[Dev update] Games Changes & Design Team Update

SIGNED!

This is not good change - I hate Kuna's sound in missions - now I will be able to hear him in outposts?

I want outposts to remain silent. I want to hear birds, wind... NO KUNA!

NO! Stop this really bad idea PLEASE

The approach and letting us know what the Design Team is looking at, what they feel needs attention, is what I appreciate more than the actual changes coming. No specific ideas were revealed, but that's just fine, because in my opinion, if they're going to at least let us know what is currently on the plate, so to speak, then perhaps the community might feel more involved if a suggestion gets put out in response to your post (I believe there's a new pve-mesmer thread on these forums already).

I don't know, I'm rambling now I'm sure, and I apologize. Thanks for the info, and thanks to the design team too!

Show me the rule in "Guild Wars Mechanics" in which a spike requires an obscene amount of a single profession to be efficient. You'll just have to wait until someone else posts some build which incorporates multiple professions and copy that new one, then.

Hey, guys,

I just got word that I am passing along to all the Community Team members: We're going to postpone the build until tomorrow. It turns out that as dev team members were polishing the content of the update, they discovered a glitch that they had to fix today. That required the postponement of the update, which means a postponement of the opening of the Guild Wars Challenge Mission Ladder, too. The team has resolved the glitch, but is undertaking a small amount of final testing before updating the game.

So, that means we'll be rolling out the update tomorrow morning instead of tonight, and the Challenge Mission Ladder will go live at around the same time. As I know you already fully understand, it is our commitment to offer the best, most tested, and most polished game updates possible. So while it's disappointing that we won't have the update live tonight, the update is only about a half a day away. We ask for your understanding about the matter. You can be sure we'll be here, and in all the fan forums, reading your feedback now and thoughout the coming days, as always.

Oh and lastly: This is completely off topic, but I don't want to double post: If you're curious about the look of the Canthan New Year items, we updated our Canthan New Year's Festival page with the images. I don't know about you, but I think they're about the cutest item icons we've had yet.

Just a point of comment, I'll be available in the morning (thanks Gaile, and East Coast snow) to try to set a record for the Challenge Missions. Message me in-game (Syria Blackblood) if you want to attempt to see what the ladder is all about.

Mesmers in PvE? I don't see all that much they can do, as they killed Spiritual Pain and reduced E-Surge a little (the two being the most predominant PvE mesmer skills, due to the fact that 90% of the time in PvE damage is the only thing that matters, ie "why energy drain him when you can nuke him to death in 2 seconds"). Even if they do somehow accomplish a mesmer usefulness, they can't fight the longly embedded class discrimination among the players

Trust me, I'm a HUGE supporter of Anet, and not that I mind (too much), but don't they ALWAYS seem late?

They're always late because they actually care about the quality of their work.

It might be possible that a mesmer could be tweaked to offer more group support. Several spells could be castable on allies, such as Lyssa's Aura for example.
Also mobs bunch up in PvE, but players don't often bunch up in PvP, so it might be possible to tweak some mesmer skills so that if the target meets the skills condition, the affect could also be applied to all 'adjacent' foes. That would make many mesmer skills more useful in PvE, yet hardly affect PvP use.
But to be honest I would be very pleased for the profession to be given a strong PvE support role option. It's quite possible that PUGs would want a mesmer more if the profession can cast several of it's spells on allies as well, such as a spell that augments an allies' evasion, or even casting speed.

I'm quite fond of my Enchanters Conundrum + Shatter Delusions spike for 175 points of unblockable damage (unless the target is enchanted, and then you just shatter that first for even more damage )

[QUOTE]they are not late you are just wrong.

she said it might be tomorrow

Well, there was no set release. Just Gaile filling us in on an update the probably will/woudve came today. She was just giving us a heads up on the update, and what it will contain. (Since its not on www.guildwars.com) By the way, Great job Anet for implementing this update that wasnt neccesary, but very much cool anyway. Always great to know the devs are working hard to improve GW even more.

Nah, they're never late; the people at ANet are just optimists

Thanks for the update, Gaile, and for the people complaining about 'late' updates, I'm willing to bet you're also the folks complaining about software that ships too early because it's 'buggy'. You can't have your cake and eat it too!

[QUOTE=Loviatar]Damn you got me.

p
How could I ever EVER think I was right?

I work in software and I can tell you: some people are never happy, and you can never make EVERYONE happy. It's one of the perils of the industry I think.

But it's also human nature sometimes to want the cake and eat it, too.

-kelkel

Ha! People say things like this about every game company on every forum for every game. Most software projects have floating due dates, and when they don't, they miss their target dates half the time...sometimes early sometimes late. Software development and testing can be unpredictable...many companies don't even set hard release dates when they have a choice in the matter.

They're not late. It'll be done when it's done. Would you like to work a ton of overtime just to satisfy some impatient fans?

I really appreciate your understanding. We love sharing the sneakpeeks, and yes, sometimes we're not 100% sure of the exact timeline for the release of an update. As long as you're understanding that we're committed to quality, and that we'll hold in order to show exceptional care of what we're working on, we'll continue to share what we're planning, and we'll roll it when it's fully ready!

Rafal quote ""I want outposts to remain silent.""

I always think anything that makes the game seem more realistic is best.

Having a mini pet that can only be brought out in missions was always stupid..i mean what, you see a town coming up and shove your pet into a box??
To want the outposts to remain silent is just weird...Outposts should be bustling with the sounds of market trading, discussion and general town style noises...certainly not silence!!
This gos half way to making a town seem more of a communtiy and less of a Ghost town imo.

Excellent update Anet
Thx for the info Gaile i appreciate your headup always..and thank you for your efforts... ohh and iam not impatient like some folks..More wait = more excitment for the rollout.

I'm with you on the bustle thing, myself. I remember a game I played, years ago, where as you approached a town you heard a sort of "murmur" of noise, as of a crowd talking. It wasn't offensive, it was really quite soft in volumn, but it gave the towns a feeling of life and vibrancy about them.

And if someone wants to trot out his troll, I'll trot out my Kuunivang and they can have a chorus!

This would also hamper pve builds such as b/p etc.

That said, I rather like the idea. Or at least the idea of limiting the amount of a certain skill across the entire party. (Limiting classes would be easier most likely) It would force people to either think about more skillful ways to play then just spiking one target after another or just barraging things to death.

Granted, people would whine, but I compare Guild Wars often to Magic: the Gathering in its functions. Card games always have limits on the amount of cards in a deck that are allowable to prevent exploitation. As things stand now, stacking skills or classes leads to exploitation in ways that could easily be fixed like in those card games.


This, in turn, would reduce all the analyzing and balancing Anet currently has the invest time in. This would then free up more dev time for other features.

Thanks for the updates, Anet. I look forward to another festival and other features.