Guild Wars 2

Don’t listen to the vocal minority, Arenanet. I don’t always agree with the things you do, but it’s reasons like these that I keep coming back to you

I love you gw2, come get kisses.

Lately I’ve been getting suppressed after posting only one or two messages in the local chat. Really annoying, really stupid. Are there any plans to fix this or is this problem that’s been around since launch going to remain a permanent resident?

When are town clothes going to be put back to how they worked originally? I mean, it’s pretty obvious that you’re going to be put back in, so you can say you “Listened to our feedback.” I was just wondering what patch you were waiting for to do it.

The megaserver sucks.

It’d be helpfull if they made the range of emotes to something slightly less relatable to that of an intercontinental ballistic missile. Rpers wouldn’t be stepping on the toes of those who don’t like it as much, and we wouldn’t be getting their animation emotes all the time.

6:) I’m a roleplayer
You don’t need me to explain these points to you, there’s plenty of other posts out there that explain this point. Apply yourself if you want to know more!

Summary

The best I can really say about Overflows is that it’s not bad. It’s not the best, far from it really. But could it be done worse? it certainly could. There’s a lot of stuff I don’t like, and stuff that’s done much better elsewhere. But the system does work for the most part, but I doubt “Works for the most part” would be a slogan A-net would ever use to advertise a new feature. For that matter, I couldn’t imagine another MMO making such a basic and unreliable system for choosing which version of a map you spawn into and play on. Guild Wars 2 however, knows that it can get away with systems like this. They’re not the MMO contender they used to be, so a drop in the quality of their releases really should be expected. Certainly unwelcome, but unexpected.

(Serious TL:DR)
It could have been done better.

(TL:DR)

this sukz can’t rp wit my ubddies whr my town cloths go? ;^(

3.) Overpopulation.
Two is nice, three is a party and anything more than that is just akward. Guild Wars 2’s Hearts and Events have no player caps, and can always be completed in a group. This is a far cry from World of Warcraft’s questing, where the majority of them can and are completed solo. This puts a limit on World of Warcraft’s system, as there simply cannot be too many people in more than one place. You’d have queues built up for questlines, and nobody loves waiting around. Guild Wars 2 has no upper limit however,
and that means that the maps can have far more people in a smaller, condensed area. While Overpopulation certainly isn’t bad, it’s not really that good either. Unless the events have a built in timer, the zerg can wipe them out with minimal effort with the bat of an eye. That means if you really want to do an event to get that last bit of experience, your best bet may be sitting around waiting for a specific event. If you’re too far away, you may not reach it in time to get the full benefit of participating.

4.) Overhype.
I’m not the only person who’s said that this update was over hyped. But there is comedy in repetition, so it’s going on the list as well. The fact that this is the defining feature in an update that’s got this much exposure doesn’t shelter much confidence on the behalf of A-net. For all the blog posts and all the excitement, all we got was a cross-realming feature that feels untested and unstable. I get the feeling that this system would’ve been a lot better if A-net had more time to work on it, but the developers had to do the best they could before a hard deadline. While everyone likes seeing updates happen exactly according to schedule, there isn’t any shame in pushing back a release date to make sure the product is the best it can be.

5.) Necessity
I still think that once the Megaserver’s kinks are smoothed out and the devs have had more time with it, it will add something to the game. But was this system needed as badly as A-net wanted it? Whenever I found myself without anyone to level with, the system to fix that couldn’t be much simpler. I’d just log out and pick another realm to guest on, one I know that has peak hours at the time I’m playing, and then my problems would be mostly over. Guesting may not have been the most elegant or easygoing procedure, but I never felt like anything was wrong with it. That may just be my experience, maybe I’m really lucky to have never had issues with guesting. I personally don’t like fixing anything when it’s not broken. (Because I’m a klutz and don’t know my own strength) While this system may be a better system when it is working, I’d prefer the clunkier old system that works all the time.

I suppose I’ll start off by saying that I am an rper on Tarnished Coast, so I might be a little biased. But let me throw you a curve ball here, by saying that I think a Megaserver -is- a good idea! It’s no secret that Anet is afraid of their zones being barren and empty, after all. Who wants to log into their favorite mmo, go out into the world and find that they’re the only one there? It’s kind of a wierd feeling, playing a game that calls itself “Massively Multiplayer”, and yet you’re the only one there.

The Megaserver solves this issue, and I had a pretty big grin when I saw how populated Rata Sum was. There were people everywhere, it hadn’t looked so alive since the game first came out! Once the hype wore off and everyone seemed to calm down, I was still able to find my rp and didn’t have any trouble finding my friends. The automated system had done it’s job that a lot of us feared it couldn’t. The single time I was pushed into the wrong version, it was easy to get back to where my friends were. All in all, the system does work well.

However, I still don’t like the Megaserver, and I’m going to be using World of Warcraft’s “Megaserver-ish” system as an example of one that works well. (Again, in my opinion.)

I understand that Guild Wars 2’s engine is a lot different than World of Warcraft’s, and that comparing Guild Wars 2’s answer to World of Warcraft’s isn’t exactly fair. After all, Blizzard’s had all the time in the world to configure their MMO properly. Guild Wars 2 on the other hand, it hasn’t been out as long and I doubt A-net has the resources Blizzard has. However, Guild Wars 2 has etched out a name for itself. This MMO’s a big boy now, and it doesn’t need to be defended.
(Skim reading defenders of Anet, this is the paragraph you want to quote when you call me a WoW loving bundle of sticks rper who cant just deal with it. ^ ^ ^ )

1.) Identity
In World of Warcraft, you can always tell who came from where, and have an idea of where you are in relation to everyone else. If you encounter someone from another server, you hover your name over them and the tool tip tells you if they’re from another server. If you’re seeing a lot of foreign tooltips, it’s a pretty easy guess that you’re on another server! In Guild Wars 2 however, you don’t get any of that. It almost feels like the information of where you are is purposefully hidden. It’s hard to find out where your friends might be, if you’re not even sure where -you- are.

2.) Minimal Control
This stems off the issue of Identity in most respects, but I feel like it’s enough to merit it’s own section. So you’ve realized that you’re on another version of the zone than your friends are on, so how do you get to where they are? You invite them to their party or vice versa, right click a portrait and select the option to transport to their version. A three step process isn’t bad, but it’s 3 whole steps more complex than World of Warcraft’s system. When you’re roaming around with your guildies and half of them got moved to the wrong map, you take this three step process, and you multiply it by the amount of players got misplaced. That’s a lot of time spent when parties can only have 5 players, time that could be spent playing the actual game.

Signed. I hate Scarlet Briar. Plot armor should never be so blatently obvious.

Trahearne kept to instanced areas where cutscenes are skippable, where he belongs. Scarlet has unskippable cutscenes, and has ruined a good chance to get some much needed Asura lore.

A gaping empty black hole in the lore is better than this character. She is the Twilight of Gw2.

What does it mean when a writer consistently breaks his own lore?
Does it matter if a writer consistently goes against what is taken as fact?
Is it possible for a story to recover from when this happens?
Does anyone care if those in charge ignore complaints about lore?
Do you think retconning Scarlet would be a good idea, or a bad one?

There needs to be a god kitten petition for Anet to completly remove Scarlet from the game, and keep her locked away and forgotten.

A pure Asuran story is probably never going to happen with these writers.

Scarlet is a bad charachter, Anet. She is annoying, out of place and just plain old boring. People don’t want to fight the same villain over and over again, we want to experience new things. For the love of god, get rid of this disastrously bad character. Signed.

Will the Gas Mask Skin be made available to withdraw from the achievements page like the Zenith Weapon skins and Radient Armor skins? Sorry if this question has already asked, but I sure would like to know. If not, I think that’d be a great suggestion. The Gas Mask is a wonderfull looking hat and it shouldn’t be restricted to just one of our character’s heads.

I really hate this character. She’s impossible to relate to, her backstory doesn’t feel like it was thought out at all, and worst of all she’s boring. The reason I do (or would do) living story missions are to experience the world and learn about the characters. I’m sure everyone’s already nit-picked away at Scarlet’s complete dead lack of innovation until only a skeleton remains, still annoyingly teasing and cackling away like some kind of unliving jester. But I’m not afraid to add my two cents, so here I go.

A lot of people have referenced Scarlet to Harley Quinn, or more frequently the Joker. I’m sure she’s got a lot in common with both on surface level, though I can’t say anything with a cemented degree of certainty. I am just some person on the internet, after all. Back to the topic, The Joker and Harley Quinn both have their deep personal goals, or at least something they enjoy doing- if The Dark Knight is to be believed. The reason they have those things is because without them, they two would be boring characters. Just another couple of random yahoos in dumb outfits. They need to have depth to justify action. Surely Joker would be less liked if he was just brought up out of nowhere, with his theme-park themed murder agenda- trumping the most powerful man in Gotham at his every turn.

Another thing our cartoon villains do in their cartoon world that’s more serious than our current Gw2 villains whom arn’t in a cartoon is pace themselves. I’m going to refferance the Dark Knight again, because a lot of people liked it and I don’t think I’ve ever heard anyone complaining about the story- at least without being bludgeoned after. Anyways, The Joker paces himself. Starts out small, works himself up. Scarlet for the most part however, appears out of the blue. And we’re just told that all this stuff that we probably should’ve known all along. A bit insulting to those experiencing it, for us to just be presented with all this information and be accepted to just go with it.

In conclusion, I’d like to remind Anet that Personal Story is what’s supposed to keep us all interested in the Gw2 universe after we’ve leveled our characters and geared them up. These personal story efforts don’t really seem like the kind of reward I or anyone really wanted or was really asking for. This one in particuler seems very rushed, is extremely unpolished; I honestly feel like they’re stalling for something.