Guild Wars 2

He just broke his leg and HE’S STANDING ON IT and generally functioning like it not too big of a deal. Seems more hardcore than a regular human, to be sure.

Awesome. Thanks

I have the ascended version of the spinal back but i want to stick it on another character. If i colorized it, does it reset as account bound? If i infuse it does it revert?

it would be cool if the next LS season had a slow rollout of new maps as we cut our way to Mord’.

Ardenwolfe.8590:

You know, I hate to be so negative, but it sure would be nice if ANet released these things with having to use workarounds because of bugs.

Ah, the true “GW2 Experience”!

IDK about marriage but the idea of some kind of symbiotic “bond” with interesting mechanics has a lot of potential. Something like gaining a window of invulnerability to res your downed bond-mate or sharing certain boons when proc’ed on one person could add a pretty awesome level of strategy.

You’re conveniently forgetting the backpack and rifles.

lol. French kiss? Cheap porn? Sex?

Apparently we aren’t actually talking about Guild Wars 2, much less Kasmeer or Marjory.

Electro.4173:

I don’t really agree with the idea of “keeping score” and clumping all games together as a whole. Saying things like “Well, all these other games have male-heavy casts so this one having a female-heavy cast is good” seems a bit silly and petty, really. I should think games should strive for a balance on an individual basis, rather than pointing at other games and saying “Well we’re just making up for them”.

It’s not a matter of keeping score as much as simply letting there be a female-dominant game once in awhile because they should be allowed to exist. We have plenty of male protagonist based games and stories out there, so having a female heavy one shouldn’t be an issue or require some special balance by affirmative action in order to cancel out female prominence. Not allowing a female dominant game to exist at all because we need to meet a quota of strong males seems at least as petty.

kimeekat.2548:

I couldn’t believe how weird it felt to see that, when a crew with all men was something I didn’t bat an eye at. Perhaps that’s what’s going on here. We’ve seen the opposite for so long that a female-driven cast is suddenly ~unbalanced~, where a male-driven cast is considered default.

Pretty much this. You can have 9 out of 10 games with primarily male leads and if one has more women suddenly there are people who want affirmative action for males, as if they weren’t being adequately represented. It would be like someone criticizing Tyler Perry for not having enough white folks in his movies because they’re not being represented there enough.

If they choose to add some competent males to the cast, that’s great, but any cry for doing so out of a sense of “balance” or male under-representation is kinda ridiculous in the greater context of video games and action-fiction in general. It’s ok to let the ladies have one once in awhile, guys.

NYG.2568:

Doggie.3184:

NYG.2568:

I think this is a lame detail. There is so much info missing, Such as Mai Trin what happened to her. What’s Caithes secret? There are so many missing elements to this story yet we get hiccups… WTF?!

Apparently you think a minor detail is the entire LS for some reason.

This LS was the final battle to save LA, wait for the closing LS for closure. o.O

I do not get this response…Why focus on a detail such as these hiccups? When there are so many unanswered questions(plot holes). This was the end to this living story with a short epilogue coming. Are you suggesting all these answers will come with that?

The fact that there is a wrap up at all means there is SOMETHING more, at least. It’s probably best to wait and see the actual final part before we get up in arms about loose ends.

Vexander.9850:

Anyways, there’s a time and a place for those sort of scenes as well in my opinion. I don’t think that was the time or the place. If you removed that scene from the mini dungeon, does it really change anything? Does it affect its moods or atmosphere? Not really. That kiss would have been better placed in a celebration.

In a situation like this, i would apply the “if the gender/orientation was swapped, how would it look?” test. If it were a man who just saw his female lover seemingly come back from the dead in his arms immediately after a climactic battle, i’d almost expect him to kiss her. It seems strange to expect them to wait till some later time to show strong emotion. Right when your partner comes back from death’s door is exactly when it makes sense to hold them close and kiss them.

Lasica.5068:

The only people who are posting about quotas are those who have an issue with homosexuality. For these sorts of people one homosexual relationship is too many so as soon as one appears, especially one that seems to be happy and loving, they suddenly discover the need for a quota for hetro relationships because there are too few “normal” relationships being shown. They also ignore any evidence presented that says otherwise.

I tend to ignore most of them, but unfortunately they do seem to be rather persistent in their bigotry. Thankfully the majority of players don’t seem to have an issue with Kasmeer and Marjory’s relationship and I have yet to see anyone in game comment negatively about it.

This a common sociological phenomenon whenever you have an a suppressed group of people who begin to have rights and representation in a society where a privileged, dominant group has kept them marginalized.

There was a time when people claimed to support women, as long they didn’t vote or work. There was a time when some folks thought black people were fine as long as they didn’t eat in the same restaurants as whites. Today, when gay people occasionally get the same rights and representation as straights, there is naturally going to be a portion of the privileged group that sees any move toward equality as an erosion of their privileged position. As with previous civil rights issues, people always come to the table with all sorts of “moral” and “logical” rationalizations and reasons to justify inequality and prejudice.

Vexander.9850:

The Stereotype that women are more prone to emotional outbursts, being ruled by their emotions, being unreasonable when they get emotional, etc… Come on, its a common stereotype in media and literature. I’m not saying women cannot have or portray emotion without succumbing to this, but when it gets extreme, it falls into a stereotype.

If you’d like to learn more, I suggest reading this page:
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/HystericalWoman

I don’t see her reaction being particularly uncalled for, whether the character is male or female. Her lover is dead on the ground and she got emotional. She certainly can’t fall into the Hysterical Woman trope though because of the how the scene actually played out: instead of weeping in a corner, she went for the throat and attacked Scarlet directly. It’s actually a pretty balanced portrayal of a woman (or healthy human being, for that manner) as she shows both vulnerability and the ability to step up and overcome being vulnerable with competence and action. She wasn’t depicted as being a helpless victim or hysterical princess.

I’m not really a fan of the LS in general since a lot of it is simplistic, boring and forgettable, but i’m having a hard time seeing fault in how Kasmeer was framed in that final scene.

Look for them to show up in the gem store next tues.

According to Mordremoth’s twitter, he’s awake because we defeated Scarlet.

I only get bags when i show up for the last 10% of the fight. When i show up at the start, i get nada.

Mirta.5029:

If it was actually dying they would stop it. Anet has the numbers and frankly they’re great enough for them to do this. How did you determine that’s it’s dying?

This right here. If the game is doing bad because of the living story, they’d immediately know because they have all the data. The fact that they are not switching strategies is a pretty strong sign that the LS is not, in fact, killing the game.

blakdoxa.7520:

… there’s no reason to bring our real world problems into a fake world.

No story, media or artwork exists in a bubble outside of social constructs. If people create a song, movie, book, etc, including characters interacting in any sort of human fashion, the piece automatically has cultural baggage and real world issues baked in. Even when a world is fictitious, it’s made by people who are the product of a culture and necessarily imbue the world with very real aspects of that culture.

Saying “it doesn’t matter because it’s fake” is to argue that no work of fiction or non-naturalistic art ever produced by mankind actually matters.

The thing about being tanned requiring they leave the shiverpeaks doesn’t really fit. If people were really able to run around without clothes in a snowy environment without freezing to death like the norn do, they would be pretty kitten ed tanned because of the crazy amout of UV you’d get off of the snow. Anyone who’s gone skiing for a couple of hours and wound up with a worse sunburn on their face than a day at the beach can attest to this.

Actually, if we’re going to try and be scientific to a pedantic degree, norn should all be pretty tanned if they’re skin works like humans and they run around naked in the snow all the time.

Norns aren’t human or real and thus real-world evolutionary parallels don’t necessarily apply. Maybe they just have a range or skin tones the way sylvari have a crazy range of colors. Perhaps different lineages that worship different animals are close to that animal’s appearance (coloration).

Nesukia.7561:

Your wrong. So. Very. Wrong. That’s heteronormativity for you though. Ton’s of hetero relationships, two homosexual ones, and suddenly people act weirded out.

This, in a nutshell.

You can have a whole form of media (video games, fantasy, myth, etc) essentially dominated by patriarchy and heterosexuality and when a rare case of homosexuality or female dominance appears, there’s suddenly an ironic cry for “balance” or “fairness”.

Hetero pairings in society, myth, video games, et al, are not an oppressed, under-represented group that needs special affirmative action. There are a million stories and games out there with stereotypical male leads and hetero romances; it’s fine to let female heroes and homosexuals get a spotlight once in awhile.

The “I need a male hero to identify with” claim is clearly a dubiously veiled expression of ethnocentrism and androcentrism as well. There are plenty movies, games and other media where the lead is an alien, fantasy race or anthropomorphic animal and people seem to enjoy these stories without a human to identify with yet someone claims they need a “male” to make a story engaging? If Finding Nemo can be a hugely popular movie where the lead is a fish, no one should have a problem with a female human or a homosexual as a protagonist.

mallas.9836:

Just because those that had the money or had their crafting at 500 can do it NOW doesn’t mean you should able to do it NOW. It also doesn’t mean everyone should have them.

Right. And i never said otherwise.

I don’t have the glowy skull shield thing from 2 halloweens ago. Does that mean Anet MUST bring it back since i didn’t get a chance at it? No.

No, they shouldn’t, and i never said they should.

I think the point of this backpiece was to gather mats enough to make up to exotic and have enough shards left over to eventually make the ascended back at your own pace.

Yeah, on your own time since you apparently have an indefinite amount of time to upgrade it after the event. They shouldn’t require you to have all that money and grind during the event itself to get the specific color you want though if the whole thing is supposed to be a long term goal. Hopefully the color is also something you can do at your own pace.

Demanding or even asking for the same reward as those that have farmed and got crafting up to 500 and all the mats, is selfish.

You’re right. Good thing i never demanded that then, huh?

The point is, do it at your own pace. The fact you can’t get it done NOW is irrelevant and your problem.

Not my problem at all, actually.

I just hope the color option reward is something that can be worked toward later so that everyone who is taking their time making the backpack can get it instead of only those rich enough to ascended it during the event itself can benefit.

Pixelmage.3692:

It’d be interesting to see how players would perform in such scenario, but we don’t have the room to do that experiment. :P

Look at most of the events that give crap rewards in the game. People don’t do them.

Smooth Penguin.5294:

The thing you’re missing here is that this content allows you to make that choice, and not be penalized for it. The event was very well planned out, reward wise. The same map allows for both Casual play, and Elite level Hardcore play.

It’s better than some events but falls short of “very well planned out”. The problem is that most people won’t even recognize that the “elite level hardcore” play mode exists, much less organize enough to make it happen for those who do. When a map does Teq or tri-wurm, if they fail everyone knows that they did something wrong because their failure is clearly communicated. In LA, when everyone zergs and gets only 500 rescues, people are happy with their rewards without ever knowing that they got a kitten number.

The problem is that you can’t really have Casual and Elite playstyles in this event in the same map at the same time.

Pixelmage.3692:

Selfless vs. Selfish. The options are there. Selfish players will zerg for personal loot and get it. Selfless players will strive to drive the rescue counter up.

Wanting to max the rescue counter out in order to get a chest with the best loot drops (potential jetpack, etc) is clearly no less selfish than zerging if we are talking about personal rewards. In fact, expecting people to change their playstyle in order to rescue citizens so you can get a reward would be at least as selfish as zergging since 90% of those people are doing such because simply because they don’t understand the mechanics.

The big thing is that since everything else is zerg-based, most players are going to show up and assume that following commanders and zergging everything is what you’re supposed to do beacause that’s how it usually works in this game. Doing so is not a matter of selfishness for any casual person showing up to the event who doesn’t fully understand the poorly communicated strategy for max-rescue.

Ayrilana.1396:

Aajolea.8132:

We as players knew form prior event that LA was going to be attacked. So why were we neither there or able to defend initially when Scarlet attacks? Same way we are there when a world boss pops up.

If this is ‘living’ story why not even chance to thwart her during that attack, such as using troops and weapons of pact fleet in our capacity as a commander. Destroying more of Scarlet’s resources and damaging her operation before it can drill or damage LA to its now presented state.

Seem that the ‘Living’ and by that meaning any influential impact of players have, is irrelevant to the story outcome. The only influence we have is achievement and loot for ourselves.

Think of Pearl Harbor.

/thread

The U.S. knew that war was raging and people were being killed by Axis forces, so the attack on Pearl Harbor never should have happened, right?

skullmount.1758:

@OP How the heck did you already get that many spinal blades? You must be pretty lucky in your drop rate or have been playing it the whole time since the patch release.

I’ve only run the evetn a half dozen times and i have 4 stacks. Im not shocked that someone farmed enough.

Oh, man. I’ve been sitting a ton of elonian leather squares that i didn’t sell before the bottom fell out on the market. Time to make my money back.

All it takes is a small, out of the way place, much like the Galapagos. Surely, the world is big enough to imagine that this could happen? Not to mention that fact that they are a non-human fantasy race. Maybe they’re far more prone to pigment mutations? Maybe they’re magic and don’t even have genes? It really shouldn’t be something that strains suspension of disbelief in the least.

You can still use the blade backpiece without all the legs. It looks a lot like an alternate packpack

Darkbattlemage.9612:

Ok let me rephrase the question, how exactly did she come into possession of the Airship technology? The Pact were the only faction shown to utilized the technology before the living story. If she simply salvaged down Pact Airships than why couldn’t the pact simply utilize the same methods?

We also see her porting in clockwork minions from an alternate future full of tech. Theoretically, she just ports an indefinite amount in from said clockwork reality since we have no idea exactly what or how much technology is just sitting there waiting to go.

One of the best back pieces they’ve made. It’s the first one to make me think about swapping out my trusty jetpack on my mechanical set.

Elricht Kaltwind.8796:

panzer.6034:

In Darwinian evolution, mutations cause individuals to display new traits and if they are favorable they get passed on. If there is a population of dark skinned norns, it is easily and realistically attributed to a genetic mutation which has been passed on in a certain bloodline or area.

Right, in a certain bloodline or area, which is exactly the same conclusion that I reached in the first place. That’s what’s at the core of the matter: where did these norn come from, literally?

A mutation + galapagos effect.

If a small village without gene flow has some people with dark skin, the trait gets passed on and we a population (somewhere in the far shiverpeaks) of dark skinned people. This is hardly any more of a stretch than blue skinned sons of svanir or black skinned polar bears.

In real life, we have people with recessive traits like blonde hair existing in the very same populations with people who had the dominant traits. A slight genetic twist or “founder effect” situation with a race of people who are not even human to begin with and it’s not even a stretch of the imagination to envision dark skinned norns. All it would take is a situation like the Galapagos in the northern areas for this to occur reasonably.

The whole question of “why would norns need dark skin to survive in the arctic” is flawed from an evolutionary viewpoint.

In Darwinian evolution, mutations cause individuals to display new traits and if they are favorable they get passed on. If there is a population of dark skinned norns, it is easily and realistically attributed to a genetic mutation which has been passed on in a certain bloodline or area.

Not to mentions to the so called “founder effect”. If a few dark skinned norns began a settlement in remote region where gene flow wasn’t occuring, most of their descendants are going to carry their features, thus producing a dark skinned population, even when the phenotypes are recessive.

In short, dark skinned norns make perfect sense if we’re talking about Darwinism.

FenrirSlakt.3692:

Bubi.7942:

Hey uh… which way to the outhouse?

We don’t have outhouses; we have water faucets.

“water closets”

Apocalypse weapons set for this LS arc would be cool. At least an eyepatch in the gem store for a genuine “escape from LA” experience.

Smooth Penguin.5294:

And remember that a charr saved Lion’s Arch from a corrupt and vile Warband leader.

Revisionist history. Read it again and it’s clearly “we won’t make as much money destroying the city as we would not destroying it. Yay, $$$.”

Singer.8740:

Nope that’s the hole machine. there’s blueprints in scarlet’s lair. Also she is a newborn Sylvari barely a decade old. Her involvement with the steam creatures has not holey been explained and remains one of the few loose ends remaining in the current story.

You mean the blueprints for the big drill? Was there another one i missed?

And, yeah, she’s young but clearly she’s portalling in from the steam creature future where she has part of her army. She has all the resources she needs since she’s potentially in charge of a whole future dimension.

She’s from a future overrun by crazy steam creatures and watchwork stuff. I assume that what we see poking out from the clouds is just the tip of the iceberg of a whole dimension of machinery. Hardly any less believable than any of the other stuff in the game.

VOLKON.1290:

digiowl.9620:

VOLKON.1290:

CaptainVanguard.4925:

I’m calling it now, the Pale Tree gets destroyed.

One problem with that… Sylvari would be doomed to extinction. Without the Pale Tree, no new Sylvari.

Unless the weed has come up with some way to sprout seedlings…

Then they wouldn’t be Sylvari, who are born of the Pale Tree. They could be something that resembles Sylvari, but they wouldn’t be Sylvari.

Last year, one of the developers explicitly said something big was going to happen to sylvari this year…

Orange circles have nothing to do with whether or not a game is “art”, much less “good art” or “toilet art” (whatever that means). Art isn’t arbitrarily limited to imagery being naturalisticly rendered or animated any more than op-art or modern art or abstract art or any sort of more wildly experimental art is not art simply because it doesn’t involve an illustrative rendering of a subject. Using abstract shapes and colors in a non-representative format to lead the viewer’s eye has been a tool in art long before video games existed.

ozmaniandevil.6805:

I do not understand calling people who do not innately know how to defeat every new boss “idiots”. Some players are simply new to the GAME in general but want to take part in the “fun”.

If you have dungeon armor and/or an ascended weapon and you can’t last 3 seconds in the champ circle, it’s a serious “l2p, bro” problem, not a “i’m new to the game and just looking to have fun” problem.

RE: Hardcore vs. Casuals
People who think Wurm or Teq is elite content or for hardcores are kidding themselves. It’s for anyone who can show up and mime the winning strategy once it’s figured out. I know a ton of casuals who’ve done Teq because it requires zero personal skill, knowledge or hardcore-ness. It has nothing to do with being hardcore and everything to do with simply following a the crowd and/or herding a map full of casuals.

RE: Rewards
This is where Wurm and Teq fail, hard. Most of the community is going to quit showing up if you have to spend an hour waiting, doing pre-events and then a fight, only for the chance of getting less loot than 10 minutes on the champ train. And if your server can’t beat it? Forget about it. One hour for zero rewards. It’s hilariously bad design when supposed “elite” content requires far more time and patience for less reward than existing content. Once the newness dies down, “hardcore” players will much rather spend their time doing something that requires more personal challenge (frac 50) or gives better rewards (anything but wurm or teq) than spend an hour on this.

You could have the smartest human being that ever lived on your server and not beat it if a bunch of idiots are on your map. The strategies are not hard to notice, it’s just that most people aren’t paying attention atm.

Lesson not learned: people don’t want to spend a half hour doing pre and boss fights to kill 30 champs without any drops.

It’s hilariously bad design that it takes more time/effort than anything else while the champs drop nothing. If they don’t change this event it will be even more dead that tequatl in a week or 2 because no one wants to waste their time doing the pre for zero rewards. More time intensive that Teq with even LESS reward.

Amethyst Lure.5624:

I absolutely love the muscle you can add, myself. It’s so liberating to look strong for once if you wish it as a female – very rare in games.

I wish that were true. I rolled a fem norn and was once again disappointed with a run-of-the-mill video game character design that doesn’t really let you make a muscular female.

StinVec.3621:

panzer.6034:

Fafnir.5124:

I kinda wanted to nerf the UFO comments that where showing up in the butt because a lot of people who feel GW2 is more SIFI then Fantasy where mentioning it.

Nerf something up in the butt? What does that even mean? lol

I believe they meant “nip it in the bud” with “nip” being replaced with the common gaming term of “nerf” used in its preventative form.

“Put a stop to something while it is still in its early development. This phrase derives from the de-budding of plants.”

Sort of how some people say other things incorrectly without giving it much thought:

Proper: “For all intents and purposes”
Incorrect: "For all intensive (or “intense and”) purposes"

Proper: “Couldn’t care less” (“Couldn’t” states that you already care as little as possible, which is usually not at all)
Incorrect: “Could care less” (“Could” implies that you do, actually, care about it to some degree, and are still able to care less than you currently do.)

Proper: “Buyer beware”
Incorrect: “Buy or beware”

Proper: “I would have gone with you”
Incorrect: “I would of gone with you”

Etcetera.

Indeed, the term for this phenomenon is “malapropism”. I knew what he meant, but the level of error was just too funny not to call out.

Fafnir.5124:

I kinda wanted to nerf the UFO comments that where showing up in the butt because a lot of people who feel GW2 is more SIFI then Fantasy where mentioning it.

Nerf something up in the butt? What does that even mean? lol