GuildCast 54: WintersDay Analysis and Patch Note Discussion

Written by: Scott Hawkes (@jarimor) | December 20, 2012 11:04 am

22 Comments

The Infiniraririrrirum — ium — landed in cities across Tyria this week, bringing festivities and fun as well as a terrifying presence in the sky that makes Godzilla look like a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle.

Seriously, how unnerving is that airship?

Onto the content itself, just what has WintersDay wrought on the major cities? Lion’s Arch looks phenomenal but the other racial capitals are comparatively untouched. Is this a disappointment? Or, considering the incredible transformation to come to Lion’s Arch, is it completely understandable? We discuss the pros and cons.

Black Lion Chests get a nice overhaul. Permanent quality of life items can now be sold for a tidy profit on the Trading Post and the chances of getting something worthwhile are increased! It’s also less likely for you to get yet another tonic! Is it all good news or can our team of humbugs find something to whinge about?

Underwater combat is improved in the latest round of patch note goodness. Engineers do a dance of joy at the change to sigils, throwing their grenades out in celebration — until they notice their bang is 30% less noisy. We discuss the changes that have been implemented including the reasons for locking in weapons in sPvP. Richie might have sniffed out something that could prove good news for those awaiting eSports functionality.

Add your questions on WintersDay and the gang have their hands full. Fortunately, they came dressed for hard labor.

Joining the fully trousered Gary Gannon are the inimitable Richie Procopio, Massively‘s Elisabeth Cardy and ZAM’s Scott Hawkes for a chillier than usual edition of GuildCast!

**EDIT** Gary had the day of the RIFT one day sale a bit confused. It was not as he though, on the 19th of Dec, but is going on right now — Dec 20th.

GuildCast 54: WintersDay Analysis and Patch Note Discussion

1:22:33

World of Warcraft

Legendary Ep126:
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This week the Legendary crew are talking patch 5.3, raiding, and more with World First raider Treckie!Read more »

17 comments
45:25

Guil Wars 2

GuildCast Ep70:
Blue Flowers

The Secret of Southsun update has arrived, a Guild Wars 2 expansion has been confirmed, and more.Read more »

24 comments
Guild Wars 2

Guild Wars 2 Microtransactions: Still Consistent and Strong

NCSoft announces that Guild Wars 2's Gem Store sales are still going strong.Read more »

14 comments

http://twitter.com/AgeNightroad Adrian Lloyd

Elisabeth: 20 boxes, 3 minis, forged Quaggan mini
Richie: 20 boxes, 2 minis, contemplating of buying more
Scott: 20 boxes (said 20$ worth), 4-5 minis, forged Quaggan mini
Me: 70 boxes, 2 minis… and I’m still gonna buy more gems for more boxes…

I feel slightly shafted after hearing the stats above but I want that Quaggan! I will not be denied my Quaggan! Like Richie said, once you’re in too deep, you can’t stop lol. Man, my luck sucks XD
- ScottHawkes
  
  Step away from the credit card Adrian, step away from the credit card
  - http://twitter.com/AgeNightroad Adrian Lloyd
    
    Lol it’s ok Scott, I got my Quaggan and other mini after a few more boxes
http://profile.yahoo.com/7MPGC5FCQJZGFKICKCMALR3AYY Eric

omg, i don’t even remember that last time i heard a ‘bing bong’
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100002209893352 Jouri Caers

80 boxes. got all 3 mini’s + the quagan (and no doubles left)
cost : 0$ (gems bought with ingame gold)

off the record

how much i’m am tempted to go lauch at the speeder/landmower i need the precise time of when its discussed/shown in the show cause i cant stand those guy’s on the show lol.
- http://twitter.com/dularr Dularr
  
  How much in game gold?
  - http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100002209893352 Jouri Caers
    
    hard to tell. i convert to gems all the time since the start.
    like for example everytime i log off i use 50% of the money on me to buy gems and store 50% in my bank for when i need something.
    and this is since the start when it was like 20s-100gems
    
    still got 50k+ gems left ^^
    - http://twitter.com/dularr Dularr
      
      Nice, a little gem cost averaging. An alternative method would be to spend the same amount of gold every week on gems.
Krzysztof Kotarba

hay hay hay… it’s 21th still no apocalypse
http://twitter.com/thavleifrim nathan law

I would have purchased gems if the minis were available like they were in Halloween but im not spending money on random chance.
http://twitter.com/L_Qlion Largu Ovidiu

Just a idea about the legendary on trading post : doesn’t this give gold farming sites a product to sell? If they can be put on trading post i guess you can send it by mail…. (really weren’t they trying to discourage gold selling sites?)
- Spammerbam
  
  Some websites has already been selling legendaries — somewhere along the lines of $2700. At least.
Logun 24×7

Really Gamebreakers! You have one show you spend an hour being
critical of SWTOR and that’s not enough, now you have to bash it in this show
as well?

You must be getting paid by Arena-Net? I wonder how many
people are going to feel good in January when they get their credit card bills
and see what they spent on Wintersday.

These event updates are carefully designed by Arena-Net to
pick your pockets and have you thank them for it…..LOL
- Jado Cast
  
  It was a good tease to get people who don’t watch to go see what they are talking about. It works! It got me to go look, and I don’t give a $4!7 about SWOTR.
- Erik Barnes
  
  I enjoyed the WintersDay event, received some nice items and didn’t spend a dime
- Sharuko
  
  It is called deflecting. It is funny how these guys don’t bash GW2 for the thousands of problems that it has. How can a game really have no dueling? I mean how is that not a big deal for many people? The cheapest F2P games have simple features like dueling. But in GW2 it is ok to not have it.
  
  During peak times there are less than 200 people participating in sPvP in GW2, yes 200 people. eSport? More like, no sport. Most zones are dead and if you look at the latest Raptr stats, SWTOR is almost as popular as GW2:
  
  GW2 hours played = 272,817 hrs
  SWTOR hours played = 206,882 hrs
  
  Not to mention the fact that since the release of GW2, NCSoft stock has gone down 50%.
  “Despite the release of (game titles) ‘Blade & Soul’ and ‘Guild Wars 2′, reported third-quarter earnings fell below expectations,” said Park Jae-suk, an analyst at Samsung Securities.”The company’s performance is seen rapidly slowing down after the fourth quarter, until Blade and Soul’s China release gains momentum in the third quarter of next year.”Yeah so they can sit back and attack other games while ignoring GW2 which was literally DOA.
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=616685382 Benjamin Sansam

I was really lucky with the minipets, I got all 4 from the boxes so didn’t have to make my quaggan, I also got an extra 5 minis, put 4 of those into the mystic forge and got a Logan mini out.
I only had to open 40 boxes.
Wintersday has been very kind on me for RNG as even got an Abyss dye from an unidentified dye drop on a random mob in the dungeon.
http://www.facebook.com/people/John-Sardella/1422784105 John Sardella

As for the minipets. I think the chance is something like 10% or more. RNG is RNG. Out of 14 boxes I got 5 mini pets. Most of my guild mates got 4-5 in 20 chests. Some people just got unlucky, but it’s not brutal like the halloween skin chance.
http://www.facebook.com/rasmus.nielsen.75491 Rasmus Nielsen

-sniffles.- They Nerfed Altruistic Healing Hammer guardians -sobs.-
http://twitter.com/Salamolign Salamol

People are not stupid or dumb Elisabeth… when ArenaNet put out their “This is what’s happening!” page it says it starts on the 14th, it doesn’t say which time zone that is… and for more than half of the population, it ddn’t even start until the 15th. It’s poor communication on ArenaNet’s part and I feel it’s a bit bad that you call folks dumb/stupid because of that. It leaves people disappointed, when frankly it’s something that they could avoid with better planning.
http://www.facebook.com/people/Marcelo-Linhares/100000041974498 Marcelo Linhares

Those “activities” dont let me play as a group.

So snowball mayhem and SPECIALLY toyapocalipse lost most of its appeal.
Sadly, fail event.
DoctorOverlord

Wintersday was really great. I have agree with Richie, the new collections tabs were the best in-game holiday gift of all. He also had a really good point about keeping builds constant through matches for e-sport casting. I never would have thought of that.

And great fan picture of Elisabeth and the quaggen! Her gleeful giggle whenever Gary brought it up was awesome.

Also please get previews up on Trading Post ArenaNet

GuildCast 54: WintersDay Analysis and Patch Note Discussion

Legendary Ep126:
Raiding Ra-Den Revelations!

GuildCast Ep70:
Blue Flowers

Guild Wars 2 Microtransactions: Still Consistent and Strong

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