Guild Wars 2

Good morning ppl. First, sorry for my bad English, im from Argentina, i ll try my best :P.

First, i love gw2, i been having a really good time, you guys made and excellent game.

But… yea… the endless “but…”. One of my big problems with the “end-game” of gw2 is the legendary weapons. The idea of those items its amazing, the effort you need to put in… i think its completely fine, but… (here we go again) why someone (majority of hardcore players) could want to spend all that time for a unicorn rainbow-shooting looking bow? i mean, i get that its funny and cool, and some ppl will want it (as the scepter/pistol/etc) but why not make an epic looking skin for all weapons?, like the greatswords. Definitely, thats for what i want to spend all that time and effort.

Im studding Gaming design and programing, and in fact, one of my dreams is to work in a company like Anet. Their game and company philosophy is just… amazing. So i was thinking, from a design perspective… why? and im unable to reach a clear answer.

As an Elementalist that uses scepter/dagger scepter/focus, i find my self without the chance of been able to get an epic looking legendary. As i said, its cool to make some weapons “funny”, but why make almost all of them?, why not make at least 2 legendary skins for each weapon, a funny one, and a more… mature skin for others.

The idea of A.net for the legendary was great, ofc we (gamers) get all crazy when someone with a really cool looking piece of gear pass walking near you, its an amazing feeling, you just scream “I WANT THAT!!”, our eyes pop out like in cartoons, and that gives (to the legendary owner) a high prestige status.

But seriously, i dont feel the “I WANT THAT” for an unicorn bow, or the scepter, staff, and almoust all the legendarys. I definitely think the twilight greatsword its EPIC!!!!!!! i mean EPICCC!!!!!!!!!, but hey… I CANT USE IT, and also, ALMOST EVERYBODY WANT THE SAME WEAPON, no prestige in having 100 ppl with the same legendary.
I also know that its impossible to create skins that looks cool for everybody… but i dont know 1 person that really loves the actual skins of the legendarys in general (i know there are ppl that loves them… but how many they are? thats the question).

Finally, i know that the LW are not something you MUST do… but thats not a really good answer in my opinion, or excuse. We are not asking for a total revamp of gw2, we are asking for a little more variety in the LW skins, thats all.

Pliz ArenaNet give to this gw2 fan a hand, and make some epic legendary weapon skins for each weapon, i get its not an easy job, i know that its really hard, but i think this can make a big difference, there are a ton of ppl with this same issue.

I much appreciate if some dev can tell me if they are looking into it or planning in adding (not in 2 years, i mean, in few weeks/month) a few more skins for the other weapons.

Thnks all, sry again for my english.
———————————————————————————————————————————————————
My Elementalist and the 2 moust cool looking scepters i found

http://i.imgur.com/CcV3a.jpg
(my old corrupted scepter)

http://i.imgur.com/Aq2Rz.jpg
(my new one )

To be fair…legendaries are for looks and prestige. If you don’t like the look of them, there’s no need to get one.

guess you dont realize there are allready thousands of players runing around looking just like you at some point.

There are no factions only 5 races.

Zale.9645:

To be fair…legendaries are for looks and prestige. If you don’t like the look of them, there’s no need to get one.

I totally get that. But why restrict the players with that kind of philosophy? why not give a little something to all of us… i mean… to be fair.

Theres a huge amount of ppl with this issue, its not just a minor part of the players. And i (like others) want to a have a legendary weapon too, its just that i find them a joke with all my respect and admiration for the art team. If you put an epic greatsword, why not do the same with the others?.

And as i said in the first post, i know you dont have to have one, thats not the point.

I want that unicorn bow. Someday.

My guess is that Anet will release more skins in future patches/expansions, and that is solely based on my experience in GW1. So if you don’t like ’em now, maybe you will like some of the new ones

sixfeetunder.6508:

guess you dont realize there are allready thousands of players runing around looking just like you at some point.

There are no factions only 5 races.

I know… but… what that has to do with this?… O.o

There are not much options for that, its just how it is, and even more for light armor clases seens there are less “epic” looking sets. Right now i have the CoF one, and yea… everybody has it :P. Anyway, has nothing to do with this topic.

Well, they’ll certainly add more legendary weapons either in expansions or content updates. Maybe they’ll add holiday themed legendaries or a sword carved from Jormag’s tooth.

Tosha Daydreamer.9251:

I want that unicorn bow. Someday.

My guess is that Anet will release more skins in future patches/expansions, and that is solely based on my experience in GW1. So if you don’t like ’em now, maybe you will like some of the new ones

Yea im sure they ill add more in an expansion, but thats a lot of time of waiting :P. Im hoping that we dont have to wait that long, thats why im asking.

Agree. I mean, most of the weapons are “normal”, the bow is a little over the top, but I personally find it kind of funny, and there are lots of other legendaries to go for if you don’t like that.

I think one of the bigger problems with the legendaries right now is that most of the people look at the bugged preview versions and think they are crappy. The thing is, that in those versions animations and effects are not correctly shown. And the unique thing about the legendaries is exactly that – they have unique `effects. My personal guess is that once you see them “in action” most of them will look a lot cooler than what they do now. Just look at twilight – it looks okay on screenies, but if you see it ingame (or on youtube), it blows you away.

Right now I am, as well, not like “wow that’s worth all the effort”, but I am now waiting for videos of the legendaries to appear and then we’ll go from there.
Additionally, I am 100% sure more of them will come

Rainbow Pony Bow and Flower-power Bow are the only ones worth it, TBQH. >_>

Seriously though, trying to go with a stereotypical sort of ‘epic’ for everything, you’d almost certainly end up with something equally over-the-top (just in the opposite manner), or something mundane and uninteresting compared to the ‘lesser’ weapons.

Seems to me like they’ve managed to find a point where it’s fun, but not so ridiculous that it’s “just plain stupid”.

As a thief, the legendaries available to me look boring.

Bolt looks like a high level item sure, but a legendary? When you compare most of the effort put into twilight and sunrise to the other items they feel very lackluster.

And Quip, seriously? Give us a 10 inch barrel magnum revolver that shoots sniper rounds and we’d be all over it. But Quip looks like a water pistol and is easily overshadowed by lesser models.

Unless these weapons have very unique special effects, which is possible. I fail to see what is legendary about them.

The dagger, incinerator I think it’s called. Is just a blowtorch being wielded like a dagger. It’s overly bulky design and might suit a charr perhaps. But it doesn’t resemble the amount of effort required to acquire it.

The shortbow, the dreamer. Probably the only one worth getting and that’s mostly to troll people in wvwvw with bouncing rainbows of death.

I agree that the legendaries other than the greatsword and the shortbow are pretty lackluster….

What I read from the OP is that it’s less a matter of liking them or not. Some do, some don’t.
But it’s all a matter of choice.

If you are going through the trouble for a legendary, than some more choices could be nice.
It’s not about their stats after all, looks are their main selling point.

Let’s hope more models are introduced in the future.
Personally I don’t understand either why such items based on looks, have only so limited options in that… for now.

For me looks are very important in a game. Transmogging got me back into Wow after a break, just that… And I quite like a lot of the customisable features in GW2.
The key word for me here is: diversity.
Customisation of characters should not lead to all looking the same.
Legendaries tend to do that since there aren’t many models.

Nowadays you need weapons and armor that bleed blood and shoot out flames to appeal the 2edgy4u grimdark crowds.

Instead of getting a legendary. Just add effects to the Sigils and Runes. Glow is big on looks. Like in AION the godstones(Sigils in GW2) would add a visual effect to the weapons. They were also a world drop which made them fun to obtain and farm. Also a good part of the economy. Add effects to the Sigils.

Kimbald.2697:

What I read from the OP is that it’s less a matter of liking them or not. Some do, some don’t.
But it’s all a matter of choice.

If you are going through the trouble for a legendary, than some more choices could be nice.
It’s not about their stats after all, looks are their main selling point.

Let’s hope more models are introduced in the future.
Personally I don’t understand either why such items based on looks, have only so limited options in that… for now.

For me looks are very important in a game. Transmogging got me back into Wow after a break, just that… And I quite like a lot of the customisable features in GW2.
The key word for me here is: diversity.
Customisation of characters should not lead to all looking the same.
Legendaries tend to do that since there aren’t many models.

Choice would definitely solve the problem entirely… And I dare say there is a lack of choice with legendaries at the moment.

No doubt as more content is added new legendaries will surface. But it’d be nice in future if there were a greater choice when adding legendary items.

Well, we don’t even know what the particle effects are like for most of the legendaries. Wait and see, they could be better than you expect.

Mada.5319:

Well, we don’t even know what the particle effects are like for most of the legendaries. Wait and see, they could be better than you expect.

Something that requires that much effort shouldn’t be a wait and see affair… You really should know exactly what you are working your kitten off for before hand.

Definitly i usdertand that Anet want to do something difierent and wont go the blood droping syle :P, wich i dont really like either, but i belive that the things that doesnt have any problem… then… theres no need to “fix” or change that.

I think the key word here is diversity as others said. From a design point i also understand that its important to leave room for new interesting things for the future, so you cant put the best things you have from the beginning, but i think we are not asking for that, we want some diversity and more mature looking legendarys, we are not asking for super hyper mega cool looking weapon, just… a bit better.

Cute and funny looking items, are cool, but i/we dont play fantasy/medieval mmo for that kind of look, there are other kinds of mmo that will apeal that style. Even that, i agree that are cool for some ppl and im not asking to delete them :P, just saying that we need some diversity.

I believe that the particle effects of those legendary will look nice, but ill go along with the actual look, so seems the base appearance its weird for me, i dont believe that the effect will compensate that much.

Also, its not only the bow, the scepter looks funny, the staff has a rainbow all over it, the harpoon too, and the pistol… cant describe it :P.

For a appearance centric mmo like Gw2, there are some weird decisions on the look and diversity of items, armor and weapons. Ofc, you have to keep room for the future, but still, i think its running a little short on that matter. The best example is the power ranger light set from the gem shop… i love the art team and designers of Gw2 (seriously, they are amazing), but something went really wrong there

im guessing they were barely done in time for launch and they will be working on more later.

The Quip is… lackluster. The shield, meh. The predator, worth it I guess. The smaller the weapon the worse they look, but you hardly see them so it doesn’t matter.

Dev designer meeting:

‘no, you can NOT be serious about that model!’
‘that bad?’
‘not necessarily bad… just… euh… different.’
‘Throw it in the legendary heap than, like the others?’
‘Might as well, by the time they get that we’ll have the real models finished’

later on:

‘waaaah, game selling like crazy! Fix bugs, buy servers, read forums’
‘read forums?’
‘kidding, but get on with the rest.’
‘Euh, we still have those legendaires to model…’
‘no time, they’re not there yet. other pressing matters!’

‘guys, players are getting the legendaries;’
‘What? The joke ones?’
‘Afraid so.’
‘…’

The Predator rifle… I WANT THAT!!!!

Doubt i ever will get it though.

EQ1 had epic weapon quests.

The way it worked, each profession had a quest. So if you were a shaman, you worked for a spear, a druid for a scimitar, a thief got a dagger. I got all 3 of those.

The art team does their best, but this same issue came up in EQ1, too.

My thief’s dagger, especially cuz of being a gnome, no one ever saw. Stand really close to me, zoom in and you’ll see, it’s glowing. sigh The necro stick looked like a duck.

What I assume is the art team came up with a bunch of options, decided on the one to launch as the Legendary, and then keep the other design ideas for use in later content.

In GW2 here’s your great comfort. If you get your legendary and don’t like the look of it, you can always transmutate it to look like something else.

I would like the dual version of the greatsword (day/night), the scepter and the pistol for my mesmer please ArenaNet.

Wait… this isn’t a Christmas list? Dang.

I’m still going to get them. :-) It’ll just take a little longer.

In the model previewer, they don’t have particles or any effects on them.
The risen boss at arah’s gate uses the legendary GS.

I totally agree with the OP. Twilight is the only thing that might be worth all the materials it takes to craft these things. The bifrost for example looks like an albino pineapple on a bonestick with some crappy rainbow swirl.

Who’s seen these in game?

I’ve only seen the closed-beta footage of the greatswords on youtube (in which there’s frostfang but the player never displays it)

Personally, I like Tolkien’s way of portraiting ‘epicness’ in a fantasy.

Examples: Andúril, the sword of the king of Men, that cut the ring out of Sauron’s hand. It is a sword like any other in appearance

Gandalf, a maia, inferior only to Eru and the Vala, pure might. Strolls around with Hobbits dresses firstly in simple grey robes and uses extremely subtle magic.

The Ring. Power to conquer everything. A plain golden ring.

Alice.8694:

Something that requires that much effort shouldn’t be a wait and see affair… You really should know exactly what you are working your kitten off for before hand.

You will, there are plenty of people just waiting for the balthazar temple bug to be fixed and they’ll have their legendaries created. They will certainly be quick to show them off aswell.

it would be cool if the legendary weapons would change the color of ur skills and stuff like that

:D

No idea the great swords and a few others are good, but the majority look silly

I think the rainbow pony bow is stupid looking. Looks like something you’d find in a game for 5 year old girls. In fact, I’ve only seen a couple of bows that look “nice”…….nothing really epic (but I probably haven’t seen every single bow skin yet) obviously some people must like them. But since I don’t, I guess that’ll save me a lot of time for doing other things instead. =)

I hope they do come out with more options in the future.

Kimbald.2697:

Dev designer meeting:

‘no, you can NOT be serious about that model!’
‘that bad?’
‘not necessarily bad… just… euh… different.’
‘Throw it in the legendary heap than, like the others?’
‘Might as well, by the time they get that we’ll have the real models finished’

later on:

‘waaaah, game selling like crazy! Fix bugs, buy servers, read forums’
‘read forums?’
‘kidding, but get on with the rest.’
‘Euh, we still have those legendaires to model…’
‘no time, they’re not there yet. other pressing matters!’

‘guys, players are getting the legendaries;’
‘What? The joke ones?’
‘Afraid so.’
‘…’

Hehehe, i believe in ArenaNet. I think they really like those legendarys, and its perfectly fine, some players love them too. Hope for just a few more to apeal more ppl.

If the art team of Anet cant do it, nobody can

have you seen the pistol… HAVE YOU!!

The bow is really a strange one. It was obviously designed for mesmers, but mesmers can’t use bows.

bwillb.2165:

The bow is really a strange one. It was obviously designed for mesmers, but mesmers can’t use bows.

Just because we tend to make our illusions vanish in a cloud of purple butterflies it doesn’t mean we are utterly flamboyant.

Actually, it kinda does ….

But not me!

Yeah, I’m actually hoping some of these are placeholders. The effort required to get them means Arenanet could have really gone all out on their skins, but at some point it just seems like they started throwing crap together. It’s bizarre considering how much effort seems to have gone into the aesthetic appeal of the game overall.

The fact is that the twilight greatsword is THE BEST looking legendary by a HUGE margin, and that’s just a bummer

More legendary of all kinds would of course be welcomed.

As an elementalist, I really want to see the bifrost in action. The picture does not seem to do it much justice, just looks like a skeletal staff with an odd “anatomical” shaped head.

Also, any staff with a Skull on top would make a nice addition, maybe a daemon head so it can be “legendary”!
With a name like bifrost, I was expecting some sort of ice shard staff with a translucent water like crystal ball rotating on top.

TransparentlyOpaque.1824:

More legendary of all kinds would of course be welcomed.

As an elementalist, I really want to see the bifrost in action. The picture does not seem to do it much justice, just looks like a skeletal staff with an odd “anatomical” shaped head.

Also, any staff with a Skull on top would make a nice addition, maybe a daemon head so it can be “legendary”!
With a name like bifrost, I was expecting some sort of ice shard staff with a translucent water like crystal ball rotating on top.

The name Bifrost is from Norse mythology; it’s the rainbow bridge that leads to the gods’ realm of Asgard.

Evidently, the particle effect reflects that.

I agree completely.

I find “Flame” weapons to be a lot more legendary-looking than those gimmick items that seem to come from a bad commercial.
It seems strange to me that no one in Anet’s HQ considered those weapons terrible.
In the end they made so many good skins in GW1 that one is a bit surprised to see this big twist of taste.

Unicorn bow shooting rainbows? Make a dragon bow shooting flames next time imo.

Red Falcon’

Unicorn bow shooting rainbows? Make a dragon bow shooting flames next time imo.

… for once… that doesn’t make logical sense. Any other game… I would be on board. What is the big bad in this game? Dragons. Why would you make your weapons represent dragons?

AndrewWaltfeld.4621:

Red Falcon’

Unicorn bow shooting rainbows? Make a dragon bow shooting flames next time imo.

… for once… that doesn’t make logical sense. Any other game… I would be on board. What is the big bad in this game? Dragons. Why would you make your weapons represent dragons?

To scare your opponents?.

But an unicorn rainbow-shotting bow makes more sense… hell yea!!!, im imagine the zhaitans minions running away from that xD.

Randin.5701:

TransparentlyOpaque.1824:

More legendary of all kinds would of course be welcomed.

As an elementalist, I really want to see the bifrost in action. The picture does not seem to do it much justice, just looks like a skeletal staff with an odd “anatomical” shaped head.

Also, any staff with a Skull on top would make a nice addition, maybe a daemon head so it can be “legendary”!
With a name like bifrost, I was expecting some sort of ice shard staff with a translucent water like crystal ball rotating on top.

The name Bifrost is from Norse mythology; it’s the rainbow bridge that leads to the gods’ realm of Asgard.

Evidently, the particle effect reflects that.

Yes I got the reference which is why I want one, but google seems to hate me and I can’t find a pic at all.
Judging from this thread there must be some around can some-one please put a link?
Thank you very much

i really really REALLY want the rainbow shooting bow for my ranger, i think its one of the most awesome weapon ideas ive heard of ever.. tho, i agree with OP that it could be two skins of each weapon, a “funny” one, and an “epic” one, as taste isnt something thats shared, and im sure alot of rangers DONT want the unicorn bow for instance

You guys do realize that these weapons have all kinds of crazy effects right? I’d say the Juggernaut puts Twilight to shame. That one covers your entire body in quicksilver.

OP’s point is rather reasonable. While a unicorn shortbow is attractive to a certain group of people, it is quite restrictive to others. For a legendary weapon I find it to be quite a poor design choice, for it should have been something that attracts the widest audience possible.

Dra Keln.2015:

You guys do realize that these weapons have all kinds of crazy effects right? I’d say the Juggernaut puts Twilight to shame. That one covers your entire body in quicksilver.

Yes i know, and i watched almost all of them, still, i think they don’t look epic (for me ofc). The juggernaut looks cool, but it just make your armor material look like quicksilver and thats all, its fine, i think is acceptable for a legendary… twilight i think still has better design.

The dagger its fine too, not much effect at all, but well, at least doesn’t look so bad.

Anyway only twilight looks “amazing” the rest are ok or they look funny (at least for me), witch is nice to some ppl so…

I think its clear that we are not 10-20 ppl, we are the majority. But maybe its what ArenaNet wants, pbly they want that the legendary in game be really rare… with some of those designs prbly you will not see meny ppl running around with something different than a Twilight/Sunrise, the other legendarys will be really rare :P, that will give a lot of prestige to the owners (Joking ofc haha xD).

Arenanet knows what they do and why, some reason im sure they have. Thats why i made this post, to (if its possible) get an answer about the design of the legendarys and info about future ones for the “other” players :P.

Eochaidh.4106:

OP’s point is rather reasonable. While a unicorn shortbow is attractive to a certain group of people, it is quite restrictive to others. For a legendary weapon I find it to be quite a poor design choice, for it should have been something that attracts the widest audience possible.

Well i was thinking this days and i realize that maybe Arenanet dont want that. Maybe they want to appeal a small group of audience, so the Legendarys keep being rare items.
If you think about it, if you make items with a really cool design.. the players will go all crazy and the game will end up with a lot of ppl running around with legendarys, witch will decrease to much (maybe) the prestige of owning one.
So, they do designs that appeal small audiences, and also, hardcore players that have done almost everything else and want to do more. Even if they dont really like the design, its a challenge, and we all love challenges in MMOs, and hardcore ppl love challenges even more.

I think thats the reason behind Why the Legendarys looks like That (from a design perspective its all i can think right now xD).

I agree. As an Elementalist there’s nothing that even remotely looks cool for me to get.
The staff has rainbows going around it. Seriously? I’m a motherkitten Elementalist, not a unicorn… I want my staff surrounded by the 4 elements.
The dagger’s gotta be the biggest joke of them all. I don’t even know how to describe how disappointed I am with that one. And yes, I have seen the screenshot of a player wielding it ingame. It looks absolutely ridiculous. Give me a real dagger, please.
The scepter looks like something that belongs in a science museum and is way oversized, no thanks.

Of course the greatswords are the only real cool looking legendaries. They look like motherkitten greatswords, and are totally badkittens. Sunrise and Twilight define the word “legendary”, while the other legendaries are closer to the definition of “complete joke”. C’mon, a bow shooting rainbows? What the kitten is legendary about that? Looks like it comes from a cartoon for 3 year olds.