Guild Wars 2

We wiped ten times just trying to get to Galrath. Those were the days. xD

I like Skyhammer.

I like Capricorn too. :x

Sometimes you just want to have fun and not care about balance.

Haha my guild mate, who is legit r10, mentioned that the r40-r50’s that he was paired up against last night did not seemed very good.

I guess we know why.

Don’t forget Galrath.

…never forget Galrath.

Just friendly advice. Maybe others would find it helpful. Nomadplz

Smooth Penguin.5294:

There’s nothing wrong with the Tequatl fight itself. The only thing that could use fixing is the AFK timer for the map.

I have seen several screens of home servers with nobody around and TQ spawned. This is not even two weeks into something that is supposed to be permanent content.

Solid Gold.9310:

Powerful potion of the undead is handy, ups your damage a bit.

Not against TQ. He is a a raceless prop, not a creature. Creatures in GW2 are sorted by ‘race’. All undead, be they risen humans or krait, belong to one ‘race’.

I recommend sharpening stones for you potion slot, which are usefull against both creatures and props.

Gallrvaghn.4921:

Nah, I wouldn’t expect a fix. That path is fine.

Unleash the hounds.

So true. Now I am sad.

Riot Inducer.8964:

Can we please just start using steampunk as a catch-all for the last three? I mean is there any real deep difference between them? Most settings that use improbable steam-powered devices also have an abundance of absurdly advanced clockwork devices as well.

The charr for all their “dieselpunk” as you put it, still have gears and clockwork mechanisms sticking out anywhere they can get away with it.

Well, there’s always Punkpunk :P

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/PunkPunk

Siphaed.9235:

Any proof of the wild accusations you’re asserting here? I’ve yet to year of any artists leaving for Bungie, let alone “several top artists”.

Whoa whoa, easy there tiger. OK, it is time for an Anet history lesson. Maybe some newer players would be interested. Some of this can be helpful in understanding some of the design choices of today and thus be pertinent to the topic.
__________________________________________________________________
I was speaking of people such as Kekai Kotaki and Jaimie Jones. Kotaki was responsible for most loading screens that you see in the game and Jamie Jones did a lot of creature art and some settings. Both at Bungie now.

A smaller number of loadscreens were created by artists such as Levi Hopkins, Richard Anderson and Daniel Dociu. None of which are still employed at Arenanet. In fact even several post-release load screens were old art from these artists(Dragon Bash=Hopkins; Pavilion=Dociu). They did hire several promising new concept artists in post release(TQ load screen is by Jia Ruan) but none of the original lead artists remain. Several others, whom I have not listed, have left too. The woman you are referring to is Kristen Perry who is not a concept artist but a character artist, clothing designer and modeler. That is a completely different job description which I will not get into(unless you ask).

Anyway, the previous post was based on following their art blogs around the time they all started one up circa 2007. By that time, I had played all 4 of Arenanet’s previous titles and was eagerly awaiting GW2’s release. I saw their blogs as a way to get a glimpse of what the game might be like(Anet showed no official videos until 2009). I noticed in the last couple of years leading up to release, they were all posting sci-fi themed art as personal work. All of this is fact and most of their blogs are still up for your perusal, if you have doubts.

But if you want wild speculation, how about this:
I have a theory that, during this formative time period of 2007-2008, there was a lot of discussion within Anet about pursuing a second IP. I think sci-fi was the main candidate. Ultimately, I think they dropped it in favor of focusing everything on Guild Wars 2, but a lot of the design ideas still made it into the dieselpunk/magitek/clockwork motiffs which we see now.

Another thing that happened around this time is that one of the 3 company founders, Jeff Strain, left to create a studio called Undead Labs with the ultimate goal of making a zombie MMO. He took with him, among others, Doug Williams. Williams had been releasing some Americana-themed zombie artwork prior to leaving with Strain. They recently released State of Decay. Which is what? An Americana themed zombie game. o__O That game was very successful and I believe they now have the support to start on that Zombie MMO.

I guess Jeff just really liked zombies(actually, he said he really liked zombies in his goodbye). Weird dude. But I think that is probably why zombies/undead are so prominent in both GW1 and GW2.

As a final note, I am not sure how what I wrote can be construed as “trying to make this game look bad”. Time goes on and studios evolve. It is what it is. I think in order to have an understanding of where a studio is today, you have to know where they came from and their history. I hope this bit of gaming history has been elucidating to some of the newer GW players.

I think Aetherblades/Asura are more magitek.

Steam creatures are steampunk

Watchwork creatures are clockwork/clockpunk

Charr are dieselpunk

These are 4 distinct motiffs.

You think that sucks? Try being an organizer.

GW2…Guild Leadership: The Game

Raine.1394:

It would be hard for Anet to witness Teq en vivo and not recognize that they have a problem. On the other hand, what are they going to say? The recognition of the problem with Teq would require that their entire strategy around open world PvE design come into question. I’m not sure that they are up for that as a company at this point.

I think this nails it. They are probably in the ‘finding themselves’ phase.

Malediktus.9250:

Probably because making armor pieces is much harder than new weapons and back pieces.

Yeah armor needs to mix and match and be made to fit to all races/genders/body types.

So one armor set is not really ever one armor set for a game like this. It is multiple modeling projects

I backpiece is a single project.

scootshoot.6583:

If you can’t see the issue of players guesting on servers with toned down world bosses, sorry can’t help ya there…

Wow dynamic scaling, once heralded as a revolutionary system by ANet, has seen so little use that this player doesn’t know what it is.

Lothirieth.3408:

Silence tends to be what happens in the face of negativity (this is true of most gaming companies.) Josh’s brief posting spree was such a refreshing difference for the short while it lasted. But that’s now gone. It just seems they think being silent is better I guess? I dunno..

They gagged him.

IndigoSundown.5419:

For one example of variables in the open world, look at the Teq fight itself. ANet’s original info stated it was a fight for ~80 players. I don’t know how accurate the posts are that claim 100+ players were fighting it, but that would be 25% more players than the event was designed for. I’m sure that more than 80 can get into a zone. I’ve been in invasions where there were at least 3 zergs killing Aetherblades, and there were ~80 just in the zerg I was with.

I have not heard of TQ going down against less than 200 people. I severely doubt that 100 can beat it.

You will get into the main just in time for the main to be emptied.

Sobiech.9613:

Remember the tears we cried when we all first went through the Ascalonian Catacombs dungeon but ultimately came to the point of farming them.

I didn’t cry. I actually enjoyed the creative boss mechanics and lower health total on gravelings since day one.

I am pretty Q.Q about TQ though.

Ultimately, activity will be the best measure since there are always people who cry. But one week in and activity is already way down, to the point on none on some servers and time-slots. It can only go down from here, methinks.

That would take some kind of…dynamic scaling system never seen before in a video game. Keep dreaming!

Holy Whirlwind.2067:

Im afraid that metric may be skewed if groups (of the same people) are guesting on others servers just to say that it was done on that server. And the same groups are the only ones that are consistantly repeating it 3-4 times a day…basically a false positive….However I hope to be a part of that group soon!

They have the ability to measure concurrency as well as a bunch of other data.

CAAAAPES!

Several top Anet artists posted a lot of sci-fi artwork in the years leading up to their departure for Bungie to work on Destiny, which is sci-fi.

Maybe the artwork from those years has left a lingering affect on the company?

Solid Gold.9310:

116 posts from ArenaNet in the first 3 pages of the SAB forum, 91 of them in the thread titled “Is it too hard”, ironic eh !

Just 6 posts from ArenaNet in the first 7 pages of this forum.

Form your own conclusions.

I think this was a way bigger disaster than SAB. I am curious how overall participation compares. I bet SAB had more, even if they were split into many 5-player instances.

A new dungeon path, if done well, would be awesome.

Mastruq.2463:

Treeline.3865:

Karka Queen is done at least twice a day on Seafarer’s Rest. Get your server in gear!

It’s done on Piken Square too – not sure if twice a day I dont keep that kinda record on daily server activity. I do it like once or twice per week myself and its kinda unlikely it only happens when I do it.

How often were you two doing it before the crafting update? Wait until most people get their ascended weapons, which should be right around now.

You can use the event API to check timings on event triggers. This does not tell you if the event was completed, only if someone cleared all of the camps. If you look at most servers, the timer has gone for very long. Roughly half are in the 50-200 range, which would not be a healthy level of activity. Some servers have gone for over 1000 hours with no trigger.

That said, I did notice an large uptick on that event, as well as many of the other metas, following the crafting update. People want that dragonite for their weapons. Still, we are talking about the difference between completely dead and mostly inactive. People are now reaching the amount of materials that they need and activity is going down again. If a server can not reach a critical mass of 30 people, then nobody gets to do it. Then the event is completely dead.

Back to TQ, an event with a critical mass of 200 people. Anet has stated that it should be 80, but I doubt anyone can do it with that few. Here we are already getting baren screenshots less than one week from patch day.

So what is the point of analyzing all this data?

I really think the key is Dynamic Scaling. This is a revolutionary system that was invented by Arenanet years ago, which they have not been fully utilizing. The events and activities that still have solid activity a year later are the ones that are fairly scalable(either from 1-50, or 5+).

With the knowledge that no expansions are being worked on, I think the big question is whether it is worth it for Anet to spend its development time on content that dies out so quickly and only a tiny portion of the player base gets to participate in.

I would be surprised if undead potions actually worked on TQ, as he is a prop/structure in the game code. Better to use straight power food to be safe.

It’s ok the next step is not caring.

Julie Yann.5379:

Our guild has decided that we will be doing Teq at least once a week. There will always be new people looking looking to get a kill or achievements.

If you say so. I am certainly not going to wish failure on you. Just trying to be realistic. I would actually be interested to hear how that goes for you in the long run.

Raine.1394:

Sadly, it will die soon, or be nerfed into oblivion. It should never be nerfed, but rather live on as a testament to what you don’t do in encounter design in the MMO. It could actually be helpful to survive as a case study. And, it would be worth sacrificing an area of the map if it meant that no other areas would be emptied as this one will.

Southsun called…

Bugabuga.9721:

Wait, I thought KQ requires “clearing” of all the areas to trigger with huge zergs of karka critters? I presume that is the reason why people don’t do it. You have to kill a ton of enemies before it spawns, areas get re-invaded by critters, very annoying.

OK, but my point is that +100 guilds can do that easily. Even +30 guilds can handle it. But they don’t(mostly).

Why do you suppose?

Julie Yann.5379:

For puggers yes, they will completely abandon this event but there are several multiserver guilds being assembled to do this content people will still be doing this.

Countdown until deadness of said guilds? Anet can not turn out events like this fast enough too satiate such players.

These guilds will be stuck with only TQ for a looooong time.

Anorax.6039:

Teq is one of the signature bosses of GW2 and is used in many promotional videos. It stands to reason it would be a major drawcard to attract players to the game.

I think they still want it that way. I don’t think they expected it to turn out like this.

Wow, was this on an overflow?

I feel your pain OP. No one can say you did not give it a chance either. Considering the time you invested.

:(

So last night a guildie went to sparkfly when TQ spawned and reported that there was nobody around but him. Not a single person in the home shard. And this was on a server that has killed TQ before.

We are not even one week in.

Guys let me type all these words to tell you how much I don’t care.

Guys?

You already spent so much time arguing about it! Jeez….

Vince Ste Marie.2081:

I can confirm that this achievement is not bugged; just checked it myself.

How sure are you? Just because some people can get it, does not mean there is no bug.

A few weeks ago, before the world 1 equivalent was found to be bugged and then patched, our guild did a run through it. 2 of us got it and 2 of us did not, including myself. I was the one showing everybody where the baubles were. I made sure that we stuck together.

Later a bug was found and there was a patch, but I have not retried; could not be bothered.

That is some great and well-rounded feedback. Hope Anet watches it. +1’ed

Right, but I am talking about the final event chest and, presumably, the achievement. Someone wrote a comment elsewhere that turret users were not getting this. Could it be that turret #1 does not do enough damage to give people on turrets event credit?

Rewards aren’t everything.

30 people can kill Karka Queen much faster than they can kill the Claw of Jormag, and she gives double the rewards. For the time invested, KQ is much more profitable.

And yet people do Claw all the time with 50+ people while KQ rarely gets touched. Why is that? Would it not be smarter to spend your time doing the more rewarding and faster run if your server can bring enough people?

The fact is Claw scales well and can be done with like 10-15 people. It used to be doable with 5ish, before the timer was introduced. Nobody shows up for KQ because they figure there will never be the other 30 or so required people.

And now TQ requires 200 people. -.-

I have read that this is happening in some cases. I haven’t seen it personally but wanted to see if anyone can confirm that this has happened to them.

Did you defeat TQ and not get the chest as a turret user?

Nobody understands my true genius.

Make them harder but make them scale.

Can we have an vote on whether to have another election? :x

Noooooo please not another election!

TehPwnerer.7215:

Didn’t you guys disband when you were on Darkhaven too?

That was Thesis.

TQ the guild breaker?