708 replies to this topic

[Juanele]

Thanks for posting Scott, and get well. I missed your wild face expressions in last night's episode.

[shanaeri rynale]

Another interesting looking forward GC today. Not sure about an expansion or not. But the fact that Anet are pumping out so much content with no monthly fee just shows the weaknesses in the sub model these days.

There is still time to add community and 'heart' features although I worry that the more additional content is pushed the harder it will be to get away from the game being content, not community focussed.

As for an expansion. I hope there will be. But I remember a quote somewhere from an NCsoft quarterly call (I think it was for Q4) saying that no expansion for GW2 was currently being planned or worked on. I would think that if we were to see it this year it would already be in planning/coding by now.

In my view the largest issue with the game is'nt so much lack of things to do, The game is brimming with great content. it's making that huge amount of content more fun to do with other players and giving them real reasons to revisit and explore what's already there.

A question back if I may. If Guesting was implemented with region lock outs (I.e US players could not guest/play with EU players and vice versa) how much of a blow would that be to players?

[Bog Otter]

I think if guesting was implemented with region lock outs, players would definitely be disappointed.  Guild Wars 1 was such a global game and experience and it would be awesome to avoid locking in GW2.

Would it be devastating?  Probably not.  But it would certainly be received negatively by the majority of players.  

The more I think about guesting though, the more I get worried about it.  I think if they add it there are so many exploits, workarounds and potential issues that could crop up with players just jumping around servers, that it may not be worth it.  They just need to communicate something about it to us soon.  Tell us if it's coming or not and what the hold up has been.

[Jarimor]

Juanele, on 03 January 2013 - 06:29 PM, said:

Thanks for posting Scott, and get well. I missed your wild face expressions in last night's episode.

Thanks my face has been taking a rest to come back even more rubbery next week.

shanaeri rynale, on 03 January 2013 - 06:35 PM, said:

Another interesting looking forward GC today. Not sure about an expansion or not. But the fact that Anet are pumping out so much content with no monthly fee just shows the weaknesses in the sub model these days.

There is still time to add community and 'heart' features although I worry that the more additional content is pushed the harder it will be to get away from the game being content, not community focussed.

As for an expansion. I hope there will be. But I remember a quote somewhere from an NCsoft quarterly call (I think it was for Q4) saying that no expansion for GW2 was currently being planned or worked on. I would think that if we were to see it this year it would already be in planning/coding by now.

In my view the largest issue with the game is'nt so much lack of things to do, The game is brimming with great content. it's making that huge amount of content more fun to do with other players and giving them real reasons to revisit and explore what's already there.

A question back if I may. If Guesting was implemented with region lock outs (I.e US players could not guest/play with EU players and vice versa) how much of a blow would that be to players?

I'm sure there woul dbe disappointment, but I think what's killing Guesting are the myriad of other issues beyond the regional consideration.

Bog Otter, on 04 January 2013 - 06:17 AM, said:

I think if guesting was implemented with region lock outs, players would definitely be disappointed.  Guild Wars 1 was such a global game and experience and it would be awesome to avoid locking in GW2.

Would it be devastating?  Probably not.  But it would certainly be received negatively by the majority of players.  

The more I think about guesting though, the more I get worried about it.  I think if they add it there are so many exploits, workarounds and potential issues that could crop up with players just jumping around servers, that it may not be worth it.  They just need to communicate something about it to us soon.  Tell us if it's coming or not and what the hold up has been.

There's the rub, it's going to take something rather saucy to get guesting working without allowing people to exploit it into the ground while not changing the fundamental structure of how the servers relate to each other. Or so it appears form how things have been presented so far.
It's a bit disconcerting to say the least. Hopefully the post about the plans for the first half of 2013 will have more info on it.

[Doctor Overlord]

Get well soon Scott!  

Bog Otter, on 04 January 2013 - 06:17 AM, said:

The more I think about guesting though, the more I get worried about it.  I think if they add it there are so many exploits, workarounds and potential issues that could crop up with players just jumping around servers, that it may not be worth it.  They just need to communicate something about it to us soon.  Tell us if it's coming or not and what the hold up has been.

Jarimor, on 04 January 2013 - 05:02 PM, said:

There's the rub, it's going to take something rather saucy to get guesting working without allowing people to exploit it into the ground while not changing the fundamental structure of how the servers relate to each other. Or so it appears form how things have been presented so far.

Sounds like guesting could be a good topic for an entire Guildcast    Everyone was so excited about the idea when it was announced but I don't think I've seen a more comprehensive (and sobering) look at the downsides of what might happen with such a mechanic.

Perhaps Guildcast could have come up with suggestions on how they might do guesting and how their solution would address what they think would be the major problems.

[shanaeri rynale]

Speaking purely as an outsider but hopefully blessed with a modicum of brains and common sense I would have thought such issues were obvious when designing the archtecture and open world. So it must have occured to them being much cleverer at game design than me.

If I recall, people farmed the ori nodes in cursed shore swapping servers at will. Anet countered this (I think) by giving characters a lock out period for an Ori node. Although saying that it was pefectly possible for people to cheese the pumpkin slicing and snowman building by keep swapping to LA and back.

I guess this could easily be solved by only allowing you to farm nodes/get rewards from Dragons etc on your home server.

Since Anet have already stated (it's buried in a dev post about multi-region WvW somewhere) that there is a latency issue between regions that makes the WvW culling and lag much worse.  Also the reason given back in August why guesting was delayed was that they had to look and review server performance and population before pressing go.

Like I said, I'm sure Anet have thought of the exploit issue.

I would like to second for a proper and in depth look and discussion on not only guesting, but ways in which players can make the most of the community features there already is(Keeping it postive) but also looking at some of the limitations of the game and perhaps how they could be improved(keeping it positive is one of the reasons why I tune into GC every week).

Game mechanics are all well and good, additional content is fantastic but perhaps it's time to really focus on community

Edited by shanaeri rynale, 04 January 2013 - 07:31 PM.

[Doctor Overlord]

I'm a week behind on my Guildcast but I wanted to post this point regarding the large guild content discussion that wasn't brought up.  

How many times have you heard burnt-out ex-raid leaders who swear they will never -think- about leading a guild again because it was so time-consuming and so stressful doing what was essentially a second job that entailed being den mother for a bunch of drama-queens and whiners who showed little to no appreciation?  

Historically, large guilds often chew up and spit out their leaders and officers.   Maybe the people doing it feel the cost was worth it in the end but the final result was that they still quit leading a guild because they couldn't stand doing it anymore.  

Perhaps that's what ArenaNet considered when they looked at large guild content. One of the central themes of Guild Wars 2 was to remove the mechanics that were tedious and annoying.   Maybe they didn't want to make a game that would encourage their most dedicated players into taking a second job that would burn them out.

Now that's not to say I didn't like Gary's idea of guild housing or Richie's idea about guilds spawning world bosses.   Perhaps ArenaNet will surprise us and show a way to have large guild content that requires tactical coordination and brings out the positive aspects of the social interaction yet somehow doesn't become an unpaid management position that crushes the souls of guild leaders and officers.

Or perhaps it's like Scott says and the stickiness that large guilds once provided in MMOs has been replaced by the regular content updates.  Perhaps even ArenaNet couldn't find a mechanic that involved socially coordinating, managing and organizing a bunch of emotional, irrational and unpredictable MMO players that was anything other than a spirit-sucking job.  

(On a related note, I *really* loved Scott's comment about whether raiders would actually do raids for the 'challenge' and 'social aspects' like they've traditionally spouted lol   But it looks like we're not going to see whether this is true through GW2, it will have to be a future MMO)

Edited by Doctor Overlord, 10 January 2013 - 03:55 AM.

[Athlonpv]

Episode#57

http://www.gamebreak...rs-2-expansion/

GAMEBREAKER’s Gary Gannon joins Richie Procopio and Elisabeth Cardy of Massively for this week’s GuildCast!

[Jarimor]

Athlonpv, on 10 January 2013 - 04:59 PM, said:

Episode#57

http://www.gamebreak...rs-2-expansion/

GAMEBREAKER’s Gary Gannon joins Richie Procopio and Elisabeth Cardy of Massively for this week’s GuildCast!

Cheers Athlon.

[Voltar]

So not to be the guy but...there's a special Guildcast-shaped hole in my heart this week...anybody know the story there?

[shanaeri rynale]

Voltar, on 17 January 2013 - 04:04 PM, said:

So not to be the guy but...there's a special Guildcast-shaped hole in my heart this week...anybody know the story there?

Dunno it's not up on the site yet. As a guess there was so much to talk about their heads went pop and PC's went boom

[Juanele]

Gary has been sick all of this week, there haven't been any shows on Gamebreaker due to that. So there won't be a Guildcast for this week.

Edited by Juanele, 17 January 2013 - 04:58 PM.

[Athlonpv]

Couldn't see anything on twitch either ...

[Voltar]

Juanele, on 17 January 2013 - 04:45 PM, said:

Gary has been sick all of this week, there haven't been any shows on Gamebreaker due to that.

Bummer.  I saw Afterdark so any of the shows with alternate button-pushers may run.

[Athlonpv]

Guild Wars 2 January Patch- GuildCast Ep 58

http://www.gamebreak...h-guildcast-58/

The GuildCast crew is back with two weeks worth of news, starting with the Guild Wars 2 January patch, Flame and Frost. The patch, set to arrive on January 28th is the first part of a big story arc that will be doled out over the coming months.

GAMEBREAKER’s Gary Gannon joins Richie Procopio,  Scott Hawkes of ZAM and Elisabeth Cardy of Massively for this week’s GuildCast!

[Juanele]

Pretty long but entertaining guildcast this time. I felt bad for Scott, get better buddy.

Interesting that they didn't even mention the changes to Orr this episode though

[Athlonpv]

Someone was to busy playing with sounds and bathroom pictures I guess

Gary "Wuv Wuv" Gannon

[Athlonpv]

I thought they lost track on speculating about the raids part. Basically if you look how Arenet killed "quests" and called it dynamic events I'm sure that the whole not a raid but a guild thing will also have the same feel to it.

And to reflect on the dynamic events people who did the BWE remember that these were fine tuned as well over the period of time they used to run non stop almost at the start.

[Athlonpv]

GuildCast #59
http://www.gamebreak...h-guildcast-59/

GAMEBREAKER’s Gary Gannon joins Richie Procopio and Elisabeth Cardy of Massively, along with Scott Hawkes of ZAM for this week’s GuildCast!

Edited by Athlonpv, 31 January 2013 - 06:46 PM.

[Jarimor]

Athlonpv, on 31 January 2013 - 06:45 PM, said:

GuildCast #59
http://www.gamebreak...h-guildcast-59/

GAMEBREAKER’s Gary Gannon joins Richie Procopio and Elisabeth Cardy of Massively, along with Scott Hawkes of ZAM for this week’s GuildCast!

Like a whippet you are!
Thanks Athlon

[Athlonpv]

Jarimor, on 31 January 2013 - 07:01 PM, said:

Like a whippet you are!

Had to search for that one , but it is quite clear ima chubby cross eyed penguin , or as the yanks say football build

[Doctor Overlord]

I got an inside-joke laugh when I read the recent forum post from the Smiling Guy, Colin Johanson.

https://forum-en.gui...rst#post1385839

Quote

March will see the release of the WuvWuv progression system, new ranks you can earn in WvW visible to all other players, and new DubVDub specific abilities/bonuses that you can earn as you rank up. Our team working on WvW will discuss this system in more detail as that date approaches.

Seems like Colin is a Guildcast listener?     It will be great to see Gary's reaction when he reads this and sees both usages.

Edited by Doctor Overlord, 06 February 2013 - 08:02 PM.

[Athlonpv]

Guildcast #60 Flame & Frost


http://www.gamebreak...w-guildcast-60/
GAMEBREAKER’s Gary Gannon joins Richie Procopio and Elisabeth Cardy of Massively, along with Scott Hawkes of ZAM for this week’s GuildCast!

Edited by Athlonpv, 07 February 2013 - 08:39 PM.

[Jarimor]

Athlonpv, on 07 February 2013 - 08:15 PM, said:

Guildcast #60 Flame & Frost


http://www.gamebreak...w-guildcast-60/
GAMEBREAKER’s Gary Gannon joins Richie Procopio and Elisabeth Cardy of Massively, along with Scott Hawkes of ZAM for this week’s GuildCast!

Just too fast for me Ath. I'm getting old.

[Athlonpv]

Jarimor, on 07 February 2013 - 09:08 PM, said:

Just too fast for me Ath. I'm getting old.

I thought you were catching up on some sleep . Btw the show was posted to the general show page before the link was up.

[Doctor Overlord]

Excellent episode everyone!   The best part was at the end with Elisabeth's alt-monolgue at the end and every else's reaction to it

I do feel the need to respond to Scott's comments about the dodge daily. It is very possible to successfully dodge *without* getting the Evade proc.  I have tested this against melee, ranged and AoE attacks and I have to deliberately alter my timing in an unnatural (for me) way to get the Evade proc.

I played for 4 hours last night without dying but I still had not completed the dodge daily. So not all players complaining about this mechanic need to learn to dodge.  

The reason I dislike the current dailies is because they feel like they encouraging artificial, not natural gameplay. For example, players are deliberately letting NPCs die to get the healer daily.

Another example was that completed my daily last night by playing in a way that t I would not normally do.  I was sick of trying alter my timing against single mobs so I charged that harpy attack on the camp near the Ascalon Catacombs entrance. They all aggro-ed me and I got most of what I needed in one shot.  I also died in the process. Judging by the rush of players to rez me I'm guessing they were trying to get their daily too.

If ArenaNet intends for players to go out of their way and do things they would not normally do while playing to finish the dailies, then that's fine.  But I always hear dailies being touted by ArenaNet (and the press) as things you can naturally finish during the normal course of play.

This is not the case for everyone.  The only times I have ever finished dailies was by altering how I play and deliberately going after them. I don't have an issue with this since this is no different than going after other specific rewards but I do not want it implied that just because some players are not naturally getting dailies during their course of play, that they are somehow playing the game wrong.  

Personally, I think daily requirements that encourage unnatural behavior (healer and dodge) should simply be dropped.   There are more than enough other options to provide variety with choices that really -do- encourage normal gameplay (gathering, mob kills etc)

Edited by Doctor Overlord, 11 February 2013 - 03:18 AM.

[Athlonpv]

GuildCast Ep61:   Forresty Bits

http://www.gamebreak...xpansion-ep-61/

GAMEBREAKER’s Gary Gannon joins Richie Procopio and Elisabeth Cardy of Massively, along with Scott Hawkes of ZAM for this week’s GuildCast!

[Jarimor]

Athlonpv, on 14 February 2013 - 08:23 PM, said:

GuildCast Ep61:   Forresty Bits

http://www.gamebreak...xpansion-ep-61/

GAMEBREAKER’s Gary Gannon joins Richie Procopio and Elisabeth Cardy of Massively, along with Scott Hawkes of ZAM for this week’s GuildCast!

Like a good neeeiiighbour Athlon is there!

[Doctor Overlord]

Scott, you misrepresented the points I made in my post.   It was not just again AoE attacks but also melee and ranged attacks where the Evade proc was not occurring.  You also did not mention that I saw this after 4 hours of normal gameplay where my character was successfully dodging and not dying, yet the dodge daily had not been completed.

This was with a level 25 alt but in contrast, I have since found that I can go to Orr with my main and I will complete the dodge daily through 15-20 mins of normal gameplay.

I noticed this difference again when a group of friends and myself went back to a starting area (level 1-15) to get a zone completion.  After 3 hours of doing various DEs in addition to working on the usual hearts and vistas, none of them had completed the dodge daily.   These were characters ranging from level 12-70.

I am not changing how I am dodging, so it seems very curious why there would be such a noticeable difference depending on zone level.  

Perhaps low level mob animations are slower or their attacks are delayed in an effort to allow starting players more time to dodge.   The result is that it is possible to dodge these mobs for long periods without completing the daily.

If it was found that doing gathering on low-level copper nodes took much longer to complete the gathering daily than doing high level mithril nodes, I would think that would be considered an issue.  Or it would be designed in an opposite way where it would be harder to get the daily in high level zones.

One can try this, ask some friends to do a low level zone completion without telling them to pay attention to their dodging (I never said anything to the people I was with) and see how many have completed the daily when you hit 50-70% zone completion, throw some DEs as well.   On a side note, certain low level mobs seem to get the Evade proc with less delay, for example the undead arms in the sylvari starting zone seem to have less of an attack delay.  

My friends and I are do fine in Fractals and other dungeons.  We know how to properly dodge. Dailies are supposed to be completed during the course of normal gameplay but it makes little sense that a daily requirement would see such a mob-level dependent effect.   Even if it were intended, logically it should be harder against higher level mobs but the dodge daily seems to depend on mob level in an opposite way to what one would expect.

Edited by Doctor Overlord, 15 February 2013 - 10:21 PM.

[Jarimor]

Doctor Overlord, on 15 February 2013 - 09:57 PM, said:

Scott, you misrepresented the points I made in my post.   It was not just again AoE attacks but also melee and ranged attacks where the Evade proc was not occurring.  You also did not mention that I saw this after 4 hours of normal gameplay where my character was successfully dodging and not dying, yet the dodge daily had not been completed.

This was with a level 25 alt but in contrast, I have since found that I can go to Orr with my main and I will complete the dodge daily through 15-20 mins of normal gameplay.

I noticed this difference again when a group of friends and myself went back to a starting area (level 1-15) to get a zone completion.  After 3 hours of doing various DEs in addition to working on the usual hearts and vistas, none of them had completed the dodge daily.   These were characters ranging from level 12-70.

I am not changing how I am dodging, so it seems very curious why there would be such a noticeable difference depending on zone level.  

Perhaps low level mob animations are slower or their attacks are delayed in an effort to allow starting players more time to dodge.   The result is that it is possible to dodge these mobs for long periods without completing the daily.

If it was found that doing gathering on low-level copper nodes took much longer to complete the gathering daily than doing high level mithril nodes, I would think that would be considered an issue.  Or it would be designed in an opposite way where it would be harder to get the daily in high level zones.

One can try this, ask some friends to do a low level zone completion without telling them to pay attention to their dodging (I never said anything to the people I was with) and see how many have completed the daily when you hit 50-70% zone completion, throw some DEs as well.   On a side note, certain low level mobs seem to get the Evade proc with less delay, for example the undead arms in the sylvari starting zone seem to have less of an attack delay.  

My friends and I are do fine in Fractals and other dungeons.  We know how to properly dodge. Dailies are supposed to be completed during the course of normal gameplay but it makes little sense that a daily requirement would see such a mob-level dependent effect.   Even if it were intended, logically it should be harder against higher level mobs but the dodge daily seems to depend on mob level in an opposite way to what one would expect.

Hi Doc,
I'm sorry if it seems I was misrepresenting what you said, that certainly wasn't my intent and if I did so I apologize unreservedly.
However, the AOE was one of the examples you cited, it was the example I used in what I said. It's my opinion that you were not getting the credit because you were dodging out of the way of the attack as soon as you see the red circle. In other words you are moving out of the AOE before it can land, thereby not actually evading anything.
I didn't have time to go through each example of possible attacks where dodging could occur. Getting an evade against ranged attacks is also very straightforward, but might need a slight delay in hitting dodge so that you are avoiding the actual missile rather than moving away at the precursor attack animation (so you would either be getting hit, because you dodged at the incorrect moment, or would be moving out of range of the attack before it actually occured, thereby not getting credit).
Dodging basic melee attacks is difficult to time perfectly at any level to get an evade, but it is doable.
I think it makes absolutely perfect sense that at low levels, attacks are telegraphed a bit more overtly to teach players how the mechanic works. Does this mean lower level players might have to think a little more about timing in order to get the daily credit? Quite probably.
I just can't agree with you that having to delay a dodge by a second in order to make sure you get credit is enough of an issue to make it unnatural gameplay to a degree that is unfair.
What is the answer? Get credit each time you double tap a direction? As that is the only way to make sure each time you use dodge you get credit no matter what your timing is.
Or if you want to make it the same attack timing for every level, you then make a less forgiving leanring curve for new players, which seems a very harsh solution to a very small problem.
I think this is an issue we will have to agree to disagree on, I don't think it's a problem. I don't think it's being oppressive to players and it isn't so much of a degree different to what you would normally do to make it any real inconvenience at all.

Edited by Jarimor, 16 February 2013 - 08:02 PM.