Guild Wars 2?

As always, let me know if you need help or company. ;)

Episode 4 is out after a 1-day delay caused by Blizzard - I mean, not the Blizzard, but a Blizzard (with a capital B) that hit Seattle yesterday.

Anyway, here’s more info:

https://www.guildwars2.com/en/the-game/releases/february-07-2017/

You know when something looks so dumb that it circles back around to looking cool?

Guild Wars 2 has its share of those. ;)

The Super Adventure Box will be back on March 30th!

https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/super-adventure-festival-is-coming-soon/

The Super Adventure Festival is here, and brings with it the best glider skin ever conceived*. :)

https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/super-adventure-festival-is-here/

* Ok, maybe not the best ever, but it is pretty cool.

Episode 5 is going to take a little while longer to come out, but it’s coming!

https://forum-en.guildwars2.com/forum/game/gw2/Ep5-update

Price cut for Heart of Thorns - it’s now $29.99.

Episode 5 has a name and a date: Flashpoint arrives on May 2nd.

Trailer (spoilers, of course):

Website:
https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/watch-the-trailer-for-flashpoint/

So if I’m feeling like getting back in now after forever (with only the base game, I think) would I want to pick up Heart of Thorns or Flashpoint or both? Do they overlap?

Flashpoint is a free episodic addition to Heart of Thorns. Well, free if you log in while it’s the active episode. So far you’ve missed out on season 2 which is a lead-in to Heart of Thorns and a few other episodes in S3 that can be purchased with Gems.

Story progression to this point would be Base game -> Season 1 (unavailable but summarized) -> Season 2 -> Heart of Thorns (and note, the intro when you enter a HoT zone for the first time spoils some of season 2) -> Season 3

This is a minor, super stupid hang-up for me, but GW2 naming one of their bad guys “Lazarus” then actually using the line “Without it, they could’ve never resurrected Lazarus! The REAL Lazarus!” in the trailer just takes me right out of the fantasy world they’ve built. Why did they choose to use an infamous name that has that specific connotation?

Lazarus the Dire is actually a character from Guild Wars 1, and that “resurrection” connotation, while there, isn’t nearly as anvilicious as it sounds in the GW2 trailer. But it seems it is, in some ways, a rethread of what happened in GW1 - namely, the fact that Lazarus split himself in many “aspects” that he could retrieve later to restore his full power.

I get the character has a history beyond the trailer. My issue is that “Lazarus” is a pretty infamous name in the real world, and using that name in your fantasy MMO sets up some weird associations in my mind. It would be the same if they had a “Conan” or a “Ramses” and just ran with it like it doesn’t mean anything special.

I understand. I don’t have the same issue - I just treat names in different universes as their own things, even when they’re a reference of sorts to our own world - but I understand why it would be kind of 4th-wall-breaking for others.

In this particular case, I remember the character from GW1, and as far as GW2 is concerned, that is my connection with the name, rather than the real-world equivalent, so I guess it isn’t so egregious to me (even if using “resurrect” and “Lazarus” in the same phrase in the trailer do make it harder to not connect the name with the real world equivalent). I had a harder time accepting a dragon called “Aurene”, to be honest. ;)

All right, after a super long hiatus I reinstalled and rolled a new character. So much to do and see. For now, I’m hiking across the map from the northeast to the northwest and getting all my experience and levels that way. No fast travel for me until I reach Divinity’s Reach naturally. So, so satisfying. And when I pass high level characters in high level areas, they are like, “WTF is a level 9 doing here?? LOL.” And they laugh and laugh. And so do I. It’s great.

If you ever need help, look for me in the game - just add “Lyyta” as a friend so you’ll see me when I’m online.

Thanks! I will look for you in game. Playing as a Norn Elementalist, hit level ten just as I reached Divinity’s Reach.

So, I’m on my first go around. I managed to somehow loot a handful of level 80 boosts.

Is it worth doing that to my toons, and then working through the story lines with them all unlocked, or grinding my way through the levels?

First run through, level normally. There is a lot to learn.