Silirien

I do think it will be an expansion, with a new playable race and new professions indeed. My bet is the mentioned Tengu - they do have established racial city right in the middle of the "old continent" and enough space to have a starting zone of their own, too (Dominion of Winds). There is a lot - and I mean A LOT - asian-themed cosmetics coming out, Cantha gets mentioned a lot too. As for new profession, with a tinfoil hat on I'd speculate Rytlock and the Delaqua girl are hinting at something swordy/shady. So much tinfoil! Am I excited? ANet has taught me very well not to get excited about anything big they are planning. I sincerely hope there will be no level cap rise and no new gear levels though. I am definitely not pre-ordering, at least not much in advance (might dish out at the end of pre-order if I like the bonuses and the presented content hints I might actually enjoy the game afterwards).

Valyrie's Friends Enhanced has a handy "Meet up and remove" option, also pretty handy to keep your friend list clean on events (on top of all the other handy option it comes with). I finally had time to pick up the Sidestories and... I was left picking my jaw from the floor after Ricky Pagan's performance. I really wish I was better in marketing so I could use this quest to convince people still unconvinced to pick this game out. I mean, where else do you get sent by a firm believer in the Holy Trinity - Gaia, Amaterasu and Elvis - to account for his lost rockabilly gang and end up watching black ooze tentacle zombies rock out to some classic tunes, complete with The King hips, stance and spotlights?! I love this game

For me, it would definitely be The Secret World; both for game qualities and the openness and sense of collaboration and input Funcom Devs give to the playerbase. While the game itself is quite niche and definitely not to everyone's taste (dark concepts, gothic horror modern world setting, demanding, not spelling everything out), the forums are something absolutely unique in the gaming world. Devs, especially some of them, with game director leading by example, are vocal and outspoken which makes me really feel like the guys deserve my money (I upgraded to lifetime after the game went B2P). In contrast, GW2 devs usually prompt a "keep the hell away from my valet"

Can you link a thread on what you're referring to? I don't follow their forums / any forums (apart from TSW ) too closely but I like to know things, nosy person that I am

Well, without this type of ability type requirements, all fights would boil down to DPS ASAP, which would be boring. There are I think 3 end bosses in Castle (we are talking scenario, right?) and all of them can be done without CC. Even the Padurii, you have to kite her around with pathing in mind 'till she separates from the orbs. Vampire's AoEs can be avoided. The other one I don't think was anything special. The Scenario types, I agree. Funcom agrees too and they are coming, but I think you have already noticed they are hard-pressed when it comes to resources. There should be a new scenario, of a new type, coming quite soon (related to Tokyo); I think it was meant to be paranormal investigation or something, IO ain't sure. There were also talks about PvP scenarios (not my thing). Joel prefers to postpone releases rather than releasing bugged content, which I appreciate a lot. Hence, patience. It has always been worth it so far.

You never need a particular ability or build, you might need a certain type of ability (cleansing, hinder, stun etc) if even that (correct me if I am wrong but there is not a single boss in Scenarios that can't be handled with proper manouvering) and you most certainly can't go pure archetype, but that is about it. Tweak your build around, including stats, if you have trouble. Unless you're talking Nightmare where you generally need to fill in some roles while in group and in solo, you need to be on the absolute top of your game.

He is not lying... for the most part. Unfortunately, we don't share gaming anymore (apart from some D3) as Muer decided to give up MMOs completely and I am not a fan of shooters.