New and improved Guild Wars 2 thread

[Squishy3]

Welcome to the new and improved Guild Wars 2 thread, my name is Squishy, and I'm the guild leader.


As you can see in the snazzy image Backfire whipped up, we're on Crystal Desert. IF for whatever reason you are unable to roll on the server because its full, as far as I know Arenanet will be making transfers free for the time being at launch because of the issue of people not being able to join their friends on the server they rolled on. (more info about this will be provided as we get closer to launch, mainly being the time period free server transfers will be available.)
Why pick a server that might get full? Because if the population drops significantly a month after launch (which it usually is guaranteed to because of the usual MMO hoppers and the fact WoW's new expansion releases next month) the server will still be populated even after the exodus by those people.


Now let's start with some basic info, for people who haven't really been following the game.

Let's start with general gameplay info.This is a tab targeted based, but also semi-action combat game. What I mean is you still click or tab target enemies to attack them, but you can move while casting almost anything, and it places emphasis on awareness of your surroundings and it WANTS you to move about. You will NOT succeed if you just stand there and try to hit things. You also have a dodge, but this can only be used twice before your endurance runs out. I use this more as a tool to get out of a sticky situation instead of just trying to avoid attacks with big windups, chances are if you see an attack with a big windup you have a chance to just move out of the way by strafing instead of having to use a dodge, or you can cause blindness to make the attack miss, or cast protection on yourself to reduce the damage.

The way skills work in this game is different than most other MMOs. Your 1-5 skills are determined by the weapon/s you have equipped. IE: The Warrior can equip a greatsword. There will be a unique skillset for him for the greatsword. The Guardian can also equip a greatsword. They will have a completely different skillset as well. Same thing for the Ranger, and the Mesmer. This makes the game simpler, but also gives each class more of a defined purpose. Gone are the days of having hundreds of skills you will NEVER use because they are not part of the optimal spec, or are worthless for the talent tree you are speccing in. For each weapon, you start with only weapon skill 1 unlocked, and have to get kills with each weapon to unlock the skills, each kill adds x% to each unlocked weapon skill, and x% towards each skill decreases as you unlock more skills. IE: Weapon skill 5 will take more kills to unlock than weapon skill 2. At level 7 you also gain the ability to swap weapons, so you can switch from a greatsword to say, sword and shield or from sword and shield to a ranged weapon.

Now let's talk your 6-10 skills. 6 is a self heal, and each class gets 3 healing skills that heal you each in their own unique way. 7-9 are utility skills, the first slot being unlocked at level 5, the second being unlocked at level 10 and the third slot being unlocked at level 20. There are 20 of these for each class, and some racial utilities thrown in. They are setup in tiers where you need to unlock 5 per tier to unlock the next tier of skills. These are mostly situational, and you can change them at will as long as you are not in combat. However to change them you need to wait for the cooldowns to reset. 10 is an elite skill, and is unlocked at level 30. There are 3 of these for each class, and then 3 are unique to the race that you picked. These are quite powerful but also situational and have long cooldowns.



Every class has traits as well which can be used to increase the effectiveness of your character. There are 4 trait lines, and you get 4 minor traits and 4 major traits (minor traits are every 5 trait points and major traits are every 10) and each increase a different attribute and offer different bonuses to certain things. It's really weird to explain, you can get a better idea of them here. The wiki is also really good for any questions you might have.

Another thing: THERE IS NO TRINITY. Every class can deal damage. Every class can support. Every class can heal themselves. No ally targeted heal will be as powerful as your self heal.


Player vs Environment: Let's start with some about the story. The land of Tyria is under threat by the awakening Elder Dragons. They pose a threat to all the races living there and they have all banded together to find a way to defeat them. The story is about growing your character as a hero, and bringing back together the disbanded Destiny's Edge, the group of heroes that once almost slayed the Elder Dragon Kralkatorrik but suffered failure and extreme loss and disbanded after that fateful day.

The large majority of content in PvE is going to be dynamic events. These are things that naturally occur in the world, without needing anything to be done by players, if you are in the same area as a dynamic event, or walk into one where one is already happening, there will be a notification in the top right corner of your screen, where the quest helper would be. A bar will appear and that will decrease or increase as the dynamic event objectives are completed. These objectives will be defending an outpost from waves of attackers, to delivering things to a certain guy, to leading assaults on enemy camps and capturing them, and more.

Another thing I want to talk about are dynamic event chains. If you complete one, do NOT immediately go running off trying to find another one. A lot of these chain together, and chances are if you see a NPC walking off after a dynamic event it might be a good idea to follow them and see if a new one will occur. An example of this will be, in the Charr starting area, Plains of Ashford, there's one place that gets attacked by enemies and if you successfully defend they're pushed back and don't take over the area. However, there is this one Charr NPC in the area. (I can't remember his name) His pet devourer was killed in the attack. He spawns a dynamic event that involves you going with him to find a devourer egg so he can raise a new one. This is a smaller scale one as it's only a two link chain where you defend one place and if successfully defended his devourer gets killed. If not successfully defended, the enemies take it over and somewhere down the line a dynamic event will occur that has you and some NPCs taking it back, and reviving the soldiers who died in the previous attack.

Dynamic event chains will increase in complexity as you venture further in the game, and you will run into meta events which have a story unique to that area and will usually result in you fighting a world boss like the Shadow Behemoth, who, by the way, is a level 15 boss, (pictured below) a giant plague worm, or a minion of one of the Elder Dragons.



Now then let me talk about another thing: Heart tasks, also known as renown hearts. These are noted by Hearts on your minimap and big map. These NPCs will have tasks they want you to do, and these are for individuals rather than being counted as for everyone. When you complete them you earn experience, gold, and karma (basically renown.) The NPC who issued the task becomes a merchant you can buy things from for karma, and the items they sell will be unique to the area they were from. IE: One task requires you to collect apples for this old lady so she can make apple pies. When you finish the task, she sells apple pies. Another thing is dynamic events will often occur around these, they included them as a guide system as their early alpha testers were looking for exclamation points for something to do and completely ignored the village that was set on fire and being pillaged by centaurs and the citizens screaming for help. Heart tasks will become more and more scarce as you venture further into the game, and instead dynamic events will be slowly replacing them, up to the point where you reach the final area in the game where there are none, and the entire area will be one huge dynamic event chain.

Now let me talk about dungeons. There will be 8 dungeons at release, they're 5 man, each with a story mode and then an explorable mode which is essentially hard mode and has 3 paths each with different mobs and mini bosses but lead to the same end boss. (Also with the removal of the trinity you no longer have to worry about needing a tank, a healer, and 3 dps, Arenanet touts that you could go in with 5 people all of the same class and be able to beat the dungeon.) The first one is available at level 30 and there will be dungeons peppered throughout the world all the way to level 80, with the 8th dungeon being a level 80 dungeon where you fight this fella:

Each dungeon also has its own unique armor set which you can buy with tokens each person INDIVIDUALLY earns from completing the dungeon. That's right, no more fighting over 1337 drops from the bosses. Usually they are no more powerful than items obtained from other areas of the game, but they have unique skins and they obviously have different attributes. IE level 30 armor from a vendor will have say, 200 armor (pulling this number out of my ass), 50 power, 50 precision, 120 vitality and 50 toughness. The dungeon armor could perhaps have say, 200 armor, 60 power, 60 precision, 40 vitality and 150 toughness. (I'm making this up obviously but there will be a disparity with how the stats are distributed across each armor set.) And as far as I know dungeon armor sets are soulbound upon getting it from the vendor, so it IS unique. If you like a particular dungeon set you can also use transmutation stones to apply it to a different set of armor that has better stats. These are available from in the gem store (cash shop) or you will get them as rewards from completing achievements. (this is random and they aren't guaranteed)


PvP: To access PvP you open the Hero panel (hotkey is H) navigate to the PvP tab and click "Go to the heart of the mists." You are now in a PvP tutorial map which can give you some pointers about the different aspects of it. First thing's first: You will be level 80, have max level equipment, and all skills and traits unlocked. After exiting the tutorial there will be vendors you can go to to get the weapons you want and equip the PvP sigils onto your weapon that you want, and runes onto your armor.

There are 3 different PvP maps right now, Battle of Kyhlo, Forest of Niflhel and Legacy of the Foefire. They all have capture points and each one has unique mechanics. Battle of Kyhlo has a trebuchet which you can use to rain fire down on foes, destroy buildings but they can also be destroyed at which point a repair kit will spawn somewhere on the map which you can use to repair it.

Forest of Niflhel is a capture point map but has two enemy mobs that give point bonuses to the team and +50 stats for the team that killed it for a short period of time. (kind of like Roshan in Dota except there's 2 and they don't drop items that give someone an instant respawn)

Legacy of the Foefire is another capture point map but each team also has a fortress that if broken into and successfully kill the Guild Lord the team that killed the Guild Lord gets 100 points.

World Versus World: World Versus World (hereon referred to as WvW) is a game mode similar to Realm versus Realm for Dark Age of Camelot. 3 servers battle it out over a 2 week long period and whoever has the most points at the end unlocks a bunch of bonuses for their home world. There are 4 separate identical (identical for the sake of balance, except for the Eternal Battlegrounds which has a different layout) maps, 1 for the homeworld of each server and one neutral battleground called the Eternal Battlegrounds. There will be keeps, castles, towers and supply camps scattered around the map. Supply camps are integral because they generate supply, a unique currency for WvW that allows you to build siege weapons, and repair damage done to the strongholds your world currently owns. You can only hold 10 supply at any one time, and they will periodically send out caravans you can escort to your keeps so they can drop supply off there.

There is also another unique currency which only drops from enemy players, or chests from puzzles or the exclusive WvW dungeon which is only found in the Eternal Battlegrounds, and they are Badges of Honor. You can turn these into vendors for WvW exclusive weapons and armors or use them to buy siege weapons.

There will also be allies you can get by completing dynamic events in the world that will either help you defend or attack enemy keeps, etc.

There is also another WvW unique item called the Orb of Power and there is one per Borderlands map (the three maps that belong to each server) and whichever team holds an Orb of Power on that map their world gets a 5% HP increase and a 50 point bonus to all their stats.

Also we can claim keeps in the name of BRBU.

[Squishy3]

Account info and guild info.

If you do not see your account name on this list please give it to me so I can add it.

backfire: mies backfire.9268
Squishy3: WaInut.7128
LV15GAMER: Lowest Animal.8014
Maxon: Maxon.6953
Waka: Waka.1239
Zaneyard: zaneyard.3201
LAG: HacksArePro.3450
MC Fartlett: mcfartlett.8345
Vlambo: Vlambo.4762
Surf315: SurfPi.2851
Trace: Trace.2108
Savage-0: savageO.4209
Coppanuva: Coppanuva.5710
Guild: Brb Uninstalling [BRBU]

If you need an invite to the guild, any of the members of it will be able to invite you. I set it up in the previous betas so everyone can invite members, and it will be the same at launch.

General screenshots so you can get an idea of what the game and UI looks like.


Boss of the Sylvari starting area, each starting area has a unique boss that is always fairly epic.

Some capital city shots to give you an idea of the sense of scale in this game.



The red circled person is Trace, and this is a shot from the Charr capital.

Shot of one of the lodges in Hoelbrak, the Norn capital.


And I don't have a lot more really impressive ones, so I'll just post this of one of the level 50 world bosses flying around during an end of beta event.

[Trace]

Trace.2108

[backfire]

One week, 12 hours.





Also, PvP as a mesmer is a hell of a lot of fun. Trying out this build I made before the last stress test, an illusion-heavy build + high power/precision works really well. Went a round with about 17-20 kills because I kept hiding behind my clones, waited for chance then went in for a burst while shattering all my clones. They buffed mind-wreck last test too, so it can really tear someone up if you time it right. The best thing is using blurred frenzy while a warrior tries their hundred blades on you. Shatter the clones for confusion too and you can nearly down a warrior right there.


Double Edit

New track released.

Guild Wars 2 | Fear Not This Night (ft. Asja)

[Squishy3]

This is how much of the world of Tyria is in GW2. I think we've got plenty of live content to be added to lead up to expansions and content for expansions.

[backfire]

Seeing pics like these makes me think about how much we need a group shot come launch.

[Squishy3]

http://www.pcgamer.com/2012/08/21/guild-...streaming/

More news from GW2 week on pcgamer :B

[Vlambo]

IoJ is the official Reddit server. We avoiding this?

[backfire]

So I finally dropped the gems for a pirates outfit.




Also /dance is in.

[Versus]

um

[Squishy3]

if we really want to move servers server transfers are free until the guesting feature comes out.

until more than one person actually voice their opinions we're staying on IoJ

[MC Fartlett]

Arenanet's account support keeps fucking me over. First they wanted to make me validate my account through an expired email, so I had to change my email to a current one (which I had been wanting to do for a while now actually). Then for some reason my password doesn't work so I have to reset my password. They finally send me an email 4 hours later with a link to change my password, but when I hit submit it says they weren't able to change my password and to try again. I tried 5 times and it keeps saying the same thing. I just wanna play dammit  >.

[Squishy3]

Arenanet's account support keeps fucking me over. First they wanted to make me validate my account through an expired email, so I had to change my email to a current one (which I had been wanting to do for a while now actually). Then for some reason my password doesn't work so I have to reset my password. They finally send me an email 4 hours later with a link to change my password, but when I hit submit it says they weren't able to change my password and to try again. I tried 5 times and it keeps saying the same thing. I just wanna play dammit  >.

Well its over now but I would contact support ASAP

[backfire]

If I had to voice my opinion, I dislike IoJ because it needs an acronym.

[Trace]

Guild Wars 2 - All Dance Moves With Music!
As for server choice it doesn't really matter to me, but wouldn't it be beneficial to be on a server with a big community for WvW purposes?

[zaneyard]

considering wvw is the only thing that server choice matters for anyway, yes

[backfire]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JsOPHyuAuT0#ws

[Squishy3]

Guild Wars 2 Sexy Dancing [Gangnam Style]

[backfire]

If the rumors of a dance shop is true, I'd totally pay gems for an actual Gandam Style dance.

[Squishy3]

Also, big update today. Like 4,700 some files.