Danikat.8537

I would love it to be east of Ascalon, I've been curious about what's out there since I first started GW1 and not only have we never gone in that direction, as far as I know it's never even been talked about, so it's a total mystery at the moment. I agree it could be almost anywhere temperate though. Likely on the continent of Tyria, but impossible to say where exactly. I hope it's somewhere new though, somewhere we've never been in GW1 or GW2, rather than returning to a location from GW1. The full world map shows a lot of unexplored land. Including 2 new continents and an island or penninsula to the west, and a huge chunk of land east of Tyria and Elona. We don't know how far south Cantha goes either. So there's a lot of possibilities.

I haven't even looked at what's required yet. I assume I've made some progress just by playing SotO but I don't know what exactly. I'm intending to do it sometime, but I've had too much else going on both in-game and in real life to put any time into it yet.

Also Disney never had copyright over mice, even cartoon mice, just their 1 specific cartoon mouse design.

Anet don't directly control what's on the Trading Post. Everything on there is being sold by another player (who has to get it from somewhere else first). Anet could increase the drop rate for the Jar of Dangerous Spirits, but they can't make players who get one as a drop sell it on the TP.

Does it matter what shape the tag is? I suspect the starting point was wanting to add more varieties of commander tag and deciding a different shape would be easier to distinguish than more colours and the styalised cat face is distinct enough from the original, and also a fun novelty for players. Anet do seem to like cats (I mean, one playable race is based on cats) so it probably seemed like a logical choice to them, but I don't see why it matters when choosing which squad to join.

It's not hard to get but it only really comes from specific places, you're extremely unlikely to get it as random drops. First thing to know is exotic is fine for everything except high level Fractals, so you don't actually need ascended. It does have slightly better stats, but it makes far less of a difference than ensuring your exotics all have matching stats appropriate for your build and useful runes and sigils and you know how to play your character effectively, so if you're struggling to kill something and hoping ascended will carry you through it you'll need a different approach. But if you're looking for the next step to upgrade to after getting a matching set of exotics that is ascended. The wizard's vault is likely your best starting point: you can get 3 armour pieces and 1 weapon from there and all you need to do to get them is complete enough dailies, weeklies or special achievements to get the AA. Achievements can be a good option too, depending on what you want. It's a guarenteed result - you can see before you start exactly what ascended item you'll get and what you have to do to get it. The only downside is there may not be an achievement you want to do giving the item you need. Crafting is a good option for pieces you can't get from achievements and/or alongside the wizards vault. It is expensive for a full set but one piece isn't too bad, especially if you're not in a rush so you can make the time-gated materials instead of buying them. If I was you I'd start by looking for achievements you can do which award ascended items you could use and work on those first, then use the Wizard's Vault to fill in gaps and if necessary craft any pieces you can't get from the other two methods.

I agree with everyone else. It's almost certainly a mistake that they sent it to you and it was meant for someone else. There's no way for you to know why they were mailing a legendary weapon, but whatever the reason you did the right thing by sending it back. Real-money trading (RMT) is one possibility - People sell GW2 items and gold for real money, which is against the game's rules, in many places illegal (since all GW2 items, including ones on your account, remain legally the property of Anet) and often involves other illegal practices too. It gets really crazy sometimes with ties to organised crime, people trafficking and modern day slavery. Also things like stealing accounts from their customers once they stop buying (counting on people using the same password for their site and the game) to strip them and sell their stuff to other customers. Another possibility is someone legitimately selling a legendary for gold outside the Trading Post to avoid the fees (which can be hundreds of gold for valuable items). This is a 'grey market' - Anet know it happens and it's allowed as long as it's not tied to illegal practices (like RMT) but they don't support it, which is why there's no direct trading menu. The buyer sends the gold (either all in one or half before and half after) and the seller sends the legendary. The third possibility is that it was a gift. I've done it twice, where a group of us get together and make a legendary weapon for someone. One person has to contribute all the account bound parts and make the final weapon but other people can contribute materials and gold. Once we sent it with a message because it was a surprise birthday gift, but the other time I suspect the mail was blank because we were all together having an in-game party when it was sent, so they'd been told in chat they were getting a gift. Slight variation on the gift option - some player run events and competitions include legendary weapons as prizes. In fact the first topic in the Community Events section of the forum right now is a guild called The Gamer Haven giving away legendaries.

I've never managed 2-4 hours, but I've done it in about 6 hours. I already had T6 participation at the start of that (I try not to let it drop too much) and used celebration boosters, guild enhancement and XP boosters. The XP boosters make the biggest individual difference (+50%) and you can get the masterwork version for 1 laurel each. They stack duration so you can use a bunch of them when you start to save having to keep using them as you're playing.

Yeah but as many people (including you) have pointed out what the OP asked for would be a bad idea for several reasons. World restructuring is supposed to achieve the same overall goal of ensuring we don't have 'empty' teams and one-sided or dead match-ups by making it easier for Anet to ensure all the teams are roughly the same size and limiting how many WvW guilds can pile into the same one, but without disregarding or breaking things like scoring. It will be more long-term, balancing activity over a whole match rather than whenever enough people leave for the day, but instancing doesn't guarantee 24/7 coverage in PvE either. Last night I was playing in Verdant Brink on EU and the night phase started at 11pm BST (so midnight or 1am in mainland Europe) and even with the meta event starting up the map noticeably emptied out and there were no adverts in LFG, because it was too late for a lot of people and they were going to bed. Of course we don't know how world restructuring will work in reality yet, because we've only had short betas, but it should at least mean no one will get bad matchups because they're on a 'dead' server and can't afford to transfer to a more active one.

I think that's what world restructuring is supposed to do. Instead of players choosing a server they'll choose a guild (or stay solo) and the guild can choose an alliance, but then the game will group alliances, guilds and solo players into teams, so there can be as many teams as needed (as long as it's a multiple of 3). But of course with changes only happening between match-ups.

I finally had some time to play yesterday and in just under 2 hours in Verdant Brink I got 4 'Return to' achievements completed, made progress on a few more, and completed some original HoT achievements I'd never finished. The fact that I could get 1/2 way through the meta achievement in under 2 hours of just running around doing whatever I came across makes me think it doesn't need big rewards, because completing it isn't a big commitment. I suspect I'll be able to get another 4 achievements done on Saturday morning and then may or may not finish some of the rest depending on how much time I have and what they involve. I know doing it this way means I don't get as many mystic coins from the dailies, but that's not something I can change, I don't have time to play GW2 every day during the event.

Or they could do what most companies would do if they were taking on an additional project: approach their publisher for additional funding and use it to hire more people to do the additional work. Anet have been hiring for different jobs on 'an unannounced project' for a few years now. We don't know what that is, but it shows Anet don't have to divert existing staff to make a new game. I don't understand the thinking here. How does a dungeon, a new PvP map, or even a raid, take more resources than an entire open-world map with an accompanying voice-acted storyline, meta-event chain, achievements, new weapon sets and/or armour etc? I will never understand this thinking coming from GW2 players. I understand thinking a company is lying to their customers, it happens all the time. But the way some people talk they think Anet is always lying to us about everything they're doing, and not doing. If I thought that I wouldn't want anything to do with them, I certainly wouldn't play GW2.

I'd like them to do something like Elder Scrolls Online's personalities (but not tied to the cash shop) where your character's personality changes how they act - how they walk and stand and sometimes their idle animations. Some of theirs are a bit too over the top, like pantomime versions of the personalities, but the more subtle ones are nice, and if it was tied to the personality system and therefore free I think they could do that. (I've often suspected the ESO ones are so exaggerated because most of them are paid unlocks, so they want to make sure you can't possibly miss when someone is using one.) Although I'd want it to be something you unlock through the personality system then can turn on or off, not a permanent change. I wouldn't want my character looking permanently angry during happy scenes or whatever. Edit: And yes of course this is not something I expect them to actually do and would be a low priority if they ever did. Not that I think the people designing a system like this would be responsible for bug fixes or balance changes or whatever is allowed to be considered a priority, but I just think it would be a nice thing to have.

The OP can't be a free player because free accounts can't post on the forum. It sounds like they don't have End of Dragons, but they do have a paid account of some sort. I'm not sure what they mean though, I can't think of anywhere in the game you can scroll through a list to find the option to buy a merchant from Dragon's End. All I could think of is an upgrade for the Eye of the North, but there's nothing which requires EoD. @Invoker.5462 - if you want Anet to act on your feedback you need to give more details. What exactly were you trying to buy? Where were you looking for it (what were you 'scrolling and scrolling' through?) It would probably also be helpful to know which expansions you do have, because things in expansions you don't have are supposed to be locked so you can't even try to buy them, so whatever this is might be linked to the wrong one.

I find it interesting that so many people assume time travel has to mean going back to 1070 - 1080 AE to repeat the events of GW1. Tyria has a long history, and we can reasonably assume we're not at the end of it yet, so there's a lot of times and places we could visit besides that one decade. Again I'm not saying it should happen, I still stand by what I said in my first post; that time travel as a storytelling mechanic is only as good or bad as the stories it's used for. Personally I think 'doing what we've already done all over again' is the least interesting use for time travel in this game. GW1 is still online and playable, if anyone wants to re-live (or experience for the first time) that time period they already can, we don't need to rehash it in GW2. If a time travel storyline did take us into the past I'd rather visit one of the time periods we know very little (or nothing) about. Although if it's earlier than 1302 we'd need some way to disguise sylvari and there's similar problems with other playable races in different times and places. If we go into the future then it's all open, almost anything could happen. I'd really like a game set during the last dragonrise, around 10,000 BE. I think that would work better as a seperate game though, one where we can play as a mursaat, jotun, forgotten, dwarf or seer and the story diverges as it goes along (as opposed to GW2's story where all the races stories come together) as the different races get more isolated and focused on their own plan to fight the dragons. It would end pretty badly of course, but games don't have to have a happy ending.

I seem to remember they said years ago Super Adventure Box stuff can't go into the wallet because the way the vendors in the Box work is non-standard (the whole thing was originally made by 1 person as a hobby project) so they wouldn't be able to see them if they're not in your inventory. Although maybe things have changed since then and it could be revisited.

I think more marketing is a good idea, but I'm not sure this would be the best way to go about it. I'm not keen on bringing things from other games into GW2, because one of the things I really like about this game is the world and the lore, I like that it's got it's own unique fantasy setting and I wouldn't want that to get watered down or end up as some weird amalgamation of pop-culture. I know we already have easter eggs and references to things, but I think that's very different to copying entire creatures and armour sets from other games. Also if they're going to do cross-promotion it needs to be with an audience that's likely to be both interested in playing GW2 and able to play it. This topic suggests there's not a lot of cross-over between GW2 fans and Monster Hunter fans, and also it's a console series (specifically Playstation and Nintendo I think) so there may be a lot of Monster Hunter fans who don't even have a PC that can play GW2. (A lot of people don't these days, my sister's household just use tablets and phones for everything.) Personally I'd prefer them to stick to promotions with 'gaming adjacent' companies like Amazon and Alienware where they give away GW2 stuff rather than inserting real-life things or stuff from other franchises into GW2.

That would be useful. I'm not likely to be able to play until the weekend, and it would be helpful to know if this is worth making time for or something I can safely skip.

Anet did say when the Wizard's Vault was introduced they'd be looking at how it was used and making changes. I suspect they want the infinite bag of gold to be a 'last resort' for when you've got everything else but noticed a lot of players prioritising it. Or they noticed it was mainly being bought by alt accounts that only ever do the WV achievements and funnel the gold to the owners main account. Either way they'd want to make choosing it less desirable. Although they're probably never going to get to a point where players will get all the limited items before going for the unlimited gold. Which ones they skip will vary but I bet everyone has some they don't want. I never get the Tomes of Knowledge for example because I have about 300 in the bank and get them whenever I do WvW. I wouldn't rule out picking it one day but I also haven't gotten the obsidian because I had almost 1000 at one point and have to push myself to use it up. My guess is Anet intended them to be used and only gave them a vendor value just in case someone bought too many (so they weren't stuck with a useless item, or contacting support for a refund) but didn't intend them to also be another source of gold from the Wizard's Vault, otherwise they could have just made another 'bag of gold' type item. I suspect they found the vast majority of them were being sold to vendors immediately and wanted to discourage that.

Would anyone complain if instead they'd made them tradable, so players who don't want to craft could buy them (likely at a similar markup) from players who do? I don't remember anyone saying buying Shards of Glory or Memories of Battle to make a legendary. Or non-legendary items, I made quite a bit of gold when the Season 4 skyscale collection was new by making and selling grow lamps and extra-pungent skyscale treats. I don't mind crafting in GW2 but I've paid to skip other things I didn't want to do, like buying Shards of Glory. I'm told it's quick and easy to get enough for a legendary, but I'd rather just buy them and not have to deal with it at all. Also if someone is so new and inexperienced that they don't think to check for other ways to get an item and assume the first one they come across is the only option and the worst that happens is they waste 10 ectoplasm I'd say that's not too bad. There's a lot worse or more expensive mistakes they could be making.

Pre-Searing to the main game is just a time skip. It's only frozen in time from the players perspective, in-game the idea is everything you do there happens in 1 day, then the Searing hits, then the story jumps ahead 2 years, but your character still lived through that time, you just don't see what they get up to. I think you're right about Fractals being resticted to one-off stories. Skywatch Archipelago is also made up of Fractals and that's functionally an open-world map, but I doubt we're going to get more than that. I don't think there could be an entire storyline set in Fractals because the whole point is sooner or later they always reset so nothing you do there is permanent.

How something could be done is almost never a barrier in fiction, especially fantasy. Even if it's not been shown before it's not difficult to come up with some type of magic or technology or divine intervention or whatever to enable new things to happen, including time travel. The far more important question is: why? What does it add to the gameplay and narrative? What fun things would it allow players to do? What new stories could be told in this new time period, or across time? For that matter what time period? Past or future? How far from present time? If it's the future is it The Future or one possible future? Are we even sure it's our future and not some alternate timeline? I think you're right that a mesmer (or group of mesmers) with enough time and power could connect time periods or send people between them. Or someone (asuran/Xunlai collaboration maybe?) could invent a new type of asura gate which connects times instead of places. Or the Wizards could show us how time moves differently in the Mists and we can use it to move forwards or backwards in Tyria's time. Or someone could come from the future with a time travel device that hasn't yet been invented. (Actually that one has already been done.) But for Anet to do it, especially to build a whole expansion around it, the ability to time travel needs to open up fun new gameplay options and interesting storylines. I can't remember which article it was in but apparently that's why it took us so long to get into the Wizard's Tower; Anet have known for years what was going on in there and different teams pitched using it as a setting for a dungeon or Fractal or a raid or whatever but nothing seemed like a good use for the lore, or at least not better than other options, until they come up with other parts of SotO and realised the Wizard's Tower would be a good way to fit it all together and move the overall story forward.

I think one of the people familiar with Monster Hunter (and Final Fantasy?) needs to explain in more detail what is being suggested here. Assume you're writing for people who have never played a Monster Hunter game and know nothing about the game mechanics, story and lore, certainly not the names of specific monsters and how their battles typically play out. What exactly is the suggestion? What is a Rathalos, how would it work in GW2 and why would that by fun? Would it also appeal to people who have never played Monster Hunter? Or would it just look like another GW2 creature? Although having said that I think it's unlikely. GW2 has a lot of easter eggs and references to other media but it's never as direct as copying an entire creature and I don't think they've ever done an official tie-in promotion that involved putting stuff from other games into GW2. I know some games do that a lot and I assume it works with their setting and lore but Tyria is it's own self-contained world. Yes there's the Mists, but that's only been shown to connect to other places specific to GW2, not Earth or other franchises.

I think the big reason they didn't use a similar map design in PoF (and beyond) is that at the time HoT was not well recieved and it's only in retrospect that some players have decided it's the best part of the game (possibly helped by having mounts to make navigating easier?). They had to make the enemies easier, make it quicker to unlock elite specs, people still call the maps mazes and recommend putting off map completion until you've got at least the springer and ideally a flying mount, and complain about map completion and hero challenges being locked behind the meta events. Don't get me wrong, I love the HoT maps, but that was an unpopular opinion around here for years.

As a mostly PvE, occasional WvW player I definitely think the simplest solution is to find a commander with an open squad and run around with them for a few hours. Of course it helps to look for ways to boost your XP gain as well, but none of them will do anything without a source of XP and I always find looking for things I can do solo more hassle. It's harder to keep participation up because you gain it more slowly and can quickly run out of easy sources unless you get very lucky, like an otherwise empty map where someone on an enemy team is also flipping camps and not looking to fight or even keep hold of them. (More likely if someone is flipping them sooner or later they or someone else will defend them too.) The only reason I wouldn't recommend it is if someone really doesn't like the idea of killing or being killed by other players. There's no real consequences, the worst that will happen is you miss capping something because you're running back to join the squad, but I know some people feel attacking another player is very different to fighting computer controlled enemies. (And yes, friendly people who are willing to welcome newcomers to WvW and help out, even if you're just there for an item, make a big difference. I started playing WvW purely to get the mini dolyak and asked a lot of stupid questions in those 2 weeks, and the fact that people on my server welcomed me and didn't make me feel like an inconvenience because I had a specific reason for trying WvW is a big part of why I stuck around.)