What is cheating?

That's the reason why I was asking: because I'm not sure why the carto mod was created, despite having attempted to find the info.

Why would you think that? I don't think they're going to change an iota on their position regarding texmod.

Because if the Cartographer mod is going to be classified as cheating, then so is the Wiki. And ANet seems to fully endorse the latter.

You can see this thread as a form of rhetoric, an exercise in trying to find the grey frontier that constitutes "cheating". It surely is not an attempt to say anything to Anet (well they may find some inspiration if they look beyond the surface...).

Two sides:
1) Anet/official: texmod is fine, carto mod is fine (I suppose they're even happy that people can max titles much easily than before), no change to wiki
2) basic/player: is it fair? it surely is not the way the game was intended to be played; it's an add-on that does an automatic comparison, instead of you actually looking at the map. Furthermore, does this mode of "playing" (add-on augmented playing?) open the door to unfairness? When is it right and wrong to ask a computer to do something for you?

If we want to talk about carto mods:

Cartography title is arguably one of most "cheatly" titles. It encourages to use clever tricks (exploits ...) to access otherwise inaccessible areas. Sometimes they are just clever, sometimes they are bug or design abuse. Also, cinematics quite randomly take you to places that are not in accessible game world yet which count for mapping. Etc ... you basically need outside game information to complete those titles. Quite unique for GWs.

Then there is design issue. Map was not designed to support that kind of achievement. There are all kinds of invisible spots: you walk over them and title progresses but fog does not change, unless you wall hug everything you can't be sure, even even then you have areas inside explorable that look explored even if they are not. There is no completeness indicator for area alike vanquishing progress/finished.

Carto mods fix this by making game UI much more suited to unfogging. Without going against "You have to go there everywhere yourself and see wall textures in detail" meta-goal of cartographer. All it does is that it adds guildwars-grade gui comfort to mapping.

Basically, its about similar grade of client improvement like wiki integration. Community added missing feature.

Why is it not cheat? Point of GW is not to compare map screen shots in Photoshop.

Last but not least ... banning this mod would hate to logically result in banning "compare map" threads and from there, should be follow slippery slope fallacy, its not really pretty ...

(<- author of THE first and crudest carto mod)

Was it after titles were added to GW?

Texmod was certified by ANet as "legit" long after titles were announced, yes.

Yes. There was really no point before that.

Why would this matter anyway?

manitoba i don't think you realize what positioning is in reference to this discussion. everyone else is talking about battlefield positioning. this means your position in relation to your enemies position. in order for a character to reach an enemy's backline, you must go through or around the enemy's frontline. shadowstepping defies that basic concept. a sin can jump from one side of the battlefield straight to the backline, gank a monk or something, then jump right back to safety. shadowstepping defies basic battlefield tactics.

you are talking about positioning in relationship to the landscape. everyone knows that you have to have a line to your target, i.e. you have to be able to walk to him in order to shadowstep to him. that doesn't apply to this discussion, though. even if a sin is bodyblocked by 7 players from an opposing team, he can still shadowstep to the 8th player. that is what defies positioning.

What about using Necrotic Traversal/Consume Corpse and Rebirth to get the Dunes of Despair Bonus without triggering the timer? The drawbridge is up, but you can teleport across the ravine with no effort if you kill something on the other side.

Bingo, now we have someone else that understands defying positiong. Grats. That is the difference between actually defy positioning and not defying it.


I know exactly what you guys are talking about. And it has no relation to actual defyiing positioning. Learn your skills, That is part of its mechanics. So once again its not defying the positioning because of the way the skill works there is none to begin with. Learn the difference between shadow stepping and teleporting.

Wait, I'm confused here. Appearing next to your target from anywhere providing you're in aggro bubble in 0/.25 seconds isn't teleporting? There is no difference. Learn what teleporting means.

Speaking of teleporting, you did that just now. I always hated the usage of the ignore list, but whatever.

For the others who can actually see, since someone realized they were wrong and wants to just ignore it.


No teleporting is not the same as shadowstepping. Even though it looks like it. As usual around here since its easier to ignore the facts its a waste of time to explain it. But they should work opposite to how they do work now. Shadowstepping should work like teleporting does now and teleporting should work like shadowstepping works now. That would solve the problems of the difference to the skills.

I think you're a little too hard on GWiki. Game manual seems fitting; most of the useful content about game exploitation (quick farming, ect) are only in the discussion segments of the site. Build Wikis, I consider differently: they are a source of inspiration completely outside the actual game. Instead of spending time studying the statistics of specific game elements and environments (diff types of dmg, defense, nrg consumption/renewal rates, even mob strengths/weaknesses), some people just copy and paste a build, many of which exploit the game in a very masterbatory way (solo farming DOES seem at least somewhat akin to digital masterbation, doesn't it? ...though I agree that some farm runs definitely require a certain level of skill and knowledge of an environment). Though still, I've used build wikis before, just to help get me started when I had a character and no idea how the digital environment worked and effected my character. Now, I challenging myself to improve already popular builds; occasionally, I'll get inspiration and start up a build from scratch (extremely fun with mesmers, probably due to the fact that they're so underrated in the game that many players don't even delve into the profession, so there's not as many published "how to play without thinking" builds).

Sorry, that was long.

So in recap, I kind of see Gwiki as a digital, detailed statsbook for something like Dungeons and Dragons. So many times, I have used it to help me do the math on what skills would work where (sometimes keeping a general, sometimes keeping a specific location or situation in mind). In fact, that's often what I have open when working out a build, or sometimes a trading situation: GW, Gwiki, and the generic calculator that any PC comes with. And I think there's nothing wrong with that. I'm certainly not playing GW for the story (and I rarely ever cross a player who does), I don't care at all about my character reputation (though titles are nice if they come around...and why would anyone ever pay real money for a digital item that wasn't anything less than visually stunning? (And I've never played a game with an item worth paying money to only look at on my character while playing. Max armor is max armor; nothing in GW looks pretty enough to be worth real money.)); I do enjoy playing with experienced players and in challenging locations. Guides and statmanuals help with this.

I hope this post makes any sense. I like to talk sometimes.

I guess I was wrong for putting you on the ignore list. This stuff cracks me up, seriously. Keep the show rolling, Manitoba, you should be a comedian.

Can someone tell me what the topic was? Don't feel like looking through the Tyla / Manitoba battle like most threads are.