Danikat.8537

They work in the new dragon response missions though.

I can post some screenshots tonight after I finish work. But the vast majority of things haven't changed much. The ones I remember being re-worked are the trading post and gem store (and the gold/gem exchange menu), the achievements menu and the skill and trait unlock system. When my screenshots just show the game world and the HUD I often have to go by what my characters are wearing, story prompts or even the image meta-data to work out when it was taken because so little has changed.

But literally the only difference between the system you're describing in WoW and the system we have is that when your group fills up you need to use a waypoint to get to the entrance (and only one person actually needs to go in, the rest of the party just need to get to the map the entrance is in), and as you already said that's solved by the fact that we have waypoints. There's no need to wait in or near the entrance to the instance while using the LFG tool and I really don't know why you would if you're expecting it to take a long time to fill up. You can advertise or join a group from anywhere in the game, then open the instance once you've got enough people. Of course you need to be prepared to stop whatever else you're doing when that happens but the same is true in other games.

> @"VAHNeunzehnsechundsiebzig.3618" said: > gah, I am so tired of these drms.... ugh. This is not content, this is mindless and boring. If you're tired of them why are you still doing them? Why not do something else instead?

You don't need it, but some people like to have a way to restrict groups to people they think are more likely to be experienced in the hope that they'll play better. Before raids were introduced it was common for dungeon and Fractal groups to set a minimum achievement point requirement, which was totally meaningless because the best sources of AP were nothing to do with dungeons or fractals, so it was possible to meet or exceed the requirement without ever having done group content before. But it was something they could use to estimate roughly how much time players had spent on GW2, so they used it. Same idea here. There's no way to measure a players experience with DRMs or if they know what's needed for the challenge modes, so they use requirements from an entirely different type of content instead. (The earliest example I remember is from the first Halloween, when someone was demanding you had to ping a full set of level 80 exotic equipment to be allowed in the group for the Mad King dungeon. This was back before it was widely known that it's easy to copy or fake chat codes for item you don't have.)

I do things like this every so often too. :) I have 3 accounts - my main one, a core-game only one I got a code for from some promotion and a free one. Playing on the core or free one means I have no gliding, mounts, masteries etc. But I'll also sometimes make characters on my main account where I'll decide I'm not going to use mounts or gliding (although I do allow myself to glide ~~if~~ _when_ I fall off a cliff) and other stuff I've unlocked or purchased just to see how it's different. But it's still not quite the same because there's some things I can't change, like masteries which can't be disabled, so playing on an alt account still seems different. I have to admit though the novelty tends to wear off quickly and I go back to my main account/characters and doing whatever I happen to feel like instead of trying to follow my rules. (Although that can also include things like deciding I'm going to run to my destination instead of using a waypoint or mounts, but then it can also include getting distracted part-way and using my springer and skyscale to get up to a place I could never reach before.) > @"Vavume.8065" said: > > @"Game of Bones.8975" said: > > Started a new account. > > I may buy one when they release it on steam, and start with nothing, just to remember how far I've come. You can try it out at any time by creating a free account. They have a bunch of additional restrictions compared to brand new paid accounts, but most of those don't matter if you're trying to recreate the new player experience. The only ones that bother me are being unable to sell some things on the Trading Post, not being able to use map chat and only having 3 bag slots per character. Also if you want to you can then upgrade a free account to a paid one later on.

In a weird way I'd be kind of glad to see one of these fail, to prove that they're genuinely based on player activity and not automatically progressing no matter what. I'm sure some people will say it only proves this one is real and the rest could have been fake, but it seems unlikely Anet would guarentee a random bonus event succeeds and then let the one that's part of the story fail.

> @"Teratus.2859" said: > > @"Ashantara.8731" said: > > > @"pareth.3847" said: > > > I actually assumed that Jormag was male, as he's sometimes referred to as male, at least I seem to remember it that way. And considering what's done to female icebrood, the Jormag worshipping cult isn't very female friendly. > > > > Jormag is voiced by a woman and referred to as "they", which is gender neutral in English. > > > > I assume many translation will go with "it", since there is no gender neutral pronoun in most languages (at least the ones I know; you usually say "he or she" or you use gender neutral references like "the person"). > > They and them are plural terms in English not really suitable as gender neutral terms in a singular sense due to the confusion they can cause. > In the UK we do not use they/them commonly as singular pronouns and for a great deal of people it doesn't sound right at all and they don't like using them in that way. > > For the most part it's Americans that use they/them as singular pronouns these days, but they are arguably an exception rather than the rule in the English speaking world. > I'm not sure how many European languages have them but there are some that do, Finnish I know does use gender neutral pronouns commonly for everyone. > > As far as English goes the most commonly used gender neutral terms I can think of is actually, dude and guys which are used all the time in regular conversation with both genders by both genders. > It's not uncommon at all to hear a woman greet a group of female friends by saying "what's up guys" > > > @"Hannelore.8153" said: > > Refering to Jormag as they/them, isn't about gender. Its because in English its offensive to refer to any sentient being as "it", which is used for objects. Characters who refer to Jormag as they/them are just recognising Jormag in a respectful way. > > This again is more of an American thing really, in Europe we don't consider "it" to be offensive, specially when referring to non human living things like animals. > When someone gets a new dog for example it's perfectly acceptable to ask "is it a boy or girl?" or "what gender/sx is it?" > Those questions are also perfectly normal to ask about new born human's as well. > Americans are the ones that mostly push the narrative that "It" is offensive but that is not commonly accepted around the English speaking world even if Americans like to think it is. I disagree with both parts of this. I was taught in school in the UK in the 90's that if for some reason you don't know the gender of the person you're refering to it's acceptable to say 'they' as a single person pronoun. Technically "he or she" is gramatically correct, but that would also sound overly formal in most conversations. The example I remember being given is if someone asks who was on the phone it's appropriate to say "I don't know, they hung up without saying anything" but it was also commonly used for hypotheticals, like "if anyone has any questions they can see me in private afterwards". With the rise of the internet it's become more common, because there's more situations where you can be taking to or about someone without knowing their gender. Similarly I know quite a few people who think it's offensive to call any living thing, especially pets and children 'it'. Back in about 2001 I volunteered at an RSPCA rehoming center and calling the animals 'it' was one of the very minor 'red flags' that tipped staff off that you probably needed an extended check to make sure you actually understood you were adopting a living thing and not simply purchasing a new accessory for your house or a toy for your children. On it's own probably not an issue but it was often a first sign to look out for other troubling behaviour. I think the idea of using 'they' as a gender neutral pronoun for a specific, known individual who does not wish to be called he or she is relatively new, but the idea of using it as a gender neutral singular as well as a plural has been around in the UK for decades.

It reminds me a lot of Season 1: a short story piece as an introduction to reoccuring events, which are part of the story and also replayable for rewards and achievements. The only differences are that these missions are instanced instead of happening in the open world maps, and will be around forever instead of disappearing after a month. Even the timer for the bonus rewards, which encourages players to get on and play them now makes it feel like season 1. It's pretty basic compared to season 2 and onwards, but it also looks like we haven't gotten the complete release yet and more will be coming on Tuesday. For now I'm curious about how it will play out and kind of excited by the idea of an 'episode' which develops in real time, but without the pressure to get it all done because it will vanish soon and I'll never be able to finish it. And if it's not enough to keep my occupied that's ok because I've got tons of older stuff to complete, and GW2 has never been my only game anyway. I've never expected this one game to take up all my free time and keep me interested indefinitely, if I'm bored with it I'll just do something else. (Which again makes me glad the updates are permanent and not a full return to season 1, where I felt like I had to complete as much as possible because if I ever changed my mind later it would be too late.)

As other people have said the only real benefit to doing the story in order is that you can see events in chronological order and it will make more sense. If you're interested in the story that's definitely the best way to do it. But if you're not interested in the story and don't mind doing things out of order then you can play in any order you like. You'll never be locked out of something because you played it in the wrong order and many players will move between high level and low level maps a lot once they're level 80. The only downside is that Path of Fire and Heart of Thorns maps are designed to be harder than the base game, so you might struggle to survive or complete things at first.

I'm back in too. :) There doesn't appear to have been any rollback - I got the rewards for the dragon response mission I'd just finished when I was kicked out. But I did end up back in the instance instead of in the Eye of the North, so it looks like that loading screen didn't work. (Also someone in my guild just confirmed that a TP purchase they made just before being kicked out was waiting for them when they got back in, and changes they made to guild hall decorations were saved.)

With the rewards I suspect the idea is that you mainly use the two new currencies to get the axe skin and the weapon recipies. The karma and supply box are likely there so that if you've got all the recipies and still have crystals/seals left over they're not completely useless. That's fairly standard across most of the game, most festival/story etc. vendors offer some sort of 'grab bag' which isn't really worth getting but gives you a way to use up tokens if you've got all the other stuff. Which also means if you've done all the dragon response missions and got the rewards you want there's no need to keep on doing them over and over. Just like you don't have to keep running the meta-events on living story maps after you've done the story and got the rewards you want. You can go back to doing whatever else you want to do instead (including taking a break from GW2 until something new comes along if you want).

> @"Ashantara.8731" said: > > @"Luthan.5236" said: > > Let's hope we don' get rollback issues like some months ago. > > Don't jinx it! :o > > I mean, the last time it happened, it _did_ happen on a Monday, too, and around the same time. :anguished: No. No no no no no... I'm guessing they do server maintenance on a Monday and it's something someone did which caused it to crash. There's no way to tell for sure when they do maintenance of course since the servers don't go offline, but Elder Scrolls Online always does it on Mondays and it seems reasonable to assume they're on a similar schedule.

> @"Dawnkeeper.2064" said: > Is NA down too? I've seen some people say they're able to log into NA, but I'm guessing most people who play on the NA server normally aren't online right now because it's very early in the morning over there.

I'm in Europe and currently unable to connect to either my EU or NA account, but I'm guessing that's because it connects to the nearest data center first - which in my case would be EU - and then redirects you to the right servers.

> @"MarzAttakz.9608" said: > Thought it was just me but hey ho, it's not so... Same here. My PC has been having some weird problems recently so I thought it was that again. In a way I'm relieved everyone else is having the same problem because it means at least this one is something I don't need to fix. Edit: Heh, I didn't know that crash report thing where it asks you to explain what you were doing at the time could happen on the launcher, I thought you had to be logged into the game before that would come up, but it just happened. I never know if my notes in those things are any use, but hopefully the automatically collected data will mean something to someone.

Same here. There's a thead about it in the bug reports section: https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/discussion/118876/server-crashed#latest > @"bharr.2890" said: > i can log in to my NA account but not my EU accounts I can't log into either. Maybe because I'm in Europe so it's connecting to the EU data center first either way? (I have no idea if that happens, but it would make sense to me.)

Same here. Just finished a Dragon Response Mission and went through the portal back to the Eye of the North and instead of a loading screen I got a white screen and a message that the game couldn't connet to the login server. I shut it down and restarted and now if I try to log in the launcher just sits there with the loading icon spinning round and the game doens't open. (In case it's relevant this is affecting my NA account too.)

Can someone explain for me what difference upgrading to DX12 would make if they don't change the graphics? Would it just change some of the lighting effects and shaders?

As Randulf said, whatever method you use to get exotics make sure you use the highest tier salvage kit you can, because that will improve your chances of getting Dark Matter. If you're not in any hurry to get them you could salvage the item you get from the [Chest of Exotic Equipment](https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Chest_of_Exotic_Equipment) to get them, but since you only get 1 chest per month it would take a long time to get them that way. Other than that it's probably a matter of buying the cheapest exotics you can from the Trading Post. According to the Wiki it only comes from exotics above level 68, but I think ones below that level are account bound anyway.

It would be nice to have trinkets, or at least infusions and enrichments, added to the wardrobe. That would enable both using the same one on multiple characters without having to buy/obtain more than one (which I'm not sure is possible with all of them) and a way to turn off the effect on things like legendary trinkets for those who don't want it, but do want the stat change ability.

> @"The Light In The Darkness.5789" said: > > @"Danikat.8537" said: > > > @"HnRkLnXqZ.1870" said: > > > I have a guess: > > > > > > The tutorial is designed to prepare you for the adventure in GW2, which ultimately results in getting lifted to level 2. In order to reach the levelup, a total amount of 2,000 EXP is required. Upon completing the mission, the game makes sure you will reach the levelup, so it checks your current EXP and just adds what is missing towards 2,000. The more mobs you kill, the less additional EXP is required to reach level 2, which means you get less bonus EXP in the end. > > > > > > Characters which are already level 2 or above get a fixed amount of exp. I guess it is a simple If query: > > > If level = 1 > > > add EXP = 2,000 - Current EXP > > > Else > > > add EXP = 2,000 > > > End > > > > > > Looks a bit complicated and sort of overkill. Why not add 2,000 EXP straight? I assume the mechanic was used on more events and actually served a purpose back then. Maybe it was copy/pasted to the tutorial or they just forgot to remove it. As long as the code works, you should not touch it ^^. > > > > It's been years since I tested it but that's my understanding too, the tutorial reward is always exactly enough XP to get to level 2, so you'll get less XP if you killed more stuff in the instance. > > > > I'm not sure what happens if you're over level 2, I don't think I checked that. > > That's an interesting input. > However, you don't receive exp at all in a L1 instance. No matter if you kill mobs or just stand there the reward is the same. Yes you do:  You can see the same in your screenshots - the XP bar is starting to fill up even before you accept the reward for completing the instance. Also, if you get to level 2 before completing the tutorial you get no XP at all in the reward: 

It's not my main focus, but I do all types of instanced content sometimes. At least once just to try it out, then either because I want something from it or because someone I know wants help completing it. Or sometimes just because one of my guilds is doing a run and I feel like joining in. The main reason I don't do it more often is because I like to take my time with things, zig-zagging across the map, looking at the scenery, talking to NPCs etc. and I don't feel like it's reasonable to do that when I'm playing with a group, I feel like I'm more under pressure to keep up, do things quickly and get it right. That and I need to make sure I have enough time to finish it, which can be easier said than done for me. If I have to stop playing when I'm in the middle of a story instance it only affects me, if I'm doing a big meta-event it's highly unlikely 1 person leaving early will affect everyone else, but if I'm in a 5-person party and I leave it's likely to cause a problem for all the other people. As I understand it people in other games focus on instanced content because that's usually where many of the best rewards come from. I know that's the case in Elder Scrolls Online where many of the best armour sets, and popular motifs (skins) come from dungeons so players will run them repeatedly either for items they need or for ones they can sell. (Sometimes to the point where by the time they get the drop they were hoping for what they're celebrating is that they'll never have to do it again, which doesn't seem like a great outcome to me.) Whereas in GW2 group instances have always been designed to be optional, with any exclusive rewards being purely cosmetic and open-world content equally viable as a way of progressing and making money. I don't think there's anything wrong with that. It's not like there's a shortage of MMOs which focus on group content so having one which focuses more on the open-world and other areas of the game is nice. It wasn't something I really considered when I got the game but it's probably one reason I've stuck with GW2 for so long. > @"Cuks.8241" said: > What this game need is a common interface window that can be accessed at any time and any place in the game and throgh which we can enter the requested instance. A button on the main screen would open a lobby window thought which you could enter either a public instance or join a party (incorporate the existing LFG systems) or a squad and also enter the private instance. > Most importantly we should be able to enter any instance from anywhere in the world. No need to travel to a certain map or even worse a certain instance of a map. This way I can play in open world, check the lobby if there is a party for a dungeon of my liking and in next moment I am in an instance.And once I am done with an instance I am back to where I was before. The LFG tool does all of that except teleport you to and from the instance, and honestly I find it hard to believe that people who spend the majority of their time playing other areas of GW2 are put off doing instanced content because they're not sure how to find the entrance. If you can find story instances or specific maps for meta-events then you can find dungeon entrances.

Getting mount skins in this game is absurdly complicated. That's part of the reason I stick to buying select licences and the occasional 5-pack (although the main reason is I don't like loot boxes and never buy them - I want to know exactly what I'm getting for my money). The only problem with that approach is I think the select licences are too expensive, so I wait until they're on sale for 800 gems or less, which can take a while. But since they're purely cosmetic (and I had to wait months for any skins I wanted to be available at all) I don't mind waiting.

> @"HnRkLnXqZ.1870" said: > I have a guess: > > The tutorial is designed to prepare you for the adventure in GW2, which ultimately results in getting lifted to level 2. In order to reach the levelup, a total amount of 2,000 EXP is required. Upon completing the mission, the game makes sure you will reach the levelup, so it checks your current EXP and just adds what is missing towards 2,000. The more mobs you kill, the less additional EXP is required to reach level 2, which means you get less bonus EXP in the end. > > Characters which are already level 2 or above get a fixed amount of exp. I guess it is a simple If query: > If level = 1 > add EXP = 2,000 - Current EXP > Else > add EXP = 2,000 > End > > Looks a bit complicated and sort of overkill. Why not add 2,000 EXP straight? I assume the mechanic was used on more events and actually served a purpose back then. Maybe it was copy/pasted to the tutorial or they just forgot to remove it. As long as the code works, you should not touch it ^^. It's been years since I tested it but that's my understanding too, the tutorial reward is always exactly enough XP to get to level 2, so you'll get less XP if you killed more stuff in the instance. I'm not sure what happens if you're over level 2, I don't think I checked that.