Developer Corner: Jon Peters on Camera and FOV (field of view)

I’ve seen a lot of topics on this both here and externally so let me try and address it. The current FOV is going to stay because increasing it, while having some benefits for some players, has too many drawbacks.
 
1) performance suffers greatly because of how things are built and view distances

2) art suffers because of texture tiling, LOD problems and just general stretching from the fisheye effect.

3) gameplay suffers because positional awareness becomes less necessary in a game where combat is greatly designed around positioning.
 
There is a a serious camera problem, however, which is making some players nauseous. We believe a large number of these cases are not FOV related but rather due to bugs in camera smoothing. Because of this we are expediting a quick fix to this issue that is currently in testing and should see the light of day in the next build we do.
 
FOV in GW2 is 75, which is the same as the default in Half Life and WoW. While I understand people’s desires, (I play source engine and quake engine games at about 105 or 110), we are not just limiting it for technical reasons, there are also gameplay implications that we are taking into account that we believe are a core part of the game. Additionally we keep it at 75 to maintain the integrity of our art which is also important to us and many of our fans. If there was a single reason we might think about looking for a workaround, but because it relates to core issues for 3 of our major departments this is not an easy problem and will remain that way for the foreseeable future.

Ascalonian Catacombs Guide Story Mode

Ascalonian_Catacombs_map
Name: Ascalonian Catacombs
Location: Plains of Ashford (Phasmatis Corridor)
Level Range: Story Mode 30+
Objectives:

  1. Talk to Rytlock
  2. Find Eir Stegalkin
  3. Go up the stairs and search for the sword
    • Ascalonian Captain
    • Ascalonian Ghost killed: 0 / 15
  4. Draw out King Adelbern by defeating his lieutenants
    • Defeat Master Nente
    • Defeat Ralena and Vassar
    • Defeat Kasha Blackblood
  5. Defeat King Adelbern

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Developer Corner: Colin Johanson on Tournaments

Colin Johanson, ArenaNet’s Game Director, posted on the forums today an update on the current situation with Tournaments:
 

Blog post is still coming, just has been pushed out about a week, it is written and sitting in locs hands!
 
We found some major issues with the tournament backbone we’ve spent the last couple of weeks focused on making sure it’s 100% right before we start expanding any other functionality. We’d hate to for example start doing say…tournaments with more meaning, and suddenly have you not get rewarded, not matched up properly, etc.
 
We’ve almost got all that stuff ironed out, soon as we do we’ll follow up with blog posts about our plan for PvP/E-sports in the coming months.
 
Thanks for your patience folks and sorry for the misquote on timing. we were under the impression that stuff would get up earlier and wanted to wait until we were 100% sure we knew how it’d work after addressing the issues we found before talking about it.
 
Thanks everyone! Once new features start turning on, you should see them, and our E-sports support growing on a pretty rapid basis. Our goal is to be faster than the timelines of other major recent esports games like LoL after they launched in the rate at which we roll out competitive features and make sure we’ve got all the major pieces needed for long term success up and running. We know it’s very important to you, and it’s very important to us to grow and build that competitive gaming community.

How to make Triforge Pendant via Mystic Forge

triforge_pendantFirst you have to create Emerald, Ruby and Sapphire Pendants. Combine the following materials in the Mystic Forge:
 

  • 250 Crystalline Dust
  • 250 Gold Ingots
  • 250 (Emerald, Ruby or Sapphire) Orbs
  • 50 Mystic Coins

 
The orbs are t6 gems. You can get them as rare drops on mobs, in chests and from ori nodes, or craft them from t5 gems and dust using jewelry-making (thanks wingie).

 
 
Stats:
Emerald Pendant – 90 Power, 64 Toughness, 64 Vitality
Ruby Pendant – 90 Power, 64 Precision, 5% Critical Damage
Sapphire Pendant – 90 Vitality, 64 Healing Power, 64 Condition Damage.

 
After combining Emerald, Ruby and Sapphire Pendants + 50 crystals in the Mystic Forge, you’ll get Triforge Pendant.
 
 

We would like to say a big THANK YOU to Kyiv and deathTouch for making this guide. We think this will be extremely helpful for all of the GW2 community members and we hope you will enjoy it.

Guild Wars 2 Halloween Diorama Contest

Halloween Diorama Contest is your great chance to celebrate Halloween by sharing your spookiest creative efforts and winning a wide range of prizes like 2 branded peripherals from SteelSeries, graphics cards from NVIDIA, a signed Making of Guild Wars 2 book, and more.
 

Halloween is coming! It’s our favorite time of year, so in addition to the in-game madness that we can’t tell you about quite yet, we’re celebrating Halloween with a special arts and craft contest that we like to call the Guild Wars 2 Halloween Diorama Contest.
 
What is a diorama? Put simply, a diorama is a miniature three-dimensional model that depicts a scene through the use of miniature figures, props, and scenery. This is an example of a diorama from a previous contest we ran for the original Guild Wars.
 
This year we want you to put your imagination and craft skills to work by creating a diorama that combines two of our favorite things:  Halloween with Guild Wars 2!
 
We’ll have a wide range of prizes, including cool Guild Wars 2 branded peripherals from SteelSeries, graphics cards from NVIDIA, a signed Making of Guild Wars 2 book, and more!
 
So get started on your diorama, and we’ll be following up soon with additional information and details on how you can enter.

Mithril Ore Map Location

Mithril_OreName: Mithril Ore
Location: Fireheart Rise (60-70), Mount Maelstrom (60-70), Straits of Devastation (70-75), Malchor’s Leap (75-80), Frostgorge Sound (70-80), Cursed Shore (80), Southsun Cove (80)
Gathering type: Ore
Items gathered: Mithril Ore
Rarity: Common

 
 
 
 

Locations: