The best part about this expansion is that the homestead is not supposed to be a place of refuge or a den of inequity. I can alt tab without my game sounds being dragged straight through the guano
The expansion trailer didn't lie. Janthir Wilds is stunning. This is the most immersive expansion ANet has ever made. I am totally invested in the story and side quests in the new zones. To the point where it took me a week to get to my homestead and just today I've fought the Bog Witch. I get constantly distracted by the environment. This is prime Guild Wars 2 and I don't want to rush it. I think this expansion is up there at the top with HoT and PoF. It builds and improves on the flaws of previous expansions. The story and delivery of expansion features is just great. I got my warclaw in the prologue. Then i was introduced to new renown hearts. Then trained by kodan to wield a spear and then I got my homestead. Everything was delivered by the personal story with the full immersion kept. The new warclaw is better than i thought. It's really fun to use in combat. I chase the enemy and pin it down. Jumping mid air is so cool. The new maps are beautiful. The lowland kodan are no pushovers they guide me through the area. I love just being the explorer and enjoying the adventure. 10/10 expansion
Exploration definitely felt, enjoyed, loved, and yearning for more. My favourite exploration moment was wandering into a Beehive while trying to get PoI, finding the Queen Bee there and then having to fight like 20 Bees at once.
That new battle music is a banger! The screeching violin, the hammering drums, I can see that kicking off in a mosh pit! And the lore! Still working on Violent History but knowing where those bodies the Bog Queen is raising came from is amazing. And sorry, Scarlet Briar, my Reaper has found a new project to work on. The Bog Queen: I CAN fix her!
When I'm driving my car during the day I just blast the Janthir Wilds soundtrack at max volume and think about how I'd rather be riding my journeykin through the pine forests of Janthir. That's how good this expansion is.
I wish they would add one thing. It was never added throughout entire Guild Wars 2 life cycle: Area marker of chosen Renown Heart (just simple click on heart with right mouse button and choice to "show renown area"). Because sometimes, especially on Lowland Shore map I can be underneath Renown Heart area and doing events counts in to this renown heart, but sometimes not and it counts to another heart that is located in another layer.
I feel like I ran into that a lot on Janthir Syntri! Or being just out of range for an activity to count to a heart because I was too far north (and/or had just completed that heart it would have counted for.)
Trying to avoid spoilers, but your first point about how good the maps are is on point! It feels good to explore, I usually map complete just because but I actually want to discover the map this time, and it doesn't feel like a slog traversing.
Janthir Wilds is so insanely good. Environment/Story/Music is just top notch. I played waay too much every night since expansion launch, and definitely will play much much more :D Anet blew it out of the water with this one
Engineer spear has made me go melee for the first time :) I am making a dense forest in my homestead. And once again, you care for the characters of the story! Love the bear kin and please let us play them someday Arenanet. Through it all, please remember we are only 1/4 into the story :)
I was thinking playing Waiting Sorrow would be spectacular! She was doing all these amazeballs ele things, but the actual effect on mobs was like...Oh. :o
I think Soto’s down fall was being the first in this new expac cycle. Anet were feeling it all our learning what they could and couldn’t do in the time frame and JW has greatly benefited from that.
I really like how they implemented all the new systems in the expac. All the new features and the way their introduced all feels organic and intuitive. Really enjoying my time in Janthir.
Laranthir came back. And maybe I overestimated his words, but I think he flirted a little with my cabbage girl. And he's okay with Jhavi taking over command of the Vigil. That is my story highlight. And exploration... spent two days just wandering over the map without the urge to continue with the story.
Your vids make me downloaded guild wars 2 for the first time and bought the first two expansion Looking forward to to have amazing experience in guild wars 2 🎉
I'm loving the heck out of janthir wilds - my biggest and kinda only point of criticism is that there's a lot of decorations from raids / other content for guild halls that you don't get in homesteads. And particularly for raid decorations where you can use them to craft trophies it kinda feels like we won't get the actual decorations later on cause they're already in use for homesteads when crafting trophies. And I rlly just wish we would get them
@@Laranity unfortunately those recipes only give you a trophy that looks like the boss chest - not the actual decorations you get for guild halls:// I don't want a trophy I want samarog spears
I feel like mmorpgs should be all about open world content/exploration and gw2 doing such a good job with that. I really enjoy janthir wilds a lot and was really sceptical because I hated soto and it end up being a extremely fun expansion. Its sad to see that all the other mmorpgs are just like instance simulator
The bosses are pretty cool, and it seems like the lore runs surprisingly deep, i also can't wait for the next patch, as the story seems much more interesting than i expected.
My big disappointment with Homesteads is that your parked alts might as well be statues in fixed positions. Except for Charr tails, they have no animations, they don't wander around even in the armor weight-segregated zones, there's no chatter... nothing. Hardly seems worth it.
Hopefully they'll add more versatility and life to the parked in pcs. I really hope so I also want to kick the bear off my Raptor who is perpetually sitting there my Raptor Buddy needs a break
I also realized that the Lowland Shore's map design was meant to showcase the warclaw's rework! The delta starts from the highest point and gradually gets lower and lower going north. This allows the warclaw to almost infinitely dash and hop mid-air until it reaches the shore because the map layout gives them so much space for air time to regen stamina. You can actually get to the Champion Shark faster by air dashing with a warclaw than flying down with a Skyscale. xD As introduction areas go? This is one of the best if not (arguably) the best.
Honestly I felt like the Warclaw was more more useful on the second map than the first. Yeah, those aspects of Lowland Shore that you mentioned are nice for the Warclaw...but they are way better for the Griffon, so I just use that instead.
@@NZVargs I wasn't talking about whether or not the Warclaw is the most useful for Lowland Shore 😅 Im talking about how the map as an introduction area does a good job showcasing the expac's new features. What you mentioned is pretty much unrelated, but it honestly proves my point. if older specialized mounts like Griffons and Beetles are fun to play in the new maps, then that just shows the amount of consideration the devs put into designing them. Because not only did they create the two maps with the new mount in mind, but they also considered how older mounts will interact with it. In fact there's even a spot in Lowland Shore with NPC Springers, suggesting to non-Griffons and Skyscale owners that they can scale the cliff with just the bunny, meaning they also designed the map for players who don't own Griffons and Skyscales. Just because we have Griffons doesn't mean we should ignore the existence of players who don't lmao 😂😂
For me, I really like how the developers managed to utilize land traversing mechanisms from the past expansions into Janthir Wilds i.e. the jumping mushrooms.
In my opinion Pros: Beautiful maps, good character building, warclaw revamped, achievements, kodans, the sky. Cons: Homestead untradable mats that need conversion, untradable decorations, cap on resources to decorate your home, no kodan playable race to this day ( if they dont add them in this expansion i will rage), no metas, no full story, cliffhanger story "ending", no content basically. Deagostini type expansion, 1 part now the later 3 parts spread through out the year in the form of patches, jackal useless, turtle uselss, raptor useless, springer useless, bugs, playing melee in this expansion will make you quit, spear on half the classes is not even an option, Salmon run. This is more of patch than an expansion, this is like living world season episodes but we pay for them now.
you make me wanna play gw2 again, i really love this game but i had a long pause now because i couldnt inspire myself. But this addon seems great to get back in! thank yu for your summary
Wow Lara, what an expeditious vid! It's kinda fun seeing you post something you were talking about yesterday. It's also really nice to see you in one of your vids 😺 I can't tell you how much I enjoy your content. You really are the GW2 queen!! ? See you tomorrow 😸😸😸 And, oh yeah.....I hadn't actually seen basterd bear till this video, ha ha.
The new heart system is awesome to bring players back to the starting areas without effort: there are almost no places devoid of people for now!! That was a great move by anet
That thing about being able to skip dialog... this was how it was done originally, in the 'side by side' dialog scenes where you could skip ahead. They dropped that after the original game, could do with a comeback. That or a mod that makes the bears speak slightly faster. 20 minutes per sentence is a little slow paced...
Secrets of the Obscure also started out pretty brightly too only to end up shipping crap in the subsequent updates. I'm liking almost everything I'm seeing so far, but I'm gonna hold my verdict until after all the updates have shipped.
the pacific north west vibes in these maps are strong. for all this "janthir is dangerous" talk the characters give, it's weird that it is by far the most comfy time I've had exploring since... pre HoT.
Definitely an awesome expansion so far. Might even be my favourite. The maps are gorgeous, especially the first one, and they're dense with things to do; so many events and little exploration thingies. Warclaw is so much fun. So far I've tried and really like the spear on warrior, thief and ranger. Necro was a bit underwhelming. Haven't tried the others too much yet; there are only 24 hours in a day.
I just Finished the last Chapter of the Expansion so far and honestly this has been the best feeling Expansion so far in terms of how they laid everything out. The story isn't too grand epic, there hasn't been a sequence of hearing Flashbacks from the deceased characters (yet. . .) and the two maps feel like they tell a lot to give a feeling of the setting just roaming around them and completing events, they're almost like if the Orr wasn't dreadful and full of Risen and covered is nice foliage similarly to Cyrodiil in Oblivion. I still have work to do on all the Masteries, have them all at 2 so far and going to focus on my Warclaw and Homestead but the only thing missing from this Expansion is a big ol' Bass Pro Shop with a Cinnabon Cafe inside
As somebody who plays WoW and GW2 new expansions are such a pain, I neither have time nor money to buy both whenever they release, and they always do at the same time. I want to play with the Homesteads so bad 😭😭
The best part of this expansion is that if you buy just JW and you get the Warclaw in PVE you get a Warclaw also in WvW but You can't use it :) very nice for the "warclaw expac" nice Job Arenanet :D
About Arborstone, the door was available in the first 2 days. They remove it because people don;t like it in the places with a lot of others players cause of "missclick".
Best expan since HoT for me.. sure it's currently lacking instanced stuff till later. But I love the maps, cruising around treasure hunting, the chill events. I went super hard and gp to 600 mastery points on my weekend. But days later I'm still loving the events.. and the rain in the 2nd map had me turn the effects right up ❤
My one complaint is that the hearts in Janthir Syntri are way slower than the ones in Lowland Shores. Other than that, this has been a very enjoyable launch.
God, that first one, I ended up grinding wolves to chip away at the damn thing, the events need to either grant more completion or at least spawn more frequently. Can't imagine doing that one in particular daily
One of my only criticisms of the new campaign was also that some of the talking went on just slightly too long. It was really nice to hear how things were going, but sometimes I just didn't want to. I would love a skip button, I wouldn't mind it being locked behind a first clear but when I'm achievement hunting... long dialogs are a grind. I checked my achievement guide 10+ times before I selected a dialog option just to make sure I didn't have to wait through the entire discussion again. Also, it can be really frustrating that if dialogs are linked to the same story step, you can't start them simultaneously. It can double or triple the time investment required for relatively long story missions when you're achievement hunting.
I have already exploded on 3 chars,I love the maps. I want to be only there. Its like i dont even do anything else. I love this xpac so far. The grizzly hills vibe is definitely on point.
only thing i dont like about the homestead is the house is fixed design and size and location of all the facilities are fixed.. u cant customize it.. only furnitures yes..
@@bertoandon9681 that will just eventually make the homes same.. which alot of mmorpg tend to do that.. cheaper to develop yes sure but it affect the UX in the long run. there is however, 1 mmorpg that I played (for quite some time) that has great housing system which is PSO2 New Genesis. you literally get a plot of empty lands and you build everything yourself from the floor to the wall, etc.. like a real building game..in a mmorpg.
I only have two complaints about the expansion and both are with the homestead. 1. They have got to create a better organization for the furniture crafting. It desperately needs to be organized in what they are. Chairs, rocks, trees, beds, plants, paintings, etc. It's so difficult to be able to tell what there is to craft with everything in one massive pile. It also really needs a preview for what you're crafting. 2. They need to allow permanent placement markers for your alts. Make it so our alts stay exactly where we log out, or even just when we have them follow us make it actually mark down where we drop them. Or if it needs to be simpler than that because it's all done by armor weight (for some reason) then let us have the 3 or 4 markers for each that we can place down.
I'm very upset that I can't sleep in my bed in my homestead, but I can sleep in Stoic Alder's bed no problem. (I hope people aren't getting the wrong idea that I go to his room every night!)
Where you can place the homestead portal is a bit weird to me. I get that in places like mistlock and nobles folly it's disabled, but the aerodrome in arborstone is a bit weird when it works in places like lion's arch and the wizard's tower. My friends and i tried multiple hubs and cities yesterday and we have a theory that it might be related to like "special instances", since you can't use the portal in normal instances obviously. So like it might be that the aerodrome and arborstone could be instanced areas of lions arch and echovald and not like seperate maps in themselves whereas the wizards tower is its own map in itself. The "special instances" tehn might have the same rules as the portal scroll hubs (mistlock etc.) applied to them (with the exception of the ones in Divinity's Reach and Amnoon as they are a restricted areas of the open world). But this is only speculation of course
Ha ha.....you beat me to it!! I had actually never seen him before this vid. Also, isn't it great to see Lara in one of her videos and not her characters?
To me, the 1st new map looks like the combination of Grizzly Hill of WoW + Drizzlewood coast ;D So the lowland Kodan is like Furbolg, I think. And Furbolg loves huney too ;3
Fml havent even noticed the glint at the paws D:, also the [sniff] is definitely used for more then just innocent treasure seeking in chat 🤣 also maybe instead of a skip button you can select in the options to turn on only text windows or "proper" dialogue, also when i joined on launch i just felt like HoT release just awe and amazement with exploration etc, the only thing i got frustrated with myself were the salmon runs for gold 😂
I understand your desire to get to max level so you can ride your Warclaw, but rushing to max level is going to mean that you’re not really learning how the game works or how your profession works and you will be missing out on literally tons of content and lore in the game. I’m not saying you shouldn’t play however you want to play, but just realize that there are consequences and you might struggle later. Hope you enjoy the journey and end up sticking with GW2. It really is a great game.
The second map could use some extra events to improve its diversity and broaden options for heart completion. Otherwise it's great, it does a particularly good job of creating a sense of immersion and rewarding casual exploration. Loving the new spear weapons and warclaw changes as well.
Thinking to come back to try the expansion from a little bdo break, is there any classes that use the spear for "stabbi tab" with ice effects? :D Like the awakening Maehwa from bdo if anyone knows it?
Ill be honest i was hoping your characters in the home stead would walk around maybe give them a job like cooking at a fire pit even record a pathing for each one with jobs in between to make them feel alive ,them just standing around randomly like zombies makes them feel dead .Maybe one day! I was hoping to make a Norn village with some of my characters being married to each other make them a home where they work and live ,them greating you when you move by them maybe give them greeting lines from a list of choices that you can choose for them would make the home instance feel more alive . List of jobs you can give them between pathing Could be fishing ,Mining , cooking,Sitting on a chair you made drinking eating and bosting,sleeping on a bed you made,having a conversation animation with out lines would be cool so that it looks like two npc are talking to each other, Farming animation,gathering animation that sort of thing would make the Homestead feel like a real home for your heroes . Lastly would love if you can earn Npc's for your homestead by doing loyalty Achievment missions for them(ad it to the side mission Achievment tab) ,that they then come live in your Homestead does not have to be main characters this would ad more content to actualy play and ad to the Homestead part of the game immensly it would also give us a way to fill out out homesteads for those of us that don't have loads of characters who woulden't want a mama bear and her cub that you helped in the open world to live in there homestead or a old Kodan warrior that lost his hole family in the attacks that can find pease in your homestead the potensial is endless ,hope this makes it to Arenanet in some way. Maybe have an AI give them random movment and jobs so when you teleport in the village looks like its busseling with live and movement and AI will path them around what you build.
Im a returning player, been hopping on and off from the day it launched 12 years ago (time foes fly). When I returned last year I was roughly 7 years behind in content. I am currently going through lws4 and IBS content and achievs and I have yet to still purchase the last 3 expansions. I wonder if you could do a tierlist video comparing expansion or which ones would you recommend to play/get first? 😊
Agreed on the beginning being a bit alienating for new players. Personally I don't really like how it ended in the middle of the story, expansions should have self-contained stories since they are paid content.
The first map is excellent. The second map seems way undercooked. The golden heart tokens are virtually nonexistent, and there are far too few events available (so heart progress is SLOW). I really hope it gets beefed up in a future patch.
Im not too thrilled with Janthir. It seems very middle of the road, and thats perfectly fine. Just a solid average expansion, and honestly probably what the game needed.
I agree, waaayy too much talking, especially in the opening. I am dreading getting my alts through the expansion bevause of thr amount of dialogue. Then all the ridiculous quests that feel like im playing animal crossing, and not being a legendary hero of Tyria
i just completed " the game... the story. all my mastery points and killed the meta bosses. i very much enjoyed the story and the landscape.... my biggest complaint is they used the same handful of events over and over and over all over the maps... i'm sick of clearing elementals and collecting meat/ vegies already and our griffin flies now... neat
I am level 80 but I am currently in the main story, I have not even gotten to the first expansion. If I buy this expansion would I be able to play it? and would it be bad if I jumped in this expansion with out playing the others?
You can get it and jump straight into it if you want! But if you care about story, I recommend playing the expansions in order. It might also be worth playing one of the first three expacs to unlock an elite spec
The best part about this expansion is that the homestead is not supposed to be a place of refuge or a den of inequity. I can alt tab without my game sounds being dragged straight through the guano
more violets, less violence I say
If Mordremoth can attack the mother tree in the grove, it can attack anywhere!
..what does homestead have to do with whatever you said about your alt tab?
And I can show off all my quality armor!
And you're the richest person in the room.
The incredible nature feeling of Janthir Wilds is just the best I've ever experienced in any mmo. Check out the waterfalls ♥
And don't forget to look behind every one of them!
The expansion trailer didn't lie. Janthir Wilds is stunning. This is the most immersive expansion ANet has ever made. I am totally invested in the story and side quests in the new zones. To the point where it took me a week to get to my homestead and just today I've fought the Bog Witch. I get constantly distracted by the environment. This is prime Guild Wars 2 and I don't want to rush it.
I think this expansion is up there at the top with HoT and PoF. It builds and improves on the flaws of previous expansions.
The story and delivery of expansion features is just great. I got my warclaw in the prologue. Then i was introduced to new renown hearts. Then trained by kodan to wield a spear and then I got my homestead. Everything was delivered by the personal story with the full immersion kept.
The new warclaw is better than i thought. It's really fun to use in combat. I chase the enemy and pin it down. Jumping mid air is so cool.
The new maps are beautiful. The lowland kodan are no pushovers they guide me through the area. I love just being the explorer and enjoying the adventure.
10/10 expansion
Exploration definitely felt, enjoyed, loved, and yearning for more.
My favourite exploration moment was wandering into a Beehive while trying to get PoI, finding the Queen Bee there and then having to fight like 20 Bees at once.
you stepped on a bee :(
I loved that too! There's also a jumping puzzle there 😊
That new battle music is a banger! The screeching violin, the hammering drums, I can see that kicking off in a mosh pit! And the lore! Still working on Violent History but knowing where those bodies the Bog Queen is raising came from is amazing. And sorry, Scarlet Briar, my Reaper has found a new project to work on. The Bog Queen: I CAN fix her!
When I'm driving my car during the day I just blast the Janthir Wilds soundtrack at max volume and think about how I'd rather be riding my journeykin through the pine forests of Janthir. That's how good this expansion is.
I wish they would add one thing. It was never added throughout entire Guild Wars 2 life cycle: Area marker of chosen Renown Heart (just simple click on heart with right mouse button and choice to "show renown area").
Because sometimes, especially on Lowland Shore map I can be underneath Renown Heart area and doing events counts in to this renown heart, but sometimes not and it counts to another heart that is located in another layer.
I feel like I ran into that a lot on Janthir Syntri! Or being just out of range for an activity to count to a heart because I was too far north (and/or had just completed that heart it would have counted for.)
@@sarasteege2265yess syntri is so bad for this its crazy
Trying to avoid spoilers, but your first point about how good the maps are is on point! It feels good to explore, I usually map complete just because but I actually want to discover the map this time, and it doesn't feel like a slog traversing.
It's SO fun with the warclaw too!
Janthir Wilds is so insanely good. Environment/Story/Music is just top notch. I played waay too much every night since expansion launch, and definitely will play much much more :D Anet blew it out of the water with this one
Engineer spear has made me go melee for the first time :) I am making a dense forest in my homestead. And once again, you care for the characters of the story! Love the bear kin and please let us play them someday Arenanet. Through it all, please remember we are only 1/4 into the story :)
I was thinking playing Waiting Sorrow would be spectacular! She was doing all these amazeballs ele things, but the actual effect on mobs was like...Oh. :o
I think Soto’s down fall was being the first in this new expac cycle. Anet were feeling it all our learning what they could and couldn’t do in the time frame and JW has greatly benefited from that.
I really like how they implemented all the new systems in the expac. All the new features and the way their introduced all feels organic and intuitive.
Really enjoying my time in Janthir.
I agree, the overall environment and exploration in this expansion has been so amazing so far.
Laranthir came back. And maybe I overestimated his words, but I think he flirted a little with my cabbage girl. And he's okay with Jhavi taking over command of the Vigil. That is my story highlight. And exploration... spent two days just wandering over the map without the urge to continue with the story.
YESSSS THANK GOD!!
Ahem, sorry
I was just wandering since the Icebrood Saga where the heck is my favorite Vigil second-in-command
yeah I liked the slow story too... its really a comfort pacing that lets you explore and doesnt suck you to speed doing stuff here and there
Your vids make me downloaded guild wars 2 for the first time and bought the first two expansion
Looking forward to to have amazing experience in guild wars 2 🎉
I'm loving the heck out of janthir wilds - my biggest and kinda only point of criticism is that there's a lot of decorations from raids / other content for guild halls that you don't get in homesteads. And particularly for raid decorations where you can use them to craft trophies it kinda feels like we won't get the actual decorations later on cause they're already in use for homesteads when crafting trophies. And I rlly just wish we would get them
There's actually recipes to craft the raid trophies for the homestead! You buy them from the magnetite shard vendor I think
And now the criticism is gone. This expansion is perfect.
@@Laranity unfortunately those recipes only give you a trophy that looks like the boss chest - not the actual decorations you get for guild halls:// I don't want a trophy I want samarog spears
This is a 10/10 expansion until now IMO (considering the scope of the new expansions, not comparing to the old ones).
I feel like mmorpgs should be all about open world content/exploration and gw2 doing such a good job with that. I really enjoy janthir wilds a lot and was really sceptical because I hated soto and it end up being a extremely fun expansion.
Its sad to see that all the other mmorpgs are just like instance simulator
The bosses are pretty cool, and it seems like the lore runs surprisingly deep, i also can't wait for the next patch, as the story seems much more interesting than i expected.
Let's goooo!
I agree - They did a really good job with the initial launch. Good video, keep them coming
Past 10 years i played gw2, no other mmo has such beautiful maps in EVERY region except guild wars...mind blowing❤️
Lowland shore map: AND THAT'S WHY HE'S THE MVP. THAT'S WHY HE'S THE GOAT. THE GOAAATTT.
My big disappointment with Homesteads is that your parked alts might as well be statues in fixed positions. Except for Charr tails, they have no animations, they don't wander around even in the armor weight-segregated zones, there's no chatter... nothing. Hardly seems worth it.
Hopefully they'll add more versatility and life to the parked in pcs. I really hope so I also want to kick the bear off my Raptor who is perpetually sitting there my Raptor Buddy needs a break
yes and i hope Anet will add: Saving set day/night time and adding new weather effects as well!
@@MrCristor You can ask for night at the entry. But a "natural" cycle would be cool.
Hope it is the ground work for letting us really have them feel at home and not a "complete" feature for homesteads.
@@MrCristor There's somewhere you can change the day/night, but it might be in the building menu, or the bear by the gardens.
I also realized that the Lowland Shore's map design was meant to showcase the warclaw's rework!
The delta starts from the highest point and gradually gets lower and lower going north.
This allows the warclaw to almost infinitely dash and hop mid-air until it reaches the shore because the map layout gives them so much space for air time to regen stamina.
You can actually get to the Champion Shark faster by air dashing with a warclaw than flying down with a Skyscale. xD
As introduction areas go? This is one of the best if not (arguably) the best.
Honestly I felt like the Warclaw was more more useful on the second map than the first. Yeah, those aspects of Lowland Shore that you mentioned are nice for the Warclaw...but they are way better for the Griffon, so I just use that instead.
@@NZVargs I wasn't talking about whether or not the Warclaw is the most useful for Lowland Shore 😅
Im talking about how the map as an introduction area does a good job showcasing the expac's new features.
What you mentioned is pretty much unrelated, but it honestly proves my point.
if older specialized mounts like Griffons and Beetles are fun to play in the new maps, then that just shows the amount of consideration the devs put into designing them. Because not only did they create the two maps with the new mount in mind, but they also considered how older mounts will interact with it.
In fact there's even a spot in Lowland Shore with NPC Springers, suggesting to non-Griffons and Skyscale owners that they can scale the cliff with just the bunny, meaning they also designed the map for players who don't own Griffons and Skyscales.
Just because we have Griffons doesn't mean we should ignore the existence of players who don't lmao 😂😂
Battle musique and first map make me think a lot to The Witcher 3... chasing big prey help with that feeling.
For me, I really like how the developers managed to utilize land traversing mechanisms from the past expansions into Janthir Wilds i.e. the jumping mushrooms.
I'm still on Ice Saga; I have the last two episodes, then I have EoD and SoTo. After that, I can start Jahntir.
In my opinion
Pros: Beautiful maps, good character building, warclaw revamped, achievements, kodans, the sky.
Cons: Homestead untradable mats that need conversion, untradable decorations, cap on resources to decorate your home, no kodan playable race to this day ( if they dont add them in this expansion i will rage), no metas, no full story, cliffhanger story "ending", no content basically. Deagostini type expansion, 1 part now the later 3 parts spread through out the year in the form of patches, jackal useless, turtle uselss, raptor useless, springer useless, bugs, playing melee in this expansion will make you quit, spear on half the classes is not even an option, Salmon run.
This is more of patch than an expansion, this is like living world season episodes but we pay for them now.
you make me wanna play gw2 again, i really love this game but i had a long pause now because i couldnt inspire myself. But this addon seems great to get back in! thank yu for your summary
Your homestead is already looking so cute! O v O
I'm so excited to play this expansion, I'm building a new PC soon after 8 years. I'm so freaken excited perfect time for this expansion to drop.
Wow Lara, what an expeditious vid! It's kinda fun seeing you post something you were talking about yesterday. It's also really nice to see you in one of your vids 😺 I can't tell you how much I enjoy your content. You really are the GW2 queen!! ? See you tomorrow 😸😸😸 And, oh yeah.....I hadn't actually seen basterd bear till this video, ha ha.
The new heart system is awesome to bring players back to the starting areas without effort: there are almost no places devoid of people for now!! That was a great move by anet
Being a fish heh, best 100 honey flowers you can spend after unlocking the tonic.
That thing about being able to skip dialog... this was how it was done originally, in the 'side by side' dialog scenes where you could skip ahead. They dropped that after the original game, could do with a comeback. That or a mod that makes the bears speak slightly faster. 20 minutes per sentence is a little slow paced...
May def have to check this expansion out, thank u for another great vid 😊
Janthir Wilds & Chill has become the defacto way to play GW2 at the moment!
Secrets of the Obscure also started out pretty brightly too only to end up shipping crap in the subsequent updates. I'm liking almost everything I'm seeing so far, but I'm gonna hold my verdict until after all the updates have shipped.
The skip button for the story is definitely needed for alts. I don’t really want to go through all these dialogues with each character
Ele spear has made me do something i never thought possible…. It made me actually like catalyst for once
the pacific north west vibes in these maps are strong. for all this "janthir is dangerous" talk the characters give, it's weird that it is by far the most comfy time I've had exploring since... pre HoT.
Definitely an awesome expansion so far. Might even be my favourite. The maps are gorgeous, especially the first one, and they're dense with things to do; so many events and little exploration thingies. Warclaw is so much fun. So far I've tried and really like the spear on warrior, thief and ranger. Necro was a bit underwhelming. Haven't tried the others too much yet; there are only 24 hours in a day.
I started playing after soto release and not even first birthday yet. These maps and features are amazing for only one year of dev.
I didn’t know about the glowing warclaw paw jump until this video lol
I just Finished the last Chapter of the Expansion so far and honestly this has been the best feeling Expansion so far in terms of how they laid everything out. The story isn't too grand epic, there hasn't been a sequence of hearing Flashbacks from the deceased characters (yet. . .) and the two maps feel like they tell a lot to give a feeling of the setting just roaming around them and completing events, they're almost like if the Orr wasn't dreadful and full of Risen and covered is nice foliage similarly to Cyrodiil in Oblivion. I still have work to do on all the Masteries, have them all at 2 so far and going to focus on my Warclaw and Homestead but the only thing missing from this Expansion is a big ol' Bass Pro Shop with a Cinnabon Cafe inside
Yep I got Grizzly hills, Howling Fjord vibes for sure!
As somebody who plays WoW and GW2 new expansions are such a pain, I neither have time nor money to buy both whenever they release, and they always do at the same time.
I want to play with the Homesteads so bad 😭😭
It is unfortunate timing for sure :(
Gw2 worth imo
Good thing about Gw2 is that you never really miss out by playing it later
The best part of this expansion is that if you buy just JW and you get the Warclaw in PVE you get a Warclaw also in WvW but You can't use it :) very nice for the "warclaw expac" nice Job Arenanet :D
its good. light, fun and map verticallity its awesome! :3
About Arborstone, the door was available in the first 2 days. They remove it because people don;t like it in the places with a lot of others players cause of "missclick".
While I haven't gotten a chance to play the expansion, from what I have heard from people, it really sounds like Anet has found it's footing
Thanks for including webcam stream of yourself it helps out a face to the voice
I am very happy that Lara likes the expac. Sadly I cannot say I feel the same. Soto was bad, but this is worse. I miss HOT / EOD...
How is it worse?
Best expan since HoT for me.. sure it's currently lacking instanced stuff till later. But I love the maps, cruising around treasure hunting, the chill events. I went super hard and gp to 600 mastery points on my weekend. But days later I'm still loving the events.. and the rain in the 2nd map had me turn the effects right up ❤
Yay, you ended up making this!
My one complaint is that the hearts in Janthir Syntri are way slower than the ones in Lowland Shores. Other than that, this has been a very enjoyable launch.
Ha I figured out how to do two of them pretty fast, but the south east one is definitely slow
God, that first one, I ended up grinding wolves to chip away at the damn thing, the events need to either grant more completion or at least spawn more frequently. Can't imagine doing that one in particular daily
Buying that one with the heart currency, all other hearts are fine, so I save them all for that xD
One of my only criticisms of the new campaign was also that some of the talking went on just slightly too long. It was really nice to hear how things were going, but sometimes I just didn't want to. I would love a skip button, I wouldn't mind it being locked behind a first clear but when I'm achievement hunting... long dialogs are a grind. I checked my achievement guide 10+ times before I selected a dialog option just to make sure I didn't have to wait through the entire discussion again.
Also, it can be really frustrating that if dialogs are linked to the same story step, you can't start them simultaneously. It can double or triple the time investment required for relatively long story missions when you're achievement hunting.
you didn't mention the best feature of this xpack - the music!
This expansion has the best book I`ve ever read - "Master of the Spear" by Snargle Goldclaw
Janthir feels so good
Love the new maps, I just want to run around in them and see all the things.
I have already exploded on 3 chars,I love the maps. I want to be only there. Its like i dont even do anything else. I love this xpac so far. The grizzly hills vibe is definitely on point.
It looks like fun and worth my time, thanks for the expose 🙂
only thing i dont like about the homestead is the house is fixed design and size and location of all the facilities are fixed.. u cant customize it.. only furnitures yes..
I'm pretty sure it's so they can sell us maps with pre-fab houses, can't wait for my own Canthan place
@@bertoandon9681 that will just eventually make the homes same..
which alot of mmorpg tend to do that.. cheaper to develop yes sure but it affect the UX in the long run.
there is however, 1 mmorpg that I played (for quite some time) that has great housing system which is PSO2 New Genesis. you literally get a plot of empty lands and you build everything yourself from the floor to the wall, etc.. like a real building game..in a mmorpg.
Agree Loving this
I only have two complaints about the expansion and both are with the homestead.
1. They have got to create a better organization for the furniture crafting. It desperately needs to be organized in what they are. Chairs, rocks, trees, beds, plants, paintings, etc. It's so difficult to be able to tell what there is to craft with everything in one massive pile. It also really needs a preview for what you're crafting.
2. They need to allow permanent placement markers for your alts. Make it so our alts stay exactly where we log out, or even just when we have them follow us make it actually mark down where we drop them. Or if it needs to be simpler than that because it's all done by armor weight (for some reason) then let us have the 3 or 4 markers for each that we can place down.
I'm very upset that I can't sleep in my bed in my homestead, but I can sleep in Stoic Alder's bed no problem. (I hope people aren't getting the wrong idea that I go to his room every night!)
Reminds me of PoF but on a smaller scale - chill first zone and mounts
Where you can place the homestead portal is a bit weird to me. I get that in places like mistlock and nobles folly it's disabled, but the aerodrome in arborstone is a bit weird when it works in places like lion's arch and the wizard's tower. My friends and i tried multiple hubs and cities yesterday and we have a theory that it might be related to like "special instances", since you can't use the portal in normal instances obviously. So like it might be that the aerodrome and arborstone could be instanced areas of lions arch and echovald and not like seperate maps in themselves whereas the wizards tower is its own map in itself. The "special instances" tehn might have the same rules as the portal scroll hubs (mistlock etc.) applied to them (with the exception of the ones in Divinity's Reach and Amnoon as they are a restricted areas of the open world). But this is only speculation of course
yoooo bastard bear mentioned in the edit, the video is saved :p
Ha ha.....you beat me to it!! I had actually never seen him before this vid. Also, isn't it great to see Lara in one of her videos and not her characters?
To me, the 1st new map looks like the combination of Grizzly Hill of WoW + Drizzlewood coast ;D So the lowland Kodan is like Furbolg, I think. And Furbolg loves huney too ;3
Fml havent even noticed the glint at the paws D:, also the [sniff] is definitely used for more then just innocent treasure seeking in chat 🤣 also maybe instead of a skip button you can select in the options to turn on only text windows or "proper" dialogue, also when i joined on launch i just felt like HoT release just awe and amazement with exploration etc, the only thing i got frustrated with myself were the salmon runs for gold 😂
New player. Bought JW (didn’t use lvl 80 boost). Rn I’m lvl 55 and I wanna get to lvl 80 so I can ride my warclaw!!
I understand your desire to get to max level so you can ride your Warclaw, but rushing to max level is going to mean that you’re not really learning how the game works or how your profession works and you will be missing out on literally tons of content and lore in the game. I’m not saying you shouldn’t play however you want to play, but just realize that there are consequences and you might struggle later. Hope you enjoy the journey and end up sticking with GW2. It really is a great game.
Can we expect an "A music guild tries wing 8" in a couple of months? :D
Soto's 2nd half really made me lose interest in GW2 for about a year.
Im loving this expansion so far!
Game felt like valhiem when I was building and they knocked it out of the park
I've been hanging out with the bears before gw2 😈. IYKYN
SOTO kinda Killed the game for me
TIL that the Warclaw's paws shine like a Smash Bros sweetspot...
The second map could use some extra events to improve its diversity and broaden options for heart completion.
Otherwise it's great, it does a particularly good job of creating a sense of immersion and rewarding casual exploration. Loving the new spear weapons and warclaw changes as well.
Thinking to come back to try the expansion from a little bdo break, is there any classes that use the spear for "stabbi tab" with ice effects? :D Like the awakening Maehwa from bdo if anyone knows it?
thank god someone talking about the skip button!!! 🥳
Ill be honest i was hoping your characters in the home stead would walk around maybe give them a job like cooking at a fire pit even record a pathing for each one with jobs in between to make them feel alive ,them just standing around randomly like zombies makes them feel dead .Maybe one day! I was hoping to make a Norn village with some of my characters being married to each other make them a home where they work and live ,them greating you when you move by them maybe give them greeting lines from a list of choices that you can choose for them would make the home instance feel more alive . List of jobs you can give them between pathing Could be fishing ,Mining , cooking,Sitting on a chair you made drinking eating and bosting,sleeping on a bed you made,having a conversation animation with out lines would be cool so that it looks like two npc are talking to each other, Farming animation,gathering animation that sort of thing would make the Homestead feel like a real home for your heroes .
Lastly would love if you can earn Npc's for your homestead by doing loyalty Achievment missions for them(ad it to the side mission Achievment tab) ,that they then come live in your Homestead does not have to be main characters this would ad more content to actualy play and ad to the Homestead part of the game immensly it would also give us a way to fill out out homesteads for those of us that don't have loads of characters who woulden't want a mama bear and her cub that you helped in the open world to live in there homestead or a old Kodan warrior that lost his hole family in the attacks that can find pease in your homestead the potensial is endless ,hope this makes it to Arenanet in some way.
Maybe have an AI give them random movment and jobs so when you teleport in the village looks like its busseling with live and movement and AI will path them around what you build.
That sounds like an amazing feature for sure!
I want to put all my Asura working in the Mines
If the warclaw can do that in WvW I might consider the game mode...
Im a returning player, been hopping on and off from the day it launched 12 years ago (time foes fly). When I returned last year I was roughly 7 years behind in content. I am currently going through lws4 and IBS content and achievs and I have yet to still purchase the last 3 expansions. I wonder if you could do a tierlist video comparing expansion or which ones would you recommend to play/get first? 😊
My fave since Heart of Thorns came out
Agreed on the beginning being a bit alienating for new players.
Personally I don't really like how it ended in the middle of the story, expansions should have self-contained stories since they are paid content.
The new expansion model includes four quarterly releases, so the story of this expansion isn’t over yet. There’s three more chapters to play through.
The first map is excellent. The second map seems way undercooked. The golden heart tokens are virtually nonexistent, and there are far too few events available (so heart progress is SLOW). I really hope it gets beefed up in a future patch.
Im not too thrilled with Janthir. It seems very middle of the road, and thats perfectly fine. Just a solid average expansion, and honestly probably what the game needed.
Confirmed ANet did a way better job with Janthir than Ashes of Creation have managed so far with a trillion dollar budget. Excellent gaming!
I agree, waaayy too much talking, especially in the opening. I am dreading getting my alts through the expansion bevause of thr amount of dialogue.
Then all the ridiculous quests that feel like im playing animal crossing, and not being a legendary hero of Tyria
i just completed " the game... the story. all my mastery points and killed the meta bosses. i very much enjoyed the story and the landscape.... my biggest complaint is they used the same handful of events over and over and over all over the maps... i'm sick of clearing elementals and collecting meat/ vegies already and our griffin flies now... neat
I am level 80 but I am currently in the main story, I have not even gotten to the first expansion. If I buy this expansion would I be able to play it? and would it be bad if I jumped in this expansion with out playing the others?
You can get it and jump straight into it if you want! But if you care about story, I recommend playing the expansions in order. It might also be worth playing one of the first three expacs to unlock an elite spec
@@Laranity thank you for the info :). Yea I'll do that 😁. Love the gaming videos by the way 💪🏽
Day 3 on my second attempt to enjoy the base game as a new player, atm it feels like im part of the world but with no purpose in life 😅
Every dps in raids is now either revenant or mesmer😂
Best expac?!
Are we comparing to HoT and PoF?
Better than SotO was to be expected, and I'm glad that it seems to fulfill that.
MAGIC.😮
I love necro spear
They definitely need to add a skip feature for the whole game, it's just a qualify of life I don't really see ever being an issue.