Guild Wars 2

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

PS it wouldn’t hurt to make a point of telling us when you fix things: a lot of recent updates fixed some annoying, little issues, but there’s no mention of them in the patch notes. (INB4: I’m not going to list them, since I want ANet to toot their own horn.)

It’s like seeing “Removed Herobrine” over and over again, despite him not being in the game in the first place.

Omar Aschi Popp.7496:

I loved every second of this, and I 2k% agree with Ho-Ho-Tron being the best character in the entire game. The entire GAME.

. . . not the Mad King Thorn? I actually think I like him more than I did before when hanging around Kamadan.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

I have asked that we give an update on the mac client.

Chris

Please! I need to get my friend with a Mac into this game before he nails my feet to the floor on Final Fantasy 14.

I’m sorry, I’m somewhat with miss Edna Mode on this one . . .

kasoki.5180:

It’s not a sloppy cheat. It influences your character progression, characters personality, the way world (NPCs) react to you.
Most importantly, it influences how you perceive your own character and build your own in game identity.

So does the stuff I make up in my head, or the “Personality questions” you get asked now and then by NPCs. Either of those things do not change the world, and so are not real player agency. All they do is give you a chance to roleplay.

If that’s what we think of as “player agency” then we have a long way to go yet to reach where people started this thread talking about.

Why should it have such an impact that it changes the whole world for other players (minecraft?) in order to be a viable option and difference?

Because that’s the level of agency people really want to have – the feeling their choices matter in the future rather than just being dialogue options with no effect.

For example, it is like saying that your choice of college means nothing since at that moment, to the outside world you are just a student no matter your college option. But it does matter to you, it influences you as the person and your personal growth, and others might/will acknowledge your choice and act differently based on it.

. . . oh your choice of college means a lot more than some people readily assume. That’s why some employers see “community college” and wonder if you really have the skills needed vs someone who has, say, “Stanford” on their resume.

kasoki.5180:

I’m not sure I know what you mean.

I will try to answer it as I understood the question. For example, there is a quest in SWTOR called testing grounds where you have to poison water supplies of local rebels. The poison causes sever pain and prolonged suffering.

But another officer tells you that you can end the rebellion with stronger poisoning of the water which kills them instantly.

You can choose – let the rebels suffer, or kill them instantly. Depending on your choice you get Light or Dark side character points (which determine a part of your end game gear)

The key idea is letting player create his/hers own personality within that situation, even if the end result is not radically different.

But do we actually SEE dead rebels, do other players get to see the persistence of the choice?

I understand the point of the choice (“should we kick the puppies or just shoot them in the back of the head?”, like most Good/Evil polar choices you have to make on that sort of system) . . . but I’m asking does it have an actual impact besides to your character’s “development” . . .

In short: sure, the choice might have some effect. But from what you described it’s minimal with impact on the open world, since any other player can come along and find the same choice there . . . and if they choose different? Nothing changes.

That’s a sloppy cheat to give the player a sense of agency.

Zoso.8279:

And lets not forget GW1 was not open world its COMPLETELY different. When you have basically a full MMO of PURE instances rather then an OPEN WORLD it gets a bit easier to push out content. Only part go GW2 with more then 5 player at one time was the world hubs.

It also becomes much easier to enact small changes to zones and evolve their residents. Such as the evolution of Kryta through the civil war era, the closest thing GW1 had to the Living World. Or the total revision through Canthan areas after Winds of Change quests would clear out the Afflicted.

Darmikau.9413:

No areas in GW1 were deserted until after EotN came out. Many areas were home to unique drops, elite skills, and needed to be cleared for Vanquisher or Cartographer.

Nice try.

There were no Elite Skills until after you hit the Crystal Desert. There were no unique drops in Prophecies until much later, and even then it was limited to “The Falls” and certain enemies elsewhere.

And again, except for Vanquisher or Cartographer, what was there to do in any of the areas which didn’t have Elite Skills? You didn’t answer that. Dragon’s Gullet. Ascalon Foothills. Iron Horse Mines. Aside from a few things (quests, or Nicholas) which take you to these places, what would you want to go there for at all?

How many skills exist in GW2 which are not viable? A ton of them are just garbage. Most skills in GW1 saw at least niche use.

I don’t recall “Expert’s Dexterity” having much usefulness to it, compared to other elites. How about “Rampage as One” vs “Never Rampage Alone”? Seriously, that’s just recalling two which I recall were deemed “junk Elites”. GW1 had more than a few which just weren’t worth the Elite slot in comparison to others. (Like “Burning Arrow”, for instance.)

I’m just going to pretend paragraph three doesn’t exist, since you’re pretending GvG doesn’t exist.

Well, for me it didn’t. Neither did Alliance Battles, come to think of it. But you can pretend it doesn’t exist and not answer the question. That’s called ceding the point by default.

Inscribable q9 weapons were available for pennies from any weaponsmith.

Tell me where I can find a Runic Blade, Q9, Inscribable on a weaponsmith. Or Chaos Axe, or Eternal Sword, Storm Bow, Guardian of the Hunt . . . you know, the ones people actually seemed to regard most of all as a prestige item worth paying for?

Some weapons in GW1 actually had value, where GW2 puts everything in the gemshop, or has legendaries which are everywhere, and which receive constant clamor to be easier to get than they already are.

I am waiting to see I can go on the Gemshop and buy my Lepidoptera . . .

You can keep trying if you like.

If you like. Guild Wars 1 had exactly as much wasted parts, terribly cliche story, and unrealistic grind as this game, and it’s tiring to keep hearing how it was so awesome and this game sucks only because this is the one with the 2 in the name. If Vayne has his problem with the word “promise” then I have problems with nostalgia whitewashing over all the cracks which existed in Guild Wars 1’s design.

If we have to be honest about the faults of GW2, we should at least be honest about the predecessor . . .

Darmikau.9413:

It’s nice that you can thoroughly pick out some temporary content and non-content to pad a list, but how many races, professions, skills, explorables, weapons, guild halls, and PvP modes has GW2 added compared to GW1? How much of your list is no longer playable? An exercise in selection bias is probably really refreshing, but it does little to prove the point that GW2 does not have the amount or type of content that made GW1 successful and engaging, and that players are asking for.

An exercise in nostalgia is also fun to do for a while, too. How many areas of Prophecies were practically deserted except for people working out Cartographer or farming specific things? Was there a compelling reason to, just for instance, go to Maguuma Stade? How about compelling reasons to crawl through Dragon’s Gullet, or to fight Rotscale? Witman’s Folly?

How many different combinations of the skills which existed were “not viable”? Was there a very good reason, mechanically, to go R/W instead of W/R? Was R/N ever really good for anything other than “Touch Ranger” builds?

What was the vast benefit a Guild Hall would give, over just hopping to Kamadan? Were there services which were available to a guild with a hall which couldn’t be available to the members in the hub towns, and had significant impact to make the acquisition of a Hall worthwhile?

How much more grind was there to GW1 if you didn’t have the money to get yourself a shiny R9, inscribable, super awesome weapon like a Chaos Axe or Eternal Sword? (The inscribable part is the tough bit.) Does anyone here really remember the massive and utterly wasteful journey to hitting the maximum rank of “Lucky”? How about the “Gamer” title track?

Also, GW1 only had one race playable by players.

Ashkael.2859:

if youre reading everything, then where is the content everyone actually wants?

That’s right, I still haven’t gotten my catapult for firing asura into . . . I mean . . . over walls. And what about the content of humans pushing the charr out of Ascalon and once more ruling there? How about the content where four races band together and burn down the Grove? Also, what about mounts?

I mean, where is all this content? It’s what everyone wants, right, so why isn’t it out yet?

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Just wanted to pop in and say I am up to date. Enjoying relaxing with the family.

Just one question there: Catan or not yet?

rhael.6317:

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

. . . yes, because it is so much better to be impolite and treat people like crap, dismiss others because they like what you don’t, and be terrible to other human beings. Just so you can score points on others.

I love the human race.

At least it’s one handy thread if we get a forum ignore feature. I don’t mind disagreement or debate, but I would love to filter the children out so the adults can have a conversation.

I mind forum ignore features, because it means someone can throw the “last word” in an argument, then throw on the ignore so they can forever have the “last word” and stop conversation cold. It also means a quick trip to “ignoreville” for me if I so much as wax sarcastic at someone using hyperbolic rhetoric to stir trouble.

Vayne.8563:

There are two types of writers. Guys like Piers Anthony outline their work and they write it to that outline, hardly ever varying what they write. Guys like Stephen King don’t use outlines and evolve the story as they go.

Stephen King, before he finishes a book, doesn’t really always know where it’s going. I uses the equivalent of an iterative process. I understand it, because it’s the same process I use when I write. I don’t use an outline.

It takes longer and you have to backtrack more often, but that’s what works for me. I strongly suspect WoW is working from the equivalent of an outline, but Anet is, in many ways, breaking new ground. So they won’t always know what works and what doesn’t. So announcing stuff is more of a risk.

Reminds me a lot of reading through the MTG article archives when the developers over there speak up about their experiences and what they think about certain things. Again, it’s worth listening to and reading Mark Rosewater even for a little bit . . .

kasoki.5180:

In SWTOR main story was instanced, but the regional story was not. You could’ve still talk to NPC and quest givers (in outside world) and have your own course of action, possibly different from another player.

But would it do anything different to the open world?

Flytrap.8075:

LanfearShadowflame.3189:

Tada, and we see yet again just why the devs won’t (can’t) talk to us.

Good job guys! Keep it up!

Someone has to counterbalance the white knights.

. . . yes, because it is so much better to be impolite and treat people like crap, dismiss others because they like what you don’t, and be terrible to other human beings. Just so you can score points on others.

I love the human race.

Vayne.8563:

Because the minority makes the forums look like everyone is saying the same thing. Reddit had a bad day too after the SAB interview, but you go to reddit now and it’s back to normal. People aren’t reacting there like people are reacting here.

Vayne, haven’t you heard? All of the subreddit are ArenaNet zealots who believe they can do no wrong and the game is perfect. I read it on the internet so it must be true.

Shiren.9532:

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Free advice on that? Since the Living Story has become divorced from the open world and thus doesn’t need to follow a perfectly synonymous path for everyone due to that?

Cheat.

Have there be choices which affects what happens. Have there be consequences for choices later on. You don’t need to unify it so the whole of the world is on the same page, because they’re all living their own instances . . . for the most part.

I think the fact that the two are already divorced should encourage efforts to bring them back together, not throw caution to the wind and embrace the single life.

Merging it back into the open world as opposed to personal instances would remove any hope of “player agency” of the kind you said you wished earlier in your post. They simply couldn’t do it, because it has to match up for all players as opposed to just tracking one player’s set of data.

The “single life” is the only hope we have of a story being personal and containing even a semblance of agency. As much as people bring up SW:TOR . . . that’s divorced into instances, from what I recall. Not open world.

It’s in the data, so chances are we can get them as much as the “Warrior’s Amulet of Pwnage” someone else datamined, with an ungodly Power bonus.

Thaon.6927:

Any who, jumping off of that tangent, I’m looking for some good direction on GW2 end-game pve. I remember hearing that the game carries hard mode dungeons at cap, and that there’s some armor to be earned therein. But, after acquiring, what does the game offer? Are there different tiers of end game content?

There aren’t tiers of end game content. There is simply “find what you like to do and do it”. A fair amount of the people who play seem to think it’s all about hoarding gold and being rich. Some think it’s about owning legendary weapons.

There are still people who do WvW, and I hear whispered rumors there’s actually a sPvP mode in the game. (I think it’s just lies and charr propaganda, honestly.)

Unlike other MMOs, there’s . . . not really a singular goal all players can aim at and go “when I do that, I’ve beaten the game”. There’s no extra-difficult raid, dungeon, event, or whatever which is the top of the mountain. There’s no awesome gear which is definitively the top-tier thing to get via content. All there is is a world in which to play, and to find things to entertain you for a time.

. . . on the bright side, you’re not paying every month for it. And Tyria will always welcome you back to have another weekend off from whatever other games you play.

If you’re not sure it’s ideal and you’re just going “we have to try something” then why not take that sentiment back to the drawing board and come up with something better instead of forcing something you’re not 100% behind out of a desire to do “something”.

See, that sort of thing? That’s what gets us into problems later on where we then have to fix a fix to try getting to the root of a problem in the first place.

So, start from the bottom. What’s the biggest problem which needs to be addressed in dungeons?

Here’s a hint . . . it’s not the five-man instance design.

I know what I’m doing with my experience scrolls.

Lining my pet tengu’s cage bottom.

Zaxares.5419:

Psht, Batman. I’d rather be Doctor Manhattan.

Sorry folks, if I get to pick someone from a comic book? Wedge Antilles.

. . . what?

Arghore.8340:

@Tobias, exactly my point … so ok it’s not really scamming, because it’s the choice that counts at that particular moment, and knowing there is a different experience lying ahead. That’s one of the major things I ran into while doing the thread that I linked earlier, how can you supply an interesting choice, leading to a different experience while keeping the same outcome… and do so in such a way that you don’t supply the player with the same stuff every time, so that (s)he starts to feel the choice is just arbitrary.

See, I learned my GM skills mostly from “Choose Your Own Adventure” books . . . which were the epitome of “false choices”. I sharpened them playing the Gold Box games for a time, then I paid close attention to the Black Isle game of Baldur’s Gate.

For those unfamiliar, I’ll sum it up: The main story? You can’t do much to alter its course, but you can change its meaning as well as affect how the journey affects your companions.

That’s what I mean to see emulated if they want to add Player Agency to the Living World. Not in shaping the great path of destiny, but in making the story truly, inescapably ours through the choices we make and not the end results.

It’s dang hard, and the options are (so far) fairly limited, mechanic wise, but I am sure that if you practice at it the actual context in which these mechanics are presented can be both meaningful as well as lead to interesting experiences. Heck, if that wasn’t the case then there would not be any table top RPG worth playing …

I highly recommend looking up the Counter Monkey series (only if you are over 18) by Noah Antwiler, and also Shamus Young’s site and checking out what he has to say on the topic of narratives. (Spoiler Warning is fun.)

(on that note and slightly off topic, it’s still somewhat sad that our current society is more concerned with the destination (aka. reward for minimal effort) than it is about the journey and maximum immersion and enjoyment – but I guess that’s a whole different discussion all together.)

That depends on who you talk to, because I find a lot of Minecraft mod users tend to really enjoy the journey. Likewise a few people who have been talking nonstop about Telltale’s “The Walking Dead” . . .

. . . and to a lesser extent, those who enjoy “Game of Thrones”. I think we all know the ending (everyone except Arya dies) but it’s entertaining to many to watch the path which is taken.

ipan.4356:

To be honest, I don’t really have any faith in MMO developers any more – I’ve been burned out by them for a long time.

Kind of hoping CIG (Star Citizen) can turn that around, but we’ll see.

Good luck with that. I’m not hearing optimistic things about it . . .

And no, not sarcasm. I won’t begrudge anyone finding their “perfect” MMO.

ipan.4356:

What if every zone had 5 dungeons, and every dungeon had 7 bosses (and was like 5 times larger)?

It doesn’t matter. There are enough players, especially with megaservers, to actively camp the whole darn thing or to just zerg all of it on a loop. Open World is not the answer.

I believe that the issues you bring up – boss camping, etc. are a result of dungeons being way too small, and there being far too few of them.

I’m sorry, and this may come off as condescending but . . . did you play Everquest? Do you know how big some of those dungeon areas could get? There was one dungeon with double digits in the number of campable spots you could claim, and it was actually really freaking big. (Old Sebilis) And that’s not even the only dungeon which was possible to camp at the period you could – there were (-counts-) nineteen other dungeons in the game.

The number and size of dungeons isn’t an actual issue. It’s the problem of allowing them open access and expecting people to behave in a certain anticipated way (doing them like dungeons now) and no other way.

And your further points fall apart too.

1) When each zone has many dungeons, people spread out between them.

No, what happens is they pick the ones which are the best to camp/zerg/farm and take those.

2) When the dungeons are very large, and have multiple ‘bosses’ – say 5+ – then even those people who are at the same dungeon are far more spread out within it.

Unlikely. What you have instead is probably more like how WvW tends to have Eternal Battlegrounds have one side each get a zerg going and never the zergs shall meet, just run around taking easy pickings for the Event/Karma/Bags.

I dunno about this.

I mean the thread. It seems like another time where you put forth your opinion and it must be correct, it must be the best answer, and anyone else has obviously bad ideas.

I don’t think it’s a good idea to turn Dungeons into fully-open things. For one, the limitation of five players is what allows specific setpieces or challenges to even be possible inside the dungeon. It’s not possible to create a spot in the dungeon where open-world isn’t going to make it a bucket of cheese with a side of tortilla chips . . . without making it like it’s practically a dungeon’s current functionality anyway.

Open-world dungeons have been done before. Someone brought up EverQuest . . . where it was NOT fine. They did instanced dungeons later – that was also NOT fine.

Why was it not fine open-world? Because farming existed in those games. People who just camped at the boss respawns and would kill them until everyone got what they needed. Or at side-rooms where things which dropped nice items were, and kill til they got what they wanted. As awesome as my time was doing Old Sebilis or Estate of Unrest, there was an incredible focus on loot and earnings.

If Dungeons were turned into Open-World events they’d wind up like the World Boss Grand Tour – dozens of people picking a time to drop on them at once and complete en masse. And if you do what you can to limit that . . . you might as well just go back to the original plan of dungeons and just rework the challenges instead.

(Also, UO’s dungeons were mostly a joke. There was rarely reasons to go delving in most of them.)

1 – ANet chooses.

They’re screwed no matter what they do, so I’d rather they go with something they are prepared for rather than something the need to prepare for before discussing. (I can see it now, players choose the topic and we get “CDI: Mounts?” continue to be voted for over eight months after it’s finished.)

Lynne.8416:

Here’s a thought how about if you “craft” (via crafting profession) a precursor it becomes account bound and therefore cannot be sold on the trading post? That way precursors from RNG are still eligible for sale. After all not everyone wants to be a craftsmen.

Technical issues of being able to discern which Precursors are crafted and which are not. Once you do that, you have essentially TWO database entries which are supposed to serve one function and not be 100% interchangeable.

That’s a problem to code, and messing it up can have a bad effect in either direction -

If it messes up where neither item works? That’s a patch away but a nightmare while that patch is being worked on and generates a lot of negativity. After all, it would effectively shut down the creation of new Legendaries for an undetermined amount of time . . . during which you could still buy old ones . . . I can see the tin foil hat brigade now talking about how it’s a plot to make more people Gem-to-Gold . . .

If it messes up where the crafted Precursors actually behave like the dropped Precursors and thus can be sold? Even before it gets patched to prevent that, a lot of people are going to get stupid rich . . . maybe banned for the exploit, but it’s going to kick up a lot of negativity over the mistake.

Last group I had trying to recruit me based on truth wore white and had a hidden agenda. No thanks, I’ll pass.

HHR LostProphet.4801:

It has to be asked, is the high-end economy worth saving?

In the Socratic tradition . . .

“What would happen if it failed?”

Seera.5916:

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

I got a better idea – Legendaries for one-time possible events. Why not commemorate things with a special item? Taking down Mordremoth the first time gives you a particular Legendary weapon, choose which one you want out of a set of like-themed skins. “Mordrem Tendril Staff” anyone? “This still-squirming vine was trimmed from the Elder Dragon Mordremoth during a heated battle.”

They tried one time only events. It turned into a massive failure.

You’re not listening to me about “one time possible events”. I mean something . . . simpler. Like the first round of people to finish the Living Story chapter where you kill Mordremoth (within the two week period). You get the “Mordrem Living Tendril” staff, or maybe “Mordremoth’s Claw”, a greatsword modeled after one of its talons?

Or the first time a player deals a deathblow (and it must be the deathblow) to the Claw of Jormag. You show Rojan the Penitent a piece of the broken wings, and he says he needs some items and with them he can show you how to work with it. Creating a once-only weapon like the Corrupted set, only with visual effects.

The existence of “Mawdry” proves we can indeed have multi-step events which collect objects from around Tyria which otherwise seem like junk and actually serve a purpose. Work with that in mind and you could have several potential things to discover.

The trick is to make it account-bound on acquire, but making it possible for other players to sell components if they don’t want/need them.

Arghore.8340:

@Tobias, while that works in a small group, and where you can take your deviations on to another play night. I do hope you see that once you make say 3 paths to unfold, and you add another 2 to each, etc, then b4 long you created one big nightmare! It would also spell doom for any lore tracking players, ‘who died’ ? well depends on who you ask…

Of course it could spell doom (not "would’), but it could also generate interest in what alternatives there are. But that’s part of the “cheat” you enact and the really tight line you walk – you have to make these decisions feel like they have an impact without having them actually have an impact on what direction things are heading.

And it does work.

The thing that does work (somewhat) isn’t so much cheating, it is scamming… In a sense you are likely also very familiar with. “You come to a split in the road, on leads off into the rugged mountains, the other into a dark forest, where do you go?” … where the rugged mountains lead to a fight with a bunch of Trolls, and finding an armour with +1 defence vs undead. The road into the forest leads to a fight with agry forest elves, and finding a short sword with a +1 attack vs. undead (though arguably, the weapon find might have a little impact on a later fight ->) both roads end in a village where you want your group to get into this hilarious bar fight you come up with…

That’s not “scamming” them, and that’s not unusual for GMs to do in their games. It’s also quite within the realm of normality – they know they need to reach the village and there’s two paths to choose. Which one they choose will still get them there, but have different details.

See, you haven’t really given them a choice, the roads both led to the same place, but, you did give them a different experience along the road… although arguably you could even make the item found the same, seeing they are no longer going ‘the other way’ they will never find out what they would have found there… This last bit doesn’t work in games, because a gazillion people will make the other choice, and compare results in the end…

See, that’s the beauty of it . . . that doesn’t matter as much as you think it does. “The Walking Dead” games most likely do have someone who has sat down and charted out all the possible choices and their effects, but in the end? It doesn’t matter. It’s the players’ choice on how they play the game, and so long as you make it so the choices do have a difference of some impact (while still maintaining the core story you want to tell) then there’s not an issue.

Still though, in effect, it is not true agency as to have an impact on the story, it just gives you the choice as to which part of the story you experience, so that it becomes ‘your story’.

You’re not going to get true agency in a computer game without the things discussed above, where the story needs to be altered on the fly and within short notice. The dev team isn’t that agile, no team is really going to be capable of developing things like the Living Story (the one we are discussing here, where it is possible to change the flow of things) if a bunch of players change major details in the middle.

Zardul.3952:

imagine your doing an event and all of a sudden POOF, this character apears and trys to sabotage the event. … i know i would be laughing hysterically trying to complete the event against him..

I imagine that would be funny exactly . . . once, and incredibly aggravating any time after. Though it might be nice for the players to have someone other than Trahearne they want to bury.

I got a better idea – Legendaries for one-time possible events. Why not commemorate things with a special item? Taking down Mordremoth the first time gives you a particular Legendary weapon, choose which one you want out of a set of like-themed skins. “Mordrem Tendril Staff” anyone? “This still-squirming vine was trimmed from the Elder Dragon Mordremoth during a heated battle.”

Zardul.3952:

so the argument that its done already before and its too similar isn’t going to help anyone as they have literally done everything.

But you’re not understanding me, at all. You’re just taking the face value of what I said and running with it.

It’s less important of “other games did these things and we shouldn’t” and more “all games of a genre shouldn’t aspire to contain these things just because the current king of the genre does”.

As for your list of topics? A lot of them might make a good and interesting game. But they don’t have a place here in this game.

Some of the rest of them? Just don’t belong regardless.

Though it should be noted, there’s a few . . . interesting . . . things you can find which are references to GW1 which could be considered ‘funny’ or ‘neat’. There is, for instance, a tree in Gendarran Fields which has something carved onto it. There’s a special ghost which appears in the Ascalon Settlement. There’s an odd ghost event in the Shaemoor graveyard. There are other events which are likewise relatively funny . . . like the whole-plot-reference to the Goonies in Gendarran Fields?

So, some “funny events” show up anyway.

Zardul.3952:

Seven Star Stalker.1740:

Aside from the one thing in that least I approve of (feel free to guess what), almost all your changes are WoW features.

does that matter?

WoW has been around for decades. we cant restrict ourselfs because they did it first.

we would have nothign new if that was the case.

And if we only retread things “we know”, then we don’t get anything different and a bunch of slightly different clones of one MMO and nothing else. This leads to a type of game strangling itself off . . . sort of like adventure games up until recently.

Gobhoblin.7582:

Guys, you are now arguing about grammar, and trying to give each-other english lessons.

It’s necessary, when posts and things said by developers are pored over for “PR Speak” to parse through what they did say and what they didn’t say, as well as what they explicitly didn’t say.

For my part, I wish the ‘powers that be’ would spend some of their marketing budget on development.

I wish they either gave up their “PR filter” entirely or fed everything through it at the highest setting so as to render any response impossible to determine what is actually being said. Then we might get less badgering over whether or not they meant X or Y and people can focus more on what actually exists rather than what might or might not exist.

neneza.6954:

Ok. so you think that Anet “ordered” us that we will see new legendary weapons and scavanger hunt in 2013?! Great.

I didn’t say that, you did.

I almost wanted to get one a few times, and now on seeing the tags getting colors, almost want to get one to begin working on being a secondary commander during WvW. Alas, then I sober up.

neneza.6954:

I don’t see that i wrote MUST in that sentence.

See, that’s also an order, but one of a higher caliber. They’re both spoken with an imperative tone implying there is no alternative other than “will/must” in regards to the action in question.

Lightbringer,

While I understand the investigation into the Trueflight family has been closed for some time now, recent events have stirred to light some interesting fragmented information from the Brisban Wildlands in the west. I will continue assuming you are unaware of a privately funded expedition which left Claypool in late 1256 AE. The purpose of this expedition was to attempt some study of ancient Shining Blade campsites which were known to exist within the Maguuma Jungle during the war against the White Mantle. The expedition as led by Rhys Kodatha, a mesmer of whom we have limited quality information. The roster includes Salome Kereminde (an elementalist specializing in air magic), Liam Girante (a young Sergeant of a Seraph group known as the “Grey Stalkers”), Priestess Kendra of Melandru, and one Thomas Trueflight. Investigation brings to light that Thomas is one of the less notable members of the Trueflight family who enlisted with the Seraph and promptly took part in this expedition.

(Lightbringer’s Note: I find it interesting we do not have quality information on this Rhys Kodatha. Especially if they were in charge of an expedition into the eastern Maguuma reaches.)

The expedition traveled along the roads to Fort Salma, where the Seraph were tasked with dealing with a centaur situation. It’s known that Sergeant Girante was injured in the combat, but his injuries were not severe enough to delay the expedition for long. Once entering the region known today as the Brisban Wildlands, the trail becomes murky due to a lack of acceptable information. However, fragments of travel journals have turned up through various channels and paint a grim picture.

Along the trip to the Shattered Henge, the group was plagued by bandit attacks which seemed more intent on turning them back than actually stealing anything. Two of the Seraph were killed before the expedition group attempted to fortify the old Koga Ruins. Eleven days of constant skirmishing wore the group down to only half with Rhys having been lost during one of the skirmishes early on. The journal entries of those days is chaotic, and nothing after was found despite prying with the bandit groups in the area. None of them are old enough to have been around then, and they don’t seem keen on talking much.

Of interest is a passage within the journal notes which suggests that the expedition survivors planned to make for the Henge or any other viable harbor past it to the west. It is unknown of the final fate of the expedition, but personally I would bet gold they never made it out of the ruins.

(Lightbringer’s Note: It is unlikely any of the expedition survived that attempt, and yet it is intriguing to note the serious bandit presence in the region at that time. It meshes well with other material we have been investigating in the area, suggesting the bandits have specific interests in the area.)

(3/3)

Derreck Trueflight (1275 AE – 1320 AE) carried the family name, bearing three children. None of them survived the events of the Ogre Revolt, though that skips ahead considerably in the timeline. There is little of interest here other than he was a squad leader until he retired to a posting within the city as a liaison between the Ebon Vanguard and the Fallen Angels. It is unknown currently if there exist any descendants from the other children. It is known he later perished protecting part of Ebonhawke during the Ogre Revolt.

(Lightbringer’s Notes: It’s not worth pursuing at this time. Tobias Trueflight is more than adequate for what we require him for, there is no pressing need to bring his extended family into this.)

The lady Evelyn Trueflight was born in 1298 AE and is known for being the first female heir in the family to carry on the name and legacy. While her father did not ascribe to the way of the ranger there were ample opportunities for her to train in the arts and do her duty within the Ebon Vanguard. During some point in a mission in the place known currently as “Sniper’s Woods” she conceived her firstborn to an unknown father and later in the year 1316 AE gave birth to Tobias Trueflight, second of his name, before marrying Lieutenant Patrick Khybin. His daughter Deborah was older than Tobias and seemed to be something of a positive influence until she left for Divinity’s Reach to enroll with the Seraph. We are not sure the circumstances of this event and would need to pry into it should it interest the Order.

(Lightbringer’s Note: Do not intrude on that poor girl until it becomes entirely necessary. She’s been through enough.)

The man familiar to us, Tobias Trueflight, is a likewise interesting case. In 1320 AE, the events of the Ogre Revolt tangled records only slightly. Evelyn Trueflight was called to the fronts and entrusted her children to a friend of the family who fled through the asura gate to Divinity’s Reach with the younger Tobias Trueflight and fell into the limited protection of his older sister Deborah. They remained close together until she was recruited into the highly decorated Falcon Company. After a mission went awry and the unit was all but wiped out, Tobias Trueflight took his legacy more seriously and pushed to study the ranger’s ways in Shaemoor. As of recent events, he is known to the locals of Divinity’s Reach as a Hero of Shaemoor for having stood with some of the locals against a Tamini attack.

(Lightbringer’s Note: Indeed, and Tybalt’s reports have been full of glowing praise thus far. I have no reason to believe there is a significant danger posed by Tobias Trueflight to the Order, but neither do I believe he is essential to the continuation of the Order. It’s my judgement he be treated no differently than any other of our Agents.)

(Master’s Note: Lightbringer, due to the skills Tobias possesses, it is remarkably short-sighted to relegate him to a position anyone else could do. He has connections within Divinity’s Reach, Hoelbrak, and even a grudging respect which has built up around his exploits on the Plains of Ashford fighting both the Foefire specters and Flame Legion. Not to mention former members of Destiny’s Edge seem to hold an interest in him as well. As such, he is far more valuable than “any other Agent” and it would be prudent not to assign him as such.)

(Lightbringer’s Note: By your will, Master, though I find it perplexing you are taking a personal interest in this matter.)

(Master’s Note: Every member of the Order receives my personal interest when they join and rise within the ranks. If we must discuss this in private, Lightbringer, I shall have to expose several things I know about you and events surrounding a stretch of the shattered Wall. I believe the information would be of interest not only to you but certain Iron Legion Legionnaires who might appreciate details in that matter. If I have to discuss this matter with you anymore then thinly veiled threats will not be my first course of action. This is your only warning on the matter. Observe Tobias Trueflight, but his sentencing is left for people other than yourself, ultimately within my hands.)

(2/3)

Lightbringer,

You requested the full file on one Tobias Trueflight as well as the background we could dig up about his family. Order operatives therefore were dispatched to Divinity’s Reach and Ebonhawke to begin investigation. What was uncovered was interesting, but in and of itself not terribly unique or compelling. We have, as usual, done the tasks assigned to us with prompt timing and attention to details. As there are no particularly kitten ing secrets of the Order present in this file, sealing this is not necessary and left to your discretion.

I shall start at the earliest bit of records we could recover. Tobias Trueflight is the second person bearing that name in the family records we could find, The first person to bear that name was an active member of the Ascalon Vanguard, which as you know ceased to be after the Searing and the exile of Prince Rurik. As few Ascalonian records from before the Searing (1070 AE) remain available we must rely on what we know afterwards.

It is known from consulting records kept at the Ascalonian Settlement in Kryta that Tobias Trueflight (the first) did survive the travel over the Shiverpeaks and was instrumental in several events in what we know are “the Flameseeker Prophecies”. Without firsthand accounts, it is not known what Tobias’ place was within those events but it is known he had at least a small role to play in how they became resolved. He received a citation from Captain Greywind for bravery in the face of a Titan incursion but after that the next mention has to deal with an evacuation during the Battle of Lion’s Arch in 1079 AE.

After that there are records from Ebonhawke telling very little about the older Tobias Trueflight. He was traveling with his wife Cersei Jubari as one of the armed members of the Ebon Vanguard. (She is a native of Istan, but records for her are currently quite difficult to obtain; until a request for further study on her, we have limited our scope of investigation to how she plays a part in all of this.) There were at least three children accounted for, one of whom was Alpheus Trueflight. He took up the practice of being a ranger is his father’s footsteps and served as one of the few dedicated guards for Ebonhawke’s early history. He passed away in 1099 AE during a charr probing attack (aged approximately 39), survived by his widow who died in 1113 AE (age listed as 47).

(Lightbringer’s Notes: This inaccuracy reflects badly on the Order. I will need to weigh this matter and look into matters. Cersei Jubari’s name is known within the records kept during Nightfall and the Kormir Ascension, but it’s not been worth pursuing. I will have to review those files sometime in the future.)

Alpheus Trueflight married an elementalist named Persephone (last name not available in the records) who bore him two children. The youngest son Colin Trueflight (born 1116 AE) proceded to put effort into training as a warrior who specialized in anti-charr activities and gathered his own squad from members of the Ebon Vanguard for an expedition to scout out possible locations for new expansions later. He married a priestess of Lyssa named Tristesse Laron and had one son – Joshua Trueflight (Born 1139 AE). After being lost on patrol in 1145 AE, a warrior named Gerard Harand helped raise Joshua.

After this, there are several generations of descendents and precious little information on what they were up to. However, the residents of Ebonhawke keep decent enough census records. The generations following Joshua Trueflight have very little remarkable to them, and there is ample evidence of plenty of familial offshoots which could be long-distant relations. After the asuran gate was constructed to reach Divinity’s Reach, tracing the genealogy of the family became considerably more difficult. It’s sufficient to say there are two other families who are entwined with the Trueflight family: the Kereminde family which entwined with the Trueflight name with Lorelie Kereminde (born Erica Trueflight, 1112 AE) who married Ezra Kereminde (born pre-Searing and thus lacking a firm birthdate) and thus the family has blood relation to the Trueflight family. There are later instances of intermarrying, and there is evidence they remain closely tied. The second family to show some connections are some Istani expatriates who bear the Therin name. There is only one instance of marriage inside this relationship (Tara Therin, born 1234 AE in Lion’s Arch and married to Tristan Trueflight in 1254 AE).

(1/3)

neneza.6954:

This is not a statement “but what I can say is you will see a specific way to build precursor items on your way to a legendary. On top of this, you’ll also see new legendary weapons and new types of legendary gear in 2013”.

If i say “This banana is good” that is statement, but if i say “You WILL eat this good banana this year” than that is not a statement.

No, that’s an order.

The “Legendary” weapons never were really Legendary after it was discovered you could BUY them with enough cash.

That’s not the problem with crafting or questing for Precursors. The problem is how it would really damage the high-end economy.

neneza.6954:

Most of AAA games can be finished in 10h, and they cost 60$.

So does that make this game, which costs less than $60 and takes longer to map complete . . . better, or worse off? Speaking strictly on this detail right here.

ipan.4356:

But I think those kinds of examples from your D&D games are perfect examples of the way the dev’s need to start thinking about how they design encounters – especially in dungeons (though everywhere in the world would be good too).

Yeah, but there’s a problem . . . the devs can’t design an encounter like I did during my campaign where the goal is not to win the combat but to stall long enough for a spell to go off. Or another where the enemy is pretty much untouchable by the players and they have to puzzle out what clues they may have found while fighting to understand the big demon isn’t the problem so much as the one who summoned him.

Wait, did I say “can’t”? I meant “shouldn’t”, or “only sparingly”.

neneza.6954:

Problem is that GW1 didn’t have TP and GW2 have TP. So they make enough money now from TP and it is the reason that they won’t make real expansion.

Sorry, hold on a second and back that up . . . the Trading Post which is a glorified auction house type thing is the culprit? Or are you meaning the Gem Store? Because GW1 had something like that and they threw almost the same sort of junk on it for several years.

They don’t need to invest so much time and money to build big content, they just build skins and a little bit of content – content that can be finished in 1,5 h, and i think that they earn more money from that than from real expansions like ones from GW1.

I think someone once pointed out you could finish Prophecies in one day if you knew what you were doing and had some friends who also knew what they were doing along for the ride. And paid for a Droknar run.

ipan.4356:

And, in the above example, a couple archers behind those ghosts with pushback would be perfect.

A very simple setup that works better off of environmental factors, without complex AI coding.

It’s more about encounter design.

Encounter design in my D&D campaign still loses to players’ ingenuity or just brute force (let’s call it the Zerker Zerg) tactics most of the time. Unless they’re completely overmatched physically.

If we’re talking about ‘playing fair’ . . .

I have not been able to construct a single encounter in D&D which couldn’t be “solved” (in terms of combat) by them just using similar bunker tactics. No matter the edition. In 2nd edition it was the Conga Line of Death through a doorway. In 3rd edition it was propping up two-weapon rangers with healing until the wizard learned Fireball, then “Tactical Maximized Fireball” became a thing. In 4th edition?

. . . let’s leave it at “I hate rogues” since properly run, they trivialize a lot of combat.

Sure, I can throw tricks at them left and right. But against competent players who know how to play their strengths? It doesn’t matter.

It’s only when I didn’t play fair they ran into issues, such as “you do realize the wizard was snatched while you slept and is a doppleganger?”. Or tailoring encounters to specifically break up their metagamed strategy.

Ashen.2907:

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Far Shiverpeaks.

/signed.

I loved the shiverpeaks (southern especially) in GW1.

Mineral Springs? Mineral Springs.

Spent way way too much time there trying for an Icy Dragon Sword.

ipan.4356:

“Rework huge portions of the game” is almost never in the agenda.

With the exception of FFXIV – the only MMO in my memory that was rebooted – I’ve never played it, so I have no idea how well that went.

Fairly well, actually. But it still has plenty of issues with core design philosophy, much like GW2 does. I’ve been only playing it for a week now on free trial but I can spot several and have been collecting some things of note.

Mostly how it’s falling into “power creep” very steadily and endgame is a mess.