Canthan (Factions PVE) Rant

Intro

OK, first of all this is a rant about PVE Factions. The PVP part of Factions is actually very good, I really do enjoy Alliance Battles (albeit not visually sometimes). I've divided this “essay” into two different sections to keep it tighter than the average incredibly-long-boring-rant. First I'll talk about the glitches; mostly in the missions, (which are already listed in the GuildWarsWiki) followed by examples of clipping glitches outside of missions.

After that is the Visual Styles of Cantha, and what they could have done to fix it. I like to think I've got a good visual eye when it comes to graphics - I'm an illustrator/graphic designer after all!


Bugs

Missions:
First of all, Factions only has 13 missions - Prophecies has 25 and NightFall has 19. 13 missions? I guess they spent the rest of their work time on side missions and PVP, as Factions actually has a larger number of Elite & Challenge missions, but 13 is still woefully small. How many people do you know who regularly play Faction Elite, Challenge or even Competitive missions? I had to wait a month to get into a Competitive mission, and even then it was to map the area (I think this was before American District options, but still).

Now for glitches, I count that Factions PVE missions in total have around 16 glitches, all from GWWIKI. That's not including some of the stranger glitches that aren't listed as bugs, such as:

"In Tahnnakai Temple, though all of the Bound bosses except Naku and Vizu have skills named after them (e.g., Jaizhenju Strike), none of them use any of their namesake skills."

"At the end of the Sunjiang District mission, it is stated that both the Spear of Archemorus and the Urn of Saint Viktor were destroyed, when in fact, they both can be seen if a player is holding the items, or is dropped on the floor near the cutscene area, within camera view."

By comparison, Nightfall has half the glitches, 8 mission bugs, but has near a third more of the missions?

Clipping:
There are some areas (majority in the city) where you either disappear into the backgrounds, or you're suddenly cut off from somewhere for no apparent reason. An example is in the Nahpui Quarter mission I think - I'll be running up a staircase and get to the top where suddenly I have to go around an invisible wall. Its too many obstacles and it gets annoying. Now I would go around all of Cantha and document these clipping bugs, but there's a reason I don't do that: The Canthan storyline is too short, it's glitchy, incoherent and ugly.



Visual Styles

Shing Jea:
OK, OK, not all of Cantha is ugly. The starting area is actually very nice - they should have made more of Cantha in this style. They could have done with expanding the cave areas, but otherwise Shing Jea is probably my favourite area in Cantha.

Kaineng City:
So we get off the boat from Shing Jea (or LA for that matter) and what do we encounter? Its a... uhmm, a brown mess. This has to be one of the worst and least thought out areas in the whole of Guild Wars. Seriously, this is a massive dent in Arenanets portfolio. If it wasn't for the dead ends, completely disproportional objects and ugly stretched out textures, it might just be OK.
Also this city is completely under populated for its size. On our travels we can see, what? A hundred residence? OK so there's a plague on the go - why don't we see refugees leaving the city, or even dying people on stretchers, maybe even mass graves!? OK so that's a little too far... I apologise.
The main reason the city is so rubbish is the age old difficulty of capturing a populated city within the constraints of a video game. There are too many demands on the developers and on our machines.
Although I've thought of ways around this - they should have followed their concept art, and kept some areas of accessibility on the city rooftops, or in areas where loads of the city has burnt down, or deep down in the sewers where its not so populated. There are probably other ways of conveying a busy city, but Arenanet just didn't get it right. At all in my opinion.

Ecovald:
Next is something slightly better, but still pretty bad overall. A petrified forest is a nice concept, and introducing the gothic theme I have no qualms with. But again they didn't get the visual style right - the colour scheme is all over the place! At least the city has a consistent red and yellow theme. Here there are bright luminous greens contrasting with dull blues and reds and even purple skies.
And that's another thing, the skies are full of tacky 2D tree sprites. It might work on small twigs but the trees in Ecovald are huge - it doesn't work. If they had just stuck to a simple colour palette - maybe something inverse to Jade Seas theme of blue and orange (dull green and bright purple?) - it would improve greatly I bet. If they then put a little more effort into the trees - maybe a claustrophobic cave like mashing of the trees over head, or collapsed areas... I dunno. Ecovald Forest is a good idea that just wasn't well executed.

Jade Sea:
The Jade Sea I actually like better. Granted, the sea looks like something that came out of a icicle, but it LOOKS pretty. They also brought back some of the visual themes from Shing Jea - some genuinely nice hilly areas to explore. They also got the colour scheme right, there is the strong combo of blue and orange tones throughout - even the grass in the hilly areas lean towards yellow in the spectrum.
But there is one thing I don't like about it - again there are tacky 2D sprites at work here. Its in the foam of the frozen crashing waves. If they thought about it a little more, all that foam would have eroded away into dust - in fact the Jade Sea would be slowly turning into a Jade Desert.... random Jade sandstorms would be awesome, think about it.



Story

The story isn't bad in Factions, albeit a little bit random for it's short time span - they introduce very forgettable characters who seem important, only to reappear once at the end, seemingly having contributed little.
When you compare this average story with Prophecies and NightFall, it actually diminishes it quite a bit. Another thing; the Factions story is meant to introduce amazing visual changes to Cantha - its almost have the power of it... and yet, well, see above.
I was also disappoint about the Mantids - What are they? They look cool, why don't they feature more in the story? I'd personally have loved to go into a Mantid hive and nuked em. I remember the first time playing through Factions feeling a little disappointed at the lack of Mantid involvement. Arenanet could have easily integrated them into an extra mission on either kurzick or luxon sides - Shiro takes control of Mantid hive and they go apeshit, etc.
In fact I think Factions almost mundane story is probably the main reason I don't play Factions PVE that much.

Difficulty

Lastly there's the difficulty in Factions. A lot of the missions have (unoriginal) time based bonus's, making them some of the hardest mission in Guild Wars. Swarming is another issue I feel - especially early on there seem to be large numbers of enemies that simply swarm in and overwhelm - NF and prophecies tend to have less of this, introducing enemies at well thought out group sizes. I think the introduction of Heroes have stopped this, but I remember before NF, Factions was extremely hard, especially after Shing Jea.

Conclusion (TL:DR)

To wrap this up, the glitches can be avoided if you visit GWWIKI. The Difficulty isn't so bad because of the introduction of later helpful content. Its not the Visual Styles and Story that put me off so much (because they're workable and I've seen worse). Its the possibilities they could have made from what is already there that really gets me. And you know, it's an Arenanet game, I expect something at least above average, not something that seems cobbled together like Factions PVE is. There's something else about Cantha that I just can't put my finger on - maybe it's the fact I don't play it so much because I feel its so awful in comparison to Arenanets other great games.

books movies and games!

bwaha! after many days of not posting anything on anything for...many reasons I'm back! those of you who have faint hearts...or just plain don't like me may want to leave :D

Anyway! books, movies and games! just wanted to know your favourite books or trilogies, novles, movies, sequals or games!

well for books at the moment it would have to be the Skulduggery Pleasant books, they are just plain awesomeness in a book ;P movies....im not sure about "favourite" as such but i like The Day After Tomorrow, The Pirates of the Caribbean 1, 2 and 3 and also the mummy 1, 2 and 3 XD

Games...Hmm... I change my ideas of games alot XD but atm Fable 2 is really good...looking forward to Oblivion when it comes... well have fun with this XD

Summer Days

So, it's summer here and everyone's starting to disappear into the sunset on holiday. This got me thinking about what everyone's got planned for their summer, so now's your chance to spill the beans! :)

What I've got planned for my summer: (which seems a lot less full when there's no school -yay for leaving school forever!)

I'm going to be going around town with some friends a bunch, since there's some interesting and pretty parks nearby to play games at etc. and in July/August I get to take a trip out to the US with my little sister to visit my grandparents and cousins who I haven't seen in ages since I moved here to the UK 7 years ago (sigh!) so that'll be great fun! :)

Oh, and among lotsa other things, I have to find a part-time job for when college starts, and find a new kitten to join the crew of awesome fuzzies in my house :)

Now it's your turn, what're ya all up to for summer? :)

First Time for Everything...

Well, having finally finished my exams today, I felt it was about time I got round to contributing to this. As my first post on this blog, I'm not even sure if I'm doing this right, a problem only exacerbated by the fact I have never before blogged.

Well, I guess I should introduce myself... I'm Jake (alter ego Pine Ofthaven) and have been playing Guild Wars since Christmas 2006, although I took a break for about six months up until now. I'm eighteen years of age now, and have just, as aforementioned, finished my exams, which culminated in AEA English today. With any luck I'll be at the University of Birmingham in September this year, studying Medieval English and History. To continue the theme of pets, I have a cat, called Cookie, and a red-tailed buzzard, called Lute (pictured). I've been a falconer since I was a mere whippersnapper at the age of eleven. Lute is now three years old and I've had her since she was eighteen weeks.

Hopefully you'll find me appropriately approachable, so feel free to talk to me in-game whenever. I'll most likely be ranting about how stupid the boss locations are in Prophecies as I attempt to skill cap...

Jake

More pets!

Aha! finally after I finally got my camera to work I have almost perfect pet pictures! (i stole your alliteration tee! :P) some pictures may be a bit dark, sorry ^^;

First off, my completely senile cat, Cleo, she is growing old and in this old age she has found out that if she stands in the bathroom and meows as loud as she can in the middle of the night, it wakes people up lol. My dad found her on the way back from work and we kept her, we have had her for almost 17 years now.

Next is my first dog, wolf, we have no idea what breed she is and suggestions would be nice XD. she tends to just sit on the couch but when shes happy or hyper she just has to run all over the house and knock anything she finds over.

Thirdly, my boxer dog named Benson. hes a big grumpy smelly old man who seems to find it funny to fart when everyone is in the room. he also has a tendency to wink ant people o_O.

last but not least, my second cat named smithy (or as I used to call him when i was small, Smiffy XD). Smithy was also found, by our ex-next door neighbour and the couldn't keep him so they gave him to us :D.

I also have a few other pets, a snake named jack, 2 rats named Peaches and Ronnie and a hamster named Polly but taking pictures of them is rather difficult.

great success!

Sorry for the lack of posts recently, started my A2 lessons on monday, and they wont let me drop one of my 5 AS's till results day, soooo im stuck with a history lesson which I just really cba with, seen as Im going to drop it next year anyway. Ive yet to buy any more stationary or equipment for A2, which is presenting a problem, in that I don't have any paper and found myself completely penless on monday, though the kindness of people with regards to both paper and pens has kept me going, so far since the beggining of A2 I have amassed maybe 20 or so free sheets of paper, and three new pens (all of which were just found lying around with no-one claiming them, hey, nothing wrong with resourcefulness :D)...I wonder if I can manage to go the entire next 4 weeks without having to buy any more equipment of any kind.
The great success in the title is a reference to the fact that ive just been informed by my sisters fiance that he just got offered a job, finally and they have to move out within the next month or so, now, ofcourse Ill miss the pair of them, but this means I get the big bedroom, oh and there will be much more peace and quiet (and food) in the house.

I haven't had a tech/internet update as I promised I would, but Ill tell you about something I discovered which made the long hours when I wasn't being taught last week much easier....an awesome little game called Tank trouble. Its quite a simple1-3 player tank game where you have to kill eachother, though being on its own site rather than a games site means most filters don't block it, so I recommend it for your various work/school establishments, suprisingly addictive.

You guys got any favourite wastes of time, speciffically java game related?

Pets Pets n Pests

Luke and Tiri, you both have lovely pets.

We have a lovely Dog and Two Cats, plus some Koi Carp in our pond.

The best pet by far has to be Mr Mc Flurry (one of the cats) who seems to get everywhere and kill everything. I've seen him eating Shrews, Rabbits, Squirrels, Moles and various birds.



Here he is on the porch roof, no doubt scouting out his next kill.


The dog is a lovely boarder collie named Harry. He's getting to around 15 years old now, so he's kinda elderly.



HAHAHA, CAN HE ESCAPE BEFORE HE DROWNS? Poor fluffy :<

Jazz the cat [Luke]

Because Tee asked about our pets and I cba coming up with my own proper post today I thought id tell you about my beasts.

Right now we only have one, Jazz the cat, shes roughly two now..and is absolutely bonkers 95& of the time, here she is as a kitten, because she's just a meany nowadays:

Weve had loads of other pets in the past, including 5 hamsters, another cat, lots of fish, two budgies and a rabbit.

Id love to get another hamster, but my parents think the cat might eat it...I just think they don't want one, hmph.

Cute Companions

We don't seem to have a proper pet post on here, so I'm making one! :)

(And yes, I do love alliteration!)

So, I know not everyone likes them, and some people think they're boring, so maybe some interesting pics of some of my fuzzy buds will cheer you up, you grumpulous folk!

Pet A: Pagan the Russian Blue Kitten

He's a funny little fellow, and he enjoys his time staring at the red light on my camera before attacking it, and hopping into a shoe or two for some fun with the laces.

He even has the oppurtunity to get shoved into my little sister's dollhouse on occasion, too, what a lucky fellow!

Pet B: Mercury the Blue Merle Border Collie

A cute little puppy for all your guys' cute factor to sky rocket, just look at him! Isn't he adorable?

Ok, so you tough guys may not want to admit it, but we all know he's an awesome pup! ;)

However, as he grew up, he lost a lot of his puppy charm, though now he's still a head-turner with his gorgeous furry coat, so here's what he looks like now, all grown up (mostly):

They're just the two main goofy pets I have, I also have a murderous gerbil (quite literally, he killed his roommate!) :( and I've had a couple other crazy cats about, too. ^^

So, folks, do you guys n' gals have any funny felines or rude rodents of your own? (told you I liked alliteration) And what are your views on other sorts of animals in general? (My favourite animal is the Fossa, or squirrels and foxes, they are all soo awesome!) :D

Sheds and other assorted nick nacks [Luke]

Before you watch this I think you should know that I was so amused by the many mundane things I found in my shed because I was looking for reasons that made the experience of cleaning it out any good. (sorry the audio is out of synch, i tried uploading several times, it wont rectify itself :/ )

This picture doesn't really do justice to the amount of crap in the shed, this was taken about halfway through during one of the many tea breaks.

Some of my favourite finds of the day:

I wonder if any of those rations are still edible...surely vacuum acked food goods don't degrade in a mere two decades?
Anyway, I challenge you guys to raid your assorted sheds and/or hidey holes and see if you can dig up any unknown treasures better than my mighty horde:D.

Oh and I hope the fact that I almost clawed my own eyes out because I accidently deleted all the pictures in this post twice and had to upload them again twice will make it all that bit more appreciated.