Feedback talk:Joe Kimmes/Archive November 2009

out of idle curiosity

If I had the source for GW, how hard would it be for me to make a lightweight CLI client to move between towns (but not actually move the character model), talk in and receive chat messages on any channels I felt like and potentially interact with the friends list? Just out of curiosity. My friends are bums and drag me onto the game when I don't have enough RAM for my virtual box as it is.  :/ Obviously, it wouldn't render the graphics or anything. I've tried setting it to wireframe mode (I think?... I don't even remember which games I'm modding anymore tbh), but it didn't save anywhere near enough memory. I'm thinking something like a modified irssi with settings and commands specific to GW. –Jette 07:36, 3 November 2009 (UTC)

If you had the source it'd be easy. As it stands you'll have to take some blind stabs at packet content and interaction (until you reverse engineer the... "GW Protocol") and probably still load the character BLOB just to get some functionality similar to what you want. From scratch you may be looking at nearly impossible. Your better route of attack may be to do some assembly level coding to just ignore/delete/trick all the graphics aspects of the game to magically not load but think it's working correctly. (Essentially, a function *should* load all textures and report success, just strip everything out, replace with no op, report success anyways.) 68.32.65.101 09:30, 3 November 2009 (UTC)

I would do that, except ANet doesn't like you screwing around with their stuff. That would be fine if I could do this anonymously since I like to stick it to "the man" (whomsoever he may be) anyway, but the whole "account blox" thing makes that a bit, uh, impractical. I was just wondering, mainly. I don't see why friends with 64GB of RAM think it's better for poor 3.25GB me to have to keep GW open (using an archaic 8600GT, ffs) so that they can close pidgin to "preserve memory." It makes me froth at the mouth. –Jette 09:40, 3 November 2009 (UTC)

OK, first - you know very well that you won't get the source code. Hypothetical situations are fine, if there's at least a slight chance of them occurring, and not zero. Second, do I understand correctly, and you're using GW as a... chat? Whoever wants to do that is an idiot. Just install an IM program. I personally recommend Xfire. It has an in-game overlay, so those that want to chat from the game can do that in the game. Finally, that card it still pretty good (unless you want to run 16xAA or something). — Poki#3 (talk) 11:23, 3 November 2009 (UTC)

At 1920x1080, a broken fan, no case and using multiple virtual machines with graphical environments? Yeah, okay, lemme fire that bad boy up. And yes, I'm using GW as a chat because my friends are a waste of space. –Jette 11:27, 3 November 2009 (UTC)

GW (and most games) runs horribly in VM. Just don't do it. Wine works fine. - Tanetris 11:34, 3 November 2009 (UTC)

I have a windows 7 partition just for GW, and some other bad vidyas that I download but never get around to playing. –Jette 11:59, 3 November 2009 (UTC)

Storybooks

Could you clarify what Linsey stated a few months ago about the time limit to have NPCs fill in missing pages of a storybook, so I can update the Notes sections of the Storybook articles; quote: >Just spoke with Joe about this and here is what I have found out. If you do not do ANY mission in that campaign for a month, it will reset. So if you go do Arborstone without your book and then not play for 2 months, you won't be able to fill that page retroactively. If you did Arborstone without your book and then did Unwaking Waters 3 weeks later, you should be fine for another month. Basically, it would behoove you to get those pages filled as soon as possible after doing the mission just to be on the safe side. Does that mean you won't be able to fill a page retroactively if you don't "complete" any mission in that campaign for a month or if you don't "enter" any mission in that campaign for a month (since you might enter a mission, but not complete it)? Also, how does the time limit work for the Young Heroes of Tyria, since that storybook covers missions from 3 campaigns? --Silver Edge 02:03, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

The whole resetting thing with books is more of a server space/code decision than a design one. Basically, the expiration is triggered if you don't do anything involving the retroactive pages of a given book for a month. So for the Young Heroes book, doing any mission the book covers would reset the expiration, but wouldn't affect any other books. By 'doing a mission' I mean completing it, as only completion involves the book data. Is that a better explanation? - Joe Kimmes 17:35, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

So basically, they are worthless? Many have the assumption that they can actually keep the books for a reason. Ɲoɕʈɋɽɕɧ 17:47, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

No, they're not worthless... This is about when you can buy the book *after* you do the mission and have it filled in by the NPC. What are you talking about? -- FreedomBound 17:57, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

Yes, thanks for the explanation. --Silver Edge 02:02, 7 November 2009 (UTC)

One more question, when you say "a month", do you mean you won't be able to fill a page retroactively if you don't complete a mission for a given book "in around 30 days" or "by the beginning of each month"? --Silver Edge 02:56, 7 November 2009 (UTC)

30 days, starting from when you last completed a mission. - Joe Kimmes 17:02, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for the answers. --Silver Edge 00:04, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

Joe, we have a problem with Story books on here. Would you clarify that doing any mission on Young Tyria wouldn't affect the other books and other missions on those books, that these missions in that book aren't in those and that the Notes are indeed correct as written here "If you do not have a book in your inventory when completing a mission, you can still receive credit if you visit the associated NPC within 30 days of completing a mission within the same campaign."? Please? Much appreciated. -- riyen ♥ 05:38, 15 November 2009 (UTC)

Maybe you should have mentioned the other version too, instead of only yours... "If you do not have a storybook in your inventory when completing a mission, you can still receive credit if you visit the associated NPC within 30 days of completing one of the missions listed in that book." (emphasis added) from Storybook page. ~Celestia 06:06, 15 November 2009 (UTC)

Well, yes. In This edition, Which quote fits to what the storybooks are about? We need someone to settle the disbute . Someone, being you, with the Knowledge of the story books. Thanks. -- riyen ♥ 06:08, 15 November 2009 (UTC)

Joe, I'm assuming based on your previous answer in this section, that completing The Great Northern Wall will reset Young Heroes of Tyria, because that mission is listed in that book; however, completing The Great Northern Wall won't reset The Flameseeker Prophecies, even though it is a Prophecies mission. Is my assumption correct? --Silver Edge 06:16, 15 November 2009 (UTC)

Despite that The Great Northern Wall is not in The Flameseeker Prophecies. Can you clear up this 'miss understanding'? -- riyen ♥ 06:19, 15 November 2009 (UTC)

Does this mean that you need to complete a normal mode mission to reset the timer for a normal mode book and a hard mode mission to reset the timer for a hard mode book? Also, if you complete a mission with a book in your inventory and completing that mission causes a page to be filled out, will the timer be reset, or is the timer only reset when there aren't any book pages to fill out? -- Gordon Ecker (talk) 23:57, 15 November 2009 (UTC)

Each mission set has a separate timer - so, The Great Northern Wall would not reset the The Flameseeker Prophecies timer. However, the timer is shared between normal and hard mode books of the same set. - Joe Kimmes 19:30, 20 November 2009 (UTC)

Thank you! :-) -- riyen ♥ 04:15, 21 November 2009 (UTC)

I would like to ask another question on this topic... Is the timer character or account based? If I do The Great Northern Wall on one character, will it reset the timer for the Young Heroes of Tyria book on just that character or for all characters on the account? --MushaTalk 02:43, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

Character based. - Joe Kimmes 19:08, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

Thank you for answering that for me Joe! And I hope you're not annoyed by continued questioning on this same topic, but I noticed that once my character reached level 8 Sunspear Rank, I could no longer purchase pages on a normal mode Night Falls storybook for missions I completed when the storybook was not in my inventory. Is this intentional or a bug? I know that I won't be able to turn it in to the Sunspear Signalman for a reward, but I should still be able to turn it into the Lightbringer Scriviner as long as I'm under rank 5 Lightbringer, right? Why then will they not fill in my pages? --MushaTalk 01:47, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

Did you try to fill it from the Sunspear guy or the LB guy? Also, if it's been too long since you did the mission, you can't pay to fill the page for it. Rose Of Kali 01:52, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

Yeah, I understand the time frame. I did the mission yesterday, so the time is irrelevant in this case. I tried the sunspear guy, not the LB guy. So, now that you mention that, I wonder if the LB guy will give it to me while the sunspear guy won't. Is this the case? --MushaTalk 01:59, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

It would make sense for the SS to not fill in the page, since he can't do anything with it once it is filled in. Only one way to check to see if the LB guy can help... -- FreedomBound 02:03, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

Yes, talk to the LB guy. Can you imagine the flame wars if these guys took your money and refused to accept the books? :P Rose Of Kali 02:54, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

Ok, problem solved. I talked to the LB guy, and he filled in my page, it was because I was over rank 8 SS that he wouldn't fill in the same page. --MushaTalk 05:53, 14 December 2009 (UTC)

Harmless Bashers

Hello, I know that the last note about warrior AI updates targeted especially Hammer Bash (presumably because it showed up on the PvP henchman Thumper bar). However, this rendered many PvE foes using hammer bash quite harmless. For example the Mokele group around Riktund the Vicious now almost never uses Hammer Bash anymore. Ɲoɕʈɋɽɕɧ 19:23, 12 November 2009 (UTC)

Interesting, thank you for pointing this out. - Joe Kimmes 23:18, 13 November 2009 (UTC)

yo dude

If you have some spare time, would it be a gigantic pain to create a utility to display prices of crafting materials, runes, dyes, etc. in the wiki that updates every whatever period of time you think is best? A lot of people (in my experience) seem to think the prices of items are listed on the wiki, when they're not. Ideally, it'd update automatically or something, rather than a bot that causes a billion edit conflicts and floods RC. If it's too much trouble, don't worry about it. I could ask Emily if you think this would be better directed to her, but since it deals with the game, I thought you'd be the right person to ask. –Jette 14:00, 25 November 2009 (UTC)

This is outside of my domain, unfortunately; the various traders are handled by specialized server code, since they work across all game instances, so having them send reports to the wiki isn't something I could handle. Emily could possibly ask the server team for a change to facilitate this, but my gut feeling is that it would be a pretty difficult thing for them to set up. - Joe Kimmes 19:16, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

Oh, alright, thanks anyway. Emily's probably got enough of a headache with setting up the GW2 website anyway (assuming she is), so I'll leave it be. I might put a suggestion to optimize the system to allow that on the GW2 wiki though, if I can remember to... –Jette 20:15, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

There's also the matter of dynamic content in a wiki. Even DPLs generally get cached, and those are supposed to be, well, dynamic. I'm not sure it'd be possible without flooding RC quite horribly. ··· Danny Pew Pew 21:23, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

Try sum javascriptz. –Jette 22:32, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

That would require some interesting scripting, but I guess it's plausible. The only issue is they'd have to be static pages which I'm not entirely sure would work with a wiki. ··· Danny Pew Pew 22:36, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

ingame links

hey i found out that the quests you have and the skills you use or enemies use against you have links in the game to the guild wars wiki can you make it pissible that weapons you pick up also get a link in the game to a page here? i think that could be really awesome :O 127.0.0.1 14:01, 27 November 2009 (UTC)

I suspect that there are UI reasons this wasn't added in the first place, but I can take a look when I have free time. - Joe Kimmes 19:18, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

Wow! You have free time? Don't say that out loud... Terryn Deathward 23:18, 4 December 2009 (UTC)