Guild Wars 2

I don’t know if this is the right place to respond to optional content…

But the Sickle animation is so awesome right now, whoever had to spend several hours on this gets my thanks!

How refreshing we now use it like plowshares!

Agree, I am glad the effects are bigger now so we can see them. It was alright before but now it is a must have. Keep up the great work.

AnthonyOrdon.3926:

Glad it was worth the effort.

Yes it was. I really like the end result :-) You made me curious how much time and effort goes in patch like this? Is it a few hours or a few days?

Virtual high five to the artist (If it wasn’t you Anthony) that reworked the animation, must have been under a bit of time pressure to get it out, looks much cooler than the classic harvesting animation.
Thanks.

It’s definitely better, but don’t go congratulating them on creating a new animation; it’s the Warrior’s hammer No.2 attack.
Yet again recycling old animations instead of creating new ones.

Wiz.1543:

AnthonyOrdon.3926:

Glad it was worth the effort.

Yes it was. I really like the end result :-) You made me curious how much time and effort goes in patch like this? Is it a few hours or a few days?

this id like to know how much effort it took

Animation looks good, however the item itself is bugged. When others see you harvesting with the sickle when you also have the molten alliance pick equipped the sickle is replaced with the mining pick’s model (which btw looks awesome lol).

Edit: Also if you don’t have the molten alliance pick others see the sickle as invisible.

Dude,
Its just something different that I like.
If something matches why wouldn’t they reuse the animation…
I for one agree that it is the correct animation for use of a plowshare / scythe.

How should the gathering be other than the old animation or what it is now.

New sickle animation is great!

I like the new animation. I also like how the spring is bigger. Thank you very much Anet.

Edit: Even if it’s the hammer animation it still looks cool with the sickle I think.

I like it very much too! Reminds me a little of a golf club animation

Hammer animation. Come on…

The new sickle animation is great, who cares if its the hammer animation. Honestly can’t we ever give anet a break…

Craziplaya.2103:

New sickle animation is great!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MDzk7j1nwHo

That looks much better. Before it just looked like someone pushing a stick with a rock tied on into the ground and a few seconds later water would come up. Much better now.

AnthonyOrdon.3926:

Glad it was worth the effort.

Much much better, just be careful making us happy all the time, we might get used to it :P

PS:And people say devs never listen to suggestions..

GoldenTruth.2853:

Animation looks good, however the item itself is bugged. When others see you harvesting with the sickle when you also have the molten alliance pick equipped the sickle is replaced with the mining pick’s model (which btw looks awesome lol).

Edit: Also if you don’t have the molten alliance pick others see the sickle as invisible.

That not just the consortium sickle though, that’s a bug that happens with all harvesting tools. I’ve seen people pull out their harvesting sickle and mine with it before. It’s pretty funny actually :P

I too wanna say thanks for the work on the new animation. It’s quicker, cleaner and visually more appealing.

Thanks so much.

I just sickled the heck out of the Beetletun lettuce and enjoyed every swing. It even bursts out a shower of leaves. Third time’s the charm! Thanks for working on it ’til it was good.

Ya i agree with the posts above! Its awesome now. Thanks Anet for following through and fixing the issues people had. The animation looks bigger and sounds better love it

AnthonyOrdon.3926:

Just to clarify, everyone is really glad that we could get it improved. It’s hard to say exactly how long something like this takes. The changes were brought on by what was pretty much universal recognition that item just wasn’t as appealing as it could be. From there I mocked up an improvement and then had a lot of feedback and support from our amazing artists to get it just right. Then it went through QA and I made a sacrifice to the noble and wise gods of live production to make sure we could get it into this build today (that was already planned to fix some other issues).

Well done. Thanks for taking the time to share the process. Now how about a sneak preview of the axe

AnthonyOrdon.3926:

Glad it was worth the effort.

Holy cow! I just used it and WOW! Glad you care enough to change it

Note: is amazing how something that last for less than a second can change everything.

Spectacular work

I just used it and was impressed. Didn’t expect that much improvement. Very well done! It even improves harvesting time over the standard sickle. And the animation is now large enough that I see the sprouting vines. Reminded me of the cleansing of the source of Orr

Have to agree, mining pick* and scythe have been very cool cosmetic releases Not to mention the obvious reduction in bag space that I enjoy in general about unlimited uses.

Broadicea.8294:

Hammer animation. Come on…

AnthonyOrdon.3926:

Just to clarify, everyone is really glad that we could get it improved. It’s hard to say exactly how long something like this takes. The changes were brought on by what was pretty much universal recognition that item just wasn’t as appealing as it could be. From there I mocked up an improvement and then had a lot of feedback and support from our amazing artists to get it just right. Then it went through QA and I made a sacrifice to the noble and wise gods of live production to make sure we could get it into this build today (that was already planned to fix some other issues).

Or to put it another way, you used the guardian banish animation on hammer 4, increased the size of the water effect and made the visible weapon swap to a scythe…..

Why was this minor amount of work not done first? Did you honestly think the one you released was any good?

Oh well, at least it got fixed, try to better for the axe please.

Well it was worth it. I was very underwhelmed with the original sickle and it’s three prior revisions, but it is now worth the price. I may just have to buy another for one of my alts. Thank you very much for listening to the community on this one.

Cameirus.8407:

Or to put it another way, you used the guardian banish animation on hammer 4, increased the size of the water effect and made the visible weapon swap to a scythe…..

Why was this minor amount of work not done first? Did you honestly think the one you released was any good?

Oh well, at least it got fixed, try to better for the axe please.

Good grief.. They made the item, fixed it based on feedback and most seem happy now. Of course there is always someone…

AnthonyOrdon.3926:

Glad it was worth the effort.

I want to be very clear here.

I purchased $20 worth of gems to buy this item. I did so because I want ANet to know that I will gladly purchase quality items in the store that aren’t RNG.

Thank you for your efforts, now take my money.

Why are you people still angry about this?!

Yes, I was very peeved that, when I first bought it it downright sucked.

But now I see a GREAT improvement and people still complain?? Have you even bought this?

As a non-Warrior/Guardian player, this was an unexpected (and very welcome!) change to my Mesmer!!

It’s now very unique! You don’t get to see Adventurer/Scholar classes really use the hammer animation anyway, unless they use Lightning Hammer.

I love it A-net, and thank you very much for listening to your community!

Its amazing the work on a cash shop item, now if we could get similar work on non cash shop items Guildwars 2 would be epic.

I’d vote for permanent Pet stowage.

It’s a lot of fun but really hard not to think of this while harvesting now…which is a good thing.

I can’t believe the nerve that some people on this thread have! ANet is working hard to make the sickle look good and people just complain and demand more. Seriously, how many developers these days respond to feedback this quickly and on top of that post on the forums with updates about their progress?

So what if the animation already exists in game. Does it look good? Yes! That’s all that matters. Show some common courtesy guys.

Yes, I like it very much.

Woosh WAM!

Well, the Molten Mining one still uses the normal mining animation and it was still awesome.
The Sickle may use hammer animation but it’s still something different than the normal Sickle animation.

Doggie.3184:

Well, the Molten Mining one still uses the normal mining animation and it was still awesome.
The Sickle may use hammer animation but it’s still something different than the normal Sickle animation.

It actually uses the correct scythe action that you would expect from a large sickle. So its fine now and makes sense.

love the fix to the consort scythe……..well done

Definitely 100x better than before.

Now that that’s fixed the pitchfork and torch side of me wonders how the original original pickaxe style animation along with the extended gathering time ever made it pass the design phase. Did they just lob the task to the newbie in the dev pit with no guidance other than “just look what was done with the molten pickaxe”?

As a software developer myself I’m not a fan of overly detailed design guidelines but it’s as if the person or persons who worked on it never gathered with a sickle before in game or looked up how a scythe is used.

My working hypothesis is the original animation was done up as a placeholder and nobody ever circled back to do it right.

Dash.7108:

The new sickle animation is great, who cares if its the hammer animation. Honestly can’t we ever give anet a break…

LOL……tough crowd.

Crazylegsmurphy.6430:

AnthonyOrdon.3926:

Glad it was worth the effort.

I want to be very clear here.

I purchased $20 worth of gems to buy this item. I did so because I want ANet to know that I will gladly purchase quality items in the store that aren’t RNG.

Thank you for your efforts, now take my money.

^THIS!!!

Behellagh.1468:

Now that that’s fixed the pitchfork and torch side of me wonders how the original original pickaxe style animation along with the extended gathering time ever made it pass the design phase. Did they just lob the task to the newbie in the dev pit with no guidance other than “just look what was done with the molten pickaxe”?

As a software developer myself I’m not a fan of overly detailed design guidelines but it’s as if the person or persons who worked on it never gathered with a sickle before in game or looked up how a scythe is used.

My working hypothesis is the original animation was done up as a placeholder and nobody ever circled back to do it right.

I never worked on a commercial video game, but here’s my hypothesis:

For the most part, the game engine is code-complete meaning that new content is just a matter of scripting/animations/artwork. Except for critical bug fixes and any new features or optimizations that come down the line, the team ideally is not touching the game code at this point. In fact it’s risky to do so. Depending on what tools they have to aid content creation, it might be a trivial task to put together a gathering tool once the artwork is made available. Maybe it doesn’t even require a programmer’s involvement.

(cue Anthony to tell me how wrong I am)

wow- I logged in to check it now and it is pretty awesome!
Thanks Anthony and team, great job

JustTrogdor.7892:

Cameirus.8407:

Or to put it another way, you used the guardian banish animation on hammer 4, increased the size of the water effect and made the visible weapon swap to a scythe…..

Why was this minor amount of work not done first? Did you honestly think the one you released was any good?

Oh well, at least it got fixed, try to better for the axe please.

Good grief.. They made the item, fixed it based on feedback and most seem happy now. Of course there is always someone…

Oh i’m happy its fixed, and glad anet responded quickly, but i just hope they learn from this.

They put out a really badly designed item, and the players righty called them on it. The fix took a very short time, and was very simple, which begs the question why was it not done this way the first time? If it was so quick and easy to fix.

I’m not mad, angry or whatever, i just hope anet learn and get it right when the axe is released. I hold anet in high regard, which is why i expect better of them. If they have one weakness its poor quality control.

I’m gonna hop on the “Thank you ANet” train for this topic.

All I wanted of it was the animation change back to the normal harvesting animation. What I got was a massive revamp that made it much more interesting to me than the Molten Pick.

In short, the Consortium Sickle is a tad step above the Molten Pick and leagues above what it was before. Thanks for the fixes, guys. Appreciate ’em.

Besides, why would it having the same animation as a Hammer skill be a negative? The Molten Pick didn’t have a enough mining animation other than the lava effect.

Great work, Anthony! I knew you guys will come through.

Its a great new animation, but this is definitely not a sickle anymore.

It should be renamed to “Consortium Harvesting Scythe.”

Reikou.7068:

Its a great new animation, but this is definitely not a sickle anymore.

It should be renamed to “Consortium Harvesting Scythe.”

+1 Agreed 100%.