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After more than a year of GW2...

in Guild Wars 2 Discussion

Posted by: Draco.2806

Draco.2806

1) Cosmetics are not necessarily the endgame in GW2.

That’s the first time I’ve heard anyone say something this out of touch with everything GW2 was supposed to be.

OF COURSE cosmetic are the endgame goal.

GW2 didn’t want the gear stat treadmill, so it used the GW1 model of rewarding players with cosmetic items. And you’re just… What?

2) The gemshop cosmetics are among the least attractive options in the game.

Uh… No.

Hell no.

The bigger problem is that cash shop skins are pretty much the only thing being added to the game. GW2 started out with what would be an extremely modest selection of clothing even for a single-player RPG, and it never got better. For a game that’s supposed to be based on “horizontal progression” that translates into a rightfully very short lifespan.

Frankly speaking, most people don’t enjoy playing healer or tank. Most people prefers playing DPS. Evidence? Just look at the LFG of every MMO since forever. So taking out the trinity doesn’t change things much from the perspective of most players, except being DPS now is more involving.

Actually, “Trinity” is a mechanism of encouraging teamwork between players.

Take it out, and you get The Zerg.

GW2 had an opportunity to replace very rigid class roles (which are the one downside of Trinity and such) with dynamic or universal ones – but it didn’t. As a result, teamwork is non-existent in majority of everything, and effectiveness of most classes comes down to: do you want to play in a fun and enjoyable way, or an actually effective one?

If you have to make that choice, you’re playing a poorly-balanced game.

(edited by Draco.2806)

After more than a year of GW2...

in Guild Wars 2 Discussion

Posted by: Draco.2806

Draco.2806

Not really.

Ya rly.

…and the only good thing was the bearable Exchange rate… You could do 10-50 gold a day like now…

Play how you want! Horizontal progression! No grind! Wow!

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(edited by Draco.2806)

Can Guild Wars 2 be considered Pay-to-Win?

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Posted by: Draco.2806

Draco.2806

I disagree. I buy the majority of transmutation crystals using gems that I’ve converted from gold made in-game as they are inexpensive.

Farmers swimming in easy gold need not apply.

In fact, stop.

Except “Pay to Win” literally means: “I pay real-life money, I get an advantage over those who don’t.”

Yep, that’s why I said OP misunderstood what people mean by it.

P2W is a poor term for what GW2 does. Perhaps P2DU (Pay to Dress-Up.)

Even if you’re frugal, you’ll generally only end up with enough for maybe a full set of gear on one character for a full lvl 1-80 play through.

That’s a good term for it.

I think I’ve bought a good set back when they were on sale, a long time ago. With cash. I can’t imagine “buying” these things with the current gold-to-gem prices at all (of course, that would defeat the whole point of them from ANet’s profit perspective).

… can even be obtained in a relatively short time (a year or two at the most) …

…Why…

(edited by Draco.2806)

Can Guild Wars 2 be considered Pay-to-Win?

in Guild Wars 2 Discussion

Posted by: Draco.2806

Draco.2806

OP, you’ve successfully missed the point of the argument.

People who say it’s “Pay to win” when it comes to cosmetics aren’t saying you can gain gameplay advantage with cash.

They’re saying a big part of the endgame – what you do once you’ve got the best gear – comes with mandatory ties to the gem store in form of skins and transmutation crystals. This is deceptive since you’d assume you would be able to acquire the endgame goals by playing instead of paying.

(edited by Draco.2806)

After more than a year of GW2...

in Guild Wars 2 Discussion

Posted by: Draco.2806

Draco.2806

Although lacking in detail, some very nicely-worded criticism. Good job.

Sadly it will be ignored and swept under the rug like the myriad of other well-thought-out threads on the subject. Don’t get your hopes up.

“Come help us improve our game! We’ll listen to what you say and… just kidding, lol.”

You don’t understand what pay to win means if you think GW2 is pay to win.

Cosmetics are supposed to be the endgame goal in GW2, correct? Some of the best cosmetics are only available in the gem shop, correct? So in that case… You pay to “Win”.

But yeah, obviously GW2 avoids the pay-to-win nonsense. Not that this alone can make it great.

Guess the next name for Ho-Ho-Tron!

in Guild Wars 2 Discussion

Posted by: Draco.2806

Draco.2806

Scarlet-tron.

Obviously.

It was Scarlet all along!

Guild Wars 2 Design Manifesto

in Guild Wars 2 Discussion

Posted by: Draco.2806

Draco.2806

GW1 veterans bought in because of the manifesto and what was promised.

Not just the veterans. Tons of people who never played or never liked Guild Wars bought in too (like me).

It seems you’re trying to say that people who bought the game for what it promised didn’t actually buy the game for what it promised, which is… which makes no sense. Or are you trying to say something else?

The problem is… that group didn’t buy in. Why would they? They hate MMOs.

Uh, hello. I did.

Lots of other people did, and they’ll tell you if you’d just ask. The whole thing about Manifesto was, is that it claimed to do away with all the things people hate about MMOs.

That’s just how it turned out. I question the decision myself… but I also fear I would make the same decision they did; because the way things were wasn’t working.

The things weren’t working because ANet didn’t deliver on their promises. It’s very simple.

Adding a grind treadmill is just a patchwork effort to keep people addicted through psychological manipulation when they wouldn’t stay for the fun of it otherwise. Everyone knows this trick. It’s badly overused in the gaming industry.

(edited by Draco.2806)

Guild Wars 2 Design Manifesto

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Posted by: Draco.2806

Draco.2806

They promised. Players bought in… then players left in droves because there was “nothing to do” or “no endgame.”

Correct.

I think they expected the community to embrace horizontal progression and instead they got a lot of “there’s nothing to doooooo” whining.

Well they were right. There IS nothing to do.

And there’s no horizontal progression either. The only way to change your looks is with a cash-exclusive item, and that change is permanent. You choose your looks and you’re done. There’s no progression.

So now chasing shinies is completely pointless – not only do they not give you better stats, they won’t give you new looks either.

And without chasing shinies, what else is there to do? Press 1 or ten different kinds of drakes that press 1 on you? Explore featureless green plains for the sake of exploring featureless green plains? Really, what do you do in the open world? Nothing. This would be a death sentence to any game.

The game is boring. There’s no incentive to do anything, and there’s no fun in doing it.

I mean, if you enjoy it, more power to you, but it’s not good game design, and it’s not going to be enough for most people.

They wanted raids. They wanted phat loot. They wanted vertical progression.

People bought the game in droves because they wanted the opposite of what the game promised?

People gushed about how great the Manifesto is even though they wanted none of it?

Is this the opposite-day version of logic, or what?

I’m sorry you hate it; but it’s true.

Then again, with responses like that, it sounds like you’re just trolling for heck of it…

(edited by Draco.2806)

Guild Wars 2 Design Manifesto

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Posted by: Draco.2806

Draco.2806

Players reject the concept in droves because they want it to be more like [insert game here].
The company discovers they don’t have a large enough niche to support the game.

Bull$%*t.

The only reason Guild Wars 2 is popular is because people WANTED this kind of game.

Guild Wars 2 was the talk of every gaming outlet for years because of what it promised to be, and the player response to it was overwhelming. People bought this game because they – and I – really believed all this stuff about living world, diverse skills, “play how you want”, lack of grind, good story (haha), and many other improvements on the old MMO formula.

But ANet didn’t deliver. They certainly polished up many of the rough edges, they deserve credit there, but it just wasn’t enough to make it into a game their Manifesto and their blog posts promised it’d be.

Then there’s that whole thing about leaving the game in a sorry broken state and doing a complete 180 regarding the gear/achievement treadmills…

(edited by Draco.2806)

The loading screens make the game unplayable

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Posted by: Draco.2806

Draco.2806

Have you played Skyrim? There were load screens for the loading screens just so you could go to the next room to see another loading screen and those took forever!

What? No. I’m playing it right now and the loading there takes five seconds tops (literally, there’s a hard cap on how much time it’s allowed to take).

GW2’s loading times, on the other hand, are ridiculous. More than two minutes on “high” settings is way over the top. Lion’s Arch is just… no.


Spoiler: GW2’s loading times have little to do with how much it actually has to load.

It’s to do with the incredibly poor filesystem and organization. Source-based games suffered from the same issues until Valve changed their file structure and streaming methods.

Basically the game has to index an 18Gb file for every tiny script and texture it has to load, so several thousand times over per each zone.

Can't finish Map Completion because of WvW.

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Posted by: Draco.2806

Draco.2806

… my recommendation is to wait until you have a match-up where your final map is being held by a weak server … as for Orr, it is possible to solo complete it …

That’s still pretty terrible though. It shouldn’t be like this.

GW2 Story Telling

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Posted by: Draco.2806

Draco.2806

I honestly believe that prior to meeting Traeherne, the stories have been decent or serviceable (unless you are Human, the story paths in Human are pretty lame).

Yeah, they’re not terrible. It’s probably the contrast to how much worse it gets later on that makes them look good though.

I think when you think back to it, the main differences between before and after is that the first stories weren’t exclusively focused on heroically saving the world, and that the player character still had some sort of agency in them. As in, well, the bare basics.

Otherwise the standard of writing was more or less the same, just made a little less dull by being more down-to-earth. You’d think it would be the other way around.

And the lore building is pretty good in that rather than relying on races being at throats it created unity.

Well, sort of. It’s fairly original. But the thing is, a tale about unity and cooperation is meaningless without overcoming adversity and division because then it doesn’t go anywhere.

“Once upon a time, everyone lived together happily ever after. The end.”

Why crafting is so unpopular.

in Crafting

Posted by: Draco.2806

Draco.2806

The problem seems to be that Crafting was designed as a way to balance the economy and loot drops, and then polished up a bit in order to not be extremely tedious for the players, rather than the other way around.

If Crafting is to be the way it is – by-the-numbers – it should have been made extremely easy, only as a way to turn your materials into something useful in a few clicks.

Can't finish Map Completion because of WvW.

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Posted by: Draco.2806

Draco.2806

I have done full orr mapping just after ascended weapons … I have gotten to arah entrance on all of my alts.

No one cares about what you’ve done.

So? It still contradicts your claim of it being impossible.

Never said that.

To repeat myself, no one cares about what you’ve done. It’s not always about you.

There are a lot of things in this game ANET could fix quickly and easily if the designers would spend more than a few seconds thinking about things before just randomly throwing them in the game.

That about sums it up.

Stereotypes and Wall Street Simulator

in Living World

Posted by: Draco.2806

Draco.2806

My bet is that its coming from a female writer…because, well…. Scarlet.

Really? Really?

To the writer’s credit, gender equality standards in Tyria are miles above what gamers are used to.

Scarlet, on the other hand, feels like a very blatant self-insert Villain Sue.

GW2 Story Telling

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Posted by: Draco.2806

Draco.2806

The problems with stories in this game isn’t the stories.

They are though. The writing in this game is a joke.

You could raise a point about how hard it is to get around design limitations and imposed restrictions, sure, but only if the writers were making the best of what they have – and they don’t.

There’s no reason for Destiny’s Edge, or Trahearne, or Scarlet to even exist. There’s no reason to water down dialogue into forgettable slog. There’s no reason to make cut-scenes droll and meaningless – the one place where you’d think writers would have full freedom.

Worse yet, shoving the player aside so the story can revolve around someone else actually contradicts the very idea of an interactive experience with the player at its center, so that’s the area where the writers had to actively sabotage the game designer’s work rather than the other way around.

These problems have nothing to do with writing around gameplay or struggling with restrictions on the way story is delivered. It’s out-and-out bad.

When does PvE get tough?

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Posted by: Draco.2806

Draco.2806

That’s right, Fractals and Dungeons are your only bet.

The overworld mobs all work with the same “Press 1 until player dies” mechanic, just with various degrees of damage and toughness. Maybe if they used different skills like they did in GW1 the fights would have some variety to them… On the other hand, if you enjoy this sort of thing, it’s right up your alley.

You could also visit Kessex hills, the Toxic knights have the most varied skills in the game, and are actually pretty fun to fight.

Stereotypes and Wall Street Simulator

in Living World

Posted by: Draco.2806

Draco.2806

Honestly I’m glad these rants/threads keep appearing with some regularity. It’s a bit reassuring.

It’s not like it’s that hard to make a decent story, there are so many working cliches you can use to do that. Hollywood does it all the time.

It’s hard to make a good story, however, sure…

But you don’t have to abide by the usual “Player is super-awesome. Player saves world. Player the best there is!” Hollywood-induced standard of storytelling to do that either. But then even if you do resort to it, you can write a decent story to go with it, still.

On top of that, what GW2’s writers have done at least (AT LEAST) twice now is do away with the player character entirely and try to make us care about someone we don’t know or care about coming into the limelight to steal the focus and spread buttery cream over the audience’s faces about how awesomely-amazing THEY are (Trahearne, Destiny’s Edge, the Orders, Scarlet…)

It’s, like, you know: “Hello? I’m the player here! Anyone remember me?.. Am I just supposed to watch these guys have fun from now on?..”


What did Trahearne say when he read his script?

“This will not end well.”

Can't finish Map Completion because of WvW.

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Posted by: Draco.2806

Draco.2806

I have done full orr mapping just after ascended weapons … I have gotten to arah entrance on all of my alts.

No one cares about what you’ve done.

The issue here is that this part of world completion – WvW and Orr – is frustrating, unfun, and unfair, and it shouldn’t be this way.

The OP got completely shafted by being assigned a ridiculous match-up twelve times in a row. Likewise, people get shafted on Orr and Personal Story because of things that are out of their control there (or worse, because of year-long unfixed bugs).

Many areas of the game were designed with assumption that there would be a lot of people there, all the time. WvW was designed on the assumption that areas would frequently switch hands to small squads of organized players. Neither turned out to be the way things work. It’s straight-up broken.

GW2 Story Telling

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Posted by: Draco.2806

Draco.2806

At this point, I’m like half expecting a clone of Rita Repulsa to appear with all of the monster of the week stuff going on. Will Scarlet become another Rita LOL?

I honestly wish I had some knowledge of Power Rangers so I could make fun of Scarlet.

I swear they’re basically the same thing. They even dress the same.

GW2 Story Telling

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Posted by: Draco.2806

Draco.2806

I made this post about 2 weeks ago, and there are ppl saying they didnt finish personal story a single time…

Ah! That’s the thread I was thinking of.

“Well guys, or internal statistics say almost no one played through their personal story … Oh well! Good job! Let’s do it again, right in people’s faces this time so they can’t miss it!”

The thing is Tybald wasn’t even that good of a character he was just alot better than the others.

Spot on again.

Plus, he looked cute and had a good voice actor. Nothing to do with writing, but it helps.

Hell, I think the latter might be the only reason some people tolerate Scarlet: Tara Strong is always fun to listen to.

GW2 Story Telling

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Posted by: Draco.2806

Draco.2806

Its not that difficult to create a good story, its difficult to create a phenomenal story; but GW2 story is poor at best and the attempts to enhance it have been severely lacking.

That about sums it up.

Some may make excuses about hard it is to do this or that or what limitations could be put on the writer or how hard it is to come up with a decent story (and it really isn’t), but the fact is, even the bare basics of competent writing just aren’t there…

The living world was a perfect opportunity but all we received was the same old writing with a different skin.

…And if you ever thought otherwise, Scarlet (Trahearne’s clone in every regard, yeah) and her endless “alliances” put the final nail in that coffin.

There was so much they could do with those updates. It was the format begging to be shaped by player feedback. They’ve done just about the opposite: purposefully and completely ignore it.

Having said that tho there were a few memorable moments, not many that really gave me that “oh this is awesome feeling” but there were the odd one or 2.

I’m willing to bet everyone who played through the Whispers story remembers Tybald.

…and no one else…

GW2 Story Telling

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Posted by: Draco.2806

Draco.2806

I wrote a pretty lengthy post on the absolute bare basics of storytelling a while ago. That about sums up my personal opinion of ANet’s competence in that regard.

You rightly talk about so much of the missing potential – hell, I thought themes of unity and cooperation showed some genre awareness when I first heard of them – but the writing doesn’t go as far as meeting the minimum standards to begin with before it can indulge in something more profound.

From cliche perspective, there are some hints of things that GW2 does right, or at least knows should maybe be kinda done I guess, whatever. For instance, the story lets you hang around characters that are going to be killed off so that their death has some sort of impact instead of being a meaningless statistic. It’s not done well, but it’s a start.

There are hints of originality here and there. Little jokes, a few strokes of paint on some characters. Asura storyline in particular is allowed to be more interesting by virtue of doing away with any dignity.

But for the large part it’s such a boring grey slog that most people gave up on it in the very beginning (judging by the forum posts that I remember, anyway) and don’t feel any need to come back to…

So when something like Scarlet barges in proceeds to be completely horrible, people feel like the writing has taken a dip whereas it was never really any good to begin with.

(edited by Draco.2806)

Players with full ascended armor already?

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Posted by: Draco.2806

Draco.2806

Why would you bother though?

Can't finish Map Completion because of WvW.

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Posted by: Draco.2806

Draco.2806

Map completion in Orr can be done mostly solo

That’s funny. You’re a funny guy.

Admittedly I solo’d it back on release. You know, back when there were more than two-three people in Orr at any time, even though it was still mostly empty. It was a fun if rather unfair challenge, now it’s just endless frustration and dead-ends.

You don’t need a group to get to the dungeon…

Well, no, you don’t. You need to complete a map-wide chain of bugged events which requires a good amount of coordination between several medium-sized zergs. THEN you can finally stand on the steps of Arah and hope you can get together a group of people for the least popular dungeon path before it closes down.


This issue is confounded even moreso by the fact that you have to “explore” the same map three times.

Welcome to GW2, where your “Personal Story – It’s All About You” requires you to party up in a dungeon to complete and map completion requires you to map areas not on it.

I personally think WvW should be out of world completion.

Preach.

Show Your Guild Wars 2 Wallpaper&Screenshots

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Posted by: Draco.2806

Draco.2806

I’m really annoyed by the ridiculous shading in this game. The artists are doing their job, but the tech is mangling the results.

Attached is a color-corrected screen of one of my chars. Most of the time he looks muddish-dark-brown all over despite using the most vivid red and yellow for the colour scheme.

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Can't finish Map Completion because of WvW.

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Posted by: Draco.2806

Draco.2806

As far as not being thrilled about having to help some one else do it… on TC we semi-regularly cap a specific point just to help some one finish map completion. We’re happy to help our comrades ^^

Good guy TC.

Good job.

Can't finish Map Completion because of WvW.

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Posted by: Draco.2806

Draco.2806

WvW and Orr completion feels unfair because it ultimately requires a big and well-coordinated group to accomplish, which is something that’s completely out of your control. The alternative being to persevere for a random number of months until tide of the battle changes in just the right way, which is even more out of your control.

It’s absurd to ask your guild – and if you’re a solo player, you’re completely screwed from the get-go – to go and steamroll an entire map so you can have a shiny for a very distant personal goal.

Same problem with the end of the Personal Story – a mandatory grouped dungeon where the rest of it was always solo material (and, again, just getting to that dungeon requires rolling through all of Orr with a big and competent group that has no reason to do it otherwise).

What makes both cases absurd is that it’s not repeatable content – if you’ve done it once, you don’t need to do it again, so you’re not going to be too thrilled about having to help someone else do it.

CDI- Character Progression- Vertical

in CDI

Posted by: Draco.2806

Draco.2806

What’s the point of this thread if you didn’t implement any feedback from the previous ones?

I honestly do not feel there is any way to quantify whether or not feedback from these things is ever used…

I don’t believe there were any differences between the December 10th changelog posted in the CDI announcement thread and the actual changelog on release date, and certainly nothing that could be linked to feedback thread. Correct me if I’m wrong.

Seemingly none of the more popular themes that pervade these forums have even been acknowledged, less of all addressed. The outpouring of hate towards Ascended gear, Scarlet, progress reset in Fractals, extremely low droprates or performance issues being some of the more obvious. Granted the dire situation with condition damage cap was addressed, but never resolved.

What’s the point in asking for feedback if you’re not going to change anything anyway?

So my look is essentially finalized, and…. I don’t have much else to progress towards.

Exactly.

Making the gear looks work more like unlockable dyes would solve that. Tired of old looks? Well, you can search the world for new ones, add them to your collection, then swap them whenever you feel like looking a bit different. That way there’s still some tangible goal in the distance.

But, of course, this goes against the current way to monetize the game: transmutation stones. That’s really the core of the problem there. ANet wants to sell the feature that’s supposed to be at the very core of the endgame.

(edited by Draco.2806)

CDI- Character Progression- Vertical

in CDI

Posted by: Draco.2806

Draco.2806

What’s the point of this thread if you didn’t implement any feedback from the previous ones?


I don’t think you can improve character progression in any way with your current monetization scheme.

You’re not being honest about what that scheme is: the reason gears stats (vertical progression) are tied to gear looks (cosmetic progression) is to create a market for transmutation service.

The transmutation system kills the idea of endgame relying on cosmetic progression: permanent replacement is the very opposite of progression.

As players have no incentive to chase new cosmetic rewards to add to their collection – as they currently do with skills, dyes or crafting materials – the end-game is reduced to simply the end of the game as people are left with no attractive goals to work towards to. Furthermore, the number of these goals would be small anyway, as the number of weapon/gear skins in the game for any one character is very shallow (as consequence of using light/medium/heavy armor and other such restrictions)and often prohibitively expensive.

Without cosmetic progression, the only available progression is the same vertical grind that most other MMOs are rightfully hated for – and that’s exactly what you’ve been implementing with Ascended gear and Agony in particular.

Your monetization model contradicts the core ideas of your game and promises you’ve made prior to launch in your released videos, interviews, and blog posts. Without abandoning or reworking it, there can be no talk of progression that does not rely on a stat-based gear treadmill.


For example, you could change transmutation stone function to work the same as dye system: gear looks (or stat combos) could be permanently unlocked for later use with roughly the same amount of money-to-time-spent as a monthly subscription in another MMO.

This would still go against the players’ expectations of a subscription-free game, however. It would be, as it is now, a free-to-play model.

(edited by Draco.2806)

Guild Wars 2 Design Manifesto

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Posted by: Draco.2806

Draco.2806

Company puts out an ad for the product.
Ad makes it sound like the best thing ever.
The company doesn’t deliver.
Customers feel betrayed and lied to.

something wrong with me

in Guild Wars 2 Discussion

Posted by: Draco.2806

Draco.2806

because people are just entitled gamers these days.

People feel entitled to a good product in exchange for their money? Shame on them.

I used to cobble hard-drives out of spare copper wire and piano string to get my copy of Doom running on MS-DOS, and that’s how things should still be today.

Gah! So entitled!

You have the attitude that you are entitled to everything the game has to offer without actually putting in any effort to get it.

Exactly! Games should be a tedious and boring grindfest. People should never expect anything else from an MMO.

You don’t play an MMO if you’re not prepared to do lots of tedious boring grind to get to the fun parts. In fact they should just replace the fun parts with more grind so we can separate elites from scrubs.

something wrong with me

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Posted by: Draco.2806

Draco.2806

That’s called “Addiction”.

That’s why a lot of people who hate World of Warcraft still play World of Warcraft. It’s the main reason MMORPGs are so universally despised and their players so badly stereotyped.

Tell you what, there’s a Steam winter sale coming up (or GOG one that’s already going), so take about 20$ and get yourself a copy of Skyrim, Divinity II, Guild Wars (haha), Torchlight, or whatever other RPG you like. Many of these games will probably grab your attention just as well.

Guild Wars 2 isn’t a bad game by any stretch. You can have fun with it. If you’re not having fun with it, trying another good RPG should be refreshing.

What happened to all these things?

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Posted by: Draco.2806

Draco.2806

Not enough time. Working on the Unpleasantly Moist Alliance invasion update. They need to keep is secret so that no one can guess who’s behind it.

I want Scarlet to become an ally

in Guild Wars 2 Discussion

Posted by: Draco.2806

Draco.2806

Honestly I’m amazed you’re not feeling like your intelligence being actively insulted by Scarlet’s existence – the fact that the writers would shovel a badly-written Villain Sue straight out of Power Rangers right in our everyone’s faces and into the undeserved limelight.

Unrelated clip of a Power Rangers villain

Then again, they’ve done the exact same thing with Trahearne.

Granted Trahearne had no character whatsoever, so there’s not too much to hate about him other than him simply being there and simply being a poor character, which is still the same problem.

Boy, some people sure have some unnecessary hated for her, which is sad, because I only see it inforums not ingame.

Two months ago I heard someone say they liked Scarlet in-game. The first and the last time.

In my experience, it’s a lot easier to find a minority opinion on forums – because that’s what forums are for. Even if that opinion will be shrouded in Scarlet hate, but you can still find it. Just like this thread.

For myself, I think GW2’s writing is some of the most boring, formulaic, incompetent and pathetic I’ve ever seen in any game, and games aren’t exactly spoiled with good writing to begin with. Scarlet is just a cherry on top.

(edited by Draco.2806)

Scarlet needs to go. Now.

in Guild Wars 2 Discussion

Posted by: Draco.2806

Draco.2806

Ironically, the more that people work themselves into a lather over Scarlet, I think the more arguably successful the concept is.

Well, if Scarlet’s concept was to throw people off by introducing a Power Rangers villain so pathetic, childish and shallow that they would lose any faith in GW2’s story ever being good…

If someone approaches you and says “Your story is terrible. You’re a bad writer. Your characters are shallow and your plot is non-existent. I hated it.” your response shouldn’t be "Yay! I’m a good writer! "

How do you even come to that conclusion.

I do find it consistently amusing that anyone actually thinks a company would toss millions of dollars worth of development effort on the scrap pile just because they don’t think they want it

Millions of dollars… Hahaha…

Really though, your efforts to convince us that developers can’t be asked to fix their own mistakes will always fall on deaf ears.

But then, that’s why forum feedback has to be taken with a grain of salt.

Or, in this case, dismissed entirely along with negative opinions of the majority of your players. Because that’s what good developers do.

Unless they open up forum threads asking for player feedback which… oh wait.


I think it’s more tragic to have such poor internal concept review/checking that millions of dollars were spent actualizing such a manifest piece of trash.

Scarlet needs to go. Now.

in Guild Wars 2 Discussion

Posted by: Draco.2806

Draco.2806

I think you’ve got that a bit backwards. In your first response to me you said “Since you enjoy an inferior version of the product, it’s best for all involved – including yourself – to dismiss your interests.”

I was talking about ANet dismissing your approval of a failed project for the good of everyone involved, I wasn’t personally dismissing your concern, opinions, preferences, or what good you see in it.

I can see how it can be a bit confusing. Rather complex issue.

So you either have difficulty remembering your own posts from a few minutes earlier, or you’re trolling.

And you have difficulty continuing this conversation without insults.

Because it’s utterly disrespectful to the team doing the work and to those looking forward to it. And because it’s simply not going to happen.

Maybe you’ve missed the dozen or so posts explaining how and why good gaming companies are always ready to cut down a failed project in response to player feedback, or maybe you’re just intent on keeping a closed mind on the issue.

Good thing that we don’t here have a situation with “universally negative reception”

But we do. This thread among hundreds of others standing as proof for all to see.

I guess this is where you fall back on argument from ignorance saying you can’t judge all players by people who post on forums, and then I direct you back to the previous comment that has a neat link explaining where, why and how it’s a wrong thing to say.

We’ve been over that.

But…by every metric it has been a universally negative reception. Every. Single. Metric. In game, forums, people I have talked to in TS…it’s a pretty universally reviled thing.


I said that no one can claim to know anything without a polling of the entire player base.

Oh, okay. Your posts gave the impression otherwise. I can agree with that.

But what’s the argument then? That ANet shouldn’t do anything because we don’t know anyway? That wouldn’t be right, because the response they do have is universally negative.

Again you are generalizing for the community which is a true Argument from Ignorance..

At least you could have picked a fallacy with “generalization” in its name. Just read the article, there are lots of things universally recognizes as fallacies…

And that’s not it. Saying the reception of it has been negative because we can easily see the reception of its has been negative isn’t much of a fallacy. It’s an ordinary observation. You’re on the defensive here if you want to claim it’s not representative of the larger playerbase.

People hate Scarlet. People post about hating Scarlet. That’s how it goes.

Thank you for your link that I also got to use for you. Here are some more for you…

What’s the relevance here?

Arenanet's stance on Youtube content ID

in Guild Wars 2 Discussion

Posted by: Draco.2806

Draco.2806

GOOD!

YouTube cutting down on their own revenue is just what Blip.tv and Vimeo need.

On the bright side, while big publishers are busy trying to take down negative reviews and lets-plays of their games through abuse of the copyright claim system – thereby eliminating a large chunk of their advertising – PC and Indie games that have relied heavily on word of mouth will flourish as a result.

I highly doubt ANet would go as far as to take down videos of people playing their games or using their trailer footage. That would be a touch too… evil... and pretty dumb… which is usually EA, Nintendo and Capcom territory.

(edited by Draco.2806)

Scarlet needs to go. Now.

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Posted by: Draco.2806

Draco.2806

Telling people to leave if they don’t like it – not the best sales strategy.

I will have to agree with this as well. I feel like this is the reason WoW has lost half its sub base in a year. I feel like it is what happened to Rift, which I loved, but they didn’t listen to their players and the game suffered for it. To the point where it went F2P.

Ignoring the wants and needs of your customers is pretty much the worst thing a business can do, especially considering it’s ordinarily rare for people to voice these opinions in the first place – they have to be extracted by professional marketing teams instead.

It doesn’t make sense from a business perspective… unless what you’re doing is knowingly building your business model in such a way that it sacrifices customer satisfaction for the sake of larger profit. Which is what extortion-based F2P models do.

Guild Wars 2 is uncomfortably teetering on that edge right now: not quite going over, but it doesn’t really have any business standing there in the first place.

I certainly know that the sorts of demands being made here aren’t to be taken seriously, anyway.

That’s because you’re intent on violent dismissal of any opposing views.

I make a little joke and you bite my hand. Good job.

Glad you’ve found something you enjoy.

No, no, I kid. People who complain on forums about the shortcomings of a game are just old grumps completely incapable of enjoying anything. You can’t enjoy a game that you know isn’t flawless, after all.

That was a joke too, by the way. Sarcasm.

The point is that everyone has things they like and dislike.

Which is why book and movie sales are so random. There are no movies liked by everyone, no books considered masterpieces, and no people drooling over Half-Life 3 like it was the rumored coming of Christ.

Hm. You know, sarcasm is starting to look like the most appropriate tone for this conversation.

But this thread isn’t feedback, it’s a temper tantrum.

There’s plenty of constructive feedback too.

But voicing a negative opinion is still valuable in itself, or at least it would be to developers who care about what people think about their work and would like to improve it.

The work takes months, suggesting they just throw it away is beyond ludicrous.

But it’s not.

Pressing on with a project that garners universally negative reception is what’s absurd. Every successful gaming studio knows how to put the brakes on unsuccessful projects.

And yeah, the game is better off with fewer people who behave like angry toddlers when they don’t get what they want.

Insulting the opposition will serve you very poorly. Ironic, by the way.

Only you don’t seem to grasp that your chats are not the only ones that happen in game or that forums are 90% filled with those that complain and only represent a small number of the total amount of players in a game.

That’s a very old Argument from Ignorance.

Just because we don’t know what most players think doesn’t mean they support your side of the argument. It just means we don’t know.

We only know what we hear people say, and the message is loud and clear: Scarlet needs to go.

(edited by Draco.2806)

Scarlet needs to go. Now.

in Guild Wars 2 Discussion

Posted by: Draco.2806

Draco.2806

I wasn’t aware that you were the High Lord and Ultimate Judge of Content Inferiority and Superiority.

Well, now you know. Does the title not show up on forums?

Asking them to junk work already completed or mostly completed — without even knowing what it is, no less — is both childish and futile.

Oh, okay. I’ll tell Gabe Newell his work is childish and futile the next time I see him.

If you start working on a failed project, you better see it through to the end, right?

Here’s a better idea: if you don’t like how Arenanet is managing this franchise, why not play something you actually like?

Been playing Skyrim for the last couple of weeks. Makes Guild Wars 2 RPG experience seem pitiful in comparison.

But, you know why you don’t hear that line of defense very often? Because people who use it watch their games dwindle and die as a consequence.

Telling people to leave if they don’t like it – not the best sales strategy.

Scarlet needs to go. Now.

in Guild Wars 2 Discussion

Posted by: Draco.2806

Draco.2806

While I agree with this statement, I don’t see ANet being one of the companies who adjusts the work flow.

You’d think they would have to with how many interlocking systems there are in GW2, and considering we’ve seen at least a couple semi-sized overhauls of some systems, but then they completely refuse to budge on other fronts. It’s a bit odd.

Scarlet needs to go. Now.

in Guild Wars 2 Discussion

Posted by: Draco.2806

Draco.2806

“I don’t like what you’re planning for the next several updates, so please take thousands of person-hours worth of work and put it in the bin. Then when there are no updates for months because of all this wasted effort, I will return to the forums to complain that I am bored.”

A good summary of why you don’t make huge and lasting commitments to terrible ideas. Or ignore player feedback for that matter.

Oh, and all the people who actually like the Scarlet story, well, I don’t, and since I’m the center of the universe, they don’t matter.

Since you enjoy an inferior version of the product, it’s best for all involved – including yourself – to dismiss your interests. After all, if people liked an utterly terribly-written character, surely a better-written one would be liked at least just as much.

Guys, asking for them to destroy content they have already made to be released isn’t going to happen anyway.

Most people, and almost all companies, can never admit they’ve made a mistake.

Better companies design their workflow in such a way that they do not make lasting commitments to ideas that can fail, have ways to recycle abandoned content, or will do away with previous work if it proves disastrous in practice. It’s all part of good game design.

Scarlet needs to go. Now.

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Posted by: Draco.2806

Draco.2806

People who agree with the threadstarter expect everyone to agree with them, without even considering the opinions of possible dissenters.

Just because people may feel rejected and ignored, doesn’t mean they are. It’s simply what being a minority feels like. It’s not fun. Hell, most people try to avoid being in a minority like the plague for that reason.

Personally, I couldn’t care less if Scarlet’s hatedom was in the majority or the minority. She’s just Trahearne V2.0. It’s bad writing; it’s so childish and transparent it feels like a personal insult.

Speaking of feeling like an insult, that’s also the problem people have with developers continuing to toe the line on Scarlet despite the outpouring of hate for the character. They promise to listen to player feedback, but they really don’t.

Scarlet needs to go. Now.

in Guild Wars 2 Discussion

Posted by: Draco.2806

Draco.2806

The anti-Scarlet sentiment has always been an overwhelming majority on the forums. If people say it’s “obvious” that no one likes Scarlet, that’s because it is.

Her supporters are incredibly far and few between and even then, having fans is absolutely no measure of quality. Scarlet and her story are just bad. Want to know why exactly? Well, there are tons of threads and even more posts about that too, including by yours truly.

Trying to convince the majority they’re in a minority is a losing game. Going with the “no evidence” line in a thread full of hate of said character is rather absurd, honestly.


The bottom line is that people feel betrayed and upset by ANet’s writers not for just introducing such an incredibly poor story in the first place, but ignoring their player’s reaction to it as well. It flies in the face of expectations of good quality and honest development.

Builds Templates when ?

in Guild Wars 2 Discussion

Posted by: Draco.2806

Draco.2806

Good news everyone!

It’s impossible.

Your stats are partially tied to your gear, remember. Gear has fixed stats. So even if they implemented this perfectly sensible and incredibly useful feature, it would only get us part-way there.

“Why not remove stats from gear then and tie them to something else?”

Yeah, that would make sense. What wouldn’t make sense is that then you’d be able to outfit your character in any cool-looking gear you like without buying transmutation stones and introduce some actual cosmetic progression to the game instead of change-your-looks-for-ten-bucks that we have now.

So you see, you have to break the game to make the money. Or at least that’s how many F2P developers think. I think ANet might have made a bit of money by sticking to the promises outlined in their Manifesto, but what do I know?

Scarlet Arc: Story Solid, Implementation not?

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Posted by: Draco.2806

Draco.2806

Which is why people say the problem with the Living Story isn’t Scarlett’s character, it’s the exhibition/unveiling of the story.

Well, sort of.

The thing is, the way character is created and developed is through the story, so they’re actually one and the same as far as the reader/player is concerned.

Maybe if we had Scarlet’s character sheet to read we could say her character wasn’t done justice. But we don’t. We just have her flying around doing the evulz.

If there’s something positive about Scarlet, it’s part of the underlying archetype: watching people be crazy and evil is fun. So that’s good. But it’s not going to be enough for most people, and it doesn’t even begin to form a character or a story.

Ever heard the saying “Never judge of book by it’s cover?”

Yes. The correct way to judge a book is by its first page: if the writer didn’t bother then, he never bothered later either.

Don’t believe me? Just look at the way they’ve handled Scarlet. It was dumb and hated from beginning, and it’s still dumb and hated when… wherever we are now. Hopefully near the end.

That metaphor refers to not judging things by their outward looks, but based on the worth of their content. We’re talking about the inner content to begin with.

Maybe you should read the quote in context of the entire story.

Well, let’s see: a terribly-written excerpt coming a terribly-written character from a terribly-written Living Story. I think I’ll pass.

In fact, I definitely will pass considering it has nothing to do with the game. Scarlet’s presentation within the game is what matters, not the fanfiction she’s in.

Part of the awfulness of that quote – besides the purple prose – is that the writer doesn’t seem to understand what they’re even talking about with all these big words (and, by extension, I don’t think you do either, sorry). Just like the “Historians, however” line you always hear from Asura: it’s not just a cryptic saying, it openly advocates skeptical (as in negative) outlook on established historical facts in reference to implied historical revisionism. Which it makes no sense to say to random strangers, and has no basis in established in-universe fact at all.

If you’re not going to then I’ll kindly ask you to show your PHD in literature to justify your criticism.

Haha! That’s not what a PhD in literature is even for. Come on, you can figure that one out.

Scarlet Arc: Story Solid, Implementation not?

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Posted by: Draco.2806

Draco.2806

I think when her arch completes you will find that it is Scarlett.

And that will be terrible, because the delivery so far has been absolutely horrid, not indicative of such a conclusion at best and inconsistent with it at worst (DIE DIE DIE!). Speaking of, you can’t know that. There’s been no indication of her beliefs or motivation whatsoever. She’s barely a character beyond being super-crazy and super-amazing.

Honestly you’re giving the writers too much credit. They haven’t handled themselves properly thus far, they have no reason to improve.

In the short-story Scarlett says “No system, no matter how complex, can perpetuate itself indefinitely. Those that do not evolve inevitably fail.

Wow, that’s some terrible writing right there. Reminds me of the “History never lies” line – it’s, like, did they even pay attention to what they were saying with it?..

Oh, what am I even surprised at anymore.

(edited by Draco.2806)

Scarlet Arc: Story Solid, Implementation not?

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Posted by: Draco.2806

Draco.2806

I think Scarlett’s character is fine; she is a chaotic character that refuses to see the world in moral boundaries which makes her a natural antithesis to the Sylvari themes of dream and nightmare.

That’s pretty good, actually.

But it’s not Scarlet. We know nothing of her morals, allegiance, worldview, or anything else. She just shows up, acts weird and evil, summons an army of the week for no reason, and goes away. That’s it.

What you’ve done there is you’ve created, in a single sentence, a better character than what ANet writers have been trying to put together for months.

In fact, I think it would be easy to come up with a much better Scarlet than “for the evulz” Scarlet that there is. Granted you’d actually have to tell her story instead of having her just standing there going “DIE DIE DIE!”

- Scarlet is actually just a weak stand-in for a bigger force. She’s a weak Sylvari goaded into acting evil for the public and throwing a dozen mooks around to divert attention from something that’s actually important.

- Scarlet is a hallucination experienced by the player. The epic battles with random alliances never happened. That’s why she’s always talking to you and you personally.

- The conflict is actually much lower in scale. Scarlet is a third-rate psycho that got together a bunch of easily manipulated mooks from more powerful factions and got them all killed very quickly.

Etc., etc., just use a bit of imagination and tell the story however you can. It’ll be an improvement over what we got no matter what you come up with.

Scarlet Arc: Story Solid, Implementation not?

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Posted by: Draco.2806

Draco.2806

Scarlet had a story?..

I’m not sure “Bad boss invades Map X this week, will our heroes succeed in stopping bad boss?” counts as much of a story.

If it’s her backstory, well, why should even care? It seems to have no consequence on her Power Rangers shtick in the game. I don’t want to know more about a character I don’t care for in the first place. Give us someone to care about, then we can talk about their life story.

Speaking of unsolicited exposition, why is she even there? Scarlet being Scarlet adds absolutely nothing to the game or the story. It’s pointless. “Super army invades Map X, heroes heroically defeat super army!” Nothing’s changed. It’s boring.

Honestly I don’t think the structure is to blame. It’s restricting, yes, but they’re doing the wrong thing anyway.

GW1 players are a minority?

in Guild Wars 2 Discussion

Posted by: Draco.2806

Draco.2806

Most likely she misspoke.

I suppose the alternative is that lots of people buy GW2, stay around for a bit, then leave for whatever reason – which would mean high number of “active” players with very few “veteran” ones.

That would be a very odd picture for an MMO. Not a flattering one either.