Guild Wars 2: The One Thread

[Theangryone]

I meant it jokingly because of the lack of monthly sub the money for what people want has to come from somewhere. I don't think the templates are bad either, but I also haven't needed 10 specs per character or whatever to do what I want

[Rogalicus]

New trailer is pretty good.

[Edge-]

Looks good, happy with more masteries being added.

And that reminds me that I haven't checked out the current strikes and should probably do that. I largely enjoyed the last update, hopefully this one will be on a similar quality level. Glad it looks like we're still not bothering with dragon stuff again. Less dragons, more threats from other sources and more looks into the respective races cultures/issues please.

[PACOX]

At least 3 bosses and 2 masteries has me thinking they want to stretch this episode out. Looking for to seeing their new design decisions if the last content release was just a preview. Those were great. Especially for a studio that was cut in half.

Glad it looks like we're still not bothering with dragon stuff again. Less dragons, more threats from other sources and more looks into the respective races cultures/issues please.

I have bad news for you.

[Edge-]

I have bad news for you.

DON'T RUIN THIS FOR ME, LET ME HAVE MY MOMENT!

The last episode was freakin great and I just don't want it to end.

[Rogalicus]

Glad it looks like we're still not bothering with dragon stuff again.

Well, the voice offering protection in the trailer most likely belongs to Jormag, so we are probably bothering with dragon stuff.

[PACOX]

Well, the voice offering protection in the trailer most likely belongs to Jormag, so we are probably bothering with dragon stuff.

Aww you went and ruined it. Though they are treating Jormag the way I wish they did Mordermoth for his entire run, an entity that corrupts the thoughts of its victims.

Jormag also has black widow vibes. Jormag has a distinctively female voice and yet the Sons of Svanir are very misogynistic. Bangar told the lady Charr who was like his Hand (I forget his name) to stay back while him and his men went and got corrupted (or whatever happened to him). Its like Jormag seduces men to do its bidding, we'll see when more is revealed.

[Rogalicus]

Aww you went and ruined it. Though they are treating Jormag the way I wish they did Mordermoth for his entire run, an entity that corrupts the thoughts of its victims.

Jormag also has black widow vibes. Jormag has a distinctively female voice and yet the Sons of Svanir are very misogynistic. Bangar told the lady Charr who was like his Hand (I forget his name) to stay back while him and his men went and got corrupted (or whatever happened to him). Its like Jormag seduces men to do its bidding, we'll see when more is revealed.

Yeah, my thoughts exactly. Maybe sylvari characters got a little bit more flavor out of that storyline (I've yet to replay HoT on one of my salads), but overall he was very unimpressive manipulator.
Your black widow theory is interesting, but they also might hate women just because of what Jora did back in the days.

[Edge-]

Well, the voice offering protection in the trailer most likely belongs to Jormag, so we are probably bothering with dragon stuff.

Sshhhhh, I'm choosing to believe that Jormag will just be manipulating things and not an actual player so that the conflict for this arc isn't specifically dragon related.

Let me dream. Some of the story content I enjoyed most was the stuff that had nothing to do with dragons.

[Edge-]

New episode is live today, anyone had a chance to play it yet?

[PACOX]

The episode didn't come out until late (according to their typical schedule) so I didn't really get to play it when I usually play new eps. The little bit I did get to play was pretty cool - just the opening sequence and the step after.

They vibes from the "prologue' directly care over. I know some people missed it during the prologue but as you progressed the atmosphere got a bit darker, the music a little more ominous. That continues.

Anet is definitely trying to reach into its spooky bag.

Apparently it's short and they could have called this episode 2 to shut up the rabid reddit crowd. The focus seemed to be laying down the foundation for the masteries and strike missions (and perhaps the region) rather than really a deep push for the story. I'm told the actual story is about as long as the one where we killed Joko - really short.

[Svifnymr]

I played it a bit, but don't generally like playing releases on first day due to instabilities that are always present. It is pretty decent so far, except for two common problems:
1) Your character not being paranoid enough or communicating.
2) Assuming you're invested in characters just because they're present even though most people probably don't care.

The zone itself seems decent, but one of the things I liked with the last Charr zone was that it was not choked with mobs. Obviously we need stuff to fight, but it's usually just tedious (rather than exciting) to get into combat every 10'. Wandering a forest that is full to the brim with monsters isn't really needed if you avoid the old "collect 10 boar hooves" quest style.
There also seems to be less and less of "getting two monsters to fight each other" over the years.

[Zmagoslav]

I've been working on my skyscale lately;
that is: i've been logging in daily to buy the 5(out of 250 needed) of every LWs3 resources needed to buy the last collection of items.

I should also log in again one of these days to craft the last piece of ascended armor i still lack; but i simply don't have the drive to do so...

2) Assuming you're invested in characters just because they're present even though most people probably don't care.

I played trough most of the story (i leveled to the max level at release and left till late LW s2, ever since i return for the LW episodes) and most of the time i am just: who the heck are these people; and why do i bother with them?

[Svifnymr]

I've been working on my skyscale lately;
that is: i've been logging in daily to buy the 5(out of 250 needed) of every LWs3 resources needed to buy the last collection of items.

It would have been nice if they'd mentioned it ahead of time, so you could work on the 250 while doing other stuff.
For myself, I was lucky enough to have a team of alts to ride the daily hearts and buy the stuff I needed, along with some of the home-nodes for stuff. So it took 2-3 days to hit the 250's.

I played trough most of the story (i leveled to the max level at release and left till late LW s2, ever since i return for the LW episodes) and most of the time i am just: who the heck are these people; and why do i bother with them?

I think it's probably worse knowing some of the characters when first introduced. When Marjory was introduced with the little cut scene (still have the item) and the bar, as a noirish detective, she seemed cool. (I guess "E" is done?) Same with Kasmeer when she wandered off the boat into Southsun, a much stronger/ more confident character than the whiny hiccuping machine we have now. Braham I never cared about, let alone his "other guild" that we're supposed to care about. Good ole-whosit and whatsername, I remember them like siblings!

- - - Updated - - -

While posting about the character slot in the other thread, it came to me, why don't they just put actual GEMS in sale for Black Friday, rather than the gem store stuff itself. Make some actual cash as folks that otherwise might not buy, toss in a few $, even if just to stockpile.

[PACOX]

l]

While posting about the character slot in the other thread, it came to me, why don't they just put actual GEMS in sale for Black Friday, rather than the gem store stuff itself. Make some actual cash as folks that otherwise might not buy, toss in a few $, even if just to stockpile.

Knowing Anet? Probably because it wasn't initially designed that way and they don't want to risk breaking their mail source of revenue.

[ryanmahaffe]

I went ahead and reinstalled the game just to try the new story and see if I can get into the game for the 40th time since release.

From my understanding the game runs on megaservers correct? I am told that servers don't really matter but in my case that sounds bad because even the new zone seems almost completely dead with at most like 3-5 people actively doing an event and on average maybe one other player. I am on Eredon Terrace but damn it just feels so empty. I know the game is in no way dead so it's just confusing to me.

[Edge-]

Finally played the new episode.

It was shorter than I thought it would be, but overall I liked where it's going...even if it's more dragons. There was a distinct lack of Taimi though, they need to fix that ASAP.

New masteries: Hate the idea of them, reminding me of the nonsense Aegis system from TSW and seems like it'll be more annoying than interesting/fun. Haven't unlocked them all yet, but we'll see how it plays out.

New zone: Not in love with the design, feels a bit too corridored to get from one area to the next and there's not as much fun verticality. Haven't seen too much even variety yet, but the events seem alright for the most part. New strike was confusing, and I'm not sure what exactly the mechanics are, but was fun enough in a pug.

I need to spend more time to finish unlocking masteries and explore some more, but thus far this gets a 6.5/10 from me. A bit above average, but nothing to necessarily write home about. At least we didn't have to wait long for it, but it makes me wonder what kind of release schedule they'll have for the remaining episodes and how big they'll be.

- - - Updated - - -

I went ahead and reinstalled the game just to try the new story and see if I can get into the game for the 40th time since release.

From my understanding the game runs on megaservers correct? I am told that servers don't really matter but in my case that sounds bad because even the new zone seems almost completely dead with at most like 3-5 people actively doing an event and on average maybe one other player. I am on Eredon Terrace but damn it just feels so empty. I know the game is in no way dead so it's just confusing to me.

What time were you on? I was on during primetime and events were pretty busy (mostly the bigger events with better rewards), finding the apple/commanders on the map can help with that as there's often a mob following them. Played a bit on off-hours and it was much slimmer pickings, may be that the instance version you're in was an "overflow" instance that wasn't fully populated yet.

It happens sometimes. It's frustrating when it does because you're sorta screwed out of completing a bunch of events, but that's the downside of a public event based system : /

[PACOX]

I went ahead and reinstalled the game just to try the new story and see if I can get into the game for the 40th time since release.

From my understanding the game runs on megaservers correct? I am told that servers don't really matter but in my case that sounds bad because even the new zone seems almost completely dead with at most like 3-5 people actively doing an event and on average maybe one other player. I am on Eredon Terrace but damn it just feels so empty. I know the game is in no way dead so it's just confusing to me.

If there's only 3-5 people on a map then that instance or the map will close. There's like 5 events going on at a given time (on the newest map). People are probably spread out or afk in the little outpost.

- - - Updated - - -

Supposedly this new episode and map are pretty dynamic. Anet says there are things you'll only see (mostly ambient) once you beat the story.

They said the the episodes are supposed to be shorter with small incremental changes in between each episode (the 'current event' updates they used to do before the layoffs or subtle map changes before a release like during ls2).

I'll just post the full 'Guild Chat summary from reddit:

Hello, I've made some notes for our wiki and decided to share it here with all of you, sorted by topics (some of the topics overlap, though, like Lore and Q&A). The thread by u/buildaworld contained only some answered questions, but this one goes into details about pretty much everything they've said.

Note: I suck a bit at Reddit formatting, so forgive me that.

Lore

Boneskinner was originally called Wendigo

Norn culture, Jhavi - again more important in the future

Braham - he's growing out of his emo phase, but it is not complete yet

Rytlock & Crecia - Asking who is Ryland as a person

What happened offscreen in EP1 - will come into play later

When Jormag speaks through the fraenir, Debra (Jormag) and Fred's (Fraenir) voices are mixed

This season, hidden agendas everywhere: Jormag, Bangar, maybe even Ryland, others that we don't know yet

Jormag's way: "getting what Jormag wants is to persuade you that you should want it too", not by force

Meta event: some of the battles are loops created by the Fraenir, if you repeat them, some characters will be like "Wait, did we do this already...?"

Jormag whispering to keep you "doing your things, staying in this little corner"

When doing some of the events outside your story, the npcs (Marjory, Braham,...) will be replaced by a different group (new tech!) who also experience time loop

Braham fights something that resembles his dad, Jory fights Belinda > messed her pretty big

Marjory + Kas - more this season, they both more matured, changed: they wanna synthesize these changes with the gameplay, not just show it

The unknown whispers confirmed to be Jormag's

"Almorra's" call by Jormag: didn't want the sound make too obvious, added some hints (static, disruptions), "zombie Almorra using the comm, Jormag controlling the hands

Essence manipulation: connected to the spirits, kinda haunting, disturbing

Asura who tells you about it: feels like he went to dark lengths to manipulate the essence, killing creatures and putting their essence into the pillars, you absorb it

When you see the Boneskinner stalking you, and then it disappeares, it disappears only for you. Other players may still see it

Jormag is still struggling a bit with the power to control bodies, that's why the fraenir is moving the way it does

Q&A from players

Frost: they don't want to hinder gameplay but still want the player to feel claustrophobic, anxious, not to completely see where the enemies are coming from,

there is special audio associated with the freezing effect

Will strike mission keep getting more difficult?

Boneskinner is the hardest, it doesn't have wipe mechanics but things will progressively gets harder if you dont coordinate/do mechanics

Will the map keep expanding? Yes, in ep2. Same as Dry Top.

If you complete the map now, you get the complete reward. If you wait for the map to expand, you'll have to do the new things as well

Essence manipulation mastery increase - yes, in ep2. After that, they don't know yet (if this mastery re-appears)

why can't you mount in Darkrime Dvelves? Reducing clutter so that players do not stand over Almorra.

How Svanir got their raptors? Did they purchase PoF?

They didn't purchase it. Jormag's possibly lured, persuaded some mounts so they would want to be ridden by Sons of Svanir. Some of them had mounts before they defected. It looks cool.

Do Jormag minions conserve free will? Tom: "Great question" "what you mean by free will?"

Influence of Jormag: sometimes you don't notice Jormag is influencing your thinking, sometimes you can hear Jormag's voice in your head saying things (reasons why this vary in next ep)

tricky part: you may feel it is your free will, "Absolutely arguable that Jormag is actually acting always in good faith in terms what Jormag wants in the world."

Elder Dragons tend not to care for the mortals (generally speaking), except Aurene, and also not entirely true for Jormag as well

Key question: Who is Jormag and what is Jormag doing.

Will we see more of the Boneskinner later? Yes.
General stuff

Showed Aurene and Joko Funko Pops, coming in January 2020

Episode was shorter - hopefully shorter times between eps, more frequent releases

Fraenir - voiced by Fred Tatasciore

This season: suspence, discovering secrets, full significance of things to appear later

Episode 1 - Setting questions, tone

Some of the golden path storytelling (main story) is in the open world

During open world story, your Braham shows to other players as a raven

More player specific dialogue in the next ep

"we have little tiny prop changes, little tiny dialogue addition, as the weeks roll out. Keep an eye for that." (thanks to u/edpedrero )

Behind the scenes

Chapter 1 - Audio embed got scared by the jumpscare

Boneskinner sound design: Toothbrush's vibration and box lid = "Perfect"

video 1, video 2

Favorite things to work on:

Tom: being a part of the process of creating how the characters are manipulated by Jormag, watching writers coming up how Jormag's influence manifests itself; being in VO sessions with Debra (Jormag), Fred (Fraenir), Courtney (Almorra)

Clayton: ch1 - setting the tone, flow, creepiness progression; the hunger collection + Samantha; Asgeir's Legacy; watching the team work on the map

Joseph: "lame answer but everything"

Jessica: mocap for the trailer

Chelsey: working on the boneskinner's sounds

What you struggled with when creating the episode?
Clayton: Adding horror elements

Tom: not having all tools for storyteling as in linear games

Joseph: boneskinner chitter was map wide at 1st

Making of the trailer: Horizon Zero Dawn, Vikings (main inspiration for Jessica)

1:26:36 - final cinematic (Rubi punning: "It's chilling)

intent: "walking away with maybe Jormag is right?"

Chris: music conveying that Jormag is right: "everything's okay, everything's cool"

Chelsey's cat provided some voice for the cutscene video

Chris's friend's dog provided some teeth clicking video

Easter Egg: there's a hidden message in the Jormag/Fraenir speech: https://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/...sage_that_was/

When Jormag says "I want to help her", Fraenir's voice says "I want her"

https://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/..._full_summary/

Also if you don't do any endgame content for whatever reason I would recommend doing the strike mission on the map (it's a lot better than the one from the prologue).

Its good a look at mechanics you might find in fractals/raids without being overwhelming for people who only play open world stuff. Supposedly the other other two bosses are slightly more challenging (bosses changes every week, should be week 2 as of this post).

[ryanmahaffe]

What time were you on? I was on during primetime and events were pretty busy (mostly the bigger events with better rewards), finding the apple/commanders on the map can help with that as there's often a mob following them. Played a bit on off-hours and it was much slimmer pickings, may be that the instance version you're in was an "overflow" instance that wasn't fully populated yet.

It happens sometimes. It's frustrating when it does because you're sorta screwed out of completing a bunch of events, but that's the downside of a public event based system : /

I have played prime time, early morning, night, mid day, whatever. Usually the same situation though prime time usually does have maybe a dozen people doing an event, but even then it isn't that common.

- - - Updated - - -

If there's only 3-5 people on a map then that instance or the map will close. There's like 5 events going on at a given time (on the newest map). People are probably spread out or afk in the little outpost.

- - - Updated - - -

Supposedly this new episode and map are pretty dynamic. Anet says there are things you'll only see (mostly ambient) once you beat the story.

They said the the episodes are supposed to be shorter with small incremental changes in between each episode (the 'current event' updates they used to do before the layoffs or subtle map changes before a release like during ls2).

I didn't say 3-5 people per map, I said per event, which still feels pretty low even if there are 5 events going at a time.

[PACOX]

]

I didn't say 3-5 people per map, I said per event, which still feels pretty low even if there are 5 events going at a time.

3-5 people is a good number for events outside of the meta events/chains though.

Then you have the ones that are only tied to story progression that most people run past.