Guild Wars 2

Devata.6589:

About the personal touch on decisions. You might think my vision of housing is to hard but I do consider those ‘decisions’ to hard.

(Snip)

Imagine that with every addition there are 2 options / decisions you can pick from meaning you are going in a different direction with your ‘personal story’. That means that the second update / branch they need to add 2 more branches for the 2 previous branches they added before (so 4) and then 8, 16, 32, 64, 128, 265 well you get the point.

It’s not necessarily hard, and it can be worked around in a way where it can still be impactful and still be relatively easy on the people keeping track of the flow. I know I laid into the trouble of “Living Story” allowing permanent changes if one server . . . say, repelled an attack on the Ascalon Settlement and the other let it burn. And increasingly diverging in states . . . such that it might take the teams needing more and more effort to keep track of whether or not a server has something in a state where it’s possible.

But it can be done with some awareness between teams. Here’s how:

Team A in LS #25 has an NPC, “George” which the servers are polled on whether he gets rescued or left alone. No achievement specifically points to “George” and says “go save him” so players aren’t exactly led to complete it. For every server who rescues him, plant him in Lion’s Arch somewhere discreet and they can go visit for a cheesy thank you and that seems to be it. Servers which don’t, he just vanishes apparently not to be seen again.

Team C in LS #32 wants to use “George”, but they see X servers don’t have him. They go to Team B doing LS #30 and say “we want to drop something into your story update”. They put together a quick side-event where servers who don’t have “George” get another chance to rescue him, but in a DE quietly slipped in where surviving antagonists from LS #25 are trying to do something from a camp in a zone. When the DE chain finishes, some prisoners are freed and one goes “My name is George, I’m glad to see you! Look me up when I get back to Lion’s Arch.”

So when LS #32 rolls around, “George” is there. That’s the most satisfying way to allow a difference to get bridged – letting the people who let it happen patch the story up.

I mean, if you want to bridge it. It could just as easily be unnecessary to bring “George” back and instead just come up with a new character entirely and let the difference dangle. But that’s a minor example, bigger ones can be trickier, but it can be bridged just by having teams aware of things and have plans known of how to fix it if they fail, let it come in down the line either by option or a story thread. “Yes, we know the destroyers overran the dredge of Molensk on Borlis Pass while Maguuma fought them back. Leave some NPCs to suggest they’re fighting back and eventually revert it.”

It should be noted that’s not the ideal solution, but hey, if you really need X to happen but Y is keeping you? Figure it out.

Want give people the option to make an impact? Make things really more dynamic.. Stuff really reacting to you in a AI way, not in a scripted way.

Better than that is what older, WAY older games did: story characters run by employees who were given them to run for an hour or two. Don’t even go in with a plan. Go in, adlib within an outline of a script, and log what happens to hand over to the lore “team”. (Usually the same guy.)

Don’t think that would work here, as I don’t think there’s enough framework in place.

Scripted choices can’t really give you that imho.

No, but if the script is made well enough, and you never get to see the DM’s notes, you never know you were had.

Chrispy.5641:

Also, While the Blizzard effects in the Misty Mountain were cheap and had a giant fog overlay and just messed up everything, the updated snow effects in Forochel were probably the best I ever saw at the time, and it still equals, if not passes some games today (such as Skyrim)

Been in a blizzard with lots of wind (a native Ohioan though I live elsewhere now) so I could believe a blizzard where visibility was reduced to near zero even standing in shelter if the wind could carry snow anywhere near you.

Also been in rainstorms where it was unsafe to drive because visibility was reduced to less than “Minimum Assured Safe Distance”.

Really not keen on anything close to that mixing into my game unless I have ways of turning off the visual weather effects

Back to the Guildwars 2 side, I wasn’t suggesting that Anet makes the weather effects to the point that a Blinding Blizzard actually fully block your view of the screen or anything, because there is already a certain amount of special effect overload in parts of the game as it is. I was more making suggestions that the weather actually affects your (and Enemies) ability to do combat to a small degree.

I was thinking more along the lines of environmental effects from GW1 such as the ones which made Domain of Anguish HM more difficult, or would add difficulty to spots in Urgoz’s Warren . . . or made moving in Ascalon tar rivers incredibly unpleasant.

Devata.6589:

- I do understand it’s a lot of work especially because there is nothing in the game like it yet but on the other hand the basics would be making a grid system and then building means you just place an item somewhere inside that grid so I do think it’s in the lines of what is doable. It also depends a little on how there core works at this moment. So how they can create the world.

“So how they can create the world.”

I’d almost suspect given what I’ve seen in GW1 with the dungeon design in EOTN and what we’ve got in the world so far, it’s similar in nature to the ES Construction program I got with Morrowind. Something I looked at, went “oh my god this is really going to take some time to invest myself in studying”, and weighed against my situation at the time, then put on a back burner. Much like the Neverwinter Nights Aurora toolkit.

Naturally it’d be more advanced than things around ten years old, but I can mentally picture it. Mostly modular with a bit of freeform potential thrown in, and a colossal chance to have things act “weird”.

(There is an item which is noted in the Morrowind Strategy Guide, verified in the CS kit, but unfortunately they forgot to leave an edge of it accessible so it’s a sword embedded in a boulder unreachable without some command console cheats.)

- Then I don’t really understand your ‘personal story’ or how it would be different from the living story.

It’s “personal” because it’s advanced by your character at your player’s pace. And you could put a “personal touch” on decisions . . . hopefully ones with impact . . . rather than it just be simple quests. Though I don’t know how much I’d mind that if they were done well enough to allow some freedom in how to approach/solve it.

And it’s different from the Living Story because it wouldn’t be temporary and disappear when the window closed, it’d just be appended to the end of it until you felt like proceeding.

You missed “Seven Spires of Rata Sum”? You missed out on the Mini Inquest Ravager Golem? Oh, well the housing NPCs still have the material all ready for you if you go say hi to them.

Lindelle.3718:

Something that has kind of been bothering me lately. I started playing this game in beta and was around for the Southsun release and the first kind-of-sort-of living story release with the karka invasion. I remember they were “pushed to the land because of the influences of an elder dragon.” Or something, correct me if I’m wrong.

You’re dropping assumptions (good ones though). It was said the karka are not something used to be found here, based on what I recall the largos saying when you interviewed one. “Something had to have pushed them here.” It could be an Elder Dragon (Bubbles? Zhaitan’s minions?) or something else acting up (Tequatl?) or just the change in the world catching up with their normal migratory habits.

But.. was that it? I’ve ignored a few LS events because I occasionally get burned out caring, though I wish I found them more engaging. Did that ever get touched upon again? Or is there still some mystery here? Or did it just literally get scrapped for the Scarlet thing?

Something did take place on Southsun but it wasn’t about the karka as much as it was about Canach using what he knew about Southsun and its flora/fauna to make trouble for the Consortium (and the Refugees).

Devata.6589:

That’s way to modular. People like the freedom to make there unique place. You did refer to minecraft. The fact that games like minecraft are so popular proofs that it’s a high level of freedom in building what you want that is so popular. It’s also the reason that GW2 has such detailed options for the looks of a character. Why then choose for such a modular option for housing. Just because it’s hard?

To be blunt? Yes.

I’m trying to at least temper my suggestions by the knowledge there are developers who have to take what I suggest and make something out of it. Minecraft building is “easy” and yet incredibly time consuming. (And I should know, I’m “on call” somewhat within my circle of friends to do small builds or help with layouts….)

Minecraft, and Terraria and Starbound, all take some of the mess out of player building because they align edges and bounding boxes for you. (For those who don’t know, that’s where your models can walk or are stopped from pushing through.) They align textures for you. Torches and other light sources automatically set up the light level for you, and then the rendering engine in the game figures out how to send shadows.

The devs for GW2 very likely, and it is my assumption they do, have to do this by hand. I tried it once for Doom maps. Let us say it was a definite learning experience about the process.

So yes, I will definitely confess to that. I make it modular because it’s easier and less work to expand on than allowing a player to access it. I suppose if it was a kit similar to “custom arenas kit”, then it might work out. Assuming the custom arenas kit has a high degree of flexibility.

Besides, the personal story should never be something you need to do so linking it to that would not be so great imho. Same for the Living Story. I do not find it very good what they did with the nodes. Now many people simply never have the option to get those nodes they missed.

I differentiated between “personal story” and “Personal Story”. What I’m talking about is a different and separate track from the Living Story where it wouldn’t go away every two months but would receive updates every two months, nor would it require progression in the Personal Story.

(A lot of people abandoned it at some point or just don’t care. I’m very aware of this so I don’t want to put out a proposition which will force them to take part in it. Any more than I’d make it only available if you did WvW until your World Rank was 20, or sPvP until you reached Rank 2348. I want this to be open to everyone at the start, and if they have to walk away . . . they can come back and those NPCs are there waiting to keep going.)

You can’t just ignore the world around you just because it would be hard to implement.

May I correct you? Yes, I can, but I probably shouldn’t. But what I want to do is keep from forcing people through as many problems as I can when I design this stuff in my head. I want to make it easy to access, easy to work with for everyone involved, and hopefully fun.

If that means going “this won’t interact well with this, so let’s not do that”, I’m game for it.

Sorry.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Hi Tobias,

I like your commentary on housing. In a game like GW2 I think that the focus is best pointed at ‘Character’ Progression rather than ‘World’ progression and I think your housing ideas fit nicely within this paradigm.

The focus should be on the character and the story and the synergy between the two.

Chris

A dev responded directly! Quick, someone check my hair…

I think the housing idea is something which can be meshed very well as a quality-of-life improvement and in a weird way can also serve as a replacement for Guild Halls on a lower level. (“Guild meeting will be at the leader’s house this week.”) It can’t truly replace how Halls worked, or work in other games, but it does remind me somewhat of “Guild Airships” from DDO. In that they were real nice for a few things.

The housing idea can easily also dovetail out into personal story bits (not “Personal Story” exactly) as players are willing to unlock or otherwise seek out starting threads. A Living Story concept which would take prior-introduced housing and thread in unrelated but ongoing stories through some NPCs which evolve over time?

Lets the player progress through a different story if they don’t like the current one, at their own pace, and progresses something intangible or purely a cosmetic effect. Such as helping a charr gladium set up shop and as you assist him/her more options open up for your housing.

(Save that one for a Living World CDI or if it’s already passed, I’ll leave that here.)

The Dolyak takes roughly 6-10 gold to set in motion if you’re the only one donating. It is, however, difficult to solo since the skritt are not “hostile” and thus difficult to take care of. However, letting LA know when you are about to set one off means you will likely get help.

Toypocalypse is a tough one to answer, since individual classes don’t matter. It’s a tower defense derivative, and the weapons available to you as a character are very simple and lack the same kind of flexibility you can see in your usual skills. However, understanding what everything does and not trying to save every Dolyak . . . you might be able to survive.

The asura are definitely evil and will be next against the wall after Ascalon is freed.

No, seriously now. They’re not evil so much as their view of other races is dismissive and they as a collective whole put asuran needs above other needs. Individually, each asura is much the same – out for self-preservation, or acknowledgement of their superior skill/intellect.

Despite that, there are plenty of asura who are willing to get through that to serve others’ needs or a greater purpose. A lot of the asura who you can find in the Pact generally have tempered their “I’m the best” edge down to being willing to at least follow someone’s orders.

Kevan.8912:

if they really wanted to make ppl like me come back in these months before a virtual horizontal progress., they still can find an easier and more “democratic” way for getting ascended, via other methods than forced crafting.
a quick fix to repair the painful mats gathering that gw1 fans hate.
(and then totally stop with tiers and infusions. or they would leave again)

Well . . . let’s recap:

Ascended rings, trinkets, necklaces are available through Laurels. (a.k.a. “playing the game daily”). Ascended trinkets otherwise can be attained through Guild Missions (if you can do that sort of thing), and other things through WvW (for Badges) in exchange for less Laurels required. In short, there’s a good breadth here.

Ascended back pieces are only currently through Mystic Forge, if you get the mists essence out of Fractals and then gather a metric “skrittload” of shiny Fine tier 6 materials. This is, perhaps, much less forgivable than the crafting method . . . you don’t need 250 Vicious Claws for crafting.

Ascended weapons are available as a “slightly less than the chance of precursor” drop from some places. You can also craft them. I’m unsure of which places have Ascended weapon chests in them; I know Tequatl and WvW bonus chests are a chance. If it could be dungeon reward, any world boss, any world chest (JPs or random chests in the world) it might be worthwhile.

Ascended armor is only available through crafting. We can pretty much agree it is incredibly time consuming to do and may be more expensive than your average player is willing to put in for the power increase.

All of this was released staggered out where the most time-consuming pieces came at the end instead of the front. (Debatably.) All of the equipment slots give a stat boost but only armor and weapons allow for basic upgrades in addition to Infusion slots.

Fixing the availability seems weighted more to two slot types: armor and back pieces.

Fixing the system so VP is kept to a minimal level relies on limiting how much power growth is done in the future. (If not refusing to grow it at all.)

. . . can we all agree on these points?

IndigoSundown.5419:

I do believe that economics played an important role in the Ascended decision. We’ll never know what might have happened if ANet had opted to provide the promised horizontal/cosmetic progression rather than shallow vertical progression. They had the opportunity to push the alternative MMO progression they advertised. However, it doesn’t take an economist to realize that adding Ascended Rings and a back-piece took a lot less resources than developing the robust options for skill-based and/or cosmetic progression that would have been needed for HP.

It also doesn’t take a programmer to realize the difficulty of retooling some things which are desperately called for (ranger pets, “DPS is king”, “Traherne killed my story”) are expensive in employee hours and requirement for creating new assets in some cases to handle it without botching.

Right now, Arenanet has their focus on finishing out their Living World “Season 1” with Scarlet. They have their CDI notes, but we know nothing significant and quick is going to come out of them.

Even if they hit the brakes right now on everything else and started working on something purely horizontal progression, we would probably be . . . I’ll say three months from seeing it hit live release.

During which, there’s the risk of people departing because there’s no longer anything to do except wait.

Wasbunny.6531:

Yeah those threads would unfortunately be inevitable, but I have seen a lot of interesting speculation going on in the forums about those ‘Do Not Touch’ things as well as the recent little rhyme on the metronome by Scarlet.

I would also assume that one of the conditions of any increase in darkness or weather hazards would be that nothing would be ‘game-breaking’ or make things less fun or dramatically harder for anyone.

Anything new will be hated by some, no question. But for the rest of us I think it’d be amazing.

I would feel increasingly angry about it the more it made me impossible to tell what was going on during events or in places where running off a cliff might be bad.

If we can get more weapons white in appearance, can we also have white versions of the sylvari verdant ones? Heck, why not just make a set of cultural weapon models and change the palette some, then make them Karma purchases off NPCs following an event chain. Add a randomizer to it so they don’t always give the same color each time and I wager you’d see more people running events

Wasbunny.6531:

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

You know half the forum would be full of “Cantha confirmed”, or “inb4 Scarlet”.

Also, wasn’t that an option for asura starting bio, building a weather machine . . . ?

Hehe yeah, Scarlet would undoubtedly be the prime suspect. How cool would it be if there was some minor comment she makes down the road like “Oh that? No, no…that wasn’t me * giggles *.”

And the Asura, good point…forgot about that. Or maybe the Thaumanova Reactor is somehow connected? So many theories would be flying around, especially if they made the changes gradual and unexplained at first. People start noticing the nights seem a little darker and more sinister, randomly some get caught in unexplained bizarre storms and weather systems. The forums would buzz, speculations would fly.

I think, alas, we missed the age where it would be received as mysterious and something worth speculation.

Instead these days? Can you see the topics? I can. “ANet, please give me my visibility at night back.” “Cantha?” “Night darkness a ploy for gemstore night vision goggles?” “Scarlet did it again.” “Cantha?!” “New weather system unfair to casuals.” “Stop messing with my WvW please with this PvE crap.” “Cantha?!!”

Wasbunny.6531:

VOLKON.1290:

~snip~
Who knows… maybe a certain Living Story nemesis does something that affects the world as a whole in such a way that the nights are indeed darker than they are now and her minions of the dark rise forth as the light fades…

Holy smokes! Just had to jump in here really quick (was about to post a more methodical response to some of the amazing ideas that are piling up in this thread).

This is an incredibly interesting idea for when/if any of these ideas get implemented into the game. It would explain and give context to why the sudden dramatic change with the weather and/or night. Opens up so many interesting possible minor story arcs for the lore team & writers.

What shadowy force is rallying these night dwelling creatures and seems to wield the power to make night itself as dark as their intentions?

What force could destabilize the very weather for all of Tyria, and why?

If I was an ArenaNet writer I would be salivating over this idea.

You know half the forum would be full of “Cantha confirmed”, or “inb4 Scarlet”.

Also, wasn’t that an option for asura starting bio, building a weather machine . . . ?

Shakkara.2641:

Subdue.5479:

If this game were marketed with no vertical progression, there would be no character levels. There would be no tiers of item (basic, fine, masterwork, rare, exotic).

That’s originally how GW2 was designed. No levels, no rarity in gear.

That’s how it should have remained.

Vertical progression should be banned out of the world of MMOs forever.

Strong words there at the end. Vertical progression has its place, and it kept from running rampant into a treadmill effect expansion after expansion, I don’t see where there’d be a problem with it. GW1 had a share of vertical progression in it, for all there was horizontal progression going on.

In GW1 you could get to max level and best-in-slot gear in 3 hours,

Max level in 3 hours? Not in Prophecies. Factions, definitely. Nightfall? Highly questionable. The gear, if you started in Nightfall you could get it in 3 minutes after finishing the required first mission and getting the materials/cash.

There are and there will be many MMOs that have no vertical progression whatsoever. Puzzle Pirates. Second Life. Wurm Online. The Chronicles of Spellborn.

Puzzle Pirates is aggressively “give us subscription please”. I liked it but the aggressive requirement to spend money or we’ll take your stuff by time-based decay? No thanks.

Second Life isn’t so much an MMO as a graphical chat room.

I don’t know anything about the other two so I can’t/won’t comment.

But there’s also Magic Online for “no vertical progression”. I highly recommend it if you know anything about the card game.

Time will tell how Shroud of the Avatar shapes up, too.

Let’s see, “Spiral Knights”, “Realm of the Mad God”, “DayZ” all have some buzz about them, so does “Starbound” as far as online play goes. Not too much vertical to them, and a whole lot more focus on their own choice of “fun”.

And the best example of things with no vertical progression – Minecraft. Absolutely no levels to climb, no gear treadmill, but oh gods the grind.

Also, for all the ones that don’t have vertical progression? There will be those which do. Primarily those which are derived from D&D, Final Fantasy, or similar Intellectual Properties. Which will always be popular.

Dyne Tianjin.8605:

As the post above mentioned – she was given shoes too big for a normal Sylvari to fill and the player base is annoyed at her perfection. I think its safe to say that “everyone’s human” unless of course they’re not and they’re a God or Dragon then we better group up and stop them.

There are charr who would try to kill you over that “everyone’s human” crack. Though it would make norn laugh.

Scarlet isn’t perfect. If she was, we wouldn’t have been able to stop her. She really is just a bright mind who thinks anyone but her is an idiot (like the asura, it should be noted) but is not entirely focused on her studies, instead she is focused on putting things together and after she gets whatever information she needs from a study project? Discarded and pointless to her afterwards.

Shadow Phage.9084:

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Shadow Phage.9084:

Serraphin Storm.2369:

/snip
Many Ranger were created thinking its an archer and can stand at range and do at the work while the pet tank for him. We are more than just archers (any class using a bow can be called an archer). To use this class effectively you must master the Sword.

Wonder where they got that idea….

Sarcasm aside, the built-in leaps on sword can be annoying. I really don’t need that animation root while I’m standing 1 ft from my target. A rather ham-fisted approach would be to simply create a version of the #1 chain that doesn’t have the leaps and let players decide which version they would like to use.

Anyone remember when there were “Bunny Thumpers”? When interrupt rangers could be almost as good as Mesmers? Touch rangers? And the good ol “Splinter-Barrage” R/Rt builds?

Sometimes I miss them. And then I think what Retaliation would do to my Splinter-Barrage build and go “nope”.

Well, that depends on how many splinter barrage rangers there are and if its pre-nerf splinter weapon.

If its five or more of the former and the latter is a yes, plus some coordination: the blob is now dead.

That sounds a lot like some areas in particular I would really abuse the heck out of Splinter-Barrage going in. I think the most fun was during some parts of Urgoz runs.

Still, that’s one build which made use of the bow in GW1 which can be remembered fondly. Interrupt rangers make two, but a lot of the others I recall seeing would kind of often bank on other methods than using the actual bow.

Of course, back then there were . . . interesting things in PvE you could do with a bar full of pet skills. Like dismantle the Doppleganger without getting touched Never have to shoot an arrow.

So it’s not new for rangers to be really good when not using bows.

Tachii.3506:

Keiel.7489:

I’ve gotten more keys from drops than precursors.

Key 1.
Precursor 0.

So yeah, I guess I can agree with this statement.

5 Keys, 0 Precursors, and 3 Keys from Daily Rewards.

That’s since August 2012, by the way.

Shadow Phage.9084:

Serraphin Storm.2369:

/snip
Many Ranger were created thinking its an archer and can stand at range and do at the work while the pet tank for him. We are more than just archers (any class using a bow can be called an archer). To use this class effectively you must master the Sword.

Wonder where they got that idea….

Sarcasm aside, the built-in leaps on sword can be annoying. I really don’t need that animation root while I’m standing 1 ft from my target. A rather ham-fisted approach would be to simply create a version of the #1 chain that doesn’t have the leaps and let players decide which version they would like to use.

Anyone remember when there were “Bunny Thumpers”? When interrupt rangers could be almost as good as Mesmers? Touch rangers? And the good ol “Splinter-Barrage” R/Rt builds?

Sometimes I miss them. And then I think what Retaliation would do to my Splinter-Barrage build and go “nope”.

Vincent Highwind.3054:

Very true, and I suppose perfection is somewhat extreme word choice, but my main point is that their blatant favoritism currently story-wise may lead to serious repercussions.

Currently I’d say the focus is almost as much on humans so far these last few months. Especially on the humans in Kryta.

Though to be honest, I wouldn’t mind some variety at all. We had one shared Living World chapter with the norn and the charr in danger and being targeted and no more since. Was the response really that bad over the locations of Frost and Flame? Really?

Swagger.1459:

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Relating this to something said in the CDI thread . . . what if weather could act as sort of a difficulty modifier randomly happening in some zones?

High Winds – Reducing range of projectiles, makes burning areas larger by fanning the flames.
Frostbite – Chill duration increased 10%, chilled targets take 10% extra damage. Standing in a fire combo field will nullify this effect.
Dust Storm – Every 15 seconds anyone not standing still is blinded. Dodge roll will remove the effect.
Heat Wave – Stamina recovers 25% slower, players cannot recover health. Standing in a water combo field will nullify this effect while there.
Lightning Storm – Every 30 seconds a random target will get struck by lightning. Gathering nodes may be targeted to prevent lone players from being hammered over and over again.
Swamp Miasma – Stacks “Nausea”, one per 10 seconds in the area. Becoming Poisoned will add 1 extra stack of condition per stack of Nausea.
Intense Heat – Every 10 seconds you will be given a stack of “Heat Stroke”; if you reach 20, you are automatically defeated. A healing effect will remove all stacks of “Heat Stroke”.
Jormag’s Wrath – An unusually fierce ice storm begins adding stacks of “Icy Grave” (one for every 5 seconds without protection) which continuously deals damage of increasing magnitude for the stacks on the player. A fire combo field will remove 1 stack for each 5 seconds of exposure to it.
Crystal Dust – Add one stack of “Crystal Dust” for each 10 seconds while moving. When hit with an attack which causes Bleeding, deal bonus damage (a % of maximum health; 25 stacks is instant downing on hit) for each stack of “Crystal Dust”; remove all stacks. Dodge rolling will clear all stacks.

the weather and darkness stuff are interesting ideas, but weather “conditions” (pun intended) and additional graphic effects will cause more server strain and lag. we don’t need more lag.

Do we really require intense graphic effects for all of these? A ‘misty’ effect for many of these will do fine. But of course, I’m not a developer nor someone who knows just what the servers can handle.

But this shouldn’t put much more than, say, your average WvW Borderlands at peak time.

brittitude.1983:

Crystal Desert
Queen Jennah opens the portal. The missing piece of the artifact must be found. Travel to the new land of the Crystal Desert and the LS story where you find the artifact and battle new enemies in an effort to help the orders recover control of the area. Find out new lore regarding Elona and what may come with the submission of the Crystal Desert.

Minor note, the Crystal Desert is not Elona and isn’t really close to it. There’s a lot of distance between the southernmost edge in the age of Prophecies and the northernmost edge of the Desolation in Elona. Someone worked out the math, and the result was something like . . .

. . . pretty fricking far

Donari.5237:

Tobias, check your page where you did that. I know I had a minor point about housing permissions, but it was “about a day ago” (searching my posts clicks to the end of this thread instead of to the specific post) and the summary is at “about 2 days ago” by page count.

Digging it up now

Edit: Started it here

Worked a bit more on it here

And I think my last bit was here

Relating this to something said in the CDI thread . . . what if weather could act as sort of a difficulty modifier randomly happening in some zones?

High Winds – Reducing range of projectiles, makes burning areas larger by fanning the flames.
Frostbite – Chill duration increased 10%, chilled targets take 10% extra damage. Standing in a fire combo field will nullify this effect.
Dust Storm – Every 15 seconds anyone not standing still is blinded. Dodge roll will remove the effect.
Heat Wave – Stamina recovers 25% slower, players cannot recover health. Standing in a water combo field will nullify this effect while there.
Lightning Storm – Every 30 seconds a random target will get struck by lightning. Gathering nodes may be targeted to prevent lone players from being hammered over and over again.
Swamp Miasma – Stacks “Nausea”, one per 10 seconds in the area. Becoming Poisoned will add 1 extra stack of condition per stack of Nausea.
Intense Heat – Every 10 seconds you will be given a stack of “Heat Stroke”; if you reach 20, you are automatically defeated. A healing effect will remove all stacks of “Heat Stroke”.
Jormag’s Wrath – An unusually fierce ice storm begins adding stacks of “Icy Grave” (one for every 5 seconds without protection) which continuously deals damage of increasing magnitude for the stacks on the player. A fire combo field will remove 1 stack for each 5 seconds of exposure to it.
Crystal Dust – Add one stack of “Crystal Dust” for each 10 seconds while moving. When hit with an attack which causes Bleeding, deal bonus damage (a % of maximum health; 25 stacks is instant downing on hit) for each stack of “Crystal Dust”; remove all stacks. Dodge rolling will clear all stacks.

Hey Beza, did you get my contribution about subclasses or newer skills/masteries/abilities being linked to the three orders? I didn’t see it specifically in your recaps and wonder if someone else captured it better so I can go read their take on it before moving on.

Sylvari aren’t perfect. Rather, the ones who still follow the Pale Tree and the Tablet aren’t.

They’re incredibly naive and easy to mislead. They do not, as a whole, understand deception without more life experience. To many of them, it’s relatively simple to deceive and then entrap them. Even Cadach isn’t much of a deceiver. Faolain is cagey, and hints at possibilities but she doesn’t outright lie.

Scarlet doesn’t seem to engage in wholesale deception either (assuming it is all hallucination what happens inside the Tower with her speaking), she is very . . . very blunt and simple when she acts or speaks. She may have motives but she’s not outright concealing them behind deceptions . . . much like Faolain, her take on deception tends more towards letting people make assumptions which are wrong and not correcting them.

So far her only outright lie is one of omission, regarding the bombs in the Royal Pavillion. “Oh, did I say five bombs? There were six.” Not lying, but also not mentioning the sixth bomb until it was too late.

We’ll see what’s coming though.

Regardless of whether or not she’s the good guy . . .

At least Scarlet didn’t free Palawa Joko and cause an entire region to go to crap because of it. That’s totally on . . .

. . . Dunkoro.

Radwolf.1370:

Surok The Smiter, a towering Guardian with a big heart and an even bigger hammer, valiant defender for his allies and a merciless killer for his enemies. Has a soft spot for Quaggans too.

Interesting not to see a warband name, but 9/10 for the name being followed through into behavior.

Garah Emberbane, part of a warband which got elminated all but to one other member. Warrior who enjoys throwing his weight around with a greatsword or mace and shield, but an adequate shot with a rifle. Wears Blood Legion colors now and forever, so he doesn’t forget where he comes from even working with the Vigil.

Hurtappl.6405:

My human female Guardians name is “I Love You Alot”
My human male Thiefs name is “Pump The Brakes”
My human male Mesmer is “Its A Beautiful Day”

5/10 on all of them. I’ve seen nicer but they’re not terrible. Not sure I grasp why you chose them but.

My human ranger is “Tobias Trueflight”, because long ago I had a ranger in GW1 named “Tobias Trueflight” so people would know me by that name if they saw me around. And “Trueflight” I’ve used since my first ever ranger on Everquest. so, long legacy of names

My human thief is “Elena Corso”, Elena because I liked the name, Corso because it’s been translated to me as "to run’. And that is what she was made for with me – to run and check things out.

Those are the only two I’m actively playing. I have another but she got shelved because I don’t grasp mesmers very well.

Kevan.8912:

i think that this is a sort of mindless grind watching the numbers go up (of mats, gold and laurels…and, although it is just a little change, also of gear stats).
some hundreds hours too much for me to enjoy.
lifelong hours doing some things i’d never had done if it wasn’t required for ascended.
and that i’m not gonna do! (craft on my main is zeroed. sell everything…and 400k karma i will never use)

however, thanks for your “feedback” ^^
de gustibus non disputandum est

It’s a weird threshold for me, and I’ll fully admit it. Devoting 10 hours out of a 70 hour RPG so I can beat a bonus boss for a vanity item useless to me by the time I can acquire it? Sure, I’ll do that.

70 hours total playtime for a 5% increase in DPS? Only if there is nothing else left for me to do. I’m perfectly willing to burn the time, but only if I’ve done everything else and I’m doing it at my own pace. (See: Disgaea, Afternoon of Darkness level building guides). If I got other things more interesting? They happen first. That includes other games.

And I weep for I am receiving Pokemon within a month. There may be a noticeable drop in time logged from “some daily” to “did he die or something?” after it arrives.

CHIPS.6018:

Traveller.7496:

Soa Cirri.6012:

You know who would have been a much better villain? Ellen Kiel.

Not through being a mastermind who secretly and conveniently ties the previous LS events together, but through being a well-intending person who’s already earned our sympathy, sorely out of their depth and trying to react to these various problems, and failing due to inexperience and bad judgement.

It would have been dug in all that much deeper because we voted for her.

That kind of nuance is hard to find in GW2, though.

THIS, so much this. I’ve said the same thing to my guildmates for a long time. But unfortunately as you said, this level of writing, intrigue and nuance is not present in the writing of GW2. Sadly. It would make an awesome plot twist.

I want to see Logan Thackeray becoming a villain. Who wouldn’t want to see our perfect prince in shining armour fall into darkness?

We had Rurik already, don’t need Logan too

Besides, as his detractors would say, why would you want him as your villain? He’d just run away more often than Scarlet

Eluveitie.1290:

I’m really interested on what they’ve on store for Canach, from these answers and this livestream: http://www.twitch.tv/guildwars2/b/494199178 seems like they have something big prepared for his story.

Canach is instrumental in countering Scarlet’s plans and screws it up so it accidentally makes Primordius mad enough to lash out at the surface more actively?

Wasbunny.6531:

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

~snip~
There was a game called EverQuest which had a day/night cycle. During which in certain areas you were . . . in professional terms “completely boned” if you didn’t have some form of night vision in forest areas. Many human newbie characters died to secure this as one of the fundamental pieces of every character’s “Survival Kit” of abilities. “Must get night vision” was on there, along with “some method of water breathing”. ~snip~

Would love this in GW2. I want to be at least a little nervous about venturing alone at night around Tyria, or have the uncertainty and anticipation that the inevitable gloom would bring.

And night vision abilities or goggles!? Yes and yes! I’m surprised it never crossed my mind but that would be amazing. Really in line with the slightly ‘steam-punk’ aesthetic of GW2 too. Maybe as a type of helm upgrade or as an ‘always on’ elite ability that you could swap to out of combat.

So many exciting ideas come out of this…

If, and this is a big if, we go to Far Shiverpeaks or Crystal Desert, said goggles being an integral part of navigating in sandstorms or snowstorms which sometimes crop up like rain in other parts of Tyria.

Again though, you have to balance “this would be neat and immersive” versus “how much will it just annoy players or force them to sit out until they feel they can play again”. Neat mechanics which annoy your players aren’t something you should consider unless your game is entirely based on immersion. (See: Slender: The Arrival)

Devata.6589:

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

CHIPS.6018:

I will also add that Living Story reward should be account wide. Right now everyone only takes one character though the Living Story because of the time limit nature on these events. So of course everyone will be using their primary favourite character.

If the reward for Living Story is account wide, it won’t matter which character they take to do the LS.

I’ll drop this here.

Add Living Story achievement-related rewards to the “Achievement Rewards” locker so they can be retrieved just like the Zenith skins.

Would be nice but only work for account-bound items really. Then again you may wonder if you want to give out rewards and achievements in the LS.

We are talking here about horizontal progression and rewards (as collectibles) and achievements are part of it. When you keep the Living Story just that.. a story, no rewards, no achievements and then the story leaves behind permanent content that has achievements and rewards linked to it then you you keep adding up elements to the game people can complete.. a form of horizontal progression.

By putting it in the living story it gets taken out meaning players who missed that also miss that part of the horizontal progression.

If we’re talking about cosmetic skins with limited acquisition periods? I would definitely consider bringing this up now rather than later. It’s been said the cosmetic hunt is a form of horizontal progression really desired – to make your character look good.

This is a detail which is mildly important in that regard. Furthermore, it equally applies to any cosmetics available outside the Living Story should they choose. Such as gem purchases.

Of course, you could always have a progression line to restore the Hall of Monuments and use it to show off things like in the first game. Or in this case, retrieve things you have access to. There’s some lore-related quests some veterans would get behind . . . continue the legacy of the ancient hero remembered here OR (for those who don’t have it) forge a new legacy in this ancient monument long forgotten by time.

CHIPS.6018:

I will also add that Living Story reward should be account wide. Right now everyone only takes one character though the Living Story because of the time limit nature on these events. So of course everyone will be using their primary favourite character.

If the reward for Living Story is account wide, it won’t matter which character they take to do the LS.

I’ll drop this here.

Add Living Story achievement-related rewards to the “Achievement Rewards” locker so they can be retrieved just like the Zenith skins.

Rouven.7409:

xXxOrcaxXx.9328:

(…)

• Darker nights can then be used to allow for new mobs to spawn with unique drops and for unique night time events to kick off.(…)

I played another game that had something like that. All this particular point would do is add yet another timer to the game. Personally I would go without this part.

I read that and what came to mind was: “Oh blessed Tunare, Kithicor Woods again?” For those who don’t know the tale . . .

There was a game called EverQuest which had a day/night cycle. During which in certain areas you were . . . in professional terms “completely boned” if you didn’t have some form of night vision in forest areas. Many human newbie characters died to secure this as one of the fundamental pieces of every character’s “Survival Kit” of abilities. “Must get night vision” was on there, along with “some method of water breathing”. But I digress slightly.

Now, in this game there was a massive GM event which ended with what was called “Bloody Kithicor”. The evil faction and the good faction on a continent met in combat in one of the more underutilized zones which happened to be a forest right outside one race’s starting city. There were GM-spawned NPC soldiers for both sides, there was a big battle and it ended when the evil side dropped what was a magical equivalent of a neutron bomb and killed everything alive in the woods except those fortunate enough to be protected. This was “Bloody Kithicor”, and it is well known to veterans of that game who lived through it. (I was out of town and unable to participate.)

As a result, in the aftermath . . . by day the forest was dark as usual (i.e., bring your light sources)and populated by the usual forest denizens. When the sun went down? Out come the really high level undead who have faster movement speed than unbuffed characters, will follow you the entire length of the zone, and some of them have a one-shot instant damage spike which can wreck anyone lower level than them.

In short? You stayed out of Kithicor Woods after sundown. You made that journey only with speed buffs and only if you were confident in your ability to identify and duck those spike-tossing undead.

This was not, as could be said, a popular change. But it definitely left a mark!

I seem to remember though reading an answer to this a long time back, along the lines that it was darker in beta but people did not like it, got changed etc. But take this with a grain of salt, it’s been a while.

It’s generally said if you have to choose between immersion and playability, you should decide which exactly is more important for your game before chucking one or the other. This is also noted in games where realistic need for food and water was considered but left on the floor after betas.

I don’t dislike vertical progression; I’m a child of growing up on old RPGs where the level (or gold) grind was a given fact of almost any one you picked up. I shudder to remember how many hours I spent killing Goldmen in Dragon Warrior on the NES. Or how long it took me to power level to kill Astos in Final Fantasy.

Of course, the best game I played in the RPG for horizontal work? Ultima: Quest of the Avatar. (The fourth game.) Tell me honestly that game wasn’t incredibly horizontal. If you haven’t played it . . . it’s free, go find it, they want you to play it.

(It also gets the stamp of the worst “Guide Dang It” game I played from beginning to end. No, worse than Simon’s Quest.)

I’ll just namecheck the Ys series as extraordinarily fun but incredibly focused on grind in points. Especially the first two games, not so much the seventh.

I play Monster Hunter, and if there’s a game which marries horizontal and vertical progression in a way I enjoy it’s this one. Many weapon types, armors which bestow skills while following a progression of ranks. (Of course, the highest rank armors aren’t always the best to wear into some situations.) And the combat incredibly focused on skill, preparation, and timing rather than “get strong through level grinding”. Downside to the game? Incredibly “unfair” RNG loot system. There are rumors some players sacrifice their firstborn to infernal contracts just to see a Heavenly Scale for their top-tier weapon upgrades. Then weep for they find the next stage requires two more.

So, let me sum up because I know there are people not going to fully read this.

- Like vertical progression, so long as it’s not pointlessly “watch the numbers go up”. Don’t mind it if it’s that way so long as it’s not mindless grind one notch out of a thousand to hit the next increase.

- Like horizontal progression as a theory, would love to see it in a way it actually works.

- So long as I’m not setting up a game controller with rubber bands or delayed button press macros to grind I’m good. (See: Final Fantasy 12, Naglamuur auto-leveling farm)

darkace.8925:

CHIPS.6018:

Basically it comes down to this:

GW1 kept players playing by having multiple alt-characters. It was super easy to level up and max equip a new character. This means newbies zones are rarely empty, because veteran players will be bringing their alts though those newbie zones. Most players have a decent understanding of multiple classes, because they played though them all.

WoW kept players playing by power creep. It takes a lot of time and effort to max equip just one character. And so everyone have to focus on one character, that’s it. The newbie zones are emptied out very quickly, because veteran players do not have time to play an alt. Since most players only ever play though 1 class, they often have great misunderstandings on other classes.

I personally prefer GW1’s method. And so it was disappointing to see GW2 going toward the WoW method.

You’re missing a huge aspect of what kept people playing Guild Wars: the expansions. Every year we got what was essentially a whole new game; complete with a new story, new classes, new areas to explore, new skills, and new features. Don’t underestimate the amount of longevity the expansions added, or the interest they generated among non/potential players.

What kept them playing after Eye of the North and the smaller content releases of War in Kryta and Winds of Change? Aside from “filling the Hall because I got nothing else to be doing”?

(It’s what kept me playing, truthfully. Crunching titles and going “if I really try I might be able to hit God Walking Amongst Mere Mortals” before after two hours of Vanquishing going “this is the second most mind numbing experience I’ve had playing this game”.)

What kept people coming back to Guild Wars 1 always seemed, to me, to be the annual events. Canthan New Year, Dragon Festival, Halloween, Wintersday. Actually, I found my alliance for the longest of years during a period where that was all I came back for . . .

And to note, they had me coming back just to hang out with them and lend a decent player to trying to pass PvE stuff when requested.

So I daresay what kept the majority of players in Guild Wars?

Other players being fun to play with.

CHIPS.6018:

Basically it comes down to this:
GW1 kept players playing by having multiple alt-characters. It was super easy to level up and max equip a new character. This means newbies zones are rarely empty, because veteran players will be bringing their alts though those newbie zones. Most players have a decent understanding of multiple classes, because they played though them all.

The outposts were not always full, by the way. More than a few were practically deserted except for people doing cartography or other work. Especially true in Prophecies, where there were a fair amount of outposts in the middle of nowhere.

Now, Kamadan had a lot of people in it all the time as it was one of the “main hubs” of the campaign. It also allowed people to get maximum gear with a simple “can someone ferry me to Consulate Docks” request, was the location for both Mad King and Dwayna/Grenth events on those times of the year so it was trivial to park your alts there. Add in the area right outside not being too bad for hard mode “messing around” . . .

Shing Jea likewise was big because people would park alts there for Nine Rings and such. In contrast, I don’t recall all that many people hanging around Ascalon City or places around there. There just wasn’t anything of value to keep them there.

Now having said all that, there was a booster shot of veteran players using the same outposts as new folk to run vanquishes from or finish that last 0.1% of Cartography. Or later on going for specific Zaishen challenges on multiple characters. With the zones being instanced to a party, it was really hard to tell how busy a given location was outside of just looking at traffic in the relevant outposts.

It also kept players because unlike WoW where new content would be layered on top of the ladder rather than slipped in as War in Kryta was . . . GW1 you could walk away for six months and pick up almost exactly where you left off and be no weaker for the experience.

I hesitate, but I’ll say it. If you left GW2 six months ago over Scarlet or whatever, you’re not significantly behind anyone else playing currently. Except in achievement points and potential possible gold gain over time.

I personally prefer GW1’s method. And so it was disappointing to see GW2 going toward the WoW method.

I don’t see it. And I really hope I won’t see it in the next six months.

Orpheal.8263:

If nights in GW2 become so impressive and immersive, liek in the PS3 game Dragons Dogma, then has Anet done a great job.

Never seen before a good RPG with darker and immersive nights, than in this game.

Ultima Online had some really dark nights, and night missions in UFO: Enemy Unknown (also know as X-Com ‘the first’) were considerably dangerous. Those are two which come to mind right off the top of my head. But immersive? “Strahd’s Possession” from SSI; that game had an incredible amount of work put into some immersive effects for the time. Dark nights were not one of them, though its sequel had a crazy effect of nights reducing sight distance to roughly 10 feet ahead unless you were near a light source.

Please note, while this was all very nice? It made gameplay frustrating and I know I personally tried to avoid doing things at night because it was hard to see what I was doing, or dangerous due to not being likely to see dangers until they ran up on you. There is a point where you sacrifice immersion for “do I want players to play during half the day/night cycle, or feel like they’re wasting their time waiting for the sun to come up so they can see what they’re doing?”.

(You know, like early-game Hardcore Minecraft, where you bunker down and just hope you don’t starve on your first night.)

Though I will say, if it gives reasons for things such as torches or light sources to have value to players and see more use than for combat purposes? It’d be refreshing. Just . . . sacrificing playability for immersion seems like a losing trade in my opinion.

Phantom.8130:

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

you never said it

that’s all that matters. maybe you should start paying more attention to what people actually say, than inventing your own hidden meanings and arguing against your own delusions.

If that’s all that matters, why do people get hung up on things ANet doesn’t say?

Anyway, I’d make more of a point from this about lots of people here arguing about their delusions of what might happen instead of what is happening but, really, where’s the use?

Devata.6589:

- Not sustainable? GW1 was the only big name that hold for multiple years next to GW2. When they released Eye of the North they where already working on GW2 (thanks to the success of GW1) and implemented a cash-shop, likely to generate money when not focusing on gems anymore as GW1 was then an old product. If it was not sustainable you would not have been playing GW2 now.

I may have picked the wrong way for the term, but I was more getting at the point of GW1 becoming “stale” and hamstrung by the game’s workings. The first was said by a lot of people as to why they were only logging in for special events, the second is what I recall devs saying about why GW2 instead of more GW1.

Underlaying issues (like GW1 not being an open world / MMO maybe? and the skill thing you say). They did not say they could not support the game. If they could not they would not have gotten the money for GW2.

But it couldn’t grow any more. All it could do is keep going on, with less content additions than we get now through Living Story and increasingly skill-restricted (player skill not game skill) stuff which required people to have a lot of technical knowledge to progress.

Which means it’s not sustainable beyond that point. The game’s done growing. Sure, it can get new people now and then but it starts showing age against newer games. But if you’re not selling new expansions and your cash shop isn’t turning over enough . . . well, how can you sustain it?

They say it did not influence the game that much partly because most of it time it did have no or only a very limited cash-shop and not a focus in the world on it. They introduced the cash-shop much later and probably around the time they decided to go work on GW2. Until then GW1 proven itself with it’s expansion based model

The cash shop was present from really early, notably about a year after the game launched. It wasn’t introduced “much later” and I wish people stopped saying that . . .

Also, as I pointed out above, no new expansions meant there was a finite amount each new player would be “buying into” with the game without touching the cash shop.

The way you describe gold it pretty much works in every MMO. But my example with the mini’s (what you agreed up on) shows how pretty much the only way to get them is with gold.

No, the way the minis exist now the only way to get them is with Gems. Or converting Gold to Gems. I’d really like it if it was just Gold and Gems never came near it, or again if it was drop chance or “hey, you completed your Monthly, have a random mini pack”.

Only played GW1 a very short while long after they stopped developing it so can’t say much about that. However I want to imply that there is a difference between now allowing people to easily get an items and making farming items pretty much impossible and by that making gold always the optimal way. In your example you are also talking about ‘a lucrative farm’ but that raises the question. Was is then maybe more then being able to farm it. Anyway, would love to compare those patches but simply don’t know enough about those to try and do that.

I’m sure some veterans still kicking around will remember it.

Windu The Forbidden One.6045:

Why is this thread still going on? They already confirmed, it’s not happening!

Feelings of betrayal, emotional involvement in the argument going on, and it helps the topic got shifted to the very existence of the Gem Store proving this is going to exist eventually.

Grab some popcorn, I’ve got the nachos, and enjoy the show.

Phantom.8130:

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

And, as we have been educated by this person, there are absolutely no other factors which figure into stock value dropping than one subdivision of a company getting a limited form of bad press.

I mean, it’s like how all the overwhelmingly negative press over the last few years forced Electronic Arts to go out of business. Or the ton of reviews saying “these movies are crap” preventing the Transformers movies from making money . . .

the “absolutely no other factors” BS was NEVER said by me. that was someone else’s strawman that got pinned on me. if you don’t believe me, feel free to go back and read everything i said. the actual words, not any injected hidden meanings.

No, you never said it, but you always stick to “Ascended caused the stock drop” while dismissing anything else as irrelevant.

NCsoft is not only ArenaNet and Guild Wars 2. They were making questionable decisions before Ascended was announced by ArenaNet, in the eyes of a lot of other people than those who were busy making waves about Ascended. What happened with Paragon Studios was quite a bit more high profile and was more likely to make investors question things than Guild Wars 2.

That’s where I pointed out the myopia involved here. We’re all familiar with what happened with Ascended because we’re all playing Guild Wars 2 and thus we were here. We’re not necessarily familiar with or even aware of other aspects, so to simply stand on what we know and say “this is absolutely the reason” seems faulty.

You admit there are likely other contributing factors to the stock price drop, and I’ll shut up about it.

Phantom.8130:

Thedenofsin.7340:

At first I thought you were trolling everyone – now I realize you are serious.

Phantom, please stop. You have no idea what you are talking about. These statements are foolish and utterly preposterous!

You are claiming NCSoft’s stock value is directly tied to ascended gear. That’s completely ludicrous.

i’m saying their stock value is tied to the customer’s opinions. if the customers don’t like what’s going on with the product, the customers won’t pay for it. if the customers aren’t paying, the company loses money. if the company is losing money, so too does the stock. if the stock is losing money, then it’s not wise to hold onto it. if you honestly can’t understand that, get someone else to handle your money.

And, as we have been educated by this person, there are absolutely no other factors which figure into stock value dropping than one subdivision of a company getting a limited form of bad press.

I mean, it’s like how all the overwhelmingly negative press over the last few years forced Electronic Arts to go out of business. Or the ton of reviews saying “these movies are crap” preventing the Transformers movies from making money . . .

erroch.8061:

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

That’s why gold “runs everything”. It’s also very deeply ingrained in RPGs to have the basic necessities bought through gold (or a stand-in for it like “Zenny” or “gil”, or “pokedollars”) rather than through other means. Designers haven’t gotten away from it too far except for a few games I can think of, but MMOs almost always default to some form of coin currency as their basic building block.

As an amusing aside, in the first MMO I played (Asheron’s Call), gold/pyreal was so easy to get that it effectively became worthless. The players ended up basing their economy for the longest time on “shards” dropped from certain mobs. The really interesting part with this is after you had 32 of them, they had no personal intrinsic value anymore. You had your set of armor they produced and were more or less done with them forever.

In time as more consumable things were added that had intrinsic value, the “shard” economy fell apart, but it was an interesting development when it happened.

It was a rather interest bit of emergent behavior back then due to the lack of the built in currency having not much real significance.

Sorry for the off topic, but I thought you might find it interesting, Tobias.

I do find it interesting. I lived through something similar in my first MMO: Meridian 59. Where the currency (shillings) were duped into existence and spread out so much the GMs couldn’t track it all down. (And we are talking maybe five to ten people total, not a team of couple dozen.)

So instead other items became commodities, such as components which were used up for high-level spells and were uncommon drops. Sure, you had to get them first but if you were high enough it stopped being an issue.

. . . and it’s how “Ecto” became a unit of currency in GW1 too, thanks to the limitation of trades being 100 platinum (which was 1000 gold or “1k”) and some things being just more valuable. Heck there was a time “Armbraces” were a currency until there was a ton of duping on those, and it slid back to Ectos.

IndigoSundown.5419:

VOLKON.1290:

Devata.6589:

You can only instantaneously teleport to waypoints you already have so if a friend is leveling somewhere and you want to go there with your alt to level but don’t have the waypoints yet then it can easily be a 15 min walk. This benefit would take away those 15 min. I think thats pretty huge.

If I waypoint to a friend at a new location as you mention, how does this harm your game play in any way, shape or form? Shoot, would you even know I did it?

“I’d swear there were only three invaders in that keep. Where did the other twenty come from?” Remember that anything that works in PvE also works in WvW. It might not make a lot of difference every time, but I assure you I’d notice.

Resurrection Orbs do not work in WvW. Neither do the consumable boosters, far as I recall.

Devata.6589:

- GW1 focused on the selling expansions (most of it’s life.). So yes GW1 was a game that did not have those negatives but it also did not have a focus on the cash-shop, it had a focus on expansions. Thats why I use GW1 as an example of expansion focus.

Except it wasn’t sustainable as a business model. Eye of the North was nice, but it was starting to really show cracks in how far they could push GW1 as a whole before things got into less simple territory. They’d pretty much said at the time they started looking at developing GW2 instead of GW1: Utopia because it would let them get away from some underlying issues with GW1.

One of which was cited as the huge complexity in the skill system making it hard to balance anything new getting thrown into the mix.

But for a while there were things like “Buy extra storage tabs” and “we made these neat costumes for our content”, not to mention the “skill unlock pack”. Why the last one isn’t looked at as “Pay To Win” by people decrying Gems right now that way I dunno. I really don’t.

- Not completely because mini’s are in the gem-store not in the world. So it would even effect the game without the gold (in the way that most mini’s are not in the open world).

Not gonna lie here, I don’t like that. Of course, there’s no achievements or monuments for me to show off my minis in like there was before, so I’m a little more forgiving of it. But yeah, if the minis were stuff which dropped in the world off mobs (like Ultima Online had “creature statues” which could drop for house decoration) then would you consider that a good step? Worth posting in one of the CDI threads if it ever comes up.

And about the gold. Yes the problem is the way gold works but why do you think it works like that? Why do you think gold is everything in GW2?

Because gold is something which any player can earn through play and has many more methods of acquisition than Karma, or other currencies. Because it is, completely, the only currency which can be traded and thus can actually form an economy inside the game.

That’s why gold “runs everything”. It’s also very deeply ingrained in RPGs to have the basic necessities bought through gold (or a stand-in for it like “Zenny” or “gil”, or “pokedollars”) rather than through other means. Designers haven’t gotten away from it too far except for a few games I can think of, but MMOs almost always default to some form of coin currency as their basic building block.

The reason for that might not be because people are then more likely to buy gems to convert to gold? That exactly one of those game mechanics I am talking about if I say if effects game mechanics and it not only about if an item in the store itself it nice or not.

Mmm, no, I think the reasons I listed above are adequate. I agree the conversion of RM to Gems to Gold is an issue in so far as people can just plunk down cash to accelerate things. If there were no Gems to Gold conversions, any bets on whether certain high-ticket items in the Trading Post wouldn’t be quite so insanely high in gold cost?

Why do you think everything people find a way to farm an specific item it gets patched out.

Because they’d been doing it in GW1 too? They patched the heck out of the Underworld. It was almost a game to watch, “how are they gonna screw UW runs this next balance patch?” and put bets. I actually won a small pot once over the Shadow Form nerf . . .

And I am not talking about exploits so people get extremely big amounts of such an item.. No just the ability to farm it much like you can in many mmo’s.

They did it in Guild Wars 1, almost constantly.

I’ll start by pointing out there was a farm well known in the Crystal Desert which was lucrative and got beat with the nerf stick pretty fast. Before Factions, in fact.

You say “maybe we should address how gold works”, thats what I do when I talk about how the gems effect the game mechanics. It are not 2 separate things.

It’s part of what’s going on in the CDI, how do we use “skill” as a sort of currency to allow people to earn their stuff rather than time/grind or gold/cash.

juno.1840:

Unfortunately I think horizontal progression is gated behind “time played” instead of “player skill”. Look at all the high-end rewards in this game, you can obtain all of them through grind.

I want more of “The Deep” from GW1, and less of Champ farm trains.

To be clear — I don’t want more Tequatl. I want smaller scale, instanced, difficult content requiring coordinated team play.

A comparison from the current market: any of the LotRO raids (4 teams of 6) in Orthanc. Those were hard requiring many attempts to master.

EDIT: These challenges would have their own rewards (similar to The Deep from GW1). Those rewards would not be available through any other game channel. Sounds like GW1 in a way?

In a way, yes, except stuff out of The Deep could be sold to people who either could not partake of it or weren’t lucky enough to get what they wanted.

And I’ll point out – Those who play more will usually have more resources than those who don’t play as much. That’s generally how things short of lotteries work, you put more time into it, you get more out of it.

Devata.6589:

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Devata.6589:

2 For that person it would indeed not matter. Problem is that the fact that people buy gems always effects the game in a negative way.

. . . always negative? Really?

Well the focus on cash-shop seems to be always negative yes. Never seen a game where it has no negative effect.

And by buying gems you are supporting that focus.

It’s worth pointing this out:

- While there were no Gems in Guild Wars 1, there were things to purchase for a dollar amount. Hence, there was a cash shop. There are those who would say the game did not suffer from this.

- The notable difference is allowing Gems to be converted to or from Gold. This is pretty much the linchpin of all arguments about how Gems are bad, so really maybe it should be addressed how Gold functions in this game rather than how Gems are “ruining it”.