Canthan Grandmaster Cartographer in a day - What's A-Net going to do about it?

Oh he's not talking about Texmod, he's talking about someone tampering the link on the Wiki site (that originally linked to Texmod) to linking to a keylogger website. Nothing to do with the Texmod.exe itself.

Yes, like someone posting a generic message that may or may not have happened to them, and most certainly did not involve Texmod, is proof enough. Account thefts happened long before mods came into being, and will continue to happen until the day they shut down the servers.

With the sheer number of people using Texmod, and none being hacked as a result of it, I feel certain that it's safe.

Texmod has been around since Tomb Raider came to the PC. It's fine.

I think it's safe too. But being the overly paranoid person I am, I reset my password anyway after I used the mod for a while just to see how useful it is.

Did I fool some of you? haw!

(Was wondering why no one asked about it sooner.)
...

Nice little utility, this textmod. *Thumbs up*

So the all over question implied here is:
Is this cheating or not?
Plain and simple

No. It's not.
121212

Cartographer title looks like this:

0[---------|-------------]100%

When you get 100%, you're grandmaster cartographer. That is all.

I went from 72% Cantha to 100% Cantha in 3 days. So it's not like it's hard....

Personally, I laugh at most of the TexMod exploration mods, as most are poorly made, and are wrong.

Basically this title used to be the one and only one that I held any respect for.

Virtually every other title you could afk or just purchase, this one you actually had to do all the work yourself for it.

Now with text mods its a joke, like most all of the titles.

I can still remeber the day they added sweet tooth title and a guild member of mine had it maxed an hour later. Same with drunk title, though not quite so fast.

I'm currently at 99.4% of Tyria and I am vanquishing every map along the way to find those missing little spots. When I am done I will know how much effort I put forth but others will just look upon this title as nothing more than one more easily maxed title. sad

Scraping walls for mapping is a horrible mechanic imo. Glad there is a better way.

Texmod = I'm smarter than you, because I didn't waste my time...

This gave me an idea to post.

When there is another way to get LDoA... people will whine about it too, even though it takes more effort and less time AFK letting yourself get killed repeatedly, and makes a whole lot more sense.

These kinds of things just puzzle me, because I've never had to compare maps or textmod, and I never have to revisit any areas. If you just scrape each area the first time through, you should never miss anything - I didn't, and I did GMCs on two characters And that's ignoring how much leeway there is for each map - in Tyria you don't even need 90% of Lornar's Pass to get GMC, so how you guys are missing so much of the map that you can't even manage 100% is totally beyond me.

You people talking about comparing maps and textmods like they're necessary deserve no sympathy - if you got stuck at 99.x%, you did it to yourself.

All of that said, since GMC doesn't actually give any benefits there probably isn't any reason for anyone to give a ****, and the people using these techniques don't have anything to lose but self-respect.

All this mod did was allow people who didn't know how to compare the maps in photoshop, an easier way to compare them in game. In all honesty if this was available to you guys before the whole photoshop and compare things you know you would of used it too.

It's all the same way, it's not like you can load a mod and instantly get a free title. You are doing the same thing by scraping walls, you just look in your map instead of alt tabbing every few mins to compare maps.

The major complainers seem to be people who didn't even use photoshop, and wasted many precious hours of their life going to EVERY area, even if there's not even doubt if they have all of it, scraping for pixels.

Some of us had existing characters for a year when the title was added. This meant somewhere around 70-90% explored.

And that simply meant going through all the zones all over again.

If you make a new character these days, then combining with skill hunter, vanquisher, drunkard and cartographer will save *A LOT* of time.

And I'll never understand how some people did it the first time through.
How the heck did you map auroa glade the first time through for instance (where you have a time limit due to the shrine capping at the end to map)? Did you honestly find the invisible/infinate world trick the Shiverpeaks your first time? Did you honestly do Dunes of Despair by using the teleport trick the first time through (ie did you think up of the tactic yourself the very first time you played the mission and just happened to have necrotic traversal, or did you have to look up advice on guru/wiki.... yeah I thought so)?
If so, you are so leet. No wonder I'm terrible for having to scrap areas repeatedly.

Oh please. It's a joke because the fog is now easier to see?

Aurora Glade you do by killing all of the spawns, then exploring at your leisure. There's no time limit.

The infinite map in the Shiverpeaks (I assume you're talking about the right edge of Talus Chute) you can find just by walking against the wall in that region.

You don't have to fully map Dunes to get 100%. Like I said, you can miss 90% (all but the bottom edge) of Lornar's Pass and still get 100%. Some people don't have to do Hell's Precipice. There's a LOT of extra area you don't have to get.

The point is, if you just scrape each area diligently you shouldn't get stuck, especially if you're using the wiki tricks for additional map %.

But I think the point is, the mod does change things, dramatically! I do not see the OP "belittling" someone. I see him expressing concern that suddenly those achievements that had one level of requirement are substantially easier to obtain. If someone wanders around trying to get that last .03%, that's entirely different than if someone can fire up the mod, jump to the map, and complete the final percentage in a matter of minutes.

Torqual, I understand your concerns, and this thread will be included in this week's community summary. I honestly don't expect that the game will be altered to revert the newly-changed parameters back to what they once were. But I will pass along how you feel about it, principally for future consideration.

Hmmm i did cartography the hard way, found all the niches and what not myself. had fun doing it.

Would have loved an easier way to find those areas i had missed though.
My wife certainly would as she is stuck at 99% on her main character in both Tyria and Elona.


However to answer the Op questions,

1 It is cheatign as its against the rules
2 its agaisnt the EULA rules to use mods
3 no i dont think there is, they have often said before to clear things like this would invovle rolling back everything months. Quite simply if they found peopel using these mods then they should be banned accordign tot he Eula.

Personaly i dont think its bad however it does break rules

As someone stated earlier: if the original fog was easier to see, no one would have any need for such mods. As is, exploring is unnecessarily harder than it can be, and perhaps should be.

Gaile, just my two cents from seeing how all this turned out with World of WarCraft. Allowing mods is a slippery slope for both ANet and the players of GW.

The thing is, it's not. It's no different than comparing maps with photoshop, just a bit faster and with a lower RAM requirement.

As for getting carto done "in a matter of minutes" or "in a single day," that's just not possible. As I stated before, OP rails quite a bit, but he doesn't have his facts straight. Knowing where a patch of fog is does not tell you where you have to stand to uncover it, or even what zone you have to stand in. You still have to cross the zone, get near the fog patch, kill the nearby monsters so you have time to rub the wall like a pervert, and then find the darned spot that uncovers the fog. The only thing the mod tells you for sure is when you've failed to uncover everything with what you thought was a good scrape. Maybe in a few revisions it might be reliable enough to let you know when you've been successful with a scrape.

[edit: Moreover, I might add, as others have, that "knowing where a patch of fog is" should not require a mod in the first place. The un-modded fog is simply too damn hard to see, either out of poor design or sadistic design.]

If you want a thread that really deserves dev attention, I might suggest this one. It features lots of whining too, but at least it's about a real problem.

Perhaps I should do Tyria too then...

That's good.

Good to know. Seems I was wrong.

Seems like you summed it up well.

Not possible. (1) The mod-makers control the file itself, and a change to the link would show up in the wiki history. (2) A .tpf file is a simple data file, not an executable. Putting malware into data files is very hard and always requires finding an exploitable bug in the program that reads it.

QFT. The mod makes the hardest part of Cartographer (the last 5%) unbelievably easy, as you can see EXACTLY where those explorable bits are. Without the mod, it takes a LOT more effort to do it.

Can a drinkbot macro be related to textmodding in any way or is that completely different? I've done neither, so I don't know.

Thank you Gaile Gray!

Today has been a good day. For the first time I actually started a thread in Guru and it got 6 pages of answers (well, flames)! My life is complete. :-)

The reason I haven't posted in the last six pages is that I just spent the last 8 hours Vanquishing The Shattered Ravines, The Ruptured Heart and The Poisoned Outcrops, followed by old-fashioned wall scraping and a quick dip into the Dynastic Tombs! My Legendary Cartographer title is complete! Something I started a year ago, when I cleared Tyria. Why would I do this, because I felt a little challenged by the 'power mappers' I referred to and couldn't accept that they should get a title in 3 days that I started a year ago. So, I'm tired, it's 3.20am in London.....but it feels gooood.

I would like to clarify one or two points raised above. I took more than four weeks to map Elona, not because I am inept but because I Vanquished it also. I am now an Elonian Vanquisher and, on the way, I capped all the Warrior Elites and opened about 200 chests. I also got Legendary Spearmarshal without farming, and around 20k Lightbringer points. I call this technique 'playing Guild Wars' - it's not for everyone, but I find it satisfying.

The second point that I would like to clarify is that I never did any of these titles to have a title. I did them because I like exploring and I like completing things. The point I was making is that I thought it was very sad that OTHER people would do them in rapid amounts of time, just to get a title. Like one of the earlier posters, I really thought that these were the titles that would always take some time and effort.

The third point is the one about "they still have to do the same work anyway" and visit all the locations. This is posted several times above. Let me be clear on how this mod works. I loads someone else's fully-explored map into your client, so when you press M or U you see their map, not yours. The work is already done for you and it's clearly visible where you need to go, and where you don't. The second point is the key one, people without the mod spend lots of time going places that don't get them 0.1% because they are being methodical and want to catch the small number that do. So, let's have no illusions, you are loading someone else's achievement into your computer. How is this different to ALT-tabbing and map-comparing? I think that's a bit of a dumb question.

I do feel for people that got to 99.5% and couldn't go further, so resorted to the mod. I got to this stage, but I didn't choose to mod my game, I just read forums and kept looking for what was missing. But anyway, these people were not the target of my self-admitted 'QQ'; it was people that would go from 60%-100% in a ridiculously small amount of time, and how this cheaped a title that others had got some satisfaction from doing without modding their game.

Actually I am not expecting or demanding anything to be done about this, and my question "What's A-Net going to do about it?" was a rhetorical one. Having said this, I'll make a clear comparison with another game I used to play:- CS Source. This game is very moddable, and many great mods are produced for the benefit of the community (Zombies FTW!) However, some mods are produced purely for the benefit of the individual that doesn't want to compete on a level playing field. And learn from this - one sniff of such a piece of software and Valve give you a lifetime ban without appeal. So, how different REALLY is installing a cartography aid to putting an aimbot into your Steam client? I get all the jibes about going back to horses and carts but I never said it was cheating to have a car. But entering your car in a horse race might be?

Because no LGMCs compared maps with photoshop before texmod came out. Right...

Come on now, loading someone else's achievement onto your computer? Is that really all that different from taking a screenshot of your map and comparing it to someone else's completed one, in photoshop? Whether you feel that's a dumb question or not, I find it a valid one, and evidently so do a lot of other people.

The title has been all wrong since it was implemented. You should "clear an area" by say killing all the monters in the zone, not by taking 20-30 mins walking facing a wall the entire time.

That's why mods like these are a good thing. Because the title was not properly implemented mods just help us where we shouldn't of needed help to begin with.

If the title just checked to make sure you say killed everything or uncovered say 80-90% of the map and it automatically gave you the rest instead of scraping every centimeter because of the way the title currently is their would of never been this much complaining.

In all honesty, this title should of been changed on the way you achieve it. All the mods do is give help to the people who want it.

Even people who have this title it doesn't do much. It isn't like it gives bonus % on lockpicks not breaking or salvages going wrong. So in my opinion, if people want to use it they can, if anet decides they don't want us to use it fine too. Just make it so we can tell where we missed easier.

Enter a zone and it says "100% explored" in corner or 98.2% explored or whatever. The way the title is now without photoshopping to compare or texmods is a joke from how hard it is to tell what you have and have not uncovered.

Brilliant, brilliant idea.

I'm going to bed now.

For sure. Any time in a game spent guessing, when that isn't the point of the game's activity, isn't the best design.

...So you mean I just need to load someone's full cartographer map and BOOM I got the title? No, I have to still go over every nook and cranny on that map. There's still the timegrind to get to it.

VERY different. Sure, I have the map, I know where to go, but I still have to map it all. An actually accurate comparison is comparing an aimbot to a farmbot. That makes sense. This is just a shortcut: Instead of having to play in windowed mode and comparing maps as such, I only need to have *one* window open, and only have to press M or U to see where I need to go.

Chthon has already stated it much more clearer:

And Gaile, if this is considered cheating, then why do you have links to the free GW strategy guide, the Guild Wars wiki, in-game?

Man if this is seriously going to be looked into by the "board" so to speak, then I reeeeealy hope that they get their facts straight. I don't want the GW modding community to be destroyed by a misunderstanding.

D: I don't remember what game it was, but it was an adventure type one. After you beat the game and went around collecting the final whatevers, there was something that told you if that object was in this area. I'm sorry that this post is so completely unspecific... but if someone who has played the game reads this, they will understand.

Agreed.

Furthermore, how is using an in-game mod to find the missing areas of the map any different from using an outside program like photoshop to compare maps manuelly?

I've signed repeated peititons for something to be done in game to allow cartographer to be easier to find (ie, adding something like the text mod file dirrectly in game, since it can be done already).

It's less tedious.

...And that's about it.

*shrug* I guess people don't like it being more convenient?

Oh, there is also an increased chance of banning.

Simple, it's the amount of effort needed. In the end, isn't effort what this thread is all about?

When Magellan set out to achieve the Terran Grandmaster Circumnavigator title, all he had was a rusty sextant and compass that always pointed northish. Would we still celebrate Magellan Day on April 27 if he just looked up his route on Google Earth?

If Columbus discovered America using modern satnav, would it be nearly as impressive?

To who? I don't care if you got Legendary Cartographer. I also don't care if you got God Walking Amongst Mere Mortals. I care if I get those titles, and you should care if you get those titles. But don't try to make me care about what you did or didn't do, and how much effort you did or did not put into something.

Is that a Canadian thing, Magellan Day? That's odd... it's the same date as my...

Sir, Columbus discovered nothing. He found something millions of people already inhabited. Oh I get it, you're making a comparison to how I used someone's 100% map to get my own maxed out! Ohhhh! /e-sarcasm

Effort only matters to the person who did it! If they are doing it for self-achievement, they wouldn't mod. If they don't care, they will. It shouldn't matter to anyone but theirselves.

Who is making you care?