tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-81713167010444366472024-02-21T00:42:54.292-08:00Divinity's Reach: A Guide to Guild Wars 2Entombedhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01844589959064626132noreply@blogger.comBlogger180125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8171316701044436647.post-56841322730399536402013-03-01T09:46:00.004-08:002013-03-01T10:23:22.559-08:00Exposing the Truth, Past and Present.<strong style="background-color: #444444; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;"><span style="color: white;">Purpose: In effect, what I intend to do is expose ArenaNet of lies, deceit, and otherwise facilitating or spreading false information for the sole purpose of garnering favor, attention, and playtime from the general public and its customers. I intend to do this relatively systematically with use of direct quotes from the company, a list of facts, occasionally brief personal experiences and commentary, and a logical conclusion.</span></strong><br />
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<em style="background-color: #444444; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">(This was originally designed for the official forum, although due to length I am posting elsewhere and I hope to have an abbreviated form on the official site soon. I have taken careful consideration to keep this post from being incendiary or rude to the community, the players, and of course, the ArenaNet staff. Any names cited, were for sole purpose of attributing ownership to used quotes and not meant to insult, or be otherwise disresectful to anyone. I hope you agree, that I have followed the Code of Conduct to the best of my ability, to keep this thread from being deleted and to inspire useful discussions by all parties involved.)<br /><br />Let’s start with something small. It’s the moment to moment details that reveal the work ethic of a company and its concern for its players. For those who don’t know Final Rest was a staff discovered in the game files that is visually unique and appealing to many. However, for months the staff could not be found in-game. Many player’s attempted to go to the forums, ask questions in interviews/AMAs, and even message employee’s in-game to discover it’s location or to show ArenaNet that it was indeed bugged.</em></span><br />
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<u style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;"><em style="background-color: #444444;">Final Rest:</em></u></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: #444444; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">“I can’t give away any spoilers, but I can confirm that I’ve looked at the loot tables, and it is in the game. It’s a very rare reward from defeating a boss in the open world.”</span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: #444444; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">"Just a quick note—I said the odds of it dropping was closer to .005 than the 1 in a million or so that was tossed out. Those aren’t the exact odds, but if my math is correct, 10 players running the event every day might expect one staff to drop after about 7 months. (And we haven’t been out that long.)"</span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: #444444; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">-All from Jeffery Vaughn</span></span><br />
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<em style="background-color: #444444; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">The Facts:<br /><br />-There are easily more than 10 (albeit likely different) people who participate in the event daily with various amounts of magic find.<br /><br />-We were told it was not a bug, but a rare spawn that would take 10 players 7 months to see a single staff drop.<br /><br />-In six months post-launch, we have not seen a single Final Rest.<br /><br />-March patch = boom hundreds of Final Rests.<br /><br />Logical Conclusion: When you said you “boosted” the drop rate in a recent quote, you really meant included it in the drop table bug free, and decreased it’s rarity several logs.</em></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: #444444; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">Question in a Recent Interview: Where's Final Rest?</span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: #444444; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">Colin: Someday you will all discover it and everybody will be really excited.</span></span><br />
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<em style="background-color: #444444; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">How does a bug fix on a staff dropping from an event that many people do daily, make us all “really excited”?<br /><br />As easily surmised, it’s not only easy, but probable a company will be make poorly worded quotes without malicious intent.</em></span><br />
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<em style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;"><u style="background-color: #444444;">Ascended Gear</u></em></span><br />
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<em style="background-color: #444444; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">Let’s move to the now infamous ascended gear debate, albeit briefly. There are many arguments for either side that has been said and heard hundreds, if not thousands of times. I intend to avoid it, and expose direct quotes which are plainly “wrong.”<br /><br />Ascended Gear Quotes:</em></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: #444444; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">“We absolutely design everything we do with minimal grind and will continue with this principal moving forward.”</span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: #444444; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">What is your/ANet’s definition of grind?</span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: #444444; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">Repetitive game play that is not fun. –Chris Whiteside</span></span><br />
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<em style="background-color: #444444; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">These quotes were taken from a Reddit AMA in November of last year. At the time Ascended gear could only be achieved through Fractals, a mistake that was later admitted to by the company. We have since moved to several, yet still unachievable in major features of the game like WvW, options of achieving them. You can do dailies for approximately a month for each ascended piece of gear. You can farm guild missions and commendations, and achieve them through a combination of gold and commendations, or 40 laurels and 50 ectoplasms. Or you can simply gain some from Fractals, or a combination of materials (gained from Fractals) and craft your own. The problem is that these are largely out of reach by a majority of the playerbase without investment of significant “grinding.” Dailies are often the definition of “do these things every day” and achieve a small reward. ArenaNet has now provided a diversity of things that we can do to achieve a daily, which has only missed the point. If you kill 20 rabbits one day, and then are asked to kill 20 underwater creatures the next, that doesn’t suddenly change the nature of the daily. It’s intended to be a short repetitive activity that is completed daily or nearly daily to artificially create a form of progression for an item. It’s still repetitive…and as one of the few opinions in this thread, is not fun. I have yet to find myself, friends, guildmates, or anyone exclaim “I’m excited to do my daily today!”</em></span><br />
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<em style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;"><u style="background-color: #444444;">Recent Events</u></em></span><br />
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<em style="background-color: #444444; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">Let’s move to the current January/February Release window and talk about a quote that has been thrown around quite a bit by the community, and examine the recent releases of content.<br /><br />January/February Release Quote:</em></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: #444444; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">"But January and February are actually our biggest updates to date. They’re even bigger than all the stuff we did in October, November and December. And I think that when people see how much stuff they’re gonna get for no monthly fee in January and February, they’re probably going to be blown away. These two months combined are basically an expansion’s worth of content for free."</span></span><br />
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<em style="background-color: #444444; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">The Facts:<br />-The WvW patch that was slated for January, was pushed back to February, and then moved back to March was originally intended in the “expansion worth of content” Colin was referring to at the time.<br /><br />-There are usually around 5 major features in each patch, which typically include, for lack of a better word, content.<br /><br />-2 of the 5 for February’s patch were “Choosing Your Own Daily Achievements” and Previewing on the Trading Post.<br /><br />-The only additional content increase in February were a couple of cash shop items, a new sPvP map, and essentially the addition of portals and non-unique enemies in the Living Story.<br /><br />-January included guesting that was intended to be included at launch, an improved achievement system, and bug fixes to WvW.<br /><br />-The major points of a patch should not include bug-fixes and revamps of existing, broken content.<br /><br />Logical Conclusion: What we have seen is nothing even resembling an expansion worth of content. (Even if you want to include March’s content, which admittedly has yet to be fully revealed, it would not resemble an expansion.)</em></span><br />
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<em style="background-color: #444444; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;"><u>WvW</u><br /><br />Let’s move to WvW, arguably one of ArenaNet’s most popular features. In six months of release, the only thing added to WvW were bug fixes. Instead of attempting to stop hacks and exploits by single players, ArenaNet chose to simply remove the orb system. Before everything was incredibly dynamic, due to mismanagement in realm populations (free realm transfers for roughly five months again due to guesting), and no, we see the opposite side of that coin, it’s static to the point of decay. Realm ranks are hardly changing, and each week the story seems to remain the same. The same realms place 1st, 2nd, or 3rd each week, rarely changing tiers. No forms of progression or reward have been added in six months, and we are holding on the promise that the WvW patch will come out next month. Even with the promise of new content, it’s the length of time that has passed that is discouraging for many of us.<br /><br />We have seen dungeon revamp after dungeon revamp, waiting for you to finally get it right. We have watched you include temporary content again and again, without adding to the core of the game. We have been waiting for ArenaNet to wake up and improve on their original design.<br /><br />Let’s examine material that has yet to be fully made, that holds the potential of promise, and a return to original design principles:<br /><br /><u>The Living Story</u><br /><br />We have seen two installments of the story, with the promise of much more exciting material to come in March.<br /><br />The Facts:<br /><br />-The first installment included random NPCs walking towards two major cities in two zones that “needed” aid.<br /><br />-It included collecting mementos, fixing signs, and curing the cripple condition off them, with less than 5 unique dynamic events and a single title to come with it.<br /><br />-The second installment now includes two main objectives, fighting portal-spawning enemies, and providing refugees with lost items.<br /><br />Logical Conclusion: There are not a lot of content or interesting things to do in-game involving the living story.<br /><br />An addition of twenty dynamic events would arguably have more content than these last two installments of the living story. There is nothing that makes it special, unique, rewarding or even interesting to the average player. And once again, we are relying on a promise by Angel McCoy, a chief architect along with Ree Soesbee and Jeff Grubb that created the lackluster personal story. Even worse, it appears as though ArenaNet is making the same mistakes. </em></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: #444444; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">“In order to make this easier on ourselves, and on you, we’ll be introducing a set of characters specific to the Living Story, at the end of March. Hint: one’s a norn, and one’s a charr.”</span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: #444444; color: white; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">-Angel McCoy</span><br />
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<em style="background-color: #444444; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">The Facts:<br /><br />-In both the Lost Isles Patch and the Halloween patch,the ArenaNet team was largely criticized for a lackluster, initial phase of events because there weren’t many things a player could do.<br /><br />-The Personal Story was largely criticized for revolving around a NPC rather than the player, making the player feel less than heroic.<br /><br />-The Living Story appears to have the same flaws as both the previous patches and Personal Story.<br /><br />Logical Conclusion:<br /><br />ArenaNet is not learning from past mistakes.</em></span><br />
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<em style="background-color: #444444; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">I could use this remaining time to talk about the blatant lack of additional skins to the game. The large majority of skins released have been temporary releases. I could elaborate more on the failures of the Personal Story, and the complete reluctance by ArenaNet to address or fix it. I could address the growing concern by sPvP players that ArenaNet is not doing enough for the e-sport community. However, I think by now you understand my point. I am not satisfied with the games progress post-launch, nor do I find it acceptable for ArenaNet to continue to make false claims nor learn from previous self-admitted mistakes.</em></span><br />
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<b><span style="background-color: #444444; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">In conclusion, this post is meant to raise public awareness of ArenaNet’s past remarks and errors, and enact change to the game to make it better. ArenaNet, you can do better.</span></b></span><br />
<em style="background-color: #444444; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;"><span style="color: white;">-Aeneas<br />Sanctum of Rall</span></em>Entombedhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01844589959064626132noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8171316701044436647.post-37482641062656844212013-02-10T20:11:00.002-08:002013-02-10T20:11:17.160-08:00The Growing Pains of WvW<div>
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WvW is why I play Guild Wars 2. My time in WoW was very much post-Tarren Mills/Southshore era, and most of my open world combat consisted of raiding Stormwind with a handful of Horde. Pre-launch, WvW appeared to be one of the greatest aspects of Guild Wars 2. And to me, it has been. That being said, there are some very real problems with the current implementation of WvW. The WvW community has seen four patches come and go without any real changes, (no, fixing culling does not count...) and I'm hoping to see some great progress made in March. <div>
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First and foremost, WvW is largely a zergfest. Yes, there are the videos of 5 vs. 30s with smaller groups winning the battle, but they are very much the exception. For the past 3-4 months, my guild of 3 have attempted to challenge the zerg. We have had some incredible successes, but in the end we can only do so much. We quickly found out that if you are to survive against zergs, there are really 3 competitive classes in the guerilla warfare style of combat. Thieves, Mesmers, and the Elementalist. Any other class does not have the mobility and escape mechanisms to be competitive in variable environments outside of the zerg. </div>
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Furthermore, there are very few incentives in attempting to defend supply camps. You can upgrade them all you want, you can even add some sieges here and there. However, with the possible exception of Pangloss in Eternal Battlegrounds, you are simply going to fail when the zerg shows up at your doorstep. Most commanders seem to be permanently on offense, directing their swarm of karma-frenzied pests from one point to the next. </div>
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However, all of this would be pointless, if zergs were less effective than smaller groups. ArenaNet has stated that smaller groups are much more effective than larger groups in WvW, and yet the predominant strategy by the top servers are largely mega-servers, led by Teamspeak and a commander, zerging their away across the landscape. One can ask, if smaller groups are so much more effective than larger groups, why aren't we seeing that strategy emerge more and more in WvW? The simple answer, is that they simply aren't. </div>
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But, maybe you are asking a second, more subtle question: what's wrong with zerging in the first place? Well, ultimately it requires less skill, less coordination, to execute than simultaneously placing smaller groups that communicate between each other. If you placed 40 people on a map and told them to attack point A, against 4 small, allied, teams of 10 people that each had real-time strategies to execute against the 40 people. You would expect the 4 allied teams to win? In Guild Wars 2, I would expect the 4 teams to win as well. So why aren't we seeing that in practice? </div>
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I'm not sure. It may be a combination of the systems in place, and human nature. The rewards are much greater for the average person to join a larger group of players than if he were to play by himself or with a small group. The commander system and "crossed-swords" on the map were designed to implement communication to the players on the map, and they have really just become signals of hotspots of activity. If you are in a small group, you tend to avoid your commanders. They simply attract way too much attention, and they can quickly get bogged down in long skirmishes. Or maybe it's that we are innately lazy. It's much easier simply to clump together and follow, than for multiple people to lead in diverging, strategic groups. If it's truly the latter, than there may be little hope for WvW.</div>
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Among the other main problems of WvW, progression and rewards are the other two most notable challenges that ArenaNet must face over 2013. The WvW patch will probably be released in March, and we will see how much they change. So far, it merely seems to be aimed at progression, and I'm hoping they aim their sights much higher in the coming weeks. </div>
Entombedhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01844589959064626132noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8171316701044436647.post-90411353066031029302013-01-31T21:29:00.002-08:002013-01-31T21:29:38.331-08:00What Real Money Buys You<div>
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(I'm a proud owner of the Quaggan backpack, and I'm not afraid to show it.)</div>
Let me tell you a tale. A story about gifts, the power of money, and the ever elusive line of "pay to win". <div>
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For Christmas and my birthday, my brother was kind enough to provide an in-game gift of gems. I was growing a little bored of thieves and decided to level up a new profession. Using these gems, I was capable of leveling a guardian from 10-80 in about 7 hours of game time. I then spent a little bit of money on my own, to completely deck my freshly dinged guardian with full exotics. I was able to do this in one weekend of moderate play. </div>
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Is that okay? I'm having a hard time deciding whether it is or not. Many would argue that the "pay to win" line has become so commonly used in debates, that it's been twisted to each author's own view points. </div>
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It appears as though "Pay to Win" has adopted many forms over the years:</div>
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-Cash providing an exclusive benefit, that other players cannot achieve through in-game means</div>
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-Cash providing a time advantage over other traditional players</div>
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-Cash providing the "best" gear in line with other players</div>
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I am a PvP player at heart, and thus most of the above statements can appear biased. For many PvE players these phrases can be substituted for "Cash allowing you to overcome the system"</div>
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A person's opinion on shops such as Guild Wars 2's infamous Black Lion Trading Company (specifically talking about the Gem store and Currency exchange, is the qualifications of the term advantage or benefit. How much is too much? What is considered fair? I don't have all the answers, and I'm still trying to determine it myself. When did game philosophies get so complicated? </div>
Entombedhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01844589959064626132noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8171316701044436647.post-68439794942414178432013-01-28T22:37:00.000-08:002013-01-28T22:39:37.602-08:00Time Flies...It slowly dawned on me two days ago that I have yet to add another article. My friend asked me what happened, and I actually didn't have a reasonable answer. Time has flown by over these last few weeks.<br />
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<a href="http://blogs-images.forbes.com/erikkain/files/2012/12/Journey-Screen-One.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="225" src="http://blogs-images.forbes.com/erikkain/files/2012/12/Journey-Screen-One.jpg" width="400" /></a>I am rapidly becoming a huge indie game follower. I've dabbled in/finished /listened to the glorious music of Minecraft, Journey, Flower, Dear Esther, and the Unfinished Swan over the last few weeks. I have finished Journey and Dear Esther, and rapidly making progress in the Unfinished Swan. They are really some amazing games, and it blows my mind how great they are. I turned a potentially two hour game (Journey), into like a 10 hour game attempting<br />
to find and discover all of the secrets for that gorgeous white cloak. <br />
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I have also played Path of Exile's latest beta. For those who haven't heard, it's essentially a Diablo II style experience, which I think the cool kids call it an "arpg". I have never touched Diablo, Torchlight, or any of the other clones for that matter, and I never really had much interest. To be honest, I was bored and a little bit curious. I chose a ranger and picked up the class, and I finished Act 1 two days ago. I also got a really nice exotic sword, that I'm pretty sure is really rare. People were cursing at me on the first day of beta for getting it. Figures I get the leet weapon in a game that I don't tend to stay in very long. Overall, I've been surprised how much I like the game, and yet how little I care about the story.<br />
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<a href="http://www.terafans.com/uploads/gallery/album_58/gallery_4331_58_8788.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://www.terafans.com/uploads/gallery/album_58/gallery_4331_58_8788.jpg" /></a><br />
Speaking of terribly boring story, I tried Tera for the first time this evening. It was...interesting. I don't really understand the starting experience, and why they decided to throw you into a level 20 area without knowing how to even attack. I picked up a sorcerer and had leveled up while following wherever the latest quest took me. It struck me how fast I started ignoring the quest text, only to move on to the objective. The days where that kind of gaming was fun for me, I think are long gone. I'm not sure if it's the dynamic events in Guild Wars 2 that spoiled me, but I don't think I can ever click on that damn exclamation point again. I found the critics of Tera to be pretty accurate. The game is beautiful, and the combat is decent (though not being able to move while casting was a rather big letdown), but the quests are terable (sorry for the pun). I think I'll be dropping this one quite soon. I think the PvP could be potentially pretty awesome in this game, but I just don't think I can get past the leveling aspect of the game. I think I'll leave it on the desktop for a rainy day.<br />
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Overall, I have played a myriad of games, and have been impressed by most of them. I think there's something to be said about the games like Journey, PoE, Flower, Dear Esther, the Unfinished Swan and the like. Massive corporations with multi-million dollar budgets commonly fail to capture the beauty elegance, and simplicity of indie games. I suspect in the future with Kickstarter and the like, the most popular games will eventually start spawning from more and more unknown developers. And I think that may be a good thing, a world where finally innovation and design are the only things that matter. No matter what happens, I think gamers will "win".<br />
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Also, if you are waiting for me to actually get back to writing about Guild Wars 2. Don't worry, it won't be long.<br />
<br />Entombedhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01844589959064626132noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8171316701044436647.post-55908738426208076082012-12-26T15:39:00.003-08:002012-12-26T15:39:56.661-08:00Looking Forward<br />
<img height="360" src="http://fc07.deviantart.net/fs71/f/2010/231/a/6/GW2_Dragon_1080p_Wallpaper_by_AngelicBond.jpg" width="640" /><br />
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The year is rapidly coming to a close, and the rewards have been rolling out for Guild Wars 2. GW2 has won best PC game by IGN, best MMO of 2012 (and also "Most Disappointing") by Massively, and came in second just behind Pirate101 over at MMORPG.com (yes...that was certainly surprising.) It seems that everybody has something to say about Guild Wars 2.<br />
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Guild Wars 2 has certainly been successful. Every other major MMO company that released this year has suffered layoffs, restructuring, and replacements of top employees. ArenaNet has been the exception...(arguably I am not counting the realignment currently going on at Guild Wars 2's publisher NCsoft.) However, with success often comes criticism. I think we can all agree, ArenaNet hasn't done everything right. So with that being said, here's my list of the top 5 things I hope to see change in 2013, listed in no meaningful order:<br />
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<b>1. A Massive Increase in Cosmetics.</b><br />
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For a game touting horizontal progression as a viable end-game, there hasn't been a great deal of expansion on gear since launch. I would like to see a massive increase in gear, ever-lasting tonics, weapons from WvW, dungeons, world events, and vendors. I would love to see tools like Auction House previewing, a dye system for weapons, and some new types of neck pieces (like scarves for example) and more back pieces. I would love to see some different color variations of each too. The Gem Store options are also terribly slim, with only 3 armor sets offered (not counting town clothes). ArenaNet could make a ton of money by simply adding more armor sets through the Gem Store.<br />
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<b>2. Removal of RNG from the Cash Store.</b><br />
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This topic has attracted a great deal of debate from the community. I tend to lean on the side that views randomness in a cash store as unethical. To me, it fosters the development of gambling to less than appropriate age groups, and is simply not fair to players. Players have a right to get <i>something</i> for what they pay for. And no single-use tonics and a boost simply does not cut it. And finally, the poor clarity of wording on the chests offered in the Black Lion Trading Company are not helpful either. Even lottery tickets are required by law to provide accurate chances of <i>winning</i> on the back of them. <br />
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<b>3. More Permanent Content</b><br />
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With all three content patches since launch focusing on temporarily available content, I feel that ArenaNet is not adding <i>enough</i> to the game for players in between those <i>one time</i> available events. Yes, I had tons to do when each of those three patches came out, and I do recognize that some permanent content was added (namely a dungeon, jumping puzzles, mini-dungeons, events, and bug fixes), but there just seems to be large areas of nothing to do. The new zone introduced in the Lost Shores patch is absolutely a barren wasteland. Orr has lost it's appeal long ago, the only people who still go are farmers, bots, and people leveling for the first time. WvW hasn't seen any new content since Launch, and some would argue lost content (via Orbs for balance reasons). There's also little reason to do WvW, dungeons, or events once you have the karma, WvW, or dungeon gear, unless of course you personally enjoy the content. Now bear in mind this next part is solely an opinion, an opinion that many in the community would disagree with... events haven't been dynamic or even unique enough to really be fun several months post-launch, nearly all paths of each dungeon have been run numerous times, and WvW offers the only area of fun that simply lacks rewards, and can sometimes accurately be described as a "zergfest."<br />
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<b>4. Revamping Rewards</b><br />
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ArenaNet has definitely seemed to struggle with balancing difficult content with good rewards. Fractals is perhaps the only successful areas where it's been done well, but it's been done well where for most players, the opitmal way to make money is to simply spam run Fractals. Yes there are some other small options. If you want maximum rewards from the world, just farm Plix with some Magic Find gear. If you want maximum rewards from dungeons, just run the easy paths (CoF 1 and 2 both come to mind quite quickly.) If you want maximum rewards from WvW, well...good luck. No seriously, you may even lose money in WvW if you are responsible enough to bring some siege equipment. The tokens are close to useless, only providing a single type of gear (Toughness and Vitality) and more siege equipment.<br />
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I hoped that Guild Wars 2 wouldn't resort to Grind Wars 2. And the only content that doesn't feel grindy, is WvW which simply doesn't any viable rewards other than a tank-like set.<br />
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I propose adding extremely challenging in-world events that provide better rewards. Add dragons the way they were meant to be. Make them hard, and have them scale properly so they can't simply be zerged. Make WvW rewards in-line with Fractals rewards (specifically loot scaling to the time of the killed player's last death) Think a system like bonus experience. If you kill a player that hasn't died for several hours, you receive better rewards.<br />
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<b>5. Emerging as an E-Sport</b><br />
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This is definitely a feature that is in the works. ArenaNet has stated several times about their intent for Guild Wars 2 to become an E-sport. This requires a spectator mode, dueling, constant interactions with the community, sponsored and rewarding tournaments, and overall class balance. Most of those features have been confirmed to be deep in development, and I hope to see ArenaNet unveil these throughout the year.<br />
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And that's it for me. How's my list? <a href="http://massively.joystiq.com/2012/12/19/where-guild-wars-2-goes-wrong/">Massively </a>provided a post with a similar idea, but I became pretty dismayed at most of the author's choices.Guild Wars 2 has many problems, but I found most of the problems to be out of touch with the community at large.<br />
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Anyways, I hope you had a Merry Christmas and have a Happy New Year!Entombedhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01844589959064626132noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8171316701044436647.post-39908283566657812242012-12-17T11:28:00.001-08:002012-12-17T11:28:40.426-08:00Wintersday: A Step Back or Forward?<div>
<img height="349" src="https://d2vn94glaxzkz3.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/wintersday-2012-jumping-puzzle.jpg" width="640" /></div>
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I had a hard time gauging my exitement pre-Wintersday. Yes, Christmas (and all of it's Wintery counterparts in MMOs) is my favorite Holiday. I thought Halloween in Guild Wars 2 was the most well done holiday in any video game I have ever played, so my hopes were pretty high. That being said, Halloween had some low points, most notably RNG cash shop items and quite a few people were ticked off by ArenaNet's jumping puzzle design. (I however, loved the jumping puzzle by the way.) Furthermore, with major content patches being released in both January and February that are said to be equal to the amount of content in an expansion, I wasn't sure how much time and care ArenaNet would put into Wintersday this year. All in all, I had a mixed bag of emotions coming in... after all both prior content patches were met with mixed reviews, and I wasn't sure if this would be the patch that would break the streak.<div>
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Let's start with the jumping puzzle. I think the theory of the puzzle was implemented brilliantly. ArenaNet heard the communities complaints about character models cluttering up the screen, and split us off into several different starting areas. The environment and staging was stunning, and also perfectly themed. I loved the frostbite slowly ticking away my health, the bursting presents, the wintery winds, and even the terrifying boulder that has killed me more than once. It really was set up to be a fantastic puzzle. However, in practice, it just simply was too easy. Now you may call this subjective, because there certainly are people who are unable to finish it. I am generally a very good platformer, I've completed every jumping puzzle in the game, and finished the Halloween puzzle in about forty five minutes. However, it took me around 2-3 tries to complete this puzzle. The exhilaration I felt after beating the Halloween puzzle was immense....this..this just felt like....well..yeah. It was just too easy, and all in all not that rewarding.</div>
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ArenaNet did make some major improvements to the cash shop this time around. There were sets of weapon skins that could be bought straight out for 500 gems. The price may be high to some, but I'd rather have a higher price than worry about RNG. However, ArenaNet still left RNG chests to be opened by those who wished for the minis. Among them was the rare Festivoo the Merry (a Quaggan in a Christmas hat)...really who could resist that? You could even combine the three common mini's for the much rarer Festivoo. The problem is that each mini is account bound, effectively making these cash shop RNG only items. (Unless of course you get extremely, I mean extremely lucky in opening gift boxes) And while this time around, the cash shop was implemented better, there's still the basic moral question: Should RNG be present in a Cash shop? My answer remains the same...no, it should not. However, I think we can all agree, a mini is hardly game breaking. </div>
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The Infinirarium was masterfully crafted. Tixx's giant golem blimp hovers above the major cities of the game, that houses the Holiday Dungeon. It really is breath taking from the ground and the interior. The dialog in the dungeon is witty and diverse, and the miniatures present within are adorable. I loved coming across each major city in miniature form, and I think my favorite is the simple Grove. Thus far, I've seen Toy Ventari, Dolls, and Miniature soldiers try to kill me. And I've had fun doing the dungeon each day to see the changes. It's really quite fun. However, you can only craft two out of the five toys this holiday. I've even independently confirmed this by talking to a developer in-game. And the only alternative available is to buy them through the cash shop. A fair amount of the community has criticized this move by ArenaNet, and I am hesitant to do so. One of World of Warcraft's holidays centered around orphans and you could only receive 2 out of 6 available toys. (My memory may serve me wrong, it could also be 1 out of 6) And I don't remember people being mad about that. It seems silly to have so much arguing over minis anyways. And finally, since when has collecting not been expensive? I don't see why ArenaNet cannot just sell the minis in the cash shop. At least they don't have RNG attached to it.</div>
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There were some other great additions to Wintersday. I love both the Bells and the Snowball Fight mini-games. Both were very cleverly designed, and extremely fun to play for Guitar Hero and PvP enthusiasts alike. The siege weapons have also been changed in WvW, which look amazing by the way. Nothing says Christmas like raining down Candy Cane death from above. There's also the smaller touches: the little snowball fights that break out in Lions Arch, the snowmen that can be made around Tyria, the new crafting recipes, and the presents full of skritt and toys alike that can be found in very aspects of the game. </div>
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ArenaNet took the time to make Wintersday extremely memorable. I'm impressed, especially considering the huge, looming content patches coming in January in February. No one can dare say they aren't working hard. I'd like to see them add more permanent content to the game, which will hopefully be the main focuses of the next few patches. Even with more holiday content left, even with the small let down in the jumping puzzle and RNG minis, I have to say I am enjoying this holiday even more than Halloween. </div>
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See you on the snowy battlefields! If you see a snowball send you to your death from the shadows, it just might have been me!</div>
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Entombedhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01844589959064626132noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8171316701044436647.post-79535980273459554442012-12-10T18:48:00.000-08:002012-12-10T18:49:14.246-08:00The Wonderful Gifts of Wintersday<br />
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<img height="248" src="https://d2vn94glaxzkz3.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/banner-december-2012.jpg" width="640" /><br />
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There were several nice reveals today for what's to come during Wintersday.<br />
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First there was a video featuring a new jumping puzzle, a massive mechanical golem blimp hovering over various racial cities, Toymaker Tixx, new towns clothing, and a wintery transformation of Lion's Arch. All in all, it looks incredible. I'm very excited for the new jumping puzzle, and I am practically begging that it be presented to us in a similar format as the Mad King's jumping puzzle. I know many had problems with the format, but I personally loved it. It provided hours of frustration, entertainment, and hilarity, and I think it provided a great sense of community to Guild Wars 2. We will just have to wait and see though.<br />
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<iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.youtube.com/embed/5EzbVjltv6w?feature=player_embedded' frameborder='0'></iframe></div>
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Secondly, there are some great quality of life changes occuring in WvW this patch. While most of WvW changes will be happening in February, these small changes will greatly enhance the experience for most players. Players will no longer be able to escape death by intentionally disconnecting or closing the game. This has become a widespread problem in WvW, and I'm overjoyed to see the exploit be exposed for what it truly was. A coward has no place in WvW. There's also a feature added to WvW that will greatly aid realms who are severely losing on specific maps. Essentially an event will start, which a raid-like boss will provide supply and siege weapons against the opposition and will lead the charge to begin aiding the realm's inhabitants to establish a foothold on the map. When a map is being lost severely, it's very hard to regain momentum on the map, and is overall a fantastic change. I can however see this feature being easily exploited, and being too strong or even too weak, so I hope they have tested the numbers very thoroughly. There are some other relatively minor changes coming to WvW like annoucements, etc. <br />
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All information can be found <a href="https://forum-en.guildwars2.com/forum/pvp/wuvwuv/Coming-Soon-To-WvW/first#post965551">here</a>. <br />
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<img height="248" src="https://d2vn94glaxzkz3.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/composition-idea.jpg" width="640" /><br />
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Lastly, the content page for Wintersday has been updated. There seems to be a huge amount of events planned, and it's very nice to see ArenaNet learning from past mistakes. The final event will be featured over a relatively long period of time, so that all players can participate. I'm really excited for the Wintersday weapon skins, and I am praying that they will be better than the Lost Shore Skins, which for me were really a bit of a letdown. Eh, I'm neutral about towns clothing, but I understand that many roleplayers love it, so come what may. As for me, I would like to be able to wear my clothing both in and out of battle. I'm excited to see the variety of events lined up for each city over Wintersday, and once again, I am totally ready to tackle the new jumping puzzle.<br />
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All information can be found <a href="https://www.guildwars2.com/en/the-game/releases/december-2012/#wintersday-the-wondrous-workshop-of-toymaker-tixx-2">here</a>.<br />
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All in all, it once again is lined up to be a great patch. I'm just hoping that ArenaNet continues to learn from past mistakes, and makes this Wintersday one to really remember. <br />
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<br />Entombedhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01844589959064626132noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8171316701044436647.post-32265478210405358692012-12-05T20:08:00.002-08:002012-12-10T18:49:30.771-08:00Odds and EndsGuild Wars 2 has slowly drawn it's creeping tendrils into me, and I keep becoming more engrossed into the world of Tyria. I don't play too much, but I keep feeling these strange urges to keep returning. <br />
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1) I look fricken adorable. No one can even deny that.<br />
<img height="360" src="http://i.imgur.com/71yuC.jpg" width="640" /><br />
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2) Every once in a great while, my brother proves useful. He found an interesting little cave on the side of the Borderlands jumping puzzles. Cats may be trying to take over Tyria....<br />
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<img height="360" src="http://i.imgur.com/5MOFJ.jpg" width="640" /><br />
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3) Every once in a while, the coincidences in life are just a little too creepy for my taste. One of my best friends plays this game, and his name is Totes Ma Gotes, and is an engineer. So imagine my surprise when I stumble on a friendly engineer on our server named Totes in WvW. I asked him to pause and wave, and he dared to challenge my friend to a dual for sole claim to the title of "The Totes".<br />
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<img height="360" src="http://i.imgur.com/q5uRK.jpg" width="640" /><br />
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4) On a side note. I had a blast on my server tonight in Eternal Battlegrounds. I found a friendly guild of thieves, and we plunged ourselves into the jumping puzzle only to rape and pillage both of the other servers quite severely. After we finished there, our realm accumulated 8-10 golems mostly through the donation of the guild USA and me. We attempted to storm Stonemist, and we were halfway to breaking down the inner wall before we got massacred by a very angry pile of Blackgate invaders. We may have failed, but it was still a blast.<br />
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5) And last but not least...stumbled upon this horribly dirty and profane image that had me chuckling far too hard.<br />
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<img alt="Posted Image" height="400" src="http://imageshack.us/a/img405/3719/gw083s.jpg" width="640" />Entombedhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01844589959064626132noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8171316701044436647.post-7993845615394673672012-12-02T16:49:00.001-08:002012-12-02T16:49:20.259-08:00Cost<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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That is all.</div>
Entombedhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01844589959064626132noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8171316701044436647.post-24595213170686729152012-11-26T18:28:00.000-08:002012-11-26T18:32:10.848-08:00Reddit AMA<div style="text-align: center;">
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<img src="http://timenerdworld.files.wordpress.com/2012/08/guild-wars-2-concept1.jpg?w=600&h=400&crop=1" /></div>
We were lucky enough to have several ArenaNet developers, most notably Chris Whiteside, join us on Reddit for an Ask Me Anything session.<br />
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What I thought was rather striking was that a Reddit user accumulated some of the most commonly asked questions on the forums and placed them in one large post. The user really tried to keep things organized, and I think the community is rather thankful. However, initially, ArenaNet seemed to ignore/refuse to answer any of the questions listed, and would rather answer questions from multiple people, and not just a single user. As time went on, Reddit users flocked in reply to say that the user was a voice for them all, and that they would be happy if ArenaNet would take the time to answer them. Chris is slowly working his way through them as we speak, and some of the answers are quite interesting. <br />
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Some of the biggest highlights:<br />
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<li>ArenaNet has admitted to making several mistakes in Ascended gear design</li>
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<li>Information detailing their release should not have been told to us by third party sites</li>
<li>The <i>idea</i> of Ascended gear was meant to be included in releas<span style="font-family: inherit;">e (</span>"the concept of progression rewards with a shallow curve bridging other rewards was")</li>
<li>They were meant to be included in all aspects of the game upon release, and were never intended to be soley from Fractals of the Mists. Additions to several other areas of the game are coming very soon.</li>
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<li>ArenaNet anticipated the backlash they would suffer from the news release on Ascended gear</li>
<li>ArenaNet has clarified that they believe there has been no change in their initial philosophy</li>
<li>Vertical Progression is indeed in Guild Wars 2, however, it is not supposed to be a gear treadmill, but represent a "very low power curve"</li>
<li>Ascended gear is intended to be bought with "zero" or "minimal" grind.</li>
<li>One Time Event Timing (specifically for Oceanic players) was not thought out properly, and moving forward they will be rethinking it</li>
<li>A fix for Fractals is coming soon, specifically the fractionating of players amongst different levels</li>
<li>WvW Additions are coming in the "near future" including "progression, reward, and beacon mechanics"</li>
<li>Expect big improvements on "bugs" soon.</li>
<li>Expect several big additions to the Trading Post in the "not so distant future"</li>
<li>Asura Weapon Size is currently being evaluated</li>
<li>ArenaNet is looking for ways to make cities other than Lion's Arch more populated</li>
<li>They are being extremely careful on gating content, and are currently evaluating their future plans</li>
<li>ArenaNet does plan to build on Southshore Cove in the near future</li>
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My Opinions:</div>
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I'm extremely pleased to see ArenaNet admit their mistakes. As a person who vocally wrote about each one of those points, I'm glad to see they will not be making these errors again going forward. I'm rather skeptical that ArenaNet knew of the impending backlash, and still went through with allowing third party sites tell us of this massive, controversial change to the game. Furthermore, if you intended to include Ascended gear in all aspects of the game before they were added, what was the rush to add them during the Lost Isles patch? I'm happy to see quality of life changes to world population distribution, ascended gear being added to other parts of the game, elimination of bugs, FoTM grouping changes, WvW additions, Southshore Cove additions, and improvement of the trading post. All are common sense improvements that should greatly help the game over the long-term. I have also felt very bad for Oceanics who have not been able to join one time events, and I'm glad to see ArenaNet address them directly. </div>
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However, my biggest WTF moment was when Chris stated that ArenaNet's philosophy on Ascended gear currently requires very little grind. The Final stage of the Fractal Capacitor costs 2870 tokens....How is that no grind at the moment? A full set of exotic gear costs me roughly 20 gold, how can you justify a single piece of Ascended gear costing several times that? There just seems to be a giant black hole between ArenaNet and a substantial portion of the community. If Ascended gear had very little grind to achieve it, I'm not sure many of us would have been so against it. Are we playing the same game right now? Even if ArenaNet plans to fix the amount Ascended gear costs, that fix will have to be carefully implemented and will most likely need to include a refund for players with the gear. It's all rather complicated, convoluted and not entirely well answered by ArenaNet.</div>
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Once again, I'm torn between two very different impressions of ArenaNet. They seem to design somethings very well, and are extremely well thought-out, other times I'm just left scratching my head. </div>
Entombedhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01844589959064626132noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8171316701044436647.post-50502338077296271522012-11-21T19:26:00.000-08:002012-11-21T19:26:03.025-08:00Building Relationships<div>
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Very few companies adopt transparent policies and communicate them throughout the community. Even fewer do it well. In development, ArenaNet promised to create a MMO with a different set of principles than their competitors By doing so they began to build a relationship with their players, more intimate than I have ever seen in the large-scale, corporate.<div>
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As the game launched, I felt a barrier seemingly appear between us and ArenaNet. Sure, we were told what we would be getting/what would be changed, but we were almost never given decent reasons. Player input ended when the third beta closed it's doors. And the reactions to our inquiries were met with muddled responses that often sounded like "Because we say so."</div>
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And yet, suddenly, we are seeing this change reverse. ArenaNet has begun to care, or in perhaps more accurate words, are now caring and more importantly, showing that they care. Actions speak louder than words, I think we can all agree on that. But, many times words have to come first. And that's exactly what's happening now in a blitzkrieg of events over the last two days.</div>
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Yesterday, many players were asked to complete a survey about the Lost Shores Patch and Weekend. We completed answers on a variety of topics, everything from the new sPvP map to how we feel about one-time events and whether they should be looped multiple times throughout the day. It's just a survey, but it was an instance where I felt my feedback mattered and will directly add to my experience in the game later down the road. When a player feels like they matter, there is something indescribable that is passed between player and developer.</div>
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Today, we were featured with a red post on the official forums by Jonathan Sharp. His reason for posting: the widespread misinterpretation of a previous post by another developer. He went out of his way to show players the intricate workings of ArenaNet and how they operate. We learned how different teams create new features, how balancing changes are created and developed through the feedback of both specific people, data, and the community. This post startled me, because of the transparency of it all. It's something that I personally have been wanting to see in a MMO company for so long, that I almost forgot that it could be done post-launch. </div>
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And furthermore the post by Chris Whiteside over at ArenaNet's official blog was even kinder. The communities of games are rarely treated with the information we received today. In the article we received a small time line of upcoming events after the Thanksgiving break, and perhaps more importantly, a list of upcoming features. Every single feature on that list was something the community has been clamoring for, and I'm excited that ArenaNet isn't beating around the bush. </div>
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With all of the drama over Ascended gear and the arguments over philosophies behind player progression and core features of MMO design, I questioned why I fell in love with ArenaNet in the first place. </div>
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And today I was reminded of that answer. </div>
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Entombedhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01844589959064626132noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8171316701044436647.post-90168679273619254212012-11-18T20:02:00.000-08:002012-11-18T20:05:22.657-08:00The Shores of Lost Potential<br />
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As promised, let's talk about a pretty filled weekend of Guild Wars 2 events. I've been fairly vocal on the addition of the ascended gear, and brought my first impressions on the latest dungeon. However, I have avoided talking about talking about the events, primarily because I wanted to see them all first.<br />
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I had a lot of anticipation for this patch, and a great deal of it culminated in my excitement for phase one. I live on the East Coast, and when 3:00 p.m. hit, I was standing on the prow of the nearest ship to the bay. 10 seconds later, I would be scrambling as the ship was slowly sinking to the bottom. Karka had begun attacking a small portion of Lion's Arch, and almost immediately the server was crippled by lag spikes. The mechanics of the karka were interesting, and I have to admit I loved the "jump on your face and suck your brains out" animation adopted by the hatchlings. It was a little bit challenging, a little bit fun, but the lag really hindered the experience. As I visited the forums later, I realized that it wasn't just our server that was lagging, it was nearly everyone. That's a problem, a huge one. Having that many people playing in that small of a space is going to cause havoc. <br />
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I'm extremely surprised ArenaNet didn't know this going into it. I mean they have pulled off the Branded Meta-Event and the Hunger Royale events in the beta weekends. They have witnessed the details of WvW and understood the weaknesses of their infrastructure. Why not design a more wide spread event? <br />
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With a decent amount of disappointment of phase one, I jumped into the Fractal dungeon and did not look back. However later, I followed the event leading up to Noll and Canach. What I experienced was even more underwhelming...bugged NPC's that hindered the progress of one time events. They were fixed in close to 24 hours, and people were able to complete the chain. I just couldn't help wonder why one time events were not more rigorously checked for glitches. However, I do understand that this is a MMO, and the unexpected often happens. I really don't have hard feelings about these events, though I do wish they were a little more interesting.<br />
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Phase Two for me was nearly missed entirely. Real life calls, and I must admit that I occasionally answer. I visited the new zone later that evening. I explored the island from top to bottom, and I have done one of the two jumping puzzles. This jumping puzzle features giant geysers of steam that send a chunk of rocks that you must jump on in quick succession. You then must follow these trails of rock up a side of a cliff, only to do it again, then cross along a deck of pirate ship. Once finishing, you can even continue further to face your mettle with a Champion mob that is most promisingly impossible to solo or duo. Overall, the jumping puzzle was fantastic, and the zone features several challenging events. It was a nice change of scenery, and it finally didn't feature the undead or centaurs....so I was pretty pleased.<br />
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Phase Three was where my opinion on the weekend would hinge. It was the finale, afterall. Part one of phase three featured us escorting demolitionists into the hive of the Karka. We escorted them over several floors in the hive packed with all sizes of Karka. Even with my overflow packed, people were dying left and right. This part would ultimately be the most fun part of phase 3. It featured hilarity by fellow players, and featured the appropriate amount of epicness and challenge. I am also very happy to report that there was no lag. How this happened in such a small space blows my mind. <br />
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After we had laid the charges, a giant Ancient Karka spawned on the other part of the island. I would have loved if when it spawned, it began ravaging one of the camps. However, as a quick thief I was the first one to arrive, and also the first one stupid enough to attack it solo. Luckily before I met a very painful demise, the zerg caught up to me and we began attacking a tree so that it would fall on the Karka.<br />
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This led to several events where we would drive the Ancient Karka back to it's hive where we had laid charges. Some of these events were diverse enough to be mildly entertaining. We caused a landslide to fall on the beast, threw some stones into geysers, and an assortment of others. The worst events by far were the reinforcement phases. The Ancient Karka would summon probably 40-50 Karka in the immediate vicinity. That alone wouldn't make me cringe. It was the fact that the veterans and champion mobs literally had too much health to be fun. The reinforcement phases would take nearly thirty minutes to complete, and were met with must disgust by the community in-game. Even worse, lag began to strike many players for the remainder of the event, and many people in the community were hit with disconnects.<br />
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When we drove the Karka back to the Hive. We had to free the charges from Karka webbing, and then pursue him all the way through seven floors of the hive to the bottom. That's where we finished the job by blowing up the stones beneath the Karka's feet revealing a pool of lava. I was on skype at the time, and phase 3 I had guessed would have taken thirty minutes. Instead, it took roughly 2-3 hours depending on your server's progress. We were exhausted, and I literally said as I opened the chest "I better not see any blues or greens." And I was never happier to be more right. <br />
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The rewards for this event were amazing. Everyone received an exotic earring, a 20 slot bag, and 4 extremely randomized items. I received an exotic, two rares...and...drumroll please....a LEGENDARY PRECURSOR. Now, before I go on, I have to say of course...I would get the one worth 8 gold. (Rage- A Precursor to the Legendary Speargun.) When I realized lots of people got precursors, I felt a little less special, to be honest. However, being the only one in my party to receive one, I have to say I am fortunate for even getting one. <br />
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So Phase 3 was even a mixed bag. It was fun and rewarding, but a good deal too long, and plagued by periods of poor game design. I feel for many players who were disconnected during the final fight only to not receive any loot, players who couldn't make the one time event, and players who couldn't stay on long enough to complete it. Not everyone can take 3 hours out of their day for a game, and I wish the event was recurring throughout the day. I really think having the event be featured once isn't the best way to minimize lag and maximize accessibility (two of the biggest problems for these events at the moment).<br />
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Overall, I have to say it was...interesting. Again, I felt this whole weekend of events was a whirlwind of impressions. It had it's moments where I was like wow, this is really amazing, and other minutes, where I was left scratching my head. If this was my first impression of Guild Wars 2, as I expect it was for many (this was the first Trial Weekend), I don't know what I would think. Needless to say, I will definitely remember this weekend years from now. And that's one of the best features of the game, that strikes to the very being of ArenaNet. Special in-game events that we will remember for ever isn't a bad way to operate. Now I just have to wonder whether these memories will be filled with nostalgia or disappointment....<br />
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Note: There has been an update from ArenaNet, those players that disconnected during the event without rewards, will be receiving their just compensation in the mail in a couple of days. Much rejoicing was had by the community.<br />
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Extra Side Note: Did anyone else wonder why we essentially slaughtered thousands of babies during this weekend? Whatever happened to Ventari's "Everything has a right to grow?"<br />
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<br />Entombedhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01844589959064626132noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8171316701044436647.post-87446520912296563882012-11-16T23:06:00.001-08:002012-11-16T23:06:19.991-08:00Fractals and Frizzles<img alt="Complete Fractals of the Mists Guide" src="http://www.guildwars2hub.com/sites/sardu.tentonhammer.com/files/styles/banner/public/gw2-fractals-guide.png" /><br />
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My night started with battling the Karka that were emerging in Lion's Arch. I'll condense my impressions of this starting event into a later article with the other events that occur throughout the week. <br />
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However, tonight I want to focus on the Fractals of the Mists. It's a new dungeon that features 9 randomized fractals that you experience with your group in packets of 3. You essentially start out in a hub, finish 3 randomized fractals, and then return to the hub. Each time you finish a set of 3, the difficulty level increases by one. On even difficulty levels for example 2,4,6, after your set of 3 you participate in an encounter on the scale of the Claw of Jormag or another Meta Event.<br />
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I didn't have a huge time to devote tonight, but I managed to finish difficulty level 1 twice, and difficulty level 2 once, as well as the large encounter. What I experienced was nothing more than a wonderful addition to the game. Until this point, I have challenged ArenaNet's instanced PvE design, specifically the explorable dungeons. I finished 40% of all explorable mode paths, and I have to say that I was disappointed. Difficulty and rewards rarely correlated, and what basically ended up happening, is that people would just solely grind the easier paths for equal rewards. In this new dungeon, the harder stuff gets, the better rewards you receive I love that.<br />
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The fights and mechanics were nothing short of spectacular in the new dungeon, and were relatively challenging. It's hard to say how challenging though, and here's why. In my first set of three fractals at level one difficulty, two people in my group left in the middle of the second fractal. However, with my brother and I (both 80s with full exotics) coordinating on Skype we were able to carry our remaining teammate, a useless Guardian who tried to tank everything, to finish out the last two fractals. <br />
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At difficulty two, I was with my brother, a friend, and a friend of a friend (essentially 3 80's with full exotics, and a level 28 guardian). We had a necromancer also with us in the first fractal, but again he left around the second fractal. What can you say other than PuG's right? They come and go as they please. And this provides a glimpse of my largest complaint. If someone in your party leaves, you can't go back to Lion's Arch to find someone. You also can't invite a friend or guildmate, because they cannot join the same instance as you for some reason. Essentially you are stuck with the remaining players you have, or you are forced to reset the previous fractals you have done on your current difficulty level. <br />
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My group also discovered something incredibly interesting. I thought it was cool that the fractals that you recieved were randomized, but I concluded that eventually it would probably turn stale when you had done fractals dozens of times. And that probably still is the case. However, when my group repeated an underwater fractal, part of the sequence of events that we had to complete changed. Instead of using luminous plants to navigate a dark room, we were transformed into dolphins, and were tasked with avoiding krait. It really transformed the fractal for me, and was amazingly enjoyable. I don't want to spoil any of the fractals, but they are filled with beautiful scenery, challenging content, unique but understandable mechanics, and justifiable rewards.<br />
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On a side note, I didn't really notice a huge difficulty jump from level one to two, so I'll be interested to see how far the hard-core make it tonight. I can imagine 5 players that are well geared and coordinated could go pretty far.<br />
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The rewards were fantastic and I received around 2 gold in profits from literally selling everything I got my greedy hands on. I would love to see the rewards for the higher levels, and I'm excited to play again tomorrow.Entombedhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01844589959064626132noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8171316701044436647.post-61611085935042717042012-11-13T14:23:00.001-08:002012-11-13T14:27:08.173-08:00Dangerous Implications<img height="360" src="http://blogs-images.forbes.com/erikkain/files/2012/10/guild_wars_2_artwork_3_090820160133.jpeg" width="640" /><br />
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I think the Guild Wars 2 world blew up yesterday. At least that's what it sounds like if you visit the official forums, unofficial forums, fansites, and blogs. It's seriously chaos out there right now, and I'd advise you to just stay away unless you seriously want to voice your opinion. <br />
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At the center of it all Ascended gear. Gear that seems to be a step up from exotic gear, that is meant to fill the void between Exotic and Legendary gear progression. This gear features infusion slots, which are to be fair, poorly-described by ArenaNet, and stats that are essentially slightly better versions of exotic gear. With the new patch, there will be three Ascended pieces that we can obtain for ourselves: a backpiece, and two rings. If you look at it initially, it doesn't sound too harmful. So what is everyone angry with ArenaNet about? It's the implications of this gear.<br />
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1) First and foremost, ArenaNet has broken their manifesto.<br />
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"Here’s what we believe: If someone wants to play for a thousand hours to get an item that is so rare that other players can’t realistically acquire it, that rare item should be differentiated by its visual appearance and rarity alone, not by being more powerful than everything else in the game. Otherwise, your MMO becomes all about grinding to get the best gear. We don’t make grindy games — we leave the grind to other MMOs."<br />
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-Made by none other than the president of ArenaNet, Mike O'Brien.</div>
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They have broken a promise. Even if this new tier of gear does not add to the grind, it certainly makes an ascended item differentiated by being more powerful than what was known to be best in slot for months, exotics. In MMOs, when a company breaks a promise, they are held accountable for a very long time. ArenaNet, if you release this tier, be prepared to weather the storm.<br />
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2) Secondly, dungeon gear will now be more powerful than any other gear that can be acquired from other places in the game. This includes WvW, crafting, and existing explorable mode dungeons. World vs. World players were specifically promised that they would never have to leave the Mists to be competitive. Rewards in both WvW and PvE was promised to be on-par with each other. Another broken promise with dangerous implications for WvW players.</div>
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3) Even less participation in existing explorable mode dungeons. The only people participating in these dungeons would be people wanting to achieve a legendary or attain a set of gear from it.</div>
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4) A gear treadmill. Other Ascended item slots will slowly be added over the next couple of updates. If we are already seeing a new tier just over 2 months after launch, when will they add the next? What happens when everyone gains Ascended gear, do we now have to grind for another set? Guild Wars 2 dared to be different and innovate many features of existing MMO conventions. Among these innovations was to never include a gear treadmill, and increasing rarity was only aesthetic. </div>
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5) Guild Wars 2 was about skill by players. Now, it seems that instead of skill, it's slowly leaning towards who has the best gear. Stat differences may start out small, but as you gain more and more pieces of Ascended gear your stats will become an estimated 5% higher. This is without including the infusion slot bonus. While we know this slot is supposed to combat Agony, a PvE condition only, they told us that these slots could also be offensively and defensively based. If this includes damage and/or defensive bonuses, this could easily expand into WvW territory. Even worse, all end-game PvE content afterwards will likely include it as well.</div>
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6) In one of the biggest blantant "We are breaking our own promises", you had the press tell us first. You actually allowed the press to tell us about ascended items before even yourselves. Not understanding that this would be a huge deal to players is a flashing neon sign that you are not aware of player concerns. </div>
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7) Which leads me to my final point. ArenaNet, you appear to be out of touch with your players. If you are truly the company that cares about us, why not make an open discussion/poll about it? Why not ask the players for what they want, instead of just throwing it at us?</div>
Entombedhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01844589959064626132noreply@blogger.com11tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8171316701044436647.post-66562441903476470092012-11-12T21:51:00.003-08:002012-11-12T21:51:16.038-08:00<div style="text-align: center;">
I have no voice, and I certainly don’t carry any weight in my words to you ArenaNet. We asked for many changes to your PvE content, but this was almost never asked for by the majority of your fanbase. I have defended you countless times, and trusted you far more than any company rightfully deserves. I hoped this game would be different, that it would set a precedent for other upcoming MMOs. When you challenged the current field of competitors, it was we who rose with you. When you cried for change, it was us who spread the news that it was time for a new type of MMO. When it was you who asked who will play, we answered with a resounding “yes.” You will likely not lose money, many of us will still play, and you will almost certainly not read this. But you have lost our trust, I hope it was worth it.</div>
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Entombedhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01844589959064626132noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8171316701044436647.post-80332990258946611162012-11-12T13:16:00.001-08:002012-11-12T13:34:09.862-08:00The Lost Shores<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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An explosion of information has rocked the interwebs today concerning the latest addition to Tyria. And what would the content be, if not yet another brewing controversy. Let's review, shall we?<br />
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1. A new sPvP map called Temple of the Silent Storm featuring your's truly's favorite race: the Kodan. Special features include praying for powerups, and killing a boss that places all capture points under the killing team's control.<br />
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Sounds great for both PvP and bear enthusiasts alike.</div>
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2. A series of events that open up a new island with the full array of vendors, jumping puzzles, dynamic events, and explorable areas.<br />
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Another zone with more jumping puzzles and events. Excellent.</div>
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3. A new enemy type called Karka where players will go on a series of quests to learn how to break their seemingly impenetrable armor. The final event will feature an event that will take considerable time and energy to progress through. (whatever that means?)<br />
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Sounds fantastic.</div>
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4. A new dungeon called Fractals of the Mist that indefinitely gets harder. Each time we enter, we will arrive in one of nine instances (termed fractals).<br />
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From the MMORPG preview:<br />
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"Each fractal’s experience will be similar to that of the various mini-dungeons littered throughout the open world of Guild Wars 2. These fractals will feature a variety of challenges, puzzles, and boss fights, with an emphasis placed on use of the environment. Players can expect each fractal to take anywhere from 15 to 40 minutes to complete and the game will throw you through a series of three fractals, from one to the next, before returning you to town. Every other set of three fractals that players complete will initiate a special boss fight along the lines of Tequatl the Sunless or The Shatterer.<br />
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Once players return to town, future entries into the dungeon will scale to become harder than the last. The amount of enemies players will face will increase as will their health and damage, for example. Of course, you can also expect commensurate rewards for completing harder versions of the dungeon."<br />
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Once again sounds amazing, right? In an MMO where the PvE content has struggled to find a correlation between challenging and rewarding content, this dungeon arrives to fill the void.</div>
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...so where is this controversy and what is it all about?</div>
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5. MMORPG.com did such a fine job with their preview that I'll leave it to them to explain it to you.</div>
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"Speaking of rewards, the Fractals of the Mist Dungeon will introduce the new ‘Ascended' item type. This type is a bit more powerful than the Exotic quality items currently found in the game. There will only be a couple of Ascended quality items available initially, but some of the rarer Ascended items will also feature a new Infusion slot that will make players even more powerful so that they can tackle new challenges that ArenaNet plans to throw at them as they continue to expand on the dungeon over the coming months and years."<br />
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Yes. You heard it right. Vertical gear progression, gear treadmills, whatever you want to call it may have just been included in the game. Whatever it is, it certainly has broken the previous paradigm set by ArenaNet. Even I am hesitant to call it this, but at the moment it certainly seems a change of direction. This is the second patch since launch, and already players will have to re-attain all gear equips to once again achieve maximal efficiency. Sounds a lot like a gear treadmill to me. Even if the difference is small, players will always feel forced to go for it. </div>
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What scares me even more is that this new dungeon is the only way to attain the Ascended gear. As a player in World of Warcraft who was forced into raids to achieve the top weapons, so that I could then be competitive in arenas and battlegrounds, I do not like this at all. Sure, structured PvP in this game is seperate, but WvW is not so fortunate to escape the impacts of this change. </div>
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The patch releases Thursday, and I must say I am terrified for both the game and ArenaNet. <br />
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Edit: A thread detailing Ascended Armor has exploded on the official forums. Over 20,000 views and 1000 posts have now been made, mere hours after the announcement.</div>
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A picture of Ascended gear. At least it looks beautiful.</div>
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Entombedhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01844589959064626132noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8171316701044436647.post-57635405775227963032012-11-11T19:07:00.001-08:002012-11-11T19:07:36.300-08:00The Best CGI Cinematic I have Ever Seen...As I once said several months ago, I have a deep-rooted passion for cinematics.<br />
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While I may not write as much I used to, I still cling to my daily habit of MMO news. Yesterday, was Square Enix's Final Fantasy XIV's last day. Well..sort of. XIV like many unfortunate MMO's was released way too early, with way too many significant flaws to gain any sort of traction by the community. When this happens, most companies abandon the product and doom it to failure. This is what set Square Enix apart. They admitted their mistakes, built a new team, and stopped charging their customers subscriptions until they fixed the game. The developers at Square Enix are slowly unveiling Final Fantasy XIV 2.0, a complete revamp of the old game. It's essentially a new game, that they are giving away free to current subscribers. It's certainly laudable, and yesterday marked the end of the original Final Fantasy XIV, with a world ending conclusion. I have no investment in the game, nor have I played the original, nor do I know any of the lore in the Final Fantasy universe. Yet, what I witnessed, was no less than the best CGI cinematic I have ever seen. Screw launch trailers. End of the game trailers carry so much more weight.<br />
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Keep your eyes on this game. Don't bet on a success, but watch it with a certain weariness.Entombedhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01844589959064626132noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8171316701044436647.post-298679131783348712012-11-02T22:36:00.002-07:002012-11-02T22:36:19.176-07:00Whales and Translations...<img alt="banner-november-2012" height="256" src="https://d2vn94glaxzkz3.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/banner-november-2012.jpg" width="640" /><br />
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You may have noticed that once again Tyria is changing. Today in the most recent patch, Lion's Arch offers subtle hints of the upcoming November 15th patch, The Lost Shores. <br />
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Posters filled with New Krytan begging to be translated littered the walls of the city, whales have begun to beach themselves on the shores, and an inactive portal is practically torturing us with it's potential. I actually took a look in game after hearing about the changes, and I was surprised to see little buckets of water that you could pour on to the whales. I was instantly thrown back to Whale Rider, a fantastic movie, by the way. Sadly, nothing of interest happened, but I definitely thought it was a nice touch. <br />
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For full translations of the posters please refer to: <a href="http://dulfy.net/2012/11/02/gw2-the-lost-shores-pre-events-and-teaser/">http://dulfy.net/2012/11/02/gw2-the-lost-shores-pre-events-and-teaser/</a> The site features some great detective and translation work by the community, and I think this patch holds a lot of promise.<br />
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If you watched the most recent interview with MMORPG.com on Twitch.tv, you already know some of the content coming. There's an island being uncovered in a special one-time event over the weekend of November 16th. Underneath this island is an extremely large multi-leveled dungeon that gets increasingly harder has you work your way to the bottom. Some of the rewards are supposed to be unique and highly desirable by the community. I can tell you that I know what I will be attempting to do over the next several weeks after the patch hits. There's also a new structured PvP map that will be beta tested, so PvPers keep an eye out for that.<br />
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My strongest criticism of Guild Wars 2 at the moment are the lack of rewards in certain areas of the game. For me, my biggest frustration is that WvW tokens are practically useless. The gear rewarded provides vitality and toughness, is relatively average looking (I do like the head piece however). The legendary precursor is only useful if you want to go for a legendary. And let's be honest, with the weapon precursors hovering around 300g, I have long given up that hope. And then of course you can buy some siege weapons with tokens, but I still am accumulating them far faster than I could ever hope to spend them. <br />
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Rewards for dungeons are in a similar, albeit slightly better state. The only end-game karma options are the precursors for a legendary, again only really applicable if you are trying to obtain a legendary, and of course the exotics in Orr. By now most people have saved up for a specific item or set have already received them, with the exception of a legendary. However, people need more than a legendary to dream about, as that is an extremely long-term goal for most of the playerbase. While many of the events in the game are fun, the reward system does not feel rewarding. And that is becoming a big problem. At the end of the day, the looting in Guild Wars 2 is turning out to be much like Diablo 3. It's simply not fun. Our chances of receiving anything worthwhile to use or to sell is incredibly small. I was hoping there would be a higher skill/reward option that would would reward the player better things the harder the task was to achieve. Explorable modes have really not been very hard to complete, and so I find it hard to justify greater rewards for them. At the same time, story dungeon modes are practically useless after your first run through. ArenaNet has revealed they are currently working on revamping several of the reward systems in-game as well as balancing in the dungeons. I can't stress enough how important this is to the longevity of the game. I am holding out hope the new reward structure will be in either this month's or next month's patch.Entombedhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01844589959064626132noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8171316701044436647.post-85049056506571508992012-10-30T18:13:00.001-07:002012-11-02T22:36:54.171-07:00Halloween: Trick or Treat?<img height="360" src="https://d2vn94glaxzkz3.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/halloween-2012-lions-arch-statue.jpg" width="640" /><br />
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Let's talk about it. It's the subject of the first major patch to Guild Wars 2, and this content has been extremely controversial with the community. There has been an explosion of dialogue over the last several days over on other blogs and forums detailing the drop rates of the Black Lion chests and the "difficulty" of the jumping puzzle. While one or two pieces of content may have not lived up to your expectations, I don't think anyone can argue that Halloween has not been an overall great addition to the world of Tyria. My friends and I have thoroughly enjoyed hours of game time over the past week, and I'm already excited for the next major holiday. Whether it was slaying Mad King Thorn, seeing the Lion burst into pieces in-game, completing the Clock Tower jumping puzzle, or carving some good old-fashioned pumpkins, I had tons of fun this Halloween.<br />
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<a name='more'></a>Let's talk about the Black Lion chests first. For those who don't know, these are chests that offered some exclusive Halloween skins for a limited time and can be opened by using keys that can be obtained in one of three ways. Through gems usually paid with real world money, or buying gems through conversion of in-game gold, or finding keys in-game (extremely low droprate, but yes, you can find them).<br />
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By now, the community built several mechanisms to report the droprate, the best estimate we have is around 2% for a random skin. If you are paying real money for something like this, and let's assume you are buying the keys in bulk for a cheaper price, you pay approximately 450 gems for 5 keys which at the moment converts very roughly to 5.50 American dollars. Now of course, you could buy the weapon skin off the auction house, but even they can be upwards of 20-60 gold. And so by now, you start to see the ethical queries that many have already begun to question.<br />
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Questions Raised:<br />
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-Should companies offer RNG items in a cash shop? If so, how rare can an item be?<br />
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-How much can you rightfully charge someone for a simple weapon skin?<br />
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-Who is ultimately accountable for gem store selection and purchases?<br />
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I thoroughly disagree with ArenaNet's current usage of the gem store during this Holiday season. If you want to charge 700 gems for the Mad King's Outfit, I'm completely okay with that. However, if you start to charge real money for chests, who should be accountable? Should the company be explicit in the approximate chances of success with chests, or should the buyer who perhaps unwisely and ignorantly bought packs of keys dreaming of a chainsword greatsword skin? Many people are in quite dramatic conflict about this situation. And to their credit, ArenaNet did try to impose a solution. However the solution was largely discredited by many of their critics, because they simply imposed yet more RNG on the playerbase. If real money is involved, I don't believe you can toy with players. At some point it's reckless to charge players absurd amounts of money with extremely diminishing chances of success. And of course, this all comes swirling back to bite the company when players begin to lash out. Some could argue that players should of course know that the chests were RNG in the first place. However, it took several days to come up with even rougly accurate percentages of success by extremely coordinated members of the community. Many players simply will not wait when a carrot is dangled tauntingly above them. Is that their fault? Maybe, but I think companies have a responsibility with cash shops to be transparent.<br />
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Full disclosure: I did not buy any gems with real money, but only attempted to open 4 chests (using in game gold to gem conversion) during the event.<br />
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Now others have suggested that ArenaNet should simply increase the chances from 2%. However that for me, doesn't feel like a solution. In fact, it doesn't really answer the question or problem, but merely sidesteps and tries to address the risk/reward of RNG. My feeling is that this response stems from the idea that most Holiday items and events should be accessible to all. I'm not necessarily in agreement with these critics. I for one loved some of the rare Holiday mounts in World of Warcraft, and I am fully okay that they can be extremely hard to get. And in many cases, gaining the mount is simply luck. However those mounts never were sold by a cash shop, and thus, I suppose the dynamic is extremely different.<br />
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And this really kind of leads to the Clock Tower. I for one love the tower jumping puzzle. I loved it before I had completed it, and I certainly loved after the 8+ times I've completed it since. To me, it's a fun, light-hearted challenge made to be completed with friends and strangers. There are a lot of complaints flying around about this puzzle because of the difficulty and the design. Many players believe Holiday events should be for everyone, and the fact that only a minority of players can complete it, makes the content somehow tainted.<br />
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Question Raised:<br />
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-Should Holiday Content be accessible and completable by everyone?<br />
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ArenaNet clearly did not make the Clock Tower achievement part of the Halloween title requirements, nor are the rewards substantial enough to make it necessary for players to complete. It was simply a fun, but rather challenging piece of new content. I personally think it's okay to make content that's hard, regardless of whether it's a temporary or permanent fixture in the world of Tyria. As gamers, I think we appreciate challenges and I think in no way is this jumping puzzle too difficult to complete by a large percentage of the population given that they devote some time to it.<br />
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However, the issues raised with the Clock tower actually ran deeper than just the difficulty question. It was pinned by one major MMO website as "a new contender for the worst piece of content ever put into a game". I think most would agree the author overstated the claim, and in fact, most would probably by and large disagree with him. His real quarrel was not the intended difficulty of the puzzle, but the unintended consequences of making the puzzle forcefully join you with other people. He proposed that the other character models in fact make it very hard to see your character. My problem with his argument is that his complaint only has one solution: to make the puzzle instanced so that you can complete it by itself.<br />
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Do you know how awful that sounds? You want the people to go away in an MMO and isolate yourself even further. Isn't that what Guild Wars 2 was all about? To make people excited to see other players in the world and to cooperatively complete events and puzzles? Clearly the author did not feel this way during his attempts at the puzzle. <br />
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However, I must confess that I did. I loved seeing the rivalries, the curse words, hilarity, and taunting develop between players during their attempts to complete the puzzle. In one instance, I would gain a lead over all the other players and stop all of a sudden so they catch up. And then yell "WOOOOOOOO" and plummet completely in the wrong direction to make them laugh. I would wear ridiculous outfits mostly involving a half naked asura and I think a lot of people had a blast. I think the author's opinon is no less true than my own, but our opinions came from two very different mindsets. Though, I would be lying if I didn't say that I secretly hope ArenaNet has a similarly challenging non-solo jumping puzzle again for Christmas.<br />
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What did you guys think? How did you enjoy the Halloween festivities? Did you stop Mad King Thorn yet? Let me know below! I'm so looking forward to Act 4 tomorrow, and I'm banking that there's going to be a party. See you then!<br />
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<br />Entombedhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01844589959064626132noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8171316701044436647.post-74815263320128266872012-10-25T18:51:00.000-07:002012-10-25T19:21:38.890-07:00This Is Why I PlayFriends and family offer some of the best moments in an MMO. My friend, brother and I recently finished some of the latest jumping additions to Tyria, and we took some time to have take some nice shots. As you can see the cabbage did not come prepared with Halloween-attire. But, I suppose we love him anyways. I also recently discovered the /cower animation for the asura, and it is perhaps the best animation yet. (see second photo for creepy/adorableness.<br />
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<br />Entombedhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01844589959064626132noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8171316701044436647.post-65742617287149939882012-10-18T20:18:00.002-07:002012-10-18T20:18:49.735-07:00Shadow of The Mad KingArenaNet is continuing the steady stream of information on the "Shadow of The Mad King" content patch slated for release on October 22nd.<br />
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First and foremost a video. Featuring most prominently a strange platform puzzle that may allow us to jump into the cauldron, transporting us into the Underworld perhaps? Furthermore several costumes were revealed, and oh dear lord....some quaggan transformations. ArenaNet be prepared to be stuffed with my cash on the 22nd for those transformations. I want...make that need....a lifetime supply of those transformations.<br />
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Also, a schedule was released detailing when each "Act" will playout in the world. I think we can safely assume the so-called Acts are likely dynamic events that play out in the world. There is no news that states the required level of participation for these events, so you may want to make sure your character of choice is 80 by the time of the patch.<br />
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Act 1-October 22nd<br />
Act 2-October 26th<br />
Act 3-October 28th<br />
Act 4-October 31st<br />
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I personally love how they are playing a story out over several days. I have always enjoyed "unique" events that happen once in MMOs. It's part of the reason I love the genre so much, and to me at least, it makes the world feel that much more alive.<br />
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See you on the 22nd!Entombedhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01844589959064626132noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8171316701044436647.post-28671421167174017832012-10-13T21:16:00.000-07:002012-10-13T21:22:37.184-07:00A Spark on the Horizon<img height="320" src="https://d2vn94glaxzkz3.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/october-2012-concept-1.jpg" width="640" /><br />
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While my last post was a little too teenage angsty for even my taste, this time we talk about the upcoming events in Tyria. Halloween marks the first major content patch and features holiday events, jumping puzzles, Black Lion Trading Company additions to the gem store, a new style of PvP tournament,with a boast of new unrelated events, achievements, mini-dungeons. It should become immediately apparent that this addition to the game is not light on content.<br />
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With six separate live teams actively working on developing the game post-launch, I really think we are in for a treat with this patch. (no pun intended.)<br />
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Personally, I'm hoping for a quaggan costume in the gem store, because I will immediately buy it for my asura. Can you even imagine the awesomeness of that?<br />
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Also, I'm particularly excited for the events leading up to Halloween. Colin Johanson has hinted that while there are new events cropping up from the 22nd of October to the 31st, he was specifically looking forward to the event that started on the 28th. With the Hunger Games and my personal favorite the Branded event during the beta weekends as the last unique events, I'm pretty stoked to see what they have in store for us.<br />
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And even in the not-so-distant future of November, there have been hints at what's to come. There's more news on the mobile app and how they are hoping to make it even better during this development time than they had originally anticipated. There's rumors of the mini-games promised for each of the major cities being released sometime in 2012, as well as the possibility of a spectator mode.<br />
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In the latest interview with MMORPG.com, Colin notes where he hopes the game will be by 2013.<br />
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"My hope would be over the next few months we build and strengthen that bond and relationship with our player base. We need to show to our players that our plans for live development for Guild Wars 2 aren’t just words. We live up to the promise of what a truly supported live MMO can be, and we want people to look back at our initial blog post on what our live teams will be doing and say, “They are doing everything they said they would do, I trust them to keep their word.” If we can strengthen and build that level of trust in the live game world, show our dedication to massively increasing the depth and breadth of things to do in GW2 for all players I believe we’ll be a great place to start 2013."<br />
The "Shadow of the Mad King" releases October 22nd, and I have to confess, I'm extremely excited for it. I'm even starting to actively save cash to buy some costumes. Please ArenaNet, I NEED a quaggan costume. Do this, and I promise to be your fanboy forever.<br />
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<br />Entombedhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01844589959064626132noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8171316701044436647.post-70664301378607914492012-10-10T20:03:00.001-07:002012-10-10T20:03:27.093-07:00Annoyances and Other Bothers<img height="360" src="http://www.deviantart.com/download/328275845/guild_wars_2_fanart___baby_quaggan_wants_rare_dye__by_jeffufu-d5fg39h.jpg" width="640" /><br />
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Tyria hasn't been all suns and roses. My praise of ArenaNet has been pretty evident in the past, but as I've played the game, I definitely have a laundry list of complaints. After finishing writing this, I'm definitely frustrated with the state of the game when it was released, as well as some of the fundamental design decisions.<br />
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First and foremost, the higher end PvE content has been filled with nearly fatal flaws. These flaws are so serious, that if you were only a hardcore PvE player, I'd advise you to choose a different game. Most obviously, Orr was terrible at launch, and has only just recently become relatively glitch/bug free. The PvP side of things comes out a bit better in the end, but ultimately, there are very significant problems that will need to be fixed soon.<br />
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However, let's talk current PvE metagame for a moment. The options at the moment are: explore, play anywhere in the world at 80, do story mode dungeons, do/finish your personal story, and farm explorable mode dungeons for armor sets.<br />
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Well story modes are simply useless after your first run. The rewards are negligible, and word is that ArenaNet is working a to-be-announced fix. Fine, but at the moment, they are really a "do one time and then never again" kind of things.<br />
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Go anywhere in the world. Well, if you want decent rewards, you can really only work around Orr or Frostgorge Sound. Exploration of the higher level zones reward nice exotic gear, a large chunk of change, and some respectable materials, but they are only achievable once. The rest of the time you will be running events in Orr. And, sadly, they weren't that creative in many of the Orr events. Even worse, its really monsoon or drought in people population. You are either running into large un-doable meta events by yourself, or oppositely, you kill everything by simply outzerging the enemies and autoattacking. There's a couple of exceptions, but by in large they are in the minority of events. Futhermore, botters have been plentiful in many of the upper level zones, which only cripples the experience further. <br />
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Now that being said, there were moments of brilliance. There was a champion abomination mission pre-nerf that was absolutely terrifying to take down. It revolved around kiting him in a very small space, immune to CC's 95% of the fight, and the capability to one shot anyone who was hit by him. When a very small group tried to take him down, we were wiped nearly instantly. With a bit of coordination and practice, we downed him with great accomplishment.<br />
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And that really is my main problem. ArenaNet had the capability to make something great in meta events and Orr, and instead the final designs just seems rushed, and poor imitations of something that was supposed to be great.<br />
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And this is all ignoring the rampant amount of glitches and bugs in Orr that were only recently fixed. ArenaNet you can make many excuses, but the "they-were-working-at-launch-but-we-pushed-builds-so-often-that-they-were-never-tested-for-longer-periods-of-time" excuse is a pretty awful oversight, or at very best exercises extremely poor judgment, and was frankly unacceptable.<br />
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And then we have explorable dungeons. Yeah, well if you were in the overwhelming majority that farmed your dungeon of interest (*cough* COF *cough*), you most likely have your gear of choice by now. Why? Well most of you didn't do it on skill. You simply exploited glitches and bugs and map exploits to shortcut your way through the hardest mode in the game a large amount of time. Not only did you cheaply receive gear that was supposed to be hard/take a long time to get in a matter of hours, but you also tanked the economy with overwhelming amounts of gold. However, I don't blame the players. We as an entity will do achieve items we want with the least amount of work, that's just how it works. ArenaNet's answer to all of this? Several patches of fixes that took weeks to fully stop the exploiting. Too late to have really any effect. How could they have prevented this? By better testing pre-launch and more expedient action.<br />
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Okay, so maybe you want a legendary. To be honest, only the greatswords appear worth the effort. I was so stunned to finally see the long-awaited-flaming-unicorn shortbow in-game, that it was pretty disappointing to see it in action. Seriously, if you are going for over the top rainbow unicorn madness, this falls well short of the mark in animations. When you try to compare any of the weapons to the greatswords, they just fall flat. Or how about that one-handed sword that looks fairly nice. Well have fun with the annoying buzzing sound for the rest of your days. This point is fairly subjective, but I charge you to find a weapon equal in "awesomeness' to the greatswords.<br />
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Oh, and please don't get me started about the Zhaitan encounter again. It was just so clearly poorly tested, how in the world can anyone view this as fun/acceptable for any final boss. I simply can't leave that fight without feeling overwhelmingly lied too. That (awful) trailer released several weeks ago that was fairly poorly recieved by the community was also a final slap in the face with the imposing (but ultimately laughable) Zhaitan being the closing image.<br />
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And the personal story. Oh the personal story. Something that was ultimately just empty promises. Will NPC's actually care about you now if you re-enter your personal instance? We were promised this repeatedly leading up to launch. I can walk into my instance and see nothing of value and certainly no NPCs that I remember or that remember me. Will my choices matter? No. That soldier you just saved, that artifact that you just stole from Zhaitan, those friends that died, nothing will ever be brought up again after that mission. All of this upsets me, and ultimately, the personal story just feels like it was a waste of resources.<br />
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Now, WvW is a huge amount of fun. There are just so many problems that inhibit the levels of fun. A month and a half after WvW rounds, I would have hoped they would have been more even, well-rounded fights by now. They simply aren't. My realm alternates between destroying the other servers, to being crushed every week. Worse, people just give up after 2-3 days of losing, and the zones can become desolate places. <br />
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WvW is still way too zergy. My small group of 3-4 friends on a night can take a supply camp. We can upgrade it, we can set up siege equipment, and outgear our opposition. It simply doesn't matter when 30 people just come in and wreck us in a couple of seconds. Nothing we do matters. At the moment, it just feels like multiple zergs roam together around the map and capture things. I thought WvW was supposed to include the power of intelligence over shear numbers. At this point, it just doesn't feel that way.<br />
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And then let's talk about rewards. Well what can I get for my 1000 WvW badges of honor. Absolutely nothing. Yes, you can buy your 500 token precursor for a legendary. But then what? Your only medium-to-long term rewards are toughness and vitality gear. ArenaNet, why did you not give players the possibility to buy other types of gear? I'm just not sure how anyone could have overlooked this. Can you at least provide some kind of currency exchange, or a way to make gold off buying exotic gear with tokens and allowing us to salvage/mystic forge the items. As it stands now, the only reason to WvW is fun. Which is eh, I understand that. But throwing a legendary precursor and gear that most people don't want into something that takes a long time to get, doesn't cut it.<br />
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ArenaNet you have a plethora of issues with your game. Please fix them, or they will eventually destroy you.<br />
<br />Entombedhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01844589959064626132noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8171316701044436647.post-60200822717813449202012-10-06T09:56:00.002-07:002012-10-06T09:56:14.340-07:00Salvaging and Magic Find AnalysisThere are an enormous amount of people discovering the power of salvaging items, and selling the products for net increases in gold. However, one question that I've heard asked, and I actually did not know the answer to is: Does magic find increase your chance for producing rare items using salvage kits, such as more ectoplasms from rare items? <br />
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Well, a Reddit user by the name of Marko_Oktabyr, was gracious enough to perform the test about a week ago. Sadly, I don't believe his study got the attention it deserved, because it was beautifully performed.<br />
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The long awaited answer is no, magic find does not increase your success at salvaging.So no, don't go out and break the bank for runes, temporary buffs, or gear just to play the trading post with salvaging.<br />
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Check out the full study and how it was performed over<a href="http://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/10ibqg/salvaging_analysis_magic_find/"> here.</a> As a researcher-in-training, I am genuinely happy to see someone in the Guild Wars 2 so astute in designing an experiment, and explaining it to the general public.<br />
<br />Entombedhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01844589959064626132noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8171316701044436647.post-58003833299980967572012-09-30T20:18:00.002-07:002012-09-30T20:18:23.311-07:00Cloak and Dagger BuildsI admittedly stumbled upon a thief build that is particularly potent in WvW. It was mimicked after encountering a thief while in a small group of friends. The build revolves around using Cloak and Dagger, the number 5 skill with dagger/dagger. Essentially you can walk into groups of 30+ alone, and essentially cause hilarious unorthodox chaos by yourself. And if with only a bit of skill, you can escape unscathed. Essentially the skill involves a very short cast time, requires you to be in melee range, but places you into stealth if it lands. It costs a good chunk of your initiative, but if spec'ed properly, you should be able to regenerate health and initiative in stealth to continue indefinitely. You walk in, cloak and dagger the nearest person, backstab them or any other near victim, and repeat the process. ArenaNet has tried to counter this particular build by placing a short condition all stealth moves that prevent you from reentering stealth.<br />
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There is very little the enemies can do about it, and you can stay alive if you continuously move to a new target. At the moment, there are ways to counter it, but because you can do it in such large groups, there's almost always a plentiful supply of unsuspecting targets. <br />
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So if you see a thief charge towards a pack of thirty with that crazy look in their eye, they might not be as stuipd as you first think.Entombedhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01844589959064626132noreply@blogger.com2