The Guild Wars 2 Thread

[Axioms]

I have 4.6k hours clocked in GW2.

Have you thought about a lobotomy?

 

[Drakortha]

I have 4.6k hours clocked in GW2.

Have you thought about a lobotomy?

No, but frequenting this forum on a daily basis has a similar result over time.

 

[MadMaxHellfire]

come on, i'm homo for warframe, i left it afk for at least a third of the time i spent with it, let's add days worth of patch downloadings to the mix, i played beta (but i skipped a year or two) and i clocked half of that.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

I have 4.6k hours clocked in GW2.

Have you thought about a lobotomy?

No, but frequenting this forum on a daily basis has a similar result over time.

Explains the 4.6k hours then

 

[Drakortha]

come on, i'm homo for warframe, i left it afk for at least a third of the time i spent with it, let's add days worth of patch downloadings to the mix, i played beta (but i skipped a year or two) and i clocked half of that.

I didn't afk though. I played GW2 for the entire 4.6k hours.

 

[what am i doing]

The converse being, "What's the point of levelling up if you never actually get better at anything?".

I would agree - levelling up, as a system, should be avoided if you can design your game around something else. Guild Wars 1's solution was best - levelling was largely just something done in training, and after that it didn't mean anything. Progression came from getting a greater variety of skills, aka horizontal progression, that unlocked more variety in terms of the builds you could run. Acquiring an elite skill that unlocked new build options was a lot more exciting than levelling up is in most games. Now, granted, this varied by campaign; Prophecies actually did have you levelling up for most of the campaign, Factions got you max level and all attributes pretty much when you finished the tutorial island, and Nightfall was close to Factions' pace but a little bit slower (mostly because the tutorial island was longer). However, they could just as easily have not had levels at all, and the game wouldn't have suffered one bit for it.

Indeed, it might even have helped get people into PvP more; my assumption with regards to Factions is that they were trying to get people into PvP more, hence you could have a max level character in very short order when starting in Factions (and likewise, max level armour very quickly); there also seemed to be a certain pipeline of FA/JQ -> AB -> regular PvP intended to coax PvE players into PvP, since Prophecies' arenas didn't really seem to be doing it. If the original Guild Wars was being "done over again", or a spiritual successor was made, I think it would make sense to just do away with levels altogether and focus entirely on skill acquisition. And keep fancy cosmetic-only stuff for the people who really do like to grind.

 

[Axioms]

come on, i'm homo for warframe, i left it afk for at least a third of the time i spent with it, let's add days worth of patch downloadings to the mix, i played beta (but i skipped a year or two) and i clocked half of that.

I didn't afk though. I played GW2 for the entire 4.6k hours.

10 years of GW2? I don't accept this. You are fake. Some alien that doesn't understand how wrong that is trying to bamboozle us.

 

[MadMaxHellfire]

he's being like one of those kids who try to impress the others bragging he's never even shook hands with a girl.

 

[luj1]

I actually can't think of anything positive to say about it

Verticality and those reactive events or w/e they were called.

Beta was super challenging too, before they nerfed everything into the ground.

Overall GW1 shits on GW2 with impunity.

They threw away everything which was original (deckbuilding with 1000 skills, multiclassing) in favor of Wowification and dumbed down skillbars.

 

[Sweeper]

I didn't afk though. I played GW2 for the entire 4.6k hours.

What the fuck my dude?

 

[Average Manatee]

They threw away everything which was original (deckbuilding with 1000 skills, multiclassing) in favor of Wowification and dumbed down skillbars.

I remember prerelease on one of the guild wars forums I expressed doubt about the new GW2 system where most of your skills slots were determined by weapon or otherwise locked to a small subset of choices. I was assailed by a barrage of fanboys saying stuff like "You have 10 skills now rather than only 8, it's so much more complex" and "but most of your skills in GW1 weren't really flexible anyway, you had to bring a res signet and certain builds always used mostly the same skills". That was 10 years ago. Not sure where I'm going with this.

 

[Kev Inkline]

I did my 2.5K hours within two years. *shrugs* Half of it pvp, which was very very good. Especially gvg in a relatively high level guild (top10-20), of course I didn't play enough to have a starter role in the lineup . Good times.

Now GW2 pvp, that felt like a zergfest, the little I fooled around.

 

[ADL]

https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/guild-wars-2-live-summer-2021/

tl;dr - roadmap for summer 2021, starting May 25th, Living World episodes will be in the spotlight chronologically. Episodes are free to unlock during their spotlight week, and we’ll update them with new achievements. Cantha being shown July 27th during a livestream.

Glad I don't have to pay for the episodes I don't have because season 2 ain't worth it and I didn't log in for any of those.

 

[Drakortha]

Things are ramping up in GW2 again. Population is really high and I've had several RP encounters in cities without really looking for it and every zone I've been to has people doing completing stuff. Definitely a good sign. I think everyone has high hopes for the expansion, myself included.

The last two expansions HoT and PoF were absolutely massive content-wise and they both were game changers in terms of introducing new gameplay mechanics and expanding on existing ones. So I'm hoping the next expansion will continue this trend and has a few surprises for us.

 

[Fedora Master]

Shit game. Who gives a shit.

had several RP encounters

With Pwetty Charr Pwincesses and their Barbed Cat Penises I presume.

 

[Seethe]

Horizontal progression for gear, all content is viable at endgame due to level scaling.

these are antifeatures

Constant carrot on a stick in MMOs is not a good feature. It got old over 10 years ago.

 

[Rahdulan]

There are apparently big plans in store. Sadly bad news for the expansion, though.
https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/arenanet-studio-update-july-2021/

Alliances When?
This year.

World Restructuring (also known as Alliances) is a feature that aims to deliver a more balanced World vs. World experience by dynamically creating matchups using WvW-designated guilds, alliances (a player-made collection of guilds), and active WvW players as the inputs. This is in comparison to the current system that relies on worlds and world linking. The system will give us more flexibility and granularity when creating new matches and help address natural fluctuations in population over time. It’ll also give players more agency in choosing who they want to play with on an ongoing basis.

Client Performance Optimization

We’ve heard you loud and clear—Guild Wars 2 needs better frame rates. We agree. We’re actively working on upgrading our engine to DirectX 11, and we expect to be able to roll it out in an opt-in beta later this year. An important note is that the upgrade to DX11 itself isn’t a magical fix for frame rates on its own. Some players may not notice a difference at all. However, upgrading to DX11 opens a lot of doors for improving performance—CPU multithreading for instance. It also paves the way for some potential graphics upgrades down the road.

Guild Wars 2: End of Dragons

As expansion development has progressed and the real-world challenges of the past year and a half have changed the way we live and work, it’s become clear that we need a little more time to deliver our creative vision for Cantha. As a result, we’re delaying the release of Guild Wars 2: End of Dragons from late 2021 to early 2022.

And lastly,

A Familiar Face Returns

A large part of my job is planning for the future. We have some big plans in store for Guild Wars 2, and ambitious plans require ambitious leaders. I knew I needed a partner to help share the load in order for us to achieve our long-term goals and deliver the game experiences you deserve. I needed someone who intimately understood the franchise and, most importantly, our players.

With that, I’m thrilled to announce that former Guild Wars 2 game director Colin Johanson has returned to ArenaNet to help co-lead the studio with me. All aboard!

 

[Shrimp]

Colin Johanson was the director from the game's launch in 2012 until he was hired by Amazon in 2015 or 2016.
Regardless of what state GW2 is in now Colin was undoubtedly one of the driving forces behind a lot of the questionable decisions they made during the game's first three or four years of lifespan. I'm not exactly sure how him returning is supposed to be a good thing.

 

[ADL]

To be fair he's responsible for almost everything good and bad in recent years. Wonder how many people like him are left at the studio that worked on the original in any capacity.

https://www.linkedin.com/in/colin-johanson-669618109
Game Designer:

Guild Wars: Prophecies
Guild Wars: Sorrow's Furnace
Guild Wars: Factions
Guild Wars: Nightfall.
Guild Wars: Eye of the North

Game Director leading creative development and strategy for a team of 300+ on the Guild Wars franchise.

Guild Wars 2
Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns
Guild Wars 2: Path of Fire (concept, prototype and pre-production)
Guild Wars 2: Living World + Feature Packs
Guild Wars 2: China
Guild Wars 2: Free-to-Play
Guild Wars 2: World Tournament Series
Guild Wars 2: Pro League

 

[Smigle]

I am SO tired of trying to get a Skyscale... Goddamn, it's the most annoying and prolonged set of tasks to unlock a mount. I'm almost at the end, just gotta acquire the Skyscale Saddle, but I can't buy any of the materials, cause I don't own any of the meta currencies. I'm so close yet so far, cause now I have to grind metas on 7 maps. This is so exhausting. I just want a silly dragon.

 

[Rahdulan]

On one hand it's finally Cantha people have been asking for, but on the other whoever is in charge of marketing is an anti-talent as far as HYPE trailers go. I wonder what someone not already invested in GW2 or lore will even get out of this.
https://www.guildwars2.com/en/end-of-dragons/

Guild Wars 2: End of Dragons is available for pre-purchase starting today at guildwars2.com/end-of-dragons for $29.99, and includes a bundle of pre-purchase bonus items, including a Flame Serpent Weapon Chest, a Shing Jea Mosaic Cape, a special Prodigy of Shing Jea character Title, a shared inventory slot, and a level 80 character boost. The Deluxe Edition ($54.99) comes with the standard edition bundle, plus another batch of exclusive items: a Shing Jea Dragon Boat Skiff skin, a Canthan Raptor mount skin, an additional character slot, and an Identity Repair Kit. The End of Dragons Ultimate Edition ($79.99) includes the exclusive Standard and Deluxe Edition items, plus 4,000 Gems, Guild Wars 2’s premium in-game store currency.

And coherent summary.
https://massivelyop.com/2021/07/27/guild-wars-2-end-of-dragons-reveal/

• Colin Johanson and Andrew Gray are up and talking about how it’s been 15 years since since Guild Wars 1’s Factions.

• Yes, “Cantha when” has been a thing for so many years now.

• Devs noting that the last storyline in Cantha came during Classic Guild Wars 1’s Winds of Change, but the continent hasn’t remain locked in time – it has progressed affected by the major upheavel players have seen too.
• Allies are back – Marjory and Kasmeer are back. Yes, Jory the Detective will be a big deal again. Aurene figures prominently as well.
• Highlighting different maps – Echovald looks gorgeous. Oh yes, my friends, verticality is here to stay. Shing Jea is topographical different, but still familiar. They’re trying to make everything usable long-term and mount-explorable.
• Siege Turtles! Pew pew. Yep, they’re back as a multiplayer co-op mount, so you can pick up your dudes and drive around, though passengers can do stuff too. And they point that the Cantha tech has evolved a bit.

• Fishing is coming! It’s one of five new mastery tracks, along with turtles and skiffs. The other two are apparently not being revealed today. Yes, you can fish in every zone in the game, not just Cantha.
• Oh yeah, skiffs are also a thing! They didn’t dwell on this.
• Sixteen new Aurene-inspired legendary weapons will launch with the expansion. Precursors are baby Aurene; Legendaries are adult.
• Strike missions are changing things up with challenge modes available shortly after launch. Associated rewards are getting a simplification/standardization pass across the game.
• There’s a new guild hall, this one in Shing Jea. It’s stunning, with gobs of water for fishing. The expedition for this hall is better-scaled and is achievable for smaller teams.
• Elite specs are Cantha-inspired of course and Anet says it’s “broken a lot of its rules.” The one they’re showing today is for the Mesmer – it’s a Virtuoso with a dagger. It’s not exactly a bard, but it does use bladesong mechanics in lieu of clones, so kinda! Anet says it thinks the Virtuoso plays like a different class. They’re going to hold off on the other class specs for now.

• Colin Johanson stresses that End of Dragons is not the end of the game. It’s just the next big step for the franchise.
• The team is upgrading the game to DX11. Expect beta for this later this year. More info in August.

• There will also be four beta events for the elite specs, open even to F2P accounts. The first one starts August 17th, with the Virtuoso and two more. They tease one of them:

• Couple of promos here for a gaming chair and Aurene statue.
• End of Dragons launches in February 2022 with prepurchases open later today. We’ll include the preorder info shortly.
• Quick tease for “new looks” for characters too.

 

[ADL]

The reveal stream was fucking terrible and honestly killed any enthusiasm I had for End of Dragons. The fact that they hyped this reveal up for 3-4 months only to open it up with the trailer posted above and followed it up with 30 minutes talking about story arcs and characters no one outside the most active GW2 players know about was ridiculous. They showed next to nothing and it was the most boring shittiest thing I've sat through in recent memory.

I'll buy it on sale, maybe. Shame because I loved Factions and this is what I've been waiting almost ten years for.

 

[Maximilian]

gw2 is one of the worst 'modern' MMOs I've played
I actually can't think of anything positive to say about it

As if it stops you from reiterating this claim endlessly...

 

[Shrimp]

I haven't watched the reveal but when I look through the keynotes it looks like the expansion is a glorified LS episode with new elite specialisations locked behind it.
Really though, what new does it actually add? On top of my head the new systems and features I remember being added with Heart of Thorns were gliding, masteries, 10 man raids and elite specialisations. Path of Fire added mounts on top of the pile and halted the development of raids in favour of strike missions.
This 'expansion' seems to have... fishing? Is that really it?

 

[mediocrepoet]

Guild Wars 2: Realm of the Bubble Forest. So are they adding elves or something?