Guild Wars 2

Erukk.1408:

DarksunG.9537:

yes, it is. I mean you’d have to have the sound off or look at the ground during most of their sections no to notice. You come out of a cinematic right next to a vendor that everyone & their mom is using to have fully voiced dialog about how hot they think Kasmeer’s nakedness is… you have to be pretty focused to miss that.

Unless i’m missing something, I remember only one conversation about Kasmeer being naked ingame, and it is only between Kasmeer and Marjory, with no other npcs involved.

Marjory Delaqua: How’d you get out of all that without a single smudge or tear on your dress?
Kasmeer Meade: It’s not a dress. It’s an illusion. You think I’d take my best dress into a place like that?
Marjory Delaqua: An illusion? You mean you’re…
Kasmeer Meade: Naked. Is that a problem?
Marjory Delaqua: Noooo. Not a problem.

Do you happen to have a quote or transcript of the fully voiced npc dialogue, describing how hot Kasmeer is, by any chance?

Um.. That’s the conversation. You honestly need to have a literal wording saying “that Kasmeer naked is so hot!”? holy semantics batman… The whole crux of the conversation is that Marjory likes that she’s naked. I mean really, why did we have to have that conversion anyways? I mean the writers actually when through the effort of coming up with a situation where Kasmeer would actually be naked & Majory could react to how she likes it. I mean are people that sexed that this is normal relationship dialog?

I stopped reading here.

Even if the rest of your post is legit, not sure why you think that has anything to do with characters and themes that are based in sexual equality and diverse representation.

No story needs to be diverse for any reason other than to be a good story. When something is shoehorned in it stands out. GW1 story was better & it didn’t care if it were diverse or not. It seems more like these are added so people can fantasize.

Freeelancer.2860:

Is it that much obvious or flaunted tho ? I wasn’t following the story intensely in the beginning, so I might have missed something, but first time I learned about Caithe and Faolin was in the Orr vision. As for Casmere and the other one I learned from developer stream, not from the game (in fact the lesbian topic popped up right after that accidental reveal, not because of any implicating dialogue in the game). I do agree that more hetero relationships need to be worked in (and worked out.. it’s painful to watch Logan and Jennah, and not in a good way).

yes, it is. I mean you’d have to have the sound off or look at the ground during most of their sections no to notice. You come out of a cinematic right next to a vendor that everyone & their mom is using to have fully voiced dialog about how hot they think Kasmeer’s nakedness is… you have to be pretty focused to miss that.

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

I also think maybe there’s too many people in Lion’s Arch who care about the sewer system and what’s down there. Maybe there’s some hidden scatological meaning trying to be subliminally forced upon us . . .

That’s the conclusion you come to if you don’t actually check.

FlamingFoxx.1305:

So we are now insulting the fact that the game has strong female characters? I for one find it really refreshing to be playing in a world where a guy doesn’t have to be the one who figures everything out and saves the day.

So “Strong female characters” = “Women who are surrounded by inept men who they snarkily mock, insult & 1-up”? Ok.

personally, I haven’t seen what DarksunG is going on about.

Based mostly around ambient dialog.

CharrGirl.7896:

DarksunG.9537:

FlamingFoxx.1305:

DarksunG.9537:

FlamingFoxx.1305:

And not everybody turns Lord Faren down, from my memories of the Human Noble storyline he actually has a decentish success rate with women.

Not sure where you’re getting that. Like most males in the game he is frequently bat down by women. The entirety of the Kasmeer /Faren dialog was her mocking his idiocy. Even when the Countess says something good about him it’s a mocking tone.

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/A_Society_Function
It’s during that story mission – none of the side dialogue is on the wiki page though, just the key dialogue… Pretty sure there are other bits, but once again they aren’t on the wiki – it seems like a lot of non central dialogue isn’t there >.>

Of course it could just be me remembering wrong, memory is not flawless.

Right, i just don’t remember anything saying, or more importantly, showing that women think well of him. Which isn’t saying much since that’s common in this game.

I dont get it…what is common in this game?

Female character one-upping, insulting, mocking or snarkily “getting the last word in” on male characters.

Freeelancer.2860:

However, I don’t think bringing up homosexuality is a childish thing, like you implied several times. In fact I find open approach to the subject somewhat refreshing (sexy lesbians or any other means notwithstanding)..

The truth is there is little mature with how it’s done. It’s more like it’s been packed into every other conversation for certain characters to say: “Everyone look! homosexuality is cool, sassy & hip!” They make sure there the dialog is directly in the forefront of any story parts & the fact that they need to put more major lesbian relationships into the game than strait ones is indicitive of the writers person choice or some kind of pc social message. I think the fact that people have been attacked for being critical of these choices is.. interestng. There are always red flags popping when you can’t be critical of xyz. I’d like to have some strait romances I can connect with that don’t revolve around a loveable idiot male & the perfect female genious.

Freeelancer.2860:

I think some people have issues with equating maturity with gore.

I agree, but that’s not what the OP was saying. I also disagree with moral ambiguity, since in moral ambiguity there are no stakes. Real depth come from when you have a difficult time in trying to make the right choice, not when there is no right choice.

FlamingFoxx.1305:

DarksunG.9537:

FlamingFoxx.1305:

And not everybody turns Lord Faren down, from my memories of the Human Noble storyline he actually has a decentish success rate with women.

Not sure where you’re getting that. Like most males in the game he is frequently bat down by women. The entirety of the Kasmeer /Faren dialog was her mocking his idiocy. Even when the Countess says something good about him it’s a mocking tone.

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/A_Society_Function
It’s during that story mission – none of the side dialogue is on the wiki page though, just the key dialogue… Pretty sure there are other bits, but once again they aren’t on the wiki – it seems like a lot of non central dialogue isn’t there >.>

Of course it could just be me remembering wrong, memory is not flawless.

Right, i just don’t remember anything saying, or more importantly, showing that women think well of him. Which isn’t saying much since that’s common in this game.

lordkrall.7241:

You are aware that Faction (or Nightfall) weren’t expansions, right? They were standalone games, that could be played as standalone games.
If we are going to compare it to GW1 we should compare it to their only actual expansion, and that was Eye of the North, which came years after Prophecies was released, and didn’t have close to the stuff Faction and Nightfall did.

The semantics are strong with this one… They are, in every functional way, expansions. It would be more accurate to say that EotN is less of an expansion than Factions & Nightfall since they didn’t do what most MMO expansions do: new class/race.

The only difference between Factions & Nightfall & a standard MMO expansion is that they have a small area where you can level up to 20 (which GW1 was famously easy to do with) & that to play that content you didn’t need the previous game.

Its a meaningless distinction since it doesn’t effect the argument. Even if I compared it to EotN, the LS falls pathetically short of the quality & quantity of content. But to not call them expansions? That’s more marketing then reality.

Asmodeus.5782:

I hope that this ‘teq difficulty’ stuff is only speculation, I already forgot how Splintered Coast looks like… I hate this teamspeak coordinated, schematic zergfest, I really do.

It’s not that bad. I’ve killed Taco many times with TTS & never used an voice stuff at all.

FlamingFoxx.1305:

And not everybody turns Lord Faren down, from my memories of the Human Noble storyline he actually has a decentish success rate with women.

Not sure where you’re getting that. Like most males in the game he is frequently bat down by women. The entirety of the Kasmeer /Faren dialog was her mocking his idiocy. Even when the Countess says something good about him it’s a mocking tone.

1) TENGU
2) Forgotten
3) Jotun, Ogres or something that isn’t a Largos, Skritt, Kodan or Quaggan.

lordkrall.7241:

Lets not talk for everyone shall we?
I for one prefer the current way of releasing stuff, but I suppose that might have to do with the fact that I can play quite often and thus like to get new stuff more often than once a year.

I think most of us would be cool with the LS was even close to the same aount & type of content you get in expansions..
You also have to keep in mind that an expansion would most likely deliver more or less exactly the same content as the living story, but as a package instead of smaller parts released over time. So the whole argument that it is “boring and predictable” is rather silly, since the expansion would be even more so, seeing as you wouldn’t have the suspense between releases.

I think it’s interesting when people say that the LS has released the same amount of content in 1 year as the GW1 expansion did the 1st year.. it’s so laughably untrue I don’t know how they can say it with a strait face.

How can you even compare them? The LS has added (including the temp content) a tiny fraction of what we got in, say, Factions.. comparing the 2 is no contest.

Mortifact.3102:

Alright, let me start this topic by saying that I am gay and I am all about putting LGBT characters in gaming. That being said, with the recent confirmation in the living story livestream that Marjory and Kas are a “love story” I’m beginning to question Anet’s motives. Faolain and Caithe were good characters, and I loved that an LGBT relationship was such an important part of the main story in GW2, but by adding another lesbian relationship to the “biconics” as well as the “iconics” I’m starting to think Anet is just doing it because girl on girl is hot. The only other relationship we have really seen in a major part of the game is Logan and Queen Jenna, and even then they don’t have 10% of the flirting that the 2 lesbian pairings do. Am I alone in thinking like this?

To me it seems like the writer simply doesn’t care as much about strait relationships as gay ones & making sure they hit some kind of PC quota. The Logan/Jenna “thing” isn’t a relationship, its a manipulation of a weak-minded male character & 2 “strong” female characters. As such I get a certain amount of alienation with the relationships in this game.
We already heard in an interview the reason we get so many Sylvari stories is that at least one of the writers is partial to them. It seems like many of the story decisions are based on “because I am partial to…”.

So yeah, don’t be homophobic.

Here we go… Stop with he vilification. Nothing they said was even remotely homophobic. I swear that is the most misused word in modern history. Your inability to allow him to criticize the situation without being labeled a hate-monger is far more bigoted.

We have 1 major strait relationship & it’s 1-direction (hardly making it a relationship at all.) How is that even remotely normal? I mean if it were 95/5 you’d be getting close to real life ratios, but to somehow say that GW2 has a mild or understated homosexual relationship presence is laughable. It stands out even more in a game where so much of the ambient dialog between men & women is women insulting & one-upping the men.

skullmount.1758:

So what was with the comment about Angel McCoy?

No no. people bring that up because she was responsible for writing the “evolution” from GW1 lore to GW2. Things like how the lore of the gods was all wrong because it was recorded by “biased humans”. It’s pretty obvious retconning & worst of all, it devalues many GW1 payers past experiences & things we liked. There is also a thread in these changes that, as I said, seem to have a disdain for the flavor of GW1 lore.

cheshirefox.7026:

her madness has nothing to do with the validity of what she’s doing

True. & Both things are laughably unbelievable & cheesy. I think it’s funny when people say “she’s insane!” because it’s the most 2 dimensional, I’m-so-fun-&-hip “insanity” I’ve ever seen.

Based on the voice of the narrator over the video i do hope that a ED just comes and noms off scarlets head while she has a grand speech about how she is gonna kill us with explosions (and if its primo or zhai zhai saying IM BACK kittenES!). But ofc a-net are too much of fartypants to do something fun like that.

Yeah, I’ve said it before, but I think the writers are too in love with her to give us a satisfying end to Scarlet. It’s totally gonna be a totally unsatisfying “she died just like she planned!” thing. Rather than a “everything she thought she controlled turns on her & rips her apart” ending. Anyways, they confirmed that the voice is just a voice. Has nothing to do with anything.

Delvoire.8930:

Ignoring the hate and vile.. sigh. . Wish these forums could be a little more positive..

Sorry, but “being positive” is like telling someone they can only agree with everything that Anet is going to do. It’s bogus. If what they did was bad, then acting like it’s good is dishonest & unproductive. It would be the same as doing nothing.

Also, if you didn’t play the first one.. um.. how can you judge the people who did? Pariah & many others feel like the writers have not just “evolved” the story, but mangled it into their personal desires. Like they hated how it was & wanted to create their own universe to push out the old one.

I love the Mursaat & I was so looking forward to seeing them in GW2. But with current weirdness that is the story I can’t even begin to imagine how much they will mutilate the once cool race.

Yeah, unfortunately lore wise, GW just doesn’t feel like GW anymore. I’ve never gone from loving a story so much to hating it so much.

Wouw, people are frustrated with the change because it’s so egregious it almost feels spiteful. It’s like there was a hatred for what was in GW, & someone wanted to kill it & build on it’s carcass.

Seems kinda cool. I definitely want more world bosses but man… super disappointing boss model recycle. They took probably the most bland world boss model & reused it.. like.. really?

Making a unique model makes a huge difference in how interesting it is. It feels way less epic when the boss is generic & lame. And it’s the the easiest to rig creature type: a WORM.

I’m looking forward to new meta events, & the Wurn thing sounds like it could be cool. The fact that the model is recycled is super lame & takes a lot away from what this could have been.

As for the story, the more serious & dramatic & epic they try to be with Scarlet the more laughable her whole arc becomes. Her character should never have been more than a side kick to a meta boss.
The cracks that show in the inappropriate merging of a hip cartoon jokester & an omniscient mastermind get bigger & bigger the more they emphasize one aspect or the other & try to keep them all together. Awful.

Runo.2759:

Yeah, but I mean, that was in Guild Wars 1; they could bring him back for GW2 — who’s to say death means much to a God… especially one abusing a minion to bring himself back?

ok, since you seemed to have just skipped right over the post I’m gonna quote it again for you:

Jeff Grubb has confirmed in an interview FOR GW2 years ago (in 2007 or ’08) that Abaddon had been killed FOR GOOD.

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

It’s very important if many people complete it fast; if on average more people get through content you took time to work on than expected you’ve got a lot of people waiting on the next bit of content. Then there’s pressure to produce more before they get fed up and leave.

which is exactly why you have to decide to create(in the absence of data) a cut off point where the balance is acceptable rather than making the broad statement “It’ll be chewed through quickly” & label adding more content an unattainable goal.

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Strangely from this list, it looks like the LS is “better” than DEs and thus DEs should just be chucked out the window rather than reinforced. Especially if it’s not being wanted by the players.

Hmm.. im losing you here… The list shows how Anet arbitrarily added far more features & time into making the LS fleshed out Rather then spending the time to make the world DEs flesh out. It’s like asking me if a metal bridge or a wicker bridge is more sturdy. I then build a massive wicker bridge over a year that can hold the weight of a car then use 5 ft of aluminum foil to build a bridge in 1 hr. If I say “look, everyone is using the wicker bridge!” That doesn’t make wicker a good choice, it just means that the effort I put into the 2 is totally uneven.

The reason the DEs “failed” was the implementation. If They added tons of new DE metas in each zone with unique rewards & titles, story chunks that might relate to your character, faction or zone progression, 100s of new, challenging DE based achievements.. that would be a comparable effort. That’s why the only remotely fair comparison is between the Flame & Frost part 1 (where all you did was make signs.) & the DE addition.

They were variable and new, in they aren’t always up and in the same place.

If that’s what we call variable then we’re in worse shape than I thought. When I say variable I mean: There are 4 different outcomes to a fight with one of these guys: 2 win 2 lose. branching various outcomes where you chase the defeated foe, fight back-up, take him to a cell while attacked etc etc.. I shouldn’t know how it will end when I win or lose.

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

I loved Lost Shores. It was a lot of fun. Half my guild liked it too when we tried it. We were the lucky ones. For every person who enjoyed it and participated, I’d say four more got stuck in “Overflow City” where events were out of sync, where lag was atrocious, and disconnections were common.

yeah but equating how they should design game fun & progression based on tech is… ehhh… i dunno..

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

The people who don’t want Ascended gear.

Nope, the people who don’t want Ascended gear want something different not less rewards overall. I didn’t want Ascended gear. but I certainly didn’t throw my hands up & say “well, I don’t love every single reward in the game, therefore I think we should not have new tangible rewards.”

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Everyone would love more content, but if we just chase “more content” into the future then it’s a race to try to produce stuff quickly and get ahead of the general curve of people having completed it yet.

There is no other direction. Either you add new stuff, or you replace stuff. Either way, it’s more. Weather someone completes it fast or not is immaterial.

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

From what I gather, that was largely due to people not being impressed with it and going “meh, just quests under a different name and not interesting ones”, gravitating to the ones with the quickest reward scheme, and so on. In short – the players voted with their feet.

That’s like hiding a a $20 bill somewhere in a park, announcing on the news that there is a free $10 bill on the the first park bench then complaining that people didn’t like the $20 bill. There is so much wrong with comparing the success of the DEs they added to the Living Story.
DEs:
no new rewards
no new mechanics or evolution in the system
only announcement was that they added new events “to the game” in the patch notes.
they added a paltry 70ish events.

LS:
Website, media outlets & In-game announcements
New Reward items
New Achievements
More added every 2 weeks
in-game direction exactly where to go
Blog & Video story updates

The only remotely fair comparison is comparing the DEs with the first F&F LS Which was a disaster. People voted with their feet? I guess, though the comparison is disingenuous at best.

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

See above, though I beg to differ – the “Modus Sceleri” events are interestingly variable and were . . . intriguing, but they didn’t seem to have anything to them.

I don’t consider 9 new “mob-spawn” events to be variable & inventive. Every map should have 20 odd rare spawn bosses with unique drops just so you can say “oh neat it’s that guy” every once in a while. 9 mobs al over the world? that’s nothing.

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Seems to be, but then this is somewhat what we asked for after Lost Shores failed miserably all around.

I loved lost shores because it was real & temporal. but the current LS is nice too. But without real content & feature updates like full expansions, it’s not worth it.

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

And designing tangibles has been a problem thus far because they either don’t meet the demand or are odds-and-ends with no real . . . synergy . . . of relation to other things. The skins which were released via Living Story (not Gem Store) don’t really match things which existed already.

And the stuff in the Gem Store . . . notably town clothing . . . seemed to be released in response to some feedback going “ANet, we would pay for town clothing instead of more armor from the Gem Store.” So they put more town clothing in there

The kind of rewards I am looking for from content being discussed here are not “look at this neat thing I got – it sparkles!” or “this is worth a lot of gold” but rather things which lead to or are in themselves horizontal progression. We don’t need to focus on the new shiny skins as much as we do the progression everyone seems to be clamoring for.

Well, this is certainly not true, as people love skins & the game is designed around a cosmetic endgame. While there are issues with in-game rewards who truly believes “well, there are some problems, maybe it would be better if I had less to work towards”? Legendaries (as much as people complain about them) are one of the primary player goals. Dungeon Sets were the first thing people worked towards, so saying that the sets being in the store was what people wanted is.. well, unprovable, but also not making a lot of sense. People said “well buy skins!” because they weren’t making ANYTHING. Factions added 2X the number of skins of Prophecies. GW2 hasn’t added .5 the # it started with & it’s a year & a half. & all but 2 sets are Gem Store. This does NOT help to add goals. It helps add profit & that’s it’s only goal.

Personally I want visual progression. If I can’t see my progression in some way I don’t want it. That’s is why numbers are lame. i killed that mob in 1 less swings.. big deal. I want my guy to get scars or maybe get older or unique hair styles , or maybe his hand gets branded by a dragon or he gets mounts or a little sidekick or has medals all over him. 2nd to that is more skills & weapons. but as I said, they have to work out Control & Support before they do that. & I want this stuff though various achievement types/scavenger hunts & adventures, not 500 bolts of silk.

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

But more to the second part. “It’ll be chewed through quickly” . . . which is more my concern. They could run themselves ragged designing this region to “go nuts in” as you put it and it would still be almost completely done with in less than a week by a not-insignificant portion of players.

Again,“it will never be enough” is a meaningless design observation since it only informs 2 design responses: Always try to put in more to reach the unattainable. Or: Don’t put in anything since it is unattainable.

You have to create an arbitrary saturation point to get anywhere. For me its: I know right now that the game doesn’t have enough unique interesting goals & unique interesting encounters to feel alive or be worth going back to certain areas. So they need more. I think, again, the abandonment of DEs was just head scratchingly weird. The game has like 1/2 the number of DEs it should have. & they’ve neither implemented nor experimented with new, more variable DEs. The living story has become the"content". & it’s totally contrary to an actual living world. I feel like they are more concerned with making content that is flashy & advertizable so that players feel like they are getting more than they are, rather than fleshing out the entire world with DEs that fill up every corner of the maps with multi-branching stories.

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Eh? Tixx’s Toybox wasn’t in the Gem Store, neither was my Injector skin. And my reward for doing WvW Season 1 was rediscovering I really enjoyed getting myself beaten bloody in there and occasionally getting someone else or helping win something.

Sometimes those rewards aren’t tangible.

Non-tangible rewards are a pointless design discussion because they don’t require anything to be designed. They are entirely player-generated. As for the back skins, sure, i can compare my back & hand items to the many full sets of armor, tons of BL weapons & town clothing in the Gem Store, but that would be dishonest. The comparison is an exercise in misdirection.

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

It sounds good, but you’re mostly talking about stuff people either don’t want to do . . .
or would quickly tire of doing in a couple months and we’re kind of back at the “step one” again: need more content. I mean, it’s good and all that but we have some truly voracious content-munching people around here

Yes & no. Everything can be done “quickly”. It’s a non-issue using that standard in game design. You could make any suggestion conceivable & I can retort with: “you’re talking about stuff people don’t want to do, or would quickly tire of doing” . It’s more of a balance of is the grind/activity balanced enough for the bulk of players for an acceptable amount of time. Although I don’t understand why you would say “you’re talking about stuff people don’t want to do” I basically listed everything there is to do in the game besides pvp.

I think most end-game zones just don’t have enough to do & don’t have enough unique enemies & rewards. GW2 has fallen into all the new rewards essentially being numbers. Whether it’s stats or mats. That goes into Anet’s abandonment of the DE system development & shift from putting rewards into the Gem Store rather than the game.

This is why many people like housing. The rewards are cool things you can build with. I think this is also why mounts are so fun. People yap on about speed buffs & travel & such but I’m sorry, it’s just cool & fun to have your guy riding on a sweet looking monster. & It’s a great goal to collect pets & mounts because it’s another visual customization of your character. There are only so many things you can change on your guy so people feel mounts & pets are a logical extension.

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Again, I don’t like the experience of looking to go to Orr and seeing every possible contestable Waypoint contested but . . . if that’s what people want then I’ll adapt to not having easy access Waypoints.

honestly I think that’s more about how the zone is designed. first: you react differently to a waypoint being contested then not being there. Second, if the zone is set up more like a WvW map, with push/pull/moving armies you’re more likely to accept always starting from the beginning. third: if the zone is packed with things to do, hidden secrets, lots of DEs with interesting unique mobs (there should be 100s of events with many branches in 1 zone), events & lots of unique rewards & achievements it will be more fun to hang out in a section of a zone for weeks. I think the idea of wanting to stay in 1 section of a zone for a while is so cool. Rather than having only LA. Why not have 3 towns in 3 zones that you hang out at because you have tons of stuff to do in that 1 area. (a good farming spot for certain mats, a wealth of achievements you are doing, a dungeon you are farming, a set of armor you are going for as a meta, capping skills from rare mobs, collecting items for a legendary quest & unlocking unique vendors by completing events/Hearts, finding JPs or doing good Guild Missions )

Ben K.6238:

The other thing that I’d recommend to avoid making the zone any more dead than it has to be (being a vast desert, after all) would be providing paths through the desert with a relatively low mob density. If you’re trying to join someone out there you at least want the option of reaching them quickly.

Requiring group play to complete some challenges in such an area is fine, but requiring group play to reach them is going to result in either a dead zone or a zerg (if the rewards are good enough).

yeah that may be a possibility.. I think the lack of waypoints can work for or against the zone being dead. It’s all about the strength of the zone & rewards in general.

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

I don’t think my point there was solely about this company, or any other one. It’s just a general observation. If you want to get heard and not have the listener’s brain dismiss it out of hand because you were disrespectful or confrontational . . . you should try to temper the edge down to something not likely to bounce off “oh they’re just being a burro”.

Yeah, it’s just egregious here & I’m getting sick of it.

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Here’s the thing, the modern RPG has so much to trace back to Dungeons & Dragons, the original form. And despite that it’s almost the standard to have statistics and dice instead of . . . not. Oh sure, those games exist. I can name maybe one off the top of my head, though, and they’re so niche titles because they don’t quite work the same way. They behave less like “games” and more like “improv theatre with your friends”.

I’m going to reiterate: There’s nothing wrong with that. But statistics have a reason to exist in games, and they’re not solely to limit creativity.

I’m not really sure what you’re saying? lol. like, i don’t know if you agree or not.. I guess my point is: stats are boring.

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

It’s hardly surprising as the game is designed so they don’t need to split PvP and PvE as incredibly as they did in GW1.

I guess I just don’t agree with that statement. I think the lack of the split in this game is a massive issue. I think it is totally central to the brokenness of the PvE DPS meta. The fact that it’s a year & a half in with no massive change is dumbfounding. It’s the main reason that people have problems with the lack of roles & focus on Zerker. And worst of all, it makes support & control not fun. Again, when I play a control wizard in NWO, It’s super fun.. i’m throwing guys around, choking them like Darth Vader & freezing them in ice blocks. With my base moves! In GW2, turning a mob to stone for 1½ seconds with my Elite is not fun.

timmyf.1490:

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

I hope I’m getting the point across. Waypoints exist for a reason, but their utilization is by people with a variety of reasons for using their convenience factor. Removing them for the sake of exploration (which a lot of players might not even want to have forced on them) seems . . . to be adding some fresh new vibrant color to the Mona Lisa.

I see what you’re saying.

I do not want to REMOVE waypoints.

I want to add new content built without waypoints in mind.

totally agree.. If they add the Crystal desert I think it would be amazing if it were 3 huge zones that only had 1 entrance WP. It would add to the feel of the epic wasteland.

Because frankly from experiences we’ve had till now, unless the area is some kind of amazing new zone that’s everything we’ve ever wanted, it’ll become another Southsun Cove. A dead area.

The problem with Southsun has nothing to do with waypoints & everything to do with a boring map. Events are lame, there are like 10 of them, there are no rewards, no secrets 1 JP, no achievements, only 2 types of new enemies & the main one is totally frustratingly zerg-based & the other is annoying confusion/stun lock … it doesn’t even look that interesting. I mean it’s well crafted, but it’s all just coral. The problems with SS are way beyond waypoints.

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Delivery is as important as the message. If you’re being a . . . well, female dog . . . about how you tell someone something is wrong? They’re not going to take it seriously. Some maturity is required to temper the edge lest the message be lost in the reaction of “this one’s so rude”.

I would believe this if the reactions to player feedback/rudness were remotely consistent.

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

It was based off wargaming, where most things we think of these days as essential to RPGs didn’t exist. And it still exists in some form because “that’s the way it’s always been”. Though recent editions have tried to staple over it.

Well, in wargaming it was more applicable because it was a very strategic/mechanical type of game. You had scientists like H.G.Wells playing war-games in a very scientific way. But when the modern RPG came out, they tried to represent adventure in the best systematic & consistent way they could. I think it would be interesting to move on from ridged/scientific stats into something less quantifiable & more adventurous. Granted, it’s probably too late for that in GW. But what I do know: stats are boring.

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Want to know a secret? Those things are not fun to the person on the other side. So, don’t forget that.

that would be why I said:
“Honestly the current control is almost completely useless in PvE…”

There is something that is totally unsatisfying about control in GW2 even when it works & I think it’s from a heavy-handed PvP mentality.

I think before they start to think about new skills, branching classes & new interaction, they need to stop centering the PvE content around PvP. They learned this lesson in GW1 & said they were going to apply it in GW2, then reneged. The fact that it’s been a year & a half & they haven’t even touched that gap (the tiny splits they’ve made are not noticeable to me as a PvE player) worries me. This is probably one of the reasons I “voted” for housing & character personality/visuals as my progression. I think the combat needs to evolve way faster than it has before we can figure out how to add new skills or specialties. The slow combat iteration is way way way too slow. I think it may actually be hampering things because at the current rate they will never address major issues like condition damage, control & support.

IndigoSundown.5419:

DarksunG.9537:

the funny part is; before launch they said that each time you run a dungeon you’d get 1 piece of gear you didn’t have from that dungeon.

I don’t remember that one, but Anet did say several things before launch that are no longer true.

It was an old blog post which they seem to have taken down. It was near the time they talked about having energy be a long-term resource & having potions.

Torrad.1075:

The first and most obvious part is what you see. An apparently intelligent but completely delusional sylvari with a quirky unstable personality, a penchant for theatrics, good voice work and lines. To me that seems pretty good. Villain or not, it’s a character with personality.

Umm.. this is her most egregious failing. Annoying personality. Annoying cheap lines with canned “insane” dialog & the go-to sassy laugh. Cheaply hip-to-the-kids “instability” that is like nails on chalkboard. She has about as much character as JarJar. Yes, on paper there are specific things that JarJar consistently does & owns them as his “personality”. Not too sure we can treat him as a “character with personality” like he was well executed or something.

the funny part is; before launch they said that each time you run a dungeon you’d get 1 piece of gear you didn’t have from that dungeon.

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

DarksunG.9537:

How about we just respond to his points? I think he makes some good ones & as far as i can see that’s very useful.

Let’s see?

thank you Tobias! I find it offensive when people try find a way to invalidate an opinion because they don’t like how something was said rather than look at the actual content which tends to be far more of a contribution than critiquing someone’s delivery.

That said, I think I agree with your points. I’d also love to see even more attempts to move away from stat progression. I think there is a tendency to forget the only reason stats were ever made up in the first place back in the D&D era was because it was the best thing they could think up at the time.

I also think Shakkara’s point about too much narrowness in combat style is not a good thing either. I think a major issue with people not feeling flavor/focus is due to the ineffectual nature of Control & Support. Honestly the current control is almost completely useless in PvE & even when it is actually functional it’s so quick & uninteresting that it’s totally unsatisfying. Really, why would you ever have a control ability that puts on a 0.5 sec root? I mean really? Roots don’t even prevent mobs from turning like they are supposed to.
I’d love Anet to play Neverwinter. The Control Wizard has to be the absolutely most fun control class I’ve ever played. It’s amazing. Compared to that, GW2 essentially has zero control whatsoever.

So over-focusing the classes isn’t a good thing, it’s more about the effectiveness of non-damage builds & not enough options than not enough focus.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

My goal with this post is to help educate the poster and others on the core philosophy of all CDI’s .

Each thread has a Micro and a Macro goal. The Micro goal is to discuss and get the very best out of each topic to make GW2 the very best game it can be. The Macro goal with each thread is for us as Collaborators to be able to mature and advance our design acumen and methods of communication in each thread which in turn with multiply the positive value of each micro goal.

Therefore please don’t assume that because I am offering advice on the macro level that I am not engaging on the micro level.

I am including a link that has more detail on the overarching goals of the CDI and how it works:

How about we just respond to his points? I think he makes some good ones & as far as i can see that’s very useful.

Rouven.7409:

As soon as one scrap is guaranteed in a box I might consider it.

Yeah seriously. They act like 7 tickets for a weapon is cool. I don’t buy the: “oh but it’s optional bs” They’ve taken rewards out of the game & put them into the gamble boxes. They talk about needing better rewards then give us mats. Meanwhile they spend actual effort on skins for the gamble boxes.

The idea that a weapon skin, at the absolute cheapest, costs about $20 is insane. I’d much rather pay for an expansion, not my rewards.

MercyKilling.8519:

DarksunG.9537:

Oh for crying out loud… The game is probably one of the most difficult MMOs out there.

You should go try The Secret World, then. Makes every game you listed PLUS this one look like it’s meant to be played by four year old down’s syndrome children.

The hardest part of TSW was understanding the UI. I didn’t get that far in it, but I certainly had a much harder time living as a thief in the early game than I had in TSW.

So, are we not allowed to post our opinions about Scarlet here?..

Anyone who can’t see that The Joker is a decently well made insane villain & Scarlet is a too-hip-for-u fanfic character isn’t going to be worth explaining it to.

Kogam.4752:

You made me laugh. Your friends doesn’t really understand about games. How come GW2 is more difficult than WoW? I mean, WoW! (got the joke?)

To start with: you know how complicated are WoW builds? And you also know how easy are GW2 PvE builds? Sadly the “rush power get zerker” is implanted. You realized even some engineers and necromancers are going power?

Honestly, I’ve came from a MMO called DDO that in a raid of 12, if one guy does a mistake, everyone else is dead and they have to restart the whole raid because you can’t revive or get in again (say Ascension Chamber raid, for instance). So that IS a considerable factor to calculate difficulty.

Come on dude. I know GW2 fanboys really want to defend their game, but don’t defend it’s “hardness”, because it isn’t. (I can say that I’m a fanboy too, but I’m flexible, learn to be too)

Edit: sorry for double post, didn’t noticed. :>

My friend played DDO for years & raided. GW2 was still harder.
I hear the “one mistake & you wiped” excuse in every game including WoW. so, no, I don’t buy it. Your other mistake is equating “learning the pattern” to difficulty.

nexxe.7081:

Scarlet is the scapegoat of the community right now. She’s just an easy target for people that hate the living story, or the game in general. She doesn’t really bother me, but that’s because i don’t care about the living story currently.

Oh please. Anyone who has any sense can see the immature RP fan-fic nature of her character a mile away. People complain more about RNG than Scarlet. The only scapegoat is people blaming the community for the character not being successful. She is a poorly made, irritating character that was made to represent someone’s “awesome” rp character.

Soa Cirri.6012:

clip

Very good examples!

Oh for crying out loud… The game is probably one of the most difficult MMOs out there. Everyone I’ve played the game with who has played multiple MMOs like WoW, FF, Tera, Rift, SWG, TOR, all talked about how much harder this game is. People boasting about how they can solo everything & it’s so easy are full of it.

GW1 was harder in 1 way: if you didn’t have the correct build it was impossible. If you did, it was cake. I agree there is less risk, in that you only pay for repairs, but that is how you calculate difficulty? pff..

& Tequatl? You’re complaining that it became easy once you figured out the pattern? That’s 90% of the stuff people consider “super epic hard”. Sorry, but comparing stuff to other MMOs, Guild Wars 2 is not easy.

wouw.5837:

The LS update vs. Expansion is actually a great example of some Human psychology.

People rather get a expansion ( A big amount of content at one time (and get one every year))
than
Get the LS (A bigger amount of content, but spread over a year)

Umm.. the combined LS content of 2013 is like 1/4th of an expansion, if even that… You’d have to be smoking something really strong to think otherwise.

Lets not also forget that gw1 had three campaings and eotn as an expansion then years of nothing. Litterly no content updates outside of the holiday stuff.

Haha you obviously weren’t around when Guild Wars 1 came out because you’d know how much they changed from launch that wasn’t in expansion. Remember when you had to spend Attribute Refund Points to change your stats? Remember when they Added Greens? Remember when they added Grenth’s Footprint & Sorrows Furnace? Remember when they added Guild Hall features? Remember when they added Domain of Anguish? Remember Costumes? Remember When they made it so you could have 7 Heroes?
sorry, there is a ton of stuff they added that was not in expansions.

Nabrok.9023:

Living Story updates can, have

Um.. Either they haven’t or the comparative content type is at a rate so slow it would take 10-15 years to equate to the amount that you get in an expansion

and will introduce all the things you listed.

At the current rate, I don’t buy that worth a squat.

You’ll get a bit here and a bit there, but it all adds up.

Yes, at a laughable rate. I’m amazed at people who buy that we’ve had even close to an expansion worth of content. There have been lots of updates & tweaks, yes, but that comes normally in MMOs. Even GW1 had significant changes outside of expansion. Lots of Hero updates, Guild updates, TONS of skill tweaks, changes to entire systems, graphic & performance updates…

But 1 one year with GW1 we had:

• almost Double the open world content including missions & quests
• Entire PvP & Guild Systems
• 2 new classes
• TONS of new skills
• MORE than 2x the number of armor
• almost 2x the number of equipment

GW2:

• 1 poorly implemented zone
• Achievement chase LW “content”
• a handful of very short story missions.
• poor to decent guild missions
• ascended gear (we’re adding power creep as “content” now)
• Fractals (best content yet)
• 3 dungeons ^
• occasional fun temporary content
• bland, poorly-implemented “invasions” (with the worst character the game has seen)
• boring activities that are instanced out of the game world & have no significance on it.
• Tons of Gem Store items that cost more & have less function than GW1 items instead of in-game rewards.
• laughable # of skills

The list of “stuff” is longer, but If I gave you a handful of pennies it’s not as much value as a single $100 bill even though it’s more “stuff”. In terms of comparable expansion-quality content they’ve added: Fractals & occasional fun temporary content like the Sanctum.

It’s nice that they have stuff to do & it’s occasionally fun. But if they aren’t working on an expansion, this is not enough. So much of the “Features” in the LW are just half-baked tweaks on current systems. Activities? Pretty boring instanced things that have no connection to the game world. The “Invasions”? really? Randomly spawning groups of mobs to zerg? That’s not significant content, that’s low-quality DEs with flashy advertizing. There are no enemy attack patterns, nothing to defend, no way to push back to retake land, no nothing just chase circles. Guild Missions? Half of the Guild Missions are super lame. Tequatl? really? you’re counting making terrible content, decent as significant content? & the lack of new reward skins is a joke.

Just the continent of Cantha is more content than all the LW combined x2. The quantity & quality of expansion stuff is so much greater than LW. Plus, getting things piecemeal is way less satisfying. Not to mention that at the current rate, is still less in quantity than expansion. It’s not even close. It’s just packaged to seem like more & you believed it.

I’ll believe that the LS can provide expansion content when I see significant content like:

• New Races
• New Classes
• New Continents
• SETS of New Dungeons
• TONS of new gear sets. (We should be at double the number of gear skins as launch. in game not gem store)
  Housing

EACH YEAR.

I remember a quote from Collin before GW2 came out that talked about they wanted to “earn their money” by making content that is worth people buying. That way if they didn’t make expansions that were good enough, people wouldn’t by them. Now it’s just making small stuff & saying “we made you an expansions worth of content!” & making money off people buying their rewards & using gamble-boxes. I used to be a huge GW fanboy, but now I’m amazed at how they’re running the business end of things.

My #1:

Housing/Guild Halls. but only if we actually BUILD them. Don’t give us a pre-determined area in a pre-determined zone with a pick-one-of-three buildings. Guild Wars had always been pretty weak on the real sandbox/building/living World end of MMOs. Let us choose from 100s of house locations all over the “living” world. we don’t have to necessarily see the building in the world real time.. But sectioning it off into an “area” in an instance blows.
& let us build the house. That’s the fun of housing. being creative & building your own place. No one cares about the belcher npc & the worthless crystal node. Its not special & it’s not interesting & it’s not what people want from housing.

• 1 – More Visual Customization + New Wardrobe/Collection system
  I understand that making armor takes time, but that’s what makes the reward worth anything. Anet needs to know that Gem Store armor is not progression, It’s buying a product. That said, most if not all armor should have a visual progression like the fractals back piece. But instead of a single look, make various upgrade styles so that 2 players can where the same armor but have diff flavor. Use the flamekissed as an example. Easy to make shader reskins with tiny particles but with necro/holy/mesmer/water variants. this makes sets that are meh fit you flavor a bit more.
  The Personality system should be visible in your character’s stance & expression, not just text that effects nothing. Titles/Achievements should be various medal & awards on your character. Personal story should change how your character looks. specific scars, a branded arm, a trinket from a dead friend, a mini pets that make sense in the lore (baby devourer you saved in a story, a orphan little kid you’re training, a chicken from your farm, a spectral bear that was a blessing from the spirits) rather than a shrunken Logan Thackary. Custom attack animations etc.. customization rather than just more armor need to be added to show your character’s history.
  It’s imperative that a wardrobe system should be in place before all this. attached a mock-up below.

• 2 – Housing
  The current housing just doesn’t work & adding new mining nodes & mini games is not what we want from housing. We want to choose our location, choose the building we make, _choose_what is in it & choose what we can do in it. Not just dropping things onto hooks & “place here spots” people want Housing is fun because it’s creative & reflects us. Having the pre-defined area with some nodes just doesn’t work.

• 3 – More Skills, Weapons & Ways to Fight
  More stats isn’t fun. It’s an end goal but it doesn’t make things more interesting, just more effective. Give us more ways to fight & make it looks cool & unique. After a year & no new abilities when players expected an entire expansion takes it’s toll. Maybe even new ways to interact with the world in general..

I think a lot of this progression should come from doing new content that is on a new continent or added into the world to flesh it out. Content like: Epic jumping puzzles/mazes/collections/Epic Quests/Achievements. Dungeons are ok, but currently ALL but the newest dungeons need a pass to make them on par with current standards.

in conclusion: I want to SEE my progression in game.. not un the UI.

I don’t think Hard mode is really a great progression feature. I think new content could be more fun than that.
I want to see my character’s progression. things that show he’s been around & done certain things. Scars on his body, maybe part of his body got cursed or marked, new tattoos, a home with unique layout & items in it, special armor fx, special custom attack animations, an idle animation that represents his personality, medals/capes/decorations, relationships with npcs that show in the game.

Basically:
My progression should be visible in game, not in the UI. Making numbers go up is the height for boredom. Having my character covered in medals, in a cool pose, with battle damage, scars, his hand branded by an elder dragon wielding a hammer with customized look & unique fx that represent my character? That’s fun.

Many of these suggestions are not about Horizontal Progression, but about balance & class changes. We should try to focus on real horizontal progression.

• I REALLY REALLY like the idea of taking a pass over existing zones & adding lots of hidden jumping puzzles (complete with real puzzles, a few strategic enemies) hidden areas, collectable items (like zephyrite crystals), chests & maybe even new mechanics like climbing or parts of the map changing every day. There should be full sets of achievements & rewards for these JP. I think it’s important to note that you can’t just add like 10 of these kinds of places. The game needs like 50 of them. It’s like the dynamic events. DEs are at maybe half of what they should be to make a world that feels living & varied. But it should take at least as long to complete the new set of hidden areas & JP as it did to get world completion.

I definitely understand that this would take a long time & would be a lot of work, but this I think reflects the downfall of the LS. The content isn’t substantial enough to feel significant & progressive. LS is a fantastic distraction between expansions, but it doesn’t really feel like significant progression. Things like Ascended Armor are grind because you can’t create substantial, varied content in the LS. You then have to end up making things that are repetitive & number based. (get 5,000,000 of x) This kind of content is boring much of the time. But playing with a friend last night I realized some of the most fun I’ve ever had in the game is when we were exploring & trying to find our way through a JP maze. I think if there were a few more puzzles in them & a sprinkle of champs It would be amazing. Add to that a “find all the crystals” type collection & a host of achievements & good rewards (if I spend an hour in a puzzle I shouldn’t get 2 blues, I should get 1 gold, some asc crafting mats & some rares)

• Crafting Skins & fun (non-tonic) trinkets. hate to say, tonics kinda stink. They aren’t useable in combat & they are consumed. Of all the very limited fun that tonics are, these 2 things ruin them completely. Crafting would be a great horizontal progression if you could make special skins & fun trinkets. unfortunately the game is flooded with tonics & boring minis. The game doesn’t allow mounts so making & having cool mounts(one of the most fun horizontal progressions) is gone. most minis are boring humanoid characters rather than the super cute baby animals.

I think there needs to be a discussion on how the Gem Shop hurts horizontal progression. You can’t have a game where aesthetics are the end game & sell the new skins in the gem shop. That’s completely contradictory. Also, you can’t spend time developing for the Gem Shop rather than the game & expect people to feel the rewards are satisfying. Again, contradictory. People notice when you put all the effort into the gem shop items & the in-game ones are kinda lame. The fact that the game has only added 1 set of armor in more than a year, & the set looks bad is very very noticeable to players. I understand that it takes effort to make cool stuff, but that’s what makes rewards rewarding. I’d like to know if the devs have thought about how the gem shop directly hurts horizontal progression.

In terms of aesthetics, I am still in favor of adding medals that go on either side of your chest & shoulders.

I’d have to say housing is one of the coolest horizontal progressions I’ve played with in MMOs. unfortunately I think GW2 completely misses the mark with the home instance, especially the Norn one.

I commend Anet for trying to do something different, but people don’t like housing because it shows tiny echos of what you’ve done, but because it’s an open-ended venue for creation & customization. In the end, it will reflect your past, simply by being made up of things from your experiences. Having the home instance be per-defined, devoid of any building or location choices, uncustomizable, & in the case of the Norn, a space in someone else’s house, is not fun, not interesting & only worth visiting for nodes. that misses the point of Housing entirely.

Guild Wars has never really delved into customization & creation & It suffers in that those are huge components of making on-line communities. Going to a Guild Hall in GW1 was nothing special. you saw the list of things they unlocked & it was kinda cool. in EQ2 it was an amazing expression of the Guild’s personality, past accomplishments & a hub for meeting, planning & resource gathering. Anet talked several times about wanting to do things right, or not do them at all, & in the housing area, they just didn’t hit the mark.

Nike.2631:

Like most games, there’s a bit of pick and choose to get the “best” features all in one place.

DCUO does have better skin/slot management. On the other hand its locked by character (unless things have changes since I was there last) whereas LotRO’s wardrobe is account-wide and specifically lets you move looks across classes (my Captain’s plate-mail outfit for my Burglar never fails to amuse…)

And while DCUO’s is a little player-friendlier in its automatic accessibility, it needs to be said that the LotRO Wardrobe system does a truly superior job of being monetized without being offensively monetized. The basic model is perfectly adequate, and you usually don’t feel like you need to scrub down with soap after you decide to pay for an upgrade or a cash-shop outfit.

Guildwars 2 could learn a lot from examining both of those models more closely.

I wasn’t really making a comment on Monetization, since DCUO did Monetize it at all, which I would prefer. I think using the Crystals once per piece could work. I just don’t think the clunky UI setup for Lotro is good. & having to go to a specific wardrobe in your bank is waste of time. Although they should have a save/load for builds including the cosmetics.

Having them be account bound unlocks is nice, but I don’t know if Anet would do that, they might miss out on Monetization. also, you’re not going to be able to use heavy on a light character, it’s just not gonna happen. Also, DCUO had very little skin restrictions. you could use almost anything.

Sytherek.7689:

LotRO has the best wardrobe system… tabs for setting and selecting wardrobe looks, and a tab for armor that sets your stats. The best system I’ve ever seen for CRPG armor.

I quit that game when it went F2P/P2W, as a warning to ANet.

Lotro’s system has a lot of problems. it requires inventory space in one fashion or another (including wardrobe slots) It requires keeping the items if you run out of wardrobe slots, it’s not quick.
DCUO has the best system where each time you put on a piece of gear it just “unlocks” the cosmetic & you can pick the look at any time from a drop-down on each piece.