Guild Wars: From Laying My Sight On the Official Site

Looks like there's going to be another test weekend starting this Friday. The changes are supposed to be permanent this time but, again, this weekend comes about a week too late. And the whole “significant number” of changes is not something to crow about – it's pointing out how infrequent balance changes have been. And a lot of changes obscures the testing of any related changes – as has been said, if you buff hexes and nerf removal which tweak makes hexes better? Which one do you want to do in the future because it's more effective and which one do you want to avoid because of the trickle down problems? When you change everything and the kitchen sink, you really can't say and that makes any future changes more difficult, I'd imagine. Hopefully, now that these things are going to be a regular thing the changes can be made more frequently and in smaller doses (And, you know, hopefully some really wacky ideas can be tested out. I mean, if I was in charge of these things I'd toss energy costs back onto adrenal skills just to see what happens. I am, though, an Elder Troll and no one in their right mind would ever let me near the levers to do anything like that.).

Not to crib too much from the big Clam and all but I like the GvG map guide/tutorials he linked to a lot more than the official one. At times, it's best to crawl before you walk. But at other times you need to take the training wheels off and find the steepest hill you can.

There's also this PvP Primer following on the heels of last week's oh so enraging guide to skill templates (Oh, don't worry. I'm not done with savaging that one yet. I've just been busy.) there's this...thing on obscure PvP mechanics. Which, alright, I'm fucking pissed at the moment but....

One, if that's your idea of obscure mechanics then you are not primed for PvP. Come back when you want to talk about the Guild Lord's Health, body blocking the gates for the catakill, ping times, and more. This is beyond beginner's level shit. This is basic game information that you should know when you're playing the game – we're talking about how skill descriptions and energy work. That's stuff my eight year old cousin can follow (She likes WoW, unfortunately, because of the cartoony graphics. Still haven't given up on hooking her, though.). And I don't know how to put this gently but she eats paste. We're not exactly talking dean's list here[1].

Two, if you have to publish an article on obscure game mechanics before people can take part in PvP SOMETHING IS SERIOUSLY FUCKING WRONG WITH YOUR DESIGN AND/OR SUPPORT!! I'm not talking about increasing accessibility through well-made functions and in-game tools the way skill templates bother me, or even blunders like alienating the PvP community by kicking some vocal critic/testers in favor of lapdog yes-posters. I'm talking about the fundamental philosophy of your design that for some reason creates such complicated and hidden things that are acting as an impediment to people enjoying a large part of your game. That this information is going to be out there more for people to find is a good thing. But, I mean, someone was asking in the lobby of the RA the other day what a “pip” was – too much basic information is too hard to discern. The game's complicated and deep enough that this shroud of opaque mystery that surrounds everything from balancing to the game's very clanking gears is just so amazingly wrongheaded that I'm surprised the game's managed to get to two expansions at this point. This is exactly the kind of high-handed, seemingly insensitive behavior that drives people away – and people came to your game because it's fun game but like most other online games they stay because of the community. Every customer you shove out the door makes your product worse. Other people are getting this right. Why can't you?

Honestly, I don't even know why I bother sometimes.

Still, this thread at TGH reminds me about why I still love that place. Oh so tempted to post there again (Not where the poster, the myth, the admin, the one and only Rex was birthed but where my legend was trained - TGH and I are like this, son. But I can only post there so often.) if only to reassure Diablo (nice guy, I believe I remember recruiting/training him to mod at one point.) who says “I went inactive in GW a few months ago but came back because I had nothing better to play. So now I do it at a casual basis, hoping I will find a new game soon so I can quit GW for good.” that he's never going to escape. Guild Wars is a siren and you've been entranced by her song. Leave, but you'll be back[2].

[1] – Sorry, Sea Bear but it's not your fault. Tell your father he shouldn't have lived under those high tension power lines. Oh, and ask him to show you his flippers.

[2] – Or, you know he won't. Do the devs really want to keep making that bet?