GuildCast 51: WintersDay Confirmed alongside AMA Marathon

Written by: Scott Hawkes (@jarimor) | November 29, 2012 10:30 am

44 Comments

Dust off your baubles and whip out your tinsel, WintersDay is coming!

ArenaNet announced that Guild Wars 2 will carry on the hallowed seasonal holiday from December 14 to January 3 — if the world hasn’t ended of course.

Though this can’t possibly be quite the same religious experience as in Guild Wars, there are a few clues to what might be going on.

We talk about how the extended period gives cheer for your crew and for players in general.

Chris Whiteside strapped himself in and launched into a marathon bombardment of questions and frustrations, also known as a Reddit AMA.

With promises such as “to focus on zero grind” did the AMA help or hinder the move to assuage the fears of GW2 players who fear a gear grind like those that focus the endgame of other MMOs? We look at what was detailed and how it was outlined.

Those in need of a short back and sides or even an extreme make over can rejoice as the gem store can now take care of your fashion needs. Did you rush through character creation and have an Asura that looks like E.T.’s ugly grandmother? We talk about our own experience with character creation and whether the cost of the kits is equitable.

Add in questions from our viewers including whether PvP is getting enough love and the show is rounded out and ready for your enjoyment.

Joining Gary Gannon this week are Massively‘s Elisabeth Cardy and ZAM‘s Scott Hawkes. Whether you’ve been naughty or nice, don’t worry you can still watch this week’s GuildCast!

GuildCast 51: WintersDay Confirmed alongside AMA Marathon

Guild Wars 2

Last Stand At Southsun May 28th

Continuation of the living story and many changes to WvW.Read more »

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45:20

World of Warcraft

Patch 5.3: Blizzard’s First Ever Live Video Interview!

Legendary is joined by Blizzard's Greg "Ghostcrawler" Street and Brian Holinka for a live video interview!Read more »

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1:00:49

MMO News

This Week in MMO Ep 144:
WildStar, Rift, Dust 514

WildStar details finally coming out!Read more »

19 comments

lovemmogames

I must say that GW2 has the biggest community of whinners of any MMO I have ever played!!
- balen arenas
  
  Oh I don’t know about that. All of the major mmo forums have constant whining every time I read them. It’s a wonder why they make official forums as that’s all there is, constant bitching.
- http://twitter.com/dularr Dularr
  
  You must have missed the SWTOR 1.2 patch fiasco.
- rulez
  
  Lol how? Did you never play other of the more popular MMOs or read their forums?
  - http://twitter.com/Agimat08 Solo Miranda
    
    Rift is the only mainstream mmo who have the most mature community. Rarely has trolls in forums.
- http://twitter.com/bambocheur bambocheur
  
  the community goes to forums to vent, it’s as natural as breathing.
- Ravenstorm
  
  I’m guessing you mean whiners, not winners? And no, must disagree, I see whiners disliking GW2 who probably play WoW a lot bitching about it being boring for the lack of raids or interesting content, which is to each his own.
  Tbh you can see whiners all over the internet communities about all kinds of games.But why would you think GW2 has the most whiners? Just interested.
  - lovemmogames
    
    All I hear is I DON’T WANTS!! Don’t want to grind for gear or don’t want to have to do dungeons or want anyone to have better stats than I have! They want everything handed to them without having to do any work! I only get a few hours to play I don’t want to be left behind! Then go play a single player game! The dev’s need to stop kissing ass and make the game they want! They got you money so play or don’t!
http://www.facebook.com/people/Jim-Bergevin-Jr/1393526370 Jim Bergevin Jr

The problem Anet has had (and obviously continues to have) is that their mouths sometimes get ahead of their brains, as witnessed by the comments the last couple of weeks. I agree with Gary that players are not entitled to know the whole kit and kaboodle of a game’s direction beforehand, but gamers are certainly entitled to know (because of the $60 they dropped on the game), why certain things have changed that do necessarily jive with the stated design and direction of the game made before release (such as the manifesto). The game was hyped and outright stated by some, and implied by others to be better than any “traditional” MMO, and as such, they have a right to be at the very least annoyed and paranoid when there are design decisions made after the fact that contradict a lot of the reasons they bought and enjoy the game in the first place.
Krzysztof Kotarba

Mmorpg always will have grind, It depends who grind is delivered. Life is a grind, you grind money to buy stuff by doing same things over and over again. Grind is inevitable
- http://profile.yahoo.com/W76UOX2IDTRMMYTPASSJDLXLRM Bob
  
  The important thing is that there is no grind that is a barrier to content like in Wow and other games. If I wanted to play any content in GW2 at least once, I could do so in regular green or yellow gear. In most MMO’s they want you to get to a certain gear level before tackling harder content. Grinding for cosmetic items is also a choice, not a prerequisite.
http://www.facebook.com/jan.strube.7 Jan Strube

Nice nice. One more question of mine beeing answered here. Thank you very much.
Good show, hope you come back at full force next time.
rulez

SPOILER

Don’t they kill off all mentors? For Priory I’m sure and just assumed the other 2 as well. on On the one hand I was sad, but I also thought it was kind of a cheap way to get an emotional response from the player. So it worked on me lol.
rulez

I must try less using comments like the live chat heh.
rulez

Heritage/Signature quests in EQ2 were the best.
theunwarshed

perhaps they should do some kind of city of the month type content on a rotational basis in order to keep them relative. i think this is really one of the tough design choices a dev has. players want more than 1 or 2 starting areas and they criticize games with too few options. however, when players level out of the starting areas games tend to want to funnel them all to 1 central hub for social reasons, which tends to turn starting areas into ghost towns and make them irrelevant.

i think it’s always going to be tough for an mmo to be an e-sport simply because mmo have so many balls in the air. they don’t just cater to one specific crowd. their development resources (money, time, personnel, etc.) aren’t infinite and if stretched too thin we start to see the game as a whole suffer. i agree with the cast that the “window” of opportunity to capitalize on e-sport community interest is closing/has closed, but i also agree that there are bigger priorities for the game as a whole.

you can poke all kinds of fun/levy criticism (over reactive, whiners, idiots) on the part of the community that’s upset with the apparent departure of game design from AN all you want, but that only obfuscate’s AN’s role in creating the drama in the first place. most mmo vet players understand that you have to “take with a grain of salt” the hype and double talk devs promote their games with; however, AN is one of the first (that i can remember) that felt the need to really push a “manifesto” that seemed like a kind of “contract” with its potential customers, so it’s completely (in my mind) legitimate to hold them to a higher standard/accountable for these inconsistencies. i know you haven’t completely let AN skate by, but i think it’s disingenuous to imply the problem is mainly one of miscommunication (it goes deeper than that imo).
- http://twitter.com/dularr Dularr
  
  GW2 sPvP is not really very MMO like, almost more of a lobby based system.
  
  While sPvP has not been my thing, I’m surprised it’s losing traction in the esport mindset.
  
  Is GW2 sPvP missing the tools to allow for homegrown tournaments? Or is the GW2 community waiting for Arenanet to host some massive invitational event?
  - theunwarshed
    
    definitely missing tools…while i’m not an expert on the subject, the most glaring to me is the lack of a “spectator” system. the e-sport community seemed really willing and ready to jump on this in GW2, but the devs haven’t seemed overly committed to it.
    
    i don’t think it’s necessary for AN to host/sponsor tournaments, but i would think they need to partner with/support other entities that do these things in order to get it up and running. however, you can’t put the cart before the horse. AN needs to get its systems in place first for it to be viable.
http://twitter.com/Deadalon Deadalon

I just asked for refund of the game. Its just not good enough for me as a long term mmo RPG PVE game. I was expecting at least that they managed to make decent dungeons to keep ppl but instead they went “only for hardcore ppl”. Still they dungeon experience was some of the worst PVE content Ive ever seen. It has nothing to do with trinity tho.. it had to do with that no1 had any roles at all and was just corpse running instead. Thats bad content.

IMO players were not given the right tools to enjoy the PVE content of the game. It would be very easy to point players in the right direction and not punish ppl that have stacked dps stats while lvling with insta kills when they do first few dungeons.

I still can’t belive that the game was released with this bad dungeon feature. Even if its gonna be revamped at some point in the future – it still says alot about the developers when they send out content in such a bad shape.
- http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100002038208867 Dan Winborne
  
  - “I just asked for refund of the game. Its just not good enough for me as a long term mmo RPG PVE game.”
  
  You dont have to pay for it monthly… you’ve probably played it longer than any single player game thats out there (besides Skyrim lol), and you can always come back when you’re bored… no refund, sry.
  - balen arenas
    
    They will give him a refund, others have.
    
    But I find it a douche move to ask for a refund if you have put in 100′s of hours into the game. Really abusing the system in my opinion. Anyway, to each their own.
- http://twitter.com/Agimat08 Solo Miranda
  
  You should try Rift. It has the best PVE content right now in MMO space.
  - Azuri
    
    This guy is onto something ^
http://twitter.com/dularr Dularr

City dungeons are really nothing new, many MMOs have them and GW2 has some gorgeous cities to work with.
HartsHope

once again Guildcast really has their finger on the pulse of the game. right now, GW2 is probably the least immersive game I’ve played in recent memory. It just doesnt feel like a gameworld that i care about or am interested in.. its got the look and experience of a high class Casino. when i get online, i know im gonna teleport around trying to play the slot machine events over and over hoping to get loot and tokens and karma and any of the ridiculous amount of GW2 currencies… its just a shallow experience in a really pretty looking environment.
http://twitter.com/Toraneko9 Michael Lauria

Awesome show, my highlight of the show was Elixabeth’s Quaggan Coo!
- http://twitter.com/elixabethclaire Elisabeth Claire
  
  CoooOOooo!
http://www.facebook.com/mark.bradden.1 Mark Bradden

The game lacks what other mmos have they falling behide like swtor they need to push out more things to do side games ect
- http://twitter.com/Iomegadrive1 Chris P
  
  Yea…All the servers with high population. Obviously a dying MMO.
  - theunwarshed
    
    this, a friend of mine just bought the game and couldn’t even get on my server (Darkhaven) and it’s a middle of the road WvW ranked server.
http://www.facebook.com/shane.cominotto Shane Cominotto

I can see old dungeons being abandoned unless they add the new gear to the older dungeons too… anyway only time will tell.
- http://profile.yahoo.com/W76UOX2IDTRMMYTPASSJDLXLRM Bob
  
  ANet already said they are going to be revamping all of the old dungeons. I could easily see them turn into fractal style of dungeons.
http://twitter.com/Zax19taken Zax19

Alright everyone, chill!
integerx

The idea of minimal grind in Guild Wars 2 is preposterous. It has some of the worst, most boring grind I’ve seen in a modern MMORPG. Only it was about cosmetics. Things like 250 charged lodestones for a lightning hammer is fine as it is as powerful as the Exotic hammer I got from a dungeon merchant. Now add higher stats to that, and we have a problem. This is essentially what they did.

300 ectos, 250 t6 mats, etc for an infused back piece is ridiculous, that doesn’t include the infusion that is even more t6 mats. It is epitome of the type of grind GW2 has and just how bad it is.
Thirstyy

You need guesting over sPvP features really? Like really really? Many people, myself included, bought the game for PvP and right now the lack of necessary features in PvP is making people leave the game daily. You don’t have guesting but you do have free server transfers but you need guesting that bad?
- theunwarshed
  
  try watching the Guru “state of the game” cast with AN Jonathan Sharp for next round of upcoming spvp features. rating system (solo and team aggregate) to include matchmaking (focusing on paid and free tournaments at first), custom arenas, spectator system, possible ladder system (wouldn’t say too much on this), feel dueling is important but not as high a priority, leader boards, monthly tournaments (will have a “qualifier” component as reward for something else), stats and scoring system is receiving an upgrade pass.
  
  in regards to upcoming patches for Jan-Mar, at least one will be entirely focused on WvW and spvp.
http://www.facebook.com/people/Robert-Caliolo/100003765889295 Robert Caliolo

One of the things they can do about home instances is simple invasions. Some offshoot of any evil faction could launch an invasion of the main gate of a home city. Why is it everything begins in Lions Arch? Couldn’t the baddies feel it would benefit them to attack the home city and thus gain access to a home city ?
Say any minor dragon gathered their forces and attacked The Grove? The swarm in through the home instance and have gained access to the main city of The Grove. The event would be to force them out and back or even eliminate them. Maybe forces attack The Black Citidal. Take that beta even they had and expand upon it to be in home city zones. That would get people to go back. Make it into some sort of instance where your group can do the event as opposed to world events. Minimize it to a various amount of groups attacking and your group is charged to eliminating them.
http://www.facebook.com/people/Robert-Caliolo/100003765889295 Robert Caliolo

I hate to say it but this game needs Battle Pets and all that entails just like WoW. WoW in itself is fading yes, but the concept of Battle Pets they introduced is actually more in the GW concept then it is for WoW. The idea of PvP pet battles is something GW2 can expand upon.
denji gsch

yay! you took the videos off that one site that never worked for me O.o
http://www.facebook.com/dark.blue.750 Dark Blue

Dynamic events in the cities would be awesome. That would get people back into the cities and make use of the huge scale of the places that people are now ignoring. An experiment goes wrong in Rata Sum, a centaur invasion in Divinity’s Reach, etc, and whenever you’ve helped the city, it marks or changes your home instance in some way too.
Sharuko

GW2 was Reddit’s (/r/gamings) most regretful buys of 2012. All it took was 3 months for people to come to their senses. And seriously the devs need to stop with all their fluff, it seems like all they do is their AMAs, Blog Posts, Interviews and comments. Stop talking so much and fix your broken and rushed game.
- Nick Cattane
  
  Ultimate troll is ultimate.
http://twitter.com/thavleifrim nathan law

Christmas was my favourite event in GW1, I liked all the really small simple things like the random gifts you had to carry to children to before the grenches caught you and the standing on rings for 24 hours straight.
DoctorOverlord

Cool episode. Thanks for the laughs over everyone’s reaction to the asura airship. Now I am hoping for a Godzilla attack on LA!

It’s nice to hear that Gary likes the personal story. I really do as well but I’ve been running into people who don’t seem to care about it. Personally I really look forward to doing to the next steps of it and it will probably be the main reason why I make up alts.

Good discussion about ArenaNet’s communication issues. Scott made an excellent point about how we don’t know where ArenaNet is going. Unfortunately ArenaNet often
addresses the community as if they seem to think the community is full of mind readers who don’t need to have things adequately explained.

This isn’t a new problem with ArenaNet. Heck, GW1 had this basic problem where ArenaNet seemed to think that people could telepathically pick up the game mechanics and workable builds rather than providing in-game tutorials or information in ways that were clear and typical.

This has lessened somewhat in GW2 but the problem is clearly still there, both in explaining the game itself and explaining their intentions for the game.

PvP does need some love or else ArenaNet will miss the window that was mentioned and while there is bunch of stuff like observation mode that are needed but I have to agree with Elixabeth that *guesting* should be the priority.

And I haven’t seen anyone so excited over baby quaggen. Wow. lol

GuildCast 51: WintersDay Confirmed alongside AMA Marathon

Last Stand At Southsun May 28th

Patch 5.3: Blizzard’s First Ever Live Video Interview!

This Week in MMO Ep 144:
WildStar, Rift, Dust 514

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