Promises, updates, content and reality

I don't even count the discussions about the expansion content anymore. It seems that each day there is a new thread discussing whether we got enough content, when's the new one coming, speculations, hating, raging, hyping...

Why's that?

First of all, I think I got my money's worth from HoT. Did I expect more at launch? Maybe. The thing is, Anet did a pretty good job describing what we'll get. Many things were however promised to come later. That's not bad. I just think that Anet maybe didn't realize that they may have made things worse for themselves.

The winter patch has come and we got our first quarterly update. I expected the start of the Living Story 3. It was about 2 months after HoT release. But ok, its absence was no that bad. There were some really nice improvements but again I expected more. Overall I was satisfied.

Now it's the end of the February and people again discuss the lacking content. Why? Well we have been promised so much that waiting 2 more moths for a part of it seems like a lot. It was a good decision to change the big updates from frantic 2 week tempo to quarterly updates. It's good, however people now expect much more than from a biweekly update, and rightly so.

LS3, new legendaries, WvW overhaul, fractals and many more. I have to say that I am very curious about what the spring update will bring. We were already told that raids and LS3 will come in between, they won't be in the quarterly updates necessarily. We're getting new raid wing at the start of march. That's nice.

As a pve player that likes the story, I will be very disappointed if the LS3 won't come with the spring update. If it will take longer, then even I will start ranting. So far I still have a lot to do ingame, but in two months? Well, I don't know. The same problem I have with new legendaries. Again I expect them to come with the spring update. If these two features won't come even then, I think it will be time to reconsider whether all promised things can be delivered in time.

I'm not even talking about fractal legendary backpiece  or other things. Mainly because I'm not that much interested in them but I agree with people asking for them.

So far, I have still faith in Anet and that these people, that are so passionate about this game, can deliver. The time will tell.

I don't want to be disappointed.

WP WHEN DEAD episode #3

HOW SHALL GRIM DEAL WITH STEELBANE? INFLUENCE THE STORY AND VOTE HERE: http://strawpoll.me/6936020

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wpwhendead.tumblr.com

For more info, updates and my ramblings, check out my twitter: twitter.com/Levi4than

WP WHEN DEAD episode #2

Second episode is out!

WILL GRIM CATCH THE SKRITT? INFLUENCE THE STORY, VOTE HERE: http://strawpoll.me/6862651

wpwhendead.tumblr.com

For more info, updates and my ramblings, check out my twitter: twitter.com/Levi4than

Palawa Joko

Painted while watching the Pro League

WP WHEN DEAD episode #1

First episode is out! I'll always upload a high res version here, but the comic will be primarily presented on wpwhendead.tumblr.com

As you can see, the story will unfold slowly, mainly because I have a limited spare time each week and 5-6 pictures/episode seems reasonable. Nevertheless, I'll try to create an interesting story. 

I hope that you'll like it. 

For more info, updates and my ramblings, check out my twitter: twitter.com/Levi4than

Should outfits be customizable?

It seems that each week, there is a new reddit or forum thread asking Anet to make outfits more customizable. Players want to add the headpiece of their own, some even suggest making gloves, shoulders and boots customizable.

I'm not against that, I'd rather all outfits to be converted to armor skins, however I understand quite well, why the outfits are like they are.

Let's think about it. To create an outfit, you need at least 5 versions of it, one for each race. Let's say that there will be a different version for each gender. So now we need to create 10 versions of one outfit. Each race has at least 5 different body types. We can double it for each gender again.
Now there needs to be at least 10 proportional versions of 1 outfit for each gender of race. So far we need to test, tweak and check 100 versions of one outfit.

Seems like a lot for one outfit, doesn't it?

That's however not all, because of specific proportions, heights and body types, there needs to be an extensive testing and checking for clipping. Thanks to the pieces not being customizable, it's quite easy in comparison to the armors because you test one skin configuration and you don't need to care about other skins clipping through.

There are roughly 80 different armor sets for each armor type. The process of creating an armor is in comparison to creating an outfit roughly similar, however the testing is MUCH more time consuming. You can imagine how much longer can it be if instead of one armor set you need to check for the issues with all other 80 different ones.

It's crazy.

Creation of the outfits is just much easier and much less time consuming. There are much less clipping issues. And less time spent on creation of the outfits is more time spent on creation of armor.

I too was a little disappointed by the number of new armor sets, introduced in HoT, but now that I thought about all this, I can understand. (Though I hope that we'll get at least 3-4 more in LS3 ;) )

And for those mentioning, how much more armor there was in GW1, I say: are you that stupid? There were only humans. One race! 5 times less work! Of course there were much more armor sets!

To conclude this topic, I'd say that I'll rather have the outfits that are not customizable, though it would be so good! Slayer shoulders, Noble Count's chest, Mad Scientist's headpiece... but I'll rather see the devs spend time solving clipping issues for ingame-obtainable armor than gemstore stuff.

Just a quick sidenote: if anyone from Anet reads this... please remake the town clothes tonics into outfits at least ;)