User talk:Linsey Murdock/Questions16

O RLY?

was there rly a plan to have an Owl Blessing in EoTN? if so, why was it removed/scrapped? --Cursed Angel 20:41, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

The raven was originally an owl, but we didn't have an animation rig that could support an owl since they are pretty different from your average bird and it would be really hard to fudge it on the Phoenix or Moa rig. In the end, we didn't have enough time to build a whole new rig for this, especially since it wouldn't be the kind of thing we could reuse as another monster or pet (other than maybe different colored owls). Animation rigs/sets are not easy or fast to produce so we decided to go with a raven which was more easily fitted to an existing rig. - Linsey talk 20:51, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

I would dare say the raven fits better anyhow, seeing as how Norns are from Norse mythology and all. Odin has two pet ravens. -thejynxed- 18:33, 5 April 2009 (UTC)

extremly quick question

Hey Linsey, quick question, but is the monthly update today or is it next Thursday, due to the first Thursday of the month this month being SO early in the month? EDIT: also I just realized I used the word "month" there way too much. -- Salome 21:10, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

I can't remember where i saw it (it's probably one of Linsey's Archives), but there's nothing to say it has to be a Thursday. ~PheNaxKian Talk 22:11, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

found it ~PheNaxKian Talk 22:15, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

That's content updates, he's asking if the maintence update is coming out the 1st or 2nd thursday of this month, because they do come out on Thursdays, like Linsey mentioned in the link you posted. DarkNecrid 22:17, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

As dark said, but thanks for your trying to help PheNax, but yeh the monthly maintenance update (E.g. the tonic changing and TRP's being awarded) is normally every first thursday, however if the first thursday falls with the first couple of days of the month, sometimes they put the update off to the following thursday. -- Salome 23:12, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

Next week assuming nothing blows up. - Linsey talk 00:53, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

Thanks Linsey, I'll tell my guildies, as its nearly 2am here and they were staying up for the update. I can tell them to go get some sleep, the bunch of gw junkies that we are. ;) thanks again for the info, it's much appreciated. Night night Linsey. *snuggles into bed* -- Salome 00:58, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

Tolkano and Eye of the North skins

For about 4-5 days in December 2008 Tolkano had EotN skins available for pvp reward purchase. Then it was taken out for some reason. Maybe it was because of the Arced Blade (infamous penis sword) or maybe it was said those skins weren't functional or something. Well, I'm just wondering if the EotN skins will be available on Tolkano again. I am sort of hoping it'll be bunched in with the April anniversary update. If not, any approximate timeframe or reason why it won't be returned to Tolkano? Xerum 17:12, 10 April 2009 (UTC)

The WHAT blade? O_o Rose Of Kali 18:23, 10 April 2009 (UTC)

The Penis Sword. --Arduinna 18:28, 10 April 2009 (UTC)

Is that real...or texmodded?--*Yasmin Parvaneh* 20:33, 10 April 2009 (UTC)

I wouldn't be the least bit surprised if it's real. Even Teen rated games suffer from the artistic phenomenon known "Phallic Manifestation" --ilr 21:23, 10 April 2009 (UTC)

It's real and it's awesome. --AnorithTalk 21:27, 10 April 2009 (UTC)

The EotN skins being in there was real. Also forgot to add in the Bonus Mission Pack skins were in there too for the same limited amount of time. I wasn't able to purchase anything from Tolkano before it got removed, but the day before that I was browsing through the lists before I went to sleep. Jotted things I wanted to maybe purchase to check out the skin, like the silver cane and huntsman's horn. He also had the Rose focus and various other dungeon chest skins. Xerum 21:39, 10 April 2009 (UTC)

The reason they are still not officially released is because there is still a pretty big bug on some of the headpieces. Once we get that worked out, we can hopefully release them. - Linsey talk 21:43, 10 April 2009 (UTC)

Ok, thanks for the quick response. Seems like there's only a tiny, tiny crowd wondering but no one's asked and that thread bump prompted me to post and ask. Xerum 22:02, 10 April 2009 (UTC)

maybe a change to the rp system for armors should come along with that update/bugfix because as it is right now the price at witch you get elite armors and weapon skins isnt equal to pve and someone could make more money useing there reward points for zkeys and selling them and then buying the exact same armor sets and weapons. one way this could be helped is if pvp toons then were able to unlock stuff once they got it via rp (for armors it would be profession based [ie unlocking the elite luxon warrior armor, you wouldn't then be able to reroll a pvp toon like an ele and get elite luxon armor for it you would still have to unlock it i think this is how it should work with pve sets as well just like how skills work right now...]) 75.165.115.205 22:16, 10 April 2009 (UTC)

PvE's Cheaper? Are you sure? Wouldn't that hinge on the Materials too? --ilr 21:11, 11 April 2009 (UTC)

Storage

Wondering.. why would someone buy a Xunlai storage pane when they could buy a character slot, which could hold more items, for the same price? -- Brains12 \ talk 23:08, 10 April 2009 (UTC)

Also: Do I understand it correctly, that you are able to get a total of 9 Xunlai slots (+ materials of course) using the free one-time option you will announce later? poke | talk 23:10, 10 April 2009 (UTC)

And: How do you plan to solve the F5-F9 hotkeys for the inventory slots with a 5th slot? Wouldn't it be easier to make some "Superior Runes of Holding" instead? - It's probably to late to suggest this, heh :P poke | talk 23:16, 10 April 2009 (UTC)

Convenience. Transferring items between characters... it gets real old, real fast. =/ Raine - talk 23:20, 10 April 2009 (UTC)

You pay for the convenience of not having to transfer between characters. Yes that is a total of 9 tabs + material storage. For now, the Equipment Pack won't be on the F9 screen and you will need to drag your weapons and armor over the bag and drop it to place it in the pack. Yes I know that sucks, but that is the way it needs to work for now because of the minimum resolution. If we decide to increase bag sizes (which we would like to do at some point) we will need to increase the minimum resolution available. That is one of the reasons we went with the Equipment Pack right now instead. Another is that a pack which restricts what can be put in it does save on data storage quite a bit. Once we have released these things and assessed their effect on the servers we can evaluate the need or ability to offer more storage upgrades in the future. - Linsey talk 00:22, 11 April 2009 (UTC)

Errr... I'm not moaning as I think its great what you've done. However I think aiming the price to be the same as a char slot may be a mistake. A tab holds 20 items (or stacks of items) a character can hold 45, not to mention the fact that they can equip a weapon and offhand and one can do ALOT more with a new toon than they can do with a new storage tab. Again not complaining, it's just I understand the convenience factor of storage tabs, I just dont think it outweighs getting less than half the storage for the same price. A more reasonable price IMHO would be $5/£3 a tab, that way you pay half the price and you still sacrifice some storage that you would have had if you had of bought a charecter. -- Salome 00:40, 11 April 2009 (UTC)

why was there the thought that you cant buy the other "free slot"?75.165.115.205 00:41, 11 April 2009 (UTC)

It's a bit steep but i'll probably buy it on my accounts just so I don't have to cycle through character after character. Better than a kick to the nutz >.< 000.00.00.00 01:41, 11 April 2009 (UTC)

Yeah 10 bucks might be more than some are willing to pay, but I for one will still buy them (with my own money, yes I too support Guild Wars). I do not set the pricing on this stuff. I just design it. - Linsey talk 02:28, 11 April 2009 (UTC)

Where I am that is $20. I brought Guild Wars in the store for $40. Still, better than a kick to the nutz 000.00.00.00 06:58, 11 April 2009 (UTC)

also another question why no increase to the cap to the material storage?75.165.115.205 02:29, 11 April 2009 (UTC)

If I'm right the value of a stack (250), is the max amount of data that can be stored that way (has to do with the numeric values in the coding) --Ellisia 02:45, 11 April 2009 (UTC)

Correct, it's all about data storage and how much we can handle increasing how much data we need to store and keep back-ups for in case we ever need to do a roll-back - Linsey talk 03:34, 11 April 2009 (UTC)

What surprised me about the storage updates is that I don't see any specialized storage for the most standardized item types, like Minipets, Dyes or Tomes, things that I thought would take much less data to be stored and what I expected to see in this update. Now the Equipment bag exceeded my expectations, sounds fantastic, but I can't believe a slot that can hold any weapon or armor piece can really require significantly less data than a universal slot. Aren't weapons (and armors) the most data-intensive items out there? With tons of variables defining any weapon, lots of properties, multiple modifiers with one or more variable value, dye mix, character id for customized ones, and some properties that aren't clearly visible (like what it salvages to, or is it dyable)... it seems everything else should easily fit in that amount of data. So I wonder what I'm missing with my theories - are the new equipment bags really accepting ANY weapons including some very odd or old ones, no restrictions? I wouldn't believe in inefficient usage of data space in the universal slots (too open-ended design?), knowing how great the GW engine / network code is at minimizing server resources usage. So my pure guess - theres only 1 restriction: equipment can't be customized to another chatacter, this allows cutting char_id from data to be stored, also a couple bytes defining item type are omitted, this allows a small (20%tops) reduction of data per item slot but its was decided to be worth it. Where was I wrong?--Yawg 08:16, 11 April 2009 (UTC)

It's not because it wasn't mentioned now, that it couldn't still be comming our way ;). This was only a preview of things to come they said :D. --Ellisia 09:13, 11 April 2009 (UTC)

I am assuming this free pane is going to be some sort of buy X from the on-line store and receive a free pane. "Our upcoming promotion will be the ONLY way to get this special pane;" This same thing was said about the BMP. So is this really going to be the only way to get this, or will this be turned into the BMP spectacle with sketchy wording so Anet can come back later and say that's not what they actually meant. Assuming that this is going to be the only way to get it, I don't mind paying, but what I do mind is Anet coming back later and saying that the player base read too much into the wording, and make it available at a later date such as the BMP was. With that said, I would just like some clarification on the wording of this "limited-time offer" thing before I actually make a purchase (or however this promotion is going to happen). The BMP was a "limited-time offer" and was only available to those that took part in the promotion, but yet was made available at a later date. So I guess the real question would be, do I take part in this "limited-time offer" promotion, and rely on Anet to keep to their word of the ONLY way to get this?--BabyJ 15:51, 11 April 2009 (UTC)

I believe the promotion will not require you to spend any money, but I am unclear on that point. That's marketing's deal so I'm not working on it much.

Yawg: There is one restriction but I think they thought it was too confusing to include in the big announcements. You can only add weapons or armor customized to the character storing it. That is where we save on all the data. Customize data is some of the most expensive. We would like to do specialized tabs, but in this case, it was about time. If you hadn't noticed, we are sort of doing a lot for this build and the team is quite small. We are certainly not ruling it out for the future, but for now, this is what we are doing. - Linsey talk 18:46, 11 April 2009 (UTC)

Information about price comparison for storage tabs vs character slot.~>Sins WDB 20:04, 11 April 2009 (UTC)

	Character Slot	Storage Tab
Item Slots	45	20
Price	9.99	9.99
Slot/Dollar	4.5	2
Misc.	>2x Value	Less Inconvenient

I don't choose the pricing on this stuff, if you have comments to make on it, please send those to Regina and not me. Thanks :) - Linsey talk 21:20, 11 April 2009 (UTC)

I'm not sure I can trust Regina not to over react though, of course she is antagonized WAY more than lots of people can take. You on the other hand are very level headed.~>Sins WDB 21:23, 11 April 2009 (UTC)

So I was almost right with the restriction thing ;), just thought it will also accept uncustomized ones so it's only 1 bit of data difference (either uncustomized or customized to this character). Oh, and I hope my wall of text post above didn't sound like I'm disappointed about the specialized tabs missing, because I'm not at all. I just expected them instead of anything else as I thought they'd be easiest to do and a minipet storage would fit with the new 4th year collection which is coming in the same time.--Yawg 22:00, 11 April 2009 (UTC)

Oops, sorry, it does let you put UNcustomized weapons in there too since shields and focii don't get customized and most casters don't customize their weapons either. So it is uncustomized weapons, and weapons/armor customized by the char storing it. It's allowing weapons customized to multiple different people that is one of the biggest problems with general storage. So just cutting that out alone allowed us to do the Equipment Pack and it was actually Mike O'Brien who suggested the idea in one of our big meetings on storage. - Linsey talk 23:17, 11 April 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for the answer, very cool to hear all that. Now another thing that intrigues me about the equipment bags is what sees almost no discussion yet - the fact they come in different sizes. It seems it may be exactly what I secretly hoped for! (planned but didn't post suggestion anywhere) - using the storage update as a great rewarding tool for reviving underplayed content or even a economy regulator (like a sink for whats overabundant) instead of just giving it all for free right away on the update day. I hope getting to the bigger ones will be a process that will take some playtime, and that the very best possible one is somewhat rare and hard to get. There was no word yet on how we'll be able to get the new bags, I'm now guessing ZCoins traders is probably the main way to get them, but it may be not the only way. Can you reveal a bit of info about this aspect of the bags, or it's still being worked on and/or better to be kept secret till the update day?--Yawg 04:12, 12 April 2009 (UTC)

The Zaishen Menagerie

I got some ideas and dont forgets about the menagerie: Dont forget to include all the tameable pets to be unlockable in the menagerie. (for example dont forget the: Rainbow Phoenix,Black Bear(from presearing),Black Moa,Polar Bear,White Moa etc.) This will give us 37pets to be unlockable. And maybe let us unlock them as dire,elder or hearty. In this way we can unlock 111pets in our menagerie. And also put all the other animals of guildwars1 in this menagerie which are not unlockable. (example the Ox,Cat,Dog,Cock,Birds,Frogs,Moss Spider,Pig,Bees,Wurms,Mini Devourer,Rabbit,White Rabbit,Zunraa horse and maybe the Professor Yakkington in a cowshed and the other animals I forget.)So that it will be a complete zoo of all the animals in Guildwars. And maybe a other idea let us charm those not charmable pets in guildwars in this new menargie. Who doesnt want a cat as pet^^. And may last idea make new pets which we can unlock in the menagerie if we complete quests which are given to us by a farmer in the menagerie which for example needs some straw for the stable(three types) and if we find this straw which is hard to get in guildwars (for example you need to kill alot of lvl40 horses with overpowered monster skills at the cantha islands at the farmplace at the left corner of the cantha islands and then when you have killed them the farmer will give you the straw as a thankgift, owh dont forget to give them monster remove 15entch skills to rip SF assasins and 600hp monks^^) which unlocks one of the three types of Horses to the menagerie. Death Sligher 21:58, 13 April 2009 (UTC)

I have a feeling they won't forget to put any pets in the menagerie. :P --Mme. Donelle 22:07, 13 April 2009 (UTC)

hey linsey i was wondering if you can do the zaishen challenge quests more than one time each day

I'm sure anet knows what they're doing. Let me just say, if I found professor yakington (maybe even his master) at the zaishen menagerie, I would be FREAKING PUMPED. Underated Skill 02:12, 14 April 2009 (UTC)

Well I dont mean that he is tradeable there for collector items. I just mean his 'artwork' in a cowshed^^. Death Sligher

Death, Linsey has already stated how the menagerie will work and how the unlocks work, aside from that your other ideas lack an understanding of pet dynamics and how the game loads each individual area, in short your ideas are unfeasible. Don't get me wrong having a lvl 20 bunny would be ace! It's just never gonna happen though. -- Salome 06:39, 14 April 2009 (UTC)

I sure hope IWAY teams wont have 6 of these elephoenixes flying around. It should only be avail to r2 koabd pve nubs anyway, like me =) --adrin 06:42, 14 April 2009 (UTC)

Death Sligher, you seem to have miscounted. There's only 30, 31 or 32 tameable pet types: Albino Rat, Black Bear, Black Moa, Black Widow, Black Wolf, Crane, Crocodile, Dune Lizard, Flamingo, Hyena, Iguana, Jahai Rat, Jingle Bear, Lion, Lioness, Lurker (the red crab), Lynx, Melandru's Stalker, Moa Bird, Mountain Eagle, Phoenix, Polar Bear, Rainbow Phoenix, Raven, Reef Lurker (the blue crab), Tiger, Warthog, White Crab, White Moa, White Tiger and Wolf, as well as possibly Snow Wolf and Strider if they aren't the same as the Moa Bird and Wolf. With all seven tiers unlocked, there would need to be at least ten versions of a given animal type in the menagerie, one each for tiers 1, 2, 4 and 6 and two each for tiers 3, 5 and 7. A fully unlocked Zaishen Menagerie would have at least 300 animals. Also, there are Black Bears in several post-Searing Southern Shiverpeaks zones. And the Dire, Elder and Hearty evolutions are unlockable, level 20 Elder is tier 6 and level 20 Dire and Hearty are tier 7. See the Zaishen Menagerie article for a summary of the information which has been released. -- Gordon Ecker (talk) 07:21, 14 April 2009 (UTC)

He Salome I just meaned it would be funny and then rabbits can be big^^[1], And otherwhich the quest idea would be funny isnt it? And about the tameable pets I counted 37 I can be wrong but anyway I counted black moa and moa as 2 maybe thats where it went wrong. And what about the white moa bird that are three different pets. I also want to say I think there will be a new monument in the HoM since we can get a Monument for completing all rare pets I guess there will come a monument which gives us a you unlocked all pets monument at the pet/hero monument in the HoM. And dont flame me I just guess some thing^^, and I am free to guess. (And most time I'm right) Death Sligher 13:53, 14 April 2009 (UTC)

Btw if you go to this page and count I still count 36/39ones. http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Charmable_animal Death Sligher 14:08, 14 April 2009 (UTC)

I would love to see Yakington in the menagerie. He needs some place to be after the searing. BRING THE YAK BACK! 71.232.117.214 18:12, 14 April 2009 (UTC)

The first table in Charmable Animal lists each animal once for each region it appears in, and the second table lists them once per campaign. -- Gordon Ecker (talk) 06:18, 15 April 2009 (UTC)

The Menagerie Design has been locked down for some time now. We have a whole group of people that carefully comb through my design and make sure I don't forget something or screw something up. This should either go to resolved issues or moved to a user page. - Linsey talk 06:55, 15 April 2009 (UTC)

Important question about Z Quests

So much talk about them, but I couldn't find the answer, so I have to ask here: Are the Zaishen Challenge Quests character or account based? Logically they should be acc-based to prevent doing them over and over whole day, but there's no such thing as account quests yet in GW (shared quest log entries?) and the Presearing equivalent is limited per character not acc (abusable by creating new chars)--Yawg 05:35, 13 April 2009 (UTC)

Why is it an abuse for them to be character based? People are still playing the game properly, they are just doing it multiple times. -- Salome 14:41, 13 April 2009 (UTC)

(you were faster than me on this post Salome :) )Why am i under the impression that as soon as the word challenge is pronounced, account based stuff is prefered to the usually so much loved grind ? Yseron - 90.28.72.212 14:43, 13 April 2009 (UTC)

No more hints! You have to wait til it comes out! Archive this to questions or something. - Linsey talk 06:58, 15 April 2009 (UTC)

Clarification needed

We have a little discussion in my guild. You said (its a quote): "you can purchase items using Zcoins which are tradeable such as Zkeys" Question is: Does that mean: a) "you can use Zcoins to get, for example, Zkeys" OR b) "you can use Zcoins to get 'some' items and then trade these items in similar way you are now trading Zkeys" - In short: will you be able to directly get Zkeys in exchange for Zcoins? Lex Luxor 11:36, 12 April 2009 (UTC)

"Zcoins can be used to buy a bunch of stuff like pet unlocks and a variety of items (much more than your average Quartermaster, includes Zkeys)", so yes, you can buy Zkeys with them. DarkNecrid 11:57, 12 April 2009 (UTC)

Yes Zkeys. Archive this to some... place... - Linsey talk 06:59, 15 April 2009 (UTC)