Xenon.4537

It would take too long to explain everything, but FF14's story is very well written, especially once you get to Shadowbringers and Endwalker. The writers treat all of the characters with respect. The dialogue isn't juvenile. The plot doesn't ignore or retcon anything. In fact, they take everything that's been set up for the last 10 years and tie it all together into a satisfying conclusion. Dare I say, the story makes you feel real human emotions? They don't destroy the tension or the tone with random jokes or jabs. The villains have relatable motivations and backstories that are revealed in ways that make sense. You have real reasons for fighting them. It's not just shallow saturday morning cartoons pitting the hero against a paper-thin bad guy. If you play Shadowbringers and watch Yoshi P talk about the development of the game, you can really tell they care deeply about the verisimilitude of the game they are making. It's not just a job to them, or a soap box to speak from.

I'm glad I'm not the only one... I misplaced my thread about the story dialogue in the general forum, but I feel the exact same way about it Seriously, the dialogue gives me physical pain sometimes. I'm just gritting my teeth and trying not to scream every time Mai Trin attempts some sort of apology and then whiffs it and segues into awkwardness. Who the hell is Yao and why should I care? Why does so much of the dialogue happen over a defective magical walkie talkie with ear-bleeding static fuzz? Why not use the space you've built and put the characters in a physical location to meet and speak with them? Honestly at the end of the day I think EoD is a mess because it doesn't have a clear stylistic identity. It's a mishmash of clashing ideas forced together, and the characters are just fumbling their way through it with jokes and quippy remarks. I saw a huge beautiful town in Shing Jea, surrounded by a well-constructed stone wall with traditional japanese roofing.... ruined by a bizarre green Necron force field along the top? Why? The wall is like 60 feet high. No one on foot is gonna cross it.... and the force field isnt high enough to block me from flying over it. What's the point? To make it look good? It doesnt look good. It looks like warhammer 40k Necron tech slapped on top of a feudal japanese wall.

Unfortunately I get the impression that Anet has gem store releases on a schedule written (more or less) in stone. I doubt they will sell the mad king pack itself this year unless they were already planning to make it available next tuesday the 26th or the one after on the 2nd.

I'm opening my bags this year for the candy corn mostly. I need cobs for those sick demon skins. I'm also hoping to get lucky and grab some of the Oontz infusions (which I've gotten 3 so far). I want an ember infusion of course, but I'm not holding my breath.

Yep, I'm having this very same dilemma. I already own half the stuff in the bundle and all I want are the mounts!

Yeah that price point is kind of bizarre. It doesn't say 30% off or anything. I guess they just picked that number. I hope they make the 1600gem mount pack available separately though.

I just saw theres a "Mad King Mega Bundle" in the gem store. I want the mounts, but this bundle is expensive and has a bunch of other stuff I either have, or don't want. I have the mad king outfit and the dyes. I don't care for the finisher or the prince outfit. Have the mounts ever been sold separately or is this the only way?

Hi Raymera... animator here. You have just identified one of the most challenging things to do in a game engine. Very few games manage to pull it off flawlessly. And if you are thinking of a cutscene or cinematic, that's trickery. That is almost always hand keyed to look as good as possible, not a dynamic interaction. Gameplay animations require dynamic interaction because it has to respond to the infinite number of ways a player might play the game. That's really hard to do well, especially in an mmo. Games like Assassins Creed use special tech to drive contextual animations to make the character's hand reach for a ledge or touch someone's shoulder. Those systems may be possible in an mmo, but are considered unnecessary and wasteful when the primary concern is making sure that combat runs smoothly with hundreds of players fighting at the same time.

It is truly amazing how many "experts" come out of the woodwork for threads like this. Less than 10% of you have ever installed a game engine IDE, let alone developed a game professionally using one. I'm sorry and I'm not trying to be mean. GW2 getting a remaster is a pipe dream. Anet are already firing on all cylinders just to deliver the content we are currently getting. They don't have a secret stash of money or a second studio to run parallel projects. Anything they do in the background takes away resources from the foreground. "I don't mind if there's no new content for a few years." You must not have been around during the content droughts surrounding Heart of Thorns. No one was happy when that happened. Switching game engines is not a simple thing. Nor is it what you think it is. When you say you want more beautiful graphics, yes the engine plays a part. But so do the polygons on the models themselves. So do the textures which come with a pixel count. If Taimi is made of 10,000 polygons and her texture is 2048x2048... and you upgrade the engine from DX9 to DX12... Guess what? Taimi still only has 10,000 polygons and a 2k texture. You successfully accomplished almost nothing. Maybe the game will run smoother, and maybe the shaders will be a bit more pretty. But at the end of the day when you ask for a REMASTER, you are asking for a lot more than you think. You are basically asking Anet to make GW2 again, rolling the clock back to 2012. And we the players will have to wait for YEARS for a prettier version of the game we are already playing, with no new content, just a spit-shine. Smarter plan: Make Guild Wars 3. Make it with an upgraded engine using all the latest tech they can muster. But that's also a long shot because Anet is still suffering from the layoffs right into covid lockdowns. Right now they are developing living world AND the Cantha expansion. They are stretched thin already. There's no way they are going to be able to do any of this extra stuff any time soon. P.S. - Someone mentioned Unreal Engine 4? That will never happen for one very simple reason: UE4 is owned by Epic Games. Anet already has their own proprietary engine. They aren't going to suddenly abandon it and start paying Epic a portion of their profits. Don't get me wrong, UE4 is a great engine, I've used it myself. But that just isn't going to happen. It would be far better for Anet to upgrade their own engine. Porting to UE4 is not as simple as dragging "gw2.exe" into the editor and clicking "build". No, it would be a massive undertaking, and Anet would have to pay Epic a portion of their profits just to use the engine. With Anet's own proprietary engine, they don't have to pay anyone, and they get to keep their pipeline intact.

Well... yeah... without voice acting you actually have to read this time to know whats going on. I can see why some people get frustrated trying to read during combat. Unfortunately Anet wasn't able to bring voice actors into studio during lockdowns. Hopefully you give it another go when the voice gets added. Personally I consider the quality of the story structure itself as separate from the performance of it, and it's not fair to judge the performance when there WAS no performance (yet).

Just wanted to throw this out there. I think this patch (No Quarter) has some of the best story in terms of characters that GW2 has had in a long time. Anet is finally breaking out of the 1-dimensional comic book villain mold and really moving towards nuanced character conflicts. Villains are always more interesting when their motivations are relatable. Bangar is a little less complicated, but he has an interesting history with Rytlock. Ryland is where the story really gets interesting. We finally have some real meaningful character development thanks to the dramatic character conflicts between him, his mom/dad, his mentor, and his warband. We are seeing firsthand how someone with a good heart can be turned to evil, and we are looking for that sliver of hope to turn him back. Strong character arcs and motivations are how you get the audience to care about your story. I really think Anet are doing a great job with the icebrood saga in this regard. It's a shame there was no voice acting, but I still think the narrative itself is very strong, perhaps the best it's ever been. I really hope Anet continues down this road. Let's not forget this episode has a fair amount of cool rewards to earn in-game as well. I think that's important to point out given that Anet are probably struggling right now due to the lockdowns and working from home. They could have really tried to milk the gem store, but they decided to give 2 whole weapon sets and some new armor as in-game rewards. I just wanted to say this because I see some more prominent members of the community approaching this episode with sadly luke-warm enthusiasm and criticizing aspects of the story which (to me) seem so trivial compared to the far more important characters themselves and their immediate circumstances which are at the core of what makes the story worthwhile. I'm not saying the story is perfect, but it's definitely at the top end of the spectrum of quality in GW2's history. I actually care about what happens to these characters for once, which is more than I can say for some past episodes. I'm looking forward to when Anet adds the voice acting, and I'm really looking forward to the next episode to see what happens. Thank you to the Anet narrative team, the artists, programmers, and everyone who worked on this episode despite the corona virus. Keep it up!

The only question I want answered is WHEN??

Yeah pretty much this. Although they already have helm skins in the game which automatically hide the shoulders (dry bones, whisper's secret, etc) so its not unprecedented.

Dear Anet, More SAB mount skins please. Sincerely,Someone who already had their immersion broken by goku hair charr, queen bee infusions, confetti infusions, Quip, Dreamer, quaggan shield, pirate ship gun, birthday blaster, choya-on-a-stick, snowball tonic, bobblehead lab, aviator box, Aurene hat, fuzzy bear/panda/cat/frog/quaggan hat, cat ears, bunny ears, disco ball mace, rubber sword, giant frog tonic while holding a balloon, people playing Undertale music with a trumpet, Eggnog "helmet", GW2 logo T-shirt, GW2 logo baseball cap, endless embiggening tonic, endless miniature tonic, choya pinata tonic, boss chest tonic, furnature tonic, and tree tonic. And I just don't care. I just want a cool skin from a part of the game I love. To everyone else: If you don't like it, you don't have to purchase it. It's my character, not yours. You go play dress-up however you want and leave me alone.

Nice! That will save me a ton of time... I wonder if you can do something similar for w2z3? Maybe take the easy paths all the way to yeti then backtrack?