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Guild Wars 2 - Heart of Thorns |OT| Welcome to the Jungle...

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ViciousDS

Banned
The problem always was the high count of players during the big open world events, like Dragon fights and WvW

Reducing the number of visible players always put me back into a smooth 60 FPS, but god damn, anything above Medium and it's chaos.

I'll check it out

sounds like any mmorpg lol....even FFXIV would drop when a crap load of players were doing fates
 

ZeroEdge

Member
Well I really wanted to love this when it came out (pretty sure I'm even in the GAF guild still) but could never stick to it. Now after seeing all the new features jammed into this expansion, I think I'll grab it and jump back in this weekend :) IS it best to play through the personal and season stories if I have them in my journal before jumping into the jungle??
 

Emitan

Member
Well I really wanted to love this when it came out (pretty sure I'm even in the GAF guild still) but could never stick to it. Now after seeing all the new features jammed into this expansion, I think I'll grab it and jump back in this weekend :) IS it best to play through the personal and season stories if I have them in my journal before jumping into the jungle??

You don't have to but you won't really know whats going on if you skip season 2 of living world
 
x97uedu.png


Here we go!
 

Ashodin

Member
Event participation can now time out due to inactivity. If you stop completing objectives in an event, you will eventually receive a message that you are no longer participating in that event, and you will not receive rewards when the event completes. If you begin participating again before the event ends, you will regain your previous participation level immediately.

Get rekt Adriaaa
 
Well I really wanted to love this when it came out (pretty sure I'm even in the GAF guild still) but could never stick to it. Now after seeing all the new features jammed into this expansion, I think I'll grab it and jump back in this weekend :) IS it best to play through the personal and season stories if I have them in my journal before jumping into the jungle??

Heart of Thorns's plot was directly set up by season 2 of the Living World. You don't necessarily have to play it, but you can look here for a pretty detailed summary of the plotlines and characters it introduced.

I just jumped back in myself a few weeks ago after a long hiatus and am having a blast!
 

Atrophis

Member
Will be joining my lovely gafbros later this evening.

I think the last time I played was finishing up Season 2 months after it had been released. Was just before they patched in the new trait system.

I've only kept a small eye on what the expansion is bringing, not watched any of the developer streams, so this will be all new to me.

So first thing will be getting my traits sorted, then making sure I'm still in the gafguild and then some exploration of the new zones.
 

Jyrii

Banned
Woah, I totally missed Heart of Thorns is released today.

I haven't played for a few months, but guess this will get me to play it again.
 

Ashodin

Member
Because Lump donated 80g to Gilded Hollow (inflating the actual tally) the LOST PRECIPICE will be our Guild Hall!

Checking things out at the Guild Initiative HQ, we will need these items donated to the guild bank (TREASURE TROVE) to help build things once we take the Guild Hall.

omfZqd6.gif


Elder Wood Plank, Mithril Ingot, Bottle of Elonian Wine, Empty Keg (made by cooks), Glass Mug (made by jewelers), Obsidian Shards, Bolt of Silk, Cured Thick Leather Square, Bolt of Gossamer, and Cured Hardened Leather Square.

Donate what you can when you can!

We'll be using 150 Favor and 100 Gold to mount the expedition on Saturday.

Also a reminder to those newcomers

If we run out of guild space, it's no worries! We have GAFO still available, and with cross-guild chat, you won't have to worry about being left out of the loop! However, we still have about 90 spots left, so I doubt we'll run out any time soon! Unless we get a flood of people D:
 

Hedge

Member
Verdant Brink is a nightmare to navigate.
Also, where do you get the new bloodstone consumer? Anyone found it?
 

Anno

Member
I'm pleased that GAF recognized the superior guild hall location. Will be happy to dump some extras in when I get on this evening.
 

Ashodin

Member
H5XRtCA.gif

'
I made der pvp team

Anyone who wants to join is welcome, I plan on doing the PVP guild missions tomorrow to earn favor for our guild.
 

Boss Doggie

all my loli wolf companions are so moe
Can I donate even without the expac? I got so many Cured Hardened Leather Squares.

Also I think I'll pass on this until after a few people have their opinions.
 

Syril

Member
There's no setting- it's a new keybind that will toggle the full mode on and off. You'll have to go set that keybind in your controls.

After that, the basics are A and D to strafe, Click/Click-hold to autoattack, Right-click to target what's under your crosshair.

edit: 71 guildies on at 5:18AM Est lol

niiight everyone
Wow, that sounds pretty great. I had rigged up an AutoHotkey script to approximate that previously.
 
I haven't played Guild Wars 2 in ages, but my curiousity is piqued by both this thread and my interest in WoW waning big time. GW2 seemed to be a game that I dabbled with, but never put the effort in to see or understand the "bigger picture", so to speak. I don't think I ever knew what the storyline was. And the fact a joypad seems to work is cool, too.

I might re-install it for a laugh, see what's going on...
 

Anno

Member
I meant to ask this also, I want when I logged in.. Do I need to be on the same server/shard or whatever?

Only if you what to WvW with us. Everything else, assuming you're on the NA region, rolls up together now no matter your home server.
 

Anoregon

The flight plan I just filed with the agency list me, my men, Dr. Pavel here. But only one of you!
GW2 OT's are always fun to read. I've still put very little time into the game, but the new stuff does like pretty cool.
 

Retro

Member
Good morning, GAF'alonians (don't ask.. or do, tis' silly). Catching up on the OT now after staying up late to see them push the button, apologies for the Mega Post. I tried to get any questions / comments that slipped through the cracks.

First, some notes for the update that just went live (Update notes can always be found here)
Bug Fixes:
  • Fixed a server crash.
  • Fixed a client crash.
  • Removed Mordrem Menders from Destroy Crawler event and replaced them with Mordrem Vile Thrashers. Menders were healing the prop boss and making the event difficult to complete.
  • Fixed a broken jumping mushroom in the Westwatch Patch area.
  • Auric Basin: Added Nuhoch Wallows directional markers which point to their destination.
  • Added directional arrows to the Nuhoch Wallows to make navigating them easier.
  • Fixed an issue with Silver and Gold One-Time Adventure Rewards not granting experience.
  • Fixed an issue that prevented P4F players from exiting the mad king labyrinth.

ah crap. for most of my later school and uni days GW was a great timesink. would love to experience the new stuff. but at the moment my job robs me of my time.

Quoting myself here but; it really doesn't have as much of a time investment as you'd think. Because there's no gear treadmill (and no level cap increase with the expansion) you could have started playing a month after launch (3 years ago), gotten full Exotic-tier weapons (which isn't terribly difficult) and stopped. You'd still be able to log in today and pick up right where you left off, the only thing you'd have missed was the huge amount of content they've added.

You can pick it up and play it when you have free time and never worry that you're falling behind everyone else or missing out on what ever's new. The only thing that requires a major time commitment are dungeons and (presumably) raids, but even there we're not talking more than 30 minutes unless you pick one of the harder dungeons (which can go on a bit longer).

This is a game (and maybe the first real MMO) that actually respects your time, though don't be surprised if you want to play more. At the very least, you can check it out for free.

I miss playing with GAF; the community is fantastic and very open to new or returning players. I would absolutely be jumping in again ... if I only had the time!

See above. We're not kidding guys, this isn't the kind of game you need to spend hours playing each week. You can spend 10-20 minutes in the evening knocking out some daily achievements or doing a match in PVP, 30 minutes in a fast dungeon run, an hour kicking around WvW capturing some supply camps or just wandering the world doing events.

Don't let the "MMO" part scare you, it only takes over your life if you want it to, not because you have to keep up with the Joneses or get left behind, but because you're having fun.

amazing dam awesome smooth launch, how do they do it

Networking Wizards. Seriously, this game has had less than 12 hours downtime total in 3 years. The one time they had to take the game down for an update was because they were transferring everyone's currencies to account-wide wallets and they wanted to make sure nothing screwed up because that's a pretty sensitive area. They predicted 3 hours, but it only took one.

So... yeah... Wizards. About what you'd expect from a company founded by a guy who built Battle.net from scratch.

Regarding the Elite Specializations, it seems to be that there is no reason -not- to go on one of the specializations. Do they plan later on to give each class more specializations so that there will be more diversity among players?

It really depends; I'm not planning to go Scrapper on my Engineer just because the build I have right now (Flamethrower / Elixir build, for what it's worth) is very very good and the things I would have to give up for the elite spec aren't worth the trade off. So no, I don't think they're mandatory for every class, but there's certainly a few where the payoff is totally worth the sacrifice.

Try to think of it as just one more option for your build instead of something new everyone has to have.

They've stated that there will be more elite specializations later, yes, and if memory serves me correctly they said adding them isn't tied to expansions either (so they may put them in for a major feature update, they've done stuff like that before).

I assume the pictures in the OP explain what is new in the expansion? I can't see them right now (firewall). Thinking about getting back into the game. I stopped playing back in June 2013 because of an upheaval in my life - not because I didn't like it.

Yeah, the OT is mostly images. The Wiki though should have you covered for details though; http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Guild_Wars_2:_Heart_of_Thorns#Features

But one thing that always bothered me was I didn't quite like any of the armor in the game, legendaries took forever to obtain, and the stats - particularly toughness - felt meaningless to me (what I mean by that is that you died quick regardless so you might as well go full damage). Have they addressed those issues? Is there a place where I can see the new armors they have added?

There's quite a lot of new armor in the game, especially in the expansion. I don't have any site that's up to date (other than the wiki, if you want to look), but the in-game Wardrobe allows you to preview everything in the game if you want to look around.

There's now a way to obtain Legendaries without relying on luck / cash where you basically wander the world crafting it by performing various achievements.

As far as stats go, that's always been the case; all of your active defensive options (stuff like blind, aegis, skills that block and dodging) are more important than your stats, so if you want to be survival-oriented it's more important to instead focus on weapon choice, utility skills and traits, then round things out stat-wise from there. For what it's worth, though, Toughness seemed to be the main factor in getting the raid boss we fought in beta to stick to someone, so depending on how raids work in general it might become the de facto "Tanking" stat (in so far as there's anything resembling tanking in GW2).

Are there any active groups of Euro GAFers out there? The friends I was playing with have pretty much all stopped playing, would like semi-regular group to PvE with.
This is the only reason I've not bought this, no one to play with. No way am I paying the £20 to move to the US to play on their off peak times. Fuck that noise.

The guild has a lotto every week where 10% of the pot goes to a fund specifically set up to help transfer people from EU to NA, since a lot of European players joined the EU chapter of the guild (which we had no part in, two people took it upon themselves to organize it and then promptly disappeared after launch). We may not be able to cover the entire cost, but we can certainly help soften the blow.

So, how's the Daredevil specialization? It is the only thing that might bring me back to the game :)

What I played in the last beta weekend was really fun and had a lot of potential (especially if you were already playing a Thief with acrobatics and such), I haven't gotten into it on live so I can't say for sure, but everything they've changed since then has been an improvement so... might be worth checking out?

Well I really wanted to love this when it came out (pretty sure I'm even in the GAF guild still) but could never stick to it. Now after seeing all the new features jammed into this expansion, I think I'll grab it and jump back in this weekend :) IS it best to play through the personal and season stories if I have them in my journal before jumping into the jungle??

You can skip the Personal Story and read a plot summary of the two Living World seasons if you want; the first season isn't available anymore, but you can pick up Season 2 if you'd like to go through it. I thought it was fun, but your milage may vary. Either way, it's not required and I think even reading the summary in the OT covers all you really need to know (beyond "who are these characters in my story?", of course).

I haven't played in a while. No idea if I'm still in the guild.

Please invite epmode.3081

Invite sent. FYI, your username is 3801, not 3081 (I checked our old pre-launch database, welcome back old timer
JUWnj.gif
)

I meant to ask this also, I want when I logged in.. Do I need to be on the same server/shard or whatever?

As long as you're on a North American server, you can do everything but WvW with GAF (since WvW is built around server competition).

I don't know if I should really try it again. I stopped after that first week of release.

All it costs is bandwidth to find out. I'm 90% sure the reason you left so soon is because you picked a character class that didn't 'click' with you. We've found that's the single most important thing that seems to determine whether people stick with the game or not; people who came from WoW or whatever and said "Oh, I played a Warlock, Necromancer is for me" hit a wall when it just didn't mesh well, but later came back and tried a new profession and fell completely head over heels for the game.

That'd be my advice. Each one plays so different from the others that it can completely change your experience.
 
Action cam, man. It's awesome. I honestly didn't expect to use it but after one mission of trying it out, I'm hooked.

Just one mission in, the prologue already seems to be step above the PS in terms of storytelling. I hope it keeps up.
 

epmode

Member
Invite sent. FYI, your username is 3801, not 3081 (I checked our old pre-launch database, welcome back old timer
JUWnj.gif
)

Omg, good catch! You're absolutely right.

I have a problem. I like making new characters but I stop playing shortly thereafter. I've barely seen beyond the first two starting zones of any race!
 

Mxrz

Member
Took my guardian into VB for some hero points and luckily unlocking the next tier, this time in pve land, gave me the new bow item.

Did the Mad King fight. Had no way to deal with his break bar, so it was a long ass fight. Did a few of the new PvP reward tracks, ended up with a couple collection items. All of them account bound. The specific /rank commands don't seem to work now? Couldn't get anything but my current.

Popped into a 50 fractal, but ow. My only heavy AR set-up is zerk stats, and the instability more or less rules that out. I don't have a problem with having to change my gear up, but this feels like a bit of a hard lock just to get you to make an alt set of gear. Group just couldn't strip boons fast enough, even with everyone going low crit.

The "Wing" gliders are too cool.
 

Retro

Member
I have a problem. I like making new characters but I stop playing shortly thereafter. I've barely seen beyond the first two starting zones of any race!

It may be you haven't found the profession that 'clicks' with you yet, or you just have the fastest case of Alt-itis I've ever seen. If it's any encouragement, once you're out of the starting zones is when the game gets kicked up another notch. Fewer hearts, more events, etc.
 

AwesomeMeat

PossumMeat
I'm wanting to get in to GW2. I played some GW1 prior but this is my first rodeo with 2.

What is the best way to get started playing co-op with my wife? I know in WoW it takes quite awhile before you can really meet up due to starter areas.

What is the best way for us to start together? Choose the same race?
 

Aim_Ed

Member
Could I get an invite? IGN: Ahmed H

I joined multiple times but always get kicked for inactivity. I'd like to enjoy this xpac with people though. :)
 
Story has just brought me to Auric Basin and I got to say the story is really good so far and I especially like how the story instances are connected with the open world events.

Good stuff!

Took a break at 9:30am, been playing since it launched!!! Can't wait to continue playing more today.
 
I'm wanting to get in to GW2. I played some GW1 prior but this is my first rodeo with 2.

What is the best way to get started playing co-op with my wife? I know in WoW it takes quite awhile before you can really meet up due to starter areas.

What is the best way for us to start together? Choose the same race?

In GW2, you can play together regardless of race or class, the instant you finish the opening tutorial instance. When you pop out of the tutorial instance, you can waypoint to any major city, I think, and just meet up. The starter areas outside each main city are race-independent, so you can try them all (I recommend exploring until you find a place you like).
 

Mxrz

Member
I'm wanting to get in to GW2. I played some GW1 prior but this is my first rodeo with 2.

What is the best way to get started playing co-op with my wife? I know in WoW it takes quite awhile before you can really meet up due to starter areas.

What is the best way for us to start together? Choose the same race?

No. Just the opposite. Pick and play whatever. It takes a minimal amount of effort for even new accounts to get together. Basically just take a portal in your home city to LA, then go to whatever home/race city you like.
 

Retro

Member
Reminder: Please use Spoiler tags when discussing the story!
(nobody's done it yet, just wanted to get that note out there).

What is the best way to get started playing co-op with my wife? I know in WoW it takes quite awhile before you can really meet up due to starter areas.

To second what Miktar said, once you're done with your race-specific starting story instance, you'll be able to waypoint to just outside any of the 5 racial capitols (even in F2P mode) and meet up that way.

Could I get an invite? IGN: Ahmed H

Invite sent, welcome aboard.

I heard some people say that they will use the trinity for the raid...?

Nah, they're just fleshing out the soft trinity that's always existed a bit more. Nothing to worry about, all professions can still fill all roles and your success is determined by skill rather than who has the best tanking / healing stats.

Hey people, when should I be getting my character slot? I bought HoT on the 19th (also known as this Monday).

I poked around Reddit for an answer (the official forums, in addition to being slow, are usually pretty awful), it sounds like they should be in sometime today at the latest. Try contacting support to see if they can force it through or give you a better time frame.
 

AwesomeMeat

PossumMeat
In GW2, you can play together regardless of race or class

No. Just the opposite. Pick and play whatever. It takes a minimal amount of effort for even new accounts to get together.

To second what Miktar said, once you're done with your race-specific starting story instance, you'll be able to waypoint to just outside any of the 5 racial capitols (even in F2P mode) and meet up that way.

Awesome. Thanks!

I'm sure we'll join gaf before too long.
 
I poked around Reddit for an answer (the official forums, in addition to being slow, are usually pretty awful), it sounds like they should be in sometime today at the latest. Try contacting support to see if they can force it through or give you a better time frame.
Thanks for the answer. I'm not in a hurry (and I do already have a free slot) so I have no problem with waiting a little bit longer.

The problem is that I most likely won't be able to play till tomorrow afternoon/evening ù_ù
 
I heard some people say that they will use the trinity for the raid...?

Some people are overhyping something they don't quite understand, that's all. There is still no conventional trinity in GW2, only that now people can spec for stronger heals than before, so the whole group can have more uptime if a section is being too difficult. But there won't be a single player able to keep the party up, unless they're *that* damn good. And then they wouldn't be using heals anyway, active mitigation works better.
 
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