Annaveil.5201

I believe the Hydra staff is currently in the Black Lion Chest if you care to go the route. :)

I am incredibly interested in watching this video.

To be honest, I sincerely hope they keep at least some element of timegating. I think it's a useful tool to force people to slow down. I understand some people are behind the "I should get to play how I want", but all games have rules and restrictions across the board to allow for some amount of challenge. Perseverance and patience is a sort of challenge as well.

Bubbles will be Kralkatorrik's mother. Aurene will go to her while we deal with some other lesser issue that points us to Cantha. Then Aurene will show up later either with word that her great grandmother is going to surface soon or she's helping her help us seal the chaotic magics of Tyria back into a stable state. I put 10g and a [stick of Butter] down as my bet.

I knew ANet wouldn't kill Aurene forever. Her eating Joko and then burping out his voice was too big of a clue. That being said, when she died there was a small part of me that desperately hoped that they'd stick to it. Not because I hated Aurene as a character, but because I wanted to genuinely feel something other than fuzzy good friendship feelings from this story. The last time I felt that was when Lion's Arch was destroyed for good. When Aurene died I felt nothing but, "oh, fake drama I'll bet." I was, however, surprised with how quickly they brought her back. The first five minutes of the story? Impressive.

I thought I'd buy it, but then I looked at the 98 teleports I still have and realized I only use them once in a while. It isn't really worth $10 to me.

I don't really see the outrage over the quartz. It isn't a new item, some people have stocked it daily for a long time, and you can purchase the lamp you need to make on the TP if you want to bypass the daily cooldown, or ask a friend to make it if you're so lucky to have someone who'd do that for you. The point is, you have options. Brand new players who would have difficulty getting the gold for the lamp may have difficulty traversing Dragonsfall in the first place, or doing the achievement where you take your egg to various places around the world. I don't believe quartz is an issue at all. I assumed you were talking about an actual achievement that didn't involve new or old maps, and was time-gated, my apologies.

You're saying the quartz is a time-gate? I thought you were talking about some other collection that leads you to other maps. Can't you purchase the lamp that needs the quartz if you want to bypass the daily cooldown?

That's even better, in my opinion. It lets you roam around to older places you might not have reason to visit. So its not a good way to incentivize playing the new map day after day after all?Apparently not for the later collections, but instead it's an incentive to go to older zones. I'm fine with editing my statement. It doesn't really retract from anything to me. It's an incentive to play.

I'm not? I responded to you.

That's even better, in my opinion. It lets you roam around to older places you might not have reason to visit.

What would you consider to be an acceptable specific reason for time gating?Well a good example and I will use in this game is Bloodstone Fin. You can farm the unique nodes there once every 24 hours to get blood rubies. Since the ascended items you get there are worth it because of the stat changing ability that is fairly cheap. You could want more than one set because all of your characters could use them. This is content the can keep people coming back for more day after day. When a mount is a one and done scenario. Once you have it your whole account has it.I see, so something that's infinitely useful to you makes sense to have it time gated but something that's a single gain isn't. I understand what you're saying, and I agree that the blood ruby time gating is necessary but I disagree beyond there. I believe that the Skyscale time gating is a good way to incentivize people to play the new map day after day. The issue seems to be that instead of feeling as though they have something to do, some people feel as though they're forced to do something. Personally I think there's a little bit of a mob mentality going on where some people are just angry that they can't get it immediately and it's snowballed into trying to justify that feeling into something that can't be so easily dismissed as entitlement/impatience.

"Mother..."

What would you consider to be an acceptable specific reason for time gating?

But you just did. Stating that it's time gated because "we're raising a baby dragon" is literally an example of explaining the context of a design. I'm not justifying the sky when I point out that it's blue. That's stating a fact. "It's time gated cuz game is making us want to believe we're raising a dragon" is justifying a design via context. At least learn the difference. And my friend, that is a fact. That is what is going on. Unless you would argue that is not what Anet is going for there. I'd be curious about your theory. It's not though. What's fact is that it's time gated. The context to justify the time gating fact is that we're "raising a dragon". Whether ANet indeed intended to try replicate reality into a fantasy, I don't know. The only current theory plausible is that they don't want it to be gained too quick that people get bored. At the same time though, they caused that exact problem, people are bored now cuz of waiting. Not that I'm trying to be rude, but I don't follow. I think you're saying we don't know what came first, the chicken (the story of raising a baby dragon) or the egg (the timegate), but ultimately that doesn't diminish the fact that we are raising a baby dragon. It's probably a combination of both. "Quest" collections aren't new, we've had them before, but they also clearly want the Skyscale to be something that you earn through dedication. I imagine the leap from "raise your own dragon" to "a reason for people to slow down" was an easy lightbulb.