Since I only had this BWE for my GW2 experience, I have a multitude of questions. Hopefully at least some of them get answered, but if not, no worries.

Question #1 - Crafting was definitely on par and pretty much what I expected and really enjoyed the fact resource nodes were available to every player, so gathering wasn't an issue. However, once I started gathering Tier 2 resources, I couldn't help but wonder, how do I learn to refine them?

Question #2 - During character creation, one of the questions asked of you to build your story had 3 answers; Charm, Dignity and Ferocity. I noticed those 3 choices also appear on your Hero tab and I've come across several options to increase each one when talking with NPCs. What exactly is the purpose of these hidden demeanors?

Question #3 - I wasn't able to locate any gear for the back slot, which I'd imagine will be cloaks. Were these left out of beta or are they drop only?

Question #4 - Did any of you Norn players find all of the POI on the Wayfarer Hills map? I found all but one and I wasn't the only one with that dilemna.

Question #5 - Why did ANet make Thieves so friggin hard to finish off when downed in combat? I can't tell you how much I laughed at groups of people wasting minutes of precious time trying to finish me off while the rest of my team captured points. Actually, my true question would be, do all classes have this permanent escape from being finished off or just Thieves?

I'm no way near a veteran but i have put in a good "few" hours over the 2 bwe and stress test so i'll do my best answering

1. As you level you craft by making components/items you will auto learn new components/items. So need to smelt iron? Level up weaponsmithing for example, make a load of bronze gear then you will learn smelt iron in due time. This works for your basic items. Don't forget the discovery system to play around with to learn more advanced recipes.

2. I think this will answer your question best - http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Personality

3. Back slot is for guild capes/emblems as per gw1 afaik

4. I had a few POI from other zones that i just can't find. Exploration is key here, every nook and cranny! Underwater and cave systems are key.

5. I played Necro main and i felt the same way. Its very situational tbh. 

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Originally posted by Rhoklaw
Since I only had this BWE for my GW2 experience, I have a multitude of questions. Hopefully at least some of them get answered, but if not, no worries.

Question #1 - Crafting was definitely on par and pretty much what I expected and really enjoyed the fact resource nodes were available to every player, so gathering wasn't an issue. However, once I started gathering Tier 2 resources, I couldn't help but wonder, how do I learn to refine them?

Question #2 - During character creation, one of the questions asked of you to build your story had 3 answers; Charm, Dignity and Ferocity. I noticed those 3 choices also appear on your Hero tab and I've come across several options to increase each one when talking with NPCs. What exactly is the purpose of these hidden demeanors?

Question #3 - I wasn't able to locate any gear for the back slot, which I'd imagine will be cloaks. Were these left out of beta or are they drop only?

Question #4 - Did any of you Norn players find all of the POI on the Wayfarer Hills map? I found all but one and I wasn't the only one with that dilemna.

Question #5 - Why did ANet make Thieves so friggin hard to finish off when downed in combat? I can't tell you how much I laughed at groups of people wasting minutes of precious time trying to finish me off while the rest of my team captured points. Actually, my true question would be, do all classes have this permanent escape from being finished off or just Thieves?

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1) Well, you don't get to use those resources until you are lvl 75 in your craft (which is equivalent to a character level of 25). I thought this was a bit odd too, as I would find these resources much, much earlier.

2) Honestly, I haven't seen the effects of this yet, but they are supposed to determine your personality, and how NPCs react to you.

3) I didn't find any either. Didn't the engineer have the option to start with a backpack though?

4) -

5) I never had that many problems finishing off thieves. They were annoying, I'll give you that, but impossible to finish off? Other classes do have similar abilities. The warrior has this hammer throw which knocks down 1 target. With proper timing this could allow you to use Vengeance, which is a temporary Rally followed by instant death (unless you had the trait, in which case you'd have a chance to permanently Rally if you killed something while Vengeanced).

Originally posted by Rhoklaw

Question #2 - During character creation, one of the questions asked of you to build your story had 3 answers; Charm, Dignity and Ferocity. I noticed those 3 choices also appear on your Hero tab and I've come across several options to increase each one when talking with NPCs. What exactly is the purpose of these hidden demeanors?

Question #3 - I wasn't able to locate any gear for the back slot, which I'd imagine will be cloaks. Were these left out of beta or are they drop only?

Question #4 - Did any of you Norn players find all of the POI on the Wayfarer Hills map? I found all but one and I wasn't the only one with that dilemna.

2. That question is only for role playing reasons. You won't miss any content no matter how low/high you are on those. However you will see different dialogue, depending on your choices.

3. There are Guild backpacks available if your guild research some updates first.

4. I found them all. I was having the same problem (missing one POI) and found out it was one at the far south of the map, almost outside the "play area". Hard to see, easy to miss

Originally posted by Rhoklaw

Since I only had this BWE for my GW2 experience, I have a multitude of questions. Hopefully at least some of them get answered, but if not, no worries.

Question #1 - Crafting was definitely on par and pretty much what I expected and really enjoyed the fact resource nodes were available to every player, so gathering wasn't an issue. However, once I started gathering Tier 2 resources, I couldn't help but wonder, how do I learn to refine them?

Question #2 - During character creation, one of the questions asked of you to build your story had 3 answers; Charm, Dignity and Ferocity. I noticed those 3 choices also appear on your Hero tab and I've come across several options to increase each one when talking with NPCs. What exactly is the purpose of these hidden demeanors?

Question #3 - I wasn't able to locate any gear for the back slot, which I'd imagine will be cloaks. Were these left out of beta or are they drop only?

Question #4 - Did any of you Norn players find all of the POI on the Wayfarer Hills map? I found all but one and I wasn't the only one with that dilemna.

Question #5 - Why did ANet make Thieves so friggin hard to finish off when downed in combat? I can't tell you how much I laughed at groups of people wasting minutes of precious time trying to finish me off while the rest of my team captured points. Actually, my true question would be, do all classes have this permanent escape from being finished off or just Thieves?

1) You need to lvl up your crafting to ~75 skill. You can also use the discovery tab to find new recipies that way.

2) These effect your character's personality, and raising more of any 1 type makes choosing that option in dialogue options to be more successful.

3) Those are for guild cloaks, like GW1. Not sure if they were available or not in beta. I haven't seen any yet, so I'm assuming that they were either not in beta, or required such a high guild contribution to unlock that noone had them.

4) I believe I did, though I honestly can't remember enough to give you pointers. However, here you go:

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Wayfarer_Foothills

That should give you enough info to figure out what you missed, and where to go looking for it next time around. (remember that each map has 3 layers of elevation. Some POIs are either underground, or on high altitude areas.

5) Lol, ya thieves can be a pain to finish off. They aren't impossible though. Thieves are a really good example of how CC can be insanely useful. If you allow thieves to move & attack freely, a good thief will kill you nearly every time. You really need to stun / daze / blind / knockdown / cripple / chill them.  Depending on your class, you can also drop an AoE on them when they are in the downed state. Finishing them off can work if they're skills are off cooldown, but you have a small window to pull it off. You can also just beat down their HP to 0 and they will be finished all the same.

4 - I missed three POI in the Norn starter zone and eventually went back to find them. The three I missed were in the very southern caves around the Wolf shrine area.

5 - I find the way/time it takes to finish off a downed enemy absurd. If you are concentrating on combat it, down a target and move on and someone else does a finisher or finalizes the down on an enemy you get zero credit for that kill. This is also not conducive to the ebb and flow of combat. Don't get me wrong, the rezzing/fight for your life system is awesome, but downed targets need to take less time to finish off or they need to introduce combo style finishers for downed enemies.

- On that...

In order to gain credit, which is important to the progression of your character (Kill count, loot, sheriffs badge drop, achievements) you have to damage or finish off a downed enemy. From my experience in WvWvW if you do not do this you will not achieve kill credit. (6 hours in constant conflict of WvWvW this past weekend and only 30 kills credited to my name.) which will result in no rewards. It is almost as if their original health bar does not matter in the larger fold of combat.

It would be nice to see a change that garned more credit for downing an enemy than for beating on someone who is practically useless.

Thanks for all your info folks, but as for #5, I really did find it horribly wrong for me to constantly stealth out of the finishing move long enough to reset that same cooldown to do it again. Basically, 3 people were tied up for several minutes just trying to finish me instead of moving on to capture points. In a way, it forces players to make a choice. Either kill one person and lose the match or let them live and try to strive for the win. I just think its kind of unfair, that 3 people couldn't complete a finishing move or kill me for that long a period of time. As much comedy value I got out of it in beta, it really should get nerfed in my opinion.

2. The three stats affect how NPCs react to you. SOme will react more favorably to you with a sufficient level of one of teh scores. You can raise those scores by choosing dialogue options with the appropriate icon (note these do not appear in cutscenes and  rarely show up with an icon over the NPC's head, just talk to people!)

3. Not sure, I think these are a guild thing?

4. Change the level of the map to high or low. IIRC there's one in a cavern or something. Honestly they can be a bit hard to see.

5. Thief #3 (the stealth/teleport) was bugged. I responded to certain traits in a way that kept the cooldown shorter than the ability's duration. Should be fixed next BWE.

EDIT: To those talking about the amount of time it takes to kill a player while downed....you DO know you can walk up to them and press "f" to do a finishing move, right?

5. they said in the official forum they have a bug here, the skill exist but is probably bugged for whatever reason. Check the offi forum you should find the dev quote easily.

I played BW1, stress test and BW2. I will answer only the question 4, all other questions had good answers.

I think you are talking about that skill point at south of starter norn area. If not, sorry, my mistake. I only found how to get to it at BW2. Let me just say... swiming and underwater combat is your friend when exploring underwater caves.