Guild Wars 2

Well, it’s not exactly that ESO brought me back to GW2, since I never decided to leave the game forgood. I did, however, take a 3 month hiatus from GW2, due to various personal and ingame (guild-related) issues. During those 3 months my best friend and I played the hell out of ESO with our early access and for a while I had fun. Thekittenn came from playing with my best friend. The game, however, came with lots of frustrations and in many ways it’s a much more limited and less socially constructed game. I came back to GW2 when LS Season 2 started and soon found myself not playing ESO at all anymore. Everything that frustrated me about ESO is not in GW2, and that’s something I’ve come across with more MMO’s if I compare them to GW2.

At first I decided to try ESO again a year after launch, at least just for a month. Then they announced they would drop the monthly fee, which I welcomed. But now that we’ve come to the point of ESO’s 1 year anniversary I can safely say there is not one fibre in my body that is even curious to see what ESO is now. Even now that I don’t have to pay anymore, I still don’t feel any motivation to take even a quick peek in Tamriel.

So yes, I took a break from GW2 and played ESO in the meantime. I didn’t plan on leaving ESO behind entirely but that is still what happened pretty quickly after I went back to Tyria. All I can say is GW2 just has what it takes to keep me coming back, even in these new content-less times. In short, GW2 trumps ESO in every regard, in my honest opinion.

Despite playing GW2 since the beginning I have never been active on the Forum until recently, so I guess there’s no better time to introduce myself than now.

- 37 year old Dutch male.

- Single for 3 years but still living with my ex-boyfriend for the moment, in a strictly platonic capacity.

- Jobsearching at the moment due to a restructuring at the company I worked, which made my job function redundant.

- I used to be an auditor and studied linguistics (with a specialty in Celtic Languages and Cultures) at the University of Utrecht.

- I have a great many interests, ranging from history (not so much modern history but the older time periods), language, culture, mythology and religion (from an academic standpoint; I consider myself an agnostic), physics, astronomy, biology, philosophy and psychology.

- I wouldn’t call myself a music lover so much as a music addict. John Miles wrote my anthem a year before I was born in the form of the epic song ‘Music’. I only differentiate between music I like and music I don’t like. It’s no use naming genres since I love almost all and I love it even more when the lines are blurred. It’s also no use to name specific artists/bands since that list wouldn’t fit on one page of this Forum.

- Used to play in a melodic death metal band in which I played the keys and wrote lyrics. We never emerged from the rehearsal room status but it was fun nonetheless. We started out calling ourselves Polluted Corpse, then changed it to Catharsis some time later. I also formed a musical duo with a very good friend of mine. I played the piano, she the violin and we both sang. We named ourselves Calacirya, from Tolkien’s “The Silmarillion”, after the mountain pass in Aman, where the Noldor city of Tirion was built.

- I am ashamed to admit I haven’t touched a piano in years, though I still sing almost daily.

- I have 3 cats (Frodo, Bilbo and Isis), all from the same litter, turning 16 in August this year. I grew up with all kinds of animals, including cats, dogs, hamsters, fish, birds, rabbits, and used to spend a fair amount of time on farms.

- I used to play a lot of pen & paper RPG, specifically Vampire: The Masquerade from White Wolf Publishing’s World of Darkness line.

- I also used to play a lot of Warhammer Fantasy, the tabletop strategy wargame. I haven’t played it in years but I still collect and paint miniatures. My favourite armies are Vampire Counts, Tomb Kings of Khemri, Dark Elves and Chaos (mostly Nurgle and Tzeentch). I am planning on starting a Lizardmen collection some time in the future. Can’t wait to go hogwild with the bright colours after painting mostly grim and dark armies.

- I started playing Guild Wars around the time Eye of the North came out. I now play Guild Wars 2 on a daily basis, ranging from merely doing my daily to hours long dungeon runs (depending on my availability).

- Contrary to many people in the game (people I came across, at least) I do not have a main character. I switch between characters regularly and if I prefer one above the others it’s because I still have maps to complete on that character (4 times world completion, and with the upcoming change will get 4 more).

- I have 12 level 80 characters (1 of each class; the doubles are Warrior, Guardian, Mesmer and Necromancer) and love playing them all. I have a level 80 Engineer but it’s the only class I still can’t get into. I let him tinker (read: waste away) in Rata Sum.
I have played several MMO’s but GW2 is by far the best and most enjoyable, and the sole cause I am not playing those other MMO’s anymore. The basic systems and accessibility of GW2 in general, the letting go of traditional MMO concepts and creating innovating/improving mechanics, that most of all makes this game superior to the others in my opinion.

- I am a huge Marvel and DC comics fan, though with a strong inclination for Marvel over DC. Marvel’s run of Transformers comics in the 80’s is what started it all for me. I’ve probably seen all comics adaptations, be they live action movies, animated movies, or TV series. Contrary to the X-Men hype that ruled the 80’s, my favourite superhero team was and always will be the Fantastic Four. I am in awe of the Marvel Cinematic Universe and can’t wait for the release of “Avengers: Age of Ultron”. ANet’s announcement of Heart of Thorns and Kevin Feige’s introduction of Marvel’s Phase 3 movie roster were the 2 events last year that made me jump out of my seat and do my completely embarrasing happy dance in the comfort of my own living room. xD

- About those Transformers, I still have a decent collection of Generation 1 action figures from the 80’s, when it was most popular and you could find them in any toy store.

There’s probably more to tell but I have a tendency to not stop talking when it comes to things I’m passionate about. So I’ll leave it at this before I take up most of the page.

joe.7684:

rotten.9753:

Dungeons have never been required to explore yet they are more connected to Tyria than WvW. You only had to farm one dungeon for a specific gift.

Gift of Knowledge, requiring 500 crystals from the Crucible of Eternity, and you still do. (This one is one of the components required for the legendary rifle The Predator.) Actually, I’m given to understand after discussing the subject with guildmates that certain other legendary weapons require you to farm another specific dungeon (depending on the weapon in question) for the rewards needed to get the gift.

Apparently you are not aware of the PvP dungeon reward tracks, that also yield dungeon tokens, thereby eliminating the need to do the actual dungeon runs. You can either wait for their rotation to come up, or unlock them permanently by doing each dungeon’s story path once.

Theftwind.8976:

The AI can be beat by watching the pattern and then working around it. The SP in the Malchor’s Leap cavern with the Eye is a prime example. Once you figure out the pattern getting in and out solo is easy. There are no patterns to follow in WvW, a human player is not going to follow a script so there is no “easy button”. You cannot go to a Dulfy’s to find a walkthrough on how beat an enemy player. Therefore it takes more effort to beat a real player then it does an AI script. People just do not want to put out the effort, it is easier to complain about it until it is changed.

And how about players like me, who do sPvP but just think WvW is boring? Can’t use your AI argument there.

AlliedKhajiit.2794:

I DO think that they should mention on the watchwork pickaxe in the gem store that it has a chance to give additional mats when mined with, so people would be aware of their decisions.
Players should have all the information they need to make an informed decision, and when Anet screws up with a tooltip or something of that matter, that doesn’t inform a player when it should, then that’s what needs to be changed, not anything else.

This is the description for the Watchwork Mining Pick in the gemstore: “Used to mine all metals. Unlimited uses. Has a small chance to reward a watchwork sprocket on each swing in addition to mining results.”

So anyone who says he didn’t know beforehand, just hasn’t read the description of the item very well.

Astralporing.1957:

DeadlySynz.3471:

So does this mean we can be devoid of dungeons now to complete a legendary?

Yes, that’s what sPvP reward tracks are for.

Then again, that option’s been in the game for a long time. One wonders why WvW people complaining about dungeons haven’t used this before. I guess focusing solely on 1 aspect of the game has its drawbacks.

Killface.1896:

Anet need to give players that explore the WvW lands some rewards to then,it just unfair if pvpers are forced to do only PVE for world completion…

Kedarian.2905:

One of the unique draws of GW2 was its WvW system. Plenty of people are all about playing that game type.

Nobody is forced to do anything. It’s all a personal choice. Even playing the game in the first place is a personal choice. So the being forced argument is always without foundation.

The mistake a lot of pro-WvW people make here is to forget that GW2 is, at its core, a PvE game. It’s fine if people buy the game just for the WvW experience. To each their own, after all, But expecting to achieve everything without ever stepping foot in the core part of the game is at best unrealistic, at worst ignorant of the game they are playing.

Dasenthal.6520:

Shademehr.1397:

My post in the other thread:

I’m fine with this if Anet also removes the Power of the Mists bonuses for everyone who doesn’t participate in WvW.
(Maximum examples given)
+20% chance of a critical crafting success
+10% Defense against monsters
+10% Endurance regeneration
+20% Chance of additional mining/harvesting/logging node uses
+10% Healing Effectiveness
+10% Maximum health
+10% Bonus coin per kill
+10% Experience per kill

I so no reason at this point that the WvW players should be supporting the PvE’ers if the PvE players can’t be bothered to support the WvW’ers who earn these bonuses for them with the occasional foray into WvW.

Granted, some of you many not think these bonuses are worthwhile and I’ve provided the maximum examples (some servers earn lower rewards based on their score), but that’s how I feel.

Also, I completely agree that it’s time to give the WvW’ers some really nice incentives (skins, buffs, something!). Perhaps some quantity of the old WvW Tournament Tickets could be given out weekly for wvw participation and they could be used on the existing rewards which require those tickets and newer neat things could be added. (LET US BUY DUNGEON TOKENS WITH BADGES OR TOURNIE TICKETS PLEASE!)

I’m just gonna put this here… Because I’m not happy about this change and if I say what I would like it would be another infraction for me

Well, the Power of the Mists argument would be valid if WvW players actually obtained those benefits for PvE players specifically. But they don’t. What invalidates it as well is that it’s impossible to differentiate players based on their motive for entering WvW, be it to participate, gain map completion, or whatever other reasons find for entering WvW.

Second of all, like I said in my previous post, PvE is the core of GW2 and it always has been. Never has it been marketed as a WvW/PvP game with the addition of some PvE content. In fact, to my knowledge, all fantasy RPG MMO’s are of this nature: the core is the story, the PvE part. So it’s only logical that most of the achievements can be obtained in the core part of the game, and not the additional modes of gameplay. I’ve read the same topic on the WvW Forum as well, and it sounds like a lot of them think they are playing a mainly WvW game. To them it may well be, if they don’t play any other aspect of the game, but the fact will always be that GW2 is not the game they like it to be. It’s not a WvW game nor a PvP game, it’s a PvE game with 2 distinct options to play against other people besides playing against the environment. These WvW players who complain about having to do PvE stuff actually need a game that provides the WvW experience as the core of the game, or as the entire game. And considering what’s needed for a Legendary, WvW is firstly a tiny part of the whole process (so it won’t invalidate anyone’s Legendaries, like some have claimed) and secondly much too small a portion of the game to incorporate all requisites for Legendaries. There’s only so much you can do in WvW, so in my opinion it would make obtaining a Legendary either very easy or just a matter of time, most likely both.

I rejoiced when I read the news. I’ve done 4 completions so far but have PvE completion on twice as many characters. The WvW part was always a pain in the kitten for me. For 93% you can get this achievement without any problems, in your own time. It takes a lot of time, of course, but that’s what I consider the effort in world completion. WvW was an obstacle. I’m on Ruins of Surmia and that server hasn’t always been as good in WvW. Try getting an enemy Borderlands when you don’t get that colour week after week. You could have everything except that one map for a long time, waiting for a chance to finally get that last 2%. Also, WvW should become more dedicated now, since only people who actually want to play it go there. There will be no more slots held by people who only go there for completion but don’t like the gameplay (which I personally don’t; and it’s not the PvP part because I do play sPvP). In this regard it’s positive for both sides

When it comes to attracting less new players, well, a lot of people who play MMO’s these days are familiar with the concept of WvW/PvP from other games. It takes someone who is completely new to MMO’s and has no friends to encourage him/her to try out WvW, who could possibly overlook the WvW aspect of the game. That group, I assume, will not be a very big group of players. So if this is a big loss for WvW, I’m not so sure but I am inclined to think it isn’t.

As for the Gift of Battle, a change (or addition) in how to get it would be the final step I’m waiting for to be able to completely leave WvW behind me. They could introduce a second form of acquisition that’s purely PvE based, or change the current requirements so you don’t need to participate in WvW/wait for AP chests to get the required rank/badges. As a purely PvE/sPvP player I am forced to play an aspect of the game I don’t like. I know it’s the other way around as well: WvW players who are not overly fond of PvE forced to do it anyway to get their Legendaries. The way I see Guild Wars, though, is a mainly PvE game, with the additions of WvW and PvP. The entire backstory of the game takes place in PvE, the expansion is a continuation of the PvE story so far, with updates and new additions to the 2 extra parts of the game. Name any MMO that is focused more on WvW/PvP than PvE, that releases expansions based on those aspects of the game, instead of the main (PvE) story. As far as I know, there are none. So the brunt of achievements will always be part of PvE. To remove an obstacle on the path to world completion isn’t that far-fetched. And yes, WvW is an obstacle, because unless you can get a considerable zerg going, completing all 4 maps will take at least 3 weeks. It might have been possible in the course of one week if keeps and castles didn’t have points you need, keeps and castles you can’t get into because they’re not yours. You can get any achievement in the game whenever you want to, in your own time, except for world completion. So in that regard I am all for it.