GuildCast 32: ArenaNet's Guild Wars 2 Gets Legendary

Written by: Scott Hawkes (@jarimor) | July 22, 2012 11:34 am

140 Comments

It’s so close you can touch it, smell it and generally dribble over it.

The Guild Wars 2 BWE3 hits this weekend, the final dash of content, the last appetizer before we get the full meal of launch — OK now I’m hungry.

ArenaNet released more details about what we can expect this weekend, so not only will Rata Sum and The Grove be inundated with wide eyed players, there are also other fresh reasons to go romping through Tyria. We take a look at where we all might be bumping into each other.

Who are the Skritt? Why are they holed up in the awesomely named Skrittsburgh? We talk lore and more about this ratty but interesting race.

How good was the live streamed TAD Q&A last week? Legendary is the word on most people’s lips. The weapon dubbed “The Terminator Hammer,” the night/day greatswords of epicdom and My Little Longbow were announced. Have ArenaNet struck the right chord or will legendaries be an epic headache?

Orr sounds like the jewel in Guild Wars 2‘s endgame. We look at what it entails and why 80 might just be the level to be.

We answer your viewer questions of course, which uncover the uncomfortable truth that following Yeti hunters can be bad for your sanity.

Also, keep an eye out for that spangly code to give you extra chances at winning the GAMEBREAKER Guild Wars 2 CE competition.

The squares are full, so join GAMEBREAKER’s Gary Gannon, the returning Scott Hawkes, Massively‘s Richie “Bogotter” Procopio and Elisabeth Cardy for this week’s GuildCast!

GuildCast 32: ArenaNet's Guild Wars 2 Gets Legendary

Guild Wars 2

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45:20

World of Warcraft

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1:00:49

MMO News

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WildStar details finally coming out!Read more »

24 comments

http://twitter.com/Mantose Leo P

nice yeti pic , looks like yeti hunting is fun for the whole family.
http://www.facebook.com/mert.matthews.3 Mert Matthews

So you mean Skritt are Geth from mass effect? Motherboard of god(or catalyst)…
Damir Miric

“I know that that person really has no life.” Should be the phrase for people getting legendaries.
- Jay
  
  Or people with vacation time… Or people with dedication… Or people who like GW2 a lot… Or people who worked on it a little at a time over months…
  
  We don’t even know how much work it’s going to take to get legendaries yet, so it’s a bit soon to make that kind of assumption, don’t you think?
dawolv

Is Gary playing to be so uninformed about the game as a tool to get the others in the panels involved or does he really have no clue about this stuff?
The Skritt got a big blog post. I believe they were the first minor race to get one.. (or was that the Kodan?!) aaanyway – we know about them for quite a while now
- http://www.kaiketsu.enjin.com/ Corey “Crimzen”
  
  I’m pretty sure hes mostly asking these questions to keep the show moving. It’s part of being a good show host. He does this for the other shows as well. He’s “driving the bus, so to speak”.
- http://www.facebook.com/people/Tj-Vossos/647768691 Tj Vossos
  
  he is playing he knows his stuff, he just acts like a fool
- http://www.facebook.com/michael.lauria.35 Michael Lauria
  
  Its less that he doesnt know and more making sure that someone new to GW2 learns something. As host he has to think of all his audience veteran fans of Guild Wars and newbies to the game alike. Not everyone reads the blog posts or the wiki.
  - http://twitter.com/elixabethclaire Elisabeth Claire
    
    Mostly this. We want to make sure that anyone tuning in for the first time (and/or extraordinarily new to the GW2 community/fandom) can follow along with what’s being said.
- ScottHawkes
  
  Hey dawolv, if we only asked questions that we didn’t know the answer to we wouldn’t be informing the viewers on very much at all. Gary is taking the position of the viewer and is asking the questions that will a) be informative to those watching, b) promote discussion and c) give us an excuse to say something silly.
  While some of the audience might know those answers, the show is intended to be for Guild Wars fans new and old, so we put them out there.
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1050222889 Matt Wilo Wilson

hey guys i cant see the show after the advertisement the screen is just black anyone else had this and know how to fix it
- http://www.facebook.com/people/John-Alvino/1094406295 John Alvino
  
  Same… been like that for about a week
  - http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1050222889 Matt Wilo Wilson
    
    ive never had a problem with this show ever
- H S
  
  All i know is I went back and reinstalled an old version of flashplayer(March 2012 version) because since then, flashplayer has been borked.
  - http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1050222889 Matt Wilo Wilson
    
    i cant find it on my adobe place can u give me a link
    - H S
      
      they wont let me post a link, so just google flashplayer archives.
- William Eggemeyer
  
  Yeah, I have the same problem. Stupid adobe they fail in so many ways.
  - Old Ben
    
    Yeah, internet video was so much better when it was based on Quicktime, RealPlayer and WMVs, eh? Oh, wait…
    
    Anyway, I always update Flash within 2 days of release and I’ve never had any problems with the videos here, either in Opera or Firefox.
- Karizee
  
  Try updating your Flash
http://twitter.com/Patrikules Patrick Hargan

Legendary Torch – ‘the bic lighter’
dawolv

I think one of the biggest problems with repeating events is that people rolled 5 different characters and levelled them to 10.
In the very ealry areas the spawntimers are much lower anyway. I believe in BWE1 the Broodmother in both Norn and Human Zones spawned every 4minutes or so!
- pandora005
  
  People who complain about repeating events should just level a few chars in WoW … they get something much better and still whine and complain.
  - http://twitter.com/dularr Dularr
    
    The more that I see the same Dynamic Event repeating over and over again in GW2, the more fondly I remember the questlines in WoW. My druid starting in green, verdant plains of Mulgore, home to the noble tauren. Or my cackling, greedy Goblin mage evacuating Kezan because of Deathing’s unprovoked attack.
    
    With that said, I do hope for a greater feeling of persistence in GW2 at launch. Because I focused so much on one character during the BWEs, I kept seeing the same Dynamic Events over and over again. When attempting to return to a zone and visit a POI for XP or gain a skill point, I would run past the same Dynamic Events. While I understand the need to reset Dynamic Events for gameplay reasons, it was starting to feel like I was playing through one big daily quest.
    - Brosaxon
      
      Also a little detail people tend to forget is that ArenaNet said dynamic events were set to repeat at a faster interval for the beta weekend events to make sure players would be more likely to experience them.
      
      This implies that dynamic events will repeat less often once the game launches, we can’t tell by how much but it’s very likely people won’t be running into the same events over and over as it was during the beta.
      
      My guess would be that instead of the same event repeating over and over, there will be different events for the same general area and these events will rotate so that it would take a while for people to run into the same event so often.
      - Old Ben
        
        They’ll probably repeat just as much in the days after launch, because those zones will be full of players and they’ll want something to do. Things will eventually drop to a more realistic pace after players are more spread out across the game world.
    - Old Ben
      
      > the more fondly I remember [...] my cackling,
      > greedy Goblin mage evacuating Kezan
      
      Kezan (and Gilneas) become particularly wonderful when you decide to level your second goblin / worgen (ex., with a different class) and are forced to go through the entire quest chain again. 20 levels of doing _exactly_ the same thing.
      
      At least with pre-Cataclysm races you could ignore your race’s starting area and go level somewhere else. But I guess this is the new designers’ “vision” at work.
      
      > I do hope for a greater feeling of persistence [...] When attempting
      > to return to a zone and visit a POI for XP or gain a skill point,
      > I would run past the same Dynamic Events.
      
      Well, if no one completed those events, then the state of the zone doesn’t change. If you don’t drive the bandits out of the farm (or whatever), they’ll still be there the next time you run past, and you’ll still get the notice about the ongoing event. Isn’t that the definition of “persistence”…?
      
      With some events the “invasion” is just a transition, leading to some other state (ex., bandits attack the water pipes, blow them up, then leave), but in others it’s the state itself, and it won’t change unless players intervene (I suppose the NPC guards might be able to drive out the bandits, eventually, but it probably takes a very long time)..
      - http://twitter.com/dularr Dularr
        
        For sure. I loved leveling my goblin mage through the starting zone. Probably will not level another goblin, unless I level one with friends.
        
        I was pleasantly surprised this weekend, when I started a new undead monk on the MoP beta server. I had a blast leveling my undead monk through the starting zone. Stealing pumpkins from the local farmers, punching and roundhouse kicking the Scarlet Monastery npcs. Even ran the toon to a cap city to train Pet Battles. Bet, you have never seen a Pokemon master who is missing his lower jaw.
        
        I’m still not convinced about the persistence of GW2. While I understand, if you don’t complete a phase in a Dynamic Event it will not progress to the next step. I’ve also heard it will eventually reset. I’ve been playing my Charr Elementalist for the BWEs, so it hasnt helped that the last two BWE ending events also occurred in the Charr starting zone. I’m getting sick and tired of seeing the same Dynamic Events over and over. It starting to give the feeling the game is just one large daily quest.
        
        I really am ready for launch and plan on staying away from the Charr starting area this weekend.
      - Old Ben
        
        > I understand, if you don’t complete a phase in a Dynamic Event it will
        > not progress to the next step. I’ve also heard it will eventually reset.
        
        The concept of “resetting” doesn’t really apply to most zones, because there’s no “default” state. The zones are designed to be in any of N different states, with each transition corresponding to a different event. In some cases, the NPCs will be able to push some of the transitions, but other transitions require player intervention. For example:
        
        State 1: Town is completely controlled by the bad guys.
        
        Transition 1-2 (event): Drive the bad guys out of the town.
        Transition 2-1 (event): Defend the town from the invaders.
        
        State 2: Bad guys are sieging the town.
        
        Transition 2-3 (event): Push the besiegers out of the fields.
        Transition 3-2 (event): Defend the fields from the invaders
        
        State 3: Bad guys are hiding in their cave.
        
        Transition 3-4 (event): Raid the enemy hideout.
        Transition 4-3 (event): Prevent the bad guys from taking back the caves.
        
        State 4: Cave is controlled by the good guys.
        
        With no player intervention, the state of the zone will oscillate between S1 and S2 as the bad guys fight the town guards (transitions T1-2 and T2-1). With player intervention, the zone state can be pushed to S4. If players then ignore the T4-3 transition event, it goes back to S3, and so on (until it falls back to S1 and oscillates between S1, T1-2, S2 and T2-1).
        
        This is just an example of how event-driven state changes work; in some zones instead of a “pendulum” design you can have a circular design (where state S4 connects back to S1) or a more “spidery” design with multiple objectives leading to different states. You can also have a different number of states, of course (2, 3, 5, whatever).
        
        > I’ve been playing my Charr Elementalist for the BWEs, so it hasnt
        > helped that the last two BWE ending events also occurred in the
        > Charr starting zone.
        
        Half the Ashford Plains (charr starting zone) zone was completely changed between BWE1 and BWE2. The south half of the map was completely different and there were tons of new events in BWE2.
        
        > I’m getting sick and tired of seeing the
        > same Dynamic Events over and over.
        
        Then you’re probably spending far too much time in the same place. I can safely say that I never did the same transition more than twice with any of my characters (I did do the same events with multiple characters, but that was mainly because I wanted to try my new skills against enemies I already knew).
    - Karizee
      
      With over 1500 dynamic events in the game, I think you might have been doing it wrong
      - http://twitter.com/dularr Dularr
        
        Ka-Ching!!!! Was waiting for someone to chime in and say you playing the game wrong. LOL Playing alot of WvW really exasperates the situation. I’ll queue up for WvW and while I wait run through some PVE content. If the queue is around an hour (happens during peak game play hours) I’ll get pulled out of the middle of a PVE zone. When I return to finish the zone, I get sick and tired of see the same dynamic events over and over near the Waypoints. Or I go, don’t rez the fallen npc, that just starts the catapult dynamic event again.
- William Eggemeyer
  
  Not everyone, I took my time and enjoyed my mesmer up to the 20′s. This time around I will play a sylvari hunter on this final beta. I’m in no rush to try every profession.
  
  Also remember the devs said the dynamic events frequency was increased for beta testing (these won’t be repeating as often at release) and their chain effects were reduced. Wait for the release before complaining.
http://www.facebook.com/kubshen Kuby Shen

SMOKE DAT POT!~
- http://twitter.com/elixabethclaire Elisabeth Claire
  
  Well, we know there will be other epic bosses. Pretty much every zone we’ve seen so far has had one or two beastly encounters (Shadow Behemoth, Shatterer for the 40-45 zone, Dragon Shaman, Flame Shaman) so those are likely to be there in the higher levels. We just know who the end boss will be.
  - Old Ben
    
    The Flame Shaman had an accident between BWE1 and BWE2 (along with most of that area of the map). He got replaced by the less insanely OP Lava Shaman.
    
    Actually, it wasn’t just that the Flame Shaman was scaling in slightly crazy ways (1-shotting everyone around him when he decided to fire his AoE), it was also that he was making a couple of UI / game mechanic problems very evident:
    
    1. When he put up his shield, he would reflect people’s spells back at them, but if ranged players were using auto-shoot, they had to way to stop firing. This was fixed in BW2 (deselecting the target stops auto-repeat), but in BWE1 and the following “stress test” it was really annoying.
    
    2. Leashing (and respawns). If players stayed inside the cave, groups of enemies would spawn out of thin air right on top of players and kill them almost instantly. If players walked out of the cave (the logical strategy), the shaman would follow them but whenever it decided to run towards a player who was outside his “leash range”, he would reset, run back to the cave, and heal back to 100%.
    
    Regarding #2, IMO a game released in 2012 should not have either of these things. Both mechanics are extremely unrealistic and force players to “fight the interface” instead of fighting the actual enemies. The AI should decide if it wants to chase players or run a way, but not based on some invisible leash (it should be based on how the fight is going). And creatures should never pop out of nowhere in front of players. Either have a “logical” animation that serves as a warning (ex., smoke bomb before a bandit spawns, rumbling ground before a worm spawns, swirling mist before a ghost spawns, etc.), delay the spawn if there’s a player standing on the spawn location, or spawn the creature at a _different_ spawn point (out of sight / range of the players).
    - http://twitter.com/dularr Dularr
      
      The “invisible leash” sometimes I think it’s there to prevent players from trolling other players with a boss. Preventing them from dragging a boss across a zone and having it kill unsuspecting players.
      - Old Ben
        
        As long as those players don’t attack the boss, the boss won’t attack them.
        
        Anyway, kiting big bosses to cities was one of the most fun things in WoW, and part of what made the world feel alive back in vanilla and TBC. Putting them on leashes (and then removing them from the game) in WotLK was one of the first signs that the new designers didn’t understand the concept of a consistent world (or even the concept of “fun”).
  - http://twitter.com/dularr Dularr
    
    Knowing about the epic boss encounters is something I struggle with in GW2.
    I don’t really want to start a check list for each beastly encounter in each zone.
    
    But, I did have to go back and research the dynamic events leading up to the Shadow Behemoth.
    
    Just starting to feel, I have to keep a spreadsheet listing all the beastly encounters and make sure I trigger or participle in each event. For my Sylvari Necro, I feel it might be necessary to research outside the game to make sure I hit the epic encounters in the Sylvari zones.
http://twitter.com/aidshbe hemmer

“Wherever they originated, humans are not native to the world as they were brought there by the Six Gods. The gods themselves only predate humans by a short period of time.”

Taken from the official GW wiki page on humans.
So Scott was in fact right!

Also since Scott will be playing a Sylvari and has shown a remarkable talent for setting himself on fire I have a feeling that the one viewer question is going to get answered in the near future.
- http://twitter.com/dularr Dularr
  
  There does seem a little odd tension between the hosts when they discuss Guild Wars (all) lore.
NicolasG

This BWE will be amazing – since I always wanted to check out the character creation of sylvari and asura, I can’t wait till friday >.<
will be so great ^^ allready got my deluxe key at mmoga, so I can join the headstart too ;3
http://www.facebook.com/people/Thomas-Kozma-Jr/100000683276285 Thomas Kozma Jr.

Anyone know if Polymock is gonna be available at launch given MoP will have Pokemon why not have yugioh in Tyria?
- Drew Duncan
  
  Polymock is confirmed -
  http://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/woq3z/a_bit_more_confirmation_that_polymock_is_indeed_in/
- Jay
  
  I hope so. I was just saying the other day, GW2 should have a mini game like Tetra Master from Final Fantasy 8.
Tommy_NOR

I was so sure about that Gary whould talk alot about that Scott was back in this episode.

Good to have him back!

http://www.netflix.com/gamebreakertv btw!
Tommy_NOR

not sure if anybody has linked the Scott dubstep before but here goes!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ETozYKmJ-E
Bobby K

legendary weps=mini black moa but with more stuff to gather
- Sklys
  
  =mini black moa but with more stuff to gather.<
  I would say that is a bit of an understatement but sounds like a lot of fun and play time:)
Kicknpups

I love this idea of solo (capable) legendary.As a wow player who had to have every single legendary I was skeptic to this but after hearing A-Nets reasoning on why they don’t want any advantage but more of a prestige is a great idea.

I have to say after saving the poor farmers honey from bears about 10 times I didn’t see anything cool happen…Great show guys! I won’t be able to enjoy all 3 days this time for BWE as the new Batman movie comes out Friday…Anyone else find it hott when Liz says Sylvari…..?

Bravo!
Revanhavoc

The Gannonator should be on 5 cups of coffee for every show!
Tris Beumer

shaking your head in a extrodinairy way, when garry is playing dubstep.

it just seems like a very….. Very bad idea.
http://www.facebook.com/people/Brandon-Davis/100000286723150 Brandon Davis

scott, i feel your pain and share your hatred for wow legendaries
it just comes as a guild leader
- http://twitter.com/dularr Dularr
  
  WoW legendaries have always been an interesting dynamic in raid groups. Best to let everyone know the score before the start of the raid.
  
  Still wondering how legendaries will workout in MoP.
  
  While I appreciate what Arenanet is trying to do with solo play legendaries in GW2, they do sound extremely grindy.
Sharuko

“For a game launch were there has been a extensive beta”

Most players wouldn’t consider 2 weekend betas as “extensive”. WoW has an extensive beta, months of beta 24/7 is extensive. There is no way to define 2 weekends as “extensive” no matter how you slice it. I had to watch it twice to make sure I was hearing it right.
- Sukh Bhatti
  
  beta has been ongoing since December =/
- http://pulse.yahoo.com/_QKLPUWK6UHJPU4QR6HVBBAXYZA e k
  
  Go away already.
- bsqminus4ac
  
  Most “betas” aren’t real betas. The GW2 betas were to test the code and hardware. Many betas, in particular long open betas, are simply hype machines that have little to do with actual testing.
- Spammerbam
  
  Sharuko:
  
  Gets refund and rants about GW2.
  
  Watches GuildCast.
  - Old Ben
    
    One-handed.
- Draugmahl
  
  WoW’s beta would be considered extensive…except that historically they fix only a fraction of the bugs and issues found…and the extent of GW2′s beta is not restricted only to the beta weekend events…
- Jay
  
  Let’s be real… You had to watch it twice so you could find something to troll about.
  
  If anything, your trolling habits can be considered “extensive”.
- ScottHawkes
  
  Hey Sharuko, I wasn’t referring to the BWEs in isolation, rather those plus the closed beta. Sorry if I wasn’t minutely explicit enough.
Jay

My biggest hope for BWE3 is that they fixed the disadvantage that melee players have. I’ve always found range to be an easier option in RPGs, so I roll melee 99% of the time. I don’t mind there being an added challenge to melee, as you have to be brave to get in the boss’s face, but getting one shot by a close range AOE because you’re out of stamina to dodge isn’t much fun…

I think melee players should get a “Bravery” buff that reduces damage taken when in close range.
- http://www.facebook.com/liam.is.teh.bestist Liam Gormley
  
  I played a melee guardian a lot through last BWE and found everything in PvP and PvE absolutely fine. It didn’t feel any harder than ranged to me once I got used to the playstyle. Certain situations will sometimes favor a melee or ranged playstyle and that’s meant to happen because it’s more realistic and dynamic. There will be a few scenarios where melee doesn’t work, e.g. bosses in some dungeons will require tactics using ranged weapons to fight them as they do too much damage if you get close. Other times you might be in a fight where you only have a small window of time to do damage so using higher damage melee weapons is the better option. There is a reason that every class has ranged weapons and skills as well as melee capability. You will need to use different styles of play and different weapon sets and skills to get through different content. That’s how the games designed. If you play a purely melee or a purely ranged character that never switches weapon sets you’re going to be nerfing yourself a lot by taking away so much versatility.
  - Jay
    
    Guardians have heavy armor, I built one too, and it was WAY easier than my Thief. Which is part of the problem, I feel Thieves should have double the endurance for dodging since they have lighter armor, and it fits the Thief role. Guardian however, I had absolutely no trouble in melee range with all those buffs (blocking/healing).
    
    I love the weapon switching idea, but I don’t think you should be forced to use a specific weapon, since “play style” seems to be what ANet is going for. They even said in a video how you have to the choice to melee or range any encounter. On my Thief I became fond of my short bow and pistols, but I still prefer my sword/pistol and sword/dagger build. Fortunately my off hand dagger has a fantastic chain cripple throw skill.
    - http://www.facebook.com/liam.is.teh.bestist Liam Gormley
      
      Yeah I played a bit as a thief. It certainly did feel very squishy and is harder to melee with than a warrior or guardian at low levels. But I feel this is largely due to thieves relying on mobility and stealth skills to avoid damage. Skills which I hadn’t unlocked many of yet. So I think you’ll see their melee capabilities amplify significantly once you have more skills available for PvE.
      
      Melee thieves in PvP seemed to do fine if they played right. Get in, do some huge burst damage and get out. Which is easy if they pick the right skills and traits. Same go’s for PvE, you have to stay mobile and use your skills to mitigate damage or move aggro onto someone else if you’re in a group. I imagine solo PvE will always be harder with a melee thief as you can’t shift aggro to other people when you need to. Even if thieves don’t end up balancing out when all of their skills are unlocked and are still weak at melee that’s more a profession specific weakness than a melee weakness and only the thief would need balancing. I’m sure lots of balancing is still to be done anyway, they know it’s not quite right yet. It will be interesting to see what’s changed for this BWE.
      
      And despite what Anet have said about you being able to either melee or range every encounter that’s definitely not the case. Sometimes you will have to use range e.g. WvW you’re defending a keep from people who are trying to break your gate and your teams sitting on top of the wall shooting down at them. There is no option to melee in that scenario unless you want to run outside solo and get owned by 50 people lol. Also the lovers in ascalonian catacombs are (I’m almost certain) impossible to melee, anyone feel free to correct me if i’m wrong, but basically you get close enough to melee them and you drop dead due to their aoe effect around them. So you have to stay out of the aoe range and use range attacks and throw rocks and stuff. There may be some trick so that you can get in melee range without taking so much damage but I didn’t find it anyway xD
      - Jay
        
        Don’t get me wrong, I don’t think Thieves are gimped, especially not in PVP. The skill ceiling is very high, especially when you learn how to time Shadow Stepping skills as an evasion technique. It was very rewarding to quickly vanish and reappear right behind a mob just before they hit me… Takes some seriously precise timing to pull off, and also excellent Initiative planning to keep going. You can probably tell how much I love the Thief profession.
        
        My main point is that when you use range, you’re almost always safer… There’s pretty much no upside to using melee, other than feeling like a bawss’ in general. I just feel there should be more reward for the risk, maybe increased damage from melee weapons… or just lower the risk in general, maybe reduced damage taken when in close range. Otherwise it’s almost like what you said about weapon swapping… You’re gimping yourself for no reason, since dodging and healing takes away time from attacking.
        
        ANet says they’re aware of it, so that gives me hope they’ll at least try to balance it out. In any case, the issue isn’t… “Gamebreaking” =D
      - Old Ben
        
        I actually found my thief to be the most survivable class in PvE, as long as I stuck to pistol MH + dagger OH. I could keep multiple enemies crippled, kite them around, and avoid nearly all their hits. In melee, though, things tended to go from “perfect” to “dead” very suddenly.
        
        IMO GW2 should have more damage-reduction skills on short cooldowns, and possibly less damage-avoidance skills on long cooldowns.
        
        The only real reason to go melee is the increased AoE damage. Against single targets, ranged does approximately the same total amount of damage (because you can start hitting sooner and keep hitting while you kite) with much lower risk.
      - Jay
        
        Exactly, that off hand dagger is a beast for kiting. I’ve found off hand pistol to be effective at close range if you make good use of the smoke screen shot. So if they just doubled my stamina bar as a Thief or at least gave us double stamina regen… I could stand in there all day. I would still have to time my dodges effectively, but at least I’d have all the tools I need to get it done.
      - Old Ben
        
        But then you’d effectively take zero damage in most fights, which also isn’t very realistic or fun.
        
        I think they just need some sort of “partial block” mechanic that reduces damage by a certain percentage during a couple of seconds and has a relatively short cooldown (ex., 10 seconds), instead of things that make you completely immune to damage.
      - http://www.facebook.com/liam.is.teh.bestist Liam Gormley
        
        I didn’t play my thief much so didn’t get to experiment with many of the different skills and weapon sets. So I’m no expert on the profession, but yeah I wouldn’t say they were underpowered either. They just seem to handle ranged combat a lot better than melee, which I think needs balancing in a class that should be able to do both equally well. If you look at other classes like guardian or warrior or ranger they can all use melee or range really well. And I’d say they’re fairly well balanced as you can do way more damage, especially burst damage, with the melee weapons in each of those professions than range weapons. So it’s a pretty good trade off.
        
        The thief just doesn’t seem to have enough survivabilty to melee, so yeah maybe a short cool down blocking move would be a good idea.
        I suppose the developers who made thieves would argue that melee thieves should fight in bursts. So you initiate the fight with a backstab, spam your initiative, use a cripple or something and then kite away while your initiative recharges etc. so you could argue that they don’t need survivabilty skills so much due to the style of fighting they’re supposed to use. But I’m not sure how well that works out in practice as apposed to just using range.
http://twitter.com/tommykeaton tommy keaton

Damn you Gary now i gotta go listen to that song….. stupid karate kid soundtrack..
- http://twitter.com/RichieProcopio Richie Procopio
  
  “You’re the best….AROUND!”
CCLemon77

Gary, it’s SASHIMI, not SUSHIMI
Brandon Lemus

While you guys were talking about Orr and Arah someone mentioned that they wondered if the final dungeon would be always open or if it would be closed unless large groups of players managed to open it up. I can’t remember the source but I believe I heard in an interview somewhere that the door to the dungeon would be open always but that if the players didn’t have control of the god temples and hadn’t completed any of the events to clear the way that it would be extremely difficult if not impossible to access the door to even get in to the dungeon.
- http://twitter.com/elixabethclaire Elisabeth Claire
  
  I believe that’s basically what we meant, maybe. Even if the dungeon’s open, if you can’t get to it, it is effectively closed. So it might be something that requires a large-scale effort to be made accessible.
  - Old Ben
    
    Well, there’s still a difference; if it’s open and just “extremely difficult to get to”, you could technically go for a corpse run. If it’s actually closed, then you’ll have to take control of the temples first.
http://www.facebook.com/obrienweb Chris O’Brien

Please stop saying “Dub v Dub”. Its not a dubstep fighting area. Saying “World v World” is not any different in speed, sounds much better, and is more accurate.
- http://www.facebook.com/liam.is.teh.bestist Liam Gormley
  
  I like Dub v Dub. Stands for WvW, (Double-yew v Double-yew) so it makes perfect sense. It also sounds more fun and it is a bit faster and more comfortable to say than world v world for me due to the way I enunciate. Each to his own, you can say world v world, Garry can say Dub v Dub, you know exactly what he means so why do you care?
- ScottHawkes
  
  We’re having a bit of fun with it Chris, due to Gary’s love of all things Dubstep. It’s not an attempt at an official rebranding.
  - http://www.facebook.com/liam.is.teh.bestist Liam Gormley
    
    OFFICIAL REBRANDING of GW2 Nomenclature! (ArenaNet Endorsed)
    
    ‘World v World’ officially renamed to ‘Dub v Dub’
    ‘The Mists’ now = ‘The Steps’
    ‘Blue team’, ‘Red team’, and ‘Green team’ have been changed to ‘Team Skrillex’, ‘Team Bassnectar’ and ‘Team Skream’.
    ‘Eternal Battlegrounds’ are now the ‘Eternal Raves’
    And ‘Stonemist Castle’ Has become ‘Dubstep Club’
    Signed – Mike O’Brien, co-founder and current president of ArenaNet (WOBWOBWOB BZZZZZZZT).
    
    Trololololol, sorry Scott… couldn’t resist >.>
bsqminus4ac

Man I just about spewed all the milk I was drinking out of my nose (sorry for the visual) I was laughing so hard about the Yeti quest being so awesome and then …. no Yeti.
- http://twitter.com/RichieProcopio Richie Procopio
  
  You ever have that sinking feeling when you’re talking and you realize that the ending of your story is going to suck? I had that with a live internet audience. Turned out to be a great moment though. LOL.
  - http://twitter.com/elixabethclaire Elisabeth Claire
    
    Just because there was no Yeti doesn’t mean the quest wasn’t awesome.
    - Old Ben
      
      What do you mean, “no Yeti” ? The way I see it, that quest was about an _invisible_ Yeti, which is several levels of cool above an ordinary Yeti.
      
      Or maybe several levels below; I’m not sure how levels of cool work once you go into negative temperatures.
  - http://twitter.com/dularr Dularr
    
    I was envisioning a scene from the movie Westworld, technician in the control room saying, “Queue yeti. Where is the damn yeti? What do you mean he was pulled for repairs!”
bsqminus4ac

I’m wondering about the little “discussion/cut scenes” (For lack of a better term.). So far all of them that I’ve seen have a little sign in the upper right corner saying “under construction”. What’s the deal with that? Are the cut scenes going to look quite different?

A couple of possibilities are as follows:
1. The cut scenes were just a place holder for something else. (I doubt it)
2. The cut scenes will be the same as before (unless they had to make a slight change in the dialogue). The signs were simply a reminder that the content wasn’t finalized yet and things might change slightly.
- http://twitter.com/elixabethclaire Elisabeth Claire
  
  The cutscenes will not be drastically different. The WIP sign is a catch-all for any weird quirks that come up, like mis-rigged characters or a lack of animation.
- Old Ben
  
  Unfortunately, the sign is there just because some parts are missing animation, have the wrong background, or the next doesn’t match the speech.
  
  I say unfortunately because I think the decision to have your character visible in the conversations is kind of immersion-breaking. The NPCs should simply look at “the camera” when talking to you, and in conversations between you and 2 NPCs, there wouldn’t be that awkward moment when one of the NPCs disappears and the other appears; they would both just stay visible all the time and would simply look at the other NPC or at the camera (i.e., at the player) depending on who they were talking to.
  
  The artistic style is nice, but that awkward side-by-side pose and weird gaze direction just don’t work very well, IMO.
  - dawolv
    
    ^ What he said
Draugmahl

After the Skritt conversation, you have debunked the idea that Buildcast is actually going to be nerdier than this show =P
- http://twitter.com/elixabethclaire Elisabeth Claire
  
  Spreadsheets don’t make something nerdier, just more mathematical.
  - Draugmahl
    
    Totally agreed…that whole exchange was wicked nerdy lol…
  - bsqminus4ac
    
    A spreadsheet doesn’t make something more mathematical it just makes it easier.
    
    I proudly wear the title “Nerd” like an N.F.L. player wears a Super Bowl ring. If being a nerd means I like to make my decisions intelligently based on data then “guilty as charged”.
    - Old Ben
      
      > A spreadsheet doesn’t make something
      > more mathematical it just makes it easier.
      
      Which is a way means the same thing (although some people seem to think it means the opposite – presumably because they overlook the goal of “getting the _right_ answer at the end”).
      
      P.S. – Yes, I understand that anything you can do in a spreadsheet you can also do without a spreadsheet, and that’s what you meant; my point is just that converting a problem into a series of mathematical operations _also_ makes it easier to tackle.
  - Old Ben
    
    I think “more mathematical” would probably fall into most people’s definition of “nerdier”. Mathematics is generally not seen as a very cool or social activity.
  - http://www.facebook.com/liam.is.teh.bestist Liam Gormley
    
    Nope, definitely nerdy
http://www.facebook.com/liam.is.teh.bestist Liam Gormley

Jazz hands, yeti lies and sashimi ftw
Sheppe Pharis

Friday can’t get here fast enough!
Old Ben

I don’t see any problem with a zone having a narrower range of creature levels.

You can easily level to 17 (or higher) in the 1-15 zones, and you can (slightly less easily, but still without great difficulty) fight level 17 enemies at level 15. The numbers on the map are just a broad “hint” about the level of creatures you’ll find in those zones; there is still a lot of variation within each zone, and some level N creatures can be harder than level N-1 creatures of a different kind. Players are supposed to explore the game world naturally, not keep looking at the map and following the numbers exactly.
- dawolv
  
  in BWE 1 a friend took me to the Snowden Drifts, I was Level 17 and by the end I was 22.
  In about 2 hours. Yes it was hard as balls, but that’s what I like about the game.
  I’m actually hoping at some point they do it like in GW1 and maybe let you “adjust” your base level manually to be even lower than the sidekick, granting you more XP and better drops but with a harder effort.
Old Ben

“I missed you.”
“I missed you too.”
“I missed you more.”

Who will Scott marry? Elixabeth or Gary? Don’t miss the next episode of Guildcast!

(spoiler: it turns out he’s already married – to his guardian)
- http://twitter.com/elixabethclaire Elisabeth Claire
  
  Scott + Gary (Scary) is my OTP.
  - Jay
    
    I only have one thing to say… Jazz hands.
    - http://twitter.com/dularr Dularr
      
      I was raiding at the time of the show and one thing that caught me from the corner of my eye was – Is Elisabeth doing jazz hands?
- http://www.facebook.com/liam.is.teh.bestist Liam Gormley
  
  Definitely Gary. Elixabeth’s way too good for him. But Scott and Garry just make the perfect Skritt couple no?
- http://twitter.com/Jylveas Jylveas
  
  http://www.imdb.com/comic-con/photos/comic-con-2012-cute-crazy-rm115059456 Gary alrdy got his wedding attire .
http://profile.yahoo.com/WUO7JRPFS2K52LUXIY2LLJ4TSU Sean

I was thinking if at some point in the future the Skritt did come together in massive numbers like the Asura fear and possibly became even smarter than the Asura because of it. Would they not be able to invent some kind of always online communication system where all skritt could constantly talk with each other? Which would either make them a viable playable race…or a major threat.

It would be kinda funny if whenever your skritt was in battle he started talking to all the other skritt on the line asking for strategies.It would be something interesting to see.
- Cerulean Shaman
  
  Well, they were wrong about the skritt, they literally become smarter when they are in the presence of more skritt. It has nothing to do with talking fast or anything; a skritt speaking to you alone will be vastly smarter in the middle of a city of skritt than in the random wilds. I’m not sure how…but that is the correct way they work.
P V

sorry this episode is no longer available for the video
- http://gameldar.posterous.com Gameldar
  
  Running Chrome? You’ll need to update to a newer version. I was having this problem for a couple of weeks until it updated a couple of days ago.
  - http://www.facebook.com/adzaell Adam Elliott
    
    I updated google chrome and episode still won’t play… just sits there black screen
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=506728308 Julian F’n Mugnieco

at one point they were giving props to the designers for the ND Greatsword Legendary…where did they find a pic? I’ve looked everywhere and all i can find or old ass datamined pics of a staff and my little longbow.
- http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=506728308 Julian F’n Mugnieco
  
  that being said, idc how long it takes, i WILL have a ranger with a rainbow pony bow and a dyed armour set to match.
  - Cerulean Shaman
    
    There’s no pictures, there was a stream where they only talked three legendary weapons.
- Old Ben
  
  The night sky / day sky effect is probably done through stenciling, so a picture from a model viewer wouldn’t show it. You’d still get to see the overall design of the sword, but unless it was clearly labeled, it would probably look just like any other “fancy” sword.
Sklys

Picture this. The Skiff as a playable race of which Scott would play as a Guardian, who has a great sword of nite and day, which of course is 5 times as tall as he/she is.
For Liz, have fun playing a sylvari but please dont smoke any of them.
SiderFace

Last hit Dragon!

Steal the Roshan buff.
and now… Gank the Guild Lord! YES!!! :P
David Manchester

Skrit use spreadsheets because they have limited working memory therefore Richie Procopio is a Skrit spy…or an alien.
ArcherAvatar

Skrittsburgh Stealers…
stuff, stuff, stuffey-stuff
http://twitter.com/SeedEve AppleSeed2148

Looks like Richie came across a 5150 during his DE (-:
Vidina_SS

:O
disky00

I think the Skritt are probably my favorite race, in both concept and execution, so I’m pretty happy that ArenaNet is expanding on them. Can’t imagine they’d ever be a playable race, though. That frog dude sitting at the fountain in Lion’s Arch, however. I’ve got my fingers crossed for one day playing as one of them. Frog Force GO.
http://profile.yahoo.com/CPCXUABGFWCXJ4SBX6NLLLP7O4 Christian

Is there a way i can download this podcast in audio?
- http://twitter.com/inkogni Alex
  
  think there isnt an audio option, im sure (dont believe me, im drunk) that there was one long time ago
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100000231773413 André Calheiros

the new firefly comes “when it’s ready” xD
http://www.facebook.com/people/Daniel-Boendorf-Lauridsen/100002591976468 Daniel Boendorf Lauridsen

I can only agree with the panel, that you should keep an eye on the world around you and the NPCs in it and not look for hearts and circles (dynamic events) on you map/minimap. I started BWE1 doing the checklist thing, going from heart to heart, doing whatever events I ran by. This got boring really quickly as it’s was too close to normal questing. After that I started to “live” in the world more, following NPCS around and it’s wasn’t long before I experienced exactly what they talk about today.

I saw a dolyak in the distance. Assuming it was an ongoing escort quest, I approached. I followed them a bit but then noticed, that there was no event circle on the minimap. Just then, the caravan stopped and started talking to what I first thought was a tree. I ran up close to them (was running in front of them before) and noticed a big centaur hidden in the shadows. Still, no event had begun… The conversation went on, at ended with is being attacked by spectral animals (summons from the centaur). This wassort of a mini-event. It ended quickly and the NPCs was very upset with this and stormed off towards the nearby outpost. I followed, kind of confused, and caught of with them taling to the captain of the outpost. Here, only through conversation, I learnedt that it was a known centauar lord of some sort, and not the first time he had attacked caravans. The captain reluctantly agreed confront the centaur. I followed the captain (mind you, the mini-event had ended, and a new one had not been “announced” yet). This led me to a cave, where the centaur met me and the captain. First NOW the event started and we fought a great battle against this mini-boss. It was an eye-opening experience, and saved the BWE for me.

tl;dr. An unexpected event unfolded through interaction with NPCs
- Jay
  
  Cool story bro… And I’m not being sarcastic
SiderFace

I really should submit questions/video questions to you guys…

I always assume that my questions are not good enough, but after seeing these questions, I feel semi-genius.
Do people actually think about inquisitive ideas that will inspire conversation? I feel like if there were alot of great questions being submitted, that the smoking guy wouldn’t have made the cut -_-

Dude! He’s stoned! COOL!!! Stoned guys have silly questions… BUH-huh-huh-huh. hilarious!

you guys make the best of it. Thanks for that.
DoctorOverlord

Now I will be thinking of sylvari as cabbage domes I really like the concept of exploring for vistas. I find exploration a fun activity and these are a nice bonus.   Plus you can be sure you’re climbing up something crafted rather than not knowing if you’re just finding a glitch. (And dubstep worked for the first 2 seconds, but that’s it.)

Scott put it well regarding how prestige in an MMO comes from knowing the effort one put into getting it and Richie also had a good point about how incentive is different between people but prestige is usually an important part.   I’m glad Elisabeth pointed out how gear worked in GW1 and Gary pointing out how it’s been successful done in other games really rounded out the whole discussion.

The real question is why the heck are there still MMOs out there being made with the gear treadmill?   Oh that’s right, designer incompetence which has been a tradition in MMOs since the genre’s beginning.

Poor Colin. ArenaNet has been constantly saying the content is persistent, not permanent. What kind of idiots think that any company will spend years of developing millions of dollars of content that can only be used once?   /Sigh.

Finally they should change that crzy lady Dynamic Event so in very, very rare cases, you find the yeti. No one will believe those who do and any screenshots of the yeti should come out as blurred images
- http://profile.yahoo.com/ITHF7XKYGVXFAPCDMDJTKHLBBU Lian Wan
  
  That sounds like something that can happen in the Asura zones.
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100000332521235 Daniel Smith

lol, a Scrit Race? What if you went up against the tutorial boss with no-body else in the zone, you got a De-buff that weakens you and makes you run around the map. You could call it:

“Scared Scritliss”.
http://www.facebook.com/people/Nicholas-Wade-Flora/1751689478 Nicholas Wade Flora

Why is Catashitism playing in the background?
- Spammerbam
  
  It’s random for every game, most of the time not relating to the topic.
http://twitter.com/crocodilius ryan phillips

can’t be any worse than the D3 launch. game needed another year, but this beta feels finished so…..

and they also have a dragon cake posted on my facebook.
http://profile.yahoo.com/Z36GPOU3Q2QIQYBIDVNQAVGNGE Raul

is Playing an Asuran Thief, whilst listening to
Scritti Politti.
itsZiz

Where do we send in footage? submit@gamebreakertv.com ?
http://www.facebook.com/cloakingsmitty Scott Grosjean

The Vistas need a Legend of Zelda “new item” music when you find them!! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5VRr9NG7RE0
http://twitter.com/namredne Neo the Hacker

Skritt are like women (PLEASE DONT SLAP ME!!!)
http://twitter.com/mjedwards15 Mathew Edwards

I don’t think they get into the skritt very well. The way I understand it is the skrit can all talk at the same time and they all understand each other as they’re speaking. There’s no way of interupting a skrit as it’s talking because they’re able to interpret all of the others around them as well as talking themselves. That’s where the hive mind idea kinda comes from, they don’t actually have a hive mind in the sense they don’t share thoughts but their communication is so efficient that any individual skrit can be talking and listening to hundreds of others all simultaneously. It’s a very cool idea but saying it’s a hive mind is a bit of an oversimplification. I don’t see them as being playable. The next playable race is the Tengu. The dominion of winds will open and We’ll have a new massive city to explore. Called it.
H S

http://helpx.adobe.com/flash-player/kb/archived-flash-player-versions.html

GuildCast 32: ArenaNet's Guild Wars 2 Gets Legendary

Last Stand At Southsun May 28th

Patch 5.3: Blizzard’s First Ever Live Video Interview!

This Week in MMO Ep 144:
WildStar, Rift, Dust 514

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