Guild Wars 2 Catch All

My cleric wore a bandolier piece with his kilt for 30 levels or so.

duckideva wrote:

...but the vast majority of armor for the female avatars is hypersexualized almost to the point of absurdity, whereas if there is sexy male armor; bare chests crossed by bandoliers, or a nice Chippendale's bow tie and g-string, I've never seen any.

And that's not even talking about the practicality of wading into battle with a bare midriff. It's madness, I tell you. Madness.

*cough* http://aaroncoberly.cghub.com/files/... *cough*

I find there's plenty of non-sexualized options for the ladies, though it is very true that human females definitely have the most options for nearly-naked armour, especially those trollopy scholars!

Opinions on whether sexy armour is appropriate for the setting or correctly proportioned out amongst the races/genders seem to vary quite a lot, there's plenty of threads on the official forums and on guru from players begging for even MORE sexy armor options for human females. That being said, everyone likes more choices.

Clothies aren't the only ones asking for more variation. Medium armor users want a bit more than trench-coats too. I think armor variation is something they'll need to work on over time. Hopefully they don't 'theme' the different bits of armor too heavily with each expansion, so the mixing-and-matching they plugged (no set bonuses on armor, but runes) doesn't look stupid.

There are a couple sets for males that show more skin than would be practical, but they all appear to be heavy armors.
Barbaric (Heavy)
IMAGE(http://i.imgur.com/PWk69.jpg)

Pit Fighter (Heavy)
IMAGE(http://www.gw2armor.com/human/male/k2/heavy/front.jpg)

Named Exotic (Heavy) (i.e. Rurik's X or Devona's Y)
IMAGE(http://www.gw2armor.com/human/male/named/heavy/front.jpg)

For the most part the female versions of the heavy armors aren't much different from the male versions. The Arah set is the only set with a major difference, and the faction sets (Priory, Order, Vigil) all have minor differences. The differences for light and medium sets are much more drastic, as the male versions aren't revealing at all. That said, there's fewer revealing armor sets for both light and medium armors, so I'd say the problem isn't that the majority of the sets are revealing, it's that most players are choosing to wear the skimpier ones.

I thought the available options for the character's figure had a pretty decent range. It wasn't as robust as other games are, but it was better than a lot of MMOs where one-size-fits-all because they don't want to spend the time/money on making all the armors fit multiple body-types.

These two blog posts explain some of their reasoning behind the designs of two of the races (humans and charr respectively).

Man I cant fathom what they were thinking when designing that heavy "named" armour set. It's bonkers not in a good way.

If someone finds Zojja's headgear, would they mind handing it back to her? She seems to have been bald for months.

Well, that explains the naked part, at least as far as GW2 designers go. I swear, those boys have got to go meet some real women. As much as I hate the Asura camera, I love the fact that she's managed to go 80 levels fully dressed.

The outfits in GW2 are one of the only thing about the game that really bother me. I understand that the majority of players are probably men, and I have read anthropology studies on how women who play games tend to find games as a safe outlet to "look sexy"...so I get the science behind why human/humanesque avatars are always within a certain size parameter, and why the chest to waist ration is set at X, and so on...but the vast majority of armor for the female avatars is hypersexualized almost to the point of absurdity, whereas if there is sexy male armor; bare chests crossed by bandoliers, or a nice Chippendale's bow tie and g-string, I've never seen any.

And that's not even talking about the practicality of wading into battle with a bare midriff. It's madness, I tell you. Madness.

Here is my Lvl 80 Necro in her WvW gear, perhaps the least skimpy outfit she had the whole game:

IMAGE(http://s9.postimage.org/v2s5dga0f/gw001.png)

Tenebrous wrote:

Here is my Lvl 80 Necro in her WvW gear, perhaps the least skimpy outfit she had the whole game:

IMAGE(http://s9.postimage.org/v2s5dga0f/gw001.png)

That's a Star Wars game now?

Manach wrote:
Tenebrous wrote:

Here is my Lvl 80 Necro in her WvW gear, perhaps the least skimpy outfit she had the whole game:

IMAGE(http://s9.postimage.org/v2s5dga0f/gw001.png)

That's a Star Wars game now?

Exactly the look I was going for.

Tyops wrote:

Man I cant fathom what they were thinking when designing that heavy "named" armour set. It's bonkers not in a good way.

on the upside, the scholar version is quite nice

Stengah wrote:

There are a couple sets for males that show more skin than would be practical, but they all appear to be heavy armors.

A lot of those heavy male armours that expose a lot of skin look like they were based on the gear worn by some Roman gladiators. Which was never intended to be practical for combat - it was deliberately designed to expose too much skin so there would be plenty of spectacular injuries for the spectators to enjoy.

Manach wrote:
Tenebrous wrote:

Here is my Lvl 80 Necro in her WvW gear, perhaps the least skimpy outfit she had the whole game:

IMAGE(http://s9.postimage.org/v2s5dga0f/gw001.png)

That's a Star Wars game now?

I was thinking more Killzone...

With a sylvari, one thing I like about skimpy armor is that the bio-luminescence gets a chance to show through and be a part of the look.

edit: For example:
IMAGE(http://i.imgur.com/x1etl.jpg)
That's "feathered" armor in case anyone is interested.

We have similar bio-luminescence patterns on our silvari.

Since mesmer wears teir 2 cultural armor, I justify the lack of armor as it's not so much that she's half naked, as the armor is just a part of her.

IMAGE(http://i.imgur.com/lYLyO.jpg)

Besides is there a more perfect armor for something that kills their foes with pink and purple butterflies?

And speaking of bio-luminescence, I love how the silvari cultural armor keeps that effect when worn, as seen here with my guardian.

IMAGE(http://i.imgur.com/m4zpR.jpg)

I always make sure his spikes and "seeds"? are dyed to best show off the effect.

Speaking of sylvaris and luminescence. My arms and and legs glow from a purple shades to red when it's really dark. Also shameless show off of new scepter "Eye of Rodgort". The eye moves on its own.

IMAGE(http://i.imgur.com/ULyAp.jpg)

mooosicle wrote:

Speaking of sylvaris and luminescence. My arms and and legs glow from a purple shades to red when it's really dark. Also shameless show off of new scepter "Eye of Rodgort". The eye moves on its own.

I know the bible says we shouldn't covet...but I am coveting SO HARD right now.

Colin Johanson on Guild Wars 2 in the Months Ahead

3 million served.

There's a whole bunch in the article, it'll be good when it's ingame.

Bit disappointed by the blog post, when Colin discussed it last week he made it seem like it would be a specific listing of what was going into each of the January, February and March releases.

I wanted bullet points, I got "everything we've already vaguely mentioned as being worked on.. is being worked on".

That's been the story since release though. I think a lot of it comes from the "Ghostcrawler promised me a pony" problem, that players take anything and everything a developer utters as a contract sealed in blood, so they don't until it's almost ready to push out the door.

I'm expecting a slow and gradual release of those things, not an overnight change. It's a shame really for something that's 4 and a half months past release that they're still figuring out stuff, but in a way it's good that they're committed (and don't have any other option given the business model).

I've tried playing a bit more recently, but it's disappointing turning up to a shatterer fight and seeing 3 people there, when closer to launch there were dozens regularly, and plenty out in the world doing stuff. I hope they can get some player activity in the game as normal, not just at holidays or when people follow a bee line to an event.

maybe it's server/timezone dependent.. I swing by Claw of Jormag about once a week and there's never been less than 50+ players doing it.

Honestly I feel like the overall active population on NSP has gone up quite a lot compared to say November, I'm seeing more ppl in pretty much every zone I go into.

Scratched wrote:

I've tried playing a bit more recently, but it's disappointing turning up to a shatterer fight and seeing 3 people there, when closer to launch there were dozens regularly, and plenty out in the world doing stuff. I hope they can get some player activity in the game as normal, not just at holidays or when people follow a bee line to an event.

I have no idea what types of rewards people want to see in MMOs that would keep them interested. It sucks to run around most of the zones and not only find them completely empty, but consistently see tons of bonus XP pop up for killing mobs, meaning nobody has been in there for a long time.

My friends and I run around together a few night a week. Sometimes we do dungeons/fractals, we find some jumping puzzles, help each other out with zone completion, etc. I liked the events part of this monthly as it made just running around zones fun since we'd gravitate towards each and every event that kicked off. Some of the event chains are quite a bit of fun and there are some really cool mid-level zones and fun areas tucked away. Sure the rewards aren't quite as good as the chest at the end of a dragon battle, but why not run around for an hour and have fun in some low or mid level areas between dragons?

I guess for me the reward is exploring and playing with friends. It's gotta be really challenging to incentivize players without tipping the balance too far, opening up exploits for farmers, etc. Maybe we're just better at making our own fun

Population is really important in this game. Since switching servers to Far Shiverpeaks - which tends to be active at the times I feel like playing - I've had much more fun. I really hope the developers can provide more incentive for high level characters to revisit zones, or introduce the much talked about 'underflow' to bring more players together in the open world.

Population is important for WvW too, as if it drops off too much that they can't keep a reasonable population then they're merging servers 3 at a time.

I understand the incentive business, but in the end it is the fun of the game. Right now I really do not need anything from dungeons, but I still run them because I find it fun.

The whole question is if you are having fun playing or not.

WvW has been a dilemma for me in the area lately. I like the gameplay, but get frustrated in that there is little difference in end result whether I contribute allot in upgrading sites or putting down siege, or only contribute a warm body. Gah.

WvW does need a bit of a shake up, I think I've detailed my views/ideas before.

I guess what it comes down to for me is that I'd really like to see some of this happen. I know, "soon", that development is hard and doing development right is harder still, but as someone for whom 'GW2 isn't really doing it for me right now' I can't help thinking talk is cheap. If I sound impatient I suppose it's because I am, I want to play an awesome game and they're dangling "in a few months" in front of me.

Tenebrous wrote:

I understand the incentive business, but in the end it is the fun of the game. Right now I really do not need anything from dungeons, but I still run them because I find it fun.

The whole question is if you are having fun playing or not.

I find myself in a similar place. I have much more enjoyment just running around with whatever guildies are on either in a dungeon or a random trek through Orr than from just solo levelling my 4th alt to L80.

Being active in chat helps a lot. Might be as simple as announcing what you're about to do and someone might just tag along with you.

Tyops wrote:

Being active in chat helps a lot. Might be as simple as announcing what you're about to do and someone might just tag along with you.

Thats what I have the biggest problem with. Often i just start doing stuff and I forget all about chat.

Cobble wrote:
Tyops wrote:

Being active in chat helps a lot. Might be as simple as announcing what you're about to do and someone might just tag along with you.

Thats what I have the biggest problem with. Often i just start doing stuff and I forget all about chat.

Yeah. As a mostly disorganized collective with the GWJ guild that's one thing we could collectively work on.

Traditionnal MMO thinking tells us that if we can commit to 2+ hrs we shouldn bother grouping at all because there isnt any "group" thing to accomplish. But in GW2 with the scaling and loot scaling up, it's easy enough to look at the roster and go tag along with someone in a zone that's appealing etc. without sacrificing much at all.

Tyops wrote:

Traditionnal MMO thinking tells us that if we can commit to 2+ hrs we shouldn bother grouping at all because there isnt any "group" thing to accomplish. But in GW2 with the scaling and loot scaling up, it's easy enough to look at the roster and go tag along with someone in a zone that's appealing etc. without sacrificing much at all.

Unless you really feel like running solo, there is little reason to run anything solo in Guild Wars 2. It really only benefits you to have others around. You kill stuff faster, which means getting to kill more stuff faster, which means more loot and seeing more content. PvE is a purely cooperative experience which is absolutely brilliant.

Dreaded Gazebo wrote:
Tyops wrote:

Traditionnal MMO thinking tells us that if we can commit to 2+ hrs we shouldn bother grouping at all because there isnt any "group" thing to accomplish. But in GW2 with the scaling and loot scaling up, it's easy enough to look at the roster and go tag along with someone in a zone that's appealing etc. without sacrificing much at all.

Unless you really feel like running solo, there is little reason to run anything solo in Guild Wars 2. It really only benefits you to have others around. You kill stuff faster, which means getting to kill more stuff faster, which means more loot and seeing more content. PvE is a purely cooperative experience which is absolutely brilliant.

Drops are also better, in terms of both quantity and quality, when grouped.