The Droknor's Forge run no more.

The Droknor's Forge is no more I say.I took the quest by Mhenlo to Canthia and got there to the first mission outpost.This was with an El/Mes at level16 non ascended.I could go there and get the maxed out armor like DF.You can even get for Warriors 100 al armor there now.I see Assassins trying to get runs to Ascalon from LA.

Of course, that assumes the person wanting the armour has both Prophecies and Factions (and merged the two) :-)

when i first read this thread it thought you was gonna say they added new mobs or something but i see, i guess that could be fixed by saying a character had to be ascended to take the Mhenlo quest because i don't think it was there intent but they do nothing about the droks run so i don't think they will change it.

It's an incentive to buy Factions.

"Spending hours levelling? Try the higher-reward Canthan quests for L20 in an afternoon! Don't have max armor? Travel to Cantha and buy it at once!"

There's now no point in going beyond L.A. if you're not L20 or don't have max armor. Why bother when you can just pop over to Cantha for a few hours and power up?

Well, you can't expect things to stay the same forever... Cantha is bound to impact Tyria through economy, new classes, skills... and drok runs, apparently.

Is this a bad thing?

Reason I say this (not against runner's at all) but I always manged to get Drak's runs for tips (and I did tip) or "testing new build" so was able to use runner but never really spent that much money anyway.

(Edit) I don't think it will go away completely, you will have Cantha character's coming over to shortcut to the S.Shiverpeaks/Rof to get elite's.

It's just armor.. who cares.

i disagree, i believe all my 3 chars (ele, ranger and monk and monk/ranger were made fairly recently) were using either Yak's or collectors armor when they got to L.A and i doubt they were L20 yet. but then i guess armor isn't that important for casters/ranged attackers.

but not everyone is desperate to get the best armor in game asap, me being one of them =p

assassins go2 ascalon for 1 reason, to twink in the arenas,
the missions less than lions arch will just give you an error "This mission is for prophecies campain only".

however i believe u can ascend in the desert, get the nice 50k exp reward, do a few quests(ie, change profession etc), get fow armor from temple of ages, but i highly recommend you DO NOT get the obsidan armor for assassin because its stupidily ugly, imagine pre-seering assassin armor with black blades attached to it , yes major upset, theres many threads around here with screenies.

This is dumb.....They said only ascended chars can go to Cantha >.<

From GW website:
Will I be able to take my existing characters in the new areas of the world? Do they keep their items, their levels, etc?

If you purchase Factions, you will be able to travel to the new land, Cantha, with your Ascended characters from Guild Wars (original Prophecies campaign). Inventory items, skills, and other possessions and attainments from Guild Wars remain yours and remain useable within Guild Wars Factions.

http://www.guildwars.com/support/faq...ctions-faq.php

Someone one reported that Alex mention that lvl 20 = ascended .. no matter if they completed the quest and other have said they been able to bring over there characters. Not be able to verfy if this is true.

We were discussing this today and I think quite a bit of the situation revolves around the design differences between Prophecies and Factions.

In Prophecies, half (or a bit less or more) of the game is spent leveling up through the story and getting progressively better armour. Pre-Searing is meant to tech you the basics, choose classes, and level up to about 5 (but requiring you to level up during the story until you hit 20 later on).

Factions, on the other hand seems to take the approach that levels 1-20 are the 'learning years' as opposed to just the first 5 or so. Hence, if you do everything on the island you will approach level 20, progressing through armour and levels as you do. Once you finish with the island, you are done progressing levels/armour/weapons and are ready to truly play the game to its fullest (concentrating more on missions/quests/challenges than gaining levels for finding better armour).

Having said that, Prophecies and Factions can't really mesh 100%, which is what people are seeing. The best place level/equipment-wise for the connection between Cantha and Tyria would be Droknar's Forge and not Lion's Arch (or Lion's Gate as many of us have seen). However, whereas that's just the beginning of the non-training areas for Cantha, it's near the end of the story for Tyria. Story-wise, Lion's Arch to Kaineng Center match up the best. They both get into the grit of things. Ascalon is too low a level to link up and start the story there. Lion's Arch is a bit low itself, but isn't as far in the story as Droknar's Forge.

I think Factions goes along with their original statements, that it's about the skills and not item/level grind. I like the way they do things in Factions better than in Prophecies, but some people of course prefer the leveling over the course of the game. The only real way to fix the issue (if it needs fixing) would be to revamp Prophecies level-wise to be on par with Factions. I guess it would be a complicated issue. Having to be 'ascended' and empowered by the gods to take a boat to a foreign land doesn't make a lot of sense either.

Yep, they always said that and everyone was assuming there would be an equivalent to ascension in Cantha. I havent' looked round for this (and I don't want to know details), but has anyone found this?

However, maybe they dropped the asencion requirement so more Tryrians could attend the Day of the Tengu, and planned to let it run for the headstart, when that was only 48 hours. We are still in the extended headstart 'till tomorrow.

Very true, and there's no advantage to starting a character in Tryia just to get run to LA and cross over to Cantha, so they may just have dropped the ascension requirement.

Maybe we'll know tomorrow.

I took my lvl19 Mo to Cantha last Thursday to get to lvl20 quickly with the high XP rewards for the Canthan missions (and, of course, to get a Tengu mask). I, too, thought only ascended chars would be able to travel to Cantha and was surprised when I didn't have any problems.

I got my Assassin to Tyria in the hopes of getting to Ascalon and doing all quests from there onwards.

Its a real shame I feel really let down on the total lack of content of the games when CD key is combined.

Urrmm, this is wrong, isn't it? The original poster? I got my Droknar's Armour before I did the D'alessio Seabord mission, because I went to Droknars before I went to Lion's Arch (by accident). It doesn't make a difference.

Yeah, a guildie and I did the equivalent last night. It's called being Closer to the Stars. You do the mission at Naph-something (the next real mission after Vizunah - Dragon's Throat is just an optional challenge mission). Afterwards you get to a city where you can change your secondary.

As Lyra said, the point is moot. You need to be Ascended to travel to Cantha. Ascending also spits you out at Dragon's Lair, which is one mission away from Droknar's Forge. So by travelling to Cantha to get your armor you're skipping one measly little mission (and a fun one at that).

Some above posters have gotten to Cantha on their unascended characters.

Um, yeah...I got there with an un-Ascended char...as posted above. As far as I could tell, the only prerequisites to traveling to Cantha is that you own Factions and your Tyrian char has reached Lion's Arch.

Edit: Maybe it requires that you have at least one Ascended char on your account?

i say dont allow tyrians to enter cantha until Level 20.

I'm slightly confused about what some of the earlier posters have mentioned. Is it true that Canthan characters cannot do the ascalon missions or is that only a rumour. thanks for the clarification

Exactly! ~_~ Im wondering if it was only for this weekend...

I will still run my new Tyria mesmer to Forge to get some pieces of armour since i hate the mesmer amour in Cantha so even thou it may be easier to get max from Cantha doesnt mean that everyone will do it. Some players still get armour for looks rather than placing stats as the main consideration.

I brought over a level 19 today.

OK so can one buy factions armour with lets say a Ritualist in droknars forge? Can i start a ritualist in prophecies?

when i took my rit to LA the armor dude had no items in inventory

well i told you there would be no cross over items/skills/quests ect available in Tyria for the 2 characters made only in factions...

*sigh*

no, it dose not require youto have an accended character in your account to go to cantha.
I have NO accended characters and i was able to take my lvl 20 N/Mo to cantha, and i say, Thank the Server Gods!! that they meant *point of accention* rather than Acended...

so, to clear things up....Point of accention is LvL 20..accende mean you completed the desert stuff and beat the frell outa yer dollpeganger.

i can honestly say i prefer it this way....it means that if, like many others, you can only get thru Chap1 accention by paying soe wamo or monkey to run you thru, even when you have NO othe charaters that can make it through the process without getting run, you can just hang in there and make it to about 20 and go to cantha and try your hand at THEIR version of accention.

i dont know, since i have yet to go to th area that i need to get to so i can start this 'closer to the stars' process, but i sure home its more caster friendly.
in other words...Tyrian Monks and warriors, accend in Tyria..Tyrian casters and anyone else that cant get through the process in the Desert without getting run, make your way to Cantha and try your luck....
at least THAT way, i can have even ONE character that has made it through this accention buisness.

no, you cannot make a rit or assassin in prophesies..it is not showing up in the line up of professions unless you select RP character and Factions campaigne