Maps and Mods?

ceechow

Pre-Searing Cadet

Join Date: Apr 2007

California

XxArcturan GuardsXx

R/Mo

I have about 98% of all 3 maps explored.I have looked at my maps and 100% maps downloaded online and still could never see what I am missing(My maps look complete when compaired to the ones online).Today an alliance member tells me he is runing a "mod" that changes the fog to make seeing the parts of the map,you don't have,easer to see. he said he downloaded it from 'Wiki,my question is this: Is this legal or can my account be banned for this if I installed it?I sure would like those 3 titles but they are not worth getting my account banned.

Mr. G

Mr. G

Desert Nomad

Join Date: Jul 2006

S. Wales

Mo/Me

did you miss the HUUUUUUUUGE thread about this, in fact their are 2, as well as about 17 discussions on wiki

long story short - you wont get banned

Keithark

Wilds Pathfinder

Join Date: Nov 2006

Be Aggressive B E Aggressive [AGRO]

E/Me

I see no mods page on wiki?

Also....the thread on here is HUGE and I have scanned thru it 2 times now and cannot find anything about maps...just skins and stuff?

MisterB

MisterB

Furnace Stoker

Join Date: Oct 2005

Planet Earth, Sol system, Milky Way galaxy

[ban]

W/

Go here, and scroll down to the "ANet" section. Read their official statements, and proceed to put your mind at ease. You will not be banned.
http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Guide...-game_graphics

At the top of that page, there is a line that reads,"For a list of player-made modifications, look here." Click the link on "here" and download the Tyria/Cantha/Elona Catography Made Easy mods.

Download and install Texmod, load the cartography mods, and finish your title.

Epinephrine

Epinephrine

Master of Beasts

Join Date: Mar 2005

Ottawa, Canada

Servants of Fortuna [SoF]

Frankly, they should step in and shut it down. The potential for abuse in PvP is reason enough - more obvious Frenzy, Res Sigs and so on, 50% indicators on health bars and so on create an uneven playing field.

dies like fish

Jungle Guide

Join Date: Jun 2006

Winter Wonderland [brrr]

W/E

Quote:
Originally Posted by Epinephrine
Frankly, they should step in and shut it down. The potential for abuse in PvP is reason enough - more obvious Frenzy, Res Sigs and so on, 50% indicators on health bars and so on create an uneven playing field.
If you're good you should be able to tell when those things happen. If a monk's being beat on, he/she can call when the warrior frenzies. If you see a warrior stopped for 3 seconds, he/she is probably casting res sig. If you can't tell the difference between 60% and 50%, stop monking.

Mr. G

Mr. G

Desert Nomad

Join Date: Jul 2006

S. Wales

Mo/Me

you needed a mod to see someone use a res sig....?

Legendary Shiz

Legendary Shiz

Desert Nomad

Join Date: Apr 2006

Quote:
Originally Posted by Mr. G
you needed a mod to see someone use a res sig....?
lol, good to see somebody else say it. I thought I was missing something.

kooomar

kooomar

Lion's Arch Merchant

Join Date: Oct 2006

Pow Pow Pow [myau]

Mo/E

Meh, in my opinion, the modding in PvP shouldn't be allowed, as it DOES create an uneven playing field, but thats neither here nor there.

As far as modding for carto title, I know 2 people that did it, and said it was beyond easy to get the title once they had the mod. Personally, Im going for them without the mod, for self-satisfaction, but if i /fail at that, then ill use the mod.

Gl on your titles.

eightyfour-onesevenfive

eightyfour-onesevenfive

Wilds Pathfinder

Join Date: Sep 2005

7??13'35" E - 50??06'27" N

Servants of Fortuna [SoF]

Quote:
Originally Posted by dies like fish
If you're good you should be able to tell when those things happen. If a monk's being beat on, he/she can call when the warrior frenzies. If you see a warrior stopped for 3 seconds, he/she is probably casting res sig. If you can't tell the difference between 60% and 50%, stop monking.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Mr. G
you needed a mod to see someone use a res sig....?
Neither of that is the point. Of course you can tell all that without a mod. Of course you won't need a mod if you're a good player. But the mods will help to spot those things more easily. If you're a not-so-good player, using those mods will give you an unfair advantage over other not-so-good players, who play the game as it is. People need to realize that not only the top 2% of the ladder matter, those guilds at the bottom have just as much a right on a fair playing field.

bobrath

bobrath

Wilds Pathfinder

Join Date: Jun 2005

Texas

Scouts of Tyria

Quote:
Originally Posted by kooomar
As far as modding for carto title, I know 2 people that did it, and said it was beyond easy to get the title once they had the mod. Personally, Im going for them without the mod, for self-satisfaction, but if i /fail at that, then ill use the mod.
Beyond Easy? Not really - you still have to walk out to the area and wall hug along the entire stretch where you're missing some spots. What the mod did do is take the frustration out of taking a screen shot, comparing it to a 100% map, then going back in game to find that spot and then walking it while simultaneously staring down your U screen to see if you noticed the fog move back.

IMO, the only people this really hurts is the folks that were providing a much needed map comparison service for a fee. Their market just vanished.

Epinephrine

Epinephrine

Master of Beasts

Join Date: Mar 2005

Ottawa, Canada

Servants of Fortuna [SoF]

To those saying "you need a mod to see a rez sig"? or other helpful comments, no, I don't. But there are times that shaving a split second off decision times or communication times can make the difference.

For example - most decent interrupters can hit 1 second spells essentially reliably, and have some trouble with 0.75 second spells. Part of interrupting a spell is making the decision as to whether it is a spell that you want to interrupt and whether it is feasible; obviously one remembers the symbols for all the spells that are common in the metagame and memorizes the casting times, so as to best judge whether a spell is worth trying for or not, but it does use decision time. Altering the images so that you have an obvious signal about casting time and/or desire to interrupt (not hard to label important/valuable spells in the current game) could shave reaction time, allowing better interrupts, at any level of play. I'll admit to not being the best interrupter, I know I lose reaction time trying to decide whether I can hit the spell and whether it's worth hitting; maybe nobody else would gain a bit of time, but if it shaved 1/20 of a second average decision time it would improve my ability to hit a 0.75 spell.

Similarly, sure, your monk can call the frenzy, or the blindbot may see it etc., but not every instance will be spotted, plus given reaction time, ventrilo ping, delay in calling it etc. you will miss a bit of time realizing it. OTOH, if a huge word FRENZY appeared over their head with an arrow pointing down it might save time, making it more likely for a spike response to be possible before the stance is cancelled.

Can I tell the difference between 60% and 50%? Sure. Can I tell the difference between 52% and 49%? Maybe. Can I always make the right call when it's close? No.

Sure, I'm not the best at these things, but I can't imagine that there isn't a player out there that could improve his/her game by make some form of PvP mod. The presence of a level playing field is important to GW, whether or not it will make a huge difference to rankings - I don't expect a rank 500 team to take rank 1 with a modded file, but if they win the occasional game that might have gone the other way it's an effect, and at top levels I imagine (I'm not there) that any advantage, however slight, could translate to a victory.

LifeInfusion

LifeInfusion

Grotto Attendant

Join Date: May 2005

in the midline

E/Mo

I think I have to echo bobrath and Epinephrine.

Form the start, Texmod has grave consequences for PVP and not so much for PVE.

In PVE the only real benefit is Mapping. The only difference between a direct photoshop comparison and the map mod is one is easier to use and less tedious. The map mod does not allow you to get the map instantly unlocked, you still have to walk to covered spots.

In PvP the consequences are more grave. You can probably twitch 1 second spell interrupts. However, it takes a bit more to catch spells that are 1/4 or 3/4 on a mesmer and ranger (respectively). A graphical mod to spells that are priority interrupts is a real advantage. Infuse Health, anyone?

In fact, that is probably why skills like Mistrust, Shame, Guilt, and to a lesser extent Diversion are hexes with an pseudo-interrupt potential (causes spells to fail) rather than a direct interrupt.

lyra_song

lyra_song

Hell's Protector

Join Date: Oct 2005

R/Mo

i think healthbar indicators and spirit radar should be added by Anet to the game client cause they are good ideas. ^_^

DarkNecrid

Furnace Stoker

Join Date: Jul 2006

imo PvP shouldnt be allowed cause its an uneven playing field already. People who suck and people who don't and mods dont change that.

bobrath

bobrath

Wilds Pathfinder

Join Date: Jun 2005

Texas

Scouts of Tyria

Would the ability to have a huge "Interupt me!!!" sign for certain spells or skills lead the users to be better or worse players?

I'd expect that the current set of "elite" interrupters have a feeling for when important spells are going to be cast and area already in the act of interrupting - perhaps before their target consciously starts the activation. Its the actions the targets take prior to the cast that help overcome the obvious twitch needed.

So would the sign teach lesser players to start watching or observing for the lesser signals OR would it simply be a crutch that makes them better but never allowing them to get to the next level?

Is there an advantage to modding in PvP? I doubt anyone could convince me that for a new or Noob player there isn't an advantage. As the level of play moves up however, that edge would get minimized.

Regarding "autobot" hitting with interupts: Even if you set up a program that would watch for a certain shade of pink (for instance) and when it saw it would then proceed to "click" the number 1. It would have some severe limitations:
1) On a mesmer because in order for it to be effective, it would need to be insta-cast and insta-effect. An arrow has too much delay (and can be blocked by line of sight) to be used.
2) Would somehow have to be aware of recharge, available energy, and more importantly the game situation.

The user of this "bot" would probably be more frustrated then helped by it since they'd be doing almost all the driving and having an occasional "omg headshot!!" moment mixed with tons of "stop clicking you stupid bot".

Celestial_Kitsune

Celestial_Kitsune

Krytan Explorer

Join Date: Jun 2006

Me/

Quote:
Originally Posted by Epinephrine
Altering the images so that you have an obvious signal about casting time and/or desire to interrupt (not hard to label important/valuable spells in the current game) could shave reaction time, allowing better interrupts, at any level of play.
What are those skils? Most spells have a generic animation for each attribute that activates at the same time the spell is cast. The spell specific animation comes in much later, which makes it useless for interruption. The mods that change the color of the animation to make it more noticeable may be somewhat useful though. It is not possible or useful to change an animation to a text for some skills.

Bar marks, spirit range, and other mods are quite benign and would not make a big difference. It is nice to have a hypothetical discussion about unfairness of these mods, but it would be interesting to see some evidence. Please post video demos or links to the mods that give significant unfair advantage in pvp.

Epinephrine

Epinephrine

Master of Beasts

Join Date: Mar 2005

Ottawa, Canada

Servants of Fortuna [SoF]

@ Celestial Kitsune - you have a good idea in a sense about providing evidence that an advantage could be garnered, but I'm not sure whether it's needed.

The question in my mind isn't whether it has been done but more whether it could be done. Establishing a true test of the effect would be all but impossible - after all, you'd need a large sample of players, tested with and without the mod in question, in both orders (to eliminate order effects) and so on - not feasible for every mod made. Obviously I am being a bit ridiculous at suggesting such lengths, but I think establishing whether harm could result from it is sufficient, and to assume that if one could creat an advantage that people will. That seems to be ANet's approach re: hacking - assume that it's infinitely hackable and thus provide only a small set of ways to communicate with the servers.

As to what's currently available, I've searched a bit - I can't find much. Sure, Tyuri made a mod that converted an animation to "Incoming Aegis, Interrupt Me!", but it's one of the few references to that type of thing.

Am I worried about what's out there right now? No, but I worry that an advantage might be possible. I've seen mention that you can extend radar range a bit (5% or so according to one post), of modifying skill animations and so on. Is it alarmist to worry now? Maybe - but I've played games in which things like maphacks that gave real advantages and I certainly don't want to see things go down that road.

Maybe it's pessimistic and alarmist - if people find a way to cheat they will. If there is an unfair advantage to be had, people will find it. I've been quite happy with GW graphics, and I guess I see so very little gain from modding them that it doesn't seem worth any risk of problems arising from it. When I played CS and DoD there was rampant cheating, much of it on the client end. Of course, GW was smart in giving us things like the ctrl and alt keys to reveal people within range and such - it prevents wallhacks and such being powerful. Maybe there's nothing to worry about, but I have visions of pulsing repair kits that are impossible to miss, semi transparent guild halls/mountains that allow much better viewing of enemy movements, altered skill animations (or more probably - changing the skill icons that are displayed when a player casts - these pixels are fixed in place and could thus easily be scanned) leading to interrupt bots and so on - paranoid maybe, but something I'd rather never worry about. I'm not a game designer, I'll admit to not knowing what's doable and impossible - I just know that human nature suggests that if there is a way, people will abuse it.

I'll admit that my first impressions were wrong however - I hadn't realised that the size is restricted - only the wrapping textures can be changed, so the flag won't suddenly be 30 feet tall and visible moving about from a mile away and so on. The fact that so many textures are shared helps too - you won't be able to colour the various spirits differently to make identification easier, nor to make things that are currently invisible like traps visible. As I mention, I am not a programmer - it's easy to jump to conclusions about what can be done when graphics are altered. It still has me somewhat worried, but the limitations of the texmod are somewhat comforting.

LifeInfusion

LifeInfusion

Grotto Attendant

Join Date: May 2005

in the midline

E/Mo

Just so you know, it isn't possible to change the base models without hacking/injecting code into the dat or exe. But the effects of skills tend to be a single plane, as in a flat surface, so simply editing the texture could in theory create a "hit me" or "critical" sort of effect. The "critical" mod on the official wiki hints at this.

http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Guide..._modifications
--> enchanced critical hit "Enhances and enlarges the critical hit texture so you really know when you crit."

Most of the other mods are UI mods, not effect mods.

Anything else would be a man-in-the-middle attack on the server-client interaction and assuming they have server checks (which I'm pretty sure they do) then there is little cause for alarm if any. IIRC that's how the presear transferring of stuff was done (there was no server check probably).

Dunno if that comforts you some more Epinephrine...it probably should though.