Lost In Translation : GW2

There's an interesting thread on the GW2 official forums, in which "a high school Spanish teacher and a frequent visitor of Mayan ruins in the Yucatan Peninsula" observes that "there are several Mayan symbols used in the HoT mastery lines".

The OP goes on to say that he (or she) has "spent a few hours doing some research and I have compiled a few translations". Sadly the results of this research remain a mystery and the "thread" has so far failed to garner even a single reply.

This is a shame but sadly such lack of interest in the detail of the rich language lore used in GW2 seems to be par for the course these days. Back when The Consortium made their first appearance in Lion's Arch prior to their ill-fated and irresponsible junket to Southsun Cove there was a positive frenzy of interest in the writings on their walls.

Their posters and fliers were translated and pored over in the hope of discovering something about the upcoming major event. Then the Karka came and no-one seemed to care much after that.

When New Lion's Arch appeared to lift the veil on at least a few of the secrets The Consortium a Reddit poster did translate the various banners and post-it notes around the office from what is apparently New Krytan. Unfortunately it turned out to be no more than some Scott Adamsesque "humor".

 There's a lot of text in imaginary foreign languages scattered through GW2. I have difficulty even working out which are in the same script let alone deciphering even the dimmest glimmer of meaning. But I'd love to know what it all means.

Asuran architects seem to be extremely fond of incising hundreds of lines of verbiage into every flat surface. Every time I wait for the Fire Elemental to appear in the ruins of the Thaumonova Reactor I idly ponder the meaning of the words beneath by feet.

A few days ago my necromancer found herself in an ancient, secret Rata Novan laboratory, surrounded by mysterious consoles, still active after decades, perhaps centuries of neglect. The screens said something. Perhaps if she could have read them she'd have known what to buttons to press to make something happen.

You might think an Asuran, a Snaff Prize Winner no less, a certified genius that's to say, might be able to pick her way through her own language, ancient or otherwise, but no. As for the reams of writing apparently burned onto rough wood panels in the Maguuma Jungle with a magnifying glass, it would be something just to know what language it is that we're looking at.

If there's anyone still out there translating this stuff I'd love to hear about it. I could be missing out on vital information here. Then again it's probably just some more bad jokes. Maybe it's better not to know.

Southsun Cove Photo Album: GW2

Gets right to the heart of it, doesn't she?

Some girls have all the luck

Sea view without shark (yet)

Well, I'm not going to tell her.

Never ask a Charr for fashion advice.

There must be a 12-step program...

RNG blues. Er, greens. No, wait...

The ground! It's shaking!

Towards a theory of Game Development

Wot We Did On Our Holidays : GW2

 Southsun Cove. The very name conjures up images of moonlit beaches, waves gently lapping the sands as soft music drifts on the night breeze. The tink of glass on glass, faint laughter from across the bay, lantern-light reflected on the water. Sun, sea, sand, romance and relaxation, Southsun Cove has none of that at all.

Oh alright, yes it does. Kind of. It has sea. Filled with sharks and skelk, but undeniably sea. Swim in it, go on, I dare you. Then there's sand. Plenty of that if you don't mind sharing it with crabs the size of carthorses and yet more skelk. Whatever a skelk is. Sun? I think I saw it once. At least the rain must be warm because people stand around in it in their bathers day and night. Romance? Maybe just a hint in the brittle banter between Lord Faren and Lady Kasmeer. With luck the pair of them will hit it off so well they'll vanish on Lord Faren's private yacht and we'll never, ever have to meet either of the insufferable boors again.

No, contrary to what The Consortium would like you to believe, Southsun isn't about having the holiday of your dreams. Of course it isn't. It's a place of mystery, adventure and intrigue.

Kidding! I'm just kidding! It's all about the loot.

But you knew that, of course. Why else have there been overflow servers ever since the event began? Why else are zergs criss-crossing the island like packs of wild dogs day and night? Why else would Trading Post prices be tumbling as blood, scales, Rares and Exotics pour out of people's packs onto the market in a flood?

Oh, there was a day or two there at the beginning when all anyone wanted was to tick those boxes. Sample this, visit that, talk to him, help her. In a short while all but the stragglers had been there and done that and everyone settled down to the real business at  hand: farming.

A good farmer craves efficiency, though. It wasn't long before the best spots were identified and mercilessly codified. Woe betide any adventurer who attacks an Instigator out of sequence and sets the Kiel/Glass axis spinning out of synch. The whole point is to get the two of them timed so that you can shuttle between them all day long with nary a moment's downtime, other than to clear the odd incursion at the camps along the way.

There are those who swear by the crazed karka raids. Before the dreaded Diminishing Returns kicks in those waves do drop loot-bags like confetti and there's always that slim chance one might contain the craved Southsun Crate. Not that there'll be anything in it. Just some fruit and shells, a flower or two. Still, better link it in map chat so everyone can urge you to open the box. It's like Hughie Greene never died.

The community spirit, so strong at the start, is starting to feel a little ragged round the edges. Self-appointed Instigator Coordinators flounce off to guest on servers where people pay attention and don't argue all the time. Mesmers tired from lifting people up the cliffs day after day begin to wonder openly what's in it for them. And yet, and still, by and large people remain good-hearted, events are called, the downed revived.A good time is had if not by all then at least by most.

It's been a very good week. What? Two? Really, has it been that long? Well, it doesn't seem like it. It's been both fun and profitable. How often can you say that? If this is going to be the model for the Living Story from now on then it's a decent start. Could be better, sure, but that's what the famous Iteration is for.

Go on then. Iterate that.

Fun In Southsun : GW2

Everyone and their Aunt Aggie has weighed in already on GW2's Secret of Southsun update. I'm late jumping that train so I'll keep it short.

It's a big improvement. It's tighter; more focused thematically and geographically than Flame and Frost. Judging from map chat people seem to like the content better. More importantly they're using it. I've spent much of this week in Overflow and I don't even play primetime hours for Yak's Bend.

Ravious has issues with the delivery system. I think Southsun makes a better show of laying out the intel than earlier iterations but it remains a rattly old communications chain all the same. If you're going to replace a system that works (quests, tasks, missions) with one of your own making it's probably incumbent on you to make one that works better. This doesn't.

Don't have nightmares.

Still it gets the job done. There have been complaints that using the Achievement system this way builds in spoilers and it does but I can't say I felt there was much in there to be spoiled in the first place. If there's anything that makes sense of the Molten Alliance storyline then it passed me by. I also admit to not remembering either Inspector Ellen Kiel or Canach. If I met them before then I apologize. They didn't make much of an impression, obviously.

Southsun isn't heaving with people day and night out of love of story anyway. ArenaNet built a farm and everyone put on their straw hats and set to work tilling the fields. The prize fruit, Southsun Supply Crates, seem rare as arctic strawberries but there's compensation in everything around. Blood, scales. poison sacs, karka parts and passiflora; huge coin and Magic Find buffs; karma trains the like of which I haven't seen

Festival? Does he mean the Dragon Bash? That's here?

outside WvW.

The best part of the Southsun update is the community-building. Map chat is filled with helpful people answering questions on where to go and what to do. Events are called all the time. Mesmers are puzzle-porting just because they can. Commanders running their tags are using them to focus PvE zergs. Anyone getting knocked down gets picked right back up again. It's a microcosm of what the whole game could and should be; communal, mutual, positive, open, empowering.

Any mesmers porting to JP?

It also occurred to me quite early on that it isn't an entirely new phenomena. I've seen it before. Now where could that have been? Ah yes, of course! Southsun is an Everquest Hot Zone. It reminds me of nothing so much as the weekends we spent in Dulak's Harbor or Grieg's End farming xp and hoping for the augs to drop. Hot Zones always were a great idea. Every MMO should have them.

This is a good direction. This is what we want. Well, it's what I want. Wouldn't it be great to see this approach rolled out to different parts of Tyria every two or three weeks? Intense, focused bursts of content that funnel a critical mass of players to a specific map, offering desirable, distinctive rewards for a limited time only. Yes, it's a dirigist approach but don't we all need a little direction from time to time?

Hope You Like Our New Direction : GW2

Chris Whiteside of ArenaNet posted the following "To Do" list as part of the Lost Shores debrief. Haven't seen much discussion about it anywhere I hang out so I thought I'd share a few thoughts: CW in italics, as if that needed pointing out...

Here’s a general rundown of what we are working towards over the upcoming months:

• Revamping all of our existing dungeons (Story and Explorable versions) through rebalance and overhauled encounters.

Tightening a few bolts here and there? Only to be expected shortly after launch. Revamp the entire dungeon experience? That's tantamount to admitting you got the whole thing wrong from the beginning.

Dungeons haven't been good press for GW2, what with complaints that they're too hard, too chaotic, and play like WoW Dungeons after the Tank has died. Then there's the feeling they're a pain to get groups for, what with no Dungeon Finder and all, and there's no loot in them worth having anyway. Not to mention the very valid concern that groups for Story Dungeons will soon become impossible to find, if they aren't already.

A revamp is unlikely to make things worse so this is probably good news but it's a shame they got it so badly wrong the first time round. I'd far rather they were adding completely new content than re-doing stuff on which the paint's barely had time to dry. 

• Adding new dungeons to the Fractal of the Mists.

 The new Fractal dungeons, on the other hand, seem to have gone down rather well. Yes, the mechanic does, arguably, flip the game on its head but the feedback I've seen on the actual fractal fun factor has been very positive. Hearsay only, since I've yet to try one, of course.

More of a good thing is generally reckoned to be a good thing, unless it's too much of a good thing, which this almost certainly isn't. So, a Good Thing , then.

•  Adding more variation to creatures, enhancing our open world scaling system, as well as evolving many events and experiences across Tyria.

Of course it's a new species - just look at the blue scales...

 Doesn't this fall under the heading of "general live game maintenance"? Hardly worth making a bullet point for, is it?

I don't have a problem with the scaling system although I know some people do. It seems well-balanced to me. I also haven't noticed a particular lack of variety in creatures, or at least not any more so than in every MMO ever and I can't say I've felt short-changed on events either. As for "experiences", I have no idea what that means!

That said, it's all "Mom-and-Apple-Pie", isn't it? Hardly going to say "No Thanks" to more kinds of things to kill, are we? Or more events, evolved or otherwise. Or "experiences". We all want those, I guess...

• Fixing and improving existing content throughout the game, and better tying it into the overall sense of player progression within Guild Wars 2.

Okay, now that is general maintenance. Apart from the last part, whatever that means. Does it imply a more linear approach? I really hope not. God forbid we get suggestions on where to level or a "Golden Path"...

• Building on the Southsun Cove’s persistent content.

Where are the donkey rides?

Well it's hardly the "veritable tropical paradise of magnificent proportions" we were promised, is it? Although it was The Consortium doing the promising there and we know how reliable they turned out to be.  All the same, Southsun hasn't drawn the crowds. When I've visited it's been somewhat dead. Not Orr-dead, thank heavens, but map chat sometimes offers the opinion that Southsun is too hard and there's no very obvious reason to be there rather than anywhere else.

I kinda like it, meself. It does remind me of Ember Isle in Rift a bit, - some parachuted-in high-level content that feels a tad artificial and not entirely connected to the world, but I do like to kill me some Karka. I was expecting some more light-hearted content from the pre-release publicity, though. Perhaps that's what's in the pipeline.

I'd rather they opened a new area on the mainland than expanded on this, really, but hey, I'll take new overland content where I can get it. 

• Adding new Guild content and Guild progression features.

 Definitely needed, this one. I imagine by now most active guilds have gotten everything there is to get. There are only three of us in our guild and we almost have our 100 slot vault already, and apart from vault space there's actually nothing we want. Looking forward to seeing what they come up with here. 

• Continuing to evolve PvP into an E-sport as outlined here: https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/structured-pvp-iceberg/

 Good luck with that. Of all the elements of GW2 sPvP seems to the one MMO bloggers know and care the least about, and I'm with the herd for once. ESport is beyond my remit.  

• Adding brand new content to World vs. World as well as adding new reward progression.

 This can't come soon enough. WvW is addictive, entertaining and accessible but it has some serious design flaws. The Ladder system is never going to work - a League, preferably split into two or three Divisions, would work much better. Some people think the zones are too small, many think it's a shame three of them are identical. Above all, with free server moves and no equivalent of DAOC's Guild and Character rankings, there is no permanence of any kind, either for the individual, the Guild or the Server.

Details please. And soon.

• Continuing to build upon the story and adventures of Guild Wars 2.

 Must you? Couldn't you just work on the infrastructure part and leave the Story and Adventures to the players? Oh alright,if you really feel you have to, then perhaps you could headhunt a writer or two from The Secret World, or even EQ2, just to pump some life into the thing. More of the turgid same we really don't need.

Overall, I think it's a bland and disappointing list. No expansion of the world, not a word on crafting, not the slightest hint on Housing of any kind. Looks as though it'll be down to the Holiday events to draw in the crowds because this kind of general par-for-the-course consolidation work isn't likely to light much of a fire under anyone. Fortunately I'm having a great time with the game as-is so my fire's lit already.