Guild Wars 2

No better yet, at midnight, when the moon is full and the wind blows through the trees moaning for all the lost heroes, the minis come alive with Legendary powers and turn on their masters.

So tonight I was taking a long soak in the tub, singing some carols and trying to convince my two dogs that they were the ones singing off key when I had what some would call an epiphany but what I normally call a thunk. So after drying off I logged in and did a wee bit of checking and have come to the conclusion that I would rather have lumps of coal instead of all these ugly sweaters, toy weapon skins, funny potions and snowflakes. See the thing is 10 lumps of coal go for 1 silver 60 copper on the vendor and people actually need the coal. As I see it a poor fellow like me could make a killing selling coal on the black market so this here is my confession.

I do not deserve any gifts, I have been bad all year so please put lumps of coal in the gift boxes for me.

Thank you so much.

Tested it with today’s patch (Dec 22/2014). The wife and I run identical systems, both using AVG as a Security suite and both connected to the web via the same modem. She started downloading the patch in normal mode and was at 25% before I started my download. I booted to safe mode and downloaded the patch in it’s entirety and she was still at 57% completion.

On both machines the downloader would stall out at 0kbs, and then take off again but the stall outs were more common on her machine and lasted for a longer period of time then they did on my machine. On my machine the times I spent at 0kbs were almost not noticeable and seemed to occur while the program wrote one file. (the number of files left would increment down by 1 at that point then the downloader would begin moving again.)

I highly suspect, as this has been getting worse over the last few months, that the downloader or the program is no longer playing nicey nicey with anti-virus/security suites.

They could make it so the OP could just assign his login chest to me. I will suffer the added hassle.

Has anyone tried to update while in Safe Mode with Networking? I have to do so with Steam games otherwise it goes up and down like a yo-yo.

I am against this thread and demand that you remove it and quit slandering my name! If you do not cease and desist I will be forced to retain legal council and take action.

You have been warned!

Meta Lurgy
Asuran Engineer
HOD

Given the timing since the Chinese release of the game it looks like those that came on board hit level 80 and then found the lack of vertical progression was not their cup of tea. China is a fast growing, evolving society more concerned on bettering themselves and moving upwards in society versus wearing fancy clothes but staying at the same level. Does this translate into the type of game they prefer to play? Would the addition of vertical progression to the Chinese game bring some of those players back?

It is going to be interesting to follow.

Makes for interesting theories. We know from the story that dragons consume magic. We do not know for sure if it is only the Elder dragons that consume magic or all dragons. We also know, from the story, that there are more dragons then just the Elders as we fought three of his champions and there were more flying around in the sky during the fight.

Given all that if it is only the Elder dragons that consume magic we should expect the level of magic in Tyria to go up with one less Elder dragon. If it is all dragons then we should expect a civil war among the dragon followers of Zhatain as they fight over those magical reserves and the level of magic will bounce up and down. I doubt if Zhatain or any of the Elders would share magic reserves with the underlings as it is a finite resource as was established in the story. If he is still alive then the rate of magic consumption would remain stable as Zhatain goes into an extended sleep using the magic to heal his body.

So we have to get the Asurans to build a magic level meter (gas gauge) so we can determine Zhatain’s state.

I fell the OP’s pain as I am totally 100% inept at the bell ringing. At 60 I learned my keyboard skills from a typewriter and not a computer keyboard and although the layout is essentially qwerty the two are not the same so with something like the bells I find myself having to look at my keys and then back to the screen. My fingers may still be in the same spot but my brain has to doublecheck and thus I lose a half second here, another there and soon bomb out.

The wife on the other hand has an advantage over me as not only is she a touch typist she is also quite adept on the piano and so looking at the screen and deciding on which finger the note equates to comes easy to her.

That all said my meta is complete and I never hit a note as she finished it for me, all 500 notes, in well under an hour.

Since Ascended jewelry can be purchased from the Vendors for Laurels and coin I doubt increasing Jeweler to 500 is a priority. As for Chef considering some of the imbalances produced by current food buffs cooking is going to have to be adjusted from the bottom up. I would be surprised if by the time cooking is increased to 500 that the final product is not much more powerful then what is currently available at level 400.

I figured it out! We were all hoping for that pony for Christmas but since ponies in that quantity are cost prohibitive and make a mess around the house, they are going to shower us with small, inexpensive gifts so we forget all about that pony being so overwhelmed with presents!

Come to think about it I used the same trick on my kids years ago and if memory serves my parents used the same trick on me!

Caveat: Pony in the above text is used as a metaphor and is not intended to be a literal translation as it would be cruel to beat a dead pony so close to Christmas.

So therefore the only way to complete that meta achievement would be “Ringing the right notes” . Well forgetaboutit.

So I survived 30 rounds, got the achievement for it, and it did not count towards the Meta achievement. Do I have to complete 30×30 rounds for it to count?

The choir bells frustrate me to no end, I just do not have the patience nor the keyboard skills so I cheated. Yes, I will admit it, I cheated. The wife did hers first try, heard me cursing a blue streak, took pity on me, came over and sat down at my computer and did mine on the first try. Do you think this will get me banned?

It is only a temporary event in Divinity’s Reach, normally the peons there do not celebrate Wintersday. It will move back to Lion’s Arch once that city is repaired. Latest Asuran estimate on time to complete Lion’s Arch repairs is 265 years, 37 days,15 hours, 12 seconds with a .007% error factor although the Charr are giving it a .237% error factor.

Here is a thought for the level boosters in addition to the ability to trade it in on something like the pristine fractals I listed above but different.

The level boosters are tomes of knowledge, mentorship manuals and experience scrolls. Why not have a vendor that will trade these for knowledge be it a recipe or even a POI,Vista or Skill Credit on a map? For example if I needed the Vista in Stonemist Castle I could visit a cartographer and for 5 experience scrolls he would give me a map of the vista which would clear it on my map.

Now it would not make a difference to me as all 9 of my toons are level 80 with 100% map completion and the personal story completed but it could help others.

Double Agent

Main ability: Able to take on the persona/guise/attributes of the enemy. A doppelganger effect. While in disguise can move with the enemy but only in the open field. Uses sleep agents, tracking bugs and poisons. If near enemy combatants enemy food/consumables are poisoned and would require an antidote. Weapon of choice, well that depends on what guise the agent adopts!

Note: Can never be as powerful as the persona he adopts as he has not trait lines to boost that persona’s skills.

So in the meantime transmute the shadow assassin shoulders into something more innocuous.

I can craft anything except Mawdrey or anything else that requires pristine Fractals. Why? Because I do not like running fractals and you can only obtain Pristine fractals by running fractals.

See where this is going?

In another game I played long ago there was a group that wanted to corner the dye market and set and control the prices of dyes, especially the rarer ones. Dyes in that game were all crafted and to get the materials for the rare ones was a tedious process. A handful of us “crafters” did not want to join the cartel and so we would make up as many of the rare dyes as possible even spending hours on end gathering the mats and then undercut the cartel. They would be forced to buy us out and we would use the profits to make up more. It was not long before they gave up trying to dictate the market and the handful of us were rather well off.

I get a chuckle out of people like that in WvW. Usually they just lost a fight and want to call you out for having a cheesy build or for having someone assist in putting them down. The wife and I usually run as a duo and one guy was so ticked off at being killed repeatedly he whispered both of us and started with the verbal abuse. We both were on our Rangers, he was a thief. I did not block him immediately, I just kept answering his rants with “you died, I lived, you lost, I won, L2P” After about a dozen of those replies (love arrow up) he went ballistic, swore up and down at me, blocked me and logged out. I never heard from him since.

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/imp?s=t

imp
[imp] Spell Syllables
Synonyms Word Origin
noun
1.
a little devil or demon; an evil spirit.

…………..couldn’t resist……

I am on HoD and last month finished my map completions for all 9 of my characters but I had the WvW portion of it long ago. As many have stated it is not all that difficult, even on a low ranked server, if you watch the maps and are ready to move in on a vista or poi as soon as the opportunity arises.

Currently in inventory I have 17 Tomes of Knowledge, 15 Tomes of Mentorship and 24 Experience scrolls. I also have 9 level 80 characters with no plans to add another unless a new race is added. However if they do add a new race I would prefer to level it normally versus fast tracking.

If I could turn them in and gain a pristine fractal (I hate fractals but need 5 to complete Mawdrey), or a Black Lion Claim ticket, or some other rare item it would at least give me something to do with them.

By removing the daily and the monthly as it exists now they also removed the prime methods of obtaining laurels. Adding laurels to the new system as a reward would not be equal across the board so putting them as a daily log-in reward makes sense.

You may not need the legendary or the ascended but in a game where the progression is horizontal you have to have something as a goal. Going out to Sparkfly once a day, standing around for 30 minutes and then killing a dragon is not a goal it is a chore and therein lies the issue with end game content in every game I have played in.

Eventually when there is no more progression, either vertical or horizontal or when that progression is set too far out of reach for the time you have to invest in the game that game becomes a chore. There is a special term used in games for people that log in on patch day, burn through new content and then disappear until the next patch day and the reason for them doing so is the lack of reasonably attainable goals over a reasonable period of time. They can either do it all in a day or 2 (Silverwastes) or keep plugging away hoping for that precursor. On one hand the goals are too easily met while on the other it is all wrapped up in RNG and therefore out of reach.

The problem game companies have is how to meet the demands of everyone. Which portion of the population do they cater to? The ultra casuals? The casuals? Average or the over-achievers? The economy of the game will eventually be decided by the over-achievers and not by the average player, the over achievers will be those that amass huge amounts of gold, but the game content is usually made for the average player.

It would be interesting to know what the average amount of gold/wealth is per account and how much wealth the top 5-10% hold. If the OP is on track I would expect that as in the real world the top percentile holds the majority of wealth in the game. The problem is for the average person is once you have the wealth it is easy to make more via the TP.

I suspect that those at the top more then likely invested early in the game in buying gems. I mean, if the game were to restart tomorrow,from scratch, I would not hesitate to drop a hundred real dollars into gems as the eventual profit would be far in excess of that and I would not have to buy gems again.

Theftwind.8976:

I have a set of Celestial on my guardian equipped with Traveler runes. The boon duration works well with him and I do not have to keep staff equipped for a speed boost! The Celestial balances out what I lost in other possible stat boosts by going with the Traveler.

Same place a lot of the stuff seems to be, lost in a black hole somewhere along the space time continuum waiting……

They were for example going to re-evaluate the achievements in WvWvW such as yakslapping. That seems to have totally fallen out of the black hole.

It goes on all the time and if the patterns are the same it could very well be the same person running all his toons through the same script. Sadly ANET does not have an option to select a player and report such behavior but by the time you witness the botting it is usually too late to take a screenshot.

You smell funny…

I play all classes, both in PvE and in WvW and although at times knockback bugs me it is not really worth QQ’ing about. As far as Rangers and Mesmers are concerned LB1 on Rangers and GS1 on Mesmers both deal more damage the greater the range you are from the target so just like every other class wants to maximize their DPS with their weapon of choice so do Rangers and Mesmers.

Oh as far as taking a camp with my Ranger? I do not need help so if you decide to run it is no loss to me!

Any artificer worth his salt should be able to repair a broken lockpick.

Seera.5916:

Theftwind.8976:

So after sleeping on the issue I would like to play with one idea I posted a bit more, namely a statue of the player completing the personal story in the home instance. Friends visiting your home instance or other characters on your account would get a buff equivalent to a guild heroes banner but limited to once per day. The hero would get the same buff but is able to access that buff as many times as he wants, after all the statue glorifies him.

To build the statue anyone who completes the personal story would visit the home city of each of the FIVE races where he is gifted.

Charr – a gift or iron exemplifying the iron resolve of the Charr pact members
Norn – a gift of silver to reflect the icy wastes of their homeland.
Asura – a gift of platinum which has so many multiple uses as do the Asura
Human – a gift of gold to honor the many sacrifices they have made
Sylvari – a gift of various woods to make the plaque

All these items are then put together to create the statue. Now that would be something that would be a constant reminder that that guy right there, faced Zhatain head on and saved Tyria and it would be ample incentive to finish it more then once.

What about Sylvari?

Oops my name is mud with my two Sylvari…..<insert duh moment here> Will edit!

So after sleeping on the issue I would like to play with one idea I posted a bit more, namely a statue of the player completing the personal story in the home instance. Friends visiting your home instance or other characters on your account would get a buff equivalent to a guild heroes banner but limited to once per day. The hero would get the same buff but is able to access that buff as many times as he wants, after all the statue glorifies him.

To build the statue anyone who completes the personal story would visit the home city of each of the 4 races where he is gifted.

Charr – a gift or iron exemplifying the iron resolve of the Charr pact members
Norn – a gift of silver to reflect the icy wastes of their homeland.
Asura – a gift of platinum which has so many multiple uses as do the Asura
Human – a gift of gold to honor the many sacrifices they have made

All these items are then put together to create the statue. Now that would be something that would be a constant reminder that that guy right there, faced Zhatain head on and saved Tyria and it would be ample incentive to finish it more then once.

Brandy however is really good if you are stuffed up with a head cold (although I prefer cognac). Heat the brandy (or cognac) in a shot glass in the microwave and toss it back while it is hot. it will clear your head in a snap and help you sleep like a baby.

Taken by itself the personal story rewards would not be an issue which is why I never really noticed it the first time around. However since that time I have done everything from WvW to Tequatl to 100% map completion 9 times, etc. Going back now to complete the personal story on my second toon is not really worth the effort when you take everything else into consideration. It is not the “shiny” factor that has me bugged….it is the story itself where the hero of Tyria is rewarded by a measly 2 gold. It just does not “fit”.

Even a statue of yourself, in your home instance, would be something more fitting as a reward for your heroics.

Pour water into brandy it makes the brandy easier to take. Add brandy to water and you ruin the water.

EdgarMTanaka.7291:

How many times have you compleated Super Mario Bros.? If you compleated it more that two times, why did you do it? Did you do it for rewards/Score? Or… Was it just*fun*.

Well to tell you the honest truth I never played Super Mario Brothers….

TheBlackLeech.9360:

Those items are part of a mentor’s kit…..

For your next character!
(since you just beat the game on that one)

Lol…I have 9 level 80 toons, all with 100% map completion and 2 with PS completion. I have a stack of “mentor” items in the vault collecting dust.

However the point is my toon that just finished the personal story, saved tyria and all that jazz is the one that should get a commensurate reward, NOT my next character.

Mental Paradox.3845:

No one plays the PS for the money.

And that is why it is not really worth doing more then once. The final chapter in the PS is the same for everyone, no matter what path you take to get there so completing that final chapter more then once is a waste of time.

Water is necessary for life whereas brandy in excess will kill you.
Water and soap will make you clean and nice smelling whereas brandy and soap just do not mix and you smell like a wino.
You can start a fire with brandy but you cannot start one with water.
Too much water will cause you to wet the bed but you wake up in the morning refreshed, too much brandy you not only wet the bed, you puke all over it and wake up in one hell of a mess with one hell of a headache.

So given all that I will take the water please!

Take as an example the Dive goggles in the Aetherblade hideout. Those goggles are a pain to reach and once you finally get to the dive platform you have to dive precisely in the right spot, and twist/turn all the way down to insure you hit the water below you. I do not know many people in the game that have successfully completed that dive on the first try.

So recently we had a couple of mesmers, working in tandem, that ported people up again and again so they could get the achievement. That would not be feasible with a one time use portal as to get to the top you require a double port.

So given the difference between having a mesmer as a friend versus a one time use portal to go to a friend I would pick the mesmer!

The wife and I took a second set of toons through to the end of the personal story and Zhatain met his demise. The first time we completed it was long ago so we quite well forgot the anemic rewards at the end but at least it was worth a chuckle.

Trahearne in his final speech tells us, the Commander, that all of Tyria is in our debt and as long as he is Marshall he will do his best to see that the debt is paid. The final rewards included those ultra rare unidentifiable objects as well as gears or what is commonly known throughout Tyria as vendor trash. Did the person responsible for selecting a reward for the Commander pocket the good stuff? Why would it ever include vendor trash? The total rewards for being the person most instrumental in saving Tyria and bringing down Zhatain if changed to coin would amount to 2 gold….maybe. Even the armor you get although an exotic piece was for a level 18 character. I highly doubt anyone has made it through to the end of the personal story, killed Zhatain and was only level 18!

So we do have 7 more sets of characters to run through the rest of their stories but when you look at the risk versus reward plus the time it takes to run the final chapter and compare those rewards and the time required to kill a champ in Orr’s champ train or Tequatl for that matter is the personal story really worth completing more then once?

Adding races that are within the lore of Guild Wars is fine with me. Adding races that do not exist in that lore is just not the right way to go. That would be akin to sitting down to your favorite D&D session and someone in the group wants to roll up a Jedi knight. Adding something new or in the case with elves something borrowed becomes especially problematic if there are books written about the game. In this game as with any game you have to have a set of rules and guidelines which are normally defined by the lore or the game would quickly become a confusing mess.

Reasonable expectations in regards to everything from completing achievements ( as in WvW yakslapping for example) to getting a precursor to advancing/progressing/improving my character through crafting/adventuring or what have you. Reasonable expectations includes a reasonable amount of time and a reasonable amount of effort for a reasonable amount of reward.

So far GW2 has failed in delivering reasonable expectations.

Depends on a mesmer whether you want to fight at range or close quarters. Using a GS, 4 of the 5 skills can be done at max range of 1200. Using sword/sword you have 3 skills at close quarters or 130, 1 at 900 and one at 1200 and with sword/pistol you have 2 at 130, 1 at 600 and 2 at 900.

So using a GS allows you to work at max range most of the time and GS is most effective at max range for a mesmer. As I have every class I choose to play my mesmer at range with GS and if I want to play close quarter GS I use my Guardian or Warrior.

This month I did not go into WvW and did my monthly in PvE. it was completed in 4 days. It cannot get much simpler. Save your Scrolls of Knowledge for the beginning of the month (I currently have 134 stockpiled), go to the Silverwastes for all the blues/greens you require to salvage as well as the Monthly events, go to Frostforge or Orr and hook up with a Champion train.

Schrodinger’s Cat—- it is a precursor up to the point that you look at it.