Guild Wars 2

I have a question for those of you who intend to vote for Evon Gnashblade because you like his character. Would you rather see him stuffed behind a desk or tethered to bureaucratic meetings about zoning regulations or tariff rates? Or would you rather seem him do what he does best, scheme from the shadows to get back at that do-gooder Kiel for taking his seat?

The way I look at it, the things that make Evon interesting would be better displayed if he loses the election. So if you like Evon, I think you should vote for Kiel.

Farzo.8410:

I don’t want to play as a god if Evon wins, because bad players would just die and make the gods look bad.

The gods abandoned their followers in their time of need, they already look bad.

Think of them as movies: Fall of Abaddon is Wrath of the Titans and Reactor Meltdown is Event Horizon. Speculatively, in the former you’ll be a soldier fighting for the good gods against the minions of the bad god while the gods themselves slog it out while in the latter will see malfunctioning technology opening a rift through time and space that allows all kinds of crazy things to pour into our world.

Something else for you to consider…

Humans should vote for Kiel not because she’s human, but because she’s not a greedy, self-serving charr. Everyone else should vote for Kiel because she’s demonstrated she cares for members of other races. That’s something Evon’s never done. Plus, Evon’s research into the Fall of Abaddon is pretty much the forcing of religion on the other, non-human races who don’t even worship the human gods. Talk about red flags! Think about that before you cast your vote.

Wolfheart.1938:

Main hand shield for Guardians, make it happen Arenanet!!!

I’m still waiting for Guardians to get an off-hand shield. Not an off-hand focus disguised as a shield, but an honest-to-goodness, actual shield.

Danikat.8537:

GW2 always had gear progression. We’ve had the white -> blue -> green -> yellow -> orange tiers since at least the first public beta.

The lack of gear grind was one of the main things that appealed to me about this game (and GW1 before it) but the addition of 1 tier with a pretty minor jump in stats hasn’t changed that for me. I’ve yet to find anything I can’t do in exotic (or even a mix of exotic, rare and masterwork) gear so IMO ascended is largely optional. I’ll get it sometime, on all 5 of my characters, but I’m in no hurry and it doesn’t bother me.

I hate to go all slippery-slop on ya, but if they’re willing to add one new tier within the first year, who’s to say they won’t add another next year? After all, the people clamoring for a new tier this year and going to be doing the same thing next year, barring some harsh time-gating on obtaining ascended.

Though I don’t care if new voices are done by celebrities, it would be fantastic if they got Billy West to do the male asura in the voice of Zapp Brannigan.

But seriously, Anet, I do want a new voice pack and I’d gladly play you for one. Make it happen.

Torpian.9142:

If they sold celebrity voice packs – in other words, every line your character says voiced by a celebrity – would you buy it and who would you hope voiced the parts?

I’d gladly pay for alternate human voices. I don’t even care if they’re done by celebrities, competent voice actors are more than good enough for me.

Thanks for the replies. Can the pvp mats/salvage kit be stored in the pvp locker?

aspirine.6852:

Even if this was so, it’s more fun than the next experiment gone wrong by the asura.

Playing the Fall of Abaddon is going to be like being an extra in Wrath of the Titans; you’re going to be a grunt fighting whatever trash mobs the evil god summons while the good gods handle the important business. Playing the Reactor Meltdown could be like playing the lead role in Event Horizon; you’re going to have to figure out what threat has entered this dimension and then you’re going to have to survive it!

Event Horizon > Wrath of the Titans

Imagine an underground asuran city, and a large cavernous starting zone(s) that eventually spill into the Maguuma Jungle. We’d have a larger variety of zone types to explore and the asura and sylvari could each have their own regions to call home. Plus the artists could have done some pretty cool stuff with an underground city/zones. I imagine the jumping puzzles and vistas in particular would have been quite cool.

Why does she get to live in a house with a fenced yard while I have to live in the Tyrian equivalent of a studio apartment?

Junkpile.7439:

Why they don’t give me dungeon badges? I don’t do dungeons but they could give those free like they give badge of honors.

Because they want you to experience everything if you’re going to go for a Legendary. Yes, the free Badges of Honor means one can get a Gift of Battle without setting foot in WvW. But they still have to experience WvW for their Gift of Exploration. Ergo, they’re still experiencing everything. Allowing someone to skip Dungeons is allowing them to get a Legendary without experiencing everything.

Fenrir.3609:

The complaints arise from the fact that in order to gain a legendary (via the crafting process), you are meant to have taken part in a number of gameplay activities.

By handing out so many free badges, people can essentially, completely avoid one of these activities.

It’s nice getting free stuff, even tons of badges. But it would have been a better system to offer a choice between say badges and dungeon tokens. If you are going to allow pve players to completely bypass wvw, then you should offer wvw players the chance to bypass dungeon runs.

Both are needed for legendaries, both can be converted into items/gold.

Free Badges don’t allow PvEers to completely bypass WvW; they still need to enter the Mists for World Completion. But honestly, with the pain that is the Gift of Fortune, I wouldn’t complain even if each and every one of us was mailed a free Gift of Mastery. The Gift of Fortune…ugh….

CrashTestAuto.9108:

That said, to answer your actual question, there are a few milestones that you might consider:

1) Skill unlock levels (level 11, 20 or 30 being the main ones).
2) Cultural armour unlock levels (35, 65, 80)
3) Zone completions (probably the best choice IMO)
4) Dungeon access levels (spread throughout the post 30 game, though tricky to party for at low level)
5) Gear access levels (various tiers and types of gear becomes available as you level up, but I would avoid that when leveling the first time as I find it sucks the fun out of random drops)

6) Every ten levels you can slot a new major trait, which is as much a milestone as anything else.

mtl.5921:

Most of the time I’m just running around doing whatever seems fun at that time, and having a blast doing it tbh. If that means I end up having months and months of fun, well, that seems like a good thing to me . . .

Sounds like you’re a “journey” kind of guy, as opposed to a “destination” kind of guy. As a fellow “journey” guy I can say you’re probably going to enjoy your time playing Guild Wars 2.

HawkMeister.4758:

To me your way of learning(what you´re doing, not what you described up there) simply sound like indulging your ADD.
It´s pretty much impossible to “learn” something for 10 minutes then switch to another topic and learn that for another 10 mins, etc.

He’s not going to be getting 10 levels (or hitting whatever milestone he shoots for) in 10 minutes. And because gear and traits are constantly changing while leveling anyway no one really truly learns what their character’s capabilities are until they hit level 80 and slot that final major trait.

Risingashes.8694:

Or play as a God (with personalities) against a God who wanted to give magic to humans and was cast down because of it (aka Prometheus).

Here’s how that fractal is going to go down:
– start fractal
– run past a bunch of trash mobs summoned by Abaddon
– stop for about .5 seconds to look at the battle between Abaddon and the other five going on in the distance
– fight “legendary” boss summoned by Abaddon
– repeat or skip to heart’s content
– keep paying Evon taxes every time you sell something on the Trading Post

Sounds fun, huh?

penatbater.4710:

On a totally related note: will engineers finally get a melee weapon that’s not a kit?

I’m hoping they get access to maces and hammers.

Tunney.6475:

“Gold is your generic token..which,………… wait for it…you can get via badges. "

Tell me how I can exchange the badges to gold, I really don’t know.

T

They just told you. And I’ll bet you’ll still complain about the free Badges.

If you’re wanting to guess what kinds of skills we might get a good place to start is the original Guild Wars. Many of those skills have inspired many of the skills and traits already in this game. And if there are any popular skills from that game still absent from this game then that’s probably the best place to start when speculating about upcoming skills.

Villious.8530:

Ok, at this point I’m thinking this is just a troll post.

Same.

JustTrogdor.7892:

I hope your next chest gives you a potion that turns your character into a donkey.

lol

Tunney.6475:

Yup, I will.
But this “Please, please play PvP. here’s tokens and gear for you!”
is getting extremely tiresome.

What you see as an attempt to get people into WvW I see as a friendly gesture to those who want a Legendary but don’t like WvW.

Thanks to the achievement reward chests I’m getting a bunch of pvp armor. I’m starting to get duplicates of some of the armor skins. As a pve’er I have know idea what to do with these duplicates. Any suggestions?

As I’ve said on a few occasions, I hope we get fishing (with fish/seafood dishes) and Power/Condition Duration and Precision/Condition Duration foods.

I rotated my five characters. I made one of each race, and I’d play one zone at a time. So when my human finished Queensdale, I’d rotate through the other four and finish the starting zones one at a time. Every time I finished a region I’d rotate them to the next (parking one in Orr once I hit level 80, since I had five characters and only four regions to work on).

The leveling process was slow, but because my characters all played differently and because I could change scenery any time I wanted things never really stagnated. If you’re wanting to level multiple characters at once, then I’d suggest either changing characters daily based on the Daily Achievements or just rotating whenever you feel like mixing things up a bit.

But there’s something else to consider. Having a level 80 character will allow you to partake in any events that require a higher level character. So you might want to consider getting one of your characters to level 80 before you work on the rest. That will ensure you can participate in all future Living Story and holiday events.

Good luck.

I’m wondering how many of your are voting based on the character your like rather than the reward you want. Are you voting for one candidate or the other because of their personality or the lore behind them? Or are you voting for them because you’re more interested in the rewards they have to offer?

Vol.5241:

MMOs and challenges don’t go together, I’m afraid.

FFXI’s Chains of Promathia says “hi”.

Amun Ra.6435:

Not sure if anyone touched on it yet….just kinda skimmed though everything so sorry for repeating anything…

But if looks like the precursor scavenger hunt will not be so scavengery since you will have to be 500 in crafting to make it….I personally don’t plan on doing the legendary grind again but this might dash some of the dreams of some who hoped on getting one…

If recent trends are any indication it will no doubt be a long, drawn out, time gated process to get the materials to craft one. But just because the precursor is crafted doesn’t mean some of the components won’t be acquired through some sort of quest or scavenger hunt system.

Pennry.9215:

4 – If they keep the same stats as Ascended, Legendary trinkets are useless. Or are they going to have effects too? I’ll assume the armor will have effects, how many sparkles can we cram on one character?

If we can freely select the prefix of Legendary trinkets I’d say they’re far from useless.

I wonder what this is going to do to Giver’s armor/trinkets. Will the MF aspect be changed to something else? Or are these items gone forever? I hope it’s not the latter, because there aren’t too many ways to get +Boon Duration.

As someone who was a few days from crafting full Opal trinket sets for each of my five characters I’m glad they announced this today instead of next week. It does suck that those who sank Laurels or Ectos into MF gear might not be fairly compensated, though.

DarksunG.9537:

I’m pretty excited.. the only thing that I’m disappointed in is:

NO TENGU.

I was disappointed that tengu, player housing, and fishing weren’t mentioned.

Saelune.5316:

Lion Chests give out good stuff. Waypoints are not expensive, even at level 80. Youd be far more likely to save money with the keys than the waypoints.

Not everyone buys/wants Black Lion Keys. EVERYONE uses way points. Well, there may be a nut or two who walk everywhere, but almost everyone uses way points. A vote for Kiel is a vote for the people.

Are all MF items, food included, being removed from the game? The blog intimated at MF consumables being used to permanently raise MF, so perhaps MF food will be converted in some way. Or perhaps it’s time to dump all my Omnomberry Bars?

What do you want to see? What do you expect?

I have no idea what to expect, but I’d like to see fishing finally added to the game (complete with fish and seafood recipes) and I’d like to finally get access to Power/Condition Duration and Precision/Condition Duraion foods.

While we’re on the subject of crafting changes, hopefully we’ll finally get fishing and fish/seafood related cooking recipes. And I hope at long last we’ll get Power/Condition Duration and Precision/Condition Duration foods.

Please?

Pretty please?

Vick.6805:

Besides, who is to say that we aren’t going to have easier access to T6 materials? I for one would love an 80-85 zone or even a 85-90 zone (NOT with a higher level cap, just that the enemies are that much more difficult) where the events are built around open-world group PvE play. Those zones might be an opportunity to introduce additional ways to farm T6 materials.

Isn’t that pretty much what Cursed Shore was supposed to be (minus the 85-90 level mobs)?

I’m still holding out hope that we’ll get two-handed axes about the same time we get new skills and/or Legendary weapons.

Levetty.1279:

We knew Ascended version of other equipment were coming from the first time Ascended gear was announced. Yeah I don’t like ascended gear but we already lost that battle and it is here to stay.

I’m just glad it won’t be locked behind some crappy dungeon and they are making crafting relevant (poor jewelry).

I was actually hoping that was just lip service to the “we need moar carrot!” crowd and that we’d finally settle into the horizontal progression system we had in Guild Wars. Wishful thinking on my part.

Jemmi.6058:

How I understand it is that in Queensdale you may get a champ here or there, but in Southsun or Orr, you will see significantly more champs. That means you can kill them faster. Effort may be a bit higher, but reward will come in faster.

Queensdale has six champions that can all be killed very quickly in a non-stop fashion by a zerg. Orr’s champions, particularly spiders, can take significantly longer to kill. Obviously we don’t have all the details, but if this is more or less what we’re going to get I think people are just going to stomp easy-to-kill champions in the lower level zones. Hopefully I’m wrong, as I’d like to see Orr return as an end-game destination, but we’ll have to wait and see.

LilMcGinley.3890:

Harsh? Asc trinkets are a 3-5% overall boost to your stats. Unless you are hell-bent on always having the best items, you don’t have to get these.

3-5% for the trinket, now what’s the difference when you throw weapons and armor into the equation?

LilMcGinley.3890:

Exotics will still be viable as they always were.

In WvW someone in full exotics will be at a distinct disadvantage against someone in full ascended, skill being comparable.

LilMcGinley.3890:

Crafting needed something like this to be worth-while again. No one crafts for any reason other than to level now, it’s pointless otherwise. Now you can make money and help guildies by being a 500 crafter.

I don’t understand why crafting, or any aspect of the game, needs to be time-gated. It seems to me to be a lazy solution at best, and an insulting method of getting players to log in on a daily basis at worst.

Champion Rewards

Champions in the game will be updated so each will always drop a guaranteed reward box for any player that qualifies for a reward from the boss. This chest will contain things like crafting materials, skill points, unique skins, lodestones, and more. This change will make champions more rewarding, and will make playing in Orr and Southsun Cove (where events can scale up to add champions) more exciting and fruitful for guilds and players joining together in the open world.

Yeah, that’s just not going to happen. People are still going to take the path of least resistance (Queensdale) for champions unless there’s more to this than has been said.

Gulesave.5073:

The late Captain Ashford was human. Sorry.

Is the charr killed in the effigy lighting ceremony cutscene not the council member we’re voting to replace? I mean…

/clears throat

That’s just the kind of propaganda Evon Gnashblade is counting on to win him the election. Don’t be a dupe.

Consider this…

We’re having this election to replace a greedy, self-serving charr. Do you really want to do so with another greedy, self-serving charr? Evon Gnashblade is the kind of guy who wouldn’t give the scraps from his table to a starving man unless he profited from it somehow. Ellen Kiel, on the other hand, risked her career and possibly her life to free enslaved charr and norn from an oppressive and exploitative corporation. She’s always seeking to help others, even if it’s at her own expense.

Now consider this…

Ellen Kiel wants to reduce the way point cost each and every one of us incurs. This means every time you jump from one world boss to another, port to play with your friends, or hop up to Frostgorge Sound or down to Orr to make your daily Ori run she’s putting money in your pocket? Evon Gnashblade? He’s the guy taking money out of your pocket each and every time you sell your hard-earned loot on the Black Lion Trading Company.

And finally consider this…

The Fall of Abaddon is a chronicled event; we already know what happened. Being there isn’t going to expand our knowledge of the event or change anything at all. And I have it on good authority that the Reactor Meltdown may in fact be cause of the first interdenominational rift that allowed the Steam Creatures to cross into our world. Who doesn’t want to experience that first hand!?

So remember who has your best interest at heart when it comes time to cast your vote. Remember “Kiel for Council”.

Euthymia.4807:

leveling in GW2 is easy. That’s why there’s more levels. In GW1 it took about as long to get to level 20 as it does to 80.

No, that’s not why there are 80 levels instead of 20. If it were simply a matter of it being too easy to level, ArenaNet could have just as easily tweaked the difficulty instead of adding 60 more levels.

ArenaNet gets a real-world financial boost if Evon wins. Players get a highly desired fractal if Evon wins. And Evon is a rapscallion; people seem to favor rapscallions over straight-laced do-gooders (Wolverine vs Cyclops, anyone?).

It looks to me that Kiel doesn’t have a snowball’s chance in hell to win.

Evon Skyfyre.9673:

I’m being honest. What do you think? Do YOU play MMO’s with a Single player game attitude?

MMOs? No. This game? Yes. To me the lack of a Holy Trinity ensures this game plays more like an ARPG than a traditional MMORPG.

CrossedHorse.4261:

Hmm, the OP doesn’t seem to mind the zerg so much as the attitude of the people within the zerg, who are being nasty to other people who are simply trying to play the game. The zerg are acting as if they somehow privately own this particular map, which isn’t the case. I think that is the issue the OP is raising here.

Precisely my complaint. People are free to play the game how they want. That goes for the zerg as well as it does the people who disrupt the zerg’s circuits. It’s the attitude displayed by those in the zerg toward those who disrupt their circuit I have a problem with.

Algreg.3629:

a few … do not ruin a community, those are inevitable, especially on the internet. Block annoying people, report abusive ones. And do whatever you like in the zone, you don´t have to care about their zerg schedule at all. Problem solved.

It’s not as easy as that. Like I said, I haven’t been killing champions, so circuit disruptions don’t directly affect me one way or the other. But if we’ve got a new player stepping into Queensdale for the first time and the people on my server give them the (what I feel is false) impression that this game is populated by jerks they might not be inclined to stick around very long.

Vol.5241:

Queensdale farming is about getting exp I presume. The champ events respawn so often that you can get good exp/karma for running the chains.

OP I think the reason why people may be mad at you is because you started a champ and didn’t bother to notify people in map chat.

In the inevitable back-and-forth that usually follows a circuit interruption I’ve seen it said by multiple people that the chain is about leveling alts quickly because “I hate grinding”.

And to clarify, I never touched a champion or started an event. I was there solely for quartz crystals and I killed 40 nearby centaur last night for the daily. I was a neutral bystander in both cases until after the “offense” of disrupting a circuit was committed, though I did admonish those being rude/disrespectful after the fact. I took a large dose of backlash for that, but I’m a big boy and childish insults don’t bother me. But the behavior being displayed towards others does; I’d rather the community on my server be a friendly one than a nasty one.

Balkanwarrior.5132:

OP you have a problem with people playing the game in your ’’favorite’’ area? Boy do I have some rough news for you about this thing called life….

I can’t help but feel that you didn’t read my post very closely.

Draknar.5748:

I actually like that the zone is active. Whether or not they want to jump from Champion to Champion is their prerogative. As someone leveling up, odds are I’m working on every other event chain outside of those few that are camped. It does not affect me in the slightest.

Would OP prefer the zone be a desolate wasteland like some of the other zones are?

Zones are too empty waaaaa
Zones are too full waaaaa

I think you missed the point of my post. Hint: I’m not complaining about the number of players in Queensdale.

Raine.1394:

If you had complained about trolling and prepubescent immaturity in Queensdale, I would have to agree with you. However, that was not the stated problem. In what sense do they have a routine that must be followed? Champ is up; kill champ. There’s really is nothing to follow. And, what could they possibly brow-beat you for?

Being rude to those that interrupt their circuit? What exactly is there to interrupt? Again, champ is up or ready to be up, you initiate, you kill champ. The only thing problems I’ve noticed with Queensdale is overflow and that fact that that’s where the pre-teens play. I only go there for SB or to build my block list if I feel it’s getting a bit short.

It’s like this: the zerg runs from troll to bandit to wasp to boar to oak (they keep saying spider, but I’m not aware of a champion spider in Queensdale) then repeats the cycle. I guess the respwan timers work out so they can do this with no (or nearly no) downtime. But if they’re at the troll and someone pops and/or kills the boar, then their circuit is disrupted; the respawn timers are off if they skip it or they have to wait around for it to respawn.

When this happens members of the zerg have been very rude to whomever pops the event. Where a simple explanation of things to the “offending” party would have sufficed, or even letting bygones be bygones (no one has cost you actual money here), they respond like a bunch of petulant children. This is made worse when the mob-mentality kicks in and they start to feed off one another.

TriggerSad.2597:

I haven’t seen anything out right disrespectful, but I have seen a general bad tone used whenever someone unknowingly sets of an event, or doesn’t ping that it’s started. They don’t outright tell the unknowing person that they suck kittens, but they will start yelling to everyone in map chat to not do it in general.

BTW I’m on Blackgate and Jade Quarry (I have two accounts), but I’ve mostly seen the zurg-mentality in Blackgate. More so in the past few days too.

Blackgate is my server, and I’ve seen my fellow server-members do everything from espouse letting whomever popped the troll die “to teach them a lesson” to…well, I’ll save myself the potential infraction and just leave it to your imaginations. Like I said, hopefully what I’ve seen the last few days isn’t the norm. But I fear my hopes are for naught.

data.4093:

OP did you ever do union farming? Or any type of farm in any game? Ever seen someone come and mess up your farm for no reason when they could have joined you and made more money? People don’t like kittenbags. If you mess up a farm for no visible reason then everyone is going to assume you’re a kittenbag.

There’s a pretty glaring flaw in your logic. You say they’re messing it up “for no reason”. Is it not plausible they simply didn’t know people were farming the events in a particular order? Is it not plausible they’re new players or new to the zone and don’t even know picking up the troll stone spawns a champion? Is it not plausible they feel the zerg doesn’t own the map and thus they can kill whatever mob or complete whatever event whenever they feel so inclined?

maddoctor.2738:

If you go to Malchor’s Leap and kill a single Spark (even by accident) you will get a very similar reaction by the Spark farmers: “Omg you killed that Spark we have a perfect loop we do every 5 minutes and kill all of them, you stole our lodestones!”

One of the problems with farming….

As long as they 1) explain it politely, and 2) accept that others are not required to acquiesce then I don’t mind people running loops or asking those who interferer to join work with them rather than against.

Ronah.2869:

You forgot the bi-weekly updates. People have things to do and a new zone will have a story that has driven you there. The new zone won’t be filled up with hearts quests like it would be if there was a full expansion. Remember, this game didn’t have hearts in the original script, they introduced them after because people were disoriented on what to do.

Bi-weekly updates don’t guarantee new zones will be implemented twice a month. And even if they are, people are still going to devour the zones like a plague of locusts in a field of crops and then complain that there’s nothing to do or updates are too slow.

And personally, I’d be very disappointed if the new zones (whenever they’re added) don’t have renown hearts, points of interest, vistas, and all the other trappings that the existing zones already have.