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Kristen or Patrick Axlen (the gentleman who has been doing a lot of the porting work on the costumes) would know better than I, but if I had to make an educated guess, I'd say costumes take slightly longer. Since they need to go across all rigs, the artists spend a fair amount of time fixing problems that may pop up on one profession, but not others. To answer the initial question, if we did something like this, it wouldn't be any time soon. We've got our art budget set for the year, and most of it has gone to things like rewards and new factions (har) for Cantha, as well some other things we'll talk about later on in the year. Having said that, I'll keep this in mind since there are other things relevant to the HoM I'd like to address (specifically there's some titles that I'm not happy with the implementation of...) John Stumme 18:37, 2 January 2011 (UTC)
The HoM stuff is off-topic here, but kind of intersting, because Linsey said that there would not be further changes to the reward tier for titles in the HoM
Fixing what is bugged for years...
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I think the fix that we had for syncing worked for what it was intended to do, it just brought to light greater issues with the problem. Why are people syncing? To get a team that they feel is guaranteed to win. Why is that so important? Because most people are playing for title points, not for fun - thus losing is seen as inefficient, and generates resentment to whoever is the "source" of your loss. So playing on truly random teams was fantastic for people that are either more casual, or just interested in playing for playings sake - it's like just joining in to a random TF2 server. You can go in, shoot some guys, help your team with your objectives, and probably have fun regardless of the outcome. Titles (and related things, like Fame) in GW have been a double edged sword: they're a terrific motivation for people to play, but as we've seen, sometimes they come with some consequences. So while we can implement the syncing fix, I don't think it's in our interests to do so until it's coming along with something that's part of fixing the bigger problem. Generally I'm not a fan of band-aid solutions unless there's no other choice, I like to get at the real problem where we can. And for what it's worth, bug fixes for old stuff do make it into the builds that we're putting out when we've got time for them. The unfortunate reality of the situation is that with the size of the team, we're only able to do so much, and new stuff has to be a priority. It's not our job to be making money first (although it is always a concern; we are a business after all, and we need to show that our team is valuable and worth keeping around) rather, it's to keep people excited for and engaged with the game. New content is always going to be more compelling in that regard - it gives people something to look forward to, speculate about, argue over, and eventually play (or play with, in the case of features.) I have to prioritize doing the things that buy us the most positive returns, and hope that we'll be able to work toward the resources to better include maintenance as well. John Stumme 18:40, 27 December 2010 (UTC)
Keiran Thackery in the HoM
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He'll go in there at some point. Technically, the Thackenator already has alternate armor sets ready to go (Groom, Battle Damaged) but the limitation is that we don't have art for him to appear as a statue, and the HoM calculator/site would need to be updated to account for him being there. John Stumme 04:59, 23 December 2010 (UTC)
Background for the Hearts of the North design decisions (emphasis added by Gorani, because "wall of text")
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As for the questions that some people disputed, let's see: Keiran became a Paragon because they are the profession iconic with leadership in Guild Wars, and it was a very tangible way to show his growth. Text itself can only go so far - actually, I'm kind of surprised that some people still had as much vitriol toward Gwen that they did, in my head, the voice that I heard for her while writing was someone that was starting to let her guard down, but was not immediately going to be a different person. The lack of actual voice, or a better means to convey inflection can really hurt in that regard - but showing a character actually changing is a very visceral way to back up the story. His different character models were also a part of that. It was an interesting experiment, and I think by and large it was a success. Within our room, we were kind of marveling at the sudden influx of "Keiran is pro!" and similar comments, especially considering his previous (general) standing with the community.
Why a norn wedding: I didn't want to do an Ascalonian wedding, just because I feel like we've already covered the "Gwen goes back to Ascalon" angle. There's nothing left for her there now, and the north has become her home. The norn connection was an important aspect of Keiran's story that didn't really come across before, and this was a good way to tie it in as well. Besides, it's a new bit of lore to work into the world - what are weddings like for other cultures? And the answer that we came up with for the norn was to have it be a ceremony where people share stories about the greatness of the betrothed, to prove that they are truly worthy of each other. I hope that part came across well, I actually haven't seen much commentary on the wedding itself (aside from Rubi really liking it) I tried not to overdo it. As much as a certain amount of writing is needed to get stories across, sitting through long scenes is also not the most engaging thing to do.
Keiran's skills: were designed from a story aspect first. Like Keiran's Paragon change, I was looking for game mechanics to compliment the story I wanted to tell - in this case, that Keiran and Miku work very well together. So I approached it from the angle that the two were highly symbiotic, which manifested best in the Mark / Sniper Shot combo. That was also to get a feeling out of Guild Wars that you don't normally get - it's a frustration of mine at times that the game is always 8 vs X, and at times, that makes it hard to feel heroic. So within Keiran's missions, it became a pacing mechanic and a high point to have this instant kill that you could pull off. It just feels really satisfying. Granted, there are always people that will never like the BMP mechanic because it's not their character, but done well, I like having them in the game for the sake of offering experiences that we otherwise couldn't. I think more people than not enjoyed it, and apparently some of the mentality that I took away from my years on GW2 is making it back to the live game. That being said, people aren't even going to know what hit them when they hear about some of the other things we're doing next year.
Part of me is mulling over the idea of doing a blog post about Winds of Change, and why some things about it are the way that they are. John Stumme 05:29, 23 December 2010 (UTC)
Who is the hero? We or the Devona gang?
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YHoT has some confusing wording, specifically this line: "Some of these tales may sound familiar to you, for they lead into the larger stories of heroes such as you" which I believe was put in there because you might have done later missions in a campaign, for example everything on mainland Cantha, but not the Shing Jea missions. But you also could have done them, if you were a Canthan born character. So it kind of has to be ambiguous. It has been my belief that each character created is the "hero" of their respective campaign, and the story assumes the player is the hero. Some suspension of disbelief is needed to ignore the thousands of other heroes running around, but this is a problem that most MMOs run into. John Stumme 17:51, 22 December 2010 (UTC)|||Interesting posts - I am looking forward to whatever comes next.|||About para and derv armors in Factions? I didn't see anything about that in the post. But I would like to see some paragon and dervish armor added to Factions, as well as some more rit and sin armors added to Nightfall (like Sunspear and such).|||Quote:
new factions (har) for Cantha
hummmmmm
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About para and derv armors in Factions? I didn't see anything about that in the post. But I would like to see some paragon and dervish armor added to Factions, as well as some more rit and sin armors added to Nightfall (like Sunspear and such).
"To answer the initial question, if we did something like this, it wouldn't be any time soon."|||Oh. lol Okay. Yeah I figured it wouldn't be soon, if ever, because I think most people are working on GW2.
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