I think that his character had birthday and the present (booster and stuff) did not come.
Just hang in there, mine was also late for some characters
80 sylvari ranger (played since pre-launch, first main)
80 norn guardian
80 human thief (loved it, became my main)
80 norn elementalist (leveled this one couple of weeks ago, I so love him, may be my newest main xD)
36 charr necro – I may continue to level him up someday, but may also delete, will see.
to add to all of this, ranger and thief got 100% map completion (may eventually do it on my ele too
), all crafting disciplines leveled up to 400, weaponsmith and tailor up to 500.
I guess it trully depends on the definition of the “living” as it is. I still count the former persons dead, but granted, they are sort of living as something else still…
And as of Glint (or the chicken in Arah) – I think those were not freed (or healed?) of corruption, rather granted free will and made independent and not subjects to Dragons influence. But there may be these “depends on how you define…” things here too
That´s shame then
if you remeber it this way, then it´s probably there since launch.
As for the symbols are new Krytan alphabeth, you can wiki it and translate (or rather transcribe it). For example, if you take the symbols on DR, it simply reads Divinity´s Reach (that you can see by just looking on it – number of symbols match for each word and the symbols where “i” should be are the same. If you mean icons, the big one on DR is symply a symbol of humanity/kryta/DR…the smaller ones probably just symbols of other settlements/garrisons in Queensdale
I´d say you become crystal, just like Icebrood becomes made of ice (or rather coats dead body in ice. All in all it seems that Dragons basically first kill, then corrupt? (as in Risen are dead and “reanimated” by Zhaitan magic). No proof or source here, just opinion
those printers are there since launch,I think. Only if it´s printing something interesting
But I can confirm that those Vigil maps are new. I remember some of them being there, but deffinetely no Branded and those maps were definitely not of Queensdale
I´m no expert in GW lore, but in GW1, there were these Battle Isles, where there were portal(s) into the Mists to fight to gain Balthazars favor (aka GW1 PvP).
But as far as I know, those were flooded when Orr rose (thats why there were portals opened in LA), so either the Isles rose again, or she simply means another Isles.
Any lore expert here to shed some light on this?
it may be some devices Scarlet is planning to use against dragons in some manner? Just remember how at the end of F&F there was this Fire shaman (or was it dredge, don´t remember) that seemed not concerned about Dragons at all? Something along the lines “We will be here long after Dragons are gone”. Maybe a part of Scarlet´s plan about that? And she kitten es of Kralkatorrik/Tequatl/random dragon that eats her in revenge and we will get Dragon centered content? One could hope, right?
Is there anything you can tell us that would help us relate to your motives for this character? Something that will let us set better expectations and maybe give better feedback?
I started to reply to each question in your post but ran out of time today. SPOILER: I was in meetings.
Questions like these may be more suited for an interview since the answers can be rather long when discussing the creative process, project constraints, etc. I would like to share some insights on Scarlet and other Living World characters but I’m not sure the forums are the best place. Let me think on that for a bit.
Maybe a livestream?
There are some pretty exciting cinematics coming in the future…I hope you guys will receive them as well as the Fractals piece.
More cinematics like this one? Yes please! Especially if those will be in-game Work well done with this one, looking forward for the future
I just wanted to hop in and say to ANet that I´m really enjoying the patch. This one gives me hope. Mechanically and atmospherically speaking, it´s just great. I love that even though there are zergs, they can be sepparated from one another. First time after a long time, there is this happines of seeing another players (although I rage for those that are just running by and don´t help at all, even if they could) other that “hey, there´s zerg! lets farm!”.
I also enjoy the moments when I´m alone and there is this susspesion and I have to run/sneak past some mobs, or just wait for other players to help, this is great.
And the bar thing, showing progress in real time and for first time ever (if not counting elections – those could use that type of bar too) we can see OUR progress and how it matters (you won´t fight? tower will stay as long as we don´t try harder). Ofc, some people will want to and will do whatever it takes so that it can stay the longest, but that´s just farmers mentality, I´m getting used to it.
Special mention goes to the ambient dialogue at the camp, really great to set up the atmosphere (the female quaggan makes me sad anytime I´m there).
Nightmare chambers – could use at least a little different interiors (not all the same) but I enjoy the random encounters. When I first fought Tybalt, I was really torn up since I loved him. Only problem with this is that the rae encounters (witn Order mentor, racial mentor and Trehearne) are too rare, only fought Tybalt so far and I´ve done looooots of those chambers. I just want to experience all the tidbits of it and it´s too hard and stereotypical to always have those aetherblades/toxic enemies to fight me. The text/VO references to characters personal story is also nice (even though the VO didn´t play for me, I only saw it in chat), good to see you ar tieing some of that things and give them more meaning
The final instance was amazing, not too hard but not too easy. I tried to solo it the other day and it was pretty chalenging, but not impossible and that´s always nice
The cut scene was well done, great art, and finally a story sumary for those who weren´t following LS for the whole time. Maybe the machine for the replay could be available in the cities too (on the Durmand Priory sites, maybe? ) and could be expanded upon for every bit of story to keep us up to date, that would be nice
Only bad thing I see is that the story and Scarlets´s character didn´t progressed at all again and we are in fact at square one once again. But as I saw somewhere, you are aware of that and there should be more info and story in upcoming release? Hope that is right, because the story didn´t move for almost a year now, so that´s surely not good. I´m also interested what´s up with the sylvari krait. Is the toxic plant some sort of Pale Tree after all, altered with some toxic chemistry?
But really, if you keep improving the releases in this way, there is hope for LS after all (I actually started to hate Scarlet in other way than “I don´t like her, let´s kill her”, so that´s nice change too. But she still needs some work…and needs to be killed ).
Anyway, you guys keep up the good work, looking forward to conclusion to the years worth building-up
(edited by Illi.3647)
I’m more convinced turning to a traditional content release concept rather doing this episodic thing would be better for GW2. The instances with Roxx and Braham, Scarlet’s playhouse etc could have been triggered after one finishes their living story as the next chapters so people can do them at their own pace and experience a personalized story. Doing it that way would allow for things like recognition from NPC’s or slight alterations based on our characters past choices.
Meanwhile the Molten Facility or Aetherblade retreat would have been better as new permanent dungeons, with explorable paths as well as their own rewards and armor.
In my opinion a game just shouldn’t try be a TV show.
I’m not sure the two need to be mutually exclusive. What if every X amount of time that seemed reasonable, the story simply kept being expanded in the way you’re discussing rather than be released in one big chunk?
But if you’re not up to that point in the story arc, you can play it when ever you get there.
This is basicaly what the problem is and what many people has already said – we need something to replay story so far, if we´ve missed it. The world may be in the state of the current story, but maybe dealing the LS simirally to the PS – have a tab that tracks your progress where you can check in what you did and give new players option to experience story from the start.
Since I´m playing since BWEs, there is hard to realise that there are actually new players comming in who didn´t experience the LS so far not due to them not playing, but due to them not owning the game. They come hee and have no idea who´s this Scarlet and what´s up with this Tower, since they just logged in for the first time.
What about to do it like a PS in the way you could continue where you last ended with a story (I didn´t play Rox´s instance – there would be golden star in Rytlocks office, UI interface would tell me about going there too (something like experience the pas, go to Rytlock) and I could go through the story instances as I´d in the case of PS until I reach Tower of Nightmares). It could be this, or something else, but you need to allow new players (or players that simply don´t have enough time) to experience the story.
there is one more thing that crossed my mind. In the beginning of the game, you wanted to randomly add events, minidungeons and jumping puzzles into the game (you also did, I think last year in November?). You stoped doing that because “player base didn´t appreciated it”. But, as was said many times, we couldn´t appreciate it, since (and this is what I loved) we had no idea if the events are new, or were there all the time. I really loved that feeling of finding event/minidungeon or something, that I never seen before and I was wondering if it is new or not. that was also something that had given me the feeling of living world.
Could you (if you had resources for doing this) do this once in a while? And maybe say in the patch notes just “minidungeon added into this general area” (name of zone, or maybe just region), or DEs added se we know it is there somewhere, but had to discover it? You see, with living world, there are changes only to one zone at the time. I really want to return to some zones but at the moment, I have a feeling that I´ve seen everything in that zones. Please, prove me wrong
(edited by Illi.3647)
- Lore, lore and lore! We need lore in-game! Web site stories are good, lore interviews are great. BUT…those are ours one nad only lore sources. Minimum of it goes to game. I´ve seen it getting better with two last releases (Mad King and Bloody Prince talking in Labyrinth, existing Krait lore in after talking with NPCs). But I can´t stress this enough. We need it in actual game.
Examples: Trek of Zephyrites – you could give us parts of those memoires into the Labyrinthine cliffs as books/letters. You could put them in scattered like the crystals we were collecting, or just put them into Zephyr sanctum for us to read.
Blood and Madness – Scavanger hunt similar to what we had last year – find ghosts that would tell you history of Bloody Prince (maybe Bloody Memories as reward? )
And that brings me to
- Scavenger Hunts. Some love them, some hates them. I´m in the first bunch. But, with the last scavenger hunts, I see two problems. First – they are there just so they are there and we have something to do. If we find a krait obelisk, we interact and continue. Give us lore with them, so finding them makes sense for PC and for players alike (see? Lore. It´s important! ). There should be another incentive then achievement points. (this also goes for Tequatl rising hunt…find ten scales/teeth/crystals. Why? Because!)
Also regarding this. Please, at least give us some hints. Stop with „there are some items in the zone (or worse, in the world) you have to find“. Last year´s Halloween is the way to go – every ghost give us another clue where should we go. This years scavenger hunt is good to some extend, most of the obelisks are where krait towers are in the world, that´s good. But other obelisks? Just roam the world and be lucky, or go to dulfy and read a guide (especialy with those not even close to any „original“ krait locations). Thats not fun. I know that you want us in the world, finding stuff but I need at least a clue, however cryptic, so I may have a chance of finding it without having to read a guide or just be lucky.
- I´ll come back to the Lore bit again. You should expand on already established lore (from GW2 and GW1), not just comming with new factions/aliances/stuff. Zephirites and their ties to Glint was a step in right direction. I know you said that you are looking at all the lore already established, I just had to say it is important (and cannot be stressed enough too)
- We need new zones. You tried it with the Southsun, but there were two mistakes – low risk/reward opportunities. You designed karka to be a chalange, but reward for this chalenge are none. Also, they are difficult mainly because of them having two health-pools. More HP is not a fun chalenge.
Second mistake, Southsun is isolated from the world. You could get there by a ship (now by a gate), not with a portal from another zone. Most people that wasn´t around the first event, or second, have no idea how to get there. If you make new zones, make them so they will be connected to existing ones please.
And why we need new zones? Of course, getting updates to the old ones, Kessex changing for example is great, I love it. But I seen every zone dozen times, I know most of the events…it´s just „I´ve seen that, no point of doing it again“ all over the place. If we get something new, the „wow“ element is back in the game. I know that it would divide community more, but we need this (as we need the old zones chagning too, don´t get me wrong. We need both, to some extend ? )
- I don´t mind story not evolving around Dragons for a change, but we need to feel they are there (and I´m so glad to hear you have plans with them!). It´s really OK to have other story arcs, but you have to acknowlege they are there and they are threat. Otherwise, they are just a bad joke.
Talking of vilains – Scarlet. I want to like her, I really do. Personally, I don´t have so much problem with how „vilain-sue“ she is (even though she does know maybe too much). The whole problem is the projection of her character into the game.
First – fact in game were very scetchy. For example, we learned (in game) that sche graduated all ASURAN colleges and she also studiet under hylek, norn, charr and like. Only in short story and interview we find out that she took only basic courses of the colleges, studiet briefly under one norn, one charr and one hylek (again, improtant lore out of game).
Second – her character. You envisioned her really good. Sylvari with love for technologies, great intelect, goes crazy. How it is portrayed in game so far? She looks like spoiled brat with childish catch phrases and childish manners. This is not an interesting portreyal of „personal nemesis“ so many were hoping for. And I´m not mentioning that we don´t know any of her motives. And that brings us to:
(even more comming in the next post)
(edited by Illi.3647)
(edited by Illi.3647)
1. Lore, lore, lore! Better implementation, lore being in-game, not in interviews and on website. (Book feature, VO lore other than “Centaurs are attacking!” etc.)
2. Dynamic Events – more DE that have real impact on the world. When we fail, it has consequence. There are some, bur some…not that much. And also…let them fail! For example, most escort DEs have dead NPCs that are waiting forever to be resed. If NPC dies, I call that a fail. If most of the events basically cannot fail, they can´t have real consequence either. Also, less “defeat in the timeframe” fail conditions, more like at temple of Grenth or Balthazar.
3. Interactable world – houses you can go in, chairs you can sit in, objects to interact with (remember the comic you had in the first blog-posts about GW2? “By the gods, he´s picked up a mug!” – something along those lines ). Just things that make the world feel more alive.
Also…you guys are great, keep up the good work!
(edit: changed one and changed the order a little)
(edited by Illi.3647)
Hey, are you on the EU, or NA side? Anyway, I´m an EU player and´d love to join you in the killing spree if possible
I don´t really enjoy SAB that much as 99,9% of population, but since they introduced ascended crafting with it…I have something to do. And it´s only in Rata Sum, so if one doesn´t enjoy it, one shouldn´t enter it
What Mikuchan said – they just intorudec her! Ellen Kiel was brought up out of the blue just like Canach was (and in the same release as well), or like Scarlet is right now. We actually had some hints there is some sort of “personal nemesis” (even though I doubt Scarlet classifies as that), we even know she is going to be named Scarlet. But she has issues. She might be an interesting character, as the short story implies, but she is not, she is completely different person in game. Again, I´m sad to say this, but ANet couldn´t implement the lore and characters in the game properly. I hope it´ll get better. If she will continue to be just a spoiled brat with Tyria as her toy, I just hope we will kill her ASAP and get a proper villain or threat. Maybe one of those Dragons we heard so much about?
also, as far as I understand it, necromancer are not rising dead from the grave and use zombies/skeletons as minions, they rather utilize parts of dead bodies and flesh and making magical golems out of them.
There are some powerful necros that could raise a dead man as he was, but usualy they don´t do it. Then, you have liches as Palawa Joko (which is in Elona and not in the game yet), who is a very powerful necromancer and has an army of undead (in classical sense), but that´s a whole new story. I´m not a lore expert as I didn´t play first game and some of the lore is still eluding me and I bet Konig´d be able to go to detail with this (or say I´m wrong), but here are my two cents…
Somewhere a dev said, that if you are able to log in just in one specific time a day, you shoud be able to see invasion in all maps…hour a day may not be ideal, but at least you can progress in story,since there is one invasion every hour. just make it happen that you log in every whole hour and you should be good
you got a point there, should heave think of that nevermind that point then
… so how does the assumption that men must naturally dominate women NOT equal thinking women are inferior? How is insulting men by likening them to or calling them women NOT a sign of abject sexist contempt?
You know, you had a point, but as I said, as long as one does not think women are inferior and men are to rule the world, it´s just a figure of speech, nothing more (for example, none english figure of speech comes to mind, but here, if you had a bad day, you can say you had a “dog´s day”. Does that mean I hate dogs and they should have bad days all their lives? Hell no! I love dogs and they have often better days than I have. You just say that because there is this phrase existing).
It has it´s roots in the past, when women were considered less than men. It´s just about cultures and gender roles. When someone say that a man is the head of the family, is that sexist too? If there was a matriarchy and men would act superior in the relationship, other would go like “she is a man in that relationship, lol, he basicaly rules her, that´s insane!”
You are right that it´s based on assumptions and gender roles, but at the end of the day, it´s just a figure of the speech. You can say that like any other and no being sexist. It´s the ones approach that does matter.
Anyway, as I said, you got a point, but it´s the matter of the angle you are looking at it. If this offended you, I´m sorry
(and let be done with this, this topic is about running awa… I mean, Logan and Jennah :P)
(edited by Illi.3647)