Guild Wars 2

Ashen.2907:

Vayne.8563:

Promises generally don’t come with caveats.

Agreed.

Colin also, in an interview, said, “absolutely,” in reference to the addition. “Absolutely,” precludes any caveat because its, well, absolute.

Except when it’s not.

Which, well, is almost every case someone uses “absolutely”. I really hate using that word because I know I mean it (usually in the case of “are you ever going to..” “absolutely” meaning I’m literally going to get started on it after the person questioning me stops). I tend to preface it myself with “if everything goes right…”.

Same goes for the colloquialism “one hundred percent”.

Edit:

That said, I think that any discussion of what is to come, or when, should probably be shelved until after PAX.

Not on these forums. These forums we like to speculate and hype ourselves up then rage when our self-hyped ideas never show up.

I am very much looking forward to see what they have been up to and where they intend to take us.

I am too. If only because either it’s going to be awesome or it’ll give lots of material on which to discuss improvements or snark on quietly with the rest of the forum-goers

KngGilgamesh.3481:

Didn’t they give an update during the second feature pack? something about incorporating collections into precursor scavenging.

Not that I recall. I recall it being tossed about by myself and others as one potential way of allowing it to happen for an account (once per account) but not as a definitive way.

I know I and others also said Mawdrey resembled a process like that too, come to think of it.

Nilkemia.8507:

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

I don’t know about you but my sylvari character’s Dream ended with the Shadow of the Dragon fight there. So . . . not sure how that doesn’t connect with the thing Mordremoth sent which resembled what was in the Dream.

Also, dreams being misinterpreted is not the same as the Dream.

Because at the time, everyone involved (our own character included) assumed it meant fighting Zhaitan, although we (the player) could tell something was off. If anything, that could’ve meant Mordremoth was connected to the Nightmare, or that was a lingering part of its corruption that the Nightmare Court had gotten in touch with.

It’s my own theory, but I think Mordremoth is connected to the Nightmare – that it’s a latent programming of the sylvari which woke up in roughly 10% of the sylvari which have been produced as of the time of the ‘Secondborn’ and forms into this . . . cult . . . because Mordremoth was not yet awake. They didn’t know where the urges were from, only that it was not from the Pale Tree.

It’s not perfect but it fits.

Only later when the Shadow attacked the summit does Trahearne note that we saw that thing in our Dream too (which is a bit odd, seeing as Caithe was there and not him, thus it’d make more sense if she brought it up, but hey, not like consistency has mattered much now).

Caithe was there? I only noticed her at the beginning, and after it seemed like she had sort of stolen off to be on her own instead of actually talking with us about this. Also I had a human character at the time so “our Dream” wasn’t stressed as much.

And…they could’ve done more to sell the whole “we came from the jungle dragon” twist.

-snip-

Then again…that would’ve clearly required more effort than they were willing to give. Sigh.

Or more effort than they had time to give. From the end of BWE3 the whole of their releases felt rushed and imperfect as far as the writing would go . . . not to mention the gameplay elements, but that’s another can of worms . . .

It really looks like, to me, they had a plan and a story outline but left themselves not enough time to really work on it as opposed to working on the delivery method (the game itself). If you’ll look back, the places where the story was weakest presented was usually updates where the game itself didn’t get much added to it or was fundamentally . . . incomplete-feeling.

No, not making excuses for them. I just note they really . . . continually . . . feel like they’re not giving themselves enough time to work on this stuff and really get a chance to make it fully polished.

(. . . of course, that’s about what I felt when it came to Hearts in the North also . . .)

Nilkemia.8507:

The difference is that those characters have (or had) potential, and didn’t muck up the very lore with their presence and actions.

The point is that Scarlet should stay dead.

I’m all for not resurrecting characters who have served the story (somehow). It’s why Undead Rurik ticked me the flock off.

Nilkemia.8507:

Hmm…..no. Scarlet “Invasive Weed” Briar was a trash character who didn’t need to exist already. She can stay dead. Her story’s done, and it took more then long enough for that.

She’s always in the Thaumanova Fractal, or certain parts of Season 2 (via hologram and/or memory seed flashback) Feel free to go there if you need to see her again so badly.

Technically all the characters don’t need to exist already. Rurik, Togo, Koss, Livia, Vekk, Ogden, Jora, Gwen, Logan, Anise, Rytlock, Zojja, Trahearne, Caithe, Primordius, Mordremoth, and our own characters.

None of them, singularly, need to exist.

Nilkemia.8507:

Still a garbage reveal. “We came from the jungle dragon cause my Dream said so! Not like dreams can be misinterpreted or anything! Also awfully convenient that no other sylvari ever got this dream either! Meh.”

I don’t know about you but my sylvari character’s Dream ended with the Shadow of the Dragon fight there. So . . . not sure how that doesn’t connect with the thing Mordremoth sent which resembled what was in the Dream.

Also, dreams being misinterpreted is not the same as the Dream.

TheReaperTheFourthHorsemen.7894:

zaced.7948:

Caithe?
ALL of mordremoths minions or potential minions are traitors and a grave danger to the nations of tyria and must be cleansed with fire. #burndownthegrove

all meat-based lifeforms’s stupidity, poor judgement and cognitive thiking due to their genetic makeup are a threat to the master race and must be destroyed. #burnallmeatsacks

All asura are dangerously incompetent and untrustworthy with any scientific experiment greater than testing gravitational acceleration with a pebble. I mean, just look at Thaumanova . . . and it’s not the only time either. Much as it’s played for laughs, what about Tixx? Or Zinn?

Konig Des Todes.2086:

So you are saying it makes sense for there to be no differences, yet also few-to-no similarities, including a lack of difference in the defining factors of what makes a dragon minion (e.g., hive mind and consumes magic)?

They don’t have a hive mind per se, they have the Dream but once ‘born’ they don’t access it anymore from what I understand. Otherwise they would know a lot more than they show they do, individually.

(And Sieran wouldn’t be so clueless all the time.)

It’s still not something any of the other races, even the lesser ones, really have. Skritt come close with the strange nature of their intelligence . . . but it’s not the same as the Dream for the sylvari.

In Field Test, the mere presence of risen reduced the ambient magic in the location. In The Concordia Incident, the mere presence of mordrem drained magic from the artifacts the caravan was transporting.

The mere presence of sylvari don’t drain magic from the area/artifacts. If this were so, I doubt that the Priory would let sylvari in their Special Collections.

Jormag has been collecting specific types of artifacts (see Honor of the Waves explorable – Plunderer path), so we can’t really say that Jormag hasn’t done this. Furthermore, we also know that Glint consumed magic. That’s four dragons there.

But the mere presence of Destroyers didn’t seem to have such an effect on it in the past, nor did they seek out extraordinarily powerful locations and/or artifacts the first time they awoke. They did not behave as the newly-awakened Mordrem did, seeming more interested in spreading via asura gate than . . . say . . . going for the Bloodstones, or Scepter of Orr, or other places (the tomb Rotscale guarded in Majesty’s Rest).

So the fact that the mere presence of mordrem drained magic from artifacts nearby doesn’t count for comparison to the sylvari – both coming from the same dragon? Interesting argument.

No, the sylvari come from the Pale Tree. The mordrem are directly created by the dragon.

And you keep falling back to the Mouth of Zhaitan, but we both know that the Mouth is not the sole minion to consume magic by this very discussion. It’s just a specialized minion. Same with the Eyes of Zhaitan – it’s outright stated that Zhaitan knows all its minions know, but yet it has specialized champions to act as its eyes throughout Orr.

So if it knows everything its minions know, why create the Eyes at all? If it consumes everything through the risen rank-and-file, why create the Mouths? There has to have been a reason for their creation and function.

But nothing hints to the Pale Tree consuming magic either; and Glint did consume magic.

Nothing hints the Pale Tree isn’t consuming magic. As for Glint, if she consumed magic, why wasn’t it harder to deal with her? It should have been like . . . fighting near the Bloodstones. But it wasn’t. Her lair had a lot of odd effects to it (both times we’ve visited it) but they didn’t seem to fit “magic is consumed”.

Okay, sure. Then why doesn’t the Pale Tree look even remotely mordrem-like either? The Vinewrath and the Tower of Nightmares were practically identical except in size. But they are like weeds, whereas the Pale Tree is described as a great White Oak tree.

Yeah, but it doesn’t look like a great White Oak tree. Really makes me wonder what people think a White Oak looks like. Take a look at the Grove sometime – it’s all plant organics until you hit the ground level, then it’s some rock or soil but mostly plants. Oak trees . . . they don’t look like that. Their roots don’t look like that – they’re not GREEN, for instance, since there’s no active chlorophyll in them . . . no need to as they draw nutrients out of the soil in other ways. Which suggests they look green for another reason – it could be because it’s not an oak tree.

I’m sorry, but “we come from the jungle dragon” kind of says they do, indeed, come from the jungle dragon, and in turn that they are indeed dragon minions.

I come from Germany too. And Russia. And Ireland. And Poland. And the United States. I have practically only identifying features from maybe half of those regions right there.

By the way, I don’t think they’re dragon minions so much as a very suggestible crop (heh) of people who can be turned. Sort of like Zhaitan turned the tombs of Orr into his own personal army.

Konig Des Todes.2086:

As I pointed out in another thread – I won’t bother going into length again – there are common aspects seen across all dragon minions – including mordrem. The sylvari lack all of these for the most part. Some can be easily argued away, others cannot.

There are common aspects, of course. But there’s also a fair amount of differences.

Dragon minion appearances do seem to evolve over time; Primordus and the destroyers’ case would be due to the fact that destroyers mimic living beings in shape and form (so the lore goes), so GW1 destroyers were likely copies from the previous dragonrise’s races, while GW2 destroyers are more modern races encountered.

The word “likely” indicates an assumption of fact. For myself, I figured it was a crude attempt at craft for function over form. But then, either one of us could be right on this point. Shall we stick a pin in it and come back later?

This could explain the differences between modern branded and Glint even, as we have evidence that claims Glint’s appearance pre-and-post-pufication remained unchanged.

Possibly, but she does have some semblance in common with the Shatterer. Only, well, clear crystal instead of purple sparking crystal. And the Shatterer does not exactly lay eggs so much as entice Branded into appearing from charged crystals. Assuming the events of the Beta Weekend 1 finale aren’t canon . . .

But the sylvari don’t function akin to dragon minions. The most critical is magical consumption. Dragon minions – be it risen or mordrem or, likely, others – consume magic simply by proximity (see Field Test and The Concordia Incident). Sylvari don’t.

Has this been tested and specifically stated yet? Field Test concerns asura characters, and The Concordia Incident didn’t have sylvari present. It’s evident dragon minions either consume magic or act as a channel to take magic in and send it to their master (I recall more the Mouth of Zhaitan…) but it seems to require specified items regardless. We have not seen all dragons doing this, as of yet – only Zhaitan and Mordremoth. And Jormag is, apparently, still active enough in the North.

I find this insufficient, without further research evidence to state any dragon minions cause this drain and not particularly constructed ones (recall once the Mouth of Zhaitan was dead, it had not yet dispatched another before we broke into Arah and killed a second one). I would believe they might spread the corruption even unwillingly (see: Kellach) but that isn’t quite the same.

Finally, the sylvari aren’t directly created through the dragon but through the Pale Tree. It is equally likely the Pale Tree’s willpower from whatever purified it or set it free from Mordremoth allows it to stay that particular ‘feature’ from the sylvari.

There are dozens of physical differences between mordrem and sylvari, but what truly matter are the functions they have. And they don’t even match mordrem. They don’t even match Mawdrey.

No, no they don’t. But as I said, they’re second-generation . . . shall we go back to the pinned bit earlier?

It is said outright the sylvari were intended to serve the dragon. That does not mean it directly created them, and it is even unclear at this time if it created the seed from which the Pale Tree sprouted. (Or Malyck’s tree. Really a lot of unknowns on that front.) The sylvari are grown and shaped by their mother tree, and apparently other mother trees, resembling but not copying completely the dominant species at the time the seeds had entered the world – during the time of the Great Destroyer. It is . . . possible, I would say, the Great Destroyer was not the only dragon lieutenant active at that time period. A lieutenant of Mordremoth could have been active setting these seeds out and preparing them. Who? Give me some time, I’ll come up with a list but any living being which had gone that far west in the Maguuma Jungle could have encountered the dragon.

Don’t forget Mawdrey either . . . which took three successive generations of plant and various energy types to fully mature into something not inherently evil.

Tom Gore.4035:

pdavis.8031:

No matter what her intentions were, she was still crazy. In D&D terms, she might be considered Chaotic Good. Her ultimate plan was to free the Sylvari from being Mordremoths minions, but the way she went about it certainly wasn’t the best. However through the machine and her visions, it’s pretty clear now that she was being influenced by Mordremoth, which led to him being awakened. While her plan probably was to disrupt the ley lines, and keep him asleep so she could take him out while he slept, attacking everyone else probably wasn’t the best idea.

Chaotic Good don’t go murdering people left and right just to further their own goal, no matter how noble that goal would be. Chaotic Neutral might be close.

. . . Chaotic Good does do that, and can do that, if they think they are serving a greater calling. It can successfully be argued it’s more “Good” to do what you must and try to stop an evil from becoming too strong to combat. Or to strike it down before it has a chance to act.

But in this case? Chaotic Neutral is probably right, but only because of the little head problem she has going on. She may have thought she was being Good, but no.

. . . Six Gods I hate alignment studies.

Dedlaw.9130:

Veydar.5017:

The lack of a search feature

I’m not sure what you mean with this? The forum search function is not the most optimized search tool I’ve seen, but it worked 100%.

Or am I missing something?

It doesn’t always work 100%.

Eh, the characters serve the needs that they fill and are not around when they’re not needed to fill the part. Pretty much how things normally go. So, are they bad?

I’d posit it’s more the writing really is mishandling a lot of it due to various concerns. Most of it seems to be problems getting it out on time with proper polish and shine.

. . . punish . . .

Look, punishing solo play? That was GW1, where you had to make a group with early on rock-stupid henchmen or later on some heroes you could micromanage . . . and fill the rest of the party with henchmen.

Who all leeched off your loo and gold drops.. All of them.

In contrast? GW2 is a paradise of solo play.

CureForLiving.5360:

The only way to properly fix zerker problem (if such a thing exists) is to change the boss mechanics to put focus on tactics and survivability and not on dps. This is particularly true for dungeons, where each encounter can be boiled down to: do a lot of damage as quickly as possible.

Fair enough, but the problem with stressing survivability is it doesn’t exactly hinge on the whole party being able to do it.

Being able to get people up from downed quickly, they can make it through an encounter. Being able to fall back and reset a room to allow a wipe to respawn, means they can just try again.

You know what I was thinking of? The one boss in the Aetherblade lair which was an asura in a room with spinning lightning traps you had to avoid while fighting him. And the trick was to stay ahead of those lightning traps spinning around while not getting caught. I never did get a group to get past that because he simply wiped us. DPS’d too fast? The patterns cycled and we couldn’t get ahead fast enough to survive. Total wipe. Too slow? Inevitably, we’d get caught by the beams and knocked out one by one.

draxynnic.3719:

That said, I’ve always maintained that 4E was a good system for beginners, it just wasn’t always a satisfying system for more advanced players (YMMV, of course). It sounds like you were often DMing for players less experienced than yourself, which would make the simpler system more advantageous. Most of the people I play with nowadays are people who have played for years, and things like every area of effect being a square is just too simplified for them.

I was DMing for a mixed group, honestly. Some experienced, some experienced with roleplay, and some fresh faces. One of them has been constant and they’re generally the one who can keep my game group . . . anchored. Not to be the leader of the group but to make sure it’s stable and everyone can have fun.

And you’re not wrong. 4E is good for beginners but when you want to stretch a bit, when you want your own concepts it has a problem trying to get the pieces to fit well. Of course, a good DM can make it work. But that’s true of any system . . . no, I dare say it is of crucial importance to any system.

That said, something like the 4E combat system probably would work for a GW2-esque combat system. Just have skills with areas that aren’t squares, and have cooldown periods that aren’t simply ‘at will’, ‘short rest’ and ‘long rest’. I’d be inclined towards a book rather than a board game, though, since as you say yourself, the board game would simply be replicating what you could do ingame. A full on RPG, on the other hand, lets you tell your own stories.

Apt. And the square-based system was to make it easy to use miniatures and a grid . . . to simplify for new players rather than force odd grids. Accessibility, one of the cornerstones the GW2 game was built on – being able to play even if you didn’t know anything about MMOs.

As for telling your own stories? You can do that in anything, you don’t need a rulebook to tell you how. You don’t need a GM telling you the rules don’t let you do that, or forcing them to bend. I’ve seen, and been party, to it being done with no rules, no dice, and no prep work other than five minutes answering five questions all around the table.

yasb.6592:

BentoDetective.6491:

The way Anet releases new updates is comparable to a gamble. They say they can’t reveal what they have in the works because failing to deliver will cause angry players coming at them with torches. On the other hand, once they announce the updates they can only hope we like it. Therefore, here we are in the forums either with smiley faces or pages upon pages of suggested changes.

Wasn’t it said that, don’t fix something not broken? For the old trait system, it was working fine. The new grandmaster traits could’ve just been added in a new manual. Following the previous manual prices: manual #1 = 10s, #2 = 1g, #3 = 2g, #4 = 3g. Affordable and obtainable in the reasonable sense.

Perhaps, new elite skills could use this system of going out and completing a task to unlock. This would fall in line with the aforementioned system of how GW1 worked by capturing elite skills. Correct me if I’m wrong as I haven’t played GW1.

You’re right. But the difference is that GW1 elite skills are very important to your build and often plays a key role (like Necro Flesh Golem). Whereas the elite skills in GW2 are 90% kitten so I don’t think anyone will hunt skills like Basilisk Venom for example.

. . . my ranger didn’t have his elite skill be very important to his build, it was instead very important to what he was doing at the time. Broad Head Arrow was usually my skill of choice – it made it real easy to shut down PvE casters when I H/H’d . . . and it also was a nice asset when I was grouping since I could shut down a secondary target.

(Usually the caster damaging the party as they spiked the healer. Or the other way around.)

If I wanted something more damaging? Burning Arrow.

But it never defined my build, it was just an extension of my build. Heck, more than once I would go out without an Elite just to prove I could.

Randulf.7614:

They didnt make like an mmo, the design philosophy was to cater for the mmo generation, bringing in concepts more closely aligned to what online players are used to.

In terms of GW as a rules set…ill have a think and go through my rpg shelves to see if anything fits as a starting point for you

I can think of two, and both require . . . modification. In short – you’re gonna need to homebrew.

d20 isn’t a bad fit, but it comes with a lot of baggage. Primarily how it falls down outside of combat, but since GW2 really is an active game and conflict/combat is at the heart of it with minor window dressing around it? It could work. But you’d need to really take some effort to polish it away from the Vancian magic and towards something else.

Secondly . . . Sanguine Productions has a game called “Ironclaw”. Its system is actually fairly robust for storytelling purposes, and can very easily be adapted to Tyria as well as allowing for other races to be worked with. A little fixing so Traits/Masteries can be added in there as well as some thematic-driven changes? Could work well.

. . . two things.

You can’t fix the zerging problem without punishing zerging tremendously enough for them not to want to do that. And you can’t do that without basically deterring players from taking part in events if they see X players there because they know it’s not worth it.

. . . which right there is a problem, since we really want this game to include people instead of telling them (or inducing them) to not do stuff because they’re not wanted. And I guarantee, like with the Assault Knights when I would hang around for them? Some people are not going to be nice telling them to go away since they’re not doing any good there.

Secondly, the zerker thing. Unless you really, really try? It’s always going to be better to just DPS something to death than try to follow some clever puzzle plan laid down by the designers of an encounter. Even if you hard-code pauses at certain health %s, or force invulnerability? It’s usually better to chew that damage when vulnerable faster than to play it safer.

Especially because failure/death is such a mild thing here.

CureForLiving.5360:

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

So . . . you’re asking for more retcons.

Retcons aren’t bad. Retcons just mean that the writers can’t see into the future and all knowing about their own lore. As time goes on errors occur, to the writers decide to take the lore into a more interesting directs and inherently retcons are needed.

Further down, pretty much my view on retcons. Of course, you can do them well, or you can do them poorly. Or you can do them invisibly . . . though that’s much much harder and takes some groundwork laid down from day -1 to get done.

I must say this rather impressed me. For all the talk of following an agile approach I never actually felt that ANet was following a agile approach in terms of lore, given the policy of release and only minor bug fixes to mechanical aspects of content. Actually being willing to go back and improve and expand on existing lore I think is the best way forward, also it allows me to hold out hope for further expansions to the dialog trees (give me more dialog options please! )

Seriously, guys? Can we get better dialogue work than we have now? Because LS2 had so painfully linear dialogue going on . . . I mean, we don’t need Bioware-level plotting out of flags and values and triggers . . .

Even some precursors are junk, some say.

draxynnic.3719:

To get more information then you could get from in-game and current out-of-game sources you’d need at least some level of cooperation from ArenaNet, though.

On 4E versus 3.5E: 4E always felt to me like they were trying to adapt MMO mechanics to a tabletop game. It… kinda worked, although it got too blatently monetised for me (when they started putting skill cards in miniatures boxes with rules you couldn’t get any other way… legally, anyway). However, while I think it made for a good starting point for players new to the hobby, it was a bit simplistic to be really satisfying.

Lovely bit was where you didn’t really need all the “Fortune Cards” and the like. I play without them fine. And I print my own cards anyway for skills/items so people can keep track at the table.

See, the thing about it was their monetization attempts weren’t new, they just had WOTC on them. Dwarven Forge existed before “Dungeon Tiles” got silly, not to mention the miniature market (oh lord the miniature market). The cards? Pfft, find yourself some scans of the text or just make up your own. You’re the GM, you can do that.

Honestly speaking, I still have “The Big Box of Spells” as I call it, from 2nd edition. If you want to call foul for monetization? TSR was doing it way worse . . . the problem I have with 4th edition was how support just sort of stopped for any Campaign Setting rather quickly.

3.5 did get silly towards the end (Complete Cheese, aka Complete CHeese AMPlified through Incompetant Omission of Nerfings) but it’s easier to just ignore or houserule out particularly broken rules items than to fix the fundamental skeleton of the game, which was where – for those who didn’t like it – the problem with 4E was.

I had more problems working with having to get around cheese in 3.5 than I did the ‘feel’ of 4e. I had more players walk away from a table when I rejected splatbooks they’d show up with, and one who just wanted to play Cthulu instead of DnD. I also got newer players up to speed faster, so . . . there’s that too.

It’s entirely off topic and I’ll run back away from this, but I seriously think their attempts weren’t to “make it like an MMO”. I already linked what I thought the goal could have been – the board games which barely really alter the 4e combat mechanics.

And that’s what I’d want to make for GW2 instead of an RPG book. It pretty much encapsulates what people do when they play the game – pick yourself a goal, and go do it. Dungeon? Fractals? PvP? Event runs? Can handle that all without needing to go to a full on RPG, and the rules would be easier to put together too.

Serophous.9085:

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Serophous.9085:

DnD tried this with 4.0, it was horrible. So no.

I didn’t think it was horrible.

. . . I thought the late periods of 3.5 with “let’s see what extra splatbooks break things the most” was horrible. But that’s me.

4 you could still splat, not to mention the mechanics for healing were god aweful as well. And having to keep track of soooo many cards later on. I did feel like I was playing an mmo again managing my bars.

Yes, 3.5 was stupidly OP later on if you knew how to do it, but it still wasn’t made to feel like an mmo. 4.0 felt like and played like an mmo, but worse.

5.0 seems promising so far

Hehe. Wait another year. 5.0 will be just as trash as any other version. I never saw 4e as much an MMO as I did . . . this . . . but then, some of my D&D games back in 2nd edition felt like “sit back and watch the Wizards and Clerics do the work”.

Yeah, greens aren’t “junk” so much as “vendor bait” because I sell em more than any other use, really. I might feel sassy and drop a bunch in the Mystic Forge but rarely. I mean, I wouldn’t equip them unless I was leveling and only if they were a straight upgrade . . . which is to say, not all that often.

So why do I say “not junk”? They pay for my waypoints. At 1s+ each, as well, they comprise a lot of the gold I earn in the game.

Blue weapons/armor? They get fed to my salvage kits and provide me with T6 like Orichalcum, Ancient Wood, and Hardened Leather I need to work on my crafting. In that case, I view them as ‘not junk’ because I still got a use for them.

Junk is, to me, something which doesn’t salvage, sells for less than a silver, and I can’t get rid of it anywhere. Bloodstone Duest and Dragonite Ore? Yeah, that’s “junk” even though it’s really needed for Ascended crafting. (Though in such limited amounts one wonders why it’s so ubiquitously overdropped.)

And honestly, if the value went up of the loot? It still would be junk to most people because then prices would go up due to people both needing to list for higher and having more money to spend.

What’s all that gold useful for anyway? Oh. Right. Precursors and legendaries. And maybe a few oddities people really want their hands on.

In other words it’s pretty close to every other MMO economy out there, only I don’t see atrocious gold sinks getting added to try to compensate. Thank the gods for that.

Serophous.9085:

DnD tried this with 4.0, it was horrible. So no.

I didn’t think it was horrible.

. . . I thought the late periods of 3.5 with “let’s see what extra splatbooks break things the most” was horrible. But that’s me.

Vayne.8563:

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Vayne.8563:

On the other hand, I never get lag playing a table top game. Just saying.

I do. All the time.

LMAO! Somehow I don’t think that’s lag.

What else do you call “quit rolling the dice in the cup and just go already”?

Vayne.8563:

On the other hand, I never get lag playing a table top game. Just saying.

I do. All the time.

Konig Des Todes.2086:

@Tobias: I think that you’re wrong when claiming that if someone doesn’t trust one post by Anet, they won’t believe any post by Anet on the same subject matter. Credibility is an entirely subjective matter in the firstplace, and most people don’t look at companies as individuals, but they look at the individuals in the company.

Simply put, a PR folk will be considered more credible on announcements for the future of the company, but less credible when dealing with bad publicity – because it’s their job to make the company look as good as possible. Angel and Bobby have both played “damage control” on the forums for every single Season 2 release (that alone says something to me), and Angel did so even for Season 1 to explain things that they didn’t put into the game (be it intentional or due to lack of time for development or whathaveyou). This, to some, makes them less credible than if Ree or Jeff were to come out here – or even if Peter Fries and Matthew Medina stated the same thing. But similarly, some will view all Anet personnel equally credible, or find that Angel is more credible. It’s entirely subjective. So no, just because they don’t believe Angel’s statement doesn’t mean they won’t trust any statement that says the same. Unless they’re very short-sighted and thick-headed.

“Very thick-headed” describes a lot of people here on the forums. (Myself included.)

But honestly, I don’t think Ree or Jeff would come into this matter at all. For one, I think Jeff is too busy to find time to do so, and I don’t know what Ree is doing but I’m sure its likewise. Though one of the things some writers in my generation were told in the early days of the Internet was “don’t engage in discussions about your plot on the Internet”.

But I still stand by my earlier, somewhat cranky, post. I don’t think it would matter who came down here and said it. You, personally, might revise your thoughts. I expect the tune of the forum would not change all that much at all. And as such – it’s a waste of their time to do so, and from there? I don’t expect to see it.

All in all, my opinion on the matter is “if it was planned from the beginning, then they went too far to try to keep the fact hidden, because if you look you can find a dozen differences between mordrem and sylvari alone.”

And? All minions are not created equal – Destroyers have evolved as well in the last era or so. They act and for the most part look different than their original counterparts when you look past the “constructs of magma and stone”. The Great Destroyer did not resemble Glint, or Tequatl, or even the Nornbear . . .

(The Shatterer and Claw of Jormag on the other hand . . . look a lot alike.)

That’s the other thing, the Nornbear did not resemble or behave, or have powers anything like Icebrood. It could travel through the Mists. It was an intelligent stalker instead of an almost-mindless force. It doesn’t even resemble what Icebrood now resemble.

But the Nornbear and Icebrood both trace their origin of power back to Jormag.

Same deal with sylvari and mordrem. Same origin, different suite of powers and appearance.

ZudetGambeous.9573:

so what you are saying is:

“please take my money and offer me nothing meaningful in return, I don’t want my money to be used to make actual game content”

And this seems like a good idea to you?

This sounds exactly like what I muttered to myself as I was buying my second copy of Settlers of Catan.

Torsailr.8456:

Hi Gaile,

I’m curious about something. We’ve seen a fair amount of posts recently about players wanting to do stuff with Anet’s IP; how does Anet handle licensing things like that?

For example, if I wanted to make a GW2 shirt and sell it through Cafe Press or something, how would I go about licensing for that? Do you charge a per item tax? Flat annual fee? In general terms is it something a fan could reasonably afford or is it something that only someone/company with deeper pockets could do?

I don’t have any plans to do this. Just curious.

I don’t think Gaile is the right person to answer that. That’s a legal and/or marketing department question

Why not a series of shirts with the Order/race logos on the backs and “Guild Wars 2” symbol on the front breast side? Easy 9 shirt designs

For a few more, you could fake up symbols for Mordremoth, Zhaitan, Jormag, the Flame Legion . . .

Of course, if they only put out a shirt with the Shiro Tagachi guild symbol on the back.

I’d love to sign on, but three things are keeping me from doing this.

- First, I don’t know if I’d have the time to do much with it other than either nod or shake my head at things.

- Second, I don’t have RL side capability to really playtest this. There are no players in my circle who will play a RPG derived from an MMO after the whole EQRPG debacle.

- Lastly, as I said, an RPG seems less what would work than simply an engine for creating a “mission based” adventure game. I said “Wrath of Ashardlon” but I suspect “Descent” could work and “HeroQuest” could work too if it wasn’t really stripped down.

In the end, you want a good tabletop concept? Look back to those old cardboard-token wargames. I’d start with War of the Ring from SPI . . .

Palador.2170:

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

It’s a matter of timing, which is why I used the word “now” in there. He’s started this thing, and the correct timing for him to have stepped out of the Pact leadership was before starting to take it to Mordremoth.

. . . because right now there’s only one person who could step in and have it be believable to us as players – us. And we have WAY more important things to be doing.

True, but we don’t have Trahearne “now”, either. Someone’s going to have to take charge of what’s left of the Pact, and while we’re the obvious first pick, it can’t really be us. So, it will be someone else, and by the time Trahearne is found I’m sure that other person will be an obvious choice for Trahearne to turn his rank over to.

It’ll be Taimi.

Fay.2735:

Am I the only person who liked Scarlet (Even at the time)?

Not really.

I had my issues with her, but I rather liked it. Probably because it was Tara Strong, and I can deal with a nice amount of wacky from her characters.

The same thing they’ll do if it is an Xpac -

Rage.

Filaha.1678:

nexxe.7081:

Kodan would probably be the easiest to model armors for. Tengu and Centaurs, not so much.

Tengu would presumably just use the same general shape as Charr and the same lack of craps given about feather clipping as tail clipping.

Probably worse, if said craps of tail clipping allowed charr to be left in but tengu got cut from the potential roster.

By the way, I think Kodan would make a terrible PC race. Why? A few reasons:

- They’re all anthropomorphic bipedal polar bears. All of them. There is no variation on fur patterns or color we can see. In essence “they all look the same” is about accurate.

- The history and culture of the Kodan does not mesh well with the idea of the PC as “someone out doing adventures”. At least, thus far. It would take a significant change to make it believable after they pretty much don’t interfere with other things going on and seem prone to leaving rather than fighting a war.

- They scale to a larger size than norn do. Enter clipping issues, again, this time head to the top of close tunnels. It is likely they would not be able to, thanks to this, do some jumping puzzles like Troll’s End. (I still won’t try doing it on my norn.)

Titus.4285:

Hehe, then we agree Tobias: “retcons aren’t always a bad thing”.
I just thought your question to Koviko looked a bit loaded … I remembered the Reclaim Ascalon thread [cough], and I kinda forgot which side you were on. :P

I’m on the side trying to fine-tune the asura-launching catapult for mass production. After all, we can do a lot of damage sending asura wariors into . . . I mean, over . . . walls.

. . . it also wasn’t a question so much as a statement of what, to me, looked obvious.

Anakita Snakecharm.4360:

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Anakita Snakecharm.4360:

Trahearne is not a character I particularly like, but I’d rather see him fade into the background of the story than be killed off. That just seems kind of unnecessary. He could just retire to Orr and focus on fulfilling the Pact goals there rather than personally leading the charge against every dragon.

He can’t do it now though or that’s just as much character as- . . . murder . . . as actually killing him off.

I don’t see why. Trahearne has consistently acknowledged he’s a scholar first and foremost, not a fighter. It seems to me like the better part of valor for him to focus on what he knows best, and let someone else take on a role he’s admittedly not well suited for. Trahearne would probably be of more use to the Pact finding ways to fix the aftermath in Orr than leading battles.

It’s a matter of timing, which is why I used the word “now” in there. He’s started this thing, and the correct timing for him to have stepped out of the Pact leadership was before starting to take it to Mordremoth.

. . . because right now there’s only one person who could step in and have it be believable to us as players – us. And we have WAY more important things to be doing.

If it was not a CCG? but a “Living Card Game” or “Limited Card Game” such as Munchkin or Fantasy Flight’s “A Game of Thrones LCG”? Yes, I probably would.

That’s the only way I could see such working.

Tachenon.5270:

What happens to sylvari bodies after death? I would assume there’d be some plant-like withering and drying up, after a while, if they are truly made of vegetable matter.

Before that, though, how long after the moment of death is a sylvari considered ‘really most sincerely dead’? As in, no amount of resuscitation will avail? Does CPR work on a sylvari?

Probably not, though possibly so. CPR (cardio-pulmonary resuscitation) is stimulating the heart to beat again when it’s stopped. It’s not bringing the dead back to life, no matter what television tells you. I’d say tentatively, only if the sylvari in question died in a way that CPR could save a human . . . let’s just say human since it’s unknown how charr or asura physiology relates (asura might have two hearts or something).

And further, only if there is a 1:1 correlation between sylvari organs and our own in form, placement, and function in the case of “a heart”. I have my sincere doubts but . . .

In regard to sylvari breathing: is it carbon dioxide in and oxygen out? Or do they emulate humans in this regard (as in so many others) and ‘breathe’ in oxygen?

I picture it in my head as them breathing more because they emulate other living bodies that closely. It’s not strictly required but they do it anyway.

Are sylvari ‘warm-sapped’ or ‘cold-sapped’? Do they generate their own heat, like mammals, or must they rely on environmental factors? How cold/hot can they get before suffering damage?

Inconclusive but very unlikely they can generate their own heat like mammals.

Is the Pale Tree subject to the change of seasons? That is, do her leaves change colors in the autumn and fall (deciduous), or is she an ‘evergreen’ (coniferous) type of tree? Or something else? Is there a temperature threshold below which the Pale Tree will suffer damage if not protected?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exploding_tree

Better question – is the climate where the Grove exists at a location where trees are subject to such things have not developed to having tropical climate all year round? Or sub-tropical, as opposed to ‘subarctic’ like most of the Shiverpeaks or something else . . .?

Bonus round: what happened to Scarlet’s body? Was it buried? Burned? Bronzed?

Probably dissolved in whatever spike of energy ran through the Breachmaker.

Freeelancer.2860:

Does that mean Jennah is Joffrey, and Annise is the Hound?

No, Canach is the Hound, Anise is Varys.

TELL ME you can’t see her going “for the realm Captain Thackeray” . . .

Titus.4285:

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Koviko.3248:

I believe that Anet owes it to the fans to make sure the story is the highest quality it can be. If there are “lore bugs,” I just want them to fix them!

So . . . you’re asking for more retcons.

@Tobias: I think we all – you included – want consistency first and foremost. When you have two conflicting sources, you have to edit one of them. Which may resuly in 1) a retcon, 2) changing “new” lore to meet “old” lore.

@Everyone: I have to take most of the blame for leading us off-topic in the first place – but still; guys, let’s try to move the discussion back on topic now.

A retcon is still a retcon, in your reply. Consistency is going to require a nice belt sander of a retcon here and there.

As much as people decry retcons, I don’t know if it’s really understood what they are. “Retroactive continuity” is whenever something is changed to fit a new paradigm of continuity – doing a ‘fix’ to bring everything smoothly and make new lore fit into old lore? That’s still doing at least a retcon.

Own up and understand what you’re asking for, people Retcons aren’t always a bad thing. Sometimes they just fix what was . . . really broken.

(For example! Making “One More Day” not exist in continuity anymore is, in fact, a retcon )

Gregori.5807:

We may not be on the Anet Board of Directors, however, Devs and Gaile have repeatedly come in to say how much they “value our input,” how our suggestions are so good, and to keep cranking them out.

If none of our suggestions make it into the next incarnation of the trait system, assuming that there is a next incarnation, that would show all the Dev platitudes and praise to be lies… which is what I believe.

There’s valuing our input without actually giving in to demands or using every/any suggestion which is come up with . . . just because they “value our input”.

Please tell me that’s understandable.

You obviously came in here simply to be nasty because, if you had been in this from, say, page 30, you would know this already.

Honestly, that is how the post came off but . . . there is a point. Snarkily and sarcastically delivered, but a point. They are not beholden to us to do what we demand, they are beholden to other people and/or other concerns. As much as they might want to do something everyone would cheer over (free precursors for everyone!) . . . there’s reasons why they don’t.

That said, they really do need to do something about traits or show something as a means of saying ‘yes, there’s effort put into working on this’ if there’s no fix announcement.

Koviko.3248:

I believe that Anet owes it to the fans to make sure the story is the highest quality it can be. If there are “lore bugs,” I just want them to fix them!

So . . . you’re asking for more retcons.

Anakita Snakecharm.4360:

Trahearne is not a character I particularly like, but I’d rather see him fade into the background of the story than be killed off. That just seems kind of unnecessary. He could just retire to Orr and focus on fulfilling the Pact goals there rather than personally leading the charge against every dragon.

He can’t do it now though or that’s just as much character as- . . . murder . . . as actually killing him off.

Carighan.6758:

It also adds an important piece of information in that actually, the OP got more than the statistical average of ectos, not significantly less like he/she said.

That’s irrelevant since the discussion turned to “did JS shame the OP intentionally and with unprofessional bearing”.

And I say no. I’d have behaved in the same fashion at my job if someone did the same. (And have. Several times, since I work retail registers a fair bit.) There’s been people who were wrong, people who were caught scamming, and people who seriously thought I was incompetent and could be pushed into compliance because I look the way I do. All of them handled the same way. “I need a manager to register 6.” And say nothing until they arrive, count the drawer, and either I’m over $10 or I’m not.

Nothing more than that, no need to open my mouth and go “see, I told you”. The most I’ve ever done is sigh with relief and go “okay, not crazy then”.

Filaha.1678:

Except let’s improve upon your analogy.

Because you gloss over the fact that the correction was made publicly.

Because if the accusation is made publicly, the correction should be too. It shouldn’t be private unless the customer left the store. If they start loudly, repeatedly declaring I had made a mistake on the register, and it needed to be fixed, then it’s entirely within reason . . . and professional conduct . . . to ensure it is publicly seen not to be the case.

How do you not grasp that?

Now do you see the difference? It’s involving people who didn’t need to be involved. Could the OP have not been PMed that the data had actually been checked and it was found that only X number of ectos were salvaged, not the claimed Y?

Yes.

Could he have emailed it instead of posting it on the forums and making several posts of an accusatory tone? Yes.

It swings both ways.

But people would rather default to “Hey, this guy’s a phony. A great big phony.”

So again, given the actually decent possibility that the OP made an honest mistake, is the humiliation still warranted?

Not from other players which is where all the humiliation is coming from. John Smith left facts and let them speak. He did not editorialize. He did not add comment. He left them there and left the topic shortly after.

Wreave.2138:

As is clear to all of us who aren’t busy explaining away evil, Caithe is fully responsible for the slaughter of a tribe of peaceful centaurs. Moreover, she did that while on a mission to abduct and the force (probably through torture) information out of a first born Sylvari.

No, that was Faolain’s mission.

Caithe’s mission was to try to keep it from getting worse. She really, really failed.

OneYenShort.3189:

BESM could also do it with relative ease.

But the hard part would be replicating the trait/skill respecing. Then again there are just some things you toss aside in tabletop because tabletop is not a video game.

I have the TriStat dX book around here somewhere. I don’t think it would work TOO well, but then I never tried it out.

thedarkaxe.1379:

Behellagh.1468:

Ssshhh! Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns is a tabletop RPG.

That would actually be amazing, can’t imagine the rage that would be all over the forums

I would cook burgers over my computer from the flames which would start.