Guild Wars 2

Pity you can’t sell that Dark Matter. I’d love to buy some. XD I’m working (very, very) slowly towards my Ascended gear, but I calculated I’ll need 350 Dark Matter to craft Ascended variants for my main weapon sets and 1 set of Ascended armor for my 5 characters. That’s a lot of salvaged Exotics…

Take heart. The MMORPG interview revealed that the Marionette is hanging around for another 2 weeks after Feb 4, so you still have time to get the achievements.

The only reason I’d be OK with TC getting bumped up to T1 is that it might finally get us put as Red for a while so I can finish my mapping.

I’m actually not sure if the Charr even HAVE a name for their lands. Even modern Charr refer to their home as “Iron Legion territory”, or “Blood Legion homelands”. Whenever they refer to Ascalon, they refer to it as the fallen human kingdom, not as the name of the area they now inhabit.

It may be that the Charr do not so much name the places they hold as simply have a concept in their minds that “this is our land”. They give places names only so far as to make it easier for navigation and mapping. Charr land is just Charr land, if that makes any sense.

Are you on US servers? If so, go to Lornar’s Pass and find the Probe near the Refuge Peak waypoint. There’s usually always people in this map waiting for the next Marionette battle, so odds are there’ll be a few people to help with the Probe’s defenders.

Second, guest to Blackgate/Jade Quarry/Tarnished Coast. Those are the three biggest US servers, and whenever you guest to another server, the Probes are in the exact same spot. Odds are good that somebody has already destroyed the Probe, and you can just loot it. Log back out and guest to the next server, then repeat this for however many characters you have. You can easily acquire all 50 within half an hour using this method.

If you’re on a EU server, simply guest to whatever are the two biggest EU servers instead.

Nooooooooooooo! Keep Scarlet out of my beloved Super Adventure Box!

I use Sword/Shield as my main weapon set in PvE. It’s very, very versatile; you get 2 leaps to trigger auras for yourself (more useful in dungeons, since Warriors really have difficulty setting up combo fields for themselves), snares to keep enemies under control, an interrupt for special situations (I usually also slot Kick or Stomp for an extra CC), and a decently long block skill for emergency “Oh kitten ” moments.

The smaller Watchworks are hardly an issue if you have 2 competent players in the Siege Golems though. When the mobs spawn in, both players hit skill #2. They do enough damage that one more Ranger with Barrage or a Staff Ele with AoE fields can mop up easily.

I admit that when I clicked on this thread I was expecting something completely different… XD

Is that somewhere in Australia? Katoomba sounds like an Aboriginal name.

morrolan.9608:

Palador.2170:

I hate to say “give them a day”, but you really do need to give them a day.

Why? How did it get through QA in the first place? It isn’t hard to realise what the response would be.

While I do agree with you, I also have to agree with Palador where clamouring for a response is concerned. It took a day or two before we got an official response from ANet about the Flamekissed armor. It will take some time for the furor to propagate up the management chain, for them to get together in an emergency meeting, and discuss what to do about it. (As well they should. Any changes to the game should not be something done on a whim.) We probably won’t get an official response till tomorrow.

No, Bioware and BIS were separate developers, although they collaborated quite a bit on their early games using Bioware’s Infinity engine. Some BIS employees may have eventually joined Bioware, but I’m not sure about that.

And Aerie will always hold a special place in my heart. <3

Hey, a fellow TwentySided reader!

And yeah, I meant Jade Empire. It was never really that popular (a shame, really), but it’s got quite a dedicated fanbase.

Bioware stories tend to be fairly clichéd, with some minor twists here and there, but on the whole, they’re fairly predictable. (In fact, I think players have gotten so used to the classic “Hero saves the world, all is well” ending from Bioware games that when we DIDN’T get it in ME3, we lost our kitten. XD We buy their games FOR those kinds of endings.)

However, where Bioware excels is in character development. They have a real knack for getting you to form emotional attachments to their characters.

Yeah, the music is just a generic Maguuma region music. It plays primarily when you view vistas, but can sometimes be heard in the open world too in some areas. Particularly around Soren Draa.

Bellyboomer.3048:

Devs confirmed.
Scarlets plot will lead to a new profession: Meatzerker!

Only the one true warrior who wields the legendary Caladhog can lay claim to that title!

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

MithranArkanere.8957:

In other games you don’t see much of that. When male homosexuals appear in video games, they are usually single characters, and often either evil or untrustworthy, or comic relief.

. . . what about that guy in Mass Effect 3?

Bioware has a tradition of portraying LGBT characters in a fairly positive and welcoming light, and it’s one thing I have a lot of respect for them for. Most studios will skirt around the issue, or just leave LGBT characters out altogether, for fear of courting controversy, but Bioware often tackles things head-on. I believe they were the first company to make an RPG with a gay love interest (Jade Empire), but it mostly flew under the radar.

More likely it’s “Buy more Apples!”

Maybe I should hit you up for a TA run sometime, Lilith. I’ve done Forward, but not Up so far. (Done Aetherblade path, got all the achievements, NEVER GOING BACK IN THERE without a good reason.) You’re also on TC, which I am on!

Then again, I do like to have my dungeon runs to have a decent amount of fighting (I like killing stuff). So far my TA Forward groups have skipped the vast majority of enemies. It’s different from, say, CM or AC where even though some sections are skipped, there’s still portions where a good amount of slugging is required.

I completely agree with Vol and his supporters. This Watchwork Pick sets a dangerous precedent. This is a gem store item that offers a distinct benefit, however small, over anything that players can obtain through normal play. People might be looking at the prices for Sprockets now and going, “Pfft, that’s 30c. What’s the big deal?” But what will you say when the next sickle harvests Toxic Spores that currently sell for 3 silver? Or the next unlimited salvage kit has a chance to salvage +1 rare materials/Ectos/Dark Matter?

Or to go down a different path, if ANet released a gem store-only item that gave the player who bought it a 50% discount on all their waypoint fees forever, or a 25% discount on all future armor repairs, would you be crying foul? Monetarily speaking, that’s similar to what this pick offers.

I implore ANet to rethink this move and change the Watchwork Pick so it no longer gives bonus Sprockets. Gem store items should stick to offering only convenience and cosmetic advantages.

What about those who already paid 1000 gems for the Bone Pick or the Molten Pick back when they first became account bound?

I think that invulnerability/blocks does not count towards the achievement. You must either evade the attack, or not be in the area at all when the attack lands.

I think it’s a combination of rewards being frequently insufficient + lack of proper scaling. Sure, Tequatl and the GJW shouldn’t be soloable, or even 5-mannable, but a group of, say, 10-20 players who all know what to do should have a decent chance of beating the encounter. Requiring a minimum of 80+ players in the district is just asking too much. (That isn’t to say that Tequatl or future mega-bosses can’t scale up to be still challenging for 100+ players, but I feel they should be challenging for large zergs as well as small groups.)

Given the high amount of coordination required for Teq and the Wurm too, perhaps something like a guaranteed Exotic once per day for them might also entice players to keep attempting them at all available opportunities.

Yeah, I have to agree that it’s logical that Scarlet has been using the Mists as her main base of operations. Ever wondered HOW she managed to build all those airships and now her super-sized “UFO” and Marionette without anybody even knowing about it? She must have done so in a hidden pocket of the Mists.

I’m ambivalent about mixing PvE and WvW. I wasn’t a fan of how they shoehorned PvE achievements into WvW last time, but to be fair to ANet, they did at least get me into WvW, where I at least dabble a little now.

All the same, I can’t help but think WvW players will be cursing up a storm when they’re halfway through a big battle and SUDDENLY SCARLET INVASION!

Or just harvest the mats in the Mists. We can harvest nodes in WvW, after all.

Continue left past that gate and you’ll come to a wooden platform against the rock wall with a Veteran Dredge on it. (Be careful, since this Vet is usually a Dredge Oscillator and he has a knockback attack that can knock you off to platform to your death.) Near that dredge is a set of chain pulleys that opens the gate.

It’s a bug in the software. Contact Moto for assistance.

I’m afraid that’s where you’re wrong, Darc. Yes, they were initially sold for 800 gems back during Flame & Frost, Secret of Southsun and the Aetherblade Pirates release. People who bought them during their initial releases paid 800 gems.

Then, during November I believe, the tools got upgraded to be account bound by default. All 3 tools were put on sale for the new price of 1000 gems, and you can bet that lots of people bought them up during this period too.

More recently, all 3 tools were brought back again during New Year’s for 2250 gems, which technically equates to 750 gems each, but I’m discounting this because it was a special promotional offer for buying all 3 at once. The baseline price for the tools is now 1000 gems.

Which, to come back to the main point, means that the new Watchwork Pick costs exactly the same as the Molten Pick, but it offers advantages above and beyond what the old picks did.

DarcShriek.5829:

Everybody bought the first set of tools for 800 each. Most people bought second set of tools for 800. These cost 1000.

But the price of the tools went up to 1000 when they became account bound. Those of us (me included) who bought extra copies of the tools did so because we didn’t want the hassle of having to swap tools between characters. ANet furthermore gave us the option of getting a refund if we wanted to trade back our extra tools at the old 800 gems price. It was fair for all involved.

The stuff below is not directed at DarcShriek in particular:

Comparisons between this new pick and the boosters isn’t really the same. The boosters offer an in-game advantage, yes, but they are not usable in PvP and thus offer no “competitive” advantage. (Not to mention you can get boosters for “free” from Black Lion Chests and Achievement Chests.) The new pick DOES offer a small monetary advantage, and if prices for Sprockets somehow skyrockets in the future, it could turn into quite a windfall down the line.

If ANet released a gem store-only item that gave the player who bought it a 50% discount on all their waypoint fees forever, would you be crying foul? Monetarily speaking, that’s similar to what this pick offers.

I agree with Mystic and the others; the ability to salvage sprockets with the new pick should be removed. Gem store items should stick to offering only convenience and cosmetic advantages.

Yes, that’s exactly what I’m concerned about. The Watchwork Pick is the first gem store-only tool that offers a distinct in-game advantage over anything you can purchase normally. The previous tools offered only convenience and aesthetics.

Maybe, but this sets a bad precedent. I have no problem with new tools with different animations being released, but a new unlimited pick, for the same price as the previous ones, that gives EXTRA loot per swing? Why would we ever buy the old picks again? Or buy the tools now knowing that they could be superseded by future releases?

I really want someone from ANet to respond to this and let us know if this behaviour is intended.

I have to agree that this seems… unfair. :/ I have no problem with new tools with different animations being released, but a new unlimited pick, for the same price as the previous ones, that gives EXTRA loot per swing? Why would we ever buy the old picks again? Or buy the tools now knowing that they could be superseded by future releases?

John (or anyone else from ANet), can you confirm that this behaviour is intended?

I do follow this thread (as I do for all lore-related threads in the racial forums), but usually I don’t have much to add that people haven’t said already.

I’m not sure if Charr can eat a spoon of cinnamon, but my guess is that most would rather suffocate trying to choke it down rather than admit failure. It’s a tragic statistic of Charr legion hazing rituals every year. XD

I think that Charr tastebuds are much less discerning than humans, in any case. The fact that they love using lots of hot spices in their cooking suggests to me that they can’t taste subtle flavours very well and therefore compensate for it by using lots of strong, pungent spices.

@Obsidian: Just thought I’d point out that Charr are obligate carnivores. They can get all the nutrients they need by eating meat (they can apparently eat vegetables and spices, but they do so purely for flavour rather than nutritional need).

Humans on the other hand cannot subsist on a pure meat diet. I certainly don’t doubt that humans would have eaten Charr meat in times of desperation (also, meat from most carnivores tends to taste worse than that of herbivores), but it would not have been a viable long-term food source. They would still need to acquire cereals, fruit and vegetables, all of which would have been in very short supply, what with Adelbern refusing any aid from Kryta, and trade from the Shiverpeaks imperilled by the Dwarves’ civil war.

Not to mention that with Ascalon so devastated, their economy would have been reduced to rubble. They wouldn’t have been able to keep buying supplies from outside merchants forever.

Ironically, if Adelbern had let Rurik go with some of the survivors and set up settlements in Kryta, they MIGHT have been able to drag the war out to a stalemate if the new settlements continued to funnel weapons, soldiers and money back to Ascalon. This is, after all, exactly what happened with Ebonhawke after the Asura gate was built and Kryta continued to pour in money and resources to support them until the Charr finally agreed to a ceasefire. (Granted, that was due more to Kralkatorrik showing up and teaching everybody who was boss, but still!)

I think the main issue here is “accessibility”, and there are two main contributing factors:

1. You need to be in a very populated map to succeed at these large boss events. Tequatl was designed to require about 80+ people to beat. The Marionette ideally requires 100+, and the GJW needs close to the 150 people cap. This results in a situation where everybody tries to get into the map during peak hours, and then the world boss is abandoned the rest of the day because people know there won’t be enough participants to even have a hope of trying to beat it, resulting in a vicious cycle. It’s especially unfair on lower population servers where even open world PvE can be almost deserted at times, but even on a large pop server like Tarnished Coast, Tequatl can go unchallenged for most of the day. Gods help you if you happen to play at some odd hour that’s never around reset too; your chances of ever beating Tequatl or the GJW are slim to none.

2. A side-effect of the first issue is that to ensure that one gets into a decently populated map to take down the boss, you often need to camp for hours in the map beforehand. That’s 1.5 – 2 hours of time you can’t do anything else in, whether it be mapping or WvW or dungeons or whatever you’d rather be doing. And during this time, you also have to pray that you don’t get disconnected, or all of that time has been wasted.

The thing that frustrates me the most about this situation is that both of these issues could be solved by better scaling, the same dynamic mechanism that ANet is (rightfully) so proud of and sold the game on. If Tequatl, the GJW and future bosses like the Marionette all scaled down so they could be completed by, say, 10 – 20 people, both issues would no longer be a problem. People could show up to Tequatl or the Wurm at any hour of the day and know they’d have a decent chance at victory as long as there’s a handful of people there. (And if you get shoved into an overflow, again, as long as there’s a handful of people there who know the mechanics and what to do, you still have a decent shot at the rewards.) Much like current World Bosses like the Shatterer or the Karka Queen, as long as one or a few people can get the ball rolling, you KNOW that others will show up.

I want ANet to make this content so it’s accessible to ALL players, on both large and small servers. It’s not a question about difficulty or challenge; you can have a challenging fight at 10 players as it is at 100 players. And I believe it’s entirely possible to pull off.

Early feedback from those who’ve been playing the ESO beta has been… less than promising. I wasn’t going to get it anyway since it’s subscription based, but more than that, I have a feeling that ESO is not going to be a success because part of what made the Elder Scrolls games so amazing was the sheer RP immersion you could get in it (and the tons of mods that improved the process).

You’re not going to get that kind of immersion in an MMO. Mods will be non-existent, and you’re going to have players running/jumping down the streets, with ridiculous names like Xx Legolass xX and Captin Jack Sprrw and DaRtH SlAyEr 69, pickpocketing every NPC in sight and being chased by hordes of angry town guards. (Possibly training these guards onto you too?)

So no, I think ESO will fail to capture the interest of players like me, who buy these games specifically BECAUSE they’re not an MMO.

And this is why I have been constantly calling for these massive World Bosses like Teq, Mari and the GJW to scale to the number of players participating.

… You know, if Mhenlo were still around, I bet he could charm Scarlet into his bed and convince her to call off the invasions during the pillow talk.

Gauntlet is coming back during the “short break” after the LS is complete, perhaps?

I think the suggestion of having ressing be interrupted if you get damaged (or perhaps after you take a certain threshold of damage) is a good one. This not only prevents zergs from just focus ressing downed people while still under fire, but it also gives more importance to traits that improve ressing.

It’s annoying, yes, but as others have said, it’s a valid strategy to keep defenders distracted and to slow down reinforcements. If they’re getting that annoying, form a posse of 5+ people and go hunt the offenders down.

@Konig: Hah! I’d forgotten that line. XD Still, I’d take Vekk’s remark with a grain of salt. He might have just been joking about it. Besides, didn’t Jeff say that an Asura wedding ceremony hasn’t ever happened?

Technically the Asura DO have laws that forbid non-Asura from being in Rata Sum (see the “too tall” law from speaking with the Peacemaker chief), but in reality that law is probably not enforced unless the Peacemakers wish to evict someone who’s misbehaving.

You can RP it back by saying that your guild/society has received special dispensation from one of the Councilors to be in Rata Sum for research purposes, subject to certain restrictions blah blah blah. After all, they allow the Inquest in Rata Sum, and it’s unlikely that your RP guild is any more disruptive than they are.

Mmm, true. I interpreted his answer to mean that no two Asura have ever been in a lifelong committed relationship to each other. I suppose it could have happened; it’s just that Asura do not have “weddings” as such. More than likely there’s some Asuran couples who simply have a "committed interpersonal union with <X> with an automatic renewal period at 5 year intervals, unless the “Divorce” clause is activated".

Braham would definitely win a duel against Logan. At least Braham could last more than 15 seconds in fights against foes like the Molten bosses. Logan keels over after a few slaps from an Elite or Champion.

Oh, really? I didn’t see the knives. O.o I need to pay another visit to the Lair, it seems.

I personally don’t think Largos is very likely, for the following reasons:

1. The Largos are a primarily aquatic-dwelling race. It would not make logical sense to suddenly have hundreds, maybe even thousands, of Largos leaving their underwater homes and adventuring across the land for weeks, months or even years at a time. (For the same reason, I think that Quaggan as a playable race is a remote possibility.)

2. Those wings would be a clipping nightmare for armor artists to work with. The Charr already have enough problems with their tail clipping with many armor sets, but at least tails are set low and only have a single point of contact. How much worse would it be for a race with two huge wings sprouting from their back and obscuring backpieces/weapons/shields?

3. Part of the appeal the Largos have to many players is their mystique and their rarity. If you turn them into a playable race, that mystique will be entirely destroyed once you see a Largos down every street. (Not to mention that you know that every single Largos PC is going to be a Thief. :P Possibly a Necromancer.)

I’d like to see Canach back again, but ANet really had a missed opportunity to get him back in the story by having Marjory go visit him in prison to learn more about the toxic spores, since Canach used a similar system to enrage the wildlife of Southsun Cove.

I’m actually not sure that she killed Omadd intentionally either. If his portrait hanging up in her lair plus using his name as her password is anything to go by, he still meant (means?) a lot to her. Perhaps he was killed while she was still in the throes of her metamorphosis into Scarlet and couldn’t control the thorny crimson vines, or perhaps she drifts between being Ceara and Scarlet (and we’ve only ever interacted with her when she’s in her Scarlet persona).

Visited Kessex Hills again over the weekend. My observations:

1. Helper Dee is gone from Thunder Hill camp, as are most of the other NPCs.

2. The Toxic bosses are still there.

3. Offshoot events still spawn.

4. Toxic Seedlings are still available.

5. The Tri-Key Chest is gone.

For what it’s worth, I still enjoyed getting to know more about the culture and customs of the various races. (So, there has never been an Asura marriage in history? Ever? Wow.)

I’m rather surprised that the Ogres have no interest (maybe even a concept?) in the spiritual world or an afterlife. That raises further questions of what happens when an Ogre dies? Do the other Ogres simply leave the body where it fell and speak no more of the dead individual? Or are they morbidly pragmatic and ritually consume the dead/feed them to their pets? (I’m more inclined to believe the latter.)