Guild Wars 2

I like these suggestions.

The major type of keyboard/mouse activity that triggers my particular issues is having to hold keys/buttons down for extended periods of time. So I’d like to see:

• Click-release-and-drag as an option for camera movement, as opposed to the current click-hold-and-drag functionality we’re limited to. Camera movement is the major cause of wear and tear on my mouse hand.
• Ability to enable/toggle nameplates for objects as per the current options for player names, enemy names etc. I like to see the labels to avoid missing anything nearby, so I tend to play with the Ctrl key permanently held down on my left hand by habit. It’d be nice to be able to give my pinkie a break.

As a bonus, some shortcuts I really appreciate:

• Auto-attack
• Auto-run. One of the major reasons I’m still able to play at all.
• Other labels/nameplates being toggle options in the settings

Yeeeeep, I feel this one on my mesmer all the time

I understand the compromise being made here and I’m not angry about the loss of the exact town clothes implementation that we have, primarily because it’s so restrictive as is that I rarely use it except during holiday events. That limitation meant I bought a lot fewer town clothes than I could have.

That said, I totally respect people’s concerns about the loss of previously existing combinations, and I still feel like we’re at a bit of an unfinished halfway point with resolving the point of town clothes and the way they interact with armour.

I almost feel like we should just ditch the outfit/town clothes system and turn everything into armour. It doesn’t have to be done for April 15th (again, I appreciate the difficulty of converting some of the full outfits), but maybe it could become a communicated end goal for the transformation of the system over the longterm, so that people can adjust their expectations/spending accordingly.

Anything that you can currently equip separately, per piece, should ideally become a piece of armour. I guess that’s what I’d like to see, since with skin transformations readily available, there isn’t really a conceptual point to having another cosmetic layer for ‘outfits’.

Overall I’m really looking forward to these changes, but that’s primarily because the town clothes issue doesn’t affect me enough to outweigh the wardrobe benefits.

They mimic human anatomy, but sometimes it’s more suggestive than a specific replication of the way humans work.

Sylvari anatomy render

To me, from images like this, it looks more like there’s a suggestion of toes rather than individual ones. Kinda like how the ‘belly button’ mimics human belly buttons, but is actually the stem of the sylvari as opposed to being caused by an umbilical cord, and the face looks like a human face but is really just a clever arrangement of overlapping plates of plant material and leaves.

I love their anatomy design

This is an awesome critique. I agree with every point.

Don’t go in expecting high literature from any of them, and you’ll do okay. That’s a basic disclaimer for any series tie-in novel though, I think.

Ghosts of Ascalon: I found it a bit slow due to a fair amount of exposition, but the characters were likeable and it was a good introduction to some of the general facets of modern Tyria (races, cultures, underpinning conflicts etc.)
Edge of Destiny: YMMV, but to me is the weakest of the three novels. Provides the immediate background that you should have at the start of the game with regards to Destiny’s Edge, but it’s all a bit rushed and shallow.
Sea of Sorrows: Best writing by a mile, written by someone a lot closer to the world of Tyria, and it shows. My favourite of the three, even if lore-wise it sits midway between GW1 and GW2 so some mental adjustment of race/culture/geography/history positioning is required. It’s very nautical/pirate-themed, so if you can’t stand ships and sailing and so on, it won’t be for you.

Now we just need armour stats to be made more flexible/changeable, and we’re golden

lordkrall.7241:

Shadow Blade.1324:

for those of you who don’t recall dyes were originally going to be account bound and after they added a certain monetization manager to the team they became character bound(so they can sell more dyes), they also told the people literally begging them in Beta before the game had launched to keep it account wide that this was the plan for character progression, to make them more individual and that they would not be account wide.

id really like to see what their justification is this time, because clearly it cant be player feedback, as they paid no attention when they got it before the game launched.

what is wrong with the devs that they cant plan long term, we keep seeing systems changes again and again complete 180s while they trot out “we are learning and listening to your feedback” like its some kind of talisman that protects them from looking incompetent.

Oh, you mean that change that was made about 6 months after said certain manager was hired? So clearly said manager didn’t do anything at all the first 6 months then?

They were account-bound in some of the betas. And they were arguable WORSE than the current system.
It was basically:
Find a seed.
Plant a seed.
Wait 24 hours.
Get a dye.

And funnily enough I remember from beta people that “begged them” to change that as well. So clearly they did listen to the players. And in retrospect I would say the current system is quite superior to the early one.

Things change. The market change. New technology and ideas turn up.
The system being talked about for the Chinese version is not even close to the system we had over here originally, so clearly they have done some major changes which might very well end up being better than both the first and the second version of our game.

In the early system, you could also buy ‘plant food’ from the gemstore to speed up dye creation. The backlash from that and the whole “inventing deliberate inconvenience so that you can sell convenience items” design is pretty much why it got canned.

I really would love account bound dyes. UIDs tend to sit in my bank for weeks while I deliberate over who gets them. But I’ll be really disappointed if that change includes removing the random drops so that dyes can be locked behind the gemstore or crafting (something not every player bothers with). They’re the highlight of my casual adventuring loot! Even if I invariably end up with various shades of poo brown :P

Reduce random drops by all means to reduce supply, if need be. But I’ve been playing since the early start, don’t buy dye packs or buy them off the trading post, and to be honest, I don’t have that many dyes. Miles off the available 400, even if I concatenated the dye collections for my various characters.

Latinkuro.9420:

Just this alone has me jumping and squeeling all over the place imagine all the other goodies this update will have

• The button to instantly refund all traits, previously seen only in structured PvP areas, has become game-wide.
• Refunding traits is now free across the game: refund your traits any time you’re not in combat or in a competitive PvP match!
• A minus button has been added to each trait line directly below the plus button, which allows you to remove a single trait point at a time.

Plus acquiring traits out in the open world via actual activity sounds a lot like skill capture in GW1, which was awesome <3

Agreed! I hate having to game to someone else’s schedule.

A lot of the time, I feel gem prices are about 25-40% too high for the value of the item being purchased. Sale prices feel like the ‘real’ price and it’s pretty annoying. This applies particularly to RNG and single-use items, especially consumables. Realistically, you need to be looking at the cost of the game versus the cost of the item you’re buying, and it’s on that basis that I think the gemstore is generally overpriced.

I think we have a serious lack of very low value items as well – minor cosmetic, consumables and fun items in, say, the 25-100 gem range.

I do buy things from the gemstore occasionally, however, if I see something I really want and is worth the cash. I’d buy a lot more if they were IMO more reasonably priced, and if there were more flexible gem transactions available.

I’m really tempted by the branch ones for my engineer, gah Dx Kristen, stop* giving us exactly what we ask for!

*Not really – please, keep doing it <3

A little racial/cultural focus wouldn’t hurt now and then. In trying to be inclusive of all 5 races in all parts of the story, each one tends to become a homogenous lump of sorts.

Zelkovan.2630:

Um…you do realize that all stories are according to plan, right? If a villain in a story screws up or doesn’t succeed it’s all “according to plan” of the writer. Therefore Scarlet getting away with everything was, yes, according to plan. That doesn’t mean something is wrong with it.

Big difference between ‘everything according to the writer’s plan’ and ‘everything according to Scarlet’s plan’. The writer is omniscient – characters, generally, should not be.

I kinda wish they’d been completely androgynous, but design-wise I absolutely love the thought that went into their anatomy and turned them from boring green elves to actual plants mimicking another species.

The lore around why they look like humans is definitely sketchy though, and not really the strongest origin story in the world.

I recall Chris saying in the LW CDI thread that they would stick to the 2-week release cadence while they felt confident in maintaining the quality of releases.

I would hope, given that this release has been one of the buggiest yet with repeated, significant mechanics-changing patches, that it is clear enough it’s not sufficient for quality releases, and they revisit this decision. There are a lot of things on my wishlist for a LW/LS season 2, but better quality/polish and less time pressure for completion are pretty close to the top.

Yzen.1256:

I don’t play much (few hours a week) and I had plenty of time to see the Lion’s Arch event thoroughly.

A few hours a week is, what, 4 attempts at Scarlet, maximum? With the terrible accessibility of this event, a lot of players wouldn’t even have gotten past the assault knights with that kind of available time. 2 weeks might seem a lot of time, but when a lot of the blocking content is group oriented or gated and you can’t reliably say “I can 100% do this on those 2 weekend hours I get to play”, it’s simply not accessible.

I have a friend who’s barely done any of the LS for this reason. She feels totally that the content “isn’t for her” due to story often being gated behind a grind (e.g. having to grind X power nodes or whatever they were from Scarlet’s probes before you could see a critical story instance), unreliable group content, or unnecessarily difficult content. The meta is often unachievable unless you commit to playing multiple separate days and acquiring the relevant dailies – so if you can totally play ALL DAY Saturday and get 12 hours in, you are still probably screwed.

It’s not a friendly design for anyone on a rigid and inflexible gaming schedule and limited time to play (very different from not having any time at all to play), and it disappoints me to see this limitation continue in the LS design.

Oulov.7913:

This one is with female vocal and I think it’s even better:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nl_rsTre628

Oh wow <3 Nice catch.

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Sorry, I find myself arguing on the other side here because they aren’t real people. They are characters, a work of fiction. With no more actual reality than Twilight Sparkle, Daryl Dixon, or Tywin Lannister.
….
The characters may be partially based on reality, or they may be “written about some guy I knew who lived down the hall in college”. But they’re not reality, so trying to shift the discussion to make it about real people isn’t . . . it just won’t work.

Why do we have heterosexual relationships in storytelling? Simply because they are a facet of real life and representative of real life experience that readers/moviegoers/gamers also experience and enjoy seeing reflected in the media they consume, right?

What I’m saying is that including homosexual relationships is no different, so when one set of people are arguing that it’s value-pushing as opposed to the above, they will never reach resolution because they are arguing fundamentally different points.

It is extremely important for people to be able to see themselves represented positively in the media they consume. I’m fully aware that Jory and Kas are not real people, but their sexual identities and relationship represent the experiences of a set of real people, so excluding them amounts to being exclusive of part of your player base. It’s the same reason it’s important to have good/numerous female characters, and characters (where human xD) of diverse races.

Again, if your stance is that “it’s just a game”, “it’s just fiction” and representation doesn’t matter, then that’s another point for mutual disagreement so I won’t push that, but I did want to clarify what I meant.

bullyrook.2165:

Do you really want us to get along? Then show individuals such as myself some form of good will. At the end of the day, we are a community, and I accept your views. Just don’t ask me to approve. The latest development between Kas and Jory is a demand for approval, and many of us cannot give it. What about you? Would you see values such as my own in the game? Chances are that you would react in a similar fashion to how I react to Kas and Jory.

I think the core problem with discussion on this topic is one that always pops up between the anti-homosexuality and the homosexuality-acceptance crowd.

You appear basically to argue that homosexuality is a ‘value’, which to me is similar to people who equate it to ‘politics’. For people who have no objection to homosexuality and people who are homosexuals, it is not a value nor a political statement. It’s what they are and it’s what they do. It’s their everyday life. It’s a part of their identity.

From this perspective, it should be much clearer to understand why advocating the exclusion of homosexuality from games because some people don’t agree with it or like it is in no way equivalent to including homosexuality because it’s a representation of reality and is inclusive of the experiences of many gamers who will consume the content. Thus, you are not arguing for values you disagree with to be excluded from a game – you are asking for real people with a particular identity to be excluded from a game, and are asking for their life experiences to be perceived as invalid or unworthy of representation.

It’s never going to be a balanced discussion due to that fundamental disagreement on principle – that homosexuality is a ‘value’ to be pushed as opposed to an element of real human behaviour to be represented with equal validity in storytelling. Even when both parties are perfectly polite, it will always end in an agreement to disagree.

Gizmo.9178:

Here is my lovely pirate lady

Gosh <3 She’s stunning. I really wish the human women had access to some physiques with decent muscular definition like the norn ladies.

Sariel V.7024:

Thank you for making that one unambiguous… speaking of which, I still have cyphers to turn in…

I still have a bunch, too, but not enough of one type to make a key. Since we seem to be on a roll with communication about these things, am I okay to delete my remaining cyphers?

I wouldn’t delete them anyway until at least after March 18th, but you never know. I hoard things >_>’

Miroe.2054:

Did you ask any girls to try out your game? I ask because they are blissfully less logical the us guys. I am very logical myself but also very emotional, so it was easy for me to find the LS annoying. What happened is that the LS frustrated me.

Uh, girls already can and do play this game in numbers that I suspect would surprise you, but thanks for the outdated sexist stereotyping I guess. Blaming the LS on testing by girls with their rampant emoshuns is definitely one I’ve not seen before on the forums. 10/10 would read again.

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

Sousuke.7268:

The simple fact that mods have not locked this hatefilled charade of homophobia is disturbing to say the least.

The only post in this topic so far that seems hate-filled, seems to be this one. ^

I think a lot of players have expressed in very respectful and reasonable ways, why they felt the kiss scene felt forced and out of place. I do not believe they deserve to have homophobic labels pasted on their foreheads for expressing that opinion.

I think that’s fair to say.

The thread at this point has wandered somewhat to the quality/relevance of the romance writing more so than the fact that the two characters in question are the same sex. Ultimately that’s gonna come down to taste, though, so I do wonder where the discussion can progress from here.

People react differently to grief/shock/alarm so there’s only so much we can say about what a person would “really” do in such a situation. I personally didn’t find the kiss that contrived as it seemed more sudden relief than anything.

The only gripe I had at the end of it was that the attention lavished on animating Marjory and Kasmeer’s faces made the charr facial animations seem woefully inadequate. Rox did a lot of jaw flapping while staring into vacant space and it was kinda offputting by comparison xP

I randomly came across this screenshot as I was browsing nostalgically through my GW1 screens folder . . . It seemed relevant.

It’s kinda artificially difficult. Once you’ve got the mechanics down it’s a case of ‘do you have enough people/are you doing enough DPS within the time limit’, which is not something that can be individually controlled.

I don’t object to hard content, but I think it was stupid to gate the final boss/end story cinematics behind such a convoluted, initially confusing group event. I got to Scarlet once today in about 4/5 attempts, and then that failed, probably because people don’t have enough chance to repeat and learn the mechanics of THAT fight due to the aforementioned gating. It’s spoiled the finale for me a fair bit, I have to say.

I’d like to see this happen, a lot.

Butterflies and the pink/purple colour scheme have been symbolic of the class since GW1. I highly doubt ArenaNet would change that due to arbitrary and changing associations of stereotypical femininity and masculinity.

Besides, you have to be practical about how it would even be implemented. Would it be a mandatory effects change based on the sex of the character you roll? What then about female characters who want the blue butterflies instead of the pink or vice versa? And shouldn’t similar gender disparity then be introduced to every class? It’s a big can of worms to open up based on an honestly silly aversion to pink butterlies.

I love a good pirouetting delicate butterfly-weaving gentlemesmer <3

Mechanics-wise, a dire mess with important story content/experience of the final boss we’ve all been waiting for gated behind a buggy, overly-convoluted group event or gear requirements (which forces you to skip the actual interesting final boss fight).

Writing-wise, better, than the earlier releases anyway. I feel like my character is much more a part of everything going on now and I do genuinely like most of the new NPCs in the spotlight. As far as Scarlet goes, I felt a glimmer of what a decent nemesis she could have been in the finale scenes, but I think it was still far too late to rescue her from all the bad writing that built her up. What I remember of her will always be mostly negative, and not because of what she did but how she was written and how unconvincing and tiresome her overpowered perfect always-one-step-ahead look-at-me-I’m-so-crazy-lol villainy was.

I still feel we don’t have answers to half the questions raised during the LW, which is frustrating. One thing I will praise to the high heavens is the audio direction. ‘Battle on the Breachmaker’ is an excellent fight tune. ArenaNet have some incredible talent in that department and I can’t wait to hear what they come up with next.

I’ve been pretty fond of the art design throughout, too, although I’ve always been a bit HMMMM about the oversexualised gigantoboob watchknight designs and would have been a whole lot more comfortable with them being genderless or having some male version counterparts. But, in all, the twisted steampunk aesthetic has totally tickled my fancy.

Personally, I’m really pleased they’ve put the player character back in the spotlight. Throughout way too much of the early LW releases, I felt like my character was a complete lackey being ordered to go here and do this and then getting zero credit for it. It was bad enough when the personal story fell into that pattern.

I’ve disagreed with a lot of the LW, but this year the writing has been significantly better and I feel much more a part of what’s going on instead of Soldier X waiting around on standby for orders and then getting to watch NPCs bask in the glory.

CharrGirl.7896:

I actually like that Marjory was the one needed protecting this time, it showed that Kasmeer isn’t just a damsel to be protected by her.

I really liked that, too. Really liked it. They didn’t take away Kasmeer’s very emotional and nervous personality in order to make her brave and forward; she retaliated in spite of her fear.

People often throw around the term “strong female character” and, by it, they mean female characters who are cold and fierce and don’t show any significant emotion in the face of danger, as if it’s weakness to do otherwise. Marjory might fall into the standard “strong female character” bracket as she’s very emotionally tough, independent and can hold her own, but while Kasmeer has been shown to be quite clingy and emotional and got upset and panicky in that scene, she still managed to kick kitten and do what needed to be done.

It is not entirely related to their romance, but one thing Anet is very good at is diversity of female characters – which is not that hard to achieve when you have more than a token handful of them in a cast, but even that’s progressive in its own right.

Not a big Scarlet fan, but the audio around her character and the LS releases has been all-round fantastic. Leif especially is a major credit to the studio right now.

BAWW.8104:

This isn’t Tequatl or 3-headed Wurm.

I think this is the most important thing to remember. It’s not even really about loot access.

Defeating the knights is required for people without a backpack to experience the finale. This content is potentially story-blocking.

Hard content requiring serious coordination is absolutely great but there’s a right time and a right place for it, and blocking access to the final boss and finale of this LS arc is not really it. I can see a lot of casual players not even getting to Scarlet unless they seriously up their play time in the hopes of hitting a successful run. And even if they manage to scrape together enough time and stuff to put a spinal blade backpiece together and take the shortcut, hopping through a portal and one-shotting the villain a hell of a lot of people have wanted to see dead for a year is the definition of anticlimactic.

My suggestion, though I suspect it’s already too late in the day: Keep the knights as bosses. Have the portals open regardless once their timer runs out. Maybe defeating them gives you a buff of some kind for the actual final boss fight instead.

Quests never really went away. What changed was the delivery system, and I think GW2 vastly improves on the ‘exclamation mark’ system. Even now, playing single player games, I get so frustrated when I manage to do things like complete part of a quest by accident or find an important quest location, but it didn’t count because I hadn’t already spoken to the quest NPC. Convenience features like that are why I love the dynamic event system.

Only one of your characters can wear a single backpack at a time, so I don’t really see the harm in leaving the backpacks (or indeed any gear, particularly time-consuming or limited release reward gear) accountbound.

Accountbound has its uses, though I do still think it’s overused. I could honestly say goodbye to soulbound entirely and not shed a tear; I can’t think of a single instance where it did any good, but plenty where it caused frustration.

DarksunG.9537:

I’d hardly call Logan & Jenna a “relationship”. It’s more someone trying to impress someone else who doesn’t care.

This seems to be a case of bad writing. We’ve been assured before outside of the game that they do care for each other mutually, but from what we see in game and the way their interactions are written in the Edge of Destiny novel, it really comes across as one-sided idol-worship on Logan’s part. I’d definitely not object to seeing that relationship explored a little more.

Saw him by the lighthouse while I was in the water, but he was gone by the time I actually got there.

Angry Dutch.2439:

I play on fsp aswell and I dont experience it as toxic. Sure there are some trolls but not to the extend you seem to be exposed to. Maybe its the time you play at but primetime seems pretty alright. Could be related to the current event where people are grouped up in zerg/citizen savers and afkr’s.

Ditto. I don’t find the FSP community particularly bad, and it has even impressed me a number of times. Farm/zerg-heavy activity always seems to have a lot more unpleasant people around, though.

kokiman.2364:

Faowri.4159:

The event design is really at fault for this. Non-participation should mean no rewards. Can’t blame people for taking advantage of flawed game design IMO (slightly different to true exploits).

Why? They are acting selfish in a genre/game that is all about playing together and sometimes they even mock players for actually doing the event.

Because people are selfish. Expect players to behave that way and factor it into the design, and it becomes a non-issue, eh? Mockery is different, I’m talking about pure AFKers here.

I’m a Brit and Far Shiverpeaks is fine for me, though I won’t lie and say I wasn’t tempted to roll over on Tarnished Coast.

The event design is really at fault for this. Non-participation should mean no rewards. Can’t blame people for taking advantage of flawed game design IMO (slightly different to true exploits).

Aerinndis.2730:

If they are needed then for goodness sake put them in the collectibles just like the watchwork sprockets otherwise they are taking up valuable bank and bag space….

It is pretty frustrating how there are systems already there in place for managing bulk items, forge and crafting materials, and yet we keep getting reinventions of the wheel.

Underdark.3726:

Templar.3418:

What if they killed Jory off and Kas eventually found herself some male? That’d be awesome to me. Needs to be a strong mysterious character though, perhaps somewhat generic but if they twist it in the right way he could be awesome.

I hope Jennah leave Logan and he then ends up with Lord Faren. They marry and adopt all the children from the burned orphanage.

Oh my god. Someone please, make it so <3

Ayrilana.1396:

Faowri.4159:

Ayrilana.1396:

Faowri.4159:

Ayrilana.1396:

Faowri.4159:

Ayrilana.1396:

mrstealth.6701:

For those that have thrown in the idea of the “slippery slope”, mind the fact that this is actually the 2nd step, so we’re already on the “slope”. The Royal Terrace was the test to see if this type of pass would sell.

Now we’re at the next step down the line, of actually removing something and replacing it with a pay service.

Exactly what did they remove that couldn’t already be gotten with the royal terrace pass? I see the captains airship has additional services which was vehemently requested by players. All of these additional services are present in Gendarran.

Poor choice of question. They didn’t remove anything in order to provide the royal terrace pass. It was a bonus convenience item. You could achieve the same thing for free in-game by visiting Lion’s Arch.

It should be a pretty basic mtx tenet that you don’t create inconvenience in your game in order to sell convenience in your mtx store – at least, if you want to adhere to decent business ethics. Selling convenience items is fine, but not if you’re taking stuff out of the game in order to make it a more attractive purchase.

Actually no, it’s not a poor choice of question. Everything that is not in Gendarran could be gotten from the Royal Terrace. You also completely missed that I was specifically addressing the player’s quote so you can easily take what I said out of context.

The royal terrace is another mtx service. I’m not sure what your point is or why you think my reply was out of context.

I was addressing them specifically and the post was tailored to respond to their post only. You then misinterpreted my post and the made up an argument against it. Think of along the lines of strawman but not quite.

Responding to people is pretty much how the discussion works, so I’m sorry you feel that way. As far as I’m concerned, I addressed something you said and expanded on it. We can agree to disagree in that respect.

I’ll explain exactly what I was arguing since it was missed above.

The user I was addressing stated there was a slippery slope and the airship pass was the second step while the royal terrace pass was the first. I then countered by asking exactly what was not present in Gendarran that was not already present in the Royal Terrace.

I asked this because if the missing services from Genderran were already present in the Royal Terrace, which was available before the update, then it was not a slippery slope. Nothing would have been gained as the airship contained the same functions as the royal terrace.

I was arguing about his slippery slope argument. You took it as me arguing about the overall discussion of this thread which I wasn’t. That’s why I stated you were taking my post out of context. We were arguing on two entirely different, but related subjects.

But that’s exactly why I said your question was poorly chosen, as it doesn’t really touch the issue. It’s not a slippery slope because the contents of the airship pass are different to the terrace pass. It’s a slippery slope because the circumstances under which the pass is being sold are different, and have been manufactured as such because something has been removed from the game in order to make the airship pass more useful to buy (assuming it’s not just a mistake, which seems unlikely).

Anyways, I’m not gonna harp on about this specific reply as it’s not really productive, but I appreciate you attempting to clarify.

Ayrilana.1396:

Faowri.4159:

Ayrilana.1396:

Faowri.4159:

Ayrilana.1396:

mrstealth.6701:

For those that have thrown in the idea of the “slippery slope”, mind the fact that this is actually the 2nd step, so we’re already on the “slope”. The Royal Terrace was the test to see if this type of pass would sell.

Now we’re at the next step down the line, of actually removing something and replacing it with a pay service.

Exactly what did they remove that couldn’t already be gotten with the royal terrace pass? I see the captains airship has additional services which was vehemently requested by players. All of these additional services are present in Gendarran.

Poor choice of question. They didn’t remove anything in order to provide the royal terrace pass. It was a bonus convenience item. You could achieve the same thing for free in-game by visiting Lion’s Arch.

It should be a pretty basic mtx tenet that you don’t create inconvenience in your game in order to sell convenience in your mtx store – at least, if you want to adhere to decent business ethics. Selling convenience items is fine, but not if you’re taking stuff out of the game in order to make it a more attractive purchase.

Actually no, it’s not a poor choice of question. Everything that is not in Gendarran could be gotten from the Royal Terrace. You also completely missed that I was specifically addressing the player’s quote so you can easily take what I said out of context.

The royal terrace is another mtx service. I’m not sure what your point is or why you think my reply was out of context.

I was addressing them specifically and the post was tailored to respond to their post only. You then misinterpreted my post and the made up an argument against it. Think of along the lines of strawman but not quite.

Responding to people is pretty much how the discussion works, so I’m sorry you feel that way. As far as I’m concerned, I addressed something you said and expanded on it. We can agree to disagree in that respect.

Ayrilana.1396:

Faowri.4159:

Ayrilana.1396:

mrstealth.6701:

For those that have thrown in the idea of the “slippery slope”, mind the fact that this is actually the 2nd step, so we’re already on the “slope”. The Royal Terrace was the test to see if this type of pass would sell.

Now we’re at the next step down the line, of actually removing something and replacing it with a pay service.

Exactly what did they remove that couldn’t already be gotten with the royal terrace pass? I see the captains airship has additional services which was vehemently requested by players. All of these additional services are present in Gendarran.

Poor choice of question. They didn’t remove anything in order to provide the royal terrace pass. It was a bonus convenience item. You could achieve the same thing for free in-game by visiting Lion’s Arch.

It should be a pretty basic mtx tenet that you don’t create inconvenience in your game in order to sell convenience in your mtx store – at least, if you want to adhere to decent business ethics. Selling convenience items is fine, but not if you’re taking stuff out of the game in order to make it a more attractive purchase.

Actually no, it’s not a poor choice of question. Everything that is not in Gendarran could be gotten from the Royal Terrace. You also completely missed that I was specifically addressing the player’s quote so you can easily take what I said out of context.

The royal terrace is another mtx service. I’m not sure what your point is or why you think my reply was out of context.

Ayrilana.1396:

mrstealth.6701:

For those that have thrown in the idea of the “slippery slope”, mind the fact that this is actually the 2nd step, so we’re already on the “slope”. The Royal Terrace was the test to see if this type of pass would sell.

Now we’re at the next step down the line, of actually removing something and replacing it with a pay service.

Exactly what did they remove that couldn’t already be gotten with the royal terrace pass? I see the captains airship has additional services which was vehemently requested by players. All of these additional services are present in Gendarran.

Poor choice of question. They didn’t remove anything in order to provide the royal terrace pass. It was a bonus convenience item. You could achieve the same thing for free in-game by visiting Lion’s Arch.

It should be a pretty basic mtx tenet that you don’t create inconvenience in your game in order to sell convenience in your mtx store – at least, if you want to adhere to decent business ethics. Selling convenience items is fine, but not if you’re taking stuff out of the game in order to make it a more attractive purchase.

morrolan.9608:

laharl.8435:

Lord Kuru.3685:

You can remove QoL features from the game. You can add QoL features to the game behind a paywall.

But when you take what’s currently a free QoL feature and put it behind a paywall, that’s really bad. And judging from Anet’s response (i.e., none) this is a sign of things to come.

And looking at how Anet creeps these out slowly, here’s likely what’s next:

• Any new map will have a paywall on its WPs. (White knights: “hey, you can just walk so it’s ok, right? Plus, I walk everywhere anyway, who needs WPs?”) Then:
• All WPs will be paywalled. (White knights: “hey, you can just walk so it’s ok, right? Plus, I walk everywhere anyway, who needs WPs?”)

What did they take that was free and put behind a pay wall? Oh, nothing… lol

You’re not actually addressing the argument. As was said earlier in the thread almost every single poster criticising it is putting forth reasoned arguments as to why whereas those who don’t object to it offer nothing.

PookieDaWombat.6209:

NOTHING IS BEHIND A PAYWALL. Was that clear enough for you now? Nothing.

Sure something has been, and its been stated multiple times, convenience.

Yep. A lot of people seem happy to ask “Why do you NEED these services all in one place?” and demand evidence of it, but are incensed that others are asking “Why did Anet NEED to remove this convenience?”. If it was a deliberate move, I’m interested to know what player benefits it’s apparently brought us. Story relevance doesn’t count much when you can magically bypass the inconvenience of a major city’s destruction by getting out your RL wallet.

Gulesave.5073:

On the male-vs-female discussion: yes, they show skin on guys, but not in areas that are popularly eroticized like a woman’s chest is. Male characters are deliberately desexualized in a jarring and downright surgical way, (their entire pelvic area is emasculated more than a Ken doll’s).

Unfortunately it’s not that simple an issue. There are women out there who aren’t happy about the fact that because the male gaze says certain areas of their body are sexualised, they’re not allowed to breastfeed in public or go topless in summer like men are allowed to. Can you see how the double standard is pretty entrenched in misogyny? “You can’t go topless because I, a man, find it sexual in nature”? Once upon a time, that applied to showing some ankle, too.

Certainly I’d agree that most scantily-clad busts on video game characters are designed by men to appeal to men. There’s a big difference between what women choose to wear for themselves and what usually male designers allow their perfect slim goddess-esque female character models to wear in-game, but the whole thing is a multifaceted issue that can’t be handwaved away by “but it’s not the SAME when it comes to women”. It surely isn’t, but only because it’s much more complicated and encompasses male gaze, perceived ownership of the female form, body shaming/“decency” and other fun feminist concepts. This is where a lot of people go wrong with feminism – there is no genuine ‘right answer’. Real feminism is maintaining respect for people of all genders, respecting their choices, being aware of topics like this one and treating them equally as people.

I would certainly like to see more sexy and revealing male armour to balance out the overwhelming female sets, but my main stickler when it comes to MMO armour design is gender equivalence. I don’t object to revealing/sexualised armour in its entirety, because I consider it a person’s right to choose for themselves and not be shamed for that choice. So long as it’s not just the women who are expected to get their bits out, and there are conservative options available for those who don’t like revealing stuff for both genders, I’m generally happy.

It is pretty revealing, but it is revealing on both genders so I’m not actually that bothered. That’s how revealing armour should work. That way you aren’t denying one gender a perfectly feasible variant of the armour purely based on whether they have boobs or not.