Guild Wars 2

I’d probably go with Branded. “Shiny!” _

If there was a Gem Store item that discounted (I’d like “removed”, but that will never happen) WP travel by 50%, I would SO be buying that.

Did you guys notice any higher rate of bonus item drops (gems from ore, dyes from plants etc.) while using the BL tools? I’m guessing not.

That image will haunt my dreams tonight.

I actually wouldn’t mind a Monthly goal of “Kill X Champions”. It would provide some incentive for people to seek out Group Event bosses that people normally avoid because the risk/reward ratio is too imbalanced.

I was also kind of sad that the other dinosaurs all seem to have died out, but then I remember the horrors of trying to fight 5 Angorodons or being zomgpwned by a 900-damage Power Attack from Mobrin, and I decide that’s probably for the best. :P

I believe ANet said in a past interview that they were not looking at any additional professions, but that new races were a possibility. This makes a lot of sense to me, as adding a new profession would mean having to create about 25+ new skills, a new profession mechanic, and of course, a lot more work going forward in balancing these new skills and mechanics with existing professions. (This is something they wanted to avoid after GW1, where there were so many different skills and professions that balancing them all became a problem.)

In contrast, creating a new race means that while you’d need to create new models and armor (and possibly weapons), you wouldn’t be creating additional maintenance work going forward.

That said, I do think that the Soldier class needs a third profession just to round out the number of professions per class to 3.

Some people have builds that don’t require them to dodge a lot (Guardians with lots of Aegis and Retaliation come to mind). On my Necromancer, I barely need to move in combat since my minions soak up all the damage for me. On my Warrior, I prefer keeping in melee range so my “dodging” is more of running in circles around the enemy while auto-attacking to keep them from flanking me and maximising my damage against multiple targets. My Ranger also rarely needs to dodge since my pet grabs all the aggro for me. As a result, in order for me to complete that part of the Daily, I have to actively alter my playstyle, which is rather annoying.

It’s still not that big a deal though, and I imagine Phase 2 of the updates will resolve these gripes when we can complete 4/6 of the Daily activities to get the reward anyway.

If you have the frames, yes. The Wintersday recipes still work in the MF.

Just to cover all the bases, you’re sure you linked the GW account to the right GW2 account? You didn’t have multiple GW1/GW2 accounts?

From my experience, Fine (blue) jewelry is never soulbound and can be freely worn and then sold at a later date, provided that you never replace the upgrade in the jewelry.

Masterwork (green) jewelry is soulbound on equip, so if you craft it with the intention to sell it, you must never equip it on your own characters.

I haven’t started wearing Rare jewelry yet, but I imagine it follows the same rules as Masterwork jewelry.

Ned Stark.9356:

Morrigan.2809:

blutstein.2468:

Ned Stark.9356:

Waffler.1257:

Neverwinter online looks like a terrible game, I can’t believe they think anyone is actually going to play it. If anything is going to take a chunk out of the GW2 player base, it will most likely be the Elder Scrolls online.

Then you sir are ignorant of the LARGE D&D fanbase thats been around since before most of us were born.

the same LARGE D&D Fanbase playing D&D Online? Oh wait….

I am part of that fanbase having played pen and paper D&D since the late 80’s
and No I couldn’t care less that Neverwinter online is coming out. It looks terrible.
I didn’t even like the last Neverwinter Nights single player.
As for DDO, that put me off completely- I hated that game.

Anyone can claim they’re something

You’re ignoring the larger picture behind their posts. The D&D fanbase is incredibly fractured. Take me, for example. I’ve played D&D since the mid-80’s; I started on Advanced D&D, went on to AD&D 2nd Ed, then switched to 3.0/3.5 Ed. I and my group still play 3.5, because we hated the way that 4E largely homogenized the different classes, and because it ripped the guts out of a lot of past D&D lore. We have not, and will not, touch any D&D game that uses 4th Ed. rules. (Maybe we might come back for D&D Next, but that’s another issue.)

There are also players out there who are still sticking to 2nd Ed, or even earlier versions. Then you have the D&D players who don’t like video games at all, or might dislike the way that Turbine and Cryptic have implemented their vision of D&D.

All that means that you can’t rely on the fact that D&D has a large following who love the brand name to instantly jump on board when Neverwinter is released. There are many more factors in play which could drive them away or lose their interest.

Ashadow.6874:

John is probably a Power Trader with 6,000+ gold. =P

That’s insider trading! With knowledge of what updates are coming in future builds of the game, he could easily position his stock to reap the benefits of whatever commodity will be in demand afterwards!

Xandax.1753:

In fact the original NwN was meant as a method of bringing PnP RP into the computer age – that it didn’t …. well, that was more to do with poor implementation from Bioware.

To be fair, NWN1 had incredibly longevity with the amount of player-created mods and adventures (some of which were actually superior to the OC created by Bioware). The DM client was also a revolutionary breakthrough for cRPGs at the time, something which I think no other cRPG has succeeded in surpassing since then.

I like the logic behind your idea, CharrGirl, but as the others have pointed out, you could do the same by just selling the junk and using the coin to buy the mat you want.

From a design perspective, junk items are obviously there only as a “consolation prize”. They offer a pittance compared to what you could be getting, but the mere fact that you “got something” from a dead enemy means that it bypasses the “I killed another enemy and got nothing!” rage-meter in your brain. It’s quite clever, actually.

Doesn’t NWNO use 4th Ed rules? If so, I’m staying the hell away from it. :P

On the topic of Precursors and Legendaries, I feel that Legendaries are something that every player should have the chance to achieve within reasonable effort during their lifetime in GW2. (My frame of reference is that a casual player who plays an hour or two each day should be able to gain a Legendary within a year or two. I understand that Legendaries are intended to be a long-term goal, not something a player earns within a few months.)

I’m not advocating that a Precursor be handed out at the end of the Personal story, but perhaps one should be handed out as a reward for doing ALL of the following:

1. Complete your Personal Story
2. Complete at least 20 Slayer achievements
3. Defeat a number of unique bosses throughout the game world (the Shadow Behemoth, the Fire Elemental in Thaumanova Reactor, the Blood Witch, the Champion Karka in Southsun Cove, the three Dragon champions, among others)
4. Complete the Weapon Master achievement in the weapon of your choice

After all that is complete, you travel to the Dominion of Winds where you are granted an audience with a Tengu Elder Sensei, who challenges you to a special duel (instanced, so you have to do this alone). Defeat her, and she deems you worthy to wield a Precursor weapon that matches the Weapon Master achievement you have completed.

I think all that would be worthy of granting a player a Precursor, and it would be a lot more memorable (and fun!) than simply grinding gold in the TP or throwing items into the MF.

demonwing.5843:

John Smith.4610:

By I, I mean the game.

John Smith unveiled as incarnation of the GW2 economy 100% confirmed.

Wait, so John Smith is some A.I. construct that runs the GW2 economy?! OF COURSE! That explains his oddly generic name! It all fits! ALL GLORY TO THE JOHN SMITH!

Yes, Gamarien is the NPC start point for the event. Like Secrets in the Swamp in Queensdale, Battle of Wychmire Swamp is on a fairly long cooldown, about 2 – 3 hours. If you’ve been waiting there for longer than that, then chances are that there is a pre-event near the swamp that must be completed first before Gamarien will start his event, or said pre-event is bugged and preventing Battle of Wychmire Swamp from starting. (For example, the Shadow Behemoth event could be blocked if the Ale Delivery event at the nearby Monastery was bugged.)

Try checking around the Swamp and completing any outstanding events that may be around, like the Mosshearts under attack from Fire Imps or the Champion Jungle Troll to the N.

It’s also important to minimise your expenses. Here are two vital tips for doing that:

1. NEVER waypoint anywhere if you can help it. It may not seem like much at first, but all of those coppers/silvers eventually add up. If you’re bouncing around the map from waypoint to waypoint like a hyperactive blue hedgehog, you’re burning up quite a lot of money.

You can travel back to the main cities for free by clicking on the PvP tab (crossed swords icon) in the menu, then selecting “Go to the Mists”. From there, you can find an Asura Gate that takes you to Lion’s Arch for free, and from Lion’s Arch you can return to any capital city through another Asura Gate. You have to sit through a few loading screens, but it will save you money.

2. Don’t rush to repair your armor. Damaged armor has no defensive penalty; only when armor becomes “Broken” do you stop getting the bonuses from that piece. As a result, you can wait until all of your armor is damaged and the first one is broken before using a Repair Canister (if you have one) to fix it all in one go. At lower levels, you’ll often find that you’ll replace your damaged armor with drops long before it ever becomes a problem.

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

White Creatures have always counted for variety and total kills. (I spent some time trying to figure out what type the whites were — apparently, there are 2-3 types, but I could never narrow it down.)

There’s three basic categories of critters, which are white-named creatures that have no level beside their name:

1. Land Critters. This includes rabbits, racoons, armadillos and other land-based critters like lightning bugs.

2. Air Critters. This includes ravens, hawks, ospreys, sparkflies and other flying critters.

3. Water Critters. This includes the various types of salmon and other critters fought while underwater.

Interestingly, it seems that as soon as a creature has a number beside its name, it ceases to count as a critter and instead counts towards a different creature type. For example, killing a white crab(1) does not count towards Water Critters, but towards the Shell creature type, even though you can one-shot said crab easily like any other critter.

I think the “silly” Legendaries are hilarious, but at the same time, it makes me not want to use them on my own characters. (Which is fine by me, because that just means I can put the money to use elsewhere. ) If others like them and want to use them, why not?

Zeivu.3615:

Yeah, I’m with FK on this one. It would ruin the market value. If you use a trans-stone, you can transfer the upgrade component to the new weapon though, (assuming it’s the same type of weapon).

You can do that? O.o Does it work with runes and armor too?

Don’t change it please. Slaughtering helpless critters is the only way I can reliably progress the Weapon Master achievement for vastly underpowered or little-used weapons like Focii or Shields. XD

It was part of the Jan 28th patch notes:

“Lionguard Lyns has returned to Lion’s Arch but no longer has Black Lion Keys available. Donations toward the rebuilding of Lion’s Arch will continue to be accepted until late February, at which time Lionguard Lyns must return to her normal Lionguard duties. Liquidate those Captain’s Commendations while you can. "

So not THAT soon, but ANet’s given fair warning that you have to liquidate your CC stash before they become worthless.

Actually, in single player RPGs, the first thing I do is use the console to give myself more money than I could ever spend (and I’m talking crazy amounts like 5 million gold.) This allows me to walk into shops and buy whatever item that catches my fancy, because if I didn’t have the money, I’d just go out and grind monsters until I did have enough gold to buy it. The way I see it, it’s just saving myself time for the same end result, and it’s not like anybody else’s gaming experience is going to be affected by what I do in a single player game.

Anyway, John Smith is right. The people who enjoy amassing huge sums of money in a game are probably the same people who enjoy creating huge financial empires in real life. Money is no longer the end goal to them; money just becomes the means of how they keep score. One difference is that these business moguls usually give a significant portion of money back to charity or sponsor scientific research/sports teams.

Hmm… I wonder if ANet could be persuaded to set up a kind of “Consortium Lottery” sponsored by these ultra-rich players…

Lionguard Lyns will be leaving permanently soon, so whatever you do, spend your Commendations now!

The devs have stated that there will be no dragons in the Flame and Frost event. However, that does not rule out the possibility that we won’t see their minions getting involved. I’m fairly certain that this initial phase is the result of Destroyer activity getting close to the surface underneath Wayfarer Foothills and Diessa Plateau, although the Refugee Coordinator in the Black Citadel does mention refugees being driven out by Flame Legion. Are the Flame Legion involved in this? Maybe they’ve discovered some new magic that’s responsible, or maybe it’s another Flame Legion crazy trying to worship the Destroyers again.

In my experience, you need about 8 – 10 people before the Blood Witch event becomes fun. That number allows you to have 4 people attacking the Witch at all times, 2 taking care of the smaller mobs that respawn around you, and 2 people to revive the last 2 players who have been invariably downed by the Blood Witch. XD

In my opinion, all Group Event champions should give out a Chest for completion. Fighting the Giant is fun, but it usually takes about 10 – 15 mins to take him down with a small group, and there’s always the chance you’ll get nothing from him too.

Defora.3694:

My standard color for my Humans is Light 6

My female Human Mesmer uses Light 6 too. Fair-skinned, but without looking unnaturally pale. I chose that colour because she’s the descendant of my GW1 Ascalonian Warrior, who was also fair-skinned.

I think “Doolt” would be more fitting for an Asura.

But yeah, Asura place a high value on intelligence, but not every Asura is capable of genius. Plus, not all Asura buy into the “someday I will establish my prominence” mindset. There’s a female Asura in Rata Sum who confides to you that she doesn’t care about fame or making scientific breakthroughs; she just wants to move to Lion’s Arch and sell baked goods. (As an aside, a tiny female Asuran baker would be absolutely adorable.)

Panic selling after news comes out of a new way to obtain a rare commodity is nothing new. I imagine that prices will rise again after a while because the new lower prices for lodestones means that more players will think, “Hey, I can afford a Legendary now!” and start buying, increasing demand. The fact that you can get Lodestones from karma AND Laurels means that supply has vastly increased, however. I imagine prices will eventually stabilise somewhere well below the previous highs, but still high enough for people to make a decent profit when selling them.

My money would be on the Charr winning the hypothetical war, but it would be a long, drawn-out affair that could take centuries. They would no doubt go after the Humans first, due to their racial enmity. The Norn likely wouldn’t intervene, due to their cultural nature of confronting challenges by themselves and their long-standing accord with the Charr. Already weakened by infighting and the war against the Centaurs, I predict that Humans would fall within 50 – 100 years*.

Next, the Charr would go after the Asura, to conquer and take over the Gate network for its strategic and economic value. This war will probably be the Charr’s longest and bloodiest, as the Asura have the advantage in technology and disposable shock troops with golems and other magical constructs. However, Asura territory is much smaller than the Charr’s, meaning that their population and overall resources are likely also less. In a war of attrition, the Charr will probably come out on top in the end.

Finally, the Charr can turn their attention to the Norn. The Norn have the advantage of home terrain, plus the fact that the Charr’s war machines are not likely to function very well in the frigid mountains. Cold causes technology to malfunction, and the snowy, rugged terrain means that tanks and other war machines are severely restricted in where they can go. The Norn can harry the Charr with all manner of guerilla attacks, then retreat to where the Charr can’t follow. Unfortunately, the Norn are not very strategically minded. During Jormag’s assault, the Norn just threw themselves at him piece-meal, instead of forming a united army. It’s likely that they’ll do the same thing against the Charr. The Norn could always adapt, however, so they might succeed in grinding the Charr down to a stalemate for several decades.

*It’s worth noting that, as smart as the Asura are, they will no doubt realise very quickly that if the Charr are not stopped, they will be next on the hit list. So I fully expect the Asura to break off diplomatic relations with the Charr if they declared full-scale war on humanity and support the Humans instead. With Asura military and logistical support, the Humans might actually defeat the Charr in all-out war.

I know the vendor you’re talking about. I haven’t bought that pick myself, but the description says it’s only equivalent to a Steel Mining Pick. I haven’t been game enough to try it.

I’ve been having similar issues today. I get massive lag spikes, followed by either a disconnect (with error code 7:11:3:189:101), or it goes back to normal for a few minutes before getting another massive lag spike. This is making playing just about impossible, not to mention I’ve been disconnected a few times RIGHT before an event completes, cheating me out of the reward.

Observing the latency of GW2 in Resource Monitor shows no unusual latency, and all of my other games/web browsing that use the Internet are unaffected, so it must be a problem with GW2 or its servers. Please look into this, ANet!

pdboddy.4162:

And they let people travel through them essentially for free. The Asurans never exhorted money/goods/favors/the world from the other races in return for the gates, did they?

Actually, they DO charge people for using the gates. You can hear proof of this in Lion’s Arch where a Charr merchant is complaining to an Asura about extra fees for oversized baggage. It’s just that, for some reason, they don’t charge players for using the gates. (Perhaps the Orders have an arrangement with the Asura where their operatives can use the gates for free in exchange for an annual subscription.)

I’m not against having skimpy armor for either male or female characters, if that’s what the player desires. I simply believe there should be adequate options for both modest and skimpy clothing, and I do agree there is some disparity when it comes to Light female armor.

Having to create skimpy and non-skimpy versions of each armor would be far too time-consuming, however. A better way would be to divorce the appearance of armor from its stats altogether by creating an “Armor Wardrobe” where you can choose the appearance of your armor and apply it to your current armor.

Interesting… I wonder if Asura have their mammary glands near their genitals the same way that animals like deer, cows or goats do. Might explain why we don’t see any nipples on their chest. (Even if Asura don’t have pronounced mammary glands, the nipples would still need to be protruding so that progeny could suckle from them. It’s actually theorised that humans have breasts because the flat faces of human babies means that they have greater difficulty suckling from nipples without accidentally smothering themselves by pressing their face flat against their mother’s body.)

pdboddy.4162:

Surprisingly they haven’t capitalized on it much.

I’d say this is due to rivalries between krewes (or even individual krewe members) meaning that one krewe does not share their research with another, crippling the ability of the Asura to build on each other’s discoveries. Instead, we have a situation where Krewe A is not talking to Krewe B because the krewe leaders hate each other, even though the research conducted by Krewe B could lead to a breakthrough in Krewe A’s research (and maybe that’s the precise reason Krewe B is not sharing!)

And then the Inquest catch wind of the research, come in and kill both krewes and steal the research data for their own use.

And then a band of wandering adventurers heads to the Inquest lab as part of a Heart, slays all the Inquest, destroys all the equipment, and all the research is lost for another 10 years until another new krewe researches it all over again from scratch. :P

“Here lies Zaxares, who realised too late that karkas could roll.”

I was going to say that looting takes half a second at most if you’ve got Autoloot enabled, but then I saw the OP’s bit about having their packs full. That could be a problem if you’re in the middle of a frantic combat.

Each tool does state the types of nodes it can gather from, and after a while of playing, it becomes second nature knowing which types of tools can gather which tiers of nodes. Of course, by that time your income level has probably increased to the point where you don’t even bother with keeping multiple tiers of tools to use on different nodes. I also used to keep both Copper and Iron tools on hand for harvesting, but I eventually found that the small amount of savings wasn’t worth the time spent swapping tools and the inventory space needed to hold multiple grades of tools.

As a general rule, here’s what I would do when it comes to tool usage:

Level 1 – 15 zones: Buy and use only Copper Tools.

Level 15 – 25 zones: Start buying Iron Tools. Use up your remaining Copper Tools on any low level nodes you find in these zones, but replace them with Iron Tools.

Level 25 – 35 zones: Start buying Steel Tools. Follow the same strategy as earlier.

Level 35 – 50 zones: Start buying Darksteel Tools. Follow the same strategy as earlier.

Level 50 – 65 zones: Start buying Mithril Tools. Follow the same strategy as earlier.

Level 65 – 80 zones: Buy ONE set of Orichalcum Tools and use those on any T6 nodes you come across. For everything else, continue using Mithril Tools.

I was under the impression that sylvari send their memories and experiences to the Pale Tree as and when they experience them though. I sometimes hear my sylvari say, “I’ll pass this along to the Pale Tree!” whenever she discovers a new area.

An interesting side-implication of this is that sylvari can voluntarily choose which experiences to share with the Dream, meaning that those who follow Ventari’s teachings may experience pain, sorrow or loss during their lives, but choose to send back only happy or enlightening experiences. Alternatively, they may also choose to withhold certain experiences that they deem too personal or intimate to share. (Might be wise to ask if one were a non-sylvari getting into a relationship with one!)

Victros.8154:

Thanks for all the help. How are you guys soloing event champions? Are you kiting?

Some Group Event champions are easier than others. The Champion Plains Wurm near Butcher’s Block in Diessa Plateau is one that can be easily solo’ed if you have a ranged weapon, since its attacks are slow, clearly telegraphed and can easily be avoided either by changing direction while strafing, or by hiding behind one of the nearby trees so the attack is obstructed. I even once managed to solo it on my Mesmer by dropping 3 Illusionary Duelists, then walking behind the tree and /sleep-ing. The silly Wurm continued to attack me futilely (because I was the closest) while my Phantasms shot it to death. :P

Xodarap.3149:

I registered for the forums just to applaud your reactions. Perfectly worded half-condescending (but only to the deserving point) eye-rolls at the standard forum attitudes. Seriously, your replies made me so happy. “My achieving a meaningless thing isn’t intended to insult you” is golden.

Still, the fact that he even posted about it here means that he’s trying to achieve recognition and/or praise for it. If it truly was a meaningless achievement that he’s doing for his own amusement, why bother posting about it on the forums at all? People never show something to other people unless they want a reaction, whether positive or negative, from them.

Konig Des Todes.2086:

Actually, Wargs are considered canines (same as wolves, rock dogs, and any other dog).

I thought so too, but that’s apparently not the case. You can test it yourself by going to Diessa Plateau on a character that hasn’t completed the Daily. Kill a Wolf (plenty around Butcher’s Block), then head NE to find a Warg and kill it too. You’ll notice that your kill variety has gone up by 1 each time. I’m unsure if Rock Dogs count as Wolves/Wargs though; haven’t tested it.

From a lore standpoint though, I agree that Wargs are obviously from the same canine family as wolves and rock dogs.

This is why I wouldn’t ever do the WvW JP’s alone. There’s legitimate reasons for enemies to be camped out in the JP there, since doing so prevents enemy players from obtaining things like Siege Blueprints, but I agree that it’s a pretty scummy way to act, on par with killing lone players who are just there to map. It’s part and parcel of the risk of being in a PvP-zone though.

If you encounter this in future, try announcing to your team that there’s a bunch of invaders camping the JP and getting some help to flush them out.

They might not even be aware of this issue (first time I’ve heard of it! Then again, I barely pay any attention to my Jagged Horrors anyway…), so better post this on the Bugs forum and try and draw some attention to it.

When you hover over crafting materials (e.g. Leather Squares, Venom Sacs), it will display a list of the crafting professions it is used for. Leather Squares would have Tailor, Leatherworker and Armorsmith, for example, and Venom Sacs would have everything except for Chef and Jeweler. If the text is red, it means that you don’t have the required skill level in the crafting profession to use it yet (e.g. You get a Rugged Leather Square, which requires 250 Leatherworking, but you only have 100 Leatherworking, so Leatherworking would show up in red). If it shows up in green, you’re able to use the crafting material.

Food and gemstones are the only crafting materials that aren’t used by Leatherworker or Huntsman, so you can sell those if you don’t intend to use them on another character.