Steadfast Gao Shun

Mockingjay74, on 19 January 2013 - 12:26 AM, said:

Sure it wasn't for the DR's Canthan district? Cuz that would make more sense than an entire continent and/or game expansion. Cutting it for favor of a portion of the demographic, that is.

And nah, no benevolent dragon. It'll be revealed that Kuunavang was the Six Gods' attempt at cloning Elder Dragons by infusing Forgotten DNA into the fetus - since the Forgotten had magic which couldn't be corrupted - thus creating a race of draconic supersoldiers, intended to protect the world against the Elder Dragons' rise. But shit hit the fan when the Jade Wind broke out.

Illein, on 11 January 2013 - 03:36 PM, said:

I don't think it is "legit", but I don't paid those people money. I don't think that it is "legit" to release bug after bug as if bugs is the meaning of life for you as a game developer either, but I did pay ANet money and so did you. So yeah, both parties should get their *ing act together, but ANet should do it first and they should do it right away. I'm economically invested in that, and so are you.

Seems the latest "best practice" regarding the large presents is to pop them,  snatch the actual presents that spawn and run, leaving the mobs behind.

It's really sad to see this happening. Going through zones and finding the mobs milling around. Or worse, a set of "leftover" mobs surrounding the large present that has respawned, requiring two sets of killing.

Granted, the princess dolls can be annoying hard to kill without an ability to remove the confusion condition.

The other mobs are not that difficult to take down solo.


Sadly, the players that leave these mobs behind have forfeited an opportunity to get more presents because the mobs that spawn also provide a chance at more dropping more gifts / ugly sweaters / socks .



Please folks, don't leave your mess behind for other players to clean up.

Santa would not approve.

BuddhaKeks, on 17 December 2012 - 04:17 PM, said:

How do you know how souls in the GW universe is destroyed or not? Or even if the RoT is a landscape of souls, or if it actually is a physical place, with physical inhabitants? And I don't think it would be lame at all.

• Hurr Starcraft 2 is lame because zerg exists
  
• Mass Effect 2 is lame because reapers

Yeah no. I'm not saying that Shiro should show up again (the mursaat, though, yes).

Why don't I wait? Because I have seen so many game settings spiral out of control because new things are added while old things are thrown away. In particular, so many loose threads are never tied up, never spun further on. It's sad.

The GW1 charr were not a mix of generic barbarian races (there is no "generic" barbarian race; originally, the word was used for the Persian empire, but ancient Persians have quite little in common with the charr). You mean that they represented a generic enemy on the borders, which they did, but nothing says that that enemy needs to be human. When you let subpar writers give human values to every single charr character, make them make typically human jokes, and so on, that's when they become human.
Hating deities has nothing to do with communism (communism embraces materialist atheism, but says nothing about hating the deities that it doesn't even encourage belief in, and would certainly not say anything about such hate in Tyria, where the deities there provably exist), it's there so that the charr will appeal to edgy teenagers.

Anyway, none of that matters: you say that you fail to see how this is worse than before. It is worse because they are cat faced, furry humans, instead of being an unique species. Note that I'm not saying "race", because who the * call a species a race anyway. Can they mate with other "races" like humans or asura? No (I hope, for sanity's sake). Thus they are a species. They should be as alien to us as a cat is to a monkey. And for quite some time in GW1, they were.

Feathermoore, on 11 December 2012 - 07:50 PM, said:

This, basically. But not just this. It's obviously too late now, but I would want the GW2 lore to have kept building on the GW1 lore instead of just starting over (and doing everything as generic as possible). GW2 could have been about how the mursaat were coming back or how things from DoA started creeping out again or whatever... But no, instead ANet had to invent huge dragons that threaten the world. It's not that we didn't get new things every time in GW1 expansion... It's that that was ok because we travelled to a whole new continent. Also, Nightfall saw old enemies come back from the dead (though I guess they were still dead, and Shiro was dead even in Factions, and so was, of course, the lich... hmm).

Yes, there are reused parts of GW1 lore, such as the dredge and so on... But they're too unimportant, being totally dwarfed especially by the dragons. I suspect that Trahearne was put in the game partially because it would not be credible to let the players fight Zhaitan head on.

Also the charr were far more interesting when they were brute but sentient enemies, instead of being hairy catfaced humans like they are now.

Let's play an MMO to play in instances!! *logic*

Played nearly 3 hours last night with my brother, a serious rarity for me now that I have children, and we had a blast!

Bottom line is that we just did whatever we felt like, didn't sweat "progress" towards some ridiculous virtual goal, and mixed it up with different characters and events. In that 3 hours, we played four distinct game-modes, with 3 different characters each!

We started with an AC run, which was fun because we did a few things that we hadn't done before, rather than just speed-running it, and we had a few newer players to help along.

Then we went to EB to the jumping puzzle, which I'd never been to. It was a hoot. Didn't get far at all, but had some hilarious 3-way rivalries going with some FA & TC guys: yanking each other around and blasting each other off cliffs. Eventually, more TC showed up so we couldn't progress. Next time!

So the two of us ran around EB being obnoxious: taking camps, jacking yaks out from the middle of small zergs, stealing sentries, or drawing zergs to defend keeps from our two man "attacks". As a mark necro and focus mesmer, we eluded many zergs in some pretty epic chases. Didn't "accomplish" that much, but had some really fun cat and mouse going.

Finally, we dropped into tPvP, where we won our first tournament (we don't play much). We were mostly carried by a helluva thief player, but my brother and I had fun playing a psuedo-bunker-duo with strong team-fight builds. Our teammates were very nice people: didn't even complain when I bombed our first match (15 points maybe?)

So in 3 hours, we did a dungeon, ridiculous jumping puzzle + pvp, hit 'n' run WvW with some really fun chases (we had a group of 4 TC guys chasing us around for nearly 20 minutes), and a tPvP tournament. Never got boring, never felt grindy. We didn't really make much "progress", certainly not compared to focused grinding, but we had a lot of fun!

Much better than mindlessly trying to grind out some achievement, gear, or whatnot.

Today, I finally got around to doing the third path for Crucible of Eternity (CoE) (third for me that is) and being able to observe the dungeon in its full. As such, I'd like to present my full view on the matter of the Sixth Elder Dragon's identity and means of corruption (which is more or less in half-agreement half-disagreement with the general public's view). I'd post this in one of the pre-existing threads, but I fear they're either all too focused on a single particular aspect of the general public's view.

Subject Alpha
As some may or may not know, the main enemy in is an Inquest-created multi-Elder Dragon minion known as "Subject Alpha" - this creature uses abilities reminiscent/named after four Elder Dragons and a "Mordremoth" - specifically, it's skills are as follows:

*Imprisonment Crystal (Branded crystal)
*Summoning Undead Tendril (Risen Tendril)
*Summoning Risen Asura (self-explanatory)
*Teeth of Primordus (Dragon's Tooth-esque skill - a fiery rock spike from the sky)
*Teeth of Jormag (a mixture of ice and rock spikes from the ground)
*Teeth of Mordremoth (a row of earth spikes)

The first three are used in every path, while the first three are used only in 2 paths each in a very specific manner (more on this later).

Now, of the three paths, you fight a major legendary boss before the third time fighting Subject Alpha - these foes are Evolved Destroyer, Evolved Husk, and Bjarl the Rampager (an icebrood).

The Evolved Destroyer uses a skill "Tooth of Primordus" - and in the path that leads to it, Subject Alpha does not use Teeth of Primordus.
Bjarl the Rampager uses the Teeth of Jormag skill - and in that path, Subject Alpha does not use it.
The Evolved Husk, as far as I know (I didn't think of checking) does not use a Mordremoth skill, however during that path Subject Alpha does not use Teeth of Mordremoth.

Seeing the connection yet? Let's continue.

Nightmare Court's influence (and not)
The Evolved Husk is, to put it simply, a powerful Summoned Husk - giant plant creatures seen only with the Nightmare Court outside CoE. Along with the Evolved Husk, there are Summoned Husks, Burning Husks, Nightmare Hounds, and Volatile Blossoms in this portion of CoE (similarly, outside CoE in same corner of the Infinity Coil Reactor, at the PoI Zone Green, there are Volatile Blossoms again) - all of which are found in relation to the Nightmare Court outside CoE. This fact has led quite a few folks to further their thoughts of "Pale Tree=Elder Dragon/dragon champion" - I'd like to state here and now, I do not believe this is so, and I feel I can almost disprove this notion. Here is why:

Firstly, on the Husks:
During the meta event in Wychmire Swamp, aptly named The Battle for Wychmire Swamp, the meta event begins with a Warden, Gamarien, who states "I'm scouting Wychmire Swamp for Nightmare Court activity, though I fear an even darker force is at work. I worry these summoned husks are harbingers of a greater foe." And while there are two Nightmare Courtiers met during the first event of the chain, they indeed hold no other influence over the meta. This meta focuses on fighting "Blighted Husks" and "Blighted Grubs" ending with a battle with a giant jungle wurm (fun fact: jungle wurms are also called Nightmare Vines in Twilight Arbor, this combined with their appears implies they're plants, not wurms).

This indicates that there's a second source of these Husks other than Nightmare Court.

On Nightmare Hounds specifically, there is mention in the Town of Cathal in Caledon Forest (marked by a waypoint) that "It's more than just their heart that is tainted by nightmare. Their very bodies shift into something darker and more malevolent." when asked about trying to heal the Nightmare Court's Thorn Hounds.

As things stand, this is all evidence that would state the Nightmare Court at the very least is tied to this Mordremoth. And I'd agree, but not go so far as to say the Pale Tree. Because there are things unrelated to the sylvari who are corrupted by what I'll dub the "Blighted" (as that's the naming system given in the Wychmire Swamp meta).

In Ogham Wilds of Caledon Forest, there is an event where Nightmare Courtiers are attempting to corrupt some Mosshearts - and they may succeed, if so we're tasked in killing them. The thing to note is that these Mosshearts hold the same appearance as the Nightmare Tree fought in Twilight Arbor explorable, though much smaller and mobile. One thing to note is that while sylvan hounds (aka thorn/nightmare hounds) coincide with sylvari, the treants (mosshearts, oakhearts, pinesouls, and willowhearts) do not - they predate sylvari. Yet they can be corrupted in the same manner.

The Dream of Dreams vs. the Nightmare
By lore, the very origin of the nightmare comes from the Dream of Dreams. To use The Movement of the World's wording:
"But the Dream of Dreams also contains nightmares—hidden whispers behind the voices of their fellow Sylvari. They do not understand what it means—but the Sylvari have yet to experience much of the world around them."

From what I remember - and unfortunately I'm not certain of the source - the first sylvari to fall to nightmare was Faolain (though it was Cadyern who created the Nightmare Court later). This occured in Orr when Faolain and Caithe saw the horrors there, and when Caithe turned away from it (the nightmare) Faolain went towards it. Though to me this doesn't make as much sense in of itself - but this does tell a striking simility to Jora and Svanir, if one were to replace Jora with Caithe, Svanir with Faolain, and Drakkar with the nightmare.

Make of it what you will. I make of it as the nightmare originating from an Elder Dragon - thus the Elder Dragon is corrupting through the Dream of Dreams. (I doubt there's going to be much disagreement on this).

Mordremoth's corruption
Given all of the examples above, this shows the corruption method of Mordremoth (I'll just be using this as the otherwiseu named Sixth Elder Dragon). With some rare exceptions, these "Blighted" are all plants. These exceptions being the few grubs seen in the Wychmire Swamp meta (and possibly those "Corrupted Grub"s found in Ogham Wilds near the Mosshearts mentioned above), jungle wurms, and the Nightmare Court's spiders.

Now on the spiders, this may simply be a case of the NC taming them like any run of the mill ranger. And that's my personal supicion.

And on the jungle wurms - as mentioned before, the same exact model is called a vine - indicating these "wurms" are in fact plants. Their models would concur with this. The question comes in their eggs as there's a heart in Metrica Province dealing with Jungle Wurm Eggs. My only guess would be that these are a peculiar kind of plant.

This would indicate that with the rare exception of creatures tied greatly with plantlife, Mordremoth only corrupts plants. Just as Primordus only twists rock and lava, and Zhaitan's minions are all undead, and Jormag corrupts mentally and by promising power, Mordremoth has his own peculiar corrupting methods.

What's interesting to note is that the Nightmare Court hold a similar fanaticism for the nightmare as Elder Dragon minions. Though with a twist of sadism mixed in.

The issue of sylvari being immune to corruption
There's a perplexity in all of this, however, and that's the Nightmare Court themselves. Sylvari are immune to all Elder Dragons' corruption - or at least they are to Jormag's, Zhaitan's, Primordus' (obviously), and Kralkatorrik's corruption. They simply die instead of being corrupted (in Jormag and Kralkatorrik's case, as Zhaitan and Primordus doesn't corrupt living beings - just dead ones and none respectively). Thus, this makes little sense why the Nightmare Court would be minions of Mordremoth. One would think any sylvari Mordremoth tries to corrupt would die.


But there are a few possibilities with this:

Firstly, this immunity may be physical immunity only, not mental. As one may note, Nightmare Courtiers can very easily pass as normal sylvari by appearance alone. Some of the generic models are darker toned, but the unique ones are just as bright as anyone else - this was likely done so that NC NPCs can be easily picked out (similar to how it's easy to spot a Son of Svanir or Flame Legion charr - all of which have peculiar dying appearances, e.g., many Flame Legion NPCs which aren't glowing with fire are usually white stripped orange furred). If the immunity is only physical, then a corruption that is solely and purely mental would work around it - counter-argument is Jormag's corruption is mental - counter-counter-argument is that icebrood still are, well, made of ice eventually.

Second possibility, and most likely, is that the Nightmare Courtiers are not being corrupted - instead, they're spreading it. Similar to the Sons of Svanir - they are not corrupted by Jormag, but influenced by him and nonetheless are capable of spreading his corruption despite not being made of ice. Counter-argument could be that channeling corruption still corrupts, just slower; counter-counter-argument would be that since each Elder Dragon corrupts differently, this may not be the case for Mordremoth.

Third possibility is as an NPC in the game (forget where) believes - the other Elder Dragons don't know enough of sylvari physiology to corrupt them, but in this case Mordremoth, having a connection to the Dream of Dreams, does.

Side note:
The main reason why I don't affiliate the Pale Tree with this all is threefold:
1. Malyck shows no signs of being like the Nightmare Court which, by definition of the Pale Tree being a dragon champion turned good like the all-too-common hypothesis claims, would be the "natural sylvari."
2. While I believe the Dream of Dreams is being used by Mordremoth to spread his corruption, the White Stag proves that the Dream of Dreams is not unique to sylvari, and Malyck proves that not all sylvari are tied to the Dream of Dreams.
3. There are too many things not tied to the Pale Tree being corrupted (spiders, wurms, treants, grubs).

I find it sad that people are so use to prices with bots in the game that they think the economy is broken without bots.

GW2 is a good game, but obviously not what you wanted or expected it to be. You keep posting the things you don't like, do you think by doing this that GW2 will suddenly become the game you want?

Anyway, I do agree that initially I felt movement in combat was slow....but I've gotten used to the pace, and used to the dodge rolling. I disagree that it doesn't require player skill, of course it does otherwise people would never be downed or dead. It does require quick reactions, and no amount of armor stats will help with lack of skill.

I enjoy the game, and I rarely ever post on here, because I am mostly (besides being generally busy in my life) having fun playing the game.

If skill is so completely absolutely 100% irrelevant, why does the same dungeon, with the same equipment tier (full exotic), take 20 minutes and zero repairs with my guild and 90 minutes + 10 silver repair fee with a pug?
Because most random players are *ing awful, that's why, despite having exactly the same numbers as my guild party.

Not going to bother with the rest of your copy/pasted ego-trip.



Also, basing a review on the first twelve levels is absolutely laughable. But hey, it's Forbes. They must be right.

nvm, I found out, if you go back to the vendor and tell him his potion doesn't work, he morph into a boss and tries to kill you, if you win the fight, a chest spawns

@Duskwolf.

Accounts of narcissism and glorification of own opinion

"hey, when I answer... they flee in fear"

"This is going to be an interesting resource for future developers."
"we're bringing you back to reality."
"joining my camp"
"so, hey, I guess you can consider me a good samaritan in a way"
"And the comment I get flung my way for my efforts now"
"when one of my camp"
"we tend to put forth very sensible ideas"
"I had the balls to man up and do it"

Accounts of acerbic treatment of counter-positions: (In direct hypocrisy of
"What we get is, to say it again, insults, fallacies, character assassination, and an increasingly desperate attempt to just get rid of us."


"Oh no, logic! Logic is like the kryptonite of faithfuls like yourself."
""I like vertical progression. And you're a poopoo head who should get out of my forum and give me a walled garden community!""
"You're that desperate
"And for the sake of your mental well being"
"Since I can see that you're trying so hard to delude yourself. And that's what these screams for a walled garden are about."
"Instead, you're hanging around the forum all day at the expense of everything else, and making desperate attacks"
"I doubt you'll counter this. I don't think you have it in you."
"you're hanging onto your delusion"
"you don't want to admit that you were wrong. Because that makes you look stupid."
"Where is your shame? Where is your self-respect? Why do you do this to yourself?"
"When will you come to your senses?"
"bend over and take it up the butt."

Notes: Author calls out dramatically for a logical discussion, but speaks primarily with pathos. He asks for logic, when possibly inciting rage. This would seem self-defeating, but the author is a smart man. He must therefore actually desire the emotional response. The "poopoo head" response. It is interesting too that he labels the counter position "faithfuls" and "hopefuls," this suggests that what they believe is fantasy, and not logic or facts. While also seemingly elevating those who agree with him as followers of his camp, akin to him in his logical glory.

If above is Ethos, let's look for Logos, or logic.. in his post:

"vertical progression takes away from displays of player skill only to offer a placebo effect in its place that convinces bad players that they're good"
" gambling aspects of the mystic forge are exploitative, you can't deny that keeping the amount of money in players hands and then putting artificially high prices on things in order for them to buy gems from the cash shop to convert to gold is exploitative, you can't deny that the taxes themselves are exploitative. Guild Wars 2 is a cynical example of exploitation, and how some people just like to bend over and take it up the butt."

Note: The last is more pathos than logos, since it doesn't explain why it is exploitative. A missed opportunity considering the RNG gamble of MMO's can be explained as such with some basic psychology education, but I wanted to cite it when it was almost there.

Opinion: The author may not be a deliberate troll, or if he is a very good one (10/10), but his delivery is toxic and not likely to create the discussion he believes he champions.

Opinion on Game: I'm still having fun, but I represent the 1%~ of RPers, so my opinion doesn't represent a lot of others. I expect RNG grinds in any MMO, and simply don't play enough for this nature of the beast to dwell in my head like a parasite. I have several 80's, exotics.. even got my ascended ring, but I also prefer Horizontal progression, like Wolf, even if I don't wish to abandon this game anytime soon. Ascended gear was not hatched from some A-net scheme to ruin the lives of their players, but because there was actually a surprisingly (I'd say) large demand for more character progression. A-net has designed the game with the intentions of a revenue despite F2P, and that isn't everyone's cup of tea, but it is necessary. It's not pay-to-win, so I am happy. You don't need legendaries, and they're depreciating in awe as they become more common, so I don't truly understand why people head-desk and grind for them, a personal decision for a little graphic they don't need, and then blame A-net for the trouble they put themselves in. I think the major thing that has shown me that A-net cares about its players is amount of new content they are churning out with a relatively small staff. The holiday event and Karka event have been enormous, and they really surprised me. I can say I'm happy to see what will come this christmas.

This game is not without its flaws, and I don't play it solely, but I maintain faith that it will remain fun, and can improve. So yes, call me a horrible faithful, Dusk. Label me as a terrible, delusional person who will call you names like a two-year old and is only on this community to weigh it down, Tell me that I am incapable of logical arguments. And be thankful that you can't be punched through the internet for insulting me so deeply when you don't know a thing about me.

Steadfast Gao Shun, on 29 November 2012 - 09:26 PM, said:

Yeah, or these people who have many thousands of gold might realise that that accomplishment is completely pointless in the end and leave

What does one do in a game when you have enough funds to buy whatever you want whenever you want but there are only a finite amount of things to buy and you can't influence the world through other means (for example, sponsoring research or arts)? For me it would have to be the deadest, emptiest entertainment experience ever. As an economic system, it's not even a good simulation of the real world if you wanted to use it to practice on.

DuskWolf, on 29 November 2012 - 08:00 PM, said:

I'm not really going to tackle most of that, and the parts that weren't oddly narcissistic I mostly agree with, but it seems that you're overestimating the impact of your forum-ninja ways a bit. Future game developers and ArenaNet will use numbers for research on future games. That is, how much money was made (Box sales and gem-store), how it was made, how many people bought the game, how many people are active at any given time (And it's relation to the total number of boxes sold) and how the expansions sell compared to the original.

Now, if you're doing this to try to get people to quit playing and thus effect those numbers I suppose it can make sense (Though really, who's deciding this stuff on the forums?), but I highly doubt future MMO developers are going to sift through backlogs of fansite forums. Especially considering any halfway intelligent developer knows that forums are only a cross-section of the mostly-raging/negative part of the game community as a whole.

Edit; Misspelled "Intelligent", go figure.