Curse

Toll Booth Willie · Mar 18, 2007, 04:30 AM // 04:30

the Asura is not to my taste. Its hard to speculate on GW future just based on this one thing, but I understand the ppl who are expressing their dislike. This Asura doesn't look like something from a mature mmo. I have always thought that GW targeted a more mature players by its style and gameplay, but maybe I was wrong. This new image looks like something from a kiddy mmo and if thats where Anet wants to go then best of luck to them. With the mmo market is flooded with choices mature players may change games, but its anets right to target whatever maket they want, just as its our right to not buy games that don't appeal to us.

Bryant Again · Mar 18, 2007, 04:40 AM // 04:40

Quote:

Originally Posted by Toll Booth Willie

the Asura is not to my taste. Its hard to speculate on GW future just based on this one thing, but I understand the ppl who are expressing their dislike. This Asura doesn't look like something from a mature mmo. I have always thought that GW targeted a more mature players by its style and gameplay, but maybe I was wrong. This new image looks like something from a kiddy mmo and if thats where Anet wants to go then best of luck to them. With the mmo market is flooded with choices mature players may change games, but its anets right to target whatever maket they want, just as its our right to not buy games that don't appeal to us.

Mature player base?? I dunno, man...I think that's where they get a big chunk of their sales, from younger players who can buy it due to the fact that it's not pay-2-play.

And given my experience with people through questing, guilds, friends, and just listening to the Local chat, I'm not sure that this is a mature game. I will agree that it's more mature in PvP.....Well, moreso than PvE.

Malice Black · Mar 18, 2007, 04:59 AM // 04:59

Quote:

Originally Posted by Toll Booth Willie

the Asura is not to my taste. Its hard to speculate on GW future just based on this one thing, but I understand the ppl who are expressing their dislike. This Asura doesn't look like something from a mature mmo. I have always thought that GW targeted a more mature players by its style and gameplay, but maybe I was wrong. This new image looks like something from a kiddy mmo and if thats where Anet wants to go then best of luck to them. With the mmo market is flooded with choices mature players may change games, but its anets right to target whatever maket they want, just as its our right to not buy games that don't appeal to us.

Mature player base and GW shouldn't be in the same semtence. GW along with WoW have the 2 most immature players bases I have come across whilst playing MMO's.

Want mature gamers? EVE is where they are, most kids (of the childish variety) can't handle the very steep learning curve that comes with that game and the rest can't afford to pay the monthly fee.

The Ernada · Mar 18, 2007, 05:59 AM // 05:59

Hahahaha. GW has a mature player base?!!!? Go hang out in one of the districts in Balthazars Temple and see how long you can keep your brain cells....

Cacheelma · Mar 18, 2007, 06:06 AM // 06:06

Quote:

Originally Posted by Malice Black

Mature player base and GW shouldn't be in the same semtence. GW along with WoW have the 2 most immature players bases I have come across whilst playing MMO's.

Want mature gamers? EVE is where they are, most kids (of the childish variety) can't handle the very steep learning curve that comes with that game and the rest can't afford to pay the monthly fee.

Are you trying to say that GW is now (or has always been) aiming toward younger player base, and that the introduction of something cute like Asura is the first thing they give out as an acknowledgement to these younger players?!

I play GW because of its fantasy, non-kiddie cutie setting. Now, if the game is turning into something else, I may have to reconsider it.

Make no mistake, I'm as big a GW fan as you can imagine. I just don't like where this whole Asura thing is leading to (IF it really leads to anything, that is).

The Ernada · Mar 18, 2007, 06:29 AM // 06:29

Relax. Even IF, and that's a big IF the playable version of the Asura is the same exact version of the minipet, is it really such a big deal? According to the speculation, it's only one of 5 playable races. I think you're all overreacting. Does it really bug you people that much?

Meat Axe · Mar 18, 2007, 06:49 AM // 06:49

Quote:

Originally Posted by The Ernada

Relax. Even IF, and that's a big IF the playable version of the Asura is the same exact version of the minipet, is it really such a big deal? According to the speculation, it's only one of 5 playable races. I think you're all overreacting. Does it really bug you people that much?

That's exactly right. One of many playable races. I don't see what you're all worried about. We've already seen that when the little guy gets angry, he really gets angry. And I mean savage.

And even if that wasn't the case, what makes you think that there'll be a lot of these things in the game. There's quite a number of you who hate it. There's bound to be people that don't visit the forums that hate it. So I don't see the game being overrun by these things.

Also, I think most people will want to play the Charr, or one of the other playable races (you know, if the rumours about different playable races are true, and they turn out to be cooler than the Charr, which will make them very cool indeed). I mean, I like the little guy, but I wouldn't want to play as one. Maybe a hero one would be good. But I'd much prefer to play as a Charr, and I'm sure many people are thinking the same.

Stop freaking out.

-Loki- · Mar 18, 2007, 07:33 AM // 07:33

Now I have 2 Arenanet employees to kick. The guy that thought Searing Flames on a level 28 Djinn was a good idea, and the designer who came up with that.

Tempy · Mar 18, 2007, 07:34 AM // 07:34

Quote:

Originally Posted by Zinger314

You aren't looking deep enough.

What seperates Guild Wars, lore-wise, from other MMOs is that it's the most realistic fantasy game. Oxymoron? No.

Most of the enviroments in Guild Wars are based off of real-world architecture and landscapes. The armor and character models most realistically resembles human models. A Dobby-Stitch creature would harm that impression.

Oh that's right Charr, IMPs (any, which the Asura actually looks a bit like), Dredge, Golems (any) and others, are so much more realistic than the Asura. Note I did leave out the far stretch of incests, plants, animals and even humanoid beings. It remains to be seen if this will be a playable race or just another enemy, in along line of "fantasy" enemies.

lyra_song · Mar 18, 2007, 07:53 AM // 07:53

I see many enemies in the game having enough intelligence to be playable types. Primarily the two-legged variety.

Charr, Tengu, Dwarves, Yetis, Dredge, Centaurs (ok...4 legged), Grawl, Margonites, Mursaat, etc.

And these are quite fantastic, unrealistic creatures.

Even though the Asura is certainly ugly (to me anyway), i think it fits FINE in the GW universe.

combatchuck · Mar 18, 2007, 08:50 AM // 08:50

I like the Asura. I like that it's a break from the serious and grotesque creatures that you usually find in Guild Wars. I also had a TON of fun as a roller-beetle, and still have a bunch of candycorn tonics in my storage.

If this is a playable race, the majority of players would have a blast with it. Anet, please don't listen to the "gaming is serious business" crowd. We play games to have fun.

Alderin · Mar 18, 2007, 09:15 AM // 09:15

Quote:

Originally Posted by Gaile Gray

You should hold your (mis)judgment until you see him in person.

Sheesh -- he has the best facial expressions and the cutest movements -- just hold off until you actually see one.

Isn't that more than just a little silly to have the programmers waste so much time on something like this new Mini-Pet, or for that matter, waste time on giving Mini-Pets 'Battle Stances' or anything else like that. It seems rather dumb to spend so much effort on something so trivial, when there are so many highly requested things like Hair Stylists, Auction Systems, and decent skill balances. After all, it was just a week or so ago that you said...

Quote:

Originally Posted by Gaile Gray

I will be happy to ask about the selective return of sounds, but please, let's focus not on minutiae like this, but on the bigger picture. How much time would someone ask we invest to make the sounds adjustible, optional, or toggleable? And what cool new feature are you willing to postpone while we make what many would consider a minor adjustment? If it takes a programmer hours to make these options, I believe there are better uses for his/her time. However, if this is a minor thing, and can easily be made selectable, or adjustible, we'll do that, I'm sure.

...so if it takes all these hours and all this effort to make options for Mini-Pets, when why the heck are you guys still wasting all that time and effort, especially when there are so many other critical changes needed and so many highly requested options that should be added. After all, as you said "what cool new feature are" we giving up so that all this can be done with another silly Mini-Pet?

Quote:

Originally Posted by Gaile Gray

I told you guys that you would love the "growly face" he makes! I feel fully vindicated now!!

So just because a few people think it's cute, you ignore all the people who still think it's ugly and then feel "fully vindicated"? That seems a little... presumptuous... given the number of people who dislike this Mini-Pet. I myself think it's rather ugly and more than a waste of time for the programmers to be working on.

Alderin · Mar 18, 2007, 09:29 AM // 09:29

Quote:

Originally Posted by Meat Axe

The majority on these forums is not the majority of players in GW. Just because the majority of people that posted in this thread hate it is irrelevant. <snip >

But we can't take a sample of the population of GW from these forums and expect it to accurately represent the entire population of the game. Especially when it's such a small number as 100 people. There's three or four million people that own the game.

When a company does a survey they take a sample of the greater number of customers, since polling them all would be impossible, and from that they decide how the majority will react. If they want to know if people in the United States would be inclined to like or dislike something, they ask a random and diverse group of people from the United States, and go on that... since they cannot ask everyone in the United States what they think individually. Given these forums have quite a diverse group of users, they make an excellent source with which to get opinions... it's bound to be more accurate than trying to go into a district in-game (like Gaile Gray does) where there can only be a hundred or so people, part of which are probably AFK, and the rest of which are seldom heard over the spamming that goes on of everything from declarations of love to death threats for Ms. Gray. Thus, these forums are much better places to get opinions.

Not to mention, Guild Wars tells people to come to these forums to leave their feedback... but often when people do try to leave feedback that is anything other than "ArenaNet we love you" they are ridiculed, called whiners, or flat out have their threads or posts deleted. Since Guild Wars only wants to look over the consumer opinions via media such as these forums, they need to remain as unbiased as possible... and allow people to post about the game, be it the positive or the negative aspects that need improvement.

Edit: Sorry for the double post, didn't expect this thread to go 15 mins without an update.

Meat Axe · Mar 18, 2007, 09:44 AM // 09:44

Quote:

Originally Posted by Alderin

When a company does a survey they take a sample of the greater number of customers, since polling them all would be impossible, and from that they decide how the majority will react. If they want to know if people in the United States would be inclined to like or dislike something, they ask a random and diverse group of people from the United States, and go on that... since they cannot ask everyone in the United States what they think individually. Given these forums have quite a diverse group of users, they make an excellent source with which to get opinions... it's bound to be more accurate than trying to go into a district in-game (like Gaile Gray does) where there can only be a hundred or so people, part of which are probably AFK, and the rest of which are seldom heard over the spamming that goes on of everything from declarations of love to death threats for Ms. Gray. Thus, these forums are much better places to get opinions.

Not to mention, Guild Wars tells people to come to these forums to leave their feedback... but often when people do try to leave feedback that is anything other than "ArenaNet we love you" they are ridiculed, called whiners, or flat out have their threads or posts deleted. Since Guild Wars only wants to look over the consumer opinions via media such as these forums, they need to remain as unbiased as possible... and allow people to post about the game, be it the positive or the negative aspects that need improvement.

Edit: Sorry for the double post, didn't expect this thread to go 15 mins without an update.

All that is very true. But what I was saying is you can't take 100 people and call it a sample of a population of four million. It's just a ridiculously small sample that absolutely no information can be gained from it at all. Also, there's two types of people who would view this topic. Those that want to complain about the minipet, or minipets in general, and those that actually like it. But if they're going to make this Asura into a playable race, they need to get more of the players to contribute. So taking this particular thread and saying that it's a good sample of the GW population is ridiculous.

That's what I was getting at... maybe it wasn't too clear. If Anet wanted to do a proper survey of how the players feel about this creature as a playable race or whatever, they should do what they did for the Elite skills title track changes. Host a dev poll. Otherwise they're not going to get a good, accurate set of results.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Alderin

Isn't that more than just a little silly to have the programmers waste so much time on something like this new Mini-Pet, or for that matter, waste time on giving Mini-Pets 'Battle Stances' or anything else like that. It seems rather dumb to spend so much effort on something so trivial, when there are so many highly requested things like Hair Stylists, Auction Systems, and decent skill balances.

Adding simple battle stances to the minipets probably wouldn't take much time. All the design aspects are there, since they've already been added to all the full size versions of the minipets. So all that would be needed would be for a couple of the programmers to come along and add in a bit of code that makes them do the stances every so often. Not that hard, nor time consuming.

WhiteZombie · Mar 18, 2007, 09:57 AM // 09:57

Quote:

Originally Posted by The Herbalizer

Why, do you think the majority of in-game players would like it?

Out of the 107 posts here: -

% not relevant = 41%

% disliking it = 36%

% liking it = 23%

Hmm looks like the majority hate it.

zomg thats some overwhelming majority youve got there with that 60/40 spread. anet better just totally scrap their whole asura idea because less than 40 people in a community of millions think its 'too ugly'.

Gordon Ecker · Mar 18, 2007, 10:02 AM // 10:02

Quote:

Originally Posted by Cacheelma

....They added HAIR to its head? As if it wasn't ugly enough....

It already had hair, it just doesn't show up well in the promotional image because of the angle, and because the hair's next to gray armor.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Alderin

Isn't that more than just a little silly to have the programmers waste so much time on something like this new Mini-Pet, or for that matter, waste time on giving Mini-Pets 'Battle Stances' or anything else like that. It seems rather dumb to spend so much effort on something so trivial, when there are so many highly requested things like Hair Stylists, Auction Systems, and decent skill balances. After all, it was just a week or so ago that you said...

...so if it takes all these hours and all this effort to make options for Mini-Pets, when why the heck are you guys still wasting all that time and effort, especially when there are so many other critical changes needed and so many highly requested options that should be added. After all, as you said "what cool new feature are" we giving up so that all this can be done with another silly Mini-Pet?

So just because a few people think it's cute, you ignore all the people who still think it's ugly and then feel "fully vindicated"? That seems a little... presumptuous... given the number of people who dislike this Mini-Pet. I myself think it's rather ugly and more than a waste of time for the programmers to be working on.

I don't think it takes much work to implement new miniatures. They're just scaled down versions of existing creatures.

The Ernada · Mar 18, 2007, 10:03 AM // 10:03

Quote:

Originally Posted by Alderin

Isn't that more than just a little silly to have the programmers waste so much time on something like this new Mini-Pet,

Programmers do not make the art and models for the game. The artists do. And the stances are also done by the artists. I know this because I've worked on 3D models and animation. Programmers do a MINIMAL amount of work on stuff like minipets.

So anyone saying that ANET is wasting time on stuff like minipets doesnt have a clue. Unless you have an issue with the artists actually doing what they're hired to do.

And also I find it weird that you can call something like a minipet as trivial and then demand something like a hairstylist. Hey I want a hairstylist NPC as well, but at least I can admit that's also something trivial.

Bottomline is that people like different things. The minipet isnt hurting your gameplay so why are you all bent out of shape about it?

-LiamB · Mar 18, 2007, 01:15 PM // 13:15

He's ugly in a cute sense of way.

Too bad I'm only 11 and can't subscribe to PC Gamer

Hanok Odbrook · Mar 18, 2007, 01:26 PM // 13:26

Personally, I think it looks way too much like Stitch from Lilo and Stitch or the rabbit character from the Sam and Max franchise. I can say that this will be one race that will be one of my least favorite in the GW universe.

In terms of realism, it is true that GW is much to be admired in their design of the game world and the characters, but upon loading up Vanguard, I can really see a noticible difference between a photo realistic world and a fantasy realistic world. Only time will tell whether the Asura will be a good fit in GW's established fanatay realism looks or if it indeed is going to far down the WoW path (which I find a bit too fantastical for my tastes).

Hanok Odbrook
Real Millennium Group Guild
Truth * Knowledge * Peace

redstarx · Mar 18, 2007, 01:31 PM // 13:31

LoL...it's cute, I want one. I don't think I'll go through the trouble of buying the magazine though (I'll buy it in-game). I agree...it looks like a standing chihuaha.