Originally Posted by Regina

Gaile Gray, ArenaNet Community Relations Manager, is really cool. I told her that she was one of the industry Community Managers that I looked up to. I actually mentioned her in my job interview. Someone that I know from the Iris Gaming Network forums, who also plays Guild Wars, told me that she also mentioned Gaile Gray in her interview with a gaming company. I think it’s neat to have people in the same profession (and in the industry in general) who you can observe and even admire.

Originally Posted by Regina

The whole story just seems fishy. There are a few terminology usages in their post that don’t seem quite right, at least from this outsider’s perspective. Does Guild Wars have GMs? No, it doesn’t, unless ArenaNet employees call their own staff “GMs”. Do ArenaNet employees spell it ‘Arena.Net’ or ‘Arena.net’? No. All of their corporate branding spells it ‘ArenaNet’. Surely an ex-employee would use the official spelling. Details like that make me question the credibility of this person.

Originally Posted by Regina

Someone asked about player input and the game economy. The economy is monitored closely. They are aware and keep an eye on the desirability of particular mods, skins, weapons, and so on and continue to make adjustments where needed.

Originally Posted by Regina

A lot of the Q&A delved into Skills and game balance, particularly the tension between PvP and PvE players. Even though it looks like ArenaNet is a monolithic entity, the reality is that there are a lot of intense discussions within the company about Skills about game balance and so on. Though the decisions look like they were made very decisively, behind that there is often a lot of dialogue, discussion, and debate about game design, Skills, etc. There are conversations going on all the time, so don’t think that everyone all agrees 100% of the time.

There was a question asked about whether Heroes have a place in high level PvP. Isaiah Cartwright, who is ArenaNet’s main Skills person, answered that they want to make the game open for everyone, and sometimes people don’t have 7 other people they want to play with. Heroes are there for those people. I could tell that his personal feeling was that PvP is PvP for a reason — you want to play with other real, live humans, not Heroes or Henchmen. It’s a continuing discussion at ArenaNet, and balancing what people want is a double-edged sword.

Competition drives Skill balancing. Rarely does PvE influence Skill balance. One example of where PvE did influence Skill balance was with Minion Mastering Skills. Minion Masters were pretty broken, in that they would absolutely dominate in Hard Mode, because you could spawn almost limitless numbers. Minions “trivialised” Hard Mode. They had to nerf this or else Hard Mode wouldn’t be hard.

Originally Posted by Regina

It’s [GW is] definitely a fun game. Some people who have played MMORPGs like WoW and EQ and so on say that Guild Wars is a love/hate thing, though. I’ve had to defend Guild Wars from WoW fans who say it sucks, but gradually I’ve just sort of come to accept that there will be fanboys of anything that will say that something sucks just because other people don’t like what they like.

Originally Posted by Regina

Factions is even more polarising than Guild Wars itself. I thought Kaineng City was horrible and gross, and was hoping for something nicer in the Echovald Forest (I’m allied to the Kurzick faction), but it’s dark and dreary so far…

…The voice acting in Factions was terrible. I’m not sure if they were trying to do a sly take on bad dubbing of Hong Kong movies or what, but yeah.

Originally Posted by Regina

As for the faster level advancement, I agree. The only problem is that you are even less able to judge how good a player is based upon their level. It was hard to do that in Prophecies, but at least you knew in general that by the time they reached 15, you could reasonably expect them to know how to play their Professions properly (there are exceptions — oh how I know that there are exceptions!). Now, it’s like WTF. Practically everyone (it seems to me) doesn’t know how the hell their Profession combinations work at level 15, except the players who’ve already played through Prophecies. Maybe I’m just being a little too harsh…

Originally Posted by Regina

If I had time to play Guild Wars regularly, I think I would become a bit bored as well. I mean, too much of one game is dull, rite?

Originally Posted by Regina

Why did I (re)start playing World of Warcraft, again? Really. I almost feel like I don’t need another game besides Guild Wars. At least maybe not another online multiplayer game. WOW has it’s charms, but Guild Wars is where I have fun without having to look for it too hard.

Apart from how awesome the game is, I certainly can’t say that I’ve ever participated in a discussion with people from around the world about the American hegemony, immigration/emigration, or the technology and influence of the Roman Empire on my server in WOW.

One of the ArenaNet Community Relations Managers, Gaile Gray, was in International District 1 of Kamadan yesterday. This was super cool, because I had never been in an outpost when she chatted to fans. The Frog (wearing a witch hat) was also there to chat to players. It was really neat. I had no idea that so many people spammed her with questions, like: “Gaile, why did you nerf farming?” I thought it was fairly obvious why they nerfed an aspect of farming: to attempt to keep the gold sellers in check.

Originally Posted by Regina

I’m not saying that jumping is a requirement for this sort of game; it’s not meant to be a platformer. However, there are numerous situations where “I should be able to walk up that hill, but I can’t!” or examples of “Why can’t I go directly from here to there; why must I go around?” in the game. It’s frustrating, and I feel constrained by the “invisible walls” that [David] Sirlin mentions. The walls seem arbitrary to me.

Originally Posted by Regina

Good for you and your friend and your lovely little “business”. You seem to be quite pleased at being able to make a lot of virtual gold.

I’d appreciate it if you didn’t heap your disdain upon us lesser players who quite obviously do not possess the nigh divine GW playing abilities that you and your friend seem to possess in great abundance.

The quest has actually gotten a lot easier since Prophecies was released two years ago, despite the removal of the portal. Being able to flag Henchmen anywhere you want on the map and improved Henchmen AI has made this quest quite easy. Prophecies used to be hard in some parts, but now it’s not.

So before you rag on people for dying during quests that such a perfect player as yourself never fails, you’d do well to contextualise your comment. Prophecies has become easier due to game updates. Therefore, the fact that you’re not “failing” Villainy of Galrath isn’t that much of an accomplishment. If you want to use that as a feather in your cap, fantastic. GG.