Guild Wars 2

Zaxares.5419:

Crise.9401:

So with that in mind the activity NPC being unique to airship seems like an oversight. If people make noise about it it will certainly get fixed.

I wouldn’t take that as guaranteed. People were making lots of noise about the Watchwork Pick too, and ANet has never issued any clarifications about it.

There is a difference between this and that, namely that with the pick, the difference between the two was an announced feature. Here it is not.

I won’t say what they did with the pick is smart, because hey internet. But really it is not like they made it poop out ascended materials, sprockets are not vital for the game and certainly not superior to other similar materials in any way (unless you happen to like the stuff tied to them, which is personal preference).

To be completely honest, I find it funny that people feel they are entitled to a guarantee that a gem purchase they made year ago (ie. Molten Pick for example) can never loose value. That is like saying that Samsung can not put out a cheaper model smartphone that is equivalent to my top of the line model from 2 years ago at less than half the price. Or that they can not release new models that make mine obsolete at least twice a year.

Why am I using smartphone as an example, surely that is an unfair comparison. Well the thing is it kinda isn’t — the hardware race between manufacturers makes it so that most of the model upgrades you see are non-essential, even with all the various ways of using smartphones (much like this upgrade to the terrace, or an upgrade to the pick) especially when in truth neither the operating system or the applications running on said phones can barely use a fraction of the phones power (Android in particular is a good example of this, poorly optimized and can barely use two cores efficiently).

In all honesty ArenaNet has gone above an beyond in terms of doing things that are obviously not in their best interest financially. Like making the infinite gathering tools account bound and then offering free exchange (and refunds) to the new variant, when in truth, when you bought your tool it was as advertised so no-one was entitled for a gem refund or a free upgrade, but they got it anyways. Yes, these are digital items in a controlled market, but the notion that they can not put out something that is “better than last years model”, without giving everyone a free upgrade, is laughable when that is happening everywhere around us on a daily basis.

What is even more funny is that they could come out with a standard priced expansion pack tomorrow and no-one would say a thing, and they can provide something like DD upgrade since launch (or the more recent Heroic edition) and people are fine with that too, even when they too are clear upgrades to the base product I purchased at launch. But they can not make improved versions of Royal Terrace or Infinite gathering tools without people going around screaming unfair and pay to win (and in this context using the term pay to win when there is no actual winning advantage).

LordByron.8369:

What am i missing?

You are treating the airship as Lions Arch replacement.

They did not put the airship in as replacement to LA. Vigil Keep is LA’s replacement in terms of services. The fact that it has no crafting stations is a bummer, but there are plenty of crafting access that is just as convenient if not more so than LA and plenty of these are but an Asura Gate away from Vigil Keep (I personally prefer Rata Sum).

digitalruse.9085:

The ship is also missing the ability to travel to any town as advertised.

NPC near the helm provides you with that facility.

Royal Terrace does look nicer than the airship though, by a large margin. But it gets the job done for me.

Wanze.8410:

Can you tell me which npcs you are referring to? A trait resetter has been added to the royal terrace with the latest patch and i still like it. The Sound if Silence…….

Most likely:
Black Lion Ticket merchant (how high is this on anyone’s priority list)
Activity NPC.

To me both of these seem like oversights, rather than deliberate “upgrades” considering they went and added the Trait reset NPC to the terrace.

morrolan.9608:

Convenience has been removed and put behind a pay wall.

You used the word functionality before. Regardless the arrangement in Vigil Keep is temporary anyways. That much should be obvious. Most likely by next Dragon Bash LA will be back, probably a bit sooner.

Your perceived pay wall is also pretty iffy, considering you can exchange gold for gems, I got my airship pass for 90g, which to me was a justifiable price. I am almost certain you could use the two week passes until LA comes back and not have spent as much gold as I did. Yes there is added cost, but conversely there is also added convenience over good old LA.

And I can’t say I agree with your definition of “far less convenient for those who don’t pay”, because apparently that equates to a single load screen, at most two (which is an inconvenience you have to deal with regardless of whether you have one of the two passes or not, since they come with a load screen as well, so in regards to that pay or don’t pay you are on the same line as everyone else).

videoboy.4162:

Crise.9401:

These new skins look a bit creepy, for the lack of a better word. They’re nice skins but the blue “jade” effect is prominent to the point that my character looks like a lifeless statue when previewing the skins.

I think they made the blue parts so prominent, so that it would be more obvious that the armors were made of the same stuff as the Zodiac Weapons.

That would indeed make sense, however, the fact that it essentially changes the skin does not. With an asura and its big eyes (that look sealed shut because of the effect) the first impression is pretty unnatural and creepy. I like the effect but it is bit extreme when there is no natural skin at all.

Hofulu.7325:

there is currently an npc or two that are only in the airship, and not the terrace, making the terrace obsolete, and making the airship the better place.

This seems like an oversight. I take it you are referring to the activity and trait NPC’s, afaik the latter was added to the terrace (according to a post on these forums, https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/bltc/Trait-Reset-in-Royal-Terrace/first#post3656156).

So with that in mind the activity NPC being unique to airship seems like an oversight. If people make noise about it it will certainly get fixed.

These new skins look a bit creepy, for the lack of a better word. They’re nice skins but the blue “jade” effect is prominent to the point that my character looks like a lifeless statue when previewing the skins.

digitalruse.9085:

Where is the quick travel to towns? All I saw is the exit and that popped me to the refugee camp.

Iarkrad.8415:

I imagine the asura gate function will be added soon enough. I’m definetly getting a pass for this one.

Quick travel is through the NPC near the helm of the airship.

morrolan.9608:

That would be fine if in the same breath they didn’t remove functionality to make it far less convenient for those who don’t pay.

Exactly what services unique to Lions Arch were removed or placed behind a pay wall by this patch? None. How is what is currently at Vigil keep far less convenient than LA? (or another racial city?). The only thing that I can possibly think of has to do with crafting stations, however, I would argue that Grove and/or Rata Sum are better laid out for crafting than LA ever was.

Edit: not to mention WvW has free crafting stations behind a single button from anywhere in the world (and back), not that I encourage anyone to take slots on the maps solely for crafting :P

I find it highly unlikely that the things in LA will be completely gone for good, it is not cost effective at all to throw LA away permanently.

Why, f.ex. all pre-existing holiday and event decor (with the exception of QJ, that did not have much of decor for it and whose next incarnation we have no clue about) is already done for LA, they would have to redecorate whatever the replacement will be from scratch (sure they can re-use some of the props, probably even a significant portion but it will take a lot longer than placing the decor in LA again would, ie. the design process and prop placement can be re-used).

Whatever they do for Vigil keep it can not hold a candle to Lions Arch in the long run, I wager. LA was designed as the hub from ground up Vigil keep is a culmination of less than a year of planning and preparation vs what LA had and as an area the Keep seems like way too small to be anything permanent.

LA will be back, if not then my hat off to arenanet but I am almost sure that designing a city, or even significantly redesigning one is one of the most cost prohibitive type of undertakings that exists in GW2 (mostly because they require lot more unique props and ambiance than regular zones because people spend longer times in them and are packed closer together, granted they do not really have DE’s). So it is highly unlikely that LA will literally be gone for good. The real question is how much will they change when it does come back.

To the gem store I mean, destruction of Lions Arch seems like a perfect oppertunity depending on how well Vigil keep accomodates tons of people :P.

What is an overflow, in terms of tech what is your overflow may be my servers main map instance. In other words it is simply putting you into an instance that has space over actually having dedicated overflow maps as far as I can tell.

Now I agree 100% that there should be a better way to manage where you are playing on, ie. when it comes to larger than 5 man groups. One potential solution would be is to route squads together similar to what is usually done for regular parties. Yes, this involves having a commander, but that seems given for large scale events anyways.

What I don’t agree with is forgoing open world large scale content for instanced content to have both would be fine, but why exchange one for the other.

With WvW ranks eventually becoming account bound, the real question is why?

You only have to do it once, besides your first Gift of Battle can essentially be free with the badges from achievements.

30 ranks is nothing, the WvW map completion is the more annoying bit (even to someone who enjoys WvW because character effectiveness on alts is reduced until you grab all PoI’s).

Probably been asked before but the search on these forums feels so completely useless at times.

I really liked it as well the whole instance was nicely done and the cutscene was very good. Also liked the optional puzzles even though I hesitate to call them that, since they were pretty simple and all but 1 can be brute forced. But the way achievements are tided for doing it both ways is pretty nice touch.

However, on the 3rd run through you start to quietly wish the cutscene could be skipped. Sadly even for nice things like this the novelty of it wears off.

jazzllanna.1278:

I cannot even learn the recipe! I guess since I already know that insignia or something?

I have 4 of the five recipes, and it says I know all of them… and I am a huntsman/leatherworker since when did we do tonics at all.

So it is most certainly spectacularly broken. Same can be said for the Light of Dwayna back piece recipe… it can be listed on the trading post, but unless you already have a copy of it you can’t buy it from the trading post (ie. the only way to access the listing is through the “Buy more at Trading Post” right click, which you can only access if you have it already, it shows 0 listings but there are around 300 on the TP).

Isaiah Cartwright.8569:

3) A guild gating system would be clean but require all commanders to be in a fairly active guild is this a fair gating system?

If the main purpose of the gating is to limit the amount of commanders alone (and not be any indication of the commanders ability, which is something that has been mentioned) then gating it through guilds would also make it impossible for some who may be in several smaller guilds instead of one big one, not just for people who are not active guild members.

Also, currently all guild upgrades and benefits are serverbound, would that mean commander tags would be also?

The commander gating should be tied to a metric of its own in my opinion, one possibility would be a commander based achievement track, but that could be very clunky (also considering the track record with WvW achievements from launch, maybe the worst possible example).

Isaiah Cartwright.8569:

Seems like people really enjoy answering questions so I’ll throw out a few more.

How big do you expect a squad to be?
What kind of content is a PvE commander most useful?
Is money a good enough gate for commander tags?

1. As big as possible without being a major restricting factor to the features you can introduce.

2. Living world, stuff like the tower or tequatl in particular, it is just a matter of awareness (also temples).

3. Commented earlier, short version: not really.

Isaiah Cartwright.8569:

A lot of awesome ideas here.

Here are some questions I’ve been wondering about.

How often do people actually join squads and use the features that are there? (4 different way point markers, /supplyinfo). What would make you join squads more?

How much is spies a problem with commander system?

Should the commander icon be shown above the commanders head to the commander?

Should we allow a WvW upgrade to see enemy commanders (not on the map just on screen) ?

1. Not often at all, now if we could see squad members on the map you are on in a different color blobs, and map wide, it would be a different story.

2. Can’t comment on this

3. I am fine with it.

4. Could be interesting, but since you can chat when dead, and respawn instantly, it would not really add the gameplay element of removing the enemy leader from the fight.

DevonCarver.5370:

Okay, so before we get too far into this discussion, here is something else to think about:
Would you rather see us make some number of small improvements in the short term and larger changes long term or just tear the whole thing down and start from scratch?

To be a bit more specific, we could probably do something like multicolor markers without too much work, although it is not a given, but that would likely be the extent of things for a long period of time.

Players like immediate changes, so if there is something you can do quickly while working on larger update to the system. Then I think people will find it worthwhile.

Things like colors are a given change that could be made. Also thinking about the scope of this, being that it is far more than simply a tool for WvW as it turns out. Perhaps allow acquisition of the commander tag outside of WvW map (as far as I know it can only be bought in WvW currently).

Also, regarding acquisition in general, I think that while the price of 100g seems reasonable to an extent, gold is a resource you gain automatically, if we think what the significance of a commander is it should be acquired in a way that shows the player has not only been playing for a long time but is experienced with the game type he wants to use the tag on.

So for example,. in PvE you could buy the commander tag with a combination of gold and laurels, in WvW the price would be gold and badges of honor (perhaps reducing the gold cost from 100g slightly and replacing it with some amount of the other currency). I am not sure if it would be possible, or even useful, to unlock the tag separately in different game types as well. I think that commander tag should be the sign of an experienced player, in their chosen game type, not just a rich one. Granted if too much emphasis is put on this it may promote elitism which would be undesired.

Also given that someone may want to use different characters to command making unlock (regardless of if it across all game types or separately for PvE and WvW) account wide. If you wish to retain a resource sink then maybe allow different colors or additional icons to be purchased for additional gold fee.

To close off, as a sort of a disclaimer, the suggestions regarding changes in acquisition are made without considering what impact it would have on players who already have their tag. But in my opinion if some sort of compromise must be made there to facilitate change then I at least would be fine with it.

I wouldn’t mind an item (a scroll) that you get from actually playing the game… and then it could be used to bring one character to a level equivalent of the highest level character on your account.

A straight skip to 80 scroll, no thank you though.

This would be an interesting paradigm shift. I like this mostly because it puts more emphasis on the supply lines (ie. yaks).

Here is an augment suggestion, instead of simply not being able to take supply from camps do allow users to get supply from successfully escorting supply to a point (this would eliminate some of the leech on keeps and towers supply) or from successfully stopping an enemy supply delivery (the analog of stealing supply). In my opinion something like this would change the supply acquisition gameplay from flipping camps and emptying depos of enemy towers/keeps on flip to actually protecting/holding and assaulting the supply lines not just flipping a camp when you need to resupply.

I think some more refinement would be needed, but if done right changing the way supply is acquired would turn planning to siege on a point from a take a camp → move on point 5 minute thing to something that would actually require bit of planning (especially if there would be a way to limit how many could stack on a signle yak) because the group would have to split into smaller groups to resupply or get it from a controlled point, where it takes time to accumulate.

I don’t defend the toxic offshoots in mercenary camps or any other instance of them for that matter. But after reading the OP what I see is “Oh kitten we actually have to do something about the dolyaks now, this is really bad” besides as long as mercenary camps are a thing PvE is forever part of WvW.

This is just putting extra pressure in an aspect of WvW that was always there… if you can’t or don’t want to deal with supply lines then don’t play WvW. Yeah disrupting supply is usually limited to taking camps and emptying depos on flip but the toxic enemies attacking the caravans is no different than a group of players doing it systematically (the fact that players rarely go out of their way to do it instead of taking a camp is not really relevant).

Oniyui.8279:

There’s no reason ANet wouldn’t be able to restore anything you previously had, especially given that it’s so recent.

They may be able to restore whole accounts to a state without that armor, thus restoring the cultural armors etc… but it is highly unlikely that they have a pre-existing means to restore individual items in bulk to people who had them previously.

If it was up to me, I would send out free transmutation splitters to anyone who bought this skin (which is something we know for certain they can do). So that those who want to recover the old armor underneath the skin can do so for free and those who want to keep it and wait for the new look can do so also (or even make the decision after the fact, ie. after they have seen the redesign).

An Siorai Tharian.4516:

Keep in mind that the skin costs roughly the equivalent of $10.00 US Dollars. Where as the Tier 3 Human Light Cultural Armor costs in the realm of $18.59 US Dollars (give or take a few dollars depending on market fluctuations on each server).

That means that each of these people who bought the Tier 3 Cultural Armor, and applied the Light Armor Flame Skin to their Tier 3 Cultural Armor are effectively losing around 8.59 US Dollars because of the change. Even though without the change they had effectively gained a new appearance for the Tier 3 Armor that they originally bought, and additionally could arguably have gotten access to their level 80 Tier 3 Cultural Armor at a much lower and earlier level for a great deal cheaper than they would have otherwise have been required to do.

In effect this is going to require anyone with a human character who had previously shelled out money for their Tier 3 Armor (roughly 18 dollars give or take), and who then shelled out money for this skin to apply to their Tier 3 Armor, to once again shell out money for a new set of Tier 3 Armor, assuming that they want their Tier 3 Armor back at all.

This isn’t even counting Transmutation Crystals that would be required to give the Tier 3 Armor in question the stats that the individual in question wants, which would also have to be purchased and which would be an additional investment if this happens.

In short for those with TLDR issues… I can honestly see where the people who are complaining about the change to the Light Flame Skin are coming from, and if I had a level 80 Human whom I had applied this skin to the cultural armor for, I would be a bit peeved as well.

It is not that I don’t see the issue in it, however, like I said in another post… it is already at a point where they can not please everyone, when they decided to act at all.

On one hand people don’t want their cultural armor to be generally available [to other races], but others also do not want to loose this upgrade (without getting into what should be considered an upgrade or not) of theirs.

They can’t exactly go an say that only humans who bought this skin will get to keep it others will get a replacement. (This would please all human players, but non-human buyers would still be in a leather jacket to sweater situation).

Mesket.5728:

But the cases where that upgrade might applied are the very few. You just named one class that is particuarly fond with magic and its effects but how many “magic user” classes are there? and fond with fire?

Recoloring an existing particle effect wouldn’t be hard, I know I would love green fire on necro or blue fire on a guardian for that matter. Adding particle effects to an existing mesh isn’t exactly a whole lot of work, so it would be a simple upgrade option to realize for ANet (although a dedicated dye channel for all particle effects in armors would be best).

And the point I was making wasn’t really about how suited this particular piece would be as an option upgrade on one profession or another but just that such a system would have merits in providing more variety to cultural armors in general. And that if someone is happy with an extra flame in their helmet or gloves then let them have that.

LordByron.8369:

afaik many players told to have been refunded when they did the manifesto bait and switch…….

That would be a refund of the entire game purchase and those indeed did happen, gem purchases not so much (what I described earlier was just going off of what I remember, and was particularly related to gems).

Terra Dactyl.2047:

And most likely being given store credit (gems) instead of an actual refund ($10) when they’re unhappy with the sweater they didn’t purchase.

The thing is gems are bought with dollars, and then used to buy the skin (that will now figuratively go from leather jacket to sweater). The gems were not defective goods which means people are not entitled to a refund of said gems only a refund for the skin, that is no longer what they bought, which they paid for with gems. The bottom line, people are only entitled to refund in gems not in dollars.

There are several reasons for intermediate currencies in games, one is to avoid credit charges on small transactions (which is why you can only buy gems with 10$ or more) instead of being able to buy an item directly for less than a dollar the other is a situations like these. It is an insurance policy for them.

The only instances where ANet has been known to refund gems in dollars are when said gems did not arrive, the full amount of gems purchased is completely unused or if the charge was made by someone else (like child on a parents card).

The only known public exception of this is refunding gem purchases to some players after their accounts were terminated by ArenaNet to presumably show that ArenaNet did no longer want those people in their game and were willing to go this far to make a point out of it (and to not give those people any ammunition to use on them in public).

For the record they really don’t like chargebacks on credit transactions and their default action is to close the account involved in a chargeback (per their word this can not be reversed easily if at all).

XxTAFxX.6741:

Everyone who already bought it should keep it now it’s that simple.
For instance steam sometime makes mistakes in there store and sells games cheaper than what they should be.

The ppl who bought that game at that cheap price get to keep it at that price even after valve amends the price.
Most of us bought that armour fair and square,anet made a mistake and they should honour that mistake now by letting us keep it.

If Valve makes a mistake in selling you something too cheap then that is indeed on them and you should get to keep that game. If ANet makes a mistake, however, like say someone forgot a few zeroes off of a Karma Weapons price and that turns out to be a way to print money you are saying that they should let those people keep the money.

The point is, when ANet makes a mistake that impacts other people not just you when Valve makes a mistake in pricing you may even benefit from it and it will only hurt Valve, not devalue the possession or work of someone else (in this case other players).

Only the fact that it was gem store armor or its price wasn’t a big deal… cultural armors are supposed to be race exclusive and the skin changed that.

I want upgrades and options in terms of cultural armor but not in the form you describe… this game already has way to few flavor options when it comes to races I don’t want that to be made irrelevant.

If they were to do what you suggest that would only cause people go on the internet and demand karma and/or gold refunds in game for their cultural armor purchases. You are essentially asking them to remove a system from the game.

Mesket.5728:

an upgrade? since when putting some flashes is considered an upgrade?

You might not consider it an upgrade but some others might… I can see this armor set being particularly popular for human female elementalists for example.

If it would be through the forge like he suggested then it by nature would for one be entirely optional and for other not be exclusive in terms of other potential upgrade options.

Hayashi.3416:

I had the impression Kiel’s activity would be in the activity rotation, but it isn’t, even though she won the election.

What gives?

If you look at the original release page for Cutthroat Politics the minigames promised were identical between both candidates.

From the dev stream way back when that release came out (or from one of the posts around that time) originally the miniganes were supposed to be different for each candidate… but when they decided to go with the fractal choice instead they normalized the minigame rotation for both candidates.

The truth is the moment ANet chose to do something about the flamekissed armor, because of all the noise about it, they created a situation where no matter what they did someone would be unhappy. Essentially where we are now is people buying a leather jacket then having it recalled and replaced with a sweater (or something else that is not the leather jacket).

First people go up in arms about that skin and now they are unhappy when something is done about it.

Human players were upset that their cultural armor got devalued, and now you want to keep the skin that you fought to get taken off of sale. I don’t see WvW guys up in arms about the medium skin (or the fact that badges of honor are handed out to anyone through achievements), in truth you got what you wanted now live with it.

Regarding OP’s situation, why would you overwrite the original skin to begin with. The sensible course of action would have been to either get a new armor set (exotics are cheap) or use transmutation splitters to save the original cultural skin. You should have been farsighted enough that this might cause an issue with the community… I am not saying you should have been able to know what ANet was going to do about it, but you should have known that there is a chance for some action to be taken.

I am fine with the upgrade idea presented by Ganthar I would very much like to see more cultural armor options. But as someone who plays non-humans I call foul, why should humans get something extra first… because of an issue they themselves created? For ANet, do it by all means allow variants of cultural armor but not before you have something for everyone.

Pixelpumpkin.4608:

FateOmega.9601:

The trade agreement is pretty much useless. There are no new goods in LA.

Not true, you can get zephyrite goods in LA from the armor skin trader.

Maybe, but last I checked that is only to allow people to spend any leftover fortune scraps with no real way to get new ones (haven’t checked the trading post on Kite Fortunes though, but still they are no longer generated in game).

Or did they chance the currency on that tab after the fact?

FateOmega.9601:

The trade agreement is pretty much useless. There are no new goods in LA.

That would be because Evon is preparing for a smear campaign against Kiel and is buying them all up before they ever reach us, so that we will have her removed from the council.

Seriously though, it would indeed have been nice to see something come out of it.

Olba.5376:

If anything, I consider getting a free “level up to 20” scroll after a year of playing to be a fair deal.

People who have multiple characters get plenty, I had a bunch of lowbies to keep some names reserved and as a result I now have six of those 20-scrolls. It is a so-so deal at best. Chances are you have already tried the other professions and the people who are really into alts have all of those past 20 after a year.

Besides for sPvP you get a level 80 regardless of the time spent in PvE, so really gaining experience on the profession is not a good argument against the things suggested here when people who want to play competitively can skip that for nothing.

Luchifer.8026:

i thought wintersday will be on the last week of the year

You really think we are even going to get a patch on 24th… as with the current schedule that is where the patch after this would be, The chances are high that unless they have already prepared the patch after Wintersday there won’t be another patch until January and even then releasing something when people are heading out of the office for holidays decreasing response time to potential problems seems very unlikely to me.

I would like for someone at ArenaNer answer to something though, if Evon had won, Would Scarlet have been involved with that fractal too.

Because if the answer to that is no, then I sort of can see it… Scarlet has heavy Inquest and Asura ties. So it is conceivable that she may have actually been there. However, if the answer to the question above is yes. Then there are only two conclusions to be made, either Scarlet is a time bending half-god or she wasn’t really at Thaumanova now and she simply invaded Dessa’s recreation of those events through the mists.

I don’t like the idea that she was actually there in the reactor to be honest. But like I said it is conceivable (assuming the timeline fits with the Sylvari). I am not a big lore person but in this case I would much rather Scarlet simply be taking a stroll through the mists than that she was actually present.

Ironically if we had gotten Evon’s fractal and she had been there we would pretty much already know that she was messing with the mists and not actually there. Seeing as how the Aetherblade fractal is also not an exact recreation it is possible that Scarlet can sneak in through a back door but it is not possible for her to actually have been that far in the past (there is one instance of time travel in the Asura Personal Story, but even then is it more of travel between different timelines and an alternate realities than through linear timeline).

I like both the idea presented by the OP as well as AngelicLoki

I support the scribe idea… not necessarily a fan of big walls of text but the concept is certainly worth it. Although something akin to the Personal Story journal wouldn’t be bad at all.

Well even if the Sanctum came back next December that is technically still once a year… once a calender year that is.

The safest way to interpret that is that the content is likely to be back at least once a year barring obvious holidays and Dragon Bash which are tied by lore to that particular time slot. In other words things like SAB and the Bazaar are releases that can take a slot when they are needed or there is a “free” slot.

NinjaChris.9340:

The Bazaar of 4 Winds is an annual festival. So they will return same time next year.

I was under the impression Dragon Bash being the annual festival and BoFW just being something that will come back but not necessarily same time every year (otherwise we will always have DB BoFW and GW2 Anniversary pretty much back to back and that based on what was said over the summer is bit of an over saturation of celebrations).

dgenxp.4983:

Here is my 50 cents, If you ever played GW1 IMHO this is what an expansion should be no extra levels, no gear grind just another story to experience, with the exception of 2 extra classes in each some new features and some different weapon types. There were a total of 3 independent stories, as most are aware these were Prophecies, Factions and Nightfall all taking place on other continents in the world, and independent from each other until you got to the main city then you could go to another one of the other lands and play the remainder of that story, I loved this concept.

The way GW1 did things worked so well partly because it was so heavily instanced… and in theory you did not need previous experience with prophecies to get something unique out of the other games.They were essentially different games in the same universe.

Whatever they choose to do with GW2 the setting itself connects it all together in a way that can not be written off (ie. while each of the continents has their own problems… in the end the peril of Elder Dragons is the same for all of them). The way that they have talked about the possibility of adding more personal story in at later date pretty much makes it so that we will be going through with same characters and proffessions throughout all of it. As far as classes go, if they add new ones in the future there will likely be a great deal of overlap, the only thing that we are sort of missing is a “dark” Guardian (ie. 3rd heavy melee class, focused on offense through indirect damage opposite to the guardian who is support).

The strongest card they have to play are additional races, as far as I see they have two viable candidates there the Kodan or the Tengu. In terms of character progression that would probably be additional weapons or unlocking existing weapons for other classes.

The one reason I can see them being reluctant to play the race card is that the existing five have 80 levels of story content frozen in time prior to Living Story and they probably don’t have an answer as to how they will provide similar content and in what amounts to any new races (and how to tie it to the timeline).

I don’t really think that suddenly dropping all of Cantha or Elona for us to see in a boxed expansion is the way that they will go. Things like opening up Crystal Desert are far more likely to happen first. I see us getting access to those additional continents gradually “landfall” style expanding the playable area as we go. If they plan to keep the 2 week release cadence that is most likely the only way they can realistically pull it off.

Chrispy.5641:

So no, a Ratio of roughly 1 in 10 things that you not only not do, but refuse to do, still stands, and I will continue to not take your opinion seriously, until you atleast try those areas for yourself rather than experience them second hand.

To be perfectly honest I do not care… if you take my opinion about GW2 seriously or not. Especially when the way you acknowledge only parts of my posts that you feel like support the fact that I don’t know what I am talking about. Whether I have not seen one tenth of the game or one fifth of it doesn’t matter I have seen the majority of the content regardless of the ratio (and you yourself said the ratio does not matter).

Regardless, I have certainly seen all the gameplay in terms of core mechanics and then some. It is not like the last tenth of the game is some huge paradigm shift in content model and delivery.

As for my two hours reference that was content like the Opening Ceremony instance not inclusive of gameplay in the open world (like the balloons) or the two major living world dungeons (by my own omission in the very same post). It is impossible to measure how much gameplay each person gets out of those patches but the length of scripted story sequences is the same for everybody.

At the end of the day I can spend my free time in game much better than to go through story I have no interest in just to get one person to take me seriously on a opinion that has nothing whatsoever to do with what you think would give my opinion the credibility it needs to be taken seriously.

Trash mobs are there for flavour, I agree that the centaurs and skritt in the borderlands map seen unnecessary. However, all the other mobs are there to make the maps feel natural and alive.

You can ignore all of them anyways, with the exception of those cursed Toxic offshoots (well they can be ignored too, but really they are just an annoyance even then).

As for map completion in WvW, I would take that out of there in a heartbeat (the points of interest being super useful to anyone who wants to command PUG’s in WvW using map chat, they should just be available).

Perhaps a purchaseable map of the mists that unlocks map completion for WvW zones (perhaps without giving you the XP, or the chest but still giving you the percentages needed for Gifts etc…)

Just a few quick words [edit: or not, I tend to use too many words], I didn’t read the whole topic but I assume things like some kind of recap or replay systems have been brought up and discussed.

When it comes to living world it has two kind of related problems pacing (or lack of tension and urgency) and continuity, you try and build up tension for something but in the end it just deflates by the time the actual release that the tension is supposed to lead into comes out.

I am not saying release more frequently, what I am saying is consider pacing by gradually unlocking story content throughout the patch (last years Halloween did something to this effect with a single patch made up of four gradually opening acts, also the gradually deteriorating statue was a nice touch). Right now the living story’s story elements seem to be either mostly be the very first thing you see or the very last thing you see after experiencing most of the gameplay once already. It makes the story be fire and forget. When you have access to everything at once. It is kinda like a little kid trying to not eat candy when there is a sack of it in front of him, he won’t stop before he is sick of it (or rather sick from it, I guess, or both).

For example during the build up to the current release (Nightmare Within) the story was delivered as the very first thing we did… after that nothing and then when the patch hit the Tower was suddenly just open there was no noticeable progression to the tower opening which made it seem a little anti-climactic. Likewise when Scarlet walked off at the end of the tower I wanted to run after her then and there… but after all this time (during which the tower has remained unchanged) I am indifferent about it and as such I am also little less invested in getting rid of her.

As for continuity right now is that there are at least three bigger more or less loose ends right now. 1) Scarlet 2) Tequatl 3) The weird story thread with Super Adventure Box.

Loose ends and multiple stories are fine, but when the situation ends up being that the week before we had Scarlet, then SAB, then Zhaitan’s minion suddenly growing in power and only after that are we getting back to Scarlet and her strange fascination with forging alliances. Well lets just say that is enough time to pretty much forget about Scarlet entirely.

In the end of the day, while I think both SAB as well as Cutthroat Politics and Zephyr Sanctum in general were great patches (not only because of the idea that players had a choice to make) but I would have rather had the Scarlet story more close knit much like Flame and Frost (it may have been slow starter but it was continuous in terms of story), which ultimately lead into Scarlet as we found out much later.

Right now it is pretty hard to remain interested in Scarlet when we are shifting gears and returning to Ellen Kiel all of a sudden and by the end of it most likely I will not even remember Scarlet before you tell me that it is time to remember her again for whatever reason

Like I said fire and forget, which is unfortunate because the Tower was fun but not gripping, it didn’t really progress the story just recapped (which probably was needed to be fair). But I am left with the feeling that I have to constantly be prepared to jump ship from one story to the other.

Cina Reas.6938:

I can assure you that most intelligent human beings can get into testing, checking, etc. I would never assume the PA in human resources could code but she(he) sure as hell could tell me the sword was turning into a staff when skill 3 was used.

Everyone at Anet does that kind of testing, as far as I know, they sometimes have company calls where the whole company is invited to play test certain content.

However, playtesting is only useful to an extent. For example a Customer Support personnel that see an issue like the one you describe can certainly say, we have a bug here but a trained QA person can probably tell much more than that. The best can probably even make an isolated test case for the problem to check potential fixes against.

I don’t know what kind of QA setup ArenaNet has but testing and its many forms is actually something you need to learn it is not just about saying to a developer “We have a problem” and throwing your hands up in the air. Internal QA is able to save the time of the developer that is actually tasked at fixing the bug because they have access to internal tools and information and they know how to best use those tools to compile all the relevant variables that could cause what a playtester can only report as incorrect behavior.

The point is a cause of the bug may not be obvious and the less information the developer has the more time he has to spend looking at all the possible causes, if that pool can be narrowed down by a trained tester then ultimately the fix can be made faster.

Do you know why it is generally hard for a developer to do QA on their own code, Because no-one writes a bug in intentionally, which means that when the original developer looks at the code he will say that it should be working because whatever corner cases that could cause problems he thought of while writing it he will also think while looking for a problem if he could easily think of some other problem case then he would have come up with it initially and the bug would never have been there in the first place (which is why a fresh set of eyes that can actually see the wheels behind what a player sees and give more information is invaluable).

Chrispy.5641:

So, my math is right. You might want to go to your local community college and brush up on some simple algebra.

Your math is still wrong…. the math you showed just now is fine, but when the basis for your calculations is incorrect then as a whole the result is not credible and as such incorrect. You only counted maps and dungeons visited not content seen or experienced. Not to mention you discounted countless areas and instances that were part of Living Story, things like Guild Mission areas and instances not part of the open world or a dungeon as such.

You say I have seen this and this much of a game and put a number on it, without even knowing how much of the games content is in Gueensdale vs Metrica Province or Bloodtide Coast vs Diessa Plateau. The point is each playable area of the game can not be weighted equal. I disputed your results more than the calculations you used to come to them. If I were to do math similar to yours I could come up with a statement like “People who don’t play sPvP have not seen 33.3% of the content in GW2” which is obviously false because while the game can be roughly divided into three large content types those three are not equal in value (nor are they equal in value to different players).

Chrispy.5641:

You hated something without bothering to try it for yourself. Thats reason enough for me, no matter the ratio.

I did not hate on it… but I did not feel the need to play it. When I lost interest in personal story there was no longer a reason for me to go to Orr and that was made stronger by the popular opinion about Orr at the time. That does not invalidate my opinion about living story or expansions as such, because they are not related to me seeing that content or not.

The only reason I brought up the fact that I did not see all of the game is to give context to why I would rather have Living story as it is than wait months for an expansion with “Personal Story” that if the core game was any precedent starts off really good but ends up very linear and I will most likely loose interest part way through. I would rather have continuous stream of bite sized content updates over a large update every six months for example.

The living story as it is has potential to keep me engaged couple of days every 2 weeks (usually) while a traditional expansion would give me from few weeks to a month every six months. I am not the repeatable content (or rather the carrot on a RNG stick) kind of guy, WvW is about the only repeatable content in the game that I engage in regularly. The PvE instances get at most 2 or 3 runs from me.

If Anet had a living story centered around Orr (say its cleansing or whatever Trehearne is up to), I would definitely play it because it is not like I stay out of those maps just because they are Orr, but because the game doesn’t force/need me to go there and I have no reason otherwise (as in none-of the new content has given any reason whatsoever to go into Orr, most of it doesn’t even require you to go that much south of Lions Arch).

It is not like I don’t want Cantha, Elona and the Tengu… I do, but I don’t want to have to find a new game to play for half a year or more to get them, I would much rather have all of that as parts of the living story coming to us gradually. It’s not like you can dispute that adding a lot of new explorable areas would cause most of the existing content to be abandoned, if this landmass is added gradually with a mix of other content then the old content would not be replaced by the new content but the new content would grow into being part of the old content. I would rather have that than for Cantha or Elona to suddenly replace Tyria.

Unlikely there is probably a technical reason why the stack limit is 250… 255 being the largest (unsigned) number that can be represented with a single byte.

If they do increase it, it may not be unconditional or they would likely at most double it.

gidorah.4960:

— but fixing population imbalance.

I am sure Devon would be happy to fix population imbalance for us. But how would they do it without upsetting whole lot of people.

They can not start merging servers or moving people around from server to server as they please after all. The only thing they can do is work on the matchmaking to get more evenly populated matches but even if they re-seed the matchmaking to that effect some time after it will start to rear its head again because the matchmaking algorithm can not adapt on its own when there are population shifts.

Jestersmiles.4365:

I been gone since fractals was introduced, so If I log in now I should see a slew of new areas and stuff to do………….oh wait…. No I wont since all that “chunk of expansion” was temporary.

Not all, the TA dungeon path was permanent, Teq was permanent and right now there are two “chunks” going on, and pretty much everything coming next Tuesday is permanent (or some of old content coming back in as well).

All you really missed was a bunch of festivals and/or recurring content that will be back sometime next year. You might have missed at most a whole hour or two of story stuff that will not be back, note that the two temporary dungeons you missed will be made permanent additions to fractals next week, and most of those two hours outside the soon to be back dungeons weren’t anything truly special (few of the cinematics were pretty cool though).

Right now the only thing that is not truly permanent in fact is the tower in Kessex Hills… we don’t really know when it will be gone or how it will be gone (as it is unlikely that time will simply rewind on that zone). Oh, and then there is WvW season but that is only an achievement list.