Many of you have been asking about the logic behind the October 1st dungeon update for Crucible of Eternity and Citadel of Flames. Well over on the official forums, Robert Hrouda, one of the content designers for the game, has graciously shed some light on the situation.

Quote

Back to Top

Quite a few people have posted since last night's patch that they have successfully crafted their legendary weapons. If you have any info or other screenshots or videos of these weapons, please share! We'd like to oogle them some more.

Incinerator has been crafted by Naz Black Shadow.

  

Kudzu has been crafted by Skady.

Sunrise has been crafted by Krys.

  

Sunrise has also been crafted by Firoz. [Make sure to check out the link for crafting spreadsheets!]

Sunrise has also been crafted by Karkha from Crystal Desert.

Bifrost has been crafted by Xalkyrie on Henge of Denravi.

  

  

Twilight has been crafted by Animals on Seafarers Rest.

  

The Dreamer has been crafted by Vymm The Shadow on Yak's Bend.

  

Congratulations on crafting your legendary weapons, guys! Back to Top

Tonight's patch notes:

General

• Fixed bugs for various stuck events and skill challenges.
  
• Fixed bugs for various map areas that allowed players to get outside of the playable space.
  
• Fixed a bug in dungeon speed-clearing code. Players should no longer experience reward reductions without triggering the speed-clearing debuff.
  
• Fixed a bug that was automatically killing players as they entered Sharkmaw Caverns in Lion’s Arch.
  
• Fixed an exploit in renown regions that allowed players to quickly complete them by interacting with objects while their inventory was full.
  
• Fixed a bug that caused charr characters to enter a state where any fall resulted in a long falling yell.
  
• Fixed a bug that caused older characters to have their monthly achievement reset upon completion before the current month ended.
  
• Fixed the conversion on all items that were changed from soulbound to account bound to actually be account bound now.
  
• Fixed a bug that was preventing certain music from playing.
  
• Fixed an issue with the loot table for undead grubs.
  
• Fixed a camera bug which occasionally caused the camera to get too close to the player’s backside.
  
• Updated the Barrel and Green Plant environmental weapons to disappear after lying on the ground for a set time. This will prevent map issues caused by hundreds of these bundles idling on the ground.
  
• Updated Rune of the Adventurer and Sigil of Energy to each grant 25% endurance when activated.
  
• Updated map completion rewards for Plains of Ashford and all World-versus-World maps to match the map level/content.
  
• Added an appropriate error message for players when trying to accept too many guild invites.
  
• Armor that is currently equipped can no longer be transmuted.
  
• Keg Brawl has received some updates:
  
  • Lob: This skill is now ground-targeted.
    
  • Throw: This skill now has the range of the old Lob but with a casting time.
• Master Weaponsmiths now sell their goods for coin instead of karma, as was originally intended.
  
• Miss Mipp at Almuten Mansion now sells Curry Buns instead of directly selling outdated buffs.
  
• Surfacing while downed underwater no longer grants invulnerability. This change was made to stop players from exploiting the surface of the water to maintain permanent invulnerability.
  
• The Trading Post will properly refresh when using item context menus from your inventory.
  
• Transmuted cultural armor now prevents opposing races from equipping it.
  
• Valkyrie armor boxes will now properly contain a coat instead of two helms when crafted.

Story

• Fixed bugs in the story step “Ships of the Line.”
  
• Fixed blocking bugs in the following story steps: “Forging the Pact,” “Killing Fields,” “Shell Shock,” “Short Fuse,” “The Battle of Fort Trinity,” “The Machine in Action,” and “Tower Down.”
  
• Updated difficulty of the following story steps: “Killing Fields,” “Lines of Communication,” “Minotaur Rampant,” “Mired Deep,” “Ships of the Line,” “The Battle of Fort Trinity,” “The Greater Good,” and “The Queen’s Justice.”

Events

• Fixed a bug that was periodically preventing the Claw of Jormag event from completing.
  
• Added catapults and scaling veterans to the bridge repair event in Kessex Hills.

Dungeons
Crucible of Eternity

• Reduced the difficulty of creatures and bosses, particularly health and armor.

Citadel of Flame

• Fixed exploits that allowing players to speed clear paths of this dungeon.
  
• Reduced difficulty of the Searing Effigy.

Arah

• Fixed map exploit that was allowing players to speed-clear paths of this dungeon.
  
• Fixed a blocking bug in story mode.

Player versus Player

• Games will no longer autobalance after one team has reached 80% of the maximum score if the game ends by score.
  
• Games will no longer autobalance when within two minutes of the end of the game if the game ends by time.
  
• Autobalance functionality has been updated to give a new volunteer bonus to any players who volunteer for balancing, as well as giving any players balanced the winner bonus. When volunteers are lacking, random selection will be used. The text for this system has also been updated.

World versus World

• Updated the Red Portal Keep in the Eternal Battlegrounds to ensure the “no siege” debuff encompasses the entire start point.
  
• Fixed a bug with Keep Lords in World versus World where they could become immune to damage.

Professions
General

• Profession bundle weapons (engineer kits, elementalist conjure skills, warrior banners) can now save their autoattack status.
  
• The following profession skills now hit 3 targets instead of 1:
  
  • Elementalist Dagger: Lightning Whip, Lightning Touch
    
  • Mesmer Spear: Stab, Jab, Evasive Strike
    
  • Ranger Spear: Stab, Jab, Evasive Strike, Dart, Counterstrike
    
  • Thief Spear: Stab, Jab, Poison Tip Strike, Nine Tailed Strike
    
  • Warrior Spear: Stab, Jab, Impale, Mariner’s Frenzy, Parry

Elementalist

• Flame Burst: This skill will no longer fire if the target is behind the player.
  
• Lightning Surge: This skill no longer has infinite range and cannot fire at targets behind the player. It also is properly affected by line of sight and works with the Arcana trait Blasting Staff.

Engineer

• Elixir X: This skill now gains a duration increase from both the Inventions trait Elite Supplies and the Alchemy trait Potent Elixirs.
  
• Freeze Grenade: This skill no longer benefits from the Explosives trait Grenadier for 5-second cooldown reduction.
  
• Knee Shot: This Firearms trait now effects all immobilize skills for engineers. The effect can only trigger once every 5 seconds to prevent players from exploiting it to stack massive amounts of cripple.
  
• Mortar: This skill is now properly affected by the Inventions trait Rifled Turret Barrels.
  
• Rifled Barrels: This Firearms trait now works with the Elixir Gun kit when underwater.

Guardian

• Bane Signet: This skill’s animation will now work properly when activated by greatsword and hammer users.
  
• Line of Warding: This skill now lasts for 5 seconds instead of 8 seconds.
  
• Merciful Intervention: This skill has been updated to heal when it completes and isn’t aborted.
  
• Renewed Focus: This skill now functions better while underwater (players are able to use abilities sooner) and functions with the Virtues trait Elite Focus. This skill now also properly refreshes Virtue of Courage when it is being affected by traits.
  
• Shield of Absorption: This skill will now appear correctly for all races.
  
• Wrathful Spirit: This Honor trait’s retaliation duration has been decreased from 10 seconds to 3 seconds.

Mesmer

• Updated all phantasms and clones available to the mesmer to ensure they activate within their range.
  
• Updated mantras to now function underwater as they do above water. They also no longer go on full recharge when interrupted.
  
• Illusionary Riposte: This skill now functions properly with the Dueling trait Blade Training.
  
• Phantasmal Warden: This skill no longer has a 0-second recharge when affected by traits. It now has approximately a 5-second recharge.

Necromancer

• Blood Is Power: This skill now grants 10 stacks of might but does not grant additional life force.
  
• Chill of Death: This Spite trait no longer slows down the player’s autoattack when activated.
  
• Epidemic: This skill no longer has infinite range.
  
• Haunt: This Shadow Fiend skill now triggers instantly.
  
• Last Gasp: This Soul Reaping trait will now apply protection and remove stun as if using Spectral Armor. It also now has the displayed 60-second recharge, and the duration has been reduced to 6 seconds to properly match the skill.
  
• Life Transfer: This skill will now work properly with the Soul Reaping trait Path of Midnight.
  
• Life Siphon: This skill now properly applies damage at its intended range of 600.
  
• Spectral Grasp: This skill now also grants 10% life force when used. It also benefits from the Curses trait Spectral Attunement to properly increase the chill duration to 6 seconds.
  
• Spectral Walk: This skill now stops granting life force when struck if the player activates Death Shroud, Plague, or Lich Form.
  
• Vampiric: This Blood Magic trait’s interaction with the Bloodthirst trait now increases health siphoning appropriately.

Ranger

• Entangle: This skill is now properly affected by the Wilderness Survival trait Wilderness Knowledge.
  
• Lick Wounds: This skill now functions only with ranger pets.

Mac Beta Client Update:

• Fixed a bug that prevented players from entering the at sign (@) in the launcher’s log-in fields when using French Apple keyboards.
  
• Fixed a bug that prevented gem purchases.

Back to Top

Coming Soon: Guild Wars 2 Halloween Diorama Contest!

Quote

Source. Back to Top

In this article I’d like to take an in-depth look at the explorable paths of the Ascalonian Catacombs dungeon. Trash mobs shouldn’t be a problem, so this article will mainly focus on the boss fights.  

General information

• Make sure to revive team members as soon as they get downed. No one likes repair costs and if you don’t revive them there will be one less members to help kill the boss/revive other party members. If you get defeated you should rez at a waypoint and run back. Reviving defeated players takes way too long.
  
• Party setup shouldn’t matter much. I have done this with all sorts of setups and we never ran into too much problems. Do note that path 1 and 3 will become more difficult with players that mainly use melee weapons or bows. More on this later.
  
• The second path is the easiest. If you are running with a PuG I would advise you to choose this path.

Spider Queen
Before you run into this room, you should carefully take out all the fire spitting gargoyles. You can do this by jumping onto one of the pillars at the entrance to the room. To kill the big gargoyle on the far right side of the room you will have to jump down. When you do this you should stick to the wall, because spiders will start spawning if you run further into the room. After taking down all the gargoyles on the right side of the room you should let one person walk a bit further into the room to make the spiders spawn. After you’ve killed all the spiders you can take down the gargoyle in the left side of the room with ranged weapons. If you go too close the spider queen will spawn.

The spider queen fight is not very hard. You can melee her, you just have to be careful to avoid the AoE when she uses it.

Lieutenant Kohler
This boss’ main skill is a pull followed by an AoE attack (similar animation to the thief elite Dagger Storm). Stun breakers work on this, so you may be able to get out when he pulls you, but most of the time you will get downed if you get pulled.

There are two ways to kill this boss. The first way is to just run into him and kill his adds as soon as possible. He will always have two random adds so your team should focus fire on one and then the other. After the adds are down the fight is easy as long as you dodge his pull. Note that he uses his pull as soon as you start this fight, so don’t forget to watch the boss while you’re killing the adds. You can hide behind the pillars to avoid his pull, but you can also use skills like Feedback and Wall of Reflection to reflect it.

The second way to do this is to pull the boss down the stairs:

This will reset the adds and allow you to focus on the boss. If you use this method you will only have to pay attention to his pull animation and you should have no problems killing him. If you pull him back into the rooms where the trap are, don't forget that there's currently one trap that doesn't deactivate! If you use this way to kill him you can also make use of the pillars and reflection skills.

You will have to kill the spider queen and Lieutenant Kohler no matter which path you choose. In the next part of this guide we will take a look at all the boss fights for each explorable path.

Paths

Path 1: The Howling King
Protect Hodgins
Here you will have to kill six graveling burrows while protecting Hodgins. The burrows will keep spawning gravelings until you kill them.

The burrows will spawn on the left and the right side of the room. I usually split the group up and have 2 people take the left side and two people take the right side. One person will help out on either side as long as there are no gravelings attacking Hodgins.

Currently the burrows are a bit buggy. Melee weapons and shortbows will miss their attacks most of the time, especially after the burrow hits 50%. Therefore I’d advise you to use other weapons instead. For example, guardians should use a scepter to kill them with smite and auto-attacks.

Find the missing scepter pieces
The fastest way to do this is to all take running skills and just run around in the room and pick up the scepter pieces along the way. You can also choose to kill the mobs, but that will take you ages.

The scepter pieces leave a sparkling animation, so if you just look for that while running around the room it will be pretty easy to find them.

The Howling King
This boss fight is pretty easy as long as you know when to dodge. The howling king will charge his howl and he will use It a few seconds later. If you get caught in his howl you will probably get downed. It has a pretty long range so make sure to get out of the way when he uses it.

Path 2: Ghost Eater
The Flooded Temple
When you walk into the flooded temple you can see five chains; one chain in the middle and two more on each side on the walls. Each of these chains activate a different spike trap. You will use these spike traps to kill the boss and all his adds.

There are several ways to do this, but personally I always have 4 people on the chains (no one on the chain in the middle) and 1 person who kites the mobs around in the area with the spike traps, so that the other players can kill them. If you’re the one to kite them you should bring some healing/running skills. I personally play as a guardian and use the meditation trait so that meditations heal me. Guardians have the lowest base health in the game but I always manage to do this without getting defeated. If you’re the person to kite the mobs over the traps you shouldn’t be afraid to get downed. You will instantly rally anyway as long as you have people on the spike traps.

If for some reason the adds get through to the rest of the team, they should stay on the traps anyway. Mobs will stop spawning as soon as you’ve killed the boss and a certain amount of adds,  so you will have time to kill the adds that got through later.

You can also do this by letting 2 people handle both chains on each side, and have 3 people kite them. I personally prefer to let 1 person kite while the rest focuses on the traps.

Defend Detha while she repairs the cannons
This is the hardest part of this path. You will be defending Detha while she repairs a cannon. There are 3 cannons so you will have to do this 3 times. There isn’t really any strategy for this fight. Random ascalonian ghosts will spawn and attack you. I usually focus on the elementalists, monks and rangers. The monks heal the others, elementalists have lots of AoE and rangers have a really annoying knockbacks.

Ghost Eater
This boss spawns ectoplasmic oozes. These adds die really fast so I’d advise you to just kill them as soon as he spawns them. He will sometimes go underground and appear somewhere else. When he re-appears he will do big AoE damage so you’ll want to avoid that. The rest of the fight is pretty easy. It is also safe to melee this boss.


Path 3: Colossus Rumblus
Defend the ecto collectors
Here you will have to defend 2 ecto collectors from gravelings.The ecto collectors are at the following places:

On the top right of your screen you can see how far along the process is. Graveling burrows will spawn all over the room and you need to make sure to kill them as soon as possible. There are many ways to do this. Personally, I usually get everyone to focus the same burrow at the same time. If mobs get through to the ecto collectors you should only need to hit them once to get aggro. Once you get aggro you should help your group kill the nearby burrow. Focus should always be on the burrows here. The mobs will eventually die from all the AoE you're using on the burrows. If one of the ecto collectors get destroyed you can still finish this. It will just take longer. Another way to do this is to let two or three people move on to the next burrow once the current one is down to 10-20% HP.

More and more burrows will start spawning as you get closer to finishing. If you get overwhelmed you can also stop trying to kill the burrows and just kite the mobs instead. As mentioned before, it usually only takes one or two hits to get aggro on the mobs, so you can just hit them and kite them around while waiting for the event to finish. Skills like Time Warp can be very useful near the end when you have to hold just out a bit longer to finish the event.

This part can be pretty hard because of the bug that makes melee characters miss the graveling burrows all the time. If you have a guardian/warrior in your team they should be using their ranged weapons on the burrows.

Defeat the graveling burrows
This is really easy. Burrows and mobs will spawn at the following places:

You have as long as you need to kill the burrows and the gravelings. The mobs stay near the burrows so there's no way you can aggro any unwanted mobs.

Colossus Rumblus
Before you start this boss fight you can pull all the mobs around him one by one. I usually don't bother killing the mobs all the way in the back and just pull the boss back a bit.

This boss isn't very hard as long as you make sure to revive everyone as soon as they get downed. Every now and then he will start dropping rocks everywhere. One or two hits will down you, so be sure to dodge them. He also uses the howl that the Howling King from the second explorable path does and sometimes he will go underground and turn up somewhere else. When he comes above ground again he will damage and knock back everyone standing near him. His howl hits everyone directly in front and next to him, so try to stay behind the boss.

Jumping Puzzle
After you kill Colossus Rumblus or The Howling King you can head up the stairs in the back of the room to find a jumping puzzle. I personally haven't been able to finish this one yet!

Back to Top

What Does Guild Wars 2 Need to Become a eSport?

Guild Wars 2 is a Massive Multiplayer Online game focused on many aspects of the genre. We’re going to focus on what is known as Structured PVP. Structured PVP is a 5v5 (Tournament PVP) or 8v8 format (Hot Join) on multiple maps with three capture points and one unique objective for each map. If it hasn’t been apparent to fans Arena Net are huge fans of eSports, so much that they are striving for their game to become one.


Early History of eSports

General
Electronic Sports is the art of playing a video game competitively. But it goes further than just that. eSports provides the arena in which you can  compete (in a video game) for a sum of cash on a team or solo for a video game(delete). Imagine a basketball superstar like LeBron James, someone at the pinnacle of his sport with a big salary. Now keep that image in your head, but imagine playing a game like Starcraft 2, League of Legends, or even Guild Wars 2 at the highest level. Being paid a salary to perform at your best, and have the potential to win a tournament which can reward you through cash prizes, peripherals, and even fame.


Creating a Super Star
Now for a brief history lesson, eSports started as early as 1987 when Billy Mitchel had top scores in Pac-Man and Donkey Kong. Fast forward 12 years and you have the beginning of (add an adjective like competitive)eSports for the juggernaut Starcraft when a Korean TV channel named OnGameNet sponsored the first OSL championship. This event created one of the first superstars in eSports history, the Canadian Guillaume "Grrrr..." Patry. After winning the event he was mobbed by rabid fans and even appeared on talk shows.

When people think of celebrities in the eSports realm they think of people like “BoxerR” from Starcraft, T2 (t squared) from Halo, and Fatal1ty from Quake. Those three players have made over $500,000 in prize winnings, sponsorships, and other deals. Arena Net has claimed they have to make superstars in their eSports to be successful, and I can’t help but agree. If Arena Net can make Guild Wars 2 an eSport the USA will be one step closer to reaching the legitimacy that countries like Korea have.

Reaching Korea Status
Korea was always far ahead of other countries when it came to realizing that a video game could become a sport and pay their “athletes” reputable sums of money to perform. In Korea it is acceptable (by society?) to grow up to be a professional gamer. This is not yet realized in the United States but is slowly becoming more acceptable by the mainstream audience. Big leagues like Major League Gaming, Intel Extreme Masters, DreamHack, and Electronic Sports League have a variety of games in their leagues and provide the top teams with respectable amounts of money after winning tournaments.

Some leagues even provide salaries, like when MLG sponsored Final Boss for Halo 3 at 1 million dollars. Salaries are a way of the future, something League of Legends is doing with their upcoming Season 3 League of Legends Championship series. Not only are they giving their teams participating salaries, they are competing for millions of dollars in prize winnings.



Guild Wars 2 as an eSport


GW2 Different than other MMO’s
What has set Arena Net apart from other MMO’s or online games in general was before the game was released it held three live events (also known as LAN events) in major eSport (and gaming conventions. These were held at places such as IEM Germany 2011, Gstar in Korea, and PAX Prime 2011 in Seattle, Washington. All three of these events had live commentary, and were structured 5v5 PVP matches between Arena Net Devs and other competitive teams.

I think this was used as a test of some sorts, almost a preview to fans of what is to come. It was not professionally shout casted, or even between professional teams. However, the matches were still very entertaining, especially when the general populous was not able to play the game at the time. When we talk about an MMO becoming an eSport it’s usually a sticky situation. The only MMO to ever be an eSport (albeit shortly) was World of Warcraft.

The Mistakes!
However, WoW was pulled from many pro circuits because of Blizzards lack of support. They saw WoW as primarily a PVE game, and were more focused on PVE Raidcontent and Battlegrounds over arena, which was what was showcased on pro circuits. But problems stemmed from more than just that, arena it’s self is very rock paper scissors. Every comp can’t really beat every comp in a match; it was very cookie cutter in approach. Also, WoW was one of the few if only games where the objective was to ONLY kill your opponents.

There was no planting a bomb, fighting for resources, or winning a Baron Nashor buff battle. That in my opinion was why it was never a truly popular eSport.

The GW2 eSport Format
Now when talking about Guild Wars 2’s potential to be an eSport you look at what game type would be played as an eSport. Tournament PVP, which is a 5v5 across three different maps with three points to capture and an interesting 4^th mechanic unique to each specific map.

With Forrest of Niefhel, you have a mob a style map where you not only focus on the capture points, but killing the buffs that yield rewards too. Then you have Legacy of Foefire, where you have to worry about attacking and defending your keep lord that can yield 150 pts if slain. And finally Battle of Khylo utilizes a siege weapon called the trebuchet which is capable of dealing massive damage across the battlefield. It can be killed, as well as repaired.

So ArenaNet has given Guild Wars 2 a distinctive feel and interesting meta to go with its competitive format. We are still unsure as to the specifics of the formatting at live events, or big tournaments. But one can guess it will have something like best out of three, or best out of five. Single elimination doesn’t make sense when matches end as quickly as GW2 tPVP games.

I believe ArenaNet has a good foundation to build a very strong eSport centric game. However, there is huge room for improvement in order to get to that point.

What does GW2 Need that other eSports have?
Guild Wars 2 currently does not have all the tools to become an eSport. I want to transition into the main topic of this article, discussing what GW2 needs in my opinion in order to become an eSport powerhouse. As many know, LoL and SC2 are the biggest eSports at the moment. SC2 has the highest paid gamers, while LoL has the more known teams/players. Because of that Arena Net has been looking at them to gauge what they should do to be successful which is wise thinking.

I believe you should take careful attention to notice what makes each game successful, and what mistakes each one made.

What does Starcraft have that Guild Wars 2 does/doesn’t need?
Starting with Starcraft 2, the game already had a pre-established eSports scene with its predecessor. This helped for its immense popularity early on, but I think what Starcraft does really well is pacing. The games start off with players gathering resources, scouting, and deciding which builds to use. This allows commentators like Artosis time to discuss each players ideas and what they are trying to accomplish early on which helps to set a scene for more casual players.

If the games started with a large number of resources already it would lose a lot the accessibility in my opinion. As I said, the pacing is fantastic. A Starcraft game on the pro scene never takes longer than 30 minutes. Hell, most games don’t even last 15. You have so many possibilities with how in depth the game is, it keeps it very fresh and exciting.

Guild Wars 2 in the same boat?
Guild Wars 2 has something similar with this, instead of builds for your race in SC2 (Terran, Zerg, Protoss) you have individual skill builds for professions as well as team makeups. This will keep things fresh and interesting, as long as Guild Wars 2 keeps it balanced so no meta becomes TOO strong. Now addressing what I was talking about when I described SC2 and its efficient pacing. I think pacing has a lot to do with the people describing the game, the commentators.

We need to have strong and fun commentators for Guild Wars 2 to be fun and accessible to the casuals or people who don’t play the game. Many people watch SC2 eSports but don’t even play the game. That is paramount for Guild Wars 2 to be widely accepted. Commentators like Artosis, DJ Wheat, “Phreak”, and Day9 are all incredible at what they do for their respectable games. If we could get someone with a name like that to guest star, or someone to match their charisma with a high knowledge of the game this would greatly help Guild Wars 2’s eSports scene take off.

My opinion
Now something I personally think Blizzard flubbed when supporting their game as an eSport was they preferred online tournaments over LAN events, or live events. The reason why this such a bad decision is it is much harder to detect if someone is cheating online, like for instance “map hacking” is the most common SC2 hack. This hack turns off fog of war for the user, a huge cheat for the person using it. There is a very small percentage of being able to cheat at a live event, in fact I have never heard of a scenario that actually happened like that at a LAN event.

Another reason that many people are passionate about is that LAN events are just more enjoyable. You have arena style setups where computers are facing each other on a platform, it’s almost like you are watching a sporting event…except video games are involved. In Korea these events are big enough to fill entire stadiums; this just brings eSports to the next level and removes us from the stereotype that all gamers are nerds who live in their basement. This presents them as cyber athletes, performing in front of large exciting crowds. I don’t think online events should be scrapped altogether, they are still necessary to have a steady flow of tournaments. But they should not be preferred.

Now that I have discussed Starcraft 2’s pros and cons I want to move onto the current eSport juggernaut known as League of Legends.

What can be learned from League of Legend’s pro scene?
League of Legends came out in October 2009. It was based off of the ever popular Dota (Defense of the Ancients) mod for Warcraft 3. LoL however was much more accessible thanks to an easier learning curve and an easier to understand character roster. However many people think a game has to come out as an eSport out of the gate. But League of Legends proves too many that that thought is just wrong. LoL didn’t have a eSports tournament until WCG Los Angeles, nearly one year later. I think Guild Wars 2 certainly has plenty of time in order to make the transition to an eSport game. People are being too quick to judge their performance; LoL did not start with eSports and look at how popular it is now. Allow GW2 to grow and deal with balancing issues, and expect to see moves towards eSports soon after I am sure.

I definitely think GW2 shouldn’t take it’s time because people get restless easily, but it’s not a good idea to rush anything. I think LoL does a lot of things right, not only is it easily accessible to the public the developers help it be even more accessible with the observation mode they offer to people watching a competition. League of Legend’s observation mode in one word is “effective”.

Accessibility is important!
It’s very slick; I have never experienced any lag or anything. It gives you the rundown on what is going on whether it is items, minion kills, gold count, and buff timers. It’s very easy for people to watch games, even games that might not have any real impact in eSports. Like for instance your best friend is playing a game and wants you to come watch, all you have to do is right click his name on your friends list and hit observe. It’s very intuitive and extremely effective in presenting the game in the most optimal way.

Arena Net actually has history with observation modes. Guild Wars 1 had an observation mode for their very popular Guild Vs Guild game type. The maps were much bigger, and people moved much slower so it wasn’t as exciting as something like LoL. However, with the changes and different feel for Guild Wars 2 if they can put out an observation mode like the one in the first one but just add a few upgrades I believe it would be very successful.

I would say things like buff timers, lord health, trebuchet help, and res timers would be very informative to have in an observation mode. Anet understands the meaning of having something that momentous to help their game reach eSports status, it’s really just a matter of implementation.

Closing Comments

I have given you guys the reasons I think Guild Wars 2 has a chance to be an eSport, as well as what it needs in order to get there. I truly think Arena Net can push their product to the next level, the competitive level. I however do not think it is solely A-net’s job to do it. We as fans, and big tournament organizations need to really do our part too. Ultimately, we the fans need to spread our passion for Guild Wars 2 in all assets that we can. Streams, videos, articles, and word of mouth will help GW2 grow to the eSport it should be. The difference in popularity between an eSport game like Starcraft 2 and games that aren’t, is it has that extra level of depth added to the game. It has something you can anticipate for weeks and months, and watch on a Monday instead of turning on your TV to watch football or other sports.

eSports gives video games the ability to reach true mainstream audiences, and allows for people to view it as a competition, a hobby, or even a career choice. Arena Net has the ability to make Guild Wars 2 a juggernaut in eSports. Give them some time to get their feet off the ground and we will be watching furious competitions for big bucks in no time.

I as a competitor myself can’t wait; many people are willing to dedicate part of their life to make it big in eSports, some specifically for GW2. With the fans supporting Arena Net, the next couple of months will be very exciting for everyone.



Sources: http://www.nbcnews.c...te-sales-999089 Back to Top

Guild Wars 2 Spidy: Graphs of the Trade Market
A lot of you are already aware of GW2Spidy, but I thought it deserved a front page highlight. From the website:

This website aims to provide you with graphs of the sale and buy listings of items on the Guild Wars 2 Trade Market. Using this information we can get a better understanding of the economy in Guild Wars 2. It can also prevent you from getting caught in other players monopolizing the Trade Market with sudden spikes in prices.



GuildWarsTrade.com: Trading Post and Gem Data
GuildWarsTrade is another trading site that offers the following features:

• Supply and demand graphs
  
• Tooltips
  
• Gem/Silver exchange rate
  
• Black market Gold/$ exchange rate
  
• Item languages in German, French, and Spanish
  
• Website languages in German, French, Spanish, Russian, and simplified Chinese

gw2BBCode
Gw2BBCode is javascript plugin, which extends capability of GW2DB Tooltip. It converts (on the fly) Guild Wars 2 skill's names (traits, condition & boons) into icons. It can also show tooltip with description over the icon.
All tooltips content comes from GW2DB.





Artwork
If you haven't been following @GW2Fanart, you really should! Here are some recent Guru posts. Click the thumbnails to be taken to the artists' thread!

  

    

Videos

---

If you have a site, piece of art or video that you would like to see highlighted in the future, just send me a PM with a link!

---

Back to Top

Quote

Mike Lewis, ArenaNet's security coordinator, has taken the time to update players on the current state of botting in the game on the official forums. So far they have permanently banned 1,600 accounts of botters in the past week on top of the accounts being used by online gold sellers to spam players with advertisements. He also notes a new team of data specialists who've been hired specifically to create brand new tools to assist support while they issue the necessary botting account terminations. As time goes on, they plan to continue gathering information on which bots have been popular, and in turn accelerate the rate in which they can remove them. Players are also encouraged to report suspected botters by right-clicking their name in-game. Back to Top

Jon Peters has updated the community about how players aren't getting the correct rewards for dungeons:

Quote

Here are a few updates from another thread on the official forums:

Quote

Quote

Back to Top

Today's/last night's patch notes have been posted up on the official forums:

General

• Fixes to LOD on numerous objects in the world.
  
• Fixes to maps to prevent players from moving outside of the playable area.
  
• Fixed a bug that made pet footsteps excessively loud, especially in water.
  
• Fixed a bug with assists not working in keg brawl.
  
• Fixed numerous blocked events.
  
• Updated text and functionality when purchasing bank slots.
  
• Fixed loud sounds on portals to the Underworld in Godslost Swamp.
  
• Fixed several bugs that were preventing some skill challenges from resetting properly.
  
• All recipe items are now account bound. Many were previously soulbound.
  
• Updated Superior Rune of the Ogre Rock Dog so that it doesn’t summon when the player is underwater.
  
• Updated Sigil of Demon Summoning so that it doesn’t summon when the player is underwater.
  
• Summoned rock dogs and fleshreavers die when they enter water.
  
• Removed the lone 1 copper from city map completion rewards.
  
• Removed Mystic Forge recipes that were being used to reduce surplus supplies.
  
• Enemies in tutorial areas will no long drop loot. Instead, an award of 72 copper has been added to the rewards for completing the tutorial. This is to dissuade players from lingering in tutorial instances to farm the creatures in them.
  
• Obsidian Shards are now account bound.
  
• Box of Berserker’s Draconian Armor and Box of Rampager’s Draconian Armor now reward the proper items.
  
• Fixed various crash bugs.
  
• Added the rank 30-39 wolf finishing move.
  
• Fixed recipes for the Mystic Artifact, Mystic Barricade, and Mystic Trident.
  
• Fixed visible map completion percentage errors and the achievement not completing.
  
• Applied 10-second cooldown to Bowl of Saffron-scented Poultry Soup buff. This was done to keep elementalists from spamming condition removal with Signet of Restoration.

Black Lion Trading Company

• Added functionality and improvements to the Black Lion Chests, including a chance to receive new items like a permanent version of the Black Lion Trader Express.
  
• Black Lion Salvage Kits now properly display the correct percentages for rare materials.

Story

• Adjusted difficulty for the following story steps: “A Fragile Peace,” “Breaking the Bone Ship,” “Killing Fields,” “Political Homicide,” “Sabotage,” “Set to Blow,” “Stand By Your Krewe,” “The Ringmaster,” “The Stone Sheath,” “Track the Seraph,” “Unscheduled Delay,” “Unwelcome Visitors,” and “Welcome Home.”
  
• Fixed bugs in the following story steps: “A Fragile Peace,” “Against the Corruption,” “Bad Blood,” “Forging the Pact,” “Stand By Your Krewe,” and “Tower Down.”
  
• Fixed exploits in “The Sound of Psi-Lance.”
  
• End of Story Loot Bags:
  
  • These have been improved to only give green or better gear of level 78 or higher.
    
  • The number of bags received has been reduced from 5 to 3.
    
  • More improvements will be made in coming weeks. Players who complete the story before the final update will be equally compensated once the new rewards are in.

Dungeons
General

• Updated vendors in the Ascalonian Catacombs and Caudecus’s Manor to sell level 80 versions of their unique skins rather than level 60 and 70. Players who purchased the level 60 and 70 versions will soon be given the opportunity to upgrade those to level 80 without having to use transmutation stones.

Citadel of Flame

• Fixed an exploit in Magg’s chain that was allowing players to skip the entire dungeon and still be rewarded.
  
• In Magg’s chain, if Magg happens to die in the lava field, he’ll teleport himself to the start of the area just outside it.
  
• In Magg’s chain, Magg must be much closer to things to draw their initial aggro. This only affects the escort to the magmacyte rock.

Caudecus’s Manor

• Fixed an exploit that was allowing players to skip content.

Honor of the Waves

• Fixed a bug in the Butcher’s chain that prevented a boss from spawning.

Arah

• Fixed a blocking issue.

Ascalonian Catacombs

• Fixed blocking bugs in Detha’s chain.

Dungeon Rewards
We’ve made some significant updates to dungeon rewards. I wanted to try and clarify them here. All of these changes have been the result of an original exploit which was letting players receive upwards of 20 levels by completing a single dungeon run. We initially closed this exploit, which caused some new problems. The result is this new system which should increase dungeon rewards for players who play though them normally but help curb inflation of rewards for those who are using exploitative methods to farm them.

• Dungeon tokens are now rewarded at the end of an explorable chain. This was done to stop players from repeatedly entering a chain and farming the first boss that dropped tokens rather than playing the entire chain. At some point in the near future, we will make up for this by making dungeon tokens a rare drop so that even players who are not completing a chain can make partial progress toward the rewards.
  
  
• Dungeons reward 20 tokens for completion and now reward an additional 40 tokens for the first time they are completed each day. This means that if players can complete all 3 chains of a dungeon in a day, they’ll receive a total of 180 tokens, which is enough to purchase some of the smaller rewards.
  
  
• Dungeon tokens should be account bound. This will allow players to have a single character farm tokens for their other characters.
  
  
• Last week, to limit the most extreme cases of dungeon speed-clearing, we introduced a system to limit rewards for rapidly repeating dungeon clears. However, a bug in that system caused it to impact more players than intended. This week, we’re updating the system to not impact clearing different chains of the same dungeon. We’ll continue to evaluate this system in coming weeks.

Professions
General

• Implemented a fix to make Heartseeker, Lightning Leap, Flame Leap, and Monarch’s Leap hit more reliably.

Elementalist

• Fixed bugs with Flamestrike and Ice Shards so they can’t be fired behind the player.
  
• Quick Glyphs: This Air Magic trait has been updated to apply 20% recharge reduction to the elite skill Glyph of Elementals.

Engineer

• Grenade Barrage: This Grenade Kit skill should now be usable underwater.
  
• Short Fuse: This trait is no longer overwritten by the Grenadier trait. Also, this trait now works with underwater grenades.
  
• Speedy Kits: Added a 5-second recharge to the trigger for this trait. This was to prevent players from exploiting it to gain vigor buffs of extreme duration.
  
• Invigorating Speed: Added a 5-second recharge to the trigger for this trait. This was to prevent players from exploiting it to gain vigor buffs of extreme duration.

Guardian

• Merciful Intervention: This skill has been updated to work with the Meditation Mastery trait. The tooltip for this skill has also been updated to display the healing amount when affected by traits.
  
• Elusive Power: This trait has been updated to not grant might when aegis was blocked.

Mesmer

• Fixed text on “readied” mantra buffs.
  
• Veil: This glamour skill has been updated to show the appropriate active duration when not affected by traits.

Necromancer

• Taste of Death: This skill’s healing fact has been updated.
  
• Spectral Wall: This skill has been updated to apply the correct amount of vulnerability (10).
  
• Vampiric: Fixed a bug with this trait so that it now functions with projectiles.
  
• Close to Death: This trait has been updated to provide its listed 20% boost instead of the previous (unlisted) 10% boost.
  
• Banshee’s Wail: This Curses trait has been updated to apply extra swiftness.
  
• Spectral Walk: This skill has been updated to be more active and to work properly with its recharge trait. Also, Sever Spectral Bond has been changed to Spectral Recall.
  
• Minion Master: This Death Magic trait has been updated to properly affect the elite skill Summon Flesh Golem.
  
• Putrid Mark: This skill has been fixed to make it properly unblockable with the Greater Marks trait.
  
• Mark of Evasion: This trait can now trigger the Soul Marks trait.
  
• Reaper’s Protection: This trait has been updated to properly work with a variety of crowd-control effects.

Thief

• Bountiful Theft: This strait has been fixed so that it doesn’t apply 15 seconds of vigor twice.

Races
Norn

• Call Wurm: Autocasting has been removed from this skill to prevent an exploit. Additionally, the skill may now be cast on the move.

Player Versus Player

• Legacy of the Foefire: Fixed an exploit that was allowing players to teleport past one of the gates.

World Versus World

• Experimental Rifle: This item is no longer usable in World versus World.

Back to Top