Guild Wars 2

chemiclord.3978:

Or the final fight with Zhaitan?

There was a final fight? I just thumbed 2 for an hour.

Boneheart.3561:

Screw that, I’m discussing with you, not a kitten post history.

Not in this topic you’re not.

Might I suggest you find a friendly necromancer and start looking for the right topic for this?

Teofa Tsavo.9863:

This story is different from any other story ever!!!

Ley lines are involved!! Sam Spade is a girl! Honey Boo Boo got smarter! The extra had a Gold surplice, not a Red shirt! And so much more! Too many Snowflakes to list!!

Over 9000 exclamation points!!

Its so fantastic I hope Uwe Boll makes a Scarlett movie!! With Nicholas Gage as Scarlett!!

If it’s Scarlett Johansen as Scarlet Briar, I’m in.

Thuggernaut.1250:

Of course, here come the white knights to ride to Anet’s rescue.

At least one of those wasn’t a White Knight, chief. I hate to disappoint you. He’s been beating on the story for a while now. You just happened to pick one of the more bizarre arguments.

Nothing excuses sloppy writing (reusing tired old themes with a lot of “convenient” similarities to other RPGs),

. . . really? You want to start with that to bolster your “GW2 rips off ME” argument? Okay then.

I’ll be easy on you. Go read about the Monomyth and Hero’s Journey (two separate entities), then come back here and try this again. Until you decide to do your research about repetitive themes (TV Tropes is a good start) then I don’t think there’s much we can discuss here.

BlueZone.4236:

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

- Longer development time means they have more chances to scrap bad work, but it also means more wasted time and less time to work on it if they have to scrap something or change it late.

I don’t see what you’re arguing here. Release bad content no matter what?
If they have to scrap something extremely late, then it was poor decisions the whole way through, or no decisions being made at all until the last minute.

. . . neither of which is unheard of in game development, you realize.

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

- IF they announce an expansion, and IF they give a due date . . . then miss it for whatever reason, just how badly do you think that will reflect? Especially if, in their words “it’s not ready”? It will be worse than a LS chapter which is heavily bugged, because then it will have been paid for.

Are you talking about pre-orders? Pre-orders which can be cancelled at any time?
If you’re just talking about normal funding from the publisher, I think the LS content are still funded from the publisher.
The “just get it out of the door” philosophy can still be applied if they’re that desperate…

I’m talking about expansion, out the door, to consumers who paid money for it.

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

- Last time I checked, expansions do not always cater to multiple groups at once. They instead cater to the top of the playerbase who have already done the top-tier things and itch for the next tougher thing. There might be multiple level ranges included, but only if a new race was introduced, due to the new race requiring a starting zone and “pecking order” of zones to get going.

True, I also have extremely low expectations from Anet, nowadays.

I don’t know how you got that from what was quoted there. And it’s not low expectations so much as remembering there’s always the chance of the nice people higher up the budget chain who go “Get it out by December” when it can’t possibly be done.

And knowing ANet, they won’t cut things as much as they’ll try to finish what they have. Halfway I admire this tendency, but unfortunately . . . it leads to things which just are head-scratchingly left in without a reason. (Ferocity/Charisma/Dignity anyone?)

The thing is, most of these topics don’t ask for purely cosmetic mounts. They ask for the Waypoints to be taken out and mounts put in to replace the fast travel we have.

Eh, I switch to shortbow in dungeons, or go axe/horn most often. I cannot quite get the “flow” of melee to work for me, so I only rarely venture into sword/axe or greatsword.

darkace.8925:

A traditional expansion allows the developers to release content when it’s ready, while the Living Story forces developers to release content when it’s due.

BlueZone.4236:

Longer time to develop content can lead to higher quality work, the ability to delay/scrap bad content, cohesive design and story, content that tailors to many groups simultaneously.

Quoting you both because you both are slightly off-target.

- Longer development time means they have more chances to scrap bad work, but it also means more wasted time and less time to work on it if they have to scrap something or change it late.

- IF they announce an expansion, and IF they give a due date . . . then miss it for whatever reason, just how badly do you think that will reflect? Especially if, in their words “it’s not ready”? It will be worse than a LS chapter which is heavily bugged, because then it will have been paid for.

- Last time I checked, expansions do not always cater to multiple groups at once. They instead cater to the top of the playerbase who have already done the top-tier things and itch for the next tougher thing. There might be multiple level ranges included, but only if a new race was introduced, due to the new race requiring a starting zone and “pecking order” of zones to get going.

- Finally . . . I don’t think this team could legitimately put together an expansion which wouldn’t disappoint everyone in some fashion. Especially the people salivating over the word “expansion”.

Boneheart.3561:

The back-story articles don’t seem to dismiss her Mary Sue-ness. If anything they enhance it, which brings me to the second half of her unlikability/why I don’t like her: her exceptional scholarships we’ve never heard of.
Your perspective?

Well, everyone knows I’m an ANet apologist so why should my perspective matter in this? I don’t think anyone wants me to go into it . . . again . . . just to reach the same conclusion . . . again . . . that I don’t know what I’m talking about and think ANet can do no wrong.

So, my perspective? I already gave it. “She wasn’t a Villain Sue.” If you want answers more than that, my post history is open and you should still be able to find the discussions in there.

Ben K.6238:

Their build tells you way more than their AP total does.

So, apparently, does maining a ranger.

-goes back to waiting for a group-

Konig Des Todes.2086:

]Why can’t you just add in 31 new maps (1 per zone, 1 per city) which are the originals and shared between the personal story steps in full – so all personal story steps use the same “original Lion’s Arch map” if they take place there, etc. for each one.

The GW2.DAT file size, I suppose, ballooning in size from what I was reading. Or maybe I don’t get it properly, but we’re looking at doubling the assets-

Then add in a variation of each altered-and-returned-to-zone for each new season when they get altered.

. . . or, in fact, more than doubling . . .

So at least, you merely double the amount of open world maps in the game, rather than having one per each individual step.

More than double, potentially, if there’s more than a single change to a zone like how many times Lion’s Arch had been changed – such as the Mad King destroying the lion statue. Or it replaced with the hologram projector after the election.

This seems like a very ham-fisted way of solving it, and one which is not necessarily friendly to the end-user. Solving the immersion problem at the cost of my hard drive space, and potentially increasing the amount of errors due to hardware troubles. (Bad sectors, for instance.) And, of course, increasing the time to load the assets unless your HDD is incredibly buff at seek time.

Of course, another option is to have all zone data be on a server instead of in the DAT file and loaded into a temporary spot each time . . . sure would solve the immersion problem at the cost of heavy loading times . . .

All this is, naturally, from the perspective of an end-user who barely knows tech matters but has been playing MMOs and other things for a time.

Boneheart.3561:

Thalador.4218:

Again, you give Suesque powers to Scarlet. F-

In a logical situation, the survivors would’ve banded together and either lynched Scarlet or done as Marshal Trahearne would: moving on!

She was established as a Mary Sue when you first meet her. At least for me, that was half the reason I didn’t like her and half of what made her unlikable.

I didn’t see her as a Mary Sue after taking a step back and looking at the whole.

Unfortunately, ANet did no favors by adding a lot of material in places the players wouldn’t naturally look – in a short story released on their page. Then in some not-usual dialogue, along with a lot of “rumors” about her which started to surface which later turned out to not be 100% factual.

But by that point, everyone had already determined she was a Sue and that was that.

Ashen.2907:

Demonts.4593:

In conclusion all the criticism comes from the standards of an expansion. My opinion is the content we get in 6 month is not as good as an expansion but who know there have been rumors of a 2015 expansion and if this is true Anet you nailed it. If I get content every 2 weeks and a paid expansion every two years that would be a great business model.

Not all criticism comes from the standards of an expansion.

Some criticism, and I’d say the bulk of it, comes from ways the core game doesn’t satisfy a player or group of players in some manner.

Strangely, it is usually the most constructive criticism.

Of course it exceeds in number the Pact military – that’s game mechanics screwing over lore because of how events had to scale up amounts.

I think there was this one dev who did talk extensively with players, what was his name . . . oh, Josh Foreman.

That didn’t go very well.

Ashen.2907:

The fact that they have not, as of yet, added something that someone wants, or thinks would be a better way of doing things is not a reason to give up on expressing what one, as a customer, would like to see in game.

This is far too rational a point for this thread. Quick, someone fix this . . .

chemiclord.3978:

I was honestly most annoyed by Nightfall’s story line.

Most annoyed by is more Factions for me, and as a whole. The incredibly distracting Kurzick/Luxon stuff after the halfway point made me wonder if they’d even listened or paid attention to what was going on with Shiro. Then there was the Faction mechanics . . . and, of course, Master Togo.

But Prophecies was the one which made me go “what a letdown”. And I know it’s only because the story was supposed to exist to get the characters through the hoops and into PvP. Still, it was . . . disappointing. And they did better with Nightfall.

(The aforementioned link to Abaddon notwithstanding – that felt forced and unnecessary to try to tie the three together into a trilogy. I went with it, mostly because the alternative was to just stop caring.)

Teofa Tsavo.9863:

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Farzo.8410:

Original Guild Wars was just an overall better game with younger devs that wanted to create a good game with interesting stories to tell and mechanics to show.

Really wish they told an interesting story then, instead of reheated cliche heaped onto stereotype . . . really, Prophecies was the worst storyline which has been connected to ArenaNet.

Bar none.

Eh. I have a hard time believing that any story not featuring The Scarlett Snowflake has any hope of winning the coveted “Anet Worst Story” Razzie.

pssh. Prophecies didn’t even have Ley lines.

No, but it did have the most transparent traitor-turn yet. And a runner-up for “how did we not know this guy was going to betray us?” . . .

On the plus side, they offed Rurik early on, instead of making us continue escorting him. Oh, and it had Oink The Incredible.

Teofa Tsavo.9863:

Do you actually read posts?

That would get in the way of actually trying to make his point. Which I’m still not sure of.

Okay, so to step back from the discussion of mounts prompting more people to explore the world (whut?) . . . if they existed as I laid out in my post solely as a noncombat form and not as a speed boost . . .

The only objection is the cost of time and resources to develop it and to test it. And, as I noted before, the enormous trouble of making sure one particular race with troublesome tails and poise doesn’t find clipping issues with every one of them.

I’d rather they take any efforts in developing mounts and, well, developing interesting monsters to add to the game, or non-Gem weapons and armor which look interesting and functional.

Farzo.8410:

Original Guild Wars was just an overall better game with younger devs that wanted to create a good game with interesting stories to tell and mechanics to show.

Really wish they told an interesting story then, instead of reheated cliche heaped onto stereotype . . . really, Prophecies was the worst storyline which has been connected to ArenaNet.

Bar none.

Oh? The mursaat, huh?

Boneheart.3561:

How did we learn of the Mursaat? I only remember them being brought up as the actual bad guys when talking to that Seer. There’s some things I’ve been looking to get answered about them, too, if you would happen to know. I think it’s still a mystery, but where is their homeland? And why did they kill those White Mantle at the Charr warcamp, they had a pretty solid religious following already, why the culling? D’Alessio(?) was never heard of again after they took him?

In order:

- We learned of them first as “The Unseen”, masters of the White Mantle. Which by the time we hit Maguuma missions, was revealed to be . . . just a little shady.

- We don’t know of their homeland. It’s presumed the Isles of Janthir since that’s where Saul D’Alessio went and came back with the mention of the Unseen and started the White Mantle.

- No, we never heard of Saul after they took him.

- Why kill the soldiers of the Mantle? To remain “Unseen” . . . at least to the bulk of them. The mursaat are, for the most part, pretty cowardly.

Manasa Devi.7958:

There’s actually little of worth in this thread to be honest. Practically no one on the first page has any idea what they’re talking about, ranging from thinking it’s a book written by Varesh to reverting, again, to attacking the game’s writers, instead of discussing what’s actually said on the in-game page.

On that note, there’s little more to discuss here. Have a good time in game, and don’t take it too seriously.

(Where’s my mount, I heard they were supposed to be coming soon . . .)

Teofa Tsavo.9863:

Uh, the Centaur we were helping vs Kournan forces in Elona at the time. Zhed, Mirza, etc. The ones that apparently forgot the treachery and alliance turned slavery that had recently happened. In other words, more “fill in the blanks somehow”.

Right, they might not have mentioned it because that bit never happened. It’s just being invented in this thread by people.

Seriously, the only source for claims of an alliance actually existing or being a pretense to begin enslavement has begun in this thread as theories by players. Ditto for it being some sort of entrancement meant for the Kournan people by Varesh to keep them from rebelling.

It’s players making this stuff up you talk about having to dance around or ignore, not ArenaNet’s writing team.

These “tiny” offhand revisions have a ripple effect, leading to more blanks to fill in or ignore. I’m voicing an opinion about revisions in general, which are becoming common sauce.

. . . is it a revision, or another example like the White Mantle / Shining Blade propaganda matters going around in Kryta way back when? Like people basically being strong-armed into saying “Shining Blade did it” when it was White Mantle because they might “disappear”?

(See: Hot Springs Murders)

I’m with you on being careful with revisions and additions propped up as answers to questions which weren’t being asked. This isn’t such a case.

And yeah, someone needs to be somewhat nailed to a pole. Why is that an issue, since you are happily nailing me to one?

Meh, I forgot the hammer anyway. I’m too mellow to find the rope anyway.

Seriously, we agree on the core of the problem you’re on about, but I think you’re going after this pointlessly – this isn’t ArenaNet making this a problem with the lore. It’s the players making a mess of this thing.

. . . but I sort of felt like it might be of minor interest.

So I just got my Magic 2015 box today (yes, my other addiction), and while dealing with sorting through pack contents I noticed there are more than a few cards which have been designed by people. (And one by the community but not sure how that went down.)

. . . including Isaiah Cartwright.

So, just for fun, here was what it was.

And yes, I will use it as soon as I manage to figure out where exactly to make use of it.

Cheers!

Teofa Tsavo.9863:

Ok, Varesh had a few years window to accomplish this “we didn’t see it” feat. Ok. But no free Centaur we work with brings it up despite the event having to be within somewhat recent memory? So now I have to assume, for poor plots sake, they all forgot. No matter. A wizard did it. Makes as much sense.

You’re, like, bound and determined to start nailing people to poles over this . . . complete non-issue with lore. Which gets explained by the immediate fridge logic if you bring it up as a problem:

“Oh, so it had to be a revision to lore to whitewash that whole thing.”

“You saw it was written by Varesh, apparently? Probably was just propaganda.”

“Okay, so why do none of the centaurs ever bring it up? Huh? Huh?!”

“You mean the ones bent on killing absolutely anyone who strays into their territory like the Harathi and the Tamini, or the ones who were never in Elona to begin with?”

Well, sure, except if that happens then all we do is hot-dial our favorite guildmates and go “need backup”. Or wait for being saved by the blue dorito.

Im Mudbone.1437:

Tobias just hit on something. A tonic that turns you into a mount/horse/whatever, OH WAIT they have those already, NVM. -LOL

More like how the “Town Clothes” tonics work, only you now have a horse. Or steam machine, or aetheric-driven contraption, dolyak, whatever the heck else there is.

Just no centaurs. Because that’s weird.

Teofa Tsavo.9863:

Shrug. The sheer entertainment value of watching a Dorito lead a zerg of cavalry off a cliff negates a lot of no votes, for me.

I can see and hear it now. "Woo, I love Death Shroud, safe from death . . . "

Yeah, I suppose that’d be worth it but . . . never really had a good experience with mounts in games, even where they were “important”. The only time I found them useful was in Ultima Online, and that was just because the PK Gank Squad usually had Frenzied Ostards and if you didn’t have a horse you were asking to die a terrible terrible death.

There is really no valid argument for “no mounts” but for some reason the topic is a knee jerk hot button here.

Because a lot of times they were a status symbol for the l33t. Because more than a few of us really find them less than necessary even in games which didn’t have waypoints. Because for more than a few it reminds them of some other game they grew to despise.

For me? I think they’re unnecessary and prone to a lot more troubles than some armor skins and charr. A considerable amount more. I wouldn’t be completely opposed to tonics only which couldn’t be used in combat, like the transformations we had since GW1 and Mad King’s Holiday.

Amazing Tyria. Tanks, Airships, helicopters, matter transference, holograms and more. And not a single soul who looked at a pack dolyak and thought “I wonder if I could sit on that pack saddle”.

Sure. Stone Summit did it all the time.

Ergo, mounts are eeeeeeeeeevil . . .

nexxe.7081:

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

nexxe.7081:

GW2 traveling = Waypoints and Swiftness boons.

Swiftness Wars 2. GG.

Those who are against mounts never have a logical explanation as to why they are so evil.

I don’t ever call them evil. I call them unnecessary . . . among other things.

Call it whatever you want, but if you, or others, can’t provide sound reasons as to why they are “unnecessary”, or shouldn’t be implemented, my statement still stands.

I have.

I don’t feel up to repeating myself, over and over again for the multiples of topics which start this up.

This used to happen a lot before LS2 for me, especially if for some reason I used a healing/utility skill (6-0) on myself with no targets near the center of screen. Also fun is when it would “pop” to another target if it wandered through the center of screen.

No, I can’t reproduce it on demand. No, I don’t demand it get fixed without being able to nail the cause well enough to reproduce. Yes, I want them to give me free stuff. An undisclosed amount of money in small bills left at a specific point to be determined later is acceptable.

Still better than the redesign of Freeport in EverQuest way back when. Not as good as the redesign of Tos, though.

VOLKON.1290:

Tybalt.

Definitely Tybalt.

It wasn’t all that bad.

. . . apple pie?

Kain Francois.4328:

Didn’t the Kournans actually ally with the centaurs to enslave them? I thought the whole point of the centaur-rescue mission was that there were trusted centaurs who backstab Kourna to fight for their freedom?

The word “collaborator” comes to mind to describe such trusted centaurs. But I saw, personally, no such things. Only centaurs who decided doing what they were instructed was safer, so Kournan soldiers knew “this one isn’t going to be trouble”.

Kodonur Crossroads was an interesting mission in that regard.

Everyone can assume away as to how we know it, but the problem is someone slipped up and it made it in without substance explaining how we know it.

I mean, I assume it’s because of certain connections my character has cultivated in the last year.

Joe Bob the Prophet can assume he read it in the tea leaves leftover when he was sobering off a binge session of Belcher’s Bluff.

Until someone in game explains how the heck we know . . .

Kalavier.1097:

Randulf.7614:

True enough, although the devs did point out in the forums last week, anything said in interviews that isn’t specifically written into the game isn’t necs canon. I believe the word they used was “malleable”. A Zhaitan resurrection is admittedly unlikely, but not out of the question based on that.

SIGH.

The actual wording was more like “Take game as top tier canon, things below it (MAINLY interviews!) can POSSIBLY change.”

I really, really am getting tired of everybody seeming to parrot the line as going about EVERY SINGLE THING as a “Oh it’ll likely change.” or “It might change because it’s not stated ingame so we can’t say it factually!”

What it really should be seen as is this:

Information in game

This is canon, and while it may be contradicted if it is something spoken or written, events themselves won’t be changed. Treat all sources you come across in game which are not firsthand with some suspicion.

Information from NPCs

NPCs are prone to lie, be mistaken, or just have bad research backing their information. (See: Lornar’s Pass and the “dwarven summoning stone” presumed to be Deldrimor.) Approach all information from NPCs with skepticism unless it matches firsthand knowledge.

Information from out-of-game writing

Inapplicable to the game canon and is mainly a means of seeing things the game cannot properly show us yet. Treat all of this as interesting side-stories, but do not count on the information being completely accurate as it is told from a “third person limited” point of view.

Information from interviews, podcasts, posts

Information spoken by developers has the potential to be adjusted later, even when said “this is concrete”. Until it makes it directly into the game, it should be approached with caution and not taken as absolute proof of anything. It may be the gospel Word of God in some terms, but as we all know . . . Gods change.

Teofa Tsavo.9863:

Ugh, Indeed. I’ll go stand in my timeout corner of shame.

That still does not excuse the Mordremoth insta knowledge AOE bomb.

Nope. But as I said, not like they didn’t do it before where someone “missed a spot”. Even better is how we know there were X number of Bloodstones and never found more than three.

. . . and they might be pointless to the plot now.

The Watchknights weren’t even a human thing, they were derived from Scarlet’s steam creature designs . . . which is how she co-opted them with root user access so quickly.

Given it looks like this “chapter” is the sylvari’s time to get hit like a punching bag instead of humanity? I’m surprised you’re not in favor of this.

Shardelyss.4807:

M Steel.2574:

It was implied, I think by either Kasmeer or Marjory, that we intend to unite all the leaders of Tyria against Mordremoth.

PC: We need to work together. Together we will defeat this new threat and keep our world safe.

Leader 1: I agree. But our Countries need a leader.

Leader 2: This is true, but who would lead us?

Leader 3: It can’t be one of us, or we would be seen as being above the others.

PC: Why does this suddenly sound familar? And why do I have a bad feeling that this won’t end well.

Sudden Plot take over: Let Trahearne lead us.

PC: NOT AGAIN!

Trahearne: Thank you. PC, I want you to be my second.

PC: Shoot me now.

Tobias: “I’m already your second. I’ve been your second for a year now. And since your Wyld Hunt is over now, I swear if I have to I will push you in front of the Mordremoth Hentai Squad to save myself.”

Trahearne: “Mordrewho?”

narwhalsbend.7059:

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

. . . there’s an Ascalonian throne?

Also, where in the Shiverpeaks did you dig up that signet ring? I mean, it’d have to be there since it’s well documented that’s where Prince Rurik was killed by the leader of the Stone Summit trying to escort his people through the Frost Gate.

Those tales of his body resurfacing during a raid on the mursaat in the Ring of Fire aren’t very plausible, all things considered.

Lastly, are you sure those are Althea’s Ashes and not something else . . . I hear some black marketeers were selling “genuine reliquaries” of those ashes back in those times to displaced Ascalonian people.

Well there’s not exactly a throne anymore…

My mesmer got Rurik’s ring while exploring Stonepate’s tomb with Magister Seiran of the Priory. That evil dwarf must have stolen it as a prize. She recovered Aldelbern’s ring while helping Eir in the Ascalonian Catacombs.

She dual wields Fiery Dragon Swords as a reminder to one day re-claim Magdaer and Sohothin from Rytlock and Logan some day. For now, she tolerates them enough to work with them against the bigger threat.

With the peace treaty between humans and charr, my mesmer has taken to exploring old Ascalon in her free time when not battling dragons and evil Sylvari. As part of her travels, she has spent lots of time and gold to track down Althea’s resting place and recover her ashes, as well as making the pilgrimage to King’s Watch from her house in Ebonhawke.

Not bad. Yes, definitely getting the “itch” to polish out the thing I put together for Tobias now.

Especially about the distant cousin Elena Corso.

narwhalsbend.7059:

My human noble mesmer is actually the secret descendent of Prince Rurik of Ascalon and Lady Althea.

Whenever a person asks about the legitimacy of her claims to the Ascalonian throne, she shows them the rings on her fingers, Rurik and Adelbern’s Signet Rings, as well as the Preserved Red Iris Flower and Althea’s Ashes that she carries around with her. Then she turns them into a moa for fun.

. . . there’s an Ascalonian throne?

Also, where in the Shiverpeaks did you dig up that signet ring? I mean, it’d have to be there since it’s well documented that’s where Prince Rurik was killed by the leader of the Stone Summit trying to escort his people through the Frost Gate.

Those tales of his body resurfacing during a raid on the mursaat in the Ring of Fire aren’t very plausible, all things considered.

Lastly, are you sure those are Althea’s Ashes and not something else . . . I hear some black marketeers were selling “genuine reliquaries” of those ashes back in those times to displaced Ascalonian people.

Veydar.5017:

It’s strange that you don’t mind difficulty in any game except this.

. . . not really. If it’s way too difficult for me in a single-player game there is always hacking past what I need. No such potential in an MMO, there’s a hard “no, you cannot do this cool thing”.

What’s strange is the urge to 100% every game I pick up, even knowing it’s not going to happen. (And also why I stepped away from the Pokemon series when only Japan started getting some of the special giveaways but that’s another forum.)

I mean all your points are very valid but it all comes down to not getting excluded from content because you’re not good enough even though I am sure you easily could be.

Define “easily”. Remember, I am an avowed ranger player – we have issues in our class which rather prevent us from reaching the same effectiveness. In normal play, it’s not an issue, it can be hurdled. In true hardcore play? It’d be a crippling issue not to be passed.

If there were a hardmode for every dungeon that 85% of the players would never be able to complete because it is about as hard or slightly harder than Arah P1, 2 and 3 without offering any additional lore, would you be okay with that? The entire rest of the game would be just as accessible as it is now, except for hardmode dungeons.

I was fine with HM in GW1, but then again I could mostly scrape through GW1 HM even Hero/Henching it. (Not a testament to skill, just noting it was easier.)

You would be able to get special tokens, let’s call them Death Offerings of Baelfire for example, which you could trade in for skins that resemble the normalmode skins but have additional textures, ornaments, color slots etc. Like the Tequatl skins are overhauled versions of the ascended weapons for example, just in this case (Hardmode) a little more subtle.

I’d be okay with pure cosmetic rewards which are (ahem) “lazy reworkings of older skins” as the forums would deem them within 30 seconds of them being seen. I’d be okay with 100% new creations which could hit the TP for hundreds of gold.

I could be persuaded to overlook an increase in Gold/Karma/XP gain on winning a HM dungeon, because all that’s good for is “getting paid faster”.

I would not be okay with new skins which would be available and, say, account-bind on acquire.

nexxe.7081:

GW2 traveling = Waypoints and Swiftness boons.

Swiftness Wars 2. GG.

Those who are against mounts never have a logical explanation as to why they are so evil.

I don’t ever call them evil. I call them unnecessary . . . among other things.

Veydar.5017:

You’re not entitled to get everything in a game.

It’s not about “entitlement, please hand me my cheevos now”. Gods know I am moderately comfortable with things like Tribulation Mode existing, or Mad King’s Clock Tower (which I have never been able to do successfully).

It’s a resistance to the ideal where something like that becomes a baseline for average, or “you’re not a real player if you can’t do it”.

They don’t just spend insane hours in the game but they theorycraft, they adapt and improve and when they’re facing a challenge their answer is not “get tanky” but rather “how can I mitigate this damage in an intelligent way?”.

I. Don’t. Mind. This. By. Itself.

I don’t mind it when I play games like Nethack, where there is an insane amount of preparation and learning curve before you can even think to win. I don’t mind having to resort to a very specific party build to beat the Demifiend (SMT: Digital Devil Saga) and pray the RNG doesn’t kill me. I’ve been there, truly, more than a few times in the past, when nobody would care about it in the least.

In this case? I mind it if we’re talking about content I don’t get to do because I’m not “tuff enuf” to do it. Or I main a ranger, so no going to do it. I’ve done my time with that back when Plane of Time was a raid worthy of awe.

I don’t mind you or others doing all this. I mind it when someone decides that makes them better than me and they are owed things I shouldn’t get.

I am NOT asking to make this game super hard in all aspects. Without the thousands of casuals this game wouldn’t exist. I have 0 problems with people farming, with easy dungeons and beautiful zones like Dry Top that people can simply enjoy without having to consult a guide before starting your journey. But the skill ceiling in this game is so low.

I do agree, the skill ceiling to be successful is low. It’s possible to just roll through things without thinking too hard in the general open-world PvE. Step into WvW, though . . . different story. The skill ceiling is much more mutable, and hardcore players who do all the work you mentioned above? They shine, along with those who use the Commander tag for more than a shorthand for “zerg form up on me”.

And the last Feature Patch has shown that ANET is focusing heavily on catering to the average paying customer.

Yeah, except . . . that . . . that’s where their money is.

Also, needs to bear mention from me – Chuck Sonnenberg’s paraphrased notion:

“You don’t get credit for stuff you don’t put in the movie because, now try to follow this because it’s a pretty big leap, you didn’t put it in the movie. I shouldn’t have to wait months and watch all your deleted scenes to say ‘Oh, this finally makes sense!’ or pore through some non-canon books to say ‘Oh, so this isn’t a pile of nonsensical horsecrap after all!’”

Teofa Tsavo.9863:

RoyHarmon.5398:

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

“All mention of Abaddon was removed by the Five Gods after he was imprisoned? So where do we get the name of the mission ’Abaddon’s Mouth’?”

I… had never put all of that together.

Perhaps during that little mission in Istan where we witness Khayet and Varesh going all “hail Abbadon” the cat got out of the bag?

Just sayin. That was a fairly big clue, don’t ya think?

Wrong campaign. This was back in Prophecies, not Nightfall.

Aerlen.5326:

Wait until Maj and Kas bug out and you can’t finish it, that’s the BEST part -_-

Oh, so it’s like Mhenlo and Togo bugging Vizunah to make it unwinnable sometimes?

Veydar.5017:

That’s exactly my biggest gripe: No, not everyone should be capable of doing 100% of the game. For the average Joe 85% would be enough. Then another 10% for people like me (casual hardcore players who can solo Lupi but won’t get a stellar time) and the remaining 5% (or 1% I dont care, these are just numbers off the top of my hat) for the Goku’s, DnT’s, rT’s of this world.

Sorry, I don’t agree. I stopped buying MMOs like that because I really hated chasing a carrot I was never . . . ever going to reach. It is the singular reason I do not give WoW a whirl, above even “I don’t have enough friends who play to make it worth my time”.

And there’s a difference between “I can solo Lupi” and “there should only be content for those who have that level of skill”.

If everything is accessible for everyone then where’s the fun? What would anyone aspire to? We’d all be mindless zergs farming whatever the devs throw at us, knowing that everyone around us will have the same skins, the same titles, the same [insert instance content] level…

Except we don’t have that now. We have people who have high Fractal levels and those who don’t have any. We have people who do dungeons and those who don’t. We have people who open their Wardrobe and go “which Legendary should I wear today?” and those who just wear whatever they can afford.

On the same token, we have people who do things like find ways of recreating other iconic characters with lots of work figuring out what armor skins, hair styles and color, and so on actually works. Everyone does not run around playing the same character, just with different names.

Don’t think I “don’t get it”, okay? There’s tons of people who do crazy feats of gaming because they exist – Solo White Mage FF1 exists, after all. Four-player Battletoad races exist. So does I Want To Be The Guy: The Movie: The Game. So does Dwarf Fortress, a game which you are destined to lose from the time you hit “install”.

GW2 isn’t in the same vein. This is a game which got designed, deliberately, to be inclusive instead of exclusive to its players from the words “we’re making Guild Wars 2”. That’s why several design decisions were made in the first place – resource nodes aren’t “first come first served”, enemies roll loot for everyone who was fighting them (within some restrictions), and there’s no reason not to help someone.

It runs a lot with what I (as a tabletop GM who tried straight homebrew) have to go through when figuring out their world and what to do, how far to design things, and so forth. How much freedom do I let into the game, how much detail do I really have to work on, how do I design it so they can find adventure without needing to lay down railroad tracks and having a predetermined “fate” for them?

It also mirrors what I recall reading a lot about when it came to the earliest MMOs, which were mostly sandboxes. Some of the best stuff in UO came from players ganking . . . I mean, interacting with scrubs . . . I mean, other players.

Galen Grey.4709:

Changes don’t happen for mysterious reason but they don’t just happen because something is not working either. You can restructure teams because the new structure is more efficient or because it will allow you to achieve new goals etc..

Or because the logistics of making the rotating schedule was burning people out trying to make sure everyone was on the same page?

No matter the case like Vayne stated if the whole LS was bad didnt work chances are they wouldnt try restructuring the teams to make it work, chances are they’d scrap the whole idea and go with Expansions, its not like they dont have a market demanding one.

See, that’s only part of the events.

I seem to recall these things called CDIs which were opened up and notes were taken from each instance. Sometimes they went better than others, but I think it’s pretty clear at least some of the criticisms and “we think this might work better” was heard and interpreted.

It’s not that “the LS was terrible”, it’s that “they saw people had a beef with things and listened, then tried a different tactic”. They want the LS to succeed because it . . . as a concept . . . is a pretty neat idea.

Really need to work on their execution though.

Veydar.5017:

Well first of all thanks for the semantics. I wrote “needs”, I meant “wants”. Big deal, english is not my native language and even if it were you could have interpreted my first line within the context of the rest of my post. Then you ignored everything else I wrote. O_o

Everyone else was doing it and I wanted to be cool too.

Seriously, though, your post largely consisted of sounding superior about how the game was too easy. Sadly, I don’t experience that feeling myself but as I’m a terrible player who gave up on Devil May Cry 3 before mission 7, that probably is a valid point.

As to the topic at hand: They either don’t understand this (unlikely) or don’t want to act on it for gemstore reasons (likely).

I think it’s far more likely they want the average bar of player skill low so we don’t have the same sort of experiences in the past of MMOs where content could only be completed by the top 1% of a server population for the most coveted loot/titles/shinies.

That’s what comes across in almost everything, including SAB Part 2 where they were thinking of toning it back some. (It stands to be noted, that difficulty climb was what had me seriously step back from it and not finish the achievements or World 2.)

Like I said, everything with the exception of high level Fractals (and even they can be facetanked to a certain degree) and Arah is easy mode. You don’t have to really give an effort, learn to dodge or develop strategies. You can just muddle your way through it somehow. Every stat combo is viable enough for 99% of the game. That’s not how it should be and yet the LS and ANETs entire policy continues to ignore hardcore players.

Again, I think they want a feeling of inclusive experience rather than “you must be this l33t to do this”. I don’t see that as a black mark against the game, I see it as a conscious design decision to make sure the majority of the players who buy the game can . . . actually play the game.

Precursors are the worst example and you obviously didn’t really understand my point. Precursors and legendaries require gold and gold only. In a way, they serve as a good example to get my message across: Most prestigious items in the game (or supposed to be) and yet everyone can get one.

So what’s your point? Everyone should be . . . in theory capable of doing 100% of the game with proper equipment and knowledge heading in. This shouldn’t be a contest to find the next person to wreck their fine hand motor skills executing millisecond-window commands.

And like it or not, precursors are the easiest “go to” for “valuable loot” right now. Everything else which can be traded is too easy to get your hands on.