Guild Wars 2

Rifter.6591:

Personally i didnt see an issue untill the x-files conspiracy comment, thets when it went from being handled professionally to being handled like a grade school name calling match.

If they would have left out insults and just done their job quietly and found and fixed the issue i think they would be getting a much better response from the playerbase. Like i said above what did they expect the response to be to this after they called the playerbase a bunch of x-files conspiracy theorists, its obviously not going to be a good response at that point once the insults are flying, its going to be even worse because we are right and they are wrong.

I took it as a lighter comment with a twist of sarcasm, which was born of someone tired of fielding the same comments over and over. Again, yes unprofessional, but seeing the tone of some posts which get snuffed here on the forums? NOT undeserved for some posters.

Rifter.6591:

Yeah they really handled this situation about as bad as they could have, which is why they are getting this negative response to it.

Handle something in a poor unprofessional manner and expect the same in return, this is just common sense. Anet brought this negative response totally upon themselves.

Well they could have done worse, they could have simply kept bringing out the old phrase “working as intended” while fixing it, then dropped a fix quietly into a patch with no notes and no sign anything was changed while going “see, we told you it worked properly” when someone comments on a change.

I would call it the Verant method of problem resolution.

Honestly, I think at this point every MMO developer has seen the common “my drops are bugged” “stealth nerf to drops this patch” nonsense so much in other threads, it became “The Players That Cried Nerf” and it became a defense mechanism for their sanity to just go:

“Not this again.”

Is it wrong? Yeah, of course it’s wrong, what did you expect me to say? It’s a mistaken attitude born of complacency and too much familiarity with players of MMOs. About the best way to handle it once you find out something is wrong is to fix it, own up it was broken, and move on. Apologize if you aren’t completely fed up with the grief, otherwise just let it go because otherwise people will be using it as a club to beat you over the head with for the rest of your game’s lifespan.

And I fully anticipate that myself. Any time someone puts up something else and a representative says “I’m not seeing it…” someone is going to drag this tired old event out and go “yeah, you said that before, you clearly don’t know what you’re doing”.

On land:
I like the juvenile wolf. Sure, you got to go into WvW Eternal Battlegrounds to get it, but it’s been decently useful. Useful enough for me to keep active. Of course, when doing Orr areas it’s probably a good idea to go with the brown bear for its ability. Also it’s general “tankiness”. Other pets might be useful to you, it really depends on what you play with.

Drakes are generally average I’ve found, Bears have a lot of health and defense, spiders/devourers are fragile but good at putting conditions at range, and the cats are roughly glass cannons.

In water:

Drakes are amphibious, but I go with the river drake for the AoE lightning shock and . . . yes, another bear. Because I’m a ranger and can’t tank for crap so I let the pet do it for me on veterans.

Of course evil pays better, but you gotta watch that turnover rate.

Khisanth.2948:

It’s really not necessary to try to keep gear up to level, especially if the old and new are the same rarity. A level X+5 piece of armor is only 1 or 2 stat points more than a level X piece of armor. An additional 6 stat points really isn’t going to make a huge difference. The only exceptions are when the items go from 1 stat to 2 and 2 to 3.

Unless you are hellbent on crafting all your own gear. Most of it can be obtained cheaper on the Trading Post. Just don’t get too used to clicking buy without looking since some of the items in the mid levels jump up by 19ssilvers. Also remember a level X-1 Masterwork(green) is better than a level X Fine(blue). In many cases the Masterwork is also cheaper and comes with a rune.

Yes, but if you level too fast you can wind up with a Level 60 character and still using some Level 30 gear. OR spending all the money you get at the Trading post continuously buying while you’re churning through the levels. That’s more my warning.

I wonder if they lost the metamorphosis ability, or they simply no longer need it as they became more organized . . .

Xriah.5743:

No. ANET failed at making anyone care. You can see the quality of the personal story fade as you progress. It starts strong and gets buggier and more poorly written as you go.

. . . please don’t use absolutes like “anyone” . . .

Oh, one other thing . . .

Don’t rush your way to level 80. There are very real dangers and pitfalls to leveling too fast in this game which relate to the way gear and downscaling interact. In simple terms, you can make your gear not only irrelevant, but wind up without the money to upgrade into more than “serviceable gear”.

That said?

- Hit every resource node you find. You get XP for it, and even if you decide not to craft the goods can be sold for some minor profit. Especially once you get past third-tier materials.
- Keep a Basic Salvage Kit on you at all times. If you’re running out of uses, get another. Salvage anything which says “Salvage Item”, and white gear. Up to you if you salvage anything higher than that.
- Find “Deposit Collectibles” on your inventory screen and use it. You’re welcome.
- Do your dailies. The rewards are worth the effort. If you don’t, don’t sweat it until you know whether or not you’ll want what you can buy with Laurels. Then focus your attention on getting that specific thing.
- TRY to do your monthly. This one is more likely to be missed, because it requires more attention and tougher requirements. (500 items salvaged, 5 dungeon runs, 100 dynamic events, and X daily achievements fully completed, is this month.)
- Find a guild which suits you. This can be easier said than done.

critickitten.1498:

Something that people need to remember: I’m not complaining about this because I hate the game, I’m complaining because I love this game but I see it taking a very worrying path towards WoW and other MMOs, instead of being the shining example of next-gen MMO gaming that it claims to be. GW2 can’t call itself a “revolution” if it’s just going to do a lot of the same things that other MMOs do (even if it does them better), people will call them on that and it’ll hurt their image.

The image is already hurt, and tarnished, and there’s enough people screaming about it right now and in the past. There is no repairing the damage the discussion has caused, because we’re already at a point where some people won’t stop talking about it negatively in any thread anywhere. Official forums or not.

It’s no longer a “shining example”. It’s a slightly tarnished example and getting more so as time wears on, just from the amount of dirt being flung. I’m not going to say it’s unwarranted, or warranted, the point is:

People are slinging mud. This game is no longer going to proceed without people being aware of that mudslinging, regardless of whether it’s true or not. It’s like if you talk to someone who’s never played EvE Online and only done a cursory look, it’s all about the PvP and massive space battles. Or Dwarf Fortress is all about drunken dwarves on fire . . .

. . . nevermind that last one is fairly on target.

Konig Des Todes.2086:

Thing is – Lyssa’s priestesses proclaim her dead; Grenth’s priests proclaim he lies – and one of the Seven Reapers state that Zhaitan is stealing souls from Grenth; Dwayna’s priestesses proclaim they both empower them. Don’t recall what’s said from Melandru’s and Balthazar’s priests but they also speak as if the gods are not the same as Zhaitan.

Even if you argue “Zhaitan=Kormir, and the other dragons=the other gods” it still doesn’t work out.

And there I had a giggle thinking “so many people wanted Kormir dead, if it turned out she became Zhaitan then they’d get their wish!” . . . and realizing there wasn’t a chance it was real. Aww.

Salacious.7358:

this was a very fascinating read, how ever it left more questions unanswered.

What happened to the islands? Where are the Zaishen? Who was the old wizard? How is it that we are teleported into a factal dungeon and then out again – whats the main reason for going into them (again, lore wise)

Where do the gods come into all this? they helped shape tyria – does this mean with access to the mists we might get access to them?

One by one:

- The Battle Isles were destroyed/lost when Orr rose and the coastline was ravaged. Since they’re islands, they were pretty much lost and the Zaishen Order relocated to Lion’s Arch. They no longer control access to the Mists that way, but it’s worth considering (only a theory!) they became the Mist Warriors.

- You could see some Zaishen operating during the “Battle for Lion’s Arch” event against the Karka, alongside some Lionguards. So they’re around, just not as omnipresent.

- I forget the name of the old one who started using the Mists as his personal sanctuary and allowed mortals into the realm of the gods. I’ll edit it in here later.

EDIT: The name of that person was “Lord Odran”. And I was slightly off – the Hall of Heroes wasn’t CREATED by his efforts, but it became accessible through them enough that it . . . changed, slightly.

http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Lord_Odran

- Lorewise the Fractals were reached when the Asura Gate the Consortium set up malfunctioned and connected to the Observatory. I don’t know how the Observatory does what it does by moving you through Fractals because asura are very tight-lipped about experimental secrets

- The Six Gods are not the creators of the Mists, nor of Tyria . . . they live in the Mists somewhere but their realms haven’t been visited by mortals since the Six Gods began to decline in influence after the events of the Rubicon Prophecy (Guild Wars: Eye of the North).

LithePanther.5027:

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

LithePanther.5027:

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Ethics.4519:

LithePanther.5027:

SWR.4687:

OK, so now I’ve started doing things for them like repairing signs and such, what now?

That’s all you do. You need to do that, stoke the fires, and return momentos until you get the achievement (70 times helping) before it ends and you can’t do it anymore

I think it’s 75… like 75% sure it’s 75. If it’s not then I apologize for incorrectly correcting =)

It’s 75, but you can get extra credit doing the events where you plug ruptures.

My mistake. I knew it was 7x and guessed. Guess I guessed wrong

Nothing wrong with that Being wrong is okay, because we all are wrong on the forums from time to time.

You are wrong, for I am never wrong. But I was wrong. But I’m never wrong. This is not wrong.

And everything I say is a lie. Everything.

Hantu.2815:

Rangers: Remember resurecting your pet every few seconds?

. . . I remember being able to do so, yes. I miss being able to since in some group events they spend their time dirt-napping more often than not. Which only serves to remind me of my favorite pull tactic in GW1:

“Pet pulling”. Wherein I let my pet get utterly pasted and resurrect it to drag things out of position. Often times breaking up groups so we could nail them one by one.

Zhaitan is also opposed to the other dragons, from what I recall . . . they do not play well together.

LithePanther.5027:

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Ethics.4519:

LithePanther.5027:

SWR.4687:

OK, so now I’ve started doing things for them like repairing signs and such, what now?

That’s all you do. You need to do that, stoke the fires, and return momentos until you get the achievement (70 times helping) before it ends and you can’t do it anymore

I think it’s 75… like 75% sure it’s 75. If it’s not then I apologize for incorrectly correcting =)

It’s 75, but you can get extra credit doing the events where you plug ruptures.

My mistake. I knew it was 7x and guessed. Guess I guessed wrong

Nothing wrong with that Being wrong is okay, because we all are wrong on the forums from time to time.

Okay, most of this is from what I remember. Let’s take this one by one.

What are fractals? no I dont mean in game dungeons that we all run for ascended gear. I mean lore wise. What are they? why are they here? how did we discover them? whats the story?

That’s what they’r trying to figure out in the Observatory. Apparently Fractals are bubbles of reality inside the Mists which either are history (things that were), a possible future (things that may come), or alternate realities (things which could be). Remember, the Mists are a big ball of potential which reshapes itself from time to time. The Fractals are listed as “somewhat stable pockets”. Fully stable pockets would be the Underworld, the Hall of Heroes, the Fissure of Woe, and the Eternal Battleground.

Mist Wars, WVW – what is it? – again I dont mean the obvious, I mean lore wise, How did they start? why do they rage? can we give peace treaties?

This is something of a stretch because there’s not much known for certain here. What is known is that there are four battlegrounds which every world can access along with two other alternate forms of Tyria which are very similar except for slightly different details. Again, remember that alternate realities are a possibility in the Mists.

They rage because this is, in essence, where warriors go for glory and conquest. All the people who would go to the Fissure of Woe to serve as Balthazar’s Eternals? They’re probably in the Mist Wars as they’re more entertaining. (Note, we don’t know what’s gone on in the Fissure of Woe since there’s a decreased focus on the Six Gods of humankind.)

Guildwars 1 has its….GuildWars in the lore, it had kritan fighting orr fighting ascalon until the char were like rawr and the old mage was like kaboom on orr.

A lot more complex. The Guild Wars were a nearly neverending conflict which was done between guilds registered to the three human nations: Orr, Ascalon, and Kryta. When the conflicts got heated up rather than just small skirmishes, the nations backed guilds registered to them and turned it into straight-up war with guilds being essentially semi-independent army divisions. The last of these had just burned out shortly before the Searing happened and Ascalon was smacked back to the stone age, Kryta’s royalty said “screw this I’m outta here”, and Orr blew itself up. In essence, the charr invasion ended the Guild Wars for a while, because there was no more security to actually practice it – why risk fighting each other when the charr were less than a day from putting your towns to the torch?

But how did we gain access to the mist? is there some greater plane of existence beyond this? are their gods here?

We got access to the Mists because some old wizard decided to open gateways into it, and proceeded to bend them to create a few places of stability. The Hall of Heroes came out of it, along with with semi-permanent access which was watched over by the Zaishen Order on the Battle Isles.

(The islands are now gone, by the way, but the Zaishen prevail in smaller numbers.)

What do I do for fun? Renaissance festivals. Or I wait in vain for when Netflix will stream Fringe or Leverage . . . not happening though. Alas.

Oh, wait, you mean Guild Wars 2?

- Do my dailies with self-imposed challenges. Like pick a zone I don’t know like the back of my hand, do it without changing my weapons, do it with no waypoint travel . . .

- Chatter with guildmates about how much I enjoyed an aspect of the personal story.

- Chatter with guildmates how frustrating a skill challenge / vista / event is.

- Look around for Whispers Agents in disguises.

- Troll trolls. I mean the monster type, not forum trolls.

- Prove an asura wrong.

- Beat a norn at bear wrestling. When they’re the bear.

- Get some ale and watch the battle for Ascalon City’s ruins, helping up charr soldiers so they can get back in there.

- Send a box of catnip to the Black Citadel.

Konig Des Todes.2086:

Issue is that the Elder Dragons have been around for at least 11,000 years give or take; on the other hand the Six Gods have only been known to have been around for roughly 2,000 years. Furthermore, the Six Gods can have predecessors, but by all indications the Elder Dragons cannot.

The Six Gods are not really “waning” – they’re just distancing themselves, and there’s even conflict between Grenth and Zhaitan (what with Zhaitan stealing souls from Grenth). All indication shows that they’re still as powerful as ever – they’re just not in or around Tyria. And they probably don’t want to be around magic-eating entities, given that they’re practically magic entities themselves. Elder Dragons are, by all rights and knowledge, the natural predators of gods. But that’s all the possible connection there seems to be.

Valid points, I was just thinking it aloud. It’s definitely more plausible than “the dragons are the Six Gods in some form”.

There are other ways of dealing with Trahearne and removing him without making him face-heel turn. Most useful would be “hey, Orr is cleansed, I no longer have a need to act so I’m going to abdicate leadership to the Commander now”.

Ethics.4519:

LithePanther.5027:

SWR.4687:

OK, so now I’ve started doing things for them like repairing signs and such, what now?

That’s all you do. You need to do that, stoke the fires, and return momentos until you get the achievement (70 times helping) before it ends and you can’t do it anymore

I think it’s 75… like 75% sure it’s 75. If it’s not then I apologize for incorrectly correcting =)

It’s 75, but you can get extra credit doing the events where you plug ruptures.

bravoart.5308:

Remember when you could buy all the cooking ingredients for karma that are being scalped right now? Butter, chocolate, so on…

. . . butter is being scalped? With as much as was floating around, the butt of jokes over how one could replicate the Lion’s Arch Lion in chilled butter after one day of opening loot bags . . . and it’s scarce and scalped? Wow.

Anyone remember when “dungeons were too hardcore for casuals”? Especially AC?

Konig Des Todes.2086:

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

The six dragons are counterparts to the Six Gods. Not the same as, but as the Gods wane, the Dragons get stronger and waken.

This doesn’t make sense because the Elder Dragons have been on the world of Tyria long before the Six Gods were.

And nothing indicates that the Six Gods are waning or have waned in the past. They’re just not in contact with Tyrians.

It’s just an idea, neighbor. An interesting one to me, as it only takes a few assumptions to make it work:

- The Six Gods have always existed, but not in the form that humans of Tyria know them. Take a closer look at what I said, if the six dragons were active thousands of years ago, and the gods aren’t active at the same time they are for some reason, then of course we don’t see anything about them closer to the time the dragons awoke.

- The Six Gods are currently waning and have been drawing back since Nightfall; the Elder Dragons have been stirring since then. Jormag, and Primordius both got started not long after Nightfall, remember?

Esplen.3940:

No, you can also ignore everything and level up.

Well, he could, but that’s not what he was asking about. He was asking about participation in the Living Story content, not . . . you know, not participating . . .

SWR.4687:

OK, so all of the heralds keep directing me to the refugee coordinator, who tells me essentially nothing. Where do I go from here?

Out into the field and follow the signposts which show the path the refugees will take.

At this point I’m going to wind up retiring my ranger and never touching him again. The love for rangers, it’s so touching (sniff). If I wasn’t used to it by now with almost certainly every other game out there I’d really be actually saddened and not just sarcastically sad.

Esplen.3940:

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

I only get 3 Tokens out of a bag some of the time. Other times I get a Bag of Coins or a Pouch of Gems instead. I always get some Liquid Karma.

You ALWAYS get a Drop of Liquid Karma and a Bag of Coins. If you did Explorable Mode, you will also get 3 Tokens.

You’re talking about a Bag of Gems where you get 3 gems/crests/stuff.

Mmm, I thought the Pouch of Gems was from that . . . by the way, I opened two of those and determined they’re not really worth all that much.

SWR.4687:

What level are the quests?

The same level as the zones they’re in; Diessa Plateau is higher but Wayfarer Foothills is pretty much okay for anyone over level 10. There’s only one type of dynamic event and unless you’re kinda set for the top of the range (1-15 for Wayfarer’s) I would advise against trying to take the “Close the ruptures!” event without help. Luckily, you don’t need to do that for credit. What you can do is fix road signs, tend to wounded refugees on the paths, and look for fallen refugees to collect mementos to pass on.

You need 75 of any of those three actions to achieve the full achievement rank. If you can do the rupture events, that’ll knock off more than a few counts for assistance.

Max Lexandre.6279:

GW1 beats GW2 in somethings.

They are both created by ArenaNet so I don’t know why they didn’t take some good things about GW1 and improve then in GW2…

Instead they decided to make some revolution, that worked fine arround the game, but that failed in some areas that need, but really need DEVs to look at them.

They decided they wanted to make a full-on MMO instead of what Guild Wars 1 was. And it’s obvious some of their ideas looked okay on paper and when they thought of the theory but in practice it turned out differently.

Mostly because no plan ever really survives first contact with reality.

damny.9342:

Blacklight.2871:

I’ve been trying to finish Tribulation Caverns, off and on, since launch. Always fail right near then end, falling to my death. I’ve cursed and raged, but never thought to start a thread on it.

I think he meant the first half, before the vista, since that is required for map completion. Getting up that scaffolding is a lot of jumps for a vista, although at least there are no mobs there.

I find only one jump on that whole scaffolding is tricky – a jump around a corner from one platform to another. And it doesn’t drop you far if you miss.

Breached Wall has a couple tricks using odd geometry. Namely, you can jump across the window arches over a gap if you can get up there – which takes some effort. After that, you’re good.

Grendich Gamble? Ugh. At the top, some of the spots are vertically a bit tight, and there’s trebuchets which can knock you off the tower to falling death.

Vizier’s Tower I had more problems with since I couldn’t tell what was a spot I could land on safely versus what was just decoration I would slide from.

Cubular Fells was a bit fun, but the teleporters were not seemingly set up right from how I was experiencing it. I wound up having to get “cute” with my jumps.

I’m still working through the list too.

I only get 3 Tokens out of a bag some of the time. Other times I get a Bag of Coins or a Pouch of Gems instead. I always get some Liquid Karma.

marnick.4305:

I’m not comparing legitimacy on a game by game basis but rather on a scale of major vs minor issues. GW2 only has relatively minor issues.

I can easily take the minor issues I have with GW2. Nothing in life is perfect. If we’re stuck complaining about bank storage for dungeon tokens and high prices for entirely optional precursors, we really have a luxury problem.

Sorry, I quoted you, but that wasn’t entirely aimed at you. It’s just a sore spot going in my head over some arguments this last week. Month. Months. Apology accepted?

My minor irritants is that I’m holding a lot of tonics and not using them so much. :P Or that there are people managing to put buy orders in the trading post for less than the value of an object. (I was cleaning out sigils/runes.) Or how the game is starting to develop layers of hastily applied patches to things which were designed one way and worked differently when released into the wild.

By that I mean that they added Laurels, because Karma is insufficient a factor to predict how much people should have, let alone Gold . . . at least it’s not another token.

(I say, eyeing the three characters I had Nicholas loot saved up on in old GW1)

Ricky Da Man.5064:

Just feelthat in gw1 I can choose to group up and do stuff more, here I keep execting tumbleweed to roll by.

It’s possible. It’s also possible you are in a zone and you’re swept up in so many places you can go and jump in and out of events and fighting going on just because. There’s the balance (so to speak) of being a 90% persistent world; sometime there’s nobody around, sometimes there’s lots of people around.

But interesting you put it:

“But even at DE’s theres no sense of helping each other, its all kill it so I can get the goodies,”

Because there was rarely a GW1 PUG I took into a dungeon or mission which wasn’t focused on loot and finishing it fast as possible. If it was alliance folks getting together? We were all for doing it slowly and methodically so as not to need to wipe and repeat. Random folks? Get through ASAP to the chest so they can map travel out for another run. Sorry, you just might have rose-colored glasses on for this point . . . and nothing wrong with that. I have my own fond memories too because when I grouped it tended to be like this:

Alliance Chat: “Hey, who feels like doing something?”
Me: “I’m game, not doing anything currently aside from chest runs.”
“What do people still need vanquished? Let’s go do it.”

And we did it. And it was glorious fun, even for Sacnoth Valley which took a couple hours to comb for that last one mob. Even the eight hour Urgoz run was entertaining in its own way. Even the “screw it, I’m gonna tackle Kanaxai” Deep run was entertaining.

I have no doubts in my mind those experiences aren’t necessarily representative of the game for an average player.

No, you didn’t fail and ruin anything. Sometimes it just doesn’t work out for a person. Have you tried another race?

marnick.4305:

Always when I see this kind of lists, it reminds me of fanboy wars in console forums lol

The worst thing about GW2 is that your entire listing is correct and true. I don’t think playing another MMO again is a feasible thing. Whereas most games were WoW clones in the last decade, most future MMO games, including WoW, will increasingly become GW2 clones.

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

. . . there’s equally a lot of little things which bug me, or irritate me. Sad, but true.

If the major things are good, people are stuck to complaining about very minor issues. This game is playable and enjoyable. If you take the top 10 issues in GW2, they would be overshadowed by the glaring faults of other games, some of them game breaking to a major degree.

As is so often said in response to me: just because other people get it wrong worse doesn’t mean it isn’t wrong . . . but in this case, just because other games have their own problems doesn’t mean GW2’s aren’t any more legitimate.

Of course, a lot of them hinge on personal tastes and how far each person is willing to forgive certain things. There’s a fair amount of technical issues (minor and major), and a fair amount of design issues (again, minor and major and subjective all at the same time).

It becomes a thing of “how much do I want to let this bother me to distract me from what I like?”

I look at this list, and I see all the little things I didn’t notice (Account name forwarding in case you’re on a different character) which work really well. There’s a lot of little things which make the game fun, but . . .

. . . there’s equally a lot of little things which bug me, or irritate me. Sad, but true.

By the way, I’m yanking this topic sometime later tonight to show to my guild and see what they think about doing something like this after we get the last wave of people coming over settled in

Desamos.1836:

Sarrs.4831:

Necro, C in PvE? What in the world

He’s gone mad ik. Necros are amazing in pve if Ur really knowledgable to how you play the class. RANGERS A in wvw, A in pve and A+ in school

I play a ranger and I wouldn’t go that far. Any class can excel with a skilled player, and rangers need some finesse. They can’t drop damage like other classes, but then I’m used to that from GW1 (wherein Rangers seriously were not built for DPS either). I’ll say this, though, I’ve been surprised by just how viciously damage-over-time conditions can stack with a Ranger working it. Bleed, Poison, and Burning are easily put down and kept applied.

Desamos.1836:

My main is a ranger. Have made around 13 builds till i found the right one. Have used 5 different armor set builds till i found the right one corresponding with my build. I use, actively every single ranger weapons in different situations. Ive solod every class in wvw and won so far. Ive not once felt fractals or any dungeon exporable challrnging unless my team isnt too familiar with the dungeon. This class of all the classes Ive played (if you play your cards right), one of the most overpowered class but you have to be smart and willing to experiment a lot with Ur gold. What i just wrote here is aplicable to any class in reality if you put the effort. Excuse some of my poor sentences Im typing on my phone with ma fat fingers!

I find that there are some situations where the Ranger doesn’t work as ideal. If you absolutely, positively need to melee something? Rangers are not what you want. If you want ranged AoE? We’re only slightly okay at that.

However, I have found so far that we can be very good at chokepoints in some events where you have to defend a spot due to traps and other options. Underwater, we’re not too bad at range with a speargun. Due to having an insane range on a longbow with the one trait perk we can pull things rather well and drop a Barrage to cripple them.

Downsides? Get a massive amount of melee-focused enemies and we’re going to fold quickly. Our pets tend to be very glassy if they’re left to be the sole melee option (and there’s few ways to revive them other than “wait it out”). A lot of our skills lack definitive impact but can be used to do some interesting things.

As such, I’d rate us a B- on PvE – it takes some skill or just some persistence to get somewhere.

Note, I play a Ranger. I had a somewhat worse time due to my pet running off now and then until I set it to “Heel”. Very slowly and very carefully moving forward and laying waste to anything in the way helped. At the end, there is a spot where you can get waylaid by Risen unintentionally by aggroing them through the walls.

The trick is knowing how fast you might be able to kill that boss from the point. If you can burn something down quick, just lure off those Risen and rush back there to get it down fast.

If you can’t burn it down fast, take those Risen and shave them down to something manageable then go for the point.

Above all? Don’t worry about an exit strategy, the Risen have you covered.

Ariel Cor Leonis Inferi.2894:

My guild does Hide & Seek every week and we usually give 20g to the winner. We also do 1v1 tourney for guild members =D. The highest amount of gold that we gave is 100g. Everyone in the guild is having fun even though the game doesn’t have this kind of events.

. . . wow those are some high prizes.

How does one equip alts? According to what you have to spare, I’d say. If you’re hot for Ascended gear for them, then perhaps gear up a character you intend to do a lot of Fractals with then start running them and using gear drops to furnish them (apparently Rings drop like candy). I’d opt not to worry about Amulets for them, but then again I’m opting not to worry about Amulets at all, myself.

Interesting read, but I find my Ranger is not quite THAT weak in PvE.

Interesting theory to consider, but I’ll offer one better:

The six dragons are counterparts to the Six Gods. Not the same as, but as the Gods wane, the Dragons get stronger and waken.

Though, honestly? I try to avoid gamble boxes in any game I can unless I can get access easily enough after I have exhausted other things. I only started using Zaishen Keys in GW1 when I didn’t need my Gold ZCoins anymore . . . I only use dropped/earned Keys in this game, and I mostly played with the Jewelry Boxes when my guild did a “Karma Weekend” with all the boosters which we could scrape together as a guild.

I was not disappointed in the result, mind you.

PopeUrban.2578:

ZoiN.4280:

EDIT: I remember Rurik from GW1 – even though you probably didden’t know all to much about him I remember feeling attached to him, having to follow him through the shiverpeaks mountain to see him get killed was touching in a way – atleast I remember that I wished that he wouldn’t die as he did, only to find him at the end undead, having to fight him to get to the Lich dude.

Honostly, the prophecies campaign has so far been my favorite story campaign from GW1 as well as GW2.

I agree. Even though the side quests were often a bore, GW1’s story missions were, at the time of its release, some of the most engaging RPG content at the time. The story itself had interesting characters and plot twists, and in the end, although a largely forgotten footnote in history, the players themselves were largely responsible for the major victories in that story, and were treated as such by the NPCs.

As much as I think the storyline from Prophecies was what kept me going . . . I can recognize (and did) that it was cliched and the Crystal Desert was thinly veiled as a means to show off three of the PvP scenarios at that time. It was fun, and it engaged me but I don’t want to pretend it was groundbreaking or special . . . however, the presentation and polish did get better as time went on with other campaigns.

I liked Rurik because he was a leader who seemed at least competent and aware of the deathtrap post-Searing Ascalon was. I hated Rurik as a game NPC because it was really hard to protect him when the game told you to.

Come to think of it . . . there were very few NPCs I actively disliked which I wasn’t supposed to dislike. I didn’t like Tahlkora all that much but that was due to me having . . . issues with such a total naive girl tagging along with my seasoned adventurer (as brought in from Prophecies). I didn’t like Gwen all that much, but I didn’t really hate her either . . . she just had a lot of issues and was written well, but I didn’t feel a need to have her hanging around.

If we want to talk about GW1 NPCs I disliked, though, Norgu and Goren. Neither seemed that compellingly interesting to me and didn’t fill a niche I needed filled. Goren as “the Int-dump-stat Fighter” and Norgu as “the prima donna actor” just grated with me. I finished the things I needed them for and dumped them off never to use them again.

- Amazing Race: Tyria Edition. Based on the hit TV show, four players group up with a fifth “Referee” and are given clues of where they have to go next. Starting in Rata Sum or the Grove, or Hoelbrak, or such, the goal is to follow the clues to the spot where another person has the next clue. For extra feel, get the clue to coincide at a place where an Event happens and have them pass the event to proceed to the next round. Eliminate one player, and next time start from where you left off. Last player to the finish line wins.

Recruiting competition? Not sure of how you run your guild but I would be cautious about that sort of thing. Hmmm.

- Where am I? A member posts a screenshot with the UI elements removed (Shift+Ctrl+H) and the goal is to get a screenshot in the same (or close to it) spot and post it on your forums. This was a game my guild played for a while to keep active

Worst results? Well every single one of my characters now has “Shy Iris” unlocked because every rare dye I get via drop is seemingly that one sigh . . . so I go to the Mystic Forge and throw four in to get a different one. That’s mostly worked so far.

Ricky Da Man.5064:

Ok I understand what everyone is saying, but the actual base story of the original game was much easier to group up and do content with others, except as stated in its twilight years when hero’s etc were introduced.

But the point remains it still had more multiplayer elements than gw2 has.

Well, it had more blatantly multiplayer elements. GW2 decided to let go of that in favor of pretty much hiding it. You don’t see people grouping up because of how the world works, especially Dynamic Events. Everyone at a DE gets a piece of the action and a piece of the reward (in theory, in theory!) and it scales up difficulty so it can challenge larger masses (in theory, again, in theory).

So there’s no need to shove “you need to group up” in people’s faces, or have that sort of thing intruding. You are free to roam around alone but unlike GW1 you aren’t really “alone” in a place.

(Unless we’re talking Timberline Falls, nobody goes there.)

I wish I knew about this mission and thieves but . . .

. . . have you considered “Prayer to Kormir” to remove those conditions which are killing you quickly?

As a ranger, I’d probably go for “Signet of Renewal” which drops a condition every 10 seconds or it will shove them all onto your pet. Which you can then hit F4 and swap out, I think, to wipe them away.

I’m tempted to roll up a human street rat thief just to try out this fight straight-up without over-leveling more than 3 levels or getting gear from outside sources. I’m pretty sure it can be done, though it reminds me of another personal story boss.

(Charr, second chapter, “Honorable Sire” path, the warrior ghost champion at the end required me to go for lots and lots of blocking to keep up with him after he flattened Rytlock.)