GW2: Update Notes Thread

[Gokulo]

https://www.guildwars.com/en

Guild Wars Reforged

To make this project possible, we’ve partnered up with 2weeks, a small team formed in 2024 from former ArenaNet staff. The 2weeks team has more than 14 years of combined experience working on the original Guild Wars at ArenaNet, bringing invaluable insight and passion to this project. We can’t wait for you to play and experience it!

The first updates you can look forward to include:

New low, bundled price: Guild Wars Reforged brings Prophecies, Factions, and Nightfall together for just £17.99. If you have purchased even one of the three campaigns, all of them will be unlocked through Guild Wars Reforged. And, of course, there are still no subscription fees.

Hardware compatibility: Guild Wars Reforged is Steam Deck verified and has support for modern controllers. The UI has also been redesigned with larger text options, and the game has support for high DPI displays.

Visual and audio updates: Dynamic sky bloom effects, new ambient occlusion, and lighting updates take better advantage of modern GPUs. Other visual touch-ups refine textures and make for a cleaner visual experience, while new positional audio support makes the world more immersive.

User-friendliness: In addition to the updated UI that allows easier navigation, Guild Wars Reforged brings a new quest tracking system and an on-screen control guide.

[Karbuncle]

See a new post here but the thread is broken and wont load the next post so I'm posting this in hopes of seeing it \o/

Edit: It worked yay, they're re-frog-ing oldschool GW? Interesting

[Gokulo]

Gdi, ribbit

Anyway, I actually gave GW2 a new try some time ago, I originally only played it a bit on release, but stopped soon after getting level 80 afair. This time I'm enjoying it a lot more and slowly going through all the expansions and it did make me think I could go back and try completing GW1 too (tried that too as a teenager once, but didn't get far I think) - I reinstalled it a couple of weeks ago, but I bounced off because of the UI etc., so this new version will be a perfect opportunity to try again

[arus2001]

Was also a release and drop shortly after player, and while I did try logging in last week or so, I just kind of found myself staring at the screen thinking, "Okay, what the fuck do I do now..."

It's like there's that awkward mix of gacha UI clutter, nested systems, and the inventory/backpack system that frankly feels pretty bad in 2025. Whatever they did to change class advancement at some point, idkbro. While some might think it'd just be smarter to make a fresh character and relearn it all from scratch, I can't remember that 1-80 grind/story being fun enough to justify that.

[Gokulo]

Yeah, I did decide to start with a new character and the base game is kind of a slog, but I was interested in the story of the expansions so I powered through

[Karbuncle]

I played it for a good while, idk what time frame and all, but really just ended up getting bored because while there was a lot to do, there was basically no reason to do it since the best gear was purchasable off the auction house for nothing.

I remember checking back in when they added "pink" gear, a kind of upgrade to Orange from challenge content, but realistically I just don't know what keeps people farming and playing this game, cause I found it incredibly deflating to hit endgame and realize a few gold on the auction house and I've peaked in terms of gear. I think even their Legendary weapons just copy the stats of the highest gear option (Pink last time I played).

PVP I guess keeps some folks going, and the world v world stuff, and since gear has mostly stayed at the same power level for years it all boils down to your skill (and whatever class is broken I guess)... and yah I did have fun in WvW when there were people to play with, or just sniping certain small forts with a small group, but that only kept me going so long lol

[Gokulo]

Yeah, if what you're looking for is vertical progression then this is definitely not a good game. Maybe with the exception of masteries, since those do take some time to grind if you want to unlock everything.

I had the same problem the first time. This time I tried to approach it with a different mindset. I play to to just play and have fun. But also, right now the thing that interests me most is going through the story. With all these expansions it's a ton of content to go through + I'm playing very slowly. But when I'm done with the story it's possible I will once again struggle with having a reason to log in. Which is fine, since there's no subscription fee.

[Karbuncle]

Yah, i'm goal oriented and usually enjoy doing things that progress my character, I get bored easily when theres nothing left to do or aim for, and I'm not really a "Level a new character" kind of guy. Even some of my favorite games like Valheim, Minecraft, Enshrouded, those types, I'll wait months or years between play sessions until new content comes out or a new modpack because once I fully complete a game, just continuing to 'play' with no goal never really keeps me moving.

I did enjoy the time I played, but yah, just kind of 'experienced' everything at least once and then quit. Maybe its been long enough to give it another run through on a fresh char

[Celeras]

Something being announced Friday, maybe GW3 as it was also posted by the GW1 channel and they never post GW2 stuff

https://bsky.app/profile/guildwars2..../3mnahf6vkoo2o

[Karbuncle]

It'll be a GW1 remaster or something.

(if its Gw3 that'll be kinda cool, i'd like to see a modern version of this game)

[Takiwaki]

It'll be a GW1 remaster or something.

(if its Gw3 that'll be kinda cool, i'd like to see a modern version of this game)

Maybe GW3 since they kinda recently did guild wars reforged?

[Gokulo]

It's the first time they did such a teaser, so it does feel like it might be a big announcement like GW3

[Karbuncle]

Maybe GW3 since they kinda recently did guild wars reforged?

Kinda more worried now its going to be some weird Mobile spinoff like Diablo Immortal or something then.

But i'm fingers crossed for a GW3 announcement cause, as I said, I'd love for a real modernization of that franchise... GW2 was fun but its age is showing.

[Takiwaki]

Kinda more worried now its going to be some weird Mobile spinoff like Diablo Immortal or something then.

But i'm fingers crossed for a GW3 announcement cause, as I said, I'd love for a real modernization of that franchise... GW2 was fun but its age is showing.

Yea I loved gw2 when it first released but did not like the direction of the updates and progression and it kinda made me lose interest. Fun fact I was so into guild wars back in the day my first and only Pax west was cus gw2 was going to be playable for the first time.

[arus2001]

Recently tried logging back in to GW2 recently, had so much garbage in my inventory and no real clue what to do that I just kinda logged off and uninstalled. To say it'd benefit from some modernization is an understatement, but I think GW2 itself is way too rooted in its RMT aspects to be salvageable.

[Gokulo]

What RMT aspects specifically? Do you mean things like paid character/bag/bank slots?

[arus2001]

More or less. I hit 80 not long after launch, so memory of things may not be the best, but it still never felt good. I had a few alts, but overall, shared storage was just too small. Especially with all the consumables they shovel at you.

[Karbuncle]

I mean if I recall you can straight up just buy gold in that game too with their premium gems or whatever. While that wont get you the ascended gear or whatever they eventually added, sure gets you the best non-raid endgame set right out the gate as well as making it super easy to level crafts

[Gokulo]

I mean if I recall you can straight up just buy gold in that game too with their premium gems or whatever. While that wont get you the ascended gear or whatever they eventually added, sure gets you the best non-raid endgame set right out the gate as well as making it super easy to level crafts

You can easily earn gold to gear yourself up for max level too. Even if I wanted to buy anything with gems (like Living World stories - basically a between expansions DLC), I'd just farm gold in game and buy gems with that. As for bag slots, you actually can get plenty of them from various sources in game. Bank slots are the only thing I guess you do need to buy with gems, unless they also sometimes get added to the Vault (a store where you buy stuff with points you get for doing daily/weekly activities)

[Karbuncle]

You can easily earn gold to gear yourself up for max level too. Even if I wanted to buy anything with gems (like Living World stories - basically a between expansions DLC), I'd just farm gold in game and buy gems with that. As for bag slots, you actually can get plenty of them from various sources in game. Bank slots are the only thing I guess you do need to buy with gems, unless they also sometimes get added to the Vault (a store where you buy stuff with points you get for doing daily/weekly activities)

Yah I know you can farm gold, doesn't mean you can't swipe your credit card to buy it

I myself also just farmed it cause I wasn't paying real money for in game gold as RMT was never my thing as far back as XI. But someone with more money than sense starting the game, especially back before they added the Pink tier armor, could just log in and buy the best gear in the game with their credit card without raising a single finger to any of the games content... and the game was like that for YEARS before they added a new tier of armor only obtainable through doing actual content.

Not to mention the multiple different boosters, crafting booster, exp boosters, drop rate boosters, which again you could buy off the auction house with gold if you were a peasant(and my memories vague but I think you could earn some of them through certain content?), but you could also just purchase them straight from the shop with credit card powers.

Also to clarify, I'm not saying it was a bad game(fuck I enjoyed it for months when I played, it was super fun farming all the zones for the 'legendary' weapon) or had some overwhelming pressure to spend like with mobile games, but it definitely was p2w for those who wanted to p2w. You had a clear advantage on every level if you decided you had enough money to spend.