Guild Wars 2

Does loading the beta login screen and first hearing the music count?

Other than that, probably the WvW marathon me and two of my mates done a few weeks after launch, where we just stayed and defended a keep for going on 6 hours. That night, we managed to push back quite a few zergs through smart use of siege, support abilities and the Warrior’s falling damage trait.

Sure, we didn’t get much in terms of loot, XP ect, but damm we had fun.

People helping? This one random guy helping me take a Champion down for the lulz. I did have an epic screenshot of him knocking the guy back and me using my GS to Rush forward, but unfortunately it was on my HDD that broked

ANet have released two of the soundtracks from the Bazaar of the Four Winds over on Soundcloud

One thing though:

Could you release the ‘Alas’ song as well? That is something beautiful.

Dynamic Events

I reckon DE’s are one of the best types of content for creating an immersive world…if used right. Having mobs actually attack, and having to hold them off alongside NPC’s is, IMO, much more immersive than a guy saying these guys are causing trouble when, well, they aren’t. Same with escort quests and big baddies.

As is though, I can see three main issues, from a gameplay, immersion and community perspective, with DE’s currently:

• Immersion – Having the same event repeat every 5 minutes is immersion breaking. It’s almost like the mobs are made on a factory line, kinda like the Putty Patrol from Power Rangers. However, this is needed, since DE’s are the main source of XP. As well as this, the attackers from the events never seem to ‘learn’ from their failures. They keep trying the same approach over and over.

• Gameplay – Not necessarily exclusive from the ‘immersion’ point, especially regarding ‘grinding’. Having the same events over and over, in exactly the same format, increases the feeling of it being a script and increases the feeling of ‘grind’. If, all of a sudden the mechanics of the event changed (so, say, the centaurs stopped just charging in, but set up siege on a mountain to reign down hell on the village), it would break the feeling of monotony (providing it was implemented in a way that the AI was ‘learning’, and not simply cycling through the events).

• Community – DE’s currently don’t need people to work together (with the exception of Meta-events when there’s only, like, 10 of you), thus they devolve into zerging, tag-as-many-mobs-as-you-can content, as opposed to an organised force that will destroy your team if you aren’t organised.

Personally, I wouldn’t say events have “failed” as much as “need improving”. To write it off as a failure before they’ve reached what they could be would be quite sad.

IMO, DE’s should replace certain types of quest (kill x of y, defend z, for example), ‘fused’ with certain quests (escort), but not replace quests for ‘personal gain’ (go to Mount Intimidating, collect special glowy rocks and metals, bring them back and I’ll craft you an awesome weapon)

As for that post about farming events, timers on events ect, unfortunately, you could create the most amazing, immersive and engaging world, but if the player is just after the shinies, they will look for the simplest way to get them. Personally, I think releasing an API to allow people to track when certain events are up is counter-intuitive to what the first intention of DE’s; to create a living, breathing world.

Living Story

The concept of a player-driven unfolding of a story is, IMO, is probably the most immersive way of delivering permanent content, as opposed to just patching it in.

However, that’s exactly what it needs to be; player-driven.

Certainly, patch in key events, like people getting killed all of a sudden, leave the unfolding of the story to the players, not a strict schedule. Leave the players find these threats, work out where the threats are hiding, unraveling their intentions ect.

In terms of story-telling in games, living the story through ‘doing’ the content is, IMO, more immersive and engaging than simply reading / watching it.

Another thing in terms of storytelling in general, I think trying to make the individual player on their own feel like The One is useless and clashes that your character is the only hero alongside everyone else character, who are also The One. What they need to work on is making the player feel like a hero alongside other players.

I was gonna write some other stuff, but for the life of me I can’t remember what.

I personally can’t see how clouds and planets are childish o.O

OT:

I wouldn’t say have the skill animations in the Store.

Have skill animations from certain bosses.

For example, killing Adelburn with a certain condition met (say, interrupting a specific attack) would give Warriors the chance to change ‘Final Thrust’ to ’Adelburn’s Rage’, where the attack movement would stay the same, but would cover the strike in Foefire.

alcopaul.2156:

Vol.5241:

If anet gave you a precursor and 100g

People would still complain

yes coz it should be 2 – a precursor used on land and a precursor used underwater, and 500g.

What you mean only two precursors and 500G?

I should have all the mats needed to make my Legendaries as well.

TL:DR – Design Content Around Inspiring Achievements. Don’t Just Attach Achievements To Content.

*TL:DR2 – Less Arbitrary, Guaranteed Achievements. More Achievements That Encourage Thought And Consideration, Exploration Of Possibilities and Immersion.

Currently, there are three different types of achievements:

• The Unavoidable – These achievements are pretty much guaranteed as you play through the game. Things like the Weapon Master, Slayer. These achievements are akin to giving a kid a gold star for turning up to school. These achievements are bad. The content should be rewarding and engaging enough without the need for achievements such as these.

• The Optional – These achievements don’t need to be done, but, like unavoidable achievements, you could probably get them simply through playing the game. Things like the deposit X gold, Personal Story. These achievements are strictly there to extend play length. These achievements aren’t necessarily bad. They give little goals for the player to work towards that aren’t part of the core experience, whether because of irrelevance or difficulty.

• The Inspiring – These achievements are the more rewarding in terms of gameplay value and making use of content. These types of achievements suggest and inspire an alternate way to play through the core experience. The key difference between this type of achievement and the last is that this type of achievement gets you to think about how you could tackle the content differently. Currently in GW2, there are no achievements that fit this type.

So what am I getting at?

I feel more content should be designed around the last type of achievement, and not the first two. Doing this would create a more engaging experience as players would have to consider their actions and approach, not merely play through it.

These achievements and ways of playing shouldn’t be made known to the player; the whole point of these achievements is to get the player to consider how they’re going to tackle the goal in order to enhance the game-play experience, and not simply to get the achievements themselves (although we all know there will be the people who search up the walkthroughs without trying for themselves, finish all achievements in a day or two, and then complain they’re bored without truly appreciating the content).

Rewards

Because of the new reward system, having achievements such as this could have specific skins that will be unlocked through the Achievement system.

Example – Dungeons

Achievements:

• [Dungeon] Vanquisher – Slay all enemies in the dungeon. Awards weapon skins that drip blood.
• [Dungeon Boss]’s Assassain – Kill the Dungeon bosses without aggroing any trash. We already got mob skipping. Why not make it a more engaging option for completing the dungeon? Awards weapon skins that are quite elegant, and create a cape made of shadows.
• [Dungeon] Poacher – Steal items (intel, artifacts ect) without aggroing anything.
• [Dungeon] Demolisher – Place explosives at key points and make your way back to the exit in order to blow the dungeon up, without aggroing anything.

How do these help dungeon design?

• More open area, less linear paths where players consider how they’re going to get to their goal, and not simply follow the path to it. Maps can also use the Z axis (climbing up and crawling across a cliff-face to sneak up on a boss, as opposed charging head-first, for example). Strategy and tactics don’t just have to apply to the fights themselves.

• Mob mechanics and behaviour – mobs that run off to sound the alarm, patrolling mobs that have a randomised path, randomised group make-ups, random dungeon boss placement.

• Dungeon Mechanics – Area effects that get you to consider your approach. Maybe fighting a patrol in a particular area is a bad idea, because of some buff they get from a shrine.

Now, although I’ve suggested as using Achievements as the baseline, you can do the same with goals:

Goal – Kill Evil McBadguy

Ways of doing so:

• Smash his base and mooks up
• Go all sneaky sneaky…ect

The only reasons I used achievements is because:

• There are too many here’s an achievement for doing what you’re doing anyway type of achievements.
• There aren’t enough achievements that show that you’ve truly achieved something. Creating content with randomised parameters (mob composition and patrol paths, boss locations ect) means the player has to pay attention, as well as provide a slightly different take on how you’re going to tackle the problem.
• Highlighting the achievements (in some way, an end goal and way of playing) in the design phrase makes it easier to outline the paths the designers would create.
• I just finished watching the Achievements’ video from Extra Credits, as well as having this new Achievement System.

Nuka Cola.8520:

Nick.6972:

“Big” patch.
Good one.

+1. But im sure fanboys on this forum ‘enjoy’ all the ‘mini’ crap they release

Nuka Cola.8520:

Nick.6972:

“Big” patch.
Good one.

+1. But im sure fanboys on this forum ‘enjoy’ all the ‘mini’ crap they release

And then there’s people like you, who won’t be happy whatever they do, or are so blind with their fanboyism, they instead roam to forums to make snarky little comments like this that offer nothing to the discussion.

You don’t have to be a fanboy to enjoy the content.

On the flip side, if someone wants everything, then they’ll automatically get everything if they got enough achievement points.

Spreading it out like this just gives the devs more time to produce more rewards.

As for the rewards, you might not be getting the skins you want (since this is a matter of personal taste), but you are getting a bunch of other stuff:

• Currency (Laurels, Gold, Karma, Badges of Honour, Gems at 5,000 AP ect)
• Account Bonuses
• Items (some from the cash shop i.e. Mystic Forge Stones)

• Achievement points can now be used to unlock account wide bonuses on Gold, Karma, Magic Find and XP, as well as new weapon and armour skins, Laurels, Gold and new Achievement Chests that contain Mystic Forge Stones and other bits and bobs (I got 100 WvW tokens yesterday) ect.

• The current Living Story gives you a chance to get your own Personal Quartz node in your home instance (Quartz is used in the new crafted gear) if you complete 16 achievements.

• If you’re in a Guild, Guilds can now activate Guild Missions, which range from hunting down bounties to puzzles.

• You can now gain Ranks in WvW which lets you purchase passive abilities (Carry more supply, more damage to guards ect) as well as active abilities on siege weapons.

Balkanwarrior.5132:

Ahaha OP got infracted for this post. That’s sad

He prolly got infracted for the ‘gay’ comment, and not the post itself.

You can tell that from the fact the post was edited to remove the word (and the next post advising him to remove it), and this thread not being deleted.

1. Same could be said for people who don’t want to do Fractals for the kite. Or WvW payers who want a Legendary. It’s just a case of sucking it up really and just doing it.

2. So what you’re saying is stop PvP in a PvP JP?

Eh, I do shake my head, pull out a walking stick and start with the ‘we used to play the game ourselves back in the day’ monologue in my head at people like this (and people who use walkthroughs and ask for help before they’ve even tried for themselves), but I don’t let it bother me. If their main goal is to go after the shinies and not doing the content itself, more power to them.

I personally don’t see how their playstyle affects my personal enjoyment, or why I should let it. I also don’t feel like it cheapens the Achievement, because I personally done it on my own.

Dedlaw.9130:

Goku ’s just showing of again

He’s actually been charging that since BWE1.

Nuka Cola.8520:

They don’t add anything worthwhile for people who want to do something called PLAY THE GAME.

I find this odd, since I was playing the new content only last night and, lo and behold, I was playing the game.

Unless you mean content that appeals to you personally, of course.

OP:

Not everything has to be dark. There’s a little something called Pacing.

If you don’t put lighthearted stuff that allows the player to have a break in between the serious stuff, the player will burn out.

Now, the murder of a person during a big festival isn’t something I’d consider as childish.

Nuka Cola.8520:

They don’t add anything worthwhile for people who want to do something called PLAY THE GAME.

I find this odd, since I was playing the new content only last night and, lo and behold, I was playing the game.

Unless you mean content that appeals to you personally, of course.

I dunno, I find the achievements for this event:

a) somewhat easy (I managed to get 10 of the achievements within about an hour of play)
b) not that repetitive (unless you don’t leave an achievement until you’ve completed that one)

in comparison with some of the other events.

As for the family and steady job thing, I can’t really say I agree, since I only get around 5 hours a week (maybe 10 if I can get a weekend session in) to play.

I think he’s talking about limited time achievements being displayed when the time is up.

alamore.1974:

This is the downfall of games.
I can no longer rob. Steal. Kill. Mislead. Swindle. Betray. Burglerize. Stump. Haras. Drive crazy. Bewitch…. Well i guess you can say greif.

People are cry babies now. Every one thinks games revole around them and them alone.

Just yesterday i got banned from a game cause i sold some one a gold ship. They reported me cause it was ’yellow. (it looked damm gold to me)

Some advice kid grow up. Suck it up and move on. Honestly people that complain about every little thing are ruining games.

Eve online has it right they stepped back and let players play.

What one person might consider griefing another might not, and visa versa.

What gives a person the right to disrupt the enjoyment on others for their own personal amusement?

I guess it’s as you said: Everyone thinks the game revolves around them.

While I personally think this is a good idea, I can see the potential for abuse.

I mean, there are players who think PvPing in the EB JP is griefing.

They got rid of Tanking in that sense. You use your abilities to Control the enemy.

Besides, you don’t need aggro to help your Downed team-mates, or team-mates that are in trouble.

As a Guardian, Hammer has a knock-back and a ring that can trap them for 6 seconds.

Knock them off of your teammate, and then trap them while other team-mates help revive.

DarkWasp.7291:

What do you call something that carries something for someone else?

Asura gate

(Say it like asuragate)

:/

That was a clever play on words, fair play.

A Norn walks out of a bar…

On a separate note, I wonder how Logan Thackery deals with Pokemon trainer battles, given you can’t run?

I suppose the community could create a system:

• Profile is made with Account Name so they can be blacklisted if they do scam
• People have the ability to rate the person (as in, they’re legit)
• People have the ability to post what they have for sale / what they’re looking for

Of course, this wouldn’t prevent people with multiple accounts scamming, as well as it’d take a lot of trust from the community to set it up / start the ratings ect.

CryxTryx.9208:

There is no specific legislation yet because the law has not kept up with technology in this regard.

Technically it isn’t stealing off you, because everything in game is the intellectual property of Anet.

Also, because Anet have told players that it is at their risk that they trade in that fashion, you wouldn’t have a leg to stand on if you bought the gold with Gems.

Delryn.7235:

The day Anet releases an armor/weapon that matches a necromancer’s look will be… never mind I’m not even gonna think about it.

I wish I could be getting excited for the new gear being added but dammit my necro isn’t gonna wear a single piece.

Armour

Shadow Armour

Tactical Armour

Nightmare Armour

Arah armour

Staff

Deathwish

Final Rest

Melandru’s Gaze

Terebinth_Staff

Scepter

Charged Scepter

Eye of Rodgort / Lidless Eye

Ogre Truncheon

Pirate Cane

Zhaitan’s Reach

Godskull Cesta

Axe

Godskull Sickle

Jaws of Death

Maw of the Dammed

Tribal Axe

Dagger

Godskull Kris

Malefacterym

Foci

Adam

Godskull Effigy

Malice

Mojo

Warhorn

Godskull Trumpet

Obviously it’s personal preference, but I feel these fit in with the Necro theme quite well.

Zeno.8493:

TheDaiBish.9735:

Zeno.8493:

TheDaiBish.9735:

RainbowSyrup.4130:

It’s hard to add strategy to an open world boss that 50 random ppl are gonna kill every 3hrs.

Not hard.

It’s just the forums would explode with posts like ‘what do you mean I’ve got to work with others?! That doesn’t fit into my playstyle!’

Enlighten us then oh wise one. If it is not hard explain to us how you would be able to scale a world boss with 50 people of all different levels to make it “challenging”. Please we are waiting.

1. Within the area of the meta-event, there is a hard cap on stats can reach up to (for example, level 15 masterwork for Shadow Behemoth). This way, level 80’s with Exotics aren’t going to be killing things before the people who are level appropriate for the area can even get there / get a hit in.

2. You tailor the scaling to the fight mechanics, and not simply health and damage, so players have to take note of the fight mechanics (otherwise what’s the point of them being there?). For example, say an extra portal for every 3 players spawn on the Shadow Behemoth fight, with extra mobs from each portal for every number of players up to 3 (so say a portal spawns 3 adds, it would spawn 5 for every player and 7 for every two players, and reset back to 5 per portal for every 3 players, since that creates a new portal).

1. There is already a hard cap on stats when you go to lower level areas. If you actually mean capping the stats to level 15 masterworks on Shadow Behemoth for example what would the point of getting exotics be when the stats are going to just be capped to a different weapon.

2. Once again fighting mechanics already scale with the increase in players. If you actually think that adding an extra portal for every third person in SB then that would be taking it to the extreme. That’s 16 portals plus the 3 that are already on there, assuming there are 50 people doing it. Doesn’t sound like much less of a grind tbh.

1. True, but as you can see from the events, the scaling isn’t enough. Mybe a better way of putting it would have been making scaling harsher (taking into consideration things like boons the player can get ect.) At the end of the day, how are level-appropriate areas supposed to do these events that are built for these levels when 80’s in full Exotics are burning the bosses down in minutes?

2. The whole portals thing was an example, not an actual suggestion in itself. As for the actual mechanics, they don’t scale. The only things that scale are health, damage and adds (I think). Things like SB portals, Shatterer’s healing crystals don’t scale. They’re a set amount everytime. And while it does sound like a grind, if the mechanics were made more engaging, it would become an engaging, challenging fight.

Sorry for the vagueness, I’m typing off of my phone, and it’s a kitten to get everything I want to down.

Magnus Steelgrave.6580:

TheDaiBish.9735:

RainbowSyrup.4130:

It’s hard to add strategy to an open world boss that 50 random ppl are gonna kill every 3hrs.

Not hard.

It’s just the forums would explode with posts like ‘what do you mean I’ve got to work with others?! That doesn’t fit into my playstyle!’

Very true but with good reason, because the open world pve is meant to cater to everyone not just to a few hardcore players (mind you this is supposed to be a game for casual players) who want everything to be harder or for some reason want groups of 50-100 people to try to coordinate actions without a suitable device to help do so. If you wish to force team gameplay on people feel free to check out some dungeons cause that’s exactly what it is… If anet thought for a single second forcing people to play together like that was a solid idea for the entire community this would have been taken care of a long time ago… the community as a majority raging isn’t worth the 1% that this would make happy.

I’d argue there’s a massive difference between casual players and players who feel entitled to being able to down a boss and loot simply by being there.

I’m a casual player myself. I don’t get often to play, and when I log in I don’t have a particular goal in mind.

That being said, I think that the open-world bosses (with a few exceptions) during prime hours are just too simple. It’s pretty much guaranteed you’re going to get the loot.

Being a casual player doesn’t mean that they are adverse to challenge.

Being an entitled player who thinks that they should be rewarded for showing up and that success should be guaranteed are.

As for the ‘forcing’ teamwork, maybe for regular events, but for these big events, taking down these monsters, I personally find it pretty uninspiring that they can be beaten so easily and with little co-ordination.

Of course, give players the time beforehand to organise and come up with a plan. But at is stands, most of the big events are mediocre at best, and mediocrity is a terrible fate.

As for the ‘forcing’ people to work together, what’s the point of DE’s if that’s the case? They might as well be quests, as opposed to challenges the community faces together.

Zeno.8493:

TheDaiBish.9735:

RainbowSyrup.4130:

It’s hard to add strategy to an open world boss that 50 random ppl are gonna kill every 3hrs.

Not hard.

It’s just the forums would explode with posts like ‘what do you mean I’ve got to work with others?! That doesn’t fit into my playstyle!’

Enlighten us then oh wise one. If it is not hard explain to us how you would be able to scale a world boss with 50 people of all different levels to make it “challenging”. Please we are waiting.

1. Within the area of the meta-event, there is a hard cap on stats can reach up to (for example, level 15 masterwork for Shadow Behemoth). This way, level 80’s with Exotics aren’t going to be killing things before the people who are level appropriate for the area can even get there / get a hit in.

2. You tailor the scaling to the fight mechanics, and not simply health and damage, so players have to take note of the fight mechanics (otherwise what’s the point of them being there?). For example, say an extra portal for every 3 players spawn on the Shadow Behemoth fight, with extra mobs from each portal for every number of players up to 3 (so say a portal spawns 3 adds, it would spawn 5 for every player and 7 for every two players, and reset back to 5 per portal for every 3 players, since that creates a new portal).

RainbowSyrup.4130:

It’s hard to add strategy to an open world boss that 50 random ppl are gonna kill every 3hrs.

Not hard.

It’s just the forums would explode with posts like ‘what do you mean I’ve got to work with others?! That doesn’t fit into my playstyle!’

As I see it, the issue with world bosses is that they’re scaling up the wrong things.

Instead of scaling up health and damage, they need to scale up the mechanics for the fight.

For example, take the Shatterer’s healing crystals mechanic.

Regardless if you got 10 or 50 people there, the same number spawns everytime, meaning that the majority of players can ignore the mechanic and still whale on the boss (even if it doesn’t do anything) while a few burn the crystals down.

Now, if they:

• Scaled the number of crystals up (say, an extra one for every 3 players)
• If the crystals weren’t taken down in, say, 20 seconds, not only would the Shatterer gain 1/8th of his health back for every crystal left as well as a defensive shield with X charges, but they’d also explode, healing any mobs in a radius around them and debuffing players with a +% damage increase from Branded for x seconds.

It would mean people would have to take note of the mechanic. If you wanted to go a bit extra, make it so crystals could only be damaged by certain combo fields and finishers.

I don’t think it was just the kit though.

There were a bunch of items that could be spammed to perma-CC players.

I can’t say I am. But then again, I don’t like having too much all at once.

I’d say it depends entirely on different things, like what the LS is about, little hints as to what is happening ect.

For example, if I saw the Tengu roaming around LA tomorrow, I’d feel the excitement of anticipation that something to do with the Tengu is coming up. Maybe leading elsewhere (Dominion of Winds), maybe unlocking them as a race, as well as a profession specific to them (which they teach the other races about of course) when you complete the LS.

Bismuth.3165:

pact pistol and rifle are pretty cool, CoE and mystic pistols and rifles look kitten, CM rifle is good, fractal pistol and rifle look epic, there will also be new weapons at july 9th, and lets just say, they look nerdgazmazing

You got pictures of the new weapon skins :O

PvE Content

Each focus team will actually be comprised of two teams working together:

• One to come up with the concepts behind the content (the creative guys)
• One to create and implement these concepts and ideas into the game world (the technical guys)

A team focused solely on Open-World. This would be one of the bigger teams, since they’d be responsible for:

• Mini-dungeons
• Jumping Challenges
• DE’s and Meta Events
• Random, GM created events (GM’s would be given the tools to create these)
• Quests and Tasks (Not traditional ! and ?. No indication would be given that you’re on a quest. It’s up to the player to decide whether to investigate what they’re saying)

A team focused solely on Fractals: As well as the LS dungeons, I’d demand, from my throne while being fanned and fed grapes by beautiful women dressed like Eir and Gwen, that they produce the following Fractals:

• Destiny’s Edge vs Kralkatorrik
• The rebellion against the Flame Legion
• The Protectors of Kryta
• The Foefire

A team focused solely on Dungeons. As well as improving the current dungeons, this team would have the aim of introducing a new dungeon every 2 months, and improving a path every month (starting with CoF1).

The Living Story groups will continue doing what they’re doing.

WvW

First, I’d scrap the current WvW in favor of a more sandbox type, where players have to gather stone from a quarry and build their own forts and such. This gives players a chance to build forts in their own design, and opens up more tactical thinking when creating forts in terms of location and shape. In order to stop people from simply memorizing the most strategic locations, the terrain of the maps would be randomly generated each match.

Forts and such from other teams wouldn’t show up on your map (unless marked by a player), meaning scouting would become important.

In order to facilitate this, matches would go on for longer.

In order to complement these additions, WvW ranks in Scouting and Construction will be added. Scouting gives the player Partial Stealth (not totally invisible, but harder to notice) providing the stay still and out of combat, passive movement speed in WvW only and Map Marking, which allows them to highlight on everyone’s maps where the opposing teams fortifications are, as well as notes as to what they have defending it (weapons, guards, numbers ect), while Construction allows the player to build better forts, as well as portable constructions such as barricades and such.

SPvP

More game modes. To be honest, I’m not much of a SPvPer, so I’ll leave that to people who are.

Quality Control

This team tests all different aspects of game-play to squash bugs and see where it could improve. This would be loaded into the PTR first to get feedback, which the QC team would deliver feedback to the appropriate teams.

1 billion, eh?

Back-end Stuff

1. Hardware – Improve server hardware, to better deal with higher bandwidth.

2. Optimisation – Continue to optimise the code (as well as improve code structure to reduce the occurrence of bugs) to, alongside with improved hardware, provide a smoother experience.

3. Tools – Improve the tools the devs have to work with to produce more complex, quality content.

4. Public Test Server – A public test server, where the community can test out content to balance difficulty, find bugs ect.

5. A Seamless World – remove the walls stopping people from exploring and zone instances. If someone wants to get from one zone to the next traversing a treacherous mountain, so be it.

Business

• *Buy Anet out, as well as all of the rights to GW and GW2 from NCSoft, and give sole ownership to Anet on the condition I get to become Evil Overlord, and a desk plaque and job title that says so.

• *Remove RNG boxes from the cash shop, and place everything for sale straight up.

• Have a team that works specifically on the gem store with things like town clothes, novelty items ect.

Features

Create a Features team, who would focus solely creating and adding features and systems to the game. Things like: Guild Halls, Housing, Scavenger Hunts, Treasure Maps, Mini-Games, New Crafting Professions ect. The aim would be to get at least one feature out per month in the first year.

The team working alongside the Features team would then focus on expanding on these features (so, more styles of Guild Hall, for example), while the first team continues to come up with concepts for and implementing features, so features aren’t left too long without updating. The aim would be to update each feature at least once a month, with bigger tasks (such as new Guild Halls) every 2 months.

General Additions (Applicable to PvE and WvW)

• Weather System – A weather system that is totally independent and random, while keeping in the theme of the area. Different weather effects would cause different issues. For example, Snowstorms would reduce visibility and cause Chilled unless your wore Warm Clothes (town clothing, not armour), Sandstorms would reduce visibility and cause Blindness at random intervals unless you wore sand-goggles (town clothing, not armour), while Downpour would reduce the duration of Burning and increase the duration of Chilled in Winter.

• Night and Day – Night and day would play a greater part, with different creatures coming out during the night and day.

• Seasonal Cycle – This would be tied to real-life time, with the environment changing (leaves fall off trees) and more frequent weather in certain areas (Snowstorm in Winter) and weather that doesn’t normally occur in an area might occur during a season (Snowstorm in Queensdale)

knives.6345:

The hell? There’s an elder dragon called Bubbles? Powepuff? O_O

Anyways, i wanna see Jormag next…

Na, we don’t actually know Bubbles real name yet, so people call it Bubbles.

I think the key difference is in the style of combat.

Whereas GW was about countering their skills (meaning that if you had a certain build for certain content, you could do it quite easily), GW2 is more movement oriented and reflex based, therefore AI would have to be based around this style of combat, and not simply through appropriate skill usage.

Now, if they improved mobs by:

• Giving them the tools players have (level appropriate meta trait setups that are random on spawn, utility skills, weapon swap with appropriate sigils and runes, condition removal / giving conditions to players, a downed state where they can revive each other)
• Recognize the players skill usage in order to counter (dodge, interrupt, block) as opposed to doing these as set HP points (bandits currently use dodge, so it can be done)
• Allowing them to recognize and use combo fields and finishers, as well as tactics such as flanking.
• Patrolling maps in packs and group compositions

I feel combat mechanics would be greatly improved.

Unfortunately, this would probably be too much of an undertaking. Heck, it might even be impossible with the current technology.

I dunno, I think there’s quite a few awesome firearm skins.

I suppose it depends on what sort of theme you want though.

Hardcore Content and Longevity

Depends what you mean by “hardcore” and “hard” content. I mean, the terms are thrown around so often and with so very different meanings…

I don’t think “hard” content is necessarily the answer.

Compelling, engaging, challenging and randomised content adds more to longevity. Why?

• Compelling – People will want to do the content, whether it be for the lulz, the rewards or the experience of it.
• Engaging – Engage and immerse the player in the content. Make them think and pay attention (not necessarily just to boss tells, but the environment as well e.g.) as well as doing.
• Challenging – More specific that ‘hard’ (which can be punishingly so, which I don’t believe actually makes challenging content, just frustrating content), challenging content challenges the player, forcing them to draw upon all of their skill , knowledge and concentration but is completely doable.
• Randomised – Kind of ties in with the other points, randomised content you don’t know what you’re going to see next, and so you must take care and plan ahead, as opposed to working from memory. Maybe this next patrol has an Elite caster? Or the boss isn’t where he’s supposed to be, because you let that one guard alert him, so he’s set up an ambush? Granted, these are down to technical limitations and resource limitations (someones got to craft all of the scenarios).

Insignya.8625:

I don’t give two dimes about stats – I did Fractals because they were challenging content with an obvious goal – gather enough AR to reach the last one.

I’m only going to quote this, because it seems rather contradictory (unless you were thinking in terms of the regular Power, Precision ect stats, then I apologise).

On the one hand you said you don’t care about stats, and yet in the same sentence you said you enjoyed Fractals because it was challenging and had a goal, which was to gather enough Agony Resistance – which is by all definition a stat.

On praising and whining

I wholeheartedly agree with the ‘whining doesn’t help’, but I don’t fully agree on the ‘praising doesn’t help’.

You can praise a piece of content, and do it constructively by highlighting what it is about it that you enjoy. Praising in this way allows the devs to know what they’ve done really well, and so they can emulate what it was about that particular content that was good.

Where I agree that praising can harm is when people unequivocally praise everything, or praise something without saying why it is good. It’s kind of like when games adopt mechanics from other games – they just adopt it as is, and reskin it to fit their game as opposed to looking into why people enjoy it.

Rewards

I agree and disagree.

I agree that, in a sense, clear rewards can provide most people with a goal, but disagree that they are crucial.

The focus should be engaging, intrinsically satisfying game-play (you’d do it for the sake of doing it), with extrinsic motivators (the rewards) being the icing on the cake. More so, you’d probably be able to get away with reasonable RNG on loot drops if the actual content was satisfying.

As for rewards, in a cosmetic based game, how do you define ‘best’? My favourite armour skins for my Necro is a level 25 armour set from Karma recipes.

Now, if you were to say ‘exclusive’ and ‘prestigious’, I’d agree. If the content had an armour or weapon skin(s), a title, crafting materials, recipes, maybe even a unique skill name and animation you can toggle on and off (I.E instead of Final Thrust, you’d have Adelburn’s Rage, which wreaths the strike in Foefire, and does the burning animation if it kills the foe).

The Living Story and Unrelated Features

First, I’d point out it’s kind of a fallacy to state that the LS means that Anet isn’t getting revenue, since the content has to be developed and such.

Secondly, just because the current LS has had temp content, it doesn’t mean that all of it will, and Colin has said there will be more permanent content on the horizon. Also, better to get all the failing out now, rather than have it in a key story point (can you imagine if Jormag was introduced now with the LS being rough around the edges?).

However, I do agree with the features thing. These should be developed alongside the LS. A good example would be the new Achievement rewards (which I know wasn’t around when this was posted). Personally, there are a lot of mechanics and systems they could take from GW1 and adapt to GW2, such as:

• Nic’s Daily Scavanger Hunt (add unique, soulbound items to each loot table, for example, a fire gland from certain types of Drakes, and maybe a randomised list of x items, as opposed to everyone getting the same thing as to not cause people to farm the same mobs. Amaranth could play this role.)
• Guild Halls (and ships, airships, secret volcano bases ect) and GvG
• Books (may get people to redo Story Modes)
• Bounties (from GW Beyond. Make them randomly occurring Meta events that don’t have a specific spawn point in the area)
• The Scrying Pool (to re-allow people to do temp content, although the Fractals will probably act as a more randomised version of this)

Arcane Wave is causing Sword Mastery to rise?

Most likely a bug.

No Walking.6349:

Who cares, TESO will come out before the next dragon does, so it’s not like any of us will still be playing GW2

Everyone except those who will still be playing GW2 because they don’t care about TESO?

ALL OF MY YES!!!!!
SHUT UP AND TAKE MY MONEY!!!

Providing that they put the time and effort, as well as taking away what they can about what they’re doing well and not so well with the current LS content.

That is all.

Lord of the Rings destroys the concept of Fantasy? I’m still trying to wrap my head around that, considering that The Hobbit come out in 1937, and The Lord of the Rings Trilogy between 1954 and 1955, just under 20 years before Dungeons and Dragons PnP.

I suppose I can see your point if you were introduced to the traditional ‘wizards’ who fling fire around before reading / watching LotR, but these sorts of things are actually described:

• Conjuring Fire and Light
• Disarming and destroying an arrow in mid-flight
• Mind reading
• Healing
• Illusions

‘Wizards’ in LotR aren’t actually of the race of Men, and they’re more often known as ‘The Wise Ones’, and they have both superior mental and physical ability in comparison to Men.

Finally, most fantasy worlds have their own ‘theme’ of magic:

• Guild Wars has the Bloodstones and schools of magic.
• The Dresden Files, where magic can be manipulated from the air, produced from emotions, or channeled through foci for a specific effect.
• Harry Potter where magic has to be focused and channeled through a wand.

Back on topic:

I’m not entirely sure what you mean when it comes to rifle warriors. What do you mean by ‘more detailed’? I personally think that the way they currently use a Rifle is how they would anyway: shooting and clubbing them with it if they get too close.

As for ‘Ranged’ combat in general, I think you’re thinking too much in archetypes. Why does a ‘caster’ have to be ranged? And why does a ‘warrior’ have to be melee?

Not to mention having a ‘true ranged’ class would mean making it less viable in melee.

You’re also complaining about both having to kite and just standing there spamming skills. Not sure what you want if these two options aren’t open to you. I mean, that’s what ranged is about; staying as far back as possible to do damage.

Two questions:

• What game mode do you play most?
• Have you though about a hybrid ranged / melee or long range / mid range build?

Out of curiosity, what is the difference between farming 700 gold and farming dungeons repeatedly? They’re both grinding at the end of the day.

Mathematically speaking, you’d have to do a total of 9 runs (8 without the DR, and a 9th with) to get the Gift.

I disagree that it should be easier, or just another grind. What it does need to be is more engaging. Outside of, but incorporating, the usual content, with a backstory to guide the process.

For example, the Orichalcum to make a precursor needs to be imbued with energy in order to strengthen it so it can withstand the power it will absorb. For example:

Frostfang – Gaining stacks of the debuff during the Claw of Jormag fight. Requires the player to have x stacks, and every, say, 10 seconds, 1 piece of Orichalcum in your inventory gets imbued. However, dying causes all of the Orichalcum in your inventory to lose its energy (this encourages more skillful play, and reduces the margin of error you can make.).

Vayne.8563:

Can Anet do anything without being criticized?

No.

While I agree that some criticisms are just plain stupid (the most laughable one IMO being “I should be rewarded for just playing the game / this doesn’t fit into my playstyle so I should be able to get the rewards my way”) and more often than not come from people who feel betrayed, and ANet will never do anything right in their eyes again), by nature nothing is perfect, and so criticism can help it improve, providing it’s constructive (and by constructive I mean “this is done well, this not so much, I feel this would benefit from” and not just focusing on the negative [how else will they know what they’re doing right?], snarky comments and “OMG this sucks I quit”).

Criticism isn’t something that should be unwanted, but embraced in order to improve and be the best you can. Especially so if they’re currently testing the waters with the LS. Even if they intend to do something about some of the criticisms, ANet should still take it on board as opposed to just trying to say ’we’re doing something about it’.

They’re in their caves, getting armour made for their toenails to foil us from killing them.

In all seriousness though, they’ll prolly be introduced with the LS, after they’ve figured out what works and what doesn’t.

kishter.9578:

I wonder how will be called this time: bazaar crates or will be hide in blchest?

Hate to break it to you, but neither.

These are rewards for the new Achievement Point reward system.

Penguin.5197:

TheDaiBish.9735:

Tower Guard.5263:

LOL ships can have sex, didn’t really know that.

Where did you think little boats like canoes and tugs come from?

From the corpses of bigger boats?

Abaddon: God of Water, Secrets and Boat Resurrection.

Tachenon.5270:

TheDaiBish.9735:

> Land on Cantha which is currently under attack / locked down by the Ministry of Purity.

At first glance I saw ‘the Ministry of Poultry’.

Mmmmmm…..Canthan Fried Tengu….

darkace.8925:

There’s a third problem some might have with it. So far we’ve seen a lot of filler content: eat 150 of x, kill 250 of y, click f 100 times in front of z. That’s not the kind of quality content most of us would expect from a full-fledged Guild Wars 2 expansion (one carrying a $40-$60 price tag).

But that’s much of what we’ve got so far through free Living Story content updates. And if that’s indicative of what we can expect every two weeks, then I’m sure many of us would rather wait and pay for a boxed expansion.

I don’t read manga or watch anime, but I have friends who do. And one thing they frequently complain about is the lack of quality in the filler arcs. And there’s the very real possibility that most of the Living Story content will be nothing more than filler arc.

That’s why I mentioned on improving the execution and adding meatier content.

I do agree the current LS is filler, but I don’t necessarily think it’s a bad thing. The LS is something they’re trying out.

Can you imagine the forums if the current LS content was used on major plot points, such as Jormag?

bartrentenaar.8674:

How are they going to implement huge changes like new professions and races? Cause if those will never come, I’m sure the life of gw 2 won’t be as long as it’s predecessor and I’ll be bored way earlier.

> Living Story leads into the Dominion of Four Winds

> Tengu decide to join up in the fight to go back to their homeland.

> Land on Cantha which is currently under attack / locked down by the Ministry of Purity.

> Living Story for the next few months / half a year / [insert timeframe here] focuses on freeing Cantha, with other smaller stories back on Kryta.

> After Cantha is freed, the Tengu are eternally grateful, everyone hugs each other and cries tears of joy, and the Tengu and a profession specific to their race is unlocked for everyone (not just those who took part).

I think people have a problem with it for two reasons:

• They have in their mind what is traditionally in an expansion, and are thinking that no expansion = no new races, professions, lands ect.
• Most of the LS content so far has been temporary, and so on hearing that Anet are going to be keeping up with the LS, that most content will be temporary as well.

However, this may not be the case. It would be entirely possible for Anet to introduce new races, professions, lands, dungeons ect through the LS. Most of these have already been evidenced in the LS so far (Race = Karka, land = Southsun, Dungeons = Most LS content) and regardless of the execution of it, it was shown it can be done.

Improve on the execution of it, add meatier updates with permanent additions, and I’d actually say that adding content using these events as opposed to just ‘load the disc and it’s all available’ would actually be much, much more immersive.