Tag Archives: Guild Wars 2

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November 24, 2015

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GW2: A Lament for the Scroll of Knowledge

Mourning the Scroll of Knowledge
I really miss skill point scrolls, aka Scrolls of Knowledge. The thing is, I understand completely why they were removed, but I still miss them.

This past summer, as part of the changes to the way skill points and specializations worked in preparation for the new elite spec system, ArenaNet saw fit to change skill points to “hero points.” Hero points allow for a progression of skill points that honestly makes more sense and allows players to customize their class to their liking earlier on, with less wasting points on skills you don’t want just so you can unlock the next tier of skills. It also meant you had to spend hero points on unlocking your specializations, but again, now, if you’re really just interested in one specialization, you can dump all of your points into it and have it earlier on instead of having the specialization tiers unlocked as you level.

There are pros and cons to both systems, but we have the new system now so there’s not much point in worrying about which is better. The point is, when they made the switch to hero points, they removed the Scroll of Knowledge and converted them all to Spirit Shards, and made all activities that gave a Scroll of Knowledge now give Spirit Shards. Previously, players could continue to rake in a continual stream of skill points, which meant that, at some point, they became worthless for unlocking skills. Players could either transfer scrolls to another character, or exchange their unused skill points at a special vendor for Mystic Forge crafting ingredients. Honestly, it was weird that you could spend your skill points in the first place, so I’m not really upset about that. What I am a little annoyed at is the fact that, when I use Tomes of Knowledge to level my characters instead of mapping, they’re now at a disadvantage because, while you get a lot of hero points as you level, you’re still short a bunch. Maybe that’s the point–don’t let people skip the leveling process entirely by grinding a lot on other characters, just the hard part–but it’s still frustrating. Not only that, but my high level characters don’t have nearly enough hero points to train up their elite spec (my mesmer didn’t even have enough for the shield proficiency before they lowered the cost). This sounds like my fault–if this change was made over the summer, clearly I didn’t prepare for the expansion well enough–except that ArenaNet did a really bad job of communicating the fact that elite specs would cost hero points, and a lot of them at that. They did the right thing in reducing the number of points it costs to train you elite spec, previously 400, now reduced down to 250 (for reference, I had maybe 50 extra points at best on any given level 80 character). This solution means you still have a use for those leftover hero points, but those of us without near total map completion won’t have to spend hours in old content just so we can use our shiny new spec.

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November 2, 2015

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Revenant Rush

Revlock
I will forever be mystified by the fact that that a cloth blindfold is considered heavy armor. Or, y’know, why they’re a thing at all. I guess it’s like the Miraluka in Star Wars; they don’t need to see because they have magical something-or-other-sight-beyond-somesuch powers. It must be a thing, because WoW’s new Demon Hunter class is getting heavy armor blindfolds as well.

Anyways, this post isn’t about how my character would be totally OP at Major League Pin the Tail on the Donkey, it’s about how I’m loving Guild Wars 2’s new Revenant class. From launch day to today the lower level zones are pretty much wall to wall revenants. Normally it bothers me a little to see a lot of people the same class as me, but right now playing a revenant feels like being a part of the expansion launch hype. Like just about everyone else who preordered Heart of Thorns, I first played the revenant in the beta weekends, and honestly, at first glance, I felt like the class was overcomplicated, specifically the legend system. Why not just give me a mana bar instead of this weird thing that goes to 50% when out of combat and then fills while in combat? And it seemed like each legend had exactly one slot skill that was worth using and that was about it. Well, like just about everyone else who preordered Heart of Thorns (déjà vu), come launch day I rolled a Rev and used a level 20 boost on him. Meet Purifier Unit.
Purifier Unit 35
If you’re among the 99% of gamers who won’t get the reference, the name is a nod to the underrated (and recently re-released on PSN) Mega Man Legends. I thought it was a fun play on words without being terribly immersion breaking. Anyway, I probably should have expected this, but leveling a revenant more naturally, it works a lot better. I still don’t regularly use more than one slot skill per legend, but I’ve come to realize that that’s because they aren’t really meant to be used the way other classes’ slot skills are. In general, two of the skills are situational, and the third is something you can use to burn energy when you don’t need the situational skills. For instance, on the assassin legend, there’s a backwards roll/stun break and a gap closer. The backwards roll is nice since the 2 skill on my favorite weapon, the hammer (which is a ranged weapon for some reason), does more damage at greater distance, and the gap closer is great for melee weapons. But for times when those skills aren’t useful, revenants have a toggle skill that slowly burns energy to speed up both their movement and cooldown timers, meaning they can use those hard-hitting, long cooldown attacks more often. Same story with the dwarf legend: a skill to taunt (that’s right, taunts in GW2, tanking fans rejoice!), one to give stability, and one that drains energy to make a big AoE DoT appear around the revenant in the form of orbiting hammers.

So now comes the dilemma. I really like playing my revenant, so do I level him normally, or use my forty-some tomes of knowledge (“level in a can” items) that I have in by bank to get him most of the way to 80 right now? Or should I use them on a class I don’t like as much? And is it even worth it to level with tomes, since I’ll have to go back through zones anyways to gather tons of hero points if I want my elite spec?

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June 2, 2015

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The Waiting Metagame

With Heart of Thorns drawing ever closer, the anticipation is tangible among the Guild Wars 2 community. There has been a lot of speculation buzz from my friends and guildmates about every teaser image that pops up on social media and every elite spec breakdown Twitch stream. But the looming expansion doesn’t just get players talking about the changes to the game, it also changes the way we play.

Perhaps the most obvious expansion-related change to my playing habbits is that I’ve brought my mesmer, Perception Filter, one of the first characters I made, out of retirement because the Chronomancer elite spec looks really cool. Yes, I know, I was getting really close to having an 80 warrior, but she’ll be next, I promise. The mesmer is possibly the strangest class in Guild Wars 2. You have illusions, which seem like pets but they’re more like DoTs. It’s sort of a mage class, but it’s also kind of kind of a tank class, and my preferred weapons are sword/pistol and greatsword. I think that’s a lot of the reason why I abandoned her; I didn’t even get the nuances game yet, so adding a class with a strange playstyle on top of that really discouraged me. It’s also a late blooming class, so maybe I just needed to stick it out longer. Either way, I’m enjoying the class now, and hoping the Chronomancer spec makes it even more enjoyable.

Inasmuch as my low level characters are progressing rapidly, my 80s are equally stuck. My favorite class so far has been my necromancer, and the build I fell into was very bleed-centric. Currently, with the current bleed cap at 25 stacks, condition builds are of limited utility. I was just thinking I was going to have to bite the bullet and find a new playstyle when the announcement hit that ANet was looking at removing the cap on bleeds. As excited as I am about that, it means that I’m now unsure if I should be looking for condition damage or other sources of damage when gearing up for the endgame. Also, there has been talk of new precursors, but is there going to be other new endgame gear to go with the additional endgame progression that is the meat of the expansion? It would seem to be against the Guild Wars philosophy of never invalidating low-level content, but only time will tell, and until then I’m sitting on my gold and karma.

While I’m powering through the levels on Perception Filter, there’s one shortcut I haven’t taken advantage of that I normally would, and that’s the XP tomes and scrolls. Those have gone straight into my bank for use by my future Revenant. I have far from enough to jump straight to 80 on launch day, nor would I want to cheapen the experience that way, but I do have just enough to skip the boring low level stuff. I’ve also had some angst over whether or not I should save my skill point scrolls or use them all on one of my 80s to buy Mystic Forge recipe materials.

I know that Guild Wars 2 is something special when, despite the general lack of current content due to most of the developers being busy with the expansion, I haven’t been that tempted to leave it for greener grass on the other side. Just about every MMO I’ve ever played got to that point a lot longer ago than Guild Wars 2. Yes, I’ve been playing LotRO, but I’m probably averaging less than one play session per week. Yes, I flirted with SWTOR and Rift for a while. Something about Guild Wars 2 kept me coming back, and I really hope the expansion makes me glad I did.

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April 7, 2015

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Heart of Thorns: An Expansion Beats DLC

Recently there has been a rash of MMOs announcing that they are ditching the traditional expansion pack model in favor of smaller DLCs. In a way, this really shouldn’t be surprising; the game market as a whole has been doing this for years now, so MMOs seem a little late to the party. But I don’t really think this trend is in players’ best interest. While I was brainstorming this post, Justin Olivetti over at Bio Break posted a great article on this trend, so go read his post because he probably summed it up better than I would have anyway. I wanted to echo his thoughts and talk specifically about why I’m glad Guild Wars 2’s Heart of Thorns is an expansion and not just a DLC.

Back in January, in the days when all we knew about Heart of Thorns was an ambiguous teaser at the end of Season 2 of the Living World story, I wrote about why I was hoping HoT was an expansion. The main gist of the post was that, although ArenaNet repeatedly claimed that the Living Story would, by the end, add up to an expansion’s worth of content, it simply didn’t. Eight chapters of roughly half an hour of questing each with roller coaster difficulty and two bland zones does not equal an expansion. Put all of the Living World content together and you have at best a mini-expansion, what some marketers are calling “DLC.” (Isn’t the whole game technically downloadable content?) A DLC which probably isn’t substantial enough for me to pay for (I missed at least one episode of Season 2 and I don’t plan on going back and buying it). I admittedly haven’t read up on the scale of the DLC/frequent chunk updates planned for games like LotRO and EQ2, but when I hear the idea I immediately think of the Living World and how mediocre it felt and am a bit turned off by the idea.

Also there is, of course, the fact that an expansion sounds a lot better than DLC. I’ve tried to explain the Living World updates to friends who play other MMOs, and I’ve almost always been met with something along the lines of “Oh, my game does content patches sometimes too.” No, that’s not the same thing. Well, kinda, but not really. MMO players in other games can relate to a game dumping a bunch of new features and content in an expansion, and players within the game can rally and get excited about it, but a handful of quests and a couple of new zones, regardless of what other features it may or may not come with, doesn’t sound that enticing to someone outside the game. Also I (and other gamers I know) have judged a game’s activeness by how recently they released an expansion, not by how recently they’ve released a smattering of new quests. If a game hasn’t had a real expansion in two or three years and there’s no sign of one in the future, it comes across as a sign that the developers are losing faith in their product.

Perhaps the worst part of the Living World’s reign is that I felt like Guild Wars 2 was in limbo. It seemed like the developers were constantly rushing to keep up with the every-two-weeks pace of content releases, and improvements to other aspects of the game only got squeezed in while they were taking a short break from the Living World. I’m afraid that a game whose business model is to constantly push out small DLCs will be perpetually stuck in this state. With an expansion, the dev team gets to take a big chunk of time to work on meaningful class changes, new dungeons, and, most importantly, balance them against the rest of the game. We’re already seeing evidence of this with Heart of Thorns, most obviously with the new Revenant class, but also some of the smaller changes like the promise of removing the hard 25-stack bleed cap (my necromancer and thief will be so happy when this change sees daylight). Even better, the player base is usually on board with waiting for this, especially if you tease them with things like dev diaries and closed betas, whereas if you break your advertised release schedule players get restless, even if you assure them it’s for QA purposes.

I know a lot of people favor the DLC model and the promise of new things to do more frequently rather than wait for a truckload of new content to be dumped on you all at once every year or so. What do you think? Is your experience that it’s a struggle between quality and quantity? Or do you see it, as Bio Break puts it, as the same pie cut in smaller pieces? I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments!

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March 13, 2015

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Crafting: What’s the Point?

There has been a trend in recent years of trying to streamline the MMO experience and get rid of outdated mechanics that only serve to annoy players (see my rant on WoW tapping in the previous post). It’s usually associated with “casualising” games, though I don’t think convenient and hardcore are necessarily mutually exclusive. In any case, there has been a lot of talk about reducing and/or eliminating the “gear treadmill,” that is, the end game mechanic of getting good gear so you can do dungeons and raids so you can get better gear so you can do harder dungeons and raids so you can get better gear so you can… you get the point. Debating the pros and cons of dungeon gear treadmills is beyond the scope of this post. But there’s one MMO mechanic that hasn’t been talked about as much that has me somewhat puzzled: crafting.

My first MMO was RuneScape. Crafting in RuneScape is what combat is in most other MMOs; it’s basically all your character lives for, and everything else is secondary. So when I started playing other MMOs like LotRO and SWTOR, I was a little confused as to why I had to choose just one crafting profession per character. But as I played those games I eventually came to realize the difference. In RuneScape, the whole game, most notably the economy, was centered primarily around player-made items or things that require non-combat skill levels; magic runes, potions, ores, weapons, armor, even most of the quests required high skill levels. In other MMOs, all of those things can be crafted, but you can just as easily get them from drops. In virtually every other MMO, you can get decent gear simply by killing things, anything from rats (where was this rat hiding these platemail pants?) all the way up to fire-breathing wyverns. True, the longer RuneScape goes on the more certain weapon and armor sets come from enemy drops, but there has generally been little to no bind on pickup/equip gear in RuneScape, so once an item has been out for a year or so the exchange is swimming in them.

So back to the original thesis: outside of RuneScape and probably a few other cases where the game is built around it, what’s the point of crafting? Take Guild Wars 2 for example. Aside from endgame crafting which is bind on pickup (which was added post launch), I could easily sell a handfull of materials for the price of a piece of rare (yellow) gear on the trading post, and get exotics for only a little more. Why should I burn hundreds of these mats for the right to make it myself? Better yet, I could simply kill things and get drops that are similar to, if not better than, crafted gear. I know all of the hardcore crafters are screaming at their monitors right now, but really, in a game where I get bags full of good quality drops, what’s the point? Isn’t this just a single player version of that gear treadmill everyone seems to hate so much these days? “Gather mats so you can make gear so you can gather better mats to make better gear, so you can make the best gear, which you have to craft for yourself.” I’m not a crafting hater–I’m just as responsible for the deforestation of Tyria and Middle-Earth as the next guy–and I do get the appeal of being self-sufficient when it comes to gear, but looking at it objectively, I’m not really sure why every game still feels the need to have an extensive crafting system, especially those with a dungeon gear treadmill in place.

Am I missing something?

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February 11, 2015

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Guild Wars 2: Trying Something New

Orr. How is it that I make my way through a game with a decently well written story, through a variety of environments (not a huge variety, but enough to be pleasing to the eye) with pretty reasonable design, openness, and wanderability (that’s a word I promise) that make the game a real joy to explore, and suddenly I run up against this wall of frustrating level design and boring, dragging mob fights known as Orr? I’m not even going for map completion, in fact the three zones that make up Orr are a major reason why I’m not interested in 100% map completion, I just want to kill the blasted zombie dragon. I got only a little farther in the Traherne story (let’s face it, it’s not a personal story anymore at this point) on my Necromancer than I did on my Engineer, that is to say, about half way through.

So what’s the natural reaction when the endgame zones get annoying? It’s alting time! …again. This time around I’m going to try for something a little different. First, I’ve never made a Charr character. There’s something about them that I’ve never liked–maybe it’s their weird body shape, maybe it’s the way they run, or more likely it’s just because they give off a “big, strong, and stupid” vibe–but I warmed up to Rox in the Living World story, so I’m giving them another try. Like the Asura, the female voice actor annoys me a little less than the male voice actor, so I’m going with a female (protip: the easiest way to tell the difference is the shape of their tails). Second, I’m rolling a new Warrior, the class I’ve played the least. I’m really not sure why, as Warriors seem to have a really nice variety in terms of useful weapon choices, as well as group utility and survivability. Plus heavy armor is always the coolest. So, without further ado, meet Charrstring.
Charrstring 25
(Please forgive the programming pun)
This is my first time playing a new character since the new “improved” low-level experience. I guess it might be better for players who’ve never touched an MMO before, but personally I find it pretty frustrating. Just about everything is locked at the start, including the ability to join guilds or PvP matches (remember, Guild Wars 2 PvP uplevels you to 80 and unlocks all of your slots skills and traits, so it’s not like you’d be worthless as a lowbie), several gear slots including the offhand weapon slot, rallying from a downed state (apparently it’s a better experience to just die than to be downed and not know what happened?), and all but one of your weapon skills, and you slowly unlock these abilities as you level. (EDIT: My mistake, some of these things were not locked, it simply tells you about them on the level up screen at a certain level) Traits have also been moved up to start at level 30, so basically there are little to no class customization choices until late in the game. I guess all of this is supposed to slowly ease new players into the game without overwhelming them with too much at once, but it feels like I’m playing the tutorial for at least 15 levels. Fortunately I have a mountain of otherwise useless insta-20 scrolls in my bank from character anniversaries, so I got to skip most of the nonsense.

So far I’ve had a lot of fun trying out all of the weapons I can use. Most classes quickly fall into one or two weapons that work best for me, but I’m not sure this time. Sword/axe is my favorite so far, but I haven’t nailed down a second weapon yet; they’re all good and fun to use. Another thing that I’m doing differently this time is that, on both of my “main” characters, I’ve ended up with DoT-heavy builds. This time around I’m going for high damage and crit. I plan on working in some defensive stats in the later levels as well. So far I’ve had a blast one- and two-shotting common enemies, and blowing my Adrenaline attacks to finish off anything bigger and badder. And I haven’t died thus far, even when I thought for sure I had too much on me. I don’t expect that to last forever, though, and I’ve had characters seem fun at first and then get boring after a while (my thief is a prime example), so I’ll just enjoy it while I can and see if it continues.

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January 14, 2015

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Why I’m Hoping For A Guild Wars 2 Expansion

HeartOfThorns
All aboard, the Hype Train is now departing from the Rumor Mill bound for Speculation City. The above logo appeared in a teaser at the end of the latest Living World quest, which released yesterday. I won’t spoil anything for anyone, but man, this is the first time Guild Wars 2 has left me with an epic plot twist that left me wanting more. Strangely enough, though, the trailer didn’t specify what exactly Heart of Thorns was, leaving us with only a teaser to keep an eye on PAX later this month to find out more. This ambiguity has, of course, has lead to wild speculation by the players. Is it simply another chapter of the Living World story, or could it be the coveted expansion many players have been begging for? Many have pointed out that there hasn’t been a major influx of talent normally associated with expansion development, and ArenaNet has stated on multiple occasions that they’re not looking to release an expansion any time soon, claiming that Living World provides the necessary diet of new content necessary to keep players coming back. Nevertheless, I’m hoping against hope that this is a full blown expansion for several reasons.

The Living World has been mediocre at best
I’m sorry to say it, but, as cool an idea as the Living World is, it just isn’t really panning out. It feels more like work than anything. I feel bad for missing the content, but at the same time I’m not that interested in it. On more than one occasion I’ve had to scramble to get the latest chapter of the story done the night before the new release. It’s a little better with season two, since, if you miss a chapter, you can at least pay 200 gems a pop to unlock chapters you’ve missed, but you’re also paying roughly $2 for maybe an hour of questing that you could have gotten for free if you had been a little more timely. Also a lot of the stories have felt like the writers are stalling; like they haven’t decided what to do next yet so they just threw together a fluff side story and a boss so they could meet their two week deadline. And don’t even get my started on the rollercoaster difficulty. I’m sure the good people of ArenaNet are doing the best they can, but maybe there’s a reason every MMO since time immemorial has released updates monthly, not bi-monthly.

An expansion means a bunch of fresh content
It wouldn’t be an expansion without a level cap increase and a few shiny new zones to go with it, right? As uninterested as I am in getting that 100% map completion achievement, I’m always excited to explore new zones. We got two zones this season, which, honestly, isn’t that exciting. Also both of them were boring desert zones. I’d like to see a whole new area of the map open up. Also, dare I dream of a new class? Maybe even one with a healing focus? (Not likely, but I can dream) A new race wouldn’t go amiss either. And I certainly wouldn’t be opposed to some bigger dungeons. Not hardcore WoW 40 mans or anything, just something more than 5 mans. Something that scales to your group size a la LotRO’s Skirmishes would be amazing as well.

It will (hopefully) mean more personal story
Regardless of how you feel about Traherne and the fact that he suddenly shows up and steals the spotlight of your “personal” story, I think we can all agree that the personal story ended on a rather weak note. Granted I felt that, depending on your choices when creating your character, the rest of the story ranged anywhere from boring to, at best, only mildly interesting, but maybe I’m just spoiled by games like SWTOR. A new chapter of the personal story could hopefully turn a weak story ending into just a weak intermission. Yes, the point of Living World was to pick up where your personal story left off, but the fact that new and currently sub-80 players won’t get to experience it (without essentially paying for an expansion, something I can’t say I could recommend to a new player given its quality) makes it seem more like a sidequest to your personal story than a new chapter. Especially if, as it appears from the logo, the expansion focuses on killing another Elder Dragon.

It’s a chance for ArenaNet to start over
From mediocre storytelling to frustrating changes to traits and dailies, Guild Wars 2 has seen its share of bad decisions. An expansion is a perfect time to make big changes to unpopular systems. Sure, you could do this anytime, but you don’t want to send the message that you gave in to whining masses. That will just encourage vocal minorities to complain all the more in hopes that their demands will be met. Making these changes in an expansion makes it seem like you were planning on doing this anyway.

A full blown expansion may or may not be on the horizon for Guild Wars 2, but I think it would go a long way toward pleasing current players and bringing in new ones. What are your thoughts on mystery of Heart of Thorns? Let me know in the comments!

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August 15, 2014

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From Gears to Guts: Engineer vs. Necromancer

Count The Shadows 65
Well, my necromancer is nearly 70. I figure I should hit 80 in time for the second anniversary festival. Looking back, I think this will be the first time I’ve ever gotten two characters to the level cap in any MMO that weren’t a few years apart. Here are some reflections on the differences between the necro and my first 80, an engineer. They’re actually remarkably similar when you get down to the core–both are very DoT/debuff focused, and both can drastically change their play style by respecing and swapping out their slot skills–but there are some key differences that make me really like the necromancer a lot more.

What I came to realize after playing my engineer for a while is that it is not a PvE class. I really didn’t have that much group utility. Grenades are wonderful in PvP–big AoEs for hitting moving targets and tons of range, which made a casual PvPer out of me when it’s been completely uninteresting to me before–but they aren’t worth much in a dungeon, or even the personal and living stories’ bosses. I’ve tried a few PvE builds, like the so-called Pyrotank, which many engineers swear by. Maybe I’m playing it wrong, and I’m pretty sure I’m geared wrong for it (my gear is mostly condition damage focused), but it never seemed that exciting to me for PvE or PvP. The necromancer has a lot more group utility, even in the 60s. The staff is similar to the grenade kit (big AoEs at good range), but the necro’s staff skills provide better debuffs and damage. Combine that with the group heal on the 2 skill, and it makes me feel like I’m actually contributing something more than downing the boss a little faster. And if you want DoTs, a necro with a scepter can crank out bleeds at a pretty impressive rate; I usually have around 10 stacks of bleeding at any given time by myself. Granted, the engineer has a much wider variety of DoTs–burns, bleeds, and poisons, oh my!–but the necro seems to crank out DoT damage faster.

Necromancers can hold their own in PvP as well, with several condition-removing and condition-passing skills, and of course Death Shroud for damage avoidance. In fact, I feel like they’re the perfect foil for the engineer, which is probably why I got destroyed by them more than any other class.

Also, maybe it’s just because I’m more experienced with the game now (and the fact that I haven’t reached Orr yet), but I feel like I’ve died a lot less on my necromancer than on my engineer. The engineer’s survivability is more dependent on interrupting and avoiding the enemy (which is somewhat infuriating in PvP, especially if you’re a melee class), while the necromancer is a glass cannon, killing everything before it has a chance to touch him. It turns out avoidance doesn’t work that well when you’ve got a swarm of bandits all around you (protip: never do Caudecus’s Manor explorable path 2 with a pickup group… it’s bad enough with voice chat). That’s not to say that I never die as a necromancer–I’m wearing light armor, after all–but I find myself on the ground a lot less. Of course, having a blood fiend healer-pet that occasionally takes heat off of me doesn’t hurt either (though I usually end up swapping him out for consume conditions or signet of vampirism in group settings since he doesn’t last long).

Something I’m not a fan of is the new trait system. I didn’t realize until now that all of the major traits are now unlocked by some kind of achievement–mostly from obscure events. All of the characters I’ve had up to now have either been old enough to have most of the traits unlocked, or haven’t actually gotten to the new level 36 to start using major traits. They can also be unlocked by paying a fee of 10 silver to 3 gold (depending on the tier) for an unlock from your class trainer, but that’s almost more frustrating. Plus, on my necromancer, I feel like all of the good traits are in the upper tiers, whereas on my engineer I felt like I had more traits I wanted than slots to fill even from a low level. Maybe that’s just me.

All in all, the necromancer is more like the class I thought I was getting when I signed up to become an engineer. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t regret my time with my engineer, but the necromancer is just a better fit for me. I plan on popping back in with my engineer when I feel like PvPing, but I think my necromancer will be my main character now. Who knows, maybe I’ll even finish all of the zone completion? Ok, probably not for a while, but it could happen.

P.S. ArenaNet, if you’re reading this, I will pay any sum of gems you want if I can make my Sylvari look and dance like this guy:

I am Groot

I am Groot


(If you haven’t seen Guardians of the Galaxy yet, I highly recommend it. Definitely my favorite Marvel movie so far)
I wish my character slots weren’t all full, or I would definitely make a Sylvari guardian based on Groot.

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July 21, 2014

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GW2: Quality of Life Features Every Game Needs

After complaining in my last post about how frustrated I’ve been when trying out a few older MMOs, I’ve been reflecting on a few of the things the developers have done that make Tyria a nice place to live. Many other games have some of these features in some form or another, but Guild Wars 2 seems to nail so many little things so well.

My Bags Are Never Full

Anyone who’s played MMOs, or most RPGs for that matter, for very long has bemoaned their lack of inventory space, but I never have this problem in Guild Wars 2. Most obvious is the “Deposit All Collectables” button, which deposits all of your crafting materials to the bank instantly. I’ve never even thought of having a button like this, and even if I did I would expect it to be a premium feature (especially on a subscriptionless game like Guild Wars 2). Perhaps the most subtle quality of life feature of Guild Wars 2 is the general lack of junk. Yes, there is a little bit of vendor trash, but not much, plus any vendor will kindly pay you for your useless globs of globby gloop (yes, that’s a thing) whether they’re a weaponsmith, merchant, or an armor repair. Instead, the game throws a lot of salvage items at you. A great quality of life feature in its own right, salvage kits, turn salvage items and unwanted gear into crafting mats (which can then be deposited via the aforementioned deposit collectables button), which of course can either be used or sold. Best of all, they’re only a few copper for a stack of 15 basic ones, or a little more if you want a chance of better salvage. Guild Wars 2 makes you wonder what the point of intentional vendor trash items are. Why not just drop more gold and save me the frustration of hauling my overstuffed bags back to town to dump it off on some poor vendor?

Auction House Anywhere

This goes along with the above, but it’s so huge it deserves its own mention. Guild Wars 2 not only lets you check prices on the auction house in-game from anywhere, which would be great in and of itself, but it even lets you list your items from anywhere. This has the added effect that the auction house has virtually every tradeable item available for purchase, since no one thinks to themselves “this will be hard to sell, and I need space, I’ll just vendor it.” It will even let you buy items, but to retrieve your items or your cash you will have to track down your local Black Lion Trader in your nearest big city. It begs the question of why every game doesn’t do this. It would be too convenient? Why is that a bad thing?

Waypoints

At first I was a little disappointed that Guild Wars 2 didn’t have mounts to get me around the world faster. Yes, I’ve seen other games argue that they don’t need mounts because their content is clustered closer together, but there’s something more interesting about jumping on something that makes you go faster than on foot, be it a horse, a proto-drake, or a hoverboard (especially if it’s a hoverboard, let’s be honest). Guild Wars 2 has been the first game that has made me not miss mounts by dotting the landscape with waypoints, instant teleport points that cost a few copper or silver (depending on your level and the distance traveled) per teleport. At 80, the cost can add up quickly if you’re popping around the map catching up on your personal story, but I feel like the fee is pretty spot-on for the convenience.

Weapons Determine Skills

I’ve often wondered why games like LotRO have so many weapon types. All melee weapons seem more or less interchangeable–a club works just as well as a sword, a halberd is mostly indistinguishable from a two-handed axe–with minutely different bonuses. In Guild Wars 2, a different weapon may completely change your play style, or even your role. For instance, guardians can crank out respectable DPS with a greatsword, or heal and buff with a staff. This not only gives different weapon types a reason to exist, but it gives classes a degree of variety and customizability as well.

Stats Are Stats, Regardless of Class

“Ok, so for this class, agility increases damage, and vitality increases my mana regen, but not as much as intelligence….” Maybe I’m crazy, but I don’t think I should have to look up a translation matrix to figure out if a piece of gear is good for my class and build or not. Guild Wars 2’s gear is simple: if it says power, it increases my damage, if it says vitality, it increases my health, regardless of class or gear type. Why can’t all games be this way? It makes it so much easier to bounce between characters. At least some games like WildStar are starting to show the actual stat bonuses on the tooltip below the attributes, which is a step in the right direction, but I don’t understand why you can’t just cut out the middle man and put the stats on there. I’m sure there must be some kind of justification out there involving class balance or something, but it seems like a holdover from some ye olde time RPG mechanic.

XP For Everything!

What do reviving a player, harvesting a plant (my cabbages!), watching a flyby of a mountain, and simply walking around have in common? They’re all ways I’ve leveled up in Guild Wars 2 (probably all in the last couple weeks). Seriously, they’d give you XP for sneezing if they could. This would be an incredibly frustrating way to miss a lot of content, if players weren’t down-scaled by zone. Coupled with this, it is actually very freeing; there isn’t a distinction in Guild Wars 2 between leveling, exploring, and crafting as there is in other games I’ve played. Every activity gives XP, so no time feels wasted.

So next time you use one of these features, be grateful to the good developers at ArenaNet, and remember gamers less fortunate who have to get by without these conveniences.

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July 11, 2014

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Catching Up

Here’s a little of this and that from around my gaming life that hasn’t made its way to a post of its own.

First of all, you may have noticed the lack of MMO Tourism posts lately. That’s because I’ve hit a couple of discouraging games. First was EverQuest II. Moving around felt somewhat clunky, outmatched only by the painfully slow combat. I’m guessing that, aside from the fact that it came out in 2004 and most RPGs were generally a little slower-paced back then, this is partly a holdover from the first EverQuest which, coming out in 1999, was played primarily by dial-up users, which meant they had to account for a lot of latency. Even in 2004 a significant number of Internet users were on dial-up (I think my family didn’t get broadband until around that time, despite being online since 1995). Combine that with the fact that they were more or less inventing the modern MMORPG as they went along, and I can’t really blame SOE. But to a modern player, coming off of titles like WildStar and Guild Wars 2, it’s really hard to get in to, and I couldn’t really get past that. I hope to give it another go, but my first impressions were not good ones.

I also gave Dungeons and Dragons Online a shot, but for some reason it crashed a lot. I used to have similar problems with Turbine’s other game, Lord of the Rings Online, every now and then, but not nearly this bad. I tried three times to make a character and gave up after it crashed each time before I even got in the world. I’ll have to do some googling to see if there’s some settings that will make it more stable on my setup. Maybe it has to do with my recent Windows 8/SSD upgrade? Or just ATI’s latest crappy drivers?

I’m a little late to the party on this one, but I finally got to read Worlds Collide, the epic Sonic the Hedgehog/Mega Man crossover comic book miniseries from Archie comics. Sonic and Mega Man have always been my favorite characters since before I can remember, so to have them together in one semi-official story is a dream come true. I love the art style and the overall cleverness of the writing. So many witty references to both games; the writers are clearly big fans of both series. It’s probably the most amazing game-related thing I’ve ever read. I’ve been buying them as compiled graphic novels, so I’m still eagerly waiting for the last arc later this month (no spoilers please!). I highly recommend them for fans of either series. Since I got my hands on the first one I’ve been on kind of a Mega Man kick (I’ve been trying to finally beat the last few levels of Mega Man 10 that I never got through, and my ringtone may or may not be the Proto Man whistle right now…), and this has renewed my sense of frustration that Capcom seems completely uninterested in further developing the series since creator Keiji Inafune left the company in 2010. I have high hopes for his new games, Mighty No. 9 and Azure Striker Gunvolt, apparent spiritual successors to the Mega Man and Mega Man Zero series, respectively, but I’m afraid it’s just not going to be the same. At least we have the comic book for the foreseeable future.

My necromancer in Guild Wars 2 continues to progress nicely. I have a good rotation down for cranking out lots of damage and DOTs using my wand/dagger and staff, and can take down most Veteran mobs without taking much damage, even without popping into death shroud (aka high damage, resource-is-health mode). Unfortunately I’m nearing that critical 25-35 range where most of my alts die, but I don’t see that happening with this one (of course, I’ve said that before). I also can’t decide which zone to do next, as I’ve done all of them at this level range. I wish I could skip over them and do some of the higher level content I haven’t seen yet. I guess that’s what I get for being an altaholic. I’m leaning toward the Charr zone next, since I’ve never played a Charr and I’ve only mapped that zone once.

In other Guild Wars 2 news, the new season of the Living World started last week. I missed out on most of season one (due mostly to the fact that I took my time getting to 80, and by the time I got there I was so behind that I had no idea what was going on or why I should care), so I can’t really judge whether season 2 has improved, but I like what they’re doing with it so far. The dialog and cutscenes are done more the way I would expect from an MMO, using in-game graphics and occasionally textboxes, and not like the personal story cutscenes that yank you out of the game and show the characters awkwardly talking past each other (which you’ve heard me rant about many times if you’ve been reading my ramblings on Guild Wars 2 for long). I really like the living story cast of characters a lot better than the personal story/Destiny’s Edge characters. They’re a lot more colorful and less generic racial stereotypes. I also like that they’re all obvious player classes. I never felt like I knew exactly what class Zojja or Caithe were supposed to be (I guess Eir was a ranger since she had a pet? And they refer to Traherne as a Necromancer, but he uses a greatsword), but the new group (do they get a cool name like Destiny’s Edge? If so I haven’t heard it yet) are comprised of obvious classes with identifiable skills that can be used by players (with the exception of Taimi, who uses her golem to fight). Also, without spoiling too much for those who may not have done it yet, that last boss fight is incredibly annoying. I can’t tell you how many times I got knocked off of that blasted rock, and the Zephyrite lightning jump kept glitching out for me and not landing anywhere near where I put down the target. It was worth it, though, and I’m looking forward to how the plot developers in the next episode.