Guild Wars 2

That’s true, it could be a dervish. Like a dervish/ritualist hybrid. That could have potential.

Lore becomes useless when no effort is made to be consistent. What is the point in making the Sylvari dragon minons? Angst? We might as well make Guild Wars a Space adventure first person shooter. Those are popular, right?

Wake me up when they’ve moved on from the Sylvari to focus on other races.

Huh. Would have been nice if they had done all this in the first place. :P Guess I’d better log in so I can update my living story though it has been several months.

That had better be a kittening Heavy Armored Ritualist so I can finally make the Charr Rit of my dreams.

Wow, are those Guild Halls? Like, real Guild Halls? I’m tired of the lies and bs, let’s hope this expansion will be worth it.

kitten .9460:

Cantha was a very unique Asian theme, nothing over the top or silly.

The music, terrain, characters, everything about it screams awesome. Easily my favorite place to visit in GW1. Dang you Am-Fah and your random rappelling down trying to smash my face

Too bad they removed any semblance of it in GW2… even the small district Divinity Reach that was dedicated to them in alpha/beta.

Bolded for agreement.

I forgot about the Am-Fah! It was great how they used to ambush us and drop down from ropes hanging from what we can assume were the surrounding buildings. That was a really great little detail that added to the atmosphere.

larv.3456:

Now in NCsoft earnings report 3Q14 found from conference call: " The game is now two years old. And therefore in the not too far future we do think that we will have an opportunity to show our plans about expansion packs for this game"

Wtb Cantha expansion:)

ugh, I can feel my expectations going up unnecessarily only to fall in crushing disappointment when they announce that it definitely isn’t going to be Cantha. T_T Maybe I will just play through the missions again for the nostalgia….

Edit: Although with this new LS arc I feel ever so slightly encouraged by the direction the are taking this game in. New zones and content will really revitalize the community.

Leah Hoyer.9382:

Hi all. Thanks for the welcome notes. I’m excited to be here.

To respond to a couple of your questions/comments:
• The old writers are still here and we’re all a team. This is a new position that ArenaNet created as part of their commitment to tell the best stories possible.
• Yes, I spent a lot of my career at Disney, but my passion is building great characters and telling great stories, regardless of genre. So, don’t expect the Elder Dragons to break into song anytime soon.
• Now that you mention it, I would probably buy a Charr backpack. But that isn’t my department or my focus. I’m here to make sure we have a strong overall story, that we find the best ways to tell it, and that Narrative works with Design, Art, Audio and the other disciplines here to create the best experience possible.

I’m eager to hear what you think is working and what you think needs improvement, so let me know. I look forward to more chats.

Thank you that is very reassuring. XD

Wasn’t it just the master of peace talking? I’ll have to play through that again (yikes) but weren’t they just recordings of him passing through each puzzle?

I also love the designs for the new mordrem. There’s this leafy mantis/dragon looking creature with a skull like head embedded at the top that looks incredible. That thing does a ton of damage which is awesome, but also looks deadly too.

Some of the encounters in Glint’s Lair were arduous with the fragile shield, etc. But I really enjoyed Canach’s portion with the roaming groups of mordrem wolves and the bomb mechanic. It felt much more like the old Guild Wars we know and love so well. This is easily my favorite of the Living Story releases so far. The library collection was incredibly detailed and fun to explore. It was great being able to read all those books with simplified portions of Tyria’s history. I hope we can see more content like this in the future, it was a lot of fun overall. It was cool hearing Ogden’s voice actor again. Lots of great nostalgia.

Although I find it a bit strange that we saw Glint’s baby alive and kicking in EOTN but now we only have one egg left intact….

Yeah it was great hearing Glint’s Lair music again. It looked gorgeous too. I also enjoyed the few tracks taken directly from EOTN when you get to talk to Ogden.

Wow, that was a huge mistake on Anet’s part. I can only hope that they will bring it back soon.

haha sometimes I wonder if there are people like that in the game. But isn’t it more like they’ve been punishing behavior they find offensive, (or critical) and rewarding certain behaviors by posting dev comments?

Kind of ironic, considering that one dev who insinuated that compliments from the players were viewed as ‘sucking up’ to the devs, which is perhaps the single most offensive thing I have ever read from this company. Ever since I read that I have made an effort to try and give more critical feedback, with only occasional praise. As a long time fan, it was difficult for me to be any more offended by a comment like that, even if it was just something said offhand. Granted, this comment was made a long time ago, maybe a few months before the game was released, and this individual may not even be with the company anymore but I have never forgotten it.

Either way, this is the first time I’ve heard this kind of accusation before. XD

Hi, sorry if a thread has been made on this before.

But I wanted to say somewhere that the new weapon skins are pretty cool!

They remind me of the old mursaat weapons with more prismatic effects. Though they aren’t exactly new, they look great over all.

I am also LOVING the Hellfire armor set. I made a mistake and took the radient gloves initially, but I can’t wait to collect the rest of the Hellfire armor for my characters. It looks soooo kitten. Though it will probably take me a long time to get because I don’t play everyday, (not a complaint) I’m genuinely looking forward to collecting the whole set!

The thing is that a lot of games (not NCsoft ones) have been pretty successful at making even small changes for localized versions outside of Korea. Tera, and I think even Archeage has some west specific details that differentiate the product from their asian player base. Hell, even Blizzard has a separate version of WOW for their chinese players.

Why can’t the NA/EU version of GW2 be different from the Chinese version? I wouldn’t be surprised if this was some misguided executive decision from Anet’s parent company to supposedly “streamline” the two versions.

There’s nothing wrong with catering to your Chinese player base, but I don’t think altering the Western version, which has been around much longer with established veteran players, is a good idea. It is definitely discouraging to new players and gives them a bad first impression of the game. Not to mention disheartening for those loyal veteran players.

Kibazuka.1390:

Im almost completely certain that the light green orb is zhaitan and the black/green one is mordremoth, the coloration also makes sense, the risen and especially Zhaitan himself used this toxic green very often while the mordrems we saw until now use a much darker green, if they are even green. The order in which they awaken also fits.
This also means that the orb crashing in the middle is Zhaitan not Mordremoth and there could be several explanations for that.
Dont forget that Tequatl surprisingly started to grow in power after Zhaitan got defeated

Color interpretations aside, because those two orbs are far too close in color to be distinguishable….(-____-)….The orbs are certainly meant to represent the order in which the Elder dragons awoke.

You can argue as to whether or not they represent the dragons themselves or their power/element in nature, which is a moot point given that they are likely one and the same.

Assuming that Anet did not make a mistake with the cinematic, then the fourth orb to light up has to represent Zhaitan. It looks like a representation of the dragon’s desire to fully consume Tyria since it invades the larger sphere in the center filling it with pulsating energy. The ‘eye’ references “What Scarlet Saw” in that something had looked back at her from the abyss. Now, this is an intriguing point as we had always assumed that she had made contact with Mordremoth since she woke him up by activating the ley lines.

Do we know for sure that the vision WE saw is the exact same vision Scarlet did? Perhaps the vision we saw are remnants of Zhaitan’s power or conscious (through Tequatl?) because it is the dragon we are closest to since we battled him and his minions recently? That may explain why we haven’t been corrupted in the same way Scarlet did, even though you technically came into contact with its power. Maybe it is in a weakened state. Perhaps because Scarlet is a Sylvari she made contact with Mordremoth instead and began to do his bidding from there on out.

It would be a surprising tidbit to show, considering that we are supposed to be facing Mordremoth in the LS2 and it would have been more consistent to show Scarlet’s vision and not a different one with a different dragon. Again this hinges on whether or not Anet intended that orb to be Zhaitan or Mordremoth.

I would like to believe that this wasn’t some gross error on their part and that they didn’t just use any old sickly-greenish looking orb to represent the new dragon, because I really liked that they actually tried to depict the order of the dragon’s awakenings. :/

Thank you for adding the gathering nodes! It would be great to see more features for the home instances in the future. Maybe a pet pen that is account wide, like the Zaishen menagerie? It wouldn’t be as extensive of course, especially owing to the fact that there are 5 different home instances, but maybe an NPC or a circled off area like in guild wars one, so we could display or look at our pets roaming around.

I really love the nodes though, makes gathering so much easier! The Krait node while, earned via LS, is so convenient for fusing my crystals.

I guess crafting tables would be out of the question, since it would draw people out of the cities, but I’m hoping we can get more novel and/or useful features for home instances in the future!

I really love player housing. It’s one of those rare perks that makes a game more appealing to PvE’ers. You could see it like Legendaries or armor skins. It’s mostly cosmetic in nature and could be added to the gemstore for income. We already have home instances and adding nodes is a great concept to help spruce them up and make them more useful. While the home instances aren’t quite the same as housing, Anet could just add more features to the existing instances to make them more like typical MMO housing.

It’s just a novel side feature that adds a bit of customization and ‘ownership’ for players who like that sort of thing.

The trailer looks interesting! I’m not sure what freeing the Ghosts of Ascalon will do, other than directly benefit the charr since they have control over the majority of the lands.

I’m not sure how Rytlock could accomplish this without the help of a human leader of some sort, like Queen Jenna. To the Ascalonians, the Charr are their ancient enemies. Even if he gives back the sword, would that really be enough to appease them? How can the ascalonians approve of the charr occupying their territory? Maybe the Pale Tree will provide more insight into this.

Sykper.6583:

I have a theory, one I don’t see floating around too much.

It assumes the spheres lighting up are in fact the order of dragons awakening. It also assumes they awaken in sequence, meaning that the GREEN sphere is in fact Zhaitan, and the center sphere we can assume is the Pale tree/Tyria/Whatever we as protagonists are trying to protect.

What if what was portrayed was not necessarily symbolic of a dragon wrecking havoc on Tyria, but instead as the OP pointed out, the collective magic they possessed returning to the world? I won’t go SO far as to say we might be recreating an ancient entity of the summation of magic itself though.

Two things come to mind when I consider Zhaitan’s demise and how it affects Tyria, the return of all that magic. Although I hate to relate to it, ‘Tequatl gained strength after the defeat of Zhaitan, reasons unknown’.
(http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Dragon_champion)

I believe there was speculation about how the release of magic from Zhaitan back then caused such an evolution in Tequatl. But even if that wasn’t the case, and the continuity assumes Tequatl evolved during the offensive in Orr as also dictated on the wiki (It never said the offensive stopped after Zhaitan’s death though, there are a LOT of risen around.) I have another piece that supports my theory.

Everyone knows the Evolved Jungle Wurm, right? That lovely creature dwelling just north of Sparkfly on the borders of Zhaitan’s reach (Of course, we can find risen here and there north of the zones, but the concentration is mostly Orr and its closest neighbors). Well, we can assume the Scarlet thumpers just disturbed this majestic, clearly normal creature from its nests in Bloodtide, or go with my suggestion.

The Evolved Jungle Wurm had gotten its ‘Evolved’ tag from absorbing magic from Zhaitan’s defeat as well! Taking a leap and assuming that the unnatural Wurms are minions of Mordremoth, would it be so far as to assume his minions could take in the ambient magic and gain strength from it?

This is where it gets interesting, because I think you all might understand where I am going with this. Everytime we kill an elder dragon, we release its energy onto Tyria, and the other Elder Dragons will gobble it up. We already know the dragon minions do not necessarily like each other (not that they had minds to care enough what they attack), but I like to think it as a cold war between them. WE, are effectively killing them off one by one, reducing their adversaries and making them stronger till there is one left.

The Ley Lines are an added bonus, and a source for the stalemate between the dragons. However it wouldn’t be too far fetched to say we are indirectly helping the other dragons as we kill them each one at a time. A scenario where any given dragon is the last one alive, with a world brimming with unsanctioned magic…

It’s not a bad idea, but it is flawed. Though Anet has played around with the particular aspects of magic between GW1 and 2 one theme has been reoccuring in the GW2 timeline: that there are different TYPES of magic in existence. I think they have been eluding to the notion that the eternal alchemy, dragon aspects, Elder Dragons and even the magic of the human gods are all one in the same.

Tequatl was able to absorb Zhaitan’s magic because it is a construct of death or “undead” magic. That would make it an ideal conduit for collecting and utilizing Zhaitans energy. I don’t think that after will kill more and more dragons, the others will become more powerful. I suppose that could make for an interesting story element, but it would be inconsistent with what we have seen so far.

It may be possible that the Elder Dragons consume and convert magic into their own particular type, but I think all this Eternal Alchemy business is implying that all magic in Tyria is works in tandem with one another and balance the others out. They’re so evenly positioned on the drawing that we saw, even while they circle around the pale tree.

I think the Pale Tree represents the earthy spirit of Tyria itself and the magic of the dragons move around it constantly vying for power, but never achieving it and never really taking any of it away from any of the others. I think the Green ball of light is meant to represent Mordremoth’s hunger for corrupting Tyria itself, but doesn’t necessarily mean that it can succeed. The destructive hungers of the Elder Dragons maybe what keeps each of them in check. They are all equally powerful and cannot ultimately out match the others. And while Zhaitan may have been destroyed his magic did not disappear and was acquired by one of his minions, thus starting the cycle all over again.

Great point!

Perhaps this was post Guild Wars and GW Beyond? Maybe there were a small group of centaurs and humans that worked together in some remote part of the continent.

Would also like to add an overly long thank you as well. For the first time in a LONG while I felt like we were actually playing a sequel that is worthy of Guild Wars. Except for the Scarlet references, that brought me back to reality quick.

But on to the positive:

I want to thank the team (whoever they are) for their outstanding work on the graphics. It looks so much more lush and detailed than ever before, even on medium settings. Upped pixel count? I don’t know what it was but everything looked smoother. So yeah you guys basically made the best looking game out there look even prettier. The view from Raptor Prawl was incredible. I never would have thought of a rocky, somewhat empty canyon could look so awe inspiring in a game. You guys captured some of the essence of the rl beauty of these kinds of rock formations and translated it so well into game format. The Oasis included! The sound effects added to the lush, moisture of the environment which was such a stark contrast to the desert landscape. Not to mention the Ley line chamber with all those twisting streams of magic seething through the rock. This look and feel is so much more like how I had imagined and hoped GW2 would look like. (again, not that the core game is bad. This is just mind blowingly beautiful) And last, but most importantly of all…..the grass looks amazing.

I’m so happy that we got a more diplomatic group of centaurs. Though it almost looks too good to be true, I am just happy that we are not killing any more of these guys and that we may get to see their personalities in greater detail. It’s like we got a whole tribe of Ventaris.

Speaking of which did someone say something about GW references??? There were a ton of references to Nightfall. I’m not sure if Scarlet drawing inspiration from Varesh Ossa really gives her a pass since that would make her virtually a carbon copy (possessed and tricked by a greater, evil power, megalomania etc.) but still it was great as a fan to read about our old Nightfall nemesis again. Nicolas the traveler, giving his account of Dry Top, and Vine Bridges! I never thought I’d be so happy to see that little gold circle on the ground where the vine bridge erupts out of.

The strangled bodies were a nice touch to the altered zones, with refugees and Inquest victims mixed up throughout. It was frightening and eerie, but appropriate for this kind of game.

Great job on the Mordem minions! This may be a stretch, but they are somewhat reminiscent of the “salad monsters” from Nightfall, at least to me. They were frustrating but I liked them a lot. Although I think they had more mesmer-like abilities and they didn’t have eyes as far as I could tell. The large, cycloptic eyes of the Mordems is interesting in of itself. I am so curious about what Mordremoth will look like! Though the dragons don’t necessarily look like their minions, I’m interested in how he will turn out.

That last scene where we “steal someone else’s glory” was absolutely epic! Again it reminded me of Nightfall with that whole issue regarding Kormir. I took so many screenshots! I can’t wait to read more speculation regarding that moment though.

Most of my guildies are pretty excited for chapter 3.

I really couldn’t care less. I was happy Marjory was gone though. She’s my least favorite of the two human characters.

Definitely seconding the Katana idea. A long, thin greatsword would be so great! Also a single handed katana (sword) would be worth paying for too.

I adore the assassin outfit! I’ve put it on two of my human alts already. It looks so great on female characters.

It would be great if they came out with samurai armor too or some variation of canthan heavy armor, like the one the warriors wore.

The map is pretty good, I like the events aside from Tootsie. I’m intrigued by the story so far, though it could use a little less Scarlet. I guess that can’t be helped since she was the one responsible for waking the dragon.

FlamingFoxx.1305:

BrotherBelial.3094:

Lishtenbird.2814:

So, judging from the picture, maps in GW1 were not those ugly rectangles we have in GW2?

Nope. The maps in guild wars where amazing, but also very small. Like kessex hills is about 4-5 zones from GW

Yes and no, they were small in direct comparison with GW2’s maps, but they took longer to traverse and so the world felt a lot bigger (not to mention there were just more areas in GW1, map completion in Prophecies took an age compared to map completion in GW2).

This.

It is uncertain exactly how many new maps are going to be unveiled, though I’m assuming that much of the Maguuma Jungle will be revealed over the course of LS2.

I’m hoping we get to see remnants of Ventari’s refuge or The Falls.

Rym.1469:

I believe they said during one of recent livestreams that S2 will be full of references to original GW1 lore, but I doubt it will be main focus.

That would be so amazing! I’d imagine that Maguuma will be much wilder than it was when we last saw it 250 years ago. I’m hoping we’ll see some Thorn Stalkers or http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Root_Behemoth

There are some petrified Druids around the edges of Maguuma, but it would be interesting to see more hints about them here or there.

I like the idea of Mordremoth feeding off of a bloodstone, though somehow I was under the impression that Elder Dragons were much more potent sources of magic in of themselves?

Speculation time:

Well if Scarlet was indeed directly influenced by Mordremoth, it may be safe to say that his minions are not all directly controlled by the dragon himself. The may have a degree of autonomy like Jormag’s Svanir followers who are aligned to him (it?) with promises of power. Maybe Mordremoth’s influence is slower, like a growth or a parasite building slowly over time through nightmares or dreams so that the animal or person doesn’t realize that they’ve been altered?

The Blighted may be products of that slow corruption or something.

Gearing up for LS 2 would be dropping teasers about the new content, not ruminating over Scarlet. :p They’re just defending their decision to focus solely on Scarlet for content generation and story. Like the LS 1 is their ‘legacy’ or something, which frankly is pathetic. More and more I feel like GW1 is something they’d like to sweep under the rug for good.

In some ways I’m not looking forward to the LS 2 just because it’s been fun focusing on the core content rather than watching this travesty of a storyline unfold. Oh well. Cheers to hoping for better updates, I guess.

What you’re suggesting, OP is that Anet would somehow magically change the living story to suit your interests if you just paid them more money per patch, which isn’t too different from a subscription as everyone has been saying.

That isn’t going to happen. Anet has their own ideas for what they want with the living story. Even if they charged for new living story content every two weeks (which is ludicrous and completely goes against their business model) there is no guarantee that they will make something that fans would find appealing enough to purchase. It will not force anet to make content that YOU would want

What they are doing now is a decent compromise. If people missed it, they can buy it if they really want to throw down cash for new content. If they don’t care, no sweat, you won’t lose out. Furthermore I would NEVER pay every two weeks for the living story the way it is now. It’s just not worth it.

Aside from that, I would gladly pay for entirely maps if they were available. Maybe not something as small as Southsun cove, but I really just want them to open up the world of Tyria again. Like sub-expansions or something. A subscription forces you to pay for your time spent in game, while this would be paying for content directly.

Edit: Wildstar is NCsoft’s subscription based game. Your suggestion would put Anet in direct competition with Wildstar which will not help their sales, but hurt it. They are NOT going to compete with Wildstar on that front for that reason alone. I’m sure NCsoft is making this distinction on purpose.

Same here! I’ve used it on three of my characters so far. I love how the male charr tail makes the dragon look like it’s flying around in the air.

Yes the permanent content will be nice for a change. Let’s just hope it is well made content.

That’s too bad. I was going to say that the Ancestral Armor people were posting looks great, but no Cantha is a shame….Wish they would do Elona at least if Cantha impossible at this point.

I’ve been getting a lot of gold selling/spam whispers all with the exact same text, from multiple accounts. I’m wondering if people’s accounts are being compromised on a massive scale? Please look into this Anet, I received about 12 different whispers in less than an hour and reported and blocked them all, but it isn’t fair to the owners of hacked accounts.

PeskyJNixon.8236:

Cultural Armor or Bust on a Charr, pretty much our best route to good looks but ouch is it expensive.

This is true.

There are a few masks that look ok, but the cultural armor is less laughable.

I was at the local convention when I saw this amazing cosplayer out and about. A few people shouted, “Hey is that a ritualist from Guild Wars?” Or “Awesome, Guild Wars!” as she walked by.

It was cool to see someone dressed as a profession from GW though it is telling that the Ritualist is iconic to the GW franchise. :HINT: :WINK: Anet take note :COUGH:

I remember those. There was a golem and you had to go back to pre-searing ascalon right?

I liked the stick figure year. That one was cute.

This image is from the Wiki.

Anet posted this on the Guild Wars 1 login. I transcribed it as best as I could, though there might be some errors.

“TGIzdGVuLC Bhbm Qgd W5kZXJz dG FuZC4g VG hhd CBBbm5 paG IsYXRv c iBnb 2xlbSBp cyBvdXQ gd Ghlcm UulEIO IGN hb id0IG JIIGJ h cmdh aW5IZ CB 3 aX RoL iBJdCBj YW 4n d CBiZ SByZWF zb25IZ C B3aX RoLi BJd C Bkb2 Vzbid0I GZIZWwgcGI 0eS wgb3 I gcmVtb3Jz ZSwg b3I gZmV hci4g QW5 kIGI 0IGFi c2 9s dXR I bHk gd2lsbC Bub 3Qgc 3RvcC wgZX Zlc iwgdW50aW w gU2Fy YWggY W5klE d3Z W4 gYXJ IIGRI YWQu”

Feel free to move this thread if it is in the wrong location, but I thought this might be interesting for people who don’t have GW1. It may be nothing though, like a scrambled version of what they always put into the news section.

It would be so cool to have customizable player instances, guild halls or housing as we know it in other games. Doubt this is what they are introducing, but it would be so cool if it were.

See the thing is, you can still have a game which is reliant on role diversity and giving individual classes a use without having something as simple as “the holy trinity”. In other words, more than three role types in a game can exist and should be viable. For example, Mesmers, Rangers and even Necros from GW1 weren’t just “dps” machines. Mesmers had interrupts and counters which were almost necessary in some boss fights and made killing much more efficient. Rangers with their traps and spirits that decreased the effectiveness of enemies and also allowed groups to ambush any passing groups of mobs. Necro builds would be dependent upon the dungeon itself, but there was always a ton of flexibility and CHOICE with this profession.

Furthermore, the way encounters were set up you can only really rely upon stacking conditions and pure damage output, with very little emphasis on protection and survivability. The few skills that offer ‘protects’ are very flimsy and hardly useful except as a minor distraction in PvE.

So it is a combination of bad encounter design and homogenization of Professions as a whole that made reliance on zerker builds and pure dps inevitable in GW2. That doesn’t mean Anet was wrong to avoid the Holy Trinity, but they should have maintained individual usefulness of professions and not just reduced it to a ‘flavor’ of how you drop damage.

I thought that’s what Mesmers were supposed to do?

But regardless, are staff builds effective damage wise for Ele’s? They’d better be, otherwise I would agree that ele’s need a dps buff.

I do like the new traits that have been mentioned so far, and the IDEA of unlocking them through exploration and general play sounds good, but holy hell RNG drop rates for trait books is a very disturbing prospect, as is the ability to purchase trait books with gold. Considering they could be very expensive it could be yet another cash grab by Anet for gem to gold sales.

Skill acquisition in GW1 was reasonable. For example if you beat that boss once, you automatically got that skill 100% of the time. My fear is that this article could be yet again another hyped up, misleading bit of drivel that will only introduce more pay2win concepts.

If they make trait acquisition guaranteed or through a token system(for reasonable costs!), then it wouldn’t be so bad.

Aside from that I want to love these changes, but I can’t help but cringe a little thinking of how this could all go wrong.

I’m excited about the variety of traits being implemented, though I’m still unsure about the new approach to tiered unlocks and progression. I’m assuming this is all aimed at the Chinese market? Maybe they wanted to create a more rewarding experience after grinding up levels? IDK.

Well my 5/10 from the long post I made in another thread is essentially a failing grade. 50% is an F for most classes yo, no curving.

Celtic Lady.3729:

I’d really like to see this “cleaned up” Orr…

I would too, actually! That would be so amazing, to visit the old ruins of ancient Orr….that would be so cool! After maybe like 80% of the dragon corruption as been dispersed, I would love to do an Indiana Jones type exploration release where we can find lots of tributes to the gods and other secrets that have been suppressed or destroyed due to the dragon. More about Abaddon, or the gods themselves? Maybe make that a gateway into an underwater environment with the Deep Sea Dragon. Orr is huge and looks like it was once really beautiful. Maybe after the destruction of LA we’d get the revitalization of Orr? Also will we finally know what happened to the Scepter of Orr after all this time?

There are bits and pieces of the old staircases left. I haven’t quite given up hope for more releases that go back to the roots of the best of GW1 but who knows at this point.

Autumn Frazee.3158:

Thank you for reporting this, we realize that is is difficult to get full maps during non peak hours or that it is hard to get a full overflow to coordinate for these fights, we are currently working on easing the difficulty of the Assault Knight fights to better allow servers to participate in the Hologram Fight.

That would be pretty awesome actually. It isn’t fair to the smaller servers that they can’t even beat the Knights. Please allow them to stand a fighting chance!

Twilight Assault – N/A
Blood and Madness – N/A

Tower of Nightmares – N/A (though I did log in once to look at it. I missed the old Kessex and wished they hadn’t changed it for the sake of Scarlet.)

The Nightmares Within – N/A

Fractured – N/A
I definitely wanted nothing to do with this, though I read up on the instance and was not impressed with the story behind the Thaumanova reactor. Yet again, more Scarlet rubbish. She was using the inquest to locate the magical laylines connected to Mordy. Still would have preferred Abaddon,with GW2 graphics.

A Very Merry Wintersday – N/A
The Origins of Madness – N/A
The Edge of the Mists – N/A

Escape from Lion’s Arch 9/10
Fantastic release to return to. I liked that we would be rescuing people out of LA and was curious to see what they would do to the city. It worked well because there was a sense of urgency and you could choose what you wanted to do in order to contribute, or simply run around like a looter, collecting heirlooms. I’m assuming that was the concept behind the Selfish and Selfless potions? Your overflow would receive greater rewards for rescuing more citizens, but you would get less supply bags in return. It was great and had a lot for people to do. I absolutely loved it. Plus you only see scarlet in the cutscene and she doesn’t say anything!

Battle for Lion’s Arch 7/10

Scarlet dying via a finishing move was fairly anti-climactic and not very fun. The cut scenes were too long and corny even for me, when I usually love stuff like that. I was happy to see Mordremoth reviled for future updates, though I hope we see more baddies or GASP! Actual dragons!? Like smaller than Tequatl but with the unique look GW2 creatures tend to have. It still isn’t entirely clear if Scarlet was corrupted by the dragon, or if she was simply too curious for her own good after hearing the dragon’s creepy whispers in her head. Not that I want to know. Please don’t bring up Scarlet anymore, for the love of Dwayna. No flashbacks, no nothing, can we please just forget that she existed from now on?
Aside from that, the boss fights are ok, though heavily bugged. Loot problems are frustrating and should be addressed far before release dates. The ending fight was ok too, I just enjoy farming at the moment so I can get my colored back piece. I like that there is some coordination involved with the overflows, though it took people a while to get a system down that everyone will follow.

Overall, I did like that previous content from the last patch could still be played for achievements but generally I’m still holding out hope that Anet will give us a real expansion sometime in the future. The LS felt like an experiment exploring mediocrity. Some of the releases were either too rushed or were completely disjointed from one another to retain interest in the plot over a long period of time.

Just to give a number, since everyone else is doing it, 5/10 sounds fair.

Cutthroat Politics 7/10

This was a somewhat unique update in that the community was directly involved in choosing new content for upcoming patches. I am still very disappointed that the Abaddon path was not chosen and I still feel that the election was heavily biased in Kiel’s favor with the temporary waypoint discounts. Still it was interesting to see how the community in game and in the forum interacted.

Queen’s Jubilee 5/10

This release was ok. I wasn’t too thrilled about the introduction of robotic sentinels in Divinity’s Reach but whatever. Queen Jenna is sort of…there I guess she really isn’t all that interesting. Logan was just as off putting as ever which is a waste of such an excellent voice actor. :p I did like the boss arenas though, it was fun to farm in a group and the loot was decent. I didn’t care much for the cages up on the scaffolding, but other players seemed to like those just fine for its challenging aspects.

Clockwork Chaos 4/10

The introduction of Scarlet? Who knows, who cares. Stock dialogue and really lame concept, not to mention poorly written. I did not enjoy her dungeon. It was slow, and boring with dull mechanics that were aggravating and not fun. The zerg content across the map were pointless but decently fun. I just remember becoming really disenchanted at this point with the game.

Tequatl Rising 6/10

It was a great concept that was deeply flawed. I liked that the story went back to Zhaitan’s surviving minions and attempted to revamp a large boss fight. Greater rewards were good, however the execution of this event were poorly conceived. The massive effort required to complete this event was virtually impossible for smaller servers to accomplish. My server at that time was unable to beat him once. I’ve recently moved to a larger server so that I can enjoy more of the content, which is really unfortunate because this should not be happening in the first place. Again it was related to the issues with overflows that have been a consistent problem with this game for many releases. However at this point I became so frustrated with everything that had been happening over the last few months that I quit after I found out that the next release would be related to Scarlet again.

Dragon Bash 9/10 (maybe a 10)

Awesome, awesome, awesome. Great spiritual successor to the Dragon festival and suitable for the GW2 world. Though it is technically a festival it was tied into the living story and leads up to the introduction of the aetherblades. Aside from the gemstore fiasco, the free drops were fantastic and rewarding. Exactly what you would expect from a festival event. So many cool items and skins, fireworks, decorations etc. Dragonball arena was so much fun, I enjoyed every second of it!

Sky Pirates of Tyria 4/10

Generally a pretty iffy release for me. It looked like an excuse to introduce more steampunk into the game, though technically you had that already with the molten alliance. Also they ended up just being so many useless and expendable drones for the big badie to be revealed later on which was annoying. I kind of liked that you could fight small groups of them for items throughout the Tyrian map. Also introduced the most annoying Jumping Puzzle to date. It was so much harder for me to navigate on my charr Mesmer, though I was able to drop ports for people once I finally got to the top. Mostly just frustrating and not very fun at all. The Aetherblade dungeon was also a huge let down and massively frustrating. If you had not played it in the first few days after the Tuesday release, then you were out of luck and it became almost impossible to find a decent group since no one wanted to play after they had acquired their achievement.

Bazaar of the Four Winds 10/10

I loved this area and the environment throughout. It was so refreshingly different from anything else introduced so far, not to mention that it had briefly hinted at ties to Cantha and was so much fun to participate it. While all the environments in GW2 have been beautiful, this zone was particularly exquisite with all the attention to detail and the concept of this trade center was created on what is essentially a massive, multi-tiered, bamboo kite. The lightning, wind and sun mechanics were fun and the introduction of nodes for your home instance were a great addition. The music was really cool too and I loved the concept of a small, isolated colony that flew high above the world and was more or less indifferent to what happened below. I liked that there were so many karma vendors that sold ingredients for cooking, though I would have liked to see more mats sold too.

The Secret of Southsun: 7/10

This block started out in a somewhat interesting manner. I enjoyed the development of the Consortium as a shady business and their rising tension with the refugees worked nicely and it was great returning to Southsun. I don’t remember when exactly Ellen Kiel was introduced but this was when I began to notice her more. She’s a rather bland, pointless character and a poor attempt at creating a kitten female character. She was basically like, “Listen to me because I am strong and qualified and stuff!” Look at old GW1 characters like Gwen, Jora, Livia or even Zenmai! They were all believable, nuanced, flawed and yes, kitten female characters. Gwen was motivated by per personal suffering and enslavement via the Charr and would often mix justice with revenge which put a strain on her shaky alliance with the likes of Pyre. Livia was a mysterious and determined woman who would do virtually anything to save her people even if it involved sacrificing a great many things to get there. The player earned Jora’s loyalty by helping her with her personal journey to regain her lost honor and her power, not to mention put her corrupted brother to rest.
In any case, the introduction of more activities and mini games were excellent and added some fun competitive play to the experience. Though they aren’t all perfect, games like crab toss were fun and actually ended up being cooperative which is what I have always enjoyed most about group gameplay in GW and GW2.

Last Stand at Southsun: 6/10

While Canach himself is a decent character, his motivations weren’t always clear to me and that was probably due to the manner in which his story had been executed. I only remember seeing bits and pieces about it and it was unclear to me at the time what was going on with him, other than the fact that he sort of tricked people and was turning the animals against everyone. I thought he was some sort of misguided environmentalist or something. I also gave this patch a lower score because the last dungeon against him was very poorly made. I did not enjoy having to jump through pointless hoops just to kill him off. Plus the explorable mode was very poorly conceived and made life difficult for everyone playing, especially rangers.