Category: Guild Wars 2

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Exciting Gaming Weekend Ahead

Steam has the Batman franchises (Arkham and Lego) 75% off, so I now have Arkham Origins. Is it worth springing for the Season Pass or any DLC? I have the Millennium skins from a Humble Bundle.

New Humble sale, so I have a few new indie games to try. I already have and enjoyed Defenders Quest.

Plants vs. Zombies 2 released its future world for the Android, so I have more things to try there. So far: fun! We shall see whether the new content addresses the issues I have been complaining about or pushes further towards monetization. PvZ1’s Zen Garden is back with an altered implementation. It still produces coins, and it now produces one-level plant buffs. The game immediately dumped about 80 plant sprouts on me to encourage me to buy the new gem currency that unlocks more plant slots. I support “here is a lot of free stuff you can use over time or right now if you pay us” as solid F2P design. (Or maybe that was a bug.)

And the new GW2 WvW event is going, so I must try that out. Although, as I type this, I don’t really know why: WvW content has not changed, and I guess we’ll see whether the match-up algorithm for this event is better or worse than Season One or the usual week-to-week system. [Update: nope, us vs. FA and SBI. GG, see you next week.]

: Zubon

[GW2] The Wardrobe

In pre-launch days, the one system I disliked the most in Guild Wars 2-to-be was the transmutation system. Coming from Lord of the Rings Online, with its excellent wardrobe system, the design of the Guild Wars 2 transmutation stones felt like a step backwards in usability and a step forwards in the cash shop arena.

This system, I felt, directly went against the idea of Guild Wars 2 rewards. I felt I the cost of using cool skins, for say a week, was too high. At the base level, I had to overwrite a skin or make a new item. It cost inventory slots, or it cost gold. This is ignoring the transmutation stone to begin with.

Thankfully ArenaNet is finally creating a full wardrobe system. Continue reading [GW2] The Wardrobe

[GW2],[DAoC] WvW v#1 or v#3?

One mechanic that Dark Age of Camelot worked out for Realm vs. Realm combat that Guild Wars 2 has yet to meaningfully attempt in World vs. World combat is providing a reason for the two #2 and #3 servers to both attack the winning team, rather than having the #1 and #2 servers attack the weakest team. Rarely, out-of-game efforts will lead to two Davids’ conspiring against Goliath, but this is rare because the reward structure incentivizes picking on the weak rather than challenging the strong.
Continue reading [GW2],[DAoC] WvW v#1 or v#3?

[GW2] Season 1 Thoughts

As part of the GuildMag hosted blog carnival, I am writing about the end of Living World Season 1. The tl;dr even in my mind is… I think I had fun? It’s kind of a weird feeling. I know I am a Guild Wars 2 ”fanboi” in the best and worst senses. So we have that. But, then I think I am honestly critical of where I see flaws in my favorite MMO.

I feel with the end of Living World Season 1 like I did after each season or the finale of LOST. It was an awesome journey. There were horrible plot holes, silly episodes, and moments of TV-gold. At each “end” of LOST, it felt like the whole season was just swept away, and all that was left was a fine point. I have great memories I can dredge up about the journey, but the journey is over. Now, I just want to look ahead. I don’t know if I can write this post without trying to look behind. Continue reading [GW2] Season 1 Thoughts

[GW2] Transitory Content

Saylah inspires me:

I’m baffled by what they’ve done and not done with GW2. Am I really in the minority in wanting them to add more persistent content and new zones similar to the campaigns in GW1??? Can’t they do both?

As much as we love having frequent updates, building churn into the content has not been healthy for quality, community, or game-building.
Continue reading [GW2] Transitory Content

[GW2] Bugged Ending

After having a WvW Season One that was so bad I got two months’ worth of “this is really horrible design” posts out of it, the Living World Season One has also ended badly. It’s as if NC Soft is looking ahead to WildStar’s release and preparing people to switch MMOs.

A year and a half in, GW2 has two reputations: zergfest and buggy as hell.
— Bhagpuss

I have needed to update Guild Wars 2 literally every single time I have played since the new content was released. The difficulty has ranged from trivial to impossible, the rewards from luxurious to absolutely nothing, and I really have no idea what to expect when next I log into Guild Wars 2. Commenters on Ravious’s post noted the toxicity of chat during the events, and I think it is strongly fueled by frustration with “No really, I did this exact same thing yesterday and it worked fine, so you must be doing it wrong.” Surprise! The rules changed since the last time you played, and it might be documented if you look in the right place on the forums. Map chat is effectively a series of urban legends about what the rules and scaling might be today. Today someone said that there is now a cap of 50 people dealing damage to an assault knight at one time. Is it true? If so, was it true yesterday, and will it still be true by the time you post your comment?

Some days, the new content has catered to a zergfest. Other days, it has tried to train players not to zerg. Good luck organizing 150 random people in your instance of Lion’s Arch to react to how the rules work today.

The design of the season-ending content could be brilliant. I really don’t know. The execution is so poor and bug-ridden that I don’t know whether it is well-designed or -balanced. It involves many moving parts that may or may not interact properly when you log in. It is a bad sign when you need to include a “just skip to the finish” portal.

Maybe you had a different experience. Maybe it worked a way you liked when you played through. Surprise! There was another update, so maybe you can replicate that experience, maybe not.

: Zubon

Update: is “bug” the right term for “not working as intended and needs to be re-balanced immediately”? Because the content works mechanically, usually. As in, actions happen and numbers fly up. But there have been many updates to change those numbers, to add new mechanics to get balance where it was intended to be, to fix actual bugs, to…

On the Benefits of Coasting

I have trouble letting go. For long periods of time, I have games that I am not interested in playing but for which I expect to regain interest later. For single-player games, that means shelving them, and I can play Civilization again when I have the free hours. These days, most of my games are online multiplayer games with incentives for frequent play over binging, so I spend a fair amount of time “coasting.”

Efficient use of dailies is a core example. Most MMOs have dailies now, and many have rested bonuses, once per day rewards, etc. You can cash in several of those quickly and call it a day. Most social media games have a daily login bonus, a process you can productively reset every 24 hours, etc. You can bounce off a half-dozen of those while reading your RSS feed. Games with updates frequently have festivals and events, and you can get 50% of the reward in 5% of the time if you just log in, pick the low-hanging fruit, and accept that you are not going to grind enough to get the top tier reward.

This is a reason why I have never run out of karma, money, laurels, etc, in Guild Wars 2 and why I have 600 levels of characters despite having been “on break” for about half the game’s lifespan. In less than 30 minutes, I can get a small stack of rewards. I don’t need to do that every day to have a huge stockpile when I get seriously interested in playing 3 months later. I have a routine of visiting a half-dozen games, seeing if there is anything new, getting double rewards for whatever strikes my fancy, and wandering off.

Because I am exactly the sort of player who likes to play in binges, and nothing fuels that like coming back to a stack of gold pieces, 20 points to assign to abilities, an entire screen of unlocked rewards, a new festival…

: Zubon

[GW2] Harmony and Discord in the Season 1 Finale

Lion’s Arch is now open for battle. Instead of being forced out due to miasma for a 15-20 minute break, the ruined city is now a constant battleground between the players and Scarlet’s armies. On the hour, Scarlet’s three legendary assault knights descend from the Breachmaker UFO to smash some players good. The chink in Scarlet’s armor is that if players can kill all three to attune themselves to the Breachmaker’s energy, they can warp up.

Another very intense raid-like battle occurs with Scarlet’s holograms, which seem directly tied to her, and beating those gets in to a personal instance to stomp Scarlet flat. This personal instance is also available through a purple portal on the west side of Lion’s Arch if a player doesn’t want the hassle of open-zerg gated content. The key to the purple portal is the Spinal Blade back item.

Weight of a Bug

Let’s get the bad out of the way because unfortunately there is bad. It mostly surrounds the assault knight event, but it compounds itself in a way.

First, bugs. They are just bad this time around, and it feels like they’ve been getting worse since the patches. The two biggest bugs (or design issues?) seem to be the assault knight’s attendance prize and the event scaling. After 4 hot fix bug patches, I fought and killed the red assault knight this morning for no loot. According to the attunement we had about 30 players most of the time that then ramped up to 40+ at the end. We beat her with seconds to spare (out of 15 minutes). Continue reading [GW2] Harmony and Discord in the Season 1 Finale

[GW2] Scarlet Letter Sendoff

It’s interesting how we want to be brief. The end of Season 1 has occurred, and it’s a time for reflection. The story of Scarlet is mostly finished, but far from complete. I have my theories, even in the face of the amazing final cut scene.

What I feel like most is at the end of a LOST season. I am not sure what to think or where we are going. I just know I want more. I think more will come tomorrow, but I am still digesting it all.

–Ravious