Guild Wars Reporter

Guild Wars Reporter


Guild Wars Reporter Episode 99 - Incidental Loregasm

March 14, 2014


Celeste and Allona talk about Scarlet, Zerging, Lore, and musical instruments.


Audio Version:


What We Did This Week

Allona:



  • Got meta for LW
  • Finally found that weiner, Peter.
  • Got a second Bonetti’s Rapier!
  • Up to 107% MF (which may explain the rapier)

Celeste:



  • Slowly working up Tailor to 500
  • Spring break with children… we decorated ukuleles today!

 


Report from Vigil Keep

 


Scarlet’s End and Zerg Mechanics

http://thepaletree.net/2014/03/07/scarlets-end-and-zerg-mechanics/



  • The miasma has been pushed out of Lion’s Arch and to sea by the wind, so now it’s safe (relatively) to enter LA, and it can be accessed at any time now.

    • Celeste: Am I the only one that didn’t know this? I had no freaking clue and had no idea how we had managed to deal with the miasma.
    • Allona: I guess I just thought we had an effect during last patch, but this makes sense too.  :)


  • People quickly decided to zerg the LA events. These events are not made to be zerged, as the update late last night shows. Throwing 150 bodies at a Knight just causes it to scale up ridiculously…
  • Anet added a bug fix that included making it so only 50 people can hold a color attunement at a time during the Knights encounter, making it so on larger populated servers people have to split up instead of just zerging them one at a time. As I don’t like that style of fighting things, I am totally okay with this.
  • People, of course, are complaining about it. “This rules out small servers who only have 50 people on at once because splitting won’t work and they have to zerg it!†If you have small numbers like that, zerg your happy little hearts out. No one’s stopping you. It’s stopping 150 people at once on one Knight.

    • Allona: I also like the fix. I don’t have a real problem with zergs, but I feel like ArenaNet is really trying to break them up (citizen rescues from last patch, the marionette, etc) and trying to incorporate interesting fight mechanics, but a lot of people refuse to play any differently; and then complain that Anet makes zergy content. I can only imagine how frustrating that is.
    • Celeste: 75% of the time I’m on HoD. We’re tiny and I usually see maybe 30 people on the map during the day. This is frustrating. It’s almost begging me to guest to a large server so I’m almost guaranteed to get on an overflow that has a higher population than my main server. I haven’t played since they tuned the knights down by 25% but I anticipate it is easier now.



 


Get Ready for WvW Spring Tournament 2014

https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/get-ready-for-wvw-spring-tournament-2014/



  • Mar 28 – May 30
  • The initial round of the tournament will match the worlds in each league according to their world rating. After that round has ended, worlds will be matched up according to how many points they have in the tournament. This will continue after each round, which means that the matchups are not predetermined but are dependent upon the results of the previous matchups.
  • If you’re looking to change servers anytime before Mar 18 you’ll really want to hurry up and make a decision since the prices will be changed both before and during the tournament. Servers that are in the bottom of their division will be cheaper to transfer to while more highly ranked servers will increase. Before the tournie you could be paying from 0 to 2400 gems and during you could be paying from 1000 to 2400.
  • To prevent world hopping: These restrictions will go into effect on March 28. After that date, anyone who transfers worlds will be able to play only in the Edge of the Mists WvW map for the duration of their current and subsequent matchup. If you transfer worlds on a Tuesday, you won’t be able to enter the Borderlands or Eternal Battleground maps until the Friday of the following week.
  • Rewards: At the end of the tournament, everyone who has completed the meta achievement will be given a chest containing WvW Tournament tickets. You’ll also receive a unique title, and players in the top three worlds of each league will receive a limited-use dolyak trophy finisher.

    • Celeste: I feel like the limited use was done just so they can’t piss people from last season off even more.
    • Allona: So there is no permanent reward other than the last season?


  • To determine the number of tournie tickets you get: If you play on multiple worlds during the tournament, the world you represented the most will be the one with which you are associated.
  • As far as the rewards go there I tend to agree with those that the personal rewards shouldn’t be based solely on the servers performance, but depending on how the achievements are structured and reward players I could see it working out in the end.

    • Allona: I’m not sure how much I will be trying to take part in this. Probably more than last time, we’ll see.




What Will Be Coming in Living World Season Two?

http://www.guildwars2hub.com/features/editorials/what-will-be-coming-living-world-season-two



  • The Second Tree

    • Deep within the Maguuma Jungles lays a possible second Sylvari tree that has plenty of other Sylvari already living near it. We know this from Malyck, a strange Sylvari that wasn’t born of the Pale Tree.

      • Allona: I only know about this from Guildies who have played through the PS involving Malyck. It’s really interesting, but I wonder how many of the player-base know about it.


    • There is strong evidence to suggest we will be heading further into Maguuma that begins with Angel McCoy, Narrative Designer for ArenaNet, said â€I’m going to be trying to do a lot of cool stuff with them (the Sylvari) next year.†in relation to a question posed to her about the second tree during the Anniversary Bash at PAX Prime 2013. She even went on to say that the matter of the second tree was only a thing of the right time…
    • Another great reason to head to this second tree is because of a sore lack of player hub currently. Opening the second tree as a new town and allowing us to flock there to bounce off into the newer content is absolutely a great idea.

      • Allona: Nooooo! Rebuild LA! (Although there is that circular area in the fogged out area west of Brisban)
      • Celeste: That’s actually the Dry Top “There are no allies, no bosses, nor much of interest in Dry Top; with the exception of what appears to be hillside settlements, as well as a large tree stump in the central clearing. Though most of the land is dry and barren, the sides and bottom of the ravine just west of the center of the map is covered in vegetation as seen in most of the Maguuma Jungle.†*DEEP BREATH* OMG IT WAS ANOTHER TREE. Did the magic vitality from there run out after the dragons were contained the last time? Is the price Sylvari pay when they put the dragons to sleep death? Assuming of course the sylvari were actually created to “destroy†dragons. Do the sylvari that stick around then become corrupted like the cre I WONDER IF THAT’S WHERE MALYCK WAS FROM. Did it regrow after the dragons awoke? Is that where Ronan got the seeds?




  • Krait, Husks, and Nightmare Court

    • The Toxic Alliance proved to be incredibly profitable for the Nightmare Court and the Krait, and it is my suspicion that it is fueled by Mordremoth. Look at the Toxic Krait and their otherworldly glow that they gained out of the Alliance.
    • Beyond this, however, are the enemies we’ve seen at Thaumanova and Crucible of Eternity. The “green zonesâ€, having long been theorized as Mordremoth’s areas, have plant creatures involved. I think we can expect to see a lot more Husks and Fern Hounds as well as new, strange plant creatures.

      • Allona: I want ibogas!


    • We could see the Court discover that the Nightmare is Mordremoth’s influence and they fully devote themselves to its agenda.


  • Mursaat and the White Mantle

    • Deep within the Maguuma Wastes is a place called Bloodstone Fen which has a piece of an item called the Bloodstone.
    • It is highly likely that we will need to gather the shards of the Bloodstone again to help in the fight against the Dragons and when we go to Bloodstone Fen we will undoubtedly find the Mursaat once more.

      • Celeste: When the bloodstone was created it was to contain magic not corrupted by dragons. This uncorrupted magic was then passed along to the humans by Abaddon (yw magic users). The magic and stone was sealed within by the gods and King Doric. What would happen should it be reformed? Could its energies then be corrupted by dragons? Would we see a massive surge in magic-use by all races (i.e. max level increase, new professions or variants, new skills)? WAIT. So if the Sylvari are incorruptible by dragon magic (as they originally were according to past lore) does that mean that they were created by (or helped to)  the Seers?


    • “The Mursaat are dead!†You might be saying to yourself right now. Unfortunately this may not be true as one of the Mursaat, Lazarus the Dire, happened to be one of the only Mursaat to have escaped death during the original Battle for Lion’s Arch in Guild Wars 1. His last words were a vow of vengeance on “countless generationsâ€. It could be from this single Mursaat that we could see the White Mantle rise once more

      • Allona: I doubt the White Mantle will make a resurgence, but that’s a pretty decent case for the return of the Mursaat. And agony resistance is a thing in GW2 so…
      • Celeste: I will drop my daggers and shout “Come at me bro!†if the mursaat return. I want to go to their city. I want them to be EPIC not just a sidestory. I have the feeling that Mursaat have gone the way of the Seers. Seers were at war with the mursaat and ended up having their society whittled away over time. Eventually to fall into insignificance, much like the dwarves have in the current era.






Colin Johanson clears up some Feature Patch confusion on the official forums

https://forum-en.guildwars2.com/forum/game/gw2/Expansion-sized-patch/first#post3748098



  • We’ll go into more detail soon, just to re-iterate so it’s clear:

    “The next round of major features will be bundled together into a large “feature only†release that will come after the first season of the Living World 2014 has finished.â€

    A feature release is not an expansion, it’s a release focused on game features. Examples of game features we’ve done in the past would be: guild missions, account achievement system, spectator mode, new pvp maps, daily world boss chests, removing culling and giving visibility options, the WvW WxP system, etc.

    • Allona: I’ve noticed a bit more communication from Anet in general on things like this. There was another red post mentioning that you will need to spend heirlooms etc. before the 18th. I think these are really good moves. And having them on the official forums is smart; they almost always get out on Twitter or reddit by the community so it’s less work for them.
    • Celeste: I think it’s vitally important for them to start managing expectations in the playerbase. I agree with the posters who theorize that this feature-only patch will not be released until either during or after the spring tournament. I lol’d at:

      • Rouven.7409: Cantha = feature. Nods. Cantha?
      • RainbowSyrup.4130: please please PLEASE bring back the high-res screenshot option that was removed after BWE 2
      • Kaiyanwan.8521: Then most people will think what they get on April 1st must be an April’s Fools Day joke.





 


Ask An Asura

 


What is your biggest GW2 “Oh Crap†moment?

http://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/205phs/what_is_your_biggest_gw2_oh_crap_moment/



  • Allona: Probably the ancient Karka fight when the first roll happened and all but maybe three people out of several hundred survived. Another might be encountering an enemy zerg in WvW for the first time … while roaming alone. And forgot this on the show, but buying two Gift of Blades recipes was definitely an ‘oh crap’ moment.
  • Celeste: Having a panic attack inside MWF dungeon

 


Tales of Tyria

 


Leonard Cohen’s Hallelujah on Harp by The Travelling Bobos

http://youtu.be/iUdxy93Cm9Q



  • Allona: Adorbs! Also the stuffed griffon in the background is hilarious.

 


HAHAHAHAHAHAHA

https://twitter.com/RanzingtonScout/status/442045949712404481/photo/1



  • Allona: Ha! Guardian might be favourite (which is interesting because it’s the one profession I don’t have yet).

 


Share your home instance mining nodes

http://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/204urd/if_you_have_nodes_in_your_home_instance_that/



  • Allona: Need to test this out. Also? There are some pretty funny – and informative – comments in here.
  • deanykg: New Pickup Line Unlocked: “Hey baby, why don’t we head over to my place and mine some Candy Corn? ;)”

 


Scarlet’s gloves and shoulders

https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/scarlets-spaulders-and-grasp-in-the-gem-store



  • “Can be used… on ANY WEIGHT CLASSâ€
  • End of Set 2 Mini Pack

PSA: All of this stuff ends on March 18, so buy whatever you need, beat Scarlet, work towards old Living World stuffs in the Ultimate bag as much as possible until then!

https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/the-final-countdown/


Guild Wars Reporter is turning 100!

https://twitter.com/gwreporter/status/443818044155252736

Blah, blah, blah, next show, blah, prizes, streaming at a special time, etc.



  • Share favorite GW2 and GWR stories with us!
  • Where do you think the story is going?
  • What are some features you’re pining for?

Request for community events of the week/bi-week. Send us an email!


If you’ve got a burning question for our Ask an Asura segment, please let us know!


 


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