GuildCast 40: Something Stinks

Written by: Scott Hawkes (Twitter @jarimor - Google+) | September 13, 2012 11:00 pm

124 Comments

Do you like parkour and walking over hot coals?

If so, then the live action launch trailer that ArenaNet released for Guild Wars 2 must have been very pleasing for you.

To say reactions have been mixed to the promo is a massive understatement. What did the GuildCast crew think of the video and the response to it?

We’ve got patch notes! Yes this means Guild Wars 2 is just like many other MMOs in that respect — even the ones you pay a monthly sub for — in that fixes and tweaks continue on with the regularity of a metronome. Guardians were adjusted — Scott tries not to cry — as were a few other professions, but who cares? They’re not Guardians.

All kidding aside, we look at what changes were made, including the exploit-crushing limitation on glory.

Now you get a shiny achievement when you hit the cap, but just what good are achievements anyway?

You can craft straight from the collections tab in your bank. How much does that rock? It rocks a lot. With discovery soon to be added to the bank/tradeskill magic we talk about the crafting system as a whole and how it contrasts to those in other MMOs.

No longer can you buy your butter with Karma, now it drops as easy as it spreads with Sohothin. Are you swimming in butter? And where do you keep it? Apparently there’s some myths to be busted.

The forums are fully fleshed out and open for business. Are they up to the standard we would expect from ArenaNet?

We also have your viewer questions to round off another intriguing week in Tyria.

Join GAMEBREAKER‘s Gary Gannon, Massively‘s Elisabeth Cardy and Richie “Bogotter” Procopio — HAPPY BIRTHDAY — along with ZAM‘s Scott Hawkes for this week’s GuildCast!

3:23

World of Warcraft

Blizz Blues From The GAMEBREAKER Vaults Ep2:
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We know you've missed him so we thought we'd relive some classic memories Darnell with a trip to the Fire Festival.Read more »

4 comments
50:06

Star Wars The Old Republic

The Republic Ep142:
SWTOR On Consoles?

This week on the Republic, SWTOR patch 2.2 is here and Damion Schubert has things to say about next gen consoles.Read more »

4 comments
39:42

WildStar

Unicorn Duck Shadow Puppet Ep4:
WildStar For The Holidays?

The gang talk about their hands-on time at E3 and Reddit has a few things on their wish list.Read more »

9 comments

http://twitter.com/elixabethclaire Elisabeth Claire

The picture for this warms my ice cold heart.
- http://twitter.com/AgeNightroad Adrian Lloyd
  
  lol
http://www.twitter.com/_Laughter Laughter

I liked it. Thought it was creative and different.
http://twitter.com/OnlyInSaudiArab \.. Wa5eer ..//

sounds have problem only gary have high bass loud voice
http://twitter.com/RichieProcopio Richie Procopio

Something about the crusty eye lashes in the trailer really creeps me out. And now we have an up close image of it. /shiver
Volkon

On the “trailer”… I like the artistic part of it… I liked the Earth/Air/Fire/Water approach, liked the dragon in the smoke and the apparent message that alone he couldn’t overcome it but together they could… the chicks were hot and Zhaitan made me poop… but this… this wasn’t a trailer. Call it concept art or something, don’t call it a trailer. I liked it as a stand alone, not as a trailer.
http://twitter.com/Hoigwai Hoigwai

I disagree with the assessment that the trailer stinks, I think it does what it’s supposed to. People who don’t know what the game is about will be curious and look it up. These trailers aren’t for the people who already know what it’s about.
- http://www.facebook.com/people/Jim-Bergevin-Jr/1393526370 Jim Bergevin Jr
  
  Not really. I made a point to show the trailer to many of my friends and family – non-gamers and casual gamers alike. Not one of them had any interest in looking at the game because of this trailer. For the most part, everyone was confused about what the heck the “ad” was for until it finally went to the in-game/cgi footage, at which point, one of my friends (who is only a casual gamer – popcap stuff essentially) said “oh, another fantasy RPG … whatever.”
- jayremy
  
  It’s going to look weird or lame even to those who aren’t familiar, you don’t even know it’s game trailer until the last <15 seconds. What does graffiti, stepping on coals and an ash covered lady have to do with the game in a significant sense for non-players?
  
  This doesn't get you hyped as a person on the fence, somebody not quite into gaming but thinking of such, will find it weird and not feel like they are missing "a great experience". So what crowd are they really going for? Existing gamers/players of GW2 have already said it is quite bad.
  
  Give some epic Lord of the Rings style warfare or grandiose adventure scene and you might find some intrigue to new comers. Show some in world adventure, mystery, action, art, not just some random awkward real world activities that have nothing to do with the game, and try to somehow tie them in.
- http://twitter.com/dularr Dularr
  
  Not so sure, if I didn’t know about GW2, I would have though it was about addiction treatment center. Seem to be showing TV addiction. thrill seeking behavior, feeling like downing or video game addiction. I would have expected a hospital slogan saying time to get that dragon off your back.
http://www.facebook.com/chrislawrence7 Christopher Lawrence

The trailer is terrible…
http://www.facebook.com/people/Joshua-J-Pate-Terry/1008819820 Joshua J. Pate-Terry

It’s interesting. As an artist, I really feel that the official trailers/videos for this game have progressively gone downhill from the start. The first one from 2009 using the paper-doll technique (fading into gameplay mid-way) was probably the strongest. It had good emphasis and unity in it’s design and this continued on into the Races of Tyria and Manifesto videos as well. Good design in all of them. The Races and Manifesto lacked a certain punch that the first one had, though that’s easily attributable to the fact that they were a bit more informational than the first. The 2011 Gamescom trailer had good ideas behind it, but felt disjointed and that sense of emphasis was lost. The “Get Ready” trailer had a much better sense of rhythm but the visual transition from the first half to the second lacked some cohesive element.

This newest trailer is an utter disaster. I get what they’re trying to say, they’re just saying it really poorly. The problem isn’t necessarily concept, it’s execution. It failed in the transition and cohesion. It failed to have unity or emphasis, its contrast between worlds is too stark and the linking mechanics are too few.

Anyway, I hope they can produce something better soon.
- Depravity
  
  Concurring a hundred percent. Being an artist myself I have to admit the moments of utter shock at how inspiring the art direction and execution in this game have made me drop my jaw (the “fucking hell, this is awesome” reactions) countless times.
  
  The world, the world is just a masterpiece.
http://twitter.com/Nathiest Nathiest

That trailer is an embarrassment. They should release a public apology.
http://www.facebook.com/nicholas.lauro Nicholas Lauro

So who got fired after the show.. lol
- http://quintlyn.com/ QuintLyn Bowers
  
  Shhh… He hasn’t said yet. Maybe he forgot.
bywitter

I don’t focus on hearts, I focus on ‘waypoints’ . I found that I end up avoiding all mobs and events until I get all the waypoints around a certain area activated and then start getting involved in the stories. Due to how squishy I am and the number of deaths occuring.
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=670665157 Steven Barker

I can’t actually believe they let someone design that trailer. It is terrible…
http://twitter.com/Nathiest Nathiest

They should maybe add more hearts or lose the hearts altogether. Losing of the hearts would make the player explore more and when they do then they will discover more.
- http://www.facebook.com/people/Jim-Bergevin-Jr/1393526370 Jim Bergevin Jr
  
  The problem is it then becomes aimless exploring/wandering. That may appeal to a few people to just wander around to “map clear” as it was, but to the casual player with limited blocks of time to play, it is a terrible system.
  
  Ideally, there should be an option in the game that allows players to dial in on the amount of hand-holding they want – for the hard-core explorer, they get no guides on the map or scouts in the game. For the uber-casual, their map can be marked with every piece of content, vista, jumping puzzle, etc. so they can maximize the time they have to play by completing that content and not just walking around killing the grass.
http://www.facebook.com/people/Daniel-Scott-Blair/614675377 Daniel Scott Blair

You know, I was playing GW2 while listening to this in the back ground and I tabbed back to the page right when the characters shifted to Avatars and I gotta say it wasn’t bad commercial if you remove all the live action and just went with a black screen with subtitles of what the narrator was saying that might have been better.
http://www.facebook.com/elecore1 Ed LeCore

I want to beat that trailer to death with a bag of puppies.
http://twitter.com/Nathiest Nathiest

ugh.. Achievements in WoW do grant you pets, titles and mounts. Also points = bragging rights.
http://www.facebook.com/people/Miguel-Crespo/501398647 Miguel Crespo

I thought that trailer was awesome
- http://twitter.com/RichieProcopio Richie Procopio
  
  I didn’t loathe it as many folks on the internet seem to, but I also don’t think it was very good. I’m interested in hearing from someone who liked it. What did you enjoy about it?
  - JJGlyph
    
    I think the last 30 seconds should have been the trailer. They can cut the live action stuff out.
    
    Before this, all of their trailers were work from the actual game (concept art & gameplay)… and they were all awesome. Not sure why they changed directions.
ArsenicSundae

Resource nodes have a bigger impact on my movement than hearts. I’ll go from one node to another, catching events along the way, then do the hearts when I stumble across them.

Excellent show, by the way. Really enjoyed it.
- http://twitter.com/elixabethclaire Elisabeth Claire
  
  Yeah, I’ve found that going out of my way to hit up EVERY SINGLE RESOURCE NODE (because trying to simultaneously level 8 crafting disciplines makes one do that) is one of the things that introduces me to most events.
http://twitter.com/GrantElicious Grant Butler

I like how they let you play the game how you want to level, you never feel like you’re doing something you don’t want to. However the things you do get quite repetitive because it’s basically the same thing you’ve done in every other MMO, just with more freedom. The quests in the game are the Hearts but they’re the worst quests I’ve experience, they really are just kill 10 rats. I would have liked some real effort put into quests like how Blizzard have tried to make them more fun and less repetitive in WoW.

I like how you can join PVP instantly and get leveled up to 80 and level up via PVP and never have to touch the rest of the game. However I just don’t find the PVP fun in this game, WvW needs mounts for one because the running is painful and I’ve never found Battlegrounds fun. The main drawback for me is I’m an open world PVP person and GW2 doesn’t have any, so it’s another killer for me.

I like overflow servers instead of making too many servers and having people quit because their server is empty and they don’t want to reroll on another server. However it’s made grouping so hard, I wish they got it fixed in beta but it still causes issues for me of thinking we’r ein the same overflow but we’re not.

I like the sound in the game, the music is nice and the ambient sound is great, SWTOR didn’t have any lol. However the voice acting is so bad, it really turns me off the story, though I never cared about it much in the first place. I’m just not a fan of the look of the game myself, it is too cute and it looks really generic to me. None of the races stand out, the armour doesn’t look good IMO and it’s just not a world I want to invest in because I don’t like the look of it. It never really feels like a world either, everything feels like it is in a skybox and it’s so enclosed. I really loved Anchorhead in SWTOR because the city was fully 3D and you could get to every part and climb on top of the buildings. You never get that feeling in GW2 which is a shame, just makes everything feel rather fake. WoW had seamless zone transitions and real time travel, however GW2 you just portal everywhere, so there is never any sense of a world.

It’s a really well made game, it just has too many flaws for me personally and the biggest one is if you don’t like the look of it, you’re gonna find it hard to want to invest time into your character. People are loving it though it seems and no subscription will make sure people are always playing.

I’m just waiting for my SWG Pre CU 2.
- http://twitter.com/lifensoul Steven Whiting
  
  The quests my essentially be kill ten rats but if you’re in the area, for a heart or an event, if near others that also kill, you get that kill. Meaning no spawn camping so it flows nicely.
  
  Regarding WvW, you’ve totally missed the point of way you HAVE to walk. Granted, in the BETA I didn’t understand this and kept filling in the surveys that popped up saying navigation was bad. I now realise it isn’t. The reason there are no mounts and that you HAVE to walk is because of balance. Otherwise everyone would be on the front line all the time after they die. So say the red team take a keep, they’d have it for the whole match because of being able to get reinforcements there to quickly.
http://twitter.com/GrantElicious Grant Butler

Also that music in the trailer, is that taken from Inception?
- http://twitter.com/lifensoul Steven Whiting
  
  I think the music is by Mike B’s group.
Dekin

I find it funny. When I first watched the video. I thought it was an add for the secret world…..

To help defend a little bit. When the lady coming out of the water turned into a Norn, I got some goosepimples. If every real person in the video was slowly turning into their charecter, It would have been cool IMO
- http://twitter.com/elixabethclaire Elisabeth Claire
  
  Yeah, the last ~20 seconds were totally rockin’
  - http://twitter.com/dularr Dularr
    
    yes, but a really big spoiler. SPOLIER: I’ve heard you say dragon made up of other dragons and now I see what it looks like.
http://twitter.com/SaintKristopher Kristopher

buy the looks of the Comercial ArenaNet and/or NCSoft has some kind of deal with or in someway involved with the illuminaty. they want you the viewer to play mmo’s ect. and keep your heads in the sand and ignore the gruby man behind the curtain. They can go fuck themselves i will play anything anytime i want to. InChrist~
- http://twitter.com/elixabethclaire Elisabeth Claire
  
  Troll in the dungeons?
http://twitter.com/lifensoul Steven Whiting

Gary needs to sort his mike out, way to much base coming through compared to anyone else.
matraque

I’ve been playing this game and i really enjoy my experience. What really sucks is the cutscene for the personal story. It’s so bad…
http://twitter.com/lifensoul Steven Whiting

UK here and yes, Gary is right, I leave the butter out. No liquid mess as the kitchen is never that hot. Nothing is more annoying than rock hard cold butter that doesn’t spread.
- http://twitter.com/elixabethclaire Elisabeth Claire
  
  Amen!
  - http://quintlyn.com/ QuintLyn Bowers
    
    I’m starting to appreciate the number of comments on this show that are about how people store their butter.
http://www.facebook.com/people/Aaron-Cutright/1074012672 Aaron Cutright

The GW2 commercial is as bad as the Aria commercials that I keep having to watch.
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1634997134 Bob Shaffer

They should have just hired the guy who did this. Better yet they could have just used this. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_TgAf4lbvTM
http://twitter.com/trippingpossum David G

It figures that the show I miss is an awesome one. Great Show!

Thing is: even though map chat often is a mess… it can be a great place to let people know that a big dynamic event is happening. As was said often in the episode, people can miss so much even if they are exploring. So, letting others know that a group even has spawned can get people to pop out of the woodwork to help.

However, my issue with Dynamic events, in my experience, has been that the view distance for them to propagate onto my map is very short, I’d have to be on top of it practically I would get any indication. I might help people to find the events if they would show up from farther away. Or is there a solution to this all ready that I’ve missed?

My Scottish Grandmother would leave out a small plate of butter so it was soft enough to spread, I thought that was normal. Oh well.
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=706513777 Luis A. Perez

I’m bad with following. By the time I blink the character to follow is gone.
Morturion

If I had just watched the trailer and not read or heard anything about GW2, I would NEVER have bought the game. It almost makes me ashamed of playing GW2 :S
- http://www.facebook.com/people/Wullo-Sweetwater/100001172203368 Wullo Sweetwater
  
  You are easily ashamed then..
  - Morturion
    
    That is indeed one of my issues
Jado Cast

I’ve probably run across at least 5 or 6 bugged dynanic events and I’ve done about 50% of the m map.

Shout out to Triple B on Blackgate. Blackgate is now ranked #5 in WvW on the US servers according to Anet.
http://profile.yahoo.com/7MPGC5FCQJZGFKICKCMALR3AYY Eric

I really don’t get this big deal about the hearts. Yeah, once you scout them, they’re fairly prominent on the map, but so are vistas, skill points, way points, points of interest, and even gathering nodes on the mini map. If you get rid of one of these things, if you really want people to just go out and explore, you’d have to get rid of all of them, otherwise one of the others would just replace hearts as the new carrot-on-a-stick.

Maybe it’s just the completionist in me that doesn’t let me get distracted by the hearts (or that gets me distracted by everything else), but I think hearts are fine the way they are.
- http://www.facebook.com/people/Steve-Lazarowitz/100000420795554 Steve Lazarowitz
  
  Just turn them off. I did. I turned off all the map exploration icons on my map. It’s the eye on the lower left hand corner of the map. Improves the game for explorers like me immeasurably.
http://twitter.com/eewaterman Elijah Waterman

Yes, the trailer was bad, but why spend 20 minutes discussing a bad trailer. Surely there’s more going on with a newly released game that would merit discussion more than the bad trailer.
- http://twitter.com/dularr Dularr
  
  I’m interested in what they talk about next week. The game is out and I really hope they don’t start repeating themselves.
  
  Gary is in what I consider the very best part of PVE, levels 2-30. Can’t wait for Gary to talk about his first experience in AC story mode. (BTW, I would consider it an epic fail if Gary doesn’t run AC story before the next Guildcast.)
  - Jado Cast
    
    Yes Gary, EPIC FAIL MAN! Go do it, NAHW. :)
    
    I did AC story with Triple B Guildies and we wiped 3 times against the first 3 mob encounters but never went down on the bosses. The environmental traps and mobs are more deadly than bosses. For those people saying its hard, I just don’t see it. You just have to be patient and figure out how the team can contribute. We started pulling mobs and Crowd Controlling the bosses, and we just rolled right through.
Mike Hutson

I think they could add achievements or some sort of tally for the number of dynamic events you have participated in within a zone. You don’t have to tie their completion to the rest of the zone completion (for purposes of getting the happy dancing chest), just let people know that there are more events out there. The only problem, though, is that, even if it wasn’t tied to zone completion, people will still try to game the system to create event success/fail in order to get to the event they need in a chain. So, I dunno. The main problem, as you guys point out, is basically how hidden the events are compared to the hearts and points of interest and all of that, which are not “supposed to be” as important. I think they need to communicate a little bit better how prevalent and cool the dynamic events are.
- http://twitter.com/dularr Dularr
  
  After completing a zone, I’ve been going to the wiki to read how many of the meta events I missed. Typically, I only see one or two out of all the meta events.
http://twitter.com/dularr Dularr

Didn’t it seem that GG was a little concerned that Guildcast was being even the slightest bit critical of Arenanet and GW2.
- http://twitter.com/elixabethclaire Elisabeth Claire
  
  Yeah, when he allows stuff like “Something stinks” to be the title of a GW2 show, one really starts to worry that he’s not okay with criticism….
  …or something.
  - http://twitter.com/dularr Dularr
    
    Lol, it was easy to pick on the trailer. Good thing the game is fun to play.
    
    “God they are going to hate this episode.” GG
    - http://www.facebook.com/people/Jim-Bergevin-Jr/1393526370 Jim Bergevin Jr
      
      I actually found it refreshing compared to some of the fanboi episodes of the past. That and the recent TWIMMO ep where Hillary and Jason made it clear that certain elements of the game are for a “niche” type of player. This is what we need more of so players can make informed decisions about how to spend their hard-earned money.
      
      Gary finally picked out some good discussion-inspiring questions this week (helps that the fans actually asked some good questions), especially in relation to the DEs and how they might not be the best made system (here or in any game). I would like to see more in depth discussions on this and other elements like how Anet’s implementation differs from others and whether the implementation in GW2 will be sustainable and appeal to a casual gamer, a completionist, etc.
      - http://twitter.com/dularr Dularr
        
        An interesting point to this episode is Gary is experiencing what I consider the sweet spot for Guild Wars 2. Leveling from 2 to 30 seems to have some of the best gameplay.
        
        So watching Gary who is clearly enjoying his time in GW2, react to the normal post launch criticism of a game. Priceless.
  - ScottHawkes
    
    Yeah that Gannon, shies away from controversy at every opportunity. Lol.
Lynx Raven Raide

For that trailer, I have a feeling that isnt Zhaitan but his new champion. I could be wrong, but I doubt Anet would give away the big bad just like that.

As for the trailer itself, I did like it for what it is, but yeah as far as GW2 goes it does suck. They should have really gone for the tag line ‘This is my story/What’s your story?’ that they established earlier
- http://twitter.com/Kichwas Kichwas
  
  People who have fought Zaitan (yeah, they already exist) have said that it is in fact the final boss of the current game.
  
  That’s a bit of why everytime this trailer comes on somewhere, I turn away as they’re coming out of the water – thankfully I was so ‘What… wait wait?’ the first time I saw it that I can’t remember what the dragon looked like – I was still getting over the guy walking on the hot coals…
- pc11
  
  It is Zhaitan You kill him at the end of your personal story and it is the lamest figh I have ever seen.
http://twitter.com/Kichwas Kichwas

Event chains: Hanging around – this is key to maximizing your enjoyment. A -LOT- of stuff follows on from new events.

People rushing by to get from even to the next miss something like 2/3rds of the content. There’s so much that happens in this game that people miss.
- http://twitter.com/dularr Dularr
  
  I tried that the first day in the Asura starting area. I knew a long Dynamic Event started in a particular area, waited for over 30 minutes and the DE never started, so I gave up on waiting for events to start.
  - http://www.facebook.com/people/Wullo-Sweetwater/100001172203368 Wullo Sweetwater
    
    He did not said to wait for events to START, rather to stick around when an event ends and the npcs start talking/walking somewhere else. Those are event chains
    - http://twitter.com/dularr Dularr
      
      You missed the point. If you want to see the ENTIRE meta event, you have to be lucky or wait around.
      
      For my first Fire Elemental boss, I got there right after they killed boss, I helped by rezzing a few of the dead. So, I found out where the meta event started, waited and went through the ENTIRE event.
      
      Once, I complete an ENTIRE meta event, if I run across a part of the event, I will stop and help, but don’t feel a need to help with the remaining chain.
http://twitter.com/Kichwas Kichwas

This is my first time on this site, so I don’t know your speaker’s names. So I’ll just say, the suggestion one has to mark all current events on the map. I’ll agree with some of the others than I don’t want that.

I recall when WoW quests had no ‘!’s over them – and it was nicer. You explored. You talked to every NPC, and despite how static it actually was – it felt vibrant.

I kind of like that some events occur and I miss them, only seeing their effects after. I go there and notices “this village is not the same as it was last time I was here” and then I think to explore around and find out why.

- And this also makes seeing the same event over again more bearable. Once I figure it all out, and I can then enjoy coming in and trying to start it all… It wasn’t handed to me, so I have to figure it out. And hey; that can burn a whole evening of entertainment. Nothing wrong there.
jayremy

I think the heart quests felt just to efficient or the leveling too slow, I wanted to get to dungeons and start tinkering with skills see the big bad-mass villains, more gear/weapon type experience and gold income with/for bag space, the leveling just wasn’t meeting my expectations.

Plainly killing things felt so damn slow, I just wanted to do anything that would speed it up and give me a bonus. GW2 also has the same problem most if not all those WoW like hotkey/target/ui based MMORPGs have which is I find myself dying merely to a mathematical or statical formula of I encountered or pulled too many or too powerful of NPC and could do nothing to survive or be a victor. Deaths often felt undeserved as the general bulk of leveling felt too easy.

If you attack mobs >2 levels higher than you I think it has the same bad handicap WoW has with >4 level mobs, which is high miss chance paired with -50% damage dealt to it, so the game doesn’t even let you challenge yourself in that regard.
- easytoread
  
  I tend to fight mobs that are between 2-4 lvls higher than me, two or three at a time, so in my experience the game does let you challende yourself in that regard.
christopher murray

Brando has an idea about where to put the butter.
http://www.facebook.com/people/Hamad-Ali-Al-Jalahma/512893526 Hamad Ali Al-Jalahma

” Somebody is getting fired after this show ” xD
bsqminus4ac

B.T.W. Scott, I lived in western Canada for many decades and we did indeed leave our butter on the counter and no, it does not turn into a nasty liquid. Unlike where I live now, the Central Valley of California, it never got warm enough in the house to melt butter and we didn’t have AC.

Oh and the centaurs use butter to make their mains shine like silk in the sunlight. It makes perfect sense for all of them to be sporting a pound or two of butter.
pc11

I really have to speak up agaisnt everyone saying GW2 is not another hype train.

. the pve is super generic. hearts are exactly what exclamation points are in other MMOs and dinamic events are always the same thing (fight waves/collect crap->zerg a boss) and are a straight up copy from WAR

. the dungeons are imbalanced and force all players to a specific style of build/play. So much for the theory that every class/build can do it and no more trinity blah blah blah. Melee dps at the moment simply cannot run a dungeon. Eithe you spec tanky or everyone goes ranged. People that say learn to dodge noob are stupid and never tried melee dps in dungeons. First you dont have enough stamina to dodge every single attack that one shots you, second you cant tell when he mobs are doing the “special abilities” when your entire screen is filled with ridiculous particle effects. Most of the times in dungeons and world events you never see the thing you are supposed to b hitting. Only FLASHES!

. the personal story promisses so much and delivers nothing. You actually kill the big bad guy of the game at the end of it and it is the most boring unchallenging fight I have seen. How can you justify grinding in ORR for months to come when you already defeated the big dragon responsible for it all? Also the personal story cut scenes and voice acting make you yawn. Not a shred of emotion or emphasys is heard in those dialogues, and they squeeze in every “epic story” stereotype ever done.

. The reward for completing you epic story is an item that you already ouleveled by then. Thats it. You dont even get a title for you character to show off. You get nothing for 20 something hours of going to through quests. The only thing you get is a felling of “oh was that it?”

. I know the game is not about gear but damn when you go through 80 levels in dungeons and uncovering entire maps you want to receive something that gives you that “fuck yeah i did it” feeling. Rewards in this game demotivate you from doing pve when it should be the oher way around.

All in all the pve is average and you will only keep doing it if you really like the grinding or are (for same strange reason) in love with the generic fantasy setting of the game.

Now the pvp both WvW and sPvP is amazing, engaging and really well done. So I really hope they dump alot of resources into making this aspect of the game evolve and and fix the existing problems because people ill not sty in this game for the pve.
- http://pulse.yahoo.com/_R35J5EUERGS3E6JRIQMBCDTRRY Nathan I
  
  lol, so it sounds like you suck and you don’t like to be reminded of that fact. You don’t always need to use the dodge button in order to actually dodge an attack. You know that right? I have a melee mesmer that has done well in dungeons. Of course occasionally I switch to ranged, but that’s why you need to learn how to be flexible.
  - pc11
    
    Thank you for your useless post. I actually took care to pre-emptively dismiss the “lol you suck noobzor” brainless troll posts. But trols will be trolls.
    
    The melee dps issue has hundreds of posts in several forums documenting this fact. To the point that it has officialy been acknowledged and Anet says its part of their post launch chaos rebalancing plan.
    
    Go back to your cave.
  - http://twitter.com/dularr Dularr
    
    That was a silly, pointless response.
    
    While I disagree with his comment about melee and range dps in GW2 dungeons, you probably won’t be happy with my response.
    
    For the smoothest AC run you need two heavy melee (tank and off tank like), three range dps (one or two willing to switch to heals as needed)
    
    An all range AC is a disaster waiting to happen, range get one or two shotted time after time.
- MiZTiiX
  
  i agree..
- Lycronis
  
  I respect your opinion but I have to disagree with the majority of it. I’m not going to go into details because that would be utterly pointless. I’ll just leave it as saying, to each their own.
  - Bestow
    
    Since you replied disagreeing with him, might as well have gone all the way instead of taking the “to each their own” approach. Cop. out.
    - Lycronis
      
      There was no cop out about it. Like I said, it would be pointless to go into details because I’m not going to change his opinion. I could write up an entire article explaining why I disagreed with him, why I think the game is great (not perfect by any means) and why I feel it is the best MMO to have come out since WoW. But again, it wouldn’t have changed his opinion (or others that may agree with him) in the slightest. In fact, it would have just ended up in a troll fest on both sides.
      - TacoBaal
        
        If you’re not looking for a discussion about this, then why respond with your stance anyway? Do you feel the need to simply point out every instance in which you disagree with what someone says? That would be a little tedious.
- Morturion
  
  Sorry to hear you feel that way about the game. But ranged is not the best in Dungeons, more often then not the people playing ranged are all down on the ground and its just me (warrior) still standing and whacking away with a large piece of metal in hand (Good thing that warriors have that insta-rally banner skill). From what I’ve seen is that when people go ranged, they forget to move and are less reactive to things coming their way.
  
  And I think that, with so many types of games been made, it is very difficult if not impossible to put something in your game that is not already done before. For example, the combat in GW2 feels very dynamic and rewarding when you react to situations instead of standing there and pressing every button not on Cooldown. While this is a new thing in MMORPG’s, Action/adventure games already did that for quite a long time. If something already done before offends you, try not to breathe for a while ;P
- http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=613400106 Francois Brisson
  
  Finally someone that can see past blinding fanboyism!~
- http://www.facebook.com/people/Marcelo-Linhares/100000041974498 Marcelo Linhares
  
  I’ve ran many explorer dungeons and as a melee.
  So I’ll tell you.
  Learn to dodge.
  And after that, learn to blind
  After that? Learn to swap weapon and push people back. Play golf with mobs, throw them far away with your hammer.
  
  After that? Buff/debuff.
  
  So, the good old learn to play is in place.
  I do give you that: range is easier.
http://twitter.com/borded nathan law

In Australia you can buy plastic tubs of butter that you can leave on the bench, it’s not that crazy.
http://twitter.com/i_became_val aka Val

My guild noticed the butter right away…where is all this butter coming from all of a sudden? So we turned it into a drinking game…get a stick of butter, drink. We were all hammered by the end of the night…
http://profile.yahoo.com/WUO7JRPFS2K52LUXIY2LLJ4TSU Sean

To be honest as much as I dislike the trailer, after about 20 minutes of guildcast talking about the same thing it was hard to continue watching the whole way through.
http://profile.yahoo.com/WUO7JRPFS2K52LUXIY2LLJ4TSU Sean

I’m actually more of a completionist than I thought I would be. I usually 100% an area before moving on (that includes uncovering blurry parts of the map too) Although I’m sure there will be things I’ve missed. So I’m thinking when I 100% the world I’ll head back and do the worlds again, this time more relaxed and having an even keener eye on things.
- http://twitter.com/dularr Dularr
  
  Been doing the same. Once at 100%, I will look up the zone on the wiki and verify which meta events I missed.
http://twitter.com/ConnorHumph Connor Humphries

Something like this fan made trailer on Youtube would be much more fitting to such a brilliant game, someone on Youtube came up with a better trailer than a production company.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_TgAf4lbvTM
http://twitter.com/neonscorpion Brian Sperduto

I like the last half of the trailer. The CG footage is bad ass. But yea, as a whole it’s a very wonky trailer.
Pat Hamilton

Those damned Beetletun graffiti artists. Who do you think has to clean that up? Me, asshole.
http://www.facebook.com/jason.horton2 Jason Horton

wow 20minutes + on how bad the trailer was, honestly disgusting get over it and stop making such a massive deal about it, the trailer sucked who cares? go play the game and stop wasting to much time in the show talking about a 2 minute clip you’ll only watch once that doesnt effect your play experience at ALL.

Id also like to point out if you look at the thumbs up and thumbs down on youtube, it points to a case of a loud vocal minority as there are alot more likes than dislikes.
- http://twitter.com/dularr Dularr
  
  The hosts clearly enjoy the game and work in media, so their reaction to a poorly executed trailer is understandable.
  
  I disagree that the trailer did not affect the gameplay experience. It has apparently spoiled the ending of the personal story.
  - http://www.facebook.com/jason.horton2 Jason Horton
    
    How? Zhytan was always the final boss and this was always common knowledge from all the books etc.
    - Bestow
      
      The way its name is spelled correctly should be common knowledge as well.
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1375412151 Erik Merickel

In reguard to the event chains: I like the fact that you can chain from place to place. I think its a great way to get people to move around the game. However, I’m also getting really tired of hearing everyone blame the players. First off, if thats how you want people to play the game, then you really need to take the time to EXPLAIN it to the players. Second, I really dont personaly like having to wait around between events. Yes, this is me being impatient, but expecting players to stand around and not do anything doesnt seem fun to me. If the point is to be fun, then there should be something to do OTHER than simply stand around and wait for the dialog to play out.

Also, before people tell me i’m just not the right type of player, I am an explorer. I enjoy wandering around looking for new stuff. That is fun for me. But i don’t like standing around waiting.
- Anhan
  
  i agree with you.. and what happens when you stand around and wait and there is no next event. i personally am very irritated if i waste time just standing around. Or I find like gary was saying an underwater cave that i explore and that its just “neat” and no xp or treasure or event at the end of it. Guess I’m not the explorer type.
- Old Ben
  
  You’re rarely “standing around not doing anything”. If it’s actually an event chain (and not just two separate events that happen nearby), there is usually some connecting sequence (ex., NPC walks somewhere, talks to another NPC, and when the conversation is over the next part of the chain starts).
http://www.facebook.com/people/Ryan-Hamilton/1150725720 Ryan Hamilton

The amount of trolling in this episode was glorious!
http://twitter.com/Patrikules Patrick Hargan

(in reference to the comments below) Wow… so many haters and troll bait.. I simply can’t decide where to aim my flamethrower! LOL great show guys!
http://www.facebook.com/people/Robert-Caliolo/100003765889295 Robert Caliolo

Trailer would have been excellent if they just had the girl in the water swimming through the room and emerging. The cut to the game art. Simple 30 second trailer to sell the game
- http://www.facebook.com/fernando.domena Fernando Domena
  
  Agreed.
http://www.facebook.com/shana.lacasse Shana Lacasse

I have a question for your next show (I don’t know exactly where to put it):

What do you think of gathering tools being soulbound and not stackable? Salvage kits are account bound, why not gathering tools too? I wasted so many bank space with them thinking my copper mining picks could be used on my alts… =/ Do you think ArenaNet will change this in the future if asked about it?
- Old Ben
  
  Non-stackable: Makes sense, since you’re not buying 100 picks, you’re just buying one pick that “wears out” after 100 uses (or 50 or whatever). A bit annoying, but makes sense.
  
  Soulbound: They weren’t soulbound at the start. Now even if a friend needs some tools you can’t mail them to him / her. Lots of things (of no value) suddenly became soulbound a couple of weeks ago. The only possibility I can think of is that people were selling them at the trading post after a number of uses, but the icon wasn’t showing the number of uses left (so people could buy it only to find that it only had 1 use left). Hopefully they’ll fix that (ex., becomes account bound on 1st use, or just display the number of uses left), and they’ll go back to letting people mail the tools to each other or share them between characters. Salvage kits shouldn’t bind, either. You should be able to mail them to friends.
http://www.facebook.com/people/Daniel-Scott-Blair/614675377 Daniel Scott Blair

Is it normal for this many accounts to get compromised?
- Old Ben
  
  Considering Blizzard’s database got hacked a couple of months ago and a lot of careless people use exactly the same user name and password in both games, it’s not really surprising. Still, the game has sold over 2 million copies, so even if 11 thousand accounts got “hacked” (not really hacked, just hijacked), that’s 0.6% of the player base.
- http://www.facebook.com/people/Steve-Lazarowitz/100000420795554 Steve Lazarowitz
  
  You should have seen Rift at launch. There was a security hole in the game someone figured out how to exploit and hacking was rampant. But any really popular game will have hacking. It’s one of the biggest problems with being popular.
http://www.facebook.com/fernando.domena Fernando Domena

I love the game, beautiful game in every sense of the word,but the trailer is fucking terrible,does it stops me from enjoying the game?.no.
http://www.facebook.com/fernando.domena Fernando Domena

I love the game,is beautiful, in every single way,but the trailer is fucking terrible.Does it makes me see the actual game differently?,no
- Bestow
  
  We heard you the first time.
Noxdus

I killed Zhaitan for the first time today, and that horrible trailer totally spoiled it for me. Count me in the crowd that hates that launch trailer.
http://www.facebook.com/jrmcewen John McEwen

Remember the trailer when you logged on to WOW for the first time and the Dwarf Hunter had the bear and you wanted to immediately play a hunter as your first char? That’s the power of the trailer. The Guild Wars 2 trailer is disappointing and doesn’t entice me to play anything. Love the game and it doesn’t make me love it less – just makes me question the judgement of the game team.
- http://www.facebook.com/people/Steve-Lazarowitz/100000420795554 Steve Lazarowitz
  
  The Guild Wars 2 launch trailer is trying to do something completely different. They’re not marketing to people who are already playing the game. They’re not even marketing to people who play other MMOs. This is a commercial aimed at people who would NEVER play an MMO. Seems to me that a lot of people who don’t play MMOs are playing and enjoying Guild Wars 2. The Skyrim crowd. This entire thing was made to sell the game to a market most MMOs wouldn’t even try to penetrate. And for that, all it needs to do is to get people to look at the game–people who have never heard of the game. In this, I think it succeeds.
Randall Burt

Don’t pop events up automatically on the map, but swap the role of scouts to give you a heads up as to what’s going on in the zone dynamic event wise. Also, remove the hearts from the undiscovered parts of the map and replace with fuzzy “points of interest”.
rognik

I agree that it’d be better if the hearts didn’t show up unless you a) uncovered that map area already or b) talked to a scout about them. When you complete the tutorial area and enter the world, you have to talk to the first scout (story wise), so that forces the first few hearts to appear. Scouts can be highlighted on the map to point out heart quests, but I know I’ve had at least a few scouts where I’ve completed the heart first and the scout has nothing to tell me. (Confused me at first.)

The butter thing does freak me out a little. Every other bag, there’s more butter! Although I think I got it more from the Inquest, since not ALL of us are rolling humans. I’m halfway surprised humans are so dominant, considering the general tendency away from the “boring” race. Also, I butter not hear you guys complaining about food crafting next game, or there’ll be hell to pay.
http://profile.yahoo.com/SYAYFSKE2AS5Y6V4MGZCDV4VB4 Eddie

The notion that anyone runs from “heart to heart to heart, in a straight line” is ridiculous at best. I’d wager you’d be hard pressed to find a player that “blindered”, that they wouldn’t gravitate to any or all the goings-on around them, as they move to the next quest. Just my 2 cents.
dlambert2

would love to watch real time.. if only you would post your schedule somewhere on your site. If you have.. its not obvious as I have been looking several times and not found it yet..
DoctorOverlord

Looks like I fell behind watching these. Awesome episode everyone, really hilarious exchanges between everyone.

That was a hideous trailer.    Why didn’t I hide my eyes like Scott? After seeing it the first time I swore I’d never watch it again. I am up to two times now. I need to bleach my brain. Very good point about this being a pretty good Secret World trailer.

And thank you GBTV for making me able to laugh over this piece of trash. Five min of FRAPS or just concept art would have been better.     I agree with Gary
that this never should have been released.    And THANK YOU for pointing out the spoiler of Zhaitan, that was extremely disappointing.

As everyone said, I’m still loving the game which is why this trailer was so depresssing.   ‘Show what’s revolutionary not talk about a revolution’ Scott was really waxing eloquent this episode!

Nice reminder to people to follow the NPCs after an event. This needs to be brought up as often as possible as a community service. (I got to see miniature dancing moas) Excellent point from Elisabeth, the dynamic events should be somehow identified on the map.   Maybe not all of the dynamic events, but at least some of them.

Agree 100% about server forums!   Elisabeth has the right idea with server-specific forum logins. ArenaNet needs to make this happen.

Happy late Birthday Richie. I hate falling behind on Guildcast.
http://twitter.com/AisarGaming EBates

I have to so that I don’t get the hate for the trailer. They combined real-life footage with ingame graphics and in my opinion, it looked good. I thought it looked really neat when they went from real to ingame and how much she looked alike. I am scratching my head at this, maybe the fact that I don’t play Guild Wars 2 is where I am confused.

GuildCast 40: Something Stinks

Blizz Blues From The GAMEBREAKER Vaults Ep2:
What’s A Fire Festival

The Republic Ep142:
SWTOR On Consoles?

Unicorn Duck Shadow Puppet Ep4:
WildStar For The Holidays?

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