Guild Wars 2

Destai.9603:

I’ve often felt that the relationship is for attention in this game. Where Caithe and Faolain seemed natural, this one seems a bit forced and really reeks of fan fiction.

It feels forced? Really? Kasmeer left a lot of minor clues here and there, especially with Lord Faren hitting on her in Southsun . . .

Caithe and Faolain’s “lover” nature seems more forced, but trying to overlay any sexuality over sylvari feels forced to me.

ProxyDamage.9826:

Gameplay wise the LW had (has?) one major core issue: it’s transitory nature. THAT is the one thing that completely destroys and undermines the fun of the gameplay changes. The crushing majority of it is temporary. The achievements are temporary. The rewards (at least most of them) are temporary. What this means is that every release becomes an initial grind to complete all the content as soon as possible, to guarantee you acquire it before it expires, followed by burnout.

A good point, being the rewards are temporary and only used once more often than not. I’d have received the skins much better if we could get a potential to get more than one in case we wanted to change skins from time to time. Because, it’s notable, there aren’t exactly tons of cheap simple back items you can bind them onto.

THAT is what’s wrong with the LW system. I’m not the first person to mention it either. In fact that has been mentioned to death and back… So when I read an interview and I hear a dev say that “the problem” with LW was having both story and gameplay content together I’m confused… Why did we bother?

Because we care.

Hopefully it’ll be better next time around. That’s really all we can reliably do is leave feedback and hope the next time it turns out better.

ProxyDamage.9826:

This is what ANet considers went wrong wtih the LW update… That, essentially, people are too stupid to follow both story AND gameplay releases. That’s the one thing they think went wrong… That they were releasing story and gameplay…

They were releasing gameplay in the middle of the story, unrelated to the story at hand. They could have skipped or pushed “Guild Missions” and put a similar amount of effort into something else. They could have used less time focusing on getting “fixes” into LW updates rather than taking more time to include content into them which could stay.

Lest we forget, there were entire updates with little to no “story”. Dragon Bash. Queen’s Jubilee. Whatever came out around WvW Season 1.

They do need to work on that balance and make sure each LW update is focused on getting the storyline out in something less of a “muddied mess” people proclaimed it was.

(And to be fair, they had a point when it was Flame and Frost barely giving hints for a month. And Secret of Southsun seeming unrelated, THEN Dragon Bash . . . the flow was all over the place and it did confuse people as to “what’s the story here?”)

As far as quality… I’m sorry but Scarlet’s story so far is terribly written. I’ve been on and on about it’s many issues, and so have many others. Not going to repeat myself. You guys are saying that it’s all justified because of the ending, I’m not buying. I’m not seeing how any ending ever conceived can justify all the writing issues Scarlet has had so far. PLEASE prove me wrong. If you do I will personally write an extensive public letter of apology to your writing staff.

If the storyline had more focus put onto it and more points left for us to “connect the dots” of what’s going on, I don’t know if it would have been so bad. If we could uncover hints as to what exactly she is up to other than the current issue, it might go further to making us feel she has a plan other than “lol I so random!” as the case could be made.

Romo.3709:

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

What makes me feel like a hero is picking up the people off the ground who either didn’t dodge in time or misjudged how much punishment they could take. That and the one time some random person and I snuck a tower in WvW.

Exactly my point. You definitely don’t feel like hero when there is 50 people around where 20 of them is dead. You feel like you’re a soldier on duty. Nothing more, nothing less.

I’m of the opinion any soldier good enough to both do his/her duty and keep people alive around them is a hero.

Mungrul.9358:

Tobias, I usually agree with your posts, but I think your definition of “Grind” has become incredibly distorted.

Not my definition, just realigning it to what everyone tells me is a grind: any repeated part of a game I don’t find enjoyable anymore but instead tedious and frustrating.

Come on, really, quicksave/quickload is a grind?
And even then, if you’re quicksaving and quickloading too much, you’re probably playing at a level beyond your ability.

Tedious and frustrated.

But even then I don’t think you can equate it to grinding.
Grinding is mindlessly repeating the same activity hundreds or thousands of times for minimal reward. More often than not, that activity will be identical to the previous time you did it.

If you’ve seen the endings of Quake and Doom, “minimal reward” is really the definition of those endings

In a quicksave / quickload scenario, if you’re anything like me, you’re doing it because you’re approaching the scenario in different ways in order to perfect it. You’re not doing the same thing every time, you’re honing your technique, gradually narrowing down on the best way you can achieve a certain goal in a certain game.

Final battle of Quake 1 was more about timing that last teleporter exactly, and there was a high chance of needing to quickload if you failed.

But to refute your other attempted rebuttals (and I suspect you know you’re on shaky ground here):
Mario Galaxy and stars required to unlock levels.
Getting those stars involves a myriad of different activities. Indeed, you can’t get the same star twice, meaning every single one is different, therefore the very opposite of a grind.

Again, we go back to “tedious and not fun”, which is how I got to view particular levels. Especially the shadow races when you were Luigi.

Like I said though, I don’t truly subscribe to it but I’ve heard so many arguments about “X is grind” where I go “. . . but, that’s just playing the game . . .” I just gave up and gave in to using it that way. “Grind” has become synonymous for “things I don’t want to do but feel I have to” for a while now, and I just give up trying to stick a particular usage of “grind” to things.

RPGs with no grind:
I’ll go for the big one: Fallout.
Not Fallout 2, Tactics, Brotherhood, 3, or New Vegas.
The daddy: Fallout.
You grind in Fallout, you lose, as you have to achieve your objectives within a very tight time limit.

Never touched the Fallout series, but I do note I said the ones I played.

Grind is running the champ train in Queensdale.
Running the ore veins in Orr.
World boss farming.
Invasion stopping.
Even repeating the same kitten jumping puzzle every day because you get a shiny at the end.

The champ trains are incredibly boring, and I run them only when I just want to do something to kill time. Or kill things. The ore veins in Orr I find more fun than grind, especially given how vacant the place is many times. I consider it practice for avoiding combat I don’t want.

And none of this is really required anyway, it’s just doing something because you want something to do or you want to earn some shiny thing.

If I want to 100% Mario Galaxy, you better believe I’m going to call that “a grind for no reason”. (Still won’t beat Pokemon EV training.)

Romo.3709:

That idea is just… wow. Instead of us watching the story unfold, we take part in it. Become one of the heroes rather than another Trahearne’s sidekick.

I’m not Traherne’s sidekick, he’s my sidekick. I let him ‘lead’, but ‘suggest’ courses of action for him to take so he doesn’t mess it up, and I get to go adventure in Orr taking care of things.

Don’t need a throne to be in charge, after all.

Don’t give up on instances as you guys mentioned many times over. They’re what make us feel like heroes, not a huge zergs of random characters depending on a group and about 10-20% people that are there to troll or are afk.

What makes me feel like a hero is picking up the people off the ground who either didn’t dodge in time or misjudged how much punishment they could take. That and the one time some random person and I snuck a tower in WvW.

I would submit – You’re not seeing a glow, you’re seeing a different light source like a window.

Been covered quite a bit over in the CDI thread.

Personally, I miss the housing potential of Ultima Online. Not so much the rest of the game, more me and my brother out on a boat fishing up stuff from a shipwreck and hoping for the wall-sized painting.

Usually would get nothing but barrel staves.

Konig Des Todes.2086:

How Scarlet powers her Twisted Clockwork alterations is unknown though.

Energy from the portals, I’d say.

Smooth Penguin.5294:

Scarlet is bad, we can all agree to that. But what caused her to turn from a knowledge seeking being, to a pirate leading villain?

But what we see of Ceara’s knowledge seeking, she always was dismissive of people, and tended to use people to further her studies rather than care about them. The change to “Scarlet Briar” just amplified all that from “quirky genius with no respect for authority” to “maniac who doesn’t care who she hurts in her efforts”.

She’s the same character at the root (heh) as she was before, just slightly twisted.

So basically, I could see her turning into an ally at the end of this arc. The story could unfold and enlighten players to her true motives. At that point, instead of killing her off, we would befriend her, and form a new alliance to fight not the dragons, but the real villain: Ellen Kiel.

See I knew this was going to get political at the end. Typical Gnashblade supporters . . . let’s just knock him out and take his keys. And then we can put an end to the evils of the Black Lion Trading Company gem exchange, share the wealth for all of Tyria, break open the vaults and let the precursors out.

(Oh stop complaining about the unicorns, someone had to get the Dreamer.)

After that’s finished, and the stalwart champions of Tyria are no longer denied the best possible gear they need to face the threats of the Dragons and their minions. After we reduce Jormag to snowcones, make sashimi out of Bubbles, and tie down Primordius and use him to light the biggest barbecue Tyria has ever seen . . .

After we shatter Kralkatorrik and use his crystals for a chandelier over a monument to Glint and Snaff.

Then Evon has my permission to die, and be literally dead broke.

Yargesh.4965:

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

No, Scarlet kills Traherne in an attack on Fort Trinity, we defeat Scarlet once and for all with Rox, Braham, and Canach helping out. With her last act, she grabs Braham and whispers in his ear, he turns around and says slowly.

“What the heck is rosebud supposed to mean?”

It means the robber barons are back and the writer is subtlety inserting a personal vendetta.

Actually we do know what it means. Scarlet Briar is the same color as a rose, and so ‘rosebud’ means she found a way to survive by copying herself over into a newly developing “pod/fruit”.

Of course, then she’s more stable and on the good guys’ side. Call it the “King Piccolo” solution.

Vayne.8563:

Not to mention the amount of content Guild Wars 2 initially launched with was greater than the amount of content in Prophecies and Factions put together. Prophecies only had a bit over 200 quests. It has 25 missions. One starter area.

With factions they added another game and another couple of hundred quests, and another 13 missions.

That’s a far cry from 300 hearts and 1500 dynamic events, even if you don’t include jumping puzzles and such.

Don’t need to sell me on the content measuring contest. There was a lot more to do, different things to do, and in general more fun things (at least fun for me) to do. Of course, I wasn’t big on the Battle Isles material . . . which is what a lot of people miss, it seems.

The content that existed in Guild Wars 1, whether you like it better or not, was far less than the content here. I mean five start zones is a lot more content than two. In fact, in it’s entire live, Guild Wars 1 only had 3 starting zones. Add all the quests and missions together, and Guild Wars 2 launched with more dynamic events.

Careful pulling numbers like that and going “obviously since there are more, it is better”, Vayne. There were one starting zone per campaign on Guild Wars 1 because that’s all it needed. Everyone started fresh characters in the same place since there was no compelling reason not to. The PvE was a campaign, a story starts on chapter 1.

Guild Wars 2 has five starter zones since there are five races and they either only barely get along or . . . don’t really get along that well . . . with others.

It’s a whole different ball of wax to develop for.

Anet themselves said they’d need 3 times the number of events in zones, compared to quests in the old system, which means it has to take longer for new zones to be developed.

Yup. Not to mention needing to figure out what, exactly, would make it different from an existing zone to keep people revisiting, without just “throw more loot in it as rewards”. Or otherwise to draw people from existing zones . . . you don’t want to add new zones to cannibalize old content use.

Galen Grey.4709:

@Tobias Trueflight
Well factions was released 1 year after release
nightfall and impressive 6 months after that and eye of the north about a year after nightfall.

It was late and I was being too lazy to dig up the timing of those things. All I remember is “I bought a Guild Wars campaign last year right?” when it came to Nightfall. Also remember getting an extra code as a mistake and giving it to my brother so we could play together.

1. (Snip)

Well aware of this, also well aware as detractors would say “this isn’t an excuse to half-bake it”. Like they have from time to time with some of these Living World entries.

2. there is the content they’ve been releasing every two weeks.

Which was a choice which could have gone the other way to release instead more permanent material every six months. Close your eyes and imagine the Living Story being doled out and always available like War in Kryta/Hearts of the North/Winds of Change.

I don’t think as many people would have gotten so severely annoyed by it appearing and disappearing in two to four weeks.

for these reasons I dont think its realistic to expect the same release schedule of gw1 in gw2. Wouldnt you agree?

I, personally, don’t expect it. Simply by virtue of adding voiced NPCs requiring increased studio time, that inflates production time. Any “overlays” of existing zones (meaning where the temporary LS content is present on top of normal content, as opposed to what happened in Kessex Hills) also require much more rigorous testing to see if anything breaks when that content interacts with existing content. Such as “Scarlet invades, Tequatl takes a nap”.

Yes and No. Yes in that sure if I joined Gw2 today there might as well have been no Labyrinthine cliffs cause I never got to experience that at least yet. But on the other hand No because for players that were there the content existed and played an important role in their enjoyment not to mention even if they never decide to reuse any of it, it still helps by giving them at least some assets then can reuse be it music, textures, characters , sounds or perhaps even models though they seem to avoid that for some reason.

I did note the Molten Alliance factory and Aetherblade lair both became Fractals, as did their boss fights. So yes, the assets and information isn’t gone forever. Except the election bit, I’m pretty sure that’s something everyone missed out on.

By the way, most of this is just taking time to point out they could be doing different/better with all this Living Story. I really hope they do.

Mungrul.9358:

Raine.1394:

All games have grinds.

Sorry, going to be a pedant here, but it’s only because I see a lot off MMO gamers using the same quote.

MMOs are NOT “all games”.

Quake doesn’t have grind.
Doom doesn’t have grind.

Sure they do. It’s called the “how the heck do I beat this freaking level?!” quickload-die-quicksave waltzing. Repeating the same stuff over and over trying to get through it.

Mario Galaxy doesn’t have grind.

You must have X stars to reach the next level.

Tetris doesn’t have grind.

Depends, I’d say the whole game of Tetris is a pointless grindfest for a score or to relax.

Hell, there’s a lot of single-player RPGs out there that don’t even have grind.

Start naming them, because every single one of the ones I’ve played has had it in there somewhere. Even if for the peripheral bonus rewards.

So you find artificial ways of extending the amount of time players are playing your game and therefore being exposed to your monetisation systems. Things like time-gated materials, equipment damage, achievement points, etc. All of these epitomise the idea of “grind”. Increasing a progress bar by repeating the same content continuously for a lengthy period of time. Thus ensuring that the developers have more time to sell you more crap.

In the case of MMO’s its seated in two predicates:
- The Monthly Fee, where you are paying per month. When this gave way to “Free to Play” other options needed to exist, which is where you get things like “VIP Bypass”, where you pay a nominal amount per month to bypass cooldowns or the waiting game. Essentially, the game needs to make money . . . to pay the bills and the investors, or shut down . . . so they need to get as many Monthly Fees as they can.

- The Massively Multiplayer Need, because you need players playing in order for them to do some things which require multiple people. Can’t have 15-person raids if you can’t get 15 people interested in the raid. The smaller your at-the-moment userbase gets, the more likely things will not be utilized and the more likely people gravitate just to a small bit of what’s in your game. Increasing the chance they get bored and sign off for good one day.

An MMO without grind would have to solve these in development. They need both people playing and income to survive.

Konig Des Todes.2086:

She isn’t a demon. She’s born from the Pale Tree itself. Just like any other sylvari. This is a cold, hard, undeniable fact.

She was a sylvari.

She could be a vessel currently.

Oniyui.8279:

All of civilization is under threat of annihilation from unimaginably dark forces, and those with the strength to fight are are worrying their weapon just isn’t cool enough.

“I know, I know, it’s a flaming sword but you know it’d be better if it had a name, you know? Like ’Flamingdeath, reaver of souls.”

“. . . you know you’re a guardian right.”

“Oh, so maybe ’Flamingdeath, savior of souls?”

“I’m not talking to you anymore.”

Alas, trailers always spoil. That’s the nature of the beast now.

tolunart.2095:

I don’t consider it speculation. Prices for most crafting mats change by more than 30% on a daily basis, it’s a lot like day trading on the stock market, you buy mats during the low period and sell them when the price trends higher.

It’s not “get rich quick” like buying 100k silver bars for 20c each and selling them for 1.5s each the next day, but it’s a steady income that has worked very well for me.

I’m not going to knock it. I just prefer something . . . more stable, and more guaranteed. I’ve always been slightly stupid that way.

Galen Grey.4709:

@darkace, killcannon and ZudetGambeous

How much time should Arenanet be given to deliver new zones? Its not been 1 year and 1/2 yet since release. A lot of MMOs take longer then that to release expansions. WoW takes even 2 years between expansion releases. Rift took over 2 years. Lotro takes between 1.2years – 2 years etc…

We got stuff within this time-frame for Guild Wars 1. Of course, we also got one zone and one “dungeon” (Grenth’s Footprint, Sorrow’s Furnace) before then so we were doing right about on target.

Also given the bold statements, I’m expecting to see something along the lines of sizable permanent content coming this year. Or equivalent.

(If their “something big” is not permanent content and instead getting that balance right so Berserker isn’t king of everything in everyone’s heads, horizontal progression starts to be more than something on paper, and I can murder asura guilt-free . . .)

And lets not forget none of these release new content every 2 weeks and while looking at individual content releases its understandble to think they’re quite underwhelming compared to an expansion lets not loose sight of what they developed for us to keep us entertained until the big projects they’ve said they’ve been working on since day 1!

The problem with talking about that content is how it’s temporary content, and at least a couple times it’s apparently a festival-type thing where there wasn’t very much going on. Yes, it’s content, and yes it took labor hours to create. But alas, when the content becomes inaccessible outside a window it might as well not be there to others who missed it.

We got like 14 fractals so far, a ton of new dynamic events, a ton of guild missions, 4 new pvp maps, revamp of WvW, 3 new mini dungeons, Costumes, ton of new crafting recipes and even new materials, quality of life changes, a few new skills, a couple of new conditions, a load of new enemies, a good number of new minigames and new jumping puzzles, a truckload of new minis, a good number of new dungeons, leader boards, an over abundance of new back skins, custom arenas, tournaments, WvW traps, 1 new world boss and 1 revamped world boss, a new path in an existent dungeon, a container load of new weapon skins, SAB 3 holiday events, 2 new zones, changes to rewards, the achievement overhaul and new achievemnent rewards. Daily overhaul like twice, Magic find revamp, new runes, new dyes, new consumables, new sigils, changes to obsidian sanctum, new WvW progression.

It’s an impressive list, to be sure. But if you start striking off things which disappeared and aren’t available anymore . . . things get . . . less impressive and more of it looks like “normal routine patch/revision” stuff.

Best thing that happened is the adding to Fractals in Fractured – that allowed the two mini dungeons and boss fight encounters to become repeatable content.

@tolunart:

I’d say skip investing in the TP for how dicey it can be. It’s easier to lose money trying to speculate than make it successfully. It doesn’t get you rich quickly, but it does run less risk of failing spectacularly . . . or making the economy already kind of unstable and pricey more so.

I mean, if people think the swing is high on some of the stuff now, wait til hundreds reading this topic get in on the action. Silk at 1g each.

CrossedHorse.4261:

Brilliant ideas! I’d love this, and it satisfies far more wants than just repopulating lower levelled zones. It provides other ways to access Ascended, gives people more events, specific loot areas, objectives … so many things.

I really love the PvP and WvWvW inclusions as well, and think that it would be really popular with everyone.

+1

If you would, drop a +1 on my post with the PvP/WvW inclusions so it gets noticed

I almost wish this had shown up last week, to be linked over into the CDI thread which just wrapped.

How to make yourself some money very very very slowly:

- Do events when you can, as many as you can.
- When it comes to loot, check to see if the loot bags are going for a lot on the trading post. If possible, sell them. Otherwise open them.
- Junk items? If you need space, destroy them. Otherwise save them to sell – they do add up.
- Salvage your white drops. Especially light armor.
- Sell your blue drops. Salvage light armor if it’s worth less than 70c.
- Sell your green drops. Don’t salvage them, they’re worth 1s-2s each.
- Salvage your rares; you will get ectos and possibly Runes/Sigils. Mystic Forge your Runes/Sigils up for Superiors, then see if you can sell them on the TP. Either keep or sell your ecto.
- If you see an Exotic, sell it on the TP.
- If you get an Ascended Weapon Chest, begin cheering at one grind you never have to make.
- If you get a precursor, mail it to me. Just kidding.

Edit: More things to go without saying…

- Don’t waypoint if you can run it. At level 80 that’s at least 1 silver a jaunt.
- Gather every resource you can find. It may be valuable. Gold ore/ingots are usually valuable.
- If you do WvW casually, don’t buy upgrades. If you’re dedicated, you probably are already making a profit. Also, try ranking up. Around Rank 40 you can make significant cash just from the reward chests.
- Getting blueprints? Upgrade them to Superior and sell them. People want them.
- Seriously. Do events.

Lord Kuru.3685:

Sounds like way more work than Anet’s willing to put in.

Willing to put in? I’m not so sure.

Able to budget putting in? That’s the real question.

Galen Grey.4709:

great ideas I love them.
+1

It would also be good if you’d get an extra reward for doing a whole event chain rather then singular events all over the place. Perhaps you’d get karma multiplers for the chain like say first event in the chain gives 500 karma, 2nd 1000, 3rd 1500 and 4th 2000

Event chains are awesome but I see so many people walking away the moment they get their reward and ignoring the rest of the chain that its really sad to watch.

S’why I suggested the event chains end in Karma vendors who would sell key pieces or skins. Seriously, Karma is almost an underused currency . . . I mean, I know why because I was around for launch and when Karma was so plentiful Lost Orrian Jewelry Boxes were put in to leech it.

I mean . . . it’s not hard to build Karma, and there’s very little to spend it on except some big ticket purchases.

FlamingFoxx.1305:

Whilst I would love to see the Mursaat make a comeback – I feel like Anet would be putting a little too much on their plate to reintroduce the Mursaat at this point in time.

You know what I actually think Scarlet Saw? Tyler Durden.

“You are not a unique and special snowflake.”

What did she see which made her go crazy?

Mursaat.

It’s what happened to Saul. He saw them and went completely over the edge to change his ways entirely.

Astralporing.1957:

nexxe.7081:

@OP, you ever watch 3 seasons of a show, and then in the 4th season, they know it will be the last one ever? So what ends up happening, is they try to cram everything into it, which ends up making it worse and incoherent.

It can get any worse and more incoherent than it already is? That’s news to me. Honestly.

Haven’t you figured it out by now? It can always get worse.

I’m not going to begin to brainstorm how.

Duke Blackrose.4981:

Give every map its own equivalent to the tricolor chest.

And you don’t even need a massive living story arc to do so. Even a single LS update would suffice. “Priory explorers have discovered hidden treasure chests all over the world. Help them retrieve them.” Next.

These chests could contain map-exclusive rewards. Weapon skins, miniatures, armor skins, etc.

Oh, I would go one step further. Include a Karma vendor who is next to the chest selling the fragments (much like you can purchase Tricolor Key fragments) like I described. Each one can explain in a dialogue option (“Where did you find this chest?”) a short succinct explanation. Recovered from old dwarven ruins. Pulled out of the Dragonbrand at great risk. Hauled out of a sunken ship off the Krytan coast. Recovered from old Shining Blade encampments in Maguuma.

Every zone gets one chest, placed somewhere mostly safe for players to access it. No dropping a chest in Mount Maelstrom inside Mount Maelstrom please.

Give every map at least one unique exotic weapon skin for each weapon type.

These skins would come from random drops and the map chest. More could be added with time – but don’t tell us about them. Let us discover them for the Hell of it.

Make it easier on the design team, and nostalgic for the old veterans. Someone go dig out the GW1 models and translate them over. They drop from Champions in the area, but as rare skins. The exotic skins come from the chest. Only the exotic skins are able to be traded; the others are account bound on acquire.

Up karma rewards for dynamic events.

Making DE’s the main source of karma was a step in the right direction, but it needed to be accompanied with a general increase to all karma rewards from events.

If you use the idea of Karma vendors selling the keys/pieces, then definitely increase Karma Rewards.

One exclusive ascended armor skin per region.

Ascalon, Kryta, Orr, the Shiverpeaks, and the Maguuma Jungle should each offer one exclusive ascended armor skin. You earn the pieces (very rarely) from drops and (rarely) from map chests in that region.

This would solve the Ascended Armor acquisition problem, and the “but I hate the art” problem too.

Region-exclusive karma vendors.

Each map should have one or more (depending on the number of maps in that region) elite karma vendor associated with that region (Ascalon, Orr, etc.)

These vendors could offer:
One piece of the region-exclusive ascended armor per vendor.
Ascended weapons.
Ascended trinkets.
Map exclusive exotics.
Various other rewards.

Orr already has suitable vendors in the form of its temple karma merchants.

I’m semi-ambivalent on this one. I’d much rather vendors offer them post-DE chains and people have to actually complete chains to get access rather than “run to the merchant, they have everything”.

I also think if they added Ascended Armor available for Karma it would be incredibly expensive in comparison to the Exotic Temple Armor. It could not, legitimately, be less than 5-10x as expensive without making just about everyone who bought Exotic Temple Armor cringe or table-flip in an uproar.

Duke Blackrose.4981:

Very nice. You’ve refined the idea to include PvP and WvW in a healthy way.

It’s simple – you don’t want to alienate players when discussing something which is of benefit to only one when it could benefit all.

Plus, who here would not want to see the Zaishen Chest again?

To expand on your ideas next post . . . want time to elaborate.

Substance E.4852:

Didn’t people kitten a brick over the influx of precursors or something? I took a break during that whole debacle.

People pitched a fit that everyone got a loot bag who was at the finale, except those who got dropped due to the technical issues. And some people didn’t get credit for some reason, so they didn’t get a bag.

And then all that needed to happen was some people posting they got precursors for the clouds of annoyance to kick into “tornado of discontent”.

Add to that rumors left around how some people scored two reward bags? Pitchforks and torches.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

@Chris

Looks good, don’t see anything to correct on it.

I’ll be working up something for the “subclass CDI” whenever it comes out. Any idea on what the next one is so I can start studying?

I think we should discuss that in the CDI Process Evolution Phase 2 which will start on Wednesday 22nd. Among other things we need to chat about what topics to discuss in the next CDIs and how to go about choosing them. I would personally like to have a week long PVE CDI on Fractals next (Running in conjunction with a PvP and WvW CDI) but we should discuss it as a group first.

Chris

On all those topics, I have no knowledge (PvP), limited knowledge (Fractals), or only amateur knowledge (WvW) so I’ll likely be quiet in whatever topic we wind up doing

See you on the 22nd for the discussion then, though. I’m off to go work some other ideas up.

Maximum Potato.5923:

What if they did something like they did in Southsun Cove, where you’ve got the Karka Queen (Which I’m sure we all know is a popular event) that only appears after you’ve freed the settlements? You could add something like this to the Cursed Shore, and open up the Heart of Orr, where you could get Orrian armor skins. Not sure about the whole ascended gear thing, but certainly adding region-themed armors would be awesome!

You mean the Artesian Waters, where you can earn . . . say, ancient Orrian weapons, which are uncorrupted versions, as bestowed by the King’s ghost himself? I’m sure I could mock up several options but here’s a few extra revisions:

- In zones with a World Boss like Tequatl, Shatterer, Claw of Jormag, these events yield one full key guaranteed out of the Bonus Chest. Ditto for events which also yield a Bonus Chest.

- Open World chests (which aren’t a Skritt Burglar) always yield a random key piece.

- Dynamic Event chains with NPCs at the finish will allow you to trade Karma for one of each key piece for the zone, per day per account.

- Karma vendors in specific locations will offer one randomized key piece which reset on Daily reset. These also available once per day per account. (Note: I mean ones which have a reason to offer them.)

- WvW also get their key pieces. Sapphire keys for Blue Borderlands, Ruby keys for Red Borderlands, Emerald keys for Green Borderlands, Obsidian keys for Eternal Battlegrounds. You win key pieces off loot bags at random, as well as from capturing keeps or Stonemist. Due to the difficulty, Stonemist’s Castle Lord drops a full key.

- PvP get Zaishen Key Fragments during matches, three of which are used from inventory to create a Zaishen Key. The key opens a chest in the Heart of the Mists.

Going to reiterate . . .

Shouldn’t this be on the Elementalist subforum?

@Chris

Looks good, don’t see anything to correct on it.

I’ll be working up something for the “subclass CDI” whenever it comes out. Any idea on what the next one is so I can start studying?

Klofange.6854:

A unique reptilian or insectoid race linked with the crystal desert

Look up the Forgotten.

I’d have to say firstly Tengu, if only because it’s the only one I couldn’t see a problem trying to adapt.

Second, Largos are interesting enough to warrant a look at, though them being primarily aquatic makes me nervous.

Thirdly . . . the Forgotten.

Morrigan.2809:

Chris Whiteside.6102:

By the way moving forward (and we can discuss this in the CDI Process Evolution topic) I would like you guys to nominate someone to build the Proposal on behalf of us all.

Due to the Red Swash on the left it seems some are getting confused with Promise vs. Proposal and I just think it would be healthy to do it this way anyway.

Chris

Mm Chris I am not sure I like the idea of a member of the CDI building the proposal.

Not only is it a lot of work- I can already see the cries and tears and pressure that person will be under.

I might be really cynical but if people cannot see the difference between a proposal and a promise now, can you imagine the backlash for the poor person who builds the proposal? Regardless of what happens in the future.

that red swatch is helpful because it is a bit like a full stop at the end of a sentence. -it gives everyone a pause and refocuses the discussion.

It’ll help if you try to explain exactly what you mean by your request, Chris, are you asking one of us players to compile the Proposal for the CDI team to look at, or are you saying you want to get another red-name to get the CDI together, or . . .

Because if you want one of us? Some of the people compiling summaries are probably the best choice since they’ve been good and unbiased about it.

So, why is not on the Elementalist board?

It’s a test, for one.

Secondly, it is near the Durmand Priory.

Zaxares.5419:

… That’s actually a plausible theory, if one were supporting the “Scarlet is really a good guy!” theory. Scarlet knows the other Elder Dragons are coming, thinks she is the only one with the smarts to stop it, gathers the technology to build her own Jaegarbot, uses it to fight the Elder Dragons. She’s just not bothered by pesky things like collateral damage and sentient being rights while going about her plan.

The only loose end is… What do the Hallucination spores have to do with the Scarletbot?

Maybe you have to be . . . influenced . . . by them in order to make sense of the controls?

Substance E.4852:

Waiting 2 weeks or two months for temp content is still waiting for temp content.

You’ll note I said I’d prefer it if more was permanently left behind.

Temporary content doesn’t bother me so much if it’s decent and on a timeframe I can handle at a slower pace than “cram time to complete stuff”.

Konig Des Todes.2086:

Even for me who greatly dislike the mess of lore that’s happened.

Keeping track of lore is relatively easy, you just need to not stress yourself on finer details. Like how the model of Priestess Salma changed, or where the henchmen disappeared to when it came time to travel to the Ember Light Camp.

I would rather have them slow down a bit on the releases, work on letting some more of it be permanent, and less “repeat X for achievements”.

Tower of Nightmares and its assorted trilogy was actually best form of that for me.

Essence Snow.3194:

Never said anything was. Pretty sure I said it was smart.

My apologies, it’s hard to tell around here when “brilliant” is used with sarcasm or not. Especially directed at the staff.

I’ll fine myself 50 Silk :P

Essence Snow.3194:

Chris Whiteside.6102:

By the way moving forward (and we can discuss this in the CDI Process Evolution topic) I would like you guys to nominate someone to build the Proposal on behalf of us all.

Due to the Red Swash on the left it seems some are getting confused with Promise vs. Proposal and I just think it would be healthy to do it this way anyway.

Chris

Tom Sawyer management at it’s finest! Brilliant!

Given this is an actual method of management which works, what’s wrong with it?

Paulytnz.7619:

DaShi.1368:

Scarlet is clearly the mega-karka paving the way for karka world domination.

Karka, pffft – Skritt baby, make the skritt take over the world!

They already have. Little known fact, the asura are mutated skritt.

Luquatic.3825:

Just imagine UFO and big robotic ladies in the original Guild Wars.
It just doesn’t feel right considering the lore aspect.. And it still doesn’t in GW2, for me atleast.

Ahem, we had time traveling golems trying to destroy Gwen and her mother in Pre-Searing Ascalon. We had Koss disco-dancing while in captivity in Kourna. We had Palawa Joko, who behaved like a cranky grandfather. We had Shiro, whose motivations made Sephiroth go “dude, grow up”.

We had Kilroy Stonekin, we had an almost literal crystal dragon Jesus . . . maybe more like a Moses than a Jesus though.

We had Magnus the Bison running a fight club.

. . . giant clockwork robots are where you draw the line?

They had that too . ..

Thobek.1730:

here’s a chest with a mini scarlet reward you’ll never use.

I know several people who will, just to burn her in effigy.

Shadeofgrey.3065:

I do hope it is something to do with the Order of Whispers, whether it’s a collective persona or some mysterious pseudonym of someone. All this pact business has been much too overt for my tastes.

That is rather the point of the Pact. To make a show of unity, fighting the dragons and their minions as one rather than separately.

Darkobra.6439:

But that made us emotionally invested. It made us angry, horrified and want to know how such an abomination would be repaid.

Look for reaction videos, and while I can’t argue it definitely emotionally affected us? Some people got invested, others just said “why am I continuing”?

Not everything invokes the same absolute reaction. No, not even Scarlet. Not even chibi Gwen.

GW2’s story just makes me angry that the Elder Dragon Zhaitan still doesn’t fight back, still gets gunned down by mashing 1 on a cannon and some plant is making alliances that don’t even make sense because “It will all make sense one day!” and it will be something like Scarlet caused the Thaumanova Reactor explosion and also was the real reason Abaddon was locked up.

Well GW1’s story was “Abaddon masterminded everything to get free of his prison”. So it’s not like this should surprise anyone . . .

Darkobra.6439:

Comparing THIS worthless story to Game of Thrones has me laughing harder than the time I saw a cat fall off a wall, into a bin and have the bin’s lid close over.

Actually, it’s a close second, now that I think about it. Both born of stupidity, one was actually endearing.

Well . . . maybe?