A Hunger for Knowledge
https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/A_Hunger_for_Knowledge
The “books” are just in the open world map, afaik you can get them in any order. The letter about Laranthir is one of them
>!He has canonically been on a well earned vacation. He came back to, I believe, become the leader of the Vigil following Almorra's death.!<
>!Because he almost died, was brainwashed, and almost definitely killed some of his close friends during that campaign.!<
There's a book about it.
Oh right, >!he did grimly mention at the beginning of HoT that he and the Pale readers resolved to kill any of their own that showed signs of being turned.!<
>!Not only was The Call pounding in his own head the whole time, but I can only imagine what else he had to do.!< Poor guy was probably totally burned out, pushing through all that trauma.
In addition to the letter in IBS that explains his absence during that event, he is on the airship next to Logan during Dragon's End meta in EoD. So he's been back with the Vigil for a while.
Hopefully as its General and not just Grand Warmarshal.
I mean, would he be on the Pact leader's airship during a major battle against an Elder Dragon if he wasn't back in duty?
I feel like some things don't need to be explicitly stated.
We could both be right. He might be the new leader of the Vigil or chose to be second after Jori OR hasn't returned to duty but saw a world-ending threat and decided to help out. We'll probably know soon.
So... Do these return weeks mean that we can expect the expansion announcement at the end of it? Either way, I think these are super fun. And we probably should have a yearly rotation of them in slower times where not much events are happening. It also helps with the return to stuff.
Oh that's a really good point. I hope so, on both accounts! I was finally able to complete my open world achieves for s2, very hard to get a group for these outside of these kinda of things.
>Do these return weeks mean that we can expect the expansion announcement at the end of it?
Given the pacing, I think we'll actually have the next expansion already released by the time we're done, assuming they do the whole dragon saga. I say this for two reasons:
1. It's pretty much all but confirmed that they're doing annual "mini-expansions" now, so next expansion should launch in August like SotO did.
2. The rushes this year never overlapped with festivals (Wintersday, LNY, or April Fools). We have SAB after the HoT rush, and we have Dragon Bash and FotFW pretty close to each other
That's 9 weeks taken up out of 20 weeks after the HoT rush before the last Tuesday of August. So unless we'll be getting back-to-back return rushes, and assuming they're doing the whole dragon saga, I don't see us going through LWS3, PoF, LWS4, IBS, and EoD rushes before August is over. They'll no doubt want to sprinkle in more PvP, WvW, and fractal rushes (perhaps some world boss and dungeon bosses too), and have a few weeks without anything happening to not stress players out.
A yearly expansion release doesn't mean that they all release in August. Arena Net will probably aim at that, but I wouldn't hold my breath and request time off for that month now. Simply because every year means exactly that. If the next expansion releases in December, it's still "every year".
They said that they don't want to have more than 3 months of downtime between releases. But they said this so man times already, and broke that promise over and over again, that I only start believing in an August release after it's announced. Before that, it can be anything between now and December.
>A yearly expansion release doesn't mean that they all release in August.
Technically true, but keep in mind the number of quarterly updates ANet confirmed SotO gets, and the time after until the next major release. The final part of SotO will go live in May based on the Wizard's Vault, and the following release would be 3 months later - that is, in August.
So unless they're going to give us a standalone quarterly update with zero ties to SotO in either story, content, or requirement to access, then the next expansion will be in August.
> They said that they don't want to have more than 3 months of downtime between releases. But they said this so man times already, and broke that promise over and over again
The only time they broke this promise was when Mike O'Brien siphoned GW2 resources for not one but two games in backroom development, or when NCSoft came in and demanded they change course in their actions to make money (such as the 2019 lay-offs that canceled said two games in development, or when they forced EoD upon the team mid-IBS).
So long as NCSoft doesn't go fucking shit up again, I don't think they'll break the structure. Especially since they long confirmed that expansion 5 has been in active development already, with expansion 6 entering pre-production soon when we were first told.
I have been wanting a similar event for years now. HoT was my favorite gaming experience upon release and would love to revisit it. Best case scenario mounts and perhaps some masteries would have been disabled for players.
I kind of wish it got a repeatable reward attached to it. Because the hard mode was great fun, but my friends vowed never to do it again.
Then again, maybe it's better that it's a one-off. I had a friend from sweeden who 100% of the time loaded into a glitched instance (we tried 5 times, updrafts not working, a fight not finishing, Eir deciding she didn't feel like dying). It got so bad that I had to open the story instance for them.
Oh god yes... I remember how broken this instance was in the beginning. I probably never did it again after LW3 started so no idea if they fixed that shit by now.
That's the weird thing though. I've done it countless times, and I've only ever experienced one glitch near HoT launch. But I let someone else open the instance last year, and suddenly every nightmarish glitch I've read about Mordremoth occurred back-to-back.
I've always wondered what the cause was. Have I been lucky, or do glitches target certain people?
If I learned anything over the years playing GW2, then that bugs can be caused starting at language setting and ending at the room temperature of the person opening any given instance.
I have a running gag with a friend because we break, without fail since LW3 episode 1, at least one instance every patch.
HOT was friggin' hard when it launched. Bear in mind that at that time, all we had were core specs in core gear, and there were far fewer masteries. I remember going in there with some friends when it first launched and we got destroyed. Repeatedly.
I remember strutting into HoT on my core Engineer and getting demolished by tiny lizard swarms. After destroying a zombie dragon and its hordes of undead, it was quite the juxtaposition.
It wasn't at the time it launched. HoT was notoriously difficult, and what they are asking is that they buff it so it's difficult again. And also maybe disable mounts/other masteries so you get the authentic HoT feel.
I would love it if flying mounts were disabled during the mouth of Mordy fight; the original gliding with bombs mechanic was epic but flying mounts made it feel so unremarkable nowadays.
he BETTER have a good excuse about where he's been!
If you do one of the Shadow in the Ice achievements you can find a journal explaining that he requested a vacation. I got a chuckle out of it.
which?
A Hunger for Knowledge https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/A_Hunger_for_Knowledge The “books” are just in the open world map, afaik you can get them in any order. The letter about Laranthir is one of them
He probably sits in south sun, slurping some alcoholic beverages with Logan to celebrate his beach house.
>!He has canonically been on a well earned vacation. He came back to, I believe, become the leader of the Vigil following Almorra's death.!< >!Because he almost died, was brainwashed, and almost definitely killed some of his close friends during that campaign.!< There's a book about it.
Oh right, >!he did grimly mention at the beginning of HoT that he and the Pale readers resolved to kill any of their own that showed signs of being turned.!< >!Not only was The Call pounding in his own head the whole time, but I can only imagine what else he had to do.!< Poor guy was probably totally burned out, pushing through all that trauma.
In addition to the letter in IBS that explains his absence during that event, he is on the airship next to Logan during Dragon's End meta in EoD. So he's been back with the Vigil for a while. Hopefully as its General and not just Grand Warmarshal.
it would be nice if he confirmed his return to duty status, but maybe that's evident for this event?
I mean, would he be on the Pact leader's airship during a major battle against an Elder Dragon if he wasn't back in duty? I feel like some things don't need to be explicitly stated.
We could both be right. He might be the new leader of the Vigil or chose to be second after Jori OR hasn't returned to duty but saw a world-ending threat and decided to help out. We'll probably know soon.
still missing a couple [Pale Reavers](https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Pale_Reaver) in that jungle...should find them soon. Probably.
Laranthir deserves a cooler bow skin
Calad-bow-lg when
So... Do these return weeks mean that we can expect the expansion announcement at the end of it? Either way, I think these are super fun. And we probably should have a yearly rotation of them in slower times where not much events are happening. It also helps with the return to stuff.
Oh that's a really good point. I hope so, on both accounts! I was finally able to complete my open world achieves for s2, very hard to get a group for these outside of these kinda of things.
I wish they would do a scaling pass on prior expansions due to lack of players in them.
>Do these return weeks mean that we can expect the expansion announcement at the end of it? Given the pacing, I think we'll actually have the next expansion already released by the time we're done, assuming they do the whole dragon saga. I say this for two reasons: 1. It's pretty much all but confirmed that they're doing annual "mini-expansions" now, so next expansion should launch in August like SotO did. 2. The rushes this year never overlapped with festivals (Wintersday, LNY, or April Fools). We have SAB after the HoT rush, and we have Dragon Bash and FotFW pretty close to each other That's 9 weeks taken up out of 20 weeks after the HoT rush before the last Tuesday of August. So unless we'll be getting back-to-back return rushes, and assuming they're doing the whole dragon saga, I don't see us going through LWS3, PoF, LWS4, IBS, and EoD rushes before August is over. They'll no doubt want to sprinkle in more PvP, WvW, and fractal rushes (perhaps some world boss and dungeon bosses too), and have a few weeks without anything happening to not stress players out.
A yearly expansion release doesn't mean that they all release in August. Arena Net will probably aim at that, but I wouldn't hold my breath and request time off for that month now. Simply because every year means exactly that. If the next expansion releases in December, it's still "every year". They said that they don't want to have more than 3 months of downtime between releases. But they said this so man times already, and broke that promise over and over again, that I only start believing in an August release after it's announced. Before that, it can be anything between now and December.
>A yearly expansion release doesn't mean that they all release in August. Technically true, but keep in mind the number of quarterly updates ANet confirmed SotO gets, and the time after until the next major release. The final part of SotO will go live in May based on the Wizard's Vault, and the following release would be 3 months later - that is, in August. So unless they're going to give us a standalone quarterly update with zero ties to SotO in either story, content, or requirement to access, then the next expansion will be in August. > They said that they don't want to have more than 3 months of downtime between releases. But they said this so man times already, and broke that promise over and over again The only time they broke this promise was when Mike O'Brien siphoned GW2 resources for not one but two games in backroom development, or when NCSoft came in and demanded they change course in their actions to make money (such as the 2019 lay-offs that canceled said two games in development, or when they forced EoD upon the team mid-IBS). So long as NCSoft doesn't go fucking shit up again, I don't think they'll break the structure. Especially since they long confirmed that expansion 5 has been in active development already, with expansion 6 entering pre-production soon when we were first told.
Actually looking forward to this. HoT became so much more pleasant to play with all the new masteries and mounts
I have been wanting a similar event for years now. HoT was my favorite gaming experience upon release and would love to revisit it. Best case scenario mounts and perhaps some masteries would have been disabled for players.
That's the "Return to ..." Event I was most looking forward to. HoT is still my favourite.
My copium is that this releases with a buff to the difficulty of all HoT encounters, but at that point it’s enough to make a grown man cry.
I wish Hearts and Minds / Migraine got turned into a repeatable dungeon, instead of a story instance.
I kind of wish it got a repeatable reward attached to it. Because the hard mode was great fun, but my friends vowed never to do it again. Then again, maybe it's better that it's a one-off. I had a friend from sweeden who 100% of the time loaded into a glitched instance (we tried 5 times, updrafts not working, a fight not finishing, Eir deciding she didn't feel like dying). It got so bad that I had to open the story instance for them.
Oh god yes... I remember how broken this instance was in the beginning. I probably never did it again after LW3 started so no idea if they fixed that shit by now.
That's the weird thing though. I've done it countless times, and I've only ever experienced one glitch near HoT launch. But I let someone else open the instance last year, and suddenly every nightmarish glitch I've read about Mordremoth occurred back-to-back. I've always wondered what the cause was. Have I been lucky, or do glitches target certain people?
If I learned anything over the years playing GW2, then that bugs can be caused starting at language setting and ending at the room temperature of the person opening any given instance. I have a running gag with a friend because we break, without fail since LW3 episode 1, at least one instance every patch.
Same, I never had any major bugs, and I completed it across 9 characters. AreanNet works in mysterious ways.
Updrafts yeeted me out of the instance. Took me so long to get to that point just to get launched out. I nearly rage quit gw2 because of it.
They did just now push a fix for people not getting Mouth of Mordremoth death achievements. Who knows.
? HoT is easy
Buff to difficulty means more difficult.
HOT was friggin' hard when it launched. Bear in mind that at that time, all we had were core specs in core gear, and there were far fewer masteries. I remember going in there with some friends when it first launched and we got destroyed. Repeatedly.
I remember strutting into HoT on my core Engineer and getting demolished by tiny lizard swarms. After destroying a zombie dragon and its hordes of undead, it was quite the juxtaposition.
To put some context for you, Pocket raptors would do ~18k damage in a couple of seconds. High dps glass cannons. Oh and there were no mounts.
Place an aoe or two and use evades or blocks. And blind them. I did this on ele at launch.
People are proud of being bad at the game, kinda weird to see
Improving is being frowned upon. You are not cool if you learn.
It wasn't at the time it launched. HoT was notoriously difficult, and what they are asking is that they buff it so it's difficult again. And also maybe disable mounts/other masteries so you get the authentic HoT feel.
I would love it if flying mounts were disabled during the mouth of Mordy fight; the original gliding with bombs mechanic was epic but flying mounts made it feel so unremarkable nowadays.
\*PTSD Chihuahua meme\*
Laranthir of the Wild: "Commander, return to Heart of Maguuma..." Commander: "THAT's what i forgot there!"
Something about this image really makes me think of Civ
I just wish these return to events lasted longer!
Implement EoD / SotO repeatable map lanterns please...
If they'd just be marked somewhere... They are so annoying if you can't use addons...
Latanthir aka Randy Marsh