Asteria Rose

EliteZeon, on 13 June 2013 - 07:21 PM, said:

Wow what a difference some coloring makes, these actually look pretty good here.

Unless you've been living under a karka-sized rock for the past month, you've probably heard something about the upcoming Dragon Bash holiday event. An evolution of the Dragon Festival celebrated in the original Guild Wars, the Dragon Bash will introduce several new goodies and activities that will no doubt keep even the least festive spirit going for hours. Whether you have your eye on one (or all) of the new Jade weapon skins, or just want to kill a few hours a day in the Dragon Ball arena, in traditional Guild Wars fashion, the Dragon Bash gives something for everybody to sink their teeth into.

Goodies
What would a Guild Wars festival be without the mountains of goodies to collect? With collectibles ranging from weapons to fireworks to new sets of armor, you'll need to have a game plan ready to maximize your Zhaitaffy collection over these next few weeks. Be sure to remember that many of the items that can be collected during the festival can be traded on the trading post, including the mini pets and dragon wings collected from the dragon coffers scattered throughout the game world.

The Zhaitaffy merchant will remain in the game after the event's conclusion, so if you're out of town for the summer, you don't have to worry about missing everything. However, there are a few time-restricted items such as the Dragon Helm, which is rewarded for sitting through one of the fireworks shows throughout the duration of the event.

And yes, the new jade weapon skins are amazing.

Moa Racing
Here you have a simple betting game using traditional game currency. Fifty silver grants you one bet for one of five moa racers. Once your bet has been placed, you can either find the best vantage point to cheer on your chosen racer, or, if standing still isn't your thing, run along side them throughout the course. Whichever you choose, be sure to remain in the area to avoid forfeiting your silver. While the entrance fee may seem a tad steep for some players, your moa only needs to come in second place for you to break even, and considering there are only five racers to begin with, the odds aren't too bad at all. However, if you've got your eye on the limited edition dragon bash themed moa mini pet, you'll want to have some extra cash on hand to keep those reward vouchers pouring in.

Keep in mind that while the festive elements of this activity will leave at the conclusion of the celebration, Moa Racing will become a permanent edition to the world. The previously mentioned mini pet will be replaced with a standard yellow moa, so if you want to add it to your collection make sure you don't drag your feet!

Dragon Ball!
Presented in 5v5 deathmatch format, Dragon Ball is a fast-paced battle of reflexes. Upon entering the arena (and upon every revival), players are given a speed buff and a skill in their number one slot. While the main goal of the game is to smash your way to 500 points before the other team, you're going to want to pay attention to your surroundings as you fight. Upgrades are scattered throughout the playing field and grant new skills that remain until death, jump pads launch combatants skyward and forward across the map's layered format, and health orbs will decide who lives and who dies. The relatively short revival window means teammate resurrection only exists as a window of opportunity for your opponent to get the jump on you.

Once the bloodbath has subsided, the winning team will be given a dragon coffer that could contain some pretty nifty goodies. The losing team, in addition to the salty tears of defeat, is given Zhaitaffy to ease the pain.

Gem Store
As far as the gem store goes, there are a couple of items that will be introduced with the festival. Three new minis will be wrapped up in a pack of three for you to purchase. If any of you remember the halloween set, you can also throw these guys into the Mystic Forge to obtain a special fourth mini. Keep in mind that while the mini pets obtained from the gem store's Rich Dragon Coffers will be account bound, a tradable version of the exact same mini pets can be found in the regular dragon coffers. The next item is the Marriner's Horn, which is very similar to the Choir Bells that could be obtained during Wintersday last year. The horn is unlimited, so all of you who ripped apart those pesky RNG boxes to find an unbreakable Choir Bell can rest easy.

Holiday events create some of the most memorable moments players will have, and the Dragon Bash is no exception. Aside from the moody atmosphere and shiny goodies to collect, it's the perfect time to sit back and have a good time with your friends, guildies, and the community. I hope you're all as excited as I am for the build to hit the live servers on the 11th so things can really get started.

Who knows? Maybe I'll get the chance to destroy some of you in Dragon Ball ;)

Asteria Rose, on 10 June 2013 - 07:41 PM, said:

Yeah.  I'm playing a pistol-shield engie myself at the moment.  The dragon thing doesn't really fit the rest of his armor though, and of course there's the fact that I spend 90% of my time in a kit like most engies.....

...and the fact that a pistol held by an Asura is largely invisible anyway....

Yeah.

The jade dragon pistol is also one of my favorites from the set.

New armor!?  /dies.  I'm actually excited for this event now.  The other ones were nice and all but I'm a creature of fashion and now they're speaking my language.

Wow, and here I thought I'd seen every weapon skin in the game...

Oh this should totally be integrated with Living Story.

I'd love for this to end with the population of Lions Arch pointing up and screaming out "That's not a Hologram!!!!" and various buildings start exploding.

Tranquility, on 03 June 2013 - 09:18 AM, said:

again, you're taken a simplist route.

I'll give you an example. I had fun doing the dungeons when i was doing the dungeon master, the title was the reward i was after. Now, i dont have fun doing (most) dungeons, i've done them once and got what i wanted (more than once actually). I dont go for legendaries, i dont see it as a fun activity, because the reward is not appealing to me.

I do however grind wvw, over and over it was fun when there was no rewards, but now that there are its even better.

so as you can see, imo, rewards made the game better.

so, reward-fun-grind is something that cant be dissociated,

You're twisting the argument from grind-fun to crappy-good, ofcourse a bad game is a bad game and no reward will save it. Bad is Bad. that crappy-good argument plays nothing to back your original post.

I agree that grind is in the eye of the beholder.  With this in mind it will be very hard to make any game that doesn't have grind in it as there will always be some who will think doing something is grind.

As Andemius said, "I don't mind if COSMETICS are a grind (ie Greens in GW1), I do mind if top gear is a grind."

To add to that I don't mind grinding for gold to buy things but with the current anti-farming policy it does put a damper on this (I am aware that certain dungeons give good gold for a fast run, this is not the point).

I also don't look at grind if it is part of a quest (within reason).  Having to kill 20 of something is ok, but if the quest says kill 100 of something (that cant be 1 shot) then it does get grindy.

You missed the reply button on one of the many other threads about this. By a lot.

This thread is a refreshing change!  A lot of disgruntled players make threads to say that Anet lied about everything and the manifesto was bullcrap, but I commend you for doing something different.  

I think you meant to say one almost impossibly huge, massive, giant, enormous step away from L2.

You are missing the Throw Batarang skill, Summon the Tumbler ability, and a utility belt.

Somebody's been playing a lot of God of War...  

A kusarigama has more interesting possibilities, I think, and is a more practical weapon. It can be used to snare, pull, leap, knock down, bleed, even poison or stun. The only problem is, would it be one-handed or two? it could be both (perhaps depending on profession)! Precedents are already set with Binding Blade and Impale; it could be taken a step further.

http://en.wikipedia....wiki/Kusarigama

I think it's more likely that they would introduce new weapons and traits to expand existing classes than create a new path for them. All the classes cover all the paths already and I'm not sure if Anet would want to make them more complex than they already are since they are all about simplicity nowadays.

So yea, New classes and new weaponsets for the old classes definitely plausible in my opinion. And the way they would justify it for all the races would be; they went to learn it.

I think it doesn't matter for origin. Races can develop new schools of training and thought. You can have something like Ranger and Necromancer being melded together. Say a traveler was originally a ranger yet learned the art of necromancy and had the two work together and created the art of Ritualism. Where he became lets say a Ritualist. One with nature who summons spirits in order to do his bidding. I am just spit balling here. But the origin is not really that big of a problem imo. People always invent new schools of thought. Kind of like new Martial Arts spawn from old ones and such. .