Guild Wars 2

Genesis.8572:

New players will likely level from 1 to 80. Veterans who play a lot of GW2 seem to be acquiring these Tombs of Knowledge and other level/exp boosters that are taking up space in their banks. You’ll be fine.

Yes but there’s no game content there. In GW1 expansions came with an area that was all about the background of new professions. It fast tracked you in leveling to get you to the end of leveling, but the nicer part was it made the new professions part of lore in fully playable, explorable way.

It’s really disappointing that the precedent for GW2 is now going to be … just drop anything in the game with barely a connection to anything else.

Roy Cronacher.1576:

Professions do not have their own starting zones. A character’s starting zone is determined by the race that was selected.

Wait… what? You’re introducing new profs in an expansion and they’re just supposed to play old content to get to 80? Why can’t they have a fast track zone or something?

This is starting to seem more and more like The Sims/EA style cash grab where you guys make lots of mini expansions. I’ll be rather sad if that’s the outcome of Anet after all these years.

You’ll basically miss most of the new content for this year then, I would expect. They’re putting their work into this pack right now, so it’s unlikely to see a lot of extras for the core game.

Tom Gore.4035:

I expect the cross-section of each map to be small, about the size of the Silverwastes/Dry Top. But as seen on the trailers they are immensely 3D. The use of Z-axis makes me sorry for people who get vertigo in games.

The z-axis is not that exciting tbh. Most of it is empty space, and you can only fly or bounce off a mushroom in prescribed ways.

I wish they would use the engine for real… cliff knock offs, blocking projectiles with terrain and obstacles, freedom of movement attacks from above, etc… but they can’t do that outside something like Super Adventure Box because of all the lovely open world people known as farmers just break every nice gameplay ability.

It could be a fun expansion if it’s cheap enough though.

Worst case to me is it more than $30 just a get something that’s sort of Super LS Season 3… that is maybe more detail than usual but still a series just struggling like crazy to impress people on the gameplay level again.

Diovid.9506:

For now it seems like there are four environments: 1) the maguuma waste, 2) the jungle floor, 3) the roots, 4) the canopy. Those all seem pretty distinct to me.

No those are all the jungle. What you’re saying is like saying if you go up a mountain top in the norn area it’s another environment versus being ground level on the same map.

Environments mean more than that, they mean you have entered a whole new aesthetic.

But it does seem that HoT has ONE actual environment. Jungle.

Without endgame there’s nothing that takes a big investment of player skill left.

You’ve just got casuals mucking about and that will greatly tarnish the reputation of your game. Unless you want to be Farmville… in which case make a facebook game in the first place. The PC game audience will always be full of a lot of hardcore players though so I don’t see what the point of saying endgame doesn’t help. It’s what the platform audience wants.

I’m not sure what to think about that claim.

Dungeons were ignored by Anet… allowing things like farming, while never really enhancing them to be popular to just experience and enjoy.

Fractals was launched and abandoned when it seemed like the perfect system to add content every 3-6 months.

World bosses could have been promising but again support and sticking with it doesn’t really happen.

It seems like just because player interest drops due to lacking continuing updates and polish of the part of the game they take it to mean it shouldn’t be in the game and that people will never want it. This is a false way of polling for interest, imo.

So do you think they’ll really make group play work in Thorns? And if so how, since it’s actually kind of hard in the GW2 no-roles system.

Well I sure hope they at least get it right with that one shot.

I mean let’s be honest there’s tons of existing weapon options that aren’t worth anything on the classes that have them so nobody uses them.

Hopefully they have a review of the usefulness of new profession skills this time before release, so that there isn’t some profs that effectively get nothing new because the one option is filled with weak skills.

I think a lot of people did not expect something EoTN sized for the first expansion though.

That was the last thing they did for GW1 and their timing made some sense because they were stopping development.

So maybe this is the last thing they do for GW2 before announcing Guild Wars 3 next year.

It does seem like a mini expansion.

That can be fun though. Eye of The North for GW1 was quite fun.

I think this model should be called mini expansion.

1 prof. 1 specialization per prof. 1 region.

I mean it’s all good stuff but it’s less than I would traditionally expect so far.

It’s also quite possible revs have a new fast track leveling area for them only.

It would be very weird to introduce a new prof and expect people to do something that involves no lore like use tomes.

It really depends on what the final content amount is.

If it’s an Eye of the North sort of mini expansion… no more than $30.

If it was full blown campaign across tons of the continent we haven’t seen, and there was more than 1 specialization per class, then I would not mind paying the same as the base game. But they really don’t appear to be going for that mega expansion model at this time.

Well to be fair Anet has gone out on a limb and done more experimental stuff with their game than any other company.

And part of the price of that for everyone is they don’t always deliver what they were expecting, and they probably thought LS for instance would be able to impress more than it did and fill more gameplay itch for people than it did.

However there’s still not really competition for this type of MMO. In fact the other competition in MMOs is not very creative at all at this point. So they still have several years to really find GW2’s strongest gameplay and more consistent model, and maybe they will.

Darmikau.9413:

How will the Silverwaste events get done once people move on?

Well they probably won’t. Just like Orr.

But Anet is working with a new AI guy so besides just enemy stuff, maybe they’ll make better NPCs that can handle participation.

http://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/2tj2d9/dave_marks_ai_consultant_work_will_be_in_heart_of/

When I said full price I thought they would announce a big expansion like GW1.

With the size of this thing being 1 profession, 1 region… significantly less than the base game at any rate.

$20 is reasonable, but up to $30 seems reasonable.

Am I the only one who doesn’t want them as allies?

They’re an overrated GW1 trash mob that I already sent packing.

It seems we’re just getting a single region chunk. i.e. no Crystal Desert, no Ring of Fire and so forth, but just the jungle.

Which is kind of limited but I’m starting think this will be a lot cheaper than the base game.

The playerbase split would be too much with this series. Because they focused so much on open map MMO style, I don’t think they want that.

I think a lot of people will be looking at what the endgame of this expansion is, as to whether it’s worth it.

I mean if there’s one thing that makes GW2 starkly inferior to GW1 it’s that GW2’s endgame is all fragmented and people don’t want to work on anything, so you only see them doing trivial LS tasks. I mean standing next to some guy farming on the same map is not epic.

DeceiverX.8361:

Masteries were stated to be means of surviving in the jungle environment and had no other context of the rest of Tyria surrounding them. Since the expansion is also not required to play in the base game, it is expected they will only be used in expansion content zones.

This is what I fear, and if that’s the plan it should be reconsidered a bit.

Zone skills are zone skills. They’re not true progression, really. I can see glider being locked to the jungle for tons of technical reasons, but if there’s other stuff that’s more like traditional skills and is locked people won’t be amused.

It’s impossible to say how many maps there will be yet. I would guess minimum 10-15… anything less than that for such a hyped expansion would be a little strange, unless it’s not going to cost much.

Stuff like that is usually prime gold sink territory. I’d expect prices and upgrades to be very expensive to help get the economy back in order.

Well pretty much said those kind of things are coming, just didn’t put a name on them.

I sort of expect them to cop out and do only 1 for each prof with every expansion.

Which sounds terribly boring to me, but it fits their casual build system.

I have a sinking feeling it will be strictly used in the jungle. Because the rest of the game maps you would see seriously broken map edges. It would be nice if at least some progression would be used everywhere though. Getting only new powers in one area is kind of dumb.

Full price. This stuff takes a few years to make. Anyone thinking you’re going to get a price break on it… that doesn’t make business sense at all.

My biggest question about that is there actually an option, or is druid is the only one for ranger, necro greatsword is the only one they get, etc…

It would be AMAZING if there’s options but a little less so if it’s one per prof.

They’ve added mounts… but only the story NPCs use them to pull up and check on you after you’ve fought all the battles alone.

Savvon.3718:

Can I have an answer?

Does nobody really know if the xpac cost money up front?

In Guild Wars 1 expansions cost $60. But they were massive, and you could play them without owning the original.

So really it probably depends on size of the content coming. The outlook is better if the price tag is higher imo.

Ideally there’s some DX11 features with the coming xpac or whatever it is… and DX12 later.

But I wouldn’t hold your breath. They tend to get busy with too much else on MMOs to do tech updates often.

Elites are one of the worst gameplay problems still to persist.

They’re supposed to augment that terribly limited skill system, and instead you find your elite is a cheap inflatable toy that lasts 5 seconds.

Of course people would be disappointed.

Let’s face it the game, even with frequent updates, is very stale for most people.

This is the right time to bring major new content, areas, professions, etc… that they would probably never do without an expansion.

Yes. This is a thing. :/

Same bug. And couldn’t load the first new story part before, just kept loading, so I had to restart my computer.

Brace yourselves… Kormir is coming back to replace Trahearne.

The sad thing about content like this is there’s no point to it being a 3D desktop game.

It could be a slot machine, a browser game, whatever. It could be done with 3 cups and a ball by a street urchin and he’d give you the same odds. Whoopee doo.

Wish they used their enormous technological resource and tons of employees to do something a little more original.

If you’re confused why they would leave this… it’s because there’s no new halloween stuff pretty much.

They did the same thing with GW1 where in times there wasn’t much going on there were tons of permissible farms.

Yep it’s terrible. If you look up on youtube there is a way for villagers to get a rifle from Mad King Thorn. But you’ve got to do a few steps and you can get killed easily before getting it.

It’s a bummer because usually I like the mini game in GW holidays… but usually the game is balanced and that’s why I like it. I just can’t bring myself to mess with this much more.

Lunar Sunset.8742:

You can avoid 100% of ghosts attacks (more than 2 ghosts, we have a problem). Just run, do the commands and dodge their abilities, you run faster than them.

Ghosts can use traps / cause fear / and teleport too.

Yes. You can dodge but it’s not that great. You’ll just dodge until you run into a mob of them.

The ghosts get half a bar of mad king says cheats, traps, and do huge damage with skill 2.

What’s supposed to be fun about it?

Why not take the 20 minutes and rebalance it? At least give Mad King says skills like a 10 second casting time so ghosts don’t just steamroll.

Don’t forget the first half of this season was really good so far and had a lot of dev advancement over season 1.

The long break kind of stumped a lot of us… (isn’t a season supposed to be contiguous :p) but stuff happens. Guess they just had to do it this way time wise. Once it does return I’m sure we’re in for something good.

Hybarf Tics.2048:

We’re very close now I simply hope they won’t give it to us in the same Lion Arch’s setting as last year. That would be the biggest let down ever. I wanna be invited to Halloween 2014
by the Tengu.

I think we’ll be taking a portal to the past, which will be kind of annoying. I’d rather the lore was carried forward and responds to a year of events, but there’s no signs of new content on the horizon.

It doesn’t cost me anything to get updates so on that note… I can’t say I’m being screwed.

But one thing that is lacking is any standout rockstar content developer.

Josh started to do well with Super Adventure Box, then he was put in some corner somewhere. The Fractals stuff was amazing, then it was put in some corner.

And we get living story which is just starting to be decent with season 2, but still the game itself lacks a sort of unified “this is why it’s fun all the time” idea.

Yes. They confirmed two employees had to go in on the weekend to get this done for us, but it’s done.

No more selling colors.

Having the tag gets you all colors, and it’s 100g now, 300g after the patch.

Wow that’s awesome.

I wouldn’t have minded colors costing something, even if like 10 or 20g. But the 300g was off the charts for what the feature is so this is great news. Now commanders can use it as a truly tactical tool and not be worrying about who’s rich.

storiessave.3807:

Nokaru.7831:

Virtute.8251:

Catapult siege bubble is already being used to defend trebuchets

You mean against slow moving, easily predictable incoming projectiles? Why yes, they are.

^ That.

This “projectile” is neither slow nor noticeably telegraphed.

Why the heck would it be? The point is to change up the ridiculously stagnant siege play in WvW. You can’t do that with some baby step attempt that never is really useable like the last traps.

Siege disabler actually looks cool. It’s freaking out people that just want to karma train through WvW instead of have a strategy, which is good.

300g per color is outrageous. Very disappointed in Anet’s callous approach to this.