Jump to content
  • Sign Up

Thalimae.3406

Members
  • Posts

    53
  • Joined

  • Last visited

Everything posted by Thalimae.3406

  1. I've been playing since BETA times but never had a single precursor drop for me.
  2. To be frank, this "men get real armor and women get chain-mail bikinis" isn't really a thing in either GW1 or GW2. Typically if one gender is showing skin the other will too, with some exceptions of course. See the tattoo monk armor and scar necro armor from gw1. Also, see above: some amount of female players, whatever that number might be, do like the skin showing armor. There are still terrible examples like the Elite Ranger Druid set where the men get a cool leather trench coat and everything and the women get -literally!- some random leather scraps and a bunch of sticks. You hand over tons of material and money to the armourer and don't even get a pair of shoes, for goodness' sake! And the whole line of Elementalist fashion is one variation of bikini/mini skirt/bra after another while the guys are always fully clothed. But yes, it's less of a problem than in other games, that's true. However female armour designs are still more likely to have random holes in it, or a bare midriff, or missing leggings or whatever. And more often than not this happens for no good reason. There is one armour set in the game that I am aware of were it's the reverse, i.e. the female is full armour and the male is missing a shirt and that is the Dolyak cultural armour for Norn. And it's not just about how much skin is being shown. Sometimes you also have design elements that don't match the other gender so it might as well just be two completely different sets at this point. Bottom line is that I would prefer the male and female designs to match as closely as possible. Of course, be free to accommodate the different physical builds and everything but I don't see the need to make armours any more different beyond that. And that's not about not wanting sexy female armour. But if you make a set with sexy female armour then let the male armour also be sexy and showing off some skin or whatever. I don't know what to tell you, as I've already said a plurality of player both male and female do like having some sexy/skin showing armors for females and seemingly aren't terribly interested in the same for male characters in comparison. Anet has come pretty kitten close to having one to one with the armors and outfits, especially so with GW2. With gw1 druid's armor was just about the only salacious armor for female rangers in gw1, out of some two dozen armor sets. Elementalist armor did have a sizeable number yes, but when you look at the list only about half falls under "bikini armor". But look at the ritualists, paragons, and assassins; it is quite literally one to one with those armor sets.But what Anet is doing right now is in general is probably for the best, making a roughly even mix of uniform, gendered and salacious armors. This is something that is going to please the largest number of people.......Now if only they'd do better at making actually good looking skins for armor, really wish they'd use more classics from gw1 regardless of what of the above categories they'd fall under. I was just clarifying my position, it's all good. :) On a personal note, the Elite Druid is bugging me so much cause I was maining Ranger back then and saw my buddy with his male ranger in this really great coat and I wanted that, too. And, well, you can imagine my disappointment when I saw the female version. It wasn't until Nightfall when female Rangers would finally get ONE coat for themselves and it wasn't until EotN when we'd get a bit variety. The fluffy thick Norn armour is still one of my fave to this date and I'd love to get that in GW2!! And now people complain about there being too many coats for medium armor, go figure......I'd like the Norn Ranger armor from EotN back too.....Haha, true! People always want what they can't have.
  3. To be frank, this "men get real armor and women get chain-mail bikinis" isn't really a thing in either GW1 or GW2. Typically if one gender is showing skin the other will too, with some exceptions of course. See the tattoo monk armor and scar necro armor from gw1. Also, see above: some amount of female players, whatever that number might be, do like the skin showing armor. There are still terrible examples like the Elite Ranger Druid set where the men get a cool leather trench coat and everything and the women get -literally!- some random leather scraps and a bunch of sticks. You hand over tons of material and money to the armourer and don't even get a pair of shoes, for goodness' sake! And the whole line of Elementalist fashion is one variation of bikini/mini skirt/bra after another while the guys are always fully clothed. But yes, it's less of a problem than in other games, that's true. However female armour designs are still more likely to have random holes in it, or a bare midriff, or missing leggings or whatever. And more often than not this happens for no good reason. There is one armour set in the game that I am aware of were it's the reverse, i.e. the female is full armour and the male is missing a shirt and that is the Dolyak cultural armour for Norn. And it's not just about how much skin is being shown. Sometimes you also have design elements that don't match the other gender so it might as well just be two completely different sets at this point. Bottom line is that I would prefer the male and female designs to match as closely as possible. Of course, be free to accommodate the different physical builds and everything but I don't see the need to make armours any more different beyond that. And that's not about not wanting sexy female armour. But if you make a set with sexy female armour then let the male armour also be sexy and showing off some skin or whatever. I don't know what to tell you, as I've already said a plurality of player both male and female do like having some sexy/skin showing armors for females and seemingly aren't terribly interested in the same for male characters in comparison. Anet has come pretty kitten close to having one to one with the armors and outfits, especially so with GW2. With gw1 druid's armor was just about the only salacious armor for female rangers in gw1, out of some two dozen armor sets. Elementalist armor did have a sizeable number yes, but when you look at the list only about half falls under "bikini armor". But look at the ritualists, paragons, and assassins; it is quite literally one to one with those armor sets.But what Anet is doing right now is in general is probably for the best, making a roughly even mix of uniform, gendered and salacious armors. This is something that is going to please the largest number of people.......Now if only they'd do better at making actually good looking skins for armor, really wish they'd use more classics from gw1 regardless of what of the above categories they'd fall under. I was just clarifying my position, it's all good. :) On a personal note, the Elite Druid is bugging me so much cause I was maining Ranger back then and saw my buddy with his male ranger in this really great coat and I wanted that, too. And, well, you can imagine my disappointment when I saw the female version. It wasn't until Nightfall when female Rangers would finally get ONE coat for themselves and it wasn't until EotN when we'd get a bit variety. The fluffy thick Norn armour is still one of my fave to this date and I'd love to get that in GW2!!
  4. To be frank, this "men get real armor and women get chain-mail bikinis" isn't really a thing in either GW1 or GW2. Typically if one gender is showing skin the other will too, with some exceptions of course. See the tattoo monk armor and scar necro armor from gw1. Also, see above: some amount of female players, whatever that number might be, do like the skin showing armor. There are still terrible examples like the Elite Ranger Druid set where the men get a cool leather trench coat and everything and the women get -literally!- some random leather scraps and a bunch of sticks. You hand over tons of material and money to the armourer and don't even get a pair of shoes, for goodness' sake! And the whole line of Elementalist fashion is one variation of bikini/mini skirt/bra after another while the guys are always fully clothed. But yes, it's less of a problem than in other games, that's true. However female armour designs are still more likely to have random holes in it, or a bare midriff, or missing leggings or whatever. And more often than not this happens for no good reason. There is one armour set in the game that I am aware of were it's the reverse, i.e. the female is full armour and the male is missing a shirt and that is the Dolyak cultural armour for Norn. And it's not just about how much skin is being shown. Sometimes you also have design elements that don't match the other gender so it might as well just be two completely different sets at this point. Bottom line is that I would prefer the male and female designs to match as closely as possible. Of course, be free to accommodate the different physical builds and everything but I don't see the need to make armours any more different beyond that. And that's not about not wanting sexy female armour. But if you make a set with sexy female armour then let the male armour also be sexy and showing off some skin or whatever.
  5. Seems like there are two different things discussed here: 1) Why are the male and female outfits not literally the same?Answer: Because they don't behave like real clothes and the characters aren't actually putting them on. Male and female armour/outfits are made specifically for their respective models due to technical limitations that many others have already explained in more detail. 2) Why don't the male and female outfits look the same?Answer: Because of design decisions that you may or may not like. Personally, I'm also not a fan of sets where the male armour is a bulky fully clothed version while the female one is a battle bikini with leftover scraps dangling from random parts for no reason. The issue that it all comes down to are long standing ideas of what is "feminine" and "masculine" and how certain looks need to be sexy (mostly for the female models, let's be real). It's annoying and it's been a long standing issue that goes back to GW1 so I don't expect any changes to this nonsense any time soon.
  6. Which also make these kinds of requests appear not well thought out. The OPs of these threads usually have a very specific "I need this name now" situation and (putting aside the low likeliness that this exact name belongs to someone not playing the game any more or someone else snatching it away right before they can claim it) even if ANet decides now to do a purge after an adequate time to set some names free the OP would have to wait 6-12 months until that actually happens (and they still might end up without their desired name in the end!). It's much easier to just be more creative during character creation.
  7. Your own reply says you changed your play style from running around in a sandbox to following the main story. So yeah, your perspective on what the game is or should be changed because of that no matter how much you want to deny it. And I don't even mean it as an accusation but it's a fact that at the beginning you had a ton of space to run around in. So I'm not blaming you for doing exactly that. But that doesn't mean that the PS wasn't there or that the content of the maps wasn't designed around the journey from where ever the character starts out to becoming the Commander. You just didn't notice it as much cause you played it later. But the character's journey right down to what you call narrative rpg elements like branching stories and different personality options have been a selling point in the marketing when GW2 was released. So the idea that they turned it into that only after PoF is just down to your personal feeling and not the actual facts. Another point you bring up is that you don't like some of the new maps. You'd like for PoF and LS4 to have more dense maps and that's fair, sure. And sadly yes, some maps have turned out better than others (we all know that Kourna was a pretty botched job). But the reason for why the maps are the way they are is a different design philosophy due to the new mount system. They are big, mostly flat maps so players should have fun running around in them with their new mounts. Similarly HoT had a new design philosophy due to their new mastery system that ended up with vertically dense maps. You prefer one over the other and that's okay, we all like what we like. Point being that it's all very subjective. ArenaNet is trying new things and some of them will be liked by the players and some not. I would agree with you that I think a huge strength of ArenaNet is actually the world design and filling those maps with interesting corners to explore and setting up quests and event chains that tell their own little stories that add to the rich lore of the world - and they should totally lean into that more. But I do enjoy having the PS as a guide through all those maps. (The problem I see with that of course is that ppl will continue to rush through the story and then complain there is nothing to do cause they don't actually like exploring their sandbox - so damned if you do, damned if you don't!) As for challenging content, well that is pretty subjective again. ArenaNet said they found that there's a huuuge gab in skill between the average player and those who are really good at the game. Most of it isn't a big problem for me either but there are soooo many threads here alone of players complaining about things being too difficult. I'm sure ArenaNet have an eye on that but trying to find just the right amount of challenge is tricky. When HoT came out it was brutally hard for most average players so they corrected course. But as you can see in this thread even there are people who find PoF more difficult than HoT. It all depends on your skill and play style so it's not "HoT was hard and PoF is easy mode!" at all. Bottom line, you have your experience with the game and I have mine and we clearly have differing tastes. You like LWS3 better and think it has a better re-playability. I couldn't care less about the LWS3 maps and find myself replaying the LWS4 and LWS5 maps much more frequently. It's a matter of opinion.
  8. Eh, I would disagree with that cause MMORPGs are due to their nature a mix of sandbox and storydriven content - some with more emphasis on one or the other, sure. But the nature of GW2 having a main quest and a bunch of maps each with their own theme and local stories hasn't changed at all. What has changed is your perception of it. Like, when we all started GW2 the world was vast and unexplored. But even then the PS would lead you from the home of your chosen race to LA and eventually to Orr. The starting points were different and as a result you could go and play the PS and never see certain parts of the game simply because of where you started out. Eventually we all ended up in the same place though. And that hasn't changed ever since: S1 was the same for everyone, S2 was the same for everyone, HoT was the same for everyone (with a little ambience for Sylvari), S3 was the same for everyone, PoF was the same for everyone, S4 was the same for everyone and now S5 is the same for everyone, too. As a result the maps are the same for everyone, too, cause there are not diverging story paths that lead one group of players into one direction and another group of players into another. Just like we all ended up in Orr one way or anthother. What changed the perception from "OMG there's so much to explore!!" to "Everything is so small now!" imho is that we got the base game all at once while everything else is added to it in smaller (LWS) or medium sized (HoT/PoF) chunks. Eyeballing the whole map of Tyria I'd say the amount of new maps is after 2 expansions and 4+ LWSs just about equal to the stuff we got at launch. If ArenaNet had made an expansion and dropped all that content at once I'm sure we wouldn't get any complaints about the lack of content. (But of course that is an absolutely ridiculous amount of work - so it's not something that could realistically happen without players getting impatient cause they don't want to wait 4-7 years.) Or to put it differently: Imagine if at launch you could choose your race and only play on their respective capitol and first map. Say you picked a human and had only access to DR and Queensdale for a month or two. Then you get access to Kessex Hills and you play that for another 2 months until you can finally get to Gendarren Fields and maybe even LA. You probably wouldn't feel like GW2 is a huge sandbox. You'd play the available PS chapters for an hour or two, and then complain that there's nothing to do except do the hearts once and then run around in circles for two months. I mean, let's be real, that's the kinds of complaints we have now. Heck, that's the kinds of complaints we had since HoT, if not Dry Top! So as I see it ArenaNet is stuck between a rock and a hard place. Their player base demands both frequent updates and a lot of content. They can clearly only do one of those and even that is not to the full satisfaction of their critics. If they take their time to make bigger maps with more content people complain that it takes too long (and they'll still complain that it's not real content anyway). If they try to deliver episodes more frequently by cutting down the content a bit people complain there's not enough to do (and they'll still complain that they're not fast enough anyway).
  9. I did this bounty on EU not too long ago for the same purpose and it wasn't hard to get a group. In fact, I've been around Jahai and Kourna quite a bit during that time and the maps have been surprisingly busy. Maybe I was just lucky, who knows. But it was before the current LWS Episode though and I think that might be the big issue. Contrary to popular belief ppl do not just play 2 hours of new content and move on. Bjora Marches is still pretty busy and ppl are eagerly farming their achievements/collections. I expect ppl who like to run Jahai & co (and yes, contrary to popular belief those exist, too) will come back when they're finished with the new stuff.
  10. The Norn Ranger armour was one of my faves back in the day! <3 Judging by the cultural armour sets the female Norn sure do like jumping through the cold in battle bikinis. Male Norn though will cover every inch of their delicate body! /snark (I know, there are exceptions but the other day I wanted to shop a nice warm looking Norn armour skin for my female guardian and the T3 is great on male but looks like female just got the leftover scraps for some reason... ughh)
  11. Almorra told us in Bound by Blood that she was on her way to a Vigil outpost up north and she peached out of Grothmar Valley after her fight with Bangar cause his lackeys started ruffing up human Vigil members. At the end of the Prologue Rhytlock tells us that Almorra is already on her way to the camp and thus she's ahead of Bangar and his followers.
  12. Just the other day I used a total makeover kit to slim down my Norn guardian cause the armour I wanted her to wear was clipping very visibly and I was tired of this nonsense. My theory has been for a long time that whoever designs the armours only checks if it looks okay on the slimmest models and for everybody else it's a coin toss if it's clipping or has ugly stretched textures. ugh
  13. This is pretty funny when the game is loaded with vampires and zombies =) . I'm not sure that they would be considered "the usual cliché fantasy races" in the scenario we are actually talking about but that's aside the point cause neither of these are playable races which is the point of this discussion after all. And as others have pointed out the comparison is rather flimsy to begin with when you count bat-monsters as "vampires". Yes, technically they are named that but that doesn't make them what people associate with the term in a fantasy setting. Heck, real life has literal "vampire bats" as well but that doesn't mean that vampires are real.
  14. Shouldn't you say "Germanic-based"?Because that's where elves and dwarves come from.And the word may Orc derive from the Ork in the Austran folklore.The behaviour of classic (non-WoW derived) Orcs as brutish uncivilized races also resemble the Japanese Oni and the Norse Jötun (which as a GW2 race also have a spiritual aspect like WoW-Orcs have). Yes, there's nothing new under the sun, everything comes from somewhere, yadda yadda yadda. But it is undeniable that Tolkien's writing codified Elves, Orcs and Dwarves in a way that was copied by a lot of fantasy settings in various forms of entertainment. Like, Germanic elves are very different than Tolkien's Elves so when people are talking about playable races in MMOs they are not talking about the former but a variation of the latter.
  15. Hard NO for me. I like that GW2 doesn't have the usual cliché fantasy races, save for humans obviously. But no elves, no orcs and they even got (mostly) rid of the dwarves with Eye of the North.
  16. Speaking of fan vids I'm particularly fond of this one:
  17. Since someone already posted them here: This GW1 cinematic trailers are exactly the reason why they don't do them anymore. Like, it's not that they didn't try that approach before. It's just they figured it wasn't worth the investment and the difference between the cinematic and in-game look was just too big so instead they wanted to show off what the game was actually like starting with Nightfall. And personally I prefer their current stylized approach. I love the art direction of the game and showing it off in trailers is wonderful. They should keep doing what they do now.
  18. Done all of the kill 1000 enemies by now except the giants, hope anet add more giants then the 3 champ/legendary in core + 1 event and the elon riverland camp sometime in the future. Oh yeah, sure. Point being though it's something you complete while you're playing the game. I sure hope nobody put "Kill 1000 Minotaurs" on top of their to do list like "Aww yeah, this week I'm gonna grind that!" cause that would be dreadful. People did just that when only core and later hot was released for said giants.There were 3 champion/legendary giants in the game and the event in brisban wildlands that spawn 2-4 maybe 6 giants each time.I remember and I thought that was nuts. I did those events a couple times and then left it at that. As of today, after 7+ years of playing GW2 I have slain only 23 giants and I'm fine with that. If I never finish this one achievement then you know, who cares? Life is too short, man. lol But anyway, giants are an extreme exception and by no means comparable to those 500 fans at the concert.
  19. Done all of the kill 1000 enemies by now except the giants, hope anet add more giants then the 3 champ/legendary in core + 1 event and the elon riverland camp sometime in the future. Oh yeah, sure. Point being though it's something you complete while you're playing the game. I sure hope nobody put "Kill 1000 Minotaurs" on top of their to do list like "Aww yeah, this week I'm gonna grind that!" cause that would be dreadful.
  20. The only one of these I find even remotely grindy is the 500 fans and I would agree that 200-300 would have been enough. But otherwise these achievements are doable if you play the map at your own leisure for a while . Those achievements are not made for you to grind them but to get a bit of a reward if you repeat the map content. You only need 54 for the meta anyway if you're after that. I mean, the game also has a list of Slayer achievements under the General tab which are "Kill 1000 of Type X enemies" - doesn't mean that the game devs expect you to stand around in the desert and kill 1000 sand lions for a few weeks.
  21. Right? That's the one point that always gets me with these rants and suggestions: Why can't they just do XYZ?!? How hard can it be?? This attitude as if Anet has a magic machine that just allows them to insert random ideas, press a big red button and they instantly get all these demanded features perfectly coded into their game in no time. Like, this is not how it works. This is not how anything works. It takes time to program new features into a game and design new maps and other fancy stuff some people demand. And it's not like Anet is twiddling their thumbs - we know they are working on new episodes for the Icebrood Saga, we know they're working on the Alliance system for WvW (which, yes, takes longer than anticipated and probably eats up all their WvW resources, but still) and we know they've been working on the build templates (which, yes, also took longer than expected and didn't turn out the way many wanted, but still) which will come out soon. So while I think a lot of the criticism with regards to mismanagement are probably true many offered solutions aren't really helping at all. From what I can tell the teams are working hard to get their backlog of overdue features done while still maintaining regular story updates. Anything beyond that will just take even more time. So while some people may think their genius idea that will save the game from its deathbed is something Anet has somehow never heard of (which is unlikely seeing how similar these threads are and have been for years) there is still the issue of them needing probably a year or two or even more to actually implement it.
  22. IF (and that is indeed a big if!) Anet is working on a new expansion I am certain they only could have started after NCSoft slapped their wrists about the secret side projects and told them to re-focus on GW2. From what I can tell they had 3 teams working in rotation on LW S4 and S5 while a chunk of the rest of the company was working on whatever they wanted to start on the side. There simply weren't enough people left to cobble together a whole new expansion that would be ready to release any time soon. So even in the most optimistic timeline we would have LW S5 for the next 2 years or so and only after that there would even be the possibility of another expansion. What I think is realistically happening right now is that Anet is concentrating on LW S5 as the possible future model for their content that makes expansions obsolete, hence the rebranding and all that jazz. Instead of releasing big chunks of content every few years we'd get smaller chunks every few months. I don't see much wrong with that in theory as I've always enjoyed the LW episodes, but that's just me. The question remains if they'll be able to deliver the Saga content in a way and with features that make the rest of the player base happy. As far as I can tell Bound by Blood has been well received so... fingers crossed, I guess?? So if scenario 1 as laid out above is Anet is working on an expansion but it will only come out in 2 years or so at the earliest, and scenario 2 is Anet plans to never work on an expansion again and instead use Sagas as their way of releasing content, then there's of course still scenario 3 in which the Saga model somehow completely fails them (Idk what the criteria that would be here though) and they resort to going back to the expansion model which probably means it won't be out until 3 or more years depending on when they decide they need to change course. And last but not least there's scenario 4 that people are prophetising since day 2 of the beta events: GW2 is deeed and going into maintenance mode. But since they are already working on the Icebrood Saga and assuming they won't abandon the game mid-story then this won't happen for at least another 2 years or so. TL;DR: If you're waiting for a new expansion check back in like 2 years.
  23. I know it sounds crazy so bear with me but... some people don't hate the story! D : In all seriousness, I do enjoy replaying the story from time to time. I have two characters that I play the most by a mile and then some and they are pretty much up to date with every story release. Then there's a third character that's only a few steps behind in terms of story, and then a couple more that are currently at different parts of the story. In general I have a character for each profession and race/gender combination (I think male Charr is the only one missing, mostly cause I have three Sylvari) and I like to switch between different characters depending on my mood on what I want to play. So what's the point? Uhm... fun?
  24. Exploring is what you make of it. Always has been. If you won't stop for a second to smell the roses then it's your fault. Anet still makes every corner of the game as interesting as possible with little stories and quest chains, npc dialogue and whatnot. Complaints like "But I have mounts now!" is like refusing to walk or take the bike anywhere cause you have a car. Also, I find it funny when people praise the Droknar run from GW1 as exploration when it was just a short cut to get to the endgame armour and a way to skip two thirds of Prophecies.
  25. As nostalgic as people are about GW1 the elephant in the room nobody likes to mention is that the GW1 model was unsustainable. That's why they decided to invest into GW2 only 2 years after the release of GW1. The technical restrictions where too limiting with what they wanted to do, the workload of the release schedule was hell, and game features like the dual class system with its myriad of skills and skill combinations were an exponentially growing nightmare. Wanting that back for a potential GW3 will only make it crash as quickly as GW1. Meanwhile GW2 is 7 years in with regular updates - they may not come as fast as people want them to but they're coming at a sustainable pace. In the end it's all about compromise. No development studio can deliver the most flawless perfect game that makes all your wishes come true and then some. ANet might decide at some point that they reached the limits of what they could do with their GW2 model but 1) that is probably still be a few years down the line, and 2) don't count on GW3 magically being everything you ever dreamt of.
×
×
  • Create New...