Guild Wars 2

Meanwhile WoW boost new characters to level 90…
Vertical progression is simply a dumb way to deal with some kind of peculiar people.

Trivia

/15charr

I hate this RNG system, I would have prefered one that reward you for the time you spent playing, maybe using something like a currency that you can accumulate and exchange for the reward that you are chasing… oh wait… and suddenly a black cat crossed my path twice, probably Matrix has been rewritten.

Atlas.9704:

Wow pdg, upset about something?
Considering how GHOSTBUSTERS has permeated so much into pop culture I figured it wouldn’t need any explanation.

Now I’ll admit that HP Lovecraft’s works are sometimes missed out by folks, but chances are they have seen enough scary movies to at least get the theme.

Heck, even Thirdspace from BABYLON 5 borrowed from the Cthulhu, or at least the Elder God, theme. (The Asura gate part of my post, in case you were wondering got inspiration from there.)

If you want to play Mr Wiki on a joke thread fine, but please calm down.

Anyone said Nyarlathotep?

Her 3d model is probably based on the other concept art, but it still look too ugly :S

I think the Scarlet problem it’s similar to the Watchknights problem.
They have been tossed into the game too sudden, there was no real sense of progression in their introduction (even if we had hints about Scarlet), moreover part of the Ceara story is presented to us just through the official site… but to plead Chris’s cause, I believe that most of what we saw will make sense in the future.

Maybe her character is a little stereotyped, but I found it funny anyway (probably mainly thanks to her voice acting).
I don’t get why some people say that it is not believable and/or it make no sense that she is such a genius… c’mon… isn’t it believable?
We are talking about a race of “botanical humanoids”…

And if we want to be honest… how much do we know about sylvari to say that this is so weird?
If you have joined the Durmand priory you’ve already got proof that this race can be “unsuspecting” clever (do you remember Sieran and Gixx?).

In my life I have read many books… I watched countless movies and anime, and if there’s one thing that I’m sure of, is that you can’t really judge a story if you don’t reach its last page/last minute.

I’m not saying that it doesn’t care what devs will do because maybe one day a great ending will cancel all the past flaws, but I feel that before pointing our finger screaming “kill her! kill her now!” we should at least wait and see what the Scarlet’s role really is.

Let’s speculate
(I think it’s something inside the tower, but that light like a clear and open sky is strange to me >.>)

Dev Live Stream
I didn’t like it, it slow down the combat and it could create the base to make any fight harder, this will please the “this game is too easy” crowd, but it as also will make other players just avoid new content, it happened (tequila/new TA…), therefore it can happen again.
If this new mechanic is here to stay I hope it will be limited only to specific events and/or it will see a reduction of the “impalement” cast time.

Aaaand this is why I suggested ingame pools back then :P
Metrics are not enough to show burnout.

John.5732:

Why won’t the cadence of releases be changed? Why are we locked into two week releases? Please answer this simple question.

This is just my guess, but right now they’re strongly publicizing the game saying that its pillar is the Living Story and its everchanging nature (you can see it even on the kongzhong site).
So if this is how they’re selling the game (imo) they could not change the 2 weeks slogan immediately, even if they think it would be better to do it.
I suppose somewhere in the future we will see a technical improvement followed by a gradual slowdown in the production with a consequent improvement of the originality of different types of content. But again, I’m only guessing and crossing my fingers :P

To respond to Chris:
1. Bazaar of the Four Winds (expecially the exploration to find the hidden Sky Crystals)
2. Halloween 2012 (Clocktower + MKT-Minidungeon)

p.s. Please, if you can, don’t lock the story behind repetitive achievements.

Timze.7980:

The finishing doesn’t even make sense when there is that stupid banner coming. Without that banner that would make more sense.

But about how I feel about the idea; just horrible…

http://www.guildwars2guru.com/topic/18048-thoughts-on-finish-them-animation/

They were supposed to be mere placeholder, but Anet “probably” was forced to ship before the game was ready and so we have the current lap dance pole.

RainbowSyrup.4130:

why dont you do it then

I’ve never edited anything on wiki, I don’t know how to do it
It’s easier asking for help to someone who already know how to do it >_>

Edit: I’ve just read Stephane Lo Presti answer.
Thx for replying. I’ll try it.

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Ascended_equipment

This point:
No additional tiers are planned after Ascended, and future progression will be based on earning newly introduced skills.

This is not true or at least it’s misleading.
If I’m not wrong they intend to move vertical progression on through infusions to the existing tier of gear.
On the contrary, written like that, it seems that they intend to stop with vertical progression and move forward with horizontal progression (skills), something that I hope for, but that has never been confirmed.

I just had a brainwave °-°
If anet is going to introduce them I hope they will remember the problem with the previous MF mechanic.
Has anyone else thought about it?

Yeah true, the same people complaining about people who complain.

@Raine – He knows it, many ppl already explained it to him, but he still posts the same copy-pasted things in different threads :P

/15dancingcharr

Zacchary.6183:

darkace.8925:

stuff

This is how they measure success….

I just saw it.
I lolled xD

1) Vertical Progression vs. Horizontal Progression
2) RNG
3) Rewards in Open World PvE (renown hearts, world bosses, DE in general)

If you like helping people: mesmer

TheDaiBish.9735:

[…]
The only time I’ve seen threads (both positive and negative) get shut down is when they’re whining threads, are discussing another game, or have
devolved into a ’I’m right you’re wrong’ match.

True and their derailing common denominator usually is Exalibur .-.

Dante.1508:

[…]
I’m not sure how Guildwars was like WoW in anyway at all…

Because of Trolling?
Oh pretty please, just ignore Exalibur ç__ç
Did you see why he jumped in the post “Collaborative Development”?
First for defend the game at the start of the thread, then everything went constructive and he suggested to close it.
All you do if you continue to reply to him is boost his ego.

StriderShinryu.6923:

[…] For example, you can ask in a poll if players like Ascended Gear and give it a 5 for love it, 1 for hate it scale. Let’s say a player gives it a 5. Awesome, they love it! But wait, do they love the look of it, the way it’s acquired, the fact that it provides them with a new goal to achieve in game, the fact that they were just getting bored and wanted something new to do, that it gives them an advantage in WvW, that they love crafting, etc? […]

Premising that I think we need a mix of statistics + forum + ingame polls, it is logic that if formulated so unclear, a question, it would definitely be valid for next to nothing.
A good survey can be much more precise than that.
They can create response bias tweaking the questions, but would they really benefit from the manipulation of what could be a valuable source of informations?

xephire.8324:

There’s been a lot of whiny threads…
snip

Whatever the reasons, let’s try to give them some trust again.
We have nothing to lose
I do not say we have to be blindly optimistic, but this can be an good opportunity for both devs and players.
Plus if it turn out to be a sinister attempt to stem the discontent we will notice it in a few months.

Redenaz.8631:

Ah, yes, making it optional, like gambits, would fix the problem I was thinking of. Fair enough, Smith, fair enough.

Take a look here!

TheDaiBish.9735:

snip

I like the idea of RP the thing, but at the same time I believe that it would be better if taken in a classic manner, mainly because players need to understand clearly what they are facing.
Metaphors, roundabout expression, all these things can be quite misleading, even in a traditional form a survey can be misleading, so I’m for a standard format.
But I lolled

Xcom.1926:

I like this list, but number 3 is not needed, probably best left to them internally. However, it would be nice to know if we will be getting an expansion.

I agree, but I feel that just counting on the living story + microtransation would make it part of the players less attractive for them.
Clearly devs need to take in high consideration paying players (or at least I think it would be logic to do so) and right now even if those players strongly contribute to the support of the game they are just a segment of the whole community.
Instead, (imo) through expansions the voice of each player would have the same importance.
But again you are right, it should be something that they need to decide internally :S

Pariah.8506:

Just give achievement points for answering the poll. Maximum participation guaranteed.

That’s not the reason people should partecipate in something like this.
As someone else already pointed out doing so would be risky because many people would just fill it quickly without even reading anything.

In no particular order:

1. Living World & Permanent Content
2. Character progression (vertical/horizontal/diagonal/whatever)
3. Revenue model (Microtransation vs Expansions)
4. Berserker gear vs Everything else
5. DE: Scaling Challenges & Rewards
6. Guild features
7. Personal Story (evolution/concerns)
8. Open World: reasons to replay the whole content.
9. RNG (I almost forgot this one xD)

Those are some of the suggestions that came to my mind for now.

Race: Human
Gender: Male
Class: Mesmer

Even if hair clipping is considered a minor issue I would still point that Acolyte’s Mask [&AgG4FQAA] clips with a lot of hairstyles even new ones from the gemstore :S
Video

Race: Human
Gender: Male
Class: Mesmer

Acolyte’s Coat [&AgGDAAAA] + Masquerade Mantle: [&AgEcFQAA] = clipping.
Video

(plust hair clips a lot while running)

Said Excalibur that has already farmed his ascended stuff.
Btw let’s not derail even this thread in a flame war.

We are lucky that Exalibur know what is better and he’s here to save us. /s
The problem of the champions can be solved like the CoF speedruns.
I know a lot of players don’t like time gated content (to some degree I agree with them), but if devs work on increasing the type of rewarding tasks we can experience and mantain them balanced it could work.
In some way CoF was nerfed, but at the same time other dungeons were made more rewarding (even if for some of them time/reward can be reconsidered a bit).
The result (imo) is that now we have more players spread between all the the other dungeons, so this was not a bad move.

I’m with you (if you read my history you will see it), but let’s see if we can find a middle ground with this unexpected approach.

Don’t worry Exalibur, the forum can’t be the only metric.
No one will steal your shiny vertical sword
Relax and enjoy this new experiment.

Luiz Swordbreaker.6547:

snip

It is clearly necessary that the questions are asked in the clearest possible way and also in an objective way.
I hope there will be faced with questions such as:
You like a lot the taco tonic, right? Y / N (btw I’m waiting the taco tonic xD)

And about the example question about WvW rewards, it would be helpful to include “questions of control” (I don’t know how to call them in english :S) to see if those who complete the survey have any idea of what they are talking about.

Also including an entry like:
“I don’t know enogh about this subject” could come in handy.

Kosmo.5187:

Be careful with polls. They may seem like a good solution to many people, but they can also be incredibly deceiving. Different people often answer from various contexts based their own interpretation of the question, but the results are still piled together in specific predetermined groups. Polls are inherently limited as well. Forums may take longer to sift through, but they allow thoughts to be expressed (in both directions). The game is also a very mutable experience and everyone is different; letting the majority decide is not necessarily a good thing, as there are many aspects of the game that appeal to different people. As someone touched upon above, having someone who doesn’t play an area much affect it to the same degree as someone who plays it a lot could be odd.

I don’t think you’ll ever reach an equilibrium where people enjoy everything, and at some point, as much as we players want to have influence and give feedback, some of us also want to be surprised and see new features that we didn’t expect. Influencing a game with feedback is a very good thing, but stifling the creativity of the development team is not in anyone’s best interest. I guess it really depends on what kind of feedback you collect. “Was that fun?” is way too nebulous a question to have meaning in such a complex machine.

If you ask questions certain ways you can almost be guaranteed certain answers, but they will not always be the correct answers that you can use to guide yourself to better ground.

I’m speaking as someone who’s shared several ideas and tried to start several discussions with other players. I like the prospect of better dialogue, but apart from the disruption of immersion, polls are just not useful to the extent that some people make them seem. Some of forum ideas expressed in the posts above me are better, such as covering certain topics over a period of time.

I agree with you, ingame surveys should be ONE of the way to collect informations about what people think about the game.
However I think we really need them, because statistics of what people are doing today are not a good rapresentation as well, indeed I think they simply depict the present situation, on the contrary, surveys can be a way to forecast (clearly within certain limits) players’ behaviours/expectations.
The forum would complete the triad.
I hope this way we will able to craft together the Triforge of Communication.

p.s. even if Chris said that he will be not able to maintain today post frequency, I hope that all of them can find a way to distribute better their time and divide this task, because (imo) this type of communication is what is needed to build a more loyal and relaxed community.

Grimthagen.6019:

Erick Alastor.3917:

No one will be forced to respond, and invasiveness will be minimal.

My main concern with this would be the fact that if no one is forced to respond, then you will get self-selection bias incorporated into the poll and the whole thing becomes questionable.

For a poll to be of value, it has to take a relatively unbiased cross-section of a population. In this case, MMO developers have the opportunity to actually capture the opinion of every single one of their active players. There are marketing agencies and departments that would give body parts to have that kind of access to their target markets.

I’ve never really understood why MMO developers past and present haven’t taken greater advantage of this unique capability they’ve been given.

Follow my reasoning.
If people are really interested in the game, they will want to express their opinion about it and everyone will have the opportunity to do so.
It’s a bit ‘like voting in democratic countries, you can also abstain, but then you can’t complain about the decisions taken by the winning party.
By the way if you see that things do not go your way then the next time, perhaps, you will spend those five minutes to complete the survey.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Erick Alastor.3917:

Chris Whiteside.6102:

minbariguy.7504:

I want to echo the people who have recently been requesting in-game polls. Since currently there has been no real acknowledgement or response to player dissatisfaction with the pace of Living Story releases, I have chosen to simply not log in at all to avoid being counted as a “satisfied customer” in your concurrency metrics.

An in-game poll where I would have the chance to have my opinions actually be counted would be something worth logging in for.

I think this is an idea worth discussion for sure. But i have a question:

Would in game polls affect the immersion for the player?

Chris

Simple enough, let the pigeons do the dirty work.
You can advertise a new function via an e-mail and dedicate it a separate section.
The new icon may change color once a new survey is available.
No one will be forced to respond, and invasiveness will be minimal.

The iconography is cool to!

Seriously afk now

LoL, thanks.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

minbariguy.7504:

I want to echo the people who have recently been requesting in-game polls. Since currently there has been no real acknowledgement or response to player dissatisfaction with the pace of Living Story releases, I have chosen to simply not log in at all to avoid being counted as a “satisfied customer” in your concurrency metrics.

An in-game poll where I would have the chance to have my opinions actually be counted would be something worth logging in for.

I think this is an idea worth discussion for sure. But i have a question:

Would in game polls affect the immersion for the player?

Chris

Simple enough, let the pigeons do the dirty work.
You can advertise a new function via an e-mail and dedicate it a separate section.
The new icon may change color once a new survey is available.
No one will be forced to respond, and invasiveness will be minimal.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

[…]
So back to the matter at hand. Through reading the posts i think it would be really useful for me to start a thread like ‘name one thing you would like to see improved in Guild Wars 2’ and then start riffing with you all on these subjects matters and try to make a more meaningful connection with you all that way by which we can define a process together for Collaborative Development?

I am also going to ask that we build out more time for team members to post and i will follow up with you all on that.

What do you think, does this sound like a good way to move forward?

Chris

In my opinion a really good way.

Read this again…
I almost cried .__.

True, if they continue to behave the same it’s just void PR stuff.
And this is how I would like to express myself for this kind of statements xD

All of this reminds me of one of my first university oral exam.
The teacher exhorted me to proceed with the electronic registration of my mark telling me to insert my password, but then I said: oh kitten I forgot it ._.
He again: don’t worry we can do without.
He bypassed the password system and confirmed the registration.
Me: WUT? °-°
It’s all an illusion.

Things may change, and some of us are still waiting for that change.

inb4 “Excalibur”.
And yup (imo) all this can be summed up in “jump on the train or leave”.
They should create a satisfaction questionnaire at the end of each living story and/or asking players what do they think about some of the decisions taken, like it was done during the beta, but no, devs know what is good because numbers are showing it.

Kolisch.4691:

Yup. Why should Frodo go through the whole journey to throw that darn ring. He should be allowed to fly on dumbo the elephant straight to Mount Doom and save himself being dragged around in a journey with those stinky, smelly men, little men and that blonde dainty pretty boy.

In fact, I believe that this version would have been more fun

Knighthonor.4061:

snip

That’s why there was a sidekicking during the beta, but then the metric slowly shifted from “fun” to “moneyz”.
How it was thought

Btw at least (for now) it’s not too difficult to earn levels in this mmorpg. Gears are in a far worse situation.

holodoc.5748:

Relying on sites like pvxwiki was one of the easiest way to get owned in PvP. It usually took skilled players just a a couple of seconds to recognize if someone was using a build from pvxwiki and counter it. In PvE it didn’t matter. If you wanted to use seven hero support that was fine but still the beauty of the original game was that you could create so many versatile builds and test them. That alone provided for a huge amount of fun time spent playing GW1.

I was considering to take what you wrote and totally using it against you to make you look evil even if you are not, just for fun, but Excalibur preceded me

The point is not what we knew that was/was not there at launch, the point is what is left today of the main selling points of gw1. In my opinion, not much.
And if you remove all of that, the “everything you loved about Gw1” is definitely a high-sounding but weak sentence designed to draw gw1 players in a misleading way.
I invite you to search how many references to the old gw1 players were made, how many sentences aimed at reassuring and comforting, how much communication with that community, and think about how we are totally ignored now.
All they are looking at are the numbers inside the game.
People that give them any form of negative feedback are considered a tiny minority, just a noise in their money rustling.
Excalibur can say what he want, but it’s really an hard work defending the indefensible.

skonietz.9418:

Hey guys,

I wanted to compare my feelings about following topic with other players.
snip

They should work on a true downscaling system (i.e. one that also removes traits).
Problem solved.
Every dungeon would become more challenging and players of the right level would be welcome.
You can’t change people, but you can change the game.

thedrumchannell.2405:

Guild Wars 1
snip

+ Better prestigious armors
(comparing this gw1 armor with the real ascended would be too unfair so I’ll use an enhanced version designed by one of the member of my guild).

Chuo.4238:

Clearly you represent all of us, then. I stand corrected.

What was it you said, last week, about my posts?

I’ve found that guy true identity…