User talk:Linsey Murdock/Questions21

Stylist Question

One thing I noticed about the stylist that I was wondering about is that despite having more appearance options, a character is still limited only to the choices normally available to his or her primary profession. That is, for example, you can't give an elementalist a ranger's hair or a mesmer's face. I was just wondering if there were technical reasons for that or if it was just overlooked. It would be nice if a character could choose any face/hairstyle/etc. from the stylist regardless of profession, as that would allow for a far greater variety in character appearances. And also, are there any plans to add new options to the stylist? Might be nice to have some brand new stuff in there to draw in folks who might not otherwise use this feature. --Axwind 14:36, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

I would guess this is due to the differences in models and animations for each profession. - Bex 14:50, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

I see headgear as a big hurdle. Besides, I think that there should still be some class distinction in there. — Poki#3 15:31, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

Agreed with bex. However I always felt that giving people 1 free credit per already-existing pve char would have been a good way to get people hooked. What is a shame is that their isn't an option only for the hair itself and not the face/race/height. As really many of us don't want a makeover, we just want new hairstyles. I know we can do that with the existing stylist but £6 for 5 hair changes is a bit steep, whereas 10 hair style changes for £6 would be alot more attractive to alot of the player base, but that's not how it was implemented and I for one am still happy to have the option there. -- Salome 16:17, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

I think 1 credit per character would have been excessive. Most people I know that have done changes have only done one per character -- meaning that they wouldn't need to purchase any credits at all. One credit per account might have been nice, though.

I also would like to see an option for reduced-price hairstyle changes, since the majority of the changes I've made have been to hair alone (including style and color). I haven't changed any faces, and only one character got a height adjustment. But like you, I'm not complaining, I'm happy that the option is there at all. --Nkuvu 16:32, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

IMO they could have given us at least one free credit per pre-Nightfall character so that we could fix the "damage" done by the face update back then. Xelonir 16:56, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

That was actually one of the few non-hair changes I made. My warrior got taller for that update, so I brought her back down to her original minimum size. But I know some people had faces changed on their characters, and had no way to correct (aside from re-rolling the character entirely). So I agree with that idea, too. --Nkuvu 19:01, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

What face update are you talking about? And I would be quite happy with a hair/color-only half-price credits, as I refuse to change faces, I'm too attached to them. I had to change my ele's hair, as it was quite old and ugly, and I also gave her a little tan and a height stretch, but that was minor and not necessary, and I would have been happy without it, I only did it because it was there. Now I have 4 credits sitting there, not sure who to use them on. ^_^ Rose Of Kali 19:17, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

Before Nightfall was released, characters in cut scenes did not move their mouths when they spoke. There was an update to all characters to alter the model to allow for a movable jaw. In some cases, the faces changed appearance (causing much grumbling among the affected players). --Nkuvu 19:28, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

(Edit conflict) With Nightfall they introduced the "moving mouths in cinematics" thing ... for this they had to modify the faces. IIRC the initial change was absolutely horrible, so they did a second change that brought faces closer to their original look. But still some chars look different from before. E.g. my necro and assassin now have mouths I wouldn't have chosen myself (and I usually spend quite some time in the character creation to get a look I like). Xelonir 19:29, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

I say give us a option to get 1extreem credit for each character one's(but it can be put in storage) for completing a hard and long quest such as the black moa bird minipet. Which is spread over all the campains. (Why: well because what these people say and because I played Perfect World International and there you can get 1 remakescroll too for each character ones by doing a quest. And you can also buy them in the ingamestore there.) Death Sligher 22:54, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

And now we've once again jaunted into suggestion land. sigh -- Salome 23:37, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

Well it is not kind of suggestion its more to proof that other games do it^^. Btw you suggested yourself to give ever character one free credit... Death Sligher 08:37, 7 May 2009 (UTC)

Nope i said it would have been nice to have done it in the past, it wasnt a suggestion on the future. Fine lines and all that. -- Salome 21:52, 7 May 2009 (UTC)

It is both an art limitation and a technical limitation. To allow you to choose a hair style (etc) from a profession not your own, we would need to take every hair style from every other profession and duplicate them for each profession/gender. The technical limitation is that we can only store a certain number of hair styles, hair colors, faces, skin colors or height increments for each profession. So for instance, say Warrior Male has 24 total hair styles from all campaigns and we wanted to add this new cross-profession functionality. We would need to add the 162 other Male Hair Styles to the Warrior's Hair Style pool but there is a limitation of 32 Hair Styles per profession/gender. Unfortunately, we cannot raise that limit. EVER. Under any circumstances. We just happened to be VERY LUCKY that when we decided to try making it cross-campaign that we didn't exceed the limit (but we got close!) because it basically works the same way. So that's the tech side. The art issue is that Hair styles and Faces were modeled for their specific campaign/profession and therefor do not fit on the models for the other professions or campaigns. Just getting the Stylist to work cross-campaign required a huge amount of bug fixing (all done by Susan Jessup in her free time) to get all the Hairs and Faces to match up on all the different heads. It was NOT just a matter of flipping a switch. Getting them to work cross-profession too would be that all over again except much worse because the difference between the models for two different professions is much greater than the difference between two models of the same profession with different campaigns.

So to wrap up -> We have an soft limitation in the amount of art resources that are available and a hard limitation in how many Hair Styles/Hair Colors/Faces/Skin Colors/Heights we can have. Making the Stylist allow cross-profession changes exceeds both limits by more than just a little. Hope that all makes sense! - Linsey talk 02:45, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

Suggestion: Make alcohol/sweets/party account wide

See http://guildwarsguru.com/forum/showthread.php?p=4785560

Any word on whether this can or will be done? --Thc 22:55, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

Linsey (or indeed any body from ANet) can't comment on this due to the licensing terms of the wiki; read the top of the page. ~ PheNaxKian 23:06, 5 August 2009

But I can. And this isn't really a suggestion, anyway. People here really need to chill with all the suggestions drama. Linsey has said that this will not be made account wide, and there are good reasons for it. For starters, all the people who already have multiple characters with this title. All of a sudden, all their "copies" become a complete waste. Also, it is still considered prestigeous in Pre, just not like it used to be. Being accountified would make this title much easier to get, as sweets and alcohol grant gameplay advantage (drunk effect skills) and can now be used by any character instead of just 1. When treasure/wisdom titles were "accountified," it was said that the team looked at all other titles, evaluated them, and decided that none of them were going to be changed in the future. This was also mentioned in Linsey's FAQ. You can argue day and night about pro's and con's of this change, but at the end of the day, Anet just won't be willing to invest the time to make this happen. It took a lot of work change over treasure/wisdom points, and now they're just on damage control, they won't do anything they don't have to. Rose Of Kali 23:12, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

Linsey has already answered this on her FAQ page. I don't believe the answer has changed. -- Wyn talk 23:29, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

Completely off-topic, but who the hell has Drunk 2, let alone Drunk 1, on multiple characters? --Riddle 23:34, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

Drunk is not the problem. Sweets are. These 3 titles are very similar, so they are treated as one, of one is changed, others must do the same. Many players have multiple sweet tooth characters because sweets are abundant and also often used in farming on different characters, this creates a problem of devaluing the duplicate titles. Many players have Drunkard 2 in Pre and don't want it de-valued either. Party is more recent, so it's not as widespread, and costs more to buy, wile not having any benefit even from the consumed items, so it's just kind of there with the other 2 titles. In the end, this won't happen either way, because it requires time and resources Anet won't give. I just hope we get a drunk level indicator of some sort, and there has been sufficient talk to suggest it may be coming, but that's the best we can hope for. Rose Of Kali 23:48, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

Only non polot-related titles with an effect are logicall to be made account wide. When you increase the ranks of Drunkard, do you get an effect, like drunkenness lasting more or something like that? No, you don't. It's just a title with no other use than having it. That's why there is no reason to make it account-wide. PvP titles increase the faction cap, loot (lucky, wisdom, treasure) titles increase % of things happening. But what do the festive items do? Nothing. Give them an effect, and thre may be a reason to make them account wide. Without an effect, they are just gold sinks, and gold sinks are less effective account-wide. MithTalk 23:58, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

From my FAQ-> Will "insert random title here" be made account wide? A: No. I have already evaluated the titles in the game when developing the big title update in November 2008 and I have decided that there aren't any reasons compelling enough to warrant additional titles being made account wide.

This includes the Drunkard, Sweet Tooth and Party Animal titles. - Linsey talk 00:10, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

Told you. :P I guess what the OP and people from the linked thread really wanted to know are specific reasons coming from Linsey, but seems like the reason is simply lack of reason to do it. Rose Of Kali 00:17, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

There is really nothing prestigious of AFK-botting for a week for a title. I don't care for the cost in currency, otherwise I'd be for sugar/party account-wide, but I'm not. I just care for the time spent and the botting to which players often resort to cover a week's worth of gameplay standing in your guild hall shouting "I'm the king of the world!" It's still the same amount of money spent, since I seriously don't think anybody (other than people who want drunk for perma-pre and post characters) would go for Incorrigible twice. If you're really worried about prestige/gold sink, add an r3 at 100,000 minutes, but have r2 still count for HoM. --Riddle 00:45, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

Edit:Oh, I also like how the part of "this includes:" in the FAQ was added post factum :D --Riddle 01:07, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

First of all, it is not uncommon to be perma-banned for botting drunkard, there have been plenty of complaints about that, and Anet will not reverse these bans. A bot is a bot, bot at your own risk... Second, r2 counts for GWAMM, so r3 is not an option. Third, "insert random title here" is already all-inclusive, but apparently not clear enough to some. Rose Of Kali 01:12, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

First: Thanks for helping my case :D. Second: You don't NEED Drunkard for GWAMM. Third: I think even if ArenaNet listed all of what they're not going to do in the FAQ people will suggest they do those things anyway, since they don't want to take the time to read the FAQ. Case in point: This thread. --Riddle 01:20, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

Didn't know you had a "case." :P You don't NEED anything for anything, but it still counts, so it would change the title's dynamics for many people, positively for some, negatively for others. And some people are simply in denial, case in point: the linked Guru thread. Rose Of Kali 01:27, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

Need to lrn2logic, then. :P If the only sufficient way to get Drunkard is through use of clickbots—since standing around in your GH staring at the screen waiting for the drunk threshold to pass before you can click again is a god-awful grind—and Anet bans clickbots, well poo. "Well, how about playing through the game using skills that benefit from drunk?" Well then that would only limit you to one character, which really sucks when waiting 10,000 minutes, not to mention that it could ruin your build efficiency. It's not without precedent to change a mechanic of the game, to which many will like the change along with a fair share of an amount that don't (read: nerfs). Also, I don't think there is a Linsey Murdock FAQ on GWG, though I could be wrong. --Riddle 01:53, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

I am not opposed to making Drunkard not suck so bad to get. I've talked about it before and I have a post-it note to do it. That doesn't mean I would make Drunkard account-based though. If you really want to get right down to it, not making these titles account-based is about not having a compelling enough reason to remove one of the best gold sinks in the game (it has precisely 0 to do with work load). Yeah yeah yeah, I know as a player, gold sinks are evil but as a designer, I also know how vastly important they are. We do try to give plenty of ways to get these title points without having to spend gold, but yeah... just bein' honest =/ - Linsey talk 02:17, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

Riddle, there's supposedly a way to reduce the time of 10,000 minutes to as low as 420 minutes via map travel. See the external link in Guide to maxing titles. --Silver Edge 04:07, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

(Reset indent) I thought that a "gold sink" was to make money disappear from the game entirely, not to transfer it from one player to another... O_o Elite armor and Essence of Celerity are gold sinks, alcohol and sweets are... not, because nobody buys them from NPCs. These things are mostly farmed during events, and provide even more incentive to repeatedly farm a mob. A decent supply also comes from Nick's gifts, which is further benefiting the farmers who sell the trophies or gifts themselves, but again not "sinking" any gold, merely transfering it between players. I don't see Linsey's thought process here.
Oh, and @Riddle: so far I've gotten almost 3k minutes just drinking while z-questing and doing other things I feel like doing, the key is to get the level 5 booze, then you don't have to track it as long as you don't drink too often to waste it. It's not very efficient, it's quite slow, actually, but it just happens in the background and doesn't require any additional time. GH drinking, on the other hand, is kind of like fishing, it's relaxing and therapeutic to stare at a spot and yank on the rod occasionally and get so absorbed into it that you forget about all your daily stuff and can actually clear your head. Same as meditation, just no learning curve, but it's definitely not for everyone. Rose Of Kali 06:30, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

Basically the problem is that drunkard is a stupid title. A simple timer would solve the problem, but until then it will suck. --Boro 08:40, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

(Reset indent) There is some kind of timer Boro, open your hero panel then go to titles tab and there you can see when a minute has been added, then drink your alcohol, or buy Bottles of Grog. If Drunkard is a stupid title then LDoA is to. Qaletaqa Hania 09:16, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

Titles are stupid to begin with so yh Both are stupid titles Lilondra *poke* 12:08, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

Two words: bad design.

Drunkard: I loathed doing this title as it’s all about farm, farm and farm during events to get enough alcohol or enough gold to buy from other players.

In the end, I rarely bought from other players anyway and did with what I could with what I farmed myself over the course of 4 years; occasionally friends who had completed the title or who though the title was too stupid to care about it, gave me some more. Things went noticeably faster when St Nicholas came in (praise him).

Other issue: since my main char (P) is not a farming char, I had actually little time to advance the title because I spent so many time on my El and M to get alcohol or gold… oh and that map travel thingy was "fixed" last year… stupid stupid title.

Done and I have no interest into doing it on another character whatsoever.

Gold spend on merchant: 0 (rice wine and level 1 beer are not that interesting anyway).

Party animal: again it’s all about farm during the event either to get items or to get gold to buy from other players. Interestingly, this title seems to be faster to advance than the sweet tooth one; again things went noticeably faster when St Nicholas came in.

2/3 in progress, no interest into doing it on another character.

Gold spend on merchant: 0 (It’s not possible to buy festive items from merchants /doh).

Sweet tooth: guess? … Farm… Either to get the consumable or to get enough gold to buy from other players. On this title the issue is exactly the same as on the chest hunter: I have tons of useful consumable for high end PvE around but I will only use them on my main char so they kind of get dusty since I spent so many hours on my farm characters… Since Nicholas has been here I got more stuff, but still so little time or occasions to use them on my main char… oh well….

50% in progress (my guess is that it’ll not be for this year), no interest into doing it on another character.

Gold spend on merchant: 0 (no real use for a low-end in-town-only consumable except during the Dragon Festival and Wintersday events).

Note: now that the chest title is account-wide I DO use lock picks on all my chars so I run out of stock more often/much faster so I actually bother re-buying some more at the merchant.

Analysis: as Rose of Kali pointed out, those titles are not gold sink at all as for most of them, there is very little interest for us as players to buy from the game merchant. It’s much faster or easier to buy from other players or to go for the item ourselves (AKA farming). In fact with so many people farming to get such items or Nicholas’ presents or etc. they do probably generate more gold than they recycle by purchasing from the merchants. Plus it concentrates much more money in the hand of pro-farmers/power-sellers players.

Long story short: short to medium titles (1,000~2,000 pts – consumable title scale, not PvE faction scale) should be character based so people can enjoy doing them several time on MULTIPLE characters. Long to stupidly long titles (10,000+) should be account based so people can enjoy doing them while playing DIFFERENT characters.

Conclusion: too late for GW1, let’s hope they fix that bad design in GW2 but next game is not Linsey’s concern anyway.

Jaxom 12:58, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

The only problem I see with Drunkard is that, unlike the other two festive stuff titles, can't really be aquired while playing. You track of what you are drinking every 1..3 minutes. With the other two, you either use them indiscriminately or use them when their effects are needed, and their effects last more (5..50 minutes). So, while you are activating skills that require you to be drunk, you have to keep track too much of it, because Drunkenness has only 5 levels, and only 3 of them increase the title. It's not rare for a game to have such a short duration for drunkenness, since it usually have downsides that get in the way, but in GW, once you deactivate post-processing, it helps with 3 skills, so a short duration is a nuisance. MithTalk 14:19, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

I probably could have been a bit more clear on this point, but there are actually many reasons why I don't want to make these titles account-based. I didn't say that "gold sink" was the only reason or even the primary reason, but it is one of the important ones. I am fully aware that the majority of this stuff happens in trades between players but that point really only re-enforces why they're better as character-based. Gold sink, encourages players to trade with each other, encourages players to play during festivals... these aren't bad things... then there is also the fact that we balanced the delivery of these items on the titles being character-based and would need to rebalance that if making a change. I guess saying that it had nothing to do with work load wasn't totally accurate. It just never got further in the list of questions than "is there a good enough reason to take out this gold sink?". Anyway. Yes, I agree that drunkard sucks as is. I disagree that you can't get it through normal play (I know multiple people who have) but it's true that you effectively waste gold and time by doing it that way. To Min/Max it, you do need to be doing nothing else while working on it or resort to a macro to do it for you. This is one of those times when flavor and design clash with how it actually feels in game. You guys really don't need to convince me of that. - Linsey talk 19:37, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

I fully agree with Linsey on everything except... it's still not a gold sink. :P Seriously, all it's missing is a better way to track it, but you already have a sticky note for it. ;) Oh, and maybe the part where the first 2 levels don't count... Maybe you could make all levels count, and make the hard booze still be worth 3 minutes to keep it balanced, so 3 levels instead of 5. The priming part is really just annoying more than anything, it serves no purpose at all. Rose Of Kali 20:26, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

Umm, Binge Drinking is bad.... Mmmmkay? --ilr 22:22, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

Keep in mind that gold traded this way can more easily move to the hands of a player who will goldsink it. The money keeps shifting hands until it hits a goldsink, like someone selling the party/drinks to get elite armors or buy destroyer weapons. -- Alaris 19:06, 7 August 2009 (UTC)

LOLOLOLOLOL, Destroyer Weaps... I checked a "rare" material trader the other day... diamonds are 100 ea, and those black shard things were also cheaper than a stack of Granite. If there's a major moneysink, I'd say it's the opposite of what the Devs intended. Infact the whole economy is whack Yo, and they need to make some major changes. --ilr 21:57, 7 August 2009 (UTC)

I don't see ANY single 1 good reason why the 3 consumable titles shouldn't be account-based. But there's a bunch of good reasons why they should, and they're exactly the same reasons why Treasure Hunter needed that change. Here the most important title that needs this change is Sweet Tooth - that's because of the huge amounts of existing sweet items that provide various buffs. Players who enjoy playing more than 1 character have the same problem with using sweet buffs on other characters than the one that goes for the title as they had with opening chests on them - they find themselves in a world of regrets and that bad feeling of wasting potential title points. And I really don't think the fact they're much easier/cheaper to max than every other account-title is a problem here - they provide no extra bonuses for having them maxed and very very few players would ever want to nax then again after getting them once. While Sweet Tooth really needs this change, there are no reasons why not to change Drunkard and Party titles aswell. It's all in the spirit of making multi-character players not disadvantaged to those who stick to just one. Just one important thing to keep in mind while changing these titles - the Pre-Searing community - they'd really hate if this change affected pre characters, so they should be excluded from any title changes. --Yawg 00:47, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

You can't just exclude pre-searing characters from a title change like this because there is nothing guaranteeing they will remain in pre, and I'm not sure it's even possible to make that distinction. Linsey has said repeatedly she isn't going to change these titles to account based, I think you all just need to let it go and move on. -- Wyn talk 00:52, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

Were are the hands and feet?

I alwese missed something in guildwars. Why can't we see our hands and legs when we zoom in or character? ^^ I only see air were legs and arms needed to be.Death Sligher 21:33, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

If you asked where the shadow is when zooming i could follow you, but now i haven't the slightest idea what you mean...but then i aint a FPS player....:) Didis 22:59, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

Your character turns invisible so polygons on the character's face (and some masks) don't get drawn. ~Shard 23:11, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

In other Words: it prevents some very ugly Clipping and Framerate issues under this game's engine (as opposed to FPS shooters that use separate hi-res weapon Refs & Anims). --ilr 00:00, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

These are as good as any answer I could give (basically, I have nothing to add). - Linsey talk 00:49, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

ArbComm

Hi Linsey. There's currently an open ArbComm regarding User:Shard regarding his disruption in particular of Gaile's talk pages. One of the proposed rulings involve him no longer being allowed to post on Anet employees' talk pages. He has asked, if that ruling does go into effect, if he can ask you and Emily for exemptions so that he can post on your talk pages. I'd appreciate if you could comment on Guild Wars Wiki talk:Arbitration committee/2009-06-21-User:Shard whether that's something you'd want to give your permission for. You can also review the particulars of the situation on that page and its associated non-talk page. Thanks. - Tanetris 04:46, 28 June 2009 (UTC)

Sorry for the late response, Tanetris! Shard has never really been a problem on my page. Provided he continues to behave himself here, I have no problem with him continuing to post on my page. - Linsey talk 00:05, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

Is this ready for archival? Looks like you've already addressed it well enough and the situation has been handled. — Jon Lupen 19:04, 30 July 2009 (UTC)

Time limit for filling books?

Linsey, do you know if there is a time limit for NPC's to fill in books if you didn't have the book when doing the mission / dungeon / quest. I have at least 2 characters both of which have done a number of missions / dungeons. These show as completed on the M (Map) screen. Yet the book isn't filled in, and none of the NPC's will offer to fill in the relevent missions. No I haven't got duplicate books on other toons, no I haven't cashed in previous books for said toons. So the question is, is there an actual time limit after which the NPC's will not fill in your books? (NO PART OF THIS **QUESTION** SHOULD BE CONSIDERED TO BE A SUGGESTION, AND THEREFORE SHOULD NOT BE TAGGED AS A SUGGESTION) 86.17.72.80 21:14, 26 July 2009 (UTC)

I had this happen to me. I started doing the missions on my warrior without a book in my inventory (was in storage or on another character) and then I forgot about it for a couple months and the NPC's wouldn't fill those missions in when I got the book back. I had to do them all over again. --ilr 13:36, 27 July 2009 (UTC)

This is an already documented bug. -- Wyn talk 10:29, 29 July 2009 (UTC)

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. - Linsey talk 00:32, 15 August 2009 (UTC)

"If you do not do ANY mission in that campaign for a month, it will reset." Do you mean it will reset if you do not enter any mission in that campaign for a month or if you do not complete any mission in that campaign for a month? --Silver Edge 03:20, 15 August 2009 (UTC)

... per campaign or per book type? 66.190.15.232 05:45, 15 August 2009 (UTC)

Thanks... sorry that your answering it only raised more questions, heh --ilr 10:40, 15 August 2009 (UTC)

Waits at AB

Been having this discussion with many. Is it caused by imbalance between the two factions or is it the number of servers? BlazeRick 12:52, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

I'll tell you right now. It. Is. Not. The. Servers. I don't think we dance around this at all, we've said that a ba-gillion times. It really is not that there are too few servers. And the maintenance the other day had nothing to do with this. - Linsey talk 17:58, 12 August 2009 (UTC)