Building Relationships

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.

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."

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.

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.

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.  

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.  

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.  

And today I was reminded of that answer.  

The Shores of Lost Potential

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.

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.

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?

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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).

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....

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.

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?"

Fractals and Frizzles

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

 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.

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.

Dangerous Implications

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.

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.

1)  First and foremost, ArenaNet has broken their manifesto.

"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."

-Made by none other than the president of ArenaNet, Mike O'Brien.

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.

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.

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.

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. 

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.

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.  

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?

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.

The Lost Shores

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?

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.

Sounds great for both PvP and bear enthusiasts alike.

2.  A series of events that open up a new island with the full array of vendors, jumping puzzles, dynamic events, and explorable areas.

Another zone with more jumping puzzles and events.  Excellent.

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?)

Sounds fantastic.

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).

From the MMORPG preview:

"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.

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."

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.

...so where is this controversy and what is it all about?

5.  MMORPG.com did such a fine job with their preview that I'll leave it to them to explain it to you.

"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."

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.  

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.  

The patch releases Thursday, and I must say I am terrified for both the game and ArenaNet.

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.

A picture of Ascended gear.  At least it looks beautiful.

The Best CGI Cinematic I have Ever Seen...

As I once said several months ago, I have a deep-rooted passion for cinematics.

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.

Keep your eyes on this game.  Don't bet on a success, but watch it with a certain weariness.

Whales and Translations...

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.

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.

For full translations of the posters please refer to:  http://dulfy.net/2012/11/02/gw2-the-lost-shores-pre-events-and-teaser/  The site features some great detective and translation work by the community, and I think this patch holds a lot of promise.

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.

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.

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.

Halloween: Trick or Treat?

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.

This Is Why I Play

Friends 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.