Guild Wars 2

ewwwwww….. imagine the abuse and massive flood of Logan/Rytlock yoai fan fiction.

I would love this.

It was one of the things I really enjoyed in Ultima Online. I used several books to keep notes for myself, which was useful but can be done with a word document (or even a real life note book). But what I really loved was the ability to trade books or leave them in places for people to find.

One of my favourite memories of that game was making my way out to a remote peninsula on the edge of nowhere (north west of the main continent if I remember correctly) that had absolutely nothing on it to give players a reason to visit, and then finding a ‘Visitors Book’ in a clearing with notes from all the people who had been there.

That sounds like fun. Adventurers always have a daily log. There are times when I need to write things down to remind myself later when I’m back at the same location with a different character I’m working on map completion for of how to access this point, that vista or whatnot.

A lot of ppl are making vids of their travels and posting on youtube and I find that very helpful as well.

starlinvf.1358:

ewwwwww….. imagine the abuse and massive flood of Logan/Rytlock yoai fan fiction.

Well at least it would cleanse the forums of the smut?

Kind of a tangent but of a similar theme I always wished they would add an accessible player profile that is written by the player. They had this function in CoH and it was awesome for RPers like me. You just clicked on the players name and could access their own personally written back story, some of which were incredibly well written, many which were equally wet your pants laughing hysterical, and they all really added to the depth and individuality of each player. GW seems a bit clone like and this would be a great way of expressing individuality while adding to the immersion for role-players.

Then again I guess they figure that’s what the PS is for…heh..

When I saw the title though it is was going to be for make reciepies that could be then givin to other characters or sold on the TP

simplesimon.2084:

When I saw the title though it is was going to be for make reciepies that could be then givin to other characters or sold on the TP

What?

Some interesting ideas here. I think anything added to the game where we as players can leave some kind of a mark of ourselves or more interaction with the world as a whole would be nothing but more great immersion and add to that “living world” philosophy they want this game to feel like.

I also miss another feature that’s not here which was in Perfectworld. There, crafting gear sometimes gave a bonus of +1 or +2 to stats or some such and not only that the item would permanently have the creators name on it. As you can imagine these items became valuable on the Auction house for the extra stats but it also kind of gave crafters another reason to keep on crafting. Not only to earn that extra coin but to also kind of make a name for themselves as being a good crafter in the community.

We NEED things like this so we can leave a mark and “tell our story”.

+1 for this thread and Danikat’s reply. We have to get things like these in place. Along side fishing and playable Skritt of course! :P

JDubsH.5740:

simplesimon.2084:

When I saw the title though it is was going to be for make reciepies that could be then givin to other characters or sold on the TP

What?

Like a crafting skill that lets you scribe known reciepes to a sheet. It would help with the cost on those reciepies that can no longer be found in the game.

starlinvf.1358:

ewwwwww….. imagine the abuse and massive flood of Logan/Rytlock yoai fan fiction.

Logan turned to run away, Jennah needed him. But Rytlock wrapped his large muscular arms around Logan’s bare chest and pulled him close. So close Logan could smell Rytlock’s strong Charr musk.
Rytlock nuzzled Logan’s neck and whispering “Not this time”…

XD

JDubsH.5740:

starlinvf.1358:

ewwwwww….. imagine the abuse and massive flood of Logan/Rytlock yoai fan fiction.

Well at least it would cleanse the forums of the smut?

Logan protested in vain “No, I can’t… I have to… Jennah.”
In a low whisper Rytlock hushed him, “I’ll be your Jennah tonight”

XD
XD
XD

fireflyry.7023:

Kind of a tangent but of a similar theme I always wished they would add an accessible player profile that is written by the player. They had this function in CoH and it was awesome for RPers like me

On a serious note, seems like a small change that could be of a lot of benefit to RPers.

CureForLiving.5360:

starlinvf.1358:

ewwwwww….. imagine the abuse and massive flood of Logan/Rytlock yoai fan fiction.

Logan turned to run away, Jennah needed him. But Rytlock wrapped his large muscular arms around Logan’s bare chest and pulled him close. So close Logan could smell Rytlock’s strong Charr musk.
Rytlock nuzzled Logan’s neck and whispering “Not this time”…

XD

JDubsH.5740:

starlinvf.1358:

ewwwwww….. imagine the abuse and massive flood of Logan/Rytlock yoai fan fiction.

Well at least it would cleanse the forums of the smut?

Logan protested in vain “No, I can’t… I have to… Jennah.”
In a low whisper Rytlock hushed him, “I’ll be your Jennah tonight”

XD
XD
XD

fireflyry.7023:

Kind of a tangent but of a similar theme I always wished they would add an accessible player profile that is written by the player. They had this function in CoH and it was awesome for RPers like me

On a serious note, seems like a small change that could be of a lot of benefit to RPers.

My support still stands for this idea, however I have one request. Please do NOT allow the quoted player here to access this new book making system. I feel that would be a great start! :P

It’ll never happen. Players barely, if at all, read quest text. The mindless, “Where is it?” in map chat, despite the in-game mail, little green arrows, huge orange arrows, stars, mini videos, and text on the side of the quest that says where said objective is.

Let’s not even get into how trolls, pervs, and gold sellers could abuse this.

Ardenwolfe.8590:

It’ll never happen. Players barely, if at all, read quest text. The mindless, “Where is it?” in map chat, despite the in-game mail, little green arrows, huge orange arrows, stars, mini videos, and text on the side of the quest that says where said objective is.

Let’s not even get into how trolls, pervs, and gold sellers could abuse this.

I could see them easily adding a “report abuse” feature when reading a book. It would pretty much have the same effect on the game now as the mail system does. Abusers, pervs and gold sellers would be pretty much dealt with either from the mail, map chat or book report feature. I shouldn’t see too much of an issue. Perhaps just a little more work from the part of anet going through the reports…

Not going to happen. Your suggestion alone would add a huge workload to moderators already overwhelmed with the reporting system. Giving those people access to be even more workarounds isn’t a good idea, even if a select few do wish to use it for its intended purpose.

Besides, if people want to read or write a book about fantasy, an MMO isn’t the best route to do it. RPers can do this offsite on blogs and the like for donations in game. I’ve seen this done before in the past where certain players kept a ‘journal’ of their interactions on a board of sorts.

That, honestly, is the better route. Because if that person ever intends to ‘publish’ said work, they can forget it. Guess who that work would belong to in this game.

You got it.

And I’m pretty sure ANet would like to avoid that additional, and legal, nightmare.

starlinvf.1358:

ewwwwww….. imagine the abuse and massive flood of Logan/Rytlock yoai fan fiction.

^this ! While it’s a good idea that promotes creativity , there should be a report feature for "offensive " content. Then again…that’s censorship . Hmmm

this is a feature in minecraft, exactly as you describe, its a cool feature but ppl never use it, and minecraft is a creative game, gw is a combat game where most ppl dont bother to read anything, as cool as it would be i think it would be a waste of the devs time.

Paulytnz.7619:

My support still stands for this idea, however I have one request. Please do NOT allow the quoted player here to access this new book making system. I feel that would be a great start! :P

Ah just when I was really starting to warm up to the idea!

Ardenwolfe.8590:

Not going to happen. Your suggestion alone would add a huge workload to moderators already overwhelmed with the reporting system. Giving those people access to be even more workarounds isn’t a good idea, even if a select few do wish to use it for its intended purpose.

Besides, if people want to read or write a book about fantasy, an MMO isn’t the best route to do it. RPers can do this offsite on blogs and the like for donations in game. I’ve seen this done before in that past where certain players kept a ‘journal’ of their interactions on a board of sort.

That, honestly, is the better route. Because if that person ever intends to ‘publish’ said work, they can forget it. Guess who that work would belong to in this game.

You got it.

And I’m pretty sure ANet would like to avoid that additional, and legal, nightmare.

I don’t think they’d be able to publish it anyway, at least not without permission from Anet, which they’d never get. Legally everything in the game (including our characters) is Anet’s intellectual property.

But I don’t think that would be an issue. In my experience the vast majority of fanfic writers don’t expect or even want their stories published. Even the ones who are aspiring writers generally use fanfic as a way to practice whilst working on their own original work separately.

I agree that books would have to be moderated, but as other people have said they could simply add a button to each book (even each page) identical to the one on mail and it would be handled in the same way.

They cant even manage to give us a character bio section or an inspect function. This won’t happen.

GuzziHero.2467:

They cant even manage to give us a character bio section or an inspect function. This won’t happen.

Maybe that’s because “enough” people haven’t asked for it before? Sometimes Dev’s need some pushing before they act on things.

Paulytnz.7619:

GuzziHero.2467:

They cant even manage to give us a character bio section or an inspect function. This won’t happen.

Maybe that’s because “enough” people haven’t asked for it before? Sometimes Dev’s need some pushing before they act on things.

We’ve been asking for more roleplaying elements for years. Heck we’ve been asking for a reduction in emote range for years and nothing has been done.

What happens if you buy a book from the TP and it’s filled with childish obscenities?
What happens if someone sells a book with graphical eroticism in it, bearing in mind this is a 12+ game?
What happens if you spend 1 gold on a book with only two sentences in it?
What happens if someone creatively manages to use the font to create naughty pictures?

I’m sorry, I don’t think it’s a good idea. Firstly because you wouldn’t always get what you pay for, and secondly, it’d just blow the doors wide open to 4chan style puerility, that the customer has ended up paying for in gold.

GuzziHero.2467:

They cant even manage to give us a character bio section or an inspect function. This won’t happen.

I don’t think the issue is that they can’t manage it – that implies they have been trying and are incapable of making it work.

From what they’ve said before it’s a deliberate decision they made not to include these features. The inspect feature wouldn’t fit with their casual friendly ‘play how you want’ design because it would make it very easy for other players to criticize your build or exclude you from groups because of it.

I love this idea!

Danikat.8537:

But I don’t think that would be an issue. In my experience the vast majority of fanfic writers don’t expect or even want their stories published. Even the ones who are aspiring writers generally use fanfic as a way to practice whilst working on their own original work separately.

(laugh) Tell that to E.L. James.

Ardenwolfe.8590:

Danikat.8537:

But I don’t think that would be an issue. In my experience the vast majority of fanfic writers don’t expect or even want their stories published. Even the ones who are aspiring writers generally use fanfic as a way to practice whilst working on their own original work separately.

(laugh) Tell that to E.L. James.

That’s why I said ‘the vast majority’ and not ‘all’. One exception does not speak for the intentions of an entire group of thousands of very diverse individuals.

I used to ‘love’ books in UO.

I’d write poems, stories, and leave them around in buildings for people to find. Maybe an old, dilapidated guard tower in the woods, leave a diary of a guardsman.

They were really fun. Always enjoyed find and reading others books.

Well, until the first few months of “holy cow! we’re playing dnd online!” wore off and the degenerates started showing up and they had to make Trammel. Initially, books were really neat though.

Individual books would be next to impossible depending on how GW2 itemid setup is, as well as issues mentioned already.

However you could add it in 2 ways and bypass most issues, a middle ground approach.

Either

Option A: Add the ability and limit the number of books but they are only available in the players home instances/guild halls like book stands. So for other players to read it they need to party and go to your instance. This controls the amount of books and itemids in the world as well as limit its effect on TP spam and filtering.

Option B: Would create a GUI where players can write stories, books, erotic fan fiction etc. Simple privileges could be added for the writer on what is viewable and by whom.

To allow access there would be a single item that is tied to either the character or account, so the item would be “BrooksP Library Access” and when used by others will access the viewable only GUI where all of my stuff is posted.

This will limit the unique itemids to 1 per account/character while still allowing the writer to write as much as they want. It would also be easy to moderate if even needed.

Option B is the more pita version to make but is the most flexible. However GW2 isn’t UO or really any other sandbox game where there is enough of a RP element to make it worth the effort.

E: Actually the more I think about it the more useful it could be. Even outside of the RP element it could be added as away for players to write ingame guides on certain things. So say doing Teq, instead of trying to explain everything or expecting them to already know, you could give them the item that links to either your library which has the strats, or to another public strat writer.

BrooksP.4318:

Option A: Add the ability and limit the number of books but they are only available in the players home instances/guild halls like book stands. So for other players to read it they need to party and go to your instance. This controls the amount of books and itemids in the world as well as limit its effect on TP spam and filtering.

This seems to be the best. I’ll put this on the OP.

Nice idea, but there are already websites to share fanfics and character histories/stories.

Unfortunately if this was in-game, this would just be something that A-net would have to spend time and money policing. It wouldn’t be worth their resources as very few people would benefit from it.

starlinvf.1358:

ewwwwww….. imagine the abuse and massive flood of Logan/Rytlock yoai fan fiction.

And? Abuse should be report-able/ban-able. And fanfic? Why not? So long as you can flag your writing as adult-only, why would yaoi writing necessarily be bad?

Crimson Clouds.4853:

Nice idea, but there are already websites to share fanfics and character histories/stories.

Unfortunately if this was in-game, this would just be something that A-net would have to spend time and money policing. It wouldn’t be worth their resources as very few people would benefit from it.

Did you read the edit I made about it being only in instances and guild halls? There is no monitoring needed. And managing inappropriate content is no different than chat.

or maybe a note pad to save things like builds (skills, traits, armor set, weapons, runes, amulets, accessories), favorite armor set combinations (with side by side comparisions), dye configurations, boss times, favorite jumping puzzles, list of selected items to be price tracked….

fireflyry.7023:

Kind of a tangent but of a similar theme I always wished they would add an accessible player profile that is written by the player. They had this function in CoH and it was awesome for RPers like me. You just clicked on the players name and could access their own personally written back story, some of which were incredibly well written, many which were equally wet your pants laughing hysterical, and they all really added to the depth and individuality of each player. GW seems a bit clone like and this would be a great way of expressing individuality while adding to the immersion for role-players.

Then again I guess they figure that’s what the PS is for…heh..

Oh gosh, memories. I’d love to see something like it implemented.

GuzziHero.2467:

They cant even manage to give us a character bio section or an inspect function. This won’t happen.

I think inspect function is a purposeful (and good) exclusion though.

it would compete and clash with “official” storytelling. Not a good idea.

I like this idea.

+1, this sounds like a great idea and would work really well with guild halls!

Algreg.3629:

it would compete and clash with “official” storytelling. Not a good idea.

Why? It’s not a canon story telling mechanism, it would just be for those who want to write guides or short stories for their guilds.

I’d like a personal journal at the very least. It would be an improvement to quality of life if you can add some small references of wp’s, events, tasks, things to check, comments and etc. instead of trying to rely on memory alone or some other organizer outside the game.

The personal waypoint sure helps a lot but, at least for me, still isn’t enough. I’d like to add and keep more info with access in game.

In theory its an awesome idea, in practice its too expensive to implement because there is no way to implement something like this without having people review the content and it takes a lot of people to review what 100,000s if not millions of players would post.

JDubsH.5740:

Crimson Clouds.4853:

Nice idea, but there are already websites to share fanfics and character histories/stories.

Unfortunately if this was in-game, this would just be something that A-net would have to spend time and money policing. It wouldn’t be worth their resources as very few people would benefit from it.

Did you read the edit I made about it being only in instances and guild halls? There is no monitoring needed. And managing inappropriate content is no different than chat.

It doesn’t matter if it’s instanced, in guild-halls or in a public map. Communication in this game has to uphold the ToS and therefore anything in it must be reportable/monitored. I can imagine plenty of ways that your suggestion could be used nefariously or to hurt other players.

This means that there is more content for A-net to manage. Moderators- real-life people- read through player reports and chat logs to determine if the content is offensive. Ultimately they’d have to manage this book idea the same way. Man-power is an expensive resource.

So, although your book idea could add nice little nuances to the game, it’s not worth the upkeep and management that would have to be applied to it.

I see this suggestion very similar to the suggestion of having A-net run an in-game voice-com. There are already websites and facilities out there that offer the service and A-net would have to expensively police it if they owned their own.

Crimson Clouds.4853:

JDubsH.5740:

Crimson Clouds.4853:

Nice idea, but there are already websites to share fanfics and character histories/stories.

Unfortunately if this was in-game, this would just be something that A-net would have to spend time and money policing. It wouldn’t be worth their resources as very few people would benefit from it.

Did you read the edit I made about it being only in instances and guild halls? There is no monitoring needed. And managing inappropriate content is no different than chat.

It doesn’t matter if it’s instanced, in guild-halls or in a public map. Communication in this game has to uphold the ToS and therefore anything in it must be reportable/monitored. I can imagine plenty of ways that your suggestion could be used nefariously or to hurt other players.

This means that there is more content for A-net to manage. Moderators- real-life people- read through player reports and chat logs to determine if the content is offensive. Ultimately they’d have to manage this book idea the same way. Man-power is an expensive resource.

So, although your book idea could add nice little nuances to the game, it’s not worth the upkeep and management that would have to be applied to it.

I see this suggestion very similar to the suggestion of having A-net run an in-game voice-com. There are already websites and facilities out there that offer the service and A-net would have to expensively police it if they owned their own.

Not entirely. Most online game rating isn’t done based off of player interaction, they wouldn’t have to moderate everything that is written, all they do is use the same (optional)chat filter and use at your own risk. So long as it isn’t written by Anet or isn’t unavoidable then it isn’t a issue.

Too much effort to implement it anywhere else than your home-instance, and in case I understood correctly how home-instances work, even there it would be impossible.

Since the mega-server is a thing, maps get constantly wiped, and reloaded from a standard map version, meaning that whatever is not saved in the standard map, will not be available anymore after the temporary copy of your map is closed.
And if I’m not mistaken, even your home-instance is nothing but a copy of a standard map, just using flags for your current ongoing personal story, unlocked nodes (farming nodes, skillpoints, wintersday-tree, a.s.o.) to be loaded in, once you open it.

that means, unless they increase the size of their map-memory, to permanently saving the 4.whatever millions of home-instances, written books inside the game will never be able to stay.

However, there is already an 3rd party solution for your request (I think).
Watch the latest POI and listen carefully to when they interviewed the overwulf app contest winner, where one could write custom quests for other people, being displayed inside Gw2 (as overlay / some german guy was the author, If I’m not mistaken).
I don’t remember the details, since it was not that interesting for me personally, but that should cover your needs, if all participants use that app.

BrooksP.4318:

Not entirely. Most online game rating isn’t done based off of player interaction, they wouldn’t have to moderate everything that is written, all they do is use the same (optional)chat filter and use at your own risk. So long as it isn’t written by Anet or isn’t unavoidable then it isn’t a issue.

You missed my point. The entries would still need to have a report feature in order to clear up anything that is in breach of the ToS. Paid human moderators would have to look through these reports and decide the consequences based off of the content.

A-net have said plenty of times before that the chat filter is not there to allow players to use “colourful” language, it’s there so that other players can have a bit of their own censorship on what they see. (https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Belliegerence-and-Vulgar-Language/page/2#post4929239)

Equally, a filter for the books would not be sufficient. A-net has relatively high standards when it comes to such content- I’m sure they wouldn’t want a load of unmoderated, player-created stuff to lessen their game.*

I think it would be very confusing if A-net allowed/ignored poor language, profanity and insult in one area of the game but hopped on it aggressively elsewhere. It would send people mixed messages.

*I’m not saying that all fan-created stuff is ToS breaking- I’ve seen and read plenty of breathtaking player-created things. But there are few that would use it for its intended purpose and many that would take advantage of it and use it hurtfully.

Ardenwolfe.8590:

Not going to happen. Your suggestion alone would add a huge workload to moderators already overwhelmed with the reporting system. Giving those people access to be even more workarounds isn’t a good idea, even if a select few do wish to use it for its intended purpose.

While I can see your perspective and this is definitely a concern of the ideas, it’s hardly a negative of the idea itself. “It might be more moderation work” isn’t a negative unless it is a specific additional feature added that could be exploited to disrupt the gameplay of players. This wouldn’t do that.

Ardenwolfe.8590:

Besides, if people want to read or write a book about fantasy, an MMO isn’t the best route to do it. RPers can do this offsite on blogs and the like for donations in game. I’ve seen this done before in that past where certain players kept a ‘journal’ of their interactions on a board of sort.

That, honestly, is the better route. Because if that person ever intends to ‘publish’ said work, they can forget it. Guess who that work would belong to in this game.

You can’t publish work that is related to or contains copyrighted materials unless you get the consent of the creator. That is, you can’t profit from said publishing so I see the differentiation moot. What’s the difference of posting something in-game for players to partake in and posting something on a site outside of the official game website? Well, besides having less chance of actually reaching the intended audience (which are players of the game), you have to then police yourself on said sites otherwise leading to even worse material further from the original source as well as possible legal action if not policed right.

I don’t think you’ve fully explored the possible advantages and downfalls of the suggestion or your alternatives.

But my opinion is, City of Heroes did very well with its system of self-written personal bios. You can leave certain messages, advertise your supergroup, tell a joke or an enthralling short story and since it’s the first thing you see when you inspect that player (before you can see their powers, bonuses and badges), it was far more likely for a player to read the story and get interested in either the player, the player’s character and possibly who the player congregates with. Such a system in GW2 may be able to let others know just what type of player you are and thus how to approach you if they could just click on your character and read a message written by you.

For the idea of name-branding crafted gear, I’d definitely love this idea! It’s only a shame you can’t really offer the best crafted gear for your friends. Perhaps they could introduce certain hard to make infusions or legendary gear that can only be crafted and traded? I’d definitely be crafting more things besides consumables to sell if people could wear my brand.

As for the idea of books, I’m rather on the fence about it. If they are only in instances, that may work but I still think the goal should be to reach out to people who just happen to be walking about in the game. If they aren’t accessible, fewer people will read them. But if you make them so you can place books around the world, I can see many issues that would bring up. So unsure about this idea.

Just had a side-thought. What if your build (that is, your trait set-up and utility skills) could be exportable as a text string linkable in game? So you’d have a button in your specialization tab that would then “copy to clipboard” your set-up as a unique character string that, if you click it, automatically swaps your traits and utilities (if they are off cooldown) if you’re the proper profession, of course. Having a kind of personal journal could then also be used as a quick swap tool for builds, sharing your builds, naming your builds, etc. Of course you’d have the option of using it to tell stories or jokes as well.

If it’s just limited to Guild Halls, I think it’d be neat. I’d love having a guild library. Depending on the guild, you could have one book for behavior guidelines, one for recruiting, “How To” guides, etc.

Most guilds have a website for this purpose, but I’d still enjoy something like this in-game.

It’d also be pretty handy if you had a kind of “digital bookshelf” of books you’ve read and might want to look up again. And by that, I mean a UI tap where you can access anywhere and reference things written by other players or actual in-game lore.

Those lore junkies would likely put such an option to good use if they want to refresh themselves on certain things or for a quick reference to relevant knowledge.