Guild Wars 2

So, they talked like 50% of the time on their Ready Up stream about how they are proud of their achievments and rewards for this season… Am I the only one having this ironic grin, now that the defecation has hit the ventilation?

I’m going to voice an unpopular opinion, this is a good call. If its an issue, why should some people who are suffering from a bug be doubly affected, by not having their chest at all they’re afraid, and by seeing other people with their items they’ll be bummed out. Nobody has access to the vendor, everybody is on equal footing.

So once again, Good Call Anet.

I feel the need to post this given the re-release of nearly all LS rewards, I find that the prestige of items is not being respected within the game both by players and by the developers (mainly in response to small groups of players pressuring) and I would like to hear peoples thoughts.

What is item prestige
It is an unwritten statement that having a certain item gives, this can be something simple like “I was there” for most LS items to more specific statements such as “I have gotten to high level fractals” (backpiece and weapons) and “I’m rich” for legendaries and high value items.

Types of prestige
There are several types of prestige,

-“I was there prestige”: These are attendance rewards usually with some also having to be earned, they show you played back then or that you participated in a limited time event. Most living story skins used to fall into this category. Is destroyed by re-releasing the item by any means as the statement is no longer valid.

-“Skill prestige”: These would be items such as the tribulation mode weapons and Liadri they not only require you to play a certain activity but to do it to a high level of skill. Care has to be taken with these as power creep or an exploit can wipe out all their value in an instant.

- “Investment prestige”: These are items that take a large amount of resources be it time or money to complete and make a general statement about your playtime and choice of activity. Is wrecked by deflation/inflation or awarding of a previously high investment item for a low investment activity.

Why is prestige important?
Personally I believe prestige items to be important because they are the main thing I work towards in any MMO. They are the main source of enjoyment for me, attempting to collect as many of them as possible under the conditions imposed by the game. They act as badges of honor cataloging your deeds and accomplishments in a visual manner.

So how is it not being respected?
Lets start with the simplest one, the living story skins, these were a simple prestige that is easy to get right but have now been re-released not only re-released but made available for a direct gold conversion ( z boxes -> tokens) this devalues a year and a halves worth of attendance and achievement completion to under 100 gold, which is an infuriating thing.

For skill based skins, the issue arises with people (who haven’t completed the content) demanding access or asking for them to be trade-able. This takes away the items prestige and would again just convert it to monetary value. A small example of this would be run selling which allowed people access to skins without putting in the work in the correct content (Irrelevant now after the PvP merge).

Why is this happening?
I believe that this is occurring due to player entitlement and an excessively gold based economy. Player entitlement being that players who couldn’t/wouldn’t attend or complete the content (this includes limited time frame events) demanding access regardless while this entitlement is encountered in many games it appears to be amplified here due to people interpreting the design philosophy as “I can have anything I want”.
For example, if you were not at the molten alliance event, due to not owning the game, not playing , being out of the country etc or did not complete the meta, you miss out on the fused gauntlets that item becomes the reward given during that event and you move on your “ideal look” does not entitle you to access to that item.

On the gold based economy: In many MMO’s gold is a “beginner currency” of sorts or is only a partial requirement to gain prestige class items. (For examples: FFXIV all high level items/gear is bound on acquire so you must do the work yourself)
In GW2 most items can be bought with gold or real world cash which eliminates any prestige an item might otherwise carry (example being if legendaries were account bound on acquire they would hold more prestige even if only due to the map completion requirement). A single currency is also far more at risk to exploitation as it will permeate every area of the game.

I like it. I just came to Orr for the first time in months and there are people here.

Man, I got plenty of ROMs. I uber-clock my DPU in RADE so i can pwn my HDDHSdD on troll noobs . 500 GiggaWatts of ROM, 2000 MilliClocks of CGP, 7500 PetaJoules of Amps. 20 gigs ain’t nothin. I play 20 gigs on like one Friday.

I want to troll people with my cannon from my wooden pirate sword of the death.

So I’m going to be honest with you all… I have never even tried a warrior. I main a ranger and a guardian, and I play a necromancer a fair amount too. I felt the need to write this though because people often ask me, “Why don’t you play warrior?” or tell me the classes that I play “Don’t really do anything,” and sometimes I am just kicked from parties because I choose to bring my ranger to a dungeon. And you will all have to trust me when I say that I am not playing fetch with my pets using my bow as a stick when I am running a dungeon. Sometimes from the way people talk you would think you ate a bunch of lead as a child to play anything besides a berserker warrior this is simply not true.
So the question remains why don’t I play a warrior? Why don’t we ALL play berserker warriors? Anet could definitely cut down the size of Guild Wars. There wouldn’t need to be any light or medium armor. They could cut out a ton of weapons, limit the stats and nix most of the runes. No pet or minion AIs to worry about. WvW would certainly be different with zergs just charging strait at each other and using A Hundred Blades on as many enemies as possible. Dungeons would be just charging through and dpsing the boss. If that can’t be done ie: the new TA path no one would run it and perhaps Anet would eventually remove it.
The answer for me is simple: Support. I love supporting the parties I am in. My ranger pulls and kites extremely well. I can drop a healing spring and blast it once myself and if we have a guardian with a hammer it can blasted two more times. I love removing conditions, giving boons and healing my party. All of my toons do these things very well; I almost always have a group heal. These are things that berserker warriors typically don’t do. A majority of the berserker warriors I know run signets, but if you are running banners or shouts, you still don’t have a group heal. Berserker warriors aren’t built for group support.
Group support is the main reason I chose Guild Wars 2 over other MMOs. I like the idea of the party working as a single unit. I like the idea that dungeons can and world events can be something more than a dps race, and I sincerely hope that Anet helps promote and facilitates this. Because if there was more things in the game similar to the new TA dungeon where I can go through with 1 ranger 3 guardians and an elementalist and get through in 45 minutes, but a group that is trying to speed run it with 3 warriors a mesmer and and elementalist can’t make it through I think this question would get asked a whole lot less. Because conditions, blocks, buffs, and stripping boons should never be called useless, and a game that dares to break the holy trinity should be more than a dps race.

I fail to see the issue?
Why does the gender matter?
I’d rather ANet thought “Let’s make a fun and/or interesting character” rather than “Oh ok, we have 10 females and 9 males so we have to make a male now”.

mtpelion.4562:

It never ceases to amaze me how incredibly irrational people can be when you change things.

Yes, it’s extremely surprising that people protest, when you change things for the worse.

Medazolam.3058:

serious question. what existing convenience did they remove that wasn’t already more convenient in other locations.

The convenience of having all services in the same zone.

cortin.9174:

They’re releasing quality content for a game that costs no monthly to play. Personally I think it’s ok they make some money, they deserve it. I’d rather they make money so they can keep releasing quality content, rather than go the ways of SOE games where people pay for expansion packs and still don’t get quality content.

There has been $53.75 worth of gemstore merchandise put out in the last 7 days, not including the passes. Charging for new things they have made is fine, but removing an existing convenience and placing it behind a paywall is just a shady business decision.

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

cainejw.7142:

Sorry, but “change happens, deal with it,” is not a valid reason to put crafting tables behind a paywall.

Oh, wow, look, they moved the crafting stations in Divinity’s Reach, Hoelbrak, Queensdale, Wayfarer’s Foothills, Rata Sum, Metrica Province, The Grove, Caledon Forest, Black Citadel, and Plains of Ashford . . . not to mention the ones in the WvW Citadel.

All of them are now gone behind a paywall . . . oh, wait, no. I’m wrong They’re still where they always were.

Nobody has said that you cannot craft at all now. This is a straw man created by those who wish to defend Anet’s decision. I appreciate your need to protect the developers, but the question is not, “Why can’t we craft anywhere now?”

The question is, “Why can’t I craft in the Lion’s Arch area without paying for it?” The answer to that is not, “You can just go somewhere else.”

Additionally, your sarcasm is noted. Unfortunately, it destroyed whatever point you might have had with an argument nobody is making.

This thread seems stuck in a loop around semantics.

The issue is not that crafting stations etc were removed. Of course they’re available elsewhere.

What has been removed is convenience.
No longer is everything in one place, we have to accept additional 3-minute loading screens to travel between cities. No longer are there waypoints close to every important service, there’s only one in the middle and it demands coins.
Driving the point home is the fact that today is a “Daily Laurel Vendor” and “Daily Mystic Forge” day. It’s just a waste of the player’s time.

Is that acceptable? Considering the old promises of “having fun instead of preparing to have fun”, I’d say it goes against the core principles of the game. I like the vigil camp as a storytelling device, but at no point does the story dictate the removal of important services from the hub area.

Now the airship ticket is a convenience item. Which is what the BLTC is about, and the Terrace Pass was an acceptable addition.

What many players seem to take take offence at is the combination of removing convenience and selling it back for gems. Some people seem to be fine with it. To others, it feels like extortion.

If we could focus the discussion around that, instead of pointing out locations of crafting stations or reminding that the same item was already offered under entirely different circumstances, I think this thread would be more productive. Is it ok to remove convenience from the game? Is selling back the removed convenience for gems covered by the BLTC’s premise of covering convenience and style only?

Then again, what matters to ANet isn’t whether some people complain or not, but how many of the tickets they sell. If you don’t like the policy, don’t buy the item.

The ignorance in this thread is astonishing.

The issue isn’t that vendors are still located elsewhere in the game, the issue is the obvious point that valuable resources were purposely not placed in the Vigil, thus forcing players to either inconvienently travel, or the cash shop method.

Originally, the idea with the royalty area in Divinitys was a pure cosmetic feature that allowed quieter, quicker access to all essential NPCs. This isn’t the case now however, since the free main hub which offered everything has been removed and key parts of the essential services have become split.

It’s like giving the middle finger to players who can’t afford/ don’t wish to pay for gems. They used to have a central hub offered since release, but are now behind players who “pay to win”.

I don’t mind buying gems for things, but when they remove core features such as convienence to gear players into putting money into the game, then it shows the intentions and its rather disheartening. If you cannot see that, then I’m sorry.

All that’s needed is the laurel merchant and crafting stations, and I wouldn’t had brought this issue up.

And no, WvW laurel merchants are NOT the same. I also agree that using WvW maps to craft and buy/sell on the TP can prevent others from being able to actually play WvW, which is why those maps are there to begin with.

And yes, starter towns provide some of the NPCS/services, but still doesn’t add up to what the central hub offered, plain and simple.

Here’s the deal: they could have included crafting stations at Vigil Keep. They either forgot to or chose not to. And I can see why that bugs people.

On the other hand, with the exception of crafting, you can do everything at V Keep; with the exception of forging, you can do everything in the racial cities. Without exception, you can do everything in WvW (although that can be inconvenient depending on the queue and the availability of waypoints). And I can see why those facts make a lot of folks think this is a non-issue.

What I think is that ANet should try harder to avoid these sorts of situations: here’s a brand-new, shiny release with a lot of interesting and (for me) fun content. And instead of of playing it, people are grumbling on the forums about the potential inequity.

Far better for the game if Vigil Keep had exactly the same services as LA did and if the Airship Pass offered something that LA didn’t have (e.g. services being closer together, same as Royal Terrace).

Mark Katzbach.9084:

The crafting stations did not get moved to Vigil’s Keep.

So can we go into LA and do “dangercrafting”?

This is the first thing I will attempt when I get home tonight at play the patch for the first time.

This is pretty dodgy, I have to say. Everyone was under the impression that ALL central hub services would be relocated for free. Paywalling it has really not impressed me.

I hope everyone who is similarly not impressed is not complaining about it while buying a ticket. Vote with your wallets, people. If it sells, ethics will be kittened.

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Except, of course, for bemoaning the Living Story actually doing something which impacts the world . . . after people belittled it for ages for not doing anything other than just doing minor events in a few places. They kicked it up a notch.

I don’t see anyone complaining about that. And sticking the crafting and profession trainers behind a pay wall has nothing to do with world impact. The impact this update/living story had on the world would be the same if those services where in Vigil Keep instead of the adjacent, pay-walled airship.

Forcing players to other areas to do the same things we’ve always done in LA has no impact on the game or story. It’s just displacing and spreading people around with no reason or benefit, and creating an inconvenience.

Its a pain if you like to craft and use the mystic forge to make money. It forces us to zone extra and if you have a medium to slow internet connection that takes more time. How about you guys go and add the crafting stations at the vigil keep instead of trying to get us to buy that airship pass.

Nikked.7365:

cainejw.7142:

Saying, “You can go elsewhere” is also not a good reason. What changed between yesterday and today that demands Lion Arch and the Vigil no longer have access to crafting unless you leave the zone or pay money?

You’re playing a game that has highly publicized it’s Living Story efforts. In game and in real life, wars happen, and we have little say in the matter. So we deal with with the inconveniences or pay a high price to get around them.

Sounds pretty dynamic to me.

Sorry, but “change happens, deal with it,” is not a valid reason to put crafting tables behind a paywall. I don’t mean to be difficult on this, but they’ve actually decided that people need to pay or go somewhere else to do the exact thing they could do just this morning. It is silly to not explain the rationale.

Maybe they just want to make more money. Maybe Nexon and their lackey want more money so they’re going to put obstacles up wherever possible. Maybe ANet has lost all sight of what GW2 was supposed to be in the Spaceballs-esque adventure for more money.

Maybe they want people to fan out more (which is silly considering the event’s location in LA alone). Whatever it is, Anet really does have to explain this one. Of course, they really won’t. They will ignore it like they did the pickaxe and cash in. Fans will defend them to any and all ends of the Earth. Detractors will slam them. In the meanwhile, some insight into what the developers are doing with this game will be completely lost.

But in the end, I’m disappointed in their decision. I can buy a pass. I’ve bought $200 worth of gems in the last month because I wanted to. However, I really struggle with the idea of paying money for the exact same features I could use this morning that are in the zone right now.

Mark Katzbach.9084:

We have not removed the central hub. All services have been moved to Vigil’s Keep, due to the attack on Lion’s Arch. You can find everything there.

Please provide a response as to why crafting stations are not at Vigils Keep.

People! Our great city of Lion’s Arch is being destroyed by the forces of evil and all we can do is whine about being mildly inconvenienced in our crafting? What about the children?

Mark Katzbach.9084:

We have not removed the central hub. All services have been moved to Vigil’s Keep, due to the attack on Lion’s Arch. You can find everything there.

Please add crafting stations and a laurel vendor to the Keep, and then your statement will be true.

Ranger Hussy.9523:

and a pain to get back to where you were

But there is an exit button now in the WvW menu which takes you back to where you were located when you entered WvW. Easy peasy (unless your BL is full).