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Guild Wars 2 First Content Patch - Shadow of the Mad King Hype Thread

wolf:

This sort of stuff was not completely free in GW1. It didn't exist in Guild Wars.

In Guild Wars, you normally got a costume mask for participating in the holiday event. That was free. The devil horns in the gem store, a Halloween event only item, are also free.

You might also get some fun looking items that have low level or meaningless stats. Those were free. That's equivalent tot he four hour rental items. There still may be more goofy items to play around with.

You also got tonic drops during holidays. Again, there are tons of ways to transform during this event for free. What they added is a little mini-game to those transformations (for free).

There are also craftable Halloween skins. These are rumored to be similar to the four hour rental skins, but are permanent and transmutable. These will cost a lot of in-game resources likely, but require no real world money.

The easiest way to get keys is to spend money and play the lottery by opening chests. Yes, that's a little bit of money making for ANet. It is false to say these things were free in Guild Wars. Skins that you could use on max level gear were never free. Costume skins cost money in the Guild Wars store same as they do here. Transmutable special holiday skins attained either by luck or by crafting did not exist in Guild Wars.
 
We also don't know the totality of what the event will entail yet :-/

birdchili, stuff so far that isn't related to Black Lion Chests (I haven't even logged in yet so I'm just piecing this stuff together):

-Candy corn and pumpkin carving nodes are out there in the world to harvest; I don't think many (any?) of their ultimate uses have been determined yet
-Merchant in LA has rentable 4-hour versions of the Halloweeny weapon skins for 6 silver
-Merchant also apparently has 3 weapon skins for sale for 150 corn, apparently these are ones you cannot get from Black Lion Chests at all
-Devil horns for free in the Gem Store
-Gem stuff: Costumes, spooky tonics, spooky minipet set, Phantom's hood, Trick-or-Treat bags, Halloween PvP Finishers
-Costume brawl (a sort of minigame when you're transformed or wearing(?) halloween stuff in town) can get you achievements
-There's a scavenger hunt, from which you ultimately end up with a completed book, I don't think anybody knows what it's for yet

edit: And just to round out all the stuff I know so far, the skins from the BL chests are all tradeable and on the TP for various prices
 
The skins from the Black Lion Chests are ONLY from the black lion chests. It requires a bit of money/luck to get at them, but that's to be understood. They're EXTREMELY COOL and RARE, and will NEVER BE SEEN outside of this event. That is why the drop rate is so low. I feel unique that I got the greatsaw at all. I had a chance of getting ANYTHING else.
 
sorry for the bump but

Kristen (that is Bornemann, of ArenaNet) mentioned to me that you should NOT TRASH OR USE THE "JUNK" YOU MAY HAVE GOTTEN FROM BLACK LION CHESTS IN TRYING TO GET THE HALLOWEEN SKINS

Again,
people who may have been frustrated with their lack of getting anything in black lion chests
HANG ONTO ANY STUFF YOU GOT FROM BLACK LION CHESTS.

that is all.
 
Hawkian said:
sorry for the bump but

Kristen (that is Bornemann, of ArenaNet) mentioned to me that you should NOT TRASH OR USE THE "JUNK" YOU MAY HAVE GOTTEN FROM BLACK LION CHESTS IN TRYING TO GET THE HALLOWEEN SKINS

Again,
people who may have been frustrated with their lack of getting anything in black lion chests
HANG ONTO ANY STUFF YOU GOT FROM BLACK LION CHESTS.

that is all.
Click to expand...

The only thing I trashed before were tonics, but at least now they're semi-useful in costume brawl.
 
se, path 1

is the most elaborate troll of all time

KuGsj.gif
 
mingus said:
The only thing I trashed before were tonics, but at least now they're semi-useful in costume brawl.
Click to expand...

I still have about 250 of these. But I FUCKING HOPE that you don't need EXACTLY 250 to make something, because FUCK ARENANET if so. I have been having fun with them.

The only item that I have used all up of is the Black Lion Pickaxe, and so help me god
 
So glad I didn't make a charr. All these items look fantastic on them, and goofy on my sylvari.

Guess I'll stick with tier 1 cultural and verdant forever! Being easily satisfied is great.
 
Lyphen said:
So glad I didn't make a charr. All these items look fantastic on them, and goofy on my sylvari.

Guess I'll stick with tier 1 cultural and verdant forever! Being easily satisfied is great.
Click to expand...

That doesn't seem to function right in my head, they look awesome = glad I don't have one? :P
 
Audίoboxer;43547499 said:
That doesn't seem to function right in my head, they look awesome = glad I don't have one? :P
Click to expand...
Well, yes. Otherwise I'd be gambling, and blaming ArenaNet for slim odds and lack of self control.
 
mingus said:
You need 1 Candy Corn, 6 Mystery Tonics, 1 Boost (any), 1 Boost (any) to get a Mad King Chest. These chests will include Halloween specific loot and give you a second chance to get one of the terrifying, rare Halloween skins. No key needed for this chest. (Not yet implemented)
Click to expand...

Very cool. I got enough stuff banked to make about 20 of these..hopefully I can get something this way cause getting keys was just not going to happen for me.
 
lol, well, the market's flooded with halloweens skins. hit the TP and buy what you want!
KuGsj.gif


edit: Greatsaw still 30 gold as of now
 
Not sure how I feel about the new Mad King Chests.

On one hand, I applaud that AN realized that some players were upset with the original Black Lion Chest deal. From a designer perspective, I think the whole event has been pretty dern good so far. Still, average players don't think in terms of gameplay balance or controlling the amount of rare / unique loot - they just want cool stuff (and they want it at a rate that THEY think is fair - screw game design!)

Personally, I'm a bit sad that these unique and potentially memorable items will be everywhere now. Instead of feeling "special" for owning one -you'll just feel like everyone else. That said, it was a pretty creative way to handle the problem so we'll see where it all goes from there. I hope this isn't the beginning of the end like in WoW, where rabid forum fans dictated game design out of a sense of entitlement.

:/

(Still working on farming mats for The Crossing.
will wurk 4 nougatses
 
KuroNeeko said:
Not sure how I feel about the new Mad King Chests.

On one hand, I applaud that AN realized that some players were upset with the original Black Lion Chest deal. From a designer perspective, I think the whole event has been pretty dern good so far. Still, average players don't think in terms of gameplay balance or controlling the amount of rare / unique loot - they just want cool stuff (and they want it at a rate that THEY think is fair - screw game design!)

Personally, I'm a bit sad that these unique and potentially memorable items will be everywhere now. Instead of feeling "special" for owning one -you'll just feel like everyone else. That said, it was a pretty creative way to handle the problem so we'll see where it all goes from there. I hope this isn't the beginning of the end like in WoW, where rabid forum fans dictated game design out of a sense of entitlement.

:/

(Still working on farming mats for The Crossing.
will wurk 4 nougatses
Click to expand...

the same, but not at all surprised this happened :P

Still, they'll become quite rare once the event is over. Just get what you want, and enjoy :D
 
KuroNeeko said:
Not sure how I feel about the new Mad King Chests.

On one hand, I applaud that AN realized that some players were upset with the original Black Lion Chest deal. From a designer perspective, I think the whole event has been pretty dern good so far. Still, average players don't think in terms of gameplay balance or controlling the amount of rare / unique loot - they just want cool stuff (and they want it at a rate that THEY think is fair - screw game design!)

Personally, I'm a bit sad that these unique and potentially memorable items will be everywhere now. Instead of feeling "special" for owning one -you'll just feel like everyone else. That said, it was a pretty creative way to handle the problem so we'll see where it all goes from there. I hope this isn't the beginning of the end like in WoW, where rabid forum fans dictated game design out of a sense of entitlement.

:/

(Still working on farming mats for The Crossing.
will wurk 4 nougatses
Click to expand...

It's still pretty rare to get a skin from a Mad King chest too. It's in no way a guaranteed drop.

But I guess the fact that you can craft Mystery Tonics makes it a little weird, lol.

Edit: Just opened 3 Mad King chests. I got candy corns and mummy tonics!
 
Holy crapus.

Checked out what I'll need to actually make The Crossing and it comes out to about 2500 Candy Corns, 125 Nougats, and 25 Chattering Skulls / Plastic Teeth - all needed to be farmed within the Halloween Event.

Nooooooooo way. I've got MAYBE 2 gold between all of my characters. :(

Time to start selling ALL of my other crafting mats.
 
Just a heads up, crafting mystery tonics is pointless.

Only the ones you get from the chests can be used in the Mad King Chest recipe. I bet people thought you could since the names of the items are same, but it does not work.
 
They really messed up their communication on the event.

The patch note made it seem like you could only get things with gems, which is true, and not true at the same time, because the Mad King quest rewards you with a unique looking item too and i would guess further chapters certainly will too.

Where they could have done things a bit better regarding black lion chests would have been to allow items to be obtained through candy bags with a very low drop rate for everyone, and having a better chance with black lion chests, that would have solved many complaints.
(or make it Masterwork or Rare in candy bags and Exotics in BL chests, or add some more eye-candy to it)

Then as far as Halloween recipes go we know that Halloween items (candy, fangs, skulls) can be kept after the event, but we still don't know if they will be usable only to craft items out of the event's recipes or if you STILL will be able to get recipes from the MF if you have the required Halloween materials.

I don't want them to spill the beans on the MF recipes, but all that would be needed here is some more details about how things actually will work.
 
Boss Doggie said:
Is there a list of recipes on halloween weapons?
Click to expand...

The crafted exotics? Yeah, but it's not really worth it.

For example, The Crossing (the staff) requires this in total:

2500 Candy Corn
500 CoE Tokens
270 Orichalcum Ingots
125 Nougat Centers
100 Mystic Coins
100 Crystal Lodestones
50 Skill Points
40 Globs of Ecto
40 Elonian Wine
25 Chattering Skulls
25 Plastic Fangs
20 Glacial Lodestones
10 Crystalline Dust

As awesome as it looks, it's just not worth all that IMO.
 
nataku said:
The crafted exotics? Yeah, but it's not really worth it.

For example, The Crossing (the staff) requires this in total:

2500 Candy Corn
500 CoE Tokens
270 Orichalcum Ingots
125 Nougat Centers
100 Mystic Coins
100 Crystal Lodestones
50 Skill Points
40 Globs of Ecto
40 Elonian Wine
25 Chattering Skulls
25 Plastic Fangs
20 Glacial Lodestones
10 Crystalline Dust

As awesome as it looks, it's just not worth all that IMO.
Click to expand...

you can remove the materials required for the recipe, and just buy it from the TP it's around 7g now which is a lot cheaper than what you would need to buy the Elonian Wine alone.

250 Candy Corn
10 Crystalline Dust
40 Elonian Wine
100 Rare Halloween Materials (Nougat = Souls, Skulls = Moon, Fangs = Spiders)
 
nataku said:
The crafted exotics? Yeah, but it's not really worth it.

For example, The Crossing (the staff) requires this in total:

2500 Candy Corn
500 CoE Tokens
270 Orichalcum Ingots
125 Nougat Centers
100 Mystic Coins
100 Crystal Lodestones
50 Skill Points
40 Globs of Ecto
40 Elonian Wine
25 Chattering Skulls
25 Plastic Fangs
20 Glacial Lodestones
10 Crystalline Dust

As awesome as it looks, it's just not worth all that IMO.
Click to expand...

Oh hey, it's like trying to get a set of those GW1 Destroyer/etc. weapons. Tons of ridiculous mats.
 
mingus said:
Good god 20 superior sigils of the night?? Thought I was done mining after stockpiling 750 candy corn -___-
Click to expand...

Yeah, the sigils are the back breaker. I'm trying to farm the mats but realistically, you need to have an established character at 80 or (and this is more likely) someone who has enough gold to just straight out buy the mats.

I'm not complaining, but it reminds me of those "social" games that are out there. It IS possible to farm the mats or just buy them with in-game gold and it IS possible to do it without real money - but it does require a pretty hefty time investment, especially with the deadline to farm mats.

Fair enough, for those people who want it you either pay cash or time. For all the rest, you still have a whole other game to enjoy. I'm not giving up on farming the mats - that damn staff will be mine, but I'm not realistic about getting everything together. Just gives me something to focus on while I explore and check stuff out.

On a completely unrelated topic, the Sylvari starting area and the underwater environments in this game are awesome. Really opens up the exploration aspect. I didn't realize how unsatisfied I was with the underwater terrain in the Bethesda games until Guild Wars 2. Wow.
Just wish I wasn't stuck using Trident on my Necromancer. Takes soooo long to kill things without aggroing neutrals.

Just curious, but who do you think has the most enjoyable underwater attacks? While I like the Engineer's attacks, the Elementalist with her bazillion attack options probably takes it for me. Mesmer has some fun attacks as well. Still haven't really seen the attacks for Warrior, Ranger, or Guardian.
 
Boss Doggie said:
Oh... nevermind then. Yikes at the mats.
Click to expand...

Yeah.. lol.

Part of me appreciates stuff that is rare, but lets face it, that's an absurd amount of grinding and there's no realistic way to get all that if you have a job or something. It's kinda where the line is crossed for me. I'd rather have something that everyone can work towards - what's the harm anyway?

But yeah, Capitalism, ho!
 
nataku said:
The crafted exotics? Yeah, but it's not really worth it.

For example, The Crossing (the staff) requires this in total:

2500 Candy Corn
500 CoE Tokens
270 Orichalcum Ingots
125 Nougat Centers
100 Mystic Coins
100 Crystal Lodestones
50 Skill Points
40 Globs of Ecto
40 Elonian Wine
25 Chattering Skulls
25 Plastic Fangs
20 Glacial Lodestones
10 Crystalline Dust

As awesome as it looks, it's just not worth all that IMO.
Click to expand...

LOL, that's pretty stupid.
 
Yeah, part of me thinks this is an experiment for Anet. It's their first release of new content since launch and they're either not sure how they should set pricing or are trying to see how much they can get away with.

I wouldn't be surprised if future events has exotics that require fewer mats.
 
Something like 1000 CC, 100 of the skulls/fangs/nougats, 25 ectos and 25 wine

(this is off the top of my head, just trying to think of a more reasonable but not freebie req)

would be reasonable for a limited period exotic. The requirements that there are now aren't completely "undoable", but would certainly mean that if you want to use your festive weapon actually during the festive period that you'd have to grind until it's no longer fun and/or drop a whole bunch of gold at once. Sure you could get the Halloween specific items now and brandish your Halloween festive weapon in December once you've decided to put it all together...

Not saying they shouldn't add more non-festive high rarity/requirement exotics, though.

Edit: Reading back on this post...I guess just being able to skin up for Halloween is what the cheap limited skins are for, so maybe I don't have a point.
 
Shining Sunshine said:
Oh hey, it's like trying to get a set of those GW1 Destroyer/etc. weapons. Tons of ridiculous mats.
Click to expand...

This is fucking false, you could buy the mats from material dealer and usually they were cheap, they only spiked in price because of GW2 release...

This is what it cost to make a destroyer weapon...
250 Granite Slabs, 100 Iron Ingots, 10 Diamonds, 10 Onyx Gemstones, and 5Platinum.


Compare that to this...
2500 Candy Corn
500 CoE Tokens
270 Orichalcum Ingots
125 Nougat Centers
100 Mystic Coins
100 Crystal Lodestones
50 Skill Points
40 Globs of Ecto
40 Elonian Wine
25 Chattering Skulls
25 Plastic Fangs
20 Glacial Lodestones
10 Crystalline Dust
Click to expand...
 
Nemesis121 said:
This is fucking false, you could buy the mats from material dealer and usually they were cheap, they only spiked in price because of GW2 release...

This is what it cost to make a destroyer weapon...
250 Granite Slabs, 100 Iron Ingots, 10 Diamonds, 10 Onyx Gemstones, and 5Platinum.

Compare that to this...
Click to expand...

I said a set, you know, like 11 of them for that dumb HoM cheevo?
 
I wonder if they're deliberately meant to be sort of unattainable by normal play, so players will have to buy mats on the TP and suck some gold out of the economy. Anet seems pretty serious about gold sinks in this game.
 
Halloween in Tyria has taken a dark turn. The old stories have been proven true: Mad King Thorn is very real, and his insanity threatens to corrupt all of Tyria. Brand-new Halloween activities, maps, puzzles, events, and surprises await the brave adventurer.

halloween-2012-mad-king-maze-270x170-crop.jpg
halloween-2012-mad-king-tower-270x170-crop.jpg

Realm of the Mad King – The mysterious haunted doors can become portals to or from the Mad King’s realm. Your actions determine whether the mad bestiary is coming or going. Enter the Mad realm yourself, and you’ll find a macabre new map full of creepy creatures, Halloween events, and things that go bump in the night.

Lunatic Inquisition – All is not well in the Mad King’s realm. His subjects are once again rising up against him. Do you join them or defend the king himself? Lunacy is contagious, so be wary. You may find yourself on the wrong side of the battle!

Reaper’s Rumble – In the Mad King’s pumpkin field arena, harvest your victory. Reap what you sow in this dangerous game of tactics and trickery. After all, it’s just not Halloween until somebody gets hit in the head with a pumpkin.

Mad King’s Clock Tower – Only the Mad King himself could imagine up such a devious jumping puzzle. You’ll need nerves of steel and steady feet to claim the treasure at the top of the Mad King’s tower.
Click to expand...

gogogogogogogog
 
that tower

I am ready to fly a plane into that tower.

Some of the events weren't working when it turned to Act 2. Not sure if they're up yet or not. To get into the Mad King's realm you must find one of those haunted doors that lets you enter. From there you can talk to a NPC to try the Tower or the Rumble. Walking to the portal stone will take you to the Labyrinth.
 
Jumping puzzle took a good hour or so for me and another friend. We managed to do it but it was one of those things where it was frustrating but in a good way. ;D
 
DJNoctis said:
but it was one of those things where it was frustrating but in a good way. ;D
Click to expand...

I might agree with this if it wasn't for the ~30 seconds between retries or the sheer confusion of trying to do precision platforming with 20 other players overlapping your own.
 
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