Guild Wars 2

legion.7518:

You guys haven’t commented on what I said about the Charr and Asuran races. I don’t think anyone can deny that most people really don’t like to play those races. This game just doesn’t have enough cool races. People want to play epic characters, and that means being a race that you think is cool. Look at WoW, a lot cooler selection of races… blood elves, night elves, orcs, dwarves, goblins, etc.

I love my charr. I like playing one and knew I’d be playing one when it was announced they were a playable race. I like the Blood Legion storyline, I like the tone, and I find it suitably “not goofy” when people say the rest of the game is too silly. Any storyline quest where you beat down your superior officer for a promotion because he can’t respect you?

As for the asura, I’d cheerfully genocide them. But that’s because I despise the better-than-you attitude they let grow after Guild Wars 1. At least then they tempered it knowing that you were out to help them.

AS for World of Warcrack . . . I don’t think those races are interesting. Sorry? Maybe it’s because I played the RTS games and can’t see them otherwise. I’d much rather play my old Norrathian stable of races. Koada’Dal magician, Fier’Dal ranger, Dwarven Cleric. Either that or pull out my D&D books and go trawling for something . . . interesting.

DoctorOverlord.8620:

S
I think the SAB skins are very nice but I’m not going to force myself to play something I hate to get them. That’s not why I bought GW2. There have previously been various ways to get content rewards, it’s distressing to see their lack with SAB being the only option.

Whatever future content ArenaNet chooses to make, I hope they remember that not everyone is a die-hard fan of jumping puzzles. Or specific subjects like retro video games. Choice was always the buzzword for GW2, but the only choice I have for this content is to avoid it.

I want to note here, you can trigger “Infantile Mode” (no I don’t like the name either) to turn off the annoying jumps if you’re just after the Baubles → Bauble Bubble → Skin conversion. It’s possible with some foresight to make quite a lot of Baubles doing the first two worlds for the few chests you can reach. A few tools to get:

• Bombs. You can open secret areas with this, and they’re always worth the one Bauble to throw the bomb. You can also use them if you like to kill the “Queen Bee Dog” and loot 10 Baubles from her and I think around 20 from the Honeycomb she guards.

• Shovel. A few hidden areas have dig spots where you can get decent amounts of Baubles.

• Large Purse. Don’t kill me but you do need to buy this if you want to do long farms for Baubles. This will allow you to hold 500 instead of 250, even as it costs 250. This means less time making trips out of the Box to bank your Baubles into Bauble Bubbles.

If you’re just doing chests, killing the monsters will spawn a key at random in the “room” the chest is accessed from. The ones in Zone 2 have 40 Baubles in each and are only moderately annoying to reach.

I find also that finishing Zone 1 doesn’t really have all that terrible a jumping puzzle burden. Beating it on standard format will get you some Bauble Bubbles too.

Just trying to help.

Jemmi.6058:

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Jemmi.6058:

Think you need to re-read his post. He definitely said you collect the items to kill the bosses and collect a heart.

Ah, rereading the post, it does appear that’s what he said

For future reference, punctuation helps a lot in breaking up phrases

Now, off to work and when I get back I can cool off doing World 1 again.

Are you referring my punctuation, or the original posters? I am all for improving my skills in writing, so please point out anything specific that you feel were missing proper punctuation.

The original post I quoted that you corrected me on.

Jemmi.6058:

Think you need to re-read his post. He definitely said you collect the items to kill the bosses and collect a heart.

Ah, rereading the post, it does appear that’s what he said

For future reference, punctuation helps a lot in breaking up phrases

Now, off to work and when I get back I can cool off doing World 1 again.

WatchTheShow.7203:

It’s closer to Legend of Zelda than it is to Mario. In Mario, you got a star for killing bosses. In Legend of Zelda Ocarina of Time, Majora’s Mask, Wind Waker, Skyward Sword and Twilight Princess, and many others, you collected “upgrades” such as bombs, boomerangs, lanterns, slingshots, bow and arrows, hookshot, magnet boots, gravity boots…etc so you could kill the boss and get a heart container (which gives you a whole extra heart life, just like in SAB).

You don’t get those upgrades from bosses in Zelda games recently, you get them to beat the bosses. Small difference? Not really. This trend started from Link to the Past and has continued onwards. “The item you found in the dungeon has a high chance of being required to proceed inside the dungeon itself.”

On the other hand, Mario rarely requires any upgrades to navigate the levels normally.
Super Mario Galaxy was the first game I recalled where I was required to get power ups to proceed.

GuardianOMS.8067:

Which is good because 20 is all your server has. Because CD and SBI never have large zergs on and never outnumber us, apparently.

I can’t wait for the day when I can say, “I solo’d a server.”

“. . . as an engineer. With no elite skill because I’m that hardcore.”

By the way, I’m not entirely sure SBI ever outnumbers you for more than a half hour. Every time I’ve been around, when we think we have you, abruptly . . . there’s a big ball of Maguuma rolling around and a couple squads doing nasty things to our yaks.

Bottom line? You mobilize quickly (it seems) so “outnumbering you” is such a transient experience

DarcShriek.5829:

Well, seeing that many of the posters like to brag about their age, I’d just like to say that I’m 50, and I’m having a ball with the SAB.

Not bragging, it’s merely a relevant fact. I lived through what people want to recapture with “retro NES/SNES” style It’s very nostalgic to me, though there are several aspects I never want to deal with again.

The SAB mixes some of the good stuff of retro, some of the good stuff of GW2 jumping puzzles, some of the bad stuff of retro, and some of the bad stuff of GW2 jumping puzzles all in a nice blender and serves it up with fairly simple presentation. I like it but I’m not going to enjoy it after two weeks’ time I think.

That about sums up my opinion of Halloween and Wintersday too. “This is really neat fun, but I’m glad it’s not staying”.

There is one place you can’t avoid getting stuck without Infantile Mode – that first checkpoint where they’re right at the edge of the cliff and too tall to burn.

Kojiden.8405:

From what it looks like on Dulfy, you have to jump around the trunk/root thing that I’m on. I’ve tried like 10 times and I can’t seem to do it. Is there an alternate way to get to the door?

Hrm. I’ll get back to you as soon as I find that.

ChapDev.7650:

Stormbluff Isle, We have your Golem come and claim him. :P

You can keep it, we’ll just build another one when we need it.

Please return the pilot though. Unless it’s a ranger, then you can keep them.

IndigoSundown.5419:

Periscope knock is not that bad… Random Super Adventure Box chests in the open world that spawn 8-bit snakes on the other hand… yeah, ANet loves knocks.

This is how I learned to love Stability,

Alarox.4590:

So I see two perspectives here. People who like immersive RPG games, and people who have no capacity to take that seriously. At least, that’s what I saw based on the first page.

Asking what kind of game this is meant to be is a legitimate question. Is this game designed for a serious crowd of gamers, or meant for super adventure box games?

“Yes”.

Which is kind of the problem, really.

ophidic.1279:

I dunno about you, but I was born in 1980… and I’m honestly sick and tired of being fed and refed pseudo 8-bit and 16-bit “retro” themed garbage. Make something look 8-bit, reference a bunch of old games and ship it.

I was born around the same time. You know why that stuff isn’t truly the same as what we had growing up? Because people stopped that soul-crushing difficulty those games had. (See: “Castlevania Frustration Syndrome”, “Nintendo Hard”, and Nethack)

If you want truly retro? Go play Dwarf Fortress. ASCII graphics, clunky interface, and difficulty which is insurmountable. And a lot of that difficulty is for completely wrong reasons, as well. Best of both worlds!

This obviously has some work put into it and I appreciate it for that, but I’m really starting to feel pandered to by all the retro remakes and chip tunes and things.

I feel more rage at the people who do it badly, the ones who don’t try to preserve the same sort of feel. For instance, “VVVVVV” managed to preserve the feel of a retro game. “Terraria” did not, because it was clearly far more complex than any game of its appearance in the past. “Legend of Grimrock” balanced it out by being styled after older games but with a graphics face-lift.

I appreciate developers who want to “bring it back” to what they grew up with. I appreciate them wanting to leave behind the incredibly expensive graphics for simpler stuff so they can work on gameplay. (See: Minecraft, Gnomoria) I would like them to not try to remake the past, though, and make something new.

Thankfully, this Super Adventure Box is something new. It’s reminding me of some older games around the Playstation era, only with better polish to it. You know, the stupid clunky graphics rendering, the glitched psuedo-three-dimentional play . . . (It’s refreshing, I get 60 FPS in the Box and never have problems with graphics lag or such. I like this.)

If I want retro, I get REAL retro and play some mame or god forbid, a hardware intellivision console with advanced AD&D treasures of tarmin.

I have retro enough of games I like, though I have to play them through DOSbox. Also, “Tunnels of Doom: Reboot” being a faithful Java recreation of that game from my DISTANT past.

Amos.8760:

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

It’s evolved past swords. You’ve got gunpowder of some sort, steam power, complex architectural building, and lighter-than-air based airships. That’s without looking towards what the asura were cranking out over two centuries ago.

Exactly my point – how come we are still using swords when people have invented teleportation, flight, and virtual reality? Do you really not see the problem here?

Okay, let me try to follow up here.

• Magic-based long-distance transit, as the Asura Gates, have really come a distance from the last time we saw them. You know, when they were insanely dangerous to use due to the Destroyers controlling the central hub? Now they’re less centralized and open to use for the other races. This is progress, but since the asura are the ones in charge they’re the ones who get to decide how fast it expands and what innovations are pursued. Which, knowing the way asura work . . . is really a surprise it got this far without something exploding.

• Flight via lighter-than-air vessels is inherently dangerous, especially if we assume the air pocket is of, say, hydrogen. Which is lighter than air, easier to procure, and yet exceedingly volatile. To be honest? We don’t know what is in those vessels but the bulk of them are barely the size of recreational yachts in the real world. This is not something which can be used for transit, especially when the Gates exist in the first place. Even cargo transit is cheaper to achieve by subcontracting out for a Gate.

• Virtual reality. We’ve had the Mists since, well, forever. The Fractals of the Mists prove they are . . . in essence . . . very similar to said virtual reality. Also, there have been noted people who have stated “the holodeck will be mankind’s last great invention” but I can’t recall who off the top of my head. I’ll edit in later after I do a Google crawl. On the bottom line, it’s an asuran invention and is controlled by someone who is . . . notably, from conversations near him, VERY tightly controlling of how it’s used. You will likely not see it get much farther than this for now.

• Guns vs swords. I know you didn’t mention this but I better nip this right now. Guns have an effective range which is different than swords. Swords are better up close (excepting some warrior skills) and in general are built specifically for close combat. Guns are built for ranged combat, and the types of weapons available in this game primarily resemble musket-type guns. They’re not very advanced, and probably aren’t going to get as close to modern or even early 20th century firearms for a while yet.

. . . and in a realistic term, they’re not as effective up close where someone can grab it and you lose control of where you are aiming it. Frankly, weapon use in fantasy settings always baffles me when I start trying to learn about the use of them. Lots of things just plain feel wrong and are outright opposed to what I learn about traditional use of these weapons. Especially greatswords.

That went off on a bit of a tangent

• Magic-as-technology. Please note that as often as asuran technology (based on study of magical laws) works properly, there are equal amounts of time it doesn’t. For every Luminares Grid there’s a Thaumanova. The only device which, so far, hasn’t failed catastrophically in use are the Gates . . . and even they have a glitch which became noticed (see: Fractals of the Mists). In short, it’s a little early to be assuming just because asura can do some things with their technology, they can push it further or do it reliably and safely.

Edit: I forgot some words.

Amos.8760:

Heijincks.9267:

Amos.8760:

Heijincks.9267:

Amos.8760:

Heijincks.9267:

Amos.8760:

Dianoia.1697:

There are hours upon hours of content that sticks to the original aesthetic and feel of the game. When you add in content, it doesn’t detract from the original content. If this content isn’t up your alley, then don’t play it.

I like that ANet is doing something fresh and different.

Also, please don’t be ageist. Age does not necessitate a person’s interests.

Not doing it does not solve anything. Simply seeing other people with this sort of stuff ruins the atmosphere of the game. I can not participate in that stuff from now til the game shuts down, but someone running by with an 8 bit skin or a goofy backpack ruins the feel of the world. You can’t simply not do the content or ignore the items. How would you feel if, in the next Hobbit movie, one of the dwarves was just an 8 bit cartoon? Would you just not look at him and it would be ok?

I’m all for funny stuff and minigames and holiday events, but let’s keep them consistent with the world we are in!

It was an Asuran invention. Done.

You could use that excuse to put anything in the game. Why not just say a wizard did it?

Doesn’t make it any less consistent. Asides, the only thing we’ll see out of it are new skins, and with that said we still have people walking around with candy canes and toy rifles. I think that’s more “immersion breaking” than this (not that it is).

That’s exactly my point. Toy skins are a subset of the stuff that doesn’t feel like it fits into a game like this. It’s impossible to list everything.

Then what’s Tyria as you envision? Certainly it isn’t a medieval fantasy.

Oh, I’m not a writer. I imagine it would be something a little more coherent though.

It’s silly how a world that has not evolved past swords as weaponry has a virtual reality system that our own world has yet to invent.

It’s evolved past swords. You’ve got gunpowder of some sort, steam power, complex architectural building, and lighter-than-air based airships. That’s without looking towards what the asura were cranking out over two centuries ago.

forrae.6708:

quickthorn.4918:

GW1 had lore-breaking events too – how does a commando fit into the lore there? Don’t be such a grump. It won’t be there forever. Ignore it if you wish, while the rest of us have fun with it.

most modern fantasy MMO’s have this. WoW does it, Rift does it, i’m sure when elder scrolls online comes out it will do this too..

Actually? Elder Scrolls games haven’t had the same “let’s be slightly silly” bent as ArenaNet has with their two games.

When the Elder Scrolls series gets silly, you get flaming dogs raining down on a village of bipedal felines, a character who makes all kinds of fourth-wall winking jokes in character, or the nonsensical choices of the Skyrim Thieves’ Guild.

When Guild Wars gets silly, you get everyone for a day turned into chibi Gwen dolls, a banana on a stick attracting drakes so Koss can make a “Drakes on a Plain” joke, and two years of Terminator homages on April Fool’s Day. Or you get Wintersday with Grentches and snowmen fighting over a pile of presents.

When Blizzard gets silly, you get the Cow Level, Whimsyshire, and thinly veiled shots at Fox News.

When Mojang got silly, they released Minecraft.

. . . anyway, where was I?

Right. Elder Scrolls Online will be a lot more in-universe with their silly. It’s just how those games are. Guild Wars will not always conform to the ideal fantasy . . . but then, it never did from the start. So it’s not much of a surprise.

Riot Inducer.8964:

Baolun.8316:

I’ll just say this: it’s gotta sting when you go to your mom’s friend for help and get called a liar because your mom let all her friends think she was childless. (And may have even told them so outright – Rytlock seems awfully certain that Eir has no son.)

He also barged in on Rytlock in a particularly bad mood, despite everything you go through with Rytlock if you try and talk to him directly in the scene where he dispatches Rox on her mission he calls for gaurds to, “get this <race> out of my face!”

He’s in a bad mood because the Citadel infrastructure is overtaxed with refugees fleeing Flame Legion and dredge. Because while he was out dealing with Zhaitan this crap was kicking off and he comes back to deal with a minor crisis turning into something more serious.

And Knut Whitebear has the problem of using the Wolfborn to keep Hoelbrak safe and orderly, and can’t just dispatch them everywhere being attacked. Braham really doesn’t have much aid he can call on except for “independent contractors” like our characters.

You know, i wanna play Guild Wars 2 also.

The great thing is, it’s still there when I’m not in the Box. Though granted, it’s mostly WvW eating my time right now. I’ve got a lot yet to learn and unlearn playing that.

I played the Box for breaths of fresh air between bouts of getting my teeth kicked in by Maguuma Invader #334.

Krash.9486:

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Krash.9486:

And this is not really a complaint post BTW. Just an observation about human nature. I don’t do JPs for the most part I hate them…..the devs in this game must have been obsessed with mario brothers >.<

Proof coming in less than 24 hours, I think (-checks watch-) before the Box is ready.

confirmed >:(

I’m going to have to check this out now.

. . . I love retro games :P

Otokomae.9356:

The way that scoring severely penalizes small group play NEEDS to be changed.

The obvious example of this is Dolyaks; when you kill a Dolyak, it puts points on the board for your server, HOWEVER, the number of points is not the same for every group. You get 1 point for every person who tags the Dolyak, up to 10 points, so if you sneak into enemy territory and solo a yak you are actually LOSING points for the server; you were supposed to have brought a minimum or 10 people with you to kill that Dolyak!

Rules like this seem to be designed specifically to punish anyone who tries to run in a groups smaller than 10, or makes any attempt to win points in WvW through skill rather than numbers. You are SUPPOSED to zerg even the simplest objectives in WvW, or you actually lose points for your server, even if you can do the same job solo.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/pvp/wuvwuv/How-many-points-is-a-Supply-Caravan-worth/1742511

I think this should be linked right here.

On the topic of Yaks:

I think there should be something done to make it less viable to simply spike a dolyak down with one or two people. Frankly, it makes it nigh impossible to defend them properly if someone can drop in, spike them dead, and we lose the yak (30-70 supply?) . . . with little to no chance of stopping it.

Sure, we could have five players around every yak. That might make it not happen (I personally doubt it, unless we have people able to place Protection on that yak more than a few breaths worth of duration) but why buy the NPC guards if they can’t reliably protect anything?

. . . I mean, aside from the bonus to camp supply.

Here’s an option or two

- As mentioned earlier, give the Yak invulnerability until the escorts are down if you have the upgrade. It slows down an attack, and gives the 1-3 people stuck with Yak Escort Duty a chance at throwing the attacker away.

- Have the Tier 2 Personnel upgrade which raises the level of camp guards raise the Dolyak to a Veteran. This will give them some robustness and put some more pressure on getting fully upgraded.

- Make it an Art of War upgrade you can build to get “guild guards” who do the above “Yak Defender” thing. This promotes more guilds to focus on buffing their claimed camps.

Strzalka.9451:

Not going to bash anyone because I don’t care, but I will just say that WvW ranks would of been much better/meaningful if it had been based entirely on player kills. With that they would need to add map wide announcements of “xxx killed xxx” so that we could report anyone abusing the system such as what happened in DAoC and WAR.

There is still the opportunity for ANET to do this, it is an MMO after all.. constantly growing, changing, progressing… “wink wink”

For the sake of my ego, I’d rather not have another game where my deaths are trumpeted about and people can keep track of how often I die vs be killed. I stopped playing TF2 because I would get flak for “just plain sucking”. (And I do, oh goodness do I suck…)

Baolun.8316:

Also, I agree that his in-game model’s face looks way too old. Teenagers generally don’t have deep lines around the mouth and huge bags under the eyes.

Yet I did at 17, the bags so to speak. And I’ve seen some folk who did start getting “age lines” fairly early. I’d wager living in the Shiverpeaks can bring about that sort of effect on peoples’ skin. Assuming that much of norn physiology is the same as human, of course.

phiplayer.2865:

http://i.imgur.com/WittTzj.png

That just came to my mind, when i heard Grawl Chieftain from Refugee Camp in LA. He said that Constortium smiles doesn’t reach their eyes. With latest patch there were dead drops from some Order of Whispers agent, saying that there’s a force much darker from both flame legion and dredge, that put them together.

I know that’s just dumbest thing in the world, but we all know how Howard the Duck went, do we? And we still kinda like it ?

No?
Just me ?

That’d be interesting. A certain kind of cliche, but interesting. However I would rather have the Consortium as “not-good, but not-villainous” types rather than yet another “corporation causing trouble to profit off the mess”.

Fizzlepip.5218:

Also, I’d like clarification on why this is player based and not account based? I’m sure it’s out there somewhere…

To hazard a guess, it’s because they would like the option of people to build two different WvW characters in entirety. Say one with the “anti guard/mercenary” points for taking NPCs down fast, or someone with the siege bonuses to damage to man catapults/rams . . . or someone whose sole purpose is to run supply at full bonus around the map.

It’s meant to be a means of customizing more than one character, I think. However . . . if it can’t get reset or “respec’d” then it’s . . . kind of a pain, and I would LIKE to see the ranks shared but the points independently used.

Krash.9486:

And this is not really a complaint post BTW. Just an observation about human nature. I don’t do JPs for the most part I hate them…..the devs in this game must have been obsessed with mario brothers >.<

Proof coming in less than 24 hours, I think (-checks watch-) before the Box is ready.

earendil.1290:

JP camping is, ultimately, bullying. Treating the other players as enemies instead of playing partners.

On another topic of bullying, that’s a “legitimate part” of WvW. I use quotes because, well, it sucks. It’s broken down quite simple:

You have entered PvP, and as such you are now a target. No matter how much you think it’s unfair, and no matter what you have to say on it, you are now “free game” to anyone who can kill you. This includes:

- The lone thief who surprises you and catches you far enough away from a friendly safe haven.
- The 3-man group killing lone roamers going from place to place, or dismantling yak patrols.
- The havoc squads whose job it is to run around and flip camps and happen to find you wandering about.
- The massive swarms of people who will knock you down and kill you before you even register “holy balls that’s a lot of red names”.
- The few people from the tower nearby who have siege and want to see if they can hit a moving target.
- Those who know the JP gives siege blueprints and badges, and thus will always swing by and see if someone’s in there.

There are three options, the only three options, to deal with it:

- Don’t play. If it frustrates you, just don’t go there. At least until you need to finish your 100% map.
- Get better. This means stop being a ranger/engineer/mesmer/guardian/newbie. For some, this is not an option.
- Get friends who know what they’re doing to watch your back. No guarantee this will actually WORK . . . they might be just as much “dead men walking” as you.

Any advice anyone could give you is going to boil down to these three options.

Short answer: “Yes”

Long answer: It depends on the piece, much like the movie. Die Hard will never really be a classic work of art, but it will always be an entertaining ride. However, it is hard to see “2001: A Space Odyssey” as anything other than an attempt at art in a film medium.

Likewise, there will be games which aspire to the artistic . . . and there will be those which are just empty entertainment. There is nothing wrong with either of these things.

digiowl.9620:

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Turgon.8625:

How are you dealing with them once you get close? I found them much harder to dodge at melee range.

As an experiment, I did one on my warrior. I mostly walked in a lazy circle around it and dodge rolled as soon as it finished drawing a bead on me.

So in essence it is like any other mob, pain in a behind to deal with unless you zerker strafe it to death…

Nice work ANet, do anyone on the team not main a sig zerker?!

. . . you do realize that was the intent, right? That you not just stand and wail on things but actually have to dodge?

My ranger, I drop “Rampage as One” and it dies before it runs out. My guardian, I drop “Hallowed Ground” and maybe it dies in time. My warrior lacks Stability right now so instead I just club it to death and sometimes bring my Shield Stance out.

And as I said, I’ve successfully taken them down at range or up close by waiting for them to draw a bead and then dodging the blast.

I’m going to ask a silly question . . .

Where exactly is this in Southsun? I went looking for it and didn’t see anything other than a lot of tents around the southeastern island with the Consortium on it.

Narcemus.1348:

Reading the history of a certain type of beer, one group of monks created their beer to have something to be able to eat instead of bread and water. They decided that beer was created from pieces of both, so it was technically legal.

I also heard another story that the monks presented it as an alternative to sacramental wine to a representative from the Vatican. He decided the stuff was so foul it would be a fitting penance to drink it.

Anyway, point remains that in the real world beer and monasteries were connected too

I haven’t had much issue with my ranger after the last patch . . . of course, I wasn’t using Quickness to do much.

catqeer.1954:

Caledore.6271:

Everyone’s missing the obvious answer – the Kormir monastery in Queensdale produces beer. Both of the traditional variety and all sorts of experimental brews. They’re basically Tyria’s first craft/micro-brewery. Why would you not worship her?

In seriousness, I will never understand the Kormir hate. People complained about Rurik always getting himself killed, so they made Kormir as an NPC not participate in the fighting – and then people complain about her ‘doing nothing’ and becoming a god.

Additionally, a lot of what she does is behind the scenes, particularly in the Realm of Torment – as draxynnic noted, her direction, planning, and leadership of the lost souls there were critical in assaulting Abaddon’s realm.

Beyond that, like it or not, she is one of the Six and the Goddess of Truth and Knowledge. Any who value those attributes (scholars and members of the Priory come to mind) would naturally pray to Kormir for enlightenment and clarity of mind. I for one choose Kormir at character creation as I see my character as a seeker of truth and historical knowledge, and Kormir’s domains fit perfectly with that.

This brings up an important question… How does a god of order, law, knowledge, truth, and spirit become associated with booze? I guess the more you drink the more your inclined to tell the truth.

Sit down and read about how beer actually came to be known associated with monasteries in old Europe. It’s fascinating to hear, and while I have heard it a lot the details have fled my mind.

Suffice it to say, in a place where you need a water treatment plant to water crops properly? Or to have potable drinking water . . . seeing monks brewing ale is something I would expect to find. Why?

It’s safer than drinking the water.

Edit: Here’s a link. Beware some details have “Citation Needed” but they’re rather bold claims about “everyday life” which possibly might be hard to swallow.

Teofa Tsavo.9863:

Norn aren’t Klingons, no matter how badly you want to fanfic it. Legend could not supplant everything else in a functunal culture, maternalism, compassion, responsibility, care for a child you bore. I will still see Eir as more than some ego driven opportunist not wanting a child dragging her down, in spite of this story, and these contrived explanations.

That’s quite all right. I mean, I see Zojja as a raving lunatic whose intelligence and creativity are the only saving grace which keeps her being even a little useful to the world at large. She’s not quite as bad as Gadd was, to be sure. We could go round and round on this with alternate character interpretations all day long.

Fact of the matter is, we have seen that the norn do have familiar units and “male homemakers”, and a variety of types. We can have dysfunctional families all the same, or . . . illegitimate children born out of “marriage”, which is what I’d wager Braham actually is.

Whomever his father or mother is, if he was born that way it would tarnish him from the start in human cultures. So take your pick on that one.

Eirs character in game gave hope to some sort to depth to the Norn Female beyond the stupid drunken, egotistical, dolyak wrassling one dimensional characters littered all over. I guess thats too much, as I see you all cramming her into that one little norn box.

And why not? Everyone crams Logan into the “whiny emo” box, Trahearne into the “glory-grubbing tree” box . . . I get to do the same to Eir

Teofa Tsavo.9863:

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

TexZero.7910:

Auesis.7301:

There is another installment in the F&F arc, remember. This might be expanded upon.

I’m aware there’s still more, but as far as story telling goes i feel that expanding on his backstory isn’t a likely priority, so much as expanding him as a character would be. Fleshing out his role in the world.

Well, remember, for norn it’s about what your deeds are rather than who you’re related to. Braham hasn’t done anything yet, but he’s sure on the path to doing something to get him a lot of glory and free ale.

I’m more interested in Rox, but then that’s because my charr is probably my second favorite character. My norn is probably my third.

How utterly single dimensional. Of course they would care who he is, son of famous parents, he would be known, under scrutiny, and under more pressure to create something of himself. To infer that he would be some unknown, in spite of his parents, it silly and unrealistic. He would have to prove himself, but to imply anonymity till he does is just wrong. Norn are a people, not a single aspect.

Maybe so.

But it seems he does not receive special treatment, honors, or anything else until he earns them. Respect, perhaps . . . but not much more than that.

Lindelle.3718:

WatchTheShow.7203:

Baktwerel.9108:

WatchTheShow.7203:

Snaff was Zojja’s dad

Sorry but why do you assume they were related by blood? Snaff was Zojja’s mentor and that’s about all that is official about them. A father figure he could have been, but an actual father? Not until Anet says so.

In the book, Zojja calls Snaff “father”. So that’s why I assumed they were father/daughter.

She says this sarcastically.

I’m gonna assume it’s a mix snide sarcasm and devotion since we know his death broke her hard

Sinergy.6374:

I’ve been doin the jump puzzles and have 5 coins so far. But I have a feeling these skins will be another RNG at the end of whatever the coins are used for.

We know what the coins are used for, they say it on them. Extra lives . . . which makes me wonder if you just may not need them for the Super Adventure Box unless you’re pretty bad at jumping puzzles.

. . . I’m gonna need about two stacks, personally.

You know what, I always assumed Ascended gear was supposed to be the gear you got when you finally had “dialed in” to what you wanted to build your character around. So you don’t just go spending or grabbing them wildly . . . you figure out which one you want and get it.

Also, they have said they’re working on other stat combinations. I just chalk this up to “the bad idea of phasing them in slowly” which they’re now committed too.

GuardianOMS.8067:

Leave WvW for a while, come back, CD and SBI are still chickenkitten scared of fights. It’s almost a pleasure to play during oceanic prime time because at least people don’t run from a 1v1 until they see their friends.

I’m a ranger. I don’t stop to 1v1, because there’s this trend of Maguuma always seeming to travel in pairs.

Also, if a thief scores first hit on me and shaves off about half my health I am not sticking around to fight. Sorry to disappoint, but starting half-dead isn’t my idea of a fight I want to stick to

TexZero.7910:

Auesis.7301:

There is another installment in the F&F arc, remember. This might be expanded upon.

I’m aware there’s still more, but as far as story telling goes i feel that expanding on his backstory isn’t a likely priority, so much as expanding him as a character would be. Fleshing out his role in the world.

Well, remember, for norn it’s about what your deeds are rather than who you’re related to. Braham hasn’t done anything yet, but he’s sure on the path to doing something to get him a lot of glory and free ale.

I’m more interested in Rox, but then that’s because my charr is probably my second favorite character. My norn is probably my third.

Aura.9530:

The story doesn’t make me feel any better about Eir having a son tbh. It’s almost like they had someone who’s really bad at writing fan fiction write this. So Eir has a 17 year old son who she just what, forgot about? How many mothers can honestly forget being in labor and having a child.

Who said she forgot? She hasn’t talked about it, but who said she forgot about it enough that it’s a surprise to her? Far as I can tell she was aware of him, and knew he was around, but just let him have his own life. If the figures are right, by the time of the story Eir was with Destiny’s Edge. You know, when she was out doing things trying to become a full legend among the norn.

I said in another thread: It’s going to come out that the reason she never talked about it is because nobody ever asked her about it and she saw no reason to talk about it. Norn aren’t human. To them, it doesn’t matter whose son/daughter you are . . . “deeds, not words”.

What the story sounds like, is that Braham’s father gave Eir amnesia and took the child to Cragstead. Meanwhile; in Hoelbrak, NO ONE remembers Eir had a child, even though she is the daughter of a famous hero of the Norn. So apparently EVERYONE has amnesia who ever knew Eir.

Holy heck that’s a stretch! I hope you didn’t strain anything.

What the story looks like is that Eir has a son. For whatever reason, Braham’s father was raising him while Eir wasn’t there. (Whatever reason? Eir was out trying to do great and glorious things. We sort of know this.)

Braham grew up away from her, so he has no reason to really have an attachment to her. He knows she’s a Big Deal, but for the most part he has no reason to have acted like they were anything other than blood relation.

Nobody else talks about it because, and this may be not easy to grasp . . . it’s not a stranger’s business (in the case of another race) if Eir has a son who hasn’t been seen around Hoelbrak. To the Slayer (in the case of a norn), a nobody who hasn’t done anything yet wouldn’t be important either until they showed up. Which they did.

It’s like the deal with Logan’s brother. Nobody really talks about it, but it’s happened. You can find a grave for him in Ebonhawke but Logan . . . far as I know, doesn’t really talk about him.

JGBarbarian.3579:

Anet you had to put that comercial and politically correct detail dont you? I saw that coming from the first time I saw an image og Eir. Meh…

What exactly are you talking about?

Crossplay.2067:

With the Asura gates, we have instantaneous long-distance travel. I assume the gates can even open portals to anywhere close by, which would explain how we can teleport to them but not to a spot without one. While this is obviously a technology far beyond what we have today, there is no way to instantly communicate over long distances. This is evident in the personal story missions where we have to journey back to prior locations just to talk to particular npcs. Does anyone else find this odd?

Not really.

The asura aren’t known for sharing the secrets of their technology, after all. Use of it? Sure, for a fee. How it works? Not so much.

Turgon.8625:

How are you dealing with them once you get close? I found them much harder to dodge at melee range.

As an experiment, I did one on my warrior. I mostly walked in a lazy circle around it and dodge rolled as soon as it finished drawing a bead on me.

I would much rather we didn’t get clarification about what the Mists are in this regard.

Frankly, leave some mystery and wonder in your fantasy world and don’t explain everything . . . and people can fill in their own mental blanks about it.

Turgon.8625:

Thanks for the advice on dodging and stability, if it weren’t for the posts dripping in sarcasm I would have mistook it for genuine help.

I was trying to be genuinely helpful. It took me a couple beats to think “Oh, right, Stability” myself since I don’t often have to employ it regularly. Last time I had to consciously remember I had it was Swamp Fractal.

SadieDeAtreia.8912:

Only Arenanet will know how many active players they have left.
The rest of us have to guess by looking at our guild rosters and friends list.

You know, it’s also a neat little conundrum as well. ArenaNet says the game is doing fine, they must be lying to cover up the fact it’s dying so it’s okay to abandon it.

. . . they say sales or player count fell, and the game is dying, abandon ship!

No matter what they answer it’ll be used however people want it to be. So . . .

The real question of this thread? “Are you still going to play?”

Sarrs.4831:

Necromancers are pretty good in WvWvW. They’ve got a button that makes conditions go everywhere, they’ve got an entire weapon’s worth of high-range, good width area of effect attacks, they’ve got a school of spells which can put some significant hurt on anyone dumb enough to stand in them, and one of the best scaling AOE heals in the game.

I’m sure Engis and Rangers have nice things too. I wonder if dropping a Thumper on a ram and using the overcharge would be hilarious enough to validate speccing into it?

Also solo roamers are pretty useful. I can cap unupgraded camps and everything lower on my own. Don’t need to roll with the zerg for that, but I do need to kill enemy roamers and counter-roamers.

I can’t speak for Necro/Engineer other than the fact I’ve had a grand old time against them. It’s fun and it’s not a “curbstomp” like trying to fight a thief who gets the first hit.

(Seriously, that’s never worked out well for me.)

Now . . . Rangers can do a lot of good things, but they’re not an absolute “must have” for anything. However, I’ve found they can be useful to take camps if the other team is asleep at the wheel. It takes some cautious pulling but it can be done. Attract other players though, and it’s not working out.

I’m still learning. Please note I’m a stinky ranger because I don’t touch all the weapons and abhor wading into melee (my survival ability is questionable trying to melee anything other than a squishy type class).

playandchill.3908:

I dunno.

But i can say that minecraft has more streamer.

Said game also has an XBox 360 version. And more balanced PvP.

. . . what? It’s balanced. Honest.

Burgerz.3865:

I understand how WvW works, if anything I was insulting Mag’s forces because they seem to have a kitten for CD’s keep. Lol. It’s all fun and games until someone gets their keep taken..then it’s even funnier!

They do have charr for CD’s keep. I watched them move in. Charr guardians, I think? Anyway, enough about the cat folk.

Maguuma just likes taking stuff. They’ll even let you take it back so they can take it back from you all over again. It’s fun! It’s profitable! It’s synergetic!

sostronk.8167:

I take back what I said about this being a grind. Its actually not bad. You get XP from doing any events in WvW. My impression initially was that it was ONLY from WvW invader kills. Anet really needs to be a bit more clear with their wording.

It’s still kinda grindy to get 20 for the skill upgrade.

On the other hand, two nights of 3 hours in EB and I’m at 5 already. So maybe not that harsh? I know I was mostly playing defense rather than offense so it wasn’t raking in the World XP.

Double team?

Dear neighbor, I have watched as Maguuma saw CD trying to take Umberglade and went around. I’ve seen both CD taking Umberglade and Mag taking Danelon.

I don’t think you’re the one who needs to be complaining about being double teamed

(Note: I wouldn’t complain about it myself. Fact of life, if you’re almost the only people around then of course you’ll be the one getting attacked double-team wise. Also notable that when you are discovered to not be defending your stuff, people are going to pounce on it quickly.)