Guild Wars 2

Beorn Saxon.4762:

I’m after Superior Runes of the Eagle. I know they can be bought on the TP, but can the be crafted or bought from NCP’s, where do they come from, are the loot drops only, what drops them?

Random drops on Exotic armor, so far as I’ve seen. Which means you need to get Exotic to drop OR throw Rare sigils/upgrades into the Mystic Forge and hope for an upgrade.

Tachenon.5270:

Yeah! Nobody complains about killing wolves and spiders and they are at least 20% cooler than bunnies.

-twitch-

Wolves and spiders have been vilified them in video games for decades. I blame Tolkien.

You don’t need to blame Tolkien for wolves, you need to blame whichever culture needed them to be evil for being predators. Be aware, the oldest of stories about wolves generally run a fine line . . . fear the wolf if you wish but respect the wolf, don’t hate it. They are/were an apex predator, incredibly good at what they do. I can probably run out and find two dozen tales where wolves are good. (We can start with Wheel of Time or Game of Thrones if you like.)

Also, a nitpick, but Tolkien had “wargs” which were not wolves

Spiders, I have to seriously try to find something where they are good or at least not an enemy. That said I don’t have a problem with spiders so long as they don’t come crawling up my leg. They keep the insect pest infestation down to a manageable level

Teratus.2859:

Konig Des Todes.2086:

2) The magic that the Six Gods sensed was NOT from Zhaitan, but from The Artesian Waters as shown in the end of Cathedral of Silence story step.

The Wiki claims The Artesian water mark where the Gods first stepped on the world

I also pulled this from the wiki which is why i made that statement

At least two Elder Dragons also exude their own unique draconic energies while dormant, which was why the asura built the Central Transfer Chamber near Primordus (believing it to be a magical statue) and the human gods built Arah near Zhaitan (not knowing of the Elder Dragon). Under Kudu, the Inquest have been studying these energies.

The Seventh Reaper says it outright when you complete the task it gives you in the name of Grenth, so don’t just take the wiki’s word on it.

Iason Evan.3806:

For some reason, this storyline thing has always been ArenaNet’s Achilles heel. They do open world comedy really well. I liken it to Saturday Night Live. When the skits are funny, they are hilarious. Some of those skits get made into movies and they are terrible. They are great for 5 minute bursts, but don’t have what it takes for long form. It’s the same for GW1 and GW2. Fortunately, ArenaNet gave us the option to skip out on it.

I don’t recall many companies which had a good focus on story without dropping unintentionally into “hilariously off target”. Bioware has gotten worse about aiming lately, Square has a mixed bag of success, and Enix may have been capable of pulling it off at one point but story was never really the focus of an Enix game :P

. . . now, Atlus? There you go. Also, grindy as all heeeeeeeeeck.

GonzoNeo.4965:

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

GonzoNeo.4965:

And a +1 to test server

A test server wouldn’t have caught this.

We dont know, but there 1 thing that we know sure, without a Test server they didnt caught this for sure.

No, it wouldn’t have caught “this” as far as the big talk about the price splitting the customers. Here’s why . . .

. . . a test server would have had access to this easily, being able to bypass the cost of the missions so they can test the missions themselves. If they don’t have to know what the cost is, then they don’t have anything to say about whether it’s too high, too low, or what.

The “two guilds stalking the same bounty” issue, perhaps it would have gotten caught yes. And the technical issues with speeding it up so massively to get to it in 12 hours would have been evident, perhaps. The trouble with the cost? No.

jblade.6470:

The fact that tons of responses referred to GW1 characters just goes to show that the story aspect failed in GW2. Love the rest of the game but the Personal Story and dungeon stories gave hardly any interesting characters beyond ones we all hate if that counts.
As for my answer, I’d have to pick my top 3 (not in any particular order): Prince Rurik, Glint, and Master Togo.

I think why not many said anything about GW2 characters is that there are a limited number who die who have personality enough to want to save.

Plus, a lot more of us played GW1 and have fond memories of other NPCs. To be honest, if I had to save any NPC from their fates . . . it wouldn’t be someone from either of these games.

lady.2106:

Treaherne is pretty much just the Kormir of Guild Wars 2 anyway.

I don’t mind him, but then I have a rather useful tendency to mentally block out annoying characters (works fantastically for moe girls in anime). I think it’s a case of a character being badly written into someone else’s story, and there’s a reason why people don’t like Mary Sue OC’s in fan fiction. He feels like that to me the moment you meet him.

. . . yeah no. The player character is more Mary Sue than Trahearne. Nobody who hates the player character is supposed to be a good guy. Everyone the player character meets falls in behind them and sings their praises. They cannot lose. They are not permitted to suffer, and even the loss of their mentor who they’re supposed to care very much about just sort of rolls off them and doesn’t stick.

And above all else, it’s not Trahearne that kills Zhaitan. it’s two groups of heroes using cannons and asuran technology.

Obsidian.1328:

Tobias
Lol, so angry.

You haven’t seen me angry yet, mostly because I reserve getting angry for much more interesting discussions than this.

So Malomedes was experimented on by Inquest. Ok. And? Does he talk about it? Do we know what happened? Is he psychologically messed up from it? Does he say something vague and dour in an English accent then walk away with his head down? I don’t know where you’re going with this part.

That it’s not silly and goofy.

I’m sure the Charr story you linked is all rough&tough, just like how they treat everyone else on the planet. That’s their schtick. The Charr are ANet’s answer to those players looking for a “tough-guy” race to play. It’s hilarious that they call humans “meat” all the time, but it’s difficult to take any of their bravado seriously.

They call them “meat”, and “mouse” like in the original. Because that’s what they were to charr. Now it’s a matter of reminding the humans “Sure, we have a truce. But I can still take you out if you step out of line”.

And I find it very easy to take a race with armored vehicles and artillery serious. I don’t know about you.

First of all, Logan is too much of a pansy to demand anything from Rytlock, honestly, the Charr would tear him to pieces. Secondly, as a supposed descendant of Gwen and Kieran, the right thing to do from his perspective is to return it to the Ascalonians in Nebo or Ebonhawke.
Eir: “Oh look Logan…it’s your people’s royal heirloom, a symbol of your kingdom’s former glory!”
Logan: “Nah, let Rytlock keep it…he impressed me. Oh we found Magdaer too? Meh, let’s just use it to buy peace…I mean, we should feel really bad anyway for the Foefire causing them so much trouble now, back when they nearly exterminated us with glee.” -_-

I can see you didn’t pay attention. But that’s okay, most of that happened outside of Guild Wars 2 (a legitimate gripe, we don’t get to hear about that except for after the fact).
The thing about the Foefire being dispelled is only a legend. We have not seen any proof it’s true. We do know that Logan told Rytlock he could keep it when they were both close friends in Destiny’s Edge.

I really never cared enough for the details of DE I guess.

That much is obvious.
Logan’s departure caused the plan formulated for six people with Glint to have to be attempted with five. Because Eir insisted “we can still do this guys”. And no, sorry Eir, you lost the guardian, you group is toast. So that’s why Zojja snarks at Eir and Logan (more quietly at Logan though), and why Rytlock keeps calling him a coward.

It’s not something GW1 humans would ever do,

http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/The_Tengu_Accords

So this must never have happened?

GonzoNeo.4965:

And a +1 to test server

A test server wouldn’t have caught this.

Little Old Lady.3742:

The choice to replay would be great. Like the historians in elona. But I think playing as the mentors of your order and those of the other orders would be fun. Like in EotN.

The Historians were in all main cities and a part of the “Bonus Mission Pack” which . . . by the way, was some of the most awesome crafted missions I played out of Guild Wars 1. I really enjoyed Saul’s story.

Sokar Rostau.7316:

…. and then at some point turn her into Imno Tyoda the Asura Thief. There’s no other way to say this… that’s just plain stupid. Lazy, too.

I’m sorry, I got to:

“My name is Imno Tyoda. You killed my mentor Tybalt. Prepare to die.”

(-hangs head in shame-)

On topic!

I do like the idea of using the Mists to replay Personal Story parts you really enjoyed for experience, karma, and some coin . . . AND a choice of equipment again since some of those apparently are unique (Commando Jacket, WHYYYYYY).

Hard? It’s borderline impossible, since most take one poke at the Risen Covington Captain and go “Hah, noooooo”.

I’m sure this is very goofy and not at all serious

I would like to see a useful alternative than Fractals for back pieces. Right now the only way to get them is to get the Vials from Fractals and lots of stuff.

I noticed on my norn alt that the Cattlepult bet was re-enabled. I am debating trying to see if there’s a pattern and betting on it.

. . . what? It’d be on my baby Asura . . . for science!

There are restrictions, you can’t guest more than 3 times in a 24 hour period, if I recall. If you want tighter restrictions, somehow I sense it might do more harm than good.

Of course, the authority figure in me wants to just sigh and go:

“And this is why we can’t have nice things.”

Gestankfaust.4216:

Still talking about something that took me an hour to do TWO sets of dailies for me (and most) today huh? All the while I was just leveling and/or having fun

/me kicks a chicken

I’ve been replying here between work, sleep, work, dailies, helping guildmates reach Arah Story, some jumping puzzles, and now sleep.

It took me the longest to do today’s daily but only because I kept trying to join guildmates in doing things only to arrive too late to take Tequatl once and the second time it was almost too late. I also spent some time checking out some things for my own personal curiosity. I also stopped to help a couple people out with things, which is why I had three “almost finished” tracks before it finally finished on “Maguuma Slayer” . . .

I could, in the next couple days, take a painstaking record of just how long it takes me to do the Daily and where my time is spent. But as it’s been said here numerous times – the time spent has never really been the issue. It’s been that some people would rather not be asked to play more of the game than they want to. Which is perfectly valid . . . I know if they wanted a sPvP win with no way around it I’d tell them to go jump.

But I pointed out earlier . . . if you’re limiting yourself to only one part of this game and discounting 90% of it, I have to wonder why you absolutely will never touch it if you can get what you want from it. This isn’t some “Saw”-like sadistic choice, here.

digiowl.9620:

The only NPCs that seem to touch on the ongoing fighting with the centaurs (one big enough to turn northwestern Gendarran Fields into a wasteland) are related to the person looking for a guide to Nebo Terrace. The rest go on and on about prices and people as if there are no threats in the world at all.

To be fair, Lion’s Arch and the Lionguard have a studiously neutrality arrangement with the centaurs. The centaurs leave the havens alone, and Lionguard-protected caravans . . . and the Lionguard don’t drop the hammer on them. You can hear this during a conversation in Kessex Hills after an event in the swampland haven.

Another one is at First Haven in Gendarran, where a soldier says his kid is disappointed because he’s not fighting the centaurs, and his friend says: “Well . . . yeah, we’re not supposed to be fighting them. We’re supposed to be remaining out of that.”

So, it’s out there.

Or better yet, look at Queensdale. We have centaurs showing up with siege engines, sitting on the only major route between Divinity’s Reach and the nearby villages (never mind the minister’s mansion) and yet nobody seems to blink outside of the nearby fort.

To be fair, for the Krytans that might well be “life as normal” “Oh, the centaurs again . . . Mabel fetch my rifle from the mantel, the centaurs are in the fields again.”

So, I just was helping a guildmate stomp through the Orr personal missions and I was intrigued by this “Tactician Beirne” in “The Steel Tide” before realizing I was standing next to “Crusader Deborah”.

I’m a lore hound. I remember details often enough to realize one thing: lost sister Deborah at some point decided she was joining the Vigil and now she’s in Orr. And Beirne? Was the guy leading the defense of Shaemoor from the tavern way back in the tutorial mission.

Not only that, but the Gear Warband from my norn’s personal story (“Blackout at a previous moot”) were there. The other two players were baffled about where these charr came from and why I went “Oh! It’s Gear Warband.”

Guys . . . what . . . I know I mentioned once before it’d be nice to see previous NPCs showing up. I did not expect them to be shuffled like cards into a pile and dealt out into the Orr storyline.

I get the concept at least. All personal story chapters go on simultaneously and all you follow is the player character as they navigate choices. I took the Priory plan in Orr to check out something in particular there. This was the Vigil plan and I was with the column of tanks I had to rescue during a point with the Priory golem suit.

But as a human character, I completely missed knowing Deborah existed in the offensive at all, and unless I took the Vigil plan my norn would never know what happened after she parted with the Gear Warband.

I’m not sure what I think about this. One part of me (the writer) is saying that it makes sense and the parts fall right where they should. The other (the player) is annoyed that I could so easily miss what became of people I should be keeping aware of.

Did I . . . did I miss an NPC or conversation somewhere about Deborah joining the Vigil?

Quarktastic.1027:

stobie.2134:

Quaggan movie terms at least sounds friendly & doesn’t conjure up a revolting mental image.

Not if you apply it to porn movies.

You’re welcome.

. . . why would you . . . why would you do that?

Oh gods, I cannot unsee . . .

Erickg.4315:

Did my first guild mission tonight. “Bounty” BORING.. Having guild members camp npc’s, just in case you get that NPC is just not fun. Good luck to those small guilds.

That’s not the way the group I was with did it. They activated the bounty and then listed both zones and the NPC. We split off and canvassed the area they were known to inhabit, until we found them.

It’s almost as useful as the old “scry and fry”, but alas, that was too much fun.

Emissary Vex.5690:

Point one – Dailys are optional

Ok thank you everyone for stating something so obvious that it hurts. You mean Anet doesn’t have a gun to our heads forcing us to do dailys? Who knew. Now lets just pretend for a second that we WANT the laurels but we don’t want to do the daily. This has nothing to do with being entitled or lazy. We WANT to do the harder content in the game, dungeons, etc; which after doing only contributes to 1/5 or LESS of the daily.

Point of note, you don’t want the Laurels themselves. They’re pointless on their own. What you want is what you get with Laurels, of which there are exactly one thing exclusive to Laurels which currently can be possibly, potentially, and by a stretch . . . considered “necessary”.

I’m talking of course about the cat tonic.

. . . no of course I’m not. Right now Laurels (30) are required for Ascended amulets. These are the only thing you can’t get another way right now and they represent either 30 days of Daily, or 20 days of Daily and the Monthly. Note well, this month is one you can knock out mostly without stepping out of WvW. Like 80% of the way.

I admit to not being sure if the Daily PvP achievements count for the “Monthly Completionist”.

Either way, do you want the amulet? Or easier access to rings without going into Fractals? Or the minis and cat tonic? You don’t want Laurels just for hoarding Laurels. You want them for something, and there’s a very limited slice of what’s being offered which is useful and only available there.

Point two – Dailys are easy and you complete them just when ignoring them

So this so obscenely ignorant it hurts. You only complete them if you are the kind of person who does nothing but overland content. Try doing nothing but a dungeon and tell me how far you got along in your daily

I really do not know how someone would do nothing but dungeons and consider that a balanced state of play. PvP or WvW I can understand, but restricted that far? “I only ever run dungeons” is literally saying “I only play one part of the game”. I find it difficult to agree you should be cut slack for effort when you throw away 90% of the game. No matter how difficult that last 10% is.

I mean, gods forbid I tell you how to play but . . . wow. That’s . . . that’s a degree of specialized play which makes me really scratch my head.

My point

The problem is that people who want to enjoy harder group content AKA dungeons are being punished because they cannot get dailys without simply playing longer and doing easier solo content they dont want to do.

Punished? Why do people keep using that word. You’re being punished if you’re temporarily banned. You’re being punished if your guild drops you for acting up. You’re being punished if you are being written a speeding ticket. You are not being punished for, in essence, skipping 90% of the game.

This seriously is not about the Daily requirements. This is about the players who don’t want to do the Daily complaining they don’t get the same rewards as other players who do them. And there is exactly one thing to do to fix that.

Let that cat tonic drop out of a chest in Gendarran Fields. Everyone needs to be able to earn it, not just people who do the Daily religiously.

Horrorscope.7632:

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Horrorscope.7632:

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Now, before you start asking why there’s so many Jugs, remember there was once a time when there were ample complaints about the cost of the Temple Exotic gear which cost . . . 42,000 Karma a piece. The response to that was to make Jugs of Liquid Karma drop from the Daily (giving 4500 Karma each) meaning you could gear up Exotic armor in roughly eight to ten days.

I get your point, but your math is off. I assume gear up means all gear.

You can’t buy Exotic trinkets/weapons with Karma so really? It’s just armor I am referring to. So I wasn’t 100% clear, my apologies.

That to, but doing math 42000 per piece 4500 for jug that is 8-10 for one piece. Then you ‘x’ that by number of pieces, no? Why I caught it I was thinking, wow really that is all I was doing for full exotic armor was 8-10 days? Seemed like a lot more. You need around 250K’s worth of Karma. No big.

(-checks-) Yes. Yes I did leave out those two words “per piece” and my brain kept inserting them as I double-checked. This is why you don’t do proofreading on your mobile device, ladies and gentlemen. (And charr.)

A little over one month then, including the Monthly, should be enough. And that also includes karma from doing events or other activities.

Horrorscope.7632:

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Now, before you start asking why there’s so many Jugs, remember there was once a time when there were ample complaints about the cost of the Temple Exotic gear which cost . . . 42,000 Karma a piece. The response to that was to make Jugs of Liquid Karma drop from the Daily (giving 4500 Karma each) meaning you could gear up Exotic armor in roughly eight to ten days.

I get your point, but your math is off. I assume gear up means all gear.

You can’t buy Exotic trinkets/weapons with Karma so really? It’s just armor I am referring to. So I wasn’t 100% clear, my apologies.

I agree Karma makes sense. But all these games and currencies they have people getting way more then ever planned so quickly. The flip side is for happy go luck players it gets confusing what all this stuff means and don’t have the time to bother. Between those two evils I would go with easy, because those with a lot of the current currency, will get a lot of the new currency some way and you want an inviting game to everyone.

In the real world pretty much money buys everything or converts. I say for a game then “so be it”.

I would go with easy too, but . . . ehhh, it’s difficult because that comes with ups and downs of its own. I was in a game once where rampant duplication of coin objects (JUST the coins used for currency) made it worthless by incredible inflation very fast. Alternate currencies were put into play and became the community standard.

For you old-school gamers, I’m not talking about Stones of Jordan, but that’s another example which suits. This was on an MMO.

“So what, that’s the coder’s fault and not ours.”

Yes, the responsibility can land squarely in the lap of whomever had the bug there in their code. The fault is in the lap of the players who gleefully and willingly exploited the pants off the bug before it got stopped.

And what can you do? The money’s still out there, and it can’t be just removed since it’s been possibly laundered a dozen times and almost every player has this duplicated currency unknowingly. So banning any account that has it would hit innocent players. (Yes, I know, no player is innocent. They just haven’t done anything yet. Ha ha.) There’s nothing to do, really . . . except for hope it solves itself.

In two cases, it did solve itself. I’ve heard of at least one other where a rollback was briefly done and it still caused a mess.

So, yes, I like easy “gold is the currency and that’s about all” but only for single-player games where the only person punished by loopholes to create excess gold is . . . nobody, not even the player. In an MMO, I would very much appreciate currencies which work as the developer intended them to rather than trying to stuff a rectangular peg through the square hole. It just won’t fit.

@critickitten

I think I get where you are, I thought I got it earlier but I’m not entirely sure. I respect your opinions, and your perspective on this. You’re getting a +1 on your two posts there for being respectful and trying your best to explain something that doesn’t necessarily always fit into neat words. Logic and facts are neat (more often than not), but emotions are not.

I don’t think a “this is definitely where we are going” is a viable option to lay out for the developers. Meaning no offense to them, they work very hard but I don’t think they truly know what shape the game will be in six months from now . . . twelve months from now . . . six years from now. They can hope, they can try to make grand boasts, but knowing the future is left to fantasies and imagination.

I don’t think they know what their game will be like because they are trying to polish and shape it even now. They have ideas on how to fix what is being called out as problems, and they have ideas they already had on the table before then. I know this only through intuition but I don’t expect they started this game with no plans of what to add later.

So if you want no PR talk and just a straight answer, that’s what you’re going to get. A developer standing up and going “we’re not sure what form the game will take, we only hope it’s still around six months from now”.

Konig Des Todes.2086:

There’s no worship of a dragon in Canthan culture – the closest you get is Tahmu, the Celestial Dragon, who was formerly a human empress.

Also, remember where the source of inspiration for much of Cantha is from. Dragons are very important there, and they’re not at all like what western minds might think of.

leman.7682:

critickitten.1498:

I said that it’s hilarious for someone to say that they miss the “serious” tone of GW1’s story when it was laughably absurd from an outside point of view.

It wasn’t. End of topic.

No, no, it was. It was an absurd “Cliche Storm”. There was so much simplistic storytelling going on in Prophecies it was rather obvious it was meant to be just window dressing for the game’s mechanics. Very nice, very pretty window dressing, but there was never any doubt that the intent was for people to run through the PvE as training to learn their class, learn the pre-determined PvP types, and then once they were confident, jump to PvP.

Players didn’t do that. So now ArenaNet has a bunch of players who are actually interested in PvE and the story. Sorrow’s Furnace was made, and there was greater effort put into the next campaign. And the next one after that, where Nightfall was more PvE than PvP. And Eye of the North was all PvE.

And all this started from the campaign with, hands down, the weakest story where everything felt like small arcs stapled together to fit. It was a rough start and it was a good foundation from which to build, but it was very basic, very cliche and to people who had more sensitivity to it . . .

. . . very absurdly “cliched fantasy fare”. Which is what I think reviews I read said about it.

Isende.2607:

or are you saying that arenanet is going to be so foolish as to allow this reprehensible situation to continue, and therefore, for that reason, the smaller guilds will just have to “suck it up”?

I think so, and I don’t think it’s foolish if you take one thought to mind when looking at this:

We were never explicitly supposed to get to doing these immediately. Sure, the potential was there but by and large, the idea was that guilds would save their Influence and use it over time while learning from the guilds first to the gate. That when they were finally ready, they’d know what they were in for.

I think the concept behind the pricing is very possibly something to suggest this is a long-term goal which they have loaded in. Something not to tide people over for the next content update . . . they will burn out quickly, and so will players, if every month the developers have to produce this content and players are expected to get through it even in part.

Do I think the prices are a bit high? Yeah, of course I do. But I stop and ask “why?” instead of reacting to it. There has to be a reason . . . and I reject the idea that it has to be malice or incompetence.

Obsidian.1328:

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

And people adored this little girl.

Lolz, thanks for the clarification you should have made from the start. “Little” Gwen was also not adored by plenty of people. And pre-searing was like a tutorial to the game where you learn your class, it’s supposed to be easy and goofy.

And yet it was dark and foreboding too.
I’m also sure there are people who did adore her, in great amounts. Because there were a lot of people who refused to believe she had died even before Eye of the North was hinted at. It might still be possible to dig up things from fan forums of Guild Wars 1 before 2007, but you know, it’s not worth the effort.
Someone else who played around that time? I can’t be the only one.

Also, you really should have known better than to only look at one aspect of Gwen instead of the whole. But I’m guessing Prophecies was not your first campaign?

You just agreed with me.

And your point is . . . ?
If you don’t have one, stay on topic. Something can be “cool” and still be “dark” or “grim”.

Your ignorance of what went on doesn’t make a difference to how goofy it was. Look up the Wintersday Finale. Heck, look up ninety percent of holiday quests. “The Knights who Say Nian”. Please tell me there is one holiday’s worth of events which is entirely not goofy.

I also specifically mentioned the game was goofy during the holidays, did you skip that part? GW2 is goofy most the time regardless of holiday events.

I’m sorry, no.

This whole thread of personal story is neither goofy nor silly. Neither is “Dead little sister” for humans.

Talk with some people about what happened to Malomedes. Look at the first thing that happens for a charr player character. Listen to what happened to Destiny’s Edge to make them break up. Read the backstory of Ebonhawke . . . heck, take Ebonhawke in and of itself.

1) What, that the Asura experimented on him? Did they elaborate?
2) I won’t play Charr so I’ll have to research that.
3) Destiny’s Edge is the whiniest group of fighters I’ve met in a game. Almost every storymode dungeon they end up running off in a hissy-fit. If they were real warriors, Logan would never have left DE in the middle of a fight to save his sweetheart Jenna, Rytlock would not be so stubborn and give Sohothin back to humanity to preserve group morale, Zojja would be a grown-up and stop blaming Eir for Snaff’s death from the get-go. Caithe seems pretty level-headed though. /shrug
4) Ebonhawke’s backstory is indeed dark. It’s lovely that this “peace-talk” is a slap in the face of those who died founding/defending it, not to mention it goes against Ebonhawke’s very existence. We all need to hold hands now though, right?

1 – Malomedes’ first encounter with another race was the Inquest. I would trust you would understand what this would mean, but I’ll spell it out. He was experimented on, and no concern was given for his comfort or well-being.

2 – Linked above is one part of the charr personal story, from the Blood Legion. It’s from Beta but it hasn’t changed much. The entire arc is not happy goofy “let’s go have fun”, even if Dinky is around to be a little silly.

3 – You really don’t know do you? Logan found Rytlock with the sword and when he came to respect the charr warrior he let him keep it rather than demand it back. Snaff died because Eir made a miscalculation and he was the closest thing Zojja had to an actual father-figure. Eir is out to throw herself into death defending Honor of the Waves because she feels guilty about that failure. These people have suffered, and while I agree they can be a little whiny (Rytlock stop poking Logan’s pride with a stick and getting upset when he does it back!) they are mostly pretty young.

4 – And this is more proof you’re not paying attention. The peace talks are because Kryta can’t back up Ebonhawke enough to put the charr away from it, and the charr can’t take it. Both sides are wasting resources fighting and it’s a complete stalemate. With the truce the High Legions can actually focus on the Flame Legion (which is bad news for everyone, not just the charr) and keeping them in check. Last time they were free to act, well . . . Ascalon burned, Kryta became ruled by fear, and Orr was obliterated. Also there may have been some dead civilians in there somewhere.

Well, there’s this one secret but . . . you have a trustworthy face so I’ll tell you. But you have to promise not to tell anyone else.

When it’s nighttime, go to the Ascalonian Settlement and light the candles in the graveyard before kneeling at Captain Greywind’s headstone.

The Jade Wind was caused, from the stories, as Shiro was struck down and died. Supposedly when Shiro slew the Emperor he took in some sort of divine-given power and this made him more dangerous than before – where before he had been simply gifted and talented as a swordsman now he was almost unstoppable.

What was called the Jade Wind was the result an incredibly powerful person aiming a death curse at his enemies . . . the Luxons and Kurzicks. Descendants and kin of the ones who struck him down.

Hickeroar.9734:

Thanks! Gonna be hard to apply the “customization” logic to a sword, but I’ll think about this as well. Lots of people could theoretically use the same sword without issue….even if it was customized to a particular person. Hmm.

In theory, sure. But try picking up a sword where the balance is honed specifically for another type of person. Or the blade has been cut down a bit because they need it lighter for an old arm injury.

Jski.6180:

From what i can recall in GW1 there was quest that you had to do to unlock new zones one of the reason why i did not like GW1. Also WoW came out in less then 10 years so it has not pushed things back by 10 years (the main reason why i respond to your post). Miss information is bad and statements like that will only cause a harsher response.

From what I can recall, there were several places in Guild Wars 1 where you could not proceed unless you had done the previous bits in sequence for the story progression. And I’m talking Prophecies.

• There was no way to reach the Crystal Desert without finishing Sanctum Cay. This never changed, because you had to do this even if you had finished Nightfall and knew about the hidden teleport pad.

• There was no way to beat the Mursaat . . . okay, it was incredibly hard to defeat the Mursaat unless you were Infused. Earliest form of the game, this was an incredibly time-consuming event which later got streamlined. You still had to do it or you were likely to die. Quickly. Before you could go “holy crap where did my HP go?”

• You could not reach the Ring of Fire unless you finished Thunderhead Keep.

But you could run almost everywhere on the mainland with a determined enough way of getting there. And with no level requirements it meant it was possible to get your maximum effective armor in . . . mmm, two to three hours after leaving Pre-Searing Ascalon. This was not entirely intended and had a tendency to unbalance things. Just a tad.

In Factions the designers decided not to permit that and more strictly controlled progression. People really did not like that to put it mildly . . .

In Nightfall, you would only move to the next region by completing the storyline. This meant you were experiencing the story up to a point before moving on, so there was a more coherent storyline than there was on Prophecies . . . and more freedom than in Factions.

Something i was thinking about if this is all for the reward your putting way too much work into these forms the earrings by them self are nothing for a boots. And once you get these earrings there is nothing else. To just do these guild quest for pure items IS a waist of time. Your far better off running Fractals.

. . . you’re not allowed to say you don’t need Ascended gear or that it’s a waste of time . . . I’ve been saying that for a while now and people have called me the worst things in places where moderators don’t slap people on the back of the head for acting like a jerk to a person.

Timelord.8190:

These arent good reasons.
If they ppl a buttload of karma then they deserve to get ascended gear for it. Since they have spendt time getting all that karma. It should be more to a game than just getting gear. Time consuming chores with no challenge is just a boring aspect of a game.

You’re looking at it in a simple fashion. That’s not an insult, it’s just true. This is a more complex issue than “there’s a surplus of money? Well make things cost more / make more stuff people buy”.

I’ll break this down best as I understand:

There are a number of factors going into the pricing of an item by a particular currency. It generally has to follow that the designers who set the price know about how much on average a player will have available to them and what their average power level should be at that level. So around level 30, it’s assumed most players are going to be wearing greens at most with a patchwork of blue items they haven’t had upgraded yet. At level 80, it’s assumed most people have at least some exotics but are mostly in rares and maybe a couple greens. It’s not assumed everyone is in full exotics with six Ascended trinkets.

So now it can be assumed this nameless designer (I’ll call him Al) now has an idea of what should be the norm and what the average wealth of a character is at that time. So for things under that curve, the price has to be lower . . . for things above that curve, it needs to be more expensive. This is why you see Masterwork/green items for cheap Karma-wise in Orr but the Exotic armor is 42,000. It’s significantly above what people are expected to have at that point, and it’s also guaranteed to be a specific type instead of a random Rune/stat arrangement.

Now, take that cost curve into account and plot where Ascended would be. There’s not enough Karma you can hold to really buy a full set of trinkets, and even if they expanded on the wallet . . . that’s the only reason to have that much. And guaranteed, there would be 1% of the players who would have that insane amount of Karma on hand the day it was live.

What happens when 1% of the population immediately gets access to whatever is new? Oh, look, we’re having a discussion on that right now . . . you don’t need to ask, just look over there and see. And that’s with something which doesn’t have as significant an impact on performance as immediately gearing six Ascended trinkets.

So, how do you control it so rich players, players who stockpiled Karma bottles, or really devoted grinders won’t have an edge over your average player? New currency and time-lock it so you can only earn it so fast. Now you also know how fast people should be getting the Ascended gear and you can predict based on that.

Arcain.9106:

First, please note that the server population shows how many players call that server home, not the current population of the server online.
Since the new dailies and the loot changes to bosses I have seen more and more players in low level areas (1-25). They’re usually zerging events or waiting at the world boss area to spawn.

“Maw dead yet?” “No.” “Hey is the Maw up yet?” “No.” “Hey has-” “We will tell you when the Maw is up, please don’t ask.” “Hey did anyone start the Maw yet?”

Tachenon.5270:

HannaDeFreitas.4236:

Asuras used to be know-it-alls, they still are but they look very childish now and less dignified.

Yeah, I recently watched a video compilation of all the cutscenes from EoTN. Vekk wasn’t exactly comic relief, and his old man, Gadd… yikes.

Yes and instead we have Zojja now. And Kudu. One of which is menacing, the other is a heartless scientist. Both of whom I want to lock in a chest and throw in the ocean for slightly different reasons.

(Kudu, stop taunting then running, and let me KEEEEEEEEEEEEEEELL you! Gods it was fun to put him down in Crucible of Eternity . . . )

Flamenco.3894:

Just walked over the entirety of Tyria, haven’t seen a single person. The game is doomed.

You know you need to look down to see asura right? Unless they’re a thief (they’re always a thief), in which case you need to look anywhere but in front of you.

Drunken Mad King.8193:

The reason for this new currency is because they have to shoehorn Ascended gear into the game. They are trying to figure out how to get it into all aspects of the game and keep a time sink into it so that you can’t have all your characters geared out in it.

Actually I think my interpretation is slightly more accurate, but then I watched this avidly as it evolved and went “this is not going to be pretty in six months”.

Timelord.8190:

I don’t understand why anet had to add another currency, i mean why not use karma?
Karma is pretty much usless after you get exotic armor. And yeah, the dailies are just boring. It’s just like a list of chores. And why does the ascended gear have to be soulbound instead of accountbound?

Why not Karma? Because people have a buttload of Karma these days. As in, they could probably hit seven figures in ten minutes by binge-drinking Jugs of Liquid Karma. Or there are the few who farm events constantly for cash who also will have a fair amount of Karma laying about.

Now, before you start asking why there’s so many Jugs, remember there was once a time when there were ample complaints about the cost of the Temple Exotic gear which cost . . . 42,000 Karma a piece. The response to that was to make Jugs of Liquid Karma drop from the Daily (giving 4500 Karma each) meaning you could gear up Exotic armor in roughly eight to ten days.

So the reason there’s so much Karma in the system is because people complained a while ago there wasn’t enough Karma in the system. I fully expect in three months people will notice there’s too many Laurels they have and can’t do anything with . . .

So! Where the (heck) was Biggles when you needed him last Saturday?
And where were all the sportsmen who always pulled you though?
They’re all resting down in Cornwall —
writing up their memoirs for a paper-back edition
of the Boy Scout Manual.

Sorry, couldn’t resist . . .

I know I like to go back and hang around in Queensdale on my human, and sometimes I poke around some of the other starting areas of my charr warrior and norn guardian. I don’t go to Caledon or Metrica too much because I have . . . a lingering distaste for Maguuma from vanquish attempts in Guild Wars 1. Also, I just don’t like asura very much and would feed them to Jormag if it wasn’t socially awkward to do so.

So it’s kind of a continuous thing about these bosses. They’re harder when you have maybe 5-10 people present and nobody else, but if you get a lot of people together (read: what happens currently) they become punching bags.

Even the Claw of Jormag, which frequently causes people just in the back to get downed or die during the second half, is reduced to a “get everyone shooting at it”. And the Shatterer . . . I watched it die in two minutes and that was including the arrival and death animations.

Here’s a suggestion:

Instead of scaling health/damage/armor solely, or making them get adds to manage . . . scale that they get evolving attacks for the number of people present.

Take the Shatterer for instance . . . 5-15 people present, he doesn’t do much different than he does now. But get 16-25 people and now he’ll drop more prisons and maybe some chaos storms you need to look out for. Maybe he focuses a flash of energy from his crystals which blinds people facing him. Get 25+ people there, and give him another crystal regeneration period. Have sharp shards of crystal blowing in the air giving a near constant bleeding effect which stacks the longer you stand still.

Shadow Behemoth is probably the worst off, because while it’s an interesting fight it’s at such a low level that it doesn’t have enough health for all the people there. So make it not just summon portals, but make its roar cause fear, stun, give it an aura which increases stacks of weakness/vulnerability as you damage it. Let its attacks lifedrain.

Silver Chopper.4506:

They could take all the exotic weapons that are exclusively obtained from the Mystic Toilet now and make them unique drops attached to different champs bosses around the world (and to dungeon bosses).

In GW1 the beauty about farming these bosses was that you created a whole party build specifically for that boss, so it gave you a reason to experiment with build synergies, etc.

Oh god I remember the “degen ranger” build I had for Duncan. Solely for Duncan. Or the “screw you M. Bison” build for the Norn Fighting Tournament.

Ursan.7846:

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Hawkian.6580:

These exist, by the way. At least one weapon and piece of jewelry per boss.

I’m working on a spreadsheet of them, but it’s currently very incomplete.

Did you get “Sentinel’s Bane” from the Shatterer? I got that the other night.

The Shatterer also drops a jewelery named “Kralltorik’s(sp?) Breathe.” I’ve seen people link that.

At this point I’m now going to want to see this list when it reaches a deeper level of completion.

Also, bosses need to get more interesting scaling methods. Like, evolving to get new attacks if a crowd is there versus one group.

bpphantom.8243:

I admit that the general tone of the GW2 background is lighter and sillier than GW1. However, I’m now going to make an Asuran that joins the Order of Whispers just to combine all the silly in one place… A Sillularity if you will.

No, you fool! You know not what you do! It will be the death of us all!

(Sarcasm.)

(PS. Infinity Ball for maximum goofiness.)

Hawkian.6580:

These exist, by the way. At least one weapon and piece of jewelry per boss.

I’m working on a spreadsheet of them, but it’s currently very incomplete.

Did you get “Sentinel’s Bane” from the Shatterer? I got that the other night.

Kain Francois.4328:

I believe the flaw to be the personal story more than the overall tone and style. GW2 is plenty capable of being dark and serious, but the personal story simply missed a lot of potential.

Well, unless you were charr. Really, I found the personal storylines I played out with charr characters at BWEs and post-release to be very much less “laughable”. Cliche? Yes, but . . .

Amadan.9451:

“this won’t end well”
thank you Treaherne, i really needed that morale boost! now that you made clear we are facing evil and world is dark, shut up and try not to die this time…
the ability to joke in the face of evil is one of the brilliant tactics of creatures alive and also something to make feel your enemy underestimated and barely taken care of.
it works.

though i wish we had some dragon age origins dark feeling and humor

I just wish the combat chatter like that line triggered a little less often, given that we probably won’t be able to get more variety out of the already-finished content :P

hharry.1967:

ANet is not against grinding, otherwise i wouldnt been doing fractals of the mist for over 2 months already to get the weapon i want and i didnt get it yet. I swear fractal skins are harder to get than legendaries.

Until it’s harder to get than an Icy Dragon Sword was before Nicholas started giving them out . . .

Obsidian.1328:

Gwen was too emo, everyone knows that. And you will always get peeps that wear pink on heavy armor. Same with the “scantily clad” element.

You’re thinking of the wrong Gwen. You really are. But that’s okay. I’m here to help.

http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/File:Gwen_(Prophecies).jpg

This is Gwen. She was a little girl who waited outside the gates of the first city in Prophecies and if you talked to her she would tag along and chatter nonstop until you left the area. Part of the Searing cinematic was her looking up before “crap happened”, and the next you saw of her was a “tattered girl’s cape” washing up somewhere in Kryta. Or a “Broken flute” spawning in the ruins of Ascalon.

And people adored this little girl.

The game is too sci-fi only because it’s an oxymoron existence. Yaks still pulling wooden carts around yet there’s a giant laser attached to a floating metal zeppelin…makes no sense. Final Rest and Twilight are just cool to look at, they aren’t dark and gritty.

Nope, they’re cool to look at but then, I find Moonshine to also be cool to look at.

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Moonshine

I don’t know the “assembly line” thing you mentioned, I always did the snowball pvp during Wintersday.

Your ignorance of what went on doesn’t make a difference to how goofy it was. Look up the Wintersday Finale. Heck, look up ninety percent of holiday quests. “The Knights who Say Nian”. Please tell me there is one holiday’s worth of events which is entirely not goofy.

Read the short story here right at the beginning(Nolani Academy…) and tell me it’s not more serious and gritty:
ftp://ftp.guildwars.com/downloads/gwp-manual.pdf

Talk with some people about what happened to Malomedes. Look at the first thing that happens for a charr player character. Listen to what happened to Destiny’s Edge to make them break up. Read the backstory of Ebonhawke . . . heck, take Ebonhawke in and of itself.

The daily count resets the same time as the Daily achievements, far as I can tell. So . . .