Whoa! Those are some weird freaky face domes at the end…
You mean, if they changed the existing chapters of the Personal Story, for levels 80 and below? How would players who have already completed it take advantage of that?
As far as chapters which come afterward, yeah — of course I’m on board with that. More choices and alternate paths are always welcome.
I think people exaggerate how “bad” the personal story gets in the last third or so. Not that I disagree, necessarily, but I don’t think it’s as bad as some people make it out to be.
What I wonder about, though, is what’s going to happen to what is now the finale of the personal story, once an expansion hits or the story otherwise continues. Are people always going to have to go complete a story-mode run of Arah, as a 5-player dungeon? How are new players even going to find people willing to help them through that, once new content hits?
Wow, what a slick site! Thanks, I’ll be bookmarking this as a visual reference… :-)
My suggestion:
Dear GW2 Player,
An error has recently come to our attention regarding the grievously disproportionate profitability of salvaging certain Wintersday items. This flaw allowed a loophole in which mass quantities of Globs of Ectoplasm could be accumulated at an inappropriately low cost. It is understandable that this may have seemed like an effective method to gain items and profit, or seemed “too good to be true.” In fact, this incident was the product of a temporary oversight by our development team, and was not functioning as intended.
In the interest of protecting the economy and maintaining a fair balance of materials for all in the GW2 community, we have had to regretfully roll back certain players who took extreme advantage of this brief window of opportunity. We will be restoring your gold and relevant materials back to their original levels before the incident took place.
ArenaNet is committed to providing a level playing field for all its players, and regrets the error. We apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused, but please use your best judgment in future and resist the urge to offset the balance of fair play. We are immensely proud of our community, and are grateful for any players who bring matters like these to our attention. Don’t be afraid to speak up and help us make the game better for everyone!
Sincerely,
The GW2 Team
————————————————————————————————————————————-
There. Would that have been so hard? If ANet had just sent out a mail like this to all the exploiters, and set the items back to how they were, this whole issue would be resolved and overwith. No one would still be talking about it, and it would barely register so much as a footnote in the history of the game. It would be utterly mundane and trivial, like any other bug that gets quashed.
It would also send a message to would-be abusers/exploiters that when these kinds of errors pop up from time to time, there will be no lasting profit in it. Any unscrupulous profit you worked for would be merely a waste of time. Yes, I know that won’t necessarily stop the worst of them from doing the same in future, but frankly, nothing will. Besides, people who buy the game after this passes won’t have any memories of this incident anyhow.
When word of bans starts flying around the internet, it becomes news — in a way, this is currently the most important and interesting topic of the moment. Everyone has an opinion, and a lot of players feel injustice has been done, regardless of who’s “side” they are on. Either you’ve been too lenient, or too harsh — when really, all you had to do was just fix the mistake. Bans? Refunds? Why did this even enter the equation?
This incident has provided you with tons of leads for who to check out more thoroughly, and who to watch in future. Maybe that actually led to some of the bans, for separate reasons, I don’t know.
In some vain attempt to justify the bans, I see some posters merely tossing around the word “exploit” as if that said it all. What’s an exploit? Tell us, ArenaNet, seriously. If you are going to ban players for “exploiting” the game, please provide clear criteria you use to judge what is and isn’t a violation. Honestly, from what I gather, an “exploit” just describes any behaviour in the game, done repeatedly, to achieve easy profit of some kind.
I mean, where does it end? I could be exploiting right now, by using a D/D Elementalist who some people are claiming is unfairly overpowered. Maybe I have a common path that I take in Queensdale to rack up a quick “kill variety” daily achievement. Maybe there are people who spend lots of time doing the same dynamic events, and farming gathering nodes for profit.
I know that the people who took part in the snowflake exploit took it to extreme degrees. However, if that’s where the crime lies — not in the kind of offense, but the degree — then you need to set a number for us. Where is the threshold? Don’t be content to have an invisible line, where a player might get banned, if their methods become popular enough.
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A temp ban is to much, if you’re going to get banned for it, why is it even an option in the game.
It’s used for people who like to troll etc.
Okay, first of all: snowflake exploit. People are getting banned for crafting, yet those who are actively and needlessly malicious towards other players face no consequences.
If they’re going to act like children and bully others around, then they need to go sit in the corner and take a time out. A week without GW2 isn’t going to kill them. How hard is it to just not kick people out of the dungeon at the last second?
As for why it’s an option in the game, I can’t speak to that. There should probably be some mechanism in place to prevent it from happening, at least while in combat and for some period of time after the kill so they have a chance to loot. I know, whatever system ANet comes up with, there will be unfair things popping up in it — but in this case they have the means to do something about it fairly easily.
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They’re fun to play around with, particularly if you want a flaming axe to bounce around in a cloud of mobs — but at the end of the day, burning is just another kind of damage, and there are lots of ways to do damage.
I prefer to have some kind of bow in one weapon set, and in the other I use Axe and Warhorn. The Axe has great multi-target attacks, and its chill skill is very useful. Warhorn’s bird-summoning attack does a lot of damage as well, but Call of the Wild is where it’s at. Fury, Might, and Swiftness for you and your pet, plus any allies helping you. How can you go wrong with that? It’s even useful out of combat, just for running around.
The people who exploited this feature didn’t hack the game. They didn’t use any weird add-ons to make the software behave in ways that weren’t intended. They didn’t buy gold, gems, or other in-game advantages from goldfarmers or any unauthorized group. They just found a certain item in the game that was relatively cheap and easy to make legitimately, and which legitimately salvaged some other very valuable item. ArenaNet programmed the game, and they set the all the item and salvage data. It is literally, factually ArenaNet’s fault that this happened, and there is no possible way you can skew or spin the issue to make that untrue.
Yes, the effects of the exploit were severe and had potentially calamitous impact on the game’s economy. This speaks to the seriousness of ANet’s error and an immediate need to correct the flaw, not to punish those who happened to find it. The game and its economy needed to be protected from the effects of the flaw — they did not need protecting from the players.
I recall a bug in Final Fantasy VII, whereby you could actually make infinite duplicates of any item you wanted. You didn’t need to hack the game to do this, it was just a flaw in the programming that the programmers didn’t catch. Consider whose fault it is, that this happened. Should the people who made FFVII track down the people who exploited this bug and forcibly take back their copies of the game? Why, or why not? If you’re going to tell me that FFVII isn’t an online game, and that your actions don’t affect other players, you’re not justifying the punishment — you’re only describing that the programming bug happens to have been particularly unfortunate.
What the exploiters did was stupid, careless, selfish — but not immoral, illegal, or directly harmful to anyone. They didn’t make the game, they were merely using what ArenaNet made. Should they expect ArenaNet to fix the flaw in the system, and even take away their gains from the incident? Yes. Should they expect to be banned? I’m not certain I’ve heard a convincing argument for that yet. Even so, there are such things as temporary bans, right? Would that not send a strong enough message?
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If you ask me, ArenaNet should hand anyone who voted to kick a temporary ban. They don’t have to take your word for it that you were a valuable team member, nor does it matter if the other group members felt you were a bad player (though it sounds like that wasn’t their motivation anyhow). ANet can look up exactly what happened, and when, and verify every detail of the story. Motives are irrelevant. There’s no “gray area” where it might be okay to kick someone just before the final boss drops. Even if they felt you were a serious liability to the team, they had the whole dungeon to figure that out.
I know ArenaNet have a lot on their plate, and are already in getting flak from some people about the amount of bans they’ve been handing out lately — but there comes a time when they have to decide whether they want to defend well-meaning customers against people who abuse the system, or if they want to turn a blind eye to it and let behaviour like this continue.
Maybe this could be a chance to get creative with their punishments, too. Make them do “community service” like running 5 dungeon PUGs without being able to collect any loot, or have them run a bunch of different dynamic events in low-level zones. Heck, put a special icon above their heads for a while so everyone in Tyria knows what they did.
Why stop at weapons? Couldn’t this be applied to armor as well?
I’d love to see some more titles as well. The scarcity of titles so far is kind of strange, especially when you think about the three factions and how they keep “promoting” you to these various ranks that have no manifestation in the game whatsoever. Would it kill ANet to make those ranks actual titles?
Sure, adding more titles with for minor achievements makes each of them less “special” in a way, but who cares? Titles are superfluous anyway, and they’d still be fun to collect and swap around once in a while.
If I can offer a suggestion from other games: how about each title offering minor stat boosts or other effects? Maybe some titles could give you a few more points of Power or Precision. “Combat Healer” could give you a small boost to healing power. Scoring 100% world completion might give you a title that grants a steady 1% Magic Find while active, or slightly increased movement speed, or something.
Whoa, so I’m not crazy, and this actually happens? I swear, one night I was doing some cooking, and learned how to make mashed yams or something. The next morning, I logged in and didn’t have any mashed yams, and indeed I had to re-learn all the recipes I’d previously discovered the night before. I thought I had taken the overnight bus to Crazytown.
Why do they have to do “rollbacks”? What does that serve, aside from frustrating that poor guy who lost the exotic gear?
It’s easy to make the mistake of thinking “Ranger” is referring to attacks from a distance, but think about it. Warriors aren’t called “Melee Attackers,” nor are Elementalists named “Four-Attunement Wizards.”
Furthermore, all professions in this game have at least some form of ranged attack, if not several.
Anyhow, to the original topic: Rangers, Hunters, what have you, have gotten a bad rap in all kinds of MMOs. In WoW, they were sometimes called “Huntards,” because a lot of people who rolled the class were presumed to be bad at playing, or blindly focused on being glass-cannon DPS characters (although most classes had examples of this, naturally).
The short answer is that if there is some widespread disdain for Rangers in GW2, there’s probably no good reason for it. Maybe they got killed by a Ranger in PvP. Maybe they played a Ranger for a bit and didn’t know how to handle themselves when they got swarmed by mobs. Or maybe they just have their opinions about what classes they like and don’t like. I mean, there are 8 professions, so odds are 7/8 players prefer something else.
I’ve also read that Elementalists are basically invincible, Thieves should no longer be able to stealth, and that leveling in general is a horrible grind. There are people who will say anything.
My main is a Ranger, and I don’t feel overpowered, nor do I feel particularly weak. I have a good range of skills for a variety of uses. I can push out fiendish DPS when I have to, and CC or kite when the situation calls for it. The pet AI and handling leaves something to be desired, but honestly, this is the best pet system I’ve yet seen for a comparable class in a game like this. How many games out there have truly competent NPC AI, anyhow? If my pets knew when and how to avoid AoE damage and use specials at the right times, they’d be smarter than a lot of living players.
This sounds like a great idea to me. Rain, fog, storms, etc. add a nice touch once in a while. Doesn’t have to happen every day, but once in a while would be enough.
Wait, what’s this about the day/night cycles? Are they not in sync between zones? That’s bizarre. Guess I never noticed it before…
I see asura using bots all the time, and no one seems to report them.
/rimshot
/facepalm
And maybe instead of reading, I’ll just keep moving my bookmark ahead a few pages every night until it gets to the end.
Ugh. Maybe if this were a quick and easy thing for ANet to add as an opt-in option in the graphics menu — but I sure don’t want to play the game that way. I appreciate realism where appropriate, but not at the cost of my ability to see what’s going on or where I’m going. Being unable to see for half the game does not equal a good time.
If we’re not getting an original race not yet seen, my vote goes to Tengu or Largos — both in terms of what I’d most want to see, and what’s most likely.
Quaggan? Maybe years down the road, if ArenaNet runs out of ideas and releases a Mists of Quaggania expansion. :-P
You can’t refund the skills you’ve learned to get your points back, but you will eventually be able to buy every possible skill — if not by the time you hit 80, then afterwards.
You get a skill point every time you level up. For additional skill points, you can complete optional “skill challenges” indicated by a blue chevron on your map.
Also, after you get to level 80, you’ll keep earning experience and continually fill your XP bar over and over. Each time the bar fills, you’ll get another skill point, indefinitely. At that point, you really won’t have to worry about getting all your skills anymore — though there are some items associated with endgame crafting which you can only buy with skill points.
Kokoweef: “I will however not purchase any future Arena Net games and will tell anyone I know not to waste their money as well.”
HA HA HA HA HA HA HA!!!! You do that, dude. You go right ahead. Man, I wish I could be there when you go around telling people not to buy any games made by ArenaNet, because they wouldn’t let you call yourself a Dumbarse.
Seriously though, I do get your point — it’s the principle of the matter, more than the actual name itself. But, censorship happens. It’s not cool, and what is and isn’t allowed can be downright insane, but if they allow kids to play this game then they are accountable for whatever content may work its way in there — even character names.
My best guess about why your name was “allowed” in other games, is because you didn’t get caught. They have some automated processes in place to disallow certain words or phrases, but they can’t be everywhere at once. If it doesn’t get reported, they may not ever see it.
I would never report anyone for that, and the players who did probably have a stick up their “dumbarse” as it were, but I don’t know why you’re surprised. This is par for the course, for most online communities.
Waffler: “One time in an area one player said in map chat “anything up?” referring to events and another player responded with “my dick!”. Right after this three other players started flaming him in map chat for being offensive and said they reported him.”
Map Chat! From the people who brought you YouTube Comments and Fox News!
Thanks for the response, Colin — looking forward to the next update! :-)
Guys, really. The Game Director took the time to answer a forum question, only an hour after it was posted.
What part of “There will be a blog post in around week or so” did you read as an invitation to spit snide remarks, or request immediate details on changes to game mechanics?
/facepalm
YES! It would be cool it somebody made a bald character that looked like Patrick Stewart, and made an image of themselves doing the facepalm.
So, apparently there were /rock, /paper, and /scissors in GW1. Did this sync up with another character, kind of like the way /dance * does in GW2? Or did you just have to decide whether it was close enough by just visually watching the two characters?
My gear is all full of Ruby Orbs, because they provide pretty great benefits considering how inexpensive/easy-to-get they are. Runes, by contrast, are pretty expensive and require a lot of work — and you kind of need to have all of them to get the full effect. I wasn’t about to mess around with them until I had my build, and all my gear, completely polished.
For me, it’s a toss-up between Ruby Orbs or Runes of the Ranger.
6 Runes get me:
+165 Precision
+8% Critical Damage
+5% damage while you have a companion
6 Orbs get me:
+84 Precision
+12% Critical Damage
+120 Power
I guess the runes supposedly work out being more beneficial if you have them all, but not obviously so. I mean, where the heck does that 120 Power go? It’s just gone. And less crit damage? And now, after reading this thread, top it off with reports that the 5% damage increase from the 6th rune isn’t even reliable?!
Either the runes need to be easier to make/get, or they need to be buffed and/or fixed. Orbs are just so good, for their price.
Bring back /boo !
And while they’re at it, /coo, /hoo, and /foo, for when I want to do my quaggan impression!
/meow is currently my #1 most wanted, though. Yeah, I know it’ll never happen. :-(
Some Artifacts could be also be pieces of lore from GW. The Artifacts would be so in the form of book pages. Finding all the Artifact pages in the book would be an attachment that allow you to read the whole lore book.
This is how I’m imagining it:
You go to your Hero panel, and click a tab called “Artifacts”. You have a list of all the zones in the game, and selecting a given zone displays its respective “page” or collection of total artifacts (probably 8 for each zone, on average?), represented by graphical icons.
If you haven’t found a particular artifact yet, the icon will be in black-and-white, or a silhouette, but you’ll be able to see the name of it (which also serves as a hint as to the artifact’s location). For example, one of the easiest ones in Queensdale might be “Moa’s Feather.” The player figures out the hint, heads over to the Moa ranch on the west side of the zone, and finds the feather. Once you obtain it, the icon for “Moa’s Feather” on the Queensdale page is in color, and displays a short passage about the extended lore or history of the zone (maybe in the form of journal entries or excerpts from textbooks, written by figures from Tyrian history or modern-day NPCs). The hints will vary in difficulty, with each zone having some that are fairly obvious and others that really require attention to detail or in-depth exploration.
In addition to the collections for each geographical zone and major city, there could be other categories that are extra challenging:
Global: You aren’t told what zone each artifact is in — just the name of the item.
Autographs: A guessing game where you must collect the autographs of certain NPC characters across Tyria, but each slot has a specific corresponding NPC associated with it. You don’t get a name, but you get a vague description of their personality, profession, or situation. Speaking to the correct NPC will score you the autograph, though you must have their corresponding space “active” or “highlighted” at the time, for it to count (so it doesn’t interfere with normal NPC dialogue).
Riddles: Like the Global category, these could be anywhere in the world — but you don’t know the artifact you’re looking for. Instead, your only hint is a riddle that hints at a location somewhere in the game (I guess this really is just like the Mad King’s riddles, heh heh).
Not sure what the rewards should be, if any, for completing each zone. I think a title of some sort is in order, at least, for completing every category in the entire Artifacts collection.
Ha ha, just finished watching SAO recently. Something tells me the basic premise of that game would be against ArenaNet’s policies. But, you never know! I already feel like I can’t leave the game… :-P
I can’t believe we don’t even have a /clap. That seems pretty basic.
Eeuuuuugghhhh….. I know you mean well, but I don’t see this making anyone happy.
- the WP system is not taken out but it is redesigned visually to make it more enjoyable
Your definition of “enjoyable” puzzles me. Are players actually doing anything during their flight time? What’s to enjoy? This is essentially the same thing as the Waypoints we have now, but adapted to be more like World of Warcraft’s flight points so that now travel takes actual time.
- the content is not skipped in a worse way than it already is using the current WP system, at contrary, it will offer a different perspective of the world.
Really? One of your “advantages” is that it’s not “in a worse way than it already is”?
The landscape of Tyria has been designed to be experienced on the ground. It’s not guaranteed to have the same visual impact from fifteen storeys in the air, and there are probably a lot of graphical problems ArenaNet would face by allowing flying (especially if the flight routes are not predetermined). Furthermore, have you not noticed that each zone loads separately? There’s not going to be a seamless transition between zone boundaries, and there will still be a loading screen for every time the player enters a new zone along their flight path. Will load times be taken into account with regards to the “fastest route”?
- the transporters can be considered by many a non-intrusive mount system
None of the people who want mounts will be satisfied by this system. You can’t even control your character while flying (and why the heck can a character fly now, anyway?). When people ask for mounts, they want some cool or exotic animal that they can run around on and speed them through the environments of their own accord. They don’t want a vaguely magical or animal-themed taxi.
- the WP costs will find a reason in itself being able to “see” how to travel"
I don’t even know what this means. If I’ve earned the Waypoint, doesn’t that mean I’ve already been to that destination before, and therefore already know “how to travel”?
- the visuals of the game will be improved seeing characters “flying around in the sky” showing that the zone is actually full.
I don’t look up at the skies of Tyria and think to myself: “Gee, I wish there were a bunch of bodies floating around up there.”
Who cares if the zones are “full” of people just flying by, on the way to somewhere else? If my graphics card and internet lag have to deal with more players in the immediate area, those players had darn well better be there to take part in events and such. I don’t need my system chugging along at 15 FPS like I’m in Lion’s Arch on a holiday, just so I can try and defend a point against a dozen centaurs alone while countless idiots laugh from above the clouds.
We need more people participating, if anything — not just temporarily “there” while they fly past.
- the flight time can vary depending on the distance and on the equipped “transporter”
You’re effin’ right! Who on earth would actually use this for their regular transportation? It could be a nice novelty once or twice for a short trip, but it will take forever to get to any distant location. For example, to get from Lion’s Arch to Blazeridge Steppes, you’ll have to fly across six whole zones, and face a loading screen for each one! And since so many zones are bordered by mountains or other obstacles, you’ll have to either detour to find the traditional map gate or just flying extra high over barren rock and not see much of anything.
the slot where the “transporter” is equipped in Hero window, will have a check box like those for “helmet” and “shoulders” which will allow players to have the option to use or not to use this “flying system” if they prefer “the loading screens systems”
The box will be unchecked by default
So, not only are we now cluttering up the Hero panel for this feature, but you’re actually admitting that it’s:
1) A feature players may not want, and therefore should be able to deactivate
2) A feature that should be toggled off by default
I find it odd that you call the current system “the loading screens system”; believe me, your flying taxi idea will have plenty of loading screens. ArenaNet is not going to re-do huge chunks of their landscapes and reprogram the game to be constantly and seamlessly loading adjascent zones, just to accomodate an on-rails WoW-esque flight point system that gets toggled off by default.
Sorry for being harsh, but I really don’t think this would work.
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Elite skills being lackluster is a reason to improve Elite skills, not to allow other skills be used in the slot.
Design consistency > The crazy combo/build you’re thinking of cooking up by having 4 utilities.
+1 for this.
I know the feeling of wanting to have another utility slot, but part of the challenge of crafting an effective build and allocating skills strategically means working within limitations. Giving everyone four utilities would diminish the impact of your decisions by that much, it would screw with class balancing in ways the game wasn’t built for, and suddenly everyone would be even more powerful for no good reason.
You’ll have Thieves with even more opportunities to stealth than they should, you’ll have Elementalists who no longer have to sacrifice power for an elemental summon or revive skill, you’ll have Rangers using Frost Spirit + Sun Spirit + Quickening Zephyr + Sharpening Stone just to push out more mindless DPS, etc. It may feel beneficial for the individual player in the short term, but skillful play in an MMO is about min-maxing and dealing with sacrifice, not having consistent access to everything at all times.
Some of the Elite skills are less desirable than others, and the hefty cooldowns often mean they don’t get factored regularly into everyday strategies — and I could see improving those, but simply giving us another utility skill instead is an unnecessary non-sequitur.
If all the chef knives in your kitchen are dulled, you go get them sharpened — you don’t just buy more forks and spoons.
Logan Thackeray never runs from a fight — he just kites from a safe distance.
OMG, Shriketalon, your ideas are genuinely inspiring. I wish the final fight against Zhaitan was how you described — and it really should have been. I’m sure it would have been a nightmare to create and fund, but it sure would have been worth it in the end. What we actually got in the final battle of GW2 was inarguably underwhelming.
I almost wonder if it was a mistake to even allow us to defeat Zhaitan and reach the story’s conclusion, right from launch. If they’d taken their time with it, and released the last few chapters periodically through future patches, they might have been able to take the time to craft an epic final conflict like you described. Maybe they would have gotten complaints, I don’t know — but as long as it was free and was in the pipleline, I don’t see how anyone could really complain about that.
Agreed with OP. A lot of good ideas in this thread, actually.
I have completed all of my personal story that I can, up to the final step: the obligatory five-player dungeon that is oddly not in keeping with how I played the rest of the personal story. In reality, I’ve already completed the story mode dungeon and helped kill Zhaitan with some friends. However, my personal story wasn’t up to that point yet, so obviously it didn’t count. I’m not opposed to doing it again for “real,” but I have my doubts that anyone at this point is going to be slumming around Arah, looking for people to do Story Mode with.
And what the heck is going to happen when an actual expansion comes out, and the Personal Story actually gets continued past Zhaitan? Are they still going to make people complete a five-player story-mode dungeon when they hit 80, before they experience the new content? Good luck getting help for that!
I like the idea, though it would be difficult to pull off convincingly and there would have to be a gradual build-up to it. I actually kind of like Trahearne. He’s patient, contemplative, and though he is reluctant to act he recognizes when he must. I actually can’t imagine him doing anything corrupt or downright “evil,” though villains don’t always have to be selfish “bad guys.” Lots of interesting villains believe the ends justifies the means, and share mutual respect with the hero while necessarily opposing them. With all the desperation and controversy that could be found in a world plagued with multiple crises, there are many ways Trahearne could be forced to make difficult choices that will earn him enemies. One of those enemies could be you.
I don’t see this happening in the first expansion, but it would be great to watch the undercurrents of what’s to come start to take shape. He’s a little boring now, but he could end up being a really fascinating character depending on how they play him. Could even wind up being some kind of betrayed-by-his-allies outlaw like Big Boss, or something.
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Maybe I’m dumb, but only a few days ago I discovered that we can right-click any of our dyes to save it as a “Favorite” for later reference.
I know that’s not exactly what you’re asking for, though. :-S
@Fyrebrand- surely, these forums are one place on the enormous world wide interwebs where I can express my own opinion regarding GW2.
Yes, and no one has stopped you from doing that. You have the right to express your opinions freely, just as we have the right to express agreement or disagreement. I actually sympathized with your situation — and, frankly, I agree that a one-day sale is pretty inconvenient for a lot of people. I just disagree with you that it is “manipulative” or otherwise unsavory behaviour, to the degree that you seem to think it is.
Limited time events/offerings are not what I want in my MMORPG because I will not become a slave to this or any game. I’m not going to schedule my life around a game and I’m not going to wait with baited breath for a new announcement about the game.
ArenaNet has made no demands whatsoever with regards to when and how you want to enjoy the game, nor how you approach the Gem Store, if at all. They do not make you pay extra to access PvP or other game modes, they don’t hold levels 60-80 for ransom until you cough up more money, nor do they ask you to make a minimum purchase at any point just to keep playing. No one who has bought anything in the Gem Store necessarily has a competitive advantage over you, nor can they do anything substantial that you can’t.
Any price reduction or sales event they want to hold is totally up to them — and there has to be some predetermined time limit to how often the sale lasts for, otherwise they’d be accused of false advertising if they ever set the price back to normal. And yes, I agree that only one day is a very short window of time for a sale to last — that’s just the tactic they feel will serve them best, for the moment. It sucks for some people, but it grabs attention. Just as you can’t be expected to schedule your life around the game, they can’t schedule their sales around what’s convenient for you. Whether the sale is one day, two days, or a full week, some people are going to miss it for whatever reason. It was a temporary promotion that was put up for whoever had the chance to catch it.
I’m starting to think a subscription model is better than a cash shop model …if we’re going to be nickel-and-dimed at every opportunity, I would rather pay a subscription.
Okay, you’ve now crossed the line between hyperbole and just plain being unreasonable. Seriously, what are you even talking about, anymore? ArenaNet merely decided to hold a temporary price reduction on some of their Gem Store items, and you claim to be “nickel-and-dimed at every opportunity”?! You’re really stretching it.
How about this — just pretend they didn’t even have the sale. Just assume that the prices on the Gem Store are what they have always been, and ignore the whole thing. Go back to playing the game however you did before this incident, have fun, and put this “unethical” business behind you. Don’t pay ANet another nickel or dime, and continue to enjoy all the free stuff the developers put out there for us. No one’s going to force you to do otherwise.
i simply would ask for more emotes, i hate i can’t kiss and hug people around
edit: or even better kittenslap them^^
Kittenslap, eh? All the more reason you need to /meow afterwards. :-P
I assume the black bears are ranger pets. That could have been a coincidence, or it could simply be a case of “Hey, other people have their bear out, I’ll put mine out there too.”
I don’t know how the griffon got there, though. Some sort of transformation tonic?
Mahaedros, I can definitely sympathize with your situation. We’ve all been there, at some point. Especially in the video game sector, there are all kinds of digital sales going on all over the place, and many of them are for a limited time. For example, there are often dramatic, sweeping price reductions on Steam for holidays and special events — and while those tend to go on for a week or more, there are individual sales on certain games within that time frame, which only last 24 hours.
Another example: a few years back, when I was playing World of Warcraft, Blizzard held a sale for a limited time where the game and all the expansions were available for a drastic price markdown. By the time I realized that this would be a great time to get the game for my girlfriend, the sale was over and everything was back to normal price. Man, was I disappointed.
Is this manipulation? Sure, but they’re only manipulating their prices, not us. Every major retailer has regular sales, or a weekly flyer, where prices on certain items are reduced for a limited time. No one’s forcing you to buy them during the sale, and no one’s forcing you to buy them at regular price either.
It’s definitely understandable that some people will not be able to check back and view the sales, especially if the limited time is very short. To be fair, they didn’t reveal in advance which items were to go on sale, and on which days — so, I would say that part of it was maybe a little manipulative, because it expects you to log in every day if you just want the basic information about the daily sale. Still, it’s within their rights to do so. The items on sale are not necessary to enjoy the game, the end user has no obligation to take part in the sale, and there’s no concrete disadvantage in dismissing it outright.
During that sale, I actually ended up grabbing a character slot, and I actually did the total makeover for my main as well. Depending how you want to view the situation, you could say that the practice of limiting character slots is manipulative — or, that having to pay to change character appearance is manipulative. There’s no end to it.
Okay, first of all: no video game owes you the ability to create the most powerful and effective equipment in the game through crafting alone. Crafting in GW2 is very useful, and allows you get yourself geared in Exotics, which frankly are more than sufficient for dealing with any battle/situation the game throws at you (outside of Agony in Fractals). The stance that ArenaNet shouldn’t be “allowed” to have separate rewards you can attain through Fractals is… I don’t know, insane? You’ve played other MMOs, right? Basically, you’re saying you want to be able to make the gear that gets dropped from dungeons, without doing the dungeons. I don’t know why you think you’re entitled to that, especially when “top stats” are anything but necessary in this game.
Second: it’s called Ascended for a reason. As in, vertical progression. How many MMOs are out there, where you simply aren’t able to access a huge chunk of the endgame content unless you have the gear with the best possible stats? Thankfully, ArenaNet has not gone the traditional route, and allowed everyone to see and enjoy pretty much the whole game, without ever needing Ascended/Legendary gear. The Fractals are basically this tiny slice of the game that gives some semblance of vertical progression to the limited set of people who want it — and even then, you will have completed all the unique Fractal mini-dungeons before you ever need a smidge of Agony resistance.
For someone who’s entirely unwilling to get on the game’s closest thing to a gear treadmill, you sure do seem preoccupied with getting the best gear.
This is not an Eastern anime MMORPG…
Uh oh! Sounds like someone is a grumpy kitty!
It should have a animation with it like a Maneki Neko.
http://articubone.deviantart.com/art/Maneki-Neko-23495185
Yes! That’s what I meant by “cat’s paw hand gesture,” but I couldn’t remember what it was called.
And a neko town clothing.
http://chevi.deviantart.com/art/Sakura-Con-2010-Maneki-Neko-81761654
/mind blown
Whoa! They did have a lot of emotes. But, surely they weren’t all there from launch.
That /aion emote sounds pretty neat. I could go for one of those.
Guild Wars 2 is a fun enough game, but it is lacking one crucial feature that prevents it from attaining true greatness. I am speaking, of course, about a /meow emote.
In World of Warcraft, we had a /moo, which we often would use on Tauren, or just whenever we felt like the situation called for a moo.
The Charr are like the Tauren of Guild Wars 2. They’ve got the horns, but they are definitely not cows. They are wonderful kitty people — furry, ferocious, and cuddly. They deserve an emote that speaks directly to their soul. We have forced them to live in an un-meowing culture for too long.
ArenaNet, if you’re up there somewhere, please let us have a /meow emote so we can tell all the Charr how much we love them. Also, please let it be a voiced emote — it’s very important that whoever is around can hear the meowing. Especially when ten or twelve of us gather in Lion’s Arch and start a cat party. I think people will appreciate it.
Bonus points if there is a little “cat’s paw” hand gesture to go with it. Extra bonus points if you install an interface where we can type out a custom lolcat-style caption that will appear over our characters in Impact font (okay, maybe not that last part, but definitely the meowing! Pleeeeeease, OMG!!)
When I first found the vendor selling the Commander book, I thought: “What the heck is this for? Is this for identifying leaders in WvW? Why the heck can you buy this with gold? They have actual tokens you win from doing PvP, right?”
I don’t know why there should even be commanders in PvE. I guess it was intended for Orr..? I have never seen anyone organizing anything in Orr. I’ve only ever seen “Commanders” sitting around cluttering my mini-map in Lion’s Arch.
I’m not aware of any immediate plans to add new emotes in the near future — but it’s a safe bet that there will be some new ones from time to time. Nothing specific yet, though.
I really want there to be a /meow emote, so I can meow at Charr and/or everyone else all the time. Even better if it’s a voiced emote! :-D
What’s /speak? Is it different from regular /say?
Q: What’s the fastest way to Divinity’s Reach?
A: Enter a battle and grab hold of Logan Thackeray.
Q: What do you get when you go to the Cooking Station and combine kale, an artichoke, a cabbage, and some celery stalks?
A: Trahearne.
Q: What did the quaggan say when he dressed up as an owl for Mad King’s Day?
A: “Hoo!”
Q: What falls faster than a bag of rocks, folds easier than paper, and scatters like leaves on the wind?
A: NPC guards
Q: What is always traveling, but goes nowhere?
A: A bugged escort mission
and finally…
The Olympics should host “dynamic events” — because EVERYONE gets gold!
‘How many Charr does it take to change a lightbulb?’, to which the other replies, ’What’s a lightbulb?’
I wish some NPCs would actually say this, somewhere in the game. That would be genuinely awesome.
Anyway, I’ll stick to the lightbulb theme…
Q: How many Order of Whispers agents does it take to change a lightbulb?
A: We already did, when you weren’t looking.
Q: How many Norn does it take to change a lightbulb?
A: Fifty! One to change the bulb, and the others to drink long into the night and sing tales of the heroic adventure!
Q: How many Guardians does it take to change a lightbulb?
A: One. You just put the lightbulb on his head, stand him under the socket, give him a greatsword, and let him spin around for a while.
Q: How many thieves does it take to change a lightbulb?
A: One to shatter the bulb with the well-aimed throw of a dagger — then, in the pitch darkness, stab you in the back and relieve you of all possessions. That is all.
Q: How many asura does it take to change a lightbulb?
A: Only a bookah would phrase the question in such an simplistic manner, without appreciating the complexities of the situation. Naturally, asuran lightbulbs never need to be changed, so a security golem must sweep the area for the insurgents who vandalized said lightbulb. Next, we analyze the room with a spatial spectrometer to measure light reflection dynamics. In the event of sub-optimal parameters, an entirely new room may need to be constructed around the lightbulb, so as to fully take advantage of luminescent interplay. During construction, the security golem will be occupied with dispensing refreshments to the workers, so additional personnel will be called in…. etc. etc. etc.
Edit: Oh man, everyone who commented before me had amazing jokes. Now I’m jealous! :-)
(edited by Fyrebrand.4859)
In GW2 terms you;d find artifacts about the Ascalon Wall around the wall, not around another part of the zone.
Ah! Okay, so maybe if you went out to the Ascalon Wall, you’re guaranteed that it’s somewhere in the vicinity, but there could be a number of specific spots it could be hidden. That could be pretty cool — like a jumping puzzle, but instead it’s a “finding puzzle.” This game as all kinds of nooks and crannies where secret things could be wedged in. I’m on board.