Guild Wars 2

Karril Daltaya.4980:

For me it is a nightmare because i relied on the bank to keep the money out of my inventory so i didnt spend it all the time. Now I just see ‘hrmmm…. I /can/ afford that thing i dont really need…’

Solo guild bank, if you can do it.

I’m enjoying it so far, I think their content is definitely getting better and better. Starting the event off with combat is always a good thing.

Elbegast.6970:

Vahkris.6847:

Elbegast.6970:

Vahkris.6847:

Honestly, I think players are focusing too much on the achievements and not enough on just playing the game.

Achievements have become the entirety of the game. Go try to kill the bosses in Orr or ask for a group to do Arah Story Mode. You won’t find anyone because they are all outside chasing balloons. ArenaNet is moving piles of populace to new locations each week while leaving the majority of the world as empty as Kessex Peak from Guild Wars 1.

The release just dropped, it’s not surprising you don’t see players doing pre-existing content when new content is now here. Everyone’s checking it out.

Outside of this, I certainly do see people killing the bosses in Orr.

Yes, it just dropped, I already have 9/16 achievements and I’m finished with this update. I have no need nor desire to log on until the next content update. Even then, I will log on only long enough to grab the new back item or perma-toy and repeat the cycle over again.

And in regards to the Orr bosses, your server must be far more active than mine. Orr is dead for me, no pun intended.

Awesome, good for you. Take advantage of the no subscription fee and only play when you like it. There’s something every two weeks so you’ll have plenty of opportunities to see if something grabs your interest. Whatever’s fun for you.

Kal Spiro.9745:

Vahkris.6847:

I think it’s ironic that many players point to Flame and Frost as a really good example of how to do the Living World updates…when people seem to forget the massive amount of complaining that occurred since there were very few things to do over 4 months. It makes me wonder if all of them were there from the beginning or if they just showed up in the last month to do all the content that had been added in the previous three months.

There was a dungeon people liked. That’s all they remember. F&F as an event, though, was much MUCH worse than this. It was all concentrated in two low level zones. Nothing much happened, and there was almost no explanation of what was happening. All it had going for it was a good dungeon that people liked.

I find the events since then to be significantly improved overall.

Same here. All we need is a method to replay older content (rewards not as necessary…maybe have it provide scraps towards the previous weapon sets) and things will be even better. Someone could come back after 5 months, play through all 10 releases, and be caught up.

AcidicVision.5498:

But traditionally quests are a trail of breadcrumbs. They give you experience boots and lead you to the next area where you will find more quests.

Kinda, but that’s overstating how often they were originally used as such. Setting aside that “traditional questing” only really began in 2004 (previous games had quests but there generally wasn’t the massive emphasis on them), even in WoW and other MMOs like EQ2 only certain quests were breadcrumbs. The others usually sent you to complete a task, and then brought you back to the same NPC after that one task was completed. Developers used certain quests at certain points, specifically using the third part of what I listed above, to send you to another area, but the rest (IMO the majority) were usually generic tasks to give you something to do.

Originally, sometimes there’d even be a breadcrumb quest before you finished the questing in the area you were in, because they weren’t meant to guide you in a linear fashion through an area to follow a story, but were merely a way to entice players to go to one of the other areas for their level. In fact, it took a couple years after the 2004 era of MMOs before quests became the extremely guided mechanic they have become, leading players around every area by the nose instead of letting them explore and discover.

zhorak.8254:

No, it should be there, when the airship arrives, or after the pirates are defeated. I’m pretty sure, but maybe I don’t remember.

The dialogue I gave was when the airship arrives, and later on you’ll find the conversation after the event is over where she fills you in on what the Aetherblades did in Dragon Bash.

Anise: Forgive my curtness, but I’m currently preoccupied with Her Majesty’s safety.
Player: You seem well-informed. What can you tell me about these thugs?
Anise: The Aetherblades were involved in the murder of a Ship’s Councilor in Lion’s Arch. They appear to have found their way here, better organized and funded than ever.
Player: Who could be backing them?
Anise: Unknown. Though I’ve seen a mysterious figure here today that has me concerned. Sneaking in a saboteur with advanced technical savvy is exactly what I’d do.

Doesn’t seem like she’s met them, unless I missed something. Maybe you read “I’ve seen” as “I’ve met”?

Elbegast.6970:

Vahkris.6847:

Honestly, I think players are focusing too much on the achievements and not enough on just playing the game.

Achievements have become the entirety of the game. Go try to kill the bosses in Orr or ask for a group to do Arah Story Mode. You won’t find anyone because they are all outside chasing balloons. ArenaNet is moving piles of populace to new locations each week while leaving the majority of the world as empty as Kessex Peak from Guild Wars 1.

The release just dropped, it’s not surprising you don’t see players doing pre-existing content when new content is now here. Everyone’s checking it out.

Outside of this, I certainly do see people killing the bosses in Orr.

Updated post to include available content

zhorak.8254:

Vahkris.6847:

To clarify this point, she says:

Lord Faren: Ah, I hate to be the bearer of more bad news, but we’ve got party crashers. Trust me, I’ve seen this kind of thing before.
Countess Anise: Not like this, you haven’t. Those are the Aetherblade pirates that have been causing trouble in Lion’s Arch.

I know, I checked it before I posted it here, but I remember that I saw she says she met them once. But maybe you are right.

We have (most of, missing variations) the dialogue here: Opening Ceremony Attendee so let me know if something’s wrong, or if that statement is somewhere else perhaps?

I think it’s ironic that many players point to Flame and Frost as a really good example of how to do the Living World updates…when people seem to forget the massive amount of complaining that occurred since there were very few things to do over 4 months. It makes me wonder if all of them were there from the beginning or if they just showed up in the last month to do all the content that had been added in the previous three months.

Honestly, I think players are focusing too much on the achievements and not enough on just playing the game.

I’m having fun with this event so far. Clearly it’s not for everyone.

wookiee.4631:

EDIT: “Dragon Bakitten?” What’s wrong with the filter? Maybe it wasn’t too fond of DB either. lol

You put “Dragon Bash” and “it” together, didn’t you? It triggered on those last four letters, ignoring the space.

zhorak.8254:

But this is not enough to say, she is Scarlet, leader of the Aetherlames (or at least one of the leaders) and the Personal Nemesis. When the Aetherblades appeared, she mentioned that she already met them before.

Uhm, what? We have been fighting against them all the time in Lion’s Arch. I’m pretty sure we would have heard about a fight between the Shining Blade and the Aetherblades anywhere.

To clarify this point, she says:

Lord Faren: Ah, I hate to be the bearer of more bad news, but we’ve got party crashers. Trust me, I’ve seen this kind of thing before.
Countess Anise: Not like this, you haven’t. Those are the Aetherblade pirates that have been causing trouble in Lion’s Arch.

She isn’t saying she’s dealt with them, just that she knows about them. This isn’t a stretch of the imagination considering she’s the leader of the Shining Blade (and is essentially the Krytan spymaster) and quite honestly should know about them since they were involved in an assassination of one of the Captain’s Council. Logan knew about that, it’s hard to believe Anise didn’t know even more.

And besides, it’s not a good assumption that we would have heard about a fight between the Aetherblades and the Shining Blade. The Shining Blade perform several covert operations and spying, after all.

Of course, the story could be taking an even different turn with her being replaced somehow. We’ll have to see.

Queen’s Sacrifice (although that would make next year’s festival pretty gloomy, unless you went the Ultima 6 route with the term)
Queen’s Surrender
Queen’s Sanctuary

…

Queen Scarlet? Scarlet takes over Divinity’s Reach?

The Q could also (possibly, but unlikely) change to a different word, like Quiet or Questionable.

Lethalvriend.1723:

The portals leading to the other capitals in LA do point towards the cities they lead to, perhaps not 100% accurate but they do. The extra portals are also inactive on Ring of Fire.

As someone said, the Grove’s portal points straight south towards Orr, whereas the Grove itself is to the southwest. Black Citadel’s portal points SE, whereas the city itself is directly west.

Sinifair.1026:

Vahkris.6847:

More accurately, they’re a method of tracking tasks to accomplish.

Your basic modern quest is merely a task for your character to do, it’s just tied to a tracking system where you:
1. Interact with something to show your interest.
2. Accept the task.
3. After finishing, turn it in, possibly for reward.

Achievements do the same thing, it’s just you’ve had the task available and tracked from the beginning without the above steps.

So basically, achievements have ALWAYS been basic quests…because they’re doing the exact same thing, just without as much busywork. They’re all just tasks to do though, we just call them something else.

The quests work as a form of storytelling, which in RPG’s have NEVER been a bad thing. Storytelling is never bad, it adds depth to the world.
- It’s a matter of having some depth to the world and the reason behind doing stuff. This is no longer your character on an epic quest through the world, you just kill stuff because “I’m counting how many spiders I’ve killed. 1.000! Success! Nobody else could do that! What an achievement!” – and that doesn’t add anything epic to the game.
- C’mon, I don’t mind the achievement system and the rewards that come with it, but these are not achievements.
- When it comes to questing and getting lore about the world and what has happened in the past 250, there must be a better way of doing it than the wiki and gw2 homepage and a panel in the game like this (There exists better game design than this already, and it is a matter of expanding upon that or re-arranging it to become something new and innovative)

Quests can work as a form of storytelling, but they do not intrinsically do so. Developers have to choose to add storytelling. They can also very easily be just someone giving you the required task steps with no story. Achievements can also be lore-filled, on the other hand, if developers choose to do so, by having the gaining of those achievements provide you with lore.

Lord Erik.6903:

Sorry I couldn’t resist posting this.
On a side note does Kiel inherit Ashford’s ship, or does she have a ship, does she get a Lionguard galleon, or what?

She was given the Aetherblade airship you see at the end of the Aetherblade Retreat dungeon. That’s her ship.

ColinJohanson.2394:

We’re also looking into options that would allow players to experience the story sequences that will go away as the story moves forward for those who missed them, but this is still a ways off as we look at various options.

Since you guys work and see this game almost every day, take it from me: you cannot imagine how necessary this system is if you want to continue doing story-based content updates every two weeks. Maybe you think you know it is something really needed, but however much that is…it’s still actually higher than you think. We may not get the “is this content temporary or permanent” later (although I have my doubts because as long as something is going to go away, that question will still be asked), but we will still get questions on “who is this guy and why is he important” because we can’t replay the story events.

Sometimes the simplest solution is often the best, however. For Flame and Frost you guys had recap NPCs to rewatch several story instances. It’s crude, but at least it’d be in-game and not just a text blurb on the wiki (that page should be more for review than learning about it for the first time). A later system can be implemented to replay and track previous living world content, even…

ANet employees were split on who they wanted to win.

More accurately, they’re a method of tracking tasks to accomplish.

Your basic modern quest is merely a task for your character to do, it’s just tied to a tracking system where you:
1. Interact with something to show your interest.
2. Accept the task.
3. After finishing, turn it in, possibly for reward.

Achievements do the same thing, it’s just you’ve had the task available and tracked from the beginning without the above steps.

So basically, achievements have ALWAYS been basic quests…because they’re doing the exact same thing, just without as much busywork. They’re all just tasks to do though, we just call them something else.

If you like Guild Wars 2 and want to see how everything plays out, but have little time to play (I get maybe 2-4 hours per week…if I’m lucky and nothing important comes up), the Living Story is exhausting, yes. If you take a break, even for a couple weeks due to RL situations, you can’t witness the events first-hand, so you feel like you’re going to miss a lot, so it’s either push yourself to play all the time or miss out on what’s going on.

If you keep missing what’s going on, there’s less incentive to jump back in since now the story is building off of previous releases that you can’t experience. It creates more and more players who have less interest in the story that’s been building because they have no idea who these characters are or why these enemies are even worthwhile, forcing devs to make content shallow enough for anyone to jump in. Posts will continue to pop up asking “who are these characters and why should I care?”.

We’re trying to mitigate some of this with our Living Story Summary but honestly, it’s not going to be enough after a point. Too many short content pieces that you can’t replay, too many events happening that you’ll have to only read about and not experience. Having the dungeon in the fractal just won’t be enough either because there’s story instances that aren’t being kept. It’s becoming less and less possible for fans to justify why the content is removed, I can only imagine it’s a technical hurdle that allows them to have such overlapping development streams (don’t have to worry about the new code coming in before yours because it’s going away).

TV shows, especially the heavy story-arc ones, get released on DVD and have re-runs for a reason, and the same issue is happening here. This needs to be a huge priority to replay these older content so players don’t feel like it’s “play it or lose it”, emphasis on the lose it.

This will be the first time I don’t get the meta achievements done, and I’m feeling like I don’t care about the achievements anymore because I can’t keep up.

I love this game, but in a year we will have 24 content releases happening…and absolutely no way to experience the story that has developed in that time if things keep going this way. I can actually go over to say, EverQuest 2, and replay most of their added content over the past 7 years. This should not be an advantage other MMOs have over GW2.

Added info about the Zephyr Rucksack and Desert Rose backpieces remaining.

On the other hand, they could be making it where all four are going to be available, but each day there’s going to be a focus on a specific activity (say, the daily achievement has items for that specific activity) to drive players to that one.

Yes, that’s the gravestone for the sylvari Personal Story step Loved and Lost.

AncientYs.8613:

Rainbow Sprint.3215:

It’s been confirmed that the stuff in your bank will automatically be deposited in the wallet upon log in. In addition each character will need to be logged in to after the update to add their funds to the account wallet.

This includes gold, karma, laurels (which are account wide already), dungeon tokens, and badges of honor.

Karma was never accountbound and nobody is sure if it will become account bound when wallet comes along but i hope it will be

It will, been confirmed already. Everything (that is affected) is becoming account-wide and will work like existing currencies of gold, karma, gems, and glory.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/livingworld/jubilee/Token-Wallet-Thank-you-a-net/page/3#post2522636

BigMoser.8790:

Would you guys like it if there was a LS content where they didn’t give you any information beforehand?

Just a big “?”, like something is going to go down but no one knows what. The things that they would update might be put on the page, like things they discussed during the blog for the second half of the year.

So secret and evil that even Dulfy wouldn’t get a preview look (meaning not allowed to test it out)

This thread is sooooooooooo Random, so just throwing it out there.

I think it’d be neat to have a whole release where it’s all about discovering this completing brand new area and exploring it (like adding a massive underground cave system), but they’d need to make sure their systems were in place in-game to provide guidance.

FYI, as far as I know Dulfy getting a preview look was really only happening for a couple releases (Sky Pirates and Bazaar). All the other times she’d get in at release and gather the info quickly and/or other players would be sending her info.

Obsidian.1328:

Vahkris.6847:

Obsidian.1328:

Dondarrion.2748:

notorious bob.2061:

Right now, GW2 isn’t a sequel to Guild Wars…

Yes it is, notice the 2 after the GW, and it’s the same company who made both and they say so. You may feel stuff has changed, but it’s the sequel to GW alright!

The people that made GW1 aren’t with ANet anymore.

Not entirely correct, but either way that doesn’t stop it from being a sequel.

True, but over 90% gone is a valid qualifier. Either way, it does stop it from being a spiritual sequel, however.

It’s really a brand new game with a “Guild Wars” label slapped on it.

It doesn’t change the fact it’s intended to be the next step in the storyline, same world, same lore. You may not like it or the way they’re doing things, but it’s definitely a sequel to Guild Wars.

MadDawg.8920:

If so, where? The wiki says to find Moto in the Creator’s Commons area in Rata Sum, but I can’t find him.

More importantly, I want to know if I can spend my remaining baubles somewhere.

Thanks!

Oh, Moto himself is gone? Last I checked he was still there (haven’t been there in a while), but just wasn’t allowing you to buy anything. I’ll check and update wiki when I can get in-game.

Quarktastic.1027:

Vahkris.6847:

Bear in mind that Zhaitan rose over 100 years ago in-game, and Primordus rose over 200 years ago. These guys have been around for quite some time, so devouring the world obviously takes a while.

And…the world still held parties during this time.

I thought it was Zhaitan who rose first. From what I understand, Primordus was the last of the elder dragons to awaken, due to the events which forestalled its awakening in GW:EN.

Otherwise, why does Zhaitan have such a large foothold in Tyria, while primordus has nothing more than a few isolated groups of destroyers? Don’t get me wrong, destroyers are almost as numerous as risen, but Primordus has nothing compared to Orr.

Primordus’s awakening was delayed, but only for 42 years. He was supposed to awaken in 1078 AE (around the end of GW:Eye of the North), but was delayed to 1120 AE due to us killing the Great Destroyer.

Jormag awoke in 1165 AE. Zhaitan awoke in 1219 AE, and finally Kralkatorrik awoke in 1320 AE…5 years prior to the start of GW2. The deep sea dragon woke somewhere at some point.

I may be wrong, but I think Zhaitan hasn’t been doing much because he’s been sitting there absorbing all the energy from the artifacts in Orr.

BobbyStein.2315:

I can empathize with having a busy life and not always being able to fit my gaming schedule in between work, home life, and social commitments. Your comments are not lost on us.

We’re exploring some ideas for the future, including a system that would allow certain bits of Living World content to be accessed independent of the release. Plans and designs have not been solidified yet, so I want to temper your expectations. But if you have any opinions on the matter feel free to let us know. We’re already looking at ways to leave some LW content behind to evolve Tyria and improve the game. This would be one element of it, should we decide to build such a feature.

As far as the instanced content is concerned, you could always bring back these NPCs:

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Refugee_%28Living_Story_Recap%29
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Warrior_%28NPC%29

And create other NPCs that accomplish the same thing for the other story instances for other releases. As far as the non-instanced setup, yeah…you’d either need a new system or build a new story instance to house them.

You could even design stuff like this going forward, where the initial event is Live like Lost Shores, but after it finishes you can play it anytime via story instances. Players complain a lot less about missing one-time events if they can play it later whenever they want through instances and get the same rewards. I think we really just want the game to grow instead of expand/contract like it’s been doing, and leaving permanent content behind is a good start but we definitely need the actual story content in there somehow so future players or those that decided to take a break feel like they can come back and still see everything…instead of feeling like they’ve missed so much it’s not worth it to come back.

Obsidian.1328:

Dondarrion.2748:

notorious bob.2061:

Right now, GW2 isn’t a sequel to Guild Wars…

Yes it is, notice the 2 after the GW, and it’s the same company who made both and they say so. You may feel stuff has changed, but it’s the sequel to GW alright!

The people that made GW1 aren’t with ANet anymore.

Not entirely correct, but either way that doesn’t stop it from being a sequel.

Wayshuba.5912:

Where are you getting the art district from?

It is obvious from the screenshots that the arena is going to be located where the Great Collapse is. Look at the left side split roof overhangs. These only exist today at the border of the Great Collapse.

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Gossiping_Citizen#The_Great_Collapse

The Great Collapse used to be the arts district, with theaters and craftsmen and entertainment.

Shiren.9532:

Uvatha.5476:

This LS has the community more immersed than any content thus far. In the forums there are heated debates over which candidate players prefer, their concerns on the impact of the electoral choices, people actually role playing debating sides on the forum and in game, people concerned with lore past and present, and even some joking posts that just have fun with the political atmosphere (references to Anthony Weiner, candidate slam posts, speculation). We’ve even seen more devs reply to posts concerning this LS than we’ve seen with most content which also shows they’re excited about what’s happening and just as into it as we are.

Immersion is being vested in the game you’re playing emotionally, being concerned with it’s future, and caring about your character and events. I feel this time around they’ve nailed it on the head and got a great player response.

LS since F&F has been nothing but improving. I think you’re looking at Flame and Frost with rose colored glasses cause the way I remember it there was a sign fixing quest that was finished in 20 minutes in January and then no more until February. At that time people liked the idea of the LS but they gave us too little to do with enormous gaps of time between the release of more things to do in said living story. It was a hurry up and wait situation and these days it’s a lot better than Flame and Frost was.

The election is a one trick pony. If we kept having elections players would run away in droves. The interest you are talking about is a consequence of giving players a real choice over the future of the game (despite it being relatively minor). Players aren’t truly engaged by the story, they are engaged by the choice. Once they were invested in either side, other things developed around that (to the point where players were arguing for against characters not because they cared about those character but because they chose a side). Also note that this is the holidays in some parts of the world, so player participation is going to be higher this month than most.

It’s not the story that engaged people this month, it’s the choice.

Seems like a chicken or egg situation to me.

Pavees.7281:

Gasoline.2570:

It was cantha district and ncsoft wanted it out.

They created a story for it.

Thaz that. It’s nothing more.

It had a story with ingame npcs verifying it’s existence as the canthan district. 1 npc even calling it the canthan district(there’s a topic with exact details somewhere in the forums i believe somewhere in the living story forum parts). Anet mods put their fingers in their ears and blantantly lied when ingame dialogue said otherwise.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/livingworld/cutthroat/New-thing-in-Great-Collapse/first#post2473621 scroll down to konig’s post. Anet has problems showing respect to the very lore and content that even gave them an excuse to make a gw2. It’s one thing to turn the mirror but spitting on stuff is entirely different.

don’t get me wrong i love playing gw2 but it’s sad i have to tolerate bad story decisions when their company has shown the ability to do more then just blog and retcon and make parties and minigames cough war in kryta cough,

Note that Konig doesn’t actually quote dialogue stating that this particular area was the Canthan district…just a quote that says there’s a “Canthan area” somewhere in Divinity’s Reach, and referencing a pre-release interview where, if you listen to it, Ree seems to dance around actually calling it a Canthan district until she finally says it. Note that the developers have always maintained that anything could change prior to release…what matters is what’s in the game at release and all I can find is references to an arts district.

I keep hearing people say there are NPCs that state this area was the Canthan district, but I cannot find them in-game, only ones that say it was an arts district. If someone could point those out, that’d be great. It could very well be that they were forgotten after the change to the Great Collapse and hadn’t been tracked down until sometime post-launch.

Onshidesigns.1069:

skullmount.1758:

Onshidesigns.1069:

I think the crown pavilion is obviously periment content. Look at it, it’s a complete redesign of the district.

Unless it collapses again at the end of the two weeks/month…

Anet didn’t have a use for the collapse district. They had to put something pertinent their to fill in the space from the scrubbed arts district.

What I would like to know is what Anet original plans for the area was.

Best we know, at some point prior to launch it was the location of a Canthan district (a counterpart to the Elonian and Ascalonian districts). We’ve heard (comments to a podcast from one arenanet developer who may or may not know the whole story himself) that the way ArenaNet was designing the Canthan art style caused problems with some higher-ups due to the mix of different styles, and ArenaNet didn’t have time to completely redo the entire art style to fix it and replace everything before launch, so they chose to remove it and put The Great Collapse there instead, with it (in-game) previously being an Arts district.

Players tend to confuse the in-game history of the area with the development history of the area. However, we do not know everything about what happened, nor the current state of affairs with the whole situation (and honestly anyone saying otherwise is trying to sell you something).

There’s several threads (including a big Cantha one) discussing this in more detail, so hopefully we won’t derail this topic.

Chadramar.8156:

Cheers! I should have checked the wiki, eh?

If memory serves, that verse is sung by someone close to the “entrance” of the airship. I heard it twice when idling near the Sanctum Sprint person.

I found a source, it may actually be one of the first lines. I’ve updated the wiki.

We’ve collected most here, I think: http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Zephyrite_%28NPC%29#Zephyrite_Song

I’ve never seen that last verse of yours.

tencoderiot.6430:

When is candidate trials going out? I can’t find any info on it.

August 6th, when the new patch is released. However, the election itself ends the 5th, so it’s possible the Trials might end then.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/livingworld/cutthroat/BotFW-CP-Achievement-and-Content-Deadlines/first

It’s very likely the backdrop for it…or rather, the in-game explanation for the celebration. The August 20th release will probably have the specific GW2 anniversary stuff for players, whatever that might be (if anything).

Nilkemia.8507:

Seriously, are they doing anything about that? I’m starting to think the dragons may have learned from the last time that eating everything completely wasn’t a good idea, and are just consuming in moderation…but that’d be giving them too much credit.

Or maybe they got bored and just send up their minions for amusement. Maybe they found “nirvana” or whatever and decided they didn’t need to eat everything to be happy.

Ok, in all seriousness, I am wondering when we’re actually going to do something about that, because it’s like the world has forgotten they’re still out there. Or do the dragons have to attack Lion’s Arch before anyone notices? Sigh.

“We could attack and wreck everything while they’re celebrating again…but that’s too much work. Leave it to our minions, they’ll figure something out.”

Bear in mind that Zhaitan rose over 100 years ago in-game, and Primordus rose over 200 years ago. These guys have been around for quite some time, so devouring the world obviously takes a while.

And…the world still held parties during this time.

The GW2 Wiki is collecting an ongoing summary of each release of the Living World, tracking the story of each release so far as well as character development and player actions.

Living World Summary

As always, the wiki is updated and populated by players for players, so if you are able to add or correct any information for the Living World, it would be very much appreciated.

Thank you.

wookiee.4631:

Vahkris.6847:

The real question for me is which content is permanent and which content is temporary. The Crown Pavilion may be permanent (unless something happens to destroy it again), but is the Queen’s Gauntlet also? The Sovereign weapons?

The Wiki has a list of things in permanent and temporary categories. Until release you’ll have to take what’s there with a grain of salt.

Oddly enough, Queen’s Jubilee doesn’t have a temporary category, it has a TBD category instead, which I assume stands for To Be Decided. Only a guess, though. The pavilion is listed under that weird category. I hope it’s permanent. Why rebuild the Great Collapse just to shut it down again?

Yup, we moved it there because we don’t actually know if it’s remaining or not…because we haven’t gotten this info yet. That’s what questions like mine are trying to find out. At first we were leaving it temporary until confirmed permanent, but it was moved to TBD to be safer.

Per several requests, I’m moving the info from my posts above to the wiki page: http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Living_World_Summary

I was already working on it, but went ahead and just added the ones that were missing. I’ll update the others if something is missing.

JonPeters.5630:

Redscope.6215:

In an effort to stay on topic, the only reason I can see why they haven’t made two upgrade slots for two-handed weapons is because all gear has only one upgrade slot period.

It will be interesting to see what they do with ascended weaponry and armor. Maybe they will finally alleviate this situation. Or at least give an equal stat bonus from two-handed weapons when compared to using two weapons.

You are correct. This was a technical drawback from the initial implementation of the system that we did not have the bandwidth undo. In order to do I now would require a significant rework of many other things. Not something I would rule out but something we would weigh considerably which means don’t expect it soon.

Wouldn’t implementing such a system allow Ascended gear to have both an upgrade slot and an infusion slot? I think that would be a good benefit as well.

AnthonyOrdon.3926:

The Crown Pavilion makes up the bulk of the content and it’s not a mini-game. It’s a public map roughly the size of Mad King Labyrinth.

The real question for me is which content is permanent and which content is temporary. The Crown Pavilion may be permanent (unless something happens to destroy it again), but is the Queen’s Gauntlet also? The Sovereign weapons?

Solo queue is so individual players can join PvP without being matched up against pre-made teams (you’ll be matched against other solo queue players). Currently both solo and team players are put into the same queue, which can result in very badly balanced matches. This separates the team queues from the solo players so you don’t have that problem.

I’m assuming the wiki is going with the assumption that it’s temporary until we’re told otherwise, as the reverse is far more disruptive (saying it’s permanent and finding out it’s not), and we don’t actually know if the content within the Pavilion will remain even if the building itself is permanent.

I would think it’s permanent though, but who knows…there could be a massive explosion as part of the story and the whole thing collapses yet again.

It sounds like they’ll have mechanics in place to make it harder for those that want a challenge (the gambit conditions), so I don’t know that the default would necessarily be high difficulty in the first place.

I’m hoping it’s like Obsidian Sanctum…a zone within DR, but still public.

Unknown, everything says “Begins on”. However, going from previous releases, and the fact that this is very likely the in-game explanation for the GW2 1-year anniversary in August, I’d say it’ll likely be here until September 3rd (four weeks after 8/6). No idea on what all is permanent as far as the Living World content goes, but it’s likely the pavilion itself will remain unless some story event destroys it again (which, admit it, would probably look pretty awesome).

I made a “content and achievement deadline” post for CP, I’ll probably do the same for this release.

Mia Lunarfang.5826:

Vahkris.6847:

Mia Lunarfang.5826:

Getefix.9150:

bazaar of 4 winds wasnt a festival, its a part of living story
dragonbash was for july 4th
queens jubilee will be for gw2’s anniversary – they arent just doing these for the hell of it, theres a reason behind them

All three of what you listed are part of living story, not just the bazaar… and yes, a bazaar is a festival. All we’ve done in this chapter, excluding the trials, are festival activities. There was little to no story content at all.

The bazaar was less a festival and more just a gathering of traders and merchants. What exactly was the bazaar celebrating, if it was a festival? Most kite day celebrations are earlier in the year. I don’t exactly recall doing any particular festival activities. Sanctum Sprint felt more like a mini-game than a part of a festival, and it’s staying permanently anyway so it’s not really related to a festival.

-facepalm- ‘what exactly was the bazaar celebrating, if it was a festival?’ Celebrating trade; that’s what bazaars do. And Sanctum Sprint was introduced by the main traders of the festival, so you can’t say its not related, its practically their national sport. As for mini-games not being festive activities, when you go to a fair, how many mini-games are present?

How many of those festival minigames remain after the festival is over?

Celebrating trade? We already do that, it’s called the gem store and BLTC, that means we’re always celebrating trade, so we’re always in festival mode so this complaint is meaningless.

That’s a pretty vague reason to call it a festival. It never felt much like a festival to me, honestly. It was a large market.

Hell, the large trading area way back in the original EverQuest was called a Bazaar…certainly wasn’t any sort of festival. It’s a large trading place where merchants come together to sell and trade.

Look at it this way, this festival centers around a new gladiatorial arena, so I think we’re going to have a lot more fighting than activities.

Mia Lunarfang.5826:

Getefix.9150:

bazaar of 4 winds wasnt a festival, its a part of living story
dragonbash was for july 4th
queens jubilee will be for gw2’s anniversary – they arent just doing these for the hell of it, theres a reason behind them

All three of what you listed are part of living story, not just the bazaar… and yes, a bazaar is a festival. All we’ve done in this chapter, excluding the trials, are festival activities. There was little to no story content at all.

The bazaar was less a festival and more just a gathering of traders and merchants. What exactly was the bazaar celebrating, if it was a festival? Most kite day celebrations are earlier in the year. I don’t exactly recall doing any particular festival activities. Sanctum Sprint felt more like a mini-game than a part of a festival, and it’s staying permanently anyway so it’s not really related to a festival.