Guild Wars 2

Perfect thing for the gem-store. Glider-skins.

PookieDaWombat.6209:

Not to mention that as it stands now it looks like they are taking the one thing they dangled before their playerbase long ago, and putting it behind the buying of the xpac. So the option is buy the xpac and you can quest to craft a precursor or don’t buy it (for whatever your reasons might be) and stay fighting with RNG or buying them for gold.

I’m sure this will go over swimmingly with the player base.

I think you overestimate how many that care about the Precursor hunt or who even knew it was a requested thing.

Don’t really see much of an issue with it either. Unless they remove to ability for them to drop and be sold nothing will really change for people that don’t buy the expansion (except possibly making it easier to get a hold of one due to lower prices on the TP).

BrunoBRS.5178:

eh, i was hoping for specific tasks awarding specific points, rather than an exp bar replacement. i mean, the skills you can learn still sound interesting, but the fact that it sounds like you can learn a language by punching mordrem hard enough is a bit disheartening.

Aye, that would make more sense.

But I suppose they want to avoid the whole: “being forced to grind a specific thing in order to level up” or something like that.

Ayrilana.1396:

So we will just farm dungeons to gain mastery “levels”?

You still need to unlock them first.

Reanne.5462:

I just wanna know, if the masteries require map completion, will that be retroactive, or only apply to map completion of the new map.

Yes (this is also said in the very blog post discussed here).

They are not ignoring issues. But they can’t magically fix issues either. Especially not if the issues doesn’t lie with them.
Which does seem to be the case seeing as a relatively small part of the player base reports having issues.

I think you misunderstood the area part.
They said there will be two major groups at release. One for HoT content and one for Old content.
It does however still sound like you need to do specific things in specific maps in order to actually unlock the Masteries.

The list of Mastery categories was clearly stated as a couple of examples, not a full list.

The amount of SP scrolls obtainable in-game right now is rather massive. They also stated in the blog that high-level areas will reward more skill points in order to make up for it.
It is quite likely that the new adventure things rewards skill-points for example.

Palador.2170:

First question I have is: Is this actually accurate?

The ability to train Masteries is unlocked at level 80 for all players that own Heart of Thorns.

They’ve stated that the upcoming trait system revamp will be linked to the Mastery system. This suggests that the new system is A) Only for those with HoT, and Only works once you’re level 80, meaning no trait unlocking before then. That can’t be right, though. Right?

Second question: Will the Tomes and Scripts of EXP still work for a level 80 once this system is in place? As far as that goes, will EXP boosters? Food?

I am not quite sure that is what they actually said.
It was more along the lines that they will remove the current trait system with HoT release and replace it with something that works along the lines of Mastery.

Don’t really see how that implies it being lvl 80 only or require HoT. Only that it will work a bit like the same (such as getting points by doing certain things and then unlock what you want I suppose).

Donari.5237:

Eeeee! In the Points of Interest slot? Or just some videos? When where tell me oh do tell me!

Yep.

https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/points-of-interest-heart-of-thorns-gameplay/

Expansion Content Designers Steve Hwang and Anthony Ordon are joining me tomorrow on Points of Interest for our first look at Heart of Thorns gameplay!
They’ll venture into the Maguuma Jungle to show you one of the adventures we heard about earlier this week. Plus, they’ll discuss how some of the systems work.

Seems like we will be seeing one of the new Adventures.

Just confirmed in the blog post that the Mastery system as a whole requires HoT.

The ability to train Masteries is unlocked at level 80 for all players that own Heart of Thorns.

Doesn’t most bosses in Story Mode also have a cutscene for that matter? Which would explain the kick.
They simply told him to skip, he refused, and when he yet again refused to do it they kicked him.

dlonie.6547:

Here:

My friend and I were doing a dungeon, my first one at that….

How so?

No.
They said it was their first dungeon. Not that they were new players. I had played for months before I joined my first dungeon run.

Because completely new players wouldn’t have the mind that something like that could happen, and thus wouldn’t bother taking screenshots, imo.

Where does the OP say he/she/it was a new player?

The fact that he/she/it and his/her/its friend took screenshots to “prove” this whole thing would actually suggest against them being new.

Reanne.5462:

the numbers I have stated take into account the cost to buy influence, you wouldnt’ gain an advantage by buying the influence then converting to gems.

Maybe not. But it doesn’t change the fact that gems are created out of nothing, as opposed to being traded via the currency exchange.

Creating gems out of thin air is not something that is a good idea for the economy.

Especially considering that you can outright buy influence.

Pockethole.5031:

one map, three layers.
“hert of thorz”,“such depth”,“wow”, “very bjutiful”, “many revenans”,“much dynamikz”,
is what i expect… sigh. it would be a positive surprise to have at least 3 maps with 3 layers, or even 4-5 but thats dreaming as i know it.

The fact that they have over and over and over again used the term mapS suggest that there is more than 1 map.

Gaile Gray.6029:

We’ll definitely have more to say on guild halls in the future. The releases at the announcements were sort of appetizers, giving an overview of many things. But we’ll serve up more of a tasty entree in each of the “deep dive” features that we offer.

Still no information as to when we will start seeing these Deep Dives I take it? (Hehe, worth a try)

I seem to recall them being on Rezzed in London with a playable version of HoT.

I’ll see if I can find the link.

A Massive Headache.1879:

Guild halls and wvw are kind of basic things. Also. you can’t deny that anet has done a lot of questionable things in the past 2 years. You have to understand a lot peoples skepticism

To be fair one can claim that [insert any announced feature here] is kind of basic things. So basically everything should be made available for free? What point would people have in buying the expansion in that case?

There are multiple ways out of spawn.

That would completely remove the point of the transfer fee, since everyone could just bypass it with this system.

It would have to require being in the guild for so long that it would discourage bypassing the fee (such as a month or more) or it would risk making the whole system unbalanced.

And with such a long wait people would most likely not bother with it anyway.

Another thing to keep in mind is that servers are only ever useful for WvW in the first place.

They wanted to play the game without “wasting time” on cutscenes. That is their way of enjoying the game.
You made it impossible for them to enjoy the game the way they wanted by watching the cutscene.

Just like how they tried to stop you from enjoying the game the way you wanted, you stopped them from enjoying the game the way they wanted.

I am not saying that it was right of them to do so, I am just pointing out that the rules you try to apply could technically also be applied the other way around.

I assume you are talking about the information we got from then ign-article today?

It seems like that was simply a single example of Mastery, more specifically Lore — Learning x Language.

And you did not respect their rights to play and enjoy the game by watching the cutscenes despite being told not to.

They are not really breaking any rules. At least not directly.

The party didn’t want to waste time on the cutscenes. You decided to disregard that and watch the cutscenes anyway (I assume?).

While it sucks to be kicked I am not sure they have actually broken any rules here.

If you want to watch the cut scenes, create your own group and make it clear from the start that you are watching cutscenes I would say.

If you still want to report them you can do it by submitting a support request under the Services tab on the top right of the page.

Siobhan.3582:

All while missing out on the new expansion that is for level 80’s. They will all insta level

Will the expansion be timed then? Seeing as you seems to imply that if you don’t do it as soon as it is released, you will miss out on it.

jia li ng.8415:

all I am saying here is what happened to the fantastic customer service we used to enjoy … players who have contributed thousands and thousands of dollars should not be subjected to this.

Customer service is human. Humans can only do x amount of things during y amount of time.

If we at time Z had x issues, it would take y time to finish it.
But now at time Y they have C issues, which means that they can’t finish it all in y time.

As for spending money that should be rather irrelevant. First come first serve is the way to do stuff.

Gandalf.3516:

Except we don’t know that. Actually, I’d say more likely we know that isn’t true. It might be safe to assume that the Nightmare is from Mordremoth. If that is true, Sylvari choose whether to join the Nightmare or not. Some are more susceptible to it than others, but so far we’ve seen nothing that suggests they don’t have a choice. Everything points to them being able to choose, from their history, to what we’ve learned in game, and even the video at the end of LS Season 2. Also if Sylvari don’t have a choice in becoming his minions, then that would present a large problem for them since Sylvari are a playable race.

So every single Sylvari in the Pact choose to join Mordremoth at the exact same time when the Pact attacked Maguuma?

AshlynStorm.2735:

Let’s be realistic. They’re not going to release it to soon before the holiday season, because if they do, they lose out on a lot of revenue that wouldn’t happen otherwise. Also, it will take time to make the game. At least, if they do it right this time. Even if they don’t, it will take 6-9 months minimum before they release it because of everything that goes into making a MMO or even just an expansion. It isn’t nearly being done being coded, that’s why there are is almost nothing in terms of content posted so far.

May: Alpha / Beta announcement
July-August: Beta
Sept.: Release date announced
Late November: Release date
Dec. 12th-19th: Big sale on GW2 and HoT.

They have already worked on the expansion for over a year.

We already know that official beta will start soon after PAX East, which is in the beginning of March.

There are many things that can be released between now and release of HoT.

SAB, Dragon bash and Pavilion could all work quite well.
Or WvW seasons and such.

Curby.4897:

abnomally, Healix… Type in Google “Guild Wars 2 Lag” and see how many IGNORED posts pop up. It is ridiculas at how much they won’t fix this. They have a thread with over 14k posts about tracerts and such and there has never been a fix. It is over 2 years old now and still being added to.

Keep in mind that even if those 14k posts were all made by different people and all people had issues, that would still be an extremely small part of the actual player-base.

Yes, it is annoying with lag. Yes it would be great to never have lag. But we have to keep in mind that there are so many different things that could create the lag and many of them are not even in ArenaNets control.

It does seem rather silly that you start your post with:

Feel free to leave any kind of respectful comment

And then goes on with a long rant that is not really all that respectful yourself..

But why should person X be less valuable for the server than person Y just because person X is not able to play during a supposed prime-time?

Then we also have the people whose prime-time fits neither NA nor EU prime-time.

Not to mention people that work other than typical 9-5 jobs, which might only be able to play during the day or during late night/early morning.

Not everyone lives in the same timezone.

We did get a concept art yesterday, so I would say it is rather possible that we will have our first blog today.

But that is just the thing: If the expansion starts up just minutes after the destruction of the Pact, there would not really be any logic in having the whole world knowing about it and reacting to it already.

BrotherBelial.3094:

Not really. There is plent they could do. LS wise. But it not be LS so to speak. They could have us going around rallying people to join the pact after the heavy losses they just took. Fighting the Sylvai that have turned and getting them out of the grove. Trying to find a way to free them from Mordi’s grip. There are plenty of things that could be done before we go into the jungle after Mordi.

To be fair we do know that HoT starts very soon (as in minutes) after the end of Episode 8, so I am not sure how of that would actually be possible.

Aye, all of those three can happen. (And based on some audio-files added to the dat with the latest update it seems like one of them is rather likely)

Scoobaniec.9561:

Imagine this game without updates for the whole year.. Yeah..My guessing is april 28.

There have been no information whatsoever that there will be no updates between now and release of the expansion.

In fact I believe it to be completely opposite and that they have actually said that there WILL be updates between now and release (I’ll see if I can find it).

I would claim that Blinds and Stealth falls more under the Control label than under the Support one.

Same with Reflections.

draxynnic.3719:

Phaerim makes a valid point regarding the norn. The norn accept Sons of Svanir as long as they aren’t currently causing problems – I can’t see them excluding sylvari because they might get corrupted by Mordremoth.

To be fair there is a rather large difference between Sylvari and Sons of Svanir.

The SoS requires them to willingly seek out the corruption (and most of them does seem to still keep their sanity), while Sylvari are basically being corrupted as soon as Mordremoth thinks about them without giving them a choice and with a rather clear loss of sanity.

TPMN.1483:

Gw2 does not have professions it has classes… The role each class can play is DPS, support and heal.

If you want a profession based game – try gw1 or another MMO.

Actually it does have professions. What most people call Classes are called professions in this game.

And no, the roles are Damage, Support and Control. Healing comes under support.

I seems to recall Bol.com having been completely useless at guessing release dates before.

Until you have a release date on www.guildwars2.com all release dates going around are basically assumptions.

Johje Holan.4607:

You know, the way WvW was meant to be played.

Huh?

It was never “meant to be played” a certain way. They only talked about expecting servers to work together against a stronger one, and that it was possible to do so.
There was never any sort of: “If one server is much stronger, both other servers MUST attack that server” talk.

But yeah, I would say it depends on the situation. Guild groups tend to do raids on enemy borderlands in order to either distract or find nice fights.

There were some interesting audio-files added to the dat-file with the latest update…

What makes people think they aren’t doing this already?

Isn’t it rather likely that it falls under this part:

Reference names of copyrighted or trademarked characters, materials, or products

If not there is still this little part at the very end:

This policy may not cover all inappropriate or disallowed names. ArenaNet reserves the right to reject any name it concludes, in its sole and absolute discretion, is indecent, obscene, offensive, or that otherwise violates our naming policy or the Guild Wars 2 User Agreement. ArenaNet reserves the right to examine names on a case-by-case basis and take whatever action we deem necessary in our sole and absolute discretion. We reserve the right, in our sole and absolute discretion, to change, modify, add, or remove portions of this Guild Wars 2 Naming Policy at any time.

As for seeing others: It is simply that they have not been reported/found by ArenaNet. If you report them they will almost guaranteed be required to change their names.

Keep in mind that LS is basically end-game. It is supposed to require knowledge and skill.

You can also do it in a group if you have a hard time solo.

Mishee.5719:

Can’t we all just agree that Anet really sucks at announcing “important” stuff….I mean come on they been workning on this stuff for a long time. It’s not like they are going to do a 180 turn and be like…“naaah kitten that lets redo everything”. People have been craving this for ages and when they finally decide to deliver they just gives us some really really super really vague idea of whats coming. I’m not exited at all, im just mainly annoyed over this…

Do you also complain when an announcement/teaser of a movie doesn’t tell you exactly what will happen in said movie?

Arkinos.7245:

Arenanet will never just remove these things.

Removing them or returning them to what they were before the feature patch means admitting a mistake. I have only seen a single MMO publisher that ever did this.

And yet they have already confirmed that they will remove the current trait acquisition system with HoT.