Guild Wars 2

When the expansion hits, every time you level up you will gain a mastery point.

There is little incentive for the developers to add something to levelling up now, as that will cause more frustration when it changes with the expansions’ release and players then complain that they don’t get “x” from levelling up.

I figure every single account was sent that mail about the Monuments error, regardless of whether they had every played GW1 or not (I received the mail, even though I was only at 3/50 for the rewards and had not exploited them).

I think the reason your beta character’s didn’t have them is because it could be considered a separate account (which therefore is an unlinked account to GW1) which then means you wouldn’t have any of the points towards it shown. However, you would still have the skins unlocked as when the account copy was made for the beta, it brought over the skins as well (which didn’t require a linked account).

Just my thought, I am only speculating.

That actually sounds like a neat idea.

Though the issue would be with PvP; players would then confuse certain skills for other skills, or not recognize skills entirely, which would give the casting player an advantage. In that example, the skins should then be disabled for PvP, or an option in graphics to set players’ skills to the standard visuals (much like we saw recently with a new option) in order to negate that problem.

But otherwise, it is an interesting suggestion, although I don’t know if it would take away from possible future elite specializations which might delve into “new visuals” of a profession. For example with the Reaper theme being, well, a “reaper” as opposed to a Necromancer.

Just to clarify, you have definitely applied the code to your main account, and not started a new account by mistake? And do you see 4 beta slots on your character select screen?

Otherwise, as dsslive stated, contacting support will be your best bet.

Edit: Also, I saw that it took some players up to 10 days before they got their extra slot, so there is some chance that yours might be coming very soon.

Those who had purchased the game before January 2015 are given a free character slot, on top of any other character slots that are offered from the Deluxe and Ultimate editions.

I recommend you skim through this blog, which details most of those additions.

Similarly, the expansion would have cost $50 regardless of whether the core game was included or not – the core game is a free edition to help new players into the franchise, and it is how all of ANets expansions will work in the future for Guild Wars 2.

I don’t think Season 2 is necessary if you want to play Heart of Thorns.

Season 2 offers story instances, new gear and items, and achievements. The new maps that were introduced with Season 2 don’t require Season 2 to be purchased in order for you to play in them – so I would expect you will still be able to access Maguuma without purchasing Season 2, since you can run through those maps.

However, the story will be rather disconnected if you don’t play through Season 2 before the expansion, as it covered quite a lot about Mordremoth and what is leading up to the expansion storyline.

Once you complete an entire episode, you should be able to replay that episode. Once you have clicked that, all of the story instances playable for that episode should appear in the map as purple star icons. If you go up to any of them, you will be able to enter that instance, regardless of whether it is actually what the episode is telling you to do.

So as you are already replaying the instances, you should simply be able to waltz right back up to a purple star and the replay option should appear for the story instance. You definitely don’t have to replay the entire episode to come back around to attempting the achievements.

xDOLPHIN.9167:

Thanks for the quick answers, but when I mentioned a BETA slot on my character select screen, that was from a few weeks ago where the beta wasn’t accessible. Now that it’s accessible the slot is no longer there

Check all of your characters to make sure that some of them didn’t take up the beta slot somehow, or that any past beta characters aren’t still taking up a slot. Otherwise, if you can’t see 4 open beta slots on character select, and you definitely pre-purchased, then I would contact support.

Edit: Also check what Kyban mentioned and that the slots aren’t hiding off to the side of your screen.

You are in the beta.

Those beta slots on your character select are the characters you can create which you can then play in the new zone with. It is only through those beta slots that you can experience the beta currently. So if you wish to have a go at the beta, create a new character using one of those beta slots, the Revenant should be available there also.

I find it quite likely that they will return at some point, but as to when it is difficult to say.

They did mention a while back that they are planning on re-releasing several older skins they took away from the store, so it is possible that they will bring back the wings when they bring back the older skins some time in Fall 2015.

Edit: Here is the quote about older skins returning to the store, which might see the return of the wings skins (I don’t know for sure):

“With the approach of summer and our pending return to Lion’s Arch, it’s time to clean house a bit and put a few things into storage. The Wintersday weapon set will be removed from vendors in one week, and the following items will no longer be regularly available in the Gem Store until next fall.” – Source

Edit2: I just re-read the wings sale page and found this, which tells us they are definitely returning in the future:

“We’re releasing future items early for one day only!” – Source

As far as I know, there has never been a statement about the class icons changing.

What might change is the character creation “profession choice image”, which might be updated to accommodate the new elite specializations (especially as they have the artwork already being shown in the twitter teases).

The purpose you propose is the main reason I would like to see an inspection added.

However, there is an alternate purpose which is likely the reason it won’t be implemented; if there were an inspection tool, you would see a lot more players kicking other players from groups simply because they weren’t “up to par” with their gear for example in dungeons or fractals.

As a result, this would worsen the experience for newer players that are learning the game, and it would certainly affect their decision to play certain types of content if they are kicked immediately upon joining for their first time, as well as possibly leaving the game as a whole if they determine the community is hostile.

Ferguson.2157:

Just make a copy of your regular char – its easy to do and just limited by exotic gears provided (ie those tasty ascended gears won’t be available).

Also, if you managed to put your ascended armors into the bank before the copy, they aren’t even limited to solely exotics – allowing you to re-create your regular characters exactly.

Duration of play does not alter the credibility of someone’s suggestion.

You will find just as many “narrow-minded” (as you say) suggestions from those who have played a profession for 1,000+ hours, as from those who have played it for 3 hours.

As for invitational CDI’s, those would not be fair; everyone should be free to have their own input to how they feel a profession should be changed. It seems elitist itself to prevent someone from suggesting if they have only a few hours of play time.

I doubt they would introduce a new tier of gear, as that would indicate a gear treadmill, which is something the developers have been keen to try and avoid. And if a new tier does come out, it would be likely in the form of legendary armour, which would be purely cosmetic and not differ stat-wise from ascended.

You should be fine with crafting the materials now.

phokus.8934:

I don’t really know what else to say other than there’s a severe lack of creativity over at ANet.

I see it in the opposite way. By putting the automatic loot in a mastery line, I find that far more creative than suddenly dropping it into a game.

Well, as far as I know, once you unlock that skin, it should be unlocked for the entire account.

As soon as I pre-purchased and got the skin, I consumed it and expected it to be unlocked for my account in the future when the skins can be used. But I don’t know this for a fact. I just assumed it would be like every other skin out there.

I expect that the reason you can’t use it on other beta characters is possible because each beta slot uses an individual copy of your original account, so if you unlock something on one beta character, it won’t be unlocked on any of the others. Though, I am speculating there.

Mor The Thief.9135:

I have only 1 question:

Do the bonuses from this mastery line are activated all the time even when you don’t activate mentor mode?

From the livestream, Josh clarified that the passive bonuses (such as auto loot and run speed in cities) will always be active as soon as the mastery rank is unlocked, even if you don’t have the mentor tag turned on.

It is part of the beta weekend; I don’t know if live characters can test it, but beta characters certainly can.

And it is a new system arriving with Heart of Thorns to provide incentive for returning to older maps.

I believe that when the developers re-added the old Lion’s Arch to the personal story, they added with it an old-style post processing to give it a nostalgic feel to those of us that remember the old one and to help let you know this takes place in the past, rather than present. So it is intended.

I’ll see if I can find the post on that.

Check back on your real characters to see if they have hit the 4,000 chest yet. Hopefully, the beta and real character achievement points were separate when the beta copy was made.

Gerrand.3085:

1) Will the “Pact Commander Masteries” be locked until one of our characters has reached the point in the vanilla story of becoming a pact commander.

2) Any plans in place to stop people trolling, or scamming, with the “newb friendly help” map marker?.

1) It doesn’t look like it will be locked, mainly as Season 2 wasn’t locked off if you had not completed the personal story (and that referenced the personal story a lot); if you have Heart of Thorns, you will almost certainly be able to rank up this mastery line without completing the original personal story.

2) From the livestream, they seemed to just hope that the majority of players won’t use it in a negative way. Of course, they did also mention that you can report players that are abusing the marker, but as to whether they are adding a new report option for that, I don’t know.

Those are given out on a weekly basis (every Friday I believe) with some players reporting that they got their extra slot after 10 days.

So if you still don’t receive yours after 10 days after pre-purchasing, I would contact support.

Those aren’t necessarily troll guilds.

Sometimes, a guild will collectively jump into Sparkfly Fen, announce that they will organize the map, but then discover that the map was filled up too fast and they can’t get all of their guildies into the map. Then they relog and try to find a new map that is empty.

Alternatively, I have found a few cases where an organizing guild would swap maps if someone outside of their guild placed banners and food down before the organizing guild had the chance, and they effectively rage quit onto another map.

As a side note, I highly doubt that a large guild of players would all be “trolls” solely intending to spoil large world bosses. A small group of players yes, but a full on guild, I doubt it.

The Dulfy notes picked up on the WvW auto-loot (though keep in mind it is not an official source, but is very reliable):

“The exception is WvW, since loot bags always spawns at your feet. If you waypoint, the loot will spawn at your location and should get immediately picked up.”

Source

That sounds to me like it will be turned on for WvW also.

As far as I know, they don’t.

I wasn’t a part of the previous betas, but I can expect feedback can be given both here on the forum and in-game through bug reports – hopefully someone from a past beta can clarify here.

For actual feedback on how something can be improved (as opposed to a simple bug), a good format for a feedback post can be found here.

LezardValeth.9453:

I’m still waiting for my veteran character slot. I got four/five beta slots but no regular one yet.

Those slots are given out in weekly batches, so when did you pre-purchase Heart of Thorns?

If it was less than a week ago, it should have arrived before the end of day 10.

If it was more than 10 days ago, I would contact support to see if they can add the slot.

As far as I know, the squad system is remaining the same upon the release of Heart of Thorns. Squads are there to help commanders keep tabs on how many players are alive or dead.

In regular PvE, having a feature like that will likely have little use, so I doubt it will become baseline, although the option of grouping larger than 5 without tagging up would be a relatively nice addition to keep tabs on your group (for example, your lane at the Vinewrath, or a defence group at a Tequatl turret, though, most organizing will already be tagged up there so that would be rendered moot).

Similarly, grouping with more than 5 people might become a thing with their unannounced “challenging group content” with Heart of Thorns, with a possible raid-esque form of content in some way, but I am speculating there.

We won’t know for certain until the blog post comes out of the engineer’s elite specialization.

With that said, I would think they would be tied specifically to the elite specialization (if they are unique enough) and therefore can only be used if you have that specialization equipped. But that’s just my thinking.

It’s always nice to have more options to spend laurels.

However, the transmutation charges did become a lot more easy to earn, through the log-in rewards system in December. Before that they were only found in PvP, map completion and opening black lion chests, which not everyone engages in doing.

So as to whether they would add another option of acquiring them when the had just recently done so, it seems a little too far of a stretch, especially as they are also providing some profit from the store.

Following on from what Khisanth said, you should hear this dialog on approaching Anise:

“Countess Anise: Stop. Don’t approach her. It’s an illusion. I am elsewhere. Find me, and we shall talk.”

I believe the true Anise was back near the starting point for that instance, up north under a bridge, so make sure you then talk to that one rather than the illusion.

I would expect there to be some new skins for all weights, but I don’t know that for a fact.

To me, it would seem very odd if they don’t add new skins other than the Revenant skin.

It has been suggested countless times before with no change, with Anet’s main reasoning being:

“Outfits give us a way to create highly stylized looks that aren’t constrained to armor slots or weight class. In addition to armor skins that are easier and cheaper to collect across characters and the account dye system we do believe the options across a players whole account are much more attractive now. You’ll see more outfits coming out this summer and additions to the game more often usable by your characters. We try not to allow too much ‘hoarder’ design where we just keep stacking more and more options on leaving lots of unsupported things hanging around. Yes, we do have to give up some of our current closet space and clothing to fit the new wardrobe in. Again, apologies for that.”

Source (Quite an old quote, so keep that in mind, their view may well have changed)

I could add some more to the discussion, but I recommend you read through the comments in all of the other countless threads on the topic:

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2
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Etc..

CorrynnStarr.7942:

yea, I have posted in that thread, but im seeing alot of information in that thread being talked about then what was released in that article. So i am trying to pin down whats fact and fiction here. like player generated waypoints?? player generated bosses? just trying to tie down whats fact here is all.

Hopefully we will find out everything with Points of Interest tomorrow, where they will be “showing it off”, possibly involving more or less everything they intend to implement with it.

Bear in mind this is not from an official source, and is likely to have some inaccuracies:

“My personal favourite of the old lines, however, is Pact Commander Mastery. This focuses on mentoring new players, and enables you to have a special icon over your head or in chat to indicate you’re happy to help others. Continuing along this path will also unlock the ability to revive allies faster based on how many levels lower than you they are, and even two features all Guild Wars 2 fans have desperately been waiting for – auto-loot and speed boosts in cities.”

Source

-“Special Icon” intended to help new players
-Increased revive speed against characters with a lower level than you (Scales depending on difference)
-Auto Loot (not sure if region specific)
-Increased run speed in cities

Also, you should join this thread for the discussion.

ColinJohanson.2394:

Not sure where this info came from on it taking the same amount of time as getting from levels 1-80 -> but simply put it’s incorrect as it is not an official source.

A) We haven’t decided how long it’ll take to earn them all, and are doing beta weekends to help decide a good time length.

B) Currently as timed in game today, it would take a good deal longer than that in total game hours to earn all the mastery lines.

Ultimately – check it out this weekend and let us know what you think!

Well that’s great to know! And that information was from the IGN post linked from the OP, so I had some small thought that it would not be entirely accurate.

Khenzo.2465:

But 3 legendaries?
…

Keep in mind that the new precursors will be acquired through a lengthy “scavenger hunt” style of collection achievement, and having to create that for every single new precursor will take a great amount of time.

Also note that they said they will be releasing more new legendaries as the story progresses.

(There was another thread talking about this here.) – Edit: This sentence is obsolete due to thread merge.

Some suggested it is taken as soon as you create the new bet character, but it is worth some testing when the weekend goes live.

Fernling.1729:

Oh my… 3 new legendaries are being added with the expansion. It really feels like this expansion is being super rushed. Most days I’m reminded that the $50 price tag isn’t justified.

They will be releasing more new legendaries as the story progresses; it is likely to prevent players from rushing through the mastery line and getting the entire set of new legendaries within a couple of weeks (or however long) and having no other “end-game cosmetic” to work towards.

I like the sound of the Pact Commander Mastery, although I hope some players don’t use the suggested “special icon” to troll newer players rather than help.

Also, I hope that collecting all of the masteries will actually take a little longer than originally leveling from 1 – 80, unless they are able to introduce new masteries a lot faster than when they expect players to be completing the original 7 masteries.

This type of content I always found enjoyable; “Barbarian Assault” in good old RuneScape, “Invasion” from Unreal Tournament, and of course as already mentioned, “Horde” in Gears of War.

I would love to see a similar form of mode for Guild Wars 2.

Stronghold access is for everyone.

However, only those who have pre-purchased Heart of Thorns will have access to all 3 champions, whereas those without it will only have 1:

“Players who pre-purchase Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns will have all currently revealed Mist Champions automatically unlocked for their use throughout the weekend.”

It is difficult to say, the blog post was very vague with regard to the Revenant:

“Players who have pre-purchased the expansion will see a new button appear on the character creation screen that allows them to create and play a fully geared, level-80 beta character of any race for the duration of the weekend.”

But as to whether or not that includes the new Revenant, I can’t know for certain. I do doubt that they will be ready though, as the last beta was not that long ago, and I don’t think the time frame was long enough for them to finish it for this beta.

But then again, I could be wrong.

As Season 1 was entirely temporary content, you do not have to have played that season prior to playing Season 2, nor the personal story (though personal story is recommended, as some dialog with reference events that occurred there).

With that said, if you have not logged in since before August 2014 and after February 2015, then it is likely you don’t have any of the 8 episodes unlocked for Season 2. But as Season 2 was introduced permanently, all you need to do is purchase each episode either separately from the Black Lion Trading Company for 250 gems each, or as a discounted bundle.

If you did log on between August 2014 and February 2015, you might have some of the Season 2 episodes already unlocked (at which the discount price will adjust accordingly).

Alternatively, you can tag along with another player that has all the episodes unlocked and play through the story instances with them (although you won’t get any of the loot or achievements).

They still have not announced what the Heart of Thorns “Challenging Content” is yet. There is some possibility it could be related to raid-style content, which are similar to dungeons.

Then again, it could be entirely unrelated.

The majority of Season 1 was temporary content, but all of Season 2 is permanent and purchasable from the Black Lion Trading Post for 250 gems (I think) per episode or a discounted bundle.

While the season was running its debut, if any player logged in even for a second while one episode was currently active, they would have received access to that episode for free permanently (which is likely the reason to why you have episode 5 unlocked but none of the others).

You can also play through the episodes by partying up with another player that has unlocked them if you don’t wish to purchase any episodes, so you can experience the story in preparation for Heart of Thorns.

Or alternatively, you can read on the story of Season 2 here instead.

The Guild Halls are introducing an “arena”, in which groups of players (in guild teams, or not) can battle against one another in up to 4 teams.

So some form of GvG is being introduced with Guild Halls. Though, it is not the same as from GW1 as far as I know.

Well… one can wish.

And then trolls would make human walls blocking off entrances to towers and the like.

I would also find that collision would make combat more stiff and clunky, not having nearly as much freedom of movement. The combat just doesn’t seem fit for GW2 to have player collision with other players.

But that’s just my opinion.