Celeste and Allona test a new audio set up, catch up on the last two April Feature Pack MEGASERVER TECHNOLOGYâ„¢ posts, and discuss all sorts of GW2 schtuff.

Audio Version

What We Did This Week

 

Allona

• 
  
• Got my necro to 80 and began the upgrading process.
  
• Did my half-monthly (fortnightly?).
  
• Helped usher a new player/guildie around the world.
  

Celeste

• 
  
• Some crap, I don’t know, do I want to lie? I played ESO and had sick kids.
  

 

Report from Vigil Keep

 

The Megaserver System: World Bosses and Events

https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/the-megaserver-system-world-bosses-and-events/

• 
  
• “Currently, all of these bosses have unique timers that differ from world to world. When we released the API to track world events, it was almost immediately put to use in creating a way for people on different worlds to track the status of meta-events and world bosses. …In our new megaserver system, this use of the API won’t really make sense. To address this, we’ve developed a new schedule for boss events so each … occurs at the same times every day and on every world, allowing you to know when a boss event will happen and where you need to be.â€
  
• There will be a set of rotations to control world event activations based on three classifications of world events:
  
  • 
    
  • Hard-Core, Mega-Organized Events—This classification currently includes Tequatl, the Great Jungle Wurm, and the Karka Queen. Since these events require the greatest amount of organization between players, they all occur within a three-hour window that begins approximately every eight hours. This is weighted towards regional prime times.
    
  • Standard World Events—This set of six world events is comprised of the original world event content that has been available since the launch of Guild Wars 2. One of these events will begin on the hour and half hour in a repeating rotation.
    
  • Low-Level World Events—Because players at lower levels are more restricted in their choice of content, this classification is made of a small rotation of events that occur in the level 1–15 starting zones. One of these four events begins at fifteen minutes and forty-five minutes past the start of every hour.
    
    • 
      
    • Allona: What’s this TBD Boss? I wanna fight them!
      
    • Celeste: I vote that it’s a Giant named The Procrastinator ;)
      
    
    
    
  
  
  
• …Any of these events that did not previously have a failure mechanic or a timer will be getting one. This serves to keep the schedule accurate and ease the technical burden of these large-scale events.
  
• Notably, the Temples of Orr will not be synchronized at this time since they heavily influence the content ecosystem that they exist in.
  

World Bosses

• 
  
• Some of the bosses on the schedule above have had their difficulty scaling, event chains surrounding them, and even some of their abilities updated to help prepare them for their new appearance in the rotation.
  
  • 
    
  • Allona: If I’m reading this right, a lot of the bosses have already been updated? (Aye)
    
  
  
  

Guild World Events

• 
  
• Looking at the schedule, you may already be thinking that these times won’t work out for you and your guild if you want to go after the most difficult hard-core mega bosses, or perhaps you’re wishing for a chance to take on Tequatl more than three times a day. Fortunately for you, we’re introducing a very exciting feature with this change that will allow guilds to activate some of these events at their leisure!
  
• Unlike a standard Guild Mission, a Guild World Event does not award any merits or commendations at this time. It does, however, give your guild a chance to access the content and claim daily event rewards and achievements on your own time.
  

Regarding Cross-Map World State

• 
  
• The megaserver system makes reporting and displaying the state of your destination map accurately quite impossible. With this in mind, we’ve decided to disable reporting of world state across maps entirely.
  
  • 
    
  • Waypoints—All contestable waypoints on any map you’re not currently playing in will always appear contested. When you arrive in the map, you will be able to travel to these waypoints pending their local status.
    
  • Dungeons—You will no longer be able to tell if a dungeon entrance is open until you’re on the same map.
    
  • Temples of Orr—The cross-map mechanics of these temples will be disabled. Instead, god statues will be active only when the nearest temple is contested.
    
    • 
      
    • Allona: So how will you ever be able to waypoint anywhere? You will have to map hop and have a billion loading screens! HULK SMASH! (yup)
      
    
    
    
  
  
  

 

Guilds and The Futureâ„¢

https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/the-megaserver-system-guilds-and-the-future/

• 
  
• “The changes covered in this blog will not be included in the April 15 release and will likely come online by December 2014. This information is purely to help you understand where we’re going once the system is fully online.â€
  
• “With the new megaserver system, you’ll find it infinitely easier to play with all of your guildmates—and better yet, someday you’ll simply have one guild!â€
  
  • 
    
  • Allona: Yay!
    
  
  
  
• eventually all influence will go to a unified guild “bank†and you won’t be stuck with your influence randomly being stuck on other servers
  
  • 
    
  • Allona: Yay!
    
  
  
  
• “Please note that this will not affect the guild cap of 500, and we will not be able to combine separate guilds.â€
  
• WvW will still remain server based.
  
  • 
    
  • Allona: Duh.
    
  
  
  

 

Prepare your account/characters for the feature pack

http://www.guildmag.com/x-things-feature-pack/

• 
  
• Traits
  
  • 
    
  • Maybe make some characters? So they can be grandfathered into the system
    
  • Characters and Traits Grandfathering https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=k29k0AvnjvM#t=3220 https://twitter.com/DragonSeasonCom/status/451800058015797248
    
    • 
      
    • Thanks to @Rwfrk and @DragonSeasonCom for being awesome and showing us exactly where they said that the previous characters will be unlocking traits as they did before and will be grandfathered in to the system.
      
      • 
        
      • Roy Cronacher: “All current players, that have characters on live, will be grandfathered in. Like a character made before this build will be grandfathered into this system.â€
        
        Karl McLain: “You’ll have the 1-12 traits for every trait line but you will not have the new grandmaster traits.â€
        
        Roy: “So all the new grandmaster traits you’ll still have to unlock that being said though, all the characters in PvP (even new ones) will always have 1-12 of each line unlocked to use.â€
        
      
      
      
    
    
    
  
  
  
• Wardrobe
  
  • 
    
  • Use your glory on skins, since PvP and PvE are getting mashed up you’ll be able to better benefit by getting these skins cheaply.
    
  • Spend the last of the glory on stuff you can use, like BIG bags or Tomes.
    
  
  
  
• Achievement Chests
  
  • 
    
  • Get to a milestone chest so you can get a pvp coffer skin chest and add to your wardrobe.
    
  
  
  
• Transmutation – This section is irrelevant after the twitch stream that we’ll talk about later on in the show.
  
• Dyes
  
  • 
    
  • Use your unidentified dyes to ensure that you’ll get a bunch back?
    
  • “This way, you’ll have a bigger chance on obtaining as many unidentified dyes as you possibly can and have a higher chance on ever completing your collection due to the refund system. Are you already a collector and do you already have a lot of unlocked dyes? You might want to sell your unidentified dyes before the refunding system will add a lot of new ones to the trading post. Contrary to this tip, identified dyes that are currently worth a lot should still be kept due to their rise in pricing after the patch hits.â€
    
    • 
      
    • Allona: I totes did this. Totes.
      
    
    
    
  
  
  
• Miscellaneous
  
  • 
    
  • Farm them champs! Get as much as you can while you can?
    
  • Daily and Monthly achievement caps – 10k and 5k – I’m sure it’ll be quite a while before most players get even close to the cap, so their recommendation to ease up on them seems a bit absurd.
    
    • 
      
    • Allona: I was concerned about this until it was explained to me better.
      
    
    
    
  
  
  
• Closing – Make sure to log in to all of your characters on the 15th! Even if they don’t have WvW experience to get all the armors and weapons logged in to your wardrobe.
  
• Guild Wars 2 Hub adds a guide/suggestion for you to get your monthly done ASAP since it’s a fortnightly thanks to the update. http://www.guildwars2hub.com/guides/basics/monthly-achievement-guide
  
  • 
    
  • Emphasis on Puzzle Jumping with a list and map.
    
  • Also to check back as they’ll be updating it each month with the easiest way to get it done going forward.
    
  
  
  

 

Livestream FAQ with Answers

http://www.twitch.tv/guildwars2/c/4031773

• 
  
• Can get refunded for trait resets from the gem store, but not from BL chests.
  
• Low-level PvP players will have access to the core set of traits but they would need to unlock the new grandmaster traits (but it shouldn’t be too hard).
  
• Only 14 trait points, each pt will give you a minor or major trait (instead of 5 each).
  
• Wardrobe: As long as you have one piece of the armor set it will be available to your wardrobe.
  
• HoM skins and achievement skins will be in the wardrobe and will be free (without transmutation charges).
  
• Weight and racial restrictions still apply (you could unlock a light skin with your heavy but it won’t be able to wear it, etc).
  
• Town clothes as armor: Cook’s outfit will be usable in combat as a “wholeâ€, glasses are usable on all armor weights.
  
• Outfits are all or nothing.
  
• ~8:20 “With the way game trait points is changing and having to be level 30, does this mean that we can only get 50 trait points? Well actually trait points are being condensed from 70 points to 14 points, so we’re actually really streamlining that system. So each time you spend a trait point it’s actually going to give you a minor or a major trait unlock.â€
  
• Town clothes that are not mix and match will be refunded on a case-by-case basis.
  
  • 
    
  • Celeste: I would imagine they might be quite tight fisted about this. They are of course trying to turn a profit but I think they realized that a LOT of people bought these town clothes after they had said, ‘yeah we’ll do refunds’.
    
  
  
  

• 
  
• Still earn transmutation charges from map completion.
  
• PvP players will receive a one-time allotment of transmutation charges based on rank (rank 40 will get 40).
  
  • 
    
  • Allona: Oh man, am I ever gonna cash in!
    
  
  
  
• Duplicate weapons from BL would not be refundable since they are a tradeable commodity.
  
• Any skin that could be applied to any weight class of armor will be unlocked for all weight classes in the wardrobe, even if you’ve already applied one of them.
  
• Last login: does not mean last represented login, will be visible to all ranks of guild membership.
  
• Acct bound gear: If you took an armor and reskinned it to the cultural armor, then to get the original armor (for a diff race) out you will need to reskin it.
  
• Megaserver: Gathering nodes are still randomized in every map instance (the real question should be that if you switch to a diff version of that map will you get to re-gather, like you could with overflows/guesting).
  

 

Ask An Asura

 

The Coward’s Guide to Getting Your WvW Meta (Celeste paraphrased the steps b/c she’s saucy)

http://huntersinsight.wordpress.com/2014/04/09/the-cowards-guide-to-getting-your-wvw-meta/

• 
  
• Celeste: I needed this guide so badly.
  
• Allona: This might be my favourite article ever. Partly for the great tips, but mostly for the incredibly entertaining way it’s written.
  
• Steps 1 and 6: Kill some people (while in a zerg) “Tagging enemy players is the name of this game, so don’t be too proud or or too noble to tag a player who is already downed.â€
  
• Step 2: Spend Them Badges! Hunter’s advice is to buy an exotic for an alt.
  
• Step 3: Them Jumping puzzles, do ‘em.
  
• Step 4: More Jumpin’ OR Portalin’ “My favourite thing to do here is to hang out in Obsidian Sanctum and just wait for a friendly mesmer to start porting people up from the water to near the end of the puzzle.â€
  
• Step 5: Cap them ruins AND “Another bonus is that you can kill sentries along the way, if you’re working on that achievement.â€
  
• Step 7: Edge of the Mists, do them objectives (preferably with a zerg for ease).
  
• Step 8: Guards! Guards! “It’s really easy in EOTM with probably twice the number of roaming guards, champions, and sentries, as anywhere else.â€
  
• Step 9: One last achievement – Towers, taking a keep, sentries, supply camps, or supply generators, there’s a lot to do!
  
• Step 10: Die – “Death is a constant for living beings, and we have to come to terms with that. So I’m sorry but you’re going to have to take StoneMist Castle. It is the easiest way. You only need to take SM 3 times and for some servers that will happen in just one play session.â€
  

 

If you want to be updated on the whole April Feature Pack and our episode just wasn’t enough. I highly recommend checking out Tim Leftwich’s Summary and what it means for the game at large (http://youtu.be/xhpABR78JrY)

 

Tales of Tyria

 

Giveaway from Guild Wars 2 Hub

http://www.guildwars2hub.com/features/editorials/black-lion-weapon-giveaway

• 
  
• First Place will get Three Black Lion Claim Tickets. That means you tell me what you want to get out of the Black Lion Weapon Vendor up to the cost of Three Black Lion Claim Tickets. I get these for you and mail them straight to you!
  
• Second Place will get Thirty gold.
  
• Third Place will get Thirty Unidentified Dyes.
  
• Ends on April 14th!
  

 

“I’m-rich, you-know†Faren-o-tron

https://twitter.com/ProfessorDAW/status/453941614478503936/photo/1

• 
  
• Allona: LOVE!
  

 

Maybe you like Scarlet, Maybe you don’t, but here’s a nifty wallpaper of her before her ultimate demise

https://www.flickr.com/photos/arenanet/sets/72157643597409094/

• 
  
• Allona: I really like the style of this. The high contrast on the figure is great.
  

 

Wishing those that were recently laid off from arenanet good luck and the best of wishes!

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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