Guild Wars 2

Justin.7163:

Hi,

Was just wondering if anyone has noticed that our player characters haven’t had any spoken dialogue at all for the Living Story. Not sure if there’s a reason behind it but I would like to hear my characters speak a bit more like in the Personal Story cutscenes.

There are two reasons behind it: time and money. If they’re going to release new content every two weeks, they’re going to be hard-pressed to pay ten voice actors to come in and do the voice over work. And because they aren’t charging for the Living Story updates, paying ten voice actors to voice some temporary lines of dialogue once a month could be seen as a bad investment.

This tool-tip error still exists? Come on, ArenaNet, it’s been almost a year…

DONO.8760:

Disgusting waste of resources that could go toward building up the defenses against the Elder Dragons. Shameful…

The Elder Dragons died of boredom. Evidently waiting around for us to finish our parties and our mini-games and our balloon rides was more than they could bear and they just died.

This has been suggested several times before. It’s one of those quality of life updates that we’re just going to have to keep asking for until we get it.

LanfearShadowflame.3189:

I don’t think it is so much ‘worry about’ as it is ‘shut them up so we can work.’ Not sure if you have kids, but its a similar concept. Eventually you are going to do something about your child that keeps pestering you while you’re trying to work. For some, its a smack on the backside, for others its simply giving them whatever it is they want. This, I feel, is somewhere in between.

I say let the [figurative] kids leave if they don’t like the way things are (or were…once upon a time) and let the rest of us get back to enjoying the game the developers envisioned all those years ago.

TooBz.3065:

I also agree, for once, I think there’s really no other way to add a low power curve vertical progression to the game. Without time gating, the “locusts” as Lanfear calls them would get their ascended whatever and start crying for more.

This way, people who favor gear progression have to slowly gear up. This has much less effect on the rest of us.

There are things I hate about time gating, but I understand the need, even if I’m sometimes frustrated by side-effects.

As someone with multiple characters, I couldn’t disagree more. The time-gating of gear makes it a huge drag to upgrade more than one character. And why is this necessary? So those who would otherwise be bored have a reason to log in every day? Is the kind of player who devours content at a breakneck speed then cries that there’s nothing to do really the kind of player ArenaNet wants to spend time worrying about?

Israfyl.9230:

darkace.8925:

SSalp.6423:

And also a preview option for those dyes would be nice

That, too, would be nice.

btw you can preview dyes in game, just right click and choose preview.

I know. But hunting down all the dyes I don’t have just to preview them isn’t a fun way to spend my gaming time.

Warning: Cycicism incoming.

It will be three new greatswords, two new swords, two new longbows, the worst looking staff you’ve ever seen, and one of everything else… except for maces, pistols, and rifles, which get nothing.

Astralporing.1957:

Additionally, the amount of gold this farming introduces into economy is far less than the amount of valuables (equipment and mats) it introduces. And this relation is what’s important here.

That’s a fair point.

Or they could simply add a mini-pet slot in our Hero panel. It seems like such an easy fix and it’s been requested on more than few times; but for whatever reason the developers don’t seem to want to be bothered with it.

Sirendor.1394:

It’s not really like players are harvesters always looking to farm more and more, it’s just that in this game money is needed for everything… and it takes a lot for anything. Instead of motivating farming, make everything as efficient as the rest to make money, so players aren’t restricted to grinding.

Outside of cosmetic skins (Legendary weapons, T3 cultural armor, etc) what is money needed for? I mean, sure, you need some to level and outfit your characters and a tiny amount for way points and repair costs. But beyond that, I’ve always felt gold was kind of needless after a certain point.

PS – I was about to click “reply” when it occurred to me many players convert gold into gems. I’m sure that’s a contributing factor to why so many of the highly-desirable Gem Shop skins are offered via rng boxes, but that’s a discussion for another day.

I was thrilled when they added the Wizard’kitten to the game. My euphoria quickly turned to crushing disappointment when I discovered it was town clothes.

Dual.8953:

I disagree. It makes a unique challenge for destroyers. Much like Dredge provide a unique challenge to thieves.

New challenge is fine; completely neutering certain builds is not.

nexxe.7081:

250+ years ago in the real world…
we didn’t have holograms, we now do.
we didn’t have TV, we now do.
we didn’t have cell phones, we now do.
we didn’t have MMOs, we now do.
etc.

New technology is always under appreciated, just like tech in Tyria!

No, but France didn’t develop all of these while their sometimes-enemy, sometimes-ally Germany made no advancement beyond smoothbore muskets and horse-drawn carts. That’s my problem with the technology in Tyria, how the big the disparity between “advanced” races is.

IndigoSundown.5419:

Some players are going to farm. At one time, they were content to farm events in CS by completing them. ANet did not find that to be acceptable, so the time between events was lengthened. Now, players don’t want the events to complete, because there is too much time before the next one.

I did a lot of Plinx and Pen/Shelt/Jo before the timers were lengthened. No one exploited the events. I never saw anyone upset with another player over how they did these events. I forum a lot, and don’t recall any threads about reporting people back when CS events happened frequently. Now, I see reports of such behavior regularly. The change seems to be directly attributable to ANet’s decisions.

Yeah, it is kind of ironic that all of this would have been avoided (for the most part) if they’d just left Pent/Shelt and Plinx alone. I never saw the problem with people farming events in the end game zone that was designed to be the place-to-be for end-game open world PvE players.

Astralporing.1957:

darkace.8925:

You’re being rather shortsighted. You’re not the only one getting heaps of gold from these new events; everyone else is too. This isn’t gold being shuffled around from one player to another; it’s new gold…it’s gold being added to the economy.

You don’t get “heaps of gold” from vendoring stuff, nor do you get that much directly from drops. Most of it is gained from selling things on TP – which means it is being shuffled around.

You may not; I may not, but all of us together are. Do the math:
Average Zerg Size
x Number of Servers
x 4 (for FG, QD, QP, and LS)
x Average Silver per Champion
x Number of Champions Killed per Hour
x Blues & Greens Vendored per Hour
x 24 Hours a Day
x 7 Days a Week
= A whole lot of gold being introduced into the economy each week this continues.

Pretty much, yeah. It’s obvious they didn’t offer enough options for spending it, and anything they add now will either requires lots of grinding (by those who continually dump theirs on boxes), be purchased immediately (by those who never spend theirs on anything), or be time-gated (something we could do with a lot less of).

Chorel.1720:

It`s not bannable to complete events. It`s just people being idiots with the new champion loot. The community went from nice to being total kittens. I saw someone call someone else a kittenbag for killing the Champion Spider in Queensdale just before. Map chat went from being helpful to just one giant zerg calling champions out.

One of the best things and one of the worst things Anet has done in a while.

They chose to cater to the wrong MMO crowd, in my opinion. The “MOAR!!!” MMOers are the wrong kind of players to build a community – or a game – around.

For the price, all T3 cultural armor should have four slots (on the body, at the very least). I was crushed when I learned I couldn’t dye the trim on the human’s T3 cultural heavy armor a different color than the tabard itself. Crushed, I tell you.

Astral Projections.7320:

Do you have the recipe already to make it? If you don’t then no point in worrying about it.

Wrong. If new food recipes are going to be added to the game and chefs are going to want to get their crafting level to 500, I’d kitten well be worried if this recipe was indicative of what’s to come.

SSalp.6423:

And also a preview option for those dyes would be nice

That, too, would be nice.

If you hate it now, just imagine how much more you’re going to hate it when (if?) the Primordus expansion hits.

My complaint is how many APs are awarded for such menial tasks. Is pressing F 150 times in the safety of Lion’s Arch (for dragon pinatas) really an achievement?

Achrisos.1360:

Even worse than this is the awesome amount of achievement points u get for making a legendary……

Just because you got more points for breaking dragon pinatas (pressing F 150 times in Lion’s Arch) than you did for equipping three Legendary weapons (100% world exploration x2, 1000 Badges of Honor, 360 gold for recipes, 400 crafting in at least two different crafts, 3000+ T6 mats, 1000+ globs of ectoplams, 1000+ skill points, three precursors, or alternatively a crap-ton of gold to buy them outright) doesn’t mean there’s anything wrong with the Achievement Points system.

WTB: Decent Staff Skin. Anybody? Anybody? No? …….

And we’re still getting Support Tickets from Jumping Puzzle chests…

Just goes to show how little time the developers have for QA with such quick turnarounds on the Living Story release schedule. And that’s a shame, considering all the effort that went into polishing the initial game before release. Somewhere along the line “when it’s ready” became “as quick as we can.”

aophts.9862:

Seriously, what the freak is going on?

With the gold reward for the dungeons and the chests from champions, now i can finally make some gold and start my quest for a legendary. I see a LOT of people with legendary, seriously, i’m not kidding, i saw a lot of people with legendary weapons, and it is obvious that they spend it a lot of gold to craft one. So, i want my legendary too, like everyone else, but people asking for less rewards (WTF?!?) you destroy any plans for getting money or crafting a legendary, not only for me but for other people.

Stop being selfish, everyone have the right to craft a legendary and have some nice amount of money in the wallet.

You’re being rather shortsighted. You’re not the only one getting heaps of gold from these new events; everyone else is too. This isn’t gold being shuffled around from one player to another; it’s new gold…it’s gold being added to the economy. If gold is added to the economy quicker than it’s removed, inflation happens. If inflation happens, that Legendary you so badly want becomes significantly more expensive; as does everything else.

StinVec.3621:

Not to also mention the foul environment created in the Queensdale starting zone
due to the players that are farming champs getting very offensive in chat when people interrupt their champ kill order (thanks, report function).

This has been going on in Queensdale for a while. I haven’t been back since the champion loot system was implemented, but I can imagine it’s worse than ever.

Reloading.3260:

MauricioCezar.2673:

Soon A-net will introduce a form to craft precursors, so…

Kind of like how they said they’ll soon have a scavenger hunt…

I’ll believe it when I see it.

It’s not going to be a scavenger hunt, precursors are going to be crafted. I’m taking bets that doing so will required tons of T6 mats being converted into T7 mats at the rate of 1 per day (time-gating ftw).

So I’m running with the champion zerg in Lost Shores today. Over a 45 minute stretch I see the following:

Lost Shores Player to Champion Zerg, “Gates of Arah is up.”
Champion Zerg to Lost Shores Player, “Not enough champions.”
/Champion Zerg continues zerging champaions

[sometime later]

Lost Shores Player to Champion Zerg, “Grenth is up.”
Champion Zerg to Lost Shores Player, “Not enough champions.”
/Champion Zerg continues zerging champaions

Never mind the chests or the hordes of trash mobs that drop loot or the notion that someone might need the Grenth Skill Point…just keep killing the same three champions in the same order for hours on end.

I didn’t make this post to tell anyone how to play the game or to anyone how to play the game, I’m not criticizing anyone for farming champions; I’m just making an observation. Make of it what you will (nothing is certainly an acceptable answer).

There are a TON of dyes to keep track of. We know what we’ve got, but it’s a pain in the butt to track what we don’t. This is exponentially true for players who have multiple characters. If we had an option to toggle on a dye overlay that showed all dyes, with those we don’t have greyed/dulled out, that would make tracking and collecting these things much more enjoyable.

gurugeorge.9857:

I’ve seen devs on the forums reassuring us that this is indeed what they are doing. There will be new permanent areas, etc.

Essentially, as I understand it, what they’ve been doing is sort of practicing how to use their tools effectively. No other MMO that I can recall has produced as much and as varied, and relatively bug-free content, in such a short space of time; they obviously have some really special content production tools at their disposal. Yes, there’s been a lot of “filler”, but lots of people do enjoy it, and meanwhile, the team is getting more and more in a position to deliver on the more long-term promises.

That’s the picture I’m getting from dev comments anyway. I hope it’s the case.

I share your hopes; but I also have my doubts. After the waiter brings you your twelfth loaf of complimentary bread – each loaf accompanied with an assurance that your steak is almost ready – it’s only natural to start wondering just what the kitchen staff is working on. In our case, we can’t even smell the steak. The only aroma coming from the kitchen is that of more bread. I don’t want to fill up on bread…I want meat…expertly prepared, hearty, delicious, fulfilling meat.

mXz.4512:

If it was 1 balloon per area, then I would agree. However it’s 2 per map. And I was able to finish it (with a high lvl char) within 24 hours of the update.

But did you enjoy it? Was getting the 30th balloon as fun and engaging as getting the first? And more importantly, what enjoyment does it provide you the remaining 13 days in this chapter of the Living Story? Are they going to provide you any lasting enjoyment? Or are they going to be forgotten the moment they’re removed from the game?

DarcShriek.5829:

What do you do when you’re not farming balloons?

I open my map and stare at the 100% exploration bar in the upper left-hand corner and then at all the regions to which we don’t have access (Crystal Desert, Maguuma Wastes, the Fire Islands, etc.) and I lament that the developers have chosen to spend resources on balloons and pinatas and kites instead of working on releasing these regions with as much depth and attention to detail as the those in the game at release.

For me it has nothing to do with frequent content updates or new explorable areas or progressing storylines or an evolving environment. For me, what makes an MMO world feel alive is ambiance. It’s the idle chit-chat between two market goers in Divinity’s Reach; it’s the crows cawing in Lornar’s Pass; it’s the fireflies floating lazily about during the night. It’s the little touches – the attention to fine detail – that brings an MMO world to life.

It takes the story of the last year and brings it all together. It makes it clear where everything has been going and really closes a lot of open questions that players have had. It’s a story that really affects the entire world and permanently creates content and change for the entire world game-wide, which is really something that’s important to us and we want to showcase that that’s where stuff is headed.

Let’s hope it actually does this in-game and not in a short story posted on the website.

Hybarf Tics.2048:

What this system of living story does without saying is, at this pace the other 5 dragons will be dead in 10 years time. Rejoice we can go to Elona in 2024 and finally move on to a subject other than dragons, unless of course Elona has it’s own dragons and they kill Palawa Joko for us.

At this rate the other dragons are going to die of old age or neglect or even boredom by the time we get around to them. I understand…priorities and all…we’ve got to frequent some parties and light some beacons and collect some kites and ride around in some hot-air balloons before we get about the business of saving the world from evil, all-powerful dragons. I just hope they don’t mind waiting for us.

Randulf.7614:

Nah, blew them all on T6 mats

I’ve considered this, but my 220+ laurels wouldn’t even get me a three stacks of the required eight stacks needed for the Gift of Fortune.

Lyskaria.2145:

I think most of the people here are just objecting about the principle of the thing. The gold loss is negligible unless you had craploads of tokens lying around, anyway. I know it certainly felt strange to me…it doesn’t feel right. Principles. Why did they do this?

As someone who is MANY T6 mats shy of my first Legendary weapon, the 3+ gold I lost from this is anything but negligible.

Lutinz.6915:

Do remember the great collapse used to be the arts district so it was to a large extent venues for the arts anyway. There would have been people living there but not as many as in the other sections of the city. Plus, they had to build something there. They couldn’t just leave a huge sinkhole and a damaged outer wall.

They could have filled it in and rebuilt the Canthan…I mean “arts district”.

Einlanzer.1627:

Traditional. The game needs actual organic growth and expansion-style permanent content WAAAAY more than it needs event gimmicks that aren’t really sustainable.

This is underscored by the fact that our Personal Stories haven’t progressed an inch since focus shifted to the Living Story. My character hasn’t uttered a single word in spoken dialogue since the fall of Zhaitan. That they went from the Biography, with it’s many branches and different possible stories, to a silent protagonist all so they could churn out content at a high pace disappoints me.

The Talcmaster.7391:

fact: nobody cares about the karma, gold, or experience they get from dailies. They don’t even factor into this argument because there are alternative ways to get them, some of which are potentially more efficient. The only thing that matters are the laurels and their exclusive stat boosting rewards.

If there were alternative ways to get laurels or the prizes bought by them, people would not be sweating the dailies so much and creating 8 page threads.

That’s not a fact at all. I’m sitting on over 220 laurels because I don’t care at all about the “exclusive stat boosting rewards” and nothing else obtained with laurels currently catches my fancy.

Emmet.2943:

As a fellow Engineer i feel your pain at least we are the only ones who can bash peoples faces in with a wrench.

Unfortunately, you’re wrong. There’s a mace that’s skinned to look like a wrench. So warriors and guardians can also bash peoples’ faces in with wrenches.

Spoilers will follow.
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So I started up the tribal portion of my Personal Story, this time choosing to aid the grawl. My first mission has me meeting my mentor in Dredgehaunt. I fired up the first cutscene, and evidently my character knows a lot about what’s going on (he knows the wounded grawl is a shaman, etc). It feels like I missed an entire step in this stretch of the PS. Was this just poorly implemented exposition? Or did I miss something obvious along the way? Thanks.

Remember ArenaNet’s credo: if it’s not a greatsword, it doesn’t matter.

Logan Kerberos.7062:

Honestly, to me it looks like they tried to bring back Chronomancers from the unfinished Guild Wars: Utopia. :P

http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/File:%22Chronomancer%22_concept_art_4.jpg

That’s interesting when taking into account the new weapons offered in the arena.

Queensdale under a blanket of snow would be awesome, but I don’t think it’s going to happen. Four seasons would be two too many for Maguuma.

We’re going to get a Birthday Gift containing a Slice of Rainbow Cake, 5 Fireworks, and 3 Transmutation Stones.

Vol.5241:

Told you guys the savings is miniscule.

While cheaper BL keys save you several gold.

I don’t buy BL Keys, so I wouldn’t have saved a single copper.

miniscule > nothing at all.