Curse

MSecorsky · May 05, 2006, 07:21 PM // 19:21

Hey all... let's dump any of you off in a major city like that and not see you get lost. ;-)

ophidian409 · May 05, 2006, 07:25 PM // 19:25

i gave up the gugu mask in the 1st day event simply becasue I don't like walking so much

UndeadRoadkill · May 05, 2006, 07:26 PM // 19:26

Quote:

Originally Posted by MSecorsky

Hey all... let's dump any of you off in a major city like that and not see you get lost. ;-)

All you have to do is follow the street addresses!

MSecorsky · May 05, 2006, 07:32 PM // 19:32

Quote:

Originally Posted by UndeadRoadkill

All you have to do is follow the street addresses!

Well what the hell... they give you GPS and people still get lost? (Hell, I have...)

However, after a short while I got the feel for the city and have no problems now. I look forwards to the sunlight, but will earn my way there.

Thom · May 05, 2006, 07:37 PM // 19:37

I love to hate the slums. The artwork and layout are amazing and while it isn't pretty that's the point. As far as overused textures go: That's videogame art and really that's the slum. I feel that it was a bold idea and well executed, which is why it is so annoying. I've played urban warfare FPS maps which were less convincing.

Dragou Du Porzan · May 05, 2006, 07:41 PM // 19:41

/signed

The slum areas are painfully ugly, and consiering they're the first stop for Tyrian characters it's a double whammy. All the shanties are bland as can be with flat, repetitive textures that make those areas as ugly as sin. It's just not an environment that I enjoyed exploring at all. Give me the lush hills of Kyrta, the snow-covered Shiverpeaks, the dense and colorful jungle, even the broken landscape of post-Searing Ascalon... anything but these hideous slums!

I'll also agree that the quests were in this area were uninspired by previous GW standards. With the mission objective indicator on the minimap, I didn't experience any real navagation troubles. My only "navagation trouble" was that the area was so soul-crushingly ugly, I didn't want to navigate it at all! Just speaking for myself, it sucks away a lot of the fun of playing.

Draygo Korvan · May 05, 2006, 07:53 PM // 19:53

Quote:

Originally Posted by Thom

I love to hate the slums. The artwork and layout are amazing and while it isn't pretty that's the point. As far as overused textures go: That's videogame art and really that's the slum. I feel that it was a bold idea and well executed, which is why it is so annoying. I've played urban warfare FPS maps which were less convincing.

Bingo, did you guys see the concept art of the slum? Looks pretty close to what the city actually looks like in-game.

I think you are ment to hate it a little and want to get out. It makes that valley soo much more appealing.

As far as the running around quests, i dont remember running around that much. I would only get the ones that were on the way to wherever I was really going. So it was not an even minor inconvienece especially with its 3k exp 150 gold and an imperial thing.

quickmonty · May 05, 2006, 08:18 PM // 20:18

There are plenty of dead ends in Tyria. Did you know which way to got the first time you did the missions, or did you follow someone who knew the way? Having henched a lot of Tyria I got lost plenty of times my first time through.

The quest may be boring but they are just there for you to gain experience and skill points (if you need them). You don't have to do all the side quests.

Ugly and repetitive. Pretty much the nature of any super metropolis. More so in the game because of the nature of the city. It is supposed to be run down and ugly looking. But, I too rejoiced when I finally got to see green grass again.

Hunter Sharparrow · May 05, 2006, 08:24 PM // 20:24

Henched and/or did it with friends that just got the game themselves. No problem finding my way through any mission or quest and my first time getting lost while playing GW ever was when I brought my ranger over and started doing the slums.

Ensign · May 05, 2006, 08:26 PM // 20:26

I liked the urban environment. Nice to see that in game for a change. Had two problems with the city though.

For starters you had the quests. Even the main quests ended up looping you through the same areas repeatedly. I didn't mind the locked doors and all that, but it really feels like you're fighting too hard to make any progress at all. This is just a psychological thing. In Prophecies, and in the later parts of Factions, progress along the main storyline is paired with a fairly large amount of map exploration. But in the early parts of factions progress in the storyline has only a minor amount of exploration taking place. So while the amount of 'stuff' to do might not have decreased, it feels like you're accomplishing less.

The second thing that bugged me is mob design. Zones in the city tend to have large abandoned sections, followed by areas that are bluntly a sea of the exact same mob. In the forest or jade sea the monsters get mixed up a bit, but here it's 100 packs of Am Fah in a row. The winding map design just makes this worse becase then you have to wind through all of these packs of Am Fah just to try and get anywhere, while making very little progress because it's so windy.

Hence I will contend that there is nothing wrong with the environment itself, the problem is simply that the areas using that environment tend to suck from a gameplay perspective.

Peace,
-CxE

**cosyfiep** · May 05, 2006, 08:41 PM // 20:41

I have mixed feelings about the slums.
I like the fact it is different, not the repeatative textures however.
I wouldnt mind the mindless quests if there was more content than just run from point A to B and return to A all the while beating off mobs....
What gets me the most is the numerous peasants that slow my computer down to unplayable levels. When I bump into a mob I can get off maybe one skill before I dead or my whole party is due to the lag.......tooooooo much content and no real reason for it. The only problems I had before this was the last ring of fire mission which was a bit sluggish, but this is almost completely unplayble on my computer (and no, I wont go buy a new computer just for this dumb slum area)....it will be incredibly hard to get all my tyrian and canthan characters thru this without wanting to pull my hair out or break my computer.
A task I am NOT looking forward to when my CE gets here.

(ps if you ever visit japan dont plan on those street addresses helping you out.....they are meaningless and non-numerical, and about the only people who know where things are are the postal people and the occupants)

Andy_M · May 05, 2006, 08:49 PM // 20:49

Quote:

Originally Posted by lyra_song

Maybe if it snowed, the slums would look prettier?

Why not ? If it worked in the fleapit that is what's left of Ascalon City then it'll work anywhere..

GunnerMan1 · May 05, 2006, 08:49 PM // 20:49

The slum is prolly my fav part. Its really makes you feel like...umm can't explain it. Anyway I like the maze. I think its fun to go and get lost because sometims thats where the best lookin stuff is.

Ghull Ka · May 05, 2006, 09:06 PM // 21:06

The slums and the city are cool and everything, but it bothered me that:

1. This most holy of places, the temple, is in the slum's sewage district.
2. The entrance to the city from the outside is the city's most ugly and disgusting area. You'd think that the grand gates of Kaenig City would be a little more well kept

Eet GnomeSmasher · May 05, 2006, 10:16 PM // 22:16

Back and forth repetitive quests aside, I think the slums were really well done. It felt more alive with NPCs walking around than going through a forest with nothing around but monsters.

It just seems like some of you are too used to shiny and pretty environments. But to each their own.

Besides if you nuke the slums, there will just be another to pop in it's place. Even dirtier and grittier than before!

nitrile · May 05, 2006, 10:54 PM // 22:54

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ghull Ka

The slums and the city are cool and everything, but it bothered me that:

1. This most holy of places, the temple, is in the slum's sewage district.
2. The entrance to the city from the outside is the city's most ugly and disgusting area. You'd think that the grand gates of Kaenig City would be a little more well kept

I agree with you on both of those, but as mitigating considerations I can imagine the temple has a couple more entrances we don't use and aren't aware of that have more auspicious addresses (even if we can't see them). It could just be a "back door" as it were, that's merely convenient. As for the gates, I might suppose you mean into Pongmei valley. For this, I read somewhere in the lore (I think maybe on the map screen) that the city itself really just covered the area around Kaineng Center in the extreme northwest, until the jade wind drove everyone up and forced urbanisation - slums. In that sense, the gates would just have happened, not been planned because that's simply where the city stopped filling with refugees. The grand visitor's area to the seafaring mercantile nation of Cantha is from the docks to Kaineng Center, not the mainland - and that all sounds logical to me. I don't know if any of this is "right" but it's how I make sense of it, and if you look for it there's lots of little details like this all though GW. (But most people I've noticed racing through won't have noticed any of this.)

--
Just to add, I think the slums are exactly the right length. I love the city as it's been done but the GW environments, most especially the new ones are extraordinary. Coming out of a city into them would feel just the same in real life.

shmek · May 06, 2006, 12:24 PM // 12:24

Quote:

Originally Posted by aron searle

Ok ive gotten really close to the end level now.

I have to say from my personal experiance the game would be 5x better if the slum area was simply deleted from the map, even if it meant no replacement area and a shorter game.

I found it ugly as sin after half an hour, repatative (run to A then to B then to C then to A), and i didnt like the maze like quality.

Once i got out of that area, i really enjoyed the game a heck of alot more, and it wasnt just because it actually looked nice, but because i wasnt getting lost so much, or spending as much time pointlessly walking.

Why do i bring this up, well they are working on chapter 3. And i have to be honest i cant even bring myself to bring over my second toon and slog through that area again, i wont be buying chapter 3 if i hear it does another of these really dull areas again.

Am i pointlessly whingeing?

Or do you agree?

Drove me to take my recommended breaks with 24hour extensions it did. Just a monotonous bore that wore me down. Hope others enjoy it. It's not going anywhere though. I would prefer a new expansion, so looking forward to that already, and it'll be here soon enough.

Numa Pompilius · May 06, 2006, 02:00 PM // 14:00

I don't mind ugly, but I hated the endless back-and-forth fedex quests. Not all quests were fedex, you say? Like - which?

Anyway, everytime I go out into the slums of Cantha I get this feeling I'm in Sigil (those who love this area, but would like better quests and more soulful npc's in it, take a look at Planescape: Torment. Dated, but to me it's quite obvious Canthas slums were quite heavily inspired by The Hive in Sigil) and that's cool in itself.

Nevin · May 06, 2006, 02:04 PM // 14:04

If they left the city looking regal and urban, like the Market Place. IT would've been a lot better. Leave the slums to the undercity please.

Xenrath · May 06, 2006, 02:10 PM // 14:10

My first impression when I took my tyrian warrior over was "wow! what a dump..."

I guess that's what they were aiming for though, so in that case mission accomplished. Haven't played too much so can't say for the latter areas. Shing Jea Monastry island is (to me) a more appealing place to run around though... guess I just like the outdoors more than some dump.

I'd much prefer more pre-searing type areas, lush open grassland and such - hopefully there might be some later.