ShadowsBetween

Huh? I don't get it.

I don't remember which shard I was on. Probably the default. However, I ultimately found very little about Guild Wars that I enjoyed. I found it to be less effort to simply not play it, thus avoiding the idiots and the awful gameplay in a single stroke.

I don't play on Freedom, never have. I played around with the chat window options in Guild Wars, and I never found any way to disable a single channel - if there is such a thing, it's certainly not in an intuitive place. I don't see why I should have to flee the area because other people are morons.

And I don't care for any game where I have to look up the "perfect" build and stat distribution to finish each mission. I want to build *my* character. And if my character is useless in half the missions, I see no real reason to play that game. As I said, it's just my opinion. But I strongly disliked that game.

That's the pictures I saw. I'd say that at a minimum, they would be the only ones of the Mastermind pets to use the Beast skeleton animations. Assuming they don't get something completely new. In any case, the succubus is definitely not on the guest list for this particular set. (I'm not sure what the utility power for the set would be, but I'm pretty sure it won't be to summon a succubus, even as a temp pet. Not if Demon MMs are tapping into a realm where those things are normal.)

There were some shots of concept art for the demons at HeroCon. They look like nothing else in game. The best general description I can come up with is that they look animalistic, sort of like a cross between a flesh golem, a crocodile, and a gorilla. Oh, and they have skulls for heads. If the artwork of Desdemona and her demons is to scale though, the Assault Bot might finally have competition for "largest pet." The tier 3 demon looks absolutely massive.

Imagine losing your kicking base because the easiest way to handle the server merge is to wipe all supergroup data from both servers. (All SGs gone, all names cleared, all names available on first-come, first-serve. Totally unbiased.) Imagine losing half your characters, because they merged two small servers you happen to be active on and there aren't enough slots. Imagine that the other half all end up as "Matt Tatts2" because someone on the other server happened to have the same name.

As everyone has pointed out, this gets brought up often. Aside from all of the reasons this would have a massive negative effect on players, merging servers is a bad move for the company as well - many people would quit over the issues it would cause. And it would be seen by those outside the game as clear evidence that the game itself is in trouble. (Merging servers is generally only done as a cost-cutting measure, when the number of players isn't large enough to maintain profitability. Yes, AOC and WAR both have had server merges. AOC at least, is widely considered to be dying, and WAR is generally regarded as "in a bit of trouble." I have visited no less the three software stores recently, where I have actually overheard the cashiers advising people *against* buying either game, "because they're going to get shut down soon.")

Merging the servers would not help with PVP. Very few people PVP in this game to begin with, and the system available is less than ideal. The people who hate/don't care about PVP will still feel that way after a merge, except they'll also be upset that one or more of their characters or SGs were effectively wrecked by the merge. It would not help greatly with finding teams because, simply put, the problem you're having isn't that there aren't people to team with. It's that you are looking for them wrong. (Here's a hint - sitting around and waiting for "da awesum team!" to invite you isn't going to work.)

If the number of people on your server bothers you, find a bigger server. You can even move your characters, for a small fee. There is no reason that many other players on *both* servers should be badly inconvenienced simply because you cannot find a group. What's that? You don't want to move to another server? Guess what? Neither do most of the players on any two servers you might try to merge.

Errr... didn't the devs already rip the guts out of AE, by changing the rules for how XP is allocated? The changes are a bit complicated to explain quickly, but boil down to the fact that a mission with only bosses will grant ZERO XP. To get full XP, a custom critter group has to include at least one each of minion/lieutenant/boss, all set at Hard or Extreme and with *all* required powers. Dropping even one power causes the critter to be worth ZERO XP. Most of the "AE Babies" either wandered out into the larger game or quit weeks ago.

The problem is that they can calculate a set, maximum value per endurance for the MM pet upgrades - there are, at most, six of them. If the shields were made into AoEs, they become *vastly* more efficient on large, high level teams. If you had a team with two Brutes, two Dominators plus pets, two Corruptors, and two Masterminds plus pets, then any AoE buffs could be affecting up to 22 targets. (And that's assuming that none of the Corruptors or MMs are playing a set like Dark Miasma with a short term pet that can take buffs.) I can't see the devs being very happy with that.

While we're at it, where are the "I WIN!" "Make me Level 50!" and "Full set of all Purple IOs for all powers!" buttons? We really need those, too.

I thought giving pets an Attack command canceled Bodyguard mode? (Ie., anything but Defensive Follow.) Is that incorrect? I *don't* use the default pet command buttons, I've got Macros for each command - petcom_all Attack, petcom_all defensive follow, petcom_all goto, and petcom_all dismiss are what I normally use. For some of my Masterminds, like the Necromancers, I'll switch the Goto or Attack to just specific pets - Grave Knights are entirely too fond of their Dark bolts, and Zombies are more useful to soak damage in Bodyguard than as a Longbow induced stain on the floor, and the Lich does... well, whatever it is that he does, regardless of what I say.

On the other hand, it could be a win-win situation for Arachnos (from a role playing standpoint.) Every time you summon your Arachnos minion, you're revealing your exact position and precisely what you're up to and who you're with. And that's not even counting people who want to play as a spy for one side or the other. And the people who want to pretend that they have the assistance of an Arachnos minion who has also gone rogue.

From a gameplay perspective, I can't seem them automatically stripping away a power that a player has already chosen. If they force it to switch to something else when you change sides, what happens to the IOs that are slotted? What I *can* see them doing is dropping a huge pile of Villain points on the Patron arcs - if you want to be a hero after you get the Patron powers, you're welcome to try, but you'd be starting from zero or less on the "good guy" scale.

For some people, the trash talking is the main reason. For me, it's only part of the reason, though it is one of the ones that will occur to me immediately when anyone asks if I want to PVP. In any case, good luck with your guide. Just because I don't like PVP doesn't mean no one else is allowed to enjoy it.

*Edit* As far as trash-talking idiots in Atlas... Yes, I see them all the time. If I find them particularly offensive, I'll report them, then ignore them. Otherwise, if they don't shut up, I'll /ignore them. I am quite generous with bestowing the honor of /ignore. But in Atlas, I don't have to worry about one of those people sneaking up behind me and stabbing me in the head. In PVE, I don't have to interact with them in any way. And in at least two cases, I've actually left teams because of people like that. Even though it meant bailing out on friends that were still on the team. I *will not* interact with people like that. (In one case, when one of the jerks apparently realized that I must have /ignored him, he came up behind my character and did a custom "humping" emote. I didn't even take time to apologize to my friend before I hit "Quit Team.")