Guild Wars 2

She can be rehabilitated into a wood chipper.

Uruz Six.6594:

Khisanth.2948:

Hmm … maybe what Scarlet saw was the ANet office. :P

Great Scott! She’s been arguing with Bobby Stein all this time!

Her ISP must be amazing to allow her to do that.

. . . I always thought she had Comcast and that’s why she went insane.

Naranek.3467:

Given that my favorite fantasy author is Robert Jordan, I would vehemently disagree with that assessment. Anne McCaffrey, Marion Zimmer Bradley, quite a few, in fact.

You forgot Mercedes Lackey (Vanyel) . . . and there’s Lois McMasters Bujold where it’s really not a problem (even if that’s science fiction). And then there’s J.K. Rowling, where it was there and never actually impacted the story negatively. It took the author stepping in and going “yes, he’s not into girls” to make it known.

But Anne McCaffrey . . . umm, not a good example. Not at all. I like some of her work but there are some author opinions there I really don’t want to get into.

Also, what would be “gross” about Rox and Braham? The fact that they are different species? So are humans and Norn, but I don’t think anyone would deny that Norn are attractive (in fact there’s at least one thread about how Norn women are too pretty). If you were to say that a Norn-human relationship is fine but not a Norn-charr one, it would mean giving physical qualities primacy over emotional ones; basically that no matter how much they may or may not click, one doesn’t think the other looks good enough, so no luck.

Norn-Human marriage happened before, well into the time of the Great Destroyer. Look up “Bear Club for Men” in the GW1 wiki. (It is also entertainingly hilarious.)

It was brought up, by the way – cross-species relationships cannot produce offspring.

MatthewMedina.5419:

Checkmate atheists?! Does that mean you believe the Elder Dragons…are GOD? :-P

If someone asks you if you’re a God, you say . . . yes . . .

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

Konig Des Todes.2086:

At least they aren’t making googly eyes at each other going “I wub u!” “No, I wub u!” “I wub u more!” “No, -I- wub u more!”

Actually, that’s exactly what the scene in the bar with the curtains, and the scene at the beach (which people are photobombing) felt like.

Really? To me it felt like Kasmeer trying to be silly and cheer Marjory up.

Kashrlyyk.5364:

Shanna.4762:

… personal storylines that revolved around my character being at the center of everything. …

I don’t even mind that but everyone praising Trahearne for doing nothing that kittenes me off. I just killed the Mouth of Zhaitan and “my” character says: “Trahearne is bringing Zhaitan down bit by bit.”

She could have said: “WE are bringing Zhaitan down bit by bit.” But nope.
My own character doesn’t acknowledge her own participation and claims Trahearne did it. What a kitten of kitten.

I had to look up the context, and in doing so, the meaning is obvious. It’s not about just the victory over the Mouth of Zhaitan, but the campaign in Orr as a whole . . . and about deflating an asura’s ego. (I can always get behind that.)

Also, you have the problem of the pair of charr trying to deride “Traherne’s unity claptrap”. It’s got to remain unified under him if it is going to keep moving. (We already saw what happened when the Pact was left to its own devices – it starts becoming a mess.)

Obsidian.1328:

Never said that. /sigh

I didn’t say you did, most of that was not directly at you as a response after the point preceding that. I’m just bowing out about now. I’ve said everything I could, and I’d rather just leave this topic discussion and get back to brushing up my campaign notes elsewhere.

Volstag.6371:

I had no intention of setting one foot onto the new pvp map to get the scattered pieces of Taimi’s golem. None….

But then I learn that her legs don’t work and spend the next hour getting it. Curse you ANET, I can’t leave her like that.

I can!

She does not get to go anywhere near Scarlet until I finish “borrowing” a charr wood chipper.

Chaotic Storm.2815:

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

What weapon do I want for my ranger?

. . . swordchucks.

The gunchucks from RWBY would be far better.

Actually, I’ll take a gunlance now that I think more about it.

VOLKON.1290:

ZudetGambeous.9573:

VOLKON.1290:

It’s really a pity to read all these posts using some watered down straw man definition of “pay to win” then claiming GW2 is pay to win because it violates their straw man definition.

It’s really a pity that even though GW2 is one of the most blatantly P2W MMO’s on the market that people keep using various straw man arguments to claim it isn’t P2W every time a new P2W item is introduced into the gem store.

Yes, thank you, a perfect example of what I’m talking about. You nailed it, I appreciate that. Anyone that actually played a P2W game knows exactly what I’m talking about… buying special ships and ammo for example that you can only get with real cash and are twice as powerful (or more) than anything available in the game… you actually pay to win in PvP. So few people either remember what pay to win actually was or they’ve never even seen it at all and use the term in games like this where it doesn’t even remotely apply, and even worse are the people that actually do know what pay to win really means and they deliberately use the term out of context in order to evoke the emotional response tied to the stigma of the “P2W” label.

Although you did lay it on a bit thick with the “most blatantly P2W MMO’s on the market” comment I definitely appreciate you backing me up with your example. It was brilliant. It’s a timeless argument.

. . . you must have read a different post than I did, he was mocking your post by inverting it.

Obsidian.1328:

Kalavier.1097:

Well, the whole “Lore going from human centered” Could just as easily be explained as “Now we are looking at heroes from all races, not just humanity”…

Personally, I think that reasoning is one of the biggest cop-outs I’ve seen in a long time.

Really? Really? . . .

I’ve seen worse just thinking of my time keeping track of Forgotten Realms every time a D&D edition changed majorly and they had to produce some reasons why. The Spellplague seems extraordinarily crazy from what I’ve seen.

More astonishing is every time I come across players who think any company owes control of its lore to people who don’t actually own the IP.

It literally gives ANet a free hand to take the lore in any direction they please. Quite frankly, I’m surprised so many players bought that line so readily.

It’s their lore. It’s always theirs to take in whatever direction they want. Players “buying” the line has to do with caring enough to want to continue thinking about the lore or just throwing off any concern for it and just focusing on the game systems and details.

Because if you don’t buy into the fact they can do whatever they want with the lore with only cursory explanations, you start sounding like ANet’s writers need permission to alter their own material. They don’t need permission. They don’t need to come to the forums and go “so we’re thinking about this happening in the next story, does that work for you all?”.

Do you really think, when they wrote Proph, Factions, and NF that they all had in the back of their minds:
I wonder how all those future GW writers are going to explain that all of this human bias we are writing is bogus…should be interesting, huh?

Yes.

I think the writers had the thought in their heads “gee I wonder how future writing is going to use this”. Because they kind of had to be thinking that way if they planned to keep expansions and content coming. And even if this wasn’t an active desire on their part, it was probably there in a subconscious fashion anyway.

Now, I’m not going down this topic again here. The bottom line is simple: we the players do not have the right to dictate lore continuity to the people who own the game. Any more than readers of novels have the right to do the same to an author, or viewers of a television show have the right to do it to the writing team of the show. We can ask, we can throw entertaining ideas at the wall and see if they stick, and we can speculate until the servers shut down about why the landscape changed in a way which shouldn’t be realistically possible with no particular cause attached to it.

And since I’ve already said pretty much all I can on the topic as raised way back at the front of it? I’m going to bow out Yes. I’d let my human character fight to reclaim Ascalon if it was an option. I’d let my charr character fight to defend it, if needed. It would probably be a lot of fun, but it wouldn’t be done by the writers because of necessary changes which would have to be made numbering far too many hours of work by the designers and developers who have to figure out how to make it work in the engine.

zenleto.6179:

Zaxares.5419:

Aww, and I got all excited to see a red post in this thread.

@Tobias: I agree that the “slippery slope” arguments are all conjecture at the moment, but I remain convinced that, having set this precedent, ANet will now have to maintain or exceed what the unlimited tools can offer for future versions, because otherwise players will now see it as being “of lesser value”, and just won’t buy it. Since the Watchwork Pick is objectively better than the Molten Pick, who would ever buy the Molten Pick again if they re-release it?

I would. I like the animation.

The animation is the reason I bought the Molten Pick in the first place. Or rather, it’s the thing which cemented the purchase.

Emiko.3217:

I don’t hate Trahearne, but he does seem to think highly of himself… above the rest. Notice how he always retreat to the most highest places to overlook people below?

Yes, and he’s never with anyone to keep an eye on him, it’s like he wants some Risen ganker to come by and launch him off the ledge to lethal fall damage below.

. . . oh, by the Six, Traherne is suicidal!

Gene Archer.8560:

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

It’s the assumptions of it necessarily becoming worse I find more annoying.

Businesses are always pushing the envelope. To say that assumptions of this worsening is without merit is to ignore at least 50 years of modern marketing, if not the entirety of marketing since its inception.

Don’t put words in my mouth, I didn’t say without merit. I never said without merit . . . I said I find it annoying and intriguing that jump is made.

BrunoBRS.5178:

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

BrunoBRS.5178:

Xukavi.4320:

BrunoBRS.5178:

Xukavi.4320:

The only reason I honestly brought this up was the wording used in her line “I told the Inquest chaos energy was a misnomer. Mind you, dragon energy is tricky, so I can see how they flubbed it.”

When she says that it seems she’s talking to the group that went into the fractals (which are supposedly members of the Inquest). It wouldn’t make sense for her saying that she told the inquest that it was a misnomer and talking to us as a different group of people unless we actually were a different group of people than inquest or she knew we weren’t inquest.

you’ve never talked to a hypothetical listener? like, even in your inner monologues?

Well, if you wanna put it that way fine. It would fit her crazy mentality I guess. It just seemed a bit odd

but it’s not crazy to talk with yourself as if someone were listening… right? ._.

Or if she thought she was talking to Inquest personnel and she was referencing it as an entity outside of the group there as if to say “I told them and they didn’t listen”, while specifically identifying them:

To a cop in an interrogation room? “Look, I told the cops everything that happened there” is pretty much exactly like this, from what little I can tell.

sure, it could be that. but “she’s just talking with herself” is a much simpler explanation than “she was talking to someone outside the reactor but the distortion of the fractals made it so she appeared inside the reactor just to deliver that dialogue and then disappeared”.

it’s not like it’s uncommon in media to have villains talk to themselves when they’re alone.

You’re not getting what I’m saying. And I’ve not actually done the Fractals since nobody is still doing them for newbies like me :P

She sees the players as Inquest. She laments to them “I told the Inquest before…” referring to other Inquest members, perhaps assuming the players were lower echelon mooks.

BrunoBRS.5178:

Xukavi.4320:

BrunoBRS.5178:

Xukavi.4320:

The only reason I honestly brought this up was the wording used in her line “I told the Inquest chaos energy was a misnomer. Mind you, dragon energy is tricky, so I can see how they flubbed it.”

When she says that it seems she’s talking to the group that went into the fractals (which are supposedly members of the Inquest). It wouldn’t make sense for her saying that she told the inquest that it was a misnomer and talking to us as a different group of people unless we actually were a different group of people than inquest or she knew we weren’t inquest.

you’ve never talked to a hypothetical listener? like, even in your inner monologues?

Well, if you wanna put it that way fine. It would fit her crazy mentality I guess. It just seemed a bit odd

but it’s not crazy to talk with yourself as if someone were listening… right? ._.

Or if she thought she was talking to Inquest personnel and she was referencing it as an entity outside of the group there as if to say “I told them and they didn’t listen”, while specifically identifying them:

To a cop in an interrogation room? “Look, I told the cops everything that happened there” is pretty much exactly like this, from what little I can tell.

It’s explained in the small story instance in Lion’s Arch as something personal to her as a bad memory of this time of year.

frans.8092:

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

I tended to use Hearty only because I got tired of people ragging on me for being “yet another ranger with a dead pet”.

Pet’s are usually the last to die, and in H&H groups you’d rarely die anyway. But yeah, arrogant pug healers tend to ignore pets, but then a ‘heel’ once in a while would be enough to loose aggro and avoid damage.

Oh I was okay with them ignoring the pets because I handled that myself (Comfort Animal). I also at some times “pet pulled” which was sending my pet at a patrol, letting it get stomped . . . watching them reset and resurrecting the pet using Comfort Animal to tug only a few of the patrol off . . . then attacking it.

Also, for laughs one time? Great Dwarf Weapon on the pet as it was (trying to) tank Dhuum. It was not really laughworthy because it worked pretty well.

BrunoBRS.5178:

yeah, i saw her during the mirror mission, she made it out alive (that i recall), then i went with piloting an immortal megazord because honestly, why would you pick any of the other options? that’s one of the best missions in the game :P

so i’ll just pretend she lived through it :P

No, the best mission is the one following it with the Cauldron. Because using that thing against the Risen . . .

. . . mmmm, that was so satisfying

I tended to use Hearty only because I got tired of people ragging on me for being “yet another ranger with a dead pet”.

Frostfang.5109:

No pet skins plz, but I would like to have more tamable pets (like Griffons, Raptors, and Dolphins) instead! And pets that evolve wouldnt be bad at all imo…

All I know is all these pets pale in comparison to the feared Black Moa, fiercest giant chicken to stalk Cantha. One of the greatest rangers of Cantha was able to tame it, even after losing an eye to one.

And it was also feared in Istan, to such a degree I regularly trolled people outside the Sunspear Great Hall with it. Because it was hilarious.

Vayne.8563:

There was pet progression in Guild Wars 1, and I hated it. Every time I tamed a new pet, I had to level it again.

It was annoying as hell.

Add in how there really wasn’t incredible difference in pets other than looks? (Some did slashing, some piercing, whatever . . . it was still of questionable utility.) There wasn’t a reason to level pets.

Doesn’t mean I didn’t make a build specifically to level pets as Dire off wurms outside Boreal Station. And do lockpick runs in the meantime.

They eventually added the Zaishen Menagerie, something I really liked in Guild Wars 1, that allowed you to store pets in an island set up just for your pets.

You could then go in on any character and take out the pet at the level it was stored.

But you still had to level each pet separately.

Other types of progression might work, but I’d hate to have to level every pet I might want you use at some point.

I’d like to level “families” of pets, I guess? Like “canines, moas, spiders, devourers, avians, bears, etc” each get their own progression.

Step one is to give them AI which isn’t bone-stupid. Otherwise we’re not going to get much use out of them anyway.

Kalavier.1097:

Well, the whole “Lore going from human centered” Could just as easily be explained as “Now we are looking at heroes from all races, not just humanity”…

Well, yes, but it still ticks people off. It ticks them off more when someone goes “no we haven’t forgotten about it” but won’t talk about any plans with it.

You know we have to get him canonized into being a saint of Dwayna. It must be done.

Vampirial.9056:

Also displacement skills will be extremely effective. I can already see the people who are best at knocking people off the islands as being the kings of this map.

Are you . . . are you suggesting my launch skills like Point Blank Shot have a use now other than to annoy people any time they see it?

Ooooh.

MarzAttakz.9608:

Some times all you need to do is ask in map chat. We’ve specifically helped many people get POI’s that they’ve needed for world completion, and you know what? It actually feels good to help someone else out.

Granted certain POI’s may be difficult to get due to certain factors, but never be afraid to ask, you don’t even have to physically say anything, just type a few words, try your luck.

It’s how I got some particular skill points, and I’ve seen favorable responses to sometimes “Do you guys think we can take Hills/Bay if we prep for a bit? I need to get inside.”

It’s requests for Stonemist which get laughed off sometimes It’s why I tend to announce it’s on our server’s hands in LA if I see such and am passing through.

Zomaarwat.3912:

SirMoogie.9263:

mythil.9416:

He turns up half way through the story and totally takes the spotlight from you.

He turns up at various points in time based on character race. His first appearance for most players is Claw Island. He is introduced as someone well known by your mentor as a scholar of Orr. He is there for the very same reason you and your mentor are there, as he acknowledges. He then asks for your permission to accompany you. This is hardly taking charge.

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/The_Battle_of_Claw_Island#Dialogues

In the follow up mission he says some variation of, “[Player’s mentor’s] sacrifice held them back, but it was your bravery that led us to safety, my friend. I am grateful to you.”

You and Trahearne, at his request, seek help from the Pale Tree. This mission is largely about Orr, Trahearne, and his lack of confidence in being a general. Both Trahearne and the Pale Tree treat you as the player as important to reclaiming Orr. If anyone is stealing the spotlight at this point it’s that Avatar of the Pale Tree. Always building up Trahearne when he’s down and showing visions of your destiny.

The following mission has you saving your order. At the end you propose to form The Pact alliance, not Trahearne; and Trahearne agrees to follow whatever your plan might be.

Trahearne’s introduction, to most players, isn’t remarkably different from other NPCs that aid the player. It is hardly spotlight grabbing.

Everyone starts bowing down to him and following everything he does and all you have is his dirty work to do. He totally removes the feeling of being the spotlight of the story, the hero and the driving force in change and it comes out of nowhere.

To the contrary. After you decide to form the Pact and you choose Trahearne to lead it; the first mission has you deciding the tactics for retaking Claw Island and Trahearne agreeing to them. The NPCs that offer victory dialogue thank you and Trahearne. Trahearne repeats that he needs you by his side to keep the orders unified. Trahearne offers his doubts about reclaiming Orr and you give him hope.

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Retribution#Dialogue

In Forging the Pact, no one is bowing down to Trahearne. The point of this mission actually to convince the orders that Trahearne can lead them as they all have doubts.

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Forging_the_Pact#Dialogues

I could go on and look into every mission dialogue for you, but I think your should do your own homework. I think you’ll find that Trahearne gives a lot of credit to the player and that this is mostly a story about you supporting Trahearne through his Wyld Hunt. It is not your Wyld Hunt, but you play an important role in it.

There are problems with Trahearne. His introduction for most players is without much precedent, as is the case with many other plot elements (e.g., only some Auran players learn about Professor Gorr’s theory that is largely dropped into other player’s laps when it becomes necessary). He also has a very unemotional voice actor, which can be more than irritating when certain lines need to be delivered with emotion. This could be because of the writing or the actor, I’m not sure which.

You, SirMoogie, are awesome.

How come I do the same thing over and over and over again (with screenshots) and people call me everything but a troll and liar, he does it and he gets kudos?

Nikku.3562:

Tegwen was probably the only character death that actually upset me. I didn’t even notice when Sieran died. I cheered when Tybalt died (seriously, people like him?). When Tegwen sacrificed herself I did /y TEGWEN, NOOOOOOO! She was only in the game for a short while, but her relationship (probably not Relationship though) with Carys was really well written, and Carys’ and Ballista Geargrind’s little eulogy to her was beautiful.

I still think of Tegwen whenever I’m wandering around the Grove.

Well that explains it, I didn’t do that mission, I did a different one. “Air Drop”, in fact. So I guess that means I actually saved Tegwen by choosing a different path :P

killcannon.2576:

Let em speak their mind as long as it makes basic sense.

I don’t mind them making sense – as I’ve said, fear of this precedent being leveraged is not out of line, nor unworthy of being heard.

It’s the assumptions of it necessarily becoming worse I find more annoying.

. . . also the fact we’re talking about a resource for which there’s sources available to anyone who completed the meta this last two weeks, and is implied heavily on being a recurring option.

Kalavier.1097:

Well, it certainly “disregards” quite a bit of it. But it did not “retcon entire sections of the lore”. Those two are very different things. I’ll use Tobias’ words: you’ll have to be more specific.

I’ve heard of people kittening about the GW2 changing the lore/ignoring parts of it, or completely changing elements.

I’ve never heard any real in depth explaining of it, but from my experience I’ve seen… none of it. At least none that CANNOT be labeled as a “Well, these individual people don’t know any better but we do because we have an outside view of the events.” The main one I heard about dealt with magic, yet ignored that 250ish years is a long time with plenty of chances for change.

That’s why I said it, I see it mentioned but never explained.

Magic is probably cited with the least amount of specifics, mostly because they broke up the idea of each class having clearly defined types of magic. Which was the point, so it is said, of the Bloodstones having been scattered . . . but then, we do pull the card of “just because it was said to be true in myth doesn’t make it objectively true” again.

Also cited is how the history and lore went from decidedly human-centric to allow other races to step forward at the expense of humanity. (Though humanity was really getting its teeth kicked in on the Tyrian continent even back in Prophecies.)

Most other things I can recall are minor details edited so it’s not an issue, or what could be oversights on minor details of things not existing where it should. Or, finally, threads which looked important in the first game but after 250 years, didn’t appear to become significant.

Obsidian.1328:

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Obsidian.1328:

What did Glint tell me?

You’ll need to be more specific about when. At the first meeting, when speaking to her vision, or later?

Ehh…you brought it up, I didn’t know where you were going with it. So you tell me.

Er, no . . . no I didn’t. That was FlamingFoxx.

Aaron Ansari.1604:

Hopelessalchemist.4816:

Out of all the homosexual relationships listed before, I’m surprised that no one has even bothered to remember Tegwen and Carys. And then to add to the number of characters I liked that Anet has written out, Tegwen was killed off as well.

Not sure if that should be considered a spoiler or not…

Why all the character deaths? I sobbed when Tybalt died and then the deaths kept coming. Is killing any of the LS characters really necessary?

I don’t think Carys and Tegwen were a couple. It could be, of course, but it felt to me just like mentor and student.

I didn’t think one or the other died. I only saw them on my human character in Orr, which made it seem like both made it out alive.

killcannon.2576:

You give two choices: Leave or suck it up.

And lots of people in this thread who are bothered tend to leap for one of two characterizations of people not going for pitchforks: blind fanboys who defend ANet while they drown puppies, or idiots who can’t tie their own shoes without being reminded this thread is about pay-to-win.

While more sane individuals here keep saying it’s not about that but about what might happen in the future. In turn, this is often rooted in assumption of either incompetence or malice on this item, from what I keep reading here. There’s wild extrapolations which don’t make any sense (“a tool which has a 100% to generate ectos!”) mixed in with what is a legitimate concern.

If you’re wondering why they’re not responding, it’s probably because there isn’t anything they could begin to add on this which wouldn’t result in an incredible crap-storm. First, they’d have to acknowledge the item exists, then either say “it’s fine as it is” or “we’ll be removing it” and in either case the storm is going to get bigger and louder.

In essence it’s my opinion they’re not answering because there is no answer they could give which wouldn’t make this worse. And they realize it, while having read the concerns, and decide to just let actions (that is, not doing this again) speak louder.

BrunoBRS.5178:

and she’s offering to be her bodyguard because she’s in charge of keeping the place safe, and can’t afford a human noble to end up dead.

And she’s not someone she could just tell to shove off for being a stowaway like Lord Faren, He Who Is Forever Friendzoned.

The “great races” are more than subsistence and hunter-gatherer cultures. The “lesser races”:

Hylek – Fragmented exceedingly so there are many many different tribes and there’s a definite aggressive tendency towards other tribes. There is no unity, unlike the Great Races. If they could unify or expand a settlement beyond the stage they’re at now, it might work out. They’re fairly well-prepared, but just aren’t there yet.

Skritt – Scavengers par excellence, but it takes large groups to begin to approach intelligence enough to plan ahead or focus on things beyond the immediate moment. Add that their general tendencies are not to gather in large groups, and there’s a selfishness which keeps them from unifying completely? They don’t work as a “great race”.

Ogres – Hunter-gatherers who are not inclined to so anything more than live for the present and plan only short-term. Like the hylek, they have some significant attributes which show they have promise. Unlike the Great Races, they don’t seem to see a point in taking the step to solidify and take steps forward.

Jotun – Apparently were a Great Race and now are fallen into obscurity with no real focus on getting back. I don’t think there’s a way they will return to prominence.

Quaggan – They’re not nearly focused enough to develop more. They just . . . aren’t. They are almost childlike that way.

Kodan – Hard to say, they aren’t seemingly bothered by anything and their attitude has them being less of a Great Race and more of a shepherd to try to share knowledge and enlightenment.

Dredge – Until they stop trying to kill everything which is not dredge and focus on development of their society instead of slavish devotion to an idea, they’re not going to get anywhere.

Tengu – Until I see more of their civilization now I can’t attest to “Great Race or Not”. Canthan Tengu were incredibly advanced and had the potential to get further in 250 years. Waiting and seeing.

Devata.6589:

I also don’t like it if they make something ‘wrong’ in the game on peruse to then sell the fix in the gem-store. I am then referring to the fact that you need many more then 250 items of many items but the max you can stack is 250. Then they also suddenly introduce something people get stacks and stacks of. The problem is here that you can only stack 250.

I’m going to wager the stack size is a holdover from GW1, where the maximum stack size was 250. It’s only “wrong” because suddenly they introduced the stack expander. If they never had? It wouldn’t be “wrong” just “inconvenient”.

So what do they do.. They sell a stack increaser. I am sorry but thats just extremely extremely extremely rude towards your customers.

. . . and once more, I must note, we the players complained and were given this. We complained about stacks and stacks of stuff accumulating. They put a fix in the gem store since not everyone was experiencing the issue.

It’s not much more different than the “vault expansion”/“bank expansion” they used to sell. Well, no, it is different in that it’s a kitteneaper.

There are indeed also some items in the gem-store I don’t have problems with like indeed character-slots.. however they should then have already included the number of slots as there are classes, but they didn’t.

They didn’t do it in GW1 either, you had to buy more and there was a cap if I recall.

And will we get a free slot when they introduce a new race?

Check the magic 8-ball. Though the expansions for GW1 which introduced 2 new classes each time came with extra slots included. Given a new race is likely an expansion material rather than “Living World Huzzah!” . . . yeah, we’ll probably get a free slot.

The coin is still bad imho. The problem is that hard mode is not just skill based. When you do it without guide there are simply traps you are not able to see so it becomes trial and error. Thats why you pretty much needed that coin just to learn where the traps are. After that it becomes skill based.

And the Tribulation Mode was the ugliest addition to the game ever. It was completely over the top, unnecessary, and added nothing but frustration and a time sink. There was no reason for it to exist. None. Except, of course, the developer wanted to do it and saw no reason not to.

Honestly, I think it’s a learned rule when talking game design the question isn’t “why not?” it’s “why?”. But that’s another topic entirely.

And yes they need to make money. Thats why I said they should base there income on expansions.

This causes power creep and player fragmentation almost without a doubt. For each expansion they add, there’s another branching of the population so we have 2^x number of fragments going on of people who have a certain distribution of expansions. It’s a problem, and eventually runs into issues of “wait, before we add this 5th expansion what if they don’t have the first one?”.

But expansions should be easily able to support the game and would work great if you want the game to run for many years.

Yeah, I mean, WoW is still running and so is the granddaddy of modern MMOs, Everquest. Of course, both are subscription services if I recall right . . . on top of expansion-based.

In all seriousness, expansions have their own set of issues which become more complex and worse as you add more and more in. I already outlined the trouble of the players not necessarily having them all when the developers plot the expansions . . . the power creep which may set in is another issue which seems inexorably linked – this was notable in the first actual expansion for GW1 having some . . . intriguing power creep going on within it.

DaShi.1368:

I hope so. I hated my character’s voice in GW1. But I love all the pc voices in GW2 and wish my characters would speak more.

Hey I liked my character’s voice in Prophecies. It’s mostly as I like Steve Blum though.

And the fact there were many many players crushed into the area . . . I only noticed as I showed up early.

Konig Des Todes.2086:

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

- A one-sided heterosexual crush which is embarrassing to watch between Logan Thackeray and Queen Jenna.

It’s not one-sided, however. Jennah also loves Logan, but the two’s social classes (Logan is commoner), as well as the whole strife with the Ministry and Caudecus prevents Jennah from following her heart.

Jennah says she does, or implies she does at the least . . . but I’m skeptical on the matter and also am in the camp saying Logan is way . . . way . . . way too firmly crushed on the matter to be objective as her protector and champion.

What he needs is a one night stand with Ellen Kiel. Or Eir. Or Rytlock.

Konig Des Todes.2086:

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

They did do something during Lost Shores – their siege engineers set up the counterattack against the Ancient Karka there in Lion’s Arch.

I thought that was the Lionguard? Both groups seem to share Fort Marriner (with the Vigil).

And I agree that the Zaishen are playing too much of a “no role” role. I would have expected them to be in the place of the Mist Defenders, scattered throughout WvW as those guards.

They were there setting up the solvent dispensers and modifying siege weapons, as this was going down right in their practice yard. Or whatever that is behind Fort Marriner.

The Lionguard did storm Southsun Cove without the Zaishen, correct, but the Zaishen Engineers were seen beforehand and after setting the mechanisms up.

They did do something during Lost Shores – their siege engineers set up the counterattack against the Ancient Karka there in Lion’s Arch.

timidobserver.7925:

Zorion.7504:

Im really trying to understand the reason for adding that gear tier.
There are tooooooons of exotic skins, both for armors and weapons.
And there are… pathetically few ascended skins, and I guess more will be added, but it will probably never reach the amount of exotic skins.

And a question, do runes/sigils work in ascended gear, if not thats just sick, that takes away so much from the game.

So again, what was the reasoning for adding this tier, what was the developers explanation, I had a break when it was added so Ive missed it.

I don’t really get complaining about ascended gear being added. This gear has been in the game for a while. It isn’t as if they are going to just go delete if you whine long and hard enough.

I don’t get what they really want either, because anything they could do to fix it would just anger more people than leaving it alone and staying far far away from trying it again.

Palador.2170:

Sounds like Scarlet to me. The main difference is that she’s making the other villains hold the idiot ball as well. (Seriously, she must mass produce those things.)

The asura mass-manufacture them. How else do they hold such a monopoly on fast travel now?

Shasha.2548:

ALL gemstore is P2W, stop try to deny it. Basicly, it is cause gemstore give you something you cant have out of it for real money. Convert gold > gem didnt change anything, its only the fature for let us “play how we want”.

Yeah, this isn’t the topic of the thread or I’d debate once again what exactly the “win” you’re speaking of. Here’s a problem – said “win” doesn’t really exist in the same state as other places where that term is used more directly.

SonicTHI.3217:

Martrim.1078:

This gap u speak of was not a gap in stats, it was a gap in cost.

They basicly added something for players to aim for between the exotic (2g) and the legendary (2500g).

It had nothing to do with stats, but A-net decided that while they where at it they would bring them up to par with the original legendary stats.

/thread

Not this again sad excuse again. There was no gap in price.

Ascended gear was introduced for one reason alone: to give a subset of players something to grind for. Because WoW has conditioned people into stats=everything mentality ANET decided to abandon many of their core principles on game design in order to retain the “looking for better WoW” crowd.

I don’t have any quotes but I was under the impression “the gap in cost” was not price but time and effort. As in it was dead freaking easy to get yourself some Exotic gear, but Legendaries were incredibly hard and subject to RNG (ye olde Precursor roulette with Zommoros).

I also don’t think there was only the desire to sate grind-loving players so much as they had the idea for Agony and went with the new gear.

. . . of which the biggest technical fault was giving it better stats even if “only a little”. The rest just compounded it.

tolunart.2095:

As for the purpose, fractal dungeons and ascended gear were put into the game to give min/maxers and other hardcore players something to do once they got to the “endgame” which originally consisted of Orr and WvWvW.

The purpose was, frankly, “Agony”. A means of trying to satisfy the people who wanted content getting harder as they went through more iterations and gear to support it via the Agony Resistance. And that was fine.

It went awry when the stats were higher than Exotic, and the acquisition was linked to doing Fractals. Not everybody wanted to do Fractals so it got “handled” over a couple months with releases of Trinkets, Neckpieces, and a few notable Back Items.

It went very awry when Ascended Crafting was added, partially rewarding those who (like myself) bothered at all with crafting and were hoarding materials. While leaving people who were turning Silk into Gold wishing they hadn’t . . . but at least they were a random drop chest in some instances, eh?

Further awry was Ascended Armor not being said to be dropped (though I have heard there are armor chests dropping out there) and requiring a lot more work.

All of this and really the sole reason for it existing is so Fractals can go higher for people who want to challenge themselves. In theory. In practice, it didn’t quite hit the aim (to be charitable) or was completely inadequate for it as well as alienating a bunch of people slowly one release at a time (to be more realistic).

Thalador.4218:

I’d really advise you to play the game purely for the story – while switching off your brain when doing the boring stuff of leveling and co. – to see what I mean and realize how kitten mistaken you are, Trueflight… but I know from our previous exchanges (and based on the dialogues between you and others in the lore forum I monitored) that it’s impossible to change your views when you stick to your stuffy prejudices as if your life depended on it.

You misunderstand me. I don’t have anything against The Old Republic or their story – I’ve heard it’s actually rather good compared to Bethesda’s outings. But . . .

How do I put this in a way you won’t think I’m biased against Bioware . . .

. . . I don’t want the Living Story to conform to some other company’s ideal of what a story should be delivered like. Bioware has a very distinct style for their stories and how it develops. Lots of people want to ape them, copy them and figure out how to make their stuff pop by using similar structure.

This does not make you better at writing game story flow. It just makes you better at copying something established.

What I’d rather they do is pick up some work on dissecting the monomyth idea, some novella/short form writing courses, some interpretive work rather than simply copying what’s hot. I’d rather we use Jeff Grubb for something other than putting down the canvas and getting the lore onto it – he’s a published author who’s done some fine work (even if I’m not strictly a fan). Get him to try teaching people how things can be shaped or why.

I don’t want ArenaNet to copy Bioware’s success by copying Bioware. I want ArenaNet to become successful for being a better ArenaNet.

CharrGirl.7896:

I think you’re generalizing things here a bit. It all depends how it’s presented, not on the said sexual orientation of the person (mostly). There is a clear line between what is fan service and what is not.

That line is not as clear as you think.

Astralporing.1957:

Syryn.7591:

But if there’s one thing i’ve learned from reading a book, bad ones can be salvaged a tad with a good ending. (Again we’ll see, i’m completely nonchalant on whether it’ll go one way or the other.)

Really? I have yet to see a book lite that. The best that can be done if the book is bad is hope that the ending will elevate it to a mediocre status. It will never make it good, however.
I wouldn’t call that salvaging.

Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. Totally salvaged by the ending, for being not that great a book which plodded on for about 25% too long.

Of course, more common is a great book ruined by a bad ending. Like A Storm of Swords.

Thalador.4218:

Actually, the best would be if no Season 2 LS would be made until they really know how to write compelling stories worthy of being called GW with good pacing, no Mary Sues (Kasmeer and Marjory are starting to feel like they’ve been infected by Scarlet’s “perfection,” too), and no comedy relief of the ridiculous level they are pumping it into the game.

Kasmeer and Marjory, “perfect”? We’re looking at the same characters, right, who don’t really do much other than investigate and let our characters do the heavy lifting while collecting information? Kasmeer who basically is an orphan whose backstory could almost be out of books I had to read in English Lit? Marjory who is Samantha Spade as a necromancer who talks to dead people? (But if she turns into Anita Blake I’m out)

Logan is more perfect than these two because he’s only barely been called on his crap. Somehow he’s still employed as Captain of the Seraph when he should be a knight-errant.

Continuing the PS after consulting the writing team of SW:ToR/BioWare

No.

Dear gods above and demons below, do not do this thing.