Annaveil.5201

I believe the Hydra staff is currently in the Black Lion Chest if you care to go the route. :)

I am incredibly interested in watching this video.

To be honest, I sincerely hope they keep at least some element of timegating. I think it's a useful tool to force people to slow down. I understand some people are behind the "I should get to play how I want", but all games have rules and restrictions across the board to allow for some amount of challenge. Perseverance and patience is a sort of challenge as well.

Bubbles will be Kralkatorrik's mother. Aurene will go to her while we deal with some other lesser issue that points us to Cantha. Then Aurene will show up later either with word that her great grandmother is going to surface soon or she's helping her help us seal the chaotic magics of Tyria back into a stable state. I put 10g and a [stick of Butter] down as my bet.

I knew ANet wouldn't kill Aurene forever. Her eating Joko and then burping out his voice was too big of a clue. That being said, when she died there was a small part of me that desperately hoped that they'd stick to it. Not because I hated Aurene as a character, but because I wanted to genuinely feel something other than fuzzy good friendship feelings from this story. The last time I felt that was when Lion's Arch was destroyed for good. When Aurene died I felt nothing but, "oh, fake drama I'll bet." I was, however, surprised with how quickly they brought her back. The first five minutes of the story? Impressive.

I thought I'd buy it, but then I looked at the 98 teleports I still have and realized I only use them once in a while. It isn't really worth $10 to me.

I don't really see the outrage over the quartz. It isn't a new item, some people have stocked it daily for a long time, and you can purchase the lamp you need to make on the TP if you want to bypass the daily cooldown, or ask a friend to make it if you're so lucky to have someone who'd do that for you. The point is, you have options. Brand new players who would have difficulty getting the gold for the lamp may have difficulty traversing Dragonsfall in the first place, or doing the achievement where you take your egg to various places around the world. I don't believe quartz is an issue at all. I assumed you were talking about an actual achievement that didn't involve new or old maps, and was time-gated, my apologies.

You're saying the quartz is a time-gate? I thought you were talking about some other collection that leads you to other maps. Can't you purchase the lamp that needs the quartz if you want to bypass the daily cooldown?

That's even better, in my opinion. It lets you roam around to older places you might not have reason to visit. So its not a good way to incentivize playing the new map day after day after all?Apparently not for the later collections, but instead it's an incentive to go to older zones. I'm fine with editing my statement. It doesn't really retract from anything to me. It's an incentive to play.

I'm not? I responded to you.

That's even better, in my opinion. It lets you roam around to older places you might not have reason to visit.

What would you consider to be an acceptable specific reason for time gating?Well a good example and I will use in this game is Bloodstone Fin. You can farm the unique nodes there once every 24 hours to get blood rubies. Since the ascended items you get there are worth it because of the stat changing ability that is fairly cheap. You could want more than one set because all of your characters could use them. This is content the can keep people coming back for more day after day. When a mount is a one and done scenario. Once you have it your whole account has it.I see, so something that's infinitely useful to you makes sense to have it time gated but something that's a single gain isn't. I understand what you're saying, and I agree that the blood ruby time gating is necessary but I disagree beyond there. I believe that the Skyscale time gating is a good way to incentivize people to play the new map day after day. The issue seems to be that instead of feeling as though they have something to do, some people feel as though they're forced to do something. Personally I think there's a little bit of a mob mentality going on where some people are just angry that they can't get it immediately and it's snowballed into trying to justify that feeling into something that can't be so easily dismissed as entitlement/impatience.

"Mother..."

What would you consider to be an acceptable specific reason for time gating?

But you just did. Stating that it's time gated because "we're raising a baby dragon" is literally an example of explaining the context of a design. I'm not justifying the sky when I point out that it's blue. That's stating a fact. "It's time gated cuz game is making us want to believe we're raising a dragon" is justifying a design via context. At least learn the difference. And my friend, that is a fact. That is what is going on. Unless you would argue that is not what Anet is going for there. I'd be curious about your theory. It's not though. What's fact is that it's time gated. The context to justify the time gating fact is that we're "raising a dragon". Whether ANet indeed intended to try replicate reality into a fantasy, I don't know. The only current theory plausible is that they don't want it to be gained too quick that people get bored. At the same time though, they caused that exact problem, people are bored now cuz of waiting. Not that I'm trying to be rude, but I don't follow. I think you're saying we don't know what came first, the chicken (the story of raising a baby dragon) or the egg (the timegate), but ultimately that doesn't diminish the fact that we are raising a baby dragon. It's probably a combination of both. "Quest" collections aren't new, we've had them before, but they also clearly want the Skyscale to be something that you earn through dedication. I imagine the leap from "raise your own dragon" to "a reason for people to slow down" was an easy lightbulb.

The harm it causes is burning players out within just a few days. I am in this boat. Due to the nature of the timegating being tied to needing to complete the previous stage before a daily reset, I feel compelled to push myself through collecting all the collectibles within just a single sitting, whereas otherwise I may have naturally spread it out over a few days as I did other content. That tires me and I barely feel like playing at the moment. I am just logging in and doing it to do it. Getting it to get it. There's no drive to do that other content anymore because I am spending so much time collecting the collectibles. Afterwards I just want to log out the moment that stupid timegate wall hits me. I've done my job for the day, time to clock out and go home to relax. The toxicity brewing in map chats all over the zones related to the collections aren't exactly good either. I haven't seen this high levels of nasty comments fired around.. I think ever. This clearly is upsetting people and then there's those it doesn't upset that are nasty in return to those who are upset, with no good reason either. There's no reason to defend the timegating as far as I can see. The timegating has nothing to do with instant gratification or effort put towards getting the mount. It is just a wall, preventing you from putting in effort where you want to have fun and focus your playtime, when you want to focus on it, not when the game psychologically pushes you towards doing it. I'd say that any prolonged investment in the map isn't there because of the timegating either. You only need to do 10 events in each "lane" to unlock the vendors, but otherwise you don't need to partake in the map events or meta. "Day 2" sends you around to various other maps as well, so there's no investment in the new map there, other than speaking with a couple NPCs. I am actually kinda sick of the new map. I loved it as I went through the story, I loved it as I did my initial events clears and exploration. Now I hate it. Well, hate is a strong word, but I am unlikely to return to it unless its needed. I somewhat feel bad for the talented map designers. I associate it with a frustrating grind that sent me to the same freaking locations three bloody times to collect scales, feed medicine to sick Skyscales and then pick up eggs, all in one sitting. It was largely the same exact locations! That was such a boring and frankly terribly done collection that was simply frustrating after the second roundabout. At the very least it could have put the collectibles in more varied locations. "Day 2", far better, but I still feel like I am under a time constraint where I have to complete it all, and there is a lot to do, within the time I have to spend on the game, before the daily reset. I know there's no gun to my head, but psychologically this timegating with the daily reset mechanic has that effect on me, and I'm sure plenty other players too. It's just frustrating. I do think it's causing harm. I think it's creating negativity in what has been one of the most open and welcoming game communities out there. Sure, we're largely still friendly, but a new player being greeted with a bunch of complaints in the map chat about the timegating and seeing a bunch of nasty comments from those who don't mind it, flung in the direction of those who do mind it, isn't going to be a good first impression. I think it's burning out players. I think it's an element of frustration when you don't got enough time to finish a collection stage in a single day and are as such forced to wait yet another day when you do get it done. I am not in that boat, but I can only imagine how demotivating that must be. I do not see anything positive about the timegating, and I can't fathom why people are defending it. I just want to point out that if anyone is being intentionally disrespectful out of anger over this, that is 100% on them and does not in any way sway this timegating issue towards removing it or keeping it. That goes for both sides. I've seen some frankly appalling messages in this thread. People are angry, but for the love of Dwayna, this is just a video game. It isn't worth lowering yourself to shameful levels.

Thank you so much!

I noticed you posted that you're full up a couple months ago, but if you have room to invite another member I'd love to visit and see if FENX is right for me! :) Thanks much. Annaveil.5201

Gift Wrap! Let us buy rolls of gift wrap that will let you put up to 5 items into a parcel and mail it to a friend. They get a cool little courier animation when they get one (much like the mail carriers now) and a new letter in their inbox with a wrapped present! When they open it a themed pop-up appears that shows them their items. The theme could depend on the type of gift wrap used - birthday, quaggan, congratulations, you're awesome! are generic and available year round while holidays could sell limited time themed wraps. What's more, you can use this to box up and send gem store items in your inventory to friends, so problems like stacks of hair kits for folks with the endless contract can be solved! In exchange for your hospitality, you're given a black lion key. So price them at maybe the same price as keys or 10 gems more than keys just to help deter abuse.