WHAT WILL GRIM’S FATHER DO? Influence the story and vote here: http://strawpoll.me/7269025
***
For more info, updates and my ramblings, check out my twitter: twitter.com/Levi4than
nedeľa 3. apríla 2016
sobota 26. marca 2016
Legendary noncontent (or delays, promises and development)
Some time ago, I wrote a blogpost, where I discussed whether Anet did promise too much to handle.
We have a new info now. And I can't say I'm very optimistic. It just seems to me that the bad news are piling up. Living Story 8 moths after HoT, Colin's leave and now we are told that we won't see new legendaries. Their development has been stopped until further notice.
This blogpost will be long and messy. You've been warned...
Legendary engame?
First of all, what do we know about the development of legendary weapons?
I can understand that the development takes so long, IMO mostly because of the collections. I think that to graphically design a legendary is not that difficult in comparison to making their collections work. I think that it takes a lot of testing. With 4 collections/each and let's say one collection could take 1 month, we would need a year for 3 new legendaries. Now I'm sure that the development doesn't take that long.
For many people, legendaries are the endgame. I myself am raiding from time to time. I have finished the first raid wing with my guild but still rather play alone at my own pace. That's why the legendaries are the second most important feature of GW2 for me after Living Story.
New legendaries were presented extensively before the launch of HoT. There was an uproar, when the community had discovered that we'll get only 3 new ones on launch. This was however promised to us together with the rest coming together with other releases.
6 man army
We were told that the 6 people, working on them, were moved back to the living story team. 6 other people are working on raids. In 5 months they managed to release 2 raid wings. Many people compare these 2 teams and ask how it's possible that one team delivers and other doesn't? I would agree with this question and would love to see into their creative process but it's not that easy. One team designs map, bosses, mechanics, rewards, etc. Other designs the weapon, effects and works with a lot of data to make the collections work. So I don't think it's comparable.
When we talk about the group of 6 developers it seems that they are able to deliver a lot of content (raid team) and therefore can possibly make a huge difference by adding them into the LS team.
This brings up the question: If 6 people are able to deliver, why do we see everything else being postponed? Mo has said that it's because they don't want to be teams to be too thin and they want the content to be out asap. This however hasn't answered the question. In the previous blogpost I expressed a fear of Anet "overpromising" and then being unable to deliver.
Promises, promises and again promises
As if promising too much wouldn't be enough, Anet has changed their release strategy from biweekly updates to quarterly releases. I'm all for this change, I think it's a good decision but it has one huge downside - people wil expect MUCH MORE from the 12-week release than from a biweekly release and rightly so.
This combined with too many promises is a ticking time bomb. First "boom" was the fractal backpiece that's still not fully ingame. Second one was the announcement of LS in summer release, which is about 7-8 months after HoT. And third one now was the stopping of the legendary weapon development.
Mo has said that he wants to stick to the manifesto and to deliver. That's great and all but now the Living Story will have to be so awesome to be worth all this or Anet won't get back their newly lost reputation. And that's what I fear the most. If the new living story won't be full of fun content that would make us admit "OK, I see, they needed those people to be able to deliver this awesome huge patch", I... I just don't know what to expect next and whether to expect anything anymore.
How about an expansion?
Yeah, we all know that 1/3 of all devs is already working on the new expansion. IMO, it would be better to postpone it and bring them to help with the development of the promised features. At least until the things settle down and the pace will get better.
I liked HoT. Most of the time I spent defending Anet. I actually liked the content brought with HoT. I even liked grinding masteries. Good thing that I don't play wvw much or else I would complain a lot. I guess. I played pve extensively. I made H.O.P.E. I even started playing much more pvp because there's nothing else new now besides legendary backpack. I liked the legendary collections. Now, I only log in to grind daily achievements for pvp and play story with GF just to see what she thinks about it.
For 3 years I was never bored. Now I am. Yesterday's news destroyed my optimism. I'm not even disappointed. I'm sad. When there are 300 people working on this and they struggle to deliver promised content then something is wrong. I'm sure that it's not their fault. I suspect that the management tries to reinvent the wheel, scraps often already finished things to recreate them and causes this mess.
But this is only my speculation. I know that Anet devs are awesome people that are passionate about GW2 and they love the game. I'm sure that they will do their best. Sometimes it's not enough sadly. Let's hope that it's not this case.
Anyway, now that I let it all out, I'm going to watch a movie, read a book or play something else while waiting for the new content. Hope dies the last, doesn't it?
We have a new info now. And I can't say I'm very optimistic. It just seems to me that the bad news are piling up. Living Story 8 moths after HoT, Colin's leave and now we are told that we won't see new legendaries. Their development has been stopped until further notice.
This blogpost will be long and messy. You've been warned...
Legendary engame?
First of all, what do we know about the development of legendary weapons?
- the development of one takes few months
- each new legendary has 4 collections
- there were 6 people working on them
- we got 3 and were promised the rest in time (not specified)
I can understand that the development takes so long, IMO mostly because of the collections. I think that to graphically design a legendary is not that difficult in comparison to making their collections work. I think that it takes a lot of testing. With 4 collections/each and let's say one collection could take 1 month, we would need a year for 3 new legendaries. Now I'm sure that the development doesn't take that long.
For many people, legendaries are the endgame. I myself am raiding from time to time. I have finished the first raid wing with my guild but still rather play alone at my own pace. That's why the legendaries are the second most important feature of GW2 for me after Living Story.
New legendaries were presented extensively before the launch of HoT. There was an uproar, when the community had discovered that we'll get only 3 new ones on launch. This was however promised to us together with the rest coming together with other releases.
6 man army
We were told that the 6 people, working on them, were moved back to the living story team. 6 other people are working on raids. In 5 months they managed to release 2 raid wings. Many people compare these 2 teams and ask how it's possible that one team delivers and other doesn't? I would agree with this question and would love to see into their creative process but it's not that easy. One team designs map, bosses, mechanics, rewards, etc. Other designs the weapon, effects and works with a lot of data to make the collections work. So I don't think it's comparable.
When we talk about the group of 6 developers it seems that they are able to deliver a lot of content (raid team) and therefore can possibly make a huge difference by adding them into the LS team.
This brings up the question: If 6 people are able to deliver, why do we see everything else being postponed? Mo has said that it's because they don't want to be teams to be too thin and they want the content to be out asap. This however hasn't answered the question. In the previous blogpost I expressed a fear of Anet "overpromising" and then being unable to deliver.
Promises, promises and again promises
As if promising too much wouldn't be enough, Anet has changed their release strategy from biweekly updates to quarterly releases. I'm all for this change, I think it's a good decision but it has one huge downside - people wil expect MUCH MORE from the 12-week release than from a biweekly release and rightly so.
This combined with too many promises is a ticking time bomb. First "boom" was the fractal backpiece that's still not fully ingame. Second one was the announcement of LS in summer release, which is about 7-8 months after HoT. And third one now was the stopping of the legendary weapon development.
Mo has said that he wants to stick to the manifesto and to deliver. That's great and all but now the Living Story will have to be so awesome to be worth all this or Anet won't get back their newly lost reputation. And that's what I fear the most. If the new living story won't be full of fun content that would make us admit "OK, I see, they needed those people to be able to deliver this awesome huge patch", I... I just don't know what to expect next and whether to expect anything anymore.
How about an expansion?
Yeah, we all know that 1/3 of all devs is already working on the new expansion. IMO, it would be better to postpone it and bring them to help with the development of the promised features. At least until the things settle down and the pace will get better.
I liked HoT. Most of the time I spent defending Anet. I actually liked the content brought with HoT. I even liked grinding masteries. Good thing that I don't play wvw much or else I would complain a lot. I guess. I played pve extensively. I made H.O.P.E. I even started playing much more pvp because there's nothing else new now besides legendary backpack. I liked the legendary collections. Now, I only log in to grind daily achievements for pvp and play story with GF just to see what she thinks about it.
For 3 years I was never bored. Now I am. Yesterday's news destroyed my optimism. I'm not even disappointed. I'm sad. When there are 300 people working on this and they struggle to deliver promised content then something is wrong. I'm sure that it's not their fault. I suspect that the management tries to reinvent the wheel, scraps often already finished things to recreate them and causes this mess.
But this is only my speculation. I know that Anet devs are awesome people that are passionate about GW2 and they love the game. I'm sure that they will do their best. Sometimes it's not enough sadly. Let's hope that it's not this case.
Anyway, now that I let it all out, I'm going to watch a movie, read a book or play something else while waiting for the new content. Hope dies the last, doesn't it?
pondelok 21. marca 2016
WP WHEN DEAD episode #5
HOW WILL GRIM HELP HIS FATHER? Influence the story and vote here: http://strawpoll.me/7148125
***
For more info, updates and my ramblings, check out my twitter: twitter.com/Levi4than
sobota 12. marca 2016
WP WHEN DEAD episode #4
WHY DOES GRIM'S DAD WANT TO MEET HIM? INFLUENCE THE STORY, VOTE HERE:
http://strawpoll.me/7060704
***
For more info, updates and my ramblings, check out my twitter: twitter.com/Levi4than
nedeľa 28. februára 2016
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.
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.
sobota 27. februára 2016
WP WHEN DEAD episode #3
HOW SHALL GRIM DEAL WITH STEELBANE? INFLUENCE THE STORY AND VOTE HERE: http://strawpoll.me/6936020
***
For more info, updates and my ramblings, check out my twitter: twitter.com/Levi4than
sobota 20. februára 2016
WP WHEN DEAD episode #2
Second episode is out!
WILL GRIM CATCH THE SKRITT? INFLUENCE THE STORY, VOTE HERE: http://strawpoll.me/6862651
For more info, updates and my ramblings, check out my twitter: twitter.com/Levi4than
sobota 13. februára 2016
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
sobota 6. februára 2016
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.
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 ;)
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 ;)
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