Guild Wars 2 Catch All

Lots of players hate Trahearne and how he "hijacks" the starring role. Nightfall got a lot of the same backlash with tons of players hating Kormir. It's never really bothered me.

---

On the WvW front, it seems like a few more guildies are getting into it so I'll try to make more of an effort to get a guild group going this weekend.

Eleima wrote:

I don't get it, what's wrong with the personal story?? (genuinely confused)

I don't see that there's anything wrong with it. The majority of the complaints I see are based around the fact that Trahearne is the "top hero" as it were, and not the player. I think it works just fine as a storytelling mechanism, but a lot of folks seem pretty bothered by not being the Supreme Ultimate Hero of Tyria.

Really what GW2 has done is duplicated Turbine's approach that they used in Lord of the Rings Online. Rather than running around supporting the Fellowship, we are running around playing marriage counselor to the dysfunctional Destiny's Edge group. I suppose one significant difference is that at least LotR had good background novel material to work from, and the GW2 novels are pretty much total crap.

Elycion wrote:
Eleima wrote:

I don't get it, what's wrong with the personal story?? (genuinely confused)

I don't see that there's anything wrong with it. The majority of the complaints I see are based around the fact that Trahearne is the "top hero" as it were, and not the player. I think it works just fine as a storytelling mechanism, but a lot of folks seem pretty bothered by not being the Supreme Ultimate Hero of Tyria.

Really what GW2 has done is duplicated Turbine's approach that they used in Lord of the Rings Online. Rather than running around supporting the Fellowship, we are running around playing marriage counselor to the dysfunctional Destiny's Edge group. I suppose one significant difference is that at least LotR had good background novel material to work from, and the GW2 novels are pretty much total crap. :)

Most of the complaints I've heard were focused pretty much just on the lackluster voice acting Trahearne had. If he was decently voiced I'd imagine people wouldn't mind as much.

Stengah wrote:

Most of the complaints I've heard were focused pretty much just on the lackluster voice acting Trahearne had. If he was decently voiced I'd imagine people wouldn't mind as much.

People are expecting a lot from an ambulatory artichoke.

Thanks for finding me so quickly. When I couldn't find an equivalent to the /who command in WoW I was a bit lost on how to find anyone in game. A few minutes after joining you all had already answered quite a few questions. Thanks again for that.

I guess I'm in the minority as I had no problem with Trahearne. Granted, my first character through the story was a fern...

Elycion wrote:
Stengah wrote:

Most of the complaints I've heard were focused pretty much just on the lackluster voice acting Trahearne had. If he was decently voiced I'd imagine people wouldn't mind as much.

People are expecting a lot from an ambulatory artichoke.

I suppose we shouldn't be surprised when a Sylvari acts wooden.

I don't know what all we've researched as a guild so maybe we've already unlocked all of this, but the guild missions require upgrades unlocked through the tech tree:

Each guild mission type becomes available through an upgrade that is researched in the guild tech tree. The first one is Guild Bounties, which does require Art of War level 5.

As for Trahearne, I liked him my first time through the story. But then I read the complaints about him, and the second time through he really annoyed me. I don't know if those complaints prejudiced me against him or if I just noticed that stuff more, but either way my two problems with were:

1) he often took credit for the things I did, ranging from big stuff like entire missions to little stuff like naming Fort Trinity;

2) despite being completely useless in combat (the Daily Healer daily should be renamed Do a Mission With Trahearne), he was the one who got all of the glory regarding combat, including the extra special sword of awesomeness. A technical resource like a scholar shouldn't be leading troops in combat; he should be hidden in a library back at Lion's Arch.

I read recently that ArenaNet didn't write the personal story -- it was outsourced apparently. Overall, I liked it and I didn't have a problem with the big picture themes and such, but some of the implementation especially with Trahearne went awry.

For the longest time I wondered if there was some spoilerific reason people hated Trahearne- like if at the end he let himself get turned by the Nightmare Court or something. There was not. So when I finished the main story and finally had to look up why so many hated him so much. I guess I could sort of see the point of the complaint that "Hey, my character did all these great things, why does this guy get the credit?" but it never really bothered me while playing the missions.

My main complaint of the the story is that it is all building up to get your lovingly crafted character- with all their wonderful weapons, armor and fully traited builds- to this epic battle to take down a hugely powerful dragon, and then in the end...

Spoiler:

you're just a guy standing on the deck of an airship shooting a cannon.

AFAIK we unlocked the entire guild upgrade tree months ago =)

Javamancer wrote:

2) despite being completely useless in combat (the Daily Healer daily should be renamed Do a Mission With Trahearne), he was the one who got all of the glory regarding combat, including the extra special sword of awesomeness.

If you play the storyline as a Sylvari you actually get to use Caladbolg before Trahearne, at which point you discover that it is "special" only in the Short Bus sense of the phrase. Once you understand that handing Trahearne the sword is actually the same as telling him "Here, take this useless piece of junk and go spin around spamming AoE's where there are no mobs so you'll stay out of trouble" it all makes more sense.

Elycion wrote:
Stengah wrote:

Most of the complaints I've heard were focused pretty much just on the lackluster voice acting Trahearne had. If he was decently voiced I'd imagine people wouldn't mind as much.

People are expecting a lot from an ambulatory artichoke.

Who is a scholar who effortlessly become a top general . . . yeh, video game writing. I know.

As for Trahearne, I liked him my first time through the story. But then I read the complaints about him, and the second time through he really annoyed me. I don't know if those complaints prejudiced me against him or if I just noticed that stuff more, but either way my two problems with were:

1) he often took credit for the things I did, ranging from big stuff like entire missions to little stuff like naming Fort Trinity;

2) despite being completely useless in combat (the Daily Healer daily should be renamed Do a Mission With Trahearne), he was the one who got all of the glory regarding combat, including the extra special sword of awesomeness. A technical resource like a scholar shouldn't be leading troops in combat; he should be hidden in a library back at Lion's Arch.

You never had a boss like this? Who was usless doing actual work and took credit for yours? If not, you are lucky.

GrandmaFunk wrote:

AFAIK we unlocked the entire guild upgrade tree months ago =)

Yes we have.

We're ready to go to research whatever they throw at us. The only quuestion mark that remains is how much influence that will all cost.

It might be a good idea for our GWJers who are also repping smaller/other personal guilds to make an effort to represent GWJ a little more for the foreseeable future. Not sure how much things will cost but every little bit will help.

Tyops wrote:
GrandmaFunk wrote:

AFAIK we unlocked the entire guild upgrade tree months ago =)

Yes we have.

We're ready to go to research whatever they throw at us. The only quuestion mark that remains is how much influence that will all cost.

It might be a good idea for our GWJers who are also repping smaller/other personal guilds to make an effort to represent GWJ a little more for the foreseeable future. Not sure how much things will cost but every little bit will help.

At the moment we're earning influence faster than we spend it. That'd probably change though if we were to start using the buffs on a more-than-weekly basis, or use the WvW ones at all.

Stengah wrote:

At the moment we're earning influence faster than we spend it. That'd probably change though if we were to start using the buffs on a more-than-weekly basis, or use the WvW ones at all.

Yes, but The more influence we have the quicker we can research and fire these guild missions. I foresee our influence pool plummeting in the near future. We'll have a better idea once we can sort out how much that stuff will cost, but I'm sure it'll be good to have as many people as possible representing GWJ.

Tyops wrote:
Stengah wrote:

At the moment we're earning influence faster than we spend it. That'd probably change though if we were to start using the buffs on a more-than-weekly basis, or use the WvW ones at all.

Yes, but The more influence we have the quicker we can research and fire these guild missions. I foresee our influence pool plummeting in the near future. We'll have a better idea once we can sort out how much that stuff will cost, but I'm sure it'll be good to have as many people as possible representing GWJ.

True. It's always good to have people pay tribute to the Octo-gear.

Stengah wrote:

True. It's always good to have people pay tribute to the Octo-gear.

For the Octo-gear!!!!!

Actually, we probably ought to research a few copies of the Asuran Outsourcing contract, just in case a bunch of new guild unlocks are dropped at once, so we can burn through them quicker. It seems now like we have plenty of influence for the foreseeable future... my worry is more on the money side of things.

Speaking of guild influence, I was reading today about how it increases if guild members are partied together doing world events. So, for example, if there's 5 of us doing Claw of Jormag, we each earn a little influence for completing it. But if those 5 form a party and complete it, we will earn more influence for the guild.

Also there is anecdotal evidence that if you're in a party doing world events/exploring you'll get more/better loot.

In other words, if we find ourselves on the same maps, it would be beneficial to group up if possible.

Tenebrous wrote:
As for Trahearne, I liked him my first time through the story. But then I read the complaints about him, and the second time through he really annoyed me. I don't know if those complaints prejudiced me against him or if I just noticed that stuff more, but either way my two problems with were:

1) he often took credit for the things I did, ranging from big stuff like entire missions to little stuff like naming Fort Trinity;

2) despite being completely useless in combat (the Daily Healer daily should be renamed Do a Mission With Trahearne), he was the one who got all of the glory regarding combat, including the extra special sword of awesomeness. A technical resource like a scholar shouldn't be leading troops in combat; he should be hidden in a library back at Lion's Arch.

You never had a boss like this? Who was usless doing actual work and took credit for yours? If not, you are lucky.

I have, sadly, had several bosses like this, and perhaps that's why it annoyed me so much.

merphle wrote:

Actually, we probably ought to research a few copies of the Asuran Outsourcing contract, just in case a bunch of new guild unlocks are dropped at once, so we can burn through them quicker. It seems now like we have plenty of influence for the foreseeable future... my worry is more on the money side of things.

Good idea I'll queue some up over the weekend

So can anyone explain to me how they do the WvWvW matchups? Because, as I understand it, we've had the exact same opponents for 3 weeks now (maybe more?) and had the exact same outcome each time.

The matchups are arranged depending on the servers rating. You can look at the actual numbers on this page : http://mos.millenium.org/matchups#NA (with predictions for the next week).
The ratings fluctuate slowly for the most part, according to how hard servers are winning/losing in relation to each other's ratings.

Tscott wrote:

Speaking of guild influence, I was reading today about how it increases if guild members are partied together doing world events. So, for example, if there's 5 of us doing Claw of Jormag, we each earn a little influence for completing it. But if those 5 form a party and complete it, we will earn more influence for the guild.

Also there is anecdotal evidence that if you're in a party doing world events/exploring you'll get more/better loot.

In other words, if we find ourselves on the same maps, it would be beneficial to group up if possible.

I think the "better loot" anecdote comes from it being easier for the group to do enough damage to a given mob to get credit for the kill than an individual. I haven't noticed better loot (in terms of getting a higher ratio of greens/yellows to blues/whites) when I'm in a group doing a big event (one of the dragons or an Orrian temple), but I have noticed that I get more loot drops (from the minor mobs), which means more chances for higher quality loot. It's really hard to get any loot running around ungrouped in the Orrian temple zerg simply due to how quickly the minor mobs go down.

I had quite a good day ... Finished my personal story (barring Arah story-mode) and 100%ed Malchor's Leap, leading to my first two Exotic drops. I also found that today was a good day to convert gems to gold, thanks to the promotion on bank slots and bag slots. End result, I now have 5 exotics equipped (including some karma armour pieces, greatsword and scepter) and a full set of Order of Whispers armour skins. I really like the OoW set - it feels sleek even on Asura, who tend to look bulky in some of the heavy sets. So, this is Lenu:
IMAGE(https://dl.dropbox.com/u/35663/lenu%20shimmer.jpg)

Grats.

Days like that are pretty fun. Is that order of whispers armor I see?

Yeah, it's the Order of Whispers heavy set. It's actually transmuted onto Berserker gear, though.

I wasn't planning on saving for any kind of Legendary, but I just got a look at The Anomaly - now that's a cool looking focus! 250 skill points, though, for the ingredients

babakotia wrote:

Yeah, it's the Order of Whispers heavy set. It's actually transmuted onto Berserker gear, though.

I wasn't planning on saving for any kind of Legendary, but I just got a look at The Anomaly - now that's a cool looking focus! 250 skill points, though, for the ingredients :(

Not a legendary, but a very good looking focus. GrandmaFunk has one and will gladly show it off if you want to see it in game.

Grats on finishing your story mode babakotia.

Question for the group: So I've put enough time in now that I'm feeling I have the basics down. I'm around level 14 or 15 have played through a couple zones and a piece of 'my story'. My question is: What would have helped if you'd known at that point so you can be more efficient?

Rahmen wrote:

Grats on finishing your story mode babakotia.

Question for the group: So I've put enough time in now that I'm feeling I have the basics down. I'm around level 14 or 15 have played through a couple zones and a piece of 'my story'. My question is: What would have helped if you'd known at that point so you can be more efficient?

Probably that dodging and kiting are really important to survivability. It won't affect you much at your level, but getting the 20% faster skill recharge for whichever weapon you primarily use really makes things more fun.