They created new tech for HoT that allows your character to talk in the open world without triggers like skill activation or health percentage so I’m expecting them to use it much more.
Interestingly they’re also using it for event conversations with NPCs. If you visit the Nuhoch village and talk to the frogs at the top level whilst an event is active they will explain the situation to you. Your character will then ask if there’s anything they can do to help.
It’s a great addition to the game so I hope they use it as much as possible. Makes my character feel much more involved in the world around them.
Most people have said what I’ve already felt. Overloads are cool, but not worth the time to cast them.
Rebound also has a bunch of bugs. If you use Tempestuous Aria, it doesn’t reduce the cooldowns of shouts at all. It also procs on skill 1 of our weapon skills (i.e. with 0 cooldown), which, while I understand WHY it does, it shouldn’t.
Rebound also just feels weird. It doesn’t suit the spec. I’d prefer a redesign in all honesty, but if that can’t be done, buffing it in some way would be better.
(edited by JayMack.8295)
Agreed on this. Using zerker gear should be a challenge. It shouldn’t be a brain dead way to play because the mobs aren’t strong/quick or smart enough to deal with it.
Keep it up, ANet. New mob AI is a huge improvement.
I noticed ANet used the lip syncing the personal story had (in its old 1 to 1 conversations) in the story instance at the beginning. I don’t know if you plan to use it in the rest of the instances, Anet, but it looked great even if you had to zoom in close to see it.
It’s a little detail that makes the game look better. Much better than the lip flapping anyway.
They use different mastery points than the ones we earn in Verdant Brink (colour is different). Since we can’t earn mastery points in core Tyria yet, you can’t unlock them.
Those upvotes and people claiming they won’t pre-purchase don’t really mean anything, honestly. The Left 4 Dead 2 Boycott and Call of Duty whatever it was boycott are proof of that.
It all depends on how much of the ACTIVE players are ticked off. If you look at the reddit post a bit more carefully, you see it has been 84% upvoted. In other words, 84% of those who give a kitten about the situation, and who are most likely active players, indicated a dislike.
Not everyone reads forums, let alone reddit. But 84% of currently 2135 people is a lot of people. And those people probably have friends and guildmates who didn’t vote, but who are also upset.
Now I point your attention to a marketing truism: dissatisfied customer affect WAY more potential buyers than satisfied ones. So was upsetting this large a number of players a smart move by ANet? I’d give it some thought if I were you.
Also, the claim that player boycotts/walkouts in MMOs don’t work is not true. In 2005, SOE notoriously managed to upset its active player base badly enough that they lost an estimated 180,000 subscriptions (out of 220,000) in half a year. The game never really recovered. The reasons why… a long story, but basically a matter of disregarding the existing player base in favor of projected new subscribers. Forgetting that all those angry existing players might just be upset enough to leave truly horribad reviews all over the internet, driving off anyone who might have been even remotely interested in buying.
Still doesn’t mean a huge amount. I’m not saying ANet shouldn’t react to the criticism they’re receiving. I’m not in the upset crowd, but I think the least they could do is make the extra character slot a base feature but that’s besides the point.
You’ve pulled one example in the near endless year on year ’I’m boycotting/not spending more money on (x)’ group of people. Also please link it, I’d be interested in reading on what whichever developer it was did to lose half their subs in a year, because you’ve just cherrypicked the ‘upset current crowd for new crowd’ bit to make it somewhat relatable to this, and I feel like there’s a lot more to that story.
Regardless, whenever I’ve seen it in the past, a large group of that crowd go back on their word and buy it anyway…because probably a chunk of the people that clicked an up arrow (and that’s all they did, something that took a second) are just agreeing with it hoping to get something out of it, either by making the expansion cheaper or getting ANet to add something for people who already own GW2, because those people have nothing to lose by clicking an up arrow. And if it never happens? A chunk of those people will buy HoT anyway. If I told anyone to click an up arrow and a product they potentially love will get cheaper/they’ll get more stuff for it, I’m betting a fair few will do it anyway regardless of why I’m asking them to do it in the first place.
My point is that those votes are in no way an accurate representation of how much potential money ANet may have lost by giving new players GW2 + HoT, which is what the crux of this thread was about. There were endless sky were falling, dead game, lost money threads when ascended rings were released that people based on ‘the majority’ of the game hating.
I’m all for people giving their opinion on what ANet are doing with this pre-purchase stuff and in fact agree with some of the negative criticism, but these scaremongering threads that are attempting to get ANet to do something based on some figure that in no way represents the reality of what will happen are, to me, pointless.
Those upvotes and people claiming they won’t pre-purchase don’t really mean anything, honestly. The Left 4 Dead 2 Boycott and Call of Duty whatever it was boycott are proof of that.
It sounds like Nolan North to me. Same with April Stewart.
I have to give the guys at ANet credit, actually. My character sounded like they were in charge and ready to lead and deal with the situation when they arrived. The new direction they’ve been given sounds 100 times better than the personal story face-to-face cutscenes.
I look forward to hearing more of it and seeing them adopt it in living world updates and future expansions.
My only criticism is I hope they record more dialogue than the standards we hear for the open world dialogue. Having Laranthir go, “Yay it’s the commander!” and hear my character go, “Time to bust some heads” felt a bit out of place, especially since I’ve heard the line a million times before. Getting some new dialogue that’s more appropriate for it would feel better.
This has been suggested since the very early betas and not happened yet, so I’m guessing it’s extremely low on their priority list.
Try deleting any unwanted mail. Sometimes Mail gets blocked even if it isn’t showing as full in the UI.
Hey Blackbeard.
To reach that location, you need to go to the west of the map (west of Wyrmblood waypoint). You’ll see a building there that has a door. This door will either be open by the time you reach it, or it won’t.
If it isn’t open press f on it, and then go to Travelen’s Steading (copy and paste this into chat to see the location [&BDICAAA=] ). Talk to the Charr there, and read his books. This will start an event, which will open the door and teleport you to the Forsaken Halls, which is the area you haven’t uncovered yet.
If you’re having trouble with this and you’re in an NA server, feel free to whisper me in-game, I’ll show you where to go.
Hey Phex!
I was one of the Charrlie holding participants against you in that toaster race!
Now I wish I had known who wrote those books in Ebonhawke or that I’d got my hand up much quicker to answer Queen Salma!
Cool toaster, though! Enjoy it! It was nice meeting you and other Guild Wars fans that day.
Are you thinking this means EVERY teleport skill? Maybe this just means skills like Steal so it won’t go on its short cooldown if there’s no target in range.
What skills do you think this would nerf anyway? I can’t see them touching lightning flash, blink, shadow step or infiltrator’s arrow with this change, since they’re ground targeted anyway. For skills like Steal, this is probably a good QoL change.
Just got home from Rezzed (eating some beans on toast!).
Thanks for today, ArenaNet! I had a great time.
Special thanks to you, Gaile, for selecting me as one of the six to win a Charr plush. I’m glad I won it! Shame I wasn’t quick enough to get the toaster to win some dragon toast!
I didn’t get a chance to win a sparkly HoT t-shirt as the stronghold queue was too long (I was the guy who was 1 away from being able to play it!) but pass on the message to your brand manager that I’d be willing to pay for them if they happened to be available in the store hint.
All you guys at ArenaNet were welcoming and happy to answer questions/chat with us in the queue as we were waiting our turn. Really happy to have met you all at Rezzed, and I hope to see you guys in the future at some point.
They were never 1-day only gem store items. The news post about them stated that they’d sell future gem store items for one day each day that week.
BTW, Trahearne has the aggro line “die by my blade!” before he gets Caladbolg (he said it in my sylvari C2 storyline the other day). Seems kind of weird when he’s wielding a staff.
That’s one of the lines we’ve rewritten.
Die by my…hands!
i don’t suppose that since the PC VAs are back recording, we could get a polish pass on some… err… lesser performances? *cough*nornfemale*cough* and fix the “hold the line” shout too, since the whole problem with it was one of the VAs read it as “hold this line”.
That won’t be part of this particular update. That stated, I want to review and update PC chatter for the expansion if there’s time. Some of those lines weren’t written particularly well, or they trigger too frequently, or the performance was off so I’d like to fix them.
If you ever do, please don’t touch April Stewart’s stuff. Her voice acting is impeccable.
I feel like professions in general need more chatter, though, so long as it isn’t ridiculously frequent. Elites across all professions feel like they deserve some chatter, Mesmers and how they shatter, etc.
Off hand specializations and one handed weapons may get extra utilities to compensate for the extra skills 2h weapons get.
I never wore them in GW1 (other than PvP where you were forced to) so it wouldn’t bother me if they were here or not, but if they can do it without drawing people away from gameplay features, then sure – I’d prefer seeing them everywhere and not wings.
As Dhemize said, I was under the impression that the new borderlands will rotate in with the current ones so there will still be only 4 maps available at any one time.
That said, I do feel they need to make WvW viable for huge population differences, though I’m not sure merging servers is the answer. Some people actually like the smaller scale battles that the lower tiers provide.
I’ll be at Rezzed on the 14th of March representing the FA guild The Legacy – I’m one of its founding members and have been in the guild since GW1. We have 450+ members at the moment.
Look forward to meeting you ANet devs there!
I can’t say for certain but I’m pretty sure the reason they changed this speech was to make Trahearne sound better. The voice actor didn’t seem to get very good direction the first time around and his speech came across as boring and monotone – it didn’t sound very inspiring . Instead he sounded more like he was having a small meeting with one or two people to discuss the dragon rather than addressing a large crowd trying to inspire them.
They got his voice actor back for Season 2 and I’m assuming Heart of Thorns, so while he was in the recording studio they probably decided to quickly re-record some of Trahearne’s more key moments to make them feel a bit more epic. They also re-recorded his battle lines so he no longer says things like ‘this won’t end well’ based on player feedback.
It was about 300mb for me. Not sure why you guys are downloading gigs worth of data.
All the Guardians joined hands and created a bubble sanctuary keeping the mordrem out infused with Mesmer feedback magic. Our PC survived ‘cause we’re just that awesome.
I’m not a huge fan of you gaining negative points just because you use certain conditions or combos…or pretty much restricting the skills I use/the way I play because I may want to be good or bad.
I definitely feel like they need to bring the personality system back in some way but I’m not sure having it tied to general gameplay is the best way to do it.
The thing with these types of bugs is finding out how to cause it to happen consistently.
I know for at least the candy cane slope, if you dodge roll down it, you’ll take damage, but running doesn’t always cause it to happen.
But yeah, it’s annoying when it occurs.
Something that WoW and GW2 has in common is that both of their forums are full of people hating on their own game.
I guess both GW2 and WoW are failures at the end of the day.
I think every game forum I’ve been to has this.
I’m still not sure if Mordremoth has even been properly woken up/at its full power yet. I kinda want there to be a huge catastrophe so he’s on par with the other Elder Dragons so we can truly feel his threatening power, even if all it feels like is one catastrophe after another at the moment….I’d also like to catch some form of glimpse of him, too.
I’d also like some questions answered, preferably. More info on Scarlet despite how much people hated her – we still don’t really know why she wanted to give Mordremoth an early breakfast, if he was telling her to, etc. etc. Caithe’s secret…and Rytlock. I think Rytlock is a given considering how much he’s been teased recently, but I want this season to end with some questions answered rather than questions raised.
Well if his last name is any indication he is probably a frisian and in Germany they are known to be exceptionally cunning… uhm no wait they are known for something “different”
:(
Aww, I want a post it note on your desk with my name on it…
Thank you. I can die happy now.
I really think you need to get a Thesaurus, okay? You seem to be really overdoing the use of okay, but let me tell you it’s not always okay.
Surely the occasional alright, very well, fine or good could be thrown in now and then, okay?
There were some episodes where it seemed like every other line had an okay or 2 or 3 which I found somewhat annoying.Okay, got it.
Aww, I want a post it note on your desk with my name on it….
Ummm…make Marjory say something other than sugar a lot. Like sweetener, glucose, fructose and caramel.
This also effects eles too, yes. All the conjure weapons don’t work.
Not sure if this is intentional or a bug.
Welcome back.
Since you’ve left, Season 1 ended and Lion’s Arch has seen better days.
We’re well into season 2 at the moment with the latest release being episode 7. You can purchase the previous episodes you missed for 200 gems each by logging into a character, pressing h and going to the story journal tab. Click on the season 2 drop down list, click an episode and you’ll have the option of purchasing it.
If you log in during an episode’s ‘active’ time (usually two weeks from its initial release), you will get that episode for free. They can be played/replayed whenever you want.
Yes, Cursed Shore farming is still a thing.
I got both Thrasher and Terragriff bladders within 2 days and I’m still waiting for my 2nd troll and husk.
As others have said, it’s RNG…
I don’t really see the problem with this. I’ve ported people before for free but I don’t really have an issue with Mesmers asking for money.
I’ve never seen a Mesmer actually charge for it before they port you, but sure some have said tips are welcome. They’re standing in place for minutes when they could be farming money elsewhere. I really doubt it’s more lucrative than straight out farming unless they charge an obscene amount.
It was a bit like GW1 ferries to skip some missions. Some people charged, some did it for free. It was up to the individual player how much they felt the convenience was worth.
There’ll probably be the Halloween festival in between. I’d be extremely surprised if they didn’t bring that back this year.
But still, new map by the looks of things.
This is all permanent content now.
I’ve done them all on my own with my Elementalist so it’s certainly possible. If you want help with them , create an lfg in the living world section asking for a group to do it with – I’m sure there are people out there that would be happy to help or prefer to do it as a group.
Otherwise, check dulfy’s website. There are guides on there for each one.
These are permanent so don’t worry about doing them ASAP. You have until the game servers go down to do them.
Your chests come from the mega laser phase as smooth penguin mentioned.
It’s not enough to just be there, unfortunately, you have to kill enough mobs to at least be credited with a bronze medal at one of the sites. Ensure you are tagging as many mobs as possible during the event. Having done Teq a lot, I understand that’s not always easy when you’re at north or East as you’re focusing on other things other than killing risen like stomping grub holes.
The reason our characters don’t talk in the open world cutscenes (other than with triggers like skills) is a technical problem rather than a budgetary one at the moment, so when they get the tech to allow our characters to talk in these cutscenes, it will be much better.
How is the problem is technological? How is the technology used to record Taimi, Rox, and Kasmeer’s voice actors not advanced enough to record Nolan North or Jennifer Hale? How is the technology used to record Nolan North and Jennifer Hale for the Personal Story not advanced enough to record them for the Living Story? You’re going to have to explain that one to me, but I’m not seeing it…like, at all.
This is simply a case of quantity over quality. The quantity of the Living Story releases doesn’t allow the developers the time to bring the ten voice actors who voiced our characters in the Personal Story, whereas a single expansion would. I’m sure budgetary concerns play into it as well; the developers aren’t going to want to spend a bunch of money to bring in top-tier VA talent like Hale to voice content that they’re giving away for free.
This isn’t me just making stuff up from thin air, or guessing. I shall provide the source:
If I have one complaint it’s that the PC doesn’t really seem to be involved with the narrative anymore outside of text bubbles, but the game has seen leaps and bounds since launch, and I’m willing to bet the lack of PC acting it due to time constraints (since the PC is technically ten separate characters).
We’re currently exploring ways to make the PC speak again. It’s more of a technical consideration and not really about actor availability or voice budget. We’ll share more on this when we’re ready.
I don’t know what the technical issue is, but if I had to guess, I would think it has something to do with there not currently being a way for the player character to talk in the open world without some form of trigger, i.e. pressing a skill, talking to an NPC, getting a rare. Since they were originally going down the route with the old-school 1-1 PC interactions, I’m guessing they didn’t implement a way from the beginning for the player character to talk without cues.
I miss my characters talking, sure, but the old style personal story and dungeon cutscenes were just awkward and uninteresting to look at, in my opinion.
The reason our characters don’t talk in the open world cutscenes (other than with triggers like skills) is a technical problem rather than a budgetary one at the moment, so when they get the tech to allow our characters to talk in these cutscenes, it will be much better.
It could be a break for a feature pack, or it could be a break for something like SAB as Ignavia mentioned as it may not fit into the current story well, i.e. We know where to go to get closer to the dragon!!…let’s go do SAB for 2 weeks.
It sounds like him to me, though I’m not always the best at detecting these things.
All I know is that Ree at least is working on a secret project they aren’t willing to talk about. I only know that cause Angel replied to my tweet asking about her earlier this year.
No idea what the other writers are doing.
That sucks, man. There’s not much else I can recommend at this point.
Try posting this thread in the game bugs adding that you’ve repaired the client to your OP if you haven’t already…it may got more dev attention there.
Have you tried changing maps? It’s a weird issue.
There’s not much else I can really recommend other than trying to repair your client if all else fails. You shouldn’t have to purchase it at all.
This is apparently caused by a full internal queue.
Devs recommend clearing your trading post pickup tab and it should then work.
I don’t mind the fact that NPC’s don’t acknowledge my past deeds, not everyone knows everything. But when my character gets to choose from three stupid dialogue options which I – or the character – would never say in the situation I don’t like it at all.
Yes I’m talking about Marjory’s stupid inappropriate “afterparty” jokes scene. At least one “go on.” option is needed in case all other dialogue is suited just for the type of PC ANet have imagined in their heads, not what we’re playing.
edit: Found the quote
Angel McCoybut we’re now more comfortable with having your PC say things that commit to an idea or a knowledge or a thought that you the player might not have had.
This is wrong. It’s kind of puzzling how you guys can say this will deepen the immersion of a personal story. Doesn’t it rather take it away if your character does and says things that are completely out of your control and not what you’d want to do?
I suppose this depends upon how invested you are in your character’s biography. For those who have an idea of what their character would say from an RP perspective, or do, and the dialogue doesn’t fit that, it’s probably quite immersion breaking.
From my perspective, I don’t have an idea of what my characters would necessarily say or do when I read in-game text. It’s more immersion breaking for me for my character’s responses to be “Go on, yeah, will do. Uh-huh. On it. Yes. No.” than for ANet to actually give them something chunky to say. Eventually, if the technical hurdle with our PC’s talking in the world is overcome, then there’s going to be set things our PC says anyway…only they’ll be voice acted.
I suppose the best would be multiple dialogue options that show a different personality type, though these will never be complete. Unfortunately, they have a text budget to stick to each release.
I’m unsure as to whether Bobby worded his post poorly or not. Otherwise, he appears to be saying that all short stories they gave us throughout Season 1 (What Scarlet Saw et al) are malleable and subject to change until they appear in-game…which I find a bit odd and pointless, unless of course it’s deliberately delivered in such a way that it’s via a character’s memory, or bias. Hopefully he’ll post again to clarify.
Now, I think some of the changes they’ve made are good, but I also understand why lore fans are upset by the post. The bloodstone change I think made sense, the change to glint’s backstory, etc. It’s not surprising there’s human bias, and when 4 other races actually QUESTION what humans are telling them, it’s believable that they may have actually been wrong or misinformed. I think those changes were handled quite well. I don’t think that paints humans as stupid…they’re proud, it was part of their history, and a large amount of them felt no need to question it. It’s quite possible that some humans did, but were largely outnumbered by those who didn’t want to question their race history.
A change I feel is bad, however, despite how small it was, was the change to the calendar. It felt unnecessary and just a forced “So we can give Tyria the same amount of days as real-life Earth!” excuse, and it didn’t really feel believable. I’m not, of course, targeting that at Angel, as I’m sure a bunch of the lore continuity designers discussed that change and approved it.
There are theories that the ‘corruption’ is using the waypoints to spread.
There are two (as far as I know) jungle vines that are constantly touching waypoints at the moment. One in Dry Top, and one in Brisban Wildlands by the skritt. This may be how it reached Concordia so quickly.