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Allow us to remove followers

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Zok.4956

I still dont understand what’s the problem.

I don’t under stand what people are talking about? Has GW2 got a built in twitter or something that I didn’t know about?

The friends list has an extra tab for “followers”, as in people who have put your account onto their friends list, but you do not have them on your list. It’s the third tab (after friends and lfg, and before blocked accounts).

I never understand the reason for this “follower-list”. Maybe A-Net was half-way finishing the “friend-system” when the development of this stopped.

Some small changes would be missing:

  • rename the “follower-list” to “unanswered friend requests”
  • add “accept” and “deny” buttons to this list
  • if “deny” is clicked the player is removed from this list
  • if “accept” is clicked the player is removed from this list and added to the friend-list

Of course a popup, when someone gets a “friend-request”, would also be nice…

Greetings.

Simple (or not) Dungeon Owner fix

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Zok.4956

Hi, here are some suggestions based on what others have been raising. I don’t know if it’s at all possible to program the party system this way, but it would be much appreciated if Ryan could help enlighten us.

Transferable ‘Party Leader’ status

  • Player who opened dungeon has a ‘Party Leader’ icon next to their names in party list.
  • If Party Leader is vote kicked instance will close.
  • If Party Leader uses /leave, switches character or goes offline, the Leader status is transferred to another member.

Good ideas.

one additional function:

  • Party Leader can transfer his “Party Leader” status to another player in the group/party

Of course, party-leader could have some extra functions that have nothing to do with kicking. i.e.

  • Party Leader can initiate a “ready check” and all party members get a popup-windows with “are you ready yes/no” and the results are written in the chat-channel.

Greetings.

We *DO* want to know what's in development.

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Zok.4956

After the book/script is finished it takes a lot of planning, time and ressources to produce a tv-series (like game of thrones) or a game-play-series (like GW2 LS2). And in both endeavours there will be unexpected problems and some things that do not work as intended.

From Game of Thrones I know already, that there will be a 5th and 6th Season, even if season 5 will likely start not before march/april next year. I do not know what will be in the next season, I do not want spoilers, but I am pretty sure they will deliver (on time).

Is there a Season 3 of LS in the planning/making? Is there any announcement like “due to the success of (the first half of) season 2 of the LS we have made the decision to produce a season 3”?

No, of course not. It looks to me from the outside: A-Net does not want to announce anything before it is finished, because they know they are very often not able to finish and deliver an announced product and do not want this to became public evidence, so they announce nothing. Which would be really bad.

Greetings.

Now let’s continue your analogy and show what’s wrong with your argument.
(… some questions deleted ….)
Why are people so complacent with waiting this long, do you really think fans would put up with that in a series like Game of Thrones?

Yes, if there would be no timely announcements that Game of Thrones was renewed and that there will be at least a next season a lot of fans and other people would ask “whats wrong with the series? will there be a next season? are there problems? why no information about a next season?”

This uncertainness would quite raise some similar questions that are asked A-Net now.

Greetings.

So you’d be okay with Tyrion doing things like lifting up a boulder or Joffrey traveling with a scoobie doo lunchbox or a winnie the poo backpack?

What does that have to do with making or not making announcements?

Way to completely disregard the whole point of what I said there buddy.

I am not your buddy. What exactly is your point?

Greetings.

We *DO* want to know what's in development.

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Posted by: Zok.4956

Zok.4956

After the book/script is finished it takes a lot of planning, time and ressources to produce a tv-series (like game of thrones) or a game-play-series (like GW2 LS2). And in both endeavours there will be unexpected problems and some things that do not work as intended.

From Game of Thrones I know already, that there will be a 5th and 6th Season, even if season 5 will likely start not before march/april next year. I do not know what will be in the next season, I do not want spoilers, but I am pretty sure they will deliver (on time).

Is there a Season 3 of LS in the planning/making? Is there any announcement like “due to the success of (the first half of) season 2 of the LS we have made the decision to produce a season 3”?

No, of course not. It looks to me from the outside: A-Net does not want to announce anything before it is finished, because they know they are very often not able to finish and deliver an announced product and do not want this to became public evidence, so they announce nothing. Which would be really bad.

Greetings.

Now let’s continue your analogy and show what’s wrong with your argument.
(… some questions deleted ….)
Why are people so complacent with waiting this long, do you really think fans would put up with that in a series like Game of Thrones?

Yes, if there would be no timely announcements that Game of Thrones was renewed and that there will be at least a next season a lot of fans and other people would ask “whats wrong with the series? will there be a next season? are there problems? why no information about a next season?”

This uncertainness would quite raise some similar questions that are asked A-Net now.

Greetings.

We *DO* want to know what's in development.

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Posted by: Zok.4956

Zok.4956

There are two types of writers. Guys like Piers Anthony outline their work and they write it to that outline, hardly ever varying what they write. Guys like Stephen King don’t use outlines and evolve the story as they go.

Stephen King, before he finishes a book, doesn’t really always know where it’s going. I uses the equivalent of an iterative process. I understand it, because it’s the same process I use when I write. I don’t use an outline.

It takes longer and you have to backtrack more often, but that’s what works for me. I strongly suspect WoW is working from the equivalent of an outline, but Anet is, in many ways, breaking new ground. So they won’t always know what works and what doesn’t. So announcing stuff is more of a risk.

After the book/script is finished it takes a lot of planning, time and ressources to produce a tv-series (like game of thrones) or a game-play-series (like GW2 LS2). And in both endeavours there will be unexpected problems and some things that do not work as intended.

From Game of Thrones I know already, that there will be a 5th and 6th Season, even if season 5 will likely start not before march/april next year. I do not know what will be in the next season, I do not want spoilers, but I am pretty sure they will deliver (on time).

Is there a Season 3 of LS in the planning/making? Is there any announcement like “due to the success of (the first half of) season 2 of the LS we have made the decision to produce a season 3”?

No, of course not. It looks to me from the outside: A-Net does not want to announce anything before it is finished, because they know they are very often not able to finish and deliver an announced product and do not want this to became public evidence, so they announce nothing. Which would be really bad.

Greetings.

Is the RNG system truthly random?

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Zok.4956

There is a difference in algorithms that have to generate a “unique number” (for which the RTC is a acceptable source) and ones that have to generate a “random number” (for which the RTC is not a acceptable source).

As for the first part, it is true only in a single thread/single processing unit environment. On a multithread and/or clustered environment, multiple process can access the same clock value and generate the same output.

Yes, of course, the RTC method works only if it really is uniqe, which means that no two (or more) calls ever get the same value. So the granularity of the clock should be so fine/small that there is no “simultaneousness” within one clock cycle or (if thats not practical) there should some other methods to prevent this.

Greetings.

Communicating with you

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Zok.4956

A good designed customer survey can be a very informative and powerful instrument for a company. Please do not trivialize it.

I think you don’t get what I was trying to say. My point is that the outcome of a survey could make more peope unhappy because of the shift in development which would result.

The goal is not to make everyone happy, because that is not possible. The goal is to understand (as a company) the customer better, to deliver products that satisfies the customer better (not every customer but most/a lot of customers).

So overall, the result (when it is done right) of a survey would be “more customer happiness” which results normally in “more revenue for the company”.

Of course, nothing prevents some to make errors, misinterpret results and to draw the wrong conclusions. But if you expect already that everyhing will be done wrong than there is no point in a discussion to improve things.

Greetings.

Communicating with you

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Zok.4956

I think polls wouldn’t have valuable results because of this:

Q: How important is SAB for you?
A: Very important —> tons of people
B: Neutral
C: I can’t stand it

Anet: Ok, you voted for SAB, our map-designers will now stop working on new maps and focus on SAB only. You’ll get world 3 in 3 months, no new maps in the near future.
Us: O______o noooooo

You are making the assumption to know the poll and the result of a poll before it happend. When you really do know the result of a poll before the poll, then the poll is useless.

But the result of the poll could also be “only 10% liked the SAB, but 80% liked the LS2.0 so far” .. which could lead to some other priorities or some confirmation for A-Net.

A good designed customer survey can be a very informative and powerful instrument for a company. Please do not trivialize it.

Greetings.

Is the RNG system truthly random?

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Zok.4956

That’s actually one of the flaws of computers generating RNG values. Every RNG type function needs a SEED number (not the same as a possible ACCOUNT or CHARACTER seed number the OP is speculating about) to generate the RNG value. WHERE this seed number comes from is USUALLY the system real time clock…..so similar values ARE more possible (or likely) if the RNG values are generated very close together. Again, speculation based on programming experience, not any inside knowledge of what Anet’s code does.

From my experience, this usually is not.

And I would say, if a programmer bases the pseudo random Generator seed on the real-time-clock and not on some source of enthropy (like /dev/random in linux) than the programmer has made an error.

There is a difference in algorithms that have to generate a “unique number” (for which the RTC is a acceptable source) and ones that have to generate a “random number” (for which the RTC is not a acceptable source).

Greetings.

Communicating with you

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Zok.4956

Hi devs and forumgoers, since this topic is exactly to talk about how to better the communication between developers and the community, I would like to make a suggestion: Polls.

I think this is a very good idea.

The company seems a little bit disconnected from ist customers wishes and seems not to understand fully what the customers wants, so the best solution would be: ask the costumer.

So, make a good customer survey, inform your customers about the survey (not only on this forum, but also ingame und with email), make an incentive for filling out this survey (i.e. give everyone who completes the survey a precursor… just kidding) and promise (and do it afterwards) to fully show us the results of this survey.

Maybe the results could hurt the “pride” of one or two persons and show that some people have a distorted self-perception, but overall it would be for the better of us all.

And then: Analyze the results and make a plan to become better based on these results and communicate this plan to your customers.

With this kind of transparency a lot of trust could be regained.

Greetings.

P.S: AND then: Do the same survey 6 months later and compare the results.

September Fix Patch

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Zok.4956

Most of the items you listed off that aren’t in this update are because they are content.

Why is “Language in Europe” in this blog post? The chat filter was part of a bugfix/workaround in the past. There seems to be no new game features for “Language in Europe” with this feature patch.

Greetings.

KUDOS to Anet for the Megaserver improvements

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Zok.4956

Does this also mean when you transfer to another server you won’t lose any upgrades that was unlocked for your guild? As for now, when you transfer you start you lose all your upgrades.

Yes. Since the megaservers this “server centric” guild-system should have been changed. Good that they have changed this now, only 4 month later.

About “Language in Europe”: There is nothing in this paragraph from the feature patch. They only describe a bugfix they made (chat filter) in the past. So why is it in there? To make the whole announcement look bigger than it is?

For now, we’ve decided not to entirely separate the different language communities onto unique map copies. While we understand that it might be difficult for some to communicate across the language barrier, we still think it’s important to have maps that feel populated no matter where in Tyria you go or at which hours you play.
(…)
We are always listening for your feedback, as it is very important for us to make the best possible game for you

Yeah, I can understand english and german. but not french. I do not have a good experience when I am placed on a map where mainly french is spoken (nothing against french in chat, I just can not understand it and I do not want to police them to speak english) and so the game feels in such moments populated, but not with other players I can communicate with, but with NPCs.

I wonder what player feedback A-net has listened to. Obviously not to the players that wanted to choose by themselves, if they want (i.e. with on config option) to be on “multi-language” maps or “single language maps” (which sometimes may could feel empty).

Greetings.

Communicating with you

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Zok.4956

5. If you have best development team – code will be faster, reliable, easier to support and change, less bugs, but you know it Looks like you have very good team. Not a problem now

I do have to disagree with this one item.

From the outside it is not visible why some bugs/errors where not fixed timely and why (probably often) bugs in updates get fixed only in the last minute (and scheduled updates come a few hours later…) and then bugs occur that my have been identified before update with better testing. (of course … not all bugs can be found before going live…).

That could be a money/ressource problem of the company, that could be a management problem, that could be a problem within development team. I do not know this and probably no one outside of A-Net does.

Greetings.

Communicating with you

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Zok.4956

We’ve set a clear policy in the past year: we don’t talk speculatively about future development. We don’t want to string you along. Creating fun is an uncertain business: sometimes things work out and sometimes they don’t; sometimes we go back to the drawing board over and over before we get something right. If we make optimistic promises and then can’t deliver on them, everyone suffers.

It is not about making and breaking promises. It is about letting your customers know, on a regular basis, in which directions you are going and thinking and in which direction the game will go in the next month, half year, year.

And it is also about letting your customers know, whether or not a problem of your game / your customers is identified by you as a problem or is “working as intended”. (example: some issues of the megaserver …)

If your communication will not be more specific in the future then everyone will suffer more. Wild speculation (because A-net says nothing with substance) can also lead to false hope and suffering.

This “suffering”, that you may not have realised in the past, already leads to this actual situation.

Only to announce things that are already finished (which I interepret as: are in beta test completion and will be delivered within the next 4 weeks) can lead easily to the false idea that there is no management strategy and no real roadmap and development plan.

Don’t read that as meaning that we don’t want to talk with you about the longer-term roadmap.

Ok, then. What is your long-term roadmap? I do not want to read as an answer what is in development and what not, but what is the (as of today) roadmap for one year, two years? Will it be an expansion? Will it be LS 3.0? Will it be Cantha?

I would like to hear about managment strategy but not develompment details.

When those discussions trigger development, we’ll work internally until we have something we’re proud of before we’ll announce it.

Are you proud of the megaservers, how they were announced, how community feedback was considered after the announcement, how they were developed, how they were rolled out and how the "after rollout bugfixing " and communication was and is handled?

I do not want to be offensive or rude. please forgive me if a am too direct. English is not my mother language.

Greetings.

P.S. I do not want to change this discussion to be about megaservers. that is only an example.

Brainstorm: Key Discussion Points

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Zok.4956

What if every major thread offered a dev sticky at the top that summarized the key discussion points around that area we’re aware of as a dev team? We’d track the last major update(s) to those areas that shipped live in the sticky thread, and each time a new update is made update that thread accordingly.

That sounds better than nothing, but could mean a lot of different things.

Could you please give an example: i.e. what would stand in such a “summarized” posting according to megaservers?

Would there stand in detail “megaservers have the problems a,b,c,d and we think issues e,f,g and h are not a problem but are working as intended”?

Or do you mean something completely different?

  • Per company policy (see Mike O’Brien’s post for his summary of ArenaNet’s dev communcation policy) we wouldn’t be able to discuss what is currently in development, or what progress we’re making on it. It would purely be a list of core high level topics we are aware of and think are important in Gw2.

So (to stay with the example) you could not tell wether you are working on some of the problems and what work you prioritize and what not and when you HOPE (not promise) to solve these problems.

Do I understand this I right?

Please keep discussion points around the policies of communication over in Mo’s “communicating with you” thread. This thread is purely for discussing the concept of these key topic point stickies.

It is all connected. Whoever implemented this policy should really think about what bad this did to the company and to the customers (us) and how this policy could ne changed ASAP.

Greetings.

Anet is out of touch

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Zok.4956

My favorite : “We don’t have anything we can say right now”.
(…)
Why on earth are you doing a kitten interview than?

Because they were presenting some stuff from GW2 and were asked by a bunch of young people standing at their both and thought it would be rude to say just “no”?

I watched the video and thought “Why are they asking him theses questions? Do they really believe A-Net would reveal some new things this way, that no one else knows?”

I generally think A-Net has no learn to communicate with their community (their customers) much better but I also think the growing kitten-storm is an overreaction.

Greetings.

final boss fight too much

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Zok.4956

the only thing you really have to dodge is the glowing-ground-stomp and when youre targetted for that plant-cocoon-prison. everything else you can avoid just by running.

You do not have to dodge the glowing-ground , just jump.
And another dodge saved. ^^

Greetings.

Ascended Back, Nope nope nope

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Zok.4956

For the last time I dont agree with how it is made, I dont care if you agree with me or not, I PERSONALLY DONT AGREE WITH HOW IT IS MADE.

I do agree with how it is made. I like this scavenger hunt. And I think this is the right direction for A-net to go.

Greetings.

SPOILER: The Big Hero

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Zok.4956

Taimi is only a part of the team because the story never gave me the chance to act like a normal person and keep children away from extremely violent enterprises.

Yes, exactly.

I do not hate or blame Taimi. After all, she is just a child and acts like one. A Genious child, but a child.

And I would definitely not let her play unsupervised with potential weapons of mass destruction.

The proper supervision of Taimi has to be from other Asura (even if I do not like Phlunt) that can understand what she is doing.

Greetings.

My problem with Canach

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Zok.4956

Canach is the one shining light in the otherwise terrible NPC lot the Living story has introduced. He’s not goody-good, one-dimensional or baddy-bad. I’d team up with him anyday rather than the ones I’m forced to team with.

And yes Anise is another good character, so pairing him with her is a good move. She is definitely mysterious.

Exactly my thoughts. Please, A-Net, let us choose our NPC companions.

Greetings.

Some help with the new backpiece

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Zok.4956

Now, looking at the recipes, am I right that, crafting profession wise, all that she has to get herself are bloodstone bricks? IE, she only needs a single crafting profession at 450.

Yes, but she also needs for the Exotic Essence of Luck to be really lucky or Artificer Level 0 (which is easy) :-) to make them from “lower” essences.

Greetings.

final boss fight too much

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Zok.4956

I learned from the first three episode: be ranged. I spent the entire fight being glad I didn’t do the latest episode with my condi thief.

Well I tried this fight melee only. I died a lot. When I was naked I thought is seems I did something wrong, I switched to ranged, looked for a kind of safe spot and finished it naked without dying again. I like this fight and how you have to learn/understand it.

Greetings.

P.S. Has anyone done damage directly to the boss with pure melee?

[SPOILERS] Canach and Anise

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Zok.4956

Well you do know one of the biggest rules about talking to females is to never ask about her age.

Well you do know one of the biggest rules (not only about talking to females) is to know when it is best to break the rules. ^^

Greetings.

Is the RNG system truthly random?

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Zok.4956

This game rely on alot of RNG for it’s drop system. It also should be commonsense that the RNG isn’t truthly RNG, but uses a pseudorandom number generator that uses some unknown seed to generate these number to determine drops.

We do not know which algorythms are used for the random number generation. And we do not know what source of entrophy the system uses for the random number generation.

But a pseudo random generator that gets its seed from an entrophy source (like /dev/random in linux) is good enough for cryptograpic software (like OpenSSL) and could for game issues be seen as “truthly random”.

But I have also observed that drops tend to identical, for example wvw chest that spawn the exact same item. I am wondering if anyone else has noticed that drop tend not to be so random.

Not all items/events share the same “global game wide loot table” but have their own. So the drops are random (factor in the item probability in the loot table) in relation to their own loot table.

Those of us with bad seeds will never get the items they wants.
(…)
It might explain why there are lucky accounts and unluck accounts.

I do not think that player accounts or chars have their own “seed” for a pseudo random number generator. Why should they? It does not make any sense from a system and software development perspective.

I think the explanation is quite simple. Random is random und luck is luck.

If you roll a dice, that has the numbers 1 to 100 on it, 100 times, it could be that you have rolled every number from 1 to 100, or it could be that you only have rolled the numbers 1-50 and never got the numbers 51-100, etc…

Within such “small samples” the “luck” is not spread evenly and the human brain tries to see patterns where none exist.

Every player gets the same chances, but that does not mean that every player gets the same items.

Greetings.

(edited by Zok.4956)

Missing "Last Good-Bye"

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Zok.4956

After you finish the fight with the statue, after the conversation, in the instance, you should talk to rox again and she gives you the Pile of Phantasmal Residue. So you have to redo the instance or hope that A-Net does change something within the next patch and you can get it elsewhere.

And be sure to do it solo with your alt. I was first with my alt in a group and could not talk to rox myself.

Greetings.

Rytlock Ritual End Fight

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Zok.4956

The main complaint is how obnoxious the mechanics are. Not the difficulty level.

Exactly that.

On my first run I really hated the mechanics, because I always was feared/knocked back in the wrong directions and was downed a lot, the statue wont take any damage, etc etc…

But after my forth run (with an Alt) I really like the fight. You have to understand the fight mechanics and its choreography but then it is quite fun (at least for me).

And you should listen to the NPCs, the tell you what to do. That was my problem in my first run, I did not listen and understood what they said.

So in the end, for me, this end fight was the best part of S02E03. I hope I get more of this type in the future. And I think it is the right way for A-Net to raise the bar a little.

Greetings.

DR Part 2: Trailer

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Zok.4956

And we can explore a new part of the dry top map.

Jumping Feedback Thread

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Zok.4956

GW2 is more “action” and reaction-time focused than other mmo titles. Example: There is the right timing of dodging in fights as a core game mechanic.

I think a person (if it is 40, 50 or 60 years or older) that has the reaction time to drive a car safely has fast enough reactions to play GW2 and it is more an issue of liking, learning and practicing the jumping.

As I am one of the older players myself I did first not like (as an example) the windersday-snowflake jumping and thought the timing/cordination would be impossible to manage, but with practice it worked and was fun.

However, I was not very happy to have the aspect-skills in the LS2-Episode. Because I jumped a lot with the aspect-skills in the last weeks (and first it was fun) until it was not fun anymore. So doing it again now (with a timer) does not increase my fun.

I also think that jumping puzzles are often more “trial and error” and not “player skill based”. Often the camera is weird and you see nothing or see inside of clipping things, or you stand “in the air” and on invisible boxes or hit invisible boxes because the character collides with the invisible environment. I think that should be fixed.

The actual map has 2 (or 3, depends ) aspect-jumps that are required (at the first waypoint). After that you can walk all the way to the second waypoint without jumping. Most of the events in this map can be done without jumping. I do not think that there is too much mandatory jumping in this map.

Greetings.

Is there a low map cap?

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Zok.4956

Map cap is all I can think of. Maybe to lower the system requirements with the sandstorm going on also, or maybe just to limit zerg size? The map chat has been virtually nil, even when I end up talking to myself

Yes I have noticed too that the map chat was quite silent when I played a few hours ago and that the map always felt empty.

Maybe A-Net lowered the map cap intentionally because it is a small map and it should not feel crowded. Maybe most players were playing the story-instance first, which would take some time.

Greetings.

The Update casts its shadow before

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Zok.4956

Login takes a very long time and the auction house does not work (or takes too long).

My guess is: Either Anet is preparing the servers for the update, which results in slow and overloaded servers or a lot of players are logging in and preparing their chars for the update and this causes overloaded servers.

It seems, no one listens to: Never play on patch day. :-)

Greetings.

Game of Thrones Comparison

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Zok.4956

It is not accurate to compare a tv series and a game story – they work in two entirely different ways. To even try and emulate a TV series in a game is utter folly. Season 1 proved that.

Yes, they work in different ways. But they can have similarities. Like storytelling. A TV series can have a good storytelling and a computer game can have a good storytelling.

Greetings.

Living Story Journal Issues and Concerns

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Zok.4956

Does that mean Living Story is going to be less focused on group content?

Living Story will be like Personal Story a single player instance where you can bring your friends with you.

The rest, I assume, will be added maps in the open world with some new bosses that can be repeated like the “megaserver bus schedule timetable”.

Greetings.

Game of Thrones Comparison

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Zok.4956

That’s not really what they’d said.

They said a lot of things, as I remember (but can not quote exactly). How can you be so sure to think that you know everything they said?

Before Ned Stark was killed in Game of Thrones a lot of people thought “No, they can not do this”. But they did.

Nobody said that.

You are wrong. I know of a dozen people who said that. That is more than “nobody”.

Everyone knew he was going to die because it was Sean Bean.

You are wrong again. Not everybody. I know a lot of people who did not read the books an did not know that they really kill him of.

Greetings

P.S. Sean Bean is not a redshirt per se.

Game of Thrones Comparison

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Posted by: Zok.4956

Zok.4956

Before the start Living World Season One someone from A-Net said, they want to be for a computer game MMO what Game of Thrones is for a TV-series.

One recurring concept of Game of Thrones is, that if you really start to like a character, it is very likely that this character will die. In GW2 Lions Arch was treated as a character.

Before Ned Stark was killed in Game of Thrones a lot of people thought “No, they can not do this”. But they did.

Before Lions Arch was destroyed in GW2 a lot of people thought “No, they can not do this”. But they did.

Of course, writing and production quality differs a lot. Not every writer/show has the quality to win an Oscar or Grammy. Thats why I really hope that the quality of the storytelling improves in LW season 2.

Greetings.

GW2 releases Story Journals: Feedback/Questions [Merged]

in Living World

Posted by: Zok.4956

Zok.4956

Not quite. Say you earn 10 gold in an hour of play time.

Right now, that 10g will get you 100 gems. Using your credit card, 100 gems costs you $1.25.

Not saying you shouldn’t buy gems with gold, but don’t fool yourself into thinking you’re ahead of the game doing that.

Playing a game.

Working a minimum wage job.

Not the same thing at all.

Right. The most people I know, that are playing this game, do not make very much “gold per hour”. (not even one gold). So they can not exchange a lot of gold to gems and if they want gems they have to pay with real money.

If you want more gold, you have to farm/grind for it. A lot of people do not like farming/grinding and compare this to work. And then the next logical step is to compare how much (gems) they could get with “in-game work” and “real-life work”.

Greetings.

200 gems is $2.50 USD

in Living World

Posted by: Zok.4956

Zok.4956

Also it doesn’t seem like ANet will be gating open world PvE content, so these chapters won’t be mandatory purchases to access area A, or get to PvP map B. If this was the case though then I’d be against it since this would force people to have to buy it.

Well, I see the LS2 as a “test drive” for A-Net to introduce the “micro-addon payment transaction” model. If it works for A-Net then I am sure there will be more of this in the future (in 6-12 months) when it is mostly accepted by the player base and then new maps, open-pve-content, could also be gated with this in the future.

I do not have a problem to pay for an add-on. But in the end, my experience shows, that micro-transactions tend to become more expensive than buying a “complete” add-on.

Greetings.

Will I have to pay for micro-updates ?

in Living World

Posted by: Zok.4956

Zok.4956

Correct me if I’m wrong, but didn’t I already purchase your game? At what point does it become ok to charge your customers more for something they’ve already purchased? Why even gate the content like this? Does this mean I’ll have to pay for micro-updates of the living story in the near future?

Yes, that could be the way with this issue. It seem Anet wants to introduce a way to pay for “mini/micro addons” in a slow way.

At first, most of the existing players do not have to pay anything (because they log in when every eposide is there), so there will not be much of an “outburst”.

And there will alway be a (small-ish) percentage of players, who could not log in to the game during the time of an episode (illness, work, holiday,…) and who have to pay but they are not the majority. Anet will know he numbers, how much revenue this will generate.

And of course, new players, that “bought” the game will have to pay for all episodes that happend before they started with the game.

So, within several months, when it is accepted by the player base, it will shift to more and more so that more and more players have to pay for (LS oder similar) mini/micro-addons.

Don’t get me wrong. I do not have a problem to pay for an add-on. A lot of players have asked for that. And I do like “permanent content” and would really like to “replay” some parts of my personal story (if that ever happens) and the LS and the “permanent content” (mini addons).

But in the end, paying with micro-transacations (here a dollar, there a dollar,…) tend to become more expensive then a “normal” add-on for say 30-60 bucks.

Greetings.

P.S. Yes, some can convert enough gold to gems. But buying gems with real money will always be a substantial part of the gem store. So its also about buying content with real money.

The hidden truth about the "Chaos of Lyssa"

in Festival of the Four Winds

Posted by: Zok.4956

Zok.4956

At least it has options. You CAN farm most efficient thing or you CAN farm less efficient thing thats fun. AND you can get a jackpot by doing either.

Alternative is to farm same exact content ad nasueum whether you like it or not.

Alternative is the fun activity should be the most rewarding and efficient and the “farm gold and buy in TP” should be the less efficient thing.

Greetings.

The hidden truth about the "Chaos of Lyssa"

in Festival of the Four Winds

Posted by: Zok.4956

Zok.4956

If activity A provides you with a lot of Gold earning opportunities, and activity B does not, then it’s the players fault for choosing to do B over A. Mind you that this only applies if the main purpose of doing either activity is to make money..

If I want to make money I do not play GW2 but make money in real life. This activity is normally called “work”.

If you choose to do activity B because it’s more fun than A, then you’re making the conscious decision to miss out on making Gold. At that point, since you made the choice, you can’t complain.

Yes, I choose very often to play the fun activities because I play to have fun. And I do not complain about it.

GW2 is not primarily a business simulation but a MMORPG. So playing the “normal” content should be the most rewarding way to “earn” currency/items but not gambling on the stock exchange (TP).

Greetings.

The hidden truth about the "Chaos of Lyssa"

in Festival of the Four Winds

Posted by: Zok.4956

Zok.4956

The big difference between those games and GW2 in terms of gear (other than the obvious treadmill that comes with a subscription game) is that in those games you need to grind Activity A over and over and hope for Item A to drop whereas in GW2 you can grind Activity A-Z and use the gold generated to buy Item A-Z.

Some people feel like grinding one activity for each item is better (heaven knows why). Other people realize that GW2 gives you MORE options for getting your gear and appreciate that they can do the stuff they like doing to get the stuff they like having.

The obvious treadmill comes with every MMO. Otherwise players would be “done” really fast and leave the game.

The overall idea of GW2 to have multiple ways to get stuff is a good one and I like it very much.

But in reality it turns out that it is often much easier to get stuff not as a direct drop or achievment but indirect by buying it in the TP with gold. And the most efficient way to farm gold is not (always) the way with the most fun. Because of this GW2 has some really “grindy taste”, sometimes even more than other games with less choice.

Greetings.

Make better patch notes

in Guild Wars 2 Discussion

Posted by: Zok.4956

Zok.4956

We DON’T have to know everything they do and that is the point.

If so, what is the point of patchnotes anyway? Just to advertise new things we can buy with gems/money?

Greetings.

Unable to complete Bazaar Events

in Festival of the Four Winds

Posted by: Zok.4956

Zok.4956

Joined Aspect Arena only to be on a losing team, get no rewards and come out in a totally different mega-sigh-server to a race that has 5 ppl completed and 2minutes left!

So, yet again another event that is completely ruined by overflows/mega-sigh-servers.

Yes. But this is nothing new with overflows. As soon a you go into an instance, do a mini-game, etc… you are leaving the map you were in (and risk no to come back to the same map-version). And after you come back to “this” map it is not the same map, if the system places you on a different overflow/megaserver.

I think the system should place you on the same map-version you have left, but it is not how the system works.

Greetings.

Boom-Boom Baines, poor design?

in Festival of the Four Winds

Posted by: Zok.4956

Zok.4956

Your point is wrong.

I think your example is.

QP is different. You have groups going to different areas to kill a boss.

And if every of the six groups already has the optimal size, other players should stay away or the fight takes longer because of the upscaling of the bosses.

So other players that come to the map (the 40 from the first example….) should wait AFK at the waypoint and get nothing? Of course they want to help take down the bosses and they do and split randomly because there is no tool (instead of the language-filtered and therefore unreliable chat) that they can see fast if and were help is needed.

On top of that you can coordinate to kill all 6 bosses at almost the same time. Which has been done already.

That does not confirm anything and was not denied by me.
Gold was mostly done when most of the players on the map were highly centrally organized before the Event started (like from the same guild) and had the same goal (kill bosses and not kill-50 mobs) and spoke/wrote the same language (so that the chat-filter did not prevent coordination).

A player who wants to “kill 50 mobs for achievement” fast has the same right to do so as a player who wants do take down the six bosses fast. But these to groups/goals mostly do not mix very well. And no group can force the other group to do what they want. It is the game mechanis that puts these different player groups/goals on the same map and created the achievements/rewards and therefore it is the fault of the game mechanics/design.

Greetings.

Boom-Boom Baines, poor design?

in Festival of the Four Winds

Posted by: Zok.4956

Zok.4956

“Don’t zerg it”
Sure, let me just ask the other 40 players in the area to go idle in the center of the map while 5 of us take down the boss. I’m sure that’ll work…

If people can’t figure it out then that is too bad. The 40 should realize that they already got credit for the other bosses and that they aren’t helping.

Just to tag a boss and then go away/AFK to let others do the “work” is normally considered a rude/bad/unwantend behaviour.

An open-world game mechanic, that requires and supports this behaviour is wrong.

On top of the fact that if they join they get either lower rewards or it takes a longer time for them to get their rewards. In no way would anyone who actually thinks would say yes I want it to take longer so I get worse rewards. Mechanics shouldn’t change, players should.

The game mechanic should always value and honor in open-world scenarios, that/when players want to help and play with others and do not go AFK.

So in this case, the game mechanics should be changed.

Greetings.

Boom-Boom Baines, poor design?

in Festival of the Four Winds

Posted by: Zok.4956

Zok.4956

Eh? There’s a great big stream of energy particles flowing from the turret to the boss when its up. Either people have their graphics turned to zero or they’re too stupid to help.

That has nothing to do with stupid. I have good graphics enabled an never saw these particles flowing within the overall particle effects light show.

To check for the next turret I always looked at my minimap.

Greetings.

why the new pavillion does not work

in Festival of the Four Winds

Posted by: Zok.4956

Zok.4956

If people cannot follow a simple instruction that is being pushed in their faces (/s visible speech popups), more detailed informations (or any more advanced tactics, like asking the group to split) will not help.

Maybe it was not “pushed in their faces”, because (thanks to megaserver and the default-language-chat-filter) the people could not see what you were writing in chat?

Greetings.

Best. Dive. Ever.

in Festival of the Four Winds

Posted by: Zok.4956

Zok.4956

Why is there no achievement “Best. Dive. Ever.” anymore for anyone that does not have it yet?

You can climb/jump to the Zephyrite kite ship’s bow and there are the diving goggles like they were at the Bazaar of the Four Winds. But there is no achievement for the jump anymore. I really would like to see this achievement added. Would be fun.

Thanks.

Greetings.

Possible solution for Pavilion (don't merge)

in Festival of the Four Winds

Posted by: Zok.4956

Zok.4956

The game should help players to organize themselves without commanders or (big) guilds in this open world events.

1. The event should “normal” scale to the amount of players on a Boss, so that is does not matter if 15 players or 30 players are attacking a boss.
2. The client should have a display with a bar for each boss that visualizes the relative amount of players at each boss, so that players see at first sight, where they are needed and where not.
3. “upscaling” of bosses happens, when the players are distributed to much uneven to the bosses (could also displayed in the Client/chat “Alarm! Upscaling happens, distribute better!”.

This way there would be no need for commanders/blue lamps. Players still should learn the Boss mechanics. But the “anti zerg mechanic” would be more helpful and less frustrating.

Greetings.

Boss Blitz: Gold Reward

in Festival of the Four Winds

Posted by: Zok.4956

Zok.4956

This is every 5 minutes as well if you are in a group capable of attaining Gold.

.. and, of course, if the megaserver-map is kind of empty so that no other players joining the fights and upscale the event.

Greetings.

Responses of Four Winds

in Festival of the Four Winds

Posted by: Zok.4956

Zok.4956

And it’s both ways. I can see people’s hearts and souls going towards designing the boss mechanics. They’re probably thinking, ‘man, this looks cool, can’t wait til the players see this’, then of course the players tell them they should all be fired. I’d imagine its a downward spiral.

Yeah, talk about depressing. It’s like an artist paints an amazing portrait and the king it’s painted of orders a beheading for the way his mustache looks.

Design has a purpose. The purpose of the Event should be “it is fun to play for the players(=customers)” and not “this looks cool for the designers”. If players are happy, the designer should be happy. If players are frustrated, the designers did something wrong.

It definitely is hard to get new players to learn mechanics, but that can’t really be controlled by Anet.

Yes it can.

Because A-Net is designing the game mechanics they could design something so players were, step by step, “positively motivated” to “anti-zerg” from the game mechanics, but should not learn it the unpleasant way through frustration.

Greetings.

(edited by Zok.4956)