Dev Update: Hall of Monuments Changes

Got to wonder why the update was announced so so long ago if they didn't intend it any time soon. Heck, its not as if its even a big one either, to improve the suckiest aspect of game design to come out of ANet, and the one that is supposed to hook us into spending more money with them when GW2 comes along. They aren't playing this one very smart really.

I'd rather not plough through 25 pages so my question is, has there actually been any more developments on adding Tormented weapons to the HoM?

lol, no.

P.S. - I hate the skin on those.

Only the staff looks good.

It requires coding on GW2s end aswell. So it is quite a big one.

It'll be implemented before GW2. Good enough.

As they stated in the announcement they are giving players a chance to adjust their play style to the coming change. Basically giving people a heads up so they can collect any torments they like for their monument at a leisurely pace. Rather than have a big uproar a couple of months before GW2 with people crying about why they weren't told.

It'll come when it comes, though it really should have been like this in the first place. Who knows, might even be in the Sep update. Well, that's what I'm hoping anyway.

There is 2 years till GW2, it wouldn't surprise me if they took their sweet time with this.

I guess there should be groups starting for DOA runs then. Oh wait...

Nor would it me either - I would even add that their language is as such. How many "it will go live when it is done" is done a month later? Well, never - that is marketing talk for "we aren't far enough along with it for it to be in the foreseeable future".

As of right now, no big deal - there is nothing to be gained by the Hall of Monuments and we know it is going to happen. We can easily plan our titles and acquisitions accordingly - we now know not to purchase three Destroyer Axes or there is no need for four characters to get max survivor (sadly, some did just that before we knew that - but that is the problem with being a so called Early Adopter). Further we know that Tormented Weapons will be added so same thing there - as long as it happens before GW2 it is effectively real time.

In software engineering terms we look to things called Critical Paths. My guess is that this is not one of those. My further guess is that someone is spending some time here and there on it but unless it reaches that stage (it never should) it will be "in the future" for a while. While many gamers don't like that answer - everything is a critical path to them (and it isn't only gamers that are this way, for many *any* announced feature becomes Critical Path) - it is proper that it be so.

Of course many gamers realize this too - the arguments of "why spend time doing *that*" are related. To them if it *isn't* part of the critical path then one should never work on it - yet that concept also assumes people are working on other parts at the same time (otherwise why have a critical path - one can always say "why work on that" without them).

Anet is in a tough position on many of these issues as gamers are more often than not wanting something that can not exist. Anet is more open than I would be in their position - too many people do not understand (or, IMO, refuse to understand because they Want and that is all that matters) what goes on in assigning resources in a development process.

Ah well - many will read that and highly disagree. I can only lead one to the water, I can't force anyone to drink. People will think what they do - I always find it amusing when ones that are hammering an industry that have no experience in that industry get hammered from others that have no idea what their industry goes through. Suddenly it makes sense that no knowledge outside of "I think it works this way even though I have no idea what I am talking about" is, well, full of excrement.

A very enjoyable post, honestly.
Made me smile as it puts the general opinion of the WANTERS right in the box where it belongs.

Agreed. Great post, strcpy. The irony, however, is that most of those "wanters" won't have the attention span to read it.

One thing I haven't heard or been able to find out is the cumulative nature of the non-title shrines. For example, are mini's going to be cumulative? What about armor? And I'd certainly like to spread those fugly torment and destroyer weapons around to more of my heroes than currently have them.

Anyone have any information on this?

its to appease people, just like the long announced xunlai market. we probably will never get it but its to hold us off until gw2.

Yeah except they never did announce the Xunlai Marketplace. Players found it in the dat - that doesnt make it announced.

i would guess it was an attempt to try and get the people who are bored because they been grinding with the same character day in and day out in an attempt to reach GWAMM to switch their play style and try other characters by telling everyone that in the future it wont matter who you got the title on because all titles will transfer with the account. seeing GW2 has been pushed back already, unless some nice content upgrade to GW1 came along i wouldnt be surprised to see more and more near empty districts over the next 6-12 months as more people leave the game or take a long break due to lack of interest. plus why grind when they still havent really given any clue to what all the titles will get you in GW2. some off the weekend PvE related events they should just make permanant in the game, namely the double or triple chance type weekends. greens arent worth much anymore, keys and lockpicks will only help those who are hurting for gold go after the treasure hunter and wisdom titles, double rewards for vanquishing would only make it a tad more worth it to vanquish as the gold rewards are kinda low anyways. as for the rep bonus weekends, how about doing those for a full week at a time.

I see a number of people didn't read what I wrote, or at least didn't understand it. They would rather whine than think about it and be reasonable, so I'll quote the one being responded too and give the real answer.

We have, once again, the "critical path" thing here. It would be best to read the link I gave, if not it basically says that the longest path from start to finish is the one you throw *most* of your resources at as the rest will need less time to finish. So, for a simple example, lets say we have three tasks to get done to finish a project - task one takes 12 months, task two takes three months, and task three takes three months. That means that if you manage your team right it will be done in a year - the longest or "critical path". The other two paths have a six month "float" time - that is they can take up to six months extra between them to get done. You still have to work on them - you can't simply ignore them - but they aren't where most of your people work. As such they are pretty much done when they are done.

From Anets point of view GW2 is their "critical path", The HoM is not. Not only will it take less time to do but it isn't a requirement to finish GW2 - therefore it's float time is however long it takes to get GW2 out minus however long it takes to get the change in. I would guess that float is well over a year. There are quite a number of other changes I can assure you that have going, not because I have inside information (I do not) but because that is just plain old software engineering and is true of *all* moderate and above sized projects.

Normally those things aren't announced - however skill hunting is a gamers "critical path". In fact it is really pretty much our *only* path. It is vital that we know how the HoM is going to work with respect to rewards in GW2 - however it is only vital the we *know*, not that they are implemented. For us once that decision is reached it is vital that we know it, I'm sure there are people that decided it wasn't worth bothering with legendary survivor for a character because that would be the only title they ever got that are now kicking themselves that they didn't go for it (I can assure you of that because I am one - however I stopped bothering long enough before the announcement that I can really fuss).

I guess another way to put it how would we have all felt if they only told us when it was released? Because of the way tasks are assigned in a large project (and critical paths are not software centric - they were around long before formal software engineering) it will most likely be *at least* several months from the decision to release. What do you think the reaction would have been from the people that had spend countless hours redoing things they have no need to redo (especially titles like survivor)? I'm sure they would have been WAY more ticked that you are because it wasn't released withing days of telling us.

As such Anet told us about it. I don't know that I would have in their place, however I am happy that they have. I can now plan accordingly and so can you. If they had been as closed about those things as nearly every other software company on the planet then you would not have known until you wasted a large number of hours. I wish I could say only gamers are that ungrateful, but sadly I know from experience that is not so. It was always my experience that a company was better off just springing those changes on their customers as people soon forgot that type of thing but remembered the long waits for things to get implemented.

Critical pathing?! Wh..Wh..Why???
My management course is over!

Maybe it was just me I just had the impression the HoM update was going to be released anytime soon (at the first annoucement date)

Well looks like Anet can say they are going to put a money tree in the HoM and then just never do it.

I can see why they wait to announce the release of stuff, because this HoM delay is killin me.

Yes, I am hording armbraces and after the update to HoM I am either going to sell them or cash them in, but the wait is killin me.

Ya know a money tree in the HoM might not be bad, maybe like the "Burried Treasure/Do Not Touch" areas in the game. Maybe you can feed your tree drops and it will give you gold or special items every month based on what you feed it.

HAHAHA at uber title grinders...this way at least I can grind with 8 chars instead of 1 O_o
No more having to get account wide shit like Kurzick(OMFG does that take a long ass time)

Dev Update - 10 September 2008

Hall of Monuments

We are releasing the previously announced changes to the Hall of Monuments in two stages. The first stage lets players enjoy adding their accumulated Tormented Weapons to the Monument to Valor [sic] sooner than otherwise. Support for this first stage is expected to release in October's scheduled content update. At this time, there is no expected release date on the remaining account-wide changes to the Hall of Monuments.

http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/ArenaNeteveloper_updates#Dev_Update_-_10_September_2008

Hm, I'm mostly waiting for the change to account wide. I guess I'll have to wait then...

how boy....good thing I have those tormented weapons waiting for that----NOT....(have yet to get 100k plat to BUY one....will just get the stuff for the destroyer ones as originally planned).
good to know they are still working on it.

With the price of Diamonds and Onyx Gemstones plummeting below 700 gold, I am better off doing what you said: Buy enough Destroyer weapons.

I'm sorry if this has already been discussed, but 505 posts is far too much for me to read through.

So I understand that the Hall of Monuments will be account based, but I'm not exactly sure what this all entails. My warrior has tier 3 KoaBD, and I understand that it should appear as that for all of my character's Hall of Monuments, but will all of my characters be able to display KoaBD? Like I'd like to work on titles on other characters, but if it doesn't count towards my KoaBD title, then it doesn't seem worth it.

Having Tormented weapons in the HoM is fine, but until Armbraces crash again, I'm not really one to care about getting any. Meanwhile, the price for making Destroyer weapons is going down, down, down.

I'm sure this is strictly HoM, so no I don't think your other characters can display the KoaBD title.

I hope all the titles become account and not just adding them to HoM. Would freshen the game if you can play on any character instead of still being stuck with one.

But I think its just HoM, so all of your characters in GW2 can use the bonuses.

Anyone have any ideas on how weapons, armor, and minis will work? Will they stack, so that I can spread my destroyer weapons across several characters instead of just customizing them for one toon?

no need to stack, theres just gunna be one HoM which shows every accomplishment (if u choose to veiw account based). The KOABD title doesnt have its own statue although the beacon will proably be character-based. Yeh its probably best to spread em across account really then u get to fill each individual character and the account. Buy the armors which suits different professions is what im doing likewise with weapons , now my monk doesnt need a destroyer scythe as my dervish can make one.

I want the beacon to be account based. 30 titles is just a pain, and if you earned that thern you as the owner and player in the HOM should have the beacon in account wide HOM

Actually it's 25 for the beacon straight up, and 20 if you have a human guest in your full HoM.

I really really REALLY hope the titles become account based >< Grinding on one char gets so boring after 13 maxed titles. Ima be optimistic and hope that happens..although the chance is .0001% ._.

with the light coming out of it? thought you had to have r6 for the full effect

The problem I'm facing at the moment, and I imagine I can't be the only one at the moment, is that I'm not really sure how the "account wide" changes are going to actually work, which means that at the moment, I'm not really any better off than I was before the announcement.

To be clear, I don't need the account wide changes now; but having a better idea of how they work would be so useful. For example, do I still have to keep ID'ing items on the same character? For now because I have no idea, to be on the safe side, I still have to keep doing everything exactly the same way as before.

Anet's stated goal behind these changes is to allow more freedom of play, so that players wouldn't feel discouraged from playing multiple characters. At the moment the fuzziness means that I'm still essentially constructively forced into playing the one character, because I have no idea if for example max titles on my other characters will count towards KoaBD, whether KoaBD actually means anything in the GW2 scheme of things, etc.

Got no problems with the tormented weapons - in that situation they told us, the information was immediately useful; I started saving gems and tormented weapons, and the others are absolutely right that it's better they told us, and I'm happy to wait for the update.

I'm happy to wait for the account changes too, just that I don't feel that the pre-announcement has helped me in any way without further information; YMMV.

It's just for the HoM they've never said anything about changing the titles themselves to account-based.

So really you still have to ID everything on one character, drink everything on one character, etc, but I think once you put it in the HoM, then the STATUE for the title is available to all characters. Not the title itself, just the statue.

Again, please please please please PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE make Destroyer/Tormented weapons say "Dedicated" instead of "Customized." Seriously. Seriously.

Looking forward to the update though, especially curious how account wide armor monument will go.

Right now I am only interested in knowing why it takes so long? What problems arose? In 11 days it is 3 months after their announcement to change to account wide! And from the newest statement it will not be finished before November.

I agree with this. The timing of the changes is not important. The timing of the knowledge transfer to players is vital. The sooner that the rules of the game are clear, the sooner players can exercise greater freedom in how they play.