Guild Wars 2

Valid points, OP, and I think it is an unavoidable process, unless some work will be put into keeping the old areas on par with new ones. Without the overhaul, the old areas will fall into obscurity sooner or later.

FrizzFreston.5290:

I seriously doubt we took out every single tormented creature in there. But yeah, we did take out the major threats, so maybe it is safe. I suppose, that if the batteries ran out we would’ve seen something happen by now.

Then again, you could say the players also cleared the Underworld and Fissure of Woe and still there’s that Shadow Behemoth there. I’m really not so sure if we can say 100% sure there’s nothing dangerous there, because 250 years ago the players cleared it.

One thing is for sure, nothing has come through the Door just yet as far as we have noticed.

EDIT: There’s at least some remnants of Mallyx in the mists, otherwise the Revenants can’t channel his powers.

Even if a titan or 100 lived, the volcano exploded, remember? And even if the gate wasn’t destroyed, without the Lich sending them out through portals, they are kinda stuck on Fire Islands.

FrizzFreston.5290:

BrettM.9062:

FrizzFreston.5290:

If the seal was there for the entire time, “needing” Chosen for it to stay on or what not, then that is alot of people. So I really doubt that’s the case, as it would mean that right now that Door would still be open as there’s no one killing any chosen to keep it shut.

There is no need to keep killing Chosen because the soul batteries are fully charged with the soul of the Lich, who was killed on the Bloodstone.

Yeah, but batteries are batteries. They do run out. Otherwise why kill the chosen every time and not only “whenever the batteries run out.” That, and why is the Vizier Khilborns soul able to charge them all up while previously they needed X chosen in order to recharge? Is it linked to the amount of magicalpower a soul possesses? Aren’t Chosen also imbued with this magic? So many questions, so much testing to do! We totally need to send an Asura or Priory krewe to the Door of Komalie in order to fully understand this.

Of course I understand that a few years after we killed Abaddon, but I personally don’t believe that that automatically would mean that there’s nothing evil behind that door. Unless Kormir did a full makeover to the realm of Torment/Secrets. Which I really doubt she managed that, as I recall even Grenth and Balthazar were struggling in keeping their respective realms clean.

Kormir didn’t have to clean the whole Realm of Torment – the Door of Khomalie lead to Foundry of Failed Creation, and it was cleared by players and the Forgotten, so no more Titans = no need to keep DoK shut with Soul Batteries, even if the Soul of the Lich will run out.

Malyk the Harbinger sounds like a fitting name for a Mordrem Lieutenant or Champion.

An idea as to why the Mursaat have glowing skin now – they mastered the art of phasing out of view/reach of other races, and only the ascendants can see them, unless they allow it, right?

Maybe they simply LET US see them in the trailer, and the glowing skin is their choice of look, or an effect of being partially out of phase?

I support the idea! And raptor pets too, please! They can’t fly, but are still Maguuma/Tarnished Coast themed.

VergilDeZaniah.3295:

zwierz.9012:

The bug from Prometheus was based of a tapeworm, sooo stolen from evolution! plagiarism!

EDIT: please don’t shoot yourself VergilDeZaniah. They’re not very big. Long though.

I wasn’t the one talking about shooting myself :P thanks anyway! xD

Well, then, the other guy – don’t shoot yourself either! There is no need for anyone to die tonight.

BTW that head also looks a lot like some species of leeches.

The bug from Prometheus was based of a tapeworm, sooo stolen from evolution! plagiarism!

EDIT: please don’t shoot yourself VergilDeZaniah. They’re not very big. Long though.

Windsagio.1340:

Glint, even with her telepathy stuff, probably didn’t think of individual mortals as very important. What she did doesn’t look great as you present it, but we have other information that sets her as selfless and long-seeing. All available information depicts the Mursaat as explicitly selfish and untrustworthy.

Hell, maybe she should take a lot of the blame. It doesn’t change the fact that the Mursaat specifically killed people who were potential threats under false pretenses to keep another threat to them out of the world. They’re good at setting up win-win scenarios, I admit.

Ekhm, Glint also did the same thing – she caused the death of countless innocent beings to take her vengeance on Mursaat. And she is excused for that because you say “she probably thought the few lives were not important”. She is remember as a hero, and mursaat as villains only because she was on our side. and SHE led humans to help the Undead Lich release titans, and in effect bring Nightfall closer to fruition.

The very end of the world Mursaat were trying to prevent, Glint was actively working to bring to life. So the ones trying to stop the fallen god from destroying the planet are bad guys only because they killed a couple of peasants who would die anyway if they didn’t do it. While the one trying to stop the “bad guys” was in fact working to end the whole creation at hands of Abaddon.

In other words again:

- guys killing a few to save themselves and EVERY OTHER LIVING BEING ON THE PLANET are villains

- guys working to help a Lich who works for a god who wants to destroy EVERYTHING are good guys because… they are too stupid to realize they are are being manipulated by a said lich and a dragon.

Morality at it’s finest.

I think, that even if start with just a couple of region of Maguuma Jungle, nothing stops ANet from expanding at convenience when the story calls for it. Noone said LS won’t be continued in some form, after all, had they?

I think we’ll start with some number of regions (from 1 to whatever), and after some time they will be expanded.

Since nowhere was it stated, that regular updates won’t happen, I assume they will continue.

About all the talk of Mursaat being self serving and selfish – the only question popping in my head is “So what?”.

Since when being selfish and self serving is equal to being a villain? If it is so, then majority of well… every living being with more than two brain cells are villains. From amoeba upwards, everything is ultimately self serving an selfish.

Just because Mursaat killed a ton of humans or two to keep titans at bay – it’s in the past now, and the war with humans is long over. And btw, we have more than one playable race, there is no need for any race other than human to be automatically hostile with Mursaat.

Charr? Yeah, Mursaat were opposing titans – Flame Legion Gods, ergo enemies of the other Legions. Also killed a charr (Flame Legion in charge) army invading Kryta. Where the automatic hostility?

Norn – do not give a flying dolyak about human wars in most cases, right?

Asura – like above, but with golems.

Sylvari – were not around, also they are dragon kittenes, who are they to judge?

Humans – Yeah, yeah, White Mantle, the whole shebang, but they did sign a peace treaty with the charr. Charr killed more humans than Mursaat.

I really see no reason why Mursaat can’t be our allies, at least for part of the story. Being self centered is the least of the reason, we saw during the cutscene Ryltock cutting the vines blocking the gate to the city – could be that Mursaat are under siege by mordrem, and they need our help to survive, and in return will offer us knowledge on how to fight the dragon, or other useful info for us. And then they will screw us over at first convenience of course, whenever they get what they want from us.

If the new content comes out, I’ll play it, and if I’ll enjoy it, I’ll keep playing it.

Raised level cap doesn’t matter at all to me, nor would new items to get – I’d love some new skills though, especially if they would be unlockable through a quest, rather than just buyable.

It’s definitely not ok to ride a centaur if you’re a norn. Unless you jump from a really high roof to get on it’s back.

Electro.4173:

Is there even such thing as “dragon energy”? I was under the impression that the dragons simply absorbed and used the natural magic of the world. So other than maybe being a bit more concentrated, wouldn’t it be the same thing?

Dragon Energy = magic consumed and digested/corrupted by Elder Dragons. As I understand it it’s perhaps more potent, and certainly unhealthy.

I have a personal theory, that EDs simply condense consumed magic while awake – thus making it too powerful to use safely without risk of corruption (like putting rocket fuel in a Prius), and then release it and decompress when asleep, making it safe again.

The differences in corruption come from different methods and flavor of compressing (what I mean is they compress magic in different shapes and densities).

I have a possible explanation as to “why sylvari don’t look like mordrem” – it is not grounded or supported enough to be a theory I think, it is just an idea:

So we know that Ronan found the seed in a cave protected by plant monsters, planted it etc, right?

What if sylvari DO belong to the Dragon, but aren’t “minions” – only Pale Tree is.

Let’s assume that the seed was indeed purified from Dragon influence somehow (it doesn’t matter how for the idea). We know that freeing from dragon control doesn’t change the look of a creature, but what if it was cleansed when it was just a seed (hibernating until dragon needs it, or whatever)? Would a growing dragon Champion Pale Tree not be able to modify how it looked like while in the grow stage?

And following that, wouldn’t the free Dragon CHampion Pale Tree (assuming of course that it had the power to create underlings) be able to shape and create said underlings shaping them how it willed?

So my idea is: Maybe Pale Tree is a free Dragon Champion with the power to create underlings at will, and has shaped them to look like sylvari etc. to fight it’s creator?
That way not only we could explain away why the sylvari don’t look like other minions, but resemble humans (Ronan and his family’s skeletons), but also why “they belong to the jungle dragon” and at the same time player characters aren’t brainless minions.

Following that, Pale Tree could create them with patterns she had implanted by Mordie (humanoids, thorn wolves – we have mordrem wovles and trolls etc. so we know that he mimics fleshy creatures, if not corrupts), but changed them to resist him, thus giving free will, or equivalent by modifying the hive mind.

Maybe all mordrem are created by pale trees – maybe the tree is just how Mord creates him minions, a living, sentient factory, waiting in stasis while dragon sleeps, and waking when it’s time to spew out minions.

Of course, this is just an idea I built from various theories I heard, I have no proof to even make it a thesis. It would explain the origin of Pale Tree, differences between sylvari and mordrem and lots of other problems, right?

ElysianEternity.6215:

Then we have that Faolain fell into Nightmare while she was with Caithe in Orr and that she was the first. Apparently that never happened now or what and she simply hung out with the NC?

Umm, wasn’t it always stated, that Cadeyrn founded NC, and Faolain just became the leader of it? Pretty sure it was, but I am far from being a salad expert…

I don’t name my land pets, because I change them too often, and names don’t stick, so I think it’s a bit pointless, but there are exceptions.

When I use a boar I always take a moment to name it “Oink” as a tribute to the most glorious walking bacon of all.

Also my water pets – 2 jellyfishes: One is called “Peanut Butter” and the other “Jelly Time”.

Jaken.6801:

oh, the joke is too obvious and thus they are annoying.

Their purpose as a joke is clear. It is just that they are just not making sense in some cases and with that the joke is lost.

They don’t make sense!? I call for Chewbacca defense!

Grumpy old me likes the changes to daily, they seem be a good change. Nothing else to say about it, there doesn’t seem to be any downsides – ergo in my eyes for now it seems to be change for good.

As for the monthly, I liked my monthlies, but I guess I won’t miss them, it just means I will have zero incentive to join zerg trains if I don’t need to kill a 100 champs. But that is good, zerg trains are boring.

The new monthly system seems rather weird to me, maybe because I haven’t seen it work yet, but it reminds me of getting a piece of cheese every time I push a button with my nose… Of course it is a great system to create returning playerbase – I log in, I get a candy, maybe even buy something off of gemshop, eh?

Then again, I personally don’t mind it, and it won’t change frequency with which I log in, and I don’t really mind it anyway, so not going to whine about it.

I think the naysayers just like their comfort zones a little too much.

I personally enjoyed the new skillset, it was well balanced, though it could use some weapon swap into a ranged option for the achievements.

And no, complaining about parts of the update doesn’t stop me from appreciating the parts well done.

nekretaal.6485:

I don’t mind the cheap gimmicks. Especially in content that is not meant to be repeated like this.

I do mind repeating the entire level including all dialogue when I get hit by a a cheap 1 hit == lose gimmick.

The glint mission got this right, none of the others have.

Yup. +1.

The only challenge mode left for me to do is the centaur one, and only because if I hear or see the cut scenes one more time, I’ll throw up. Gotta wait for bad storytelling resistance to build up before I get it.

So not impossible. Just annoying to get to due to having to rerun the whole thing to get there.

Xander.9024:

Zaklex.6308:

Xander.9024:

~Snip~

I’d have to agree with this post. Last week I was in a breach, the champ thrasher, standing beside a ranger who was just hitting every skill he/she had that was off cd. I mean every one, even the LB#3.

If you knew anything about mobs, then you would know that Champions are immune to KB, so it doesn’t hurt at all to use LB#3 on those bosses during the breach, all it does is give an extra damage shot, a very low damage shot but it allows your other skills to recharge.

Hate to tell ya sport, LB#3 is the shot that makes the ranger go stealth. Point blank shot is number 4. And yes, I am aware of the neat little icon on the champs that says immune to knockback and such..I can read and your snarky attitude isn’t welcome.

Have a nice day/night

Yep, PB rarely has a place in a group fight, usually it makes more sense to take a few steps back to increase damage output from the bow. Not because of poor silly players who didn’t learn to swap weapons, but because you might actually need #4 at some point, so why waste it?

BTW, LB #3 is VERY useful – next shot being a free crit with right perks etc. So LB #4 -usually bad, LB#3 – usually smart.

Personally I usually use LB mainly to QZ and #2 while charging into melee, Rangers are really much better in close combat.

Poor monster has nowhere to hide… Champ train will find it and kill it over and over and over again, until there isn’t a single copper of loot left…

Happy to see the mistake patched.

LanfearShadowflame.3189:

Atlas.9704:

I honestly hope we get some more dino looking types.
I missed Raptor farming back in GW1.

Woooo boy…. can you imagine how much more interesting the game would be if all foes could hit as fast and as hard as raptors from GW1?

Yes please! Or at least may the raptors already in game wake up from a coma?

I fail to see the issue… I also the content I enjoy, or rather feel like doing, and Mawdrey was hardly the problem to accomplish? I had to stray from beaten path a little (oh, the horror!), and was reminded of a few fun activities I forgot about – and in exchange I have few backpacks I will never use, and a sink for Bloodstone dust.

If you didn’t want to get out of your comfort zone, why didn’t you just destroy the items and dust? It’s hella cheaper to throw it away than to grow the plant.

Kasmeer can do anything, don’t you know?

It’s actually the only part of the update that I liked. Soo, please more stealth?

Tarasicodissa.7084:

Traveller.7496:

Is it me or are these story achievements getting harder ever since the adding of luminescent armor? (for which you need the achievement item – else you gotta buy it) Harder, and little room for error else you have to do the whole thing over again.

I agree the VERY LAST episode may have been a bit more tough, but the two before it were a piece of cake. Just remember how difficult some of the achievements in “Entanglement” were, probably about as much as the new ones.
As someone was pointing out in a different topic, being hard to accomplish is kinda the definition of achievement. Little room for error and having to restart the whole thing is completely intentional.

I understand and agree with the “hard ti accomplish” part, but having to rewatch all the cutscenes it torture. Once is more than enough!

Desbreko.7906:

Things that make living world s2 achievements some of the worst content in the game:

• Being unable to get them the first time through an instance.
• Unskippable dialogue and cutscenes when replaying instances.
• Mutually exclusive achievements that make you repeat instances even more times.
• Blatant time wasters like Better Red Than Dead in the Hidden Arcana instance.

Agreed, especially the cutscenes and mutually exclusive achies. For me the story is bad, and seeing it 3+ times makes me cringe. Even if I’d like it, like I’m sure people are, having to see and hear it 3+ times is mildly annoying at best.

I actually tab out and scroll some funny pictures, or read a book during the scenes. Otherwise I’d probably jump out the window already.

I’d say everything besides the actual story and story instances is verying between good to great.

Story itself? Predictable and not very interesting (with one notable exception of course), the episodes are short, inconsistent, completely lack skeleton and have very little meat on them. Or rather – leaves.

Plus, characters of focus are in my opinion shallow, boring, borderline nuisance at best. Hell, it’s bad to the point of “there are interesting events all around, why am I stuck with these idiots?” questions. For example – Pact is preparing an offensive and interesting things happen – so we must go browse Caithe’s past. Grr.

Yeah, story isn’t worth making a long post, but still “Better fantasy story than Scarlet” (Yes, I went there and compared Scarlet to spits Twilight movies).

In short – everything but the story – 8/10. Story 2/10 (except the magnifivent episode… I will not name it, or I’ll cry over wasted potential).

Overall 0 5/10, will play, won’t buy gems till story gets better.

Yeah, something like the replay mote in Glint’s Lair, so we don’t have to replay everything, and re watch everything. Having to listen to same dialogues 3+ times in a row would be annoying even if the story was amazing, ya know?

Might as well, anything that will really be revealed will have as much sense, if not less. It would at least explain why the llama is legendary, right?

I honestly wasn’t so disappointed in the game since Mordremoth magically became known by name by everyone and their dog.

Partially because I don’t care much for sylvari, partially because the Faolain/Caithe lesson on dysfunctional and abusive relationship for dummies was annoying, but mostly because when the final boss centaur showed up I realized that this instance is just a pointless filler and we won’t learn a darn thing, or even push the story forward 1 centimeter.

I would honestly forgive the retcons of sylvari lore (as I said, don’t care for them at all) and rushed feel of the update if only it actually was there. It wasn’t. It seemed like the only reason we even got any “story” was because ANet felt that just giving us the jp and pvp update was not enough, so they quickly put together two instances without any connection and disguised them as “Caithes memories”. I mean bloody hell, when you substract combat and exposition the update was not much longer than the trailer!

I liked Caithe’s daggers however, so overall I rate the story 1/10.

PS, I agree with Saye, I think the “secret” is that Caithe killed Wynne, or helped Faolain do it, or most likely sinned by standing by and not preventing it.

In final words – I’d rather we get no story, or get few short stories without much connection that this rubbish. The only reason why this story is worht playing at all for me, is to do achievements after, I want my 10k chest.

Donari.5237:

That could be, zwierz. While “they” can be used singularly and often is, especially now that people prefer not to assume gender but find “he or she” too awkward, that does not make it grammatically correct for usage in game tooltips or in this tweeted image. I simply do not believe ANet would deliberately write that clumsily in an attempt to say Rytlock is the one to whom the pronoun refers. They could say “I” belong to the dragon, now, if they meant to indicate an unidentified singular person.

Now that doesn’t mean the word “they” refers to the aloe-things we see in the image, either. The text and the image might not be that directly related. We’ll find out tomorrow!

Oh yeah, I didn’t mean that ANet used it in that form of course, I personally think it’s about the scarabs/aloes in the front row. And I doubt that this charr is Rytlock, I think it’s just a generic charr.

mcgriddles.2416:

Donari.5237:

I wouldn’t say “troll.” But “they” is plural. Rytlock is not a “they.” I think the ANet writers generally don’t flub grammar that badly.

‘They’ can be used singularly, too. It’s not just plural.

Or the poster wasn’t native English speaker perhaps?

In some languages plural form “they” is sometimes used in singular mode – for example, Russian, Finnish, sometimes German and others.

Amen, OP, Amen.

Yeeah, looks like writers can’t decide on whether they want to do good job (example – previous patch), or are they only doing it for money and don’t care about quality.

For myself, everything good, all the faith and interest in the game raised by previous patch was drowned in “meh” of this one. I guess it’s back into casual interest and slow legendary crafitng for me…

DarcShriek.5829:

She doesn’t need the egg to gain Faolain’s trust because they are lovers. She already has her trust. It’s foolish to think that Caithe is going to try to get close enough to Mordy to do a one shot kill. There’s no way a one shot kill could work.

I think she might, if F. would ask for proof of Caithe being on her side again, especially after TA dungeon story mode assuming Faolain trusts Caithe without question still is foolish.

If not her, then someone else – the identity of the baddie doesn’t matter anyway for my idea.

Also, how would the egg help Pale Tree? Or any other theory out there, other than Caithe being really hungry for an omelet and in a hurry before her frying pan gets cold, hence no time to explain?

EDIT for the mental image of Caithe bringing a hot steaming plate of dragon egg omelet to Pale Trying, saying “eat this, and you’ll be all better now, warm kitty, soft kitty little ball of fur – sleepy kitty, happy kitty purr purr purr”

As I psoted in other thread, here is my copypasted theory:

“I think Caithe has a plan of getting close to a big bad (Mordie maybe, though I think Faolain) and needs the egg to gain that persons trust, to show she is on their side.
So she needs to steal the egg, to convince that evul person of her intentions, and then assassinate it her.
She did say “there is no time to explain”, after all. How many similar plots hidden behind “there is no time to explain” have you seen in books/movies/tv shows? Lots and lots I bet.”

I think Caithe has a plan of getting close to a big bad (Mordie maybe, though I think Faolain) and needs the egg to gain that persons trust, to show she is on their side.

So she needs to steal the egg, to convince that evul person of her intentions, and then assassinate it her.

She did say “there is no time to explain”, after all. How many similar plots hidden behind “there is no time to explain” have you seen in books/movies/tv shows? Lots and lots I bet.

I gotta add myself to the pile of thanks! This episode really made me think in the morning “I wanna play Guild Wars 2” for the first time since living story started , even first episode of second season which was great, cannot hold a hat to this one.

I hope and believe you guys can keep it up, congratulations, you won a player back!

Agreed wholeheartedly! With a single stroke, ANet rekindled my love for Guild Wars!

Heck, I was about this close on giving up on the game after playing since betas of GW1. This story was going to be the last try, if it would be like previous two episodes (for example) I’d be gone.

Well, now I’m hooked again, sincerely great job and kudos to writers, designers, everyone! Looking forward to see more, and dig through library when I have a moment! This episode is absolutely brilliant!

Maybe she doesn’t like the writing she would be supposed to voice? :P

KasJory also disappeared when I was doing it, but it’s ok, I befriended the bone minion. Together we have defeated the boss, then found the common ground (we both think MarjMeer suck donkey… tale) and left instance. We’re better of without them, anyway. The first norn/bone minion wedding next month!

That Guy.5704:

(snip)

Yup, youtube, these forums or otherwise locate the info. And you not only killed a bad salad you never heard about, you are also friends with a band of hoboes and failures, that you also never heard about if you haven’t played S1.

By “you” I mean your character of course.

BobbyStein.2315:

(…) It also assumes completion of season 1, that the player character killed Scarlet, and has a friendship with Rox, Braham, and the rest of the crew. Because of the PC’s assumed rank in an organization that deals in fighting dragons, and that such knowledge isn’t really a secret (but isn’t widely known as characters in the world have no reason to openly discuss it until now) we wanted the player to make the call by identifying the dragon in a conversation among friends. (..).

It seems our characters have second lives when we’re logged off, and qre quite busy with it.

I at least can’t remember Faleg being shown a list of names of dragons, or befriending the bi-conics (which I do not enjoy and thus ignore as much as possible).

I guess I’m gonna have to hide the gold from my own character, so he doesn’t spend it all on ale when I’m not playing! Or Log out in a locked room with no escape, and without cash for a waypoint. Either way, our characters’ free roaming while player is offline must stop, before they rebel and change our passwords!

Just the fact that we have to make up our stories to explains omething that should be a major story part is re…gretable.