Guild Wars 2

I love his gear and hair. I hope that as part of the event they come into the game as options (where not already present).

Avigrus.2871:

A few new MMOs coming out that i’m looking at… there’s a Dark Age of Camelot sequel of sorts.. that should be interesting since DAOC was one of my favourite games of all time.

Whaaaaa? What’s this DAoC 2-type MMO called?

I mean, GW2 is the next-best-thing to DAoC for me, but if there is going to be something even closer…?

The patch info for the next patch suggests that they are looking to address the Guild Challenge issue, with so called “Bounty Hunt Training”, which looks to be a small-guild version of Bounty Hunts.

So that’s a good start. Legendaries are going to have a non-money way to obtain the precursors, sometime in the next few months probably, a form of scavenger hunt, so that may help with money issues.

With dungeons I think they need to label the paths rather than just expecting people to magically know (I mean, GW1 was a lot clearer than this on difficulty), and ensure there are easier paths. Vol is wrong to think the dungeons are only hard for the “bottom 5%”, that is because he is in the top 5% and thinks he’s more in the middle. Non-FotM dungeons are fairly tough, even knowing how GW2 plays, on average. FotM on the other hand is surprisingly gentle on the lower settings, and I think shows the devs have learned how to design dungeons for a broader section of players.

Unfortunately the recent AC revamp suggests the opposite – given it’s level, it should be a “training” or “tutorial” dungeon. It sure is not though!

Conner.4702:

The one guaranteed rare per account will make sure nothing will change. I’d say most people didn’t farm these on multiple characters to begin with and if they do than it is spread out through the day. I know as I spend 2 days doing it on 5 characters before I moved on to more fun things. People with multiple characters can spread their characters around and park them accordingly. So no this change won’t fix overflows at all.

Conner, it does not matter if they are “spread out through the day”. Farming with multiple characters increases load, and we know people do not “spread out through the day” that much, because that’s why guesting is used so heavily – so they can get it done NOW, and not slowly do it as and when. You chose to do it a suboptimal way which didn’t involve guesting. That’s great, but it has nothing to do with how others did it.

Also, that you doubt many people were doing it with multiple characters is cute, but it’s pretty clear that ArenaNet believe they did. So should we believe ArenaNet, who have access to the figures, or you, who has access to an anecdote?

Somehow I’m going with the latter. I don’t expect the overflows to instantly vanish, and at peak times they will still be there for sure (but less severe – i.e. less people will end up in the overflow), but this is likely to help, and denying it will be based on personal anecdotes is truly silly, given ArenaNet clearly believe the opposite, and actually have access to the info.

All sounds excellent to me. Implementation can change that, of course, but I don’t think it’s unreasonable to be optimistic here.

The biggest worry for me is the Realm Abilities granted by the RvR ranks, or whatever they’re calling them, might unbalance RvR (WvW… whatever) but we shall see.

Huh, that’s actually a really good post and I agree with all of it. I mean, I don’t have the same problems, but I see those problems happening to people, and yes, I think 1 and 3 need something actually doing about them, and 2, well, it’s a tricky one, but I think we could do with seeing some alternate ways to get exotics. God help us if they make us get Ascended gear for slots beyond the current.

Yumiko Ishida.3769:

It will not be full of blues and green even after the change kitten What its it about what us sane and reasonable people on here are telling you guys don’t understand? Anet changed it that way—long before this new update coming. You’ll still get a rare or two… just not 100% of the time like now and the 100% one (after update) is in a daily styled chest and once per account per day.

I know what I’m doing come update. Business as usual! And if I still get a rare or even a precursor form the non account chest from each boss in my ones I do, I’m rubbing it all your faces.

That’s cool, dude, but I don’t think for most people it will be business as usual.

I don’t disagree with what you’re saying. I disagree with your conclusion that it will lead to being “business as usual” for everyone. That assumes everyone has identical motivations to you and understanding of the game as you.

Do you have approximate drop rates for rare/exotic items from these chests without the guaranteed one factoring in? I mean, are we talking 80%? 50%? 30%?

Yumiko Ishida.3769:

This here! And I continue to drill it into players heads that there will be no change to loot rates after your 100% guaranteed rare (and can still farm chests, one boss per area per character per day with good rare and exotic drop rates), but everyone says I’m wrong and I’m the idiot here.

So after this I’m going to let them stew in their own baseless sorrow. I have better things to do than reason with complainers that make no sense.

You are neither wrong nor an idiot, but the guy saying it won’t affect player behaviour is wrong (not an idiot though). As you can tell, it’s difficult to convince people that, without the guaranteed rare, this will still be worth doing – most people will stop doing it on multiple characters the first time they get a chest full of blues and greens. Even though the rare/exotic rate is good, relatively, it’s still not going to convince people to spam dragons in the way they do now.

Healix.5819:

If the point was to reduce overflows, this change won’t change anything.

It will, though, because whilst the loot is good, it’s not so much better that it will warrant people swapping through three dragons on multiple characters. The GUARANTEED rare factor was what got people going with multiple characters. Without that, MOST people will lack the dedication to profit and quickly get kitten off by chests full of blues and greens. So less characters will be participate which means less load which means less overflows. That’s incontrovertible.

Will it completely eliminate overflows right after reset? Probably not. Will it reduce them? Certainly.

DaisyRogers.6837:

I just get to bored with GS most cases, why it chills in my pack. I blow my cool downs and then I stand about and go pew pew backing up when needed. Its just not active enough for my play style. I love the spastic running and dodging and stealthing that my primary weapon sets give.

GS has its uses and is extremely effective at what it does. I think people would be foolish not to carry one.

(My ranger is same way, I have my primary weapons, but I’ve got my bows and sword/dagger combo in the pack for the times they prove most beneficial).

Exactly how I feel. Nothing wrong with the GS, apart from that it’s painfully boring after a few minutes. It’s just a “rinse-repeat” weapon compared to the more involved strategies the others promote. Hence it is the focus of Lazy Kai’s build – it is the most straightforward and mindless of the Mesmer weapons, and the easiest to handle. That isn’t a diss on the GS or people who like it – people can like simple weapons for a million reasons, many of them excellent, but I just find myself practically asleep at the keyboard when using it.

Mungrul.9358:

Let’s just think of what can go wrong here (or rather will go wrong, as ArenaNet have proved time and again that quality assurance is not the Live Team’s strong suit).

To paraphrase Martin, these rare reward chests will behave much like the ones that drop from monsters in the world when you get “Special” loot.
We all know how successful THAT’S been.
How many times have you opened one of these little chests only to find that your “Special” loot is blue or worse?
I’ve had numerous ones of these chests just give Porous Bones for example.

I foresee lots of angry users posting reports of no yellows from these new reward chests.

You are not understanding correctly and your paraphrase is outright wrong.

He said, and I QUOTE DIRECTLY: “visually similar to daily achievement reward chests”.

You are referring to the little chests which appear in the world. They were fixed last patch and I have no had a single non-yellow from one since then. They have nothing to do with this, though.

Martin is referring to “virtual” chests like the Daily chest. So when you kill a Dragon you get the big loot chest (which might have a rare in or not), in the world, and a “Daily”-style “virtual chest” in the bottom-right of your screen.

Hopefully that clears that up for you.

Azjenco.9425:

Anet’s inability to efficiently communicate with fans must be by far their greatest failure.

Yet by MMO industry standards they communicate more and better (in that they are polite, decent and dignified – unusual in this industry) than literally 95% of MMOs out there. Claiming they don’t is simply counter-factual. So if that is their greatest failure they clearly don’t have many failures!

Blizzard communicate more right now, but it’s strictly one-way and very recent, and most of it is meaningless. Even a year or so ago they would have been behind Anet in that.

Expecting detailed patch previews (and let’s not pretend that isn’t what this is about) when a company does real updates on a monthly schedule isn’t very reasonable. If this were WoW, where a patch with significant changes might come every 2-4 months (or less frequently, even, at times!), then you could expect them. Even a bi-monthly schedule would offer a reasonable expectation. Monthly though? Not reasonable. I’m sure you won’t like to hear that, but I really feel that’s the way it is.

Robbyx.1284:

Ruggy.7819:

People still crying over this change.. get a grip please, this is something that is ONLY good for the game, the fact players took it upon themselves to time/camp/farm events that were designed to be cool one off’s is a shining example of when a dev should step in and alter this toxic playstyle.. think about it for more then 30 seconds before posting more tears :P

Yea…and now people will simply go back to farming plinx and temples over and over and over and over…..

Actually, no. People will still want to do all three Dragons every day, and that takes time. So people will be more evenly spread between Temples/Plinx and the Dragons than they are now.

Lexandro.1456:

Not doing dailes is not a punishment. Seriously go get a job and try claiming not getting a work related bonus is a punishment. You would get laughed out the bosses office.

You might want to read the WSJ or the Financial Times some time. Plenty of people in finance and banking regard bonuses (even ones multiple times their salary) as their god-given right, and that not getting them is some kind of horrible, unconscionable, punishment. I guess they think that because most people at the high end in their industries get bonuses on a routine basis, regardless of performance, thus the abnormal state is not getting one, therefore it’s a punishment. I don’t think they’re right, but it’s not as uncommon an attitude in society as one might think!

That said, I would like to see you able to “store up” dailies for say 2-3 days, because unfortunately Laurels are very valuable and non-transferable, and you need an awful lot of them to gear even one character, so skipping a few days of GW2 is kind of irritating, as you know you cannot “make up lost time”, at all.

tolkien.6317:

The first time a Harley appeared in Dalaran in WoW for example, was the beginning of the end for those of us who cared about the game as it was when it launched.

Nope. For people who cared about the Lore, the end began with TBC. By the time of WotLK, there was so much silly nonsense in the game that the Harley was merely a footnote.

The Dreamer is nowhere near as ridiculous as the Harley was, either. Nor as ubiquitous. One typically sees it every few days at most. The Harleys were pretty much everywhere about a week after they came into the game.

Oglaf.1074:

That’s the biggest problem I have with Legendaries in general(apart from Precursors. Grrr…)

There are two categories:

1) Joke Legendaries, like the Dreamer and the Moot.

2) Cool Legendaries, like Twilight and Frostfang.

Is that really a problem, though?

I mean, right now, both people who like things deadly serious and super-kewl have a number of legendaries they can get, and people who like things a bit ridiculous and silly have a number that they can get.

Neither side is in any way punished in performance, because Legendaries are merely Exotics, performance-wise. So if you don’t like the Pony or Flower bows (and the latter is actually pretty cool and not something I would call a “joke”, myself), you can just use an Exotic bow or if you want a fancy look, a bow crafted in the Mystic Forge (and most of the Mystic Forge stuff looks pretty SRS BSNS).

I mean, the key thing is, no-one is ever forcing you to get a Legendary. If you love Short Bow, want a Legendary, but hate the Dreamer, well, yeah, you’re out of luck, but that’s not exactly a huge proportion of players. If I wanted a longsword that looked epic and brilliant, rather than like a bizarre lightning contraption I’d be out of luck too, even you would presumably call that “cool” and not a “joke”.

No doubt we will see more Legendaries eventually, but for now, if this is even a “problem”, then it’s at #1723 on the list of problems you have.

Solandri.9640:

I’ve actually been trying to quantify this. It’s difficult because I tend to kill off my test subjects, and I have to try to keep myself alive. But the preliminary figures I got before I got too busy to play says the auto-evades mitigate less than a third of the hits.

Less than 33% would be expected, but if it’s anywhere near that figure (say, even 20%), that’s potentially pretty huge in terms of mitigated damage, even assuming you intentionally Dodge or GS Block big hits.

The difference in damage mitigation between Medium and Heavy armour is not enormous, and I would suspect it is considerably lower than the extra mitigation GS3 gives – then again you won’t always be auto-attacking.

Serraphin Storm.2369:

Not everyone keeps thier pet dead and not everyone can keep them alive but raw numbers should be considered. the variables can be calculated later. It’s widely accepted that pets should do 40% of our damage but is this number correct. Is this with or without points in BM and if so how much.

Pets are meant to be a core part of the ranger I just think that both raw weapon damage and pet damage should be considered even if they are not presented side by side.

Given the wide disparity of damage between pet types, and that on a single target pets will be doing a larger percentage of one’s damage, and that BM certainly factors in, there’s no way 40% is anything but the roughest of ballparks.

Bonezz.4961:

Best part is how that “other” mmo is still thriving and this games community continues to shrink. The problem is this game suffered for having no true endgame and WvWvW is just whoever can spam more AoE. Structured pvp is pretty much dead. You can’t even deny how dead the lower level zones are and how you get stuck doing dynamic events by yourself.

I certainly can deny that, having started levelling a number of characters. The lower-level zones were busy, and the supposedly “empty” zones in the mid-levels were anything but. Plus I’m seeing increased activity overall, not decreased, so unless you have some figures, I suspect this is wishful thinking of a negative kind on your part.

“That other mmo” is definitely going strong in China (where the sub works differently, and they don’t buy expansions). Whether it is going strong in the West is debatable. Expansion sales eventually broke 3m, but didn’t break 4m. In the time Cataclysm sold 4.5m, Pandaria only sold 2.7m (despite arguably being considerably better gameplay-wise and art-wise than Cataclysm), so that is a pretty big change.

Personally, I can’t go back to other MMOs. The combination of sub and not being as fun just doesn’t cut it for me. “That other MMO” basically wants you to blow through levelling content at absolute maximum velocity before you are allowed to play the “real” game, where GW2 encourages you to just do what you want, and reach max level when you reach it. That alone is a huge difference, and one that makes ENDGAEM!!!!!! less vital. As for claims that GW2 has no endgame and thus people can’t play it for long, I find it unconvincing. With “That other MMO”, I’ve found myself reach max level countless times, only to quit 3-4 months later, have run out of content, and ended up waiting several months, only for the same thing to happen even faster (1-3 months), until the next expansion, then I might get 3-4 months before quitting again, and so on. With GW2, I play when I want to – not every month, but most months, and I just keep having fun. I didn’t get Pandaria, I won’t be getting the next one – nor will anyone I know. But I know I will be getting any GW2 expansions that come out.

Paulytnz.7619:

Oh I think I know what that is – a bug. If you have the sound turned up you can hear the usual sound a skelk makes when it turns invisible. At that exact spot it repeats that sound over and over. So I am sure it is a bugged skelk in some shape or form. I reported it as such and I have also found the same thing on another map but I forget where that 1 was.

I think you’re right – those “leaves” do look awfully like a skelk tailfin!

It’s a pity, because this would be an awfully good and Guild Wars-appropriate-seeming way to add content (a beanstalk/vine). Perhaps the devs can take inspiration from this!

Ardenwolfe.8590:

It’s ranger. Don’t let ’em tell you otherwise.

Er, Ardenwolfe, the OP is the one claiming Ranger is crummy for soloing. It’s not that people are telling him it is. He’s claiming it. Whereas in fact I think it’s fairly safe to say he’s not playing it very well (to be fair, it’s not the easiest class to play) and/or has a build that is highly unsuitable to him.

I guess on that basis maybe Warrior is the way for him to go, because you can see very high levels of success with relatively simple (I won’t say easy or whatever, but very straightforward and simple) play, and the builds are almost painfully obvious for Warrior where other classes may require some thought.

Jeffrey Vaughn.1793:

The default respawn rate is 95-120 seconds, so if you’re seeing locations where they respawn much faster, please report it with specific info! Event creatures will often appear more quickly (so the event doesn’t look dead if players kill them immediately) and if players were killing things in the same area, they might respawn near you. (i.e. if a group ran through and cleared an area a minute ago, a lone player might be in the area when their respawn timer comes up.)

It would be really good if you could clarify WHEN the the 95-120 seconds starts. Is it from the death of the monster, or is it some sort of “server tick” or what?

Also, could you clarify what sort of range you mean when you’re talking about mobs being killed “nearby”? 10 yards? 30 yards? Map distance? If it’s closer to the latter than the former that might explain some of this insta-pop stuff.

I mean, for my part, especially dealing with Grawl in the 20-40 areas (and Centaurs from 20-50-ish), I’ve seen some bonkers respawns – literally kill one Grawl, and it respawns before I can even finish mining the node next to it. Now maybe that’s because I killed another Grawl 60 yards away 2 minutes ago, and it just picked this spot, or maybe it’s because the respawn is a server tick, or maybe it’s because something unexpected is happening with respawns. Obviously I cannot say, but I can say that, when you kill a mob on a spot, and another mob spawns there within seconds, it is intensely frustrating and feels very unrewarding.

It is obviously particularly frustrating with Veterans and Champions. Veterans certainly seem to be on 95-120 timers, at most, and some Champions may well be too, and really prevents looking at how cool a lot of the areas they are in are. I mean, my wife and I bust up a half-dozen normal ghosts and a couple of veterans, and literally we had time to open the chest by them and my wife was halfway through saying “Wow this place is so cool-looking…” before we started getting multiple respawns.

I really hope you take a look at respawn rates in interior areas, particularly narrow ones like caves and corridors, and think about reducing them – I think we could cope with 190-240 timers on most mobs in caves, for example, without the game suffering. Indeed I actually think the experience for the vast majority of players would improve.

In general having more varied respawn (faster and slower) rates might help give challenge where needed, and keep it under control where exploration is the main goal, especially when you have all these beautiful locations that one can barely look at because monsters are constantly making you fight them.

QSatu.1586:

From the design perspective this whole storyline is bad. Asking people to run and click on sign posts is boring. telling people: go and find 2-4 items somewhere in 2 big zones is terrible gameplay. With no clues, no direction, just go and search for gold stars on the ground. Is this what you learned to do during gw2’s development? I expected something more from ANet b/c this is a design from 15 years ago.

15 years ago the only MMO really out there was Ultima Online, and it certainly didn’t have design like that. Nor did EQ, 14 years ago. Indeed, if a game had done something like this 12-15 years ago, not only would the items have been randomly placed in a large zone, they wouldn’t have been tagged as quest items, would probably only have appeared once every eight hours, only one player would have been able to pick them up, no-one would have explained what was going on, and the entire deal would have been guesswork. So that seems like a strange thing to say, or ridiculous hyperbole at best.

This design is actually most reminiscent of GW1 bonus missions, I’d say, where you often had to kill X things which were somewhere in the zone, but way out of your path and with no indicators to help you find them. That’s not to say it’s a good design – it’s not, imho, but it’s not as bad or ancient as you are claiming.

@ BobbyStein – there are two real problems with the stuff so far:

1) Messaging. As you seem to be aware, much of this comes down to F&F being over-hyped. I get that you didn’t want people to miss out, but far from being a big thing, you have to kind of hunt around the zones involved to even really find anything, which seems downright weird given how it’s described.

2) Dull content attached to achievements/titles which are seemingly time-limited. People don’t want to miss out on one-time achievements or titles – the karma reward is largely irrelevant, I suspect, but a lot of people feel that they “must” do this stuff because of the title and achievements in general. It’s nice to recognise players for their effort, but perhaps better to leave achievements and so on for big, almost-unavoidable events, and to link them to, fun or at least diverse activities, as opposed to simply going around picking things up in low-level zones (again, choice of low-level zones is understandable, you want to let all players participate, but it makes “go around and pick stuff up” tasks even more dull and unrewarding than they otherwise might be).

Apart from that it seems like a good start or good prelude. My wife, who is a veteran of many MMOs, was still excited and alarmed when portals opened whilst she was in a Norn village, and Dredge and Flame Legion came pouring out. That’s clearly the sort of “Oh kitten… cool!” reaction you want, not the “Oh god where is this stupid thing…” or “Ugh need to find more dead dudes or signposts…”-type reactions the other content provokes.

Ashanor.5319:

neon.4863:

I play all 8 classes and Warrior is easily the one that can tear through PvE with the least effort/thought put into it.

Every class can be used to solo, but for easy mindless tearing through things, go Warrior. Warrior is very bad at healing and getting rid of conditions but can tear through groups before healing becomes an issue, usually.

You didn’t play Ranger properly if you think Warrior is a better solo PvE class. There is nothing in this game that can touch a Ranger for solo PvE leveling.

For levelling I tend to agree. My Ranger hit 50 in the time it took for my Warrior to hit 30. Part of that is experience. More of that is effectiveness and adaptability. The claims re: lack of AOE seem bizarre to me what with the bows and traps and so on – whilst levelling you are rarely fighting more than 3-4 mobs, and AOE can’t hit more than 5 so that’s really the limit you will be hitting anyway. I’ve had tons of success taking on groups of 8+ centaurs (to the point where it’s routine), and generally seem to be highly survivable and effective.

I would recommend against a glass-cannon and/or pet-unfriendly build, for levelling, though. I bet that’s what most people who dislike Rangers were going with. A more survivable build including points in the pet line saw me go from being slightly irked with my Ranger (they were swift but annoying) to really enjoying them.

Also, for god’s sake, if you pet is low on health, and you aren’t casting a heal, swap them and get the 20s cooldown instead of the 60s one! Seems like a lot of people just really really don’t like swapping pets.

As for “try hard” nonsense, Ranger does take more thought and effort than a hundred-blades signet warrior, but so does every spec and class, and most of them are more rewarding and have higher skill caps too.

Oglaf.1074:

Daecollo.9578:

Oglaf.1074:

The latest patch nerfed Healing Signet.

I doubt they will flipflop and buff it now…

I agree, it did heal for far too much at low levels, it was healing for like almost half your life.

For high levels though, when its heals are so poor…

Before it was good at lower levels, but lost all power at higher levels.

Now it is just bad at any stage.

Urgh.

That’s all true, but the nerf doesn’t necessarily mean that they won’t buff it, in fact it makes it a little more likely, oddly enough. Before, if they had buffed Healing Signet at all, it would have been grossly overpowered at lower levels to a ludicrous degree (it was already clearly the best option by miles up until the 60s, due to the way it scaled). Now, having nerfed it at lower levels, they can take a more serious look at it, and potentially improve it, particularly at higher levels.

However, I rather suspect it will stay how it is, simply because of the popularity of the 5-signet-GS warrior build.

That would be cute, and potentially fun, if a little hard to balance, but I wouldn’t expect to see it for a long time, if ever. You might want to bold the “- Only utility/elite/healing/skills can be from the secondary profession.” as I’m not sure that all replying will read the post carefully (despite it being very concise!).

Also you may want, if possible, to edit the title to “A suggestion for dual professions” or the like. Whilst I like your suggestion, the title rather seems to imply an official source has stated this, and that doesn’t seem to be the case.

Trendy Ideology.1034:

There are so many logical fallacies in your arguments and responses that I frankly don’t know where to start. So I simply wont.

I made my point. Plenty of people have agreed and posted their agreeable two cents on the topic.

In Britain we call that a “cop-out”. You know your tastes are niche/extreme and are unhappy to have them questioned. I would be unhappy to see them reflected in the game (if akin to TERA).

I will say, though, that if we were going to have ridiculous outfits for people with niche interests, there is one I’d paid for – one that made my character look like Commander Shepard from Mass Effect (i.e. N7 armor). Not going to happen, but that’s one I’d paid for.

Dante.1508:

Are you serious that Female set is by far the best medium set in game, the male set isn’t any where near as good…

Either way, the sets should be much more similar. It’s especially weird given some sets are pretty naked for both genders.

Trendy Ideology.1034:

Oh it is, is it? Then why is the guy posting directly below you threatening to quit over any more cleavage armor?

I can’t speak for others, can I?

Trendy Ideology.1034:

I see you heard about the sale at the flawed analogy store where I purchased mine.

Yep

Trendy Ideology.1034:

Furthermore can I just say how offensive it is that you call my analogy flawed and then proceed to make such a flagrantly kitten one yourself?

Nope

Certainly not when you used one planning specially to insult people later by calling them babies.

Trendy Ideology.1034:

Do you have a single source to cite for what percentages of the GW2 playerbase want ThingA versus ThingB? Any poll, any statistics on armor usage, any… anything? Or like most people asserting fact online are you just making stuff up to support your argument?

Do you? I can make one if you like. I have my eyes. If most people wanted sexy outfits, there would be more of them wearing them.

Trendy Ideology.1034:

You are not the armor gestapo. And this is exactly what I was talking about with my steak/salad analogy. It’s not about who orders the salad, it’s about two or more people going somewhere for food, and one person ordering one thing, and the other person for one reason or another taking exception to what that person ordered. But I chose steak and salad because I was going to follow it up with a “just because baby can’t chew steak doesn’t mean I shouldn’t be able to order it” comment later on.

Food is a wrong (not poor, wrong) comparison. Clothes are the right comparison.

Trendy Ideology.1034:

That’s a valid concern, but, that’s why I say we need tons of volume, from multiple sources, so that they can safely add cool stuff to the store without that being an issue.

Art budget is an issue. More volume = less sales per item = less profit per item.

Trendy Ideology.1034:

You say 9 months, I say almost a year. But more importantly, I posted this because posting crap content instead of real content isn’t the direction they should be headed. I would rather wait 2 months at a time for something cool than get something once a month and have it be crap 9/10 times like these hoodies.

9 months is correct (Aug 28 2012), “almost a year” is wrong. So that’s silly. As for direction you praised a game so pervy it had to edit for the West so it didn’t get called a pedo game. So I am concerned as to what you think is a good direction.

Azjenco.9425:

Eurhetemec.9052:

Azjenco.9425:

GW2lfg is not an excuse. An in game LFG tool if done well (and I’m not talking about the lame WoW grouper) is meant to bring players who want to do dungeons together. Pretty much in the same way the mists tools bring PvPers together. Would it have been alright if PvPers had to spam LA chat to get matches going? Then why should dungeon runners do it?

Can you name a current or past MMO with an “in game LFG tool done well”, given you don’t think the WoW one is?

WoW has a dungeon finder, not an actual LFG tool. You can’t find groups to do quests or just explore. It throws you into a group and throw you all into a dungeon. When I said that I meant they should make a tool that shows available players and groups for different activities in the game, not a tool that automatically throws you into a dungeon.

The DDO group tool was very well done though.

I agree that WoW’s LFD tool isn’t an actual LFG tool. That’s because it doesn’t need to be. WoW’s content is all either solo, 5-man, 10-man, or 20-man. Thus there is FUNCTIONALLY no need for an old-fashioned LFG tool.

I mean, I don’t know how long you’ve played MMOs. I’ve played since 1999, as I said. LFG tools were important back in the days of “camping” a spawn of mobs, or working your way through a dungeon (which wasn’t instanced or balanced for a specific group size). As MMOs have moved away from that, the utility and necessity of them has become less, certainly outside of forming dungeon groups.

As for the DDO tool, well, it was fairly meh at release, I assume it improved? As I recall, though, DDO has a 100% different structure to GW2, and indeed one similar to GW1, wherein you are either in a town or in an instanced adventure area. Effectively it was very similar to early versions of WoW LFD, when I played – you were looking for a group for an instance.

So what is it you require from LFG for GW2?

Azjenco.9425:

GW2lfg is not an excuse. An in game LFG tool if done well (and I’m not talking about the lame WoW grouper) is meant to bring players who want to do dungeons together. Pretty much in the same way the mists tools bring PvPers together. Would it have been alright if PvPers had to spam LA chat to get matches going? Then why should dungeon runners do it?

Can you name a current or past MMO with an “in game LFG tool done well”, given you don’t think the WoW one is?

Resonance.4216:

Anyone who comes in here to tell me to use an external website to mimic a function that’s integral to the game can save their time and not post. Guild Wars 1 and every other MMO which utilised a party system had an LFG working on launch day.

So ArenaNET, why no LFG?

Just to say, the bolded bit is completely untrue, and an unhelpful hyperbolic position. The vast majority of MMOs I can think of (having played since 1999) started with no or totally inadequate LFG systems. I don’t know why that is, but that is the truth, and that they all had them is simply not the case. In most cases it took 1-2 years (minimum) for a proper LFG (not just a chat channel or the like) to appear.

EQ, DAoC, WoW (WoW actually REMOVED it’s LFG functions for a long time!), and dozens of others fit this pattern. Even where games did launch with LFG it tended to be virtually non-functional.

That’s not to say GW2 shouldn’t do better. It should. I mean, if you’re better than other MMOs in most ways, why not in this way? Just let’s not pretend many MMOs got this right early on. There must have been some, but I can’t think of them.

Trendy Ideology.1034:

People that want to veto certain types of content are like people ordering salads at a steakhouse and complaining that you’re ordering steak.

You have your salad. I’ll have my steak.

Nope. It’s the opposite way around. GW2 is, on the surface, a relatively serious game, and one which isn’t a totally tacky sexist, hyper-sexualized and actually borderline perverted game like TERA (talking about some of the stuff they had to edit to even release in the West). So people demanding that kind of thing are the “salad-eaters”.

A better analogy might be people who are demanding that they be allowed to dress in bondage fetish gear at a Civil War Re-enactment.

Stylish stuff, yes, cool stuff, yes, the odd anachronism that’s fun? Yes. Ridiculous sexist or perv-bait outfits? No. Too much TERA stuff, which you brand “cool” is the latter, not “cool” to most people, cool solely to hardcore fans of certain looks.

There’s also the concern that GW2 will start keeping all the cool stuff for sale, and not from content. That would be sad.

As for people complaining about limited looks, given that the game has only been out 9 months, I think that’s pretty unreasonable. If they haven’t added a bunch by two years in, sure, then it’s time to complain. I was surprised FotM didn’t really add any.

Vayne.8563:

Is the ratio important or do you just need to make better choices in how you spend your in game time?

The problem with your argument is that this event is time-limited. With other content he can always do it “some other time”. With this, at some point – probably fairly soon (as in months at most), it will be forever gone. Therefore it is rational and sensible to prioritise this stuff. Especially as you have no idea if there will suddenly be rewards which require you to have done it (it would not be the first time an MMO has sprung this on people). With theme parks like Disneyworld (to use your own comparison), time-limited stuff is pretty much shoved in the faces of the guests so they can’t miss it unless they try. This is quite the opposite.

Also continuing the Disneyworld analogy, Disney are not going to hype an event hugely then have it be no more interesting – in fact less interesting – than the day-to-day in Disneyworld.

So again, this fails your own Disneyworld test. Events should be exciting and ultra-accessible, not dull and hard to locate.

ophidic.1279:

Shimond.2478:

Not every single part of the game is going to be fully available to every single player.

That’s not really the game’s fault. It’s impossible to ‘fix’ this ‘problem’

It’s not even a problem that needs to be fixed!

Correction… It’s not even a problem!

The design of dailies/monthlies IS however this game’s fault, is a problem, and can and should be improved. I’d suggest allowing people to go back and do dailies/monthlies that they missed out on in some way – not forever, maybe back 30 days or something though.

winterlove.6834:

curios about air flow. if you leave the side off of your pc is that bad on temperature? i have an antec 1200 and always leave side of for some reason or anther ???

That’s generally very bad.

Leaving the side of the case off will give you three problems (amongst others):

1) Case fans will basically be doing nothing for you – as the PC will no longer have airflow through it (certainly not in the designed way). That’s bad if you have any (most people do).

2) Any dust and fluff will flow directly into the case, potentially causing problems unless you keep the PC internals v. clean – which potentially means interfering with them more than may be healthy.

3) All it takes is a spill or a misplaced foot and it’s ALL OVER for your PC.

So put the side of your PC back on! After getting any dust etc. out of it.

Raztax.2978:

NDM.3795:

Never take notes about computers from someone who own alienware….

Hrm why is that? I own Alienware and have been using computers, including several boxes custom built by myself, for over 30 years now, as well as 6 years of tech support for Microsoft for Windows XP.
I don’t think your assumption is a fair statement at all.

A fairer way to put it might be “never take advice about high-end gaming PCs from someone who strongly and repeatedly advocates for Alienware PCs”, which the OP does. This should not be stickied. It contains almost no useful advice is borderline advertising spiel. Buying an Alienware PC once or twice because you have far more money than time, or just don’t feel homebuilding is worth it, is fine, but when you’re like the OP, and basically instructing people to do that, and overstating various problems in order to boost your position, whilst claiming to be a total expert – then that’s really bad (you aren’t doing that – the OP is).

Libertine.1047:

Astralporing.1957:

bewhatever.2390:

Nah, ArenaNet will just get to sell a lot of lvl 80 transmute stones at the gem store. People will keep their unique looks. The transmute stone lets you separately pick the appearance, the stat package, and the rune/gem.

While lot of people (myself included) are indeed interested in arnor looks for purely cosmetic reasons, there is equally big group that wants to show off theiraccomplishments that way. All those people that claim that cultural armor must cost a lot, or it won’t be as cool are not going to convert their ascended looks into something cheaper. In the end, unless something changes, lot of the “elite” grinders are going to end up looking exactly the same.
At least they will have the option to change their colour sets.

I have to comment now, because I am one of those people who think that cultural armor should be difficult to obtain, just like the best looking armors (in my opinion) in GW1 was.

That being said, I would definately transmute the sats of my ascended armor into my cultural tier 3 armor, if I find cultural armor to look better.

So please, do not speak about “all those people”

If you don’t think T3 Cultural Armor is “difficult to obtain” at 119g, you have an absolutely worthless definition of “difficult to obtain”, I would suggest. What armour set is harder to obtain in GW2?

digiowl.9620:

Thanks Jeffrey. I suspect the fight will be much easier to deal with without the summoned mobs.

As a work-around until the change goes in, if you have any Interrupt (Stun, Daze etc.), you can stop the summon by holding the Interrupt until the Krait rears up, then Interrupting it. That’s how I got through this and the previous mission with a summoning Krait. They will probably summon again before your Interrupt is off CD (unless you have multiple), but will likely nearly be dead by then.

digiowl.9620:

I fear that asura in general are very focused on practical/physical applications.

That said, statics seems to have the most thoughtful approach to things.

Statics is about using established methods in a steady, controlled, way, and not taking risks. It’s not open to new ideas nor blue-sky thinking, so is definitely not “thoughtful” in the way people normally use the term.

Synergetics is definitely “philosopher’s” college, given that it is allow about the links between things, patterns, and complexity in general. It is certainly the most “blue-sky” of the colleges.

This was pretty hilarious, in a bad way. At 65 the mobs in the courtyard wiped all my NPCs and I couldn’t down the Veterans before being assist-trained by a dozen or more normal mobs – I kept trying until my armour broke entirely.

So I upgraded all my gear to solid greens w/medallions and a rare weapon, and I was just able to drop the Veterans in time solo. It was bloody close though and nightmarish. Similar pains with the Krait summoner missions, but again got them done – with more deaths than seemed fair.

I wouldn’t mind replayable “Hard Mode” story stuff, but it should be intentional, not accidental!

the moidart.3612:

It’s an excuse to take some time before the messenger runs into camp. And to introduce/reintroduce npcs that have been in various peoples personal stories. Both the norn and the sylvari, at least.

Presumably they go on to singlehandedly produce hundreds of airships and choppers, the mech suit from the Priory version of Orr, and all the weapons and armor of the Pact.

They should have introduced the bankers who pay for all this super tech without the means of generating revenue instead.

Well, you don’t really need bankers in total war but you do need the tens of thousands of workers who must be behind mining, smelting, alloying and so on all that metal, making all those shells, tanning square miles of leather, stitching leagues of er… stitches, etc.

I don’t mind the PC being second-in-command to Trahhearne, or him having a fancy sword. Also his accent is not much different to my own (as a middle-class Englishman).

However, I DO mind that he is incredibly boring and personality-free, and has a very boring visual design. Especially compared to many other NPCs. He should be unique at least (if he is, I can’t tell – most other Sylvari are far more memorable).

SpyderArachnid.5619:

Instantly, your concept is flawed. You’re comparing a single player experience to an online MMO experience. Two completely different things with completely different mechanics. You can’t put a single player experience in an MMO, as it would never work.

In a single player game, they can do all that and make everything revolve around you and immerse you in everything perfectly. There is no competition, no balance needed, nothing. It is all about you and no one else.

But in an MMO, you have to set rules and requirements. There is millions of players at one time and they have to all be considered in everything. It doesn’t just revolve around you and balance is needed to keep everything in check for everyone.

You just can’t compare the two, sorry. They will never work together.

You are completely wrong. His comparison is entirely valid.

Early MMOs were endogenous in the way he describes, including GW1 (EQ1 was a perfect example of such). So your counter-argument ends there. His comparison is valid. That he chose Skyrim instead of EQ1 just helps more people to understand it.

You don’t have to agree with him on his preferences, but EQ1 and others show you have no point to make.