perilisk.1874

How do you know that isn't how things work in Tyria?

> @"Obtena.7952" said:

> I'm starting to think there needs to be more of what SWTOR does ... BOTH a sub AND a store. I used to think free players were the worst kind of player .. but I'm realizing the worst players are the ones that think they should get the most by giving the least. At least free players aren't delusional about what they get ... they are even thankful they can play for free.

Attempting to shame people into being taken advantage of isn't actually going to go anywhere -- it doesn't make a serious attempt to address the idea that things are being monetized in a scummy way, so it just sounds fatuous.

"I think all these stupid little fees my bank charges are sleazy and ridiculous!"

"Oh, so you think banks should just work for free, huh? Gosh, you sure are selfish."

Understand this -- in any business, there are things people expect to pay for, and things they expect to get for free, within reason, and that doesn't make them selfish or bad people. The same people who are pissed off about build templates might well shell out $30 for a mount skin. People go to a fancy restaurant, they can be perfectly fine paying $15 for a nice dessert, but if they saw on their receipt that they got charged a small surcharge for napkins, or utensils, or water, they would be ticked off.

Also, understand that Arenanet is providing a version of this feature which is deliberately, massively crippled, solely to be able to profit from it. There's no other explanation that fits the facts we know so far. They showed that you can easily import/export to a text string. Effectively, a build template _is_ a text string. There's absolutely no harm in keeping that list of text strings client side, they can validated against game data as needed, and the list could be... maybe not unlimited, but very very big. But if they did that, they couldn't directly nickel and dime you to use it. So instead, not only do you have to pay out the wazoo for something with zero marginal cost to them, but even if you decided to pay the absolute maximum, you would have access to a library comprising a grand total of... 24 builds. Twenty. Four. Across 9 professions. Slightly less than three builds per profession. That's a joke for a free version of the feature, much less the be all and end all of paid versions. And it's all because they had to justify improving their game to some bean counter, in all likelihood.

> @"Ashantara.8731" said:

> > @"Magnus Godrik.5841" said:

> > I think 1000 gems would be a fair price as well.

>

> For one slot?? No way. 400g per tab, like bag slots, would be a "fair price".

They could have dodged the issue altogether if they implemented a "equipment set bag" as a special form of bag that has no inventory slots, but adds a gear tab. Sell them in game at a reasonable price (something like 30g).

See, nothing being put in the cash shop at all. Of course, if you don' t want to sacrifice 20+ general purpose inventory slots for 19 quick-swap inventory slots, then you'll need buy some bag slots. But paying for bag slots is nothing new, so why complain now?

If it was up to me, I would have implemented it like this:

Build library: A free client-side list with a monetized cloud backup. Up to 1000 client-side builds technically supported. First 40 are synced to the cloud gratis (for paid accounts, natch), and you can sync more by paying for a storage expander in chunks of 40, 1000 gems for each expander.

Build tabs: All characters get 4 for free. You can purchase more in groups of 4, up to 20, as an _account upgrade_, like extra craft licenses. 400 per chunk.

Gear sets: As per above, technically not directly monetized at all. 30g each.

> @"Magolith.9412" said:

> > @"vyncius.6105" said:

> > I dont really get it what are you asking, I thought ive explained that you can use same item on multiple templates without messing your templates, you will be able to experiment as much as you want.

>

> What I mean is, if all my equipment template slots are taken by my actual build setups, how can I mess with stats or other weapons without screwing up my existing templates?

The same way you mess with weapons and stats without screwing your current one equipment template, i.e., you can't.

Maybe the issue is calling it a "template"? It's not something you can save and share like build templates, it's just an equipment set, kind of like weapon swapping, except it works better with sharing equipment between sets. You have one right now, you will get a second one free, and you can buy 4 more on a character by character basis.

> @"Obtena.7952" said:

> > @"MetalGirl.2370" said:

> > What are you thanking them for ? Thank you for not milking me and actually doing your job like you promised back in 2012?

>

> Hold on ... what makes you think that even if this feature was released in 2012, you wouldn't be charged for it? What you are saying doesn't make sense. the timing has NOTHING to do on whether Anet is going to monetize a feature or not.

Because for all that Arenanet's volunteer shills say otherwise, GW1 and GW2 were pretty similar in monetization on launch (character slots, bag slots, bank slots, charging per expansion/campaign, optional paid cosmetics), and while they've shifted to more cash shop and less content drops, the overall monetization ethos still mostly holds. Build templates is a deviation from the norm for Arenanet (worse, it's a feature that's deliberately crippled so it can be more easily monetized), and that doesn't bode well for the future of the game.

They didn't release templates in 2012 because you couldn't freely swap traits in 2012, whereas you could freely swap attributes in GW1 by the time templates were released. But that distinction hasn't been relevant for a while now. Yes, build templates would be more useful when linked to a gear swapping feature, and giving inventory slots was always going to be monetized. But monetizing a list of chatcodes that could just as easily be stored client side in unlimited quantities is just charging people because you can -- and even if you paid all the monies, you'd still have less functionality than you originally could have had through tolerated 3rd party tools.

> @"Ashantara.8731" said:

> > @"vyncius.6105" said:

> > > @"Trise.2865" said:

> > > They are. https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/discussion/89031/only-24-builds-account-wide

> >

> > he is talking about equipment templates and you showing him build templates (traits and utilitys)

>

> You must admit that the whole thing is a bit confusing. Some upgrades will be character bound while others will be account-wide.

>

> So, to clarify this: Build template storage will be account-wide while the max number of build tabs and equipment tabs will be character-specific and must be expanded via Gem Store _per char_?

As I understand it, you will get a list of 3-6 strings of text for your account (depending on whether you get the free ones), which you can pay to expand to up to 24 strings of text. You can copy/paste from that list to a character-specific list of 3 strings of text, and you can pay on a character by character basis to expand that to 6 strings of text.

Or you can open notepad in a separate window and get infinity strings of text for your account, to be assigned to your characters as you please, for free. Until they ban everyone running GW2 on Windows for violating TOS.

> @"Knighthonor.4061" said:

> Also what people are not considering, is that Build Templates are pretty much free bag space now. Can put set of get in there and wont take space in inventory now. thats Huge

No, build templates are separate from equipment templates. Build templates are just lists of skills and traits; they're purely a UI shorthand. Equipment templates are actually an entire separate set of equipment slots, but set up so the same item can exist in multiple tabs, or something like that.

Not everyone who is complaining about Arenanet's approach on build templates is opposed to what they are doing with equipment templates.

> @"Ashantara.8731" said:

> I just watched the stream and am baffled. The maximum number for builds account wide is 24???

>

> When I have 12 characters, that leaves me with only one PvE build and 1 WvW build, no PvP build whatsoever and no further PvE builds. That can't be right?

>

> That completely annihilates the purpose of build template storage. (And I am not even mentioning that 85% of those will have to be purchased as additional slots via Gem Store.)

>

> How is this acceptable? 24 slots max? No way!

I mean... they're charging you for a list of chatcodes, making you pay piecemeal for something that can be stored client-side in untold quantities at no marginal cost to Arenanet. The whole thing is a ridiculous joke.

It's not like they can't do smart marketing -- Ascended cooking was a sneaky way to make garden plots more valuable, but it was framed in a way that they were giving, rather than taking. Portal tomes are a cheap, non-cash-shop convenience, but they shine the most in a shared inventory slot. They definitely could have figured out how to use client-side build templates as a way to better sell the paid equipment templates. But they didn't, and they've created something more limited and inconvenient than what a lot of people had already gotten used to having.

> @"Swagger.1459" said:

> > @"solemn.9608" said:

> > > @"Swagger.1459" said:

> > > > @"solemn.9608" said:

> > > > > @"Swagger.1459" said:

> > > > > Yeah, unfortunately feeling entitled to getting everything for free is a thing.

> > > > Imagine you are building a house on some acreage. Your best bud lends you a few power tools.

> > > > It takes two years, for the sake of the argument.

> > > > All of a sudden, right as you are about to finish building the house, your boss shows up on your property and says "nope, these power tools are mine now, and you will be paying me a fee for every power tool you have exceeding the quantity of 3".

> > > >

> > > > So ... are you a yes man? Or not

> > >

> > > That’s a horrible analogy and doesn’t even fit.

> > >

> > > We get 3 free, buy more if ya need more. And what do you think the devs put food on the table by volunteering at Anet?

> > >

> > > Seriously, shame on anyone who thinks they are entitled to be handed every little thing for free. Y’all get 3 free, so be grateful for that...

> >

> > Easiest way to make a counter argument against a great analogy - say it's a bad analogy.

> > That's a horrible argument and doesn't even fit.

>

> Anet didn’t take anything away. They added build templates and gave 3 free. Can you comprehend that? Now compare it to your analogy...

Every character already had three build templates, and that isn't rain on your leg.

> @"RoseofGilead.8907" said:

> > @"ProverbsofHell.2307" said:

> > Except it wasn’t obscure, it was incredibly popular and almost everyone I meet in game uses it. People like you are a minority. Good that your ignorance is now paying off, but the majority isn’t happy about this.

> >

>

> I definitely wouldn't call it obscure, but I very strongly doubt that the majority of players use the build templates from ArcDPS. I'm sure the majority of the hardcore fractals/wvw/pvp players do use it, but the majority of players in the game wouldn't be in those hardcore groups.

But a lot of the people who aren't using ArcDPS for templates are doing in part because _templates aren't that critical for them_. IOW, they're the people least interested in buying them anyway. The people most likely to feel exploited and angry is the very same set of people they are trying to convince to part with money.

> @"Tukaram.8256" said:

> On this thread it is said we are getting a few for free (I have seen nothing official, personally), then there will be more for purchase, if you want more. I see nothing wrong with a small paywall, since we get some free first. Otherwise the entire system would be locked behind an expansion paywall... You play this game for 7 years for free. There have only been 2 expansions to buy... and people complain there is not enough free? Grow up folks... :)

If anything, I think it would cause less complaining if build templates were paywalled behind a one-off account upgrade that gave, like, 500 general slots and thirty saved slots per character.

Wasn't surprised that gear templates are going to be paid per-character-per-template, of course, because they're the equivalent of a 19-slot bag with both more and less functionality.

> @"yoni.7015" said:

> You are still spreading lies. We will get some templates for free. Only if you want to have more you have to pay. And I mean you are telling us you have a car and a house, I am sure you will manage paying a little money for a game. So that other people maybe will get a house and a car.

That's half true, at best (for build templates, which is the chief source of complaint). You currently effectively have three builds in game, one each for PvE, PvP, and WvW. After build templates go live, you will still have three build templates, but they will be general purpose. If you actually used a separate build for each mode, you didn't gain anything, really.

> @"yoni.7015" said:

> > @"susana.7814" said:

> > > @"yoni.7015" said:

> > > Some people just have to get offended and cry about it. Even when it is about people getting paid for their work.

> >

> > They already get paid for their work. this isn't going to give devs extra pay, this is 100% going to the money grubbing people at the top.

>

> Oh no a Company wants to make profit. How dare they. Time to wake up from your dreamworld. We don’t live in communism.

>

>

No, we don't. That means customers have the right to close their wallets to businesses for any reason they like, including feeling revolted at their business practices. The thing about casual games like GW2 is, it's pretty easy to just walk away for a while and not bother with it.

> @"yoni.7015" said:

> > @"Astralporing.1957" said:

> > > @"Randulf.7614" said:

> > > In every suggestion thread for 7 years, players expected and even requested it to be monetised by selling slots.

> > Did they? I definitely didn't suggest anything like that. In fact, 7 years ago i would have been absolutely horrified and surprised by the whole idea. And the only thing that have changed in 7 years is that i am no longer as surprised as i would have been then.

> > Guess my belief in Anet was slowly dying bit by bit all over the years every time they have pushed the envelope even further and tested what the community can still stomach.

>

> You are surprised that they want to make money so that they can pay their employees? Do you work for free? Some people here seem to live in a Dreamworld where everything is free and no one has to pay for anything.

I like living in a world where not literally everything a business does that costs them money is monetized somehow. It's nice to know that when I go to a restaurant I can, e.g., stop in the restroom without worrying about whether I brought forty cents for the stall lock, twenty-five cents for the metered water dispenser, fifteen cents for the soap dispenser, and a nickel for the paper towel dispenser. I'm still perfectly happy to pay much larger amounts per item for the meal.

Sometimes companies realize that the little things need to be free so that they can keep selling the big ones. Making people pay to keep a list of chatcodes just feels scummy -- how long until they decide that playing the game with notepad open is a breach of ToS because people would rather do that than pay 10 bucks to keep an extra code or two ingame?

Edit: It's especially annoying to keep hearing players be accused of greed when the most common demand you see on the forms is, effectively, "when are we going to be able to pay $60 for a chunk of content rather than getting dribbles for free?"

> @"Dami.5046" said:

> I don't think they are being greedy, I think the players are.

> You ASKED for it, If you think about the man hours and development and just how much free stuff we get given and you complain about a charge on a QOL item?

> We have to pay for bank we have to pay for more inventory. You get given some slots and if you want more then fine, you need to pay.

> Spare me the 'I'm not going to play anymore' BS - If you don't want to support the game anymore you're either not playing anyway or not a worry.

I mean, imagine you had been complaining about needing a car for a while. Then, eventually, your parents bought you a used car to help you out. Several years later, the city says "Hey, we heard you say needed a car. Good news, we are now providing car rentals to everyone in town. First half-hour each day is free, after that you need to pay. Oh, also, we towed your car and scrapped it, so you have no choice but to use this system."

And then people say "Hey, look, they deserve to get paid for buying that fleet of rental cars. And you were whining that you wanted a car, so why are you mad?" For a lot of people out there, Arenanet isn't giving them much of anything (other than some inventory slots, granted) -- they're taking something away and then nickel and diming them to get it back. Of course it's going to piss them off, it's a net loss either way: they don't pay and lose functionality, or they do and lose money while being right back where they started. It's not greedy to charge for giving people something they need. It's absolutely greedy to charge people for something they only need because you took away what they had, which you did no work on and no moral right to.

Arenanet should have never considered charging for anything other than the inventory slots. Their own official build template system could have just been a loss leader to enhance the value of gear templates.

> @"Eekasqueak.7850" said:

> Yeah Ascalon also was the only region without living world maps until now.

I don't think Maguuma Jungle has one yet (if you mean mechanically, since Heart of Maguuma and Maguuma Wastes are their own thing). I only say this because portals factor into my vista/node daily plans, and I was quite happy to finally get one for Ascalon.

> @"ugrakarma.9416" said:

> About Schopenhauer, theres elements of "misoginy" in him, (but im not bashing the philosopher cuz its a long history), the origin of desire is life, so the woman by perpetuating the life, they perpetuate the suffering(according to the Budhism influence), It is something that would clash with Dwayna the goddess that perpetuates life, its can feed a narrative about a hipotetical "anti-Dwayna" villain.

And of course, Kralkatorrik ended up being the one whose line was propagated, through daughters and granddaughters, in a way most directly analogous to mortal reproduction. Another happy accident? Of course, neither purified Glint nor Aurene suffered from his Torment (yet, that we know of) -- but that could always just be taken as philosophical repudiation of his (Schopenhauer's, not Kralkatorrik's) misogyny.

Insofar as the gear templates actually store the gear, and constitute free inventory slots, basically, there's no way they were ever going to be free and I'm fine with it.

And I would even be fine with a little paid convenience of storing build templates with the account, in the cloud, in a way that survives moving from computer to computer or reinstalling or whatever -- but only as a supplement to a very generous free client-side storage for build templates. I mean, they're chatcodes. You can paste them from build sites or a text file or whatever. Limiting them so strictly and charging, when there's no technological reason they can't be practically unlimited in number, just feels like holding people upside-down and shaking the pennies out. It feels sleazy, which is sad since it's something people were looking forward to.

"Also they will continue to do things seperately after marriage, which means there could be more inequality between them. Braham was raised by his father specifically because his mother left to grow her legend, which he supported - even insisting no one should tell her when he was dying so she wasn't tempted to come home."

I wonder to what extent this is actually Norn culture as it always was, and to what extent this is Norn culture being negatively impacted by the loss of Owl, who seemed to have some role in family stuff.

Theory: The Elder Dragons are meditations on different philosophies of (or about, or opposed to) nihilism, as identified by their secondary domains. Not a philosophy major, so if anyone knows better than me, please jump in and correct me. Also, I haven’t spent more than an hour or so thinking about it, so maybe I’m way off base with some of this.

*Zhaitan* - Nietzsche, not surprising that the person people immediately think of when they hear “Nihilism” also gets first crack at the story. Even the name is basically a mashup of Nietzsche and Shaitan. "Shadow" is a deep spiritual darkness that stands in opposition to the blinding light of the Six (and is distinct from the mere absence of that light in fallen gods), and it's no surprise that the Dragon sits on the city of the gods and proclaims “the gods are dead” -- in fact, it’s indicative of authorial intent. Zhaitan represents an assault on higher meaning, in favor of an endless, empty life of mere flesh and blood and endlessly repeated routine (witness the eternal recurrence of the Risen continuing to work as they did in life, without purpose).

*Mordremoth* - My best guess is Kierkegaard, or rather it represents a sort of anti-existentialism? It’s not exactly solipsistic, but thematically there is a rejection of the distinction between self and others (which works for Mordremoth since the Sylvari minds, both Dream and Nightmare, are all part of the same gestalt as its own mind, and similarly it views its body as the entirety of the jungle it controls and corrupts), and as far as the Mordrem are concerned, there is a suppression of authentic individuality into perfect sameness. The dragon fails to properly conceive of itself as a particular embodied individual consciousness in a separate world populated by more of same. I’m not super sure about this one, but this sort of intuitively works for me.

*Kralkatorrik* - Buddhism (or Schopenhauer if we’re sticking with Western philosophy) make the connection between desire and suffering which is very much wrapped up in Kralkatorrik’s Fury -- his unbridled will to consume which directly causes his suffering.

*Jormag* - Heidegger. This Dragon addresses the political side of the discussion -- it corrupts via the Will to Power. Here is a picture of [bangar](http://www.catsthatlooklikehitler.com/cgi-bin/seigboardbest.pl?4319:1).

*Primordus* - Kelvin (he's a natural philosopher). Think about it.

*Sclerybda, or Selbbub, or whatever* - No idea, obviously. We can never know. Oh, well, there you go. I like the vaguely Lovecraftian notion people have suggested of a dragon that literally corrupts knowledge and memory, even remotely, through poorly understood means. The dragon of bitrot, the monster in the realm of Forms. It’s sort of a really aggressive take on epistemological nihilism that goes beyond philosophy into applied information theory -- the deliberate erasure of knowledge and meaning to create absolute uncertainty.

> @"Konig Des Todes.2086" said:

> That was pretty much what ArenaNet tried to do with Scarlet. Uniting a bunch of evil factions and (unintentionally) fighting for the Elder Dragons. So I hope not.

Maybe they'll prove that Scarlet could have conceptually worked, with better writing? Anyway, I don't think Bangar is going to smoosh together random factions to make fancy glowy versions. I don't think he has much leeway to bring non-Charr under his banner, excluding the Sons of Svanir (because Jormag) and maybe the Centaurs (because screw humans, and also because trailer). Ogres are no friend to Charr, skritt are comic relief and are also literal mice. Kodan and Quaggan aren't making nice with any friends of Jormag. Grawl Jormag-worshippers, maybe.

Depends on what you mean by Pact. It seems pretty obvious that he will be working with the Norn. However, it will be hard to exploit the whole Charr supremacy angle (by Bangar or the writers, take your pick) if it's a union of different races. Bangar is more focused on unifying the Charr internally, anyway. Charr respect Norn, for whatever reason, more than mice, rats, and talking shrubs. Though you could find the same weird incongruity in historical alliances between real world... uh, racist/nationalist political movements that will just get turned into "kitten"s, probably.

Of course, Jormag is the real brains here, just like Mordremoth was with Scarlet. Jormag might well find that Charr and Norn are not sufficient, and court malcontents and revolutionaries among all the races.

I do think they are intentionally creating parallels between the Bangar/Jormag relationship and the PC/Aurene relationship, which does mean that, as an antagonist, Bangar would be the mirror of the PC (and people have definitely requested that sort of antagonist, even here on the forums). I think it also means that, as much as Bangar wants to have "his own dragon", Jormag also wants its own "Pact Commander". Of course, neither Jormag nor Bangar actually understand the relationship between the PC and Aurene; the traits that make them evil characters (in particular, thinking of others/relationships as tools to use) also blind them to the way good characters think and feel, which will likely cause their downfalls (Bangar in particular).

> @"RyuDragnier.9476" said:

> Reading this, it makes it seem like Charr society is a jab at toxic masculinity and the older American mindsets. You aren't allowed to show emotion, you aren't allowed to cry, real men don't cry. Empathy and kindness are for weaklings. Born weak, are constantly sick, or old? Too bad, if you can't take care of yourself you're better off dead. We're better than you because of how we look. Etc etc. Basically outdated notions that cause harm in the long run.

It seems a little... not narcissistic, but something similar... to assume that any and all social commentary must be regarding a particular modern society. If the names and terms they use weren't enough of a clue, they borrow a lot from the Romans and Spartans in many respects, including their ethos.

> @"Kalifax.3046" said:

> I'm still kinda new to the game, so I was hoping to find out that all the prefixes are viable. If most of them go unused, why aren't Arenanet buffing them?

It's mostly due to the fact that some roles are governed by multiple attributes (e.g., direct damage is based on power, precision, and ferocity, while condition damage is governed by both condition damage and expertise), while other critical mechanics are not really tied to attributes at all (hard CC, active defense).

GW1 worked better in a couple of ways -- one, you mostly allocated stats as desired, and gear was just a bonus on top of that (and every gear bonus over +1 came at the cost of health, so it was only really desirable if you genuinely needed the boost). Two, each skill was tied to an attribute, so the usefulness of an attribute was directly related to the usefulness of the associated skills.

> @"Konig Des Todes.2086" said:

> Blood Keep was said, in Guild Chat 91, to have been built as a gateway into the Shiverpeaks. I don't think it's meant to be the Blood capital or headquarters, just a major fortress that guards the northern Shiverpeaks pass.

The imperator has an office there, though, just like Black Citadel.