Guild Wars 2

I love this nonsensical dribble of “farmers” vs “real players”. I enjoy my daily pleasant Frostgorge run around slaying Dredge, Grawl, Skelks and the odd Claw of Jormag that pops in, it is called playing the game. I do it because it’s fun and I am earning money towards a special weapon, everything I sell on the TP I am adding to the community without people farming you “real players” wouldn’t have your bloody items to complain about being overpriced. I simply match the lowest seller, if people are willing to pay 30s for Ectos and 25s for Blood that is their choice not mine, I prefer to collect my own materials through, wait for it guys….FARMING! * gasp! *

Dr. Arch’s Tradingposten Syndrome

Auction houses have become a staple of MMOs and can be both rewarding and fun to use. That sense of satisfaction one makes from profiteering can be as energizing as killing a dragon and I feel GW2’s Trading Post, while very rough around the edges, is an extremely useful and integral tool. I do also believe however, that it has become a touch too invasive into a character’s journey in this world. With the game based around grand item crafting as its source of character progression (something I love), I suggest that the balance needs to be shifted slightly away from total market dominance and back towards good old fashioned adventuring. With nearly all items being purchasable, gold is the undeniable king of this game and while this is legitimate, it undermines an awful lot of the fantasy questing parts of what dragon hunting, RPG games are all about.

The return of the Soul-bound

A possible solution to this would be to add soul-bound materials to the game. An example would be to look at lodestones. These items are extremely hard to self collect despite gargantuan quantities being needed for many of the game’s more impressive items and while these items should indeed be very troublesome to acquire, the discrepancy in lodestone prices vastly impacts which of the similar items (Mjolnir, Volcanus, Winterbark etc) one chooses to go for.

If one were able to acquire items such as a Prismatic Lodestone that were soul-bound, neutral and attainable through say, the completion of all 3 paths of a dungeon each day or the completion of periodically resetting Zone Hearts, a more varied progression could be achieved towards your special item. These soul-bound stones would act as an additional lodestone to whichever type you have chosen to craft/mystic forge with as a bolster to those you have already purchased/found elsewhere.

For example:

1 Eldritch Scroll – 100 Mystic Coins – 1 Vial of Liquid Flame – 168 Molten Lodestones

In this craft of Volcanus, the person has fallen short of his Molten Lodestone count, but has collected 82 Prismatic Lodestones. When he adds these stones to the recipe they take the place of the missing Molten Lodestones and he can now craft his weapon. If he lacked all 250 Molten Lodestones but owned 250 Prismatic, perhaps they can be traded to Miyani for an equivalent number of soul-bound lodestones of his desire.

This would also give an added purpose and value to crafting, as many items (Destroyer Weapons, Runes, Sigils etc) require lodestones and could now be crafted for minimal (gold) expenditure on the player’s behalf and sold for a profit. Being a 400 Weaponsmith would have a visible benefit, rather than having to collect all the materials and weigh up whether it is cheaper to sell that mats and buy a pre-made item.

This system could be expanded to many crafting materials across the game, I merely used lodestones as an example.

Ideas for the future.

As an avid fan of this game, I am eager to see it evolve and develop in a manner that sees me become even more enamoured and engaged with its content. With this in mind I have fond that while many of the core principles of this MMO are excellent concepts, I feel they could be expanded in ways that would provide a more balanced experience.

Everyone likes to speculate and postulate on issues & solutions about their favourite films, games, books etc and for once I thought, “hell, why not post what you think and let it be shot down by the community” so here I go!

There are several areas that are on the cusp of excellence, but fall short for very minor reasons.

A grand, empty world.

With this enormous and gorgeous world Anet has created, this MMO has given me that sense of awe that I had not experienced since my first baby steps into WoW’s Azeroth all those many years ago. When I heard that my character would scale to keep all the content viable, it was immediately one of the overriding selling points for me and while they have recently made improvements to this aspect, with a few simple alterations they could fulfill this goal to the maximum.

Lost Satchels & Beasts’ Stomachs.

The addition of normalized loot bags across all zones, based on one’s level would take a massive step to rectify the limited high-end zone problem. The implementation of generic loot bags (in addition to those dropped by specific mobs, Miners Bags, Trinket Bags, Moldy Bags etc) that drop equally from monsters (stomachs) and humanoid enemies (satchels) would add a viable incentive to kill and explore zones of lower levels. They would include tier appropriate random crafting materials and items (including lodestones) that have no mob based bias, that scale according to your level regardless of zone.

An example of their implementation:

Character Level/Satchel & Stomach value
0 – 20 Tier 1
20 – 40 Tier 2
40 – 50 Tier 3
50 – 60 Tier 4
60 – 70 Tier 5
70 – 80 Tier 6

The drop rate would be a reasonable one that is reduced based on your relative level to the zone in which you are currently fighting. For example a level 80 player in a starting zone would still receive Tier 6 Satchels & Stomachs, however his drop chance would be impacted to say 3% rather than the 12% chance he may have against level 80 enemies.

Lucas Ashrock.8675:

I guess the bug he’s talking about is wielding it, sometimes it’s just an axe without flames. Like if Vulcanus doesn’t do flames, but just a red/yellow blade.

That is what I was wondering, however if that is the case how can you/he be sure that the flame effect is even intended to be there? Considering the big difference in material costs between Titans’ Vengeance and Volcanus, it doesn’t look likely it would have the same flair.

Edit: It would be good if an Anet rep could clear up whether there is any issue with this weapon or if it is indeed working as intended just to set out minds at ease! Thanks.

Gramerr.4790:

I can confirm that the following recipe: 1 Scroll + 50 Coins + 50 Molten Lodestones + 50 Destroyer Lodestones ends up being the Titan’s Vengeance axe. That said there is currently a strange bug with the axe causing the flame effect to not work.

Gramerr you are a scholar and a gentleman, thank you! Can you explain a bit about the bug, do you mean it doesn’t “smolder” passively or that there are no fire effects on weapon attacks i.e. it is supposed to replace your skill animations and it doesn’t? If it is the latter how do you know it is a bug or are you just guessing? Thanks for trying it out and confirming buddy much appreciated!

Foehn.2489:

I wondered too from their blog post – “You’ll also see more Legendary items in the future and an update to our existing Legendary weapons.”

Do they mean updates as in only the stats from exotic to ascended as mentioned, or visual/effects update as well.

They may very well add more effects, but I am fairly certain that post was simply related to what they continued to talk about, which was peoples’ fears over their legendary weapon’s effectiveness stat-wise becoming obsolete.

Azelroth is completely correct in my opinion. Too much of today is about instant gratification and obsessional goal achievement that I think the pleasure in the journey is being left by the wayside. I don’t see myself ever managing a legendary so I have set my aim to get Volcanus as I feel it is more attainable and try to set myself little daily targets. I can then enjoy WvW or instance runs etc without that sense of “wasted Volcanus hunting time” impacting on my experience.

The satisfaction when you guys get it should be all the sweeter and hopefully you’ll still be enthused about Guild Wars enough to really enjoy your shiny toy!

Any update on this from anyone? Did you get a chance to try it out Toast?

Toast.6459:

250 of the stones or 50? If it’s just 50, I might grab the ingredients and toss it in to let you know if thats right.

The one on the wiki just lists 50 Molten Lodestones and 50 Destroyer Lodestones and I checked last night by putting in one of each of the ingredients so it is most certainly a recipe.

I myself am dying to find out more about this weapon, as axes are my favourite. I believe it may in fact be the 1 Scroll + 50 Coins + 50 Molten Lodestones + 50 Destroyer Lodestones, judging by the cost the person is trying to flog it for. If it required Liquid Flame you would think it would be at least over 200.

To add to that, no one seems to have posted any “in use” videos or pictures of it anywhere so it begs the question whether it affects weapon attack effects like Volcanus does? The axe conjured by ele’s doesn’t have any fire effects until swung so the preview wouldn’t help decide whether it has added bonuses or not. I don’t want to gamble/save up the money for one without confirmation about its bonuses as I am not the best at gaining money and am at an all time high currently!

Edit: The recipe I posted is listed on the Wiki as a second “Reaver of the Mists*” which ofc it isn’t so that is why I deduced it could be that one when considering the current price.

Edit2: Btw Anet, the OP has the correctly spelt name as his title, but the item in question is actually written as, “Titans’ Vengance” so you might want to fix that heh.

Hello people!

While running through the Gendaran Fields earlier this evening, my game crashed and has since locked me from entering the world. Every time I attempt to load my character, the game crashes a few seconds into the loading screen rendering my character inaccessible. I have tried verifying the game files with no result and am at a loss to solve the issue. Any help would be much appreciated!

P.S. I have attached the crash report as a txt file.