Guild Wars 2

The 5 hour maintenance caught me by surprise too, but I generally agree with lordkrall. Try and get all your achievements done as early as possible to avoid unpleasant surprises. I usually try to blaze through the achievements by the first week if at all possible.

That said, I’m not unsympathetic to the people who, for whatever reason, didn’t get the time to get it done early. (Away on business trips, family issues, whatever.) The maintenance probably could have been scheduled at a better time.

I will wholeheartedly support your platform by sending you all 500+ vote buttons I have left over from the election.

Plus, it would be EXTREMELY bad form to have one of the racial allies you can pick in the Personal Story as an “enemy of humanity”. Same reason why there’s no Skritt, Hylek or Quaggan beat-down.

EDIT: Ah, I mis-interpreted the above comment. Ogres ARE an enemy in one of the sectors. Then again, Ogres aren’t a selectable ally for Human players, so maybe that’s why they went ahead.

Hmm… I should go back and pay the Krait Witch in Caledon another visit. She kicked my derriere soundly multiple times as a newbie, but almost a year later (and after last month’s Monthly taught me how to solo various Champions), I now wonder if I could take her down all by myself.

I’m more inclined to think it’s 6 domes because there are 6 cities. (Divinity’s Reach, Black Citadel, Hoelbrak, the Grove, Rata Sum and Lion’s Arch.)

I’ve never spent money by accident either, but I could see how it could happen:

1. Gaming while drunk/high
2. “Daddy, can I try playing your game for a while?” “Sure, honey. I’ll just get this call while you do that.”
3. “OK, so I need 100 more Crystalline Dust for this recipe. I’ll just buy some off the TP.” -types in 200 by mistake-

Oops… Missed that part. XD

I have it as 5pm – 11pm my time, but I’m up in Brisbane and thus don’t have daylight savings. In any case, 6 hours is just their “worst case scenario”. If all goes well, maintenance might be completed within 2 – 3 hours.

And if it isn’t, well, I’ll be heading to bed early so I can get my Dailies done tomorrow morning before work. XD

Eh? I thought Colin confirmed that WvW champs ARE getting the new loot bags too?

Yeah, my strategy now is always to tackle the toughest achievements first when new LS content comes out, just in case.

I honestly wish I didn’t have to. I’d much prefer it if content stayed permanently so we could re-try as many times as we wanted.

About 10 for Evon and just under 500 for Kiel.

This means that it’s harder to get an accurate picture of population numbers due to people voting for both candidates at once.

Huh… I wonder if this means the Queen’s Jubilee release will be active when I get home from work, or whether it’s just getting all the groundwork in place and the update still goes live tomorrow at the usual time.

^ Probably because it’s still the 5th, and the account wallet doesn’t come in till the 6th.

Just how tough ARE these bosses anyway? Are we talking like Veterans or Champion-level amounts of health? If the former, I’d say it’s definitely doable within 2 minutes. If the latter, well… I’ve yet to see many players capable of soloing a Champion within 2 minutes, let alone with gambits on.

My final vote tally was just under 500, I believe. Most of it went to Kiel, with about 10 or so going to Evon initially to complete his achievements.

“BY OGDEN’S HAMMER, WHAT SAVINGS!”

For some reason, I never get tired of hearing him say that. XD

Provided that food/boosters actually work in the Gambit.

I just hope that the Gambit isn’t as hard as T3/4 Trials. (Trying to complete it normally, I mean, not using the cheesy hide-up-the-back-and-pull-Plunderers method.)

Thank you, Colin. That post helps to clear up a lot of things. I approve of festivals like the Jubilee/Dragon Bash/Wintersday etc. returning regularly, although I hope that the achievements and rewards associated with these festivals will also be available once again for players to complete when they come around again. I think it’s a great shame if a new player were not able to obtain the same rewards that I or another veteran player has, just because he happened to come along to the party late. Knowledge that there will be another chance again in the future will also help ease concerns of players who want to be present for a festival, but due to real life concerns or commitments, have to miss out.

There’s more I could go into about making Living Story content more permanent and accessible, but I’ve covered that in another thread on the Living Story forum.

Gnashblade sold voting packages for Kiel because at heart, he is still a businessman, and true businessmen take their profits wherever they can, even if they find it personally distasteful.

Besides, Evon already DID try to buy votes by sprinkling Vote Reminders everywhere containing a token amount of cash and a little note from him. Obviously it wasn’t enough.

ANet did say that the losing Fractal was “unlikely to ever be made”.

Unlikely does not equal impossible, however. As a Kiel supporter, I’d still totally be in favour of seeing an Abaddon fractal down the line.

The Kiel/Evon minis have lines?? I’ll have to bring them out more often to hear what they have to say.

Sorry, Evon. You should have paid more attention to all those letters slipped into your pocket listing specific Black Lion Chest goodies to be mailed to an anonymous location in Claypool. :P

Electro.4173:

The chef vendors are pretty convenient for getting cooking ingredients if you haven’t already filled up on them, since you usually have to trounce out to random zones and talk to various heart quest vendors to get those ingredients otherwise.

^ This. I stocked up on about 100 or so of each ingredient.

Totally agree with the OP here. I’m managing to keep up with the pace of the LS releases right now, but it’s frankly exhausting. I’ve basically stopped playing any other games and put most of the normal GW2 story on hold so I can experience and complete the LS as they occur.

The main problem here is the temporary nature of the content/rewards. If you don’t want to miss anything, you HAVE to forego everything else. Unlike a TV show where you can just record missed episodes on Tivo or buy the DVD release when it comes out, once you miss out on a LS chapter, that’s it. You’ll never be able to see it again, and you’ll never be able to gain the rewards that came with it either. (A lot of rewards are either accountbound, soulbound, or have disappeared from the game entirely.)

I really wish ANet would return to the GW1 system of doing things, where new content (and their rewards) stayed in the game permanently. What’s the harm in having dungeons like the Molten Facility or the Aetherblade Retreat continuing to be accessible via a “Replay NPC”?

@cdeathblade: Forum people aren’t the majority, no. But I suspect the reality is that the majority of GW2 players basically aren’t bothering with the LS at all. I have a friend who only does LS content if it happens to show up right in his path. He visited Labyrinthine Cliffs a grand total of twice, I believe. (He also tried the Trials, got splattered, and said “Juvenile Cat this!” and never went back again.) The fact that the vast majority of GW2 players (more than 80%) have achievement points of less than 2000 tells me that it’s likely this is what the general attitude of the player base is like.

So yeah, I don’t understand why ANet is pouring so much work into content that, if temporary, means that the majority of their player base never gets to enjoy or experience properly. Why not make Living Story content (outside of festivals) remains forever in the world and players old or new can go to experience it whenever they want?

Yeah, but getting a free Exotic shoulder piece would have still saved me a couple of gold from crafting it myself. x3, actually, since I only got the Aetherized armor pieces on 2 of my 5 characters.

Yeah, I know the price of the skins increases five-fold after the next update, but in my experience, a lot of the value in rare skins lies in their exclusivity. During the early stages when a new skin is introduced, speculators drive up the price in anticipation of prices increasing when supply dries up.

However, if the Aetherized skins are here to stay permanently, then supply will never dry up entirely. Sure, the number of people who actually mass buy BLC’s will still be low (and no doubt cause a lot of unhappiness for players), but between that and the fact that players will likely “move on” in a few months means that demand for the Aetherized skins is more likely to decrease rather than increase. (I’ll grant that there’s a possibility that prices may increase for a few months after the ticket increase though, depending on how the market reacts to it.)

What’s more, I wouldn’t rule out the possibility of ANet having a “weapons sale” in the future where Aetherized skins (and possibly other weapons) get reduced back to one ticket, perhaps around Wintersday or Black Friday.

I’m more in awe of the fact that players cast 7 million votes in the space of only a week.

Drakkon.4782:

Zaxares.5419:

“Asura technology is so advanced it can often seem broken!”
Yeah, I’m sure that’s the reason why your Trans-Aetheric Electro Discombobulator isn’t doing anything.

No, but I’m sure that your attitude is the reason that you’ve never gotten more than one shot off from Aetheric Overcharge Hyperlasers the Pact uses, “Commander”…

I blame Trahearne!

“Asura technology is so advanced it can often seem broken!”

Yeah, I’m sure that’s the reason why your Trans-Aetheric Electro Discombobulator isn’t doing anything.

I’d hang on to them for now, at least until the event is over. For all we know we’ll be able to trade them in for Kite Fortunes/Fortune Scraps/some other minor buff item.

Speaking for myself, there’s nothing “wrong” with it. It’s just that to me, it’s unappealing as a solution as it’s not permanent and it relies on getting lucky with drops.

Others here have stated the reasons why I believe prices will actually DROP in the coming months. First, aside from the Pistol (and maybe the Rifle and Spear), most of the Aetherized weapons are generally considered to be unappealing by the wider player base. That alone will cut down demand by a massive percentage.

Second, as Astral mentioned, new skins tend to be most popular in the first month or two after their initial release, after which the novelty wears off and everybody’s moved on to the next big thing. There’s no information from ANet as to whether the Aetherized weapon skins will disappear permanently down the line, but given that they simply announced that the price will jump to 5 BL tickets, I’m inclined to believe that the skins will be available for a while yet. Possibly even permanently.

If that’s the case, once people realise that the Aetherized skins can be gotten at any time they want (figuratively speaking, since you still need to get lucky from BLC’s), then you can expect prices for them to tumble. A lot.

So, in short, if you’re thinking about buying Aetherized skins/weapons as investments, I’d do so very cautiously. There’s a very high risk of getting burned on them.

Yeah, it could go either way right now. The 500 crafting cap is not coming in this patch, but it is planned for down the line in the future. As such, I do expect supply to exceed demand in the short term, but to increase once the crafting increase comes into effect.

As someone who mainly farms what he needs, I’m largely unaffected by this either way. I just like watching market trends and keeping my finger on the pulse of what’s happening.

Suwash for Council! We need Quaggan representation!

Players can get an account-bound version from the Fortune Scrap vendor, so no. If anything I expect the price to FALL after the Bazaar leaves, because people who wanted the skin have already got it, either from the mini-game, buying from the TP, or getting the account-bound version from the Vendor. (Same with the Rucksack.)

And there you have it, folks. Evon Gnashblade’s campaign is being funded by big business and high rollers! Do you want to vote for a candidate who sees more money in a day than you would likely earn in your entire (GW2) lifetime? Ellen Kiel understands the common man’s struggle! Vote Kiel!

Both Southsun Survival and Aspect Arena are fun, but AA is equally profitable while being much faster to complete.

I feel that the main problem with the Trials is that it’s easier to solo it than to go in with a group, and that the difficulty of trying to complete T3/4 normally means that everybody is trying to cheese it. That discourages people from doing it the “normal” way. Challenging content is fine, but making content that’s SO hard that people just wind up using exploity gimmicks or refusing to group up for it is making the player experience worse, not better.

I’m voting for Kiel because Evon has given me nothing but junk from his Black Lion Chests. Dammit, Evon, if you wanna buy my vote you gotta work HARDER than that! :P

I think it would be fairer if the players could pick up to 3 Signature Moves they could use in a match (especially since some of the SM’s are pretty useless if they’re one-use only). Adnul Irongut is the only really difficult opponent; the others can be beaten quite easily with the correct choice of Signature Move.

Well, I got a response from the Support team. According to them, the armor piece was only available during the Sky Pirates of Tyria Living Story event, so you won’t ever get the piece from doing the JP anymore.

It’s not the end of the world (since I can craft armor pieces with identical stats myself), but I have to say that I’m quite disappointed in this turn of events since there was no warning anywhere that the Aetherized shoulder piece was going to be a temporary reward. The Not So Secret jumping puzzle was trumpeted as a permanent addition to the open world. The logical conclusion, therefore, is that the reward for it would be permanent as well.

If a reward for a permanent addition to the game is going to be removed, then it NEEDS to be communicated clearly to the players. For example, it was clearly stated on the Dragon Bash release page that the Moa Racing special mini was only going to be available during Dragon Bakittenself. There was no similar warning for the Not So Secret JP.

Well, I’m a pretty frequent visitor to the forums, but I saw nothing about the Shoulders being a temporary reward. Perhaps some players were speculating that it would disappear.

In any case, the Mini Racing Moa was explicitly mentioned on the Dragon Bash release page as being available only during Dragon Bash. No such information was forthcoming about the Aetherized shoulder pieces.

Whether it’s the hardest JP in the game might be up for debate, but it’s safe to say that given its length, the harder than normal enemies sprinkled through it, and the frequent “one misstep and it’s start again from the beginning” jumps, it’s one of the harder JPs in the game. It’s certainly one of the toughest that I’ve done. Only the Clocktower ranks as more difficult, in my opinion.

It seems that the Aetherized shoulder armor piece is no longer a guaranteed drop from the Magnificent Chest at the end of the Not So Secret jumping puzzle for characters that are completing it for the first time. Can I get confirmation from ANet that this is a bug? Or is it intended?

If the latter, I find it extremely disappointing because the JP was announced as a permanent addition to the open world. There was no warning anywhere that the Aetherized shoulder piece was a temporary reward for what is undoubtedly the most difficult jumping puzzle in the game. If a reward for a permanent addition to the game is going to be removed, then it NEEDS to be communicated clearly to the players. We got a warning from the devs that the Moa Racing special mini was going to disappear at the end of Dragon Bash and be replaced, but there was no similar warning for the JP.

I just completed the Not So Secret JP on my level 80 Mesmer, who hasn’t done this JP before. Just the standard rewards from the Magnificent Chest. While I still don’t know if the Aetherized shoulder piece can possibly drop from here, I’m going to make a post about this in the Bugs forum since there was no mention from ANet about the guaranteed piece no longer being available.

Has anyone here actually gotten the Aetherized weapons from:

1. A tier lower than T4?
2. From the 1st or 2nd loot bag?

Not for me! I miss having a fat chest of loot waiting for me every day I logged in. Fortunately, my next chest is at 7500 AP, and I’m at 7233 right now. Not too much longer for my next fix!

Also, you might be surprised to learn that 5500 AP is not exactly a “casual” score. You’re still within the 90th percentile of all GW2 players; the vast majority of players actually have AP’s of 2000 or less.

$150 for the Collector’s Edition. (I’m Australian, so we pay about 50% more for our games. Consider yourselves lucky, rest of the world. :P)

About $100 extra for gems to unlock all bag slots and all bank slots.

About $50 around December when the sales were on to buy some Transmutation Crystals. (Gems left over.)

$150 to buy 5 Molten Picks, 5 Consortium Sickles and 5 Chop-it-all Axes.

I have no qualms about spending money to get stuff I want, but as you might have guessed from the above, I refuse to spend any money on RNG items.

The Norn in GW2 seem to have undergone a racial “weakening” though. Only Norn of at least level 30 (which I take to mean they are seasoned and experienced individuals) can assume Bear form (or any other animal form). Whereas in GW1, just about every Norn under the sun could become the Bear. Even Helga, who is by all accounts a Norn just entering adulthood and by her own words “isn’t very good at hunting”, can assume Bear form and inflict serious damage on attacking Charr.

I rationalise this by the assumption that, as the Norn have settled down more and embraced more sedentary pursuits, they have also grown more out of touch with their roots. Norn who are still active hunters or who challenge themselves physically are still as formidable as their forebears (heh), but the majority of Norn these days can no longer assume spirit form and aren’t as imposing a threat as their ancestors might be.