Guild Wars 2

‘Options’ was always one of the big draws to GW2 for me (and I think for a lot of people.) It was sold on the premise of having choices in terms of how, where, when you played, rather than being tied to linear progression and storylines or a single mode of play (eg solo-only or raid-only.) Having a diverse pool of race and class options tied into that as well, particularly with the personal story quests. The ability to play as a sentient humanoid plant intrigued me as it is not something you get in a lot of other games (same reason I always play an Argonian in Elder Scrolls games.)

I think limiting the game to humans for the sake of more armor designs would not have been worth it, personally; for me the racial options are a net gain and not a net loss (particularly since I don’t care for the human models much, especially the female model.) YMMV of course.

By the same token, it would no doubt be easier to implement skins if there were only one class/profession (less armor weights and less weapon choices.) You could argue that it isn’t worth it to include the option of non-2h-sword-warriors, but I think you’d struggle to convince people that having multiple professions and flexible weapon choices wasn’t a draw.

TLDR: people like choices and options, and more races is part of that.

2,744 hours played, found one precursor (for Bifrost) during the Southsun events when I had 300% magic find or whatever it was. I sold it to pay for Leaf of Kudzu.

It’s most likely been suggested already, but I’d love a space, sky or celestial-themed glider, something with a wing effect along the lines of the druid celestial form/Astralaria/Dawn/Dusk/Meteorologicus. The wing could be a fairly nebulous shape a la the soul river glider, and it could have an effect of little stars, lights or clouds. (Perhaps a ‘day’ and a ‘night’ version?) I think it would match some of the armor and weapons already in the game pretty well.

Elemental gliders would also be cool. Air is the obvious one and some of the existing gliders kind of already fit, but fiery wings would also match a lot of armor/weapons, and water would also look cool.

My tuppence worth:

Cards on the table: I have one legendary and am quite unlikely to make another, simply because I am casual enough that it’s probably not worth the effort for me. I love the look of Nevermore and Astralaria, but at the current time I’m not actively working towards either. This is partly because I’m not actually playing much at the moment, part out of just being more interested in other games and partly because of issues with GW2/HoT.

As far as HoT goes, I have been disappointed with some aspects. I still get hit with the crashing bug however many months in, and after having upgraded to the 64-bit client. Spending 1-2 hours in a map only to have it crash just before, during or after the meta – thus losing out on my rewards and progress – is immensely frustrating. Combined with the relative solo-unfriendliness of the Maguuma maps and the need to use the LFG tool, this has kept me from playing as much as I otherwise might have done. Obviously, Anet is not in any way obligated to cater to my particular playstyle; I just prefer to do map exploration stuff solo and have found less opportunity for this in HoT.

Ultimately I agree with the people who feel that if resources are so tight, the priority ought to be on completing HoT as advertised and expected before moving on. Known issues like the crashing bugs, the way HoT maps and grouping are working in practice (and how that was not the intention), etc. should IMO be a priority, and we should be getting regular communication on how work on them is progressing, on official Anet channels like these forums and the website. It’s one thing to ‘know’ that the company is aware of the issue and wants to fix it, but I feel like a lot of times we are left to guess at what the actual state of play is on them. I can only hold my breath and wait for good news in patch notes for so long.

A more clear grasp and communication on priorities and timescales would be very welcome. LOTRO, for example, has put out an annual Producer’s Letter for many years and by and large, from what I can remember, they have been able to deliver on what they anticipated doing in a given year. (The quality of it varies, of course, but that’s just how things go.) When there are delays (e.g. with the recent server merges due to hardware issues) these were relayed on a regular basis. Turbine and LOTRO are by no means perfect, but a general statement of intent like they have seems not unrealistic. By contrast, a lot of the things I can remember as ‘planned’ or ‘in development’ for GW2 seem to get cut, which is why the communications embargo started in the first place. We didn’t even have a date or timescale on HoT release for a long time after it was announced that the expansion was coming, which is unusual in my experience with MMOs (which is now, hmm, 17 years?! Oof, I’m old.)

I also agree with the people who feel that Anet’s focus seems to shift rapidly and sometimes unpredictably. We don’t have access to your data on what is ‘working’ from a time and money investment POV, so I have no idea if the decisions are good or bad for the game overall. As a player, though, it’s frustrating to feel like I have no real idea of what is actually, concretely planned and being worked on; and worse, how likely any of those things are to actually materialise. These six developers have obviously been doing ;something for the last year or so; now it seems all that time and effort is, from our perspective, going to waste, because we won’t see the fruits of it.

I’m not emotionally devastated by this news, just mildly disappointed. More regular Living Story/content updates are likely to keep me logging in more regularly, true. By the same token, not delivering expected content (even content I personally may not fully experience), seeming lack of progress on problems with current content, unexpected focus changes and poor communication are all likely to make me wary of spending money or investing much time in the game. So, make cuts and prioritise as you see fit, but I’d be pretty dang sure it’s worth it before making that call, basically.

I would love this too. (Although, I wouldn’t mind if it had some trousers under there somewhere…looks a bit…drafty.)

I have been experiencing this since HoT launch, with random crashes most often during metas. It is immensely frustrating, particularly in DS. Just now I’ve been kicked as the dragon died, so I get returned to an empty map and killed by the timer, and I’ve wasted two hours on the events and still can’t get any rewards, xp or credit or get to the vendor to buy the collection item I need or work more on map completion.

It’s been months now and it’s getting ridiculous. This is a serious bug, IMO, not a minor one. Why is there no fix? What exactly is causing the crashes and what is being done to address it?

Edit: full search turned up the crash dump log, but it’s way too long to post – 55 pages in my word processing software.

Hume.2876:

OP is wrong. And this is just a bad idea in general.

Here is why – this is a video game and the developers are human. That means they CANNOT write code that takes into account the disability/time limitations of a player and adjust the content accordingly. They do not have magic abilities.

What they COULD do is either give the content away (likely what the OP really wants) OR they COULD make it even MORE grindy and easier.

Both of these solutions suck. The idea here is that this item is something special – for someone who puts in the time and conquers the challenges of the festival. That is a good idea – as developers do want to reward the best players. That encourage more people to play.. Exclusivity is GOOD for a game.

Just ask Blizzard with their raiding for everyone mantra how their NA market is compared to even Vanilla WoW..

Listen to wrong people and your game will crater. There are legions of people that just want ‘stuff’ and when they get it – they just quit because there is nothing to do. Caving into these people is a disaster.

And how were WoW’s raiding stats and subscribers in Burning Crusade and Lich King compared to Vanilla, when they started bringing in smaller raids which were much more accessible? (Rewards for 10-person raids were lesser, but not to a very punitive degree. This allowed far more people to access the raid content – much of which was very well done – than in Vanilla.)

Comparing numbers now, when the game is over 10 years old, the MMO market is vastly more diverse and saturated, with how things were at launch is a disingenuous comparison, IMO.

CIndeR.3479:

Dashingsteel.3410:

Well Anet has certainly cut down my tree by changing their philosophy on platforming. I actually enjoyed earning skins previous to HoT. Now that platforming is involved not so much.

You understand that you are still not required to actually do any platforming right? You can go through the entire game, experience every map and you still wont ever need to do any platforming. But those who enjoy platforming as well should be rewarded for their efforts. It’s like Dungeons, The very best stuff in the game is in dungeons. I hate dungeons with a passion, so I don’t go in dungeons. I don’t go on the forums and whine that I should get those things too despite being unwilling to put in the effort to do them. Dungeon runners go the extra mile and they should be rewarded for it.
I completely agree that if actual game content were gated behind a platform, like part of a map or something then you would be absolutely right, I’d be right there with you. But there is nothing but a single skin designed to be acquired only by the most elite of us gated behind that platform…one skin…and people are losing their minds over that. Its ridiculous…

“Designed to be acquired only by the most elite of us” – and there is no problem if people with disabilities are completely shut out from attempting to join this elite cadre? It’s not a problem if people with disabilities are left behind, because, “welp, they’ll never be good enough by able-bodied standards, so who cares about them?Sucks for them, but being awesome is only for us able folks.” That kind of attitude stinks.

I appreciate that the nature of human ability is such that no game can necessarily accommodate every single person in every single way, but including things which are known to cause problems for a number of people as part of a holiday achievement, without providing any kind of alternative, is kind of stingy and discriminatory. In years past, and in other games, festivals often have a little leeway so that if there is a particular quest or event a person cannot manage (or just plain hates to do), they’re not barred from finishing. I honestly don’t see what that would take away from anyone else, especially if the more challenging content, like the JP continued to give its own rewards.

I find that some of them are ok, at least in smallish doses (don’t mind the vine-flamethrower one, for example, or the bug collecting) and some are quite frustrating (struggled quite a lot with flying circus today; kept getting two-shotted by the snipers apart from anything else, and sometimes the boosts didn’t fire when I flew through them.) I find anything with tight timers very anxious to play because it boosts my stress levels through the roof. Much like with jumping puzzles, if I can take my time and pause between jumps, not a problem; if it’s like the holiday ones I end up grinding my teeth down to nubs and giving myself a stress headache. My tolerance limit for repeating them regularly is quite low.

Doing one now and again for some mastery xp or whatever is fine, but I hadn’t realised I needed to gold a lot of them for max mastery. That’s disappointing. (Mind you, I am already hitting the point of feeling worn out repeating events for mastery at this stage. I may wait a bit until we get some new zones, although I suppose they may bring even more new masteries to unlock with them.)

I have to admit I find this frustrating too. The electric wyvern was the new pet I wanted most out of the five, but it’s the only one I don’t have now. I tried several times to make that jump across to where they are, following the images from the guide that was in the ranger forums and even using both greatsword swoop and the staff charge skill (forget the name now!) but I couldn’t manage. I guess I need to max out gliding?

It’s just frustrating that you only get that 15-minute window to try. I wouldn’t really mind a tough jump if I could keep trying until I got it. But I guess Ancalagon (my fire wyvern) will have to wait awhile for his sister.

Eirian Direstorm.9748:

And now this on the GW2 facebook page:

The only thing I can think if it really is Caithe is that she knows a way to somehow heal the Pale Tree using the egg. And with that photo, possibly at the expense of her own life.

That said, I felt she was acting strangely during this episode, particularly at the fort, so who knows at this point.

I’m late to the party (been away) but regarding spoilers vs. generating buzz…

I would agree that sometimes, especially with films that aren’t great, for example, all the ‘good stuff’ is in the trailer. And sometimes book jackets or film trailers do include fairly significant spoilers which can have a detrimental effect on viewing/reading (I felt the trailer for How To Train Your Dragon 2 gave away a too-central plot element, for example.)

However, there is definitely such a thing as not enough spoilers too. I don’t know about you, but I wouldn’t go see a film where all I knew about it was that it was produced by Paramount and had a plain black poster with no text on it, no director, no stars, no rating, no sense of genre or scope or story. Nor would I buy a book with a blank jacket with only the publisher’s name on it. Would you?

At the moment, GW2 communication is leaning far, far too much towards the ‘blank book jacket’ end of the information scale. Roadmap/state of the game type examples have been given repeatedly in this thread and the others about communication but it is not at all clear that they’ve been taken on board. And while I definitely agree that forum rage and negativity are a problem, I don’t believe that is insurmountable. Like many other people I played WoW for years and their forums were at least as toxic as these, often orders of magnitude worse – but Blizzard, for all their faults, continued to use them to communicate with players and did not adopt a radio silence policy as a result.

I believe it can be done, but it seems it will require a significant change in the business management culture at Anet to do so.

Scandi.5693:

Gedekran.1487:

I like completing the event.

How many times do you need complete it? I don’t mean to make a personal attack but I do question why you are there if not to troll the farmers. I checked earlier and found a map within minutes that was not being farmed and had people doing the event to completion. So I think this thread a bit disingenuous.

More than a bit. This whole thread reeks of disingenuousness. Nobody is coming off looking particularly good, either the raging farmers or the butter-wouldn’t-melt griefers.

Yalora Istairiea.6287:

Oh yes, Veteran Risen Subjugator, I am watching you.

As soon as your first inkling of a respawn, I am all over you. Don’t you worry about what my master is doing, you Will suffer me. My master is surely in deep thought contemplating an in-depth plan for defeating the scourge of your brethren or some such, which he has yet to divulge to me. I know because he has been standing at his last chopped cypress tree for nearly an hour allowing me to solo you to your 3 minute oblivion.

Its about that time…
Growling Regards,
Juvenile Brown Bear

Cookie approves this post. +50

Donari.5237:

Laurelinde.4395:

This stinks. I really, really wish I hadn’t added my panda mini to the wardrobe now. I haven’t got all that many minis but the panda is impossible to replace as an item.

I’m fine with culling other people’s minis as and when the other culling for armor, etc. kicks in, but we should always be able to see our own, the same way we can see our own armor, weapons and hairstyles. Please reconsider this change!

Actually the panda is available for laurels. So it may be annoying, but it’s not impossible to replace.

Yes I found this out yesterday as it happens, I thought I need the ‘Gift of Something or Other’ and hadn’t realised their was a laurels version. Unfortunately, I tested using a not-in-the-wardrobe pet on another character and get the same message (minis disabled due to rising player population) so it doesn’t seem to matter.

My panda is safe, and shared, but nobody can see her, and that makes us both sad pandas!

This stinks. I really, really wish I hadn’t added my panda mini to the wardrobe now. I haven’t got all that many minis but the panda is impossible to replace as an item.

I’m fine with culling other people’s minis as and when the other culling for armor, etc. kicks in, but we should always be able to see our own, the same way we can see our own armor, weapons and hairstyles. Please reconsider this change!

I love the guild chat channels and calendar suggestions so far – I had hoped we’d be able to see/communicate across all our guilds at once from the beginning. I realise that it might be too difficult to implement, though.

I think if nothing else this just kind of highlights, again, the need for a clearer and more formalised (and organised) communications policy from Anet. Any significant information about the game really should be disseminated directly from Anet, within the game/launcher/patch notes where appropriate, and via their various social media arms, as near to simultaneously as possible. We shouldn’t need to rely on third party sites (or to obsessively follow GW2 on every possibly social networking/sharing site in the world) to get basic game information on mechanics or events or what have you.

It wouldn’t magically make the market equitable; some people will always get the news first and react to it first and thereby have an advantage. But at least it would be more of a free-for-all rather than tinged with suspicion or possible conflict of interest like this has been.

Regardless of any ‘insider trading’ issues, relying on players and third parties to do important communications work is just poor practice, in my opinion. Third party sites will always have a place for some of the more specialist information, but they should exist in addition to official comms, rather than in place of them.

Regarding forum toxicity, I just wanted to point out that a lot of that is in Arenanet’s hands – the forum will to a greater or lesser extent be what you/they make of it. What you provide to us as developers/reps here and how you manage and moderate the forum will really shape the environment.

All of us posting here as customers have a responsibility as fellow human beings to treat each other, and you, with respect, and we can absolutely contribute ideas, feedback, fan art and so forth, but I think it is fair to say that the ball is in the host’s court in terms of setting, and maintaining the tone and the rules. Just something else to think about, and perhaps have a look at some other online communities, gaming-related or otherwise, to see what works and what doesn’t for creating a constructive and not-utterly-a-screaming-cesspool-of-humanity public discussion environment.

ipan.4356:

Laurelinde.4395:

Vayne.8563:

I don’t know why people assume the major jobs of these forums are for Anet to communicate with us, as opposed to us communicating with each other. Closing down the forums would be silly.

I’m just going based on what the proportion of threads seems to be aimed at. I guess it’s around 50/50 talking to other players and asking for official info? Dunno.

In any case, I think my point stands; Anet certainly don’t owe us a platform to communicate with each other, particularly if that platform is deemed to have become so toxic. What would be silly about closing them and leaving build discussions for build sites, fanart discussion for fan sites, story discussion for other gaming sites and so on?

Because this would be viewed as a sign that the game is ‘withering on the vine’.

It’s a terrible idea. It would be better for them to abandon the forums themselves (though this is not good either).

Fair enough. Though I don’t think complete silence on future development speaks to a thriving game any more than not bothering with a stupid forum. We’re just the rabble, we don’t need a voice; and Anet aren’t talking. But consider me duly chastened.

Vayne.8563:

I don’t know why people assume the major jobs of these forums are for Anet to communicate with us, as opposed to us communicating with each other. Closing down the forums would be silly.

I’m just going based on what the proportion of threads seems to be aimed at. I guess it’s around 50/50 talking to other players and asking for official info? Dunno.

In any case, I think my point stands; Anet certainly don’t owe us a platform to communicate with each other, particularly if that platform is deemed to have become so toxic. What would be silly about closing them and leaving build discussions for build sites, fanart discussion for fan sites, story discussion for other gaming sites and so on?

This may sound horrible and snarky but I don’t mean it to. If this is the policy and that’s going to stay, I think the best thing to do might actually be to shut down the forums. Let your developers get on with their jobs without worrying about how the forums are going to react, abolish any pretence of two-way communication or forum threads having much feedback value, and stop giving the people who are just malcontent whingers a paid-for platform to whinge. Anything constructive from the forums – build-sharing, fan art and so on – can certainly be shared on external sites like reddit, Pinterest and so on.

A lot of GW2 information is already spread out across various social media sites, so new releases can be disseminated via twitter and the game launcher. If we can’t and won’t get any substantive communication from Anet on the forums – and that is obviously not my or any other customer’s decision to make – then what of value would be lost by just closing them down?

Again, this is not me bashing or being angry, it’s just asking the question in all sincerity. Bandwidth and hassle saved, and people know from the outset not to expect a response to their thoughts, no matter how constructive or hostile they may be.

Astral Projections.7320:

Chris Whiteside.6102:

and honestly a lot of the team who care deeply about Arena and the community are to scared to post because let’s be honest forums in general can be quite toxic.

Not only does posting on the forums take time away from your regular job, it’s also a potential minefield because it’s not what you are trained for and it’s easy to make mistakes.

That’s why imo your team could use an a Forum Liaison. Someone who comes on the forum at set intervals, takes questions and gets back with the answer. This will give the people the information they seek while insulating the Devs from some of the more toxic and inflammatory remarks.

If the Devs come to the forum and speak, they are a lightning rod for all the discontented people to post and be rude. A Liaison won’t have that problem since they are an intermediary, not the person who is doing what is making people upset.

Agreed. If communicating with the customers is not the devs’ job and they are afraid or unwilling to do so, then whose job is it, or is communicating actually not a priority at all? I don’t see why we can’t play it both ways, infract/edit posts which are disrespectful, AND have a person or persons whose actual job it is to communicate.

However if the policy about the first rule of Guild Wars 2 being you can’t talk about Guild Wars 2 is going to stay in force, then it’s largely moot, and Anet staff may as well just ignore the forums all together, or even close them down.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

NewTrain.7549:

Creating a CDI about communication is like forming a committee to discuss how to form committees.

Morning All,

You asked me to be honest so I am going to be. I am starting to feel like doing another CDI just isn’t worth the frustration, huge amount of time and heartache.

As i have said many many times before getting the logistics around communication right is extremely important. Time is precious and anything that can be done to make every second more valuable is paramount. Any time a developer spends on CDI is time away from the game. The benefit however is huge in terms of the products evolution so it is an extremely difficult balancing act.

Chris

Hi Chris,

I can very much understand this. I take it there is no possibility of any kind of a community-dev liaison person to manage CDIs or something similar, so that the onus would not be on yourselves and taking away from actual development time? Obviously I have no idea on what the staffing or financial situation is like over there (perhaps too big of a job for a volunteer) but it seems like it could be worthwhile?

Chris Whiteside.6102:

So i was thinking maybe we could have a CDI next week about the logistics (Methods, format, etc etc) of better communication on both sides?

thoughts?

Chris

I have a feeling I’ve posted about this in the past, but…wasn’t one of the last CDIs also about the format of the CDIs themselves? Of the CDIs we’ve had, how many have been on gameplay topics and how many have been ‘administrative’ topics? If this week has showed anything it is that people really, really want communication, but more than that, substantive communication. Talking about talking isn’t going to get us very far, I don’t think, I don’t want to see what is currently our best option for community-dev interaction to get bogged down in business details and bureaucratics.

By all means let’s start some more CDIs, but maybe a more concrete gameplay topic would be more constructive? Basically, in as much as is possible within the context of Mike O’Brian’s stated policies, let’s get down to brass tacks.

I seem to think mini Mr. Sparkles is quite big too, but he’s not easy to get hold of. I’m sure I’ve seen a golem mini that was nearly as big as an asura though, pretty sure it was him.

Edit: Ninja’ed!

I have to admit I am gobsmacked by this. When I heard the price was going up to 300g, I thought, ok, it’s a lot of gold but there’s been more time to earn gold (for those of us playing for awhile, anyway) and with it being account-bound, it makes sense. That was when I thought that the multi-color functionality was built into the new tags automatically. Paying an additional 300g for another color is madness. I will definitely just be sticking with my current blue tag, and I would imagine most existing commanders will do the same – the cost of the ‘upgrade’ simply isn’t worth it.

I will be very surprised if the vast majority of commander tags don’t stay blue, rendering this new and potentially useful function almost moot and obsolete from the outset. I hope Anet reconsider this one, for WvW at the very least.

Spiderbite.8049:

Lifestealer.4910:

Stay delusional, not really my problem but one day you will realise the truth when you go do content that doesn’t allow to mindlessly sit back at 1500 range and spam 1 and see how far that will get you.

Calm down.
Whatever bad thing happened to you in your life, it will be okay.

1. I dont qualify as I dont use a bear. (they’re ugly)
2. I also only use the bow to begin engagements… where there’s room to shoot
My apologies if I prefer to play a game for fun instead of a math competition.

Ugly?! How very dare you, sir! You owe my bear an apology cookie.

Back on topic, for open-world PvE, people use bows and bears because, well, you can, and it works well enough. I use them when I’m just doing solo questing stuff, although I have a bird or canine for when I want a pet with a bit more dps, and a sword and greatsword to swap to when mobs get close or I’m in a tight space. Mostly I just love bears, but the brown bear is a good tank with a useful F2 skill, and at long range the longbow dps isn’t so terrible that I generally have trouble. I’m on my own, stuff dies and I don’t; for my purposes, I’m as ‘optimal’ as I need to be.

Of course, for some particular fights, range is contraindicated and pets are borked no matter what you do (Canach’s dungeon comes to mind…had to use a spider in there). Carrying on pigheadedly in such circumstances is foolish. But in general, using either bears or bows is not actually the problem; sticking rigidly to one weapon setup without adapting it for the circumstances, and making adjustments to your playstyle are. And that would be the same for any class, not just rangers.

Abaia.1365:

I didn’t really see it as much of a reconciliation. At the end, their interaction was still awkward and strained. (“Um, so, uh . . . anybody hungry?” “Yeah! Let’s go stuff food in our mouths so we don’t have to try to talk to each other!”)

I got the impression that even though Braham’s first “adventure” with his mom might have been an eye opener as far as her fighting prowess goes, it really did nothing to mend their relationship.

The part that bothered me though was “my” acceptance of Eir’s decision to abandon Braham. (“Can’t be a hero with a kid dragging you down” or whatever “I” said.) Then again, my parents were pro-career and anti-child rearing so I have a built-in prejudice against people who treat their children like burdens.

(BTW, I still don’t like Braham. He’s a punk.)

Yeah I felt pretty much like this. The line about ’can’t move mountains with a kid on your back’ felt quite harsh to me. Moms and dads do amazing things all the time; having children doesn’t somehow end most people’s careers and lives. And even if taking baby Braham into a warzone would have been a bad idea (and it would have, obviously) I don’t see why Eir couldn’t have maintained some contact with him, at least. Cutting him and her husband out of her life completely seems unnecessary and kind of selfish. I normally quite like Eir but I can’t really back her up on this one.

Yeah I worry about this too, her Scarlet fangirling is probably her biggest weakness. I think it would seem unlikely for her to go full Scarlet on us though; more likely she will eventually do something in her blind enthusiasm that will have some kind of nasty consequences (for her or someone she respects) which will sober her up and get her to consider things with a bit more wisdom and empathy, I would think.

This might sound nuts but I actually really like the color/shape of the Mordrem flowers (e.g. on the vine bridge or the ‘collar’ on the wolves)…petals like that would be about my ideal for my ranger! Any chance of a similarly tiger-lily-ish hair in future?

P.S. Another plea for removing/reducing how much green ends up in orange/yellow hair and skin. If I wanted my hair to be green, I’d pick green!

I like them. I would love if they had more model variation though, at the moment there is mainly just the one (and the Speaker in Snowden who has slightly different armor and some facepaint.)

Pixelpumpkin.4608:

Where’s the thread about armor equality? Can’t find it right now but basically it said that an armor model should be skimpy or not for both genders, so every player has a lot of choice and it’s all equal and good.

I think it was originally in the suggestions forum so succumbed to the great forum purge, sadly. ’Twas a good thread.

TBH I’m actually more worried about what a self-avowed Scarlet fan is going to do left to her own devices with all those…well, devices! I do like Taimi but I feel inclined to keep a close eye on her lest she get into mischief.

I reckon they are Mordremoth’s nose hairs, so they won’t count towards anything except a hidden ‘Golden Trimmer’ achievement.

Or I’ve had too much sugar today.

FlamingFoxx.1305:

Yeah I think Jerus has hit the nail on the head, their damage is reduced to 0 because they cannot be knocked off an area and that would be exploitable.

That being said, I personally just sat on the outer ring waiting until everyone else got Nochtli’s damage down, then I jumped up at the last moment and did some damage and got credit for the not falling off achievement… So they may as well just let pets inflict damage because it’s not like you can’t work around it anyway xD.

I am pretty sure I got that achievement just by being in the area near Nochtli on the ground, I never even hit her at all. It was quite a surprise! I can’t say with 100% certainty that my pet wasn’t up there but as far as I know she was with me, so who knows.

Ok, but he didn’t say ‘women look better in women’s clothes than men do’, and I don’t think people are suggesting cross-dressing outfits (although really, that would be ok too.) Male characters would look just as appealing in sexy outfits as female characters would, so long as those outfits were tailored to them and their body types.

It’s also interesting that women can be perceived as attractive when dressed up in menswear (‘boyfriend’ shirts, tuxedos), but the reverse is, without exception, seen as freakish or comedic. Even in clothing that actually is male or unisex, like mage/monk robes, there are often comments about ‘why should my character wear a dress?’ Heck, there was a popular machinima and song about it back in WoW called ‘Big Blue Dress’ (if I remember rightly.)

I think it’s pretty clear that contemporary society does not view male and female bodies in the same kind of light, and this is reflected in the conventions of armor in games.

a t s e.9614:

Suns Dusk.7201:

a t s e.9614:

Laurelinde.4395:

a t s e.9614:

Sartharina.3542:

a t s e.9614:

Zevilo.9304:

This post is on the second page now, and people still bring up female character armors when op stated otherwise.

It’s like they didn’t read his post.

I don’t think anyone cares about a “sexy” male outfit anyway. As a male I’d rather look strong instead of looking like a kitten in a skimpy outfit.

Well, you’re wrong. Then again, Male Sexiness tends to also reinforce strength/power and stamina (Or fabulousness). Of course, there’s a reason for that! I don’t think people would be as offended by ‘skimpy’ male armors as they think they would be.

Huh, If I wanted to impress a female in real life It wouldn’t be with a kitten skimpy outfit. This stuff is not for males.

The only way would be to remove the ENTIERE upper – clothes so she can see your muscles but beside from that I don’t think females like guys who wear this kind of wierd stuff that shows off your skin.

…you really think women (and men) don’t like seeing men without shirts on? Never heard of the Chippendales, or the hype around shirtless Thor? Women’s bodies are certainly more sexualised/evaluated aesthetically in Western culture (how many times have you heard that ‘womens’ bodies are just better looking’?) – but there is millenia of precedent for appreciation of male bodies, too. Those Greek statues weren’t just there to hold up the roof, you know.

Yes female body looks better and is sexualized. That’s why skimpy clothes fit well on females and not on males.

As a male you want to show off the upper body only ( assuming its a public place) but a female can show off everything .

That’s why I said , beside from having the ability to hide the chest piece in this game, any type of other “skimpy” clothes would look weird on a male.

I am not sure if my brain has actually managed to properly comprehend the ignorance in this post, so here is a video summarizing my feelings right now:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fedG5o-PRFI

Which part you don’t understand , I think its obvious that skimpy clothes look better on females.

It’s really not obvious and it is absolutely not a ‘fact’ or a universal truth that skimpy clothes look better on women. The male body is every bit as beautiful; it all comes down to taste and perception.

I feel like I should post a lot of photos of men with beautiful (to me) bodies not wearing much clothing, for science. But I’ll behave.

a t s e.9614:

Sartharina.3542:

a t s e.9614:

Zevilo.9304:

This post is on the second page now, and people still bring up female character armors when op stated otherwise.

It’s like they didn’t read his post.

I don’t think anyone cares about a “sexy” male outfit anyway. As a male I’d rather look strong instead of looking like a kitten in a skimpy outfit.

Well, you’re wrong. Then again, Male Sexiness tends to also reinforce strength/power and stamina (Or fabulousness). Of course, there’s a reason for that! I don’t think people would be as offended by ‘skimpy’ male armors as they think they would be.

Huh, If I wanted to impress a female in real life It wouldn’t be with a kitten skimpy outfit. This stuff is not for males.

The only way would be to remove the ENTIERE upper – clothes so she can see your muscles but beside from that I don’t think females like guys who wear this kind of wierd stuff that shows off your skin.

…you really think women (and men) don’t like seeing men without shirts on? Never heard of the Chippendales, or the hype around shirtless Thor? Women’s bodies are certainly more sexualised/evaluated aesthetically in Western culture (how many times have you heard that ‘womens’ bodies are just better looking’?) – but there is millenia of precedent for appreciation of male bodies, too. Those Greek statues weren’t just there to hold up the roof, you know.

I am a sylvari and I support this message!

I am having the same issue, I have run the race twice and neither has counted. The first time I even came third (second by the time scores were announced as someone left), so it doesn’t seem to be a placing issue, unless you need to actually win.

The three female sylvari faces are all fairly similar as well (and not unlike one of the faces from the previous batch) – leafy bits around the forehead and cheeks and asymmetrical glow line on one side of the mouth. They all have rather unusual eyes which look multicoloured.

I am, however, super-stoked about the freckles!

4 characters, 3 80s, 2 map completions.

PvP in the JPs is fine and expected, it is a PvP zone after all. Spawn camping, however, is weak, on whatever map it is done.

Mike Winters.6871:

Because of the founder effect some groups of people may have slight advantages or disadvantages over others. Dark skin people have higher resistance to UV rays and lower vitamin D. This is way black people don’t need to use a whole bottle of sunscreen or get sunburnt as easily. They have a very low chance of skin cancer compared to light skinned people. But people with light skin are better at producing and metabolizing vitamin D and less prone to rickets and other bone problems because of the ability to make move vitamin D. Is this racist no, it is only racist if you see it as them and us because we are all human.

Eugenics isn’t necessarily bad it’s just another why of saying artificial selection we got hundreds of breeds of dogs, chickens, pigeons by using it. It’s just when it is used because you think it will make your group of people better then another that its bad.
We do it all the time in first wold countries, it’s called an abortion the British have one of the lowest rates of down syndrome because of it.

Violence is a human concept we refer to anything that is hostile to our existence as violent a hurricane, outer space, a lion devouring a baby antelope. Like with the dragons what seems like the end of the world to npc’s is trivial to them. Just like today people act like climate change is going to be the end of us when to the Earth its trivial.
Evolution is simple adapt, move, or die same with life with the dragons.

Some ants enslave because it’s there nature, humans do it for power.

Ok, but I didn’t mention anything about skin color: I mentioned hair color, dimples, color preference and coriander. I’m not aware of any of those providing any kind of inherent advantage or disadvantage, whereas more melanin in the skin can be useful for people living in sunnier climates.

Eugenics is a tricky concept because as a theory, it kind of makes sense. Who would not want future humans to have better lives, with less sickness or poverty or crime? However, there is no ethical way to implement it, no objective consensus on what would constitute a desirable or undesirable trait, no reliable method of reproducing many intangible or behavioral traits (as far as I am aware), and of course, that pesky free will that humans have.

Selective breeding has not been unequivocally ‘good’ for species like dogs and cattle, and it absolutely would not be a good thing for humanity. It’s just a human rights disaster before it even starts. Even in your example, while individuals may decide they are not willing or able to take on the challenge of raising a child with Down’s Syndrome (or just raising a child, full stop), are we prepared as a society to say categorically that people with Down’s Syndrome or other disabilities are better off not existing? Personally, I am not, especially if it involves violating the rights of people to implement (e.g. sterilisation of those deemed ‘unfit’.)

When I referred to violence, I am not talking about sustenance hunting for food or anything like that. I was meaning things along the lines of, ‘I do not like this person, I do not like sharing my resources with them, and I am stronger/more adept with weapons than they are so I will just kill them.’ Nature and evolution may not have a problem with that, but I think most people would.

As for slavery, as conscious, sentient creatures who are not bound to do everything on pure instinct that is ‘in our nature’, I hope that we are not looking to arthropods to validate our moral choices. We are not ants, and ants are not people, and social relationships between the members of an ant colony and humans in global society cannot be compared in a meaningful way in this context. Ants are not capable of morality. We are, and thus we are beholden to it in a way they are not.

And now I feel I have drifted wildly off-topic and into the realms of the absurd, so I will leave it there.

I’d think someone witty and funny could work, always ready with a quip, but still a loyal friend and a good fighter. A bit like Tybalt perhaps, or Mal Reynolds? Not that the existing Biconics are deadly serious all the time (though Kas has a tendency to be very earnest), but we haven’t had a dashing roguish type of character in the two guilds yet that I can think of. Profession-wise we’ve had all 8 now, but perhaps thief (the more obvious choice for such an archetype), or a warrior (so there’d be 2 light, 2 medium and 2 heavy without duplicates).

Alternatively, get Heal-o-Tron some armor and weaponry and get him on the team! I’m sure Taimi could tweak him out with some cool stuff.

I think some of the problem is down to the serial nature of the Living Story. It’s hard to get a sense of how all the characters fit in ‘in the moment’ because we are (potentially) only seeing a small portion of the larger story. For all we know, the next update could have half the Biconics getting eaten by Mordremoth, or bring in some new character who will end up with a bigger role than anyone, even Trahearne or the faction leaders. It will depend on the availability of the voice actors, as well. I’ll be very surprised if there aren’t new major male characters introduced in the next season though, I can’t see why there wouldn’t be.

bullyrook.2165:

I do have a good question. A sensible question, and I really hope you won’t get offended when I ask it. What is the evolutionary advantage of homosexuality, bisexuality, etc? Most things we support in our morals has some kind of advantage, but I have yet to see any conclusive data on this bit. There is the “Homosexual Uncle” argument: “an individual whom provides food and shelter but does not supply excess offspring.” But this feels a bit lacking when you apply it to the natural world, as not all creatures that exhibit homosexuality have instincts that influence them to care for others. And this argument does not apply to bisexuality in the least, as they may still have children. So far, it doesn’t seem very practical.

Not a biologist or anthropologist, but I’m not sure there has to be an evolutionary advantage to every possible human trait or behavior. What is the evolutionary advantage of having red hair, or chin dimples, or having that gene that makes coriander/cilantro taste like soap, or preferring the color blue? Evolution and ‘survival of the fittest’ doesn’t necessarily mean that all characteristics have a concrete or verifiable purpose, as I understand it, it just means that certain traits, and how they interact with their environment, have a greater or lesser odds of surviving to future generations. And this can change over time, as the environment changes.

I’m not sure I’d agree that most of human morality is drawn from natural advantage, either; certain taboos like incest (which have nonetheless frequently been ignored when it comes to royalty and nobility), or rituals surrounding the handling of the dead can definitely have a biological impact. If you take something else though – say, stealing – theft would arguably have an evolutionary advantage, since more food and wealth for me would seem to mean more likelihood of me passing on my genes. Pure social Darwinism would probably advocate quite a lot of things that our society deems immoral, in fact, like eugenics, violence, slavery, and corporate and political corruption.

I think it can be a bit dangerous to try to extrapolate morality or meaning from nature because nature just…is. There’s no real value judgement to it. Regardless of any whys and hows as to LGBTQ people being among us, the point, to me, is that they are. They exist, and they are real people with real lives and thoughts and feelings and talents and foibles. It is cruel and counterproductive to shame, marginalise or punish people for something that causes no measurable, tangible harm (and on the contrary, provides the benefits that come from forming caring bonds and relationships with others.)

Mini Ho-ho-tron and I approve this message.

Jack.5012:

Snipped for length

Apologies, I have had to cut out the quoting for space. For my initial question, you missed my point. I wasn’t asking ‘Why is male representation important’, I was asking why male representation important and female representation isn’t. The person to whom I was responding seemed baffled by ‘lady gamers’ being upset about representation issues, while posting in a thread wherein men are upset about representation issues. I understand that everyone wants to be and feel represented.

This leads to my second point. Of course women want to feel represented too. When you look at Guild Wars compared to games and media overall, Guild Wars is a tiny drop in the bucket of overwhelmingly male (and white, and straight) characters. I can bring up some stats from films, AAA game releases, television if you like, but in a nutshell, there is nothing like equal representation of varying groups. So it’s not simply how representation works out among individual titles, it’s about the larger pattern, the bigger picture.

Basically, if overall representation of people was pretty neutral and equal in the world, some all-men, all-women, all-whatever games/books/films would not be a problem. And, there are times when it is appropriate: I would expect a film about the front lines in WW1 to have few or no women, and a book about the experiences of nuns to feature few or no men. Unfortunately, when the ratios are as skewed as they are – when things are as unequal as they are in our world – it’s simply not comparing apples to apples.

Now, it’s not a zero-sum game; there is plenty of room in the world for all kinds of characters. But in terms of what gets the attention and the funding, there is some sharing to be done, and currently, some groups are hogging the toys. This is what my ‘pie’ argument addresses above. From where I sit, people asking for more representation of men are asking for even more pie while already holding the largest piece. The reverse is not true. Even if Guild Wars had only female characters from here on out for some reason, male characters would still dominate gaming as a whole.

Re: hypocrisy, there is opposition to diversifying characters, new or existing. There is lots of it. When people say ‘make Marjory a man’, ‘how can they make the new Spider-man black??’, ‘Anders wasn’t gay in Awakenings, change him back!‘, ’why would they put a girl elf in the Hobbit?’, the effect is to push for the erasure of disadvantaged people. And let’s not pretend that women, PoC, LGBTQ people, disabled people are not painted as whiny malcontents when there are campaigns to address this imbalance.

In the gaming world, there is a lot of resistance on the part of developers to create and promote female lead characters because ‘games with lead women don’t sell’. (Films are in the same position.) So if the big studios won’t take what they see as a risk in putting women in their media, and people go berserk when anyone tries to change an existing character by so much as a haircut, let alone a demographic change…where is all this diversity supposed to come from?

TLDR: pushback for absolute perfect and equal representation of the dominant group is not the same as a push for equal representation of disadvantaged groups. One has the whole weight and force of the status quo behind it, and one is pushing against that. The results will inevitably be much different.

Leshain.6720:

This entire post is extremely accurate, I do not understand where all these upset lady gamers are comin’ from, i asked for a simple balance in the poorly written cast of season 1 character to change in season 2 and suddenly that is a problem? Touchy.

Also ~

asking for a new more likable more competent male lead is hardly something to get up in arms about, it is not like anyone is asking for the female leads to be removed.

a new more likable more competent male lead is hardly something to get up in arms about, it is not like anyone is asking for the female leads to be removed.

a new more likable more competent male lead

competent male lead

competent male

^ That is all i am asking for, just a single competent male lead for season 2, it doesn’t even need to be balanced in terms of numbers since i would prefer one amazing well designed and written character in this game that isn’t pathetic or evil like the other male cast. Why so serious?

Please, please do not try to fall back on the ‘ladiez be emotional, lol!’ cliche as an ‘argument’ in support of your position. “Why so serious?” You tell me, you started the thread. Why is lack of male representation something for Arenanet to address, but lack of female representation in games just a joke, just uptight emotional ‘lady gamers’ (we’re just gamers, by the way) having a problem?

As I responded to the quoted post, some people are asking for female leads to be removed. There are current threads and posts suggesting Marjory be killed and/or turned into a man (thereby putting men back into the spotlight and neatly avoiding that whole messy LGBTQ representation issue), and killing off Taimi and questioning her place in the story. I seem to recall plenty of ‘get rid of/kill off Kiel’ sentiment as well (because she’s boring, which I don’t dispute), and an awful lot of people were baying for Scarlet’s head from the outset (mainly because she was, honestly, rather terrible.) You personally may think having lots of female leads is peachy groovy, but please do not pretend like all the people objecting are having some kind of shared hallucination. It is happening. I promise, I’m not being ‘hysterical.’

Fundamentally, why do you ‘need more men’? Does having more women in the story somehow diminish it? And if so, could the problem lie…well, not with Arenanet or ‘lady gamers’? Is equality only something worth fighting for when you feel that you, personally, are somehow getting the short end of the stick? And then it’s not so much fighting for equality, as fighting for the biggest piece of the pie, when the rest of the world is already stuck sharing the crumbs.

There is so much hypocrisy in these kinds of threads, because I sincerely doubt that the vast majority of the ‘need more male representation’ crowd have been equally vocal in clamoring for equal representation of women, people of color, disabled people, etc. in other games, books, films or media. Go post some support, sign some petitions, donate to minority-oriented crowdsourcing for equal representation of women/PoC/LGBTQ on other media of interest and then get back to me about how important equality is to you. I’ll be waiting here, not holding my breath.

JGBarbarian.3579:

I don’t hate gays, I hate propaganda, I hate when the media tries to subtle impose a way of thinking into the people, I hate it even more when that way of thinking is indeed controversial on the world, and I hate it even more when it is a card used by political parties. Can’t talk about Braham, you will have to realize for yourself.

How about this, then: if games and other media only depict straight people and men, that is also trying to subtly impose a way of thinking on people; namely, that there is a ‘normal’ and ‘acceptable’ kind of person, and that anyone different to this via gender, orientation, race, etc. is weird, is lesser, is wrong, is somehow that little bit less human than the ‘default’. Maintaining the status quo is no less political than change; it is simply more familiar.

For Braham…would I be correct in thinking your problem is to do with his parentage, and the fact he is bi-racial? Apologies if this is wrong, I’m afraid my mind-reading powers have never been very good.