Guild Wars 2

So, the new minigame with this patch is basically Mario Kart. Interesting...

Oh really? I haven't got to load up in a few days but I'm gonna have to check it out now.

Yeah, it's basically a hybrid of a racing game and a jumping puzzle. You get three movement powers (high jump, dash, and, teleport) which are needed to progress around the track, but then you also get pick-ups that you can use against other people to get ahead of them.

It can be found in the new zone Labyrinthine Cliffs, which is basically one gigantic jumping puzzle in itself from what I've been able to tell. Those same movement powers can be found in crystals scattered around the zone (10 charges per), and then you need to use them to find Sky Crystals for an achievement.

Tried a quick race, it's fun, will run it again a couple times for sure. The new zone is really beatiful to look at, the artist at Anet are quite good.
I also like what they did with achievements, have a bunch of chests waiting for me on a daily basis

I just finished the crystal scavenger hunt and holy crap it was nerve racking, they did a really good job at hiding those damn things.

Went for the highest dive acheivement hit what I thought was water but took 5840BAJILLION points of damage... good times.

/rant on

Well I guess it's nice of them to ramp up pve events and such I guess, although at this point I don't give a shit about it, still in it for the wvw though they're doing a fine job in continuing to fuck that up. Must be nice for a T2 server to get a pass week when they get placed with a T4 server, the new matching system is retarded when a server gets to face one 7 ranks ahead of it.

Well it gives the lower server a chance to excel and move up faster! No, the servers had already settled into their brackets before this stupid move, most times a lower server is lower because they don't have the numbers to compete, having a #12 server face the #5 is just asking people to take the week off because they will get steamrolled. Even a 4 server spread I can see the big difference in organization and numbers fielded. Not to mention how much this screws up the points rating into giving those servers a false rating.

I guess it's really hard to implement winner advance, loser drops, middle stays where it is, at least then even T1 changes even if it's just one server.

/rant off

This might make me log back in and check it out, I basically played on release till level cap, spent about a week PvPing and quit.

http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2013...-guild-wars-2/

Go check it out, they still build on the existing systems, even hough they refined them a bit, so the base game is still the same and if you hated that, the updates won't change anything.

The latest official blog post is up, talking about their plans for the rest of the year

Link

The short version:
-living story will start including more permanent additions
-lfg tool is on the way
-crafting's being expanded to allow making acsended gear, and legendary precursors
-they're going to start adding new skills and traits to the existing classes
-they're making new legendaries
-and a bunch of other stuff

I'm still working on finishing the world. about 50% done ugh. Haven't really played since the end of winter/start of spring (basically went from 20-80 in a week or so of heavy grinding, got burnt out).

Randin_sl said:

The latest official blog post is up, talking about their plans for the rest of the year

Link

The short version:
-living story will start including more permanent additions
-lfg tool is on the way
-crafting's being expanded to allow making acsended gear, and legendary precursors
-they're going to start adding new skills and traits to the existing classes
-they're making new legendaries
-and a bunch of other stuff

Click to expand...

I read that post and I'm really eager to see what they'll pull out. This game is definitely nice, they should just let us hunt for new skills, like in its predecessor and I'd be a happy player for a long time. The atmosphere in certain zones is so far unmatched and it can get quite challenging just roaming the open world at times.
Dungeons can be brutal with unexperienced groups, but they are still fun if one doesn't overdo them for tokens ("I must have everything in a week" complex), but they could use (imo) a change of behaviour with the trash packs. Running past them is not what I consider the pinnacle of gameplay, not even when doing a quick CoF1 for money/tokens (In fact I think CoF1 is a bullshit, especially considering it gives the most desired stat combo on gear).
The removal of magic find as a gear stat is another /bow to them: problem analyzed and solved.

Left to do: make it so zerker gear is not the only go-to gear in PvE. People should care about the survivability stats, but dodge and vigor sources rule the scenes, together with projectile reflects (way way too strong).

Anyway I just love doing the big world events, frozen maw, behemoth, the dragons, etc. every now and then, eventually run a dungeon path or two (even story mode at times), explore a bit of the map, do a jumping puzzle and rarely, craft a bit to raise a new tradeskill. Oh play alts too, I have a lot of them (1 per class in fact).

I spent some money on this game, to get me char slots, bank slots and a couple bag slots for my main character, will do so again, a game worth supporting for me, so far at least.

Vinyard_sl said:

I'm still working on finishing the world. about 50% done ugh. Haven't really played since the end of winter/start of spring (basically went from 20-80 in a week or so of heavy grinding, got burnt out).

Click to expand...

That time frame sounds more like "I quit 3-4 months ago" and not "still working on whatever"...

Anyway I like most of their mid-year announcement. Looking back what they accomplished with the first half of the year I am VERY doubtful they can do more then lip service though. I'm in wait and see mode regarding that.

Mist_sl said:

I hope they add new weapons to existing classes.

I think they've accomplished a lot since launch, for everything but WvW. And therein lies their problem. They don't devote a lot of resources to WvW because it's not very popular, but it's not very popular because they don't devote a lot of resources to it.

Click to expand...

I couldn't agree more and I think if Anet put some massive effort into redesigning WvW it might cultivate additional interest for both new and returning players.

For me, WvW was the best part of the game--in beta. After a couple months after release with WvW remaining stagnate, boring, and lopsided, it become very easy to quit. Different maps/play-modes would have done wonders for the game, months ago. Now, they could add a cavalcade of new content and I would not touch the game, even with it being free, as I'm waiting for something else.

Binkles_sl said:

For me, WvW was the best part of the game--in beta. After a couple months after release with WvW remaining stagnate, boring, and lopsided, it become very easy to quit. Different maps/play-modes would have done wonders for the game, months ago. Now, they could add a cavalcade of new content and I would not touch the game, even with it being free, as I'm waiting for something else.

Click to expand...

Pretty much agree. Except I continue to play on a rare occasion. I'm also willing to go back if they revamp WvW. For my guild the main issue is that the maps don't facilitate small group action. It's mostly zergs hopping from keep to keep. Which was a big problem with WAR also, but at least there was room in those maps for small groups to do their thing.

I think there was enough interest at release for wvw, with many servers having 4 maps in queue. Problem is people jumped ship and stacked the top servers which was made even worse with the stop to free transfers, I mean who really wants to stay around on the bottom tiers if you're looking for competition, so wvw will seem dead on those servers now. Hell now on SOS ranked 8 server can barely even get enough people to step into two maps at a time, with most times outnumbered. Speaking of which outnumbered has to be one the dumbest buffs to try and help you, it requires you to kill people to get the "pve" bonus, +20% Magic find, +33% Experience, +10% World Experience, how does that help when you're facing zergs? oh nice I get 20% magic find so I can has a better chance for rare instead of masterwork item.

A year into the game and all they could come up with so far is giving player ranks? 2445 levels, lol. They could have made a new map to alternate with the borderland maps, at least then you get something different in there to try. The other problem is commander tags, every time one shows up on the map everyone flocks to it, what they needed to do was make tags for wvw squads for badges so you only see a commanders tag when you join their squad, one in pve for gold like now, and one for guild commanders which you buy in the guild wvw upgrades section. I think that would help in creating the smaller ops group and not instantly create a zerg like it does now. Anyways I keep hearing they have all these ideas for wvw but have yet to see it, I already took 7 months off the game waiting on wvw updates, I feel like it's time to take another one cause it's kinda pointless when even the matchups system is screwed up now.

Meanwhile pve will continue to get updated every 2 weeks, cause well that's where all the cash shop money is I guess, I still get a good laugh from the dolts that open a thousand chest and get 2 skins and then run to the forums to complain, their halloween event should have already showed you what they were up to with those chests.

Free transfers for months was killing wvw I think. They wanted servers to develop rivalries and instead they trained everyone how to bandwaggon. Would have been nicer with more persistance too, not weekly resets or bi-weekly like now. I think the whole wvw setup could do with a revamp.

They should have never started the game with free transfers on, I can understand wanting to let players move to be with friends/family/guilds, but people should be able to coordinate that shit on their own, I did with 20 other people, or give 1 free transfer and be done with it, not leave it open for months. But the other thing about the free system was that it allowed willing guilds to move down to lower population servers to get away from the queues, or move to take up the challenge of raising a lower ranked server up, much like what most of the titan alliance guilds did.

When the call to close transfers came a lot of people and guilds decided to move to their "final" destination which is why some servers got super stacked before it was done. Once that was done servers began to settle in their spots, which led to almost no movement in the rankings and matchups for weeks on end, and people started to complain about seeing the same servers 3 weeks in a row. So while free transfers were a small problem, it still allowed servers to fluctuate enough to move up or down rankings in this point system ranking, cause lets face it, wvw is all about population and coverage. I prefer that than this crap they've doing with moving servers into matchups 1-2 tiers higher than they should be.

Winner up loser down, that's as simple it needs to be and every single week servers will have a different matchup, just need get rid of the fancy point bullshit system which I'm sure they don't want to admit doesn't work.