Support NeoGAF

[Levyne]

ARAH

 

[Hawkian]

game crashed guess it's bedtime

that was fun!!

 

[Kos Luftar]

Can't wait for this update to cheer me up and get my mind off last nights Leafs playoff loss.
:-(

 

[Hawkian]

Poor Canadia

 

[Sophia]

Right now an update to Guild Wars 2 is exactly what I need after yesterday's busy day. x.x;

 

[Kos Luftar]

Poor Canadia

Mostly poor Torontonia.

I hear there will be an asura gate between LA and Southsun. I know where a gate is being built in Southsun but there isn't a gate being build in LA. There was one but that leads to Fractals of the Mists.

 

[HappyHunting]

Mostly poor Torontonia.

I hear there will be an asura gate between LA and Southsun. I know where a gate is being built in Southsun but there isn't a gate being build in LA. There was one but that leads to Fractals of the Mists.

The way they lost is probably the most heart-breaking part of it... so close. My Canadiens just flat out bombed. HA !

I want to play

 

[Hawkian]

Mostly poor Torontonia.

I hear there will be an asura gate between LA and Southsun. I know where a gate is being built in Southsun but there isn't a gate being build in LA. There was one but that leads to Fractals of the Mists.

That would be really silly, there are already two "gates" to Southsun from LA, from the boat!

 

[Kos Luftar]

That would be really silly, there are already two "gates" to Southsun from LA, from the boat!

https://forum-en.guildwars2.com/for...sun-Cove-to-the-other-zones/first#post2019242

AnthonyOrdon
Game Designer
"There will indeed be a new asura gate linking Lion’s Arch to the new resort on Southsun Cove.
I agree that it seems possible to travel to Southsun from other areas when you’re looking at the map, but we’ve never had support for travel to other zones by swimming across the sea. In the context of the game world, I believe there are some pretty nasty things out in the deep water that would make it difficult to swim that far."

Suck on dat proof!

 

[Atrophis]

Makes sense. One presumes the Consortium can't keep ferrying us there forever...

 

[Hawkian]

Suck on dat proof!

Well hey I didn't mean to dispute it or your sources, I was just saying it'd be silly! Which it is!

Makes sense. One presumes the Consortium can't keep ferrying us there forever...

Ah yeah, if they stop the boat transport then silliness rescinded.

 

[Lunar15]

Well, also, the Consortium always planned on having an asura gate, it's just that their previous attempt went awry and opened up to Dessa's Lab in the mists.

I kinda wonder if they'll ever touch on that again. Like, why did that asura gate, of all gates, just happen to screw up to the point that it would connect with Dessa?

 

[Weltall Zero]

If they add new races they need to have their own capital cities. Doesn't matter if they're used well or not by the player base, they need to exist for parity. Shoehorning a new race into an already existing city is poor design imo.

Yep, totally agreed. Woudl the Asura had the same personality without Rata Sum? Norn without Hoelbrak? Human without Divinity's Reach? The capital city is an integral part of a race's characterization and sense of belonging in the world, absolutely do NOT add a race without a capital city!

this is what i've been saying for months. they need to add more stuff to the hotbar to keep gameplay fresh. they really have a great idea where every weapon is truly different, but they didn't quite go far enough. I think having 3 different bars for each weapon will be ace in terms of what to spec and keeping it fun. stick a cooldown of like 15 mins or something if they want. but definitely not in combat. 2 bars focused on pve, and one for more a pvp type play playing to the classes strength.

I don't agree with this, there is a limit to how many skills you can have before the overlap and repeat sets in. The number of skills that we have right now is more than plenty for now, I don't want to go back to WoW and its multiple, slightly different skills.

also for the love of god, drop the shitty passive traits. gah. shit, even the end trait trees could be used to modify the attack bar. then you wouldn't need a cooldown. just pop in a trait manager to save them and have us switch at the npc or with a new book that costs slightly more than going to the trainer itself.

YOURE WELCOME ANET

this is the biggest thing i will be watching for an expansion.

The funny thing is, if anything, GW2's passive traits are uniquely non-mathy. WoW had a ton of "+1% to crit" "+1% to damage" unconditional skills for the longest time (several years!), until they realized how retarded it was. I do agree there may be a bit too much trait bloat (six trees with twelve traits each per class), but it gives a pretty good deal of customization without being "bring out the calculator"-mathy.

Was talking to a GAFer today about player housing, I have a feeling they will put it in the Mists. I have my own ideas on why they could implement it, but it's long-winded and nobody cares anyways. Housing was something they really wanted to work on post-launch, I wonder why we haven't heard anything about it lately.

Since I've never actually played an MMO with housing (exception made of a couple of free ones that I played for a couple of hours), I have to wonder if the concept altogether might not be one of those "awesome in paper, meh in reality" things, and that's why they avoid it. Still, I would love to have my own house, to be able to furnish it (the materials for making furniture are already in the game) and inviting people over.

One thing though, why would they use the Mists? Each city already has a "home" instance that the player can alter with their actions and invite people to, it seems almost designed with housing in mind.

I still think that any method of expansion which is optional shouldn't take place. Everyone should have access to everywhere at the same time, whether it's all at once or staggered. Now, whether they have all of the weapons (which simply expand a player's options but as long as they aren't required are fine), races or professions at the same time isn't important. That everyone be able to participate in things without additional cost seems like the option that leads to less headaches.

Ideally it would be so, but I have to wonder to what extent that is realistic. Of course, if ArenaNet decided that the gem store is already providing plenty of benefits for them to keep adding entire continents to the game, that'd be awesome, but to be honest I still feel we're stretching the limits of what is economically feasible even with just the current model.

Even before launch, I was arguing against passive traits. You guys remember this, right? I'd do away with all of the passive, math-centric traits and focus on things that you can't exactly assign numbers to. Stuff that requires skill rather than chance to pull off, so it cannot be theory-crafted with any certainty.

Yep, this seems like it should be the golden rule of trait/talent design, and yet they all keep missing it. I guess precisely the fact that "you can't assign numbers" to them makes it more difficult to balance, especially with multiple combinations involved. Blizzard had a known rule of making each talent point equivalent to "1% extra damage", which I guess accounts for the overabundance of mathy talents quite obviously. However, that also makes it much easier to get a feel about the balance, something that is still really important, more so because imbalance destroys build variability.

I guess what I'm getting at is that I disagree with Ash's idea of having multiple bars per weapon. Instead, traits should adjust the skills you have to behave differently. Of course, taken to the extreme, this could mean changing how skills work entirely, or even turning them into completely different skills. But I think the core skills should always remain. I'm to the point where I know without looking exactly what all of my skills do on every single weapon I can use on my Warrior. I put on a Hammer and I know 2 weakens, 3 is a cone of cripple, 4 is an aoe knockback and 5 is a single target knockdown. Changing that up too much defeats the purpose of weapon-based skills; memorizing your abilities so you don't have to read tooltips or even think. I'm to the point where on the majority of my weapons, I just do.

100% agreed on all accounts. As a side note, playing with a gamepad makes the "memorizing skills and skip tooltips" not a convenience but pretty much a requirement.

Don't worry about getting money. Just continue to play the game the way you enjoy it most. The transfer fund is set up specifically to take care of that for players like yourself who want to run with Gaf. Just have fun playing the game.

No, no, no, no, no. This advice may be a sound way to make money but money shouldn't be a concern for him at all and he certainly shouldn't just rush through levels as quickly as possible just to trivialize content and gold grind.

Again, I agree. This is a game, not a job. It's meant to be fun. Have fun playing, more so now that you're still experiencing all the content. Seems like the amazing Arken took care of your transfer fee, even, so just relax.

 

[HappyHunting]

GW2 Defence Force Activate !

Some peeps be bad talking GW2.

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=557470&page=2

 

[Levyne]

Let's not...

 

[Lunar15]

GW2 Defence Force Activate !

Some peeps be bad talking GW2.

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=557470&page=2

Well, that's just like, their opinion, man.

Some people just don't like the game. It's not for everyone. The worst thing about a fan base is when they get overly defensive. It paints everyone in a bad light. I'm already guilty of doing so, so I'd rather not stir up the hornet's nest again.

Also, it's the same arguments over and over again... or should I say argument. People say it has no endgame. That's great. They max leveled and were done. Nothing I can do to change their mind at that point.

 

[HappyHunting]

Well, that's just like, their opinion, man.

Some people just don't like the game. It's not for everyone. The worst thing about a fan base is when they get overly defensive. It paints everyone in a bad light. I'm already guilty of doing so, so I'd rather not stir up the hornet's nest again.

Let's not...

Hrm so my exageration was missed. No worries.

 

[Levyne]

Eh, this thread already has a reputation for flocking to mmo threads and plugging our agenda.

 

[Kos Luftar]

GW2 Defence Force Activate !

Some peeps be bad talking GW2.

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=557470&page=2

Don't bother.
The people in that thread have no idea what is good let a lone a good game and they are all Bronys.

 

[HappyHunting]

So I am using a power necro build to level these days. I have the Flesh Golem as my mastery skill... he is both stupid and weak. Anyone have any experience with Lich Form ? Is it condusive to a power build in the least ? The description of the skill seems lack-luster.

Also, does the guild collect Sigils/Runes ? I'm looking to unload some that are usless to my necro.

 

[Jira]

Greetings WvW players!

We are aware that there has been a great deal of controversy about the recent changes to arrow carts. One change that is happening in today’s build will be a reduction in the amount of damage arrow carts do to siege weapons. While we believe the damage to players is in line with what we want it to be, we do think that we overshot a bit on the range of the arrow carts once they have been upgraded. We intend to change the arrow cart upgrade line to bring the numbers more in tune with what we intended the whole of siege weapons to be, but we felt that it would be unfair to make that change until we were able to provide all players with a reset of their spent World Ability Points, allowing people to reallocate them however they choose. To that end, we will not be making the adjustment to the range of the upgraded skills until we are able to implement a one-time reset of said points. This will make it so that everyone who upgraded arrow carts can decide if they still wish to put their hard earned points into that spot, or spend them elsewhere after the change. This reset is a special event because we feel it is unfair to make changes to lines once people have put points in them. Hopefully this explains the method behind the madness and we hope you continue to fight the good fight on behalf of your realm!

.

 

[Jest Chillin]

If you're looking to donate sigils/runes, you should just ask in Gchat. I don't really know how our Gbank is organized at the moment or whether or not it still gets cleaned out every month.

 

[BLCKATK]

Hey does anyone know if you can still do the Lost and Found stuff from Flame and Frost? I just realized Secret of Southsun is going up today I still haven't finished that.

 

[Hawkian]

Yep, totally agreed. Woudl the Asura had the same personality without Rata Sum? Norn without Hoelbrak? Human without Divinity's Reach? The capital city is an integral part of a race's characterization and sense of belonging in the world, absolutely do NOT add a race without a capital city!

Definitely.

I don't agree with this, there is a limit to how many skills you can have before the overlap and repeat sets in. The number of skills that we have right now is more than plenty for now, I don't want to go back to WoW and its multiple, slightly different skills.

On this point I sort of disagree both with you and Ashodin/jersoc. GW1's limited skill bar allowed for a lot of build creativity by restricting how much you could take with you at all, which prevented skill bloat (8 skills at level 4, 8 skills at level 20). But the skill inflation and overlap that was a problem in WoW was a massive issue in GW too. Lots of skills (maybe a majority of the total number of skills in the game, by the end) were considered impractical or totally useless, while the expansions added the ability, hilarious in retrospect, to take multiple copies of the same highly effective skill on your bar instead.

The combat in GW2 sought to counteract this by still highly limiting your skill bar but allowing you to have more skills on you at any one time. Instead of a hard limitation of 8 skills accessible in combat, you can have 15, 20 or even more- but you're required to take ones based on category weapon skills are linked to one another and need to be taken in conjunction with one another. As Retro notes, this is fantastic for learning and muscle memory (and as you noted, when playing with a gamepad this is just something you must do).

The major benefit of this is that there are very few useless skills, especially weapon skills. A skill that might be weak or completely puzzling in isolation can have high-level synergy with the other skills on your bar or the alternate weapon you're using. I'd love to see more weapon skills added to continue this tradition.

But instead of extra weapon "styles" I would vote in favor of new weapon types, used by a variety of classes, and the ability for the original classes to use existing weapons in new ways (Thief Offhand Sword, Mesmer 2H Shield, spears equippable as land weapons). My reasoning is threefold:

• This would require no new UI system to add to the game, like switching sets within the same weapon would
• Unlike additional skills for the same weapon, it would provide new gameplay AND cosmetic options as classes would have entire new sets of weapons open to them
• The meta for build-reading would remain intact- right now, if I see a Hammer Guardian, I know what skills he has because Hammer Guardians have those skills. Eventually maybe there would be merit to adding uncertainty in this way ("Which kind of Hammer Guardian is it??") but I feel there's enough complexity in that regard for now.

One thing though, why would they use the Mists? Each city already has a "home" instance that the player can alter with their actions and invite people to, it seems almost designed with housing in mind.

It's actually an on-record dev comment, the personal story instances are meant to be tied to the story itself and not your character's individual home space. Why they chose to make it like that I dunno, but housing would almost definitely be separate, if not in the Mists for infinite space.

Ideally it would be so, but I have to wonder to what extent that is realistic. Of course, if ArenaNet decided that the gem store is already providing plenty of benefits for them to keep adding entire continents to the game, that'd be awesome, but to be honest I still feel we're stretching the limits of what is economically feasible even with just the current model.

All of this is uncharted territory. They're the only ones who really know how it's going, so I trust their roadmap for the moment whatever it actually is.

Again, I agree. This is a game, not a job. It's meant to be fun. Have fun playing, more so now that you're still experiencing all the content. Seems like the amazing Arken took care of your transfer fee, even, so just relax.

Yeah, his account name is posted on the GAFGuild thread but I'm not sure if Arken has bought/sent the code yet. Once again, huge shout out for doing that. By the time a third speaks up for transfer we'll have raised the funds for it with the bank donations as well.

GW2 Defence Force Activate !

Some peeps be bad talking GW2.

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=557470&page=2

Aw, poor RIFT

There's certainly no need to "defend" GW2 from attacks or start any shit in that thread. Well that's my policy anyway

Hey does anyone know if you can still do the Lost and Found stuff from Flame and Frost? I just realized Secret of Southsun is going up today I still haven't finished that.

Unfortunately I believe the refugee objects are already gone as they've gathered themselves to begin their new lives. Bummer! It didn't get you anything good, anyway, but it's sad if you wanted to get the title.

 

[Squall ASF]

Isn't there a busted portal in LA they can fix up slightly SE of the mystic forge? I believe it's a poi.

Tonight I will finally get my 10th pristine fractal token, time to get my first ascended ring! I'll then need another 10 for the other, 8 more laurel for my second earring, and then the backpiece. I don't think I'll need all that many more tokens by the time I get the second ring so the backpiece won't be as bad to acquire as first thought. Well, guess I'll see when I get to that point.

 

[BLCKATK]

Unfortunately I believe the refugee objects are already gone as they've gathered themselves to begin their new lives. Bummer! It didn't get you anything good, anyway, but it's sad if you wanted to get the title.

Aw damn. No Fused Gauntlets for me then . I guess this means I'll definitely have to keep up with the living story so I don't miss out next time!

 

[Taffer]

So I am using a power necro build to level these days. I have the Flesh Golem as my mastery skill... he is both stupid and weak. Anyone have any experience with Lich Form ? Is it condusive to a power build in the least ? The description of the skill seems lack-luster.

Also, does the guild collect Sigils/Runes ? I'm looking to unload some that are usless to my necro.

I believe it's a good choice for a power build, it triples your power and doubles vitality/precision so you can smash mobs and was altered in the last update to include boon stripping on enemies/condition removal on allies. I've always stuck with the idiot golem myself just because of the massive cooldown on Lich Form and bonus comedy value from flying enemies (and I'm not a power build, so I'd rather have a knockdown/distraction). Plague Form's also stupidly handy in certain situations but again it's a big cooldown and doesn't send things flying.

 

[Weltall Zero]

GW2 Defence Force Activate !

Some peeps be bad talking GW2.

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=557470&page=2

To be fair, the first few posts mentioning GW2 was in the vein of "of course it went F2P, it's no GW2".
Not that I would disagree (although my only reference of the game is a friend of mine who actually seemed to like it quite a bit), but it's probably not what someone who has had their MMO of choice go F2P wants to hear. In fact, I'd say that GW2 has been less criticised than Rift itself in that thread. I'd even say that some of the criticism is warranted (dungeons right after launch). Let's not get into fanboyish witch-burning mode.

Definitely.

On this point I sort of disagree both with you and Ashodin/jersoc. GW1's limited skill bar allowed for a lot of build creativity by restricting how much you could take with you at all, which prevented skill bloat (8 skills at level 4, 8 skills at level 20). But the skill inflation and overlap that was a problem in WoW was a massive issue in GW too. Lots of skills (maybe a majority of the total number of skills in the game, by the end) were considered impractical or totally useless, while the expansions added the ability, hilarious in retrospect, to take multiple copies of the same highly effective skill on your bar instead.

The combat in GW2 sought to counteract this by still highly limiting your skill bar but allowing you to have more skills on you at any one time. Instead of a hard limitation of 8 skills accessible in combat, you can have 15, 20 or even more- but you're required to take ones based on category weapon skills are linked to one another and need to be taken in conjunction with one another. As Retro notes, this is fantastic for learning and muscle memory (and as you noted, when playing with a gamepad this is just something you must do).

The major benefit of this is that there are very few useless skills, especially weapon skills. A skill that might be weak or completely puzzling in isolation can have high-level synergy with the other skills on your bar or the alternate weapon you're using. I'd love to see more weapon skills added to continue this tradition.

But instead of extra weapon "styles" I would vote in favor of new weapon types, used by a variety of classes, and the ability for the original classes to use existing weapons in new ways (Thief Offhand Sword, Mesmer 2H Shield, spears equippable as land weapons). My reasoning is threefold:

• This would require no new UI system to add to the game, like switching sets within the same weapon would
• Unlike additional skills for the same weapon, it would provide new gameplay AND cosmetic options as classes would have entire new sets of weapons open to them
• The meta for build-reading would remain intact- right now, if I see a Hammer Guardian, I know what skills he has because Hammer Guardians have those skills. Eventually maybe there would be merit to adding uncertainty in this way ("Which kind of Hammer Guardian is it??") but I feel there's enough complexity in that regard for now.

How are you disagreeing with me? That is exactly what I'm advocating in all respects.

It's actually an on-record dev comment, the personal story instances are meant to be tied to the story itself and not your character's individual home space. Why they chose to make it like that I dunno, but housing would almost definitely be separate, if not in the Mists for infinite space.

That's... weird. I'd rather have them use the home instance (hell, even the name fits). I guess the point is moot for now, as I get a feeling we won't be getting housing for a looooong time.

All of this is uncharted territory. They're the only ones who really know how it's going, so I trust their roadmap for the moment whatever it actually is.

That IS the bottom line for sure; they clearly know what they're doing (which is so impressive considering "what they're doing" is entirely new territory), so I trust their judgement. I just hope that if expansions are finally announced and if they increase level cap, people will understand where they're coming from.

 

[Deleted member 10571]

Don't bother.
The people in that thread have no idea what is good let a lone a good game and they are all Bronys.

You're one to talk.

 

[TrounceX]

Eh, this thread already has a reputation for flocking to mmo threads and plugging our agenda.

fwiw this was my naive opinion of gw2 GAF before I became a part of it.

I get it now though. It's for reasons such as that thread that I don't take GAF's opinion very seriously anymore. Most of what people post on the gaming side is pure bullshit and/or hiveminding. This is the 3rd video game community I've been a serious part of, and every time I dig deep into a game, I become more and more frustrated at the general GAF perception of said game, and it's been egregiously bad in the case of GW2.

And specifically to Retro...idk how you respond to those people in such a polite manner all the time. Respect. You're a far better man than I.

Greetings WvW players!

We are aware that there has been a great deal of controversy about the recent changes to arrow carts. One change that is happening in today’s build will be a reduction in the amount of damage arrow carts do to siege weapons. While we believe the damage to players is in line with what we want it to be, we do think that we overshot a bit on the range of the arrow carts once they have been upgraded. We intend to change the arrow cart upgrade line to bring the numbers more in tune with what we intended the whole of siege weapons to be, but we felt that it would be unfair to make that change until we were able to provide all players with a reset of their spent World Ability Points, allowing people to reallocate them however they choose. To that end, we will not be making the adjustment to the range of the upgraded skills until we are able to implement a one-time reset of said points. This will make it so that everyone who upgraded arrow carts can decide if they still wish to put their hard earned points into that spot, or spend them elsewhere after the change. This reset is a special event because we feel it is unfair to make changes to lines once people have put points in them. Hopefully this explains the method behind the madness and we hope you continue to fight the good fight on behalf of your realm!

I approve of this change, and good on Anet for letting us reset or ability points.

This time I'm probably going to throw all my points in siege defense, since upgrading supply is nearly worthless in tier 1 where most supply camps run +5, and the zergs are big enough that supply is never an issue.

In other news I'm coming up on rank 40! I feel like that's decently high, but there's no way to know for sure because for some reason WvW titles are only visible to the other teams...which doesn't make any sense. I want status and bragging rights over my allies, not the other team! I'm just an anonymous nametag in a sea of nametags to them. I hope they change this in the future.

 

[Sophia]

I'd like to see more skill customization than merely having more skills. It seems like every weapon set has four skills I enjoy, and that one skill that's just not fitting my playstyle.

 

[Weltall Zero]

I'd like to see more skill customization than merely having more skills. It seems like every weapon set has four skills I enjoy, and that one skill that's just not fitting my playstyle.

Wha? Whirlwind is awesome, man! Trap someone against the wall and make mincemeat of them, get out of trouble while damaging people, close in while doing damage... what's there not to love?

 

[Jira]

Patch notes.

https://forum-en.guildwars2.com/forum/info/news/Game-Update-Notes-May-14-2013

 

[Sophia]

Wha? Whirlwind is awesome, man! Trap someone against the wall and make mincemeat of them, get out of trouble while damaging people, close in while doing damage... what's there not to love?

I find the amount of times in the open game world in which I have a target trapped against the wall is pretty much never. It wouldn't be so bad if Rush was on CD at the same time as it.

Luckily, I've discovered the greatness that is a hammer.

 

[Reknoc]

I'd like to see more skill customization than merely having more skills. It seems like every weapon set has four skills I enjoy, and that one skill that's just not fitting my playstyle.

You should go Sword + Axe Warrior. Every skill owns.

 

[Sophia]

You should go Sword + Axe Warrior. Every skill owns.

I think I remember that combination from the beta actually. I'll give it a shot once I get on next time. I don't want to use rifle cuz I already got a Thief that's all ranged all day every day.

 

[Kos Luftar]

Patch notes.

https://forum-en.guildwars2.com/forum/info/news/Game-Update-Notes-May-14-2013

Can someone copy paste them on the thread because I cannot access the page through my work internet.

 

[Sophia]

Can someone copy paste them on the thread because I cannot access the page through my work internet.

Sure can do. Wish we had a way to hide this so it wasn't so long tho.

LIVING WORLD
The Secret of Southsun
The refugees from Flame & Frost who were resettled at Southsun Cove are up in arms over the restrictive residency contracts that prevent them from leaving. Tensions are high, and settlers are brawling with Consortium guards. What’s worse, the island’s local wildlife has been agitated and is even more aggressive and territorial than usual.
The Lionguard’s Inspector Kiel has been charged with quelling the violence so it doesn’t interfere with the upcoming Dragon Bash festival in Lion’s Arch. Kiel takes her job seriously, so she’ll need help from players and Researcher Levvi to keep everyone on the island safe from the local wildlife and each other.

Southsun Cove

The Consortium has created a new exotic resort for those looking to get away for a while. Lord Faren and Lady Kasmeer are currently there on vacation.
New settlements have been created for refugees coming in from Lion’s Arch.
Animals on Southsun Cove are becoming increasingly aggressive.
Settlers and tourists have wandered too far from the camps and need assistance getting back to safety.
Researcher Levvi is looking for brave adventurers to help survey the island and recover samples to determine the cause of the native creatures’ increased aggression.
Tensions between settlers and Consortium members have led to confrontation that may require mediation.
The new Crab Toss activity is now available at Sawtooth Bay in Southsun Cove. Players can win karka shells, passiflora, tonics, and more.
Southsun Supply Crates will drop rarely from creatures during the Secret of Southsun event. These crates contain Southsun crafting materials and a chance at a wide variety of items, such as shoulder skins, new boosts and convenience items, and a rare chance at new weapon skins and minis. Southsun Supply Crates can also be purchased from the Black Lion Trading Company (see below for more info).
Blooming Passiflora are now growing on the island.
The larger veteran and champion karka now have a guaranteed drop chance for karka shells upon defeat.
All players who enter the island for the duration of the event are scaled up to level 80. This content is available from May 14 to June 11.

Guild Content

Six Guild Trek locations have been added to Southsun Cove.

Achievements

Added new living world achievements to Southsun Cove: “Consortium Rewards Club Member,” “Southsun Settler Supporter,” “Southsun Sightseer,” “Southsun Volunteer Fieldwork,” “Southsun VIP Meet and Greet,” and more.
Added new achievements for Crab Toss activity: “Crab Toss Participant,” “Crab-Carrying Competitor,” “Crabtacular!,” “Crabgrabber,” and “Crab Toss Champion.”
Players who complete 25 of the Secret of Southsun achievements will earn the “Southsun Stalwart” meta-achievement. This achievement awards players with a Sclerite Karka Shell back item and the title of “Southsun Stalwart.” The Southsun Stalwart meta-achievement covers the entire event’s content, some of which is not accessible until the next release.
A new title, “Crab Toss Champion,” has been added for players who win a game of Crab Toss.
A new title, “Crabgrabber,” has been added for players who steal 100 crabs during games of Crab Toss.

NEW FEATURES AND CONTENT
World vs. World

Obsidian Sanctum, the jumping puzzle in the Eternal Battlegrounds, has been moved to its own WvW map.
Entering the puzzle will take players out of the Eternal Battlegrounds.
Leaving will take players back to Lion’s Arch.
Added a new vendor: “Traps and Tricks Outfitter.”
Traps have been added as a new purchasable consumable utility item. Two unique variants are available.
When placed, traps last for one hour.
Players may only have one of a given trap type deployed at a time.
Traps will disappear when a player leaves the map.
Traps are sold by the vendor for 15 badges and 525 karma; they will stack to 250 and are account-bound.
It takes a 4-second channel to place at feet.
Placing a trap uses very short-range ground targeting to assist in orientation.
Placed traps have a 600×90 rectangular trigger area; only enemies can trigger them.
Once triggered, traps affect up to 20 enemies within a range of 1200.
Traps cost 10 supply to place.
Supply Removal Trap
Removes 5 supply from enemies affected by the trap.
Stealth Disruptor Trap
Removes stealth from enemies and reveals them for 30 seconds, preventing stealth.

BALANCE, BUG-FIXING, POLISH
General

A Commander’s map pings and strokes are now visible to members of their squad.
Fixed several shadowstep bugs that let players teleport through WvW gates and exploit various dungeons.
Fixed a bug that caused some items to lose their functionality after a player has gone into a downed state.

Events

Malchor’s Leap:
Pact cannons near the Shelter Docks are now fully operational.
The Inquest Ornithologist has been upgraded to a champion, as befits her Group Event status.
Metrica Province:
Minor UI changes were made to the Mark II golem event.
Mount Maelstrom:
The Branded ogre in the Infinity Coil complex is now properly imprisoned in his cage.
Sparkfly Fen:
Added a skill to the seaweed-mine bundle.
Timberline Falls:
Fixed a stalling bug in the event “Protect krewe leader Dobbs as the krewe clears the excavation site.”
Wayfarer Foothills:
Dredge soldiers outside Molensk are no longer rooted in place.

Personal Story

“Down the Hatch”:
Fixed a rare stalling bug at the end of the story step.
“The Ghost Rite”:
Fixed the player’s camera position while transformed.

Structured PvP

Reverted a change to PvP dailies that increased their difficulty.
Reworded some custom arena tooltips to be less confusing.

Profession Skills
Warrior

Leg Specialist:
This trait will no longer function with the Burning Oil siege weapon in WvW.
Healing Signet:
Updated skill facts to show the passive effect and accurately display the healing value for the active effect.

Elementalist

Dragon’s Claw:
Fixed an exploit that caused this skill to fire at increased rates.

Engineer

Kit Refinement:
The cooldown icon will now display correctly when this trait is used with Flamethrower.

Elementalist

Shocking Aura:
This skill’s icon on the buff bar now displays the same icon as the skill itself.

Ranger

Fixed a bug that caused the projectile speed of the following axe skills to be 75% of their intended speed:
Ricochet
Splitblade
Winter’s Bite
Path of Scars
Juvenile Rainbow Jellyfish now uses a unique model.

BLACK LION TRADING COMPANY GEM STORE
New Items and Promotions

You can now purchase the Southsun Supply Crate in the Consumable category of the Gem Store for 1 for 150 gems or 10 for 1200 gems. These special crates contain Southsun crafting materials and a chance at items such as shoulder skins, new boosts and convenience items, and a rare chance at new weapon skins and minis. The Southsun Supply Crates will only be available until June 10. The Southsun Supply Crates will also be a limited-time rare drop off the creatures on the island during this time.
The Consortium Swim Speed Boost is now available in the Boost category of the Gem Store for 1 for 50 gems or 5 for 200 gems. This boost will increase your swim speed by 15% for 1 hour. This boost is not useable in PvP.
To celebrate spring, the Gem Store is making one miniature baby animal available each week for the month of May. This week’s adorable addition is the Mini Moa Chick, which is now available in the Minis category of the Gem Store for 400 gems each.
How to Dance, Volume 1 is now available in the Services category of the Gem Store for 400 gems. This book can be used to gain access to three different dance moves and a skill that will allow you to invite others to participate in your dance party.

Optimizations

We’re rolling out our first set of optimizations. This is the first in many steps involved in helping resolve issues with “skill lag.” Some players will experience a slight improvement in skill lag issues with large groups of players, while some players may also experience a slight raise in their FPS.

Profession Skills
Engineer

Fixed a bug which disabled certain traits from functioning correctly. This includes Rifled Turret Barrels, Metal Plating, and Autotool Installation.

World vs. World

Arrow Cart:
Fixed a bug in the upgraded arrow cart range that caused arrow carts to outrange the siege weapons meant to counter them. The upgraded arrow cart range has been reduced from 3500 to 2800 to match the approximate range upgrade percentage that other siege weapons have received.

 

[Hawkian]

Aw damn. No Fused Gauntlets for me then . I guess this means I'll definitely have to keep up with the living story so I don't miss out next time!

Awww man, I didn't realize you needed that quest for the gauntlets. Bummer!

How are you disagreeing with me? That is exactly what I'm advocating in all respects.

I thought you were just arguing against adding more weapon skills at all, you said "we have more than plenty for now," but I guess you meant per weapon.

fwiw this was my naive opinion of gw2 GAF before I became a part of it.

I get it now though. It's for reasons such as that thread that I don't take GAF's opinion very seriously anymore. Most of what people post on the gaming side is pure bullshit and/or hiveminding. This is the 3rd video game community I've been a serious part of, and every time I dig deep into a game, I become more and more frustrated at the general GAF perception of said game, and it's been egregiously bad in the case of GW2.

To be fair, or realistic, I don't think it's quite hiveminding even it appears to be... it's just that the overwhelming number of posters on the gaming side is so stark as to make any given thread kind of a crapshoot. You never know when you'll get a sugarcoated series of opinions or a bunch of consecutive negative posts about a game, whatever it is. There was a thread that tangented off to talking about Portal 2 for a page or two and there were a bunch of negative posts about it in a row and it really got to me. But it's not "GAF" that's saying these things, it's just the cross-section of GAF posters you happen to have sliced by peeking into a certain thread at a certain time.

I approve of this change, and good on Anet for letting us reset or ability points.

This time I'm probably going to throw all my points in siege defense, since upgrading supply is nearly worthless in tier 1 where most supply camps run +5, and the zergs are big enough that supply is never an issue.

In other news I'm coming up on rank 40! I feel like that's decently high, but there's no way to know for sure because for some reason WvW titles are only visible to the other teams...which doesn't make any sense. I want status and bragging rights over my allies, not the other team! I'm just an anonymous nametag in a sea of nametags to them. I hope they change this in the future.

Definitely high! Nice work. I really don't know how to spend my points yet honestly. Nice to know that a free respec is coming though either way.

Patch notes.

https://forum-en.guildwars2.com/forum/info/news/Game-Update-Notes-May-14-2013

Yay! Patch notes!

edit: Can't wait to check out Southsun. The new WvW stealth trap is damn brutal for my kin, holy hell. O.O

Structured PvP
Reverted a change to PvP dailies that increased their difficulty.

Kinda nice.

Nice bunch of fixes. Engis got some of their traits fixed yay. Maybe axe ranger is worth checking out again too. Wonder how the optimizations will affect any of us.\

They really missed out on the chance to use "Crab Battle!" for one of the Crab Toss achieves.

Very curious if there's any stealthy changes. Time to try Megadestroyer once again...

 

[Jira]

All players who enter the island for the duration of the event are scaled up to level 80. This content is available from May 14 to June 11.

The Southsun Stalwart meta-achievement covers the entire event’s content, some of which is not accessible until the next release.

This confirms my one month per arc hunch and also points out there will be two updates a month.

Oh and patch is out!

 

[Noisy Ninj4]

You should go Sword + Axe Warrior. Every skill owns.

Axe+Mace is best. I like sword/warhorn for moving around quickly.

 

[Kos Luftar]

I guess there will be less balancing changes in these updates since they are bi-weekly.

Looks like lots of events in Southsun.

Let's do a Guild "event" completion through Southsun tonight.

 

[Hawkian]

One thing they really absolutely nailed is the upscaling during the active story content. This is ordinarily a level 80 zone locking out people at level 50, let alone level 5. But for the event, everyone can participate and there's not even a barrier for newbies to enter the zone like there would be in Orr. Can't even express how good an idea this is.

 

[Sophia]

One thing they really absolutely nailed is the upscaling during the active story content. This is ordinarily a level 80 zone locking out people at level 50, let alone level 5. But for the event, everyone can participate and there's not even a barrier for newbies to enter the zone like there would be in Orr. Can't even express how good an idea this is.

I was just saying this exact thing to Retro over steam. Instead of being able to run no characters through the event, I can run all five of mine.

 

[Kos Luftar]

Commander Kvothe (Dhomei Ventus, Nomine Ventus) aka my brother posted something about WvW on GAFGuild forum (http://gafguild.com/index.php?threads/sbi-wvw-gaffers.291/#post-6395) and asked me to post it here so more people can see it.

Let him know if you are interested in his idea for forming a small WvW group that creates a build to compliment each other in hopes of coming up with a build that's able to do more as a small group than a huge Zerg.

 

[Weltall Zero]

I thought you were just arguing against adding more weapon skills at all, you said "we have more than plenty for now," but I guess you meant per weapon.

Yep yep, that was in reply to Jersoc's suggestion that each weapon had three entire skill bars. Multiplying the amount of skills by three seems a bit crazy for me, and there's only so many sword skills you can give a warrior without falling into repetition, to say nothing of the more exotic weapon/class combinations.

I'm all for new weapons, and all for old classes being able to use old weapons they couldn't before. In fact, as I mentioned in my "want for new expansion" list, I'd be downright disappointed if we don't get those in the future, in an expansion or otherwise! Retro and I had a quite geeky back and forth chain of emails discussing what weapons we wanted to see and even, ahem, what skills per class would be cool. Best part? This was before GW2's release.

Spoiler

Spoiler: gloves/claws, whips, and on-land polearms were among the weapons we both thought had potential.

To be fair, or realistic, I don't think it's quite hiveminding even it appears to be... it's just that the overwhelming number of posters on the gaming side is so stark as to make any given thread kind of a crapshoot. You never know when you'll get a sugarcoated series of opinions or a bunch of consecutive negative posts about a game, whatever it is. There was a thread that tangented off to talking about Portal 2 for a page or two and there were a bunch of negative posts about it in a row and it really got to me. But it's not "GAF" that's saying these things, it's just the cross-section of GAF posters you happen to have sliced by peeking into a certain thread at a certain time.

To add to that, it's usually the people that have a very high or very low opinion of a game that post it, and further, they're much more prone to posting it if they read like-minded opinions. Many people loving a game simply won't bother posting their opinion in a pool of haters, as they know nothing is to be accomplished other than to be criticised by all of them; same for the opposite. Therefore, it's 50/50 that you'll see either a game being curbstomped, or praised to all hell; hyperbole is the rule more than the exception.

GW2 finds itself in a particularly precarious position; it's definitely not for everyone, but for those of us that clicks, it REALLY clicks. This further divides and polarizes opinions, with each camp unable to even comprehend the other's point of view, feeding back into further separation and antagonising. Many of us simply cannot talk of GW2 with people that are accustomed and love traditional MMOs anymore; it's simply not possible to discuss MMOs when you consider all non-GW2 MMos to be the equivalent of manure (and yes, it has lead to even real-life arguments for me). Every time I check a new MMO's thread I can't help thinking "why would anyone bother with this in a world where GW2 exists!?". The answer, of course, is that for many people, GW2 is not what GW2 is for me.

Nice bunch of fixes. Engis got some of their traits fixed yay. Maybe axe ranger is worth checking out again too. Wonder how the optimizations will affect any of us.

Nice catch on the Ranger axe thing, I completely overlooked it, and indeed, axes felt slow as all hell and that's one of the big reasons I stayed away from them as a ranged option (it's not like Rangers are starving for them anyway). Definitely will check them out now.

One thing they really absolutely nailed is the upscaling during the active story content. This is ordinarily a level 80 zone locking out people at level 50, let alone level 5. But for the event, everyone can participate and there's not even a barrier for newbies to enter the zone like there would be in Orr. Can't even express how good an idea this is.

They actually already did that when they introduced the zone itself, which was indeed an awesome idea (I think I wasn't even 80 by then!).

Commander Kvothe (Dhomei Ventus, Nomine Ventus) aka my brother

Kvothe/Ventus is your brother? I had no clue, that's cool!

 

[jersoc]

woo, patch before work again!

edith god damnit, the weapon skins are RNG. fucking really

 

[nataku]

woo, patch before work again!

edith god damnit, the weapon skins are RNG. fucking really

The weapons are ugly, creepy things anyway. One of the few times I'm not actually interested in the new skins.

But still, RNG is stupid. I'm sure it makes ANet a ton of money, though.

 

[oktarb]

ya gotta say, weapons skins do nothing for me. Send that artists back to the drawing board.

 

[jersoc]

I think the hammer looks neat and I wanted a new hammer skin for a while.

I might try my luck because it's been pretty good for chests.