Guild Wars 2

But you say extortion, I say “pirates”.

Well, ex-pirates, but you get my meaning.

I’m understandably curious as to what either potion does.

And since the other option is Supply items? It seems the only thing to save for . . .

Don’t Heirlooms also drop from the Supply Bags and citizen rewards? Or is that the Found Belongings and I’m mixed up? Because I got 12 Heirlooms and only 7 rubble piles searched.

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

This whole issue would be instantly solved if we had crafting stations in the Hall of Monuments. Just double click that portal stone, and you’re there. And you can instantly pop back to where you were as well.

Why hasn’t that been implemented yet?

Because you can do that in WvW’s Citadel.

cainejw.7142:

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

cainejw.7142:

Sorry, but “change happens, deal with it,” is not a valid reason to put crafting tables behind a paywall.

Oh, wow, look, they moved the crafting stations in Divinity’s Reach, Hoelbrak, Queensdale, Wayfarer’s Foothills, Rata Sum, Metrica Province, The Grove, Caledon Forest, Black Citadel, and Plains of Ashford . . . not to mention the ones in the WvW Citadel.

All of them are now gone behind a paywall . . . oh, wait, no. I’m wrong They’re still where they always were.

Nobody has said that you cannot craft at all now. This is a straw man created by those who wish to defend Anet’s decision. I appreciate your need to protect the developers, but the question is not, “Why can’t we craft anywhere now?”

The question is, “Why can’t I craft in the Lion’s Arch area without paying for it?” The answer to that is not, “You can just go somewhere else.”

Additionally, your sarcasm is noted. Unfortunately, it destroyed whatever point you might have had with an argument nobody is making.

No, It was made and quoted right in that post about how the crafting was now behind a paywall. Someone did make the argument, which is the only reason I responded at all.

. . . which it wasn’t. The convenience is still beat by dipping into WvW. Same as how you could circumvent waypoint fees being huge by dipping into Heart of the Mists and then to LA (and now currently Gendarran Fields) for a more central location or to use asura gates to travel to home cities and knock off some silver.

Honestly, if you think crafting in LA is gone for good and will never be back? I think you’re incredibly mistaken. It will be back after the city is retaken.

Azure Prower.8701:

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

cainejw.7142:

Sorry, but “change happens, deal with it,” is not a valid reason to put crafting tables behind a paywall.

Oh, wow, look, they moved the crafting stations in Divinity’s Reach, Hoelbrak, Queensdale, Wayfarer’s Foothills, Rata Sum, Metrica Province, The Grove, Caledon Forest, Black Citadel, and Plains of Ashford . . . not to mention the ones in the WvW Citadel.

All of them are now gone behind a paywall . . . oh, wait, no. I’m wrong They’re still where they always were.

Exactly. They were always there. So were Lion’s Arch… oh wait!

What next? Catastrophe in WvW! Scarlet hit the citidel with her endless hoard of minions! Need to pay 1000 gems for some special mist dust to goto the special mist area to use the facilities in WvW!

Hey frog in the pot of water. Is the water hot enough for you yet? …No? Alright. Carry on being boiled to death.

Hey, you want to keep jumping to conclusions and playing Chicken Little over this, that’s fine with me. Throw all the insulting insinuations you like, but there is nothing stopping you from going to craft elsewhere. Ebonhawke is one nice hub for it, so is Divinity’s Reach.

Except, of course, for bemoaning the Living Story actually doing something which impacts the world . . . after people belittled it for ages for not doing anything other than just doing minor events in a few places. They kicked it up a notch.

And people said LA was getting to be too much of a hub and the home racial cities needed some love. Hey, how about that traffic you could be making to go there now? No, that’s not what you meant? Careful what you ask for then.

You want to know where to craft in Lion’s Arch. Four weeks. Until then, go “home” and do it in the comfort of knowing it’s still the best place for you to do your work. Except for Rata Sum, because asura are terrible terrible things and need to die.

cainejw.7142:

Sorry, but “change happens, deal with it,” is not a valid reason to put crafting tables behind a paywall.

Oh, wow, look, they moved the crafting stations in Divinity’s Reach, Hoelbrak, Queensdale, Wayfarer’s Foothills, Rata Sum, Metrica Province, The Grove, Caledon Forest, Black Citadel, and Plains of Ashford . . . not to mention the ones in the WvW Citadel.

All of them are now gone behind a paywall . . . oh, wait, no. I’m wrong They’re still where they always were.

Zalzan Kavol.9048:

People! Our great city of Lion’s Arch is being destroyed by the forces of evil and all we can do is whine about being mildly inconvenienced in our crafting? What about the children?

I hear they make tasty drawings.

Lord Kuru.3685:

Next: Evon Gnashblade says that WPs are behaving erratically because of Scarlet’s tampering with Tyria’s magic. Everyone must take a WP safety course before resuming use of WPs. Safety course price: 1000 gems.

White knights response: “But you don’t have to use WPs. You can always walk wherever you need to.”

It’s better if you do walk, you can scoop up craft materials along the way, especially in some areas which yield useful plants from sickle harvests.

But of course, you’re not meaning someone to take the post seriously anyway so I don’t know why I bothered

Teofa Tsavo.9863:

Oh, I know, an Arch Pirate bitten by a radioactive spider from Scarlets fall out. SpiderPirate. With legions of Skritt/spider drachnids. Skriders.

That’s silly.

Everyone knows it will be Marquise Spinneret Mindfang.

And people called me racist . . .

The centaurs have the advantage of numbers over humans who can and are willing to fight for Kryta. The almost always outnumber the Seraph.

The centaurs do not have the advantage of technology, but they have the advantage of quickly-constructed siege weapons such as catapults and trebuchets which can still be devastating if kept defended.

The centaurs have the advantage of using magic at least as powerful as the average human, though it is limited to more natural magic. The earth elementals they can conjure are an example, as well as the air whirlwinds. Push comes to shove, they can indeed nullify a numeric advantage when on the defensive.

Why have the centaurs not been eradicated? Because humanity lacks the force to make that push. (And because the writers would never write a plot where humanity enacts genocide on an indigenous people, while they are based in Seattle, WA, in the US.)

You think that joke was bad?

“How many Asuras does it take to screw in a power core?”
“None, they force a human to do it for them!”

“How are a Paragon and a drunkard alike?”
“Both like to shout at strangers and run around without any pants.”

“How do you know if a Charr likes you?”
“He asks for seconds! Ha ha ha ha!”

“What do you get when you cross a Norn and an Asura?”
“A Norn with something stuck to his boots!”

Egon Vidar.9125:

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Anything.

I almost want to ask..

It’s the Internet. I’m just going to cite “Rule 34” . . . and might as well cite “Rule 35” also.

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

Just on a side note, that may be the most accurate and detailed post I’ve ever seen about the topic of homosexuality, Blood Red Arachnid, and my compliments. I think you’ve done an excellent job in explaining just how complex the subject matter is, and how difficult it is to slap a number on it.

I also agree in regards to the fan-service. That was one of the reasons I felt this relationship was a bit fan servicy.

Honestly, it didn’t feel like “fanservice” to me. I’m not saying it doesn’t serve that for the people who can get happy with “hur hur, two girls who like each other”, but then . . fanservice is such a weird subjective perception it’s easy to say anything is fanservice.

There’s a lot of it in this game, and a significant amount not being sexual in nature. Ho-ho-Tron? Fanservice and they blatantly admitted they worked with that NPC because fans liked it. If Braham suddenly professes a desire for ham? That’s fanservice.
The fight with the Demagogue in Aurora’s Remains. That’s fanservice.

That said, Jory/Kas? It strikes more notes than “hur hur nekkid ladies doin it” so I don’t see it primarily as fanservice so it registers as “not fanservice” to me. It registers as “character work”. Take it as you will, but . . .

In general to the people here. Please stop trying to shoehorn things into only one interpretation, and/or take one interpretation to nullify any others because it exists. I can interpret, with enough leeway, anything to be sexual.

Anything.

So, we know Lion’s Arch is going to be attacked and probably significantly damaged in the upcoming weeks. Here’s looking beyond that, and assuming the damage is more than significant but is almost catastrophic. Total loss of some places and a reorganization of the PoIs so they’re more ‘historical’ points than normal ones. (“Former Site of Crow’s Nest Tavern” for instance).

What next? Well how about in Season 2 we have a background plotline revolving around Lion’s Arch recovery? Along with the usual story chapters, each update adds a part of the recovery. The idea being there’s crews at work and steadily we see recovery of the town into a grand city. Buildings are restored and built from something other than broken ships as resources are poured into making the city grand once more instead of a shanty town.

So how do we make it feel alive? Player input. Set up a couple NPCs like the donation drives from Wintersday or the one Lionguard from long ago who traded donation packages for tokens. Let them run concurrently, and the top donated project moves along the most and gets rebuilt faster. Heck, “poll” with dialogue options at each donation to shape the building in minor finishing touches. The players can truly offer to shape the new Lion’s Arch.

. . . and make it the home of the Pact proper. Add a small instance like the Chantry of Secrets or Durmand Priory where the Pact has a base of operations more centralized than Fort Trinity (meant to be a forward base to retake Orr – that’s done now, time to move on).

Kurodius.7463:

I ask you two to please bring some quotes of such dialogue for the sake of your arguments.

No. Burden of proof is on the prosecution. Go find proof she’s normally silly and goofy.

DavosTheOnionKnight.1653:

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

DavosTheOnionKnight.1653:

I honestly though Arenanet would be different than Blizzard. Oh well.

They are different.

I don’t pay per month to play the game.

How much per month would you say you spend on microtransactions? In WoW there’s no need for microtransactions, barring few select circumstances. Though mainly I was referring to the greed and not listening to players aspect.

How much per month?

On average, I spend more on Steam games which look interesting and turn out to be complete crap. That is to say I have bought gems with a credit card five times since starting. That’s $100 since buying the game back in July 2012.

I have since spent roughly $300 on games in the Steam store, including titles I was actually looking forward to playing (Ys: Origin, Starbound, XCom: Enemy Unknown, and Desktop Dungeons to name a handful I actually enjoy playing from that list.).

I have not bought gems since November, and the reason I bought them then was for a character slot so I could try out this thief class everyone thinks is OP in WvW. So far, haven’t had much good fortune on it.

As for the grind and not listening aspects? The grind was worse for me in GW1 when I wanted Obsidian armor, or to fill out my silly Master Dungeon Guide. The “not listening to players” was also worse since they had a bad habit of balancing skills in a way to try neutering the meta now and then.

Or so I’m told by the people I used to talk with who cared about the meta game back then. I didn’t set foot in PvP because I simply stank on ice.

Kashrlyyk.5364:

Kalarchis.8635:

….
We defended (and I wouldn’t say easily) LA against a dragon champion, and a mindless monster of one at that. Not to mention the army that time was undead; not exactly overachievers. Scarlet is intelligent and resourceful and has an army made up of multiple factions of civilized races who have pooled their tech together into a very advanced and potent force. She is considerably better prepared and better equipped to take the city than Zhaitan ever was.

She also has failed at every invasion attempt she made. Zhaitan owns three entire maps which are NEVER conquered by the players or the pact. There is no ingame reason for why she should succeed at something that Zhaitan failed at. That is bad writing for me.

Zhaitan didn’t directly attack Lion’s Arch, only Claw Island. So of course he failed, it never tried.

Scarlet also never bothered trying to hold anywhere her invasions were centered on except for the Pavilion. Where the awesomeness which is Job-O-Tron forced her to retreat.

ZudetGambeous.9573:

Lilith Ajit.6173:

hedix.1986:

The Ruined City of Lion’s Arch as the new dungeon! just sayin’ Lupicus solo vids are getting old…

I hope Zomorros is the end boss. He takes all your gold if you wipe!

you’re thinking too small. Zomorros would have a RNG chance to permantetly delete one item on your character every time he hits you. Once you are out of items he will start taking away levels on each hit.

Additionally he hits every player in a 200000 AOE every .5 seconds and has 10 million health.

once you reach level 1 he starts deleting your characters.

I’m gonna go cry in the corner and go “It’s Kerafym all over again . . . why did I bind in Skyshrine?! Whyyyyyyyyyyy?!”

Kvo.4235:

I by no means expect anything in life, much less a game, to cater to my schedule. I just want the really cool looking items that are only available then to somehow be obtainable (and preferably something difficult)

Preferably “difficult” as in “some amount of skill” versus “need Leatherworking 500”, I presume?

Honestly, I would really want them to use Fractals’ Mistlock Observatory after this is all over to allow people to relive party-directed instances and get those rewards no longer available. Not things like the Marionette fight or Scarlet Invasions, but things like . . . the Last Stand at Southsun mini-dungeons, Scarlet’s Playhouse . . .

And to tweak Aetherblade content, if it remains permanent, to allow those drops from the few updates with them like Aetherized Shoulder parts or whatever it was.

Of course, then you run into . . . an issue. An issue with people who feel their achievements/acquisitions are no longer as impressive now that anybody can go earn it without having lived through the events.

Teofa Tsavo.9863:

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Teofa Tsavo.9863:

Good time to me to return to Norrath. I’ll return to evaluate the damage, but see no reason to be in game to witness it.

Say hello to the people on Luclin for me. Oh, wait, can’t do that. They blew it up.

Nice try. Everquest2, it has always been blown up. Please note that Freeport and Qeynos have “not” been blown up.

I know that, but they did “destroy” Freeport as I knew it by turning it over to Sir Lucan (who we killed dozens of times for Fiery Avengers but hey, what’s a little detail like that?). And there’s a lot of other stuff which was fundamentally changed between games which made me look at EverQuest 2 and go “seriously? You should have just made a new game”.

Want to know what else? Lord Nagafen continues, despite it being canonically in game he was killed (Zordak Ragefire’s squatting in his den, for instance). Then there’s what the heck they did with Mayong Mistmoore . . . people complain about Scarlet but man, Sony beat ANet to the punch with “super NPC who can only win and not lose”. They also beat them to making skritt playable (chetari).

I don’t expect EQN to be anything worth it lore-wise. They’ve already shredded everything I had enjoyed in Norrath for the sake of just changing it because reasons.

It could be a great game in game methods, but really . . . it’s only comparable to the cranial rectal reassignment which happened to Toril (Forgotten Realms) to make it fit fourth edition D&D.

Cactus.2710:

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Cactus.2710:

Players complaining that the Living Story content isn’t well crafted. Who would have ever thought that could happen?

I called it. I mean, I always am very clear. Players complain about anything, it’s just how things happen on MMO forums.

In this case though? I really wonder what they were watching that this wasn’t seen developing at all since the first time we saw Kasmeer and Marjory together.

I think you zeroed in too much on the “players complaining” part of my comment and missed the satirical reference to “well crafted.”

No, I didn’t miss it. I just didn’t care

OmaiGodman.2098:

Is it really that much work to add a few lines? I wouldn’t have guessed that, but then again, I have no idea how things like this work on a technical scale – I can guess but I don’t know how you guys did it.

It’s probably not that it’s a lot of work, it’s probably they had a time limit and that was the one thing they didn’t have time to go back and “punch up” before release.

That is a recurring sensation for GW2 and it’s a little disconcerting to see something and feel that there was this wonderful idea or this minor detail which could have been there . . . but there wasn’t a finishing polish put on it. It brings to question if ANet teams bite off more than they can chew routinely . . .

So that raises a question, how is dialogue saved in the game? I’m curious about how GW2 operates under the hood now.

I’m pretty sure I intuitively know how, just can’t explain it as I’m not a programmer. Probably text entries for dialogue boxes and “chat code” access strings for chatter dialogue, and there’s a ton of it required to make it in since this is primarily a RPG in basic form rather than, say, a voiceless game.

Want to really get blown away by a dev team? Look up NetHack and how they have thought of everything you can possibly do in the game and anticipated it somehow.

Teofa Tsavo.9863:

Good time to me to return to Norrath. I’ll return to evaluate the damage, but see no reason to be in game to witness it.

Say hello to the people on Luclin for me. Oh, wait, can’t do that. They blew it up.

Kvo.4235:

I guess my main gripe is twofold 1) too many temporary things that I find out about after coming back from a break or even long vacation and thus can never enjoy

I got over that a while ago, because I refuse to change my real life schedule because of what’s going on in a game. And I likewise am taken aback by people who want an massively multiplayer online game to only proceed when they’re ready.

It has to move on, and it can’t wait every time a player has a problem in real life. They already put the game on hold for Halloween and December because they realize a lot of people are likely not going to be in the game at that time. Seriously. There’s no new and spectacular content coming on those times, and I expect there never will be.

And they learned the lesson during Lost Shores, not to run one-time events like that. Hence, Living World project so there was a broader window of opportunity rather than “be there between 10am and 10pm PST to join in the assault on Jormag itself! Don’t miss out”.

They’ve acknowledged they will be changing the tempo down a bit next time. That’s all they can do without risking really overhauling how the game operates and making a potential mess for their QA teams.

(More than they usually get anyway.)

2) While I did read an interiew hinting to an expansion I worry that it is low priority and it shouldn’t be.

I’ve come down on why expansions run the risk of being a bad effect, notably from experience in EverQuest years ago. I’ll try to sum up in one small bit:

“Hey, the guild is hitting TZ today, you going to bring your cleric?”
“Can’t, haven’t bought the expansion yet.”

Malchior.5042:

Our favorite mechanized marvel takes on a new title…

YO-LO-TRON!

Bravely throwing himself in the face of danger to rescue citizens because…YOLO!!!

(Not official…but should be )

You know it’s going to be named “Oh-No Tron”. You know it.

Astralporing.1957:

But…but… what about silver dubloon pirate jp farming?

Maybe they’ll actually fix the drop tables to make it easier to get those specifically.

Paulytnz.7619:

There’s a game called “Wizardy” you might want to look into, that might be what you want when it comes to permadeath and hardcore mmo-ing

I wasn’t being 100% serious. I despise permadeath most times because it simply winds up I make one mistake, one misstep and I lose everything.

That said, it would make WvW more interesting if for one round anyone who was killed could only participate in Edge of the Mists. Or could only be noncorporeal as an observer.

Kvo.4235:

Of course not all players want the same features. I for one would like player housing (and for the love of god do not do only guild halls Guild halls is completely counter to the whole point of player housing). You can call it a gimmick if you want but many people enjoy having there own customizable space. It also increases player loyalty (Rift’s dimensions are so good I still log in solely for that feature) and perhaps above all adds a good dose of RPG to a game that, in my opinion, does not promote this well. To me this is the #1 feature I’d like to see, but of course that is my opinion.

Discuss.

I’d like to see it too, but I would still see comments like this topic about how player housing options are a waste of resources, please give us Cantha already. Just about anything major they do is going to catch flaming about how they “wasted” their time developing what was “obviously not that good”.

There’s a lot of what I’d like to see in the game which wouldn’t be received well by people in general, and a lot of tweaks I’d put in which would make it to the top ten lists of “horrible ideas implemented into GW2”.

An option for permadeath being one of those.

Antara.3189:

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Antara.3189:

Lindbur.2537:

Vol.7601:

Nageth.5648:

Lindbur.2537:

Who’s betting the kids who have been playing Ghosts non-stop for over a year and a half will be separated? I’m betting a copper!

Speaking of that, I’m wondering how many incidental NPCs are going to get killed.

RIP ogden’s hammer savings guy

By Ogdens Hammer, WHAT Savings!

I plan on sneaking him out of the city early.

On that note though, Wonder what will become of the Tengu…..

Scarlet singing “I feel like chicken tonight”?

Someone go warn the Tengu!

Tell them she’s come for the Caromi scalp farmers!

Antara.3189:

Lindbur.2537:

Vol.7601:

Nageth.5648:

Lindbur.2537:

Who’s betting the kids who have been playing Ghosts non-stop for over a year and a half will be separated? I’m betting a copper!

Speaking of that, I’m wondering how many incidental NPCs are going to get killed.

RIP ogden’s hammer savings guy

By Ogdens Hammer, WHAT Savings!

I plan on sneaking him out of the city early.

On that note though, Wonder what will become of the Tengu…..

Scarlet singing “I feel like chicken tonight”?

Lindbur.2537:

Who’s betting the kids who have been playing Ghosts non-stop for over a year and a half will be separated? I’m betting a copper!

I’m betting on “Say, where are the outhous- aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!”

Paulytnz.7619:

I have a feeling it wont be destroyed, besides it wont even be the first time the city has been attacked. It has been attacked before in some of our personal stories which I might add was one the most memorable parts of any of the stories I have done on all 8 chars.

I just hope this turns out to be more than what I expect it to be.

It was also attacked by the White Mantle and mursaat, the tormented minions of Abaddon, and the charr . . . in order of recent to oldest. I suspect it was under attack once before that too.

Anmida.4058:

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Because they had it all completed months ago and nobody puts that kind of work into something and doesn’t use it. I mean, except for Minecraft mod developers. But they’re a special sort of insane.

They know we (that is, most of the people on the forum) don’t like Scarlet. They know there were problems with her. What they’re doing is saying “hold your noses people and let’s just get through the first ‘season’ then we will attempt to do better come round two”.

I can only hope that’s it. Because I can’t fathom what kind of developers actually stare at what has become of GW2 and go “Yep. This is a masterpiece of writing and development.”

I can expect they stand there, look at it and go “well, this is the closest we could get to making the game we wanted to, while altering it to fit player complaints and other needs, and Orders From On High about this game . . . I think we did pretty good, but let’s try to make it better”.

It’s just, well, the idea of “better” is always going to have the issue of not being what other people see as “better”. I know my ideas for how to improve the game would kitten roughly 75% of the players off. I can only assume from that, any individual idea would greatly cause problems.

Except “New Minigame: Kill Scarlet. Players may compete on a leaderboard for how fast and how creatively they kill Scarlet Briar, the villain whose machinations have finally been stopped.”

Gibson.4036:

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

They know we (that is, most of the people on the forum) don’t like Scarlet. They know there were problems with her. What they’re doing is saying “hold your noses people and let’s just get through the first ‘season’ then we will attempt to do better come round two”.

I guess we’ll see.

If Scarlet has a dramatic death at the conclusion of this, then you were right.

If they write in an escape for her so that she can be brought back into the “living story” at a future date, not so much.

If a certain spoiler I saw float across my screen being spammed in Lion’s Arch is correct (seriously that’s annoying) . . .

She might not die right now but she’s more likely to have to die if the spoiler is true.

Anmida.4058:

I am sincerely confused at this point. For a moment there I thought there was a glimpse of hope and after acknowledging, partially at any rate, how much of a terrible trainwreck Scarlet is overall they would start withdrawing from it. Instead this is getting progressively “No one else has done this, but you can bet Scarlet will because.”

This isn’t even a rage post, I am just confused at this point. What is going on? Why do they keep doing this sort of thing? Does no one in management or quality control ever manage to voice up and go “You may just not want to do that because it is silly.”?

Because they had it all completed months ago and nobody puts that kind of work into something and doesn’t use it. I mean, except for Minecraft mod developers. But they’re a special sort of insane.

They know we (that is, most of the people on the forum) don’t like Scarlet. They know there were problems with her. What they’re doing is saying “hold your noses people and let’s just get through the first ‘season’ then we will attempt to do better come round two”.

Of course I predict plenty of people on the forums are invested enough in bashing the Living Story concept to not like anything they do very vocally and let people know how much it sucks. So we won’t see a change in the forum’s tone. Because internet.

Aidenwolf.5964:

I wonder what lovely new grind (I mean content) we have in store after the end of LS season one.

I read through quite a bit of this thread, and while I love opinionated passionate people who freely express their ideas, but if you can’t even recognize that this game shatters the promises made to those of us who paid for it, then we have nothing to discuss because you can’t argue with crazy.

Hey, thanks for calling me crazy, it’s been two days since someone did that because we didn’t agree. (thumbs-up)

I’ll note, they didn’t promise anything major which I feel was broken. Well, except for "you’re going to really enjoy WvW’. That’s usually a matter of whether or not I’m playing on off-peak hours or somewhat normal times.

Really, they didn’t come to me personally and make promises and assurances about this game. They put out press releases and interviews with people, and you know what? They kinda hit on target for some of it when I tried Beta Weekend Event 2, and there was a lot of promise and potential even when Lost Shores hit if their hardware hadn’t gone and fallen apart on them.

So it’s kind of hard for me to take anything personal about this game. I don’t feel they betrayed anything. I feel they could do better with some things but I also recognize how those ideas of “better” probably aren’t the same between them and I . . . or the rest of the players and I.

The community really brings me down more often than anything else. Random tomfoolery disrupting things to “this game sucks” all over the place, to “kill your ranger and roll a warrior lol”.

Honestly, this is the top thing which makes me want to not log in on any given day.

DavosTheOnionKnight.1653:

I honestly though Arenanet would be different than Blizzard. Oh well.

They are different.

I don’t pay per month to play the game.

Cactus.2710:

Players complaining that the Living Story content isn’t well crafted. Who would have ever thought that could happen?

I called it. I mean, I always am very clear. Players complain about anything, it’s just how things happen on MMO forums.

In this case though? I really wonder what they were watching that this wasn’t seen developing at all since the first time we saw Kasmeer and Marjory together.

Becka Williams.4978:

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Kurodius.7463:

Flirting has little to do with my issues with this relationship. Flirting only really shows sexual attraction, but it doesn’t present the basis of their relationship. These two characters have very little to bond over, they don’t play off each other’s personality in any way.

Yes, yes they do play off each other. Kasmeer is light and a little silly when relaxed, Marjory tends to be serious at least most of the time.

(Obligatory meme: They fight crime.)

Majory’s the no-nonsense tough as nails detective that doesn’t always play by the rules. Kasmeer’s the playful, friendly Mesmer that always gets results. If you have a problem, and no one else can help, and if you have the gold, then maybe you can hire: Jory and Kas: Private Investigators

Next time . . . Queensdale Train Derailment

Kurodius.7463:

Flirting has little to do with my issues with this relationship. Flirting only really shows sexual attraction, but it doesn’t present the basis of their relationship. These two characters have very little to bond over, they don’t play off each other’s personality in any way.

Yes, yes they do play off each other. Kasmeer is light and a little silly when relaxed, Marjory tends to be serious at least most of the time.

(Obligatory meme: They fight crime.)

They weren’t flirting much before the end of the Tower of Nightmares, they were often doing other things and being a little focused on them.

Currently the only “flirting” comes during downtime between things. They’re not flirting in the middle of the Marionette fight, or directly after. They flirt once they’re back in the Dead End, and tease each other only rarely.

ThanatosAngel.8024:

Another solution could be to take all champs on 1-15 level zones and downgrade them to Elites.

Actually, it’d be nice if certain Champions (event spawns) were tweaked this way. But it magnifies in Queensdale – I can’t recall another 1-15 zone which had as many Champions in a dense gathering.

I would like to see event Champions in other maps be downgraded so they can actually be removed by the one-or-two players still in maps. How about that Champion Flame shaman in Plains of Ashford near the tar lake?

The Queensdale train doesn’t bother me so much, mostly because if it didn’t happen there it’d just move to WvW. (For better or worse.)

Devata.6589:

Will not go into everything because it’s to off-topic but I have a feeling you not 100% understand me.

It’s likely, some terms you use leave me wondering what exactly you mean.

Yes there was gold-grind but at the same time usually you could go for specific items or mats. I talked about world loot drops and you give this example (thats why I think you misunderstood me). But thats exactly how I expect it to be. It’s not a world loot drop. It’s in one location that usually also means the drop change is a little higher (but only in that location). So people can go to that location and farm it.

No, the drop rate was still pretty abysmal unless you were doing solo fighting (so all the loot would get assigned to you) and even then they were somewhat uncommon. It’s analogous to how often Rares drop, only there was not a direct MF%+ you could have in GW1.

I’d rather think world-wide drop would be considerably better than “go to this one postage-stamp of land and camp/farm it”. Especially for a persistent world like GW2 is.

If I remember correct you would get many mini’s in specific location or by doing specific content. But the birthday ones indeed required trading or gold-grind but at least they would stay available. The ones temporary available where much lower.

No. You’re not remembering quite accurately. There was a fraction of minis which were available as drops or chest loot (Mallyx, Peacekeeper, Salma, Black Moa Chick) but there were also several promotional ones which were radically overpriced most times (Kuunvang, Varesh, Grey Giant, etc).

Some of these going undedicated became incredibly expensive. And then there was what someone once called “the big middle finger to collectors” by releasing not one but two exclusive minis in exactly single amounts. (I don’t agree with this since they were gifts to Gaile Grey from content designers for her work as ‘The Frog’.)

But it’s not even just minis which hit that spot of “potentially very expensive”. There were specific skins which only dropped out of dungeons and only out of specific ones. The Icy Dragon Sword (palette swap of Fiery Dragon Sword) was only available off one of approximately 20 monsters in a far corner of a zone in the Shiverpeak Mountains. There was also the Totem Axe and Fan (focus) in another area, but they were less desirable since they were unique items with specific stats. (Totem Axe was more wanted due to the modifiers.)

So, it’s been done before, what you’ve been talking about as open-world loot in a specific place. It is still done now (Final Rest, Cobalt, and many others). It’s just a problem for a persistent world since it breeds farming grounds where more people gravitate rather than spread out and fill areas.

Devata.6589:

Still like I said. for enough people going for the fluff is game-play they like. So the fact thats it’s ‘not needed’ does not really care. I would love to see fun-crafts in GW2. Crafts where you can make fun items.. not items you need just fun. It’s a type of game-play.

We do agree on this. I’d like to see crafts used for more than making somewhat-cheap armor for alts and friends.

I did not play a lot of GW1 but as far as I did I think there was less need for gold-grind.

Hehe . . . hahaha . . .

No, please, let’s not go into it. It wasn’t “gold” grind, but there were a lot of other stuff to be ground for. Or gold grinding to afford to buy it off other people. And yes, most of the time it was minis, consumable boosters, rare skins, or specific items such as Armbraces.

(You know, when people weren’t trading those as currency.)

The problem is not so much that you can convert gold but they way they try you to buy it. If they for example would put mini’s in the game-world (of course now they can’t because it’s how they make money) and also many weapons and skins so you can get them in specific places then you can so specific content to get them. Farm the items.

Again, not that different than Guild Wars 1. Froggy Staffs, Dragon scythes, Eternal Swords/Shields, Storm Bows, Icy Dragon Swords . . . there’s a list of items which either still are desired or once were high-ticket items. Including the “Denravi Sword” which was a quickly, swiftly-removed item which was no longer available but was not fully removed. Was pretty valuable for a time.

Now in many cases you can’t because it’s world drops so it becomes a gold-grind. Thats one of the problems.

Glacial Stones, Destroyer Cores, Golden Rin Relics, Diessa Chalices, Ectoplasm, and Obsidian Shards all were items which were world drops. Some of them only available in one location and in one method alone of dropping. In the case of Golden Rin Relics and Diessa Chalices, I am understanding they dropped in the SAME place but under different circumstances.

So, like I keep saying – none of this is new ground for people who played the first game. Just be glad you don’t have to acquire lots of gold/platinum for an ugly as sin armor for Hall of Monument points

@Devata – Considering most of this isn’t about the pick anymore, not gonna run off topic further.

But I point out again, in this topic now the only new thing is the Gems-to-Gold conversion when looking between the grind in GW1 and the grind in GW2. It’s still for “the shiny hotness”, it’s still for a questionable amount of edge sometimes, and it’s still not even really needed to get through the game as it exists currently.

Considering GW1 offered skill unlock packs for sale which reduced the tedium and expense of going around to find and unlock them all (which could be a substantial amount of platinum and grinding skill points), the whole “pay money to avoid the grind” isn’t new at all to this company.

If you couldn’t (legitimately) convert Gold to Gems and then into whatever you felt like, you could do it illegitimately which happened in GW1. (Not commonly, but if you knew where to look . . .) This isn’t new from this company, and trying to place it on the Gem Store for how things are going . . .

It just doesn’t hold up.

As for “do it now or lose out forever” options? There were Festival Hats in GW1, which still were pretty limited in availability. Especially since they required you to be present on one exact day at an exact time or miss out.

Devata.6589:

So you buy, grind gold or grind achievements.

“Grind achievements”.

11 days out of 28 fighting either the Marionette or Great Jungle Wurm, maximum. And if you happen to be in on a good successful Marionette run, it’s probably shortened to around 7. And if you do more than one Marionette fight and vary things a bit, you can get down even further I’m sure. That’s a grind?

I mean, I get people want to slap the word “grind” on “they want me to do stuff more than once” but . . . seriously? Seven days out of a month with some active play, or eleven where you just show up for a half hour. I just want to reiterate this point. There was nothing ANet was doing stopping people complaining here about not having sprockets from getting their bonus node.

And also to reiterate there is constant talk about how this isn’t about sprockets but the precedent of a cash shop item granting a bonus. (Which is odd, since it could be traced this has been set before with Boosters but hey, who wants to worry about splitting hairs when we can whip up a good ol fashioned lynch mob?)

And yes, I’m quickly souring on this whole topic since the ones who wanted to discuss how this was a bad idea due to the precedent are now trapped with the talk of “pay to win” definitions and sprockets over the actual precedent they wanted to bring up.

Funny thats exactly what I said how the cash-shop focus was destroying this game. Making everything a gold and achievements grind while trying to push people to pay money in the cash-shop.

They gotta make their money somehow, and they decided (for whatever reason) they wanted the cash shop route instead of constant expansions. I’m still not sure why achievement grind has to mean anything about the cash shop, but hey, that’s not the topic on hand so we’ll leave that question in the “never to be answered” box.

Still don’t understand why people want to subject themselves to grind in this game anyway. There’s really not a reason to, aside from chasing shiny cool stuff. (Notably, exactly what you ground for in the previous game but again, who cares about that?)

Oow and I complained about the time-gated nature. Well the achievement to get that node it temporary available and the pick I am not sure about but is likely also temporary available.

Yes, except . . .

We all knew this going in, it was clearly stated last January about things being time-sensitive and limited-release. And while things were temporarily available they’ve also come back at least once now.

So you can’t even claim it’s a certainty they’ll offer it once and never again.

[Anet, please nerf the Palawa Joko event.]
[Sylvari confirmed puppets of Mordremoth?]
[Who the heck is Scarlet and why do people want her back?]
[Now people can craft precursors my Twilight is worthless! Reimbursement needed.]
[SAB World 3 too easy, only died 87 times on Zone 1.]

zwierz.9012:

Yeah I meant Augury Rock! It’s been ages, I guess it’s time for a trip down the memory lane and playing GW1 again!

But anyway, my point was that arguably Lions Arch with it’s annual phenomena is a more likely spot for a huge ley line intersection. The Dragon lair theory was just a sudden offspring of the idea.

It’s not Augury Rock.

It’s accessible from Glint’s Lair . . . hmm “Tomb of the Primeval Kings”. That’s it.