Curse

Healers Wisper · Jul 09, 2007, 03:46 PM // 15:46

I enjoyed myself this weekend. I missed out last year, so I guess I didn't have much to compare to. Most of the weekend I spent AFK in the Nine rings trying to get lucky. Biggest prob I have with all of the festivals is I always wind up broke at the end of the weekend

WAy to go Anet, force clear out of storage. Ah well back to farming lol.

Noa Lutra · Jul 09, 2007, 04:05 PM // 16:05

Didn't have that much time to play this week-end but I managed to get the silly hat (which makes you look like you have a Snark from Half-Life on the head). I did get gifts which netted me about 7.5k in gold. And yes, the gifts should have been assigned. Instead, the gift-dropping turned Shing-Jea into a giant kindergarten with people trading insults like 4-years-old.

scrinner · Jul 09, 2007, 04:06 PM // 16:06

Well... Another problem was that sometimes a glitch occured and the grasps would spawn x10. In one district there were atleast fifty grasps and I do have screenshots to proove it.

FalconDance · Jul 09, 2007, 04:19 PM // 16:19

Thought the Fest quests were cute - the first time out. That is, when the NPC would say things like: "(line, please)" or "(I'm a natural....I hear that Norgu's travelling Nightfall troupe is having auditions.....)" The "grasps" themselves were not overly difficult for a low level with henches/heros to take down and a lvl 20 could easily solo.

After the first time, they were boring, redundant and way too Fed-Ex, much like 99% of the Kaineng quests. The decorations were pretty in Kaineng (always looks better dark there) and kinda cute in Shing Jea with the homemade look - although if a player was new to Factions, they might be put off by the crudeness of it all.

The missions were crazy difficult (tried with heros and with real ppl). Suddenly I remembered why I loathed them last year, too.

Lag: There was just enough during the celestial charge part of the event that I just stood there because I couldn't move fast enough no matter what I ate or did. The lag wasn't so bad after that part stopped - but it was noticeable in other parts of the game. Of course, we have frequent inexplicable lag spikes (increasingly so in the past month or so), so it wasn't anything really new.

Games: I don't PvP but did try the Dragon Arena a couple times. While it was fun, I remembered why I don't PvP

. Rollerbeetle raced for the first time - and though I absolutely sucked at it, I had a BLAST! Nine rings was fun but I don't typically go AFK in GW, so was weird (way too boring to just sit at the keyboard and do nothing).

Mask: OMG< what was Anet thinking?!? It looks like a stone (or bone, I suppose) poorly constructed bicycle helmet with fang or handles growing out from the jawline! Fugly beyond belief!

Presents: Assigned ones would've been FAR better. Personally I don't care if I get oodles and oodles, but it really does seem to bring out the worse in some people when they're snatching them out from under others - and if others are lagging, it just adds to the insult.

Overall, I'd give it maybe a 6/10. Some of the bugs which were rampant last year clearly had not been remembered, addressed or fixed. The 'feel' was slightly off, as well. Fun but no place near as good as Wintersday or as Grenth's Day (Halloween).

havok019 · Jul 09, 2007, 04:24 PM // 16:24

I really enjoyed this event for the most part. The amount of faction from the Dragon Arena was great (I think I got like 20k in just a couple hours). If you did the easy quests you basically had your hat. I think this was the first event that dropped plat and 1k is nothing to complain about. I agree, presents should have been assigned but I made at least 30k on this event because they weren't and I wasn't really going around trying to steal. Just standing next to a NPC for double drops.

Agree the hat was like the face-sucker from Half-Life and was nothing special. The dragon hat is much better, but this hat has grown on me over time. I lost 600g on the rings and that was enough of that.
Would of liked to see more random things happen -- like earthquakes or an appearance of new monsters from GWEN that slaughter a district.
I did spawn into a Graspling district and that was funny but for the most part I agree this event seemed more manufactured than the other events, with a lack of humor and an issue with present assignment.

That said, I loved it because I got rich for hardly working at it.

Darksun · Jul 09, 2007, 04:25 PM // 16:25

Quote:

Originally Posted by freekedoutfish

1) The hat was an anti-climax.

I saw the hats being warn by the Grasp actors and assumed that was what we got. I then saw photos on guildwiki and my heart just sunk. I got one, but it seems rushed compared to what we could have got.

I LOVE the mask. Probably my favorite mask of all.

Quote:

Originally Posted by freekedoutfish

2) The missons were too hard, and obviously aimed at more hardcore players.

I could be wrong, but isnt a festival event meant to be fun and exciting. I found the missions to simply be frustrating and agonising. I started one and the minute I warped in with my team, I was dead before I could blink due to starting right in the middle of them.

Yeah, missions were insane, but the quests were easy enough for everyone.

Quote:

Originally Posted by freekedoutfish

4) The other items you could exchange for tokens, werent all that exciting.

They always are.

Quote:

Originally Posted by freekedoutfish

5) It didnt seem very "Dragon" related. They took a previously good festival and twisted it to incorporate Nightfall in some way. I never quite grasped how.

The "Dragon" represent Cantha: Empire of the Dragon.

Quote:

Originally Posted by freekedoutfish

6) The Dragon arena seemed very rushed and just wasn't fun. There was no tactics to it at all, as you only had 3 skills. It was just pot-luck that you killed someone.

Last year, you actually fought against Dragons didnt you? or is my memory that bad!!

Whaaaa? Have no idea what you are talking about. DA is the same it always was, and if you think it requires no skill, you are VERY mistaken. It's ALL skill. Timing, position, coordination, skills.. you wanted more SKILLS and less SKILL.

Quote:

Originally Posted by freekedoutfish

7) Something wasn't designed very well, because that event caused A LOT of lag. More lag then I have EVER seen in 2 years!

I had a little bit. Not much.

dragonofinfinity · Jul 09, 2007, 05:07 PM // 17:07

i hated the hat, when i got it i put my great horns of grenth back on it was so ugly.

the presents should have been like new year, with the amount fo charges dictated the amount of presents each player got depoited in their inventory,
or wintersday when they were assigned.

the lag was a huge problem, alegedly there was a problem with the europien server, but even on the internatonal there was still problems.
it made rollerbeetle racing imposible. at ponts i was stuck at at the start gate for almost a minuite, and by the time i got to the first gate, someone had finished and i had timed out.

the only real use i found for it this year was lucky/unlucky titles and creme brulee.

i cant compare it to last year, as i started my first factions character on lhe last day when the final finale had happened.

Navaros · Jul 09, 2007, 05:27 PM // 17:27

My opinions on the 2007 Dragon Festival:

- Mask was utterly horrible. I'll never understand why they made a whole bunch of cool masks, and then give players the very worst one. If everyone got the Dream Rider mask then it would have been the best mask ever. Instead, they gave everyone the worst mask ever, hands-down.

- Lucky titles and thus the AFK rings don't have much point any more since as of last Boardwalk weekend the understood cost to max the titles was suddenly upped from ~1 million to ~2 million. Thus those who are not multi-millionaires got screwed out of being able to max them and had already wasted ~1 million for what is essentially two useless titles since they can't be maxed without ~2 million. And no the in-game benefit of having a 20% chance a lockpick won't break does not make them worthwhile, that is useless. Because then you have to trade spam what you get from chests otherwise you still can't afford the new lockpicks anyhow. No thanks!

- Missions were totally pointless and too hard considering they give zero worthwhile reward. This problem was complained about en masse last year. Could've fixed the reward this year. Additionally, putting the missions on a "schedule" makes no sense at all.

- Dragon Arena and Rollerbeetle were ok but they should have given better rewards for those areas.

- Quests should have been repeatable so that those who really wanted to had a chance to max out Drunkard or Sweet Tooth.

- Too short. Last year's was 5 days or more, why is this one only one weekend?

Masamune Saiyan · Jul 09, 2007, 05:46 PM // 17:46

I really wish they could have given us the option to get a dragon mask as well. I missed the festival last time and, being a BIG fan of dragons, my heart was a little broken I missed out on a cool mask. I don't care for the demon mask so much, but hey, it's something right?

I really liked Rollerbeetle (especially since I came in first on my first try. I wish I could play it all the time,) and the missions were easy for me. I just used my heroes. :/

Alfrond · Jul 09, 2007, 05:47 PM // 17:47

I really enjoyed the festival. A-net could have just replicated the last one and it still would have been fun, but they took the time to make it fit into the story line. In a lore point of view, it makes sense of to be celebrating the end of Nightfall. I loved the whole actor bit and the fake looking Nightfall decorations. The quests were fun and the missions difficult but doable with a very organized group and the minigames were as fun as they always were. As for the mask, I don't know what everyone else is talking about. I think it looks really cool. Of course, the festival wasn't perfect. I would have liked a larger reward for the missions and the glitches with the grasps on Sunday were annoying but overall I can say this festival gave me the most reason to play Guild Wars in quite awhile. Thanks for the great time A-net!

Divine Freak · Jul 09, 2007, 06:09 PM // 18:09

I really enjoyed the festival overall. I always have fun with the Rollerbeetles and Dragon Arena, I actually like the way the mask looks on some of my chars, the quests for the tokens were easy and I made a bunch of money from taking all my chars thru and getting 240 tokens apiece. I liked the missions too, I tried em with one char, got wasted, switched chars, and tore thru Seitung Harbor like a bunch of hyperactive zerglings

I didn't mind the unassigned presents tho it was prolly unfair to ppl that lagged worse than me. I'd hafta say the lag is the only thing I could complain about. I'm on the west coast of the US and the daytime lag was so bad I could barely walk out the gate. At night tho the lag was no worse than normal for a busy town and I barely noticed it. Overall I'd give it a 9/10.

TheRaven · Jul 09, 2007, 06:12 PM // 18:12

I think what I found truly annoying was all the level 6-8 players begging for a group for the missions. I saw a level 6 ritualist spamming non-stop in town for "lfg for Captain's mission". After about 50 repeats of non-stop spamming, I whispered to him that the missions were designed for higher levels. A level 6 could not complete them. He just told me to shut up, he didn't care he wanted a group.

Our group took a level 17 assassin along. He was a guildmate of our group's leader. Big mistake. He died the second we warped into the mission.

Those missions were hard!!!! If you think they were easy for you, then I congratulate you. For me, they were tough. Arena net obviously designed the missions for level 20s and the quests for beginner players. I just wish they had taken the extra step of restricting the missions to level 20s only.

They restrict access to fow/uw to only ascended players and most PvP areas and hard mode to Level 20s only so there is a precedent for this.

beanerman_99 · Jul 09, 2007, 06:36 PM // 18:36

I think the reason they did NOT assign presents to players is due to the fact that there are way too many players AFK at the Boardwalk games area. For Wintersday, most of the people in say Kamadan for example, were really there and were able to pick up their presents. Ya there were some afkers but for the most part the number of them then can't compare to the number of afkers now with the ring games.

The mask- First off, I wish would could dye it!! I don't like the color as it doesn't really stand out. I too would have like to be able to pick which mask I wanted. Then you could have used the Victory Tokens you had from the other characters you took through the quests for a different mask the next time the Emperor came. As it was, I took 5 character through and each got 240 tokens. I used all the surplus tokens getting Firewater and Creme B's. I didn't want to stand for hours trying to sell a stack of tokens.

Dragon Arena- This place does actually take skill. My team was kicking butt and won close to 6 or 7 in a row. We thought were had our strategy down pat until we got our butts handed to us. Its a fun game. A+ to Anet for this one.

Beetle Races- Ugh. I loathe this game. Maybe I just suck at it but it seems that the person who wins is the person who can get ahead of the pack first. Once he/she is out there, there is no frickin way to catch up. Don't like this one at all.

Missions- Estremely hard. I tried with a real people team and with my heroes and wasn't doing so well. Not even sure what the reward for completing was. I just gave up on this.

All in all I think the event was "ok". I enjoy Halloween and Wintersday 10 times more.

dustbunny · Jul 09, 2007, 06:38 PM // 18:38

Quote:

Originally Posted by freekedoutfish

1) The hat was an anti-climax.

I don't like masks that hide the face, in general. I created my characters with faces that I want to see. Getting it all hidden kinds of defeats the purpose. I tend to like hats, not masks. Even then, I'm not all that enamoured with the demon mask either.

Quote:

Originally Posted by freekedoutfish

2) The missons were too hard, and obviously aimed at more hardcore players.

The festival events were fun and exciting. The games were there. The atmosphere was there, in my opinion. The games when Kisu showed up was fun. Unfortunately, those had a tendency to degrade into spawn camping, though.

The 4-man missions to close the rifts were, in general, much more difficult than the trvial quests, true. What you call frustrating is called challenging and enjoyable to someone else, though. Consider that for a moment. I agree that there was a huge jump in difficulty between the quests and the missions. However, they can't all be trivial. For me, some were hard and some were easy. The ones to go around and closing rifts were easier than the ones to withstand waves and waves. Except for the monastery rift one. That one was annoying with the rifts that reopen.

They did designed it so the loot from the challenging missions were relatively minor. Almost everyone that does them agree that the loot was not worth the time. That's another point to be discussed, but the point is that you didn't miss much by not doing it. The reward was low such that the people that did them did so for the challenge of it. They did design it so that not everyone had to do them in order to complete their masks.

Quote:

Originally Posted by freekedoutfish

3) (I could be wrong about this) Last year Im sure you could start festival missions when ever you wanted, but this year it was limited to set times. Why?

You are mistaken. The missions rotated on intervals last year as well.

Quote:

Originally Posted by freekedoutfish

4) The other items you could exchange for tokens, werent all that exciting.

Agree that the token collectors offered standard fare. They only pretty much interested ale hounds and sweet tooths.

Quote:

Originally Posted by freekedoutfish

5) It didnt seem very "Dragon" related. They took a previously good festival and twisted it to incorporate Nightfall in some way. I never quite grasped how.

It was as dragon related as it could be. With the defeat of Abaddon in Nightfall, they really couldn't repeat last year's events as they were. I personally thought it was clever that they managed to give it a spin to take in the changes due to Nightfall. Although corny at times, I liked the actor lines.

Quote:

Originally Posted by freekedoutfish

There was no tactics to it at all, as you only had 3 skills. It was just pot-luck that you killed someone.

Dear lord! There's plenty of tactics. The simplicity of the skills available make it so that it's the tactics that separates a decent player from a beginner. You can see it by how people move around on the playing field. The tactics is what a group of veterans mop the floor with a group of new comers.

For starters, you have to be aware of when to attack first and when to dodge first.

You have to be able to pick out the people that can dodge and those that can't. The tactic is then to not waste time hunting down that good player. Just keep him occupied with you so he can't do damage to the rest of your team and have the rest of your team attack the less experienced players. There's nothing that says you have to kill everyone on the opposing team. You ust have to kill 20.

You have to know how to keep your group from being flanked. It's the easiest way to a rout. Be aware of where everyone of your teammates are so you know when your side has collapsed. Otherwise, you get flanked. Similarly, know that your teammates holding a line depend on you to hold your part so they don't get flanked.

Seize the opportunity to help your teammate. When a window opens up to get a quick kill from the side while an opponent focus on your teammate, nail him. If you see your teammate on the run while being chased, know that it's because he's in a cool down time. Help him and kill the chaser. Frequently the pursuer isn't looking because he's busy chasing down your teammate. Similarly, be aware of chasing down an opponent. Know where his teammates are so they don't nail you while you chase.

Figure out how to put pressure on the good players so they make mistakes. If someone is perpetually dancing at the edge of the aggro and dodging everything thrown at him, it's because he knows how to dodge. It's reasy to dodge that far away. Then it's time to double or triple team. Know that if one of you pressure him, he also knows that he cannot pause to throw. If he does, he gets nailed by the other people targeting him. So use that to your advantage to nail him.

If you are good at dodging, learn to bait and fish. Draw the attention of the less experienced players that think they can get an easy kill with you standing without another around. Bait them and draw them into your teammates so they can flank them. Easy kills.

I'm not even done with tactics. Suffice it to say that there's plenty, and it is precisely because there are ONLY three skills that makes tactics the difference between the team that goes to win 40 in a row and the team that goes 10 because they only know how to dodge but not play coherently as a team.

Quote:

Originally Posted by freekedoutfish

Last year, you actually fought against Dragons didnt you? or is my memory that bad!!

There were no dragons last year to battle, as far as I can recall.

The rewards for the dragon arena could use a bit of a bump. For the time it takes to play and the huge long delay between end and start of the next game (*cough* nearly a minute and a half), 3 tokens per win and 5 gamer points seemed kind of paltry.

Quote:

Originally Posted by freekedoutfish

7) Something wasn't designed very well, because that event caused A LOT of lag. More lag then I have EVER seen in 2 years!

For the most part, I had no problems wth lag except for the evening on the last day.

Kay84 · Jul 09, 2007, 06:48 PM // 18:48

I enjoyed myself during the event, probably because I didn't even know the dragon festival was this weekend. Besides the lag problem I loved it.

Master Ketsu · Jul 09, 2007, 06:55 PM // 18:55

Owned by the update ( they stop consecutives and force you to quit, for those who dont know )

Omega X · Jul 09, 2007, 07:08 PM // 19:08

I liked everything about the event EXCEPT 3 things.

1. The hat was weak. They could have done much better than that.

2. The Missions were not Q&A tested. I had more fun chewing wood screws.

3. Vultures at the end when the presents start falling. It really brings out the worst in some people. I wish that they would stick to them just showing up in your inventory.

Sir Skullcrasher · Jul 09, 2007, 07:34 PM // 19:34

sell stack for victory tokens for 7k.... priceless!!

Paynefactor · Jul 09, 2007, 08:11 PM // 20:11

Quote:

Originally Posted by FalconDance

Mask: OMG< what was Anet thinking?!? It looks like a stone (or bone, I suppose) poorly constructed bicycle helmet with fang or handles growing out from the jawline! Fugly beyond belief!

Presents: Assigned ones would've been FAR better. Personally I don't care if I get oodles and oodles, but it really does seem to bring out the worse in some people when they're snatching them out from under others - and if others are lagging, it just adds to the insult.

Overall, I'd give it maybe a 6/10. Some of the bugs which were rampant last year clearly had not been remembered, addressed or fixed. The 'feel' was slightly off, as well. Fun but no place near as good as Wintersday or as Grenth's Day (Halloween).

Couldn't agree more. Seeing the other actors with the "grasp of insanity" masks got my hopes up. The mask was quite underwhelming.

As far as the presents go, there is nothing more infuriating than having a spot all to yourself, only to have someone with a lower ping come over and start stealing your drops. Bad call anet.

I agree with your score as well. Not terrible, certainly not great. 6/10

Diablo™ · Jul 09, 2007, 08:12 PM // 20:12

I liked the festival, and I liked the hat, but I was irked by the fact that you can't dye it.