lulztard

That Fractal shit that's going on is the perfect excuse. No Mists ghosts, no echos, no memories, just a straight alternate-reality-version of the Mentor, flesh and blood and all, from a timeline where Claw Island didn't end with death and sadness.

I don't care, I just want to have a conversation with Sieran again.

For anyone out of the loop

First things first: my unsaid expectation of 30 minutes of story followed by shite has not been fulfilled. I'm not going to dismiss this expectation not being fulfilled by saying how it was a low bar, because being a cynical cunt is also a low bar. So I'll be just glad that this little devil on my shoulder wasn't just wrong, but was utterly so. Great.

Also great: amazing what they managed to do with nothing.

And that's the interesting part. Clearly there has been very little budget been involved. Mobs are all just reskins AGAIN, the only new design is the Wizard's Tower and even that has been re-used immediately, hilariously enough. I appreciate the humour in that.

Also, once again NCNet shows that they can't design a game while they're being carried by their arts devision. Rifts are a clunky, boring and repetetive low-effort gameplay loop that spawns its enemies far to much spread out, relics are an actual grown-up disrespect towards everyone with half a brain cell, getting kidnapped by ley-lines is just one of many "how the fuck did that get past design phase" moments, same with nuking dailies from orbit. "Hey", an NCNet developer said at the table with 20 others, "know what people would love? Not being able to pick and choose how they'd like to do their daily stuff!" After a short moment of stunned silent, everyone cheered and the guy got a promotion.

I could go on, but the picture is the same picture as usual. The good stuff is where it's at, actually.

No new mobs, no new mechanics, no new actual features - NOTHING. Like, actually, fucking zero new stuff. Rehashes all around. Yet they managed to do so much with it.

They stretched the story from like 30 minutes to several hours by talk and re-using maps alone without spreading it too thin. The "what if" scenarious and the morally dark-grey backstory turns the cannibalisation of old content in something close to new and paints over with how little they actually had to work with. They limited themselves to one mount and did nothing with it but make player abilities work on it as well, but managed to change quite some gameplay with that alone. Infight-mounting and fireballs have more of an effect than expected.

I could go on here as well, but as with the bad, the general picture should be clear.

It's actually a fascinating case study and I wonder what the reason behind that great work with shite materials is. Clearly NCSoft didn't just install some random scab after they ousted the old leadership. Is the NCSoft-approved lead trying to keep up the tradition with what little is left and seeing himself as some sort of guardian of the remnants? Or he use the opportunity to stab the old vision in the back and finally get his own ideas going?

In general, the seaon 4 finaly will stay the true ending of OldWars, with NuWars having started with SotO and IBS/EoD having been the symptoms of a short, tumultuous coup.

Speculations aside, the new """expansion""" cements that old heights have been reigned in and down to what NCSoft is willing to provide that low-earning title. that things will stay on that level and that there is nothing more to be expected. However, it also shows that it's still a labour of love for certain forces behind the curtain, and as tragic it all is to witness, it's also impressive how those forces managed to create so much with so little.

I wish they had the funding and freedom of ye olde days.

Did I miss the memo?

Sitting next to training golem, testing. Virtuoso ultimate doesn't trigger on elite relics. Funny. ~~Probably because it's instant? All other skills a) work and b) have cast times. Yes, even racial and deluxe edition ultimates work.~~ Never mind, it works on Jaunt.

So, we all have been playing for a day and are therefore perfectly competent in the matter. What's everyone's opinion so far?

https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/topic/135419-game-update-notes-august-22-2023/

Enjoy.

https://www.guildwars2.com/en-gb/news/guild-wars-2-secrets-of-the-obscure-launches-today/

Anet post.

As a bonus: leeks - click at your own risk.

Well, this time it is. But not because I'm a jaded veteran!

On a more serious note: SotO is about to be the first major release after the NCSoft coup of Anet's leadership, and all signs and patterns point at a major disappointment.

Here are a few examples of said signs:

• Pre coup: Wedding Attire, 1000 gems, elaborate designs, different per race and gender.

• Post coup: Leather Straps, 800 gems, literal leather straps, minor differences if any at all

• Pre coup: /rockout, /shiver, /shiverplus and more as ingame rewards

• Post coup: /sipscoffee for a 20-30€ merch collab, /serve for 400 gems, /magicjuggle as part of a pack for a 2000 gem deluxe upgrade

• Pre coup: big expansions with industry defining features (PoF mounts) and/or complete reworks of the entire fucking game (HoT systems) for like 30€, Living World for free* and paid for by the cash shop

• Post coup: Half an expansion for 25€, freemium-design fishing as an expansion feature, no more Living World, cash shop as free extra money

• Pre coup: big Living World maps with their own reward structure, masteries, not rarely major releases like Rewinder, Beetle, Skyscale, mount mastery skills that completely change the dynamic, and so on, and so forth

• Post coup: half a map, the Strike version of the endboss fight of the flushed second half of the map ham-handedly turned into a Fractal.

So this is a pattern the MMO industry has shown for decades now. These are the signs of a MMO in its twilight years. No, not dead, not even specifically dying. But less content of lower quality for higher prices, and without the care and love that comes with a product with a vision. Instead it's just work now anymore. Shit like action cam, dolphins, SAB? Gone.

So what does that mean for SotO?

That it will be utterly underwhelming. There will be two maps like announced, one will be the not-Dalaran, one will be a rehash of existing assets. That's it.

Anet will concentrate on Skyscale because it's cheaper to consolidate all mounts into one instead of giving every mount its own use and abilities. Classes will homogenise because it's easier and cheaper to balance. Specializations will be replaced with weapons because it's easier and cheaper to create.

Easier and cheaper. Lesser.

It's important to understand the nuance between easier, cheaper & lesser and dying, bad & dead. GW2 is not dying, will not become bad and certainly is not dead.

But this is the end of an era, and there will be no return. There almost never has been.

Bonus info: NCsoft is known to nuke perfectly viable MMOs for not making enough money. (CoH. Never forget. Forever fuck NCSoft.)

My prediction is that like Blizzard is dead and is now ActiBlizz and no matter how disgusting it becomes people won't be able to look past the logo, Anet has been couped and is now NCNet and no matter how far down this new beginning leads down the road, people won't be able to look past the logo.

Five days until Anet will prove me wrong and blow us away with their magic they never lost.

Well I tried.

Another preview of one of the two release maps.

Just did the Gates of Arah event. We were five to ten players. It was nice. Reminded me of release, when Orr was endgame farm and we had 50+ players in a giant zerg spawning hundreds of enemiey with dozens of champions, with the most min-maxed players pulling something like 3k dps.

It was a massacre.

But that was already later in the game, with champion boxes and whatnot. There was a time before that, the Orr before its nerf.

That yell that the enemies do? Come here? That's not just ambient dialogue. Their root, when they throw a bloody anchor at your face, back then it was a pull. And it had quite the distance. So if you heard that, you either dodged like a young god or, more likely, ended up in a pile of five enemies. And if you were unlucky, you did not only get pulled, but during getting pulled you also pulled the aggro of two more of the same enemy type, ending up in you getting handed around in a circle and aggroing everything and their mums dog. From there on it was basically just a horror movie. Bloody undead Mesmers chilled and confused you, undead Elementalists nuked you, others poisoned you, and all of them did damage like there is no tomorrow. Usually ending with us players running in circles widening the waves of the fuck-up cascade until we died screaming by swarming orrian zombies.

Good times.