Guild Wars 2

Frenchtoastersticks.8061:

Just a flesh wound.3589:

Frenchtoastersticks.8061:

Just a flesh wound.3589:

Frenchtoastersticks.8061:

Just a flesh wound.3589:

ANet has already commented on the feasibility of players designing armor in this quote

Armor and emotes

Regina B

GimmeSylvari

Hi ! Will there ever be any official armor design contests? Like the guild emblem creation, but for a full armor set? (Snip: question about emotes)

Armor is one of the most expensive things in the game to create. Armor is complicated and needs to be created with many considerations in mind, and these considerations may not be easily apparent or describable to fan armor designers. It isn’t a bad idea to run a contest like this, but it’s many orders more involved than other types of contests, which may be a better use of our limited development and marketing resources. We always have to weigh the pros and cons of any type of contest based on our marketing goals. (Snip)

thats why i said concept art. Players make concept art, anet then makes it feasible.

Concept art isn’t the hard part. I’m sure ANet already has lots of artists working for them who can make all sorts of armor concept art.

I never implied it was the hard part. my suggestion was to avoid anet having to worry “will the players buy this?” because they players could answer a poll saying whether they would or not. and players can contribute ideas they like. The point wasnt to make their job easier the point was so make skins overall more appealing for players by letting them contribute opinions and ideas before anet puts a lot of work into skins people might not buy or like. someone said maybe they make more outfits because skins sets have a higher work load for the risk of few players purchasing it so outfits are less risk , i was addressing that statement.

No doubt a nice idea. However each concept art is only what that individual player would like and it doesn’t say anything about whether it would be more appealing than anything an ANet artist could make. Which means it could be designed, accepted, a lot of work done and then still be a bust as few like it.

In addition, the non ANet artists would be creating without knowing or necesarily taking care to stay within the design considerations, meaning that concept art that needs to be heavily reworked to be feasible won’t be any faster or less costly than concept art made by ANet artists who know and respect the boundaries.

and thats why letting the players judge or at least do a poll of “yes i would buy this” or “no i wouldnt” would be in place for ANET designs (and was my primary point. with player designs being a ‘well maybe if the system is working, then why not’). They could easily put an ad in the gemstore “hey, head to the forums and let us know what you think of this batch of designs”

Anet does the easy part, make concept art, players say if they want it or not. if players say yes, its worth their time to make a whole skin set. if players dont, they scrap it and try again.

I think what he’s trying to say is, regardless of if it looks good or not, those players that are pro-armor/anti-outfit will drop gems on any armor skin put in the game so it doesn’t matter if you poll players or not.

The next question would be, just how much cash can those pro-armor/anti-outfit players generate for Anet?

Frenchtoastersticks.8061:

Pretty much it looks like anet designed their skins to have the illusion of lots of customization instead of actual customization. theres tons of skins but you can only choose from 1/3rd ish for a character and then from that third pants from set A clip with shirt from set B so either find the lucky pair or wear a full set and not be able to express your own personal style. outfits have the illusion of customization too. you can color them but youre still going to look like anyone else wearing that (if thats what you like, fine, but many people dont).

apparently im long winded today. sorry o.o

I don’t think there’s any illusion either way…that or no matter what, you’re going to have to settle for an illusion. Basically, even if you could mix and match all armor pieces and such, it’s still only an illusion of true customization. You won’t be able to do Asymmetric designs or anything that would truly be “customized”. It’s all an illusion.

When you think of things that way, then you have to decide how you want your illusion to work, what your illusion incorporates, what limits your illusion has, etc. While you will look the same as anyone who likes and wears the same outfit as you, if you have so many outfits and so many races that look different in each outfit, do you truly look the same? The answer is, there is less and less chance of that happening the more outfits there are, the more unique looks of each race and even moreso if you count color. Of course it’s an illusion but it’s an illusion with its own perks. Outfits, if designed and modeled well, can cut down on clipping; outfits can have easily defined limits (this outfit is female only, this outfit is for asura only, etc) which can cut down on clipping along with cutting down workloads; doing such means less focus on making a quota (gotta make 1 for every race/gender/weight) and instead focus on flavor and personality. So yeah, outfits are limiting but really, limits are necessary. It’s what you do with those limits that counts. Busting down all limits should never be the goal.

Frenchtoastersticks.8061:

Leo G.4501:

~Post Continued~

That depends strictly on if players like said armor set skins.

I’m no investor but consider you have a sum of money that you’re looking to invest. Without getting any advice or prior research, do you take a huge chunk of that money and put it in something you think will boom and make you rich? Or do you take modest chunks and put a few of those chunks into something that could float and help you stay in the game?

Putting more resources into something some people will like may not pay off like you think. Not to mention that people likely have stores of gems by now that they’ll just drop on that armor skin that took a sizable amount of time to create? Basically, it’s riskier and more expensive.

if their concern is the skin set selling, they could try putting the concept art on the forums to get feedback or even a poll “would you but this yes/no” and opening those types of feedback for skins might even help the game a lot more than just selling some more skin sets. If they start that up for skin sets they could easily get similar feedback for things like the new legendary armor or even open up to getting concept art from the community (less likely i think because of legal reasons? but It is frequently asked for and release forms or something might fix it i dont really know)

basically if they arent making things the community is asking for because they are worried the community wont like the design…..maybe they should just ask

This is actually a great idea! I believe other games are even going one step further and allowing players to design armors, the studio designers take some of the best candidates and then allow the players to vote which armors get made.

Didn’t GW2 do this before? My memory is muddled but I recall that FFXIV is doing that now and if I’m not mistaken, Blade and Soul did that overseas before bringing it to NA.

Frenchtoastersticks.8061:

Additionally, the current state of skins in this game looks like anet dug themselves into a niche they cant get out of that is preventing them from pleasing a chunk of the playerbase. skin sets would not take 9 months to make if the armor weights werent so exclusive. if they had build in a system that allowed skins to be seperate from the gear so that you could wear any type of skin you want, they wouldnt have to worry about skin sets being made for 3 weights * 2 sexes * 5 races. plus a lot of players would be happier they get to mix the weights around or even just wear one whole different weight.

it seems unlikely (despite being fashion wars 2)but anet should seriously consider changing how skins function and opening up a whole new level of player customization and maybe make their lives easier in the long run.

yes it is an assumption that my suggestion is even possible or would help them, please dont bite my head off if i overlooked something.

Hindsight is 20/20 afterall.

Personally speaking, in my years of playing GW2, I’ve grown dispassionate with the adding of armor because it lacks a lot in multiple respects. We get lots of butt-capes, bulky-looking armor or weird looking widgets that stick out half a meter…some textures are good but others are very plain. And at the end of the day, they lack flavor and personality.

So attempting to mix and match armor pieces, IMO, is a system that is overdone and GW2 isn’t even doing it that well. I’ve seen people with mix and match sets and some look nice but many just don’t look special. Heck, at least a quarter of my characters use the same gear the game released with because nothing new really stands out. Unless you’re a big fan of glowing particle effects, weird jagged widgets poking out in all directions, etc. If they wanted that type of system, why bother linking it to armor at all? Just have runes be your gear and you create a ‘costume’ in the wardrobe menu. If that were the case, you wouldn’t even have to make armor sets, just armor pieces. And you could more easily roll out a robe without having to worry about pants and gloves and head etc. and doing so will already make it piecemeal so it’ll fit with other stuff.

But like I said before, I just don’t care. Anet could scrap armors completely and make the whole game outfits and I’d likely be happier if this made it easier to implement more races.

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

Leo G.4501:

As much as it’s accepted to hate on the idea of new races in GW2 (and when I say hate, I don’t mean it entirely maliciously),

How many people do you think hate the idea of new races? People are saying it’s not a realistic business decision on ANet’s part: huge expense, small benefit to the community.

You did read the part in the parenthesis, right? When I say ‘hate’, I mean in the slang internet term which usually boils down to “I disagree to some degree” and disagreeing on the internet is pretty much the basis for any debate, even if you agree in part.

Some examples of ‘hate’ are those that say it’s unfeasible with the current game engine or that it’s not worth the effort because it’s not new content but cosmetics and they want “actual content”. Neither are seething with hate at the idea of adding new races but both disagree with new races being added.

As much as it’s accepted to hate on the idea of new races in GW2 (and when I say hate, I don’t mean it entirely maliciously), looking at other games in the genre, I’d say GW2 does a better job than most. Either you’re looking at all humanoid races just labeled differently or they simply don’t give you the option.

Thinking about some of the games I’ve played, I can only think of Tera that has variety in body types (human male/female, human male/female with horns, thicker humans with dragon-ish faces male + less-thicker versions with breasts and dragon-ish faces, loli short race, short plump + really tall + plump).

As much as people speak of the clipping issues of some races in GW2, it’s mitigatable. I’m an advocate of adding more races because Anet has done so well with theirs that people want to make characters using their templates. That’s a far cry better than something like FFXIV where people there don’t even know what a new race in their game could even be.

As much as it’s accepted to hate on the idea of new races in GW2 (and when I say hate, I don’t mean it entirely maliciously), looking at other games in the genre, I’d say GW2 does a better job than most. Either you’re looking at all humanoid races just labeled differently or they simply don’t give you the option.

Thinking about some of the games I’ve played, I can only think of Tera that has variety in body types (human male/female, human male/female with horns, thicker humans with dragon-ish faces male + less-thicker versions with breasts and dragon-ish faces, loli short race, short plump + really tall + plump).

As much as people speak of the clipping issues of some races in GW2, it’s mitigatable. I’m an advocate of adding more races because Anet has done so well with theirs that people want to make characters using their templates. That’s a far cry better than something like FFXIV where people there don’t even know what a new race in their game could even be.

~Post Continued~

Tenrai Senshi.2017:

1: Outfits can be used or swapped out at any time without needing to worry about transmutation charges!

This, I find, is a very poor argument in the armor vs outfits debate, because it refers to a quality of life issue that can very easily be amended. All ANet would need to do is remove transmutation charges so that armor can be changed at any time just like outfits.

Just to rehash the point made earlier, with outfits lacking customization options like hiding gloves/shoulders, the same could be said.

Tenrai Senshi.2017:

2: Armor costs more time and resources to make!

Yes, this might be true, but it also gives a lot more in return for the time and resources spent, as mentioned in the point about variety. Aside from that though, this argument doesn’t make much sense to me because the game had a LOT of armor sets at launch. Why was it fine to make so many then, yet now suddenly they are considered so costly that seeing one new set in a few months feels like a miracle? Why didn’t they just make outfits from the get go?

That depends strictly on if players like said armor set skins.

I’m no investor but consider you have a sum of money that you’re looking to invest. Without getting any advice or prior research, do you take a huge chunk of that money and put it in something you think will boom and make you rich? Or do you take modest chunks and put a few of those chunks into something that could float and help you stay in the game?

Putting more resources into something some people will like may not pay off like you think. Not to mention that people likely have stores of gems by now that they’ll just drop on that armor skin that took a sizable amount of time to create? Basically, it’s riskier and more expensive.

Tenrai Senshi.2017:

3: We already have lots of armor sets! Outfits still need to catch up to their numbers…

Frankly, I’m just gonna stop you right here. I’m not against armor skins or I’m not an outfit advocate. I’m purely indifferent. Most of the cosmetics this game offers just seem bulky, gaudy, specific or just uninteresting to me. So I’m not trying to put down any camp here. But I can see a problem system when I see one. GW2’s problems stem from the races + armor weights it maintains. When you play enough of these MMOs and see what custom options they offer, you can tell where they cut corners to make their job manageable (NOT to be confused with being lazy). Most MMOs make 2-3 races, for the most part. While they show you 5-6 races, most except 1 or 2 share the same body type. Then they may limit armor customization options via outfits or something similar or worse, just make all the “variety” of armor reskins of other armors.

GW2 is in a dire situation when it comes to creating cosmetics. Their workload is malicious and I don’t see it being entirely maintainable. But to me, I honestly don’t care. I’d prefer Anet introduce a new race or two and limit their armor styles to outfits. I’d have so many Kodan, Tengu, Skritt, Quagan characters, it’d be insane. No other MMO has races like GW2 and I’m just talking about what we got so far.

~cracks fingers~

Tenrai Senshi.2017:

1) More Variety

To put it plainly, because armor pieces can be mixed and matched with other armor sets of the same weight, introducing even just one new armor set effectively gives us THOUSANDS of new possible aesthetic combinations. This simply cannot be overstated (and it may even be said that I’m being modest here)…

And yet you’re overstating it…

While yes, armor combinations can create many different combinations, don’t hamfist the whole of the breadth of variety on piecemeal armor. A strong contributing factor of variety comes in before you even put a piece of armor on. The races are distinct and have features you can customize decently well which makes up at least 45% of that variety. After that, the option of choosing any race with any profession, coloring your armor, armors/outfits and customizing your build make up the rest. The many THOUSANDS of variants you attribute to armor pieces isn’t as vast as you think if you look at armor alone.

Tenrai Senshi.2017:

2) Lack of Customization for Outfits
…

Well you do write off a counter argument for outfits in a similar fashion so I’ll do the same:

If the tech is there, I’m sure eventually the devs could implement a means of better customizing outfits by, at the very least, hiding shoulders/gloves along with the helm. I think it could even be possible to allow armor helms to bleed through since most helms are relatively detached from the rest of the armor, allowing you to wear a helm of your choosing with your outfit. It’d be wishful thinking to expect the same for shoulders/gloves though.

Tenrai Senshi.2017:

This essentially leads on from the first point of variety. The problem with outfits is that there’s no real way to customize them to make them feel unique. If you buy an outfit, you are doomed to look the same as any number of other players who have bought the same outfit. You cannot tweak your appearance at all, aside from choosing to either hide or show your head piece.

You can’t wear every outfit at the same time. Introduce enough of them and people will gravitate to the ones they want to wear or a certain character which may or may not cross over to what others are wearing. If you play a game that has a similar outfit style of cosmetics (such as Blade and Soul), yes people will wear the same thing at first but as they progress in the game they will find outfits that they prefer and others don’t. Will you be special? It depends how special you want to be but it’s certainly not impossible.

Tenrai Senshi.2017:

3) Outfits = Loss of Identity

This is the whole problem with the armor skin issue. Armor weight is a burden that has cost you your skins and flies in the face of your “feel unique” argument. Why should you care if my mesmer is wearing a battle tank for clothes? Why can’t a Guardian wear modest robes? If my character is utilizing technology, science or magic, then I should dictate how my character dresses, not some arbitrary armor system that has become relatively moot in the current game. But that’s only the personal level of why this is the thorn in your side. It’s difficult enough creating a set of armor for 5 different races and 2 different genders (for 3 of those races) but to also have 3 different armor weights!? It was interesting to start (but you’ll still hear people complain about too many trenchcoats) but it’s obvious that that is FAR too many skins to need to make.

I’m of the opinion that it doesn’t matter if it’s armor or outfit, so long as it looks good and unique looking, I’ll sport it and buy it. Mix and match is nice but not if they don’t blend very well.

What I want to know is how is Lineage earning so much more than the other games. I know next to nothing about the game.

It also saddens me that the game that CoX was dropped for (Wildstar) had done so badly.

Roundabout.1752:

+ some really good foods are account bound so there’s that.

This. Granted, free food is great, but some of the crafted account bound food has unique and powerful effects. Combined, means there’s no reason to not have food buffs at all times you’re fighting in non-PvP environments.

Tamasan.6457:

Gaile Gray.6029:

That list too me longer to write than it would take you to report, so it’s really not a hard thing to do, and we’d really like to address issues of emote abuse, to keep the game pleasant for everyone.

Gaile, I appreciate the comment, but submitting a ticket is not in any way convenient to do. It’s not “hard” to do, but there’s a noticeable time and mental transaction cost.

In order to submit a ticket, you must go to an external website. (page load) Find the support button. (page load) Click submit a request. (page load) Select something from the first drop down box. Enter your email, a subject line, and description. Select from another drop down. Enter your name. Reenter the email address you already entered in. Then you can submit it. If you miss any of those fields, the request cannot be submitted.

Even if you can type fast and run windowed mode, this will take someone at least a minute, more likely 2-3. That isn’t worth my time in all but the most severe circumstances. I’m playing for fun, and it’s not my job to be the police. I’m not going to spend a thought on disruptive people on the internet when I can leave and go elsewhere.

I’m happy to report and block any goldseller I see. There are no issues blocking and reporting normal chat if it is derogatory, abusive, or toxic. Either of those take a second or less to report and a second or less to block.

Even submitting an in game bug report is mostly painless, although the categories aren’t easy to sort through. That’s a few clicks an 2 drop downs with a title and description.

I realize it’s not easy to modify the client UI, and make changes to the backend systems that direct reports to where they need to go. But if Arenanet is serious about keeping the community welcoming and dealing with emote abuse, then reporting it must be at least as easy as putting in a bug report. I don’t think anyone is asking that this be in place tomorrow, however it needs to be somewhere on the priority list of improvements.

I’ve never submitted a request myself so I had to google “gw2 submit ticket” and the 1st link skipped your 1st 2 points. I find it rather specific to have issue with inputting your information (email, subject, description, full name) so perhaps auto-fill of your browser could take care of that? Or perhaps if you’re already logged in on your GW2 account it could fill that in but hide the characters.

But yeah, it could be made simpler by making it an in-game tool to report players who abuse /emotes.

DeceiverX.8361:

Kinda why people are suggesting a /rp chat option, though. This way if you like to look into it, you can enable it, and if you don’t, you can disable it.

You can already do this.

DeceiverX.8361:

And then excessive use of /me and RP-related content in non-rp chat can be seen as spamming, and constant use of unrelated talk in the middle of someone’s rp monologue while in /rp can be seen as interfering/spamming as well.

So basically, you want to be given the moral highground to rule over /me and /say? Because RPers would and should still utilize it if they deem it relevant.

DeceiverX.8361:

So if it’s enabled by default, nothing changes in respects to getting new people into /rp, and quite honestly, the only people upset by the options are just people who want to be the center of attention of people who honestly currently do not give a kitten .

I’d assume some RPers would be upset because they’d request more tools to aid in RP like emotes, filters and chat organization tool, not a channel they’ll get reported for not using 100% of the time.

I’d personally prefer the devs keep the status quo instead of /rp if only because if they’re going to use resources to help RP, do it right or just don’t bother at all. Apparently, RPers are happy enough without added reasons to alienate, report and shun them further.

Djinn.9245:

So having RP in a public channel where everyone around knows exactly what they are saying / doing makes little sense for the RPer and even less sense for the non-RPer. Logically these exchanges should be done in Whisper or Party chat. The only reason I can think that people would prefer to do it in Say or Map is because they are “showing off”. RP does not = performing.

I don’t quite agree here. I’m not an in-game RPer but I do enjoy witnessing RPers interact. To me, it is a performance in that they are participating in a story and I’m attempting to infer what that story is…kind of like coming into a movie half-way. Kind okittenward but sometimes that’s the only way to find out if you want to watch the rest of it.

I might try to find a secluded spot nearby and just pretend I’m taking a nap or something and occasionally /whisper a question if things catch my interest. However, most of the time, I just continue on my merry non-afk way and do stuff or if I have business in that spot and don’t want to see the chatter scrolling my chat, I’ll swap to another tab just like if I’m tried of hearing BS or guild ads in /map.

Perhaps I’m being selfish in hoping some of the appropriate RP continues to occur in local avenues? But so long as the parties involved don’t mind, how much harm is it actually doing? I’d extend the same point to a newb getting help in /say or /map, is it something I need to listen to? No. Is it harming me? Not really. Can I avoid or ignore it? Most definitely. And I’d wager the devs tend to share the same perspective on that matter.

Rauderi.8706:

So it has to have dedicated staff to be considered “useful” to you. Good to know. Maybe I can transition from my current job to Roleplaying Chat Moderator.

I think the important root word of “useful” here is “use”. If it’s not used, what’s the point?

Rauderi.8706:

Personally, I’m in the camp of “Y’all ain’t as interesting as you think you are” and “No one actually wants to see your latest episode of Angry Flirting in Rata Sum” but some people seem to think that they need to be seen doing something highly personal. That’s pretty inconsiderate, and the outcry against a reasonable remedy borders on histrionic.

I won’t discount that perspective, not at all. I personally dislike people who crave attention, making a spectacle of themselves and making sure as many people notice them as possible. It’s one reason I just do not resonate with today’s social media as that is at least 75% (if not more) of what occupies it.

Although it’s not always possible to avoid those things in real life, it is certainly possible to avoid stuff like that on social media and the like. And this game really isn’t that different. If you really dislike that type of thing, it’s avoidable and ignoreable.

Djinn.9245:

One thing that I think would really be a great start is to remove physical character actions from chat. The point of typing “/sit” or “/dance” is to make your character perform that action, not to inform everyone in chat that your character is doing that action. When you go to a club and dance, you don’t simultaneously announce to everyone around you that you’re dancing. They can see that.

Removing these actions from appearing in the chat record, or at least having a toggle to remove them, would allow me to avoid my chat filling up with

[Character] is busting out some moves, some sweet dance moves.
[Character] is busting out some moves, some sweet dance moves.
[Character] is busting out some moves, some sweet dance moves.
[Character] is busting out some moves, some sweet dance moves.

etc. Which is unnecessary since I can SEE that the character is dancing…

This would be a start to cleaning up chat.

I think you and me are on the same page, Djinn (and Miku, thanks for the shout out). I’m actually looking for improvements to chat too, things that can make it easier to type and perhaps less cluttered. I posted a rough suggestion in this thread, here’s my post though:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Something-MUST-be-done-about-the-RP-in-DR/page/4#post6357416

Would definitely like to see a kind of “chat message processor” but also changes (such as separating /emotes and /me to better customize what you see in your chat, the ability to do /dancemotion or /danceM so that you only do emote animations without the text (I would have sworn we had this in GW2 but I’m probably mixing up my MMOs), the ability to click names on emote lines) that may help RPers and non-RPers alike. But not getting many opinions on these suggestions…

Rauderi.8706:

Leo G.4501:

And if that person decides not to rp in /rp? Do you expect it to be enforced? And those people will get banned for it?

Then they don’t RP in /rp. No big deal, but they can expect their special snowflake noncomformity to draw unwanted attention.
I’d expect ANet to present the option and considerate roleplayers to flock to it. Enforced? Nah. Bans? Nah.

So then it’s a useless addition. Thank you for wasting our time, playerbase.

Rauderi.8706:

I mean, I would, but no one would take me seriously. So I keep /map in a separate chat tab in case I need it for coordinated content like Octovine. I can also block people from /map. I can’t do that from emotes.

I think you’re getting it. I’m not taking you seriously, or most of the people whom argue “but I won’t be able to see the rare instance my friend adds some useless flavor text that I hardly pay attention to because I’ve read it 500 times before so already know what it says and ignore if I actually see his character’s animation” and I don’t think many of the devs do either.

Or maybe you’re using emotes to coordinate Octovine or some such zone boss and it’s really really necessary to keep emotes available…

Miku.6297:

Leo G.4501:

So who is really changing their gaming experience for whom here?

Well if emotes and /me emotes could be separated those that wanted to opt-out and still see normal emotes would need to make one change. That is all.

I know you’ve read my previous posts and personally have no issue with this change (along with a smaller emote range). But my analogy still stands. RPers already do things to accommodate the majority around them. But apparently, in today’s game, it is asking too much to avoid RP heavy areas/servers or simply putting /emote in another tab?

Like I said, God helps those who help themselves; I bet the devs would more likely aid players that exhausted all measures to curb a situation. You have to also look at it from a perspective of if certain changes won’t happen. What other changes could aid the situation or curb other secondary problems? You never know, some changes could have unintended consequences.

stale.9785:

So, those opposed are just against letting people not-involved opt out of the activity.

Everyone else MUST watch them do their thing, no matter their opinion of it. If they don’t want to, they can shut off /emote (which is used by people who don’t just RP) and /say (Which again, is used by people who don’t just RP) and give the RP crowd their own space, because having a system to let others opt-out is repressing them.

Did they just transmute from vague annoyance to professional victim?

And if that person decides not to rp in /rp? Do you expect it to be enforced? And those people will get banned for it?

I don’t think /rp is a good idea on the grounds that it’d need to be enforced and that’s just more unnecessary traffic for GMs and unnecessary grief targeted at players partaking in activities are are completely within the rules of the game.

I don’t hear anyone working to ban people making stupid jokes in /map or having dumb debates in /map, a chat channel I think should be used for map related activities.

Miku.6297:

Just to play devil’s advocate, are you saying the majority of players should change their gaming experience to accommodate the minority?

I know not directed at me but my answer to just this question:

Yes.

But it’s not the majority changing to accommodate a minority, it’s an individual changing to accommodate a group. It’s like walking into an area someplace outside that’s away from most normal traffic and not officially designated as a smoking area but that’s the spot people go to smoke and someone going there complaining about 2nd hand smoke. This isn’t a case of group 1 being oppressed by group 2 or something like group 2 being forced to accommodate group 1, this is about individual people needing to take some real world perspective of social interactions and being proactive in helping themselves. I would say RPers need to do more to keep their activities from disrupting people around them but most already seek specific server instances, specific zones, relegate their chat to keep inappropriate things out of public view, so on and so forth. So who is really changing their gaming experience for whom here?

Ashen.2907:

Seera.5916:

Balthazzarr.1349:

Seera.5916:

Miku.6297:

Leo G.4501:

I would still appreciate a response to my question: why is it so offensive that other people are using /say and /me (programmed to be local means of communication) to communicate with players locally in-character?

I never said it was offensive, it’s not. However some RP sessions are very chat space intensive, and as you said only aimed at the players involved. Yet everyone in the area sees the entire thing. People requesting a way to remove /me without removing emotes simply want the ability to filter out chat that is not aimed at them, and not offensive that does not include turning off (or moving chat tabs) for emotes, or blocking the other players.

That question I believe was to Balthazarr who apparently wants all RP’ers to go to a single specific zone to RP or not RP at all.

@Balthazarr: I see you’ve forgotten that GW2 is an MMO RP G. As in Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game.

If ANet did not want players RP’ing in the game, they would have already put in place rules to stop it. They have not. So you have two choices: accept that and continue playing without trying to push the RP’ers out of the game or not accept it but realize that nothing will change due to that lack of acceptance.

If this was really supposed to accommodate this kind of rp then anet should have made a special instance just for that and advertised it.

Either way I’m out of DR. You guys can have your fun and no worries about trolling from me at least.

The kind mentioned in the OP is technically not allowed by the game’s TOS no matter where it happens. Those that do wish to engage in such RP and are true RP’ers would be doing it in whisper or in party or in guild where all members who saw the post would be fine with it and not report it.

Those that do it in the open are either:

1. Trolls looking to paint RP’ers with a bad brush

or

2. An RP’er who accidentally got onto the wrong channel (not likely if you see a conversation going on between 2 or more RP’ers).

Given the description that the OP gave, it was likely group #1. Trolls. No amount of new channels or what not would keep those guys from trolling.

or…

3. An RP’er who is unaware of the TOS restriction on the mentioned form of RP.

4. An RP’er who doesn’t care about the TOS restriction on the mentioned form of RP.

3 would be warned and perhaps temp-banned if not informed by his friends. 4 would just get banned. Nobody cares about 4 or 1.

Miku.6297:

TexZero.7910:

Again in what world do you live in where you need to have emote chat visible but don’t need / want to see the rest of the world state ?
I have to question this because, the only places where the emote chat is even relevant is in story missions, in which case you’ve either A) Invited the offending RP’er in by choice Want to see this anyway
So why do you need the emote tab active when you have no desire to see them anyway ?

I live in the same world as everyone else, you know different people want to play different ways. What world do you live in that everyone has to conform to your opinion of what is useful/an issue etc?

Emotes can be used to just wave at friends passing by, maybe you see a random /dance and run over to join in etc. The “relevance” of what is on chat is determined by the person viewing it. Please do not make the assumption that only what is relevant or matters to you is the only thing that is relevant or matters to everyone else.

Seeing a few /waves, or a few of the other standard emotes is very different then seeing a large wall of text RP emote conversation/interaction going on. Nothing against rping (I rp too) but
Character name waves
compared to
Character name quickly glances around the inn, looking to see if her companions have arrived. Noticing they haven’t she walks to a table and brushes off the chair before taking a seat. *
*continued on from this line etc.

The problem I see (a minuscule problem, mind you) is if we’re going to go down a slippery slope of fringe possibilities as a friend /waving at you and you missing it, what’s to say that same friend wouldn’t make a funny emote in a given situation? Like if you’re joking around in chat and they do something like:

/me slaps you in the bum with a corndog.
/threaten @

Are you just going to have to shrug and miss out? Are you just going to activate the /me in a certain tab? Are you going to scald your friend for using /me and tell them you can’t see it or something?

Donari.5237:

I see people talking about separating canned emotes ( /sleep, /wave, etc) and custom ones (/em walks slowly over to the cliff edge). That isn’t necessary and in fact takes away from those who do custom emotes that aren’t part of RP scenes.

This is why I jumped on the bandwagon of adding a /rp chat channel that could gather the “walls of text” some here find distasteful. RP scenes are generally the source of ongoing blocks of chat; non-RP custom emotes tend to be more sporadic and short-lived. So don’t remove current chat functionality, just allow an opt-in channel in addition. (With the added benefit that it can have a curtailed range and a better color, as I said before).

Custom channels (and player-chosen channel colors) would be wonderful. I’ve only been asking for those for, oh, over four years, having had them in my previous MMOs. But as those are apparently not a simple thing to implement, and new chat channels have been added in this game (the multiple guild channels), it seems more likely to happen if we just ask ANet for one specifically designed one.

Just out of curiosity, do you find it jarring at all when RPers include speech inside of /me? To me, it sort of is but I can understand why its done, primarily because you don’t want people to type while you’re still processing a message or you don’t want them to read the /me and start a response only to see your /say and have to backspace and rethink their reply.

In my shoot-for-the-moon view, it’d kind of be nice to have a means of organizing your text better, perhaps with a separate UI window for typing and a kind of code for crafting your messages. For instance, and this would be like another pop-up window you can toggle on and off:

—
[draws his blade from his scabbard and examines the blade with solemn curiosity.] /ponder Interesting. When I purchased the mysterious sword, I didn’t think it had a history.
—

Would be output as:

Leo G draw his blade from his scabbard and examines the blade with solemn curiosity.
Leo G ponders. [if a command could allow for just the animation, this would not show in the chat window]
Leo G: “Interesting. When I purchased the mysterious sword, I didn’t think it had a history.”

And if the UI chat window had macro buttons that could be programmed and have other common commands and emotes to put in your text, this could make for a more sleek execution, IMO.

stale.9785:

I honestly don’t understand why anyone would oppose the /rp channel. The reasons against it amount to nothing except for “I don’t want to!”

How about “It won’t be used and people will still use /say and /me.” ?

TexZero.7910:

Miku.6297:

TexZero.7910:

Why does anet need to create a new “chat tab” for you to ignore things when the feature already exist ?
Just create your own tab call it bliss/silence/willful ignorance whatever you want and remove literally everything / add whatever you want.

Ok, so make a new chat tab, and set it so I can talk in /say, /party, /guild, with normal emotes (/wave /dance /keel etc) on the tab, and /me emotes off. Currently that tab would be difficult to make.

Why the heck would you even need emotes to begin with….

Searching for a solution to a non issue here.

I wouldn’t call it a non-issue. More like a minuscule-issue. Either way, if /me and emotes remain separate or together it wouldn’t really be impactful to either party:
-RPers would likely not care or notice that /me and emotes were separated and keeping them together is simply the status quo.
-Non-RPers likely wouldn’t notice either way as most that are actively trying to avoid RP just customize their chat for it or avoid those areas like normal.

Balthazzarr.1349:

Of course it will fall on deaf ears. I actually didn’t expect much more than that. People of one mind are like that. Does anybody that RP’s in DR actually understand that this is Guild Wars 2 and not the “Meet and Greet” game? There are actually games all over the place designed just for this purpose. They can, and will, stay in DR because they WANT people to see what they are doing. That much is clear…. they scream that we are intolerant but the fact is there is zero consideration for the thoughts and feelings of others who have to continue to read this drivel. This is one of the main reasons I bought a pass for a different spot.

Heck, Lion’s Arch takes too long to load to be a home base and DR was a great place to go to for the quick loading. But I’ve moved elsewhere now (for another 1000 gems) but definitely worth it. :P

I would still appreciate a response to my question: why is it so offensive that other people are using /say and /me (programmed to be local means of communication) to communicate with players locally in-character?

Balthazzarr.1349:

Many people don’t know this but there is an instance called Rugnar’s Steading in Wayfarer’s Foothills just a few steps north of Dolyak’s Pass Waypoint. Everyone you want can go in there.. it’s not exclusive to a single person… a ton of people can go in and be completely apart from the rest of the GW2 community. You can RP to your hearts content with NOBODY hearing or caring.

To answer your next question of how to let people know.. Simply let the people that you know where it is… they can tell their friends and so on. It’s a real easy solution if people are willing to just give it a try.

Make that the RP zone.. nobody else uses it for anything.

The only objection I can see to this suggestion would be that people actually ‘want’ other people to see their rp instead of having it just between the rp’ers.

Are you sure there aren’t people RPing there already? Basically, your advice may likely be falling on deaf ears as RPers likely already frequent the area every now and then.

DR is often used likely because it is the human home town and there are more human RPers than other races.

Lastly, RPing is spontaneous and isn’t always isolated to a single area. Things may move from place to place. A better question is, why is it so offensive that other people are using /say and /me (programmed to be local means of communication) to communicate with players locally in-character?

Seera.5916:

It’s not unreasonable to ask that a solution to a problem not create a problem for someone else. Whether or not the problem that comes up is enough of a reason to make that solution not the best solution is unknown without more input from more people . It would be nice if a solution could be found that would be great for everyone and not cause new problems for people. Why is that so hard for you deal with? Why is finding the best solution to the problem a problem for you?

It’s not hard to deal with. In fact, it’s extremely easy. I just find fault that, for the most part, it has always been the part of the RPers to accommodate those that don’t wish to partake in the act i.e. they typically choose opportune times and places to RP, most don’t pressure others to participate and don’t let their presence affect those that do not, many have guilds to facilitate group meetings and while there are those rude overzealous types that will break character to chastise others for interfering, most will use the same available tools you have to separate themselves from those that disturb their type of activity.

Turn the tables and you’d think non-RPers feel they have some kind of monopoly on how /say and /em should be used and refuse to use the tools to separate themselves from others who disturb you. So why do you feel it is so unquestionably counter intuitive to just ignore /em? It just makes no sense to me, and I don’t RP. No, it’s not unreasonable to suggest improvements to the game but it’s also not unreasonable for you to silence or ignore /em or just avoid areas with heavy RP traffic. None have admitted this and I feel THAT is what’s hard to deal with. I don’t deal with unreasonable people, I expose them.

But back to the point of suggesting alternatives:

-Got an Airship pass? That’s the best place to craft and TP, IMO.
-Rata Sum is my default city area to do stuff like that primarily because there isn’t as much chat traffic. I barely even know the layout of DR, quite frankly. But other areas exist.
-I don’t condone /block for people just communicating in /say and /me but it is a tool to stop these messages that occur with high frequency.
-If there is such a possibility, better /block and /ignore UI that lets you silence people much more quickly (possibly with a right click option for /me) and maybe a distinction between /block and /ignore (make /block a perma block and /ignore a temp block that is removed upon log-out; coupled with easier block/ignore UI, this might be a quick solution usable in multiple situations besides just vs RPers).
-Tab customization. This is a huge one. Never do I have a chat channel that has /say, /shout, /map, /guild/party/alliance/etc, /me, /whisper on the same tab. They are all separated in some fashion and I can quickly change each tab given a situation. If you’re not willing to help yourself, do you deserve help from the devs?
-I would adore more additions to facilitate RP in an open environment. Even though I don’t participate actively (I find it difficult and jarring to actively RP and prefer offline collaborative story telling) I would love to see more idle animations, more emotes, more chat features to aid in organizing that open RP environment, more UI additions to make this transition easier and improve upon the use of emotes within it, etc. Like I said, I’m not against more ideas but I’d like to hear from the RPers who would like to see actual improvements vs the players that want to simply silence them. Such players could easily add their input on such suggestions but the most you’d likely hear is players don’t want dev resources put into social interactive additions or some such.

Seera.5916:

Leo G.4501:

And I say thicker skin because if I were to call someone a liar for wishing to keep their emotes “on” on the off chance they get a /wave from a friend, they’d get triggered. You know, and I know, that if a friend wants to get your attention, they don’t simply /wave. Even if they are just passing by. Even if you’re afk and would likely miss the /wave amongst /map. Even if that friend just lacks that much common sense so would just /wave and run off, that isn’t the primary reason this thread exists.

And you have no idea if they are lying or not about that as you are not a mind reader. So they would have every right to be “triggered” by you calling them a liar. Because they may not be lying about it.

And that’s what trigger-able people do: they make up a scenario you can’t reasonably prove if they are genuinely offended, disparaged or distressed and wait for people to call them on it so they can label themselves a victim.

But the point is, who cares if you miss out on your friend /waving at you? It’s such a minuscule, pointless issue, you (not YOU you) should be embarrassed to hinge a complaint on it. So many other situations could occur to bring about such a scenario and so many possible ways to prevent it.

Miku.6297:

Leo G.4501:

6. People need to get some thicker skin and learn how to handle social issues on an individual level? Of course!

Isn’t that what we are doing? Trying to figure out a better method of handling these social issues? That doesn’t involve turning off all emotes. The complaint about having no other options isn’t about getting thicker skin, it’s just wishing we had better tools to handle situations. Asking for that sort of thing is one of the uses of forums.

You’re going outside of your individual level by making a thread asking to regulate something unrelated to you (an RP channel). And you still don’t seem to understand, there is a difference between “turning off all emotes” and “putting emotes in a different tab”. If you remove emotes from a tab, they are no longer viewable. If someone emoted, you can’t go back to see it. If you emotes in another tab, you can ignore emotes until you want to read them and scroll back to look through past emotes.

So you’re asking for something that technically exists but you’re presenting your situation in a disingenuous fashion to appeal to our sense of freedom within the game.

And I say thicker skin because if I were to call someone a liar for wishing to keep their emotes “on” on the off chance they get a /wave from a friend, they’d get triggered. You know, and I know, that if a friend wants to get your attention, they don’t simply /wave. Even if they are just passing by. Even if you’re afk and would likely miss the /wave amongst /map. Even if that friend just lacks that much common sense so would just /wave and run off, that isn’t the primary reason this thread exists.

Seera.5916:

Leo G.4501:

Miku.6297:

Leo G.4501:

The difference is, RPers are not a disease or ailment to be cured. Social interaction is an invented feature included specifically for this game type. And what you’re suggesting isn’t anything new.

I’m 90% sure the the reference to medical advancement was figurative, just as an example of improving the current status quo. It wasn’t intended to say RP was a disease or ailment to be cured.

Currently there is no way to have 1 chat tab that has emotes on and /me off. If there was, that would be an improvement and something new. (not new as in never befor seen, but new as in it’s new to this game)

Just saying, it’s not a proper analogy. And my statement wasn’t accusing the poster of calling RPers a disease, but more calling RPers a “problem to be solved”. Part of the whole social interaction equation is dealing/tolerating people you might not want to interact with. And we have tools to curb much of the annoyance and while I can agree, it could be improved upon, the solutions (outside of shrinking /em range) only shifts the problem.

My analogy was that nothing ELSE should be invented (no new cars, no new computer technology, etc) except for cures to fatal diseases because we apparently can exist with what’s currently here. Even though those inventions might make our lives easier or more enjoyable.

Because that’s what you’re asking for here. You’re saying that ANet should not consider adding in ways to make RP’ing better because the current system works.

My point that nothing suggested here is new still stands.

But to counter your argument, creating technology to make life easier or more convenient can be a good thing but is a double-edged sword. Convenience itself is good only up until a point. Social Media, a more relevant invention to the topic, is a prime example. Sure, you have the convenience to chat with like-minded people anywhere but then you get the bigoted idiots creating idiot echochambers who think their views are actually beneficial. Bring enough idiots together and they go riot and spread their idiocy across the internet. Lots of people don’t know how to regulate their behavior socially anymore to the point they’ll get triggered by the most pointless, avoidable and ignorable things you can think of. And they think their triggered-ness actually means something to the big picture except other easily triggered individuals who also struggle with simple social matters.

But to conclude my point:
1. Decreased /em range? Sure.
2. Separating standard emotes from /me with separate toggle-show options? Sure.
3. /rp? Why?
4. RP chat channel in general? No, unnecessary.
5. More RP related improvements to the game? Yes!
6. People need to get some thicker skin and learn how to handle social issues on an individual level? Of course!

Miku.6297:

Leo G.4501:

The difference is, RPers are not a disease or ailment to be cured. Social interaction is an invented feature included specifically for this game type. And what you’re suggesting isn’t anything new.

I’m 90% sure the the reference to medical advancement was figurative, just as an example of improving the current status quo. It wasn’t intended to say RP was a disease or ailment to be cured.

Currently there is no way to have 1 chat tab that has emotes on and /me off. If there was, that would be an improvement and something new. (not new as in never befor seen, but new as in it’s new to this game)

Just saying, it’s not a proper analogy. And my statement wasn’t accusing the poster of calling RPers a disease, but more calling RPers a “problem to be solved”. Part of the whole social interaction equation is dealing/tolerating people you might not want to interact with. And we have tools to curb much of the annoyance and while I can agree, it could be improved upon, the solutions (outside of shrinking /em range) only shifts the problem.

Seera.5916:

Leo G.4501:

Seera.5916:

If the RP he saw was truly inappropriate and against the TOS of the game, it’s really not unreasonable to ask for ways to avoid seeing it. Since it’s done on emote and you can’t report on emote names and the range of the emotes are so large that it would be like looking for a needle in a haystack to find the player who is actually breaking the rules to report them.

The point being, if someone truly wants to avoid it, there are other options. If it’s irritating enough, other places with crafting ant TP facilities exist. If it’s truly inappropriate, report it. If he’s still in DR for crafting and TP then obviously the issue isn’t that bad, i.e. tolerable. And what do you do in your life but tolerate the existence of others around you? If you haven’t learned how to do that, you haven’t become an adult yet.

So players shouldn’t ask for ways to make things better just because the current system doesn’t prohibit what they want?

That’s like saying nothing should be improved upon because it currently works. And nothing new should be invented except drugs for things that have no cure and are fatal because we can clearly survive with what’s invented now.

RP’ers and non-RP’ers are just asking for a better system. And that’s not wrong to ask for.

The difference is, RPers are not a disease or ailment to be cured. Social interaction is an invented feature included specifically for this game type. And what you’re suggesting isn’t anything new.

Now if we’re here to suggest something new to the game to facilitate RPers, having a toggleable chat window that grants you quick access to various commands, idle stances, character movements as well as a space to enter text with features such as temp-channels that can also be toggled as private and local and further toggle viewable temp-channels so you can ignore/read them at your leasure…

Amaimon.7823:

By this defenition, its the job of the non-roleplayers to change their channals to avoid the Role Play. Me and my guildies occasionaly use an emote, so we should turn off all emotes to give RP’ers their safe space?

Yes, generally it is up to the human to wipe their own bums after a certain age unless they are incapable of doing so.

If you are not comfortable with the content or frequency, you can at least do your part to maintain your personal comfort zone. Safe spaces are something that should not exist.

And you don’t even have to turn emotes off, you just put it in a specific tab and when the frequency is too much for you, switch to another tab for the time being.

Seera.5916:

Please tell me how the following person would remove RP only from their chats:

1. They enjoy chatting with people on the map and will use both say or map depending on where the conversation is located.
2. Is in a guild and is actively socially with them.
3. Uses emotes as a way to greet people and his friends are the same way.

1. Continue using /say or /map. If chat scrolled by too quickly, use the scroll feature and/or create a tab separate for /map and /say. If there is too much chatter, move to a new location.

2. Use guild chat.

3. Depending on who they are and the frequency of local /em, consider /whisper, /party, /guild or any other relevant channel to “directly” /em to them. Example:

Mr. NotRP- /guild Hola, everyone.
Me- /guild /wave Mr. NotRP.

Seera.5916:

If the RP he saw was truly inappropriate and against the TOS of the game, it’s really not unreasonable to ask for ways to avoid seeing it. Since it’s done on emote and you can’t report on emote names and the range of the emotes are so large that it would be like looking for a needle in a haystack to find the player who is actually breaking the rules to report them.

The point being, if someone truly wants to avoid it, there are other options. If it’s irritating enough, other places with crafting ant TP facilities exist. If it’s truly inappropriate, report it. If he’s still in DR for crafting and TP then obviously the issue isn’t that bad, i.e. tolerable. And what do you do in your life but tolerate the existence of others around you? If you haven’t learned how to do that, you haven’t become an adult yet.

Seera.5916:

Leo G.4501:

Miku.6297:

penelopehannibal.8947:

Byou the same notion, role players shouldn’t have to stop role playing just because it’s not 5o your taste either. Neither should they be put in a separate box.

Apart from the “getting their freak on” publicly they are not actually doing anything wrong.

Would having a dedicated role play channel really be that much of “put in a seprate box” in a negative view? It might make it easier to find RPers that want to RP. Like I said it would also kill off a little of the open joining RP if a random passerby wasn’t in the RP channel, but if they wanted to RP they would probably be there.

As someone who has RP’d when the mood hits me I really have no problem with it, at the same time I can see how some people might find the long walls of RP text tedious. There has to be a better option then turning off ALL emotes or blocking people.

The issue I have with making a dedicated channel that you’re made to RP in is that, it defeats a general principle of what RP actually is. That is, when you’re out in public with your friends, do you relegate your communication to only texts or through some sort of means of communication that is limited to only your group? No, anyone can hear your conversations. That is, because others can hear your conversation, you relegate how you speak and what you talk about. How you form your speech is related to your surroundings. You have a secret matter that isn’t for the ears of the public? Then you take someone to a corner of the room and /whisper. Feeling a bit flirty? Make a flirtatious body movement, however if it’s inappropriate you’ll likely get /slapped or scoffed at because of the people around you.

My point is, /say is the natural way to talk. Granted, if an RP channel is implemented, I don’t expect it to be where everyone isolates all their RP. They will still use /say and /em because that is what they are there for.

But in the case of MMO chats, the other channels can easily overtake the speed at which RP is done. RP usually doesn’t move really fast. But get a busy time in DR, and map chat and say chat may end up moving faster than the RP and make it harder for the RP to happen. Especially if there are multiple RP threads going on.

Having an option to use to not lose the conversation due to the speed of the chat would be nice to have. Even if it is not used often.

In real life, you would be able to adjust your volume to be able to hear your friends around you and you wouldn’t have a hard time following the conversation.

So how does /rp regulate the speed of chat if multiple RP threads are going on in the same area through the same chat feature? From how it is suggested, it would be the exact same except now people have /rp to enable/disable.

As for the other point, RPers likely disable all other chat except /say and /em in a tab so /shout and /map doesn’t interfere. Being able to scroll through chat means you can read relevant chat to your scenario AND go back and read the chatter of those other RPers if you’re curious.

Unless you’re suggesting some whole new system of chat and not just an alternate /say channel, this really doesn’t accomplish much of anything.

Ameepa.6793:

Emote spam in DR has made me to block way too many people too and I really wouldn’t want to do that, but it is kinda only option since I am not going to turn emotes completely off.

I feel people are using the block feature incorrectly. Block is meant for people who are offensive or participating in actions detrimental to the game in some manner. Blocking people advertising gold sellers? Yes. Blocking people shouting and arguing and flaming? Sure. Blocking people that manipulate the system like kicking party members or cheating encounters? Of course. Blocking people using /say and /em not aimed at you? Why?

It’s like people now a days simply wish to ostracize people for the most simplest of social interactions they don’t agree with. Or perhaps people are blinded by the fact that the world doesn’t revolve around their personal perspective but in fact is inhabited by many people with varying tastes and perspectives? Not saying everyone should just suffer with chat bloat but if it’s something you don’t want to hear, there are tools and options other than blocking individual people for offensives that shouldn’t be blocked for. That’s not what the tool is for.

…but that’s just my opinion. Tools can be used however you want up until it’s breaking the rules.

Miku.6297:

penelopehannibal.8947:

Byou the same notion, role players shouldn’t have to stop role playing just because it’s not 5o your taste either. Neither should they be put in a separate box.

Apart from the “getting their freak on” publicly they are not actually doing anything wrong.

Would having a dedicated role play channel really be that much of “put in a seprate box” in a negative view? It might make it easier to find RPers that want to RP. Like I said it would also kill off a little of the open joining RP if a random passerby wasn’t in the RP channel, but if they wanted to RP they would probably be there.

As someone who has RP’d when the mood hits me I really have no problem with it, at the same time I can see how some people might find the long walls of RP text tedious. There has to be a better option then turning off ALL emotes or blocking people.

The issue I have with making a dedicated channel that you’re made to RP in is that, it defeats a general principle of what RP actually is. That is, when you’re out in public with your friends, do you relegate your communication to only texts or through some sort of means of communication that is limited to only your group? No, anyone can hear your conversations. That is, because others can hear your conversation, you relegate how you speak and what you talk about. How you form your speech is related to your surroundings. You have a secret matter that isn’t for the ears of the public? Then you take someone to a corner of the room and /whisper. Feeling a bit flirty? Make a flirtatious body movement, however if it’s inappropriate you’ll likely get /slapped or scoffed at because of the people around you.

My point is, /say is the natural way to talk. Granted, if an RP channel is implemented, I don’t expect it to be where everyone isolates all their RP. They will still use /say and /em because that is what they are there for.

Harper.4173:

My point is this. If you only had humans as a race that would be the situation in which you would have the fastest possible output of new armor skins. Anything on top of that – more races – means less armor overall.

If all players played humans then making ONE set meant you’ve covered 100% of the player base.

The aspect you miss by everyone playing one race is lack of customability. So you have a bunch of armor, half of which looks the same from a moderate distance. So what? What do you accomplish that hasn’t been done already by nearly half the MMOs out there? Does this somehow make the game stand out and attract more players?

Harper.4173:

Your “all sets cultural solution” is only a half-fix – because if you make one norn set for example you only cover the norn part of the player base.

So in order to bring sets to ALL the players you must make 5 “cultural” sets. Instead of one.

Get my point?

The point of the “solution” (because we’re really not trying to solve anything, but instead ping pong hypotheticals) is that, in the scope of the current game, if armors are only developed for each race, it’d be EASIER to implement MORE races.

Because, even though you have to make a set of armor for each race to “cover” all your bases, you DO NOT have to release those armor sets at the same time. Or even in the same equivalency. I.e. an event could release that has a set of armor skins made for Charr and Norn. Later, you make a set built for Tengu and Humans. Etc. etc.

Harper.4173:

Even if it takes much less time to make ONE cultural set – having 5 races means the last race to get a set has to wait 5 times while other races get sets. You’re changing the situation from: Everyone waits X time – to some people wait X time and others wait less.

Waiting for what? Do you always chase the latest armor, put it on and then wait? And what’s stopping you from making another race character and chasing THEIR armor that just got released while you’re waiting?

These are just self-entitled misgivings that you’re just developing in your own head.

Regarding the whole armor skin issue:

I’m surprised no one bothered mentioning the portion of the video talking about having racial armor skins instead of armor class skin, i.e. rather than making 3 sets of armor (light, medium and heavy) then on top of that augmenting those designs for each race, cut out the whole light/medium/heavy and just make skins for armors that are designed specifically for that race (around 23:00)

Honestly, since the gem store does sell skins and outfits that blend the the armor classes, I don’t think it’d matter your Asura Thief could wear the same look as an Asura Guardian.

Saying that there shouldn’t be more races other than Human is only going to anger people while overlooking the larger workload: the armor skins themselves.

I’d wager that the inclusion of the various races brought in enough players to be worth far more than the work put in to make it possible. I just don’t think Anet made the wisest choice with how they implemented their armor system in general.

Same with the voice acting. They ended up putting far more heavy a workload on themselves than necessary and now they need metric tons of voices to implement some of the simplest of updates.

Some improvements to aid my personal build and make it cooler:

Scepter/

Dragon’s Tooth – No cast time! (or at least a very very short cast time) I never minded the slow drop of the tooth that much (it recharges so quickly, if you really want to try and land it, you can try again) but I do mind if I have to dodge and end up interrupting the cast. The tooth will appear for a moment, do nothing and disappear. Would be so much more fluid and you won’t really lose anything if it misses (if the cast time is nearly ignorable).

Shatterstone – changed into a charge skill. If you charge the skill (up to 3 seconds), the radius of the skill improves (up to 380 radius) and if charged to max, the skill will also apply 3sec of chill, 2.5sec of daze and auto-crit.

Arc Lightning – each hit has a 10% chance of granting fury for 2sec. Nothing major. If we were going for something more interesting though, give each hit a 10% chance of granting 1sec of quickness.

Stone Shards – speed the cast time up by half. OR for gp, make all its projectiles 100% finishers.

/Dagger

Frost Aura – swapped with Frost Shield > Absorb Frost. Frost Shield is an instant cast skill 35sec cooldown and with it, will block up to 2 attacks for up to 8sec. Upon blocking an attack, the Ele will apply a frost aura to themselves and nearby allies. Absorb Frost is a chain skill that will absorb all remaining Frost Shield blocks, in exchange it cleanses chill from yourself and nearby allies and heals for a certain amount for each stack of chill you cleanse. This also applies a Frost aura to yourself only.

Ride the Lightning – lower the cooldown on this skill to at least 30sec. 25sec would be optimal.

Churning Earth – Would like added functionality to reposition so the skill isn’t as reliant on lightning flash. Give it some sort of earth-meld teleport or magnetic slide that will allow the Ele currently casting Churning Earth to teleport 600 range in a direction. For gp, make this skill auto-crit immobilized targets.

Arcane Power – Either give this skill 3-5sec of all crits on a 35sec cooldown or remain 5 auto-crits but on a 25sec cooldown.

Linken.6345:

Gehenna.3625:

I think that we can expect Anet to put resources into an expansion, but it’s not about cost, it’s about cost vs benefit. Now, I do not know the statistics for GW2 but chances are that just like in other games the vast majority of characters created are human (and in GW2 that might include the norn as they visually are just oversized humans). So that makes creating a new race that not that many people will make use of a bad choice for putting your resources, particularly if the resource cost is high.

I personally doubt that enough people play non humans to make it worth the investment.

Well why should you play anything else then human when 90% of the armors are made for them then streched to kinda fit the other races.

There’s a lot of people who don’t really care about how MANY armors look good for a race.

If we’re making up statistics, I’d say at least 75% of the players care more that 90% of armor look like crappy buttcapes, trenchcoats and floaty shoulder castles than actual good-looking armor, and that goes for all the races.

Those that don’t play human characters likely gravitate to that 10% of armor that does look good on a given race.

Are You Kitten Me.7384:

Scepter is actually OK where it’s at right now imo. I run core ele S/D in Spvp and win almost all of my 1v1’s except against the DH’s. In team fights you stand back a bit and lay dragons tooth and phoenix the crowd. I think the key to playing scepter is the fire trait. swap water out for fire, and take pyromancers training. It was better when it was a 33% CD reduction but it still works fine. The point to the build is switching to fire, and using pretty much all your sills in fire before swapping out. By the time you feel the need to switch back to fire, phoenix and Ring of fire are back up. The build is very squishy but has very high reward, It takes a bit to get used to it; But there are some skills that i think could be better on Scepter. Earth 2 should give aegis when you activate it. Water 3 should remove 1 to 2 condis when you use it, like someone said above. Everyone talks about buffing auto attacks, but i feel as scepter is best used with the fresh air trait. So you should really only be auto attacking once to get the crit and switching back to air. Now air AA could get a little buff, but i think thats about it.

Here is my build if anyone is wondering.
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vFAQJArYhcMozhFOwyB8RMQAYRBIAEEr1QSsMIngJQME-TJBFABiXGAgHAQJ7PQwJAAA

Interesting. You rarely ever hear about S/D eles. I personally run a S/D tempest just because I do enjoy my overloads but I don’t rely on them, I just use them at opportune times.

If I were asking for buffs for my personal build, I’d probably request some buffs to /D for more offensive support via mobility or something. Haven’t played my tempest since the changes so not sure if Wash the Pain away is the better heal skill but as for utilities, I’m wishing lightning flash didn’t have such a long cooldown and Arcane Power was better (all crits for X amount of time or just a much shorter cooldown).

Not very good at PvP but even I can manage to spike down a moderately armored target.

That being said, I wouldn’t object to some of the skills being made “cooler”. My longtime wish was that Shatterstone was a channeled targeted “brush” that drops multiple small shatterstones whereever your reticle pointed and at the end dropping a larger shatterstone that chilled and dazed.

LucosTheDutch.4819:

I should have explained it more properly I guess: They idea of a hero class/race is that you need to have at least 1 lvl 80 character already before you can create one.

It still wouldn’t be cheap to develop such a race but if WoW and other MMOs can introduce new classes and races (even non-hero ones) with expansions than why not GW2? I know Anet doesn’t make as much money as Blizzard but WoW today isn’t THAT much ahead of GW2 in terms of popularity and revenue. Yet they still launch their upcoming expansion with the Demon Hunter, a new hero class/race similar to what I proposed Anet could do for future playable races.

I’d go 1 step further and require certain achievements from the PS so, at the very least, the player has experienced the portion of the game before the point of the new race’s PS.

Back when the game was in its infancy (I started at 3 months after launch), I tried playing every race and profession to get a feel for what I’d enjoy most to play but I only played up to around level 15 or so.

Ultimately, I picked Asura and Elementalist and got to level 80. I also made a couple Warriors, a Mesmer, an Engineer and later a Ranger then Thief. Since making my thief (and making the best choice I’ve made so far by making her female! XD) I’ve resolved to wait until a more desired race/gender combo arises before finally making my level 80 Guardian, Necromancer (and now, Revenant).

I would LOVE to finally play a Guard or Necro but I want to play them as something different. A Tengu Necro would just be perfect and would finally give me some personal experience with that profession.

BuddhaKeks.4857:

The way it is done in the game is, that if you play LS2 or LS3 or the HoT campaign the game will assume you are the Pact Commander who killed Zhaitan in the PS. That is a fact. So no matter how much you roleplay your characters to be friendly rivals of the the Commander, the fact that it is not presented that way in the game will not change. Hence I said you used your headcanon as an explanation and even more so accuse others of doing so. Don’t you see how incredible hypocritical that is?

I’m accusing others of using headcanon? Where?

Ultimately, the only thing I’m saying is, if you wanted to put Tengu in, you could go through the points and reinforce sketchy portions or parts that could cause conflict, like you mentioned.

Or you can limit your casualties here and now. You mentioned the LS parts assumes you’re the Pact Commander who killed Zhaitan. Simple solution is to limit references to those particular events. No one must reference the killing of Zhaitan by your character every second sentence or remind you of your rank at the start and end of every sentence. And the omission of one word in that title is the most simplest of solutions going forward when referencing the character.

Of course, you can retrofit Tengu into the old PS, or you can create a new story. Or just move forward with the new additional race and have more inclusive dialog while allowing the player themselves to fill in the blanks.

Narcemus.1348:

The problem is that Titles are the best way Arenanet currently has to speak towards the main character without having the capability to actually say names. If we remove titles like Commander and Pooh Bah what are they are going to call us? “Hey you?”

You can’t be that uncreative, can you?

Konig Des Todes.2086:

Funny that the same can be said for your own posts too. :P

But at least I admit it. Like I said, I don’t have all the data or time to argue every point but some people will consider their opinion as fact.

Konig Des Todes.2086:

The difference between this situation and the tengu PC never being the one to take down Zhaitan in story is that S2 presumes that the PS is completed.
…

In all honesty, it’s the small quips here and there that break immersion the most, because huge things are often taken as gags and jokes by the writers – and are often consistently provided throughout or are usually made apparent to be gags that they don’t break immersion but further immersion.

So then we’re pretty much complaining about nit picks?

Granted, I can see, from a quality stand-point, why the apprehension exists for adding further races. From a story stand-point, though, so long as the PLAYER has experienced theses events, that’s all that must be necessitated within gameplay limitations.

BuddhaKeks.4857:

Leo G, it’s nice that you have your own headcanon and all but has nothing to do with the topic. Konig and I are proposing solutions to the Tengu problem based on how Arena-Net designed the story so far and what is feasible within their resources. In other words, the only one here who believes “the way things are is how I say them and you should accept that as fact” is you, since you are basing you argument on you own headcanon, not how they are presented in the game.

I’m not basing anything on my own “headcanon”, I’m saying your apprehensions against adding a new race already exists with the existing races. To dismiss a new addition on a problem unrelated to said addition seems short sighted.

And the reason I even brought up my perspective is to expand on further possible solutions. So don’t jump to conclusions here. At the very least, it’d be much easier to form a story without applying hard titles to characters going forward, as it can create inconsistencies and conflicts.