Batel.9206

What, the plush weapons don't squeak when you hit someone? 😭 Awwww...I was so hoping they would.

After seeing the hideous mess SWTOR just made of their "character art modernization" update*...I am very happy GW2 has never tried that. Our characters look lovely just as they are. The overall art style in this game is beautiful and has aged extremely well. The core maps look just as gorgeous as anything from later expansions. You can put a character from vanilla next to a character from SoTO (that scene in Janthir Wilds with the Tyrian Alliance) and both look like they belong in the same setting. I'm so glad GW2 has never tried to chase "modernization" trends. But, beyond that. There's no subscription. Pay once, play forever. You can convert gold to gems or vice versa. Want something from the gem store but don't have the IRL funds to buy gems? Play the game for a bit and save your gold. You can get it. No server downtime for maintenance/patches. No pay-to-win! Everything in the cash shop is convenience or cosmetic, no exceptions. Mounts!!! And how insanely fun, unique, and versatile each one is! (Also, beetle races. Recently participated in a player-made beetle race and it was exhilarating. Flying on a griffon is a standout, too!) The wide range of character customization. Rarely, if ever, have I run into a clone of any of my characters, even among NPCs. No nickle-and-diming players to unlock anything useful or convenient. For example, dyes are bought once and available account-wide for free from that point on, and you can freely swap colors whenever you please. Dyes, armor pieces, gliders, and mounts are all acquired by playing the game, not mindlessly spending cash. Incredibly fun classes and combat. Amazing sound design and voice acting. And often those blend together - for instance, charr voices don't just sound like gravelly humans, but actual beast-like creatures who sometimes have problems wrapping their tongues around the common speech; you can hear some residual growls and guttural noises in their voices, courtesy of very good sound design. ...and much more. This game is awesome. *More texture in character faces? Cool. That texture adding unavoidable wrinkles, deep laugh lines, crows-feet, sagging jawlines, flabby necks, mottled skin, flattening the nose, smashing the lips, pinching the eyes, removing the natural black eyeliner from species that had it and bizarrely adding it to species that didn't have it, and removing cleavage/muscle definition elsewhere on the body? Not cool. Doing all of the above after a solid month of people testing these changes, giving feedback, and begging the developers to not release this patch in this state, only to do it anyway and then have the audacity to tell paying subscribers that these changes are final, deal with it, but oh don't worry we'll have a sale on character customization changes (that you must pay for with real money)? .......yeah. So, ArenaNet, if you ever get the itch to "update" character models...please just don't. 😅

The Commander (rather unwisely) gets near an otherworldly mushroom: "Uhhh...[spacey laughter]...I can't feel my fingers..." Also, as a male sylvari (whose voice actor nails the tone here), the entirety of "Down the Hatch." But especially the lines at the end. The poor sylvari PC sounds absolutely, over-the-top, it's-a-wonder-he's-still-on-his-feet hammered. His voice actually squeaks as he says "sort of." It's even funnier if you went with the Order of Whispers' plan in the personal story to steal Caladbolg back...and at that point you have to wonder just how hard the male sylvari voice actor was laughing after he got done recording his lines. "HANG ON. Cai. What happen'd. Where'th the dredge go. [...] But the oozes. THE OOZES! AN' THE DREDGE!!1!" Related, half the things the VA's were supposed to say (but is sadly bugged/unused?) during Belcher's Bluff:

If I were to take a guess, the writing is that which is often seen on asuran surfaces - walls, floors, ceilings, etc. https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Asura#Notes It translates to this:

Voted for Stoic Alder...it just seems so obvious that he's going to die by the end of the story that I kind of wonder if there's going to be some twist about it.

Thanks! The boots are medium Elegy. I think they're dyed Midnight Gold and Dry Silver, but I'll double-check once I can log in. || Edit: Whoops, it's Cocoa and Fluff. ...love these dye names. Fluff. So cute.

Green is a lovely color! The green in question here is Midnight Yew. (Spoiler'd for length and also I sure hope the image is actually formatted correctly. Apologies if it isn't!)

Why on earth did they remove that?

Not really a bug, though. The patch notes for today said this would happen (as did Rubi herself a week or so ago). From said patch notes:

It happens sometimes. I can't figure out if it's random or if it has to do with specific characters, but sometimes you will be unable to place anything beyond the garden wall of the homestead. The only solution is logging out - and either switching characters or repeatedly logging in/out/in/out/in again with the same character until it sticks. It's kind of aggravating.

Armor is medium Woad armor. Hair appears to be something vaguely close to this, a norn-exclusive hairstyle. It'd be nice if we had that exact hairstyle, though.

About a year and a half. Rubi said she passed it on to the team. 🤷‍♀️ But that was in February. So yeah, I doubt it will be fixed anytime soon. (Link to the original, original thread is in that post.)

Is your character a sylvari, by any chance? Because that bug affecting sylvari has been going on for...um. I've lost track. Over a year, I think? Anyway, something broke way back when, and sylvari PCs on raptor had no animations, no expressions, and their clothes clipped straight through the raptor. The animations/expressions part got fixed...for a time, but a more recent patch broke it again. The clothes clipping has never been fixed.

Okay, that was brilliant 🤣 As for the actual topic - I like the boss fights well enough (Bog Queen counts as a world boss? Huh, okay: it's a cool fight, mostly because of the epic music), but the rewards are severely lacking, as many others have said before. Still, the fights themselves are imaginative and fun, so kudos for that! And, again, for the awesome music. That really can't be overstated - the composers knocked it out of the park for this entire expansion.

Perhaps try the Corrupted Ominous Fortress Wall? No idea how well that would work - you'd likely have to scale it down quite a bit and hide it within other objects - but it's the only thing I know of that has "rubble" or broken portions at the moment. (Granted, there's also the Broken Square Pillar, but that might not fit the theme.) Edit: Also, I am a complete dunce and didn't notice the very obvious part of the title that states guild hall, not homestead. Oops. 😅 Sorry about that.