Guild Wars 2

It’s a well-constructed post, even if I don’t fully agree with the conclusions which were drawn. Thanks, OP, it has left me with a bit to think on.

Plum Butter.4058:

Get over the voices and watch the whole thing.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DxmkAoLC6_4

Yeah, no, that really just stretches events to make her look like an idiot. Which she wasn’t. Even if it’s accepted she is responsible (in the strictest sense), she wasn’t stupid. This isn’t the topic to handle this though.

Funky.4861:

The ‘2 dailies per day’ brigade seem to forget that USA is not the whole world, and that timezones restrict EU server players to daily= 1 day. We don’t have that nice option of doing 2 dailies today and chilling out tomorrow. If the daily conveniently reset at 7pm for me i’d be well chuffed, instead of a reset at midnight when i’m asleep.

I wouldn’t object to having the option of doing 3 dailies’ worth of tasks in 1 day- it would probably become tedious but if i could condense a weeks’ worth of dailies into 2 days of activities i can see the appeal for those with odd schedules.

Sorry, it’s not a brigade, just me repeating it . . . and no, sorry, I do often forget not everyone is in my time zone. I actually have friends over so many it just kinda blurs and if someone tells me “It’s 3am here” when I’m seeing 6pm on my clock I just kind of sheepishly go “oops”.

Much like I’m about to do now. Oops.

Mourningcry.9428:

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

The problem with Karma as a currency for these, as far as I can halfway guess . . . is that it’s easily considered a “grind” more so than Laurels. If we can extrapolate what an Ascended ring or Amulet would cost through Karma? The Exotic armor available at Temples costs . . . 4,200 Karma per piece, and already people have said that it’s grind-y.(Bear in mind, 6 Daily achievements nets you 6 Jugs of Liquid Karma which will cover the cost and then some.)

/snip

I think you need to rework your premise…

As an fyi, exotic Karma armor goes fo 42,000 per piece, not 4,200. A jug of liquid karma gives you 4,500 karma. Presuming you use a karma booster (50%) and food (10%), six dailies would get you 1 piece of exotic karma armor (not the full set). A full set costs you 252k karma.

And yes, for some people, 42,000 (not a trivial 4,200) could be considered a grind.

Based on this, you can then extrapolate what a piece of ascended gear may cost in terms of karma. However, I don’t think it holds up under these conditions.

No, probably not. 42,000? Geez wow, I really was off. And I’d just bought mine too.

Note to self, never try to argue math ever again, you suck at it. And details. And everything else.

DancinPuppeh.8421:

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Gele.2048:

i need 20 min max to do daily 100% all its EPICly easy

It’s not so simple as “is it easy” as “I feel I need to log in daily”. For some, it’s a big thing, and it feels like a leash. That’s clear in abundance. Others don’t notice because they’re already in the game daily, and can spare the time to do them.

I agree, I’m one of those people. But it’s our own fault for being on that “leash”. If you want something badly enough then you’ll do it. There’s nothing forcing you to do the daily and get your laurels. It all depends if you want the gear or not

I don’t really want the gear. I just will be getting it because after I finish my Monthly today or tomorrow I’ll have the amount it will cost. And I see little reason not to buy it for my main character. Aside from the fact, well, he’s a ranger.

And if I really wanted another one? I’d do 20 days of work and a monthly next month. If I don’t, I won’t. Things really are just that simple for how I approach this stuff. You should see my plan for getting a Legendary.

It starts with Heck freezing over.

Poledo.3256:

You’re all arguing over something that is changing here in the next week or so, and they have already mentioned they are adding in other ways to obtain Laurels.

I liken the people complaining here to people who want to open their Christmas presents on Thanksgiving.

If they add other ways, I’ll get my work done faster and will relax sooner.

Also, umm, I hate to tell you this? But for the last few years I knew what my Christmas presents were going to be by the second week of October. Usually the answer is “nothing”, or “a quiet day with no family drama”.

Gele.2048:

i need 20 min max to do daily 100% all its EPICly easy

It’s not so simple as “is it easy” as “I feel I need to log in daily”. For some, it’s a big thing, and it feels like a leash. That’s clear in abundance. Others don’t notice because they’re already in the game daily, and can spare the time to do them.

Judge Banks.9018:

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Sure you can. I play it the way I want to play it, and you know, I’m rather close to Best-in-Slot. Three dedicated weekends and I’d have it. Or I could just play the game the way I want, and wait a few months. I’ll get what I “need” eventually, and am not in a rush.

I’m playing the way I want to play, Best-in-Slot gear will be mine eventually, so I apparently can get it that way.

Thanks for understanding that you cannot get BiS in a “few” days just as I stated before. But let’s be honest you probably couldn’t level a character in a few days without crafting anyways.

No, probably not, but what’s your point? You said I couldn’t do it playing the way I wanted. Could not. CANNOT. That was what you said. You moved the goalposts once I defined how I play.

And again, I could do it in the time you want to issue me, if I cared to. But I don’t so why . . . exactly . . . are you saying it’s invalid?

You simply cannot get BiS gear by playing the game how you want to play it.

I can. I will. And that proves you wrong.

Yeah, I liked it when it was just a Mystic Coin and a handful of silver, and nothing else. I opted often not to do it. Then there was the Jugs of Instant Karma and I would treat the list as a checklist to get done either at the start or end of my time. And I wouldn’t sweat it if I didn’t feel up to it, because Karma? I can get that anywhere else.

Now Laurels . . . after I get my main his Amulet and maybe a Ring, I’ll probably no longer even try doing the Daily. I’ll be honest, I’m dropping in more frequently because I know if I put the effort in now, I don’t have to put it in later. That’s the theory behind my method of dealing with this.

Also worth noting . . . I do my Daily in an hour and a half at the most, when events just aren’t syncing up with my timing. I’ve also finished Daily in less than a half hour. Dodge, Kill Count, Gathering, Events, and Crafter. I logged out at the “R&D Waypoint” in Cursed Shore and Arena was starting, I ran to the shoreline to the west and got scent glands for the skritt there, then the Tar Elementals started on the outpost, THEN I finished the two other missions following from the scent glands.

Traveled to home borderlands and crafted my items, hit two trees in the north camp and that was it.

VOLKON.1290:

Pirlipat.2479:

I personally don’t like this “log in daily, if you want xyz” either. So I agree with the TO.

Let me refine that for you.

One way to achieve ascended items is to log in and complete the dailies. You don’t have to do it every day, but only the days that you do will count for that particular path to ascended items.

I’ll go one better. Ask yourself if you really want the items in the first place. If you do, you’ll figure out a way which works until you can get it. If not, you won’t bother.

Bright side? At least it’s not 30 days uninterrupted. Done that song and dance before, and it was considerably not-fun.

Fuzion.4193:

Friends are the only thing that keep me in a game when the fun is gone. A strange conundrum, I know. :P

Oddly, friends in my guild were what kept me coming back (albeit only for special events) for the last two years of Guild Wars 1.

. . . yes. Yes I understand. You know what’s worse than noticing those things? Reading TvTropes and thus knowing the tropes in action before they pay off. Or having a friend who proceeded to explain something to you from his perspective about how . . .

. . . say, Adelbern really did more good for the charr than he did for the humans. By being completely focused on beating them (something he could no longer do) and alienating or otherwise destroying morale of all but the fanatics, he made Ascalon even weaker than the Searing managed to. So, really, he is the reason he lost Ascalon more than the Charr.

There are conversations like that, but over various topics which once you get told . . . you unfortunately will have sticking in the back of your mind. There are reasons people I ran into sometimes in PreSearing would talk about how they should just kidnap Gwen and throw her in a basement to keep her safe that day.

Sericenthe.5310:

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Sericenthe.5310:

They should just use SP’s for Laurels. Buy 10 Laurels with 20 SP’s or whatever the ratio needs to be. Problem solved. Anyone can amass skill points and not have to log in every day.

True, but then you get people who would grind the living heck out of experience. Laurels appear to be a means of controlling how fast those objects being sold are earned more than just another weird currency.

I see. They’re trying to control how fast the players who play 23 hours a day get things. Not possible, they already have everything and are on fractal 7500 with a legendary and full exotic dungeon set with ascended everything and max agony resist.

You’re missing the point I’m trying to illustrate. Placing a method of earning this stuff in existing currencies has issues with people who could just force-grind it in a far shorter amount of time. And that’s assuming nothing new gets added to the Laurel Merchant later.

If they tied it to Karma, you’d get overactive Karma farms and complaining about how people aren’t earning it fast enough. I also ran the math in a rough outline a little bit back and noticed the psychological difference between “a buttload” of Karma versus “ten days of completed achievements”.

If they tied it to Skill Points, and by derivation Experience, you get people grinding experience and complaining they aren’t earning it fast enough.

If you tied it to Influence (why in the name of God….) then you’d get complaints that small guilds can’t compete and big guilds would just stomp-faceroll anyone smaller.

If you tied it to gold, you’d get the “Pay To Win” coming back with a vengeance.

If you tied it to Mystic Coins (which you earn one for Daily and a larger for Monthly) you’d have complaints since it’s used in Legendary-related recipes. Clearly ArenaNet wants you to buy your Legendary instead of using the Coins!

Judge Banks.9018:

Wait?
WHAT?

How did you ever have to wait to get any skill in Guild Wars, Aura of the Lich comes from a level 28 mob, you can probably skill cap it at level 12 if you’re efficient enough. That might take up to 10 hours if you’re not going all out, yet still making an effort to rush.

Oh ye of little knowledge, the wiki shall absolve you of your ignorance. Look how many skills you would have to wait until certain parts of the campaign to buy off Skill Trainers. I’m not talking Elites, my dear reader, like “Aura of the Lich” . . . by the way, that only appears in the final mission of Prophecies and on a post-campaign enemy. So great choice of skills to use as an example! Another one – Hundred Blades, formerly limited to the final mission in Prophecies. Also only appears at certain mission points in other campaigns.

That’s what I’m talking about. If you want those Skills, you had to push through the campaign to get there. Especially Hell’s Precipice where you get “Aura of the Lich”. Or Ember Light Camp, where Dakk would train you on any skill in Prophecies. Or how about the Skill “Power Drain”, which would require you to at least reach Maguuma to pick up. Or transfer campaigns and reach a similar distance.

Maybe it was the Allegiance rank skills? Currently it would take 33 hours to get a max allegiance rank skill with a dedicated group. 66 hours if you were solo and dedicated.

Sunspear skills? I’ve done 0-10 in 23 hours Arjok farming.

So, you could get around that by excessive farming? How exactly does this not compare to what we’re talking about? But no, I was referring specifically to how you would need to at least reach a certain point to access them. And some desirable ones would show up late.

Moreover where did you get the idea that gear wasn’t important? Having proper runes and sigils for your build was imperative for most professions.

“Did you even play Guild Wars?”

What’s “proper”? Remember, there were several builds you could make per class. Every Assassin didn’t need to have the same runes (even if they did), every Monk didn’t need to have the same runes (and they frequently did not, at least two skilled monks I know had extra armor in their bags . . . one Prot set and one Heal set). Rangers tended to have a couple sets too, if they ran Trap builds often enough.

I think so, wait, is Guild Wars the one with the orcs? Yes of course I played Guild Wars, and I remember it fairly well apparently. By the way, keep being hilarious trying to get a rise out of me, that’s not working.

Now to get back on the topic of gear, after all that is what this topic was about was it not? A simple analogy would be the comparison in loot between Borderlands and Borderlands 2, as such the same connection can easily be made about Guild Wars and Guild Wars 2. You simply cannot get BiS gear by playing the game how you want to play it.

Sure you can. I play it the way I want to play it, and you know, I’m rather close to Best-in-Slot. Three dedicated weekends and I’d have it. Or I could just play the game the way I want, and wait a few months. I’ll get what I “need” eventually, and am not in a rush.

I’m playing the way I want to play, Best-in-Slot gear will be mine eventually, so I apparently can get it that way.

WonderfulCT.6278:

I figured as much when I started this thread. So I guess there isn’t any references then which is fine just wish they would have killed off the GW1 character to stop all the loose ends.

They did . . . rather, time did. There are about three to five generations worth of time between then and now

Sericenthe.5310:

They should just use SP’s for Laurels. Buy 10 Laurels with 20 SP’s or whatever the ratio needs to be. Problem solved. Anyone can amass skill points and not have to log in every day.

True, but then you get people who would grind the living heck out of experience. Laurels appear to be a means of controlling how fast those objects being sold are earned more than just another weird currency.

Uncle Salty.6342:

If you missed 2 days of logging in, you could still finish all 3 at one go on the 3rd day. Meaning 3 days of tasks.

In the GW2 context, if you logged in only on the third day, you’d being doing 15 tasks.
Because 3 × 5 = 15. If multiple sums perturbs you, think of it as 5+5+5= 15. Or if you had 3 baskets of 5 apples, you’d have 15 apples!.

That wasn’t so hard!

So, between a person who religiously logs in everyday for 3 days and a person who logs in once every 3 days, would they being completing the same amount of tasks for 3 days worth of rewards? Yes…

So really, what are some of you smoking.

I like being talked down to like I’m not grasping the comparison. I am, but I’m also pointing out . . . why is it wrong that doing the same amount of time of work, over a different period of overall time, would get the same results all across the board?

Tom plays every day for 30 days, yes? So he gets his work done fastest, and now has his reward.

Phil . . . I’m calling him Phil because I hate guys named Phil. It rhymes with bill and I hate bills . . . anyway.

Phil plays every other day on average for 60 days. He gets his reward not as fast as Tom, but why would that matter since he’s still playing . . . in essence, 30 days worth of time. So he gets his reward after putting in 30 days worth of work over 60 days, meaning . . . he put in the same time, for the same reward.

Now Harry. Harry doesn’t play as often, so it takes him three times as long, yes? 90 days to put in the same work as 30 for Tom? But he gets the same reward. Of course, as we noticed, he plays less so he’s not “missing” days . . . he’s just not playing them. He’s going to get the same reward anyway.

Now, assuming the other players are doing their work diligently? Tom now has three rewards over 90 days, because he played every day Harry or Phil didn’t. Phil has a reward and half credit towards a second one. Harry feels put out because he doesn’t have as much as the others . . .

. . . why should he feel he’s entitled to more? Is he going to play more often if he has the rewards? Is he going to stop playing because he’s not getting triple what he was putting in time for?

I would like the system you proposed, except . . . that’s not what’s in place. I would also like to point out, and I have before . . . if I am clever about my timing I can technically get two Dailies in the same day, so I can skip every other day and still get the same reward. That’s close to what you’re describing. Of course, Harry who plays less than me still suffers, but if he’s playing less is he going to need the same rewards at the same time?

. . . as for what I’m smoking? I got ribs in the smoker out back, but I can save you some if you want.

Lunar Sunset.8742:

If you’re a casual player playing a MMO and assume you should get the same rewards as people who play everyday for many hours, you are greatly mistaken. This isn’t and issue, it’s an issue for people who are spending time with their kids/wife and day dreaming of what they could be doing on GW2 instead.

Yeah, I hate to say it . . . that’s probably not an issue with the game, neighbor.

Short answer? No referencing them because it’s not expected for everyone who plays this game played the first game. Which is one reason why the Hall of Monument rewards are mostly cosmetic-only.

Longer answer? It’s really hard to create one unified character to represent the thousands or more player characters which existed. Add in that not everyone who played GW1 did all the content together. Some only did Nightfall, some skipped it, some didn’t do anything but Prophecies . . .

Really hard to deal with that from a writing standpoint, let alone logistical one. Look how Knights of the Old Republic 2 got forced to deal with it. Or the Fable series. These are two off the top of my head which got around the idea of not knowing what entirely happened in the original game. I’m sure others exist.

This is a little sloppy and rambling but really it boils down to:

“The writers decided it would be easier for them to be less visible than characters who had a specific historical slot written for them.”

Zoey Hellry.7298:

What is the problem here. Laurels are optional. Dailies and Monthlys are optional achievements. Those players that have the most time to commit to the game have a higher probability of being able to complete achievements because of the time they have.

The problem is a perception problem, primarily. People perceive that there is the Ascended gear, and you can do dailies to achieve it, so there is a carrot to entice them to do their dailies rather than not with the things in the Laurel Merchant. (Note, some others do really want the mini for 100 Laurels ahead of the Amulets. Weird, huh?)

So what they perceive is that they’re being “coerced” into doing it. And that makes them feel upset. I can’t argue against someone’s feelings, I could try to list off why I think they’re wrong but . . . if they feel it strongly enough, I don’t think I can (or should) try to convince them to change their mind.

. . . of course, that doesn’t stop people feeling strongly in the other direction from chiming up. And then we get discussions which are two sides feeling very strongly about an issue in opposite directions but can’t seem to get to see the other side.

If it were an actual physical location I would be selling water balloons right now. Or paintball guns.

Judge Banks.9018:

Remember the Guild Wars where you used to be able to get BiS gear in less than few days just by playing the game?

“*What Happened?*

Remember how in Guild Wars 1 if you weren’t PvP and unlocking skills through Balthazar Faction you had to wait forever to get access to certain skills . . . and by the time you got them you probably found more efficient ways of doing without?

Guild Wars 1 was constructed completely differently from the ground up, and that design got really kind of worn down towards the end. The initial idea was that people would do the PvE to learn the game then go into the PvP side of it. When that didn’t happen the game pretty much stopped being the initial concept and had to adapt. It did it well enough, but as I said . . . that kinda started to get worn thin even as Nightfall was getting handled. Important to note that GW1 it wasn’t the gear which was of much importance, it was your attributes which controlled your attack effectiveness.

Guild Wars 2 was designed as a different game, but take note. You had people getting “Best in Slot” gear within a few days anyway. You still can get the “Best in Slot” within a month for one of your choice, or faster if you’re lucky/determined.

Eddard.2930:

I haven’t finished my main story yet and I’m a casual player. My wife and I play together one or two hours a week.

I’ve heard that you can’t complete your story without a team of other players. Is this true?

The final bit of the story is to run the Arah dungeon in Story Mode, which is you and four others. Why they did this, I don’t know. I do know that I’m up for it shortly myself.

You . . . probably won’t get a straight answer out of them anymore. The Internet has kind of squeezed that until it stopped being wise.

Far as I can tell, they listen, but they don’t respond to everything and they certainly don’t intend on making all the requests posted around here happen. Possibly because many of them just are completely opposed to each other. And that’s still too much conjecture for me to feel safe saying absolutely.

penatbater.4710:

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Bullshizle.2675:

It doesn’t matter how many times you log in, you still get the same laurels according to the work you’ve put into it.

If someone doesn’t log in and doesn’t complete his achievements he doesn’t get a laurel, but why should he ? Because he didn’t do anything for it, right ?

And yes you have a point someone who does it every day will get it faster than someone who doesn’t but then again that’s the system with everything, if you want a full set of armor you need to do dungeons, etc,…

One thing they could however change about it, is that it would be possible to catch up, that you have a chanse to finnish previous dailys but then again the name wouldn’t be daily achievement anymore…

Well . . . there already is something like that because the Daily resets at the same time every day. In the States, that’s 7pm EST I think? It’s technically possible to do two Dailies in the same day if you can time it right . . .

I don’t think so. If you’re not able to do the daily for the day before the reset, after the time marker has passed (exactly after, say, 8am), the next time you relog or change map, your daily req would’ve changed already.

I’m not sure you got me. I’ve done Daily twice in the same “day”. Like, for instance, last Tuesday’s on Wednesday morning then Wednesday’s after dinner that night. If you can get into a rhythm like that, you CAN skip every other day and still get all your Dailies

Bullshizle.2675:

It doesn’t matter how many times you log in, you still get the same laurels according to the work you’ve put into it.

If someone doesn’t log in and doesn’t complete his achievements he doesn’t get a laurel, but why should he ? Because he didn’t do anything for it, right ?

And yes you have a point someone who does it every day will get it faster than someone who doesn’t but then again that’s the system with everything, if you want a full set of armor you need to do dungeons, etc,…

One thing they could however change about it, is that it would be possible to catch up, that you have a chanse to finnish previous dailys but then again the name wouldn’t be daily achievement anymore…

Well . . . there already is something like that because the Daily resets at the same time every day. In the States, that’s 7pm EST I think? It’s technically possible to do two Dailies in the same day if you can time it right . . .

damny.9342:

I still don’t really see a need to change the dailies. All that’s needed is that either laurels, or the gear you can acquire with them, aren’t only available via dailies. The game already had a casual friendly currency, namely karma.

The problem with Karma as a currency for these, as far as I can halfway guess . . . is that it’s easily considered a “grind” more so than Laurels. If we can extrapolate what an Ascended ring or Amulet would cost through Karma? The Exotic armor available at Temples costs . . . 4,200 Karma per piece, and already people have said that it’s grind-y.(Bear in mind, 6 Daily achievements nets you 6 Jugs of Liquid Karma which will cover the cost and then some.)

The next lowest cost is for Masterwork armor (no Rares are available it seems) for 1,344 Karma. I had to REALLY comb for an 80 Masterwork armor by the way. Weapons were easier. And the Fine armor off the same vendor was 672 Karma – exactly half as much.

( Karma Vendor used for this — http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Bladed_Softness )

Assuming that each rank would be double as much as the one before, you’d be possibly seeing 8,400 Karma for an Ascended armor piece from a Karma vendor. Trinkets, well, I can only find level 79 Trinkets so extrapolation becomes a bit more difficult there., and I’m not going to touch it. 8,400 Karma six times works out to . . . roughly? . . . 36 Dailies . . . for the armor, assuming the cost would not be higher.

Of course, if we assume the rate they want Ascended to be earned is exactly the rate they’re setting Laurels to purchase it? If they wanted Karma to buy Ascended trinkets, you’d be looking at roughly 135,000 Karma per piece.

NOBODY is going to naturally get that much Karma, and nobody is going to use it on Ascended when you still buy Bloodstone Shards with it. I submit that by putting a Karma price tag roughly equivalent to what the Jugs would provide by completing dailies would look much much worse than “30 Laurels”, and promote more farming events than was already happening, instead of going for daily achievements in whatever zones people wanted to do it in.

Palinore.9204:

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

. . . I’m surprised nobody brought up Ultima Online and how housing made the landscape look like small cities with houses crammed anywhere they would possibly fit. And they still stunk due to the way the game worked (not always secure and sometimes a sign saying “come get me” if it was in a spot someone else wanted).

Are you dissing on UO? How dare you!

I played UO, and I enjoyed playing on UO, but . . .

There were plenty of nice flat places which became overrun with housing. (Verity Island, that white snowy island?) It made it impossible to see any kind of landscape let alone people hiding between houses due to the view. This led often to PKers hiding in there on mounts and rushing out to gank people who were close enough.

Then there were places between forests and mountains where you could stick a small house . . . and people did, nice little mining shacks. Which screamed out “hey, come get me, I’m making metal!” to the savvy . . . and if someone wanted that spot for their own house all they had to do was camp it and figure out who owned it, then kill them until they gave up.

Like I said, I played UO and I liked certain aspects of it. The housing was one which was a huge mixed bag. Convenient, and useful, but if you made an effort to get it to look nice there was a high chance of getting yourself harassed due to being a target. And if you happened to be good at everything but PvP?

. . . UO was not fun if you weren’t good at PvP.

Uncle Salty.6342:

So this is the current system.

The alternative to FOTM is to religiously finish your dailies . Meaning if you want X item, keep doing it for said amount of days. Putting aside, monthly achievement bonus of 10 laurels, let’s put things into perspective before I go further.

Assuming Tom, Phallus and Harry all want an ascended ring. 30 laurels. Which ring is of no relevance. Don’t bring necessity in. They want it, so it’s necessary to them. Your opinion of what is and what isn’t would be moot.

Tom logs in and does his achievements everyday. So it’d take him 30 days to hit 30 laurels.

Phallus comes once every two days which would take him 60 days to hit 30 laurels.

Harry often gets himself in a tangle and only manages to log in once every 3 days. Which would ultimately take him 90 days to reach 30 laurels.

With all the hue and cry for all the unnecessary things out there, why isn’t this a concern for any of you casuals or players who log in irregularly?

There are people who live rather sporadic lifestyles. They can be busy for a few and be stuck on the couch for the next. So because dailies are dailies, the deadline expires on the day itself. As such attaining said item from the laurel shop would take unnaturally long.

There are games like Forsaken World which allows you to accumulate your rewards for up to 3 days. That’s a decent compromise.

And it isn’t from the kindness from my heart I thought of this. I just went to bed early and forgot all about the last 15% on gathering to finish my daily. Brain fart happened and I wonder why this isn’t a bigger issue.

They all get their Rings in the same amount of subjective play time.

. . . what’s the problem here?

. . . I’m surprised nobody brought up Ultima Online and how housing made the landscape look like small cities with houses crammed anywhere they would possibly fit. And they still stunk due to the way the game worked (not always secure and sometimes a sign saying “come get me” if it was in a spot someone else wanted).

Cazio.2137:

Riss.1536:

If think there are a lot of people who never played GW1.

You are right. The game was not popular and filled little more than a niche role in the MMO community. So yes, few have played GW1. However, Anet was supposed to be trying to compete with WoW. You do not compete with WoW by having an end game that turns the player base into teenage girls looking for the perfect outfit.

I don’t think they said they were out to compete with WoW this time, much as the last time they said explicitly they weren’t.

Also, GW1 wasn’t really “unpopular”, but it didn’t get very much marketing or notice that I remember. I don’t think half the gaming press really covered it well, because it wasn’t WoW or competition. It arrived quietly, and with not too much fanfare. GW2 on the other hand . . .

. . . is another example of how marketing can raise expectations really high through hype and then disappoint by not being 100% perfect and the game which made Blizzard say “you know what guys, we’re out”.

Vorch.2985:

• Precursors Quests would be started by killing 1000 foes in PvE and 250 foes in WvW with the weapon in the desired precursor category.

In short, gaining the “Mastery” achievement with the weapon? Also, I would prefer NOT to have to go do WvW to that extent. Possibly because it is an extreme amount if your server, I dunno, checks out of WvW for three weeks running and thus you can’t accumulate kills reliably.

Though it is better than 250 Badges of Honor, since every kill doesn’t net you a Badge.

• Once the quest is started, the player would be given 5 riddles, giving clues as to which jumping puzzle chests have the 5 portions of the precursor that they need.

I’d also think jumping puzzles wouldn’t be fair to require. Especially if they happen to be the WvW ones. I’d say five portions, five different things:

- Start off having to go to a specific spot for the Precursor. It’s okay to have these overlap or otherwise repeat rather than be randomized. An account-bound item is received from the spot once you interact with it. A mail is sent at that time using riddles or otherwise lore-based details to point you to:
- A champion native spawn, not an event-bound one. If the item is in your inventory, a special loot bag drops with a “Precursor Shard”.
- A random DE; if part of a chain it appears at the LAST event in the chain. When it’s finished, a chest appears in the corner a la daily/monthly/fractals achievements to claim the next “Precursor Shard”.
- A Point of Interest, which will cause the chest to appear again. A specific emote or /say string may activate it.
- A specific spot in your racial home city where you can interact with an NPC for it.

• With the 5 portions in tow, bring them to the three greatest blacksmiths in Tyria: Occam, Izu Steelshrike, and Beigarth. Here, you could require the player to bring lodestones, cores, or other crafting materials to each one. They could also reward you with a lodestone per day for completing a task for them (These lodestones would be ACCOUNTBOUND of course). This would allow players to attain the weapon much more quickly if they farm materials or purchase them from the TP, but also able to attain the weapon with 0 RNG, albeit slower Once complete, this awards the player with a “Dull” or “rusty” precursor

I mentioned this idea above – why not get some use out of the Home Instance again? Have them arrive one day after the last piece is found, and say “I heard you found something wondrous…” and offer to set up shop to study the weapon for repair. They ask for specific materials for each Precursor, but in lesser amounts and random order over the course of a few days. These could be the same items as the Forge takes, mind you.

• Next, player would be tasked with slaying champions around Tyria with a “Dull/Rusty” Precursor. I think killing the zone boss in every zone would be interesting. (Shadow Behemoth, Megadestroyer, etc.) That would be 25 total meta-events, and you would actually be slaying legends. [An alternative would be to kill 5 champions in each zone]

I’d avoid that, but adding in a specific “legendary” (the purple frame higher than champion) spawn which is triggered by the presentation of a “Unfinished Precursor” for each one, that people would have to go trigger and fight. Say, for Dusk, the previous wielder in ghost form.

• You now have a “Tempered” Precursor. With this weapon, you now surpass the greatest heroes of Tyria… each member of Destiny’s Edge. You can only attempt one battle each day. (Logan would run away, so no biggie)

I’d skip this step in favor of the revisions above and below.

• Lastly, you fight your doppelganger in the Mists who wields the finished version of your legendary weapon. Your doppelganger will be champion with a permanent swiftness and protection buff and be given weapon specific (not class specific) skills.

A single battle you can trigger once per day, in a circular arena with a few elements you can “hide behind”. The weapon champion uses unique skills based on but not exactly like the ones for that weapon type.

• After defeating your doppelganger, you would attain your precursor.

You mean Legendary? Also, as I suggested above, the Legendary becomes Account Bound and has your character name in the description. “Skillfully and masterfully earned by Carson McChickenPants”

Relegate him to providing support (personnel, materiel, et cetera) to taking down the next Dragon. He’s already put the Pact forces at the disposal of the Commander as he requires them, this pretty much counts.

“Don’t use signets”

Sorry to say, I’ll use Signet of Renewal if the boss has a long-timed condition since it’ll drop it every 10 seconds. Or if they spam a lot of them, then I can use it and drop them onto my pet instead.

Then again, I’m a ranger. I already don’t get invited into dungeon PUGs :P

Konig Des Todes.2086:

Did you even read what I said – or what you quoted? I just outright stated that none of the gods created the world (even bolded the word “not” before). Melandru terraformed it, as per the Orrian History Scrolls, which over time would have been changed in legends to “create” it would seem.

Though it seems I left my last statement incomplete – both human and charr (if not more) have these legends but they’re just, as said, misconceptions.

I read it, mostly I’m chiming in agreeing and quoting you since you listed it too. I agree, it’s left pretty clear the Gods didn’t outright create the world, they merely shaped it.

I was mostly quoting your part there concerning the three other races and what they might think. In short, two of the other three wouldn’t care and one would just shrug it off when asked about it.

I’d settle for this concept:

At some point you wind up getting a weaponsmith / bowyer / artificer into your home instance and they ask you for something every day. Each day you complete the request, their wares get a little higher in level and more than basic models show up. Then after so many, you get an instanced mission somewhat like the personal story to go secure something for them which is unusual and you get a special weapon. It’s not unique in the sense of stats or model, but you get to apply a name to it. (Within standard MMO naming rules!) But it’s only a level 20 weapon . . .

. . . but you keep doing things for the crafter and eventually he asks you to do another mission. Perhaps he wants a specific type of wood, or heard about high-quality metal veins, or a crystal which could be used. So again, an instanced event and afterwards he offers to replace your personalized weapon since he’s gotten better resources. You get it back but it’s now level 40.

You do this route a couple more times, but once you hit the point where it should be a level 80 item, he wants a word. He needs you to track down something from each region of Tyria in order to craft a weapon the likes of which none have seen yet. Depending on what you bring him and how you direct him, you get a result which will be your legendary weapon. Sure, the model might be common to people (Oh you went for this glowing diamond instead of Risen magical essence? You got Sunrise instead of Twilight as a model!) but the stat distribution and name would be yours.

Tentatively, yes.

. . . but not for a while yet, such as if/when they expand to another large landmass like Elona or to the far north . . . or west, or whatever. Only if we get an update with 5-10 new areas and loads of new content to fill that new level range. Only if that is self-contained so that the levels only matter there, and not elsewhere.

All this can be done without raising the level past 80, of course. That’d be great too.

Why does it seem Arah Explorable has the same vaunted difficulty people talk about similar to Duncan the Black in the old days? Remember that? And yet people got to a point where “runs” were organized which made it easy.

I also remember, way way back of all of five months ago (give or take) when people were saying Ascalonian Catacombs was beastly hard and needed to be toned down.

Zaxares.5419:

JohnLShannonhouse.1820:

The GW1 descriptions of the krait said they were evil and bloodthirsty:
“the Krait rival even the Charr for viciousness and cruel ingenuity. These semi-intelligent creatures are vicious and xenophobic, attacking all other species on sight.”

They no longer shape-shift, but this is hardly the only change we have seen in races in Tyria over time. Charr, Tengu and Grawl could not, apparently, make human speech in Prophecies. The Jotun were mostly mesmers with a few warriors. Griffons used to wield smites and symbols, the precursors to meditations and symbols, but do not anymore.

Charr and Tengu were shown speaking in EotN and Factions respectively, so we can safely assume that they were capable of speech even during Prophecies, but that they just never bothered to say anything to their enemies.

The Grawl in GW2 bug me a lot actually. Even back in EotN, the Grawl were portrayed as being only semi-intelligent, barely capable of forming the basics of society. (There was one quest in EotN where a Charr is attempting to talk to a Grawl, and after a long, one-sided exchange, the Grawl’s only response is “Ook!”) Their intelligence seems to have advanced remarkably fast in 250 years, to the point of being able to speak at literacy levels rivalling humans and other races, and of grasping much larger concepts such as farming and ranching.

Likewise, the Krait also seem to have advanced remarkably fast from EotN to GW2. They were never shown as having any kind of permanent settlement or semblance of society in GW1, and never used anything apart from their own claws, teeth and magical abilities to hunt, yet in GW2 they apparently have developed weaponry, metallurgy (as shown by the cages they use to hold slaves), engineering (krait harpoon cannons), and have a hierarchical social structure and a species-wide organised religion led by the Witches. I’ll grant that the former two could have been stolen from the other races, but the latter two developments would take a lot longer than 250 years to set up.

In contrast, the Naga from Cantha are shown wielding weapons and wearing clothing, so obviously they do have some kind of pre-existing society and technological development.

250 years is a long time, concerning the growth of culture. Especially since the krait were forced into a much more confined and volatile area after Orr was risen and their old habitats destroyed. Culture can possibly form and be shaped through continued conflicts with and outside pressure from other cultures.

Konig Des Todes.2086:

But it is a proven fact that the Six Gods did not create Tyria – it is, as said, just a misconception created from legends and the fact the Six (or at least Melandru) terraformed the world. Both human and charr (if not more).

The asura won’t admit it, to them the gods are just functions (albeit very complex ones) inside the grand equation that is the Eternal Alchemy. The sylvari have no concept of the Six as they came into being long after the Six stopped taking an active role. And the norn have the Spirits of the Wild, treating the Six like rather powerful Spirits as opposed to Gods. (Note, from what I’ve played with so far in norn storyline, the Spirits exist in the Mists primarily and rarely directly interact with the world.)

And . . . the charr bit about Melandru feels a little weird to me. Of the (then) five active Gods, only she gets a mention? One would think they’d be more aware of Balthazar given their lust for battle. While I have no basis for this statement, I think it’s possible that part is inaccurate. (Especially because we rather know Melandru didn’t create the world, only shaped it to make it more inhabitable.)

Elthurien.8356:

He’s a necromancer. It would be easy to justify him becoming evil as one who tries to control the true power of the undying, unknowing that it is the undying that are slowly corrupting his soul with the long term goal of controlling him and all other practitioners of the dark arts. I wish the game had FFA pvp so I could kill every last one of the evil necromancers.

Necromancers aren’t inherently evil. Olias was very much more in tune with “dead things have to stay dead” and the idea that minions and such weren’t really bringing the dead back to life . . . just animating the flesh.

Then there’s . . . there’s Eve. Who was not evil. Just a lunatic.

bpphantom.8243:

Tybalt is just about the only NPC in the PS that has a personality.

I take exception to that, Tybalt . . . as much as I enjoyed missions with him . . . didn’t really have a complex personality. He had a sense of humor, which made things fun. I could sum up Tybalt in two sentences, like any other character in the Guild Wars games. (And that doesn’t make them bad, I could sum up almost any character in fiction with two sentences given enough time to think.)

Kai Darkness.5801:

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

- The Six Gods are not the creators of the Mists, nor of Tyria . . . they live in the Mists somewhere but their realms haven’t been visited by mortals since the Six Gods began to decline in influence after the events of the Rubicon Prophecy (Guild Wars: Eye of the North).

Do we actually know that for sure? Because the Humans believe the Gods made Tyria, and even the Charr have legends regarding Melandru creating the world, but admit it grudgingly?

I haven’t seen a charr tell me that. I also haven’t seen anything which didn’t only say the Six brought humanity to Tyria, not that they created it . . .

This reasoning is made from things I have actually read out of the game and the “Guild Wars Manuscripts” . . . which, to be honest, were written in a time when humanity WAS more or less at the center of events taking place. Now, not so much.

Pointing out here, there is a difference between “listening to our concerns” and “doing what we want them to do”. Are they listening? Almost certainly. Comprehending? Possibly.

Going to get right on top of every issue as it’s brought up? Almost certainly not. Sorry to say the obvious.

Dra Keln.2015:

I’d like to takes moment to congratulate Beast on his excellent taste. I assume kaylee was to be an engineer?

If not, then it needs to happen now anyway.

Rifter.6591:

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Rifter.6591:

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Nemisis.4690:

I do think a public apology is in order here, post haste sirs! Also, a return to good old listening to your players as they know what’s best for gaming, as we are gaming! We’re gamers, it’s what we do! You may be developers and bring this fine product all together but we know something you don’t… what works and what does not! So cut the arrogance and get back to putting out a bug-free and exciting game world.

/tinfoil ON

You know, listening to the players is a sticky proposition. Who do they listen to? The umpteen suggestions for mounts? The people who like Ascended gear, the people who want it patched out completely? The people who want more content, the people who want more content now, or the people who don’t want content until everything is 100% fixed but can’t seem to completely agree on everything that’s broken?

I’d like them to listen to their players. I’d also like to know they’re listening but not bowing to the will of the players.

This is why you only listen to the actual facts not any particular group of players.

Had they provided the ability for us to data log not only would more people have participated in the gathering of that data by a large margin(seriously, maybe 1% at the very most are going to spend the time to find/buy a program to record gameplay and encode and upload the footage, if we had a ingame option many more people would submit data) they would have found out about the issue much sooner, and avoided this PR blunder.

They won’t provide the ability for players to data log unless they also prevent the players from seeing that data or knowing they’re being logged. Otherwise the data may be faulty by being skewed (“I turn on my logging tool for the periods where I know it will support me, and turn it off when I do my real farming.”) or that log in itself could be data-mined to feed into bot programs.

These are extreme examples, but we have seen that people do go to such lengths if they want an edge.

The program is running on the client PC anyways it would not be hard to record every line of code being processed if you have the knowlege, it only takes hackers hours/days to crack a program, and once cracked you can data mine it all you want and anet would have no idea so i dont see it as being a huge deal if they players see the data, they can anyways with little effort. Anet could verify the submitted data against their own server logs easy enough to detect any tampering with the data itself.

Data mining isnt going to hurt anyone, its just going to bring the facts into light.

That might be, but I’d still think having something which is geared to look distinctly at drop data would be half the battle when data mining :P

But then, I’m only an end-user and not a programmer or such. I only go by what friends can tell me about it. (Oddly, they told me close to what I said – a company trying not to give out precise data . . . in this case drop tables, would just get the info themselves.)

Rifter.6591:

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Nemisis.4690:

I do think a public apology is in order here, post haste sirs! Also, a return to good old listening to your players as they know what’s best for gaming, as we are gaming! We’re gamers, it’s what we do! You may be developers and bring this fine product all together but we know something you don’t… what works and what does not! So cut the arrogance and get back to putting out a bug-free and exciting game world.

/tinfoil ON

You know, listening to the players is a sticky proposition. Who do they listen to? The umpteen suggestions for mounts? The people who like Ascended gear, the people who want it patched out completely? The people who want more content, the people who want more content now, or the people who don’t want content until everything is 100% fixed but can’t seem to completely agree on everything that’s broken?

I’d like them to listen to their players. I’d also like to know they’re listening but not bowing to the will of the players.

This is why you only listen to the actual facts not any particular group of players.

Had they provided the ability for us to data log not only would more people have participated in the gathering of that data by a large margin(seriously, maybe 1% at the very most are going to spend the time to find/buy a program to record gameplay and encode and upload the footage, if we had a ingame option many more people would submit data) they would have found out about the issue much sooner, and avoided this PR blunder.

They won’t provide the ability for players to data log unless they also prevent the players from seeing that data or knowing they’re being logged. Otherwise the data may be faulty by being skewed (“I turn on my logging tool for the periods where I know it will support me, and turn it off when I do my real farming.”) or that log in itself could be data-mined to feed into bot programs.

These are extreme examples, but we have seen that people do go to such lengths if they want an edge.

LordByron.8369:

1 month to get 1 piece of ascended item?
Nice so you need 1,5 yeras to equip 1 character ._.

Only if you only use that method, or if another method isn’t brought out later. If they make Ascended available through WvW, I bet the hardcore Dub-vee-Dub will have theirs quickly compared to Laurels.

Right now, Amulets are available only through Laurels, and the Rings are available in Fractals and via Laurels. Back items are mostly only available through Fractals through repeated trips. Nothing else is yet available.

Again, you can get one Ascended Amulet for 30 Laurels. That’s 30 Daily achievement completions, or 20 Daily and one Monthly. In short – one semi-casual month will get you one. I play for maybe two hours a day, and I’ll have my amulet after Wednesday. A few of my guildmates have theirs before me and they basically play roughly six of seven days of the week and only for a few hours.

It’s kind of self-centered but right now I’m only seeing a problem if you insist on only gearing through laurels . . . or if you must insist on gearing all your characters instead of just the ones you use the most.

Nemisis.4690:

I do think a public apology is in order here, post haste sirs! Also, a return to good old listening to your players as they know what’s best for gaming, as we are gaming! We’re gamers, it’s what we do! You may be developers and bring this fine product all together but we know something you don’t… what works and what does not! So cut the arrogance and get back to putting out a bug-free and exciting game world.

/tinfoil ON

You know, listening to the players is a sticky proposition. Who do they listen to? The umpteen suggestions for mounts? The people who like Ascended gear, the people who want it patched out completely? The people who want more content, the people who want more content now, or the people who don’t want content until everything is 100% fixed but can’t seem to completely agree on everything that’s broken?

I’d like them to listen to their players. I’d also like to know they’re listening but not bowing to the will of the players.

Vayne.8563:

For every time the community is right about something, there’s another time that they’ve been wrong about something. It happens all the time. Instead of people picking on a single word, perceived, and making it an insult, they should just take it for what the word means.

It’s like when someone’s charged with a crime, it’s always an alleged crime. It doesn’t mean the guy didn’t do the crime, it means it hasn’t been proven.

I still maintain people are too sensitive about the word itself. Because that’s what most people picked up on.

“Alleged crime” is also used in the cases where the party is in fact guilty. Of course, in an American legal system we have “innocent until proven guilty” but that’s not . . . necessarily the case elsewhere. It’s entirely possible the person didn’t do it, or did do it, or evidence is not understood . . . analogies are really bad for this sort of thing.

Though really what they’ve picked on is more “X-Files conspiracy” which honestly, I’ve seen loot complaints which do approach that. I’ll share one:

Nexon shareholders have pressured NCSoft to make ArenaNet get more money out of the Gem Store so they were ordered from On High to alter drop rates so people spend money on gems to convert to gold, and then alter the exchange rate so you would always be getting less and less gold for the same amount of gems, meaning you buy more gems to get gold you can’t get due to the loot system now being broken. All at the behest of the Nexon Overlords.

In this case, the loot system was broken. Conspiracy though? Meh, if it is, I’d like to see someone prove it.

Rifter.6591:

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Rifter.6591:

Personally i didnt see an issue untill the x-files conspiracy comment, thets when it went from being handled professionally to being handled like a grade school name calling match.

If they would have left out insults and just done their job quietly and found and fixed the issue i think they would be getting a much better response from the playerbase. Like i said above what did they expect the response to be to this after they called the playerbase a bunch of x-files conspiracy theorists, its obviously not going to be a good response at that point once the insults are flying, its going to be even worse because we are right and they are wrong.

I took it as a lighter comment with a twist of sarcasm, which was born of someone tired of fielding the same comments over and over. Again, yes unprofessional, but seeing the tone of some posts which get snuffed here on the forums? NOT undeserved for some posters.

Thats just part of the job though, ANY internet game forum that has ever exsisted in the history of this planet has people who cry/insult the devs and are never happy no matter what. These people will always exsist and come with the territory so to speak there is nothing anyone can do about that.

The second you sink to their level you have lost the fight tough, as devs they need to NOT sink to their level and always act in a professional matter no matter how hard that might be.

From a human standpoint i totally understand getting upset/aggrivated over the comments they see on a daily basis, however that doesnt change the fact that its thier job to act as professionals. There are many people who work customer service that get kitten on every day by people and im sure would like nothing more than to tell them to kitten off and die but most dont, most handle themselves as professionals and keep doing their jobs. Just imagine how much crap the IRS first level phone reps must take on a daily basis, or even cops yet they manage to bite the bullet and do their jobs. If anet doesnt have people on staff that can handle the heat they need to spend some time to find some that can.

The ones who can aren’t going to take that job. Nobody sane would want to handle things like this day in, day out . . .

You couldn’t pay someone enough to put up with this forum’s off days . . . let alone when it’s at its worst.

Again, I’m agreeing it was unprofessional for the “X-Files conspiracy” comment to slip by someone’s mental filter. And I also think that if anything comes of this? It’ll be just another weapon people who want to beat up on the game will drag out any time the company says “we didn’t/don’t see a problem, but we’ll look into it”.

I’ll chalk this up under the tally of “reasons no company should make an MMO”.