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[Hawkian]

We should really do that Orr mob event... would this sunday around reset time be good for people?

We'll have an hour extra cause of daylight savings time!

Wait that isn't changing the reset hour right? I never remember how this works.

Figures I'm the only one who played Castlevania 64.

Oh wow, hah

 

[Levito]

For Halloween next year ArenaNet should recreate an environment from an old survival horror game an make it into an instance. Like say the Police Station from Resident Evil 2 or the Hospital from Silent Hill 2/3.


..Just sayin'

 

[Complistic]

We should really do that Orr mob event... would this sunday around reset time be good for people?

We'll have an hour extra cause of daylight savings time!

Wait that isn't changing the reset hour right? I never remember how this works.

Oh wow, hah

It'll be a different hour. Though I guess technically it's at the same time of day.

 

[Retro]

I got SotN and never looked back.

But C64 came out after SotN, though you'd be forgiven for avoiding it as it has quite a few problems (a terrible camera, dull music, bland level design, a terrible camera, nonsensical enemies, bad control, muddy graphics, a terrible camera).

In fact, with Castlevania, you really want to get SotN and then never look forward. What followed was mostly SotN clones on handhelds and God of Warvania (which are all okay games, to be fair, Aria of Sorrow and Order of Ecclesia were even pretty damn good).

Oh wow, hah

Yep, it's a pretty obvious homage or a really crazy coincidence.

For Halloween next year ArenaNet should recreate an environment from an old survival horror game an make it into an instance. Like say the Police Station from Resident Evil 2 or the Hospital from Silent Hill 2/3.


..Just sayin'

The ruins of the Mad King's Castle need to be rediscovered in time for a Halloween mini-dungeon next year.

... Sorry, finished my yearly late October playthru of SotN this morning so it's on my mind.

 

[Lunar15]

I prefer Aria to SotN myself, but I get that that SoTN was the more groundbreaking game. The souls mechanic was just too freakin' good.

 

[Ashodin]

But C64 came out after SotN, though you'd be forgiven for avoiding it as it has quite a few problems (a terrible camera, dull music, bland level design, a terrible camera, nonsensical enemies, bad control, muddy graphics, a terrible camera).

In fact, with Castlevania, you really want to get SotN and then never look forward. What followed was mostly SotN clones on handhelds and God of Warvania (which are all okay games, to be fair, Aria of Sorrow and Order of Ecclesia were even pretty damn good).



Yep, it's a pretty obvious homage or a really crazy coincidence.



The ruins of the Mad King's Castle need to be rediscovered in time for a Halloween mini-dungeon next year.

... Sorry, finished my yearly late October playthru of SotN this morning so it's on my mind.

I still want my Battle of 1999.

 

[Hawkian]

It'll be a different hour. Though I guess technically it's at the same time of day.

Stupid... human civilization.

It'll be at... 7:00EST, now then, right?

 

[LiveSpartan235]

Guild Wars Halloween Poems read by Anet
https://soundcloud.com/arenanet/sets/guild-wars-halloween-poems

 

[Retro]

I prefer Aria to SotN myself, but I get that that SoTN was the more groundbreaking game. The souls mechanic was just too freakin' good.

I feel like after SotN, they basically just tried to re-capture that gameplay while giving you a new magic system to grind through. The fact that Symphony has the better soundtrack, better graphics and features better replay by virtue of the inverted castle and the multitude of different weapons to play with always tips the scale. For example, I used fist weapons a LOT more in this playthru and discovered the Fist of Tulkas has two special attacks (A rapidfire punch and a hadoken). Every time I play the game, I find something new.

Plus Aria is kind of too easy, the story is lame (I say that knowing full well how bad the VA in SotN is) and continues with the terrible anime style. It's still a damn good game, don't get me wrong, but as far as Metroidvanias go it was decent. It needed the difficulty bumped up, which thankfully Ecclesia took care of.

I still want my Battle of 1999.

At this point, the future of Castlevania is kind of scary. Mercurysteam has said that Lords of Shadow 2 is the end of their saga, and IGA is pretty much in a broom closet deep in the bowels of Konami HQ. But the LoS series has kind of shown Konami the series can do well and draw respectable sales... but for all the wrong reasons. I kind of hope they take the opportunity to reboot the series, but as a sidescroller rather than a God of War clone.

Anyways, we're way off topic here, so I'll stop and we can take it to PMs or the actual Castlevania thread.

 

[leng jai]

My definition? Guess I never really formed one, but I've never had trouble identifying them. I'm comfortable calling hurricanes and tornadoes disasters. The healthcare.gov rollout is a pretty solid example too. Maybe if Halloween in GW2 was deleting peoples' characters or the clock tower had been altered to be two jumps with guard railing.

Your read on everyone losing interest after 2 or 3 days notwithstanding (I was still in a large group in the Labyrinth last weekend, but whatever), I had fun leveling alts in the labyrinth, had fun in lunatic inquisition, love the clocktower, like running into doors in the open world. I think LA looks great all decked out. Liked seeing people costume brawling at tequatl and getting knocked out during mad king says yesterday. All that is stuff they did right. I get that it disappointed you in every way and didn't live up to your standards but I know what constitutes a fucking disaster and "collection of fun things" doesn't meet that description just because it isn't as good as the collection of fun things last year. completely your prerogative to not consider that hyperbole but I can consider it ridiculous too.

I'm no fan of having skins obtainable through RNG by any stretch but it's not hard to understand why it happens, and the ticket scraps weren't a part of the game when they had the skins last year. It's not like you couldn't afford to just buy any of them off the TP right now if you wanted one anyway. And you'll never believe my abject shock at people moving en masse to new content when it's released. what does it even matter to you if the labyrinth is a ghost town right now if it's so much less profitable to farm than last year anyway? seems like it should be a wash from your perspective.

Honestly you make me feel guilty for just enjoying myself without complaining all the time.

I fail to see how I made you feel guilty when I wasn't even referring to you in the first place while you made a snarky one liner about the semantics of one word (which in this context just means a failure). Maybe you should be less invested in the game so you don't take these complaints personally. Almost every single thing that you pointed out to be a so called success was a straight copy or reskin of last year's event. If an update involving a major holiday fails to hold people's attention for more than a few days and involves very limited new content then I'd class that as a failure. The Labyrinth was a wash because it was both not fun and not profitable. To keep people playing you need to have at least one of those things.

Yeah everyone moved onto the new content because they were bored with Halloween a week prior. The funniest thing is that Halloween seemingly got upstaged by another champ zerg like event that won't hold people's interest for any longer either. Two week updates are good in theory but not if they're going to be filler content most of the time.

 

[Hawkian]

even if literally everything I mentioned was an exact copy of last year's event it wouldn't suddenly transform them into bad things. I suppose I definitely consider there to be a difference between failure and absolute disaster but it's true that I don't consider this event to be either. It's just a fun little holiday event. I'm enjoying it, and it certainly doesn't bother me that you aren't. I responded just because saying it was an absolute disaster struck me as totally ludicrous. Of anything that has occurred since launch I think only the initial live Lost Shores event could possibly have met that description. But anyway, I'm sorry for misunderstanding you.

As far as the rest of it you've just sort of misinterpreted me from the get-go. I didn't think you were referring to me, and I wasn't referring to this individual complaint that I responded to. I meant complaining incessantly makes me feel guilty, like I'm doing something wrong since I'm just enjoying this game the vast majority of the time. It's funny to see you interpret this as taking your complaints about the game as offensive to me personally; the irony is that it's really likely due to how little I am invested in this game that I'm able to get so much out of the experience. I have come to understand that I have very different expectations than many people who play even more than I do, where theirs seem to pertain to "what games like it" should do. To me it's just another game, no more or less deserving of my time than anything else I might choose to play on a given evening.

If I were more invested I'd probably be willing to "put up with" more stuff and try to justify keep playing it, but honestly if they ever did anything I really disliked (some examples would be introducing an actual gear treadmill, adding pay-to-win aspects, or changing the fundamental controls I use to play with a pad) , or I get burnt out, I'd just stop playing. It wouldn't be a big deal to me at all. Until then it's just a generally good game I really enjoy, with occasional gravy of varying quality and flavor on top. In all seriousness if I got to a point where I found myself vocalizing half as many complaints about a product as you have about this, I'd have just stopped using it. I don't even mean that as a criticism at all, it's very impressive to me in a sense. I'm just not cut out for the whining metagame that seems to accompany MMOs, where you identify a thousand things to complain about and then play for a thousand more hours so there can be a thousand more.

 

[Complistic]

I'd much rather have the repeat holidays with a few changes and give them the resources to design new expansion level content than all brand new grindable holiday content to enjoy for a whopping 2 weeks.

If the team that was responsible for the halloween update had the same team size as they did last year, I'm sure they'd of come up with something more interesting. Instead they were working on something else. What is the problem here exactly? They said months ago that they were spending the first year creating repeatable yearly content. Now they're working on the other stuff.

 

[Levito]

Let's continue to be mad about our free content.

 

[Weltall Zero]

I must be missing something crucial about this discussion because I seem to be hopelessly lost. Doesn't WoW, the gold standard and holy cow of MMOs (also a subscription based one and having a budget orders of magnitude above GW2) have the exact same content for all their holidays for over half a decade now? Is WoW considered a disaster of colossal proportions, then? I don't know, there just has to be something obvious that I'm not seeing?

As for Castlevania (and sorry for keeping the thread derail, but it's one of my favorite series), SotN is such an amazing classic, but Aria of Sorrow and all three DS Castlevanias are really good too. I think Dawn of Sorrow may be my favorite of the portable ones, especially (weirdly enough) for its Julius/Yoko/Alucard mode, which was quite a lot stricter in terms of difficulty than its main mode. Ecclesia's best part was that the entire game was challenging, which is quite unusual for metroidvanias.

On non-metroidvanias, Super Castlevania IV is simply stunning in all regards, one of my favorite SNES action games ever. Its soundtrack and SotN's are simply something else.

 

[Kos Luftar]

It's official Aussies (markot and leng jai) hate Guild Wars 2.

 

[Lunar15]

For the record, the anime stuff didn't happen till Dawn of Sorrow.

Also, if the content in GW2 is bothering you, take a break. *shrug*

I honestly got bored with a lot of the content as well, so I'm just doing other things while I wait for fractals. Game's gonna have stuff you like and stuff you don't. That's the nature of the two week release system.

 

[LiveSpartan235]

Chris Whiteside, Bobby Stein, and Jonathan Sharp respond to the Collab Thread
https://forum-en.guildwars2.com/for...opment-Topic-Living-World/page/16#post3127852

Part 1

Hi All,

First of thanks for attacking the initiative in the spirit it was laid out. The contribution thus far has been passionate, insightful and very valuable. Much of your commentary and discussions have already been raised in meetings and impacted our thought process around development moving forward already.

As laid out by the rules I will not go into specifics about future development, this said however it is very encouraging to see that much of what has been discussed matches our plans. This fact for many will not come as a revelation as it is clear to see the impact our community has already had on the game since we launched.

So I wanted to share my thoughts with you around the key discussion points (note: Story is something that I will touch upon and that Bobby will continue to discuss in greater detail)

Regarding Cadence of release: This is not something we plan to change in terms of timing and I wanted to make that clear from the outset. However the points raised around achievements being too time consuming is something that I do acknowledge and something we have already taken steps to address both in terms of overall time to complete and the nature of the repetitive achievements. We will continue to make strides in this area and are aware that the current time requirement also cuts in to the player’s ability to achieve goals in other aspects of the game.

Part 2

Regarding rewards relating to the Living World content I agree that we should make greater effort to ensure that time investment is matched by the reward. We have to be careful in this regard due to constraints surrounding our economy but we have already discussed many ways of meeting this goal and maintaining the integrity of the economy. Regarding Living World Meta Achievement rewards, personally I would like to see more rewards that commemorate the accomplishments of my character and my friends, specifically pertaining to the challenges I overcame (Essentially a rite of passage I can show of). Different types of reward take different amounts of time to make and we have been working to organize our reward distribution better so player’s will see more variety moving forward. I also really like the idea of Arc based Meta Achievements.

Many of the community raised the story arc becoming fragmented due to non-related content being released in between events. Again this is something we are aware of and are in agreement with the community on. On top of this we would like to see more incremental attachment to the players in terms of story and how it relates to them through gameplay. This point was raised early on in the thread and is core to making the Living World initiative a success. Personally I feel we have improved Story and Gameplay synergy but certainly we are not where we want to be yet. As we build on the Living World platform in terms of refinement of systems and potentially new technologies it is not hard to see just how much potential the platform has and what can be done with it.

I also agree with the notion of less temporary content where it makes sense to do so. I think that an evolving world by its very nature requires ‘A time in space’ of contextual exposition but this shouldn’t be the bulk of the content. The notion of the Living World and Story Arcs centering around meaningful evolution to the geography of Tyria, the player’s role within the events and their tangible impact on the future of Tyria as an evolving world are key to our direction moving forward. The platform we have built is still in its infancy but I would hope the evolution toward this goal is becoming more and more apparent. We have been working toward more permanent content and will continue to do so.

Part 3

Many of you raised the idea of tying the Living World more deeply into the world of Tyria and also as a deployment tool for enhancing the core of the game. Over the past year we have made many improvements to the core of the game, as part of the releases but not folded into them per se. This is a really interesting idea what we should continue to discuss in this thread and that will be a topic of discussion in the studio. Regarding drilling more into the existing content with Living World is something we have done, are doing now and will continue to evolve moving forward. Related to this many of you talked about making the changes more meaningful to the player’s life within Tyria, all I can say to this is Heck Yeah! This is at the core of what we intend to deliver with the Living World and whilst we have done some work in this area, we are not at a stage yet where we would say that this paradigm is fully functional yet. To create meaningful changes they must impact the day to day of the player and this is at the center of our design philosophy for execution in this area.

As mentioned earlier, we are still building the Living World platform and this is why the Collaborative Development plan exists because discussion of this type is key to course correction and evolution in how the platform is built.

A number of you mentioned consequences for failure. This is something we discuss a lot and is quite complex. I would ask that we continue to discuss this topic in the thread.

With this in mind I also want us to be delivering epic adventures, where we forge the future of Tyria and fight mighty foes. And whilst Bobby has and will continue to discuss the intricacies of this, I want you all to understand that this is very much part of the plan.

Another big topic that was raised was Quality of releases. The work we are doing is new to all of us and therefore we are constantly finding opportunities to improve and course correct in a live environment. This relates not only to bugs, but the understanding of the types of content our community enjoys and how much time you all have to play the content. I believe the quality of our releases are improving and will continue to do so as we hone in our own internal development practices and have a better understanding of how the Living World is performing in the live environment.

Regarding accessibility of releases some great points were brought up ranging from ideas such as a scrying pool or Hall of Memories to get caught up on previous releases. We are very aware of the problems presented by having an ongoing arc and this particular area is an ongoing topic of discussion. Regarding achievements as a method of directing player’s to content, we also agree that there are better ways to do this and you will see with the latest release some innovations in this area.

The Zerg! This is an interesting problem that we had actually fixed to an extent in an earlier release where we created a meta goal that forced players to split up into groups. I really enjoyed this and the feedback was excellent. Personally I quite enjoy the zerg sometimes in PVE ( I tend to be less of a ‘zerger’ in WvW) but I also really enjoy group play in the open world as many of you have mentioned. I would love to see more of this in the open world.

Some of you posted about your favorite releases and least favorite. It would be really cool if you have the time to post your single favorite and least favorite and the reasons why for each. This would help a lot and I will share my learning with you etc. from the posts.

I am running out of time sadly but I did want to make sure that I entered the discussion. I hope the comments have made shed some new light on our approach and thoughts and I am looking forward to enter into proper discussion now. I probably haven’t covered all the areas but no doubt you will raise any I missed (-:

I wanted to say thanks again for being part of this initiative. Personally I think its going to be awesome, it is already impacting our day to day discussion so let’s keep it up!

Chris

P.S: Please forgive me for bad grammar or typos.

https://forum-en.guildwars2.com/for...opment-Topic-Living-World/page/16#post3127931

Hi,

Sorry to hear this Minbariguy. I do want to point out however that as laid out in my post/s. That we intend to continue to improve quality over every release, that internal best working development efficiency will also build toward that and that we have been reducing the amount of time required to complete releases over a period of time already.

We are committed to quality not quantity.

Chris

https://forum-en.guildwars2.com/for...opment-Topic-Living-World/page/16#post3128016

Hi Psycho Robot,

I was referring to the Clockwork Chaos invasions where the meta designs split groups up in order to complete the objective efficiently. Sorry for any confusion.

My point was that whilst it is clear that we are working toward this in the above method and in balancing of individual creatures, i really liked the idea put forward in the thread of even more focus on individual group play in the open world in releases.

Chris

https://forum-en.guildwars2.com/for...opment-Topic-Living-World/page/17#post3128217

Hi Gidorah,

To be clear we are absolutely focused on quality. We feel that we can have both this cadence and high quality and are continuing to work toward this. If we feel that we cannot reach this balance then of course like everything, we will evolve as necessary. This said there is a lot we can and are doing to meet concerns regarding the cadence and really polish the positives we have already achieved in this area.. My point is the current plan is to continue with this cadence.

Chris

https://forum-en.guildwars2.com/for...opment-Topic-Living-World/page/17#post3128236

Fair point Gidorah (-:

I am looking forward to the rest of the arc. There are definitely learnings that i have outlined in my previous post both internally and from the community, but overall i am very excited about what is to come.

Chris

https://forum-en.guildwars2.com/for...opment-Topic-Living-World/page/17#post3128368

Hi Cesmode,

The cadence is something we discuss frequently. We are a very collaborative team and do our best to never sweep anything under the rug (-:

Chris

Bobby Stein
https://forum-en.guildwars2.com/for...opment-Topic-Living-World/page/18#post3129103

I’ve been in discussions with dozens of folks from many different departments regarding the conclusion of the Scarlet arc. I can’t go into specifics about where, when, and how things will end without spoiling things, unfortunately. But I can say that we’ve been reading as much feedback as we’ve been able (yes, that includes the bad along with the good). We know how strongly some of you feel about her as a character. The most I can say now is that the plan is in motion. You’ll just have to wait and see.

Regarding GW1 lore in Living World and beyond, let’s just say we’re looking at all GW lore right now and picking out threads that we’d like to tie up. Ideas are welcome, as always.

I’ll post more tomorrow. Time to go home.

Jonathan Sharp
https://forum-en.guildwars2.com/for...velopment-Topic-Game-Modes/page/5#post3128550

@ team sizes over 5: I know some people really like the idea of having games of 8v8 → 15 v 15, but in reality, these games are often hard to set up. I think that 5on5 is much easier to organize as a player. When I was a GW1 player, playing competitive GvG, we had many nights where we had a hard time getting all 8 people on, night after night, in order to train. A lot of competitive games have settled on the 5 person team (CS, all mobas, etc.), and it’s an easier # to organize than 8 or 15 person teams.

I think 5 is the biggest team size we’d want for organized play, and we could try smaller teams, but due to multiple reasons, teams greater than 5 would probably be too large for GW2.

@ game modes vs. other features: We can do both. It obviously takes time for both, but we don’t have to choose a new map or game type versus new features. Having said that, the way the work breaks down sometimes means that a designer is needed for a game type, with a little programmer support, while a new major feature (like new rewards), may take a lot of programmer time and designer time.

@ SHOULD WE EVEN TAKE THIS COLLABORATION THING SERIOUSLY!?!??!?!?!?: That’s up to you. We are.

@ King of the hill: We’ve actually tried it a few times internally. It usually devolves into a stalemate in the middle of the map, or one big cluster of bodies. Imagine: the middle point is the only point on the map, and both teams just run right to it…..10 people pop their elites….. there’s a 5on5, and then the game is over. Are there things you’d like to add in order to spice it up a little? IT SOUNDS GREAT…and then you play it…and it leaves a little to be desired.

@ GvG: There’s a lot of equivocation around "GvG’. Keep in mind that when we’re talking about GvG here, we’re talking about a GAME TYPE. Don’t get this confused with two guilds fighting each other for positioning on a ladder. That’s something else we can do (and want to do), and that would work for CTF, or KOTH, or GvG, or conquest, etc.

For the GAME TYPE, people seem to be asking for:

2 lords. If you kill their lord you win.
There are obstacles in the way (a lot of people use the MOBA analogies of having NPC’s or towers in the way…you defeat these in order to get to the opposing guild lord).
I assume there’s a time limit?
Do we do VoD again to stop people from turtling?

@ Giving you guys the tools so you can just make game types yourselves: I wish we could do this. I really do. This is how counsterstrike and dota were born. I was there when it happened, as a player, and I loved it. For GW2, it takes a LOT to make a map. It takes design, scripting, a map artist, programmers, a prop artist, a sound engineer, voice over, etc. It’s not as simple as “give us your tools and we’ll do it”. It takes a lot to make a map in an MMO.

Keep posting such amazing thoughts! As John said earlier in a post, we’re here, listening to you, but we love letting you guys talk among yourselves. We don’t want to butt in and interrupt you when you guys are producing such productive conversations!

 

[Retro]

I must be missing something crucial about this discussion because I seem to be hopelessly lost. Doesn't WoW, the gold standard and holy cow of MMOs (also a subscription based one and having a budget orders of magnitude above GW2) have the exact same content for all their holidays for over half a decade now? Is WoW considered a disaster of colossal proportions, then? I don't know, there just has to be something obvious that I'm not seeing?

WoW holidays, at least when I played (stopped during Cataclysm), were the same thing year after year after year with minor changes (i.e. a new silly item for Christmas). A lot of them like Halloween, Easter, etc. didn't even have that.

In my opinion, you can't even mention WoW holidays in the same breath as Guild Wars holidays; they don't even hold a candle to what we get (for free, no less).

As for Castlevania . . .

A man after my own heart with that SCIV comment. I had a Genesis growing up so I didn't get to play it until much later (Bloodlines was an incredible consolation prize though).

 

[Grayman]

Last night I used my mats and 12 gold to move my mesmer up to exotic armor. Booyah. Still need to work on jewelry, weapons, and superior runes of perplexity.

 

[FormallyMegadrive]

It's official Aussies (markot and leng jai) hate Guild Wars 2.

Hey, I'm Aussie and I like GW2!

 

[markot]

They dont need to spend much time at all on holiday events. But they made this halloween worse than the last. They dont have to go forward much, but to go backwards?

And wow events were shitbergs.

Also, the pattern of their events is kind of disoncerting.

New mat + new grind = new content? I tink not.

I just dont get why, even now, mmo devs are soooooooo focused on making us grind.

 

[GLopez12]

I'm so disappointed with Halloween this year. I don't know how anyone can dispute that it's worse than last year, and that makes absolutely no sense.

The Kessex Hill content is good, but I'm starting to get the feeling that they're putting quantity over quality.

 

[jersoc]

I can see where leng is coming from. It seems like more important stuff is taking a huge back seat, probably not even in the same car, to these events. then they get hyped and haven't listed up to that hype. the last good one, imo of course, was the sanctuam and gauntlet.

can we please get another huge trait pass to remove all those god awful passives(seriously guys, stop with passive traits. everyone god damn one of you making mmos). fix the minis system, fix the town clothes system, fix the fucking camera ffs! fix it. also bugs, dear lord the crashing. i understand shit takes time. but how about some communication, yeah?

so yes, in one sense a failure, but if none of the above bother you, you will feel different. i know me and him have talked a few times in gchat about that stuff. what we want from the game is obviously different than what apparently a lot of others do. i much rather have 1 patch of content and 1 patch of features and fixes.

 

[Noisy Ninj4]

I definitely agree regarding the traits system. Passive stat boosting and/or cooldown reducing traits are pointless and boring as fuck. Even adding some effect to a cooldown/stat buff is better than nothing, like Forceful GS trait or Crack Shot trait.

The minis and clothes are pretty small potatoes for me, but I can see them being a problem for others. I haven't really had much problem dealing with the camera, only had it mess up a few times (mostly the Mad King's Tower JP)

And I have had a few crashes of late, but not enough for me to especially notice.

 

[Ceres]

I've had more crashes in the last week than all 6 months prior.

 

[Kos Luftar]

I haven't had any crashes this week and maybe 2 at most during the WvW/taco lag fest.

When are your crashes occurring?

@lunar, I know your a lore fan and it seems like something major is happening with the next update so if you get a chance you should jump in and get caught up.

 

[Ceres]

Ones that I recall
10m after reset in SBI BL when talking to repair npc - I was really pissed for this one
farming nodes in cursed shore
yesterday got a crash report after closing the game because I lost connection and it didn't reload to character screen. Crashed immediately every time I tried restarting the game until I closed mumble/teamspeak

I've never had crash issues during actual fights in wvw or taco. It generally seems to randomly happen when interacting with something.
I'm tempted to do a full Windows reinstall after the TS/mumble thing last night.

 

[Retro]

I can't remember the last time I crashed out of the game, for what it's worth. It'd have to be months, at least.

I'm tempted to do a full Windows reinstall after the TS/mumble thing last night.

What's this now? Something up with Mumble?

 

[Lunar15]

I haven't had any crashes this week and maybe 2 at most during the WvW/taco lag fest.

When are your crashes occurring?

@lunar, I know your a lore fan and it seems like something major is happening with the next update so if you get a chance you should jump in and get caught up.

I've been keeping up with the lore. I'm interested to see what the next update is, but I'm not sure it will get me to come back. I've personally told myself that I will not come back until they update fractals, and I'm pretty happy with this arrangement. I just needed to take a break, and I think it's been a good thing.

 

[Kos Luftar]

I've been keeping up with the lore. I'm interested to see what the next update is, but I'm not sure it will get me to come back. I've personally told myself that I will not come back until they update fractals, and I'm pretty happy with this arrangement. I just needed to take a break, and I think it's been a good thing.

Aww, alright.

Miss you ingame and on mumble.

You waiting on the new fractal additions or you waiting for some kind of overhaul update to fractals?

 

[Lunar15]

Aww, alright.

Miss you ingame and on mumble.

You waiting on the new fractal additions or you waiting for some kind of overhaul update to fractals?

Just additions. During the Cutthroat Politics update they said the new fractals would be coming this year. I could probably make an exception if they add some new dungeon content. We'll see.

 

[Hawkian]

I don't know how anyone can dispute that it's worse than last year, and that makes absolutely no sense.

For what it's worth I actually haven't seen a single individual dispute that. I really miss Ascent to Madness a lot. Plus everything was being seen for the first time. They just went smaller with it, I can certainly understand being disappointed with it in comparison to last year.

The Kessex Hill content is good, but I'm starting to get the feeling that they're putting quantity over quality.

I like what they have done with Kessex a lot, and even the smaller aspects throughout the open world. There's definitely nothing in this release I consider a grind at all and refinements to the delivery platform itself (these were subtle changes, but really good ideas) are welcome.

That said, what I think they need now would actually just be a bigger release, with more stuff So the quality over quantity idea, from my perspective the last few updates have been pretty high-quality, but very limited in scope.

can we please get another huge trait pass to remove all those god awful passives(seriously guys, stop with passive traits. everyone god damn one of you making mmos). fix the minis system, fix the town clothes system, fix the fucking camera ffs! fix it.

It is sort of funny and illustrative. All of that stuff would be great but none of it is at the top of my list of priorities at all. I badly want templates/build saving more than any thing on that list even more than the boring traits, and I'd probably put a revamped living story UI/delivery platform and QoL for skin storage in PvE before any of them too. Considering the quantity and variety of people playing, everybody's "must-haves" are at the bottom of someone else's list. I think the sensation of "the really important stuff being neglected" will be kind of unavoidable for the entire lifespan of the game unless you adopt a perspective of taking everything as it comes and basing your decision to spend time with the game solely on whether or not you're having fun with it in the meantime.

also bugs, dear lord the crashing. i understand shit takes time. but how about some communication, yeah?

I hate to venture into "not a big deal" territory here and I have no doubt of how frustrating it must be to crash as much as you do, but...
1) From where I'm standing the patch notes seem to contain, like every other build if not more frequently than that, either a specific note of a fixed crash bug or "fixed various server crashes." Between that and the dev comments on their efforts to combat skill lag, it's tough to imagine what communication would satisfy you outside of "we acknowledge jersoc from NeoGAF's specific crashing issues and are working to resolve them"
2) You really seem to crash more frequently than other members of the guild. Have you looked into all the possible process conflicts? Running any voip apps that put an overlay on gw2, or anything that would be taking processor priority away from it frequently? Any modified graphics drivers or anything that taps your into your display like f.lux?

As far as stability for me lately, I had 3 crashes within 45 mins at SBI sparkfly main waiting for teq on the first night of the WvW season. Didn't have the patience to stick with that so I just found an overflow instead (which was stable and lag-free). I crashed once again at Teq last week during the fight, but got back in. Counting those 4 I'd be surprised if I had north of 10 crashes since launch. Generally I'm pretty impressed with the client, and I do a ton of switching between Fullscreen, Fullscreen Window, and resized Windowed modes every play session. This latest release has been rock solid for me so far.

 

[Bl4ckSunsh1n3]

Is there an Orr event Sunday? If so, what time? I want to (try to) make sure I'm available for it.

 

[shysaursoft]

I'm so disappointed with Halloween this year. I don't know how anyone can dispute that it's worse than last year, and that makes absolutely no sense.

While I miss the MOBA minigame, I think this year is better. I liked having some story instances to set the scene, and endcap the whole thing. I don't really miss the dungeon, because people just farmed it like crazy and got super-upset when they couldn't get their skins.

I always enjoy seeing how much fun people have with the Mad King Says, especially the new people this year who didn't do it last year.

While chilling, waiting for a champ to spawn yesterday for the Tower daily, a random Guardian walked up and sat down next to me, and we started chatting about stuff. Good guy. Sometimes I forget that not everyone that plays GW2 is a perpetually unhappy, dissatisfied, entitled, whiny, Queensdale-train-worshipping, WvW-is-all-that-matters-and-PvE-people-should-die-in-a-fire, wet blanket.

I know that the whining on the official forums constitutes a vocal minority, but sometimes it's nice to be reminded that it's okay to like the game, faults and all, and liking it doesn't mean you're somehow brain-damaged (as someone on Reddit politely told me).

But that's the nature of the beast isn't it. If you like it, you're a "sheeple apologist", no matter what. Kinda wish people who didn't enjoy playing a game, would just stop playing it.

EDIT: Sure, you can love a game and still be frustrated with it. I'm constantly frustrated by the framerate, lack of DX11, poor guild management tools, lack of proper tutorials to teach people how field effects work, how to dodge, etc, etc. There's like a million things I could find fault with - but the point is I don't spend hours and hours on the official forums calling Anet staff all sorts of names and incompetent, as if that'll magically make things better. The way some people act, it really does seem like they encounter one thing that bugs them, and thus the entire game is ruined beyond repair unless that one issue is address immediately. And it's that attitude that's really cancerous.

 

[Mxrz]

You can still love a game and occasionally be annoyed or disappointed by it. Doesn't mean its ruined forever or you want other people to hate it or anything dramatic like that. Any disappointment I have with it comes from the vibe that it isn't living up to the standard that Arena.Net has set with their own past work.

I was a bit disappointed in Halloween overall, but thats because I had some unrealistic expectations based on the GW1 stuff. Not too big a deal either way. The great thing about ANet is they probably already know this stuff--they play the game too-- and are working on it. Its one of the reasons I feel comfortable complaining here and there, I'm confident ANet listens and takes things into consideration. That is good enough for me.

 

[Levito]

Pffft Guild Wars 2 more like waiting on Wildstar and Elder Scrolls amirite everyone?

Spoiler

*snrk*

 

[Complistic]

While chilling, waiting for a champ to spawn yesterday for the Tower daily, a random Guardian walked up and sat down next to me, and we started chatting about stuff. Good guy. Sometimes I forget that not everyone that plays GW2 is a perpetually unhappy, dissatisfied, entitled, whiny, Queensdale-train-worshipping, WvW-is-all-that-matters-and-PvE-people-should-die-in-a-fire, wet blanket.

I know that the whining on the official forums constitutes a vocal minority, but sometimes it's nice to be reminded that it's okay to like the game, faults and all, and liking it doesn't mean you're somehow brain-damaged (as someone on Reddit politely told me).

But that's the nature of the beast isn't it. If you like it, you're a "sheeple apologist", no matter what. Kinda wish people who didn't enjoy playing a game, would just stop playing it.

I do love moments like this. And I typically shout things out in /say just to get a fun dialogue going around me. Despite what the haters want you to believe, there are way more people like this guardian than there are of them.

Sometimes it's hard to see this when you have 1 or 2 whiners spamming map chat and that's all you see talking.

 

[Ceres]

I can't remember the last time I crashed out of the game, for what it's worth. It'd have to be months, at least.



What's this now? Something up with Mumble?

I'm not certain. I was running around Cursed Shore doing some node farming and lost connection in the middle of a event I was doing for event dailies. Waited a minute to get the Character screen and when it didn't load, I closed Guild Wars completely. As it was closing, I got the crash report screen. So I submitted that and let it finish closing. Tried to open the game. Crash. Open game. Crash. Open game. Crash. Wasn't even getting into load screen. I had TS and Mumble open but not logged in. So I closed them both, opened the game and it loaded fine.
I don't have any overlays setup and never had issues with both programs being open before.

 

[Kai Dracon]

There's always a minority of alpha nerds who are unholy arrogant and believe anyone who doesn't bow to their assertions is, literally, mentally deficient.

They tend to pervert the tone as their attitude inspires defensiveness against any criticism. People in the middle often end up feeling aggravated that one can't seem to speak without being set upon by either side. (To the aggro idiot, everyone less extreme than them is an apologist. To the overly defensive fan, every unhappy experience is more blind hate.)

Even so, the "real world" of an MMO is in-game and not in the chatter surrounding it. It has been my experience in GW2 that most people remark on how little hatred and vile attitudes there are to clog things up.

 

[Levito]

Look at it this way folks: How many games(not just MMO's) can you name that have GOOD communities?



MMO's are always full of shitheel whiners, I think a lot of people tend to forget just how much time they actually spend in an MMO. You absorb content so fast cause the genre consumes much more of your time than most.

 

[Jest Chillin]

MMO's are not filled with whiners. The whiners are always just louder than everyone else. And that's because whining works. Whether it results in Devs listening to the whine and adjusting the game (usually making it worse) or whether it results in generating a (usually) unfounded reputation.. yelling really loud really often affects the game.

 

[Hawkian]

I did find a lot to agree with in your post Miktar. And I do want to note that the in-game community (at least the SBI, FC, TC crowds I know to any extent) with some rare exceptions is rather civil, courteous and fun in comparison to that of many other games I've taken part in. I really do miss Ascent to Madness though! I didn't even farm it, per se, I never got anything that great from the chest, but I didn't really care. Just thought it was fun... I liked trying to make it to the bottom in as few jumps as possible

Is there an Orr event Sunday? If so, what time? I want to (try to) make sure I'm available for it.

Well you and I will be there, so that's an event!

I'm fairly certain that reset will now be at 7:00PM EST so let's do that.

Sunday, November 3rd - 7:00PM - Orr Map Completion Mob

Hope you guys can make it

 

[Lunar15]

The thing to remember is that whiners may whine, but they're still playing. It's when the numbers drop that a company takes action. In some twisted way, we whine because we care. Most of the time, at least.

Also, Miktar, that picture of you and the guardian is so amazing. I love it. (lol, thor)

 

[Arkanius]

While I miss the MOBA minigame, I think this year is better. I liked having some story instances to set the scene, and endcap the whole thing. I don't really miss the dungeon, because people just farmed it like crazy and got super-upset when they couldn't get their skins.

I always enjoy seeing how much fun people have with the Mad King Says, especially the new people this year who didn't do it last year.

While chilling, waiting for a champ to spawn yesterday for the Tower daily, a random Guardian walked up and sat down next to me, and we started chatting about stuff. Good guy. Sometimes I forget that not everyone that plays GW2 is a perpetually unhappy, dissatisfied, entitled, whiny, Queensdale-train-worshipping, WvW-is-all-that-matters-and-PvE-people-should-die-in-a-fire, wet blanket.

I know that the whining on the official forums constitutes a vocal minority, but sometimes it's nice to be reminded that it's okay to like the game, faults and all, and liking it doesn't mean you're somehow brain-damaged (as someone on Reddit politely told me).

But that's the nature of the beast isn't it. If you like it, you're a "sheeple apologist", no matter what. Kinda wish people who didn't enjoy playing a game, would just stop playing it.

EDIT: Sure, you can love a game and still be frustrated with it. I'm constantly frustrated by the framerate, lack of DX11, poor guild management tools, lack of proper tutorials to teach people how field effects work, how to dodge, etc, etc. There's like a million things I could find fault with - but the point is I don't spend hours and hours on the official forums calling Anet staff all sorts of names and incompetent, as if that'll magically make things better. The way some people act, it really does seem like they encounter one thing that bugs them, and thus the entire game is ruined beyond repair unless that one issue is address immediately. And it's that attitude that's really cancerous.

Uh
You had Thor next to you

 

[shysaursoft]

Uh
You had Thor next to you

Holy cow, I didn't even notice! That's spot-on!

 

[Arkanius]

Holy cow, I didn't even notice! That's spot-on!

It's amazing how he did his character. It's pretty spot on that I was able to instantly recognize him on a small thumbnail.
That guy deserves all of the upvotes/karma/thumbs up he can get

 

[Retro]

While chilling, waiting for a champ to spawn yesterday for the Tower daily, a random Guardian walked up and sat down next to me, and we started chatting about stuff. Good guy. Sometimes I forget that not everyone that plays GW2 is a perpetually unhappy, dissatisfied, entitled, whiny, Queensdale-train-worshipping, WvW-is-all-that-matters-and-PvE-people-should-die-in-a-fire, wet blanket.

I know that the whining on the official forums constitutes a vocal minority, but sometimes it's nice to be reminded that it's okay to like the game, faults and all, and liking it doesn't mean you're somehow brain-damaged (as someone on Reddit politely told me).

But that's the nature of the beast isn't it. If you like it, you're a "sheeple apologist", no matter what. Kinda wish people who didn't enjoy playing a game, would just stop playing it.

EDIT: Sure, you can love a game and still be frustrated with it. I'm constantly frustrated by the framerate, lack of DX11, poor guild management tools, lack of proper tutorials to teach people how field effects work, how to dodge, etc, etc. There's like a million things I could find fault with - but the point is I don't spend hours and hours on the official forums calling Anet staff all sorts of names and incompetent, as if that'll magically make things better. The way some people act, it really does seem like they encounter one thing that bugs them, and thus the entire game is ruined beyond repair unless that one issue is address immediately. And it's that attitude that's really cancerous.

This is a good post and you should feel good. Had a similar conversation with a guy last night who was getting shit on in Queensdale map chat because he had the audacity to point out that Champions are not the exclusive, pre-reserved property of The Train and therefore cannot be 'sniped' or 'stolen'.

It's pretty sad that most GW2 players roll humans and then walk into that, and I really hope at some point ArenaNet takes a Nightmare Tower-esque whack at Queensdale and, in the process, moves all of those champions somewhere else. A low level zone with a high level farming train is ugly business.

Elder Scrolls amirite everyone?

Spoiler

*snrk*

See? There. People wanted to know the definition of a disaster and in strolls the perfect example. I don't know how Wildstar is going to do, honestly, but they have some neat ideas and stuff going for them. ESO, on the other hand, looks ghastly.

I'm not certain. I was running around Cursed Shore doing some node farming and lost connection in the middle of a event I was doing for event dailies. Waited a minute to get the Character screen and when it didn't load, I closed Guild Wars completely. As it was closing, I got the crash report screen. So I submitted that and let it finish closing. Tried to open the game. Crash. Open game. Crash. Open game. Crash. Wasn't even getting into load screen. I had TS and Mumble open but not logged in. So I closed them both, opened the game and it loaded fine.
I don't have any overlays setup and never had issues with both programs being open before.

Okay, I just wanted to make sure there wasn't something going on with Mumble. That's certainly weird, though, no idea what could be causing that.

 

[Proven]

Chris Whiteside, Bobby Stein, and Jonathan Sharp respond to the Collab Thread
https://forum-en.guildwars2.com/for...opment-Topic-Living-World/page/16#post3127852




https://forum-en.guildwars2.com/for...opment-Topic-Living-World/page/16#post3127931


https://forum-en.guildwars2.com/for...opment-Topic-Living-World/page/16#post3128016


https://forum-en.guildwars2.com/for...opment-Topic-Living-World/page/17#post3128217


https://forum-en.guildwars2.com/for...opment-Topic-Living-World/page/17#post3128236


https://forum-en.guildwars2.com/for...opment-Topic-Living-World/page/17#post3128368


Bobby Stein
https://forum-en.guildwars2.com/for...opment-Topic-Living-World/page/18#post3129103


Jonathan Sharp
https://forum-en.guildwars2.com/for...velopment-Topic-Game-Modes/page/5#post3128550

The Jonathan Sharp post could be summed up as: Production Values Take Time

As for the comment about making a 15v15 gametype, I know people are going to point to WvW GvG players and cry horseshit, but I understand where he's coming from when he designs a gametype that he felt was the most inclusive for players, enforced a player size that would make it easy to form teams, and did what he could to make sure everything was balanced and straight forward stat wise, and then hardly anybody showed up. There's the saying "if you build it, they will come". But he's already built something, not enough people came, and now you're asking him to demand company time and resources to build something more?

 

[Levito]

See? There. People wanted to know the definition of a disaster and in strolls the perfect example. I don't know how Wildstar is going to do, honestly, but they have some neat ideas and stuff going for them. ESO, on the other hand, looks ghastly.

Words on the internets is the Wildstar is very adequate. Elder Scrolls on the other hand is getting really bad impressions.

 

[Retro]

Words on the internets is the Wildstar is very adequate. Elder Scrolls on the other hand is getting really bad impressions.

That's interesting because the previews I read a few months ago had them reversed; Wildstar was a floaty, static-quest ridden mess while Elder Scrolls Online at least could pass itself off as Skyrim. The Wildstar review even mentioned that after playing the ESO (and Guild Wars 2) it felt stale. In fact, I believe "antiquated" was the exact term.

I was going to post the articles in the thread since the Wildstar one made it a point to mention how off-putting WoW-style MMOs are in a post-GW2 world (something a lot of us said would happen before launch), but decided we didn't need any more drama, especially about other games.