Curse

TopGun · Jan 31, 2006, 10:50 PM // 22:50

Whilst I hold no dispute that Guild Wars has revolutionized its genre- whatever genre that may be- issues with the game abound every month. But ArenaNet has made an effort to fix these new issues that is simply incomparable with the current service standards in paid MMOs, such as Everquest, World of Warcraft, The Matrix Online, and similarly tiered games. But there are still OVERARCHING issues with the game, the problems that have stuck with the game since its inception. These issues are not major bugs, nor are they massive balance issues. Rather they are simply nuisances; the majority of quirks that go along with an MMO have been displaced with the coming of fully-instanced questing and missions, as well as optionable PvP combat. But with the coming of a new expansion, a full $50 in ArenaNet's pocket from me, I believe that some basic convieniences need to be made for the players.

Primarily, the issue of secondary switching has come up in recent days, and is discussed fully in thie thread: http://guildwarsguru.com/forum/showt...497#post926497

<When this thread dies, a summarization of the thread will be posted here>

Another issue which has left many chat channels cluttered is the lack of a coherent trading system. Currently, the only way for two players to trade items with each other directly, is by going up to each other and pressing the "trade" button on top. While this should be a given in any MMO, systems have been implemented in other games which makes hunting down the particular goods you which to purchase a much simpler affair. As it stands, walking into Lion's Arch District 1 will yield a plethora of "WTB" and "WTS" calls for every item imaginable. This is not only chaoticly inefficient, but bothersome for those who DON'T want to read such garbage. This was the purpose of the trade channel- people interested in trading could write stuff there. Thus, the people who DIDN'T want to tolerate the "WTB/S" calls could simply turn off the channel. But for every man, woman, or child that uses the trade channel, there are two people who use the normal chat channel for solicitation of their wares.

Not only is the trade channel undisputed anarchy, but the prices at which people solicit are often uncompetitive, irrational, or questionable. There is no competitive pricing, period. To combat this, systems have been implemented in other games to combat this. Auction Houses, implemented in the highly celebrated (by that, I mean highly profitable) World of Warcraft, allows vendors to put their wares up for sale, at a fee, in an e-bay style auction. The Guild Wars rendition of this system is through "traders." Traders buy wares from a player, then sell them at around twice the price they purchased them for. They're a convienince of course- you could, feasibly, spend hours hunting down someone to buy your goods directly- but the time you waste doing this is often immense, and player to player material trades are often only made out of coincidence. Traders really don't permit one to make a feasible profit off of their wares. Additionally, there are no weapons traders in the game- weapons are a commidity which only the playerbase may provide.

If no Auction House is to be implemented within the game, there are other solutions to the overarching issue of trade anarchy (which World of Warcraft seems to have eliminated). Item "linking," allows a player to open the trade channel, shift-click the item he wishes to sell, and then send a message on the trade channel which will contain the name of her item in colored, underlined text. Clicking this text will show the statistics on the item. The reason this system, which has been implemented in World of Warcraft since day one, is effective in reducing anarchy is because it may ONLY BE USED WITHIN THE TRADE CHANNEL. As a result, people will utilize the trade channel out of convienience, thus allowing users to shut down the trade channel when it is not needed, and still not receive item spam.

On the subject of economy, the value of currency in Guild Wars is highly debatable. While I present no improvements to the system, I do believe that Gold Sinks are effective ways of reducing an unlimited supply of money. For more information on the economical status of Guild Wars, this is an appropriate article:
http://www.guildwarsguru.com/content...y-2-id1505.php
I request as much input as possible regarding economy from the people, as I feel the issue may become amplified with the release of new weapons and items in the expansion.

Perhaps a major addition to the game, but also a drastic improvement, would be jumping. It certainly adds to the feel of the world when your character can jump off a cliff into doom. But a highly controversal topic is the implementation of falling damage. Falling damage is necessary so players will respect the world in which they are placed- while it may be feasible to jump off the ledge in Thunder Head Keep, it would throw the game largely out of balance, for you would have the capability of assaulting groups prematurely. Falling damage combats this issue by balancing out attack advantage with comparable damage. Jumping would also be an important implementation to the new Assassin class. Assassins are, after all, known for jumping from building to assault their prey.

But there are issues. Firstly, and probably the most severe, is that it just looks damn stupid to see a bunch of players jumping around the screen like a flock of chickens about to go to slaughter. Jumping repeatedly is known as "bunny hopping" and is a serious issue in First Person Shooters, to which Guild Wars bares slight similarity. To combat bunny hopping, Shooters such as the federally funded America's Army have implemented a "cooldown" on jumping. Once a character jumps, they must wait an amount of time before they may jump again. Again, while the implementation of new movement characteristics isn't entirely vital to the integrity of Guild Wars, it is a neat improvement.

Finding appropriate mission groups is also chaotic at best. It would be beneficial to the casual playerbase, a congregation who simply do not have the time to spend as much time looking for the ideal group as they have time to spend on a mission, to have a more streamlined interface for group searches. It is with such a mindset that I propose improvements to the current party search features as follows:

Create a window, in it which lists every party's group leader in the district in one column. When an arrow next to the leader's name is clicked, it will generate a list of all players in the group. In a second column in the same window, there will be a small 50 word text box where a group leader may write a message. The intended use of this box is not to write, "Jordan Capri is hott!" but rather to write, "Trapper group looking for Rangers!" This will help eliminate much of the "LOOKING FOR W/R FOR IWAY" spam and will make it much, much easier to find groups, as everyone will be accessing this window for group formation.

Such a system would be beneficial in both missions and Hall of Hero style PvP, as any given player will be able to view EVERY group in the area, and what build that group is running. It's nto going to completely elminate chat spam, granted, but it would be a major step towards a more streamlined Guild Wars interface.

If anyone has anything to add to this article, it would be highly appreciated. I also realize that my last suggestion may be a bit controversial, and I'd be glad to hear the thoughts, opinions, and suggestions (or degrading insults) of those who disagree with it, or any of the suggestions I present.

chris_nin00 · Jan 31, 2006, 11:04 PM // 23:04

First of all, the chapter 2 is stand alone, not an expansion.
Secondly, this is a group of suggestions and they belong here.
http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/f...splay.php?f=19

Loviatar · Jan 31, 2006, 11:07 PM // 23:07

possibly you have (i dont know how) missed the statements that an auction house or other type of improved trading will be done.

as for jumping that is a dead horse so go back to any game you can jump in if it is that important to you.

they also mentioned improved grouping so we will also have to see how that works out as well

TopGun · Jan 31, 2006, 11:08 PM // 23:08

My apologies, if a mod could move this thread, it would be greatly appreciated.

magnawiz · Feb 01, 2006, 01:04 AM // 01:04

I think that was very well worded.

Nice collection. I did like the item linking in WoW. It'd be a savior in this game.

Bhaaltazar · Feb 01, 2006, 09:59 AM // 09:59

Quote:

Originally Posted by Loviatar

as for jumping that is a dead horse so go back to any game you can jump in if it is that important to you.

Well but dont you fell realy annoyed sometimes when u cant jump over little rock, or when u have to go all the way around just because of a little bush??

I think there just too many invisible walls in this game... cant go down on a little slope, get stuck somewhere in betwen few little rocks and so on..

TopGun i agree with u on most of your ideas.. i made the same suggestion already about shift+click trading idea...

BTW it would be better IMO that trade channel and chat chanel would be totaly separated ( for instance if u want to check what someone wants to sell klick trade chanel ( u dont see the chat any more ).. it wouldnt be so confuzing and and unorganized.

Vilaptca · Feb 01, 2006, 10:12 AM // 10:12

Its not that annoying. You learn what you can't walk through, and then you'll never be stuck there again. Afterall, why would you just keep running at that rock and not expect to get stuck. Jumping isn't anything I would expect to ever see implemented into GW. It would involve quite some work I would imagine, and just so that someone can jump over a rock...not worth it.

There really is no reason for there to be jumping in this game at the moment.

Bhaaltazar · Feb 01, 2006, 10:17 AM // 10:17

I remember playing games when i knew that there is invisibal wall, can go over that little bushes....

But that was like 10 YEARS AGO!!! Since than games evolved... What happened to freedom of movement, swiming, jumping, bla bla bla....?

As i recal this game is out for a year and half and i think that games should follow the latest improvments of gameplay and not useing some that were in 5, 10 or more years ago...

Fantus · Feb 01, 2006, 10:34 AM // 10:34

Nice suggestions on the trade problem.

The jumping thing made me laugh, though. Coming from NWN, I very well remember the HUGE discussion threads where people would demand jumping, horseback riding, climbing or swimming. Nobody ever could argue why ANY of these things would be needed for telling a story or add to the combat system, but people wanted to have it anyway. It's just the same thing here. Jumping would add ZERO depth to GW, but as you pointed out yourself, it totally would ruin balance. Please discard this idea ASAP!

Gem · Feb 01, 2006, 11:37 AM // 11:37

Did you realise that even if you could jump, that small rock would still be an invisible WALL, not an unpassable little rock. You would still need to go around it. The problem isn't the lack of jumping, it is the weird invisible walls in surprising places.

EDIT: Oh yeah. The Auction House/Other trading system IS coming and Anet has also promised to look into the group forming system.

TopGun · Feb 01, 2006, 10:26 PM // 22:26

I don't know if your comment on impassable walls is true, Gem. Don't collision models take into account the actual object being collided with? Or are they just infinitely tall boxes?

Loviatar · Feb 01, 2006, 10:36 PM // 22:36

Quote:

Originally Posted by TopGun

I don't know if your comment on impassable walls is true, Gem. Don't collision models take into account the actual object being collided with? Or are they just infinitely tall boxes?

the comment is accurate as the engine does not support the 3rd dimension of movement

TopGun · Feb 02, 2006, 02:22 AM // 02:22

Agh, true >.< When I summon too many minions, sometimes they appear directly on top of each other when the game bugs out- If the game supported three dimensional movement, this glitch probably would still occur, but would be unnoticable because the minion would move vertically a decimal amount.

The game just doesn't feel very free roaming in the pre-ascension levels. Maguma is just one big level, start to finish, not many roundabouts, turns, or interconnected areas. It certainly gets more open once you get to areas like Snake Dance and other Southern Shiverpeak areas, but save for that, the game just feels very structured.

I certainly like instances a lot more where you can be a little more choosey about how you get from point A to point B.

jank · Jan 03, 2007, 12:30 AM // 00:30

Quote:

Originally Posted by TopGun

Finding appropriate mission groups is also chaotic at best. It would be beneficial to the casual playerbase, a congregation who simply do not have the time to spend as much time looking for the ideal group as they have time to spend on a mission, to have a more streamlined interface for group searches. It is with such a mindset that I propose improvements to the current party search features as follows:

Create a window, in it which lists every party's group leader in the district in one column. When an arrow next to the leader's name is clicked, it will generate a list of all players in the group. In a second column in the same window, there will be a small 50 word text box where a group leader may write a message. The intended use of this box is not to write, "Jordan Capri is hott!" but rather to write, "Trapper group looking for Rangers!" This will help eliminate much of the "LOOKING FOR W/R FOR IWAY" spam and will make it much, much easier to find groups, as everyone will be accessing this window for group formation.

Such a system would be beneficial in both missions and Hall of Hero style PvP, as any given player will be able to view EVERY group in the area, and what build that group is running. It's nto going to completely elminate chat spam, granted, but it would be a major step towards a more streamlined Guild Wars interface.

A slight modification to this suggestion.

Instead of having a 3 panel window, with a box to explain what the party is searching for, use a 2 panel click box window system. The first box would include the party leader's name and a small description below it, like you see on attributes for items, detailing what the party is wanting to do. As in your case, a certain type of party build, but it could also be what they are looking for to complete the party, ie. a monk. The second box would show the names of all the members of the party and their profession. Clicking on the name would bring up a second window, that would be almost identical to the skill/attribute window, showing what skills the person currently has equipped and their current attribute points at the time of click. Obviously this would cause for more bandwidth traffic between the server and user due to all this information being transfered, but it isn't like all that information shouldn't be text anyways. This window would also include a "build save" option to copy another build and save it to your computer for usage. This alone would help with giving a duplicate of your build and help spread the creative process with new build design in the PvP aspect of the game.

This would cause a major problem due to random people viewing a skill set and whispering the person, or spamming them, with crap about how their build sucks and such. This would be a serious downfall, but then again, having a larger ignore list size wouldn't hurt as well.