Guild Wars 2

Adenin.5973:

Do you think that a 3d model from an outfit is so unbelievably different from an armor that they somehow use a completely different 3d modeling tool?

Do you think they use 7 different 3d modeling tools from seven different companies, one for head, shoulders, chest…. and one for outfits, maybe even an extra one to create a tree?

You have a habit of putting words in people’s mouths. You said:

" You could use this to make now an armor in Skyrim or a new car in GTA or whatever you want."

…as if a 3d model’s data is just malleable to become whatever you want it to be meshed on. While some software does allow that, that doesn’t mean ever software that creates and edits 3d models can or should.

I actually have a little experience with these things and even if I am not a game programmer I am a programmer my self. I also understand certain basic principles in this industry.

If you had experience, you’d exhibit a microbial amount of knowledge that projects as complicated at games have systems of software in place that can make a change as simple as an audio timing edit a multi-day task to accomplish. The least you could do is acknowledge that what you propose isn’t some simple “cut it a certain way” approach because you have no actual 1st or 2nd hand knowledge of how their systems of software is engineered and maintained.

Abakk.9176:

I think the way this game handles the income of raw materials through salvageable drops and gathered resources is brilliant.

I am always exited with bags full of salvageable goods. And the vendor trash with the odd 30 silver baubles is fine as well. I tend to save em as long as possible and then sell all of em in one fel swoop

This is honestly something I’ve only recently discovered even after starting the game near launch with several breaks in between. Most of the time, I just play the game and have fun. Sometimes the activities I participate in can net me some interesting rewards and sometimes gambling pays off (only got 1 precursor from the forge using rares) but what I really had to discover was just how much the junk I have collected can be worth and what I can put it toward to get interesting stuff. For instance, I just recently rolled up a Guardian (said I wouldn’t until they release a new race but I was bored) and decided to get him Foefire’s Essense as his “signature thing” and I already had 3/4 of the stuff for it in my bank and didn’t even know it (of course, I didn’t have the leather tho). That’s a skin worth 700 gold and I still have lots of other junk I could probably sell and/or make into something worthwhile.

But I suppose if you’re a person who has played the game extensively and you have lots of goodies, trinkets and skins, perhaps the loot tables are pretty sparce for interesting things to aim for. I considered, once upon a time, a kind of customizable loot table that you can fix (perhaps on a per-week basis) to drop more of what you want/need. If too many people fix their loot tables to be similar, there might be shortages for other things (like if everyone changed their loot table to max leather, for instance, ore might start to become super rare or valuable). But that’s more a market type of suggestion. With the pact supply line deal going, you have somewhat control over certain loot although you are obligated to participate in certain maps…

…polo.

Adenin.5973:

Anet created a 3d model which was created in a 3d modeling software and is therefore yet not connected in any way to a game or an armor type or anything else, it is at this point in time just a 3DS file for example. You could use this to make now an armor in Skyrim or a new car in GTA or whatever you want.

You have a laughably basic understanding of how software works. Every 3d modeling software isn’t compatible with other 3d modeling software and thus utilize the same file extensions and store information in the same format within those files. Hell, even different versions of a same software isn’t compatible with older versions unless someone scripts it to be such.

Your basic argument is “it uses 3d models so it must be completely malleable to do anything every other 3d model that ever existed can do” and this is not true. Mind you, I’m not saying it’s impossible, I’m saying it’s not inherently true. The creators of armor in an MMO might be great at utilizing tools given and be great artists, but some of them just might lack the programming expertise to bridge gaps in the code of the tools they use.

We know the input, then there is a black box and we know the output.

Do you know the output? Do you REALLY know the output besides the pixels on your screen?

Just a flesh wound.3589:

In addition, the post being responded too was incorrect about both armor variety and choice as not only is there the original armors from launch but there are the gemstore armors, expansion map armors, WvW armors, PvP armors, Legendary armors as well as a number of individual armor pieces and backpacks; gemstore, map and crafted.

Did we even have visible back items at release? My memory wants to say that stuff like holiday event back items were the first step into the realm of backpiece skins but I could be just forgetting something important.

mXz.4512:

I’d simply like them to make better use of time to implement actual armor pieces instead of a set of coveralls.

I could have agreed with you until you got to this part:

mXz.4512:

The time used to spit out each outfit, they could have fashioned up a decent looking set.

For one, you have no way of knowing that. For two, the point that you feel you’re compromising for entire sets (no clarification, so I’m assuming you mean 6 piece sets) demonstrates you don’t recognize the bloat of work you’re insisting. For three, that you haven’t acknowledged that sets aren’t needed but rather distinct pieces, because you honestly do not need a pair of pants with the same glowing aura and texture but with a slightly different shape of spike coming out the side plus an entire set of other pieces that are just a variant of “lots of glowing spikes”.

mXz.4512:

But tell me, why’s it so hard now to implement “30 armors” according to how anet described it, when they’ve had so much time to get used to it all long after launch? Despite most of the dev teams getting cut shortly after.

Because 8 of those 30 armors were variants off each other’s buttcape design with altered textures and different combos of bulging shoulders and maybe 10 of those being wholly unique.

mXz.4512:

And no it’s not a lame or weak excuse.

It is because you’re particularly biased against outfits when many of those outfits are quite unique and fashionable compared to other armor options. Just because they’re coveralls doesn’t mean you see your identical self walking around Tyria in the same thing. In fact, I find it’s rarer than you’d think.

So yeah, your excuse is lame and weak.

I could simply turn off the game ambient music, but why do that when I could simply create a custom folder with my own selected music, insert it into the Gw2 folder and listen to them as I play? Because they’ve given us the choice for it. Outfits do nothing of the sort.

Bullcrap. I’ve played other games with a similar “coveralls” customization option (talking Blade and Soul…and they can’t even dye their outfits!) and you still have extremely unique characters even if they’re wearing the same thing (they actually embraced that with unique “Clan Uniforms” that is extremely difficult to duplicate outside of your clan unless they try). And it makes sense in their lore, as Clans/Martial Arts schools tend to have matching uniforms to display what school/clan they are a part of.

The problem is YOU cannot create something unique and intriguing, not the system…because in this system you can, even with outfits. You just refuse to see the truth.

mXz.4512:

Armor variety and choice was far richer at launch than what it is now. It’s very much a drought since the last time they released a set. And 3 pieces is not a set. Smh.

And this is just plain making stuff up.

IndigoSundown.5419:

I would like ANet to keep making outfits. However, I would be more likely to buy more outfits if ANet were to make more outfits that were less ornate than most of what comes out. The over-elaborate in both armor pieces and outfits does nothing for me.

Never hear this opinion much and I agree. Of the outfits I do have, besides the Assassin, I use Jungle Explorer, Monk and Noble Count more than the the fancy ones. And for armor, I usually aim for the least bulky/covering and most form-fitting pieces. Can I just have a loincloth and bare legs for heavy?

Can’t make a good variety of characters when the armor hasn’t hit all those special bases yet.

Djinn.9245:

penguin.6491:

I might be one of the only person who enjoys outfits. I like having a second clothing option to what I’ve transmogged on the gear that the character is currently wearing. I don’t want to transmog constantly due to my whims. Buuuuuut I hate how so many of the outfits are similar and I totally get why people want more options between things. Yet it seems like it would be a lot of work on their part, they gotta cut corners somewhere I suppose? IDK

You are correct that outfits are a quick, easy way to change your look. However having played many other MMOs I have seen better ways.

Lord of the Rings Online has a fabulous costume system. You can have up to 7 “outfit” tabs that can save your costume looks for you. And each tab has a complete set of cosmetic gear (including weapons) with each slot being able to be toggled on and off. Best of all, every single gear slot on every single costume tab can take normal armor, no transmutation into a “skin” required. If you get a loot drop that you like you can simply add it to one of your outfit tabs at no cost.

This costume system is almost 10 years old…

Still nothing on City of Heroes. Costumes weren’t even linked to “gear” so you can have as complex or minimalist as you desire, you had multiple costume saves with more purchasable in the cash shop, you had plethora of costume transformation animations to choose from to swap to those various saved costumes, you had 100% control cosmetically of a character, i.e. the single character can be a man, a woman or a “bulk” type body by changing their costume (actually had a character whose origin was they were a pair of demons, one male, one female, that morphed into magical weapons for their counterpart to hold (if you’ve seen Souleater, think of the weapon meisters)) and you could choose custom animations and colors for your powers.

Will.9785:

Tumult.2578:

Money talks guys and gals.

If Anet is making outfits it’s because we are buying them.

Direct your purchases to influence future content.

You are right, but when is the last time ANET made a new skin set? I genuinely don’t know. Its hard to vote with your wallet when there is nothing to vote for if you know what I mean.

That’s a particular issue with the wardrobe system: people think we need whole sets when what you need are distinct pieces with unique themes. Sure, make a “theme set of skins” but you don’t need 6 pieces for a complete theme.

Adenin.5973:

Is there any major MMO that has implemented mounts that make you invulnerable against attacks of mobs?

Final Fantasy XI

Adenin.5973:

It’s terribly likely that the mounts will have movement and/or even utility skills. They will probably enable the players to do much more things than just leaping forward. Much more things to add to that ‘parkour feeling’.

That’s all just speculation but my comment was directed at “spamming any skills to increase your movement” comment, which is said like it’s a bad thing.

Adenin.5973:

People that run around, spamming every possible skill that gives them any sort of movement.

I consider that an interesting feature of the game. Most just have a “increase movement spell/buff” and you just run. GW2 feels a bit like parkour, where you’re evading mob attacks, leaping forward and over obstacles to keep enemies out of range, teleporting, stealthing, etc, all to keep your speed momentum.

Adenin.5973:

Leo G.4501:

Anet’s already said, making outfits, you only have to make them fit the character model while for armor, you have to make each individual piece fit with other pieces of that armor weight and since each armor weight has different connection points, they don’t fit other armor weights the same thus the necessity to make 3 sets of armors so you don’t leave an armor weight out (that is, if you make a new Light armor set and don’t make anything for Medium or Heavy, people while complain).

Again, you start with the raw 3d data. There are no connection points at this time.

Then you make armor pieces out of the 3d model of the outfit. An outfit that already has 3d models for every race/gender combination.
Of course from this point on you have to do everything that you would have to do in order to make normal armor. I don’t understand why everyone is talking about connection point issues.

The work anet saves through already having modeled the outfits enables them to start directly at the point where they start setting connection points and that stuff up.

At the end we will get from one outfit one armorset for every armor type. Every armorset looks the same, like it was before when you equipped an outfit on light/medium/heavy armor classes.

And if we are talking about not fitting together and clipping issues with already existing armor, then I can only say that you should look at how bad stuff is clipping already.

Let the players decide what fits and what not.

You’re not taking into consideration how specific pieces function. You can’t just ignore how they connect because that is a critical feature of how armor is created. Pieces cast clipping masks and make parts of the character models or other armor pieces invisible. That’s not something you just ignore but designed around.

Won’t it be faster to just use your blink, leap, rush skills rather than sitting on a mount?

Adenin.5973:

Do you want to tell me now why you are saying that we can’t start making the already existing 3d data of the already created outfits, that are already adjusted for each and every possible combination of gender and race and make armor out of it like anet has done it so many times before?

What is your point?

Anet’s already said, making outfits, you only have to make them fit the character model while for armor, you have to make each individual piece fit with other pieces of that armor weight and since each armor weight has different connection points, they don’t fit other armor weights the same thus the necessity to make 3 sets of armors so you don’t leave an armor weight out (that is, if you make a new Light armor set and don’t make anything for Medium or Heavy, people while complain).

mXz.4512:

Leo G.4501:

Title

Stop Making Outfits

No.

Just a flesh wound.3589:

Unless they revamp every armor in the game or start completely over it’s going to be full armor sets for expansions only and outfits in the gemstore.

Players don’t want compromise, only results.

I’m actually perfectly happy with outfits because they look good. They can be improved to add a few more custom options but it helps they are also much more time friendly to create. I think GW2 would have been much greater if they focused on ONLY outfits with options like backpieces, helms and auras being the custom options and adding more race options.

While I like mix-and-match armor, GW2 doesn’t do well in making a stark variety of pieces to mix. That is, each piece isn’t distinct enough to warrant their existance. Some gloves just look too similar to other gloves, some pants too similar to other pants, etc. To be truly effective, you need to create pieces that rely on their own aesthetic merit, not “need to make 6 pieces to complete a set”. It’s even worse when you consider that there are 3 weights. Light armor doesn’t need “shoulder” gear, for example.

Looking like every next character kills the game and the creativity it’s been partially based on. They might as well remove the wardrobe system, cultural armors and gender-based armors and all others.

If you’d rather look 50-100% like the next human or charr, then the game just depreciated that much in diversity. Customization and diversity is what drives creativity and is one of the things that draws new and old players.

And Anet’s statement that it took 9 months(?) to make all the armors at launch, I highly doubt that. It sounds much more sensible that they hired a lot of temp workers just for the creation of armors, then just dumped them shortly after. So there went a lot that potential +money, now everyone who’s tired of outfits or prefers mix and match is left with no new options.

Diversity for diversity’s sake is also a lame excuse. There’s a difference between being creative and being a special snowflake. The fact of the matter is, the system doesn’t support being creative because the system relies on you to collect skins over utilizing a system of options to create a unique and fashionable character. It divides your options by armor weight rather than what you desire for a particular look. It forces you to use limiting charges to make said changes rather than just utilizing the changes you want and it cost inventory space to store multiple looks on a given character. These factors are CREATIVE factors and they’re all stifled.

But your point falls short. I never said outfits are perfect. In fact, I said they could change some things so outfits can have better customization freedom such as dye channels for various parts of the outfit, the ability to turn parts of the outfit off (could be like helm/shoulders or something more advanced like certain textures or special sections of the outfit unique to that outfit having the option to turn it off) along with possibilities to wear other helms/back pieces and auras.

The problem is, people like you see the status quo and you don’t see the bloat. The useless parts that you cover up or ignore took time to make and for what? For diversity, a nebulous goal at the cost of actual creativity. So you can feel special because you lack actual vision?

Title

Stop Making Outfits

No.

Just a flesh wound.3589:

Unless they revamp every armor in the game or start completely over it’s going to be full armor sets for expansions only and outfits in the gemstore.

Players don’t want compromise, only results.

I’m actually perfectly happy with outfits because they look good. They can be improved to add a few more custom options but it helps they are also much more time friendly to create. I think GW2 would have been much greater if they focused on ONLY outfits with options like backpieces, helms and auras being the custom options and adding more race options.

While I like mix-and-match armor, GW2 doesn’t do well in making a stark variety of pieces to mix. That is, each piece isn’t distinct enough to warrant their existance. Some gloves just look too similar to other gloves, some pants too similar to other pants, etc. To be truly effective, you need to create pieces that rely on their own aesthetic merit, not “need to make 6 pieces to complete a set”. It’s even worse when you consider that there are 3 weights. Light armor doesn’t need “shoulder” gear, for example.

Gear treadmill is a tactic to trap you into playing. I say trap because there are thousands of awesome games out there to play and if the goal of a game is to dangle carrot after carrot in hopes that you’ll be tricked into choosing to play that game instead of what you feel like playing at that moment.

What I don’t understand is, we have all this technology, communication and hard drive space, why do people want whatever game they are currently playing to do everything every other game does simultaneously? If you want a gear treadmill game, pick one. If you want a casual game, pick one. If you want a hard core game, pick one. And whatever you pick, does not make those other choices disappear.

What boggles me is, you’ve played the game for over a year, you showed interest in completing the story mode dungeons but you never just tried it? Solo or duo? I mean, this is a game, you don’t lose anything for experimentation. You do lose out on a learning experience when you just look up how to do it, especially if you’re not concerned with just getting it over with (1 afternoon of PuG would get them over with).

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

I don’t mean to make light of your opinion, only that the way you phrased it makes light of mine. As explained above by others, a cutscene interrupts the flow of the game and it looks awkward to me (a picture is worth 1000 words and 40 seconds of video is 1000 pictures at 25 FPS).

I’m not trying to make light of any opinions, I’m just curious. I can see the interruption as being annoying but doesn’t the skip button make that negative far more easier to tolerate?

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

The only thing like about cutscenes better is that it’s more obvious how to skip them (press the ‘skip’ button), although there are plenty of other ways to do that with in-game dialogue.

I personally feel the old style allows for more expression that can easily be missed with the new method. I dunno, maybe there’s a lot of emotes being done that I don’t see in the LS but going back and playing some old content after a long break, I was pleasantly surprised at how expressive some of the dialog is.

Khisanth.2948:

Well they were apparently also more difficult to make due to the need to get things into the right position and state after the skip button. They also had a tendency to remove people’s hats and maybe their beards too.

I suppose that could be why they stopped using that style. I figured, other games out that utilize similar style dialog don’t seem to be hindered by this although glitches will still happen.

Is my memory betraying me? There were people that greatly disliked the 2D-esque cutscenes which is partly why the devs moved to change to the current model, right?

Are there players still out there that really dislike the old style? I’m still confused why.

Vagrant.7206:

The adage of “Show, don’t tell” comes to mind.

Exposition is boring. Don’t waste time with it if you can just show what you mean, or include it with the action.

Many of what would be flat cutscenes (in the past) are now dialogue that plays while you run around. This is great for people who don’t care about the story (they don’t have to hit skip as fast as possible) and great for people who do care about the story (you can see how the action ties into the dialogue).

Perhaps you can quote an example? To me, you’re either actively engaging in the dialog (which can be done in the 2Dish cutscenes too) or you’re pressing the content and thus the dialog isn’t so much tying into the action as it is just background. I’d even go so far as to say most dialog doesn’t tie into any action at all unless you consider “run to the next green star” as action.

Just curious, but I never understood why people vehemently disliked the old 2D-esque cutscenes vs the current ones which seem nice but requires a bit of player input to make them right.

That is, in a conversation between 2 or 3 characters, the old cutscenes seemed perfect, cutting between the characters that the dialog is directed at. You get to see a close up of the character with appropriate hand gestures and close-ups on face to see changes in their eyes. Also, I enjoy seeing people’s costumes up close if its a dungon…or just skip it if they have lolshinywings set-up and didn’t feel bothered to see.

I do like some of the living story dialog where I have to position the character myself and I have control of the zoom but I still enjoy the old cutscenes too. Am I alone in thinking that? The best of both worlds would be defaulting to the old style and if you click skip, you go to the new style which could also be packaged with dungeons just in case you prefer to hear your character talk and not a stranger’s. Of course, there could be a settings option to auto default to the new style.

What do you think?

Just a flesh wound.3589:

It may be unreasonable to have them keep their own hairstyle but they could put in a haistyle or head covering that comes with the hat, such as what comes with the Dwayna’s outfit. This is far preferable to a hat on a bald head.

This is what most MMOs do. Rather than configuring headgear to accomodate every hairstyle, present and future, most just create a piece of headgear that has a hairstyle of its own, one of which takes the color of the characters existing hair or is dyable to whatever color you’d prefer. This would mean if you had short or long hair, you might end up as the opposite depending on what style is chosen, or if you have cornrows or something, your hair would completely change. GW2 seems to be one of the few that just said, “nah, lets just remove the hair instead and set the hat on the head”.

The only conflict here is people that prefer bald heads vs people that prefer hair on their heads. There would be those that would crusade to keep “their hair” but it’s not feasible and you’re left with the above choices.

When I was a starting Elementalist way back when the game launched, I tried doing zerk builds and it was frustrating. So what I did was tweeked my build and swapped out more of my zerk gear for extra vitality, namely Valkerie gear. I noticed that there are means to force critical hits such as Arcane skills auto-critting, Arcane Power giving the next attacks the chance to crit, sigil of Intelligence giving you 3 auto-crits upon attunement swap…I created a new playstyle for myself that relied on conscious control over when I crit to get optimal damage at that period plus I had a good deal more HP to react to incoming attacks.

Even though I have ascended zerk gear for my Ele and sometimes use it, I use my Valk setup more because I just find its dynamic more fun.

Either that or look into a healing hybrid set-up. As you unlock Tempest, you get some interesting healing abilities. Combo those skills with healing power, improve your toughness or vitality to take advantage of said healing and focus the last of your build toward dealing damage (either through power or condition).

Lastly, there’s no right way to play, it’s up to you to find what works for you and perfect its execution. Any build can pretty much get you by in open world but you have to know how to use it.

Give it to me!

I was listening to my playlist and I started to get a real “Asura” vibe from this link:

It’s definitely not Sylvari, that’s for sure.

What music do you got that gives you a(n) [insert Tyrian race] vibe.

PS: don’t lie, you could definitely do the robot to that tune.

~wings~

Neither.

Ashantara.8731:

Leo G.4501:

For those circumstances where it won’t work for a character, the simplest solution is to rewrite what is said and done to close fit with the decisions of your character but within the limits of the story.

Well… would it have been such a problem for the devs to alter text with the same content in ways that made it sound race-conform? You can say something that leads to the same result in a million ways, and a Charr would say them in a rough, warrior-minded manner rather than sounding like an empathic psychologist, no?

Well the thing I’m getting at is that, of course it would be nice but it’s just not feasible! Not to mention, not all Charr speak or act the same. Like I mentioned before, the voice of the main character actually does fit my Charr but then he’s not some nationalist type who holds onto old grudges, questions tradition and simply has different values but even then, he isn’t the Pact Commander, he’s just a Charr that likes to craft and helps fight. My Charr Thief may sound like a more traditional Charr but she was created quite a bit after my Warrior and she has her own personality quirks that slant her slightly different than what you’d typically run into in Black Citadel.

Ashantara.8731:

Don’t those proud fighter races deserve better than being reduced to jokes? It is funny when an Asura (a somewhat cute race) says something like “I feel six feet tall!”, or when a human states a pesudo-cool “Armored up!”, but for a Norn or a Charr to say childish stuff is beyond my comprehension.

The entire tone of the game is like that though. Banter, quips and semi-serious-to-serious dialog is pretty much what everyone gets, even the passive-aggressive, narcissistic Asura.

The problem is, there is no “100% win” scenario here… Or even a 75% win. Because what is appropriate for some won’t be appropriate for another. Every player and character has their own circumstances that differ. Although the main voice I find has been fully adopted by my main (asura ele) and translates well to my 2ndary (charr war), it doesn’t fit for any of my other characters.

At some point, you just have to learn to understand and separate what would be optimal from what is feasible. For those circumstances where it won’t work for a character, the simplest solution is to rewrite what is said and done to close fit with the decisions of your character but within the limits of the story.

A cool idea but way too many skins to make that happen…now perhaps if the skins weren’t profession locked and released over time, sure. You can even consider the current Legendary set the “Dragon Hunter” set, and next set (whenever that may be) could be the “Daredevil” set. But releasing them at the same time and/or being locked by profession is just ludicrous.

Personally, I’d prefer each legendary set have a more universal theme rather than profession theme…pick a type of theme and then build off of that…for example: Egyptian/Bandage theme could be a set that looks like you’re covered in various wraps and then when the armor is envoked, it forms metalic pieces at various parts of the body, jewlry/anklet/adornments for light, heavy wraps (basically bigger/looser bandage wraps) with hidden spikes/blades for medium and straight up gilded plate with glowing trim for heavy.

The Greyhawk.9107:

Well, I’ve said my piece on this, as works of fiction its all subjective anyway. We’ve all gone a bit too far down the rabbit hole as it is, too.

Actually, there’s something I did want to mention to you, Ardid. At the top of the thread you state that in-universe permanent sex changes exist, and the fact is that this isn’t quite true. The one NPC in LA, the aid worker, uses mesmer illusions to take on a female appearance. So Tyria doesn’t have actual sex changes (magical or surgical) to the best of our knowledge. Unless your referring to the Total Makeover Kit, but your going to have a very difficult time trying to argue that those are an actual in-universe lore item and not a mere convenience game-mechanics item.

They aren’t? Doesn’t Evon Gnashblade control the Black Lion Trading Co which sells these kits? He’s even offered to lower prices for things as part of his election campagin which makes me want to believe the things they sell are linked to some sort of technological advancement or illusionary spell (thinking outfits/weapon skins/backbacks) inherent to that world.

But even if said changes aren’t permanant, they don’t have to be. They just need to last an hour or two XD

Bellatrixa.3546:

Granted the discussion was 4 months ago (you can read it here if you missed it or you’re curious), but it ultimately went nowhere despite most people seemingly being in favour of it. By the end of the thread I think we’d all pretty much given any hope for RPers to be further integrated or for non-RPers to filter out their chat. But hey, we tried with sensible, logical and reasoned arguments for the proposal at least!

I think you misjudged the conclusions of that thread. While some did support the idea of /RP, I think it’s a bit disingenuous to claim most were in favor. If there was a consensus to arrive at from that thread, it’d have been:

• Most didn’t care for or against the idea.
• Practically everyone was in favor of decreasing emote radius and /say as well as making it possible to report someone by the /em they produce.
• Many that opposed the idea thought so on the grounds that it really accomplishes nothing.
• /rp was more to support players who couldn’t be bothered to create a chat tab without /em in it and refused to do so because “they might miss a friend /waving at them randomly in a crowded city hub”.
• the idea doesn’t do much for RPers except giving you the option of hiding your text from possible harassers, of which could be accomplished already though available chat options.

Dawnbreaker.6215:

Too often in games, movies or comics, I see male characters wearing epic clothing that shows off who they are or what they do; clothing which defines their role or function, like wizards wearing huge robes, pirates wearing ragged shirts with tricorn hats or jedi wearing those monk garments (or whatever you’d call them). But then, whenever you have a female character, she wears clothing that is 90% about showing off her body and a mere 10% about her role. So basically they wear clothing that simply define them as women. It’s reminiscent of the Smurfette Principle (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smurfette_principle), where men are defined by what they do and women are defined by their gender. And GW2 does a pretty good job giving that idea the middle finger and giving us proper epic fantasy female clothing.

In general, this is a two-fold issue at the fault of both men and women. Women seek individuality and trendiness thus they seek to wear a variety compared to men who wear clothing based on utility and practicality. How this ends up with women wearing tighter or piecewise clothing is attributed to women’s desires to accesorize. Now if women didn’t care about accessorizing and being trendy, their selection of clothing would be as limited as men’s (focusing mainly on comfortable underclothing, pants/slacks, shirts and accessorizing with mainly hats and ties) rather than incorporating wallets/purses, specialized shoes, scarves, etc. The other fold of the issue is that men value women for their appearance (because they are mostly viewed as opportunities for relationships and families) whereas women value men for their ability to provide resources (i.e. their job and what they do to provide for their family) so men value women who dress with feminine style.

So there you go, women value variety and accessorizing to their own fashion while men value women for their attractive appearance.

On the other side of the coin, no one cares how men dress, in the context of if they dress plain or trendy, so fewer men will bother thus the option to dress trendy or to emphasize male attractiveness is limited by available options.

Both these paradigms (men and women and their attire) seem to be reflected when developing custom gear in games, leaving men to wear practical gear while women are catered to by offering “femenine” things as well as refitted “masculine” things.

Personally, I think the actual problem is how feminist try to shame people for seeking attractiveness. Just because the female avatars have the option to be attractive doesn’t mean that is their only option (the majority of the time). And doing so, it stifles creativity and pretty much shoots the option of “sexy men attire” in the foot because the content creators are already walking on eggshells with feminist views.

Although I’m pretty sure the line “most players of video games are straight males and don’t want to see that” would pop up and then the paradox is in full view. Either offer more attractive men to pull in more of a female audience or just understand that there is a double standard (women aren’t drawn in by attractive males, women aren’t attracted mostly by appearance but by status, but men ARE thus partially why it exists).

tl;dr: sexy armor exists to appease both men and women and those that tend to complain about it don’t seem to understand that sex sells, it appeases the male audience and to cease is basically to the dissatisfaction of that male (and some female) audience. The only thing victimizing virtual women accomplishes is removing part of the target audience and thus making less money.

Mikali.9651:

Even tho some maps feel large, some meshes, or building, are just too small, or better, out of the scale, now I know that’s the real reason I can’t feel the environment! Thanks Leo G. !

Putting more consideration into the prospect of scale, this might be why I enjoy playing smaller races in general (my main is an Asura ele) because the scale might feel a bit better….but then I like to see the armor/weapons/animations better so I scale said small races to the max.

Still, I do enjoy GW2’s races more than any other game and most other MMOs I just can’t push myself to ever play more than 1 or 2 characters compared to GW2 12.

I think such a change could be fair to link to a specific stat (maybe Vitality or something) where increasing it also creates a chance of “skipping” a tic + slightly increasing the tic time…

…but I’m just brainstorming off your idea. What evidence do you have that condition damage is out of hand? And to what degree?

Personal perspective here:

Beyond the particle and armor affecting view of the world/environment design, I feel there is a lack of scale. Playing various MMOs, one thing that can start to take my breath away and draw my attention away from pretty flashy weapons and gaudy armor is the raw scale that exists. To make my character feel insignificantly small and emphasize the size of the things around me is what makes me stop and just look.

I talk so much about the dead MMO CoH, but its graphics were dated and engine obsolete but it had a great sense of scale. It could show a city in ruins, buildings toppled and crumbling and your character stood next to it, you could imagine what effort and force it would take to accomplish such a feat. A battle scarred environment spread before you and you’d wonder just how fierce the struggle was.

There are places in GW2 where the scale does impress me, but I’m constantly struggling with the oddities like “short mountains” and structures not seemingly scaled properly to convey just how large an area you’re in. Arah was pretty nice in that regard, the huge dilapidated structures and openess of it all. Perhaps raids are different though, I haven’t set foot in any of them.

PS: CoH is just a basic example of scale. Games like FFXIV has a pretty nice scale in regards to the size of the zones and the overall structures although it feels very confined due to your character being limited in their ability to move (CoH, you could fly, jump, teleport all over the place!). Tera is pretty expansive and the structures are extremely interesting to just examine and the overall scale is so extremely skewed to make you feel small, but again, your ability to explore it is limited. Blade and Soul has decent environmental scale and explorability and the vibe you get from the environments is very unique of any MMO I’ve played but it’s plauged by invisible walls…

Sungak Alkandenes.1369:

Edit – Its fine to spend far too much time outfitting five Charr characters to be unique. [I also have most of a backstory for each of them.]
https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B-zDeN8o6SKOWWdYczBsUXBjNTQ

On all my Asura characters, I would indicate an irresitable attraction to female Charr XD

Stand The Wall.6987:

its ok to hate gw2 only to realize other games are waaaay worse off. (cough cough eso procs)

A philosophy I live by with all MMOs.

I think the main flaw with many MMO players is the loyalty they feel is necessary to get ahead in them. You can play 3 or 4 current MMOs and rotate them and be perfectly happy with the content stream. It’s when you rely on 1 MMO to satiate your hunger of content is when you exhibit the flaws of a brand loyalist: distrust in the developers, unrealistic expectations for content, xenophobic ideals of features (just because X game has A feature doesn’t mean Y game needs it; X game tried A feature and it failed so it will unequivically fail in Y game), apathy of advancement in general.

Nightshade.2570:

I tend to like playing humble but slightly insane characters. Such as a bee loving fanatic who thinks or perhaps she can, communicate with bees. She has trouble making friends though and makes her living pretty much selling high quality honey. In general its odd but still not legendary.

Hilarious when she gets caught up in an adventure. Though I have found it hard to break into the roleplay community here in GW2 they seem nice, but few will interact with you if they don’t know you.

I tend to start off with a contrasting trait than your typical character and then just evolve them over time as I interact with the game. Like:

1. A large and physically strong (Warrior) Asura.
2. A Charr with a modest countenance and a strong reflective personality.
3. A Human who questions existance and the gods.
4. Less intelligence focused and more passionate Asura.
5. A Silvari with a more outward perspective of the dream and a stalwart philosophist.

which developed to:

1~ Origin with Thaumanova reactor from youth and Chaos magic. Cannot tell lies or bend truth or loses all strenth.
2~ Raised from birth by humans with basis in traditional family values. Struggles with human/charr relations and seeks true worth to his people through his craft vs muscle.
3~ A human of extreme religious zeal but not for the human Gods but instead of Norn culture, taking the ideals of the animal spirits to an extreme.
4~ Not any more charismatic than your average Asura, but gains more appeal among mixed races. Exudes leadership qualities despite his feminine demeanor.
5~ Just plain sociopathic and a master manipulator. Could be the next Scarlet, only more ruthless.

Of course, then I get to the end of the available races and just kind of flounder…

Meanma.5623:

As for the character biography: Warcraft has that as an add-on. Half of the biographies there are steamy descriptions of the character and a list of kinks the player has. The other half of them are long walls of text detailing every single tattoo, scar, dead relative, special weapon and pointless title that the character has. So few people use that add-on properly that it’s kind of a relief GW2 doesn’t have anything like it.

That’s a positive of the feature if you put a max character limit on it that enforces brevity but isn’t too short. When you run across stuff you don’t care for (steamy descriptions, kinks, etc.) you can stop reading right off the back. Describing tattoos, scars, dead relatives and special weapons or titles isn’t a bad thing considering it may be important to the motivations and backstory of the character. Which leads to another interesting point: discussing someone’s bio often can lead to critiques if they are willing. Granted, I usually only ever critiqued someone’s bio if they asked (outside of spelling and grammar errors) because you never know how they’ll take the criticism. But talking about and offering criticism of a character is accompanied with learning more about said character. They might tell you something interesting about their character that they couldn’t fit in the bio so you suggest they leave out talking about a specific character detail that isn’t as important (tattoos, scars, dead relatives, etc).

But the point of such a feature is to utilize as you see fit. If you want to advertise your guild, post the times you play, link your build, your aimed achievements, your characters kinks and steamy descriptions or a genuine short story your character is involved in, none of it is wrong or more proper than other uses.

It’s okay to wear skimpy armor on your males or females. It’s just a fantasy game.

Endless Soul.5178:

This has been suggested before, and I’m all for it!

I realize that but I’m assuming it’s more constructive to make suggestions on the forums vs complaining about the same old subjects. That and I rarely ever see people making suggestions to help RP. I have other ideas but a biography window is the easiest addition to make with only positive overall effects.

What do people think about having a character biography window that can be viewed with a right-click (with a max of 5000 characters)?

In CoH, the character bio window was used for various purposes:
-Players could advertise their “guild” or their custom missions in the “Mission Architect” or even posting links to websites to show more info, art, stories or guild websites.
-Players could annotate their build, their window of play for raids and overall stuff about playing (if you were aiming for a certain achievement that required a group, you could advertise that).
-More likely, you can post a brief origin story or explanation about your character and their powers (since you could color and customize your powers, even if you used the “Fire” powerset, your powers might be something else like aethereal, psychokinetic energy, darkness, spirit fire, etc).

Ultimately, such a feature may put your intentions out there that people can observe without needing to directly interact with the player behind the keyboard. If you can more easily see a player’s intentions, this could be a stepping stone to starting an interaction. Like, if you see a character’s backstory and you think it’s interesting, you can start chatting about that and perhaps begin a storyline (you can also get a grasp of their ‘level’ or RP-ness so you know what to expect when you interact). Or if you see the person is aiming for the same achievements that you’re trying for, you can send a /whisper about trying to set up times to pull others together for that.

What do you guys think?

Flatley.1620:

It’s a series of questions really:

- What IS “roleplay” in GW2?
- How do you “roleplay” in GW2?
- Is “roleplay” defined by lore or is lore non-mandatory?

My general RP experience comes from CoH/CoV where lore was extremely flexible and you could not only tell stories to give some backstory to yourself but create anthologies of story missions to give more depth to your stories or intertwine your stories with others.

~ In GW2, I feel what you describe is genuinely what the basis of roleplay is. You interact with other players using /say and /em (animated and not). I tried to RP a bit in GW2 but it’s just not my cup of tea (or I just didn’t connect well with those I played with…had some fun but ultimately felt like just chatter rather than telling stories).

~ My personal means of roleplaying in GW2 is crafting my characters and their backstories/personalities and, when confronted by people who RP and interact with me, try to channel my character so those RPing don’t have to break character. This is rare though.

~ It depends on who you RP with. Some people understand that requiring lore to RP is a high barrier of entry for many and try to keep their interactions more spur of the moment. I haven’t personally ran into people who are portraying a lore-infused performance.

The issue with seeing text and no animations for your character hasn’t been a big problem for me primarily because I usually have the text window enlarged in games where I RP. I’m usually too busy typing or reading to notice exactly what a character’s avatar is doing. I do try to keep my character in a natural idle stance that conveys my character’s current attitude. GW2 doesn’t have many stances, though.

One thing I always urge posters to do is suggest improvement to the game that would facilitate RP. More idle stances, improved /em interaction, bio space, journals and stuff.

I don’t know if you ever played City of Heroes but I feel it was very RP friendly, from lore to chat and even the ability to tell stories. It’d be great if some of those concepts were incorporated into GW2 (although it’s unlikely a “Mission Creator” can be put into this game).

ReaverKane.7598:

That is what i thought too, initially, which is why its even worse as it is now. I mean they SHOULD have released at least 2 different Elite Specializations if Elite Spec was meant to be the new “power standard”, or at least by now the Living story should have unlocked another one.
But no, what they did was play semantics and change the name of trait lines to specializations so now “we have” several specializations to pick from. But what resulted was in an effective power creep, which is locked from Free to Players, so people trying out the PvP will also feel that barrier to entry, and likely label GW2 as P2W.
HoT was a mess, i love guildwars, loved some of the maps (idk how anyone can love Tangled Depths), but godkitten the delivery was so awkward and ill-advised so many times. I feel like it broke more stuff than it improved to be honest, and we’re still feeling it’s effects.

Meh, if the game is marketed so that the players that bought the game have an advantage, sure, go ahead and lable the game as P2W. But labels, in this day and age of the internet, are hugely exaggerated and taken out of context. People that rely on lables to make decisions are begging you to lie to them. In that context, I don’t care if those particular people decide to play the game for free or move on to some other game. Players like that aren’t expected to have much loyalty to a particular brand or game anyway (same as me, but at least I’m not ignorant enough to allow someone else’s lables of a game decide if I try a game or not).

Since the environment of the game has changed over time, I’m more inclined to accept the inevitable so long as that inevitable end is tolerable, i.e. if I’m a PvPer going into GW2, I can accept that there might be more options for me to excel if I purchased the game so long as I’m not strung along a constant stream of payments. If I’m so outmatched that purchase is necessary (I can still beat people and help win hotjoins with base Ele) then P2W may extend to a degree that it’s likely not worth investing time and money. But if I can still compete with modest skilled or below players, that’s a different story.

Zero Day.2594:

Leo G.4501:

Just to play devil’s advocate a bit (I do that a lot, it seems), is it wrong to suggest that some builds that are “viable” but not “optimal” could be made “more optimized”? We all know, there are builds out there that just don’t work at all (i.e. “not viable” in some content) but could work better with some changes. Then there are builds that we wished existed but don’t and could exist if certain balance changes were made.
…

Build A could be more optimal then Build B for a particular task. It does not mean that Build A stems from Build B – it could and it could not. Both builds are viable if they can successfully. One is more optimal than the other if it performs better at the task.

Completely beside the point.

So Build A could be made more optimal to perform closer to Build B for the same task. Now Build F is even worse than Build A which is seen as suboptimal but viable. Build P is even worse than Build F. Not that all builds can be equal, but could changes be made to facilitate improvements for Build F and Build P without harshly affecting Build A-C?

That is the point I was trying to make.

Just to play devil’s advocate a bit (I do that a lot, it seems), is it wrong to suggest that some builds that are “viable” but not “optimal” could be made “more optimized”? We all know, there are builds out there that just don’t work at all (i.e. “not viable” in some content) but could work better with some changes. Then there are builds that we wished existed but don’t and could exist if certain balance changes were made.

Simple example: Ice Elementalist. That is, an elementalist who can do some decent DPS with water attunement. There are traits that exist to facilitate such a build but it’s not enough and the skills available don’t line up for such a build to be competitive with similar non-meta viable builds.

Perhaps I’m speaking out of ignorance, but I tend to have at least 2 builds and sometimes 4 builds that I swap between for all content (WvW, WvW zerging, PvE in general minus raids, hotjoin Pvp) but I feel that I should have many more but limitations on the game and systematic (it takes like 5 min to swap between builds! and that would get worse depending if I need to swap stuff from the bank with more builds!) that could be changed to help provide more viable builds. Heck, just discussion could open up change if you’re willing to admit changes need to be made. What improbable or non-viable build would you like buffed for your favorite class? Mesmer used to do so well in regards to variety but I hear less and less from them, as if they’ve been shoehorned like all the other professions.

Ballistic.2570:

This guy seemed to think all the outfits was a good thing but as I said, I disagree. Still a good watch though.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ATeEVW2dEVA

Thanks for the link. I usually get my news late for this game but when I heard about the length of development time for a set of armor, I came to the same conclusion: Armors aren’t even that good (there are some exceptions) to be putting that much time into them.

Now I wouldn’t suggest converting all armor into outfits, I’d just suggest turning efforts more toward outfits than currently. Players conclude that outfits take away customization options and this is wholly false. The only way to take away custom options is to remove something (like town clothes) and so long as the current wardrobe armor exists alongside outfits, players can still create a custom look IF they can combine pieces to their liking or just don an outfit. The more outfits there are, the more options to choose from and the less likely you’ll find someone wearing the same outfit at any given time.

If we’re considering a truly healthy MMO here and not being swayed by our own bias, armors are sinking custom options (you can even blame that on having multiple races, but you’d also have to include armor weights contributing to that as well) and waiting 8-10 months for one option for your character is unhealthy and not profitable enough.

So the answer to the OP is No. Not unless we get rid of armor weight and extra races.

On the alternative, we could ask for better customibility of outfits (hiding more than just the helm but shoulder and gloves as well), more dye channels (dye individual parts of an outfit) and perhaps even allow armor gloves, shoulder and helm of armor to show through when that outfit section is hidden.

Sky.7610:

It was something silly i did, to discourage me from coming back to GW2 (something probably upset me back then) because i would have to clear out all the “useless leather” to play again

Should have bought orichalcum then.

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

Again, no. You’ve focused on semantics and reiterating arguments, so you’ve assumed that that’s what everyone else is doing.

Nah, I tend to limit how many times I reiterate arguments, and that just in case people joining a discussion didn’t read the rest of the thread. And no, I’m not assuming. I mean, did you not just engage in a back and forth about someone posting an opinion that you mistake as someone else stating their post as a fact? It’s just not within the realm of what I’ve been arguing for.

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

Try this:

• Make a list of the features that you would like to see included with a new race.
• For each feature, identify which ANet teams would have to be involved. You don’t have to know the names of the teams; it can be as simple as story, writing, armor design, combat animation, etc.
• For each team, also identify if the effort is once only or requires ongoing maintenance. (For example, setting up the Wardrobe was a major effort, but adding new skins to it requires no work beyond adding the skin. In contrast, adding a new NPC to Living World means arranging for 5 new actors for as long as the story continues.)

Again, you’re not really understanding the perspective I’m coming from. For me to make a list of features I want, is completely contrary to what my approach is, which is to question what a feature NEEDS and THEN discuss further, i.e. is a feature really needed? Can it be reduced or added over time? Can something replace a particular feature? If it’s uncircumventable, how much effort would truly be required for implementation and can that be reduced in some way? And if these changes in effort affects the overall quality and in what way?

I personally don’t think singling out which teams are required for a specific feature would help determine the overall stress on Anet as a whole as it seems most “teams” are either made up of multi-talented individuals or specialists of each required field being split among each team.

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

Here’s what others are doing with their own similar lists and the lists they’ve seen from others:

• Estimate how popular this would be for the community: niche appeal, minority appeal, broadly popular, or wildly popular.
• Compare the estimated effort to similar initiatives that ANet has implemented in the past (and/or seems to be working on now).

If you take the (small amount of) time to do this, you’ll discover what others have found: whatever effort that one might devote to a new race could also be spent on a variety of other things; in nearly all cases, those other things have a wider appeal than a new race.

In short, the question has never been: would people enjoy one or more new races in the game? (The answer is: most certainly.) Instead, people are asking: would a new race be the best use of limited resources, given the alternatives?

And frankly, I think your conclusion (if a feature is the best use of resources) is simply an assumption based on opinion. You can’t know what resources are necessary, you can’t gauge the amount of effort properly, you guess that these limited resources would simply all be wasted on a singular feature instead of rationed to provide a multitude of content and then you take all that (small amount) time you spent conjuring that conclusion to stifle constructive discussion to actually get a feature implemented.

That is to say, you can do whatever you want in these threads, get whomever you want shutdown by repeating yourself, but don’t come at a problem thinking making a sacrifice is somehow inherently the linchpin of any feature and thus its downfall. Anything worth doing requires sacrifice.

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

Leo G.4501:

Eh, it depends under what circumstances the new race is implemented on. Few posters actually consider or discuss these circumstances so imagining the true probably may seem impossible.

Read again. You’ve even quoted posts where people have described in gory detail the circumstances in which a new race could be implemented, including minimum efforts and enough effort to do it “well.” Either way, it’s a lot of work and nearly all of the required resources can instead be applied to all sorts of other content.

People aren’t saying it’s unlikely because they don’t want to see a new race; they are saying it because any realistic assessment demonstrates that it’s a high-effort/lower-benefit project than lots of other things already on ANet’s plate.

No, I’ve read posts that assume a change in approach equates to a decrease in quality while latching onto select options (amateur voice acting, frankly the least intensive of the variables here) as proof of their assessments and dismissing other suggestions wholesale. If it were any other way, why are the same old arguments being reiterated and focusing on arguments of semantics (really having a conversation on the use of the word probability?)?