Showing Posts For Red Phyrex.9526:
Hypocritical, self-righteous, and a flat-out liar to people who are ostensibly her friends? Yep. Does that earn the title of monster…? I wonder.
The act of keeping the nature of Sylvari as Mordrem secret could be argued to be a good thing. While I agree that the Sylvari have just as much right to choose their paths as anyone else, the fact was that their intended function was psychic domination/servitude to a vaguely phytodraconic eldritch abomination. I don’t know if I’d really want to inform a species less than twenty years old (almost all of them painfully naive for their extreme youth) “yep y’all are supposed to be thralls of a creature that might as well be a primeval force”. I can see why the Pale Tree would want that kept secret; she seems to love her children. Why would she want them subjected to the pressure/stigma of knowingly being Mordrem in the waiting (especially given that Zhaitan, Jormag, and Kralkatorrik had already made their presences in the world known, pointing toward Mordremoth’s relatively near waking?). Can you imagine the damage that would’ve done to the species-wide general feeling of vitality and enthusiasm for learning about the world? The Sylvari share their experiences in the Dream, and it’s apparently susceptible to negative experiences as much as positive ones if their collective horror at Riannoc’s death is to be taken as evidence. One might even argue it would’ve catalyzed an even swifter fall to Mordremoth when the time came, or the Nightmare Court standing proudly atop the population as nihilistic despair over their future overtook the collective memory.
By the same token…To learn and keep that secret, Caithe knowingly and willingly butchered a tribe of civil centaurs alongside her gleefully axe-crazy girlfriend, letting something like idle curiosity lead them to brutal slaughter. And then once she heard something she couldn’t unhear, she chose to murder Wynne (who seemed to be doing a fine job keeping her secret until Faolain and Caithe rolled in and had hurt no one thus far) so Faolain wouldn’t torture the answer out of her (again, for pure spiteful curiosity). Y’know, instead of killing Faolain, who apparently already had a known proclivity for TORTURING folks to get what she wanted and murder. Also, Caithe didn’t see fit to come forward with this knowledge when we really, really needed it. Like, say, before the Pact flew for the jungle and got counterganked from within by a psychic domination none of the Sylvari (who could’ve stayed home where they were relatively safe!) could’ve realistically seen coming, thus leading to hundreds, perhaps thousands of Sylvari lost to Mordremoth right then, and dozens more taken by the jungle itself, fearful allies rightfully trying to protect their own hides.
This is putting aside that she routinely ignored our wishes during the Sylvari stories in favor of her own ‘judgment’, waffling over her definitely evil ex, and flat-out ignoring the wishes of the Pale Tree to hamper us throughout HoT until the very end of everything (again on some kind of ‘I know best’ justification), and the horrendous death toll of non-Sylvari Pact personnel, potentially thanks to her aforementioned reluctance to speak. And then she comes back in LWS3 with her stuttering not-apology.
I can agree with the ironic sentiment that Canach is more trustworthy than she is at this juncture.
Faolain was monstrous, certainly. Scarlet Briar was monstrous. Caithe…never seemed to mean any lasting harm. She’s criminally shortsighted and self-righteous for sure. And, ironically, has probably caused more damage to her people and the world for that than either of the former for it.
Good intentions can make a monster, I suppose.
I’m sure this question has been asked before, but I feel it bears asking again because I really would like a reasoned answer from A.Net.
There’s a lot of critters out in the world that we can tame; fifteen families with one to five varieties of creature in each (many with a unique ability that ties into their appearance/habitat). That’s fine and well and good, but my question is this:
Why aren’t raptors included in this?
Is it a question of model variety? We have five variations of moa (all ugly as sin, IMO), five variations of drake, five varieties of cat, canine, bear. Incidentally, there are five varieties of raptor in the game, divided roughly by region!
Is it a question of size? You haven’t had any issue scaling down pets in the past; wyvern hatchlings, bears, sharks, and so on.
Is it a question of mechanics? You haven’t seemed too shy about re-using mechanics between pets (bleeds on birds of prey and cats, elemental attacks on drakes and wyverns, poisons on murellows, spiders, marsh drakes, etc) in the past.
Is it a question of feasibility of taming? According to the wiki, ogres have managed. Why couldn’t we? Is it a question of the creature’s intelligence? We can tame cnidarians, sharks, fish, spiders, weird mutant scorpions, and so on, and these creatures all literally lack the necessary neural biochemistry in nature to appreciate companionship.
Is it because they’re dinosaurs? We were promised tameable dinosaurs in HoT and you gave us a bizarre warped turtle creature and a hairy axe-faced lizardhound. Are your notably avian raptors not fantastical enough? We have generic gray wolves, grizzly bears, farm swine, eagles, wild cats, and so on, so why would that be an issue?
Don’t misunderstand, I like the ideas behind ranger pets (and I adore that most pets have a unique ability to their particular model/breed). I just really like dinosaurs. I was quite disappointed with the ‘dinosaurs’ you gave us in HoT when you could have just used already existing assets to add to the list. I’m not gonna pretend I understand the process entire behind making something tame-able for players, but I do know that the visual and audio work for raptors is already done. We have proof positive in ornery screechy lizardbirds trying to kill us in game.
I know it’s been asked before, and I’m sure someone will ask again after me. But this is the only way I have to bring it to developer attention, and maybe get insight from the devs themselves why it is so.
Please, A.Net. I just want to have a raptor buddy. It’s a silly thing in the grand scheme of game design, but it’s something special to a guy who grew up thinking dinosaurs were the coolest thing since sliced cheese (there’s a definite reason during my WoW days I used dinosaur pets almost exclusively). If I can’t, then I’d like to know why.
It’s likely that this has been brought up before, but I feel it bears reiterating.
The panel in the upper right side of my screen is currently filled with event alerts; the raid notice, PvP Leagues, the ESL, and depending on where I am and who I’m playing, local alerts, the personal story, and the daily missions. I’m playing on a 1366×768 monitor and it’s frustrating to have between a third and a quarter of my screen eaten, especially by notices that I’m not interested in.
I appreciate that A.Net is trying to promote interest in this stuff but there must be some way to disable these things. Personal story I can get being permanent (even if it’s irritating) but the other stuff must surely have some way to banish the notification.
It’s a tremendous clutter. I shouldn’t feel like I need to get an adblocker while playing a game.