Guild Wars 2

Brullyra.1592:

While you may not agree with people playing the game how you want them to, they did PAY for the game so they have the right to play the game how they want to.

Stop bleating and whining and play the game you PAID for the way you want.

Problem is the event cannot be completed the intended way with the way some of the fine folks are playing “the way they want”, as in zerging in one big mob and AFKing. Of course, they will say: too bad! at least we’re getting loot.

And it is so, ANet has not done anything about it – and again, it’s the same as with the Marionette event – my success depends on others who may or may not be on the same level or frequency as me. That’s the problem with these large events. What ANet needs to learn from this is not to make events where players have to fight each other to complete them, or make goals where everyone has to work toward a common goal. (and don’t use the excuse that zergers contribute, no server with huge zerg ever makes it to 1500 or even 1200.)

Excuse me, who shut what gates now? (and I think it’s a she.)

I miss the old GW1 mesmer armor style with classy & snappy outfits instead of just boring robes, so I wanted to try something out with the trickster set. Student pants are not perfect but it does give the “rogue” feeling with the top. Maybe they’ll release a pair of pants that suit this top perfectly someday, but I like this as my non-ascended set.

I tried with the student’s pants, I think it looks pretty good too.

I really miss more of the old GW1 mesmer armors which were more snappy & classy outfits than robes we have now. Leather is not just for medium armor! (but please no buttcapes.)

I’ve been looking for a good skirt to go with the Trickster top. That’s ascalonian dungeon, right? Unfortunately getting that would mean running a dungeon which I’m not very fond of.

Give an option to switch stats for ascended gear. Problem solved.

Like I said, another man’s villain is another man’s hero.

- Although, if I’m allowed to go on a tangent here, the ME3 renegade Shepard was a bit too much of an kitten compared to the previous games where he was portrayed more as a “no-nonsense” – type (Needs of the many…) military guy. -

But this is about Evon, so I once again say I really like how he’s being written, compared to many other bland characters. You can argue your case whether you support him or not!

Incidentally, I was always a renegade in ME. I need my (anti-)heroes to be a bit gray, even morally ambiguous, instead of goody-good. Needs of the many and so on.

I believe Germany and France have some kind of legislation regarding gaming where the clients need to be translated and thus they will have their own language servers too. It’s all tied to their weird laws on dubbing and translating every form of media.
Of course many germans and french players do speak english as well, but I’d still say it hurts them more than it does good. In GW2, organizing anything in overflows is a challenge because of various language barriers.

OmaiGodman.2098:

I do wonder how Smooth Penguin will defend this. Although he’ll probably just blame it on Kiel.

I’m still not sure if SP is really a fanatic Gnashblade supporter, or if he’s just trolling us. It’s probably the latter.

Shud asked to shut down the gate, the gate was shut down. Citizens got out using a different gate. What’s the problem?

And! At least Evon was there during the chaos doing something to benefit everyone. That merchandise on those dolyaks (which was quite unfairly confiscated, I might add) ended up saving a lot of people. Didn’t see Kiel anywhere.

I guess I’ll save them until the next update, I’m not gonna craft an ascended backpiece so I’d like to at least sell them.

Gandara main seems to focus on rescue pretty often. On overflows I get commanders like this, though:

Smooth Penguin.5294:

This already exists. Anet programmed some events to actually punish zerging. Take the LA rescue event that happens hourly. If you zergball that, you’ll never get to the top tier 1200 citizens rewards. Players must split up to tackle multiple events in different places.

Also, with Guild Missions, we were introduced to some Bounties that can’t be simply run over, and challenges that also require people to split up.

The problem with this event is that people won’t care about the rescue because the loot is better from the amount of lootbags you get from zerging around and killing mobs. It’s sort of “us v. them” attitude where some people want to zerg and others want to try and rescue (and some just AFK) so there’s a lot of arguing going on.

BeanyUndead.9256:

I absolutely love the dynamic event system and how you can actually affect the development of the world!

Is that you, Colin?

Welcome nevertheless.

AkkiChan.7164:

Uh huh. I can almost see it happen.

“Yeeeeah, we’re somewhat sorry about what happened there in Lion’s Arch. Shooting on everything that comes close to our walls, civilians included. We could have saved thousands of lives that day. Our bad. We cool now? We kinda need some help over here with some dragon..”

“Go kitten yourself.”

It’s funny how people said the same thing about the Charr. 250 years have passed since the Searing, and many still don’t want to roll a Charr character. Conflicts just add interest to lore of the race, and it’s a fact that many people would like to play Tengu (myself included).

Very important, that’s why I’m so annoyed about ANet retconning or blatantly disregarding it. (read: Scarlet)

I hate when games make choices for me when there’s an illusion of choice, especially in RPG type games. It doesn’t really feel like an RPG if your choices don’t matter at all.

In LoTRO, there was an incident where you captured an enemy general. I would’ve wanted to kill him then and there, but the game was written so that we take him captive. Then the NPC’s started badmouthing my character for sparing him, he escaped, killing several other NPC’s and I got the blame. Great.

The topic was changed so are we to assume that they are meant to be the screams of the citizens we’re rescuing?

Gnat.9405:

Inb4 Marjory is an illusion

I like this. Maybe Kasmeer’s tragic past made her jaded and she conjured up an illusion to be her perfect companion to escape her loneliness and pain. All this while we thought that arguments about curtain color were bad writing, but it was just a window into Kasmeer’s demented mind. Bravo to the writing team!

They jump when you use the skill #2 when you transform into a Quaggan. So there’s no excuse not to able jumping by default.

I thought this was really, really dumb. Honestly, they couldn’t reuse any of the dialogue already recorded? Even the shouts the characters make with different buffs would’ve been more appropriate. “Run like the wind!” “Feel my turbulence!” “This rose has thorns, here they are!” all of those are better encouragements than Err! Ehhh! Errrrrh!

It would be great to get a dev comment on what the thought process behind this was. Budget limitations? Like the infamous “Go on” – dialogue?

Vilaptca.6037:

TTS has been doing 1500 citizen runs. I have yet to see anything of value drop. Individual players see less loot doing these runs in hope for something rare at the end, but just like everything else in the game, the rewards aren’t worth it.

Stick to the zergs and the 500 citizens saved. You’ll get more loot and you’re not missing out on anything.

And this is why the whole event is once again a brilliant idea on paper, but sub-par execution in reality ruins it. Saving 1500 citizens is so rare and requires so much co-ordination there better be good rewards in the end, but hearing this… I’ll just stick to the zerging.

guardian.6489:

I’m noticing threshold bags also award quite a few found heirooms. I have 75 already, I’ve been largely ignoring rubble and I’ve done 2 1500 saved runs already (it’s honestly not that difficult once you have everyone cooperating).

Tell me what server actually tries this so I can guest there.

And what rewards come from 1500 bags?

Ironically, the threshold bags contain blade bits and an exotic box too, if I recall correctly. But yeah, it’s not much compared to how much more supply bags you get by zerging. Give rewards for saving a citizen that outweigh zerging and that’s what people will do. Path of least resistance and all that.

When I zerg with the commanders I get close to 200 bags. When I roam around rezzing citizens I get maybe 20 bags. And since the majority is zerging, we only get about ~600 citizens saved total. Tell me, what’s the incentive to go saving citizens since the majority won’t do it?

You have plenty of gold, you should buy bigger bags so you can get moar loots!

Don’t even try. At least on Gandara the main server is buggy as hell. I’ve got pretty much all my deeds done in overflow whilst the main server fails a lot of events (since they zerg at one spot).

But if you really want, enter from Bloodtide and be the first to enter the portal when it opens.

For now, I’d say they are still waiting how the whole thing turns out and shooting everyone indiscriminately. Maybe if Scarlet (or whatever’s gonna pop up from there) will attack the Dominion’s walls, it could be the sign for the Tengu to ally with us against a common threat?

Again, hoping that players will be active and take charge in strategizing tactics, spreading out etc. is a noble idea, but ultimately people will take the path of least resistance. It’s like the Marionette event or Scarlet invasions, ANet is trying for the players to evolve as players but the mob mentality is just too strong. They are on the right path, but they probably would need to hold hands even more.

Zerging is sometimes fun if you are involved in a huge battle against a huge opponent or a big army, but it’s not fun if it’s the only means of playing events nowadays. I wish there were more small scale events or different variety of events in this update.

It’s fun in the beginning, but it wears off quite quickly. I got all my achievements and now I’m already thinking “why would I do it again” ? There’s not enough diversity with the events – mots of them are just “Kill everything that isn’t us” , like Magnus says, acting no doubt as ANet’s proxy here. Grinding for loot only goes so far.

Not to mention all the bugs – it seems that the main server is the buggiest. Events not starting, credit not received for completion, children walking in slow motion, miasma bar filled at the start (and citizen counter not updating, ergo no loot bags…) … bug testing would be nice.

If there were more different types of events it could sustain for longer. Like, use stealth to sneak some citizens out, prepare a boat to get them away using the coast, launch them out of the city with the cow gun those Charr invented… anything! Now, it’s just kill, kill, kill.

The children also seem to be invisible. They should have no trouble getting to the exit, how will the mobs see them?

Is there dialogue with Kiel in this new update? We get to talk to Evon a lot but I haven’t seen what Ellen has to say.

I like Evon’s character a lot by this point. Hell, he actually has one. He might be selfish and more threatened to help than volunteering, but he’s still one of the more memorable characters in the Living story at this point. (compared to our ‘blander than bland’ heroes).

I would hope so. I’m very interested in the whole Tengu lore and the concept of a forbidden city in the middle of our world map. Perfect starter zone right there. Unfortunately like Aaron said, the devs seem to be focusing everything on Living story right now so it might be years before they add more playable races. But I’ll still keep hoping they do someday.

CharrGirl.7896:

Welp, no hope of them being a playable race now :P

Your name and your post here just reeks of irony.

Windu The Forbidden One.6045:

He was not a dredge, flame legion, aetherblade, clockwork monster or krait. So yea, hey could have easily known.

He said he was a thief using stealth skills. Now, if you caught someone prowling on your back yard decked in all black and obviously trying to hide (and possibly looking for something to steal), how willing would you be to ask what they want first and turn them into pincushions later?

Anka.3675:

Getting credit for the escort events seems rather flukey. Does it only count if you get the killing blow? Seems to me that that needs to be reworkd. I’ve done (or rather, tried to do) all the escorts save the moas, have tried to make sure I killed at least something, and have yet to get credit for even one. That is rather uninspiring.

This. I have failed to get credit for lighthouse escort twice while it succeeded but just didn’t get it. One time I was downed and the other I was fighting the whole time and damaged mobs everywhere, but nothing.

Also, for the Aetherblade elites, I believe you have to tag all five to get credit. So unless you’re camping the area when they appear, forget it. Maybe make them champs or something, or make it so you just have to tag maybe one.

I think it looks way out of place for my sylvari. Best backpiece so far IMO is the Fervid censer, something this huge and tacky isn’t for my tastes (I still shudder when I think of that southsun horrid tentacle thing.) But I do like the update mechanic of it.

Lots of zerging, yes. It’s the same as most living world updates, fun for a little while but will wear out quickly.

They’re detaching themselves from GW1 since they have commented that if people want GW1, they can go and play GW1, and GW2 is not and won’t be GW1 with revamped graphics. And that I can respect since they admit it.

But I can’t help but feeling that they know that the level of world building, writing and immersion was superior in the original game and they’re frustrated that so many people aren’t feeling their chosen approach on GW2 (read: Living story) compared to traditional expansion style.

Arikyali.5804:

I’m not even the enemy!

How do they know you’re not the enemy? For all they know, a bunch of people and monsters are duking it out in their backyard. “Good” and “Evil” are just words, I mean, your character has probably murdered more than enough of bandits, pirates and hapless creatures. Would you readily open your gates to a riot?

If a future villain (or a returning one, hint hint) actually has a plan and a personality, they’ve already trumped Scarlet.

PeterThomas.7243:

In fact, it’s probably not a dragon, seeing as how Arenanet stated that “one in every ten thousand people who have guessed what it is have got it right”. Seeing as how EVERYBODY thinks it’s a dragon, it’s probably not a dragon.

I’d hazard a guess that this is another ANet hyperbole that’s just meant to excite us (not to be taken literally), but I guess we’ll see tomorrow.

(I’m still rooting for Lazarus.)

Saint.5647:

As someone else mentioned, Varresh Ossa from GW: Nightfall was a fantastic villain. I bought that she was a powerful ruler and competent military tactician. From the exposition I could tell that something was amiss with Kourna and Ossa. She had a strong backstory behind her (and her name) and her descent into madness was also believable. None of her skills and actions seemed far fetched.

I would quote the whole post, but I’ll have to stop here. I think you nailed my thoughts perfectly and gave the best example so far to underline the lack of quality writing concerning Scarlet and Living story in general and drew some delicious GW1 parallels. The writing, world-building and the subtlety there compared to the sequel was just superb.

Lack of endgame content, also slow pace of meaningful content release. (open the world already.)

Mortifer.2946:

First two responders, sorry but you still didn’t grasp what living story is about. After the end of each LS arch, there are going to be big changes to the world (not mentioning little changes during the arch).

Everyone with at least a pinch of fantasy can imagine what are those PROBES for…..

And the video showing LA in ruins is connected to Escape from LA patch, not the last one.

And yet they said the same thing (Epic events that change the world FOREVER!) about the Southsun event and all that happened was that the Lion statue was knocked down. So excuse me if I’m a bit sceptic about ANet hyperbole.

My ears! How are you?

repeat ad nauseaum.

Every time I succeeded completing the Marionette event on Gandara – where I play – there was a good deal of commanders who very patiently gave instructions on each lane, organized a good amount of people on each one and gave advice on each Champion. Every time I failed, there was little to no commanders, no feedback or organization.

My point is that ANet tried to make the event teach people to be interested in better themselves and grow with the challenge. It was a noble thought but the majority is simply not interested nor capable of such a thing. Thus we need commanders to tell them the basics and most will be happy to do so.

I think “probably” is the best answer at this point. It’s hard to imagine that the current snail-pace would ever satisfy the customers or the developers when they actually want to add a good deal of expansion-type content, which usually translates to classes, skills, maps, dungeons and other “endgame” content. Currently it’s just Living story, but Colin Johansen has hinted that there is “something” bigger on the works.

tl;dr : I believe there will be expansion someday, if not, ANet has truly dropped the ball on what could’ve been / can be one of the most successful MMO’s ever.

Unfortunately there’s not really an “endgame” as such, at least compared to GW1 with God realms, GvG or the later added elite dungeons. Grinding Fractals is one choice, but there’s no real reward at the end there either. Living world updates are usually small and don’t provide much “end-game” content.

You can try to work towards a legendary weapon, which will be a long-term goal, but you said you don’t just want to work on a different skin.

I’m still betting my money on Lazarus the Dire whispering into her ear.

Yeah yeah, or rather just optimistically hoping for it.