GuildCast 53: The WintersDay Update's Details Emerge

Written by: Scott Hawkes (@jarimor) | December 13, 2012 11:01 am

28 Comments

WintersDay details emerge along with a trailer to engender that festive spirit.

That and unabashed delight at the sight of quaggans in Santa hats for Elisabeth.

Is the vision of ArenaNet‘s latest seasonal event full of cheer? Or is there a festive Guild Wars 2 hangover ahead? We give our impressions as we prepare for tomorrow’s launch.

It’s not all snowmen in globes and mistletoe though, Dub v Dub is getting some love, including the end of the Alt F4 tyranny. Want to insta quit in a fight? Cool,thanks for the insta loot and XP.

Noob.

The architecture for saving accounts from the dreaded invasion of hackers has been improved, which means you can recover most of your stuff. Which is nice. But ArenaNet says it’s a one time deal. Is that fair? Can players be blamed for being hacked multiple times? We ponder the ins and outs of ANet’s approach.

Settle in, pull up your comfiest desk chair and get ready for another week of Tyrian insanity. Join GAMEBREAKER’S Gary Gannon and Richie Procopio, Massively‘s Elisabeth Cardy and ZAM‘s Scott Hawkes for the latest episode of GuildCast!

GuildCast 53: The WintersDay Update's Details Emerge

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24 comments

http://twitter.com/sk33by Justin Uptmor

dont blink around the snowmen!
Morturion

The most annoying thing about Townclothes is that you switch back to your battlegear after you take falling damage. If you want to show your Townclothes in a city while running around, it’s so lame that you gotta open your char(r)acterscreen and switch back to Townclothes every time you took a little falling damage.
- http://profile.yahoo.com/W76UOX2IDTRMMYTPASSJDLXLRM Bob
  
  ANet added a hotkey for town clothes about 2 months ago. Just use that.
http://twitter.com/dularr Dularr

There did seem to be some audio problems when the quaggan wearing a Santa hats appeared. I couldn’t understand some of the hosts and my neighborhood dogs started barking.
http://twitter.com/AisarGaming Aisar

Another great episode guys, someday you will convince me to play this game lol. If Elisabeth (spelling her name right is a good thing yes?) ever tries to leave the show you tell her NO! She adds a certain charm to the show and I really enjoy her personality.

I liked Scott’s over energized bit too
- http://www.facebook.com/people/Jim-Bergevin-Jr/1393526370 Jim Bergevin Jr
  
  While they will never convince me to play the game, I certainly enjoy the show. But Elisabeth’s obsession with the quaggan is getting a little annoying. Quite frankly I don’t think they look all that good.
  
  On a side note – anyone else think that the Quagg in the video was prepping himself to make some yellow snow?
  - saxophone15
    
    How come you don’t want to play the game? Do you just not like the mechanics of it? Sorry if I seem intrusive…I was just wondering.
    - http://www.facebook.com/people/Jim-Bergevin-Jr/1393526370 Jim Bergevin Jr
      
      A lot of little things and a few large things that all added up from all aspects of the design and mechanics. Ultimately, I played the betas in the hope that it would change my mind, but it didn’t.
Ravenstorm

Anet should sell real life Santa hat wearing quaggan baby cuddle dolls. Elisabeth will just explode supersonic.
http://twitter.com/inkthedink INKS

+10 points to Richie for Dark Crystal reference.
- http://www.facebook.com/people/Jim-Bergevin-Jr/1393526370 Jim Bergevin Jr
  
  I was wondering if anyone else noticed that.
http://www.facebook.com/BrianOrr.Author Brian Orr

On the authenticator, it took me several tries to get the google one to link to my account. After it finally linked it only worked for maybe two days, now I can’t try to relink it and there is no option on the patcher to input the code from the authenticator. This has been going on for over a month now I guess.
http://www.facebook.com/rasmus.nielsen.75491 Rasmus Nielsen

I can’t wait to see!
- http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100002862335877 Johannes Bock
  
  Me neither!
ScottHawkes

One idea on town clothes: you can make town clothes associated with certain tradeskills which can provide a bonus when worn. Just an interim idea until there’s something more tangible to do in towns. Discuss.
- http://twitter.com/dularr Dularr
  
  Ah yes, the fishing hat.
  
  Actually, I wouldn’t mind if the town clothes follow your personal story. Changing over time as you make your choices.
  - http://profile.yahoo.com/W76UOX2IDTRMMYTPASSJDLXLRM Bob
    
    At the very least the town clothes should have reflected your social status. For example, for the humans the street rat choice should have been in rags, the middle class choice in normal clothes and noble choice in rich clothing.
    - ScottHawkes
      
      That’s an excellent idea.
Andrew Kahre

If Scott is grump, does that make Gary not so grump?
http://www.facebook.com/people/Jim-Bergevin-Jr/1393526370 Jim Bergevin Jr

The concept of whether GW2 would have survived with a subscription is an interesting one, but ultimately unanswerable. The only reason we have GW2 is because of GW1, and the only reason we have GW1 was because Anet set out to make a AAA game without a subscription fee to sustain it. Therefore GW2 would not even exist outside of those circumstances.

If you want to take the concept and design of the game a plop it down into a sub based model. Then no, it would not have survived. I don’t really think GW2 helped hasten the decline of the sub based MMO as that has been well underway for a couple of years now. GW2 would have been released with a sub to a lot of hype on the gameplay, it would have had the initial rush of players, then slowly die off until only the core playerbase remained, just like every other AAA MMO up to this point has done in the last few years. It would still be around with a core playerbase, but go F2P as those MMOs have done.
- http://twitter.com/dularr Dularr
  
  I think GW2 could have supported a sub. I think Arenanet would have hit Funcom projecting for TSW and would have one million stead monthly subscribers.
  
  Hopefully investors are now focused on the business models of MMOs. You can have a smaller sub-based MMOs like EVE or RIFT, sitting with between 200k and 500k subscriptions. Or go for million+ accounts with B2P or F2P business models.
http://twitter.com/crocodilius ryan phillips

Paying for character restoration creates a bad conflict of interest in my opinion.
- http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1465601810 Zachary A Long
  
  I disagree. There are character slots you can buy and if you just delete a character, level a new one and then you decide you want the old one back so you delete the new one. If you had just bought the character slot you wouldn’t have had to delete one. So now there is no way around it.
St_Draco

I like the changes coming to WvW. The Alt+F4 thing is got some people in a stir. They want to have it so people are left in game for a set time after a disconnect/log out. Funny thing is that the person would be dead anyways even if left in game. If not, then people would still just exploit the mechanic.

I like ANets stance on account restoration. It puts more pressure on the players to be accountable for their own account. Plus, ANet can always choose to waive the restriction should cases warrant it.

GW2 was/is designed for the price/payment model it uses. If it was created with a sub in mind then I believe it would still be successful.

And, ANet should totally make a Baby Quaggan Plush.
- http://www.facebook.com/people/Jim-Bergevin-Jr/1393526370 Jim Bergevin Jr
  
  Only if the Plush Quag can make yellow snow like the one in the video was just about to do! ;}
http://twitter.com/KlinkWilhelm Wilhelm Klink

ditch the female….her voice is a problem.
http://twitter.com/FishBaitism Fish Bait

Shame they didn`t implement the WvWs timer in the end & even worse, the Wintersday patch came 2 hours after WvWs reset.
Huuuuge rants all over about this :$
Roy

I just want to inform Elixabeth of a couple of things:
1. I found a norn NPC named “Elisabet Kardijn.” Any relation?
2. I helped a quaggan named Blubloop and was rewarded with the opportunity to purchase some Quaggan Tonics for 1 silver 28 copper each. Screenshots attached.

GuildCast 53: The WintersDay Update's Details Emerge

After Dark Ep33:
“Xbox, Go Home”… You’re Drunk!

Last Stand At Southsun May 28th

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

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