Guild Wars 2

penatbater.4710:

Azraeel.1238:

The only thing that needs fixing with the helmet is the facial hair, we shouldn’t lose facial hair when we wear the helmet!!!!!!!!

It’s the power of the dragon. Have you seen any dragons with beards in gw2? :P

I see them in real life when i go to visit Grandma.

uberman.2619:

Dood, you have a tiny monitor.

What do they say? Tiny monitor = big keyboard. Something like that…

I guess I question the decision to put skins behind nothing but luck. Yeah, you can play the game to get coffers as loot but what’s the point of designing all these neat skins if only a very very small population of the world has them? Forget about how you get the chance – I wanted a Southsun skin, played the crap out of the game, even bought $10 worth of chests – all nothing.

Dungeon armor and weapons are a different story – you do the dungeons, you get the stuff. But random chances of getting a skin that is only going to be available for a limited time. Kinda sucks not to get one when you really want one. Guild Wars teaches me a hard lesson in life? Thanks Guild Wars!

My solution – make the skins either saleable on the TP or make them achievable with doing how many runs or whatever (grinding). Yes, I would agree to grind for a skin long before standing in the RNG line and coming away empty handed just because I’m one unlucky kitten.

Agree with OP. We play the game regularly when there isn’t a special event going on. But when there is, we’d really like to be able to do what it takes, earn in other words, a reward. There’s no earning with RNG – not if it takes exactly one very lucky kill to get a rare chest and then a rare ticket. OP got it right – there IS fun in working towards a goal that IS reachable. Not just statistically possible.

Canach’s Isle? Just sit right back and you’ll hear a tale, a tale of a fateful trip …

Rebound, I’m sure you knew I was going to say that no one is forcing you to use the Gem Shop for anything. Unlike a non free to play system where you either hand over the $15 or you get to sit at a login screen. It’s no comparison.

That’s pretty good! But not my point. My point is that I laugh at people who complain and threaten to leave the game for free content. As I said, I get constructive criticism. I just don’t understand that mentality of threatening to leave a free game. Plus, in your analogy, you don’t mention the hit and miss quality – Molten Facility is regarded by the same community that is bashing this ‘dungeon’ as one of the best ever put out. And SAB was a hit. So it isn’t fair to say it’s been all crap since release, is it? And yeah, I laugh at people who don’t know a good thing and complain about it. Leave? I’m not stopping anyone. I also won’t think twice about throwing my two cents in if I don’t like something – but I don’t think anyone would care if I threatened to leave – why should they?

People who complain about free content and threaten to leave just make me laugh a little at how spoiled we’ve become. Let’s see, $15 a month just to play anything was the norm a few years ago, and still is for some of the games out there, at least in some form or other. So, at $15 a month and starting from September, the $60 buy-in price of GW2 made all content absolutely free sometime after December. All content, not just ala carte content. Seriously, complaining about free content comes off incredibly spoiled. Constructive criticism, yeah, that I understand, but to say that you’ve had enough free content and it’s time to leave … time for me to laugh. Hey, I’m throwing a party and I’m only going to charge you for the first two beers. After that, all beer you drink is free. I’m laughing at the first drunk who comes to me and says he’s disappointed I didn’t provide the beer he likes.

I like this story a bit more than the Flame and Frost, although I did like that one, just not as much. This one seems very close to reality, sort of Jurassic Parkish. Big corporation’s businsess venture turns bloody on a tropical island resort, tourists getting eaten, bikini babes, furry naked Charr – what more could you ask for?

Wow! You’re on to something! That explains why there’s a trademark reserved for “Red Karka” by someone named Cal Lach. Hmmmmm….

I’m thinking that like the previous living story content, nothing will be taken away on the 28th, just the second part added. And this is the first I heard about June 4th?!? Man, I hope it’s the 11th.

Ouch! You guys are mean! As for the why’s, I think that the Consortium is a not-for-profit company that made an edgy investment with this new island that, for whatever reason, was presented to them as a great business opportunity. Now they are in full damage control, trying to get something, anything out of it to turn a profit. As for why we care, we’re adventurers, explorers, mercenaries – this is an adventure for us to put our hero name on. We aren’t shopkeepers in Lion’s Arch.

Commenting on the OP, as mentioned before, the density of the mobs and the lack of safe spawn points is part of the storyline, intended to give the sense that this is a poorly conceived resort area where, at this point, everyone is at each other’s throats, including the wildlife. To address the OP’s complaints about the area not being casual-friendly, one of the things that GW2 gets right is diversity of playstyle. Between WvWvW, PvP, upscaling and downscaling of areas, and now, the living story arcs, this game has strived so hard to make the game an open sandbox to find the area that appeals to you, whether it be content or skill level.

As a constructive comment to the OP, Southsun is an area with a unique playstyle and yeah, you either adapt to the style that it takes to survive (constant attention to mobs) or you die.

Me too – booted me while porting to Southsun.

100% agree with this thread! The world is breathtaking as is but weather would be going to 11.

I tend to laugh at elitists because they’re just so darn cute, but the OP does have a point. The game is rich and deep enough that those who do excel at playing should have a Holy Grail to call their own, something that is just insanely hard that they can throw their best times at and mock those lesser life forms that can’t even do the runs. Seriously, OP I agree with you.

Wow! Cool! All that was missing was fireworks!

I hope you get it, Ivy! I read your other thread – hang in there!

Her armor looks awesome! But if she’s the new DE, will she also have a thing for Queen Jenna? (wink wink nod nod)

Tachenon.5270:

supertron.6712:

i like to lol at people who complain about someone doning something they would never even fathom being in their skill set, or even attempting.

im just waiting to play your mmo’s.

Person 1: Hey! This apple is all squishy and yucky! Why, it’s rotten to the core!
Person 2: You’re neither an apple farmer nor an agent of the Order of Whispers ! You don’t know anything about apples!
Person 3: One need not possess a Master’s degree in Classical Dance to understand that ballerinas do not generally wear combat boots while performing Swan Lake.

Regardless of any erroneous esthetic elements, I hope that Southsun retains the majority of its newly-bestowed entertainment enhancements once the living story moves on to the next chapter.

You know nothing, Jon Snow.

Thanks for clarifying, events vs. achievements! I have renewed hope!!!

Yeah, I guess I’m out for trying to get the Consortium Negotiator acheivement. I did all but 2 with the Settler buff (23/25) and now I don’t have enough (non crab and non JP) achievements to do under the Consortium buff. Rats.

So, silly question – I didn’t read any of the guides first and actually did 23/25 achievements while flagged as a settler sympathizer. Can I get the Consortium sympahizer now, even after I logged the other achievements? I dread crab-anything and I’m not a jumper so I probably won’t get the puzzle sample.

+1 to Kamahl and others who have offered the book idea. The game is F2P with income coming from the gem store – it’s a no-brainer. They have content already developed (and paid for, on their side), they’ve created the “world is changing now” atmosphere over the last few months for those that could do the content, now it just makes sense to turn the content into a gem store item.

My small guild had one crack at doing the final dungeon do to our schedules and no hard feelings at all – we’re not all that great and it takes us some time to figure things out (that’s the fun of playing for us). But I guarantee we’d al sign up and pay to run the dungeon again and again until we were happy with the results. And none of us are gear-driven so we’d be fine with keeping the rewards as one-time only, received only while the event was live. But, definitely getting that content out there permanently – makes sense on all fronts.

Thanks for the help, Sutcliffe and sinzer and thanks for the sarcasm kokiman. I know there is a good learning curve and we’re all dedicated enough to work the curve. I was just wondering what we were missing in terms of dealing with the wall of color that is an ele popping off tons of AOE and other effects that tend to make seeing anything, animations included, kokiman, tough. I don’t think anyone was born a great GW player so, yeah, we all know we’ll work at it and hopefully improve. We were all just used to playing other games, GW1 included, that helped with this. Thanks again for the help!

I did a search last night on topics about the lack of an ‘auto-follow’ option and while there was a discussion about why or why not and should be there or shouldn’t, I didn’t find any really constructive advice on how to deal with this feature being absent.

Our small guild just started running dungeons and our guardian is having a very hard time locating and locking onto the targetted mob while the graphics blitzkrieg is going off all around him. So far, he’s tried zooming way out, monitoring the white damage-inflicted numbers and even tried to make sure the red bar under his melee skills are gone, indicating he’s in range, but he’s still having difficulty in effectively maintaining melee distance in a very active and cluttered environment. He’s threatening going to an all ranged build or to level up another class.

My question: are there tricks to stay in melee or does it all come down to console-type reflexes just to get off a few skills and not run around just swinging haphazardly?

If there was already a topic out there and I missed it, can you please post the thread or at least mention that you’ve seen it and I’ll spend more time looking for it?

I’m shaking my head and thinking, “wow, I must be a boring person.” I’ve played GW1, CoH, DDO, CO, DCUO, LOTRO, WoW and now dabbling in Neverwinter and GW2 easily has the most diverse content of everything I’ve played to date. With the exception of GW1 and LOTRO, I found myself doing EXACTLY the same things over and over ad nauseum – GW1 and LOTRO eventually got that way for me too but it took a lot longer. My opinion entirely, but I just think that people don’t realize the gem that is GW2. I’ve tried so hard to get into the other games – it’s prety easy with GW2.

+1 to Morrigan – I remember those days too! To the OP, let’s pretend it’s Christmas morning, or your birthday and you’ve just gotten everything you could ever wish for. What would it look like? Aside from the points in your post about a dedicated server, Guild Hall, etc. (all of which would benefit more than just the RPer’s) what would the best RP environment you can think of look like in GW2?

Hi Track – if you’ve re-rolled then good luck and I hope you have fun with your new toon! My opinion is that $10 gets you a new character slot and that lets you create a new Mesmer and keep the other just in case you need that cooking skill to support your other toons. Plus, if at any time you want to delete, you have a whole new slot to start a new, completely different toon. To me, $10 is worth less than my time and you spent a bit of time getting to 58.

I guess I’m confused about the OP’s desire to incorporate more finger-jerking button mashing in the guise of additional blocks and evades. I don’t own a console game but isn’t that type of play more in that realm?

I’m a casual player, which by my own personal definition, means that I don’t have the time or desire to research the crap out of builds and stats and pros and cons of every little nuance of the game. I’m not going to mock those that do (unless they mock me first, of course) and I have a bit of admiration for those that have the time and energy to get really good at this, or anything for that matter. But when the discussion is about making the difficulty level across the board harder and the requirements to play the game tougher, then yeah, I might be more likely to move on before I waste hours on end being frustrated.

Before the L2P’ers one-line this post, let me give you my idea on who casual gamers really are: these are people who have bought the game (same as everyone else), log in to enjoy themselves (same as everyone else), put in as much time as they can (same as everyone else), and look forward to a measure of success and accomplishment for their efforts based on progressively interesting challenges (same as everyone else). The only difference is the skill level, which is all over the board (same as every other skill set in the real world).

Sometimes I have this analogy of hardcore players versus casuals that goes like this: what if it was a requirement to know every single detail about a character in a movie (every quote, every background story, maybe even every detail of the actor’s real life). How many would walk in to enjoy the movie and how many would discuss, ad nauseum, the details in the lobby? I think for a majority of casual players (or more specifically me – I shouldn’t speak for others), it’s about the movie, the experience, not so much about the nuts and bolts behind the movie or game. To casuals (me) I look to get an escapist experience from playing, not like I think the hardcores look to get the feeling of mastering a profession – I work for a living, I’m tired of being asked to master anything else.

There are already a number methods to challenge the more hardcore players in PvE (most of them have been discussed already). Take out that kittened giant in Diessa that always ties up that little town – that badboy will 1-2 shot you and dance on your body unless you are awesome.

So, looping back around, if it means just different game mechanics, then I say, doesn’t it become more of a console game?

I think the original point the OP was making is that the first dungeon available, based on recommended level to run it, is AC. I understand the desire to make no exceptions to any of the dungeons in terms of complexity and required skills to run the dungeon, but I don’t agree with it. From a casual player’s standpoint, he hits 30th level, he gets an email invite to try out his first dungeon, he runs in (under whatever circumstances – pug, guild group, whatever) and is put to the test of a level of play that is not required in PvE to that point, unless he’s been soloing vets, or even champs.

My point is totally based on this first dungeon having a learning curve that teaches the player, without insta-death, how to read the boss’s tells, how to wait for the attack and to dodge, how to solve the puzzles, both from the environment of the dungeon and from the story arc they are playing.

I don’t want to lump hard dungeons into the class of only being around to zerg or get to the chest asap or worse, only having one way to beat them, which is the one thing I hated about GW1 dungeons – there ultimately was only one tried and true way to take down the boss, period, so you got online, read the recipe, went out and got the elites you needed, built the group that met the requirements, made sure their builds were spot on, made sure they had the specific gear needed – that was such a specific mode of playing a dungeon that it alone got incredibly boring. I’m glad GW2 allows for a LOT more improvisation, at least in this dungeon, AC, the only one I’ve run so far.

I’m also fine with making the dungeons, at least those played at the stated recommended minimum level – the first one – a bit easier. There’s always time to jack up the difficulty level on the others, but the first one should be a showcase of things to come, not a “better players required, noob” experience. Because, yeah, you’ll lose casuals, those that can’t plop down for 6 hours a day to master their dodge finesse, or research the best gear or analyze builds – they shouldn’t be able to do at least a few easier dungeons? We do want a populated world, right?

+1 to Iamduddits and -1 to Ayrilana (if you were being serious). Our small guild ran AC story last week, took a good 2 hours to do it, (after pausing, and adjusting our traits based on what we were seeing) and tried path 1 last night. We just made it past the spider queen (that took 2 hours). We didn’t watch any videos prior, we didn’t have a full compliment of 80s (only 2, there was a 35 and a few in between), and maybe not the best gear or (I’m sure) best traited sets. But we’re learning at our pace and enjoying it.

PvE, which is all any of us have played, is not as complex as dungeon running. The player’s skill level is challenged quite a bit more and if our group wasn’t already diehard GW2 lovers, we could have easily gotten discouraged and frustrated by the jump in skill required to do the dungeons versus normal PvE.

What I would have liked to see is, from AC Story through the three paths, is a gradual increase in difficulty so that a team can progress from the basics in Story Mode, to a decent difficulty in Path 3. From what I’ve read, the three paths are about the same in difficulty. So, yeah, there’s a sense of “Ok, party is over, now you’re in the Marines” with jumping into AC from PvE. But Kitten no, don’t make it harder. As I posted in another thread, you don’t throw calculus at kindergardeners. There has to be someplace for beginners to learn.

Milennin.4825:

mosspit.8936:

What is ironic is that if story modes are too easy, ppl end up farming them for 1 reason or another. Example is CM Story, it used to be suitable for a newcomer in terms of mob damage and length. Then ppl started farming CM story for what I believe to be a quick leveling route for alts. ANet then proceeded to buff the damage of the mobs within.

While they could have just put DR on the EXP rewards from it. Like they do with the decrease in dungeon token rewards when doing the same path twice or more on the same character.

We have diminishing returns for running the same path on the same character? GW2wiki makes it sound like less for multiple runs on the same day.

Thanks for posting this, OP! What a timely post – my small guild just finished AC Story last night, our first dungeon. We were all very happy and proud of ourselves and looking forward to cool stuff popping out of the last chest. What we got was disappointing. So, I was resigned to looking all over the forums to see if others thought this was ok – maybe I just have to get my mindset differently? Glad to see that others are questioning the relatively low quality of rewards for SM.

I get that Story Mode is the “Welcome to the dungeon, this is the storyline that it fits, here’s some lore for you to experience, next time through you get to play in the sandbox” kind of thing. But I was thinking it would be cool to at least reward some amount of the dungeon’s coin – the Tears for AC. At least, then, the run would count towards continuing to do the paths for AC.

I’ve always been a little uneasy about the aggressive stance the devs take on regulating the markets and fast-track schemes to get rich or level (sort of makes me feel like a noob in the big city who hears about the high crime rate and is forced to deal with all the seemingly random restrictions implemented to curtail it). So, I’m not really sure I agree with the idea that SM should have little incentive to be run except to get to the Explorable Mode. As someone posted above, it’s a lot of fun! It just would be nice to be rewarded for the accomplishment.

Not a rant or vent by any means, just a first-timer’s observation on my first SM run.

I personally liked the GW1 event system – pretty much all of them awarded a hat for free just for attending and it gave even the lowbies something to have so they could parade around with it for the rest of the year. Especially with the town clothes, it would be pretty cool to have event hats and clothes that are free or well within the price range of a new player.

Lol! Seriously, I went back and looked up the definition of trolling a forum and was scratching my head thinking maybe I had overstepped, thereby pretty much making my post on negativity … negative. I shouldn’t be allowed on the forums this early in the morning.

I’m a troll? Now I’m confused about what that means. I thought I was making light.

Sometimes I wonder if it’s just fashionable to be negative. I think maybe we’ve made it that way. Maybe it looks wise to sagely sit back and pass judgement negatively on something that is obviously making a lot of people happy. To be the lone, dissenting voice, shrieking out that, wait! hold the phone! THEY didn’t get what THEY wanted. Wisely, we need to be informed that we are silly for snapping up this drivel, that we are all being lead down the road to kittendom. For somewhere, there is that pure, wonderful game that is best for all of us. Never should we waver from our demands of being given that game, through free updates, as painful and as dreary as that ultimate grail will be. Cast out these fun updates! Never take your eyes away from the ideal of the one true game, never step off the trail that leads the developers there. Praise their efforts only in pursuit of that shifting, indefinable goal and negatively post on all other dalliances of free fun.

Oh my God. LOL at this thread! Sometimes, as you are walking through the forest, on your way to get someplace, annoyed at not making good time or at the hill for being so steep or at forgetting to bring your iPod charger, a ray of pure sunlight shoots across your path, bringing warmth and happiness to your world. That, dear readers, is most assuredly Super Adventure Box.

1 UP!

I love pizza. I could eat pizza every day. Sometimes I take a break and eat spicy hot pan-fried noodles. But then, back to pizza. Make this the little guilty pleasure tucked away in Rata Sum and I guarantee you’ll have a steady stream of pizza eaters.

mekkanic.4759:

i want to buy a tshirt with the s.a.b. logo and ‘stop the graphics!’ on the back(or vice versa)…..and of course the gw2 logo somewhere….lol

I’m in! Where do we get those???

Love the 80’s wailing guitar theme song! And Rytlock’s brief dance. And, was that an ET impression at the end?

I was totally unprepared for my first April Fool’s day in GW1, the gender swap. Not having a clue that they could and did do that, I spent quite a long time trying to figure out how I got hacked and why in the world did the hackers do nothing more than turn me into a woman. Then I noticed some of the chat and the joke was on me. I’ve loved April Fools in the GW universe ever since. And btw, the Gwen doll one gave me the creeps…

I know the OP is talking about the humorous side of the personal story but to say that GW1 didn’t have a healthy dose of tongue-in-cheek is to have a bad memory. A large number, if not the majority, of the titles of quests in GW1 were inside jokes about something in pop culture. I don’t have a good memory so you’ll have to look some examples up on wiki. And don’t forget the blatent Python aside with the GW:EotN following the rabbit into the hole quest. GW1 was at its best when it was being comically irreverent. Who DIDN’T look forward to April Fool’s day to see what the devs had instore?

As for the GW2 storylines, I’m not a diehard RPGer so I don’t expect my games to play like a great work of literature, and I may be daft, but I was truly shocked at one particular point in my storyline (I don’t want to spoil anything). It hit me like a ton of bricks. Still, I can see how someone would want more and all I can say is ‘too bad it isn’t working out for you’ because it sure is for me. I’ve stopped playing anything else but GW2, for a number of reasons.

Ahhhhhh!!!! NOOOOOO!!!!!!!

I’m responding to this mount thread purely out of laziness – I don’t want to look up the others. And this is my first post on mounts soooo….. Mounts imply a large distance to travel. The current world of Tyria is actually claustrophobic, compared to other games with mounts, WoW, LOTRO, etc. But … you could make a case that the Crystal Desert, when opened would be a wide open area without waypoints (the sand just wrecks havoc with the gates or, hey, Asurans HATE that much sun so no one to build and maintain them). So, you could make a case to include them. But my understanding is the mechanics would be considerable to incorporate so it’s a question of whether they want to spend that time instead of doing something else … more unique.

I LOVED Stickman Day! I have a huge folder of screenies from that. Gender Bender was pretty fun too, getting to see the alternate version of my armor. Also, there was a mini-me too, I think. And something involving freakish dolls or kids or something.

These threads are amusing. Really, defining the things that are not the core points of the game and sort of mocking those who like it. That’s like saying you don’t like Pizza Hut Pizza because they don’t put enough cheese on it. It’s kind of smug to complain about the way Pizza Hut makes pizza, expecting them to change when so many people do like it. Go to Little Caesers. And so funny to see the pulpits plop out where everyone is a minister in the Church of the Awesome. (slow clap). I’m just kidding. Seriously.

I think, to be fair, that the GW1 skins should always be unique and only for those who did play GW1 enough to earn them. I’m a little disappointed that there is a way to just buy them with a number of new accounts. And it isn’t so much that they were earned after it was known that there would be incentives in GW2. I LIKE that, in it’s true form, it was meant to be a ‘thank you’ to those of us who have followed the game for so long, played through both editions and can honestly say that this is the only way you can get these skins.

I hate exclusivity when it is luck or politics that draws the line between who gets and who don’t gets, but, like dungeon gear or achievement rewards, there should always be a unique way to say, “Hey, I did that!” Not, “Oh, where did you buy that?”

Taking out the free-will aspect of it, I’m thinking that soulbound could be percieved to be something your character naturally accepts as being more special than the other things he or she aquires. With all the loot that our characters pick up on a daily basis, there are naturally going to be things that we would look at and say, "You know, this is pretty cool. I’m going to hold onto this so I can remember <what just happened>. Soulbound on equip could be something that we’re sort of attached to but have to give it a try or try it on, and once used, it’s really not something we’d sell.