Guild Wars: Stealth Update

I logged in today to find a nice little surprise. No, not that the Costume Ball NPC wasn't in yet and my plans of some early morning brawling would be dashed. Or even the cardboard cutouts in the middle of town (Note to self: remember to take pictures). Although, the TPed tree in Kamadan was a nice touch.

In the midst of all the Halloween finery, the developers have managed to sneak a major upgrade into the game. It's not really a stealth upgrade since it's right there in the patch notes but it's buried under a bunch of other stuff instead of being trumpeted from the mountain. But, as the (now incredibly hard to find off the front page) official feed says, "To more clearly distinguish items that are outside of combat range, the names of characters and items more than 1,000 feet away now appear in a dimmer color."

So, basically, if you press CTRL or ALT objects that are far away have their names appear faded, as if someone's turned up the transparency gradient. To be clear, it's not quite as sudden a distinction as the notes imply. Objects start transparent and, as you get closer, grow in opacity and brightness getting back to the old normal about the time they're entering your threat bubble.

This is a huge update, as least for those of us like me who found it difficult to pick out a target in the sea of names that formerly sprung up. Now, through visual feedback, it'll be much easier to tell where things are without constantly looking at the minimap. It'll make running easier, make targeting simpler, even let you get a sense of the battlefield at a glance better.

I'm just stunned because, like reconnects, a way of showing the distance of objects from you was one of those things the developers told us, way back in the test, would never happen because of technical limitations. Just wasn't feasible, worth the time to implement, whatever excuse you want to use. Because we asked and we heard them all. And we came up with any number of proposals for how it could be done.

So, now, years later, it's finally in game in a way that, I think, is both elegant and practical. It works. It makes sense. It's smooth. And it fits, unobtrusively, in with the dozens of other ways the game's gotten clearer and more forgiving since release. That's how you know this is a good mechanic, because it's hard to imagine the game without it now because it's just so brilliantly simple.

I suspect, like reconnects, this was someone's pet project. Something that a staffer worked on in their own time for the benefit of everyone. But even if it wasn't, if it was part of some top-down, executive demanded reform of the game's GUI that's been handed out as a Halloween present that only makes it slightly less impressive. But not any less useful.

Now somebody put Bobby in the game, please.