Guild Wars 2

Zaxares.5419:

Pirate King Drrikk’ttikk for Captain’s Council!

Nah, this time I’m voting Evon Gnashblade.

Why? Because I hear next time he’ll give out Claim Tickets to his supporters if he wins.

DarksunG.9537:

& you’re saying i’m just trying to overblow things & make a point? woooow. I don’t mind that Logan is a “tool” of the queen. That’s his Job. but to characterize him entirely by just saying “there is nothing to his character except the Queen. He’s just a tool” is disingenuous just to make a point.

Yeah, but I didn’t say that. You did.

Again, you’re demonstrating you have no idea what you’re talking about. Varesh’s entire life was about surpassing her ancestors & unlocking ancient secrets of the crystal desert (which are invariably linked to Abbadon). all of her military training, political savvy & leadership was an obsession, just like Turai. (all this stuff is in the manual) It’s what makes her character work at the start.

It’s debatable how accurate that stuff is, given what we see later. Varesh delegates a lot of her efforts during the Nightfall campaign and is focused entirely on getting Abaddon released, and winds up throwing away her generals one by one to use Margonites instead.

Whatever she was before we started the Nightfall campaign, that’s not what she is any longer. I repeat: she is a tool of Abaddon which is being used to pry open his prison little by little. There is little else she actively does . . . I say “little else” because I just can’t recall her doing anything personally which is related to anything other than unsealing Abaddon. I’m sure there probably is something, but I don’t recall it.

But it’s not an exorcize in Abbadon making him self look powerful & right by making Varesh look dumb & weak.

And once more – I never said it was. I said she was a tool, not that she was an idiot, not that she was weak and helpless without him. She was a tool, and a means to an end.

If you want to be serious, Shiro and Khilbron got more chances to work for Abaddon than she did – they each got a second chance and a third chance . . . she just got one shot, failed, and that was it.

With Dwayna giving birth I could buy that, but I don’t know if that is just a matter of a god creating life or weather its actual reproduction like the pale tree. & with how much they retconned the God Lore I don’t even know if it’s just another “that’s what the humans thought” deal.

It’s not a matter of a goddess creating life. She bore a half-mortal child which was Grenth. With a sculptor, unnamed but implied heavily to be someone important. Again, therefore they can reproduce with humans. They have gender.

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Well, except for Mad King Thorn who got one over on almost everyone. And Tixx. And Captain Magnus. And Canach. And Rytlock. And Forgal.

thank you for making my point. on almost everyone. They didn’t feel the need to have a scene where Kiel says something stupid & selfish specifically to Magnus, then to have him point out how dumb she is & then snarkely tell her to get lost. & then do that like 10 more times peppered around.

Of course they didn’t, that was what Evon was for, continuously implying how useless and inept Ellen Kiel was. Including during Scarlet’s attack on Lion’s Arch.

And you probably missed my point. I listed six male characters who exist as important pieces who are competent, and never portrayed as anything less than competent. Not even Canach at the party being a snarky little bodyguard who is just itching to be contrary to everyone.

. . . and no, the Mad King is insane, but not incompetent.

DarksunG.9537:

I mean the story introduces them with Eir telling you: “The Sons of Svanir are close by. We can try talking to them, but they hate anyone who doesn’t serve their dragon…and they utterly despise women.”

Actually, they wind up a bit better introduced trapping and stalking animals around the shrines of Wolf and Bear. And completely not caring about it. Further north they are harassing travelers on the road just because they can.

The personal story isn’t the whole of the story.

So you require Faren to say “Scarlet sexually assaulted me” for it to be implicit? I don’t think Wooden Potatoes (who likes the story, thought that part was funny & give Anet’s writing WAY more of a pass that many people) had an agenda when he came to the same conclusion. I held off judgement until I saw other people responding the same way. It is was it is.

Wooden Potatoes isn’t the author of that line, and he has questionable conclusions. He is a guy with a YouTube account and not the final authority on lore. Any more than Vayne is the final authority on whether something is right or not on the forums.

So, yes, unless it’s explicitly said Lord Faren was sexually abused? That’s just a fantasy being spun for the heck of it, and being used to sensationalize something which could have been much . . . much more silly and stupid.

Except she does. In the same scene. & not only does Anise berate him before that, she does it after purposefully stirring things up by making the watchwork look like Rytlcok. Yeah, that’s normal.

The Queen does or Anise? Because I’m looking at the dialogue from the wiki and the Queen doesn’t say anything – Anise does. My point was how Anise is the one more suited for that sort of “bap on the nose” than the Queen, much like it’s more seemly for the Commander to sort out a lying minister with Kasmeer than herself.

As for the jab with Rytlock – yes, it’s necessary to rub Logan’s nose in it. That feud was pointless and it being buried in the Citadel of Flame was the single best development to either character.

yeah, that makes sense, lets have queen(the primary defensive objective of the entire army) be a hologram, & they hero of the human armies, the man that’s fought dragons & single handedly done more than any human in the fight against them be out of the loop.

A Dragon. Singular. At the time of the Jubilee Zhaitan hadn’t been defeated yet, from what I recall. And he didn’t face Kralk, he wasn’t there. So, really, he never faced it. And he had to be out of the loop – look at what happened at Caudecus’ Estate when she went missing. He went totally off the end in a way which was out of line.

So that everyone in the area is defending the wrong target & all their lives are at risk as they try to do so, & then after words, now that everyone is in chaos because they think the queen is dead, berates him for properly responding to save the queen instead of saying “sorry about the deception guys, but I had to hide her”.

Which one was where Anise berated him, by the way? Opening or Closing, because I looked at the Closing Ceremonies and she didn’t berate him. You’re reading too much into it, I think.

You’re insane if you think that all the ambient npc dialog with women & men is playful ribbing.

You’re insane if you think it’s all malicious. And again, you’re forcing it into “black and white” when it’s never a black and white issue.

You know you’re reading me completely wrong. but that seems to be how you make “arguments”. You tell me what im saying even thought you know it’s wrong, then you attack that hyperbole with passive aggressive superiority. but when your definition of equality is based on who you can insult.. well.

That’s not how my definition of equality runs. But you can keep believing that if you like. And I did ask if I had it wrong, rather than just assume again, because you seem to be in this “it’s either black or white” concerning this sort of thing. So, I ask you, when is it okay? Or is it never okay?

Galen.9042:

Furthermore, covers usually tell you virtually nothing about whats in the book. I want to know what the book’s about before I get it. I don’t want to pick up a book with a tank battle on the cover, expecting a war novel, and find myself reading a romance.

I’ve had similar experiences. Covers always lie, you know

More to the point, my most cherished series of books I spent/spend an inordinate amount of time reading . . . and rereading, have really bad covers for what’s going on in them. Which series? Why the Vorkosigan Saga.

Atlas.9704:

I hope it gets a whole new layout, maybe even incorporate the Pact and minor races somehow a bit more.
I’d love to see a Skritt section or some Hylek architecture pocketed away.

Ogres as well, the Kodan probably won’t have a place though.

Why? Because I was moving on from GW1 which I had barely touched in the last fifteen months backwards from the GW2 BWEs. I had gotten supremely bored with trying to hit titles at max, and after carefully realizing there wasn’t much special which I really wanted in the game . . . I just stepped away from it.

I stepped into GW2 on Beta Weekend Event #2 and vastly enjoyed the experience. Even on my toaster of a Mac Mini :P

Apparently so . . .

Welp at least the scraps can get sold. Still better RNG than the rest of the Treasure Hunter Collection. (Seriously, WTF?)

Umm.. seriously.. You’re talking about a woman who lead her nation with believable military & political savvy to not only repel an attack of an army, but route them, unlock demons to help her, research her ancestors journey, then near the end when she actually gets possessed (making her a victim of manipulation), you saying the whole character is a tool.

I’m saying exactly that, yes. Some tools are just wrenches to tighten down a bolt, and others are more complex. Varesh is a tool being used to get the job done, that job being opening up the Realm of Torment. That is the entirety of her goal after routing the Sunspears with summoned demons. (It should be noted the Sunspears were actively winning and holding ground up until the demons were summoned. They retreated out of panic, not because they were overmatched. If they had stood their ground, they could have won.)

You have no idea what Varesh’s story is. most of it is her journey to unlock the secrets that Turai failed to. When you actually know what you’re talking about it makes a difference.

No, most of it is her journey to unleash Abaddon and let him out to have vengeance on the world. Turai tried to Ascend and failed, and his failure is echoed in Prophecies and not Nightfall – he guides the player characters through the steps to Ascend even though he cannot anymore since he died.

You are correct in one thing – whatever Varesh did before the point where Kahyet showed up in Istan and we see them through Tahlkora’s perspective? There’s not much told about it. But that’s not what we’re talking about, are we? We’re talking about the events of Nightfall.

It’s also funny you say sylvari are not female then say a god is male.. whateves.

Abaddon is male. Lyssa is two females. Grenth is male. Balthazar is male. Dwayna is female (and bore a child). Menzies is male. Dhuum is male. Melandru is female. That Dwayna bore a child says they do have biological distinction between genders. The sylvari do not, since they cannot reproduce themselves. They are offspring of the Pale Tree, which are generated from . . . apparently self-pollenation.

Therefore, the gods have genders. The sylvari do not, they merely emulate it.

My issue is with a concerted effort of the writers to have a suspicious number of women look smarter, stronger, more right by contrasting/pitting them against men that look dumber, weaker, & evil. It’s a theme. it’s not a handful of things. If they portrayed Anise as evil & manipulative, I could understand her talking down to dudes. But he’s portrayed as “Oh yeah, you go girl. She knows!”

Well, except for Mad King Thorn who got one over on almost everyone. And Tixx. And Captain Magnus. And Canach. And Rytlock. And Forgal.

Though I’ll give you Tybalt as dumber and weaker.

DarksunG.9537:

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

And don’t move the argument to being about the Flame Legion or Sons of Svanir

I’m sorry i’m making too much sense that you have to just toss it out.

Because it wasn’t part of your post I replied to. You pulled it in to change the argument, and since I wasn’t addressing that . . .

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Anything you listed in the post I replied to about what travesties of feminism are visited on the poor male characters is, and has been, normally done without consequence.

Passive aggressive hyperbole doesn’t make points.

So it only works when you do it? Fun to know.

Because it’s used to make the guys look them look evil or dumb, not “right”.

That’s not why they’re evil, for either of them.

B.S. Farren talks about how she plays rough & he’s in his underwear. Even Wooden Potatoes laughed about how it was suggested that she kitten d him. But sure, let’s pretend she played 4 square roughly with him.

I’m going to bold this so you understand. Nowhere is it said that is what happened, nor is it implied sexual misconduct was done. You could come up with equally non-sexual reasons why he’s stripped down and feels she played “rough”. This is Lord Faren we’re talking about here, the peakitten who loves to preen but can’t back it up. Strip him naked, have the Watchworks push him into the cage . . . and he’s not above adding elaboration, as can be seen elsewhere in the story.

If you’re seeing it there, that’s because you want it to be there. Probably so you can use it as a point in your list rather than come up with something more substantial.

Like the Svanir/Flame Legion thing you should have used there in the first place. Which, again, has little bearing on their attitude of genders as to why they’re evil or the reason they’re shown to be evil. They’re shown to be evil because they don’t respect anyone other than their own, either corrupting or just flat-out destroying anything which they can’t bend to their will. That’s a far more telling thing than “the Flame Legion will not permit females to fight and instead use them for home-side labor” or “the Sons of Svanir admit no female norn to their ranks, due to lingering hate over Jora’s kinslaying”.

I don’t know what you’re trying to deflect this to, but I never said I don’t like Logan. I actually do like him. But the whole Queen/Anise “you need to control your temper”thing was laughable. that may have been a matter of a badly constructed plot device, but Anise telling the hero of the human armies to shut up was not only out of her jurisdiction, but stupid.

. . . he does need to control his emotions, and he does need to shut up and do his duty more than nurse grudges. Anise is the only one who will tell him this because it’s unseemly for the Queen to do it, and Anise is technically above him in station due to being Shining Blade. Anything is in her jurisdiction if it is deemed a threat to the crown, and having a Seraph commander who can’t stop being hotheaded is part of it.

She is right and it’s not put in any other way than to drive it home bluntly, and plainly.

It’s a pity the timing of the first season was problematic because Logan got through that junk at the end of the Personal Story arc. Which ANet decided to try to have happen separate and slightly concurrent, so any development he had was clocked back. Ditto Rytlock and Eir.

Ok, so you can just explain away everything by just saying insults are “shades of mockery”. I can only take so much of the moving goalposts.

Oh my god. You really don’t understand anything about the difference between turning to your friend and making a joke about their injuries and seeing a stranger and going “oh my god you’re in a wheelchair! that’s hilarious”.

What you are implying is it is wrong for a female friend of a male to make fun of them. Ever. Even if there’s no malice. Am I reading you correctly? It’s out of line for one of them to go “god you’re just so stupid” when I mess something up?

1/2

Ohoni.6057:

And I feel the overhaul was a good concept, executed badly. Which they’ve acknowledged, also in the Traits topic.

But they seem to feel that they “executed it badly” merely by attaching traits to the wrong events. Where, in fact, they executed it badly was in pushing the trait tiers back by 20 levels each, and by requiring you to do various activities before unlocking them. The launch traits should not be behind unlocks, they should all unlock at each tier. If they want to incentivize players to run various content, they should do so in a way that does not involve traits.

Apologies, this is going to go off topic entirely, but . . . Trait Masteries were badly done and this is going to maybe possibly be the last time I float any suggestions on it.

First, yeah, they said that and they also said they want to look into something better. Which means they acknowledge this didn’t work well. So long as what we get is better and less problematic to work with than the current system? I couldn’t care less about what it does.

Second, I disagree with how the tiers should unlock Trait Masteries – I think some (not all but some) should unlock immediately. And by “some” I mean “let the player pick X amount, with X decreasing at each tier, freely”. You want to totally own the Masteries? Get to searching for ways to earn them.

Third, the trait point levels seems fine to me thus far, but after the NPE I would now make it so the “power dip” levels are bolstered by new trait points so there’s no “dead” levels.

Lastly, to your last sentence – what are they supposed to do to add incentive to do events which won’t get messed up by farmers or the min-max loot hounds which made Coiled Watch Fail Farms a thing? The more I watch this game and its players, and remember GW1’s few things, the more I think if ANet gives the players an inch, they are going to lose an arm in the process.

Oldgrimm.8521:

here is the npc that your looking for

I knew I’d seen it somewhere.

Ohoni.6057:

I refuse to believe that the devs are so stupid that they thought the trait revamp was what we wanted.

They said as much, and have yet to clarify the statement, bragged about it even, as if the trait overhaul was something to be proud of, and this was after the community outrage over it. I’d post a link, but of course it’s buried in the boards.

It’s in the last 5 pages or so from the Traits topic, I think.

And I feel the overhaul was a good concept, executed badly. Which they’ve acknowledged, also in the Traits topic.

Vayne.8563:

And yet there are two lion guards walking around Lion’s Arch that tell a whole story in their rounds that I followed because I was fascinated by what they had to say. Seven scenes in all that talk about how the aftermath of the Lion’s Arch battles left in its wake corruption and prejudice.

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Lionguard_Brenn_Hillow

That’s why I say the writing is uneven.

Even better, how about the cub escort in the Plains of Ashford where you keep ghosts off them? Or the Sharkmaw jumping puzzle? Sure, they’re not drama, but come on.

If you want to talk about drama writing, how about the one event chain in the Blazeridge Steppes where Ebon Vanguard and Legionnaires get to work together taking out ogres because they are a threat?

If you just want to talk about good, period, how about the sequence of events in Lornar’s Pass starting with fishing Dwarven Artifacts out of False Lake and ending with the one battle with the Fire Imp from a cursed Summoning Stone? They crammed a lot into that sequence of events.

Too many things going on with GW2 which I really just missed trying to play FF14. Primarily, the lack of pressure to level up fat and remain well-geared.

IndigoSundown.5419:

However, once you strip away all the frills, you’re left with, “Company A offers to sell you Random Pack X. Random Pack X contains Y, with Y representing a range of items. Some items are more rare than others.”

The secondary market for MTG is not “the frills” it is, bluntly, “quite a bit of the strategy of the deck-building angle of the game”. There are reasons people don’t shell out $1k+ for a playset of the ancient-era dual lands when they can shell out a fraction of it for something else with mild drawbacks and plan around it.

There is barely a secondary market for most things out of the Black Lion Chests, because they account-bind on acquire. The really useful stuff is worthless, while the weapon skins and permanent contracts are where you can make bank. . . . which is pretty worthless as an item compared to things like the Crafting Booster (oh how much that saved me when doing work on those last tiers…)

It’s a monetizing scheme designed to pander to human weakness. Chests with “stuff” that no one wants or cares about are not going to generate a lot of revenue. Think about this. A lot of the “neat extras” are available for purchase directly, where you know what you’re paying for. Without those ticket scraps (or whatever other wow factor items chests might be stocked with), chest monetizing is not worth the resources to implement it.

I think about it a lot. You’ll find I said that’s really the only part I find myself objecting to even a little. But it’s not really enough to get upset about . . . until they put out exactly as much through those tickets as they do in the other content updates.

It would be the only think I’d tweak about the chests – a means of acquiring those skins as account-bound items/unlocks with perhaps a lesser rarity or something inconsequential.

They did it for the SAB weapons.

Vayne.8563:

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Vayne.8563:

Guild Wars 1 hasn’t had a major update in years and people still play it. UO hasn’t had an update in a decade and people still play it.

Vayne? Fact check yourself . . .

Ultima Online got an expansion in ’08 (Stygian Abyss) and a “booster pack” in ’10 (High Seas).

Still . . . most people I know still prefer to . . . um . . . think about playing emulated 1999 versions.

Okay sorry, Ultima Online hasn’t had an expansion in 6 years and no one plays it. I didn’t look it up. However, the basis of what I said remains true whether the specifics do or not. Changing the numbers doesn’t change the reality of what I’m saying.

That’s not what I really said either. People still play it, after all . . . they worked really hard to keep that castle full of cool decorative loot! If they stop playing, all of that goes away . . .

Enter the insidious and necessary “housing decay” system, where a house needs to be renewed so often or it starts decaying. When it fully decays, all items in it drop on the ground and can be picked up by anyone. More often than not? They just rot and are gone forever.

I said most of the people I know who played tend to still play other versions and offerings of the game. Yet enough people were still playing in 2010 for them to offer up an expansion of some sort.

For all practical purposes, it’s hard to imagine no one playing this game in ten years, unless NcSoft shuts down the servers.

Telling the future is hard and if I could do it with any accuracy I’d be playing the stock market.

IndigoSundown.5419:

Buying keys is very much like buying baseball cards or MTG booster packs. The BL chests are guaranteed to contain virtual “goods,” with no guarantee of what those virtual goods will be. There is no possibility of getting nothing. Sorry, you cannot call one virtual gewgaw “something” and another one “nothing” because you don’t want the second one. This is functionally identical to a MTG pack, except that the MTG packs can contain items that can be sold and BLC’s don’t. You might make the case that baseball cards and MTG packs are gambling, however, the companies that sell them get around this because the cards are ostensibly to play a game, and the value is consumer generated.

Well, not really . . . see, MTG packs contain cards which may possibly be something you can sell. More often than not, they’re “trade bait” and aren’t all that good but people still want them for collections. I know roughly . . . every third rare is one which is worth money, while the Mythic Rares (ohgodwhy….) . . . are very rarely worth money to a reseller no matter what a price guide tells you.

Basically, it’s exactly like baseball cards, only there’s a game attached – there are a lot of cards and maybe something like 10% of any given set are what people want so they can play with them or try to speculate on price or future metagame uses.

MTG’s really weird, in that they also knowingly print “junk rares” which they know are only theoretically useful in some situation . . . but largely don’t have a use. The designers admit to it, freely, and that they place most of the cards they want people to really be using in the lower two rarities so there’s a chance of getting enough to play with.

Oh, final note – if you buy the online game’s packs? You don’t even have the option of selling them, I think it was only after the game had been out for a while you could trade virtual cards. So you couldn’t exchange them for money if you didn’t want them.

(Again, not that you’d have a lot of luck just walking into a store with any given one card and walking out with what it’s worth.)

Is selling such things reprehensible? Well, I certainly think so. Unfortunately, what it would take for companies to stop doing so involves self control on the part of consumers. Good luck with that.

I think the idea is less reprehensible than the broad spectrum of cool skins you can only get with Claim Tickets, which are RNG’d out of the chests. I really think that’s a worse problem than chests which don’t give anything other than neat extras.

Vayne.8563:

Guild Wars 1 hasn’t had a major update in years and people still play it. UO hasn’t had an update in a decade and people still play it.

Vayne? Fact check yourself . . .

Ultima Online got an expansion in ’08 (Stygian Abyss) and a “booster pack” in ’10 (High Seas).

Still . . . most people I know still prefer to . . . um . . . think about playing emulated 1999 versions.

I’m going to quote my parents on this, and probably plenty of other adults:

“Never gamble with something you can’t afford losing.”

Really wish more people learned this lesson. Also really wish games of pure chance got less rewards than games of skill, but so long as the States continue their own “idiot tax” (read: lottery tickets) then I guess I’m in the minority

It does exist.

And yes, this was a rather questionable decision to make the unlocks for certain collections very . . . very . . . limited in availability.

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Personally, I view gender equality as me having the right to make fun of a female character and not have someone go “you’re just doing it because she’s a GURL” and have that treated as a valid defense.

Yeah well since the game just “happens” to have the vast majority of that “making fun” coming from females toward males your view doesn’t mesh with your argument.

Sure it does. You’re just not paying attention to the different “shades” of mockery. I know you understand it, since you’re demonstrating it in your post.

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Glint being a Sacrificial Female with “death by backstory”, Eir being driven suicidal by two males and an asura who couldn’t stop picking on her , Rox continuing to have it made funny about how she idolizes a superior who talks down to her, and Queen Jennah being not very effective compared to any other leader of the five major races.

So you’re complaining about Glint being a Martyr? What? That’s what made Snaff cool. Eir being the victim of two stupid men? fits the narrative.

What made Snaff cool is he died? Now, how does this fit with your idea of the game needing to stop making the male characters treated the way they are . . . and right here at the end you’re saying what makes one of them “cool” is that he died? Seriously? You don’t get that?

They try to make women victims of men & vehicles to show how dumb & inept men can be. Rox’s story is never “made funny”. The story is crafted so everyone specifically feels sympathy toward her. Your character even calls Rytlock to task for it. but nice reversal. Queen Jennah not being effective compared tot he other leaders? Nah. They all do about the same.

You’re half right – Rox’s background story is never made funny. Her superstition? Played for laughs. The continuous attempts during Season One to “earn the right” to talk about induction into the Stone Warband? It stank of a little girl trying to impress a teacher she had a crush on. This was commented on several times, and I know because I responded to that too.

And it’s a constant clamor about how Queen Jennah is “useless” and barely can handle politics well enough for Kryta to take part in anything. Simple rumors were enough to prevent her from going to the summit? Rumors which were so paper-thin and obviously false? Please.

I just don’t see the need for most of the female antagonism & “looks how dumb/inept he really is” in the story at all.

I don’t see the need for a lot of things in the story . . . mostly how asura always seem to have the answer for everything despite their experiments going wrong wind up being responsible for a lot of Dynamic Events and at least one Meta Event. I don’t see the need to invent Mordremoth when we could have gone to Kralk or Jormag, or even Primordius. I don’t see the need for the lack of concern over Primordius, who seems capable of sending minions over a lot of area and is one of the three things causing active climate change in Tyria.

Why can’t they actually work together & like each other. It’s not about strong women. Varesh was a strong woman. Scarlet was a cartoon female power fantasy. These character’s aren’t Ripley or Nancy Thompson. They are Anita Sarkesians. They are going about “powerful” the wrong way.

Varesh was a tool, in the very literal term of the word. She was nothing but the tool to break Abaddon’s prison open. Hey, look, she did nothing but serve a male character until she died, fancy that.

Scarlet had a lot wrong with her, but it’s difficult to call her “female” when the sylvari don’t really have genders at all. What was more wrong with her was how each writing team seemed to have a different idea of how her insanity manifested itself and having it start out as “sylvari Joker” and back off to functionally insane.

I agree there is a lot wrong with the writing, but I do think this is a big issue. It makes pushing these themes more important then just making a character that fits the world.

I disagree with this being the most important issue to consider. I think more important is getting the tone of your story consistent and not introducing hooks you don’t plan to use. Case in point: Demmi Beetlestone. (Also another female character whose identity is nothing without her father’s existence.)

DarksunG.9537:

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

. . . about half of that is wrong, one of them is added simply to cause a sensation rather than have any basis, and the last one is ignoring the world lore so you can add another bullet point.

No, it’s not. Just saying it is doesn’t make it true. I agree that last one while it’s it’s not, in lore, “owning” someone it’s a way to make the story artificially have a woman who can control a guy & make him look inept. I mean that story so far is constant manipulation. “to find out if he can do what she needs him to”? He accomplished far more the first time we met him, that’s the most laughably conjured up reason ever.

She makes him look inept? I just did that mission. He looks impatient with her bullhockey rather than inept – Canach was a rather direct soul, after all. Oh, by the way, it was added a while ago and people seemed okay with Kiel grabbing his billet to put him to use in the Battle for Lion’s Arch.

It’s weird how it’s okay if it’s Kiel, not okay if it’s Anise.

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

And your post doesn’t sound like you just have an axe to grind.

just like yours!

I’m a ranger, we have tons of throwing axes.

But regardless? No. I just get tired of these particular posts coming up which seem to run the risk of okaying double standards.

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Can a male character do those things as well and not be punished for it? If your answer is ‘yes’ then . . . equality. There we go.

Actually, no. When they do it, it’s considered evil & creates victims. It’s a catalyst for female action in this game. I mean they have 2 entire factions where one of the main representations of their evil is hatred of females. Really? why? of all the things to pick, why that? & if you listen to that ambient Svanir dialog (which it seems you don’t listen to much ambient dialog at all) they are portrayed as total idiots. If you had a faction of women that hated men, but acted like dolts & talked amongst each other about how they hate men but want them really bad, you’d get lynched.

Don’t try to put over on me what I do and do not know. And don’t move the argument to being about the Flame Legion or Sons of Svanir. Two reasons why not: it’s not in context of what I was replying to (which was your listing), and it’s a separate matter. That particular thread of argument is enough for its own topic, too, but here goes for a second round at what you posted:

Anything you listed in the post I replied to about what travesties of feminism are visited on the poor male characters is, and has been, normally done without consequence.

Having most interaction between npcs having the female reject, insult, mock or one-up the males who are often depicted as inept, foolish or just plain dumb.
Having the main story cast be almost entirely female with the only male an ineffectual dud whose main story is that he was rejected by a woman & lives under the shadow of his Mom?
Having the main female villain sodomize Lord Farren as a “joke”.
Having the side character Logan we a whipping boy for Jenna & Anise based on Aneise’ laughably illogical “plan”.
Having Anise buy Canach & everyone think it’s not weird at all.

1. Since you so happily brought them up, the Sons of Svanir and Flame Legion both do this. Nobody is burning up the forums complaining about that. They also don’t complain about Lord Faren being an ineffectual, womanizing snob either.

2. Braham is far from ineffectual, and norn culture is demonstrated not to work that way as early as Eye of the North. Try again.

3. No evidence of this having been done. At all. So this is invented for the sake of making your list more sensationalized.

4. Nothing new here, that was happening on the main storyline too, though Logan is a tough topic to tackle. I’ll leave it at this – he’s not nearly as terrible as people make him out to be, much like Koss is not nearly as awesome as people make him out to be.

5. It’s not weird. That’s how Lion’s Arch operates. What’s weird is that thematically it should have been done much earlier to get Canach out of the picture in Season 1. What’s weird is how this is almost like bail money . . . and suddenly it’s objectionable?

Odyssey.2613:

No, the Kormir video is not beyond inaccurate. It has very valid points. I don’t need to write a dissertation on Trahearne and Kormir because the flaws are pretty blatantly effin obvious. To do so is a waste of time. Lore. Mechanical. It doesn’t matter. Arguing over semantics. In the end it is what it is.

. . . yes, the video is indeed inaccurate for the sake of comedy and making the point the author wanted to. I find it amusing as a video (except for the terrible, terrible voicing and animation) but as a treatise on the lore? It’s terrible, one-sided, and malicious with no apology for any of it. It’s not unlike like “Captain Archer Crazypants” that Chuck Sonnenberg loves to work with.

There are valid points which exist for why those two characters are problematic. Exaggerating them for the sake of comedy, and ignoring dissenting points or more importantly any situational qualifiers, is what makes the video terrible.

Anyone could make a video without overplaying every one of the valid points in there, and I would probably not hate the video as much as I do this one. I would disagree, but I wouldn’t loathe seeing it.

I’ll be first in line to start dissecting characters and showing why they’re not as awesome as people remember (Gwen, Koss, Sieran, and Tybalt are high on the list of targets) but I’ll likewise be first in line to point out none of the ones who get slammed really . . . truly . . . deserve the hate they get.

Except Zojja. She can die in a lab accident for all I care.

DarksunG.9537:

Gilosean.3805:

If you mean “Are you going to keep treating men and women as equal?”, then I definitely hope so.

So equal to you is:
Having most interaction between npcs having the female reject, insult, mock or one-up the males who are often depicted as inept, foolish or just plain dumb.
Having the main story cast be almost entirely female with the only male an ineffectual dud whose main story is that he was rejected by a woman & lives under the shadow of his Mom?
Having the main female villain sodomize Lord Farren as a “joke”.
Having the side character Logan we a whipping boy for Jenna & Anise based on Aneise’ laughably illogical “plan”.
Having Anise buy Canach & everyone think it’s not weird at all.

. . . about half of that is wrong, one of them is added simply to cause a sensation rather than have any basis, and the last one is ignoring the world lore so you can add another bullet point.

Yeah, that doesn’t sound like a bizarre feminist fantasy at all.

And your post doesn’t sound like you just have an axe to grind.

Here’s the $50 question:

Can a male character do those things as well and not be punished for it? If your answer is ‘yes’ then . . . equality. There we go.

Personally, I view gender equality as me having the right to make fun of a female character and not have someone go “you’re just doing it because she’s a GURL” and have that treated as a valid defense.

There are many problems with the story. This isn’t one of them.

Though if you want to keep adding things to the list, how about Glint being a Sacrificial Female with “death by backstory”, Eir being driven suicidal by two males and an asura who couldn’t stop picking on her , Rox continuing to have it made funny about how she idolizes a superior who talks down to her, and Queen Jennah being not very effective compared to any other leader of the five major races.

And that’s just without digging things up, like how the human storyline has “damsel in distress” played very straight one time, there’s a corrupt (female) Ministry Captain you have to fight, the only one you can save out of the adversarial bandit gang as a street rat is Riot Alice (who might have died in Prosperity anyway later) . . .

Yes, I’m quite sure females have it equally as bad as males in this game.

Nick.6972:

It’s incredibly easy to get 55 AR.

I can see this is true, given the ability to merge +1 Agony Infusions now. But here’s two points about how “easy” it is:

- It will require at least six Ascended slots, presuming you stuff +10 Agony Infusions into your trinkets.

- The Infusions are going to be really . . . really time consuming to acquire and require a lot of Fractals.

Yalora Istairiea.6287:

Unfortunately, as soon as you said “and my brother”, well… you just admitted to the illegitimate past use of that account.

Is that the distinct sound of Dhuum’s sharpening stone I hear?

It’s probably just the wind; account sharing is a bad idea only because what actions are taken against an account for what one person does/says won’t be repealed when the other person with access wants to protest.

Not to mention the whole “my brother cleaned out my account” thing.

Konig Des Todes.2086:

But I suppose you can’t top Anet trolling your event with an invasion of mursaat in a location you can’t use skills.

Yes you can.

Gwen the little child dropping fiery apocalypse at the end of the Beta.

deSade.9437:

Look at (part of) this community.
They hear the word raid and they freak out, crying bitter tears and screaming “I DON’T WANT RAIDS THIS IS NOT WOW THIS IS A GAME FOR CASUALS I DON’T WANNA I DON’T WANNA”.
Isn’t it pathetic?
/sigh
You don’t even take the predecessor into account. The 12-man élite zones, you remember?
Yeah. Yeah, that’s right. It’s not only wow.

You mean the two that existed, right? Where the rewards were, mostly, not really worth the price of admission and the time sunk into them?

Tom Nook.

Actually, seriously now. I have a special place in my heart for the Shaemoor graveyard where I found an event nobody seemed to know about once during BWE2. I thought it was a pretty cool event back then – nowadays I just wish more strange stuff would show up like that with some minor prompt suggesting to check it out.

samo.1054:

And let’s not even talk about how this system effects new players. It’s pure torture.

I don’t know if you’re qualified to talk about “pure torture” as far as gaming goes. Not until you go back and try chocobo breeding for a gold chocobo . . . as an introduction. Afterwards we can discuss “NetHack”.

samo.1054:

Yes, I absolutely agree with both of you – right now they have to tread carefully on this matter, but still step in the direction that the community is showing them and trusting their guts at the same time.

Anyway you look at this tho, it’s quite clear that current system is unacceptable for the big majority of us. It’s like an abortion of all the alts that we ever wanted to make. :P

They’ve also insinuated in a post before this current system isn’t what they want to keep forever either. Take it as you will, but they have said they want to change it. Just not blindly.

Vayne.8563:

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

BlueZone.4236:

CrashTestAuto is right and Vayne wrong. Temporary content is temporary no matter how hard you try to spin the definition of the word “temporary”.

https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/introducing-the-story-journal/

As I mentioned earlier, only festivals will continue to use the gold star UI. They will not be in the story Journal, and they will remain as temporary content that comes in each year for a period of time and then packs up and leaves when the festival has completed.

I bolded the word temporary in the quote.
Thanks for your time, everyone.

Yeah, but the festivals were always rather temporary even back in GW1. And there were a lot more of them . . .

What’s being said here is different than what’s being implied. If every MMORPG has festivals, than singling out this one as having temporary content, implying that it’s somehow bad to have, is misdirection period.

If every MMORPG has it, why is it necessary to bring up? It was brought up solely because the poster was attempting to imply it was something negative. Therefore he’s not talking about holiday festivals.

Often, context is everything.

Doesn’t matter to me, all content is temporary to me rather than permanent. See, if I get bored enough of a game . . . I stop playing, possibly even deleting it. So that means everything which I had been doing is now no longer there.

By this logic, Final Fantasy 14 was a whole mess of temporary content. Too bad.

Want to level up simply? Well, starting at the top…

If you have a Crafting Booster use it.

Start off each tier making enough refined materials to get the required items off the dark-gold color. This should be about 4-5 levels. Then move on to figuring out what Fine materials you have the most of (blood, fangs, claws, etc) and start working out Inscriptions – remember Huntsman has seven different weapons so make only seven of them at once. Now “Discover” each recipe for the chosen Inscription and each weapon. Move on to some other Fine-level weapons until you reach the capacity to use new Inscriptions, and repeat.

When you get the option of doing Masterwork or Rare – pick Rare. They’re worth more XP and can go into your Collections for later. (This will save you time.) You shouldn’t need too many of these before you hit the next tier.

Also, salvaging your results to break down into material again can save you a few pieces.

Once you hit the sixth tier (Orichalcum and Ancient Wood), be advised you will need more than the previous tier to make Exotics (you need five Dowels per Inscription as well as five Ecto). I recommend you make ones you will be using, or for people you know to use. Or just make a bunch to Mystic Forge.

BlueZone.4236:

CrashTestAuto is right and Vayne wrong. Temporary content is temporary no matter how hard you try to spin the definition of the word “temporary”.

https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/introducing-the-story-journal/

As I mentioned earlier, only festivals will continue to use the gold star UI. They will not be in the story Journal, and they will remain as temporary content that comes in each year for a period of time and then packs up and leaves when the festival has completed.

I bolded the word temporary in the quote.
Thanks for your time, everyone.

Yeah, but the festivals were always rather temporary even back in GW1. And there were a lot more of them . . .

Well, there’s also the issue of “just because it was added doesn’t mean it won’t be taken out later” floating around too. (See: “Greatest Fear” plotline, a fair selection of juvenile critter accessibility…)

Sure, we have zero guarantees anywhere else this won’t be the case (at least one game I played had something dummied out in a patch). But you have to admit there’s a basis . . . however small and tenuous . . . for being concerned things won’t just go ‘poof’ at any given time.

. . . still holding out for the time when Rata Sum goes up in a ball of arcane chaos.

DarksunG.9537:

Leah Hoyer.9382:

Thanks for the feedback, folks. I appreciate your comments and will say that consistent, complex, nuanced characters and storytelling are absolutely my goal as well. I’m soaking up all the existing story that I can, via gameplay, wikis, our novels, and lots and lots of conversations with my coworkers who have great insights (and opinions) on our expansive lore. I really love the game and am excited to be a part of it moving forward. Keep the comments coming!

Leah
(now with fancy, red ANet banner)

Are you going to continue going with the feminist flavor they’ve added to the GW story?

Oooh, ooh, loaded question spotted. No matter how she answers, she loses!

samo.1054:

So many well well-written posts here… Seriously, can Anet just for once admit that what they did was wrong and listen to the people here?!?!

I’m sure they can listen, and I suspect they can definitely admit . . . in terms not exactly what you worded . . . there were mistakes made.

But I doubt they will do exactly what the people here say. Why? Because it all doesn’t work together with each other part. Because the instant they do the change, we’ll see many more topics about how the “new system” is screwed up.

It is almost never the perfect idea to do exactly what your customers demand, though it is a good idea to listen to them and weigh what they say carefully.

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

ShinjoNaomi.1896:

Dang… You all threw some serious parties back on GW1, didn’t you?
Quite cool to watch!
(… Darn it, now I can’t get that song, ‘Devils Never Cry’ out of my head… >.<)

Fortunately there’s another Horrorween event this month, on Aurora Glade. Still going strong after all these years!

. . . must guest . . .

maha.7902:

And if it’s the whole “I don’t want to have to use a third party voice program”, is it really killing people to download like some 2mb file, go in to a TS and literally just sit silently while listening to commanders giving instructions?

I don’t disagree with anything you wrote . . . except this.

Because, until I upgraded off my toaster playing GW2, to a more opulent toaster . . . I could not run Teamspeak and Guild Wars 2 at the same time. No, it wasn’t happening. If it was, it was on a fresh reboot and didn’t last for long before things got . . . weird.

Nowadays I turn it on for WvW or guild events only. Tequatl doesn’t need it and I don’t go near Triple Trouble.

SAB? Finn’s Tree House?

Nah, Hall of Monuments.

maha.7902:

Astralporing.1957:

maha.7902:

Just as a reminder to everyone. When ANet added the mechanic to the champion wraith in the grenth temple which drained everything in an AOE and it had to be CC’d to stop it, literally every time without fail for weeks on end nobody would CC and there would be a massive wipe.

Well, besides the normal quality of average players, Anet did forget here that Defiant in bigger player groups makes interrupting on demand practically impossible.

It had the base defiant that bosses in dungeons have. I’m pretty sure 10% of a 60-man zerg can CC a boss with defiant on.

You would be surprised.

NoTrigger.8396:

i dont think they need to tell us what their view of raids is. if you look back in the MMO history, raid means raid and its pretty obvious what raids look like, its not subjective.
if for example someone really believes a guild mission in the open world has something to do with raids (especially when they call it guild raid and you can be sure its going to be instanced) then idk what to say. its just like the people on reddit who said “oh raids, cool this will be something about GvG”.

I love it when someone tries to invoke a tautology when it shouldn’t be.

Now to be constructive? If you look back in MMO history, “raid” usually can only be categorized as “an amount of players larger than one party makeup going after one piece of content”. In EverQuest it was weird because “raids” which once were rather requiring attention to detail and multiple groups became less so later on. There were dedicated “raids” after Planes of Power where mechanics were specifically added to facilitate it . . . but until then, it wasn’t exactly present.

. . . and before EverQuest raids didn’t really exist in a form we’d recognize.

GW1 didn’t have “raids” in the usual sense of the word. It did have two 12-person missions, and two which would use two 8-person groups in tandem (both of which are in Factions).

Since we have a significant amount of players from GW1 hanging around (which can be defined as anything higher than zero) it’s probably a good idea to set a few things about what a raid is before discussing them.

Otherwise we get the five blind men and an elephant.

I’m not talking about transmogrification . . . I’m talking about randomly getting it with other upgrades by throwing upgrades in. Like how I’ll get other Orbs when throwing in green runes/sigils/crests.

Nick.6972:

Maybe, but it adds the thrill and pressure.
If people knew that they can’t die, maybe they’d actually chose PTV or Knight’s armor.
And I’d suggest removing WPs too.
And those wonderful Aatxe, make them auto attack for 5k.

I’m okay with removing WPs, and the Aatxe bring so dangerous . . . I’m not sure I’m okay with “one guy goes down, we all lose”. Especially with how many ways there were for you to lose UW without necessarily being bad.

Zaxares.5419:

Yep, that’s right. As someone who still does Fractals somewhat regularly, I can confirm that the Mithril nodes are still there (and can indeed drop Azurite Crystals), but the Ori node is missing, and thus fresh Azurite Orbs can’t be obtained.

. . . I have one other potential avenue to suggest – Mystic Forge.

Nick.6972:

Here’s an idea.
Remake Underworld.
Success of failure of the run depends on each individual player.

I’m not sure if I’m okay with that – it means one person screwing around, or just not being capable is going to screw it up for everyone. Even the raids I went on in old EverQuest weren’t so cutthroat.

DrAntagonist.8623:

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

So, the title is suddenly just as confusing as your rant to “read the title dumbkitty”.

I don’t know if that’s ironic, or if irony needs to be redefined again.

An admin changed it, for no reason. And in the admin’s doing so, started an argument.

Who’s arguing now? I’m too busy laughing.

So, the title is suddenly just as confusing as your rant to “read the title dumbkitty”.

I don’t know if that’s ironic, or if irony needs to be redefined again.

Bri.8354:

I was linking precise coordination to “herding”, which is what many players don’t enjoy about that sort of content, not saying that Tequalt used precise coordination.

Bah, Tequatl doesn’t really need “herding” either – it only requires it due to the massive amount of scaling due to having so many people wanting to be in a successful instance. Probably because the rewards are rather lucrative for a little amount of work (if you’re in the zerg rather than on turrets or boats).

With less people, Tequatl would not require herding quite as strongly. Mostly because with less people, there’s less need to shout instructions – they’ll be aware of what to do by the time it starts off.

I agree with marionette being a good model for raids. If you had 5 players at each of the paths, or less paths with more players in each one, joining up in the final arena at the end, everything would work fairly well, probably better than the open-world version.

I think as designed Marionette could struggle with only five people on each path due to the need to slow down so much watchwork.

Question: I read the Molten Facility was back, but I had to ask. The first time through there was something like 4 Mithril nodes and one Orichalcum node in the first segment with the drill.

. . . am I correct in assuming the Ori node is no longer there in the Fractal but the Mithril ones are? Or did people just not look for it?