the reason behind APIs
Marcus Greythorne.6843:
Why is it so important for Anet to open up new APIs for the community?
I can’t see how this would improve the game… actually quite the opposite. How does this help gameplay? People have to run a second screen (laptop, smartphone etc.) to get the most out of it. You learn that a dragon encounter is open so people port to the next waypoint to farm those bosses – so the scaling can’t cope with the amount of players and the encounters become cake. After the battle people port to the next bossfight.
I don’t get it. “Because they can” is not good enough for me.
Esplen.3940:
You remember the Extended Experience?
Probably not. This is their way of doing it so that players aren’t all “WE DON’T WANT THIS WE WANT IT THIS WAY”. So now, you can do it yourself! (Minus all the features in the Extended Experience, which will hopefully be released soon.)
marnick.4305:
Because players often know what players want, therefor things like the extended experience are better left to the playerbase. By doing so it’s also left out of the game, so all the negatives that come with WoW-style add-ons are avoided while all the positives are in.
As for second screens … I’ve got 4 monitors so I’ve got plenty of screen estate for apps and websites, and it’s rare to find a gamer without either a smartphone or tablet (I’m of of those though :p).
So basically … because they can.
Marcus Greythorne.6843:
well I can see no advantage to gameplay really… Instead of creating something like npc-driven expeditions to dragon encounters from different zones where players act in a story-arc and experience the game in a cohesive environment, waypoints are abused to get to those encounters without any context at all. The battles are overrun with players and most of those see the encounter as loot-pinata instead of a threat to Tyria.
I mean: waypoints were introduced to make it easy to play with your friends, not to skip content constantly.
marnick.4305:
well I can see no advantage to gameplay really… Instead of creating something like npc-driven expeditions to dragon encounters from different zones where players act in a story-arc and experience the game in a cohesive environment, waypoints are abused to get to those encounters without any context at all. The battles are overrun with players and most of those see the encounter as loot-pinata instead of a threat to Tyria.
I mean: waypoints were introduced to make it easy to play with your friends, not to skip content constantly.
Not really. Waypoints were introduced to make it easy to play the content you want, which means skipping content you don’t want to play. If that means skipping things to get to the dragon events you want to play … so be it.
Olvendred.3027:
People have to run a second screen (laptop, smartphone etc.) to get the most out of it.
Alt + Tab. Not quite as efficient as turning your head from one screen to another, but sufficiently effective. Some sites also provide overlays, which by their nature, remove the need for a second screen.
As for Waypoints, you have to run there in the first place. I consider that sufficient context.
Mugiwara Luffy.1087:
People have to run a second screen (laptop, smartphone etc.) to get the most out of it.
Alt + Tab. Not quite as efficient as turning your head from one screen to another, but sufficiently effective. Some sites also provide overlays, which by their nature, remove the need for a second screen.
As for Waypoints, you have to run there in the first place. I consider that sufficient context.
You should try Overwolf, it’s also an overlay with an internet browser and custom apps, and works really great with GW2. There’s also a Dulfy app in development for Overwolf.
Stephane Lo Presti.7258:
Hi,
The API Development subforum is not intended for general discussions about the API, but rather technical discussions about how to use the API for developers of applications. You can still discuss this topic in other relevant subforums.
We’re working on a message that will be put in a sticky thread in this subforum to better explain this and help this subforum focus on helping application developers.
Thanks for your understanding.