Guild Wars 2

Orpheal.8263:

Yeah, and you need like 100 of these by this item introduced token items just to get it …

And we got 1

Question is now.. how do we get more of those tokens now? Is there also a way to earn more ingame, or do we have to wait now like 99x more, that Anet puts into the gemstore such a memorial item??

The moment I have seen, that theres kinda alot of rewards to trade in for those tokens, kind of made me think about it, if we might see maybe in the future some kind of “nolstagia festival” or so, where we will be able to earn more of those tokens…

Because lets face it, if you aren’t rich like ****, most people will basically have to collect like 200 to like 300 of those tokens to have basicaly enough to get everythign from that reward list that peopel are interested into, what are most likely the skins and the minipets, in cwertain cases eventually also the tonic, cause alot of peopel missed the selfless tonic and its counterpart, but these two just cost lousy 10 tokens each compared to 25/50 for the skins/minis…

If earnign the stuff with this thing will be quicker, than by grinding hundreds of gold, then working on those tokens makes sense and will be no waste of time..
However..if those tokens turn out to being basically too slow too gain, that it makes more sense to just continue grinding gold to buy you the stuff you need… then is this whole thing just a fail and anet should just implement achievement rewards/collections with that people just become able to earn those things in that list, if ANet has no intention anymore to recycle this old stuff for the gemstore, then they should just make this stuff ingame normally earnable through achievements as rewards for doign somethign special or as part of a collection.

Peopel prefer earning their things, than to stupidly grind gold for ages, just to buy these things from other players from the TP

What on earth does ANY of that have to do with making the jetpack count as a glider skin?

Kal Spiro.9745:

I was going to say that short of making each of these backpacks a straight BLTC skin they won’t make them gliders too retroactively because it would mean that anyone can buy them without earning them, kittening off those that went to the trouble.

However, that is kind of the case now. It’s just a variable amount of gems to effectively buy each of them as a skin. You still have to build the Spinal Backpack, but you can buy all the parts to do it. So we’re probably getting closer.

I’m talking about making it unlock if you have the skin. Same way the black and white wing gliders unlock. So you can’t get the glider unless you have the jeptack backpiece. That’s about as fair as it can be.

As the title suggests, please make the jetpack into a glider skin. All it needs is some flame exhaust. Please and thanks!

The energy system is boring. zzzzzz

1. Toggle dps button.
2. Auto attack.
3. Swap legend before 0%.
4. Repeat.

I’ve been calling for a smarter energy system that requires players to actually be awake while playing the game for over 2 years now. But nah. All I get is “go play thief” and “this isnt gw1”.

I think it’s fair to say the raids are fine. It’s some of the best content in gw2. It’s the people that are terrible.

No one has any tolerance for learning. They want to clear it as fast as possible with as little talking as possible. They want minimum human interaction and maximum loot. Noobs get in the way of that.

The first time I joined a regular non-training pug raid, no one spoke. They had no voice com either. As soon as someone made a mistake, the leader called him the N word and asked him why was he trying to ruin HIS raid…

I support this.

Hopefully it will be a legendary and not a gemstore skin….

I think it was thoroughly unsatisfying to bring back the real Lazarus and kill him all in one episode… I would rather they left him asleep honestly.

Basically for mesmer to become a strong DPSer within the meta, the next elite spec needs to have a lot of good damage modifiers and/or better ways to deal damage than current mesmer. It needs to reach somewhere between 25-35k dps to be competitive (right now its at like 14k?)

The other important issue is Chronomancer. This spec is currently the end-all-and-be-all of quickness/alacrity which is essential to the meta. For mesmers to get a DPS role, someone needs to replace chrono (or else you just run multiple mesmers, in which case is it worth losing an ele?). Someone has to run quickness-share. I’m hoping another class gets quickness-share so that mesmers have the freedom to run the new spec instead of being stuck on chrono.

The whole time on my Asura joining the Sining Blade I was just thinking… this is childish and ridiculous… My character has no reason to trust these people and yet I’m taking a blood oath that will kill me if I break it… What kind of Asura is that stupid?

You know one time I was using a dating website and I met this girl. We texted for 2 days. Then she asked me to drive over 2 hours away after midnight to her house where she was alone. 2 days texting. She doesn’t know me. I don’t know her. I could be an axe murderer. She could be an axe murderer. What kind of woman is stupid enough to invite a stranger from the internet to her house in the middle of the night after 2 days of texting? And how stupid would I feel if I went over there and woke up the next day missing a kidney? Needless to say I didn’t go.

The entire joining of the Shining Blade was handled very poorly. The writing team needs to learn how to actually build up a story over the course of more than one episode. Characters need to have realistic motivations. There’s an extremely important part of basic story-writing called exposition that Anet needs to actually include in the story.

I agree with OP. Season 3 is pretty messy. It juggles too many plot lines. They introduce things and then never deal with them (braham, rytlock) and they do a poor job of treating old characters with respect. They tease a fake lazarus for several episodes and then all in one episode they bring back the real lazarus and then kill him immediately… Not to mention I think it is just beyond the pale that we are treating the human gods like villains now… I can only hope the expansion has a plot twist to rectify this.

I hate how Taimi is there to solve all the worlds problems. I hate how she never makes a mistake. She ALMOST makes a mistake, but catches it in time to save Tyria. Not to mention she conveniently has a heat shield right after we had to go do an annoying quest for a heat shield. But what I hate most about Taimi is how she calls us constantly on her cell phone. This is a fantasy game, and yes I get it we have Asuran technology. But cell phones in this type of game is just annoying and breaks the immersion. I hate it. Feel free to disagree, I don’t care. This is Guild Wars, not Kim Possible.

Overall I think season 2 had WAY better story and it was focused on a clear narrative. I think people love season 3 mostly because it added a bunch of new maps… I’m sorry but Maps =/= story. Maps are nice, and I love them, but maps =/= story.

Again… Maps =/= story.

P.S.

I’m sick of Marj and Kas’s lesbian relationship being shoe-horned in every other episode. I want them to actually be real characters with a real story that is actually relevant to the elder dragons and Balthazar. All they did throughout season 3 is sit around off-screen and show up to flaunt their relationship for 5 minutes. I. Just. Don’t. Care. About. Their. Personal. Life. It is irrelevant to the story. I want them to be treated as real characters with a real story that actually matters.

Howdy yall! A few weeks ago I made a thread asking Anet to bring back the quest for the Mad Memoires backpiece. I had gotten this backpiece waaaay back in 2012 before the wardrobe system existed. I lost the skin when I overwrote it with the old transmutation stones. Thanks to some suggestions I was able to talk to Anet Support and get the backpiece mailed to me. All it took was a thorough explanation of my situation and some screen shots of my historical achievements to prove that I had participated in the event and gotten those old Shadow of the Mad King achievements. Support was really cool and helpful.

So if anyone out there is missing the Mad Memoires skin, and you have screen shots to prove you did the achievements back in 2012, you can still get the skin through support! I was so happy with this I wanted to show off my new Fashion Wars thanks to the green color of the book. I used the Teal Poly-luminescent refractor to turn the flames green and make my demonic necro look. Thank you Anet support!

Glox.5942:

Gorani.7205:

If you have the corresponding achievements unlocked, support should be able to unlock the skin for you. They did it last year for my account, as I could prove I had the complete edition before it was lost during the wardrobe introduction.

I also had it unlocked last year, however the achievement was not enough, they also wanted screenshoots of my character completing the achievement (act 1 or act 2), where my id was visible.
I ended up getting it due to other screenshoots of my main wearing the complete book, and link to a forum I posted the image on and then additional evidence that the poster was indeed me.
So it took some work and alot of looking up old screenshoots for me

Wow that sounds kinda ridiculous. Why can’t Anet just use their own API to check my wardrobe unlocks and see that my account does in fact have the book? I can see it on GW2efficiency. They must have their own internal tools to independently confirm it as well. I should not have to rely on 5 year old screen shots that I deleted 4.5 years ago…

It never occurred to me to try asking support, but I’ll give it a shot. Thanks everyone.

Hello Anet,

I’ve been playing GW2 since August 25th 2012. During the very first Halloween I got the Mad Memoirs and unlocked the Mad Memoires: Complete Edition. That was a LONG time ago before the wardrobe system ever existed. I have since lost the original green (non-burning) version of the skin.

As you can see I have the fiery version unlocked. Can we have the precursor skin unlocked automatically from this? Please and thanks!

Wooden Potatoes version of this idea remains the best one: Racial masteries. Any one from any race and train to learn all racial skills from every other race.

Boom, no worry about a charr being more powerful than a sylvari. Sylvari can simply learn the charr skills and fight on equal footing.

Swimsuits…

Yes please, and also School Uniforms, Tonics converted to outfits, and Paper Bag Helms. Please and Thanks.

I don’t even care that much about the racial skills after 5 years… I just want to see racial tensions in the story. I want the humans and charr to fight. I want Dragon’s Watch to be caught in the middle trying to choose a side. I want to uncover an Asuran conspiracy to manipulate the other races with politics and eugenics. The story is just boring as hell when everyone is always holding hands like carebears. We are supposed to be fighting a war, not singing kumbaya.

I hate the fact I can’t wear my Dragon T-Shirt alongside the Sports Sunglasses or my GW2 dragon hat… I mean come on, Anet! I can’t even use this tonic in combat as it removes my utility skills. This is stupid. These old town clothes should never have been made into tonics.

Please make clothing tonics into skins or outfits.

Why isn’t this thread being bombed into oblivion by puritans? I made an outfit request thread a few weeks ago that got lots of hate from…. certain people.

I fully support the addition of a bathing suit outfit. I just hate the double standard. A bikini is far more revealing and “sexualizing” than a school uniform, yet everyone seems cool with it…

• Spaghetti string panties with cleavage and booty hanging out: perfectly fine.
• Uniform with far more cloth coverage : literally for pedophiles.

Jayne.9251:

I’ll be so disappointed if Anet caves and lowers the requirements. It will take away the value of it.

I think it will be even more disappointing if people give up on the entire game mode because they feel like the grind is too much.

IMO it should either be made cheaper OR made legendary (not both). The current state is practically an asian grindfest, and people are rewarded for afking anyway. Not to mention most of the people who got 2000+ rank did it by exploiting karma trains in EotM before it was nerfed, so where’s the value in that? It’s a joke.

I don’t think it’s reasonable to expect new players to get to rank 2000 at the current rate. I don’t think its reasonable to expect years of commitment of my life for a digital game skin. That’s just my opinion as someone with only 150 rank. I’m not even a new player. I’ve been playing since launch. It’s just that I’ve spent time actually playing the other two game modes. You know? PvP and PvE? But you want us to only play wvw for years before we can get the armor…

The more important question here is will people still be playing wvw in a few months when they realize what a futile grind this is? Casuals will give up and wvw will be back to its old problems of low population. But that’s fine as long as you get pips right?

If they really wanted this armor to be exclusively for those die-hard lifetime committed wvw players… They should have made it legendary. Making it ascended is an insult considering the time investment. Ridiculous.

Prepare the forums for the incoming “Anet is forcing me (a pver) to play wvw! Worst game! Dead game! Unacceptable! Literally unplayable!”

Doam.8305:

Anet is a restaurant without a menu that brings out whatever they want for the player to have to deal with.

I really love this analogy.

So it seems like what you are all suggesting is that the leylines aren’t what I thought they were? they aren’t pouring out magic from somewhere? They are more like sediment layers where magic “settles” after it seeps out of the dragon?

I guess I had this theory in my head that the leylines are similar to stars in the Elder Scrolls series. In that universe magic comes from a place called Aetherius. The Sun itself and all the stars in the sky are actually holes in the fabric of Oblivion through which magic pours like a fountain and radiates into the mortal world.

My head-canon was that maybe leylines are like cracks in space/time through which magic is leaking, and eventually it has to leave Tyria and return to Underworld or the Mists in a grand cycle. But I suppose that’s wrong?

Moonyeti.3296:

The magic could just be an inherent property of the world, so in that case you could remove step 1. For step 2, perhaps the ley lines are like blood vessels, as in they move the magic around the world. The circulatory system for magic if you will.

The total amount of magic in the world could be the same at all times, just sometimes more of it is stored in dragons and sometimes it is flowing freely.

Hmm interesting thoughts. For that to make sense though, I think magic would have to have some subtle attraction like magnetism or gravity which is causing it to collect at the leylines whenever it isn’t being eaten by a dragon. It floats in the atmosphere and slowly collects at the leylines through static electric cling or something.

However, your scenario doesn’t account for the apparent increase of magic in the world. The whole point of the story is that too much magic is building up in the world and causing it to destabilize, and the elder dragons are supposed to eat the extra magic to calm the world down. If magic is always just there and flows through leylines like blood vessels, then the total amount of magic never changes. You are suggesting a closed system, but I don’ think that’s the case. It looks to me like Tyria is not a closed system at all. It is receiving an abundance of extra energy from an external source we have yet to identify.

Think of it this way. Earth in real life is not a closed system. It receives a TON of energy from the Sun. That is why entropy has not turned Earth into a global lifeless desert. The energy from the sun supports the continued advancement of more and more complex life forms and more complex systems that would otherwise decay into chaos if Earth were a closed system.

If we are to turn real Earth into an analogy for Tyria, it would be like Earth’s Sun is pumping too much energy and causing Earth to burn up, just like whatever source of magic is putting too much magic into Tyria causing it to explode with magicalness.

Maybe Tyria’s Sun is the source of magic? Then maybe it’s not a real star but something else entirely? Are these Elder Scrolls rules or what?

We know that magic flows out of the leylines. We know that dragons eat that magic. We know that after they eat the magic, the go to sleep and the magic “seeps out” of them back into the world. So where does magic COME from, and where does it ACTUALLY go?

Here’s the chronological order of steps as I understand them:

1. Magic starts in [someplace]
2. Magic pours from [someplace] through the leylines into Tyria
3. Magic builds up in the atmosphere or whatever…
4. Dragons wake up and eat the magic
5. Dragons fall asleep and magic “seeps out” back into Tyria
6. Repeat loop from steps 3-5. Step 2 never actually stops occuring.

So by my count, the elder dragons only gather magic, they don’t reduce it. The magic never actually leaves Tyria. It pours into Tyria and then flip flops locations (atmosphere -> dragon belly -> repeat) within Tyria.

So I’m missing the part where magic returns to wherever it came from before it squirted out of a leyline. Is there a location on another plane of existence from which magic flows through leylines like a conduit? If so, at what point does magic leave Tyria and return to that other plane?

I know this doesn’t really help with the mechanics of combat, but thematically the idea of phantasms is that they are a debuff. It’s not supposed to be a pet. It’s supposed to be a figment of the target’s imagination tormenting them. Think of it as a stack of burning that has to be removed by hitting it with your sword instead of a cleanse spell.

eldenbri.1059:

as a roamer in wvw

It’s the current year, man… why are you doing this to yourself?

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

snip

I have actually learned quite a bit from this lol. Thanks. I hope Anet provides some details on whichever decision they come to…

I grant that Anet is privy to hidden data we are not aware of. That info might be the main issue. But I think it is possible to make some educated guess based on what we players know.

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

it’s easier to stack sigils than weapons

How so? A sigil takes up 1 bag slot. A weapon (with the sigil in it) takes up 1 bag slot.

• With the overwriting of sigils, it’s probably not important “how often” as much as what the impact of that is on the demand and distribution.

Doesn’t “how often” directly impact demand? The more often players overwrite sigils, the more often they need new sigils. Theoretically if “how often” is a low number, then a swapping feature would have minimal impact.

• The last question is a bit naive. I don’t overwrite now; it’s far more trouble than it’s worth to me. But if I could buy once and swap easily, I’d do it all the time. And on top of that, I’d be more likely to make a legendary to fill a common niche.

My point with that question is to point out there is no consequential difference to the economy either way.

1. Either you never swap because you have your sigils and it’s too expensive to overwrite them.
2. Or you swap all the time because you (again) have your sigils, but can swap them without destroying them.

What I’m positing here is that people don’t just recklessly overwrite expensive sigils regardless of the cost. If they don’t overwrite, then what purpose do they have for buying more sigils?

The answer to that question is they have to buy the sigils they don’t already have, which would still be the case even with legendary swapping.

So basically from what you are telling me is the best reason this would harm the economy is by pushing more people into making more legendaries in order to take advantage of the feature. That would push demand for all the crafting materials of legendaries up, which would drive the prices up. Maybe this is what would ruin the economy? I really don’t think people buy that many extra sigils and overwrite. I think they buy what they need and that’s it. If people only buy what they need, how is that any different from buying the sigils they need to swap into their legendary?

You’re probably right about some of your points. I just don’t know. I’m trying to figure out why exactly this feature would be so deadly to the economy and Anet has only hinted they are worried about it, but haven’t given details.

So A lot of people want this feature, but many more don’t want it because they think it will destroy the economy. My questions are for those economic experts out there.

1. Why are sigils so different from runes economically?
2. Do people really buy a stack of 250 Force sigils and a stack of 250 Bursting sigils and constantly swap them multiple times a day?
3. If #2 is true, why not just buy a secondary exotic weapon for 5g and put the Bursting sigil in that for your condi build instead of wasting tons of money destroying valuable sigils over and over?
4. How many people in this game have a full set of legendary weapons across all characters? Does no one use exotics or ascended anymore?
5. How often do you truly believe everyone is destroying their sigils by overwriting?
6. If they aren’t overwriting their sigils now, why would this feature make any difference?

There will probably be some kind of balance patch coming with the expansion based on internal testing of the new elite specs and balancing those in particular. There’s rumor that Reaper will get adjusted to be a power spec (remove chill bleed and make chill do direct dmg).

Donari.5237:

Sadly, they’ve told us before that dyeing weapons and backpacks just isn’t doable with the structure of the game code. At least they elected to give us (some) dyeable gliders rather than force the gliders to locked-in colors just to match the back.

It’s not exactly impossible (and it’s not exactly the “game code’s” fault). It’s a matter of the shader artists going back and redoing all the shaders to include dye channels. Basically it’s way too much work with little payoff.

What % of the population has a full set of legendaries across all their toons? Are we all just magically going to have full legendaries? Is no one ever going to use a sigil on an exotic or ascended weapon ever again? I think not.

Even if it does affect the sigil market… so what… So rich TP barons will have to adjust their financial empire strategies… Cry me a river.

Can confirm it’s bugged for me too. Specifically it is “Ancient Hollow: Deep in a shallow cave southeast of the golem graveyard”. It’s sticking out of the wall in the back of the little cave full of spiders. That’s the only one I can’t get. I got all the others. I tried vine grasping at the wall and using Blink to attempt to glitch inside the wall, but ironically I can’t get stuck inside this wall…

Cyninja.2954:

It’s no more difficult than Flights of Fancy in Hearts and Minds and has the same mechanics working for and against it.

The first thing you have to realise is you can change (and have to) direction on both the Y and Z-axis. The destroyers will aim at your projected flight path so slight variations with left and right or faster/slower as well as up or down work. Ideally combine 2 directions, then after 2-3 seconds change.

As for picking up the orbs, either fly right beneath them and drift up, or try to gather them while falling into them. The updrift is to slow and will expose you to potential hits, hence why you want to keep it as short as possible.

In order to scan the last time you don’t have to drop all the way to ground level, there is leeway. Drop down, open you glider, activate the scan and already while scaning start alternating directions.

Yeah I get the idea, I just think there are too many control issues getting in the way of a proper challenge. I’m a long time Dark Souls player so I have a keen appreciation for tight responsive controls and dodging. I think my suggestions ought to be considered in the spirit of making gliding more responsive (particularly the removal of revealed).

On a brighter note I got the achievement thanks to some simple cheese… Not my preferred way of getting achievements, but life is too short to waste on clunky controls…

Dawdler.8521:

Xenon.4537:

Samnang.1879:

The only good ones so far have been the initial 3 that were released soon after HoT release.

I swear, if the next legendary is a broomstick or something, I will die.

Hmm…. yeah… about that… ~scratches back of head~

A broomstick with a golden handle and tentacles as the brush which sweep out tiny rainbow quaggans every move would be a true legendary.

On another note, I think I will keep my dragons head that breathe fore and engulf your entire arm in flames over… uh… a candelabra? Does it even light up stuff?

Not only is the design of Rodgort 10x better, it’s a reference to both Home Star Runner and a set of fire spells from GW1. This candlestick monstrosity never stood a chance.

This achievement is beyond frustrating. The controls for gliding are just not responsive enough. You have to drop to within 10 feet of the orb to scan it which sets you up for millions of fireballs from close range from all the destroyers standing right around the rim. The scanner has a 2 second cooldown and a cast time making it very sluggish and disastrous if you miss. You can’t really dodge the fireballs. You have to randomly change direction to avoid hits. If you try to stop yourself hitting the floor and begin going upward it takes a really long time to actually start moving upward. The ascension is sluggish at first and you get hit very easily waiting for your slow body to move. The best way to avoid getting hit is to stealth glide, but you only get that while moving upwards. To move downwards you have to drop glider which drops stealth. Also you have a revealed debuff when activating the glider, making responsiveness to avoid getting shot VERY sluggish and makes you waste stamina. Why am I being punished with a revealed debuff at all? This is completely unreasonable.

TL;DR – an achievement that requires precision flying without precise controls…

Suggestions:

1. Remove the revealed debuff from gliding.
2. Make the dodge actually give evade frames while gliding.
3. Make the upward ascension less sluggish if possible.
4. Let gliding stealth persist after dropping glider (so i can stay stealthed while falling).

Update:

The easiest way to get this is to cheese it with a friend… I just stood AFK at the top of the chamber and waited while someone else cleared the portals. Then I safely dropped down with zero risk… Achievements like this shouldn’t require cheese like this… sigh.

Samnang.1879:

The only good ones so far have been the initial 3 that were released soon after HoT release.

I swear, if the next legendary is a broomstick or something, I will die.

Hmm…. yeah… about that… ~scratches back of head~

There’s a bird whistle sound that plays every 5 seconds as ambient noise. It sounds like the stereotypical cartoon sound of a bomb falling like “WHHEEEeeeewwww…..”

Hearing that every few seconds softly in the background is driving me nuts! I’m gonna have to turn my sound off on this map…

For reference it sounds like the first 5 seconds of this:
https://youtu.be/cGigkA-Xh5E
Only it’s shorter than that and keeps repeating ad nauseam…

Sometime after 9am PST which is 3 hours and 20 minutes from my posting.

Mea.5491:

I hope the leaks are real stuff and we’re getting mounts. If you don’t like them, don’t use them, problem solved.

Yeah! I’ll just not use my [insert item that is required gameplay mechanics]. That’s a brilliant idea!

Endless Soul.5178:

Unpopular opinion: If that leak turns out to be true, and mounts are now added to GW2, it makes me rather sad.

I don’t think your opinion is unpopular, at least not around here. It seems like the people who love it are on reddit.

Judging by the abilities it sounds like mounts are going to be required to traverse the terrain using leaps and… mount gliding i guess? There might even be some limited combat abilities on the mounts… I just hope this junk is restricted to the new zones… Imagine taking a high speed raptor mount through Queensdale jumping over cliffs and stuff. Get from one side of Queensdale to the other in 30 seconds. Make the vanilla world feel half as big as it used to be… Sigh…

I’m also not fond of the idea that I’ll be seeing an Asura running along and they pop a giant kangaroo/rabbit thing out of their backside and go bouncing off into the sunset. Like seriously, where is the mount going to go when you aren’t riding it? Nowhere. It’s going to poof out of nothing when you summon it. And now imagine a zerg of 100 players poofing 100 mounts out of thin air all at the same time. That’s the future of GW2.

I’ll probably be quitting the game when they announce full-fledged flying mounts for expansion 3…

Gomes.5643:

Well if you implement mounts, the game should be created with that in mind. Which means that the maps should be more open, town hubs etc farer away from each other etc. And with these wide, open maps you need lots of small secrets/stuff to fill them.

So to put it short I think if mounts are implemented in the next expansion then they should go full on mounts, reducing fast travel significantly and designing the the maps in that regards.

The new maps look pretty huge. Some nearly twice as big as Malchor’s Leap.

The thing is if the map is twice as big, and you move twice as fast (on the mount) then nothing has changed… You still get from A to B at the same rate. Do the math. I don’t know why people ever thought mounts were necessary. It’s a gimmick to sell expansion copies to superficial flavor of the month MMO tourists.

Whatever… If it works, then good for Anet. I just hope it doesn’t ruin the game the way flying mounts did for WoW.

Carighan.6758:

Xenon.4537:

I want this more than the new legendary armor… how sad is that?

Well it’d probably look significantly better by virtue of there being a lower limit to looks.

What do you mean?

Orangensaft.7139:

ooor maybe that leak was just all lies in order to make people buy the mushrooms so the leak OP can make profit

If the leak is a hoax, it’s pretty darn elaborate. They have screen shots of fully rendered 3D models of mounts.

So either:

A) Someone photoshopped mounts from other games to fake this.
B) Someone fully modelled 3D creature mounts to fake this.
C) It’s legit.

“A” is possible, but if that’s the case then show me what game that giant rabbit mount is from.

“B” is highly unlikely. No one would go through that much effort for a hoax, especially when option A is 9000% easier.

“C” is looking pretty likely now isn’t it?

I feel the need to reiterate that I agree with you guys that we have too many trench coats and I want Anet to make other things.

I’m just here to clarify some of the misconceptions because I see a lot of people speculating on what the cause of the problem is when they don’t really know the process of modelling, rigging, or animating to begin with.

I know next to nothing about rocket science so I’m sure if I tried to speculate on a mission to Mars I would get some of the details wrong.

Carighan.6758:

Hrm, I was more thinking like the custom coolant flow analysis plugins my dad used to have at work before retiring, to properly construct coolant pumps. The base software was off the shelf, but you realistically couldn’t use it for their purposes without their plugins.

For designing a game item, I would suppose that you have custom-built plugins which can automatically do some of the texturing and underlying structure for animations for you. I mean this is a MMO, you need a lot of items, so makes sense to automate as much as possible. Probably also got a “generator” which starts from a template and with some simple choices does some of the initial work for you.

It all depends on the task at hand. For textures they paint in photoshop by hand and apply it to the model. There aren’t any special tools that do it for you. They might use a special tool to make it easier to “UV” the model (unwrap it so it can be painted) or they might use a program to paint directly on a model. However the artist is always required to paint the texture.

As for animations… No. There is no special tool that has “basic” animations for you. Not unless you are just re-using someone else’s animations (which in itself requires matching skeletons). An Anet animator went on stream a few months back talking about his process which is a pretty standard process from the sound of it (I’ll find a link). He does storyboards on paper first to work out his key poses. Then he takes the character into Maya which comes in a T-pose and starts animating.

Now getting back to the topic of modelling a trench coat… The modeller generally plans the design on paper making “orthographic” drawings (front view, side view, etc). Then he goes into Maya or Zbrush and starts making polygons using the default naked body of the character as a base. They might even take an existing trench coat and modify it. That’s not a tool. That’s a piece of geometry. That’s like taking a finished car and modifying the bumper or adding a spoiler or something to the body of the car.

The problem with trench coats isn’t that Anet has some kind of automated tool pumping them out. It’s that Anet needs to get their paper and pencil and draw some designs that aren’t trench coats… And then model those.

animation:
https://youtu.be/qqbQgVOMEVw

Carighan.6758:

Yeah but someone must have written extensive plugins for specific use in GW2, right?

That’s why you have tooling programmers in game companies, they do that stuff for the rest of the team, custom plugins, entire software, etc.

Yes but they wouldn’t write a tool that… makes trench coats… that’s not how any of this works. Maybe I misunderstood you?

Edit: For clarity, your suggestion is akin to someone making a “tool” that builds a car. A whole car. One tool that makes a whole car. On top of that you are suggesting this magic tool is flawed and can only make one type of car (a trench coat) and Anet never bothered to update the tool to make entire other kinds of cars.

PvE rev is basically just a lot of auto attacking… PvP rev I haven’t tried but sounds like trying to play a piano with half the keys missing.

Rev needs a lot of help.