New Designer, Updates, PvP, XTH, and more! courtesy of Linsey Murdock

Originally Posted by Blinzx

what is this Sealed deck?

Originally Posted by Ellix Cantero

We get . . .
-Skill updates will now take twice as long to be implemented.

-News that likely the XTH will be yanked (regardless of how you feel about XTH, it is content that will be disappearing)

-News that their original update schedule was optomistic and they'll try to squeeze out a small update here and there

-News that their resources have mostly been devoted to automating more stuff. "Yes, so they can then focus on giving us more content!" you say. No. So they can move more resources to working on GW2.

-News that HB and TA are going away (see note about XTH above)

---

The only really positive part about the whole thing was the sealed deck format being introduced, but if they're just throwing their hands up and giving up on HB and TA what will they do if the new format starts having serious problems? They're working on the new HA map too, which I'm sure is a plus to the 47 people still playing HA.

Originally Posted by Martin Kerstein

Actually the first part of this statement is the correct one

Originally Posted by Axel Zinfandel

I'm assuming Sealed deck is essentially, in concept, a 4v4 PUG style setting, but with "Sealed Decks" (basically, an unknown, randomized build).

So PUGs won't be discriminated against side from class, and focus is more on team play and usage of skills.

I like it, and I may actually get into PvP because of it

Originally Posted by Esprit

If Xunlai is removed, I hope Z-title be changed to account for the huge decrease in Zkey availability? And with less keys, prices will go up, and you still have the same < 1% chance to a good item when a key is used...

Originally Posted by Blinzx

what is this Sealed deck?

Originally Posted by Gonzo_Neo

Sorry Martin, but PVE GW players didnt have any new zone or armor ( elite, explorable or dungeons ) for 2 years since Eye of North release, almost half life of GW ( 4 years and 4 monts ).

We pass to weeks update to months updates for more content and the result was:

- "first" big update the best what we got was farm 5-15 items each week ( Nicholas ), make the same old quest again each day ( ZQuest ), and litle more storage ( and paying if we need more ) and catch the same old pets again ( Zoo Zaishen ), and no new monthly tonic = New fun and hard Content for PVE players was 0.

Now the months update without skill updats month are only "put old tonic month in zaishen chest", fix crash bug and voila.

-2 big update,well after more 5 months waiting new big update ( each 4 monts ......), we have 2 pvp modes less ( the playes that still play HB or TA will be very "happy" ) but 1 new PVP mode, a new HA map ( good for HA players ), no heroes in pvp, and new skins pvp ( thx for remember al pve players here ).

After 5 months waiting, update interesting for PVE Players = 0 again.

Now we have more less skill updates, we pass weekly, to 1/2 monthly and now more time wating,

Have we to expect 2 months updates only with Zaishen monthly tonic and nothing new?

Thx to this maybe we have more content in 5 months ?

Ok, but wait 5 months more to see a possible new map zone ( there will be 2,5 months without new zones since GWEN release ) or simply nothing new for PVE like until now and still recycling content for PVE players updates and wait other 5 months again and again until GW2 is release is no my idea of fun, or try keep PVE players.

Sorry Martin, but like PVE player since beta release of GW my optimism and expectations for this update and the rest until new "big update" is 0.

Hi.

Originally Posted by Ellix Cantero

snip

Originally Posted by Gift3d

<3 Linsey. She tells us things.

And to be honest, that's all great news to me.

Sealed deck in-game, awesome.
Revamped TA, awesome.
New HA map, potentially awesome
but...
Hero Battles LOL. That's the best of all.

Originally Posted by Inde

[*]PvP Skins - Reduce the TRP cost of PvP skin upgrades, make them purchasable with Zcoins, and (fingers crossed) fix the graphical glitch that prevents us from releasing the Eye of the North skins.

Originally Posted by inde

maintenance and content updates – new process, new schedule
we’re going to slow things down by switching to a longer development cycle for each skill balance. We'll be shooting for a skill balance every other month instead of every month.

Skill balance updates take a surprising amount of development time, but because much of this is necessary to the process, simply cutting back on how much time we devote to them isn't a good option. It takes a lot of research to properly craft a skill balance update. A lot. We read the forums, read the wiki, review the meta, watch in observer mode, discuss skill balance with players, and most importantly, play the game ourselves. It could easily be someone's entire full-time job or the work of a whole team of dedicated balancers. Trying to do a skill balance every month, along with everything else, rushes the process more than we'd like, and it doesn’t give us enough time to truly polish each update before it goes live.

The switch to a bimonthly schedule allows us to maintain the quality of our work, and—this is important—it allows us to gather community feedback about the skill balance updates before they go live.

To do this, we’ll try to post the update notes/dev update for each skill balance about a month before the update actually goes live and ask you for your feedback. The test krewe will be able to try out some of the changes discussed by the community in the testing environment and report their findings. This process will give the community the opportunity to give us feedback and identify problems before the final changes are made. We'll take your feedback, make adjustments where necessary, and release a revised set of update notes/dev update when the build goes live. Our hope is that by taking some extra time to polish and get feedback from the community, our skill balances will be better tuned to smooth out any issues without creating new ones.

Originally Posted by inde

[*]bug fixes for fort aspenwood and jade quarry - we’ve identified a number of ai bugs in both formats—it's just a matter of getting the time for joe to dig into them and see what can be done to fix them.

Originally Posted by inde

a new approach
i know this is a lot of information to take in, and it comes in a package that is sort of unusual in the game industry. At the beginning of the year, we spoke about wanting to be more open about what we’re working on and set this as a high priority in the months that followed. We had a lot of plans for how to accomplish this, but as they say, "the best laid plans of mice and men often go astray.”

we’ve decided to try a slightly different approach, starting with this post. As you can see, we are relaxing our stance on talking about projects that are in progress and projects that are just getting going. We’ve launched facebook and twitter pages to give you quick updates on what we are up to. Taking a less formal approach like this will work easier with our fast-paced schedule and will hopefully increase the flow of information to you.

This degree of transparency is unusual for large game companies, being more common to smaller studios and indie projects. We’ll be sharing information and offering insights into the development process that the public normally doesn’t have access to for aaa games. This kind of stuff goes on behind the scenes anyway; we’re just pulling the curtain back to show you the process. To make this new approach successful, our community needs to meet us halfway. We all have to be on the same side here.

So, in return for this openness, we expect you, our community, to be understanding when projects that we have discussed may be canceled or changed, or a project or build is delayed. We want you to have ambitious expectations for us, but to understand that there are always limitations. Everyone has to deal with finite resources, competing priorities, and unexpected complications, and we’re no different. By embracing this reality, we can work together to bridge the gap between development and community for the betterment of the game.

I’m looking forward to chatting about my work openly, but as always please keep in mind that there will be lulls in activity from time to time.

looking forward
my hope for the rest of the year is that live team will field many of the key outstanding issues that have piled up by the end of 2009, and start 2010 fresh with new challenges and goals. I’m looking forward to the future of tyria and developing content that helps it continue to grow. That's the fun stuff!
We expect people to have a lot of questions about everything i’ve talked about, so we'll keep our lines of communication open and do our best to answer them. Live team will be at pax this year and will have q&a sessions at the arenanet booth on saturday @1pm and sunday @noon. I'm sure most of us will also be hanging out at the booth periodically throughout the course of the convention as well. We’ll see you there!

<3 linsey

Originally Posted by IronSheik

Okay..you can buy pvp items with zcoins, does this mean you get them in PvE or zcoins is just an alternative to Tourney points?

Originally Posted by Selket

So, uh, how are PvE characters going to work with Sealed Deck?

Originally Posted by Cale Roughstar

A+ for telling us all of this, definitely a step in the right direction on the CR front.

Originally Posted by Master Ketsu

It would be a huge victory

Originally Posted by FoxBat

The tiebreaker was trash before mind blasters, and they are unlikely to see play anymore if it is significantly changed.

Originally Posted by Master Ketsu

The point of my post has nothing to do with tiebreaker.

Originally Posted by Master Ketsu

The point of my post has nothing to do with tiebreaker.