Guild Wars 2

Zaxares.5419:

Great, now we have racist Ascalonians who hate Krytans too.

Look, all I say is if we never let the asura out of their hole in the ground we wouldn’t have this problem.

A R W E N.6895:

So let me rephrase my question: Where is the level 80 high level rewarding content

Define rewarding.

tigirius.9014:

It’s not about legendaries. It’s about not getting pennies for spending an hour in the game doing typical in game stuff as well as what Anet decided they would like us to do and then falsely call it a choice.

That’s what it’s really about.

How much silver do you get each time you finish a map? See my point? Ever get anything useful? nope I don’t ever.

For the longest time, I used an Exotic Bow I got from completing Frostgorge Sound. It was only level 79 and I eventually replaced it with a Wupwup Weapon Chest I got from doing WvW.

I can’t really see “P2W” anywhere in the game – there’s nothing major in the cash shop which is mind-bendingly necessary to pay for. The Boosters? I lost track of how many I got, and they’re not really as useful as food. If you’re talking Cash to Gems to Gold to (insert item here), that’s lazy – Exotic gear is all you need for 90% of the game (I’ll be generous and give you WvW rather than debate that side of things). Your standard Exotic gear is really not that hard to get . . . and I suspect it’s actually fairly simple to build Transmutation Charges up so you don’t get stuck with the ugly for long.

If we’re talking about the Guild Bonuses in WvW . . . they only function while defending an objective, and cost Influence rather than Gold. If we’re talking the objective upgrades . . . I’ve seen Fortified Walls / Reinforced Gates melt under a sufficiently determined attack force with basic gear and the means to keep it working.

What’s left?

LanfearShadowflame.3189:

Maybe he’s talking to Faolain too. She leads the ‘Nightmare Court’ and Kanaxai’s minions were called the ‘Nightmare Horde.’

If they presented that idea, then we’d have to beat back the “Cantha Confirmed” crowd again

LanfearShadowflame.3189:

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

LanfearShadowflame.3189:

I suppose….

She could have just broke her mind with the experiment, just completely went bat kitten crazy, and started hearing voices, and then woke Mordy completely by accident.

Well we do know there are entities in the Mists which are not connected to the Dragons, or the Six . . . and there was one which was decidedly into corrupting people’s minds. Anyone remember Kanaxai?

How could anyone forget that annoying pain in the kitten Some of his aspects were so very annoying to kill…

Sure, if you really want to go out there with it… it could have Kanaxai. Or maybe it was Menzies, reaching out from FoW. Or Dhumm trying to touch the world again to break free from his UW prison. Hell, maybe it was the Mad King. Or any other random entity, and it all miraculously culminated in the waking of Mordy.

It was actually the second thing which came to mind for me, Kanaxai, due to me spending time trying to figure out just what was going on in The Deep. And I don’t know if we really did get much about him/her/it aside from it being related/master of the oni which were around Cantha and having some sway over others through mental manipulations.

If something like Kanaxai can exist, there is undoubtedly a potential other such beings can dwell in the Mists. (Which was my first thought: “Are they going to go for Great Old Ones?”)

Mordremoth, at that point, was literally to me just one name on one skill and not something which was potentially existing in the world as a Dragon. (I posted to that effect a lot before there was a reveal.)

LanfearShadowflame.3189:

I suppose….

She could have just broke her mind with the experiment, just completely went bat kitten crazy, and started hearing voices, and then woke Mordy completely by accident.

Well we do know there are entities in the Mists which are not connected to the Dragons, or the Six . . . and there was one which was decidedly into corrupting people’s minds. Anyone remember Kanaxai?

Draknar.5748:

OP is suggesting what pretty much every single player RPG is doing these days. Paid DLC. You finished main story, now you want to play some new side quests? That’ll be $15 please.

Well, there’s “Final Fantasy 4: The After Years” which was entirely DLC based, now that you reminded me of it. I still haven’t bought it because of that.

rincewind.9528:

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Teofa Tsavo.9863:

By your logic we also don’t “need” cosmetic armor skins because we already have armor.
Don’t need weapons skins cause we already have weapons.

Basically, we don’t need change, options, or new features because we have a status quo.

GG, target market.

Hey there, strawman, we meet again.

The main viable reason people don’t want mounts is the lack of reasoning why they would exist. Tyria doesn’t have horses, and there’s not really many other beasts which are of the type normally ridden. Dolyaks, perhaps. Golems, but that’s really only asura.

There aren’t even horses in Cantha, or Elona.

The usual other reasons thrown out are “don’t make it like WoW”, “don’t add another collectable”, “there’s not much reason to have them for movement aid when there’s WPs”. Discuss if you like, but all of this is off the topic of the original post.

Wait. So we don’t have mounts because there no horses in Tyria?
If the Asura has their golems… why the other races can not think something.
The charr have a kitten submarine. They surely can invent something. A bicycle for example. I give my full support to the idea of Charrs of bicycles!!
And the human can have… dunno, a rickshaw? Surely in Cantha they will use them.
The norms… they can ride bears. Of course, they barely need mounts… with their height and power surely they can run 2 or 3 times faster than the other races.
And the sylvaril… well, nobody care about the sylvaris.

We don’t have mounts because there aren’t any compelling reasons mechanically or thematically for them to exist. Basically? The devs didn’t put them in, so they don’t exist.

I listed it first because it’s literally the only one which isn’t a biased argument against them like the others.

Honestly, the only objection I personally have to mounts is the one “I don’t really think we need another thing just for immersion/fun and no big functionality change.”

Teofa Tsavo.9863:

Ah yes, once again I must concede to “google logical fallacy” skills. Argument rejected for improper formatting. As powerful as the IRL card.

mea culpa.

I’m just an ignorant country hick who skipped debate team. In this mount example, I’m just too dense to see that my desire to have a mount to ride while exploring, for personal immersion, to add to my gameplay is somehow addressed by Waypoints or disallowed because other games have them.

My only excuse is my son ate all the pizza while I napped, and I’m too weak from hunger to be “logical”.

And I didn’t say any of that either.

minbariguy.7504:

I have to admit it’s pretty funny that, in other threads, anyone who dislikes having to pay gems for missed living story is completely bashed and shouted down with cries of “But it’s not that much money and Anet has to fund the game somehow so quit your whining!”, while in this thread everyone is like “Zomg! Pay for my content? That’s crazy talk!”

Honestly, if I had to pay for access after regardless if I was online, while the current one could be played for free? I’d be fine with it. I’d set aside $20 out of a paycheck which used to be my MTG habit fund, and change it over.

If I had to pay for the Living Story all chapters at once or not get access, and it was also retroactive I’d have more of an issue but I’d allow it.

If I had to pay for the Living Story before I could experience it, and it was not retroactive? I’d go back to Terraria and Minecraft.

Really, is it too much? Not once I reached a point it gave me crafting experience to bash out a brick.

IndigoSundown.5419:

Sekai.2987:

You guys keep talking as if FoW , DoA and UW were hard contet…i´m am preatty sure that almost everyone farmed them like kitten , there was nothig hard about it , it was a daily farm , nothig more …..but one one thing i agree , the reards were bettter , at least for me , got so many armbraces that i gave them to some guildis to get the anguish weapons for the HoM achievement.

Everything is relative. They were certainly harder than some other aspects of the game. Some people never did them, others did them sparingly, still others did them religiously.

Replying to both at once:

They weren’t bad when you had them down through experience and routine, barring immediately after a shake-up like UW after “Skeletons of Dhuum” were put in. And they did do a somewhat modest amount of shaking up now and then to prevent some of the more brain-dead sure-fire farming methods. (Perma-SF sin, meet the new touch-enchant-strips).

They were harder than most other content, but once you knew what you were in for and had a good group? It wasn’t hardcore hard . . . like people want to think hardcore hard is.

(Reality: Most ‘hardcore’ games are just figuring out what you need to do, when you need to do it, then executing. Even “I Want to Be The Guy” is an exercise in figuring it out one trick at a time. Or they’re reflex reaction to what someone else is doing PvP-style.)

But while there was certainly a section of the community which farmed them, there were other players (myself, and many who were in my alliance at the time) who did not do it for one reason: it got routine and uninteresting. Once it hits that point, it’s a grind.

Some people do want to hit that grind for the rewards out of RNG. Others just don’t care enough about them to do it more than a few times to do it. Same as it is currently.

Teofa Tsavo.9863:

By your logic we also don’t “need” cosmetic armor skins because we already have armor.
Don’t need weapons skins cause we already have weapons.

Basically, we don’t need change, options, or new features because we have a status quo.

GG, target market.

Hey there, strawman, we meet again.

The main viable reason people don’t want mounts is the lack of reasoning why they would exist. Tyria doesn’t have horses, and there’s not really many other beasts which are of the type normally ridden. Dolyaks, perhaps. Golems, but that’s really only asura.

There aren’t even horses in Cantha, or Elona.

The usual other reasons thrown out are “don’t make it like WoW”, “don’t add another collectable”, “there’s not much reason to have them for movement aid when there’s WPs”. Discuss if you like, but all of this is off the topic of the original post.

A R W E N.6895:

How many times did you do Uw, Fow and DoA?

I was able to get over 10 Armbraces and forge a complete obsidian armor with chaos glove.

I played over 4k hours in 7 years of Gw1

Obviously not enough to make my points relevant if you feel the need to ask that.

I shouldn’t need to run more than I did in order to get the “cool stuff” or we’re back to adding grind to the game.

I don’t really use consumables, except for the piles of food I made while working up Cooking. (Lil asura Master Chef, and no Gordon Ramsay in sight.) I find it moderately useful with a few items being an exception but I also fall victim to “too awesome to use”.

(Which is why I always had 50+ Megalixirs on Final Fantasy games and never used any . . . )

I’ve used trays/feasts if they get dropped in WvW by commanders or such, but really I don’t find them essential to the experience. I don’t think I’d reasonably miss them if they disappeared.

All that said . . . I’d rather not see them be completely be removed. Toned down? Perhaps, or at least made to fit a power curve where Level 80 food is the same relative to a Level 80 set of stats as lower levels.

At least it’s not as ubiquitous as consets were in GW1.

Azhure.1857:

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Also, Foundry wound up being where most runs I was on with friends . . . kinda got killed. (Room three.)

Ah yes. Good times. Good times, indeed. smiles

I didn’t mind it much either, when I was doing it. I just mind it being up on this pedestal as “the ultimate experience for awesome loot” and I wonder if I played the same game as the people claiming it. I never saw:

- Mini Mallyx
- Armbrace of Truth
- Globs of Ectoplasm
- Obsidian Shards

. . . unless I was purchasing them from people, or a total of 2 each Shards/Ecto over seven years before I plain gave up.

As for the gear . . .

- Eternal Sword/Shield
- Storm Bow

Only ever saw these as white drops. I kept them for purely cosmetic uses, because the stats were also garbage.

Konig Des Todes.2086:

Mounts function differently depending on the game, really, and those in GW1 were used to get from point A to point B quicker (and/or safer).

Or, well, at all with the case of the Junundu.

A R W E N.6895:

Well maybe you were not playing the same game as me.

Obviously not, I was playing “casual Guild Wars”.

In hard mode, when completing a part of Doa you would have a chest that gives you garanteed gems (either titan for foundry, margonity for city of torcqua etc)

Yes but it wasn’t enough to trade for an Armbrace without repeated runs through. Also, Foundry wound up being where most runs I was on with friends . . . kinda got killed. (Room three.)

In fow and Uw, you are right there was some rng, but atleast the mobs were giving you loot that is actually usefull and worth something.

Canes were only useful to mesmers, and purple canes usually not that useful to anyone. But you can keep trying to make it sound like I was getting awesome drops that time. Other times, usually just trophies if anything, maybe one or two rares. Never, never, anything worth a significant amount.

Sure, there was a chance, but I wasn’t getting the drops so they might as well not exist for me.

Hence even though I would not always get the skin I want, is still had a chance to loot it and the end chest you give you also usefull materials

Saying it again. A RNG chance at awesome, valuable, or useful loot is not enough. A chance to loot something, unless it drops, is as good as an IOU on a bar napkin. You may collect on it, you may just wind up never collecting it.

Now look at now,

I open a chest in gw2 all i get is some green and a bit of silver. Is it usefull toward something? Nope.

It’s still about as useful/valuable as the drops I got in the Elite Areas. Or do you think every run was profitable and full of generous helpings of awesome loot?

Now back to the question

where is the high level rewarding end game content in Gw2

Note: Living story is not high level content

Define “rewarding”.

Konig Des Todes.2086:

I wouldn’t mind paying for the whole season.

If and only if they released it all at once and called it an expansion. Even if it was gemstore-only. If they made me pay for a story bit by bit, I’d probably ignore it until it was finished and then pay once and only once (most likely at a discounted rate, I’m sure it would end up being).

They wouldn’t call it an expansion, because it wouldn’t fit with what an expansion is traditionally considered. Even if they did include all the content which was expected, even if it contained as much content and the story chapters would play out like the GW1 campaign missions . . .

They didn’t call those campaigns expansions, they won’t call a LS bundle expansions. They’ll probably just call them “Living Story Chapters” and be done with it.

Kalavier.1097:

Scarlet took the city ONLY because she FORCED much of the defense and population to run like hell shortly after opening her attack with a bombardment.

If the Miasma hadn’t been used at all, it would’ve been fierce fighting and much shorter then the battle already was. Once the Miasma cleared it was over within a day to maybe 2 days.

Yes, but now people are talking about the ruined city which is here now, which is much harder to hold.

. . . I still think it would be an incredibly bad idea for any of the races to try to annex Lion’s Arch. If anyone should decide to take it over, it’d be the Pact.

A R W E N.6895:

I Will repeat my question again. where is my high level end game rewarding content

I will add that i am not talking about wow raid like stuff (never played wow fyi, only played gw1 since its begining)

I will also add that i am not talking about a gear grind.

Just to make thing clear and to make people understand that what i am looking for is something instanced to do with other player that is harder than fractal or arah. Something that you have to practice over and over again for awesome rewards. Ever heard of DOA in gw1? (Thats where your tormented skin come from fyi)

I did, boy was it a RNG slogfest to get Gemstones to trade up to Armbraces. Almost as much a slog as Obsidian Armor, which I still haven’t gotten.

It was fun when I did it with my guildies as an eight-person trip, so was Underworld and Fissure of Woe, and Slaver’s Exile. On the other hand . . . there are two fundamental things involved which make me hesitant to say they were excellent.

Firstly, most of the “Awesome Rewards” were behind RNG drops at the end chests, or from materials dropped RNG-like from enemies. I will note I did four trips through the Underworld and never saw Ectoplasm for me. (One time, it was all blue/purple canes. I am not kidding, or exaggerating.) Luckily for the rich, it was possible to buy any of the Awesome Rewards rather than do the content.

Secondly, due to the structure difference between the two games, the experience from UW, FoW, et cetera wouldn’t be perfectly replicated. To note, there’s no pressure to take down enemy healers fast, no need to specifically handle things like Smite Crawlers, and no “bring Frozen Soil else we’ll be here all day” anti-Res requirements.

Once more, the question you ask is only able to be responded with another question:

What do you find rewarding and worth being put through ‘end game content’?

A R W E N.6895:

Sartharina.3542:

There’s plenty of “Endgame” content:
1. Working for legendaries.
2. Making a name for yourself on your server through WvW and PvP (And now the game in general, with Megaservers)
3. Becoming a leader of PvE events or in WvW.
4. Keeping up with Living Story.
5. Making and running a guild.

The question was : where is High level end game rewarding content

Define “rewarding”?

Dr Ritter.1327:

They need to kill off all these lame characters from LS1 and give us some cool people to run with. I want to team up with a largos or something.

Having worked with one for part of the Living Story . . . I am not too impressed.

Ashen.2907:

But…

Doesn’t

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

I don’t like seeing criticism which hinges on what an individual wants in the game, to benefit them and only them.

contradict

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

I don’t like seeing criticism posts which decide they need to speak for me (i.e. “everyone” “all players” “nobody likes this”, et cetera).

My apologies if I am misunderstanding your point, but it seems as if you are suggesting that you dislike people speaking for only themselves, but also dislike them speaking for others.

There’s not a contradiction. There is a difference between “I don’t think this works well for rangers” and “all rangers hate this”, along with a difference between the first and “Rangers would be so much better if…”.

The first is criticism which is from personal experience. The second is speaking for the entire group as a whole in a universal way. The third is a statement made universally which relies on one person’s experiences.

Let’s just say it’d be nicer if people didn’t slip into the second and third examples when discussing or making criticism.

Ashen.2907:

sorudo.9054:

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

sorudo.9054:

lordkrall.7241:

sorudo.9054:

or watch it trough a stream website for free, allot cheaper……

Not legal in most countries though And I doubt they take illegal alternatives into consideration, but that might just be me.

it’s legal to watch a video regardless of it’s content, it’s illegal to host copyrighted episodes.

Aren’t all episodes of anything copyrighted, there’s just a choice not to exercise it?

team four star, mastermovies, other fan-made episodes.
all not copyrighted, all legal.

Fan-fiction is not an episode of the original, which are (generally) copyrighted.

And either way, anything is copyrighted when it is created. It can only be enforced if it’s been a registered copyright.

. . . I used to look this up out of habit before I began writing amateur work. The usual goes, I am not a lawyer (and I’ve been told copyright is one of those places even the lawyers go ‘oh god no’ with regards to minutae in the laws).

sorudo.9054:

lordkrall.7241:

sorudo.9054:

or watch it trough a stream website for free, allot cheaper……

Not legal in most countries though And I doubt they take illegal alternatives into consideration, but that might just be me.

it’s legal to watch a video regardless of it’s content, it’s illegal to host copyrighted episodes.

Aren’t all episodes of anything copyrighted, there’s just a choice not to exercise it?

Faerun.3091:

TL;DR:
I don’t see how is this different from BMP in GW1, except that it rewards players that play this game on regular base. And I think thats the whole point. You aren’t punishing new players, you are rewarding your playerbase that is supporting the game.

You’re pretty on here, and I honestly don’t have a problem myself with the arrangement as suggested.

. . . provided there’s a means of getting LS1 free to people who went through it when it’s included in the Story Journal.

This is definitely better than “you missed it, so you missed it for good”, it is notably more useful to have as permanent (if unlockable) content, and it might make Gems useful to people who otherwise wouldn’t bother.

The only downsides I saw, I pointed out . . . and I know I was reaching for the interpretations. However, they would still be points people would complain about. Unfortunately.

Time to deconstruct the points here.

Frosch.7809:

Should Kryta decide to move against LA no one will raise a finger to help. The orders helped defend LA against Zhaitan, because that is their job, fighting Elder Dragons. People who say that the Pact is only a part of the orders are wrong, at least during the campaign against Zhaitan the Pact was the concentrated might of the three orders together. The Pact did not help defend LA against Scarlet, it won’t get involved in politics. The orders offered some help to retake LA from Scarlet, but it was adventurers who did the work.

The Pact is not made of parts of each order, the orders are each a part of the Pact with independent aims and goals which do not always align. For what we know, the Pact operates as the Pact when it is against Elder Dragons and the orders operate independently when it involves something else.

Also, there was assistance at least from the Order of Whispers evacuating civilians during the first phase of the battle in Lion’s Arch. And the Priory was helping research Scarlet’s devices/creations.

The Charr will not risk peace talks with humanity for something that is none of their business. They retook Ascalon because they saw it as theirs, it seems to me like the Charr would rather be sympathetic to any attempt of Kryta to gain control over LA because they’d understand that Kryta would see LA as their territory.

Or they’d see it as their business as the trade through the asura gates might be then controlled by human hands as opposed to mostly-neutral hands.

The Asura would not necessarily shut down any gate if no one tried to use them for military actions, and given that LA as a trade center would not be affected. A takeover of LA must not mean that anything has to change concerning trade, look at the return of Hongkong to China. And a takeover must not necessarily be by brute force.

True, the Ash Legion did try a takeover in the past . . .

How many people did the Norn send to fight the Great Destroyer? Was it three, or four? The Norn are not unified, they are a large group of individualists and do not act as a nation.

Interesting how this gets lost in the shuffle even now. Norn don’t organize for anything short of something which threatens them all. Like Jormag.

The idea that everyone would band together the moment Kryta attempted to takeover LA is nothing i can take seriously. An attempt to takeover LA must not be by military force, mind you. And as i said before, treaties get terminated and broken all the time, and the captain’s council is standing on insecure ground when it comes to its legitimacy. They are former pirates after all.

And where does it say that Kryta would eliminate the captain’s council at all? Take over LA, leave the council in place as vassals of the Krytan monarchy. LA is currently vulnerable like never before. How many leaders in our real world would miss the opportunity to gain control over it?

I suspect, strongly, if any authority tried to be put over LA . . . even in the case of “you can have the city still, but now Kryta rules you” it’d be met with a laugh and “yeah, sure, whatever”.

I like to see criticism which is well-thought, presented with some reasons why points are made and questions asked.

I like to see criticism which gives a modicum of thought about other people.

I like seeing criticism where there is a conscious effort to remember this is a game where some manner of time commitment is expected, or some charge pending to sidestep the time commitment.

I don’t like seeing criticism which hinges on what an individual wants in the game, to benefit them and only them.

I don’t like seeing criticism posts which are nothing other than “the game is dying because X”.

I don’t like seeing criticism posts which decide they need to speak for me (i.e. “everyone” “all players” “nobody likes this”, et cetera).

I highly suggest criticism in the future comes better thought out about what the issue is, and then follows into an idea which might fix it, rather than just demand it be fixed.

Also, I highly dislike asura. Except as catapult ammunition.

lordkrall.7241:

juno.1840:

lol, because I’m secretly plying for an expansion pack. Charging for content is the first step on that road.

Once ANet charges for content then they have to deliver something worthy of buying it in the first place. I think many players would agree that little in LS Season 1 was worthy of purchase.

So in a round about way, I’m lobbying to make the game better by channeling revenue towards content instead of cosmetic fluff.

Anyway, that is my motivation — pure and simple.

To be fair it is not uncommon for companies to released paid expansions that still sucks.

Lost Dungeons of Norrath.

I still want my money back for that one.

Smooth Penguin.5294:

Kohlteth.3715:

As a brand new player I would LOVE to be able to play LS1 first to “catch up” with what is going on, as LA before it was destroyed looks great and would love to be able to play up to current, so I am then up to date…

Would love as a new player to be able to jump in for Free and play LS1 so we can catch up, would suck if I had to pay for content that was Free and in my mind, should be included to build the story

If you’re a new player, then it’s your lucky day. You don’t need to spend any money outside of the box price you paid for this game! Just convert Gold to Gems, and you can get all the extra you want, for zero (0) dollars!

This message is brought you to today by #TeamGnashblade.

Also, be sure to keep playing that BLTC “Flip my Item” for big rewards if you’re lucky enough to be the first dozen or so to get it to drop.

. . . seriously, people cleaned up on that so hard it’s amazing.

One more aside – stop chopping up analogies by picking out semantics and such, that’s getting annoying. Any analogy is by nature imperfect, and I really wish it had stopped the instant I hit fractions in grade school and had the pie analogy used. “But I don’t like cherry pies…” came from the back of the room, derailing the topic for days. Don’t let this happen to you.

Time to return to topic.

Honestly, there are only two downsides I can see to this:

- Players who cannot, for whatever reason, purchase Gems to purchase the unlocks. Let’s face it, there is a considerable chance people will not be willing/able to put the grind time in to earn Gold enough to buy 200 Gems. There are also people who are without access to a credit card for buying them via the store. This can foster a feeling of dissatisfaction over the apparently insurmountable fence between them and content they missed.

- New players when we hit Season 6 could look back, see the huge pile of price tags for the previous seasons, and decide to just opt out of the game entirely as a “naked and blatant cash grab” is seen. Assuming we actually get new players six years from now . . .

Nicholas S Lin.6187:

For if humanity were allowed to stablise the Ebonhawke hinterlands that would materially strengthen humanity since this would allow the fortified city to become relatively self-sufficient. An Ebonhawke that is effectively self-sufficient would free-up massive amounts of Krytan funds and resources – with obvious ramifications for the strength of Humanity as a whole in Tyria.

This is a very good point, and it should be recognized. And under the peace treaty with the charr, it is also likely it could be stabilized, colonized outside of the walls and allowed to start becoming self-sufficient.

Starting a war to try to hold that territory is, however, a losing proposition. Kryta can’t spare it, the ministers won’t allow it (for varying reasons), and the charr currently have too much opposition they could bring to bear to keep it from being secure.

On the other hand, if humanity were to take a third option and, oh, start expanding west instead . . .

Honestly, the balance in LS1 is a little . . . off. For the first half the story was about people stopping events, not really a particular person. There were some NPCs which were rallied around but for the most part there was no singular identity for “the adventurers who stopped the Bad Stuff”.

Then Scarlet came into play, and it became a story about thwarting her plans or trying to anticipate them (in the one instance) . . . but the feeling of it being a group of adventurers started to shift into “and a group of NPCs plus a PC”. With the exception of the Marionette and Battle of Lion’s Arch, nothing was really feeling like it was “us”. A community victory, just personal ones.

I think the community victory earned is actually more satisfying than a personal victory. Seeing that recognized instead of the B-iconics plus one would be amazing, but technically difficult to make work without resorting to some out-of-game work such as one party making up a newsletter or something similar.

By the by, that’s one reason I do still try to get involved in WvW when I play – for me there is a better feeling of a couple commanders who are worth the 100g tag rallying to take Stonemist Castle and hold it for the counterattack, than there was for a successful marionette kill.

Evon Skyfyre.9673:

Guild wars 1, was a wonderful world. While there are glimpses of it in Guild Wars 2, sadly they are far and few between. Greed is the underlying factor, it motivates every step in the game, it drives every story, and infests every journey. It is to weep.. Too bad the BLTC made it through the LA attack. I wouldn’t have missed it at all.

Hmm, is it worth noting the insane prices some items had in GW1 with a self-policed economy for the most part rather than an auction house? Where 100 Platinum (maximum cash you could hold on hand) was not enough to buy, you needed that plus Ectos/Armbraces? Most of these being undedicated minis such as the Polar Bear, for instance. I think Wintergreen weapons were on that list too.

None of this insane pricing by the players is a new thing in the slightest. Something is rare, it is insanely expensive.

At least it’s not like a Black Lotus where there is only real cash at four figures. To start.

MRA.4758:

Hey! The pod race was great!!! (Says my 7-year old nephew, and he’s an expert on The Clone Wars, too.)
~MRA

I think, personally, it was way too long a sequence in the middle of the movie. I mean, it was a fun watch . . . but it threw things a little off balance.

I liked the movie the first time I saw it too, but it wasn’t until repeated watching I really got to picking it apart. It’s like Transformers (the more recent one) – I had fun watching it, but it’s a popcorn flick where it can’t completely hold up once the spectacle is over. The biggest reason is to watch them again with friends or to kill time because nothing better is available.

This is, of course, a good description of both GW games from how I experienced them. Right including “being with friends”.

Sartharina.3542:

As for the Norn involvement in whether to support of oppose a Krytan takeover of Lion’s Arch – either they’ll side with their Charr drinking buddies, or their allegiance falls to whoever offers the best deal on booze – which will probably be Lion’s Arch.

As amusing as it is, why does everyone portray the norn as being all about keggers and drunken loutishness? Or even as a unified force of any sort. What you’d get is more likely some norn standing for Lion’s Arch and a whole lot more going “meh, not my problem, I have a steading to run”.

Norn do not behave as a unified race. Notably, not even humans behave as a unified race. The only one which does for the most part is the sylvari and that’s because the Nightmare Court’s shenanigans don’t really affect their ability to act.

(Don’t say the asura, because they’re even less unified than the norn.)

I don’t agree with the OP’s points. I can somewhat see his conclusion having merit (the story needs work) but going back to play through GW1 in any campaign makes me twitch a bit.

The story was not:

- Better.
- More mature.
- Bereft of “super NPCs”.
- Full of meaningful choices.
- All about Kormir.

Shiren.9532:

CureForLiving.5360:

Konig Des Todes.2086:

And how can you call someone who intentionally killed thousands, uniting xenophobic factions against the greater united nations, and feed an Elder Dragon a “nice person”?

It seems we have a Scarlet fan club slowly building momentum :P
Still it’s a nice change of pace, not too long ago Scarlet was called the worst thing ever to happen to guild war lore.

She can still be the worst thing to ever happen to GW lore while still having fans.

I know, there are still people who like Phantom Menace, after all.

Offworld.3986:

Easier said than done when one lacks an active guild.

Get some like-minded people together, make a guild?

Behellagh.1468:

I’m going to be called a white knight but here goes.

In my experience, if you don’t like the food or service at a restaurant and after numerous complaints to the owners, nothing changes, you stop going there.

I usually do, games are not much different. I have an absurd amount of games I paid for where I stopped playing when they weren’t fun anymore . . . I still haven’t finished more than 50% of the Final Fantasy games I began playing. I think my total completion ratio is something like 10%.

Anyway, it is the best advice, but there is a reason some people keep complaining so passionately. They still hope to make their displeasure known so ANet’s developers might possibly realize some things aren’t to everyone’s universal liking. Though, to be honest, many of the devs seem to realize everyone doesn’t like any singular thing . . .

No. Not a single thing everyone can agree on liking.

Which . . . is where it gets complicated. Some people don’t like jumping puzzles, and by that I mean they don’t like the idea of them existing in this game at all. Similarly, some people really are not happy the asura haven’t turned Rata Sum into a glowing crater. And there are others who really like these things and are happy/excited to see more.

Who’s wrong? Why is one player’s opinion worth more than another’s, and why should the devs only consider one side to be “correct”?

No, stop making a glib reply, this is a serious question.

How, exactly, do we determine what the “true GW2” should be and what ideas from the fans don’t belong?

Put a little more irritated:

Why do some of the fans get to determine what the “real GW2” is, instead of the people making it?

Honestly I think there’s a calling for therapists who specialize in getting people to leave MMOs they no longer like but can’t leave for some reason.

I think therapists specializing in getting people to realize they need to “unplug” from MMOs and get some perspective on how little control the price of Chaos of Lyssa has over them are required.

Shen Slayer.3058:

GW1 was a masterpiece, whereas GW2 is just plain boring garbage.

I honestly don’t know what game you played, but could I borrow it for a few months?

Though, I suppose we could split some hairs and declare it a masterpiece in the sense of it being a piece by which the creators succeeded in being allowed to call themselves masters of the craft. That’s being generous though, since I would say they’re still journeymen learning through doing.

Nicholas S Lin.6187:

Zaxares.5419:

I think we have another Adelbern in the making here, guys. >.>

The other races were happy to effective approve of the “The Searing” of Human Ascalon – and this was without formal political discussion between the races of Tyria.

So, let’s take a role call here.

The humans, the norn, the charr, the asura, and the sylvari. Just to use the greater races. One of them wasn’t even alive at that period (sylvari), so we can count them out. You could add in the dwarves but recall they were sort of in the middle of a civil war from what we could see . . . one which had been going on a while.

So, the asura. Who we don’t know what they were doing at that period in history other than being somewhere underground in Tyria and remaining unknown to everyone else. They must have condoned the Searing through their absence, I guess?

The norn, who did not (and still do not) have a central authority to dictate behavior. I guess they condoned the Searing by not having one.

The charr. Very definitely were for the Searing since it was the only way they could reliably defeat Ascalon while the Wall remained intact.

Humanity. Probably had no clue the Searing was even a possibility until big magical flaming crystals fell out of the sky. Actually, pretty much had no clue anything like that was going to happen.

Am I about accurate here?

Palador.2170:

You can’t make the choices matter in terms of game balance or rewards, at least not by much, or you’ll run into problems. So, the difference has to be an emotional one. And there should be no promise of a right and wrong choice, sometimes you don’t get that lucky. Destiny’s Edge had to make those choices (Logan: Save the queen or stay with DE? Eir: Press ahead without Logan, or pull back and lose the chance?) Now it should be our turn.

This is easy enough to do. Just trail it off the first choice which had any kind of impact on the Living Story – the vote for who sits on the Captain’s Council. It’s simple enough to move forward from that to something you can witness happening.

So we know we let Ellen Kiel win, and Evon Gnashblade has been nurturing sour grapes for a while now. Notably, without doing much other than trying to play spin doctor to make himself look good. And missing many opportunities to act to make himself look good.

I’ll paint a picture real fast, nice broad and sketchy strokes for now. Evon Gnashblade is implicated in the black market thing the Seraphs are looking into, and Ellen Kiel starts investigating, naturally enough. It’s treated as an internal matter for the Captains of Lion’s Arch and Evon is doing himself no favors by protesting Kiel is setting him up. (After all, it’s what he’d do.)

Then it comes to light there’s no truth in the connection, just someone holding a grudge against the Black Lion Trading Company. Evon gets his hackles up and goes rushing to deal with it, Ellen behind – she arrives later and waits for the PC backup to arrive before going in.

Only to find Evon about to metaphorically pull the trigger on the one responsible, who is acting confident and in control of the situation . . . revealing he was prepared for this and his followers pop out and start a battle. Evon takes his shot at his enemy, and fails to kill him but in turn is given fatal wounds. Ellen rushes to defend him so he can try to bind the wounds, while the players chase down the leader and he escapes through utilizing meat shields to block them off.

By the time the PC makes it back, one of the two is dead, and the other is shaken by this so much there’s a permanent shift of character. Ellen is conflicted and consumed in self-doubt since her preconceptions about Evon put this mess out of control . . . or Evon is stunned Ellen would defend him even though they don’t like each other, and promises to be a better Captain candidate for Lion’s Arch.

Either one bows out of the limelight for the time being to “think things over” while the person who got away left a trail which could be followed . . . probably into another ambush, but this time there’s a chance to prepare the pursuit so it’s ready rather than rushing off into the trap headfirst.

They can still be mined off the Sprocket Generator currently . . .

Windu The Forbidden One.6045:

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

If the krewe blew themselves up in a magical mishap a la Thaumanova, I wouldn’t care. Less asura in the world makes it a safer and more stable place.

. . . and?

If the whole of the asura just vanished in a puff of aether, it’d be fine with me. After all, you can’t be racist against a race which doesn’t exist . . .

I don’t think she was ordered to wake him up, so much as that was her “screw you” to the dragon driving her insane and trying to take control. Much like I think it was her intent to basically sacrifice herself doing that so those who would kill her would be aware and focused on that threat.

At least, that’s how I interpret that. It could be she just wanted to laugh and ask if the wake up call was too early, then offer to explain the history Mordremoth missed with her giant marionettes and silly voices.

Ceridwen.6703:

draxynnic.3719:

Second, we don’t know for sure that Logan’s presence would have meant Kralkatorrik’s death.

Enter Ceridwen

I’m pretty sure he’s just decorative. I’ve seen him fight. He seems to enjoy lying down on the floor a lot.

As you were with the proper discussion.

Exeunt

Haven’t had him do that in my personal story unless I’m taking a dirt nap too. So far that only happened dealing with Doc Howler once.

He tanked that corrupt Ministry Guard leader like a champ, though. Not to mention some work in a centaur slave camp.

Windu The Forbidden One.6045:

One of the reasons the personal story just feels so incredibly unfinished.
You never hear from your warband again (charr)
You never hear from your sister again (human)
You never hear from your krewe again (asura)

The list goes on. there are just so many loose ends.

Well I did play along in another player’s Personal Story to see another side to “Air Drop”, and “my sister” Crusader Deborah did show up in there. And the armor group was the same one in my norn’s “got drunk at the last moot” Personal Story branch . . .

Don’t know yet about charr warbands, because your character leaves them behind at the Black Citadel to continue operations under your sparring partner and they have no real reason to show up in the Pact storyline at all.

If the krewe blew themselves up in a magical mishap a la Thaumanova, I wouldn’t care. Less asura in the world makes it a safer and more stable place.

Zombiism.9375:

I guess since all he does is follow the PC around and get all the credit

This would mean something if he actually did that during the Personal Story.

Palador.2170:

Inguiomerus.1504:

We could speculate, or we could just wait and see.

I prefer to speculate. That way, if LS2 flops, we can point back at our speculations and say: “We came up with that off the top of our heads after just a couple of days. You had MONTHS to come up with your very best. And you gave us … this.”

It’s one thing to say “I could come up with something better than that!”. It’s another thing when dozens of posters can PROVE they can (and did) come up with something better. If ANet wants to impress us, we need to show them the bar they have to aim for.

Look, if I had the time I’d lay out an eight-season plotline going from the end of Scarlet through at least two other dragon targets and possibly into some regions for the nostalgia (northern Elona, the Far North, Ring of Fire) and brand new. I’d lay out actual changes to the world which would be permanent and force development over more than one season. I’d even set time aside for SAB (though probably not give it a definite timeline since it is VERY much a side project).

Do I think it’d be better than what ANet could come up with? I would like to think so. Do I think other people would like it as much as I would? Heck no they wouldn’t. It’d get raked over for tropes, cliches, predictability, and padding so much I’d feel it was a waste of time to even attempt it.

If you want to start having a place to drop ideas for that kind of thing then I’m all game for it. Though, I’ll also note there are a few differences between us and the ANet developers.

- We don’t have access to the people who can tell us whether the engine can handle something. Sure, we could plot out a big awesome battle against Jormag (or a higher Champion than the Claw of Jormag) but we can only guess at how much we could actually get away with in the game program.

- They decidedly have to be aware of what they add and how it affects everything else. Plotting out a change where, for instance, Kralkatorrik causes another Dragonbrand over known territory can severely alter existing regions and may cause necessary changes which aren’t desirable when they’re thrown together.

- They know what the budget is. I’m not meaning just money to throw for art and other assets, I’m talking about the time budget. There’s only so many person-hours available in a day to get something done and the more “awesome” something is . . . generally the more insane the requirement for people to get to work. I mean, unless you use pre-created things as a shortcut. (Dungeons of Eye of the North, I am looking at you and the semi-constantly repeating setpieces I recall.)

We could come up with awesome ideas, but I am hesitant to say they’d be feasible on top of actual work on the game core itself. (I doubt we’ll find many people who will claim there isn’t work required on that.)