Always Online Podcast: Guild Wars 2 Giveaway And Endgame Changes, NCSoft's Bad Q4, And The Fiasco Of TitanReach Ep 420

anybody has a good tender loving heart i just want the mount previlage and no where in time where i think i can buy an expansion sorry to beg but i just need sum mounts

here for the giveaway but got pulled by the website , great concept!

Thanks for discussing GW2 news, looking forward to the EoD expansion. I used to frequently visit MMOBomb website long ago to stay up to date on MMO news, this website helped by determine which games deserved my time and money investment. Nowadays, GW2 seems to be the only MMO able to keep my interest for extended periods. Newer MMO's like New World and Lost Ark just don't provide the same feeling and satisfaction as GW2. I enjoyed this Podcast, subscribed and created a MMOBomb account as a result. Fantastic discussions!!!

On the Gw2 mystic coins controversy I think there is a lot of context that you are missing. I can't really blame you though because neither Anet or the players upset at the change are doing a good job explaining it so let me try.

From the fractal player perspective the mystic coin nerf is more of the straw that broke the camels back than the core reason fractal players are upset. The lack of new fractals, the abandonment of other instanced pve content, the build template fiasco, and other smaller changes that you probably haven't heard of (like Anet removing pre-casting) have all chipped away at pve endgame players' trust of Anet over the years so they are all pretty on edge right now. Any change to fractals that give players less reason to play them is going to be seen as Anet trying to kill what's left of instanced pve content regardless of if it's good for the game or not.

I wouldn't count fractals out though for a simple reason, they are still the best gold per hour in Gw2 and they have been the best gold per hour for years. If anything they could use another rewards nerf because they pull players away from dungeons and raids because fractal rewards are that much better than anything else in the game. What this change might hurt is fractal CM (hard mode) players but Anet could just move some rewards from base fractals to CMs or just give CMs something else. I doubt Anet would nerf base fractal rewards right now though given how jumpy players are about it.

Now I'm sure your next question is why not just add some mystic coins back to fractal CMs? This ignores something really important about mystic coins. The role of mystic coins in Gw2's economy is to give casual players something valuable to sell to hardcore players which is why most of the coins come from login rewards. Hard core content being the best way to farm them was a problem as it gave some hardcore players a way to skip buying them from other players. By moving mystic coins from fractal CMs to strikes it should help both casual and hardcore players because it should drive the cost of the coins down as more people can farm for them but more of that farming is being done by casual players so they still serve the role of moving money from hard core to casuals.

Another benefit of strikes is they reuse the story bosses and give a clear path to new and returning players into the end game content so more of them may graduate into core and hard core players. The dirty truth about Gw2 is that is does get enough new players to keep a healthy player base but most either quit or stay casual players so the ranks of the hardcore players continue to shrink. This is the real reason why Gw2 does get enough new end game content. That content just doesn't bring back the numbers that new story content does so Anet can't really focus on it (which again is why reusing story bosses is a needed move).

Oh and if you are worried about strikes being 10 man, don't be. An Anet dev confirmed that average Gw2 players deal 2k to 3k dps while skilled players deal 20k to 30k in the open world events so I would be surprised if skilled players weren't 3 manning the normal mode strikes within a week so you should be able to clear normal mode with 5. Strike CMs might be a different story though.

P.S. If I do win the drawing give the expansion code to maestruli as I've already purchased EoDs. I do want the swag though. That head set looks so cool.

Mounted.
Does "mounted" count as a comment? If it doesn't Da Bomb to free stuff.

QoTW: Man I know EoD is not out yet but apart from the change they announced for mystic coins, that looks like a solid expansion. We got fishing with friends, we got a small robo friend, new strike missions, and hell some great looking specializations. So my vote goes to that. Been playing the base game from a few months now and absolutely loving it. Looking forward to EoD.

If not EoD as its not released yet. I would say FFXIV:Endwalker. Like I don't even need to explain why. People literally waited in queue to play the game and still had a blast, their servers well full all around the day because people were just flocking over to play. Hell they even had to turn off their free trial because there was no way it can handle all the new people coming to try the game. The trial is gonna be back up now, after months. Nuff said.

QoTW: Best expasnion ever?! Could go for an obvious answer like ff14 SHB ,but lets go with the cliché old school answer. GW1 Factions holds a special place in my childhood. I remember they let you have a little preview of the expansion before it launched. I remember they let you try out the new alliance battle feature and I thought it was amazing (go luxon). On top of that they released 2 new classes the Assassin and the Ritualist. Its so hard to believe that expansion was released 15 years ago. Boy the time sure does fly ! :(

I hope I win, dollar is too expensive in Argentina

Giving a Da Bomb to Lost Ark because I've been having a blast getting two characters to 50. Will probably slow down here until the destroyer class releases because that's the one I'm most interested in trying next.

QoTW: For me personally, I would say Mist of Pandaria will always be my favorite. It added probably my favorite location and favorite class that I played all the way from MoP til I finally quit in shadowlands. I know a lot of people wrote it off because "lol pandas" but genuinely it's such a fun expansion to look back at all the features and stuff too.

Love Guild Wars 2, cant wait to play the expansion

Hope i win the giveaway

DA-Bomb to Lost Ark. I agree with Jason and Zack. Having a great time at the moment as a filthy casual. DA-Bomb for a mobile game super auto pets that so addicting that I had to uninstall it.

QoTW: I will have to say Wrath of the Lich King. I played WoW a lot during vanilla, took a break during TBC and came back for WotLK and have so many great memories from that expansion.

Especially from raiding Ulduar with friends and my brother.

Honorable mentions: FFXIV Shadowbringers, Guild Wars Factions, Guild Wars 2 Path of Fire

Guild Wars 2 should have more players one of my favourite mmorpgs. It baffles me how FF has more players.. it's so boring in comparison

QotW: Fist one that comes to mind is Wrath of the lich king, WoW. It's mainly because I started a guild and had 6 friends in the guild and was doing the weekly 10 man raids together. Was probably the most fun I had in a game. Laughing it up and running some raids was just the highlight of my life then. I need more friends....O.o

Honestly, for me the GW1 expansions were great, especially Factions which has a special place in my heart. I particularly loved the beautiful location and scenery. Hence my excitement for End of Dragons! I hope it lives up to my expectations and pink-clouded nostalgia though, fingrers crossed. Another expansion I remember being very good was Diablo 2's Lord of Destruction. In recent year's though I haven't felt like any expansions have been "super good", at least for the games I've played. Honorable mention would be FFXIV's Endwalker which I've heard is incredible - but haven't played it myself.
Thanks for the podcast guys!

It is I, Yami Kami again, now I know the QOTW

This is a hard one, if Monster Hunter World was an MMO I would say Iceborn and be done with it. But it isn't.

So I am between WOW The Burning Legion and Wrath of the Lich King.
Both had fantastic new overworld regions though I much preferred Outland.
TBC gave us Dreanai and Bloodelfs which was great. In WOTLK Blizzard gave us poop also known as Deathknights.
TBC had better Dungeons overall but WOTLK had Ulduar which blew every other Raid Dungeon out of the water.
I think I will give it to TBC at the end. It was all around better.

Btw. I ofc only participate once in the giveaway.

QotW: For your favorite MMO expansions are always something. I don't know if it's good or bad, but Rifts first expansion Storm Legion. Keep it short, it had so much that could offer, but it was the first stepstone and we all know where Rift is now. Honorable mention would be No Man Sky, even they don't have expansions, it's more an update, but it's always exciting. Thanks for the entertaining podcasts.

For the question of the week for me it was GW 2 Path of Fire the addition of mounts was an amazing idea and it was very well implemented.

Hello, Yami Kami here!
I will make a second post because I don't know the QOTW yet. Wish you would write it in the comments or the Dublidu

A and Da Bomb at once.
Where I live 2 trains crashed. On the track I go to work.
If I was working right now that is since I am still at home.
So the A-Bomb is the train crash, one person died and many got injured.
But Da-Bomb: luckily it does not affect me that much. Or at all. The Trains are still on there so for days there are no trains running in my region. It would have been pretty annoying to deal with if I was actively working right now. And btw if you are asking if I would had been on the train if I was working. No. The crash happened outside of the time where I usually take it. Still, knowing something like that happens so close to home kinda hits you. On the other cars are still more dangerous.

Ok Mike, if this is the way to get me out of your emails then be it.

Oh god i hope i remember right it was so long ago and there has been so many... For me it would be Lineage2 Interlude. Who would not love when your MMO gets brand new zone full of dinosaurs. It was like breath of fresh air for Lineage2 not only island full of dinosaurs but new skills and mechanics etc which most people i know and on internet overall says that best Lineage2 expansion is Interlude. Sadly most people will agree that from that expansion Lineage2 slowly went downhill.

Time for excuses... sadly for me Jasons streams are pretty late. I had to get up next morning and next few days really early, about 2/3AM. So i went sleep, to get rest, even before his streams... and after that i got sick and that's why i was not at your last two Always Online Podcast streams. I feel better now, so wait me next Friday :)

Even after this change Fractals are still the most rewarding content by hour of play. The thing is you could literally farm Fractals and get everything you need for Legendaries and the like and never participate in any other part of the game. This is spreading the rewards out more to encourage people to play more than just Fractals. And even after removing the Mystic Coins Fractals still earn you the most gold per hour in the game as well as unique titles, weapons, drops etc...

QOTW - Also probably the worst multiplayer game ever made is called Rappelz.

A-bomb to earth days being only 24 hours, so much to play these days... also sadly Lost Ark is slowly losing me... idk what it is but i'm too old to get into a thousand systems at once, please just fking streamline it so my tired old bones can asymilate it easier.

I'm posting this for the giveaway.

For the question of the week GW to have a fire was a good expansion, looking forward the new expansion. Plus looking forward for the new expansion for Star Wars. 😀👍

For the question of the week i'd have to go a little more old school GW1 factions was an amazing expansion with the addition of the new areas of the original Cantha, as well as one of my all time favorite classes the ritualist.

for the question of the week , for me GW2 Path of fire was an amazing expansion because it had a lot of new things and was massive in comparison to Heart of thorns, perhaps it was a bit too much