Guild Wars 2

Was it even a lie-lie or was it a “lie of omission”?

Either way, laying it out there like that with no fanfare and no accusation and just “you salvaged X ecto for Y dust” wasn’t unprofessional. It was the only professional way to handle answering that and making sure to let it be known you were thorough.

It’s like it’s not “unprofessional” to call for a manager to check your drawer when someone says they gave you $20 when they handed you a $10 and either weren’t paying attention or trying to scam you. If they feel embarrassed about the facts coming to light (you handed me a $10 instead of a $20 and my drawer reflects that) that’s their problem.

Unprofessional is adding: “Now get out of here before I taunt you a second time” as they storm out of the store.

Rauderi.8706:

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Randulf.7614:

After all, there are no “noobs” or “elites” in pen ‘n’ paper RPGing.

. . . are you sure you’ve played enough of them? Cause I guarantee they’re out there.

I’ve seen them. They exist. But! I help them improve. (Or shudder and flee in disgust, one of the two.)

There’s a difference between newbs and n00bs. Newbs want to learn and get better. N00bs resist it on the grounds you can’t tell them how to play their game.

Seriously, I have seen it at conventions.

Filaha.1678:

I’d have to agree that it’s unprofessional. And brings other policies into question. I mean, we’re not allowed to be told in confidence that someone got punished for directly affecting us that we may have reported, but it’s okay to publicly embarrass a player that isn’t affecting any players at all?

I think is someone makes an issue public, they need to accept it when the resolution is made public, and any and all relevant facts are made public. If someone starts a shouting match in public with their boyfriend/girlfriend/pet dog then it should be totally okay if the other party proceeds to verbally depants them and give them a wedgie.

If you want to make a spectacle and a scene, you get no right to complain when someone turns it around on you.

Randulf.7614:

After all, there are no “noobs” or “elites” in pen ‘n’ paper RPGing.

. . . are you sure you’ve played enough of them? Cause I guarantee they’re out there.

Shpongle.6025:

I remember when they nerfed the ecto droprate from salvaging rares. I remember it as ‘’on the 20th’’ but I can’t remember how many months ago. I used to ALWAYS get 2-3 ectos before that. Then I salvaged 25 rares and got 0 ectos. I’ve been selling rares ever since. Never salvage.

I salvage for the leather/metal/cloth and any Ecto is a bonus.

Because chucking them into the Mystic Toilet is an exercise in woe.

Shinzan.2908:

Caithe is the villain though? Not comically evil like Faolain but the story ended with us learning the awful things she did in her past, just before she steals the egg again and leaves us at the mercy of Mordremoth’s beast. I don’t think her betrayal is going to get a pass, at least not without some serious attempt at redemption.

I don’t expect her to try redemption, simply because she doesn’t believe she needs it. For her, this is doing what is necessary and she has to do it since nobody else was poised to do so. Not even her friends in Destiny’s Edge, or her fellow Firstborn Trahearne.

I expect her to keep right on playing that set of cards until she gets axed.

Titus.4285:

DaShi.1368:

Would be nice if we could just get a nice bit long list of these inconsistencies. If only we had someone who could do it… too bad Koning is seemingly leaving us he seems like the sort of person who could do something like that.

Konig and I started working on a “Lore discrepancy mapping project” some time ago.

This is still a community work in progress (feel free to join), and is not yet ready for presentation. Me and Konig have a longer list on my personal wikipage of things yet to be added.
We’re taking our time with it, and making sure it gets presented in a very consise and strictly fact-based, quote on quote way.

When it’s ready (no copyright infringement intended), we’ll present the full list here on the forums for both players and developers. BobbyStein knows about the project, and it’s all a collaborative work between players and devs to rule out any inconsistencies.

Thank you Titus, this is an important project. It also probably helps the devs more than us, since they can get a hammer and chisel out and work on rounding edges which didn’t fit.

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

Writing a better Faolain and Caithe

It is my personal opinion that Faolain could have been written a lot better, if Caithe had been made the villain, rather than the victim. This is in my opinion one of the biggest flaws in the story. Faolain was already a black-hat villain, and much to our surprise, she is.

To turn things around would have taken some guts. Caithe has always been a bit of a doe-eyed bland character in my opinion, who is always on the side of good. If the main characters in a story are not allowed to do bad things every now and then, they become dull. Very dull. Its the Mary-Sue problem.

What I wanted to see, was for Caithe to do something that justified Faolain’s deeds and position. It would have strengthened Faolain’s character, and made her more sympathetic, and less black-hat. And it would have given Caithe a dark side, which ultimately would have benefited her character as well.

I don’t see how doing that to Caithe strengthens Faolain. What’d be better is seeing Faolain earlier developing this rebellious side and only Caithe seeming to ‘get her’ while the other Firstborn try to ‘correct her mistakes’. Oh, wait, we do see some inkling of that in the meeting, along with her talking to a ‘Secondborn’ to say “hey, I like your ideas and want to subscribe to your newsletter”. Really, Faolain’s status as “total unrepentant villain” is fine. I’m not the sort of person who thinks it’s really necessary to excuse someone just being . . . well, “obvious villain”.

Back to point though – how does twisting Caithe help Faolain? The thing is, it doesn’t. All it does is twist Caithe and give another character an excuse, when they don’t need an excuse. Faolain doesn’t need an excuse to go pulling wings off of flies, because she enjoys it.

And having tried out the sylvari personal story? Caithe is not as doe-eyed bland as she seems – my character had to call her out on it, concerning her readiness to just “kill em all” with regards to Nightmare Courtiers. She comes off as downright vicious.

If you want to see a character somewhat having this done? Ceara was better handled now that there’s efforts to see her before she was Scarlet Briar and see she was an actual person rather than some caricature.

Lazaar.9123:

It’s funny how people change their tune after a member of Anet staff posts.

That’s a debatable point.

See, I didn’t have a tune before he posted. I just had popcorn waiting to see the inevitable like a fly meeting a windshield on a freeway.

Palador.2170:

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

If this happens I’ll call foul and put up a post saying “ANet changed it to give the players what they want – a dead Trahearne”.

I’m going to agree.

Aside from maybe the player character (if sylvari), Trahearne should be the single best protected sylvari in Tyria. He is the first born of the Firstborn, the Pale Tree’s favorite, and carries her power in sword form. He is the last one she’d let slip away, she’d have to be destroyed first.

I can see him falling back and handing over the sword to protect us, and maybe giving in to doubt after this, but I can’t see him being corrupted and becoming a target. It shouldn’t happen.

I actually see him using the sword’s power much as he did in Orr to “repair” a corrupted Pale Tree, or maybe even to free all sylvari from Mordremoth’s influence – but it’s too much for the sword and its power is exhausted afterwards, so is he and a teragriff pounces in that moment before we can protect him and . . .

Well, off with his head of lettuce.

Koviko.3248:

I wouldn’t say we’ve “learned” that, just yet. For all we know, there’s some secret ingredient that Anet hasn’t quite unveiled to us.

“It’s people. Sylvari greens are made of people . . . "

Sorry. It was . . . just kinda hanging out there.

Azrael.4960:

Ayrilana.1396:

Gotta love RNG

I pray to RNGEsus every night

“Pity us, RNGesus, and give mercy on our drops. For the Dawn is rare and full of win.”

Aaron Ansari.1604:

I think Malafide’s objection, Kossage, is that such things are hidden. Mix a few raisins into your porridge if you will, but their presence doesn’t change that whether you enjoy the meal or not will still hinge on how bland you find porridge.

This is why people roleplay you know, to add a little spice, a little sugar, or something to the porridge if they find it bland. Something to do. Also the reason for speedruns, solo runs, self-limiting challenges . . . I mean, what kind of masochist invented “Solo White Mage FF1”? . . .

Not to mention the Nuzlocke Challenge

People spice their porridge as they like. I prefer it not to be overcomplicated with spices, seasonings, just in case they use sage. Sage makes my stomach upset pretty badly . . . sure, people really like it and it might make things taste good. But darn if I won’t spend the next hour chanting “Ralph!”.

But this is wholly off topic.

“I say we let him go….”

Parlourbeatflex.5970:

What if…….

Trahearne, after falling in the totally unsuccessful attack agaisnt mordremoth falls further to its corruption….

HoT starts with the PC identifying a horrific, tragic yet community satisfying task…

Trahearne must be tracked down and killed before he becomes the dragons new champion. Duh duh dummmb.

If this happens I’ll call foul and put up a post saying “ANet changed it to give the players what they want – a dead Trahearne”.

What will happen?

Sacrifice for the greater good so the Pale Tree’s protection over the sylvari race can be reinforced and set up a final blow against Mordremoth and any sylvari its corruption has twisted.

. . . what? Look, it’s not my fault if you don’t read ahead in the script.

draxynnic.3719:

That doesn’t change the fact, however, that the initial proposal was basically a shot in the dark.

A shot in the dark at something seemingly breathing heavily and moving, but still a shot in the dark. They were lucky they didn’t miss and hit something else, like a malfunctioning air conditioning unit.

Seriously. The theory was fine as a theory but it really wasn’t until the last . . . 12 months? . . . it could seriously gain some traction.

Behellagh.1468:

Roll 5D20s twice. If the all the numbers on one set match the other, you found a precursor. Otherwise you found 2 blues and a green.

Usually for me it’s two greens and a blue.

But you forgot to add your Appraise skill to the rolls. Tsk.

The d20 system is built for combat primarily and doesn’t handle much else rather well. The White Wolf d10 system, from what I’ve seen, handles combat poorly and handles most other things decently enough to get along.

I . . . don’t trust either of them with Guild Wars.

Honestly? I think it’d make a better adventure board game. Not unlike “Wrath of Ashardlon” via Wizards of the Coast. Or “Descent” the board game I will never . . . ever . . . get enough people interested to play.

Oh gods no.

I tried that with the last MMO to RPG I bought. (EverQuest the RPG) It translated poorly. Could have been because the publisher didn’t care about it except as a stab for cash. That’s really the problem – anyone doing it is going to be pressured to have it make money rather than make it good.

Saint.5647:

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Well, about the people this is aimed at . . . nobody in that group cares. If they don’t believe it on one red post, they’re not going to believe it on two. Or four. Or ninety. They already have their minds made up….
I’ve dealt with this kind of thing before in a CS capacity – there is no satisfaction possible.

Don’t put words in my mouth dude. I can see that you’re fed up already but we’ve never actually discussed anything together so don’t be a jerk to me based on your past experiences.

Not fed up with this in particular, more fed up with it in general across the board. As for being a jerk . . .

I do care actually. For me, the Red Poster is more important than the Red Post. Ms. McCoy has been involved in narrative fumble after narrative fumble. When it comes to Red Posts from her or Colin, I expect PR. There are however Red Posts that I really appreciate for their candor and openness. Not every employee of a company speaks with the same weight in my opinion. Some

Pot. Kettle. Black.

A member of the writing team, who have access to the design we don’t know about, told you “yes it was planned”. Then someone higher up had mentioned it was planned out. You’re basically saying “it doesn’t matter what they say because I don’t respect them”, no matter how you spin it about ‘narrative disasters’.

Again, you have only two options here. You believe them or you don’t.

I don’t have my mind made up. If I did, I wouldn’t still be around.

That’s not what your above segment showed. You have your conclusions about who spoke up, and why you shouldn’t believe them.

From my perspective, it seems like something they came up with recently. I don’t think they’ve had a very solid idea of where this game was going and I think it really showed. Seems a lot of folks really enjoyed taking the kitten out of Konig but the guy does know this game’s lore. Honestly, I think Anet fumbled with the narrative, lacked consistent writing, and as a result we have a number of lore inconsistencies and retcons.

Honestly, Konig’s little outburst? Been there personally so I get it. I don’t care about that as much as I care about this head-in-the-sand crap of “well no matter what they say it’s obvious they’re lying again”. Even when they both have little reason to lie about this (considering they’ve been saying they listen to the players and been challenged constantly on “how?”), and once more . . . they have access to drafts we probably won’t ever see.

I think the writers have problems with the narrative too, but mostly because there’s a team putting each part together separately rather than a single person.

I think the writing has been inconsistent, notably in how the difference in focus can be seen between Season 1 and Season 2 – one is more tightly plotted than the other yet moves slowly in comparison.

But lore inconsistencies and retcons are part of the whole business of proceeding outside the initial story. Again, these are things seasoned and respected writers have happen just as much.

Frankly? I’m not pleased with . . . again . . . one theory with limited evidence becomes real. But I can live with it because that’s where the story is going and there’s a limited amount of problems in it. Especially since, as noted – we don’t have enough information on some of the answers let alone to ask the right questions.

Freeelancer.2860:

Let me counter your tirade with my own broad assumptions. Either they planned it from the start and somewhere down the road they lost couple of pieces, or they experimented and improvised like they did for every other bit of content for ~2 years since release.

Or they knew where they wanted to take it, but didn’t have a firm roadmap. I’ve seen writers do that. Especially even celebrated and honored writers like Tolkein, Rowling, Williams . . . or any D&D GM worth their salt.

The fact they have more than one writer in the credits? Tells me unequivocally there was more than one point of view on the story, at the very least one from each writer. There may be a unified document saying what the general points are to hit on the plotline but I guarantee not everyone has the same idea of how to get there.

Whether there is a conspiracy theory to cover it all up (I suspect illuminati) or simple oversight doesn’t really matter in the end. Somebody made a doodoo on the floor, but nobody brought the broom, so let’s just move away from the smell and try to keep the path ahead of us clear.

Eh, I barely care – I’ve seen worse patches over continuity in the past or professed “we had it planned out” which stank worse than this one. (I’m an MTG player here, I got to witness a lot of crap happen to justify a big long plot arc so they could add novels to their products.)

Plus, the story will go how it will go. It’s much more fun to sit back and save my creative ideas for my own fanfic than to try to rewrite canon to make it so Ascalon never fell.

Shiren.9532:

First all, Angel’s comment should be enough.

If it’s not, Colin Johanson talked about the sylvari origin on a recent Points of Interest and he mentions that Ree Soesbee was planning it since the beginning. He talked about how Ree was revising and revising the tutorial and sylvari personal story text, trying to make sure that they didn’t give away too much of the secret. It has very much been a core part of sylvari design since before GW2 launched, it’s not a PR response, it’s not a change made by a writer you don’t consider credible, it was planned by one of the people who was integral to imagining both GW1 and GW2.

Well, about the people this is aimed at . . . nobody in that group cares. If they don’t believe it on one red post, they’re not going to believe it on two. Or four. Or ninety. They already have their minds made up.

Jeff Grubb shows up and says he sketched it out from the start? Not gonna be believed. (Even though I recall seeing him pull this stuff off once before.)

Pre-Alpha builds of the script could be leaked showing some clues before they were cut? They’d still call dolyak crap.

A time machine takes them back in time to the discussions about creating the sylvari so they can hear it? They’d claim hoax.

I’ve dealt with this kind of thing before in a CS capacity – there is no satisfaction possible.

Astral Projections.7320:

Make the chests only available after a successful Vinewrath event maybe?

Better idea – only during the “Time Out” portion.

Devata.6589:

If you design a game to be very grindy people are going to grind.

I think people are gonna grind anyway as long as it can be useful to get what they want. Whether or not the game is designed to be grindy intentionally.

. . . but then I don’t really get what people grind for exactly sometimes with this zone. If it’s about profit, doing the full events and the Breach and the Vinewrath seems better than hitting a chest for two hours with all the keys in the world you can afford. Especially since another Carapace Coat can only be earned off the Vinewrath – you’d think people would want to succeed at it more often.

Ohoni.6057:

John Smith.4610:

I want to remind everyone that this isn’t a discussion about precursors or specific rewards, that’s a different conversation. This is a discussion of the pro/cons and philosophy behind different forms of RNG implementation.

John, I feel a bit of deja vu here, you seem to keep having to point out that this is not a thread about Precursors. If I might offer a suggestion, the reason why this discussion keeps getting back around to Precursors is because Precursors are the most divisive and frustrating element of RNG in the game, and this is a thread about RNG, so it’d be a bit like having a thread about “politics” and not discussing “who should be president?”

Now, maybe this isn’t the thread for discussing Precursors, fair enough,m but which thread is? In which thread can players discuss Precursor availability (or lack thereof), and expect a developer to read it, consider what they have to say, and respond on the topic, because absolutely no developer discussion on Precursors over the past year and a half or so is getting incredibly frustrating from the outside.

TLDR; If you would like people to stop discussing Precursors in this thread, then start discussing Precursors elsewhere.

Well, let’s see, he keeps saying that because I keep seeing people hung up on Precursors or other singular items instead of the root of why these things are rare – the RNG keeping them so.

Since this topic is about RNG and how to work with it . . . maybe we should be discussing how to both keep these things rare without chance basically being relied upon? Or whether certain things should be as rare as they are currently?

Also, regarding the list of provided options? The first option we somewhat have already through allowing dropped “pick an item” chests. Or, newly, the “Perseverence” buff which can be traded for items (interesting mechanic that) which might be able to fill option 2.

Adding tokens, more of them, seems dangerous. I suggested once before limiting the tokens in scope – one token per region (not per zone). Say Maguuma Jungle gets “Spore Pods” or “Aetheric Batteries” or something else related to Asura/Charr. Shiverpeaks get “Dwarven Trinkets” which are found all over the place. Ascalon can have “Golden Rin Relics” all over again – or “Imperator’s Requisition Chits”. Kryta has “Seraph Tokens”. How do you get these tokens? Complete events, like in the two new areas; scaling up in quantity for how high a tier the event is in the zone you’re in. (A simple repeating event which cycles every five minutes? Not a lot. World Boss? A good bit.)

Now, let there be specified places where you can trade these things in for loot bags or specialized loot containers. Like 50 “Imperator’s Requisition Chits” for a “Charr Equipment Bag” containing one to three Masterwork or better items which have skins related to charr (Steam, Legionaire, Flame). Or you can save 200 for a “Rare Charr Equipment Bag” . . . or 1000 for an “Exotic Charr Equipment Bag”.

How would this help alleviate the issue of the ultra-rare outliers? Simple. After an event where one of these ultra-rares can be found (say, after The Shatterer is destroyed) an NPC will let you trade a stack (250, once per day; maybe coinage as well) for a chest with the same loot table as the event’s finishing chest.

And finally, go back and now with the idea in mind there is a guaranteed selection of gear treasure, revisit loot tables entirely and maybe add in junk trophies which sell better instead of the gear . . . or you can instead trade them to some NPCs which spawn at the end of some event chains as merchants for a solid window of time. Essentially – rethink how you’re rewarding people.

About the Precursors or other high-desirable items? This is simple . . . code them into Collections so you get an item which will unlock purchasing them in your home instance from a new vendor. Give the Collection some attentiveness so it feels like you’re less grabbing a laundry list and more like researching the legends, and boom.

(Oh, and Account Bind all Precursors. The ones on the Trading Post? They can stay there and get sold off or be pulled off and bound to the account. Whatever. Soon as they hit a bag, bound.)

Deus Xiphos.7046:

Well most detectives in real life are part of law enforcement agencies, which I think has superiors that you report back to. Seraph might be a good choice for that.

Seraph is more of a “city guard” type of template, or soldiers abroad. It’s like saying a detective could be a part of the US National Guard – technically, it’s true the training could definitely be in there but . . . they’ve got bigger issues to train for.

There really isn’t local agencies with any power in Kryta, the charr and norn solve their problems with a more personal touch, the asura . . . at least in the past . . . tend to view trials more as a means of browbeating dissenters than actually seeking justice. The sylvari, well . . . no. They have no means of policing themselves, not even in the early days when there were far fewer of them.

(Probably would have altered more than a few things happening…)

But I agree – a private detective is one that would work. They could be working for money or they just want to solve crimes and show off.

Well, or not even a detective. See, a good mesmer, or even someone good with people . . . can pull off some amazing feats of getting to the heart of things.

(Seriously, that man is spooky . . . but after several seasons you begin to see what he sees.)

Also, our characters post-Pact don’t do much with the Pact. Either that or the Pact isn’t doing too much.

It wasn’t doing too much until they began to push on Mordremoth in the Silverwastes, or set up a spot to take down the Claw of Jormag.

Of course, Detective skills such as Deduction, Analysis, Logic, or Forensic Knowledge aren’t necessarily useless in the fight against the Elder Dragons, but that’s mostly on the character than the profession.

Forensic Knowledge can actually be skipped in favor of stronger grips on the first three, or exchanged in favor of Psychology. After all, if you can get people who know the required skills and put the information together fast, it’s equally as effective. Not as interesting as one person doing it all, but . . . more plausible.

Anyway, just to answer the Order question, I would go for Order of Whispers or The Vigil, personally. Although, the Orders of Tyria are mainly concerned in fighting the Elder Dragons than solving cases.

Not all of them. The Order of Whispers does have other prerogatives to put effort into, much like the Priory has other goals.

I listed those in my original post . . . I’m more curious about the numbers

DorDor.8617:

DaShi.1368:

DorDor.8617:

On the Forgotten: There are only two instances that we know of in which a dragon minion gained/regained free will. One is Glint. The other is Twitchy the Chicken, when we recreated the Forgotten ritual. Before you mention Mawdrey, remember that it isn’t the same plant as the Mysterious Vine, only an ancestor (and before you mention the fact that minions can’t reproduce, remember that there are caveats to that rule).

All the theories that were created to try to debunk the Sylvari aren’t minions are based on “rules” created only by players. How can you argue against their “rules” when they say that the exceptions don’t contradict their “rules” but instead errors in the lore? It’s like a scientist holding on to a theory that has been thoroughly disproven, only far less significant.

By the way, Konig is right in saying that the vast majority of his arguments come from in-game knowledge (with the exception of lieutenants, which has no legs of its own to stand on). That includes the lore on dragon reproduction.

Is it firsthand witnessed things such as Abaddon’s death or the ritual of the Great Dwarf . . . or is it things other characters have said or have been written down in books/scrolls?

One is necessarily concrete. The other is not.

Moldur.6275:

What is the point of this thread lol

Humor and satire, mostly.

Slowpokeking.8720:

So in Pale Tree’s vision, what are those purple crystals?

I’m not sure but if I had to guess, I’d say the long lost flavor of rock candy Nicholas the Traveler never gave out to anyone.

naiasonod.9265:

Ayrilana.1396:

Rauderi.8706:

naiasonod.9265:

I beat Ghosts ‘n Goblins on the NES when I was maybe 8 years old. Totally beat it. Cleared it, then cleared it again because that game pulls the biggest ’Sorry Mario, but your princess is in another castle’ move ever.

I’m willing to bet that very, very few of any of the chuckleheads crying for everything to be moar-harder could beat the first level.

Want harder, we could have have BattleHyleks as a fractal somewhere. :P

As long as we get to use the speeder bikes or whatever they were.

Level 3 was boss.

It was definitely the boss of me. That was when I broke my cartridge.

My claim to “hard” content in the past? Contra with no code. Ultima 4, Quest of the Avatar, though that’s been ages.

I haven’t beaten NetHack, though. I kind of am not trying until I stop wanting to snap my tablet in half.

Sure.

. . . but all that stealth capability and she can’t tank Zhaitan herself?

HtFde.3856:

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

naiasonod.9265:

If one has to explain to the customer why the product isn’t actually the junk it seems to be, one has failed. Customer lost, revenue not generated, do not pass go and certainly do not collect $200.

Why? Windows has been doing it for years.

Har, har – but you could only compare that if you had played GW 2 for, say, 10 years have sunk a few million dollars in it and have the choice to either hang on with it or go to another MMO and start from scratch again.

That’s why one company get’s away with it and others don’t

My friend, I have in fact, done exactly that where I decided to go switch to something else. I’m, unfortunately, stuck with the old one due to certain games >*cough*< not having Mac OS clients.

I think she said we should expect something “soon”. Timing suggests this will be addressed as part of it.

I’m remembering the last “difficult” boss I had to face in a game which wasn’t reliany on OHKO or “out of nowhere gimmicks”. I actually seriously had trouble thinking about it and came up with two.

Nargacuga and Tigrex. Of course, these days Tiggy is known to be a practice ragdoll for experienced hunters who can still crank up the hurt on someone fighting for the first time. And last time I talked about Narga it was about how you could cheese the fight in five steps to where basically it was whether you could pack the proper items.

But on the other hand . . . I understand the last truly difficult boss without being completely cheap had to be Akuma back on his debut. Mostly because the AI was designed to do things players would do, as opposed to just spamming attacks.

Greyrebel.7492:

AnotherAgnostic.9468:

The legendary longbow “Kudzu” (bow that shoots flowers) is lame.

stop complaining or developers change longbow to shoot justin beiber instead

I would pay to shoot that. Not as a projectile, just for him to appear in front of every target before the arrow would land between the eyes.

I would buy gems in a hurry and arm myself just to Rapid Fire on people in WvW.

naiasonod.9265:

If one has to explain to the customer why the product isn’t actually the junk it seems to be, one has failed. Customer lost, revenue not generated, do not pass go and certainly do not collect $200.

Why? Windows has been doing it for years.

I think the lack of waypoints in Silverwastes is complimented by the other fast-travel system which needs to have effort kept going in order to have them remain open/available. This works better than the abundance of waypoints in some areas.

On the other hand, I think Gendarran Fields has a good balance of waypoints so . . . some areas do the balance better than others. The earlier zones have a pretty high density of waypoints but I’m okay with that – the idea being it’s more important to have a lot of “respawn areas” nearby for lower levels than it is for higher levels.

Oh, I don’t miss the GW1 method. Probably because by the time they reached Nightfall there was an ample amount of effort given to just getting around the Death Penalty debuff. And after that it became somewhat of a speedbump and less important – you just carried around Powerstones or candy canes.

cafard.8953:

KyreneZA.8617:

The slow demise of water combat is a shame really. It’s one of the things I really enjoyed in this game.

Off-topic but i’m with you on this. I enjoyed a lot the underwater exploration, and was really hoping for better “deeper” underwater content. Southsun Cove was a particular disappointment in that regards with no diving worth mentioning on a brand new island area…

See, I also liked it.

But I main a Ranger, and we do pretty good underwater.

Lazaar.9123:

Just think of it as watching Lost.

Oh gods no.

. . . Lost season 3 was nowhere near as fulfilling.

lakdav.3694:

If your point is that there is no safe place, i whole-heartedly agree.

The thing is, if she wanted to destroy it, she would have done so already. Now i guess it is a waiting game for it to hatch. I wonder just when is that supposed to happen, Glint being dead for about 9 years now.

I’m not talking about her destroying it – that’s not her goal, so it would seem. Or as you say, it’d be done. It’d be done, and we’d all be screwed. What worries me is her taking it and more and more people being aware she has it . . . drawing attention to it.

We don’t need . . . certain parties . . . interested in the potential power of a dragon egg. I’m not just talking about Mordremoth here. Can you think of what, oh, the Flame Legion would be able to do if they could get their hands on it? It’d make the Searing look like a backyard barbecue.

Rebound.3409:

I think u didn’t understand a big portion of what happened in the last LS’s..but thank you for the screenshot/transcribe walls.

I think they’re going for humor/satirical value more than actually trying to dissect it. It practically drips out of my monitor.

Nilkemia.8507:

You’re doing more running away than Logan Thackeray.

Foul on the play!

He didn’t run away, and there was no cowardice in choosing the duty to the queen. Either way, something terrible was going to happen.

I for one don’t want to find out what would have happened if Queen Jennah had been left to die while Destiny’s Edge fought Kralkatorrik. And probably would have failed.

Silmar Alech.4305:

If I had childs, I would not allow them to play Guild Wars 2. In all friendship and honesty: no, the way the RNG is used in GW2 isn’t for minors, because minors don’t yet know the value of things, time and resources. The ESRB does not seem to see this aspect in games and rate games not according to it, but I do.

(Now you can laugh at me)

In the spirit of friendship and goodwill, I’m not going to laugh at you.

I will, however, say if you just dump your children on GW2 and don’t try to educate them on how the RNG works and why it’s a bad idea to spend all your money dumping greatswords into the Mystic Forge all day and hoping for Dawn? I really don’t want you letting your kids near the game either.

This is, of course, assuming said children are adolescent or younger. I feel it’s imperative not just to know what children of that age are up to but to sit down and discuss it with them so they can understand it. Even if it’s not something you actually know anything about – have them teach you. (Actually that’s the quickest way to mastery of something – having to teach it to someone else.)

If you really want to show them the evils of RNG? I recommend Monopoly or Yahtzee.

Ehhh . . . I’ll finally weigh in a little. Bear in mind, this is coming off playing two games tonight with buddies RL side. One game was “Settlers of Catan”, though a bit house-ruled through adding a lot of material to it. The other was a dice game called “Shooting Straights” I think – a sort of “dice poker”. I’ll give you a wild guess which one we enjoyed more.

RNG makes a game interesting instead of a simple tactical struggle to be the first to get a high ground position and defend it successfully. I’ve played games like that before, where there was almost no random chance to the game at all. I don’t tell stories of those games as much as I do the time I rolled thirteen failures in a row one night playing D&D. Or that one game of Risk where someone tableflipped because one unit of mine in Ukraine always tied the attacker’s highest roll and he wasted fifty seven armies attacking it with me having cards to turn in next turn.

So, RNG has its place in gaming. Shall we all agree there is ample reason not to entirely gut it out?

However at the same time . . . “jackpot RNG” where someone who can essentially win a game through random chance, is not fun to play. (Even for the winner sometimes.) In translating this to GW2 or other MMOs – there’s nothing fun where the only thing keeping you from something is a random chance you can’t overcome with anything other than repeated attempts to succeed. (I hate how Diablo 3 has basically several dozen achievements which boil down to “replay areas/chapters and hope what you need is randomly spawned until you get it . . . now repeat a dozen times for the other things”.)

When we talk about cosmetic advancements, however . . . I’m a little softer on it. With them not being necessary for advancement and only a matter of how your character looks, I find I can’t muster righteous indignation.

Except in one regard. It should be possible to acquire something of statistical equality to a random drop through hard work, persistence, and effort. It need not look as cool but it should at least be possible to have the stats.

That’s it.

A fair point, but a rebuttal – everything we have tried to protect? Generally hasn’t fared well. Fort Salma? Lion’s Arch? Ascalon? Yeah, we did a lot of good defending them from invaders and despoilers.

Zera Allimatti.2541:

It’s Ellen Kiel.

It had better not be. I voted for her assuming she wasn’t underhanded enough to run a private and secret information ring with unknown goals. Evon seems more the type that way, but he also seems the type to be climbing on rooftops and proclaiming himself a champion of right and demanding support.

Ronin.7381:

draxynnic.3719:

While I’m not inclined to continue rehashing what is now an obsolete argument, I will correct misunderstandings:

we know (i think i’ve read this here in the forum) that corrupted creatures could not be corupted by other dragons.

We actually know the exact opposite – it is, in fact, possible for an entity to be corrupted by multiple dragons at once, as shown in CoE. In fact, the first time we saw the name Mordremoth came from one such creature.

In the case of Subject Alpha, I still find that bit of evidence to be questionable as the events that transpired were unique. They were not natural by any means. To further support my theory here, remember the worker who you speak to explains that the Crucible is used to split energies, refine and, what I believe, re-purpose them. As I had stated in the past, we have not heard nor seen the cross-corruption take place in the natural environment due to many reasons but the fact it has not been sighted remains until further evidence proves otherwise.

I agree – it seems the corruption can be admixtured into the same being, but not naturally. It would take willingly and artificially doing it. It is also uncertain what effects it has – will a being who has been rendered an Icebrood and then mixed in with Branded effects follow Jormag or Kralkatorrik with regards to whose will? Or . . . more alarmingly . . . does it possess the power entrusted to it and the power infused into it but now having no master other than its own impulses? Hard to say. It’s definitely one thing to keep in mind, isn’kitten

Oh, sorry, mild derailment of the topic. Hold on.

And in strange times even Dreams may die!

. . . there.

Putting on an amateur game designer’kitten, I know why this might be done – to ensure they stand out.