t you moving to a different server?
A. We chose Crystal Desert because it is the homeserver for a number of other anti-oppression guilds. Just like RPers often chose Tarnished Coast to increase their chances that the random strangers they come across are also RPers, we seek the biggest likelihood that the random strangers we come across will not sling around gender-, race- or sex-based slurs at the drop of a hat.
It is regrettable that a ‘full’ server makes it impossible for new members to chose it as a homeworld. All we can offer is the above mentioned easy-going stance about cross-server guildmembership.

Apos.5184:

Ye,no denying there, but what gives you the impression that every disatisfied person uses the forums instead? Both ends have that type of people.

I did not say that? I simply responded to the allegations that the people who don’t use the forum are doing so because they don’t want to give feedback in the first place.

prenavo.3926:

I’m pretty sure the so called “silent majority” are well aware of the forums. If they felt like they needed to throw their two cents in they probably would. As is, though, if there turns out to be something they don’t like in the game or that something needs changed and they don’t mention it, who’s fault is it really? There are links right to the GW2 main page right on the launcher.
Maybe the way to approach this is the next time you see someone who is complaining about something in game…direct them to the forum. Or someone who has a great idea…tell them to go post it on the forums. My guess is that if the people who are playing the game that never visit or post to the forums or make themselves heard they probably won’t take the time to fill out a survey either.

Actually, I know quite a number of people who aren’t using these forums. They’re not doing it because they have nothing to say or because they don’t want to ‘speak up’… they’re doing it because like pretty much every other official game forum ever, these forums are toxic place full of racist, sexist and que’erphobic jerks who will insult and cuss out others at the drop of a head. (Far less than on other game forums in this case, yes, but these people are still here.)

I too miss the little surveys from the Betas. They were kinda badly implemented (wouldn’t stay up long enough for proper comments, yet covered too much of the screen while they were up), but with a smoother integration into the UI, I think they could be a great asset.

If you want to ease her into the whole dodging thing, definitely Ranger. No other class let’s me just stand still and pew pew as often as Ranger does, and if she enjoyed Pokemon, she might like the idea of collecting all the pets and choosing which ones work best for her.

It doesn’t really get better. Your best bet is either not die by playing very carefully and sticking close to other players, or killing everything that moves (including and especially PvE mobs) with great prejudice to get loot you can sell to make up for your repair costs.

The Krait Witch is the only truly hard event in Caledon, in my opinion.
Bloody snake can go have tea with the bloody fire elemental grumblegrumble.

Though I am often frustrated during the actual battle with those two catastrophes, in hindsight, I always love it. There are optional bosses that are harder than some dungeon bosses, in the very first zones. I mean, that’s just really cool if you think about it.

I have met tons of nice people, not at all a problem. /say is useful that way, especially with chatbubbles.

Esha.1842:

“Porting to Lion’s Arch, all the capitals, and even Fort Trinity is free.”

Not on my server. My level 8 charr is outside the Black Citadel right now, and he’s gotta pay 7 copper to telelport back in.

They are referring to the fact that you can, for free, pop into the Heart of the Mists (through your PvP interface), which has a gate to Lion’s Arch. Which in turn has gates to all major cities.
It’s a few more loading screens, but it’s well worth the saved silver sometimes.

I can’t agree with the above assessment of Mumble’s audio quality at all. Mumble has always given me superiour quality in all aspect, compared to Vent and TS. It probably depends on your soundcard/-drivers.

Technically, Mumble is perfectly free… its demand on resources is so light, even the dinkiest netbook can run a server for it easily (I speak from personal experience). Of course, if you want that server up and running 24/7, it may not be an option for you, but if you just need it up for your dungeon runs, you can just run everything yourself.

You are grouped the instance there is another player nearby. All players are your allies.

The only reason to form a traditional party outside dungeons is convenience… party chat, HP bars, seeing party members as dots on the map.
Outside dungeons, I solely party with my buddies, when I want to char with them in a small group.

Yes, Caithe’s armour is Cultural T3 as well. Medium, to be precise.
Zojja’s is Light T3.

Logan’s Armour looks like Burnished Steel, Matte (any white-ish would probably work) and Antique Gold to me.

About 5g between my 80 and my 50. I don’t really hold on to my gold… I bought Order Gear, and a character slot, and I craft for funsies, not profit.

No, only Representing Members can earn influence for the guild, and only on the server they are playing on at the time.

I don’t know… It really bugs me that the HoM pet skins are included as separate pets in my pet tab, making me feel like I am somehow incomplete as a Ranger without them. But that’s just my OCD tendencies, not really an argument for anything.

Personally, I give akittenif the player next to me got her tabby from playing GW1, or from using the gem store. I don’t connect any sort of pride to my HoM stuff. I just got what I could because I liked the items. shrug

I found myself barely logging in for the last week, and when I did, then only out of a sense of duty to my guild… and then, today, after they finally, FINALLY fixed the bugged skill challenges, I finally got my map completion on all 3 Orr maps. World completion has been my main goal since I created that character.
And now that I don’t have to wade through these skrittholes again for a long time to come, I suddenly feel all pumped to get back into the game again.

I honestly wasn’t aware that it was this one specific thing that was dampening my motivation for the game, but there it was. One hurdle, holding me back.

Obviously, that’s only my own, subjective experience, but maybe others who lost their motivation have run into similar things.

The Elder Dragons aren’t individuals. They aren’t even really dragons, they just have that form because… I guess because dragons are cool. If there’s a lore reason for it, we don’t know it yet.
You may notice that they are called ‘it’ by the NPCs in a system where everyone else, even the Risen, is either ‘he’ or ‘she’. They are base creatures, embodiments of (un)natural forces. Specifically, they are corruption and, as a side-effect, destruction. They have just so enough sentience to feel the most basic sensations… fear, anger and hunger.

Pyre Pyre Pyre Pyre.

Also Vekk and Oola.

Jora has a kid in the Vigil? Like, one who’s an adult in GW2? Do Norn get that old?

I’m tickled pink by Taylor Swiftclaw. I don’t know why.

Every time I /say something (beyond “Thank you” or “No problem” for revives/player help), it’s in character. I have run into quite a few people who have played along with that spontaneously. If you are not shy, you should try it sometime.

Of course, that can also backfire… I once tossed an IC quip at an NPC and some other players seemed to take that as a cue to spew some misogynist crap (the NPC happened to be female). And every now and then, you will get people trying to mock you about it. That’s how block lists get populated.