Diovid.9506

I see it like this: unless the new version contradicts the old version of season 1, the old version is still canon, even if parts of the old version do not appear in the new version.

To indulge you I just looked up casual and it comes down to something like: 1. Feeling/being relaxed 2. Not putting in serious commitment 3. Informal None of that is contradictory to challenge. As long as the challenge is not big enough to require serious commitment and stress, it can be casual. I myself am definitely in the group of casuals that likes some amount of challenge and build craft, as long as it doesn't veer into organised group content or long time investments. To me challenge doesn't immediately cause stress, it causes interest and engagement. You're failing to understand that some casual players want some amount of challenge, while you want 0 challenge. We don't fault you for your preference but we do fault you for confusing your preference with the definition of casual.

Your logic boils down to: 1. I'm a certain type of casual. 2. Therefor THE definition of casual is the one that only applies to me. 3. GW2 no longer fits that type of casual. 4. Therefor GW2 is no longer casual. But I have a lot of problems with that point 2. I myself am someone who never plays raids, never plays tier 3 or 4 fractals, almost never plays strikes, almost never plays pvp/wvw. Partially this is due to not being able to put in the time investments, partially because I don't care about competitive gameplay and partially because I don't have a group of people I know that regularly play. I would call myself a casual. That said, I do enjoy buildcraft a lot. I have played this game since its betas. And I understand that builds have to be nerfed or buffed for balance. If a certain build I enjoy is nerfed I either continue playing it (because even for a casual player like me story, open world and lower level fractals are easy enough even with suboptimal builds) or I try to find a new build I like. That has not changed since the release of GW2.

Such a small impact when we flying around on the Glory of Tyria and killed Zhaitan with laser cannons. But it's true there is more tech in Cantha than there is, on average, in core Tyria. However there is not more tech in Cantha than there is in the starting city of one of the core races i.e. Rata Sum. In fact, I'd argue that there is more tech in Rata Sum than there is, on average, in Cantha. So.. I still don't see where the problem you have nor the intensity you display are coming from.

You do know that Charr, Asura and Dredge tech was there (prominently) in core GW2 right? And also things like Hylek alchemy or the Divinity's Reach orrery. Even GW1 prophecies had Dwarven tech (with Asura tech of course being added in EotN). Guild Wars is simply a fantasy - tech mix, at least GW2. You can dislike that but it's a bit late for that to change.

The current situation encourages players to spread out. Otherwise players would only focus on either the newest content or the content that is most rewarding. Do you want areas and content to be even more deserted than they already are? I think this is the most healthy for the game overall, even if it is an inconvenience for some individual players.

I forgot about that but yeah.. that one ranks high on my list of worst mistakes. How did Anet think that sequence of events made any sense for non-humans?

Unlike the USA / UK we have in-game.

I've noted before that the only way I could imagine the introduction of a new profession would be if it is a Light Armor profession with 3 elite specs right of the bat. One of those elite specs would give it access to Medium Armor and one would give it access to Heavy Armor. The third spec would not give access to an additional Armor class. But do I think that's likely? No. Do I think it's necessary? No. Do I think it will be difficult to find a thematic and mechanical niche for this new profession and to make it balanced? Definitely.

You forgot a few essential points: 1. You forgot about attributes. Yes all characters could equip all weapons but without investing in the attribute related to that weapon you would deal almost no damage, no matter whether you used the auto attack of that weapon or skills related to that weapon. 2. Caster weapons (staffs, wands and foci) had no weapon skills associated with them and attributes only mattered for these weapons to reach a minimum attribute threshold (I.e. you needed a 9 in Healing Prayers to get the most out of a Healing Prayers staff but anything above a 9 did not increase your effectiveness with that staff). For Martial weapons that worked very differently. There was also a minimum threshold but reaching ranks above that still increased your damage (and crit chance I think). These points mean that your Bunny Thumper example is incomplete. Not only did the Ranger needed to be a secondary Warrior to gain hammer skills but also to gain access to the Hammer Mastery attribute to be able to deal a significant amount of damage with hammers (though there were a few ways around that).

Your last statement there is a bit ignorant. First of all, weapon choices were very limited in GW1. Even the Warrior only had access to two main-hand weapons, one off-hand weapon and one two-handed weapon (to which you could add the very limited weapon options of your secondary profession), plus you could only use a single weapon type with most attack skills (i.e. heavy blow could only be used when you had a hammer equiped). Second of all GW1 was not balanced which created further limitations. People are always quick to praise GW1 for its freedom compared to GW2 and it's true that unlike its successor it doesn't have dedicated skill slots for weapon skills, healing skills, utility skills and elite skills but it instead gave you the options to slot whatever you want. However this freedom plus the dual class system plus the introduction of new professions with expansions meant that it became impossible to balance which lead to two major and related problems. Veterans ignored 90% of the options because they were suboptimal (thus there appeared to be a lot more freedom than was actually there). New players on the other hand were overwhelmed by options and could easily make terrible builds. By Anet's own admission GW2 sought to address these issues.

The gripe is about clarity of Anet's communication concerning what is and isn't included in terms of story, maps, mounts and the like with expansion purchases. It's not about there being additional costs, the costs are fine. But people who are new to the game will not be aware of those additional costs.

The lack of interesting Norn story and respect for Norn culture maybe? All races other than Humans suffer from that to some extent but none as much as the Norn. And I say that as a non-Norn main. But that also ties into your remark about IBS. Jormag was the Norn dragon but the story dealt more with the Charr than anything else. The whole tooth prophecy didn't seem to matter much either.

In terms of cultures Ascalon (at least in GW1) was strongly based on classical medieval fantasy and thus based on medieval Britain / France. GW1's Kryta was Mediterranean in nature. However GW2's Kryta is more generic renaissance Europe. Elona had always been a mix of North Africa, middle-east and India. Make of that what you will. As mentioned above, modern Kaineng is based on Korean culture more than anything. Like you said, the Kurzicks of Echovald had strong Gothic Germanic roots (roots.. get it? Because it's a forest..). Iirc GW1 Luxons (the people of the Jade Sea) had Greek names and were pirates (though adapted to a non-liquid sea). Charr culture was somewhat based on the Roman empire. I don't know if that helps. And of course they are cats. Asura do have sharp teeth. For what purpose exactly I'm not sure. Norn culture is strongly based on Scandinavia. That might help?

Basically this. I think Anet should look at what can be reversed when it comes to the earlie game and when it comes to leveling and make those changes in the current game, instead of making classic servers. And it actually sounds like Anet is looking to do exactly that before the Steam release. But that doesn't and shouldn't include the way trait lines work.