Guild Wars 2

Even if Anet didn’t already have this planned internally, I hope they would do it, just because the art is both gorgeous and kitten, and this is the perfect way to showcase it!

Zelyhn Lekovitch.2867:

You guys realise that since specialisations make you go fully in each trait line then the rank of the trait does not matter anymore? When you spec into air you get access to all traits at once, regardless of master or grand master rank, and if you don’t spec into air then you are completely denied access to these traits. Ranks are cosmetic now.

Exactly this.

The purpose of the ranks of traits is just to create compelling decisions when making your build.

You can take Bolt to the Heart, but you lose the ability to be in Air attunement as often for your single-target burst damage, so you have to find that sustained damage and utility elsewhere.

You can take Fresh Air, but you lose the large spike damage from Bolt to the Heart, so while you continue to have your sustained Air Attunement, you must look elsewhere for a high damage source, or make use of some of the new strengths of Air.

Some builds will be reduced in power. Some builds will increase in power. A TON of brand new builds will surface.

It’s all about making interesting and compelling choices when crafting a build, so a single build can’t have “everything.” By having choices, the existence of skill, counter-play, preference, and synergy is created.

Got further information? Maybe a screenshot?

Given that HP value, I would guess that was the case, Matthew.

The ghost must still be registered “in-combat” otherwise his out-of-combat regen would have healed him to full if roguenub ran around the whole room before taking a screenshot.

JustTrogdor.7892:

Beldin.5498:

JustTrogdor.7892:

I seriously wish Anet would send a real in game mail to everyone warning of this. I see about a half dozen or so threads a day about this problem. An in game mail to all players would help quell this problem.

In the end that also brings nothing since people are simply not able to read and understand mails.

There stand clearly under the mail that it is from another player and not from ANet .. and still they don’t get it.

But it would if they sent an in game mail that read something like this:

“Attention GW2 players: There are in game mails going around regarding in game infractions or suspensions and in some cases awards for free gems. We will never ever send an in-game mail to notify you of an account infraction or to award gems. These in game mails are and attempt to hack your account. You should report such mails and then delete them. Additionally mail not sent from Guild Wars 2 staff will show a disclaimer stating such.”

It would go a long way. If people are able to read so far as to see their account was being suspended or winning free gems, they could read a simple message such as that.

I’m honestly surprised Anet has not done something like this yet. This started a few weeks ago and there have been several posts a day about it, many questioning if it is real. So they made a sticky thread, but if it were me, my first instinct after seeing this as a growing problem would have been to send everyone an official in game mail about it instead of just making it a sticky on the forums that not every player reads. Then again, what do I know? I’m just a GW2 player.

This is a good idea. Consider using this idea, Michael, if the tech exists to freely draft a message and globally send to all players.

I’d probably play Sylvari with a new class. I would use all of my newfound powers to hunt down Mordremoth and slay its minions in the Living Story!

The absolute best tournament final of GW 2 to date. Every game was close, both teams on edge, sick plays and 1v1s from both sides.

Also, Jebro and Chronick absolutely killed it on the cast! Best GW 2 casting duo in the game.

Friendly Petition to fly Jebro and Chronick to cast the next WTS together!

Gaile, I’m afraid that putting “Players Helping Players” that low on the list will cause it to never be seen. This is disheartening, given it’s one of the most key areas newcomers can get detailed answers to their questions and the people who frequent that sub-forum are often those who enjoy tutoring or mentoring newcomers anyway.

I would put “Players Helping Players” in the Game Discussion category, or even create a new main forum category of “Getting Started” “Newcomers Welcome” or something similar to appear above the Professions area.

Cryptic as ever, Knighthonor. Lol

The patch is much shorter and smaller in design and scope, because it adds onto and inserts more depth and story into the existing map, instead of just tossing in a brand new map with a load of content.

To be honest, this is expected at least while we still continue uncovering the story of the Silverwastes and Glint’s egg.

VodCom.6924:

Let’s be honest about it, this CDI is not about raids, it’s about designing larger scale endgame content to keep GW2 hardcore crowd busy for the next months. One can see that after reading the first four pages. Look at the TTS proposal. It certainly does not look like a raid, but it has the potential to bring a similar challenge.

The title “CDI Guild Raiding” is kind of a misnomer in this regard.

The CDI has the potential to be about all of the above, or none of the above. It’s what the players want, and what Anet sees as viable ideas for prototyping and design.

That said, we know Anet can make world bosses and open-world encounters. In my mind, it’d be hard to not imagine “raid-like” content to exist within instances and be higher tuned than existing world bosses.

The design within said raid instance will hopefully differ greatly compared to the accepted norm for other MMOs, but I find it hard to believe that new “raid” content on a higher difficulty scale could exist outside of an instance.

Lux.7169:

Malchior.5042:

I literally just cried!

I’m freaking thrilled beyond belief to see a re-imagining of THE MOST dominant guild in all of Guild Wars GvG history!

So, OnlyFear, you’re not Korean, but German? What tag did you go by? Will any of the Pride members be returning? Master, Bloodlight, Jang, Soul?

Jang was leading a really prominent WvW guild for at least a year after release, not sure if he’s still around—he had a lot of issues with the incentives to do WvW but I’m sure if you search for his name in the forums you’ll find him. He doesn’t speak english (well?) and so what you’ll find is mostly google translations.

Yeah I knew he lead War Machine on Kaineng on release. I just hope as many of the EvIL originals return to SPvP to raise the bar of SPvP to a new level.

I literally just cried!

I’m freaking thrilled beyond belief to see a re-imagining of THE MOST dominant guild in all of Guild Wars GvG history!

So, OnlyFear, you’re not Korean, but German? What tag did you go by? Will any of the Pride members be returning? Master, Bloodlight, Jang, Soul?

Marcus Greythorne.6843:

My suggestion:

You want to have only experienced players in a raid.

—> A player has to have at least one lv.80 to unlock raids accountwide. Normalize gear and level for raids so that player “newthiefy” (lv.23) can play a raid with his lv.80 friends while he is on the same power-level as they are.

I’m going to go a little in-depth here on assets and risk in game development. My examples come from occurrences that have happened over the the history of GW 2 and were often exhibited on the GW2 subreddit.

• I am of the opinion that upscaling and/or neutral power-level would not work well over the long-term health of raid maps. Look at a few examples in WvW where new buffs introduced with content completely unrelated to WvW then started to cause awkward nuances in the scaling formula. People found ways to max every single stat and get over 100% crit chance as a level 2.

• The upscaling for Crown Pavilion produced wildly dangerous results on some of the bosses – like Shurakk the Savage and his hawks. He inflicted level 80 legendary level values of Retribution damage with his hawks, which melted players who were sub-80 and tried to use the zerg as a means to farm loot and exp. It wasn’t a bug. It was just a consequence of the design on sub-80 players in Crown Pavilion. Not necessarily “bad”, but it did produce a decent amount of criticism during the release, hence the risk.

• Dry Top and all of the Living Story instances have been designed as strict 80 maps, and I have to believe that comes from the slightly higher dependence on one’s personal skill, and knowledge of one’s profession.

• The risk in using upscaled maps is that each additional piece of content, buff, character enhancement, etc… has to consider the upscaling formula within the raid map, even if the developer of said additional content is not a member of any raid team or intended their content for use in the raid maps. One mistake or overlooked anomaly could lead to another case of max stats as a level 2 or similar, which would ruin any sense of accomplishment for players who completed the raid without the anomaly or before the anomaly was discovered.

In a perfect world, there would never be any mistakes, design flaws, missing requirements, or other such occurrences. Notice I didn’t say “bugs”, because it’s totally possible to have an oversight in design or missing requirements without it actually being a “bug.” The thing is though, developers are human, and they can and will make mistakes. Some of these mistakes might unfortunately slip through QA, especially if it is a strangely obscure case that deals with several factors or effects not even remotely related to the content. In my mind, it would be best to reduce as much of this risk as possible, where applicable, when considering high-level decisions such as upscaling and player limit. I absolutely want and desire for the raids to have some level of dynamic scaling of the mobs and mechanics themselves, but hoping to scale both the mobs AND the players is just adding more variables into the mix which can cause more problems and add further complexity into trying to achieve a balance within the content’s difficulty and accessibility.

In an area where some of the highest, most prestigious rewards, and the greatest level of challenge is supposed to exist, the risk of upscaling players to 80 seems too great to me.

Hi Chris. Just for the sake of brainstorming encounters, I’ll use the 15 player structured limit you mentioned in an earlier post. To be fair, I do wish the design included scaling the entire map of the raid to probably 25 players (or more), but I understand the difficulties that can present with balance, clutter, and accessibility.

IMO, one of the best dungeon encounters in GW 2 could have actually been built as a raid encounter – Slick and Sparky in the Twilight Aetherpath. The perceived difficulty of the encounter mostly stemmed from the knowledge required to alleviate pressure (HP degen) on the players and survive in the toxic environment.

• A team was REQUIRED to learn and understand how the Toxic Fumes debuff worked, and how to remove the Oil Slicks quickly to not die from the continuing debuff.
• Teams had to remain positionally aware of the Ooze which could one-shot any player. The ooze itself was incredibly slow and could be snared or blinded to offer assistance to allies kiting it, but if it was slowed too much, the Tar Pools around the room would slowly overtake the team. This added an element of “give and take” or “smart-usage” for snares and control skills. Some teams could get by on minimal usage of snares, pulls, and pushes to the Ooze, while other teams used them more heavily but could be punished if they used them too frequently or not skillfully. Still, it was a REQUIREMENT to be aware of the Ooze and the Tar Pools at all times.
• Slick and Sparki had synergy between their skills. Anyone who touched Slick’s Tar Pools would get the “Tar” debuff, and then receive increased burning duration from Sparki’s attacks. Also, any Tar Pools hit by Sparki’s Flame Blast would come ablaze, adding the burning effect to their area as well.
• Both Slick and Sparki had separate enrage mechanics. Depending on which one died first, the other would grow stronger. The Molten Firestorm and the Molten Berserker from the Flame and Frost dungeon: Molten Facility, they also had separate enrage mechanics. There is a risk that one enrage is eventually found to be easier than the other by the players, but it adds flavor and a sense of variety to the fight, especially if each enrage can be equally balanced.

This kind of difficulty through required knowledge or “puzzle encounters” are a common staple in the design of raids in other games, and I feel we can make some great puzzles (both combat and non-combat) to strengthen the design of potential raids in GW 2. Where the attacks, debuffs, environmental effects, and events can serve as the “puzzle,” the pieces or keys to the puzzle would be bundle items, combo fields, behavior triggers, and awareness.

Now…what if we try to imagine the Slick and Sparki fight as a 15-man boss encounter?

• What if we got rid of the ooze, and instead had a limited number of specially calibrated Elixir Guns (different than regular Engi Elixir Gun) that cleared the Tar Pools instead? Players would use these Elixir Gun bundles to clean up Tar Pools on their own, as well as support their allies through uses such as Condition Removal, Swiftness application, Area Healing, etc… This is something players already do with the Tequatl turrets. Let’s say only 5 guns were available, either found on the ground throughout the entire map of the raid or spawned from a gun rack gadget. Now, the player is in charge of actively clearing the ooze pools, instead of relying on a mob’s AI (which was one of the weaknesses, difficulties, or flaws of the original Slick and Sparki encounter)

• Ah, but just firing cleansing fields sounds too easy, eh? We’ve all done that before at Tequatl. We could give these guns a limited ammo system like conjured weapons. From there, the design could branch in one of two ways.

1. The ammo in the guns is strictly limited and no additional ammo can be acquired. This requires teams to coordinate who is cleansing when and where and perhaps not even cleanse all of the pools. It might just focus on finding what is the “breaking point” of the current group composition where X number of pools is too many to regen or heal through. Or…
2. The gun has a method of being recharged, which could be directly linked to some gadget or effect in the fighting area, or could be triggered through some attack on the boss itself. This removes a little bit of the flawless execution required for the first scenario, while adding in a new puzzle that players are REQUIRED to solve in-order to succeed in the encounter.

At that point, the puzzles of the encounter have been made. It is required for parties to “solve the puzzle” to even have a chance at the encounter, much less defeat it. Just for simplicity’s sake, we’ll say Slick and Sparki have the same moveset as they do currently in the Aetherpath. The rest of the design falls into numbers balance on values like damage, HP, cooldowns, and event/effect triggers.

Overlord Colin Johanson needs to see this, since he’s also a fellow Engi!

Awesome job, Wolfineer! Even just skimming it I can see the sheer amount of time, effort, research, and experimentation this took! I’ll try to find time throughout the week to tackle this entire guide to see what else I can learn about the profession.

Much love from a fellow Engi!
Malchior

Crystal Reid.2481:

Hi guys!

I thought I’d swing by and leave a quick introduction as I’ll be working with Chris to monitor this thread (and because I don’t post nearly as much as he does on the forums so most of you are unfamiliar with me in these CDI discussions).

I previously worked on some of the Fractals, Tequatl/Triple Trouble, and the Boss Blitz. Much like you all, I have an invested interest in raiding and I’m extremely excited to discuss what that could mean in Guild Wars 2!

There are already some really great discussions going on! I’m trying to get caught up on everything now and looking forward to reading more of your ideas.

Awesome, welcome Crystal! I look forward to hearing your own thoughts and questions towards the community, as the discussion continues!

It’s great to see the key designer for most of the existing challenging content getting involved in the discussion!

Odinius.9826:

Bubbles’ name starts with an S

Topright image is from the new trailer

“Sea Dragon”

It could simply be the Priory’s attempt to quantify the existence of a Sea Dragon, without knowing or assigning it a proper name.

Still, a very nice find indeed.

John Smith.4610:

minfaer.2796:

John, please write an ending to the story of Lemark… of course, we know he gets it, but it feels so like a cliffhanger… maybe some surprise about why he wanted the reaper so desperately!

Lemark kicked in the door. “A WORM?!” he shouted, “NO… NO! A FREAKING 200 FOOT WORM!”
Zomorros was waiting for him, of course, a smirk on his smug face as he hovered at the end of the room. The whole place was lavishly decorated in a way that screamed wealth at anyone who entered. Zomorros wasn’t a being of subtlety… usually.
“My old friend,” Zomorros said lazily, his head tilted to one side as he examined Lemark’s battered appearance. “How are you? You don’t look so well, I’m sure I have something that can help that around here.”
“Save your gifts” Lemark spat, “I’ve no need for more chains”.
“Well, aren’t we dramatic today?” Zomorros replied with a smile as he continued to rummage through a chest of unorganized bottles.
Lemark began to walk deeper into the room. He rubbed a dirty hand across a tapestry that probably cost more than most Tyrians earned in their lifetime.
“I’ve come for what’s mine,” Lemark growled in what should have been an inaudible tone.
Zomorros turned with a scowl, all pretense of good humor evaporating. “There is a price for that”.
Lemark threw his pack across the room where it fell and slid into a wall beside Zomorros. The Djinn looked intently at the pack as it burst apart , the collected items hovering in air.
“No,” Zomorros almost sobbed, and Lemark was uncertain if it was a denial or disbelief.
“No,” Zomorros said again, more forcefully, “these are unacceptable!”
“They are not! The Contrac-”
“You do not want to hold the contract against me, child! This is mine and you cannot deserve it,” Zomorros said, visibly attempting to restrain his anger. “You don’t even know what it is.”
Lemark pulled a ratty parchment from his pocket and slammed it on the table in front of Zomorros. It glowed slightly in the Djinn’s presence.
Lemark put his hand on the parchment and stared directly into Zomorros’s eyes. “The contract,” he said slowly and precisely. The words echoed unnaturally around them.
A smile slowly transformed Zomorros’s features. The “skin” around his eyes tightened and his lips curled sadistically as looked up at Lemark from under his brow. “I am compelled,” Zomorros said slowly as a dagger bloomed from Lemark’s chest. The thief looked down in stunned disbelief. He legs went weak, but he caught himself with one arm on the table.
Lemark felt blood in his lungs; he held his breath and stood back up. Sheer stubbornness kept him on his feet as Zomorros moved in close.
Zomorros spoke softly, almost like a whisper, but every word was terribly clear and precise, “I never told you what this is”. He leaned in close enough that his face filled Lemark’s vision and wrapped his fingers around the hilt,
“It’s the reaper of souls.” He whispered as the dagger ripped free.

HOLY kitten JOHN! I almost cried at how awesome an ending this was! You should definitely try to do more of this in your spare time, because you have a talent for writing and for imagery! I REALLY hope you find an opportunity to share another awesome story with us in a future update.

It will sell. Just don’t undercut each other by large values of gold. Sales are always higher on the weekend.

My Sweet Lily.1952:

Except that there are 2 currently on the market and no one has bought :<

Give it time. Just hope noone undercuts you so quickly. I imagine it sells by end of the night if any collector logs on.

Even then, hold steady on your asking price. If there’s enough collectors trying to complete wardrobe, it will sell.

Kailynn.5817:

Also, def not worth the blood imo.

It is if there are none on the TP right now and people need it to complete their wardrobe collections.

Collectors will pay ANYTHING.

That was fun, John. Let’s do this again sometime soon.

Well there ya go, GG Iris on the discovery.

Now who will go down first in Anet’s metrics as the person to craft it?

pdavis.8031:

Iris Ng.9845:

FOUND IT!

/15 CHARACTERS

[SPOILER] IT’S REAPER OF SOULS [/SPOILER]

Not sure if trolling. or he actually found it….

Cessailia sells sickles…so logically it could work.

It’s never been posted, so this could be John’s attempt to make it known to the public.

Still…I’m doubtful.

Kailynn.5817:

Cessellia in SE Bloodtide at the heart is a Sylvari scientist developing potions for curing the animals. You have to mix the potions precisely to get certain effects. Also the Great Jungle Wurm event spawns a head nearby and they shriek.

Is she enclosed in a cave?

Nothing about this place was ordinary.

Maybe Orr. Maybe elsewhere. Below statement is more important.

A shriek echo’d all around.

He’s enclosed. Whether it be a cave, house or dwelling, Lemark is somewhere that echos can carry long distances.

daft inquisitor.1605:

@Malchior: We JUST got hints for Item 4. >.> Read John’s last post.

edited.

Warlord.9074:

After carefully re reading. We are now 3/4s of the way through the recipie. See attached screenshot for the clues.

Yup.

Clue 1 covers all the way to the cylindrical case, and is most likely an Eldritch Scroll. The thievery itself is referencing item 2, which he failed to steal that day. It wasn’t until part 2.5 that the steal was successful.

Part 2.5 reveals the steal is successful. He sees his reflection in it – something clear that can refract light – Crystals.

Part 3 was designed to give us a destination. The dulled blade has no purpose in the clue. It’s just a description, and at worst, it’s a red herring. It states he’s bloody and sore. If he’s just mining, he wouldn’t be bloody. The destination is Southsun Cove.

Part 3.5 makes it incredibly clear that he’s slaying Karka to earn an item. He then mentions he plans to slay the whole island, both for achieving his goal and out of sheer hatred of Zommoros. Item 3 is either 250 Karka Shells or the Ancient Karka Shell, which is purchased for 1000 Karka Shells.

We just now got the clue for item 4, the final item. Precise and Scientific ARE NOT clues. It’s just the terms used to describe Lemark’s thinking to make an intriguing story. They’re designed to trip people up. They simply indicate that the final item is not a crafting trophy, or any item that is stackable.

The one clue we have for the final item is that Lemark turned south. The final item is allegedly in one of the zones south of Lion’s Arch, or the components for crafting or discovering the final item is south of Lion’s Arch.

Faux.1937:

Ancient Karka shell is Unique.

Does that mean it can’t be forged? It’s bought with 1000 shells, so it would make sense if Lemark has to slay the entire island to get what he desires.

One of the items, as hinted at in clue 7, is definitely Karka Shells (a lot of them) or Ancient Karka Shell.

Though, the mention of Lemark “farming” for 2 months might indicate one of the Karka unique weapons (Arthropoda or Crustacea) might be the component instead. That seems a little out of context though, as an in-game character wouldn’t know or expect a monster to drop an exotic weapon. (at least in my eyes)

I like the idea others have mentioned of the cylindrical case referring to an Eldritch Scroll in clue 4. It might also be a Vial of Condensed Mists Essence, since the Mists match the description of “sinister” or “ghostly.”

Clue 5 sounds like Crystals, lots of them.

Anyone have screenshots? It might help them figure out what the problem is.

Good morrow, my queen! I’m unable to attend the frightening celebration this year. Just stopping by to wish both you and the Frozen One the best of luck in this year’s ghostly gala.

We will have to find time later to meet and recall events of the past years. Have a frightful day!

Yours truly,
Malchior Devenholm

Do you have a Grenth item?

I was under the impression each human god (except maybe Kormir) had a collection. You have to own one of the items to make the collection visible in your panel.

To speak a little more about Logistics, I like some of the ideas presented by other people in this thread.

I agree with Nabrok.9023, it’s important that a person be able to see the chat of any guild he/she is a member of, regardless of representation. If we wanted, talking could require repping, but being able to track guild activity is huge. If I see my friends in guild 1 are about to start a dungeon run, while I’m repping guild 2, I could still gladly join them. Each chat could be customized to filters in the chat window options. If we can’t possibly display chat from the max number of guilds, I’d still be grateful for at least 3 guild chats displayed.

Having a record of last representation for each player would be great for guild management.

Removing the ability for any member to touch the guild mission flag in the open world to inadvertently start a mission in the guild queue would be appreciated. Guildies are constantly touching the flag and starting the mission early before everyone is there. The current ruling in the permission option only affects queueing the actual mission in the upgrades window, not its activation in the open world. The permission to interact with the flag in the open world should be reserved to officers and the leader.

Again, thank you for your time and your interaction with the community.

Hi Jon, thanks for showing up and offering this new topic of discussion regarding guild loyalty and multiple guilds. I’ll quote each of your questions in bold with my personal thoughts/opinions posted below.

1) What is currently a part of being in a guild that can’t be taken away, and why would it be bad to take it away?

• I would not remove the ability to be a member in multiple guilds. It is a core feature of the social design of Guild Wars 2. I would not remove chat, current guild upgrades, or guild buffs for being in multiple guilds. These are already heavily established in the game.

2) Is there anything that is currently part of being in a guild that could be taken away and given to a more focused guild association? What could we do to mitigate some of the negativity of taking away current functionality? For example replace it on all guilds or enhance it for the one guild that it is tied to?

• As mentioned above, I would not remove anything, as a large number of guilds and players within the guilds already benefit from the max level of buffs or upgrade. I do feel that enhancing buffs or declaring a guild focus (WvW, PvE, Dungeons, SPvP, RP, etc…) could be restricted to players only representing a single guild. Progress of a guild’s declared focus could only come from completing activities specific to each focus. Heck, you could even have a guild change focuses, so eventually after a long period of time, they could possibly unlock all the things.

3) What kind of features are there that don’t even exist yet that would really only make sense with a more fixed association with a single guild?

• See guild focuses above.

• This is the hard part, because features, systems, logistics and QOL don’t do much to enhance the game without content to back it up. The game would absolutely NEED new content to work with some of the guild focuses listed above (Focusing Dungeons and gaining enough in the dungeon focus would unlock the Raid focus | if traditional 20-man instances).

• One thing I miss a lot of from GW 1 was regional/world pride. It was awesome to win in the Hall of Heroes and have your guild broadcasted to the entire server. Having some kind of competitive event (whether PvP or PvE) that spawned 3 times a day (so it spawns once per region) could serve as a new highly focused guild event. Winning the event would broadcast your guild as the champions of the ENTIRE region (NA/EU/CN). Again, it wouldn’t have to be PvP like Hall of Heroes. It could be some kind of PvE raid or open map thing (imagine if the Marionette had a score system for winning quickly or completing bonus objectives). The winning region would be the region that acquired the most points. The guild that got the most points would be broadcasted to the winning region, and the result (EU won, NA won, CN won) would be broadcasted to all regions.

I can go more in-depth on content ideas once we get to that specific CDI.

Thanks for your time, Jon and Chris. Hopefully we can see guilds having a much larger purpose in the game as a whole.

Swizzle.7982:

ColinJohanson.2394:

- Over a years worth of testing

You do realize that comment was referring to Usability Testing, don’t you?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usability_testing

He said they had players of different types evaluating the system and giving their feedback on it over a year. A heck of a lot was probably changed over the course of that year, because usability testing is usually one of the final phases of testing, after everything has already been tested for quality and functionality by in-house testing.

We don’t know what the system used to be, just what it is.

Xhyros.1340:

After the Battle of Fort Trinity, I had the final two steps of the Apatia storyline. They still happen apparently, it’s just not listed in the journal anymore.

See, no cause for alarm. It’s probably just a bug that they’re unlisted.

Did you play it yet, Konig?

I could see the fear storyline+claiming the orb coming as a prologue to the “Forming the Pact” step.

If it follows the same numbers as the China version…

You’ll get Air Attunement at level 13 and Earth Attunement at level 22.

redcomyn.4651:

In the 2 years I have played and up to 2 days ago, I have never been able to get more than 20 gold. Since then, I have managed to get to 25 gold because of some luck, but I don’t think that will last. To me, 120 gold is an extraordinary fortune.

What on earth do you keep spending gold on to only ever have gotten a max of 25g over 2 years of play?

What do you have in liquid assets/crafting materials (especially ectos)?

Good morning, Chris.

How was the meeting with the design leads?

ArrDee.2573:

Hello frands! Vee Wee here, #1 Engi NA and world first rank 80!

If Vee Wee had to pick fast chat menu, smart ping, or voice chat, Vee Wee would pick fast chat menu! This is because a fast chat menu can be applied to all game modes! If we are able to customize it, we can say literally anything and change it out for different game modes! Smart ping only works for parties! Not very useful in WvW! Vee Wee would assume the same thing applies to voice chat! With a customizable fast chat menu, we can communicate with everybody and not just your party!

Of course ideally Vee Wee would prefer all 3 but Anet only works on one thing at a time! So if Vee Wee had to choose one, it would be fast chat!

The way Vee Wee would implement it is like this! First there is a new window in the options menu! This window has x amount of commands! In the first box, you type in something like “Stack on me!” Then you go in game and open the chat menu and the first option will say “Stack on me!” Click it and then in party or team chat you’ll say, “Stack on me!” In the options menu there should also be a choice of whether you want to say the commands in team or party chat!

Vee Wee likes the idea of having our character speak fast chat commands! But Vee Wee thinks it’s impractical! It would restrict what information can be relayed and you’d need like 1000+ lines of voice acting to cover all game modes! What you could do to make it stand out is to have a sound play every time you use a command! There would have to be a cooldown on the sound to prevent spam! Maybe fast chat text could be a different color than normal chat! There’s a million and one ways to do this! The world is our oyster! Yippee!

That’s Vee Wee’s idea!

Wahoo! Bye frands!

Vee wee’s the best!

TBH, customizing our chat commands (almost like a macro) had never occurred to me but it’s brilliant and simple! Also, it doesn’t require any new voiceover or over-complicated systems like chat wheels or comm menus. +1 for Vee Wee

Vee Wee, couldn’t you just do /p or /t or /d to quickly swap between team, party, and squad commands? Could be neat for some WvW micro-managing. Heck, if the UI is designed properly, we could even establish different macro chats for each of the chat channels. I’d use /P as my dungeon channel. /T as my WvW channel. /D as my World Events channel. Set up different commands for each channel.

Evan, I don’t know if you’re familiar with Smite, but I love the way they handle team communication.

It takes a little practice and getting used to it, but they have a hotkey (V) that initiates voice commands. From there, you enter a series of letters/numbers that correspond to a very specific direction. These appear as on-screen selections, and each one corresponds to a key that adds a category to the vocal line. Some are simple like attack or defend, but others claim “Ultimate is Ready” (VVVR) or “Defend Left Lane” (VD1) or “Enemy Missing Middle” (VF2) etc…

So to use Roe’s treb example, it could be like – VAT (voice-attack-treb=attack enemy treb as the spoken command) VDT (voice-defend-treb=defend our treb as the spoken command) VCM (voice-cap-mid=Cap middle-point) or VCB (voice-cap-b=Cap middle-point/point B ) [if points maintain a standard labeling system now]

Not being a MOBA, GW 2 wouldn’t require as many of these commands, but it could be a way to improve team communication with minimal mouse involvement, allowing players to stay focused on the action.

dlonie.6547:

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Huzzah!

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

For ALS Awareness and fun!

Chris

“Come back, we’re not done — it’s all about iteration!” LMFAO, 10/10. I’d love the opportunity to do that to a couple of my former managers :-D

Back on topic….

Some of the interesting CDI ideas above gave me an idea, especially the point that ranking a la reddit does disrupt linear conversation, which is a big turn off for me as well.

The suggestion of a subforum would be nice, but would quickly grow unwieldy, as we’ve seen in the past.

Some sort of hybrid would be nice, and might be worth the development time to roll your own if there’s nothing off the shelf available. A medium where:

1) Threads are ranked with up/down votes, but not comments. This preserves the discussion on the topics, while allowing more popular concepts to float to the top.

2) Threads may be sorted either by ranking or time posted. “What’s hot” vs. “What’s new”. So we don’t get so fixated on the popular ideas that we miss out on new ones.

3) Ongoing (daily) guaranteed replies/discussion in the top X “hot” threads. Not promises of deliverables, but well thought out, meaningful, insightful discussions.

Less important, but perhaps useful ideas:

• The multiple threads will allow focused discussion to take place with less jumping around, something that killed readability in the other CDIs.

• Comments may still be flagged as unhelpful, and may be hidden if an overwhelming majority of votes identify it as such (this would be helpful on the regular forums, actually. Let the community discourage “toxic” posters without feeding them).

• Heavy moderation would be needed for these discussions. Off topic posts/bickering/long meandering arguments should be removed (not infracted, unless a repeat offender) and the involved parties encouraged to continue the discussion via PMs/regular forums.

• Rank could be by “votes per unique view” to keep a fair entry barrier for newer concepts.

• Alternatively, rank could be a 5-star system, where we can apply some subjective ranking to ideas we like, but find flawed.

• As the discussions grow, there will be similar threads that contain different solutions to the same issues. A way of grouping these (single-word tags, perhaps?) would be useful, especially if we could filter threads by tag.

Like I said, it might take a bit of development effort to build the platform, but it sounds like some new technology needs to be purchased/written to come up with something manageable, anyway.

Oh, and a good search feature would be essential if we’re to have any hope of keeping one thread/topic. The forum’s search functionality is 100% unusable, which makes me sad when I can’t yell at people for making duplicate posts

This is a fantastic idea! I had proposed to Chris once before about performing CDI through a format similar to reddit with the ability to upvote/downvote, but he was worried it would stifle out less popular ideas that might actually have merit to the discussion at hand.

This system of voting only on the OP post and the topic of the thread itself would keep linear discussion, while still promoting the most sought after topics and discussions to the top of the list. This is the best system I’ve heard yet, even extending back to the original CDI brainstorm on the subject. If something isn’t available off the shelf, I definitely feel it’d be valuable for Anet to design their own enhancement to attach to the existing forum that would only be visible in the CDI sub-forums.

Marcus Greythorne.6843:

tanf.8917:

Ok, lets take something that actually exist, for example, SAB. How many topics there is about SAB? a lot. Players tried to communicate with you, asking SAB to be back, over & over & over again, and what do we get in return? “SAB will not be returning for awhile”.

That’s not how communication works. So i’m gonna pass.

Some people might not realise the limited ressources Anet has. SAB was a project of a developer who creates new maps (if I remember correctly), currently we venture into new territory and got a new map (DryTop) in the first episodes. It would be really surprising if we stop now in progressing westwards, so I’d assume we get more map(s) soon.

People wanted new maps, everyone wants new maps.

Why would Anet priorize SAB over new maps? Even if SAB fans really want it, it would hurt the core game.

Bingo. Marcus nailed it (with regards to the SAB decision). We’ve seen an overwhelming amount of evidence to conclude Josh Foreman was the key environment artist for creating all of the base structure, shape, and possibly even theme of Dry Top. There’s evidence from worldouts that point to an expansion of Dry Top or another new map to the north at some point in the future.

If Josh has been working on Dry Top since early this year, and the area in the north is still being developed, chances are Josh is booked for the rest of the year. To be honest, if the map quality of any maps in 2015 or beyond are the same quality as Dry Top, I’d gladly give up SAB to have Mr. Foreman continue his awesome work at expanding the world of Tyria.

(Note: This is just my personal opinion made from evidence openly available to the community. Only Anet knows exactly who’s working where and how long a given area can be in development.)

Zesbeer.8365:

I feel like this would help alot but I think a follow up of you guys crossing things off the list for each thread once you feel a topic has been addressed in game would be helpful.

Maybe not always a strikethrough though. Goals can always change or a development may only solve half the problem.

Maybe each of the sub-questions that address the core issue could be checked off though.

ipan.4356:

We don’t want you to “stay within company policies” – we want you to change the policy and communicate the direction you’re going in more.

As direct as this statement may be, I do believe it is true.

It’s so hard to change a policy that the entire company has been following probably since it’s initial creation, but in this age of crowd-sourcing information through areas like reddit, blogs, podcasts, and the like, it may be time for a change.

Good luck with whatever you and the company decide, Colin.

Hi Colin,

Perhaps just a broad description or high-level view of what content is to come after it passes a Development Review. If it meets that “point of no return” in development where it’s on ya’lls internal schedule and it has met the requirements of the leads, that should be a steady point to announce it to the public community IMO.

Pass Review = Announce to community that X is coming. No details, just the large picture.

So for example…we had Feature Pack 1 back on April 15th. March 20th, nearly a month before, we had the new trait system revealed. That 1 month is a good example of revealing a piece of content to the community that already has a set internal date for release. The hype and the clarity that has come from the reveals of each Feature Pack – something like that could be presented for any projects that are “on the table” “in planning” or “in iteration.”

The important thing though, is not to make a big presentation out of it. Personally, I feel that’s why everyone took your “state of the game” blogs as promises that content would be released by X date. When a feature still in iteration is being developed, just let us know that you guys are working on it.

(We’ve been working out different ways to implement this feature. We’ve currently been iterating for X weeks or we’ve had Y major iterations while we develop this content/feature.)

People don’t have to know how agile development works, but when they can see what amount of effort has been done to develop a piece of content, they can more accurately understand the state the project is at.

I know the policy is don’t reveal stuff that Anet is working on. Personally, I feel…if the company has already gotten through a majority of the development (say 50-60% not including testing) and the content has an internal date within the project timeline that Anet would like to release the content, then I feel it’s safe to announce that project to the community. Keep the timeline internal, so it can shift as necessary to address problems that may arise, but knowing that X is in development and you are comfortable to share X with the fans lets us know that it will be coming in the next few months.

Thank you for your time, sir.

Clint

1. Anet Chooses

I also agree that we find some kind of alternative method of conducting the CDI outside of the forums. Surely there must be some other platform either available now or could be created that would lend to more focused discussion.