#and old cc map which both can only be accessed on certain time

[little-lanterns]

Whenever i look at trials of navigator i always wonder what it feels like for new player who are unaware of like 50% of the map/boss mechanics

[felidae-charr]

[Spoilers] Oh ArenaNet, why are you like this?

Again, please note: SPOILERS for the newest living story patch A Bug in the System.

ArenaNet, you are good at many things.

You are very good at world design. Your maps have always been fun to explore, your races have always been relatively diverse and breakaway from industry standard, with quite a lot of character to them. Your story and lore writing has often been intuitive, interesting and engaging, with a few notable flaws here and there and some pacing problems. You managed to design mounts and encourage free-roam exploration almost perfectly and still continue to manage this with relatively few hiccups.

You are good at many things.

But boss fights are, increasingly, not one of them.

For the love of everything holy, stop putting boss fights in my story instances. You aren’t good enough at creating them or balancing them to warrant forcing me to slog through them. 

This isn’t the first time this has happened, ArenaNet. You know it. I know it. We all know it. This isn’t the first time that you’ve put a boss in a story instance and it has been abjectly shit; at best, not engaging and at worst downright frustrating and close to unwinnable for certain classes or sometimes even people with vision problems. And let me tell you, the two bosses in Bug in the System both were boring and beyond that, the final one in particular was the worst experience I’ve had in a long time playing your game.

Without going into too much detail, I’m going to bitch and whine about how much I hated the fight(s) against Commander Lonai because it was shit.

1) I’m a Sword/Pistol + Rifle thief. I have zero ability to deal with multiple targets at once. Therefore, Lonai’s Dying Stars was a bullshit mechanic to try and deal with at the same time as trying to kill Lonai to push her into the next phase of a fight.

2) Dying Stars can and will target you through stealth, consistently and constantly, meaning the stealth mechanic of my class is fucking useless because it fundamentally doesn’t work on three of four enemies in the arena. By the way, because I’m only a fucking thief, I don’t have enough health to be eating constant homing in attacks that will home in on me even when stealthed and hit for 2k each time.

3) Braham’s AI is broken and rarely attacks anything, in addition to not always seeking me out when I go down to revive me. Since I’m not able to avoid going down because half of the attacks can target me even when I’m in stealth and will follow me around the arena until they hit me, this is a huge problem.

4) There’s so much shit going on in all three phases of her fight that it doesn’t even become a test of skill as to how well you fight her, and instead turns into a “I might as well die and tank and spank because I can barely avoid anything anyway”. AoEs that basically take up half of the arena - in a fight against an enemy who has constant AoEs dropping on you and who constantly has three extra enemies summoned that have attacks that home in on you - are bullshit.

5) The Shade mechanic isn’t very well explained at all until she actually summons the first Shade. That doesn’t change the fact her Dying Stars spawn several minutes earlier than the Shade ever will and so you’re dicking around with the volatile star magic whatever bullshit wondering what the fuck you’re meant to be doing with it, only realising much later that it’s only useful for one mechanic.

6) Why do two of these three phases involve mechanics that give you Chill or that otherwise slow you down when this fight is about constant movement all the time. Literally why.

This fight wasn’t fun. It wasn’t engaging. It was fucking horrendous. Lonai had so much HP that it was a grind to try and kill her even as a single-target focused thief. The fact her fight also involves attacks you can’t avoid (even if you stealth) and that her fight is in small arenas with very few places to safely move despite having so much shit to be dodging and that the fight seems to have been deliberately elongated as filler content (we don’t need to be teleported a third time to the Shiverpeaks just because you think it’s cool to show off a Claw of Jormag) made it a horrific experience to play through.

And I hate that. I hate that both boss fights in this living world episode were so bad, because the rest of it was so damn good. The new tribe of Charr, getting involved in Inquest secrets and seeing things backfire, pushing the idea of people in the Inquest not being evil shitheads (which we all knew but it’s nice to see that finally elaborated on) and also to see connections that hearken back to old characters like Kudu of all Asura! The new map being super fun to explore! There’s so much good in this patch that it hurts me how these boss fights were both so catastrophically bad.

STOP DOING THIS, ARENANET. We had this same shit with a boss in PoF who was fucking abysmal to fight if you weren’t a certain class or a certain build with access to quick CC. This has been a plague literally since the start of your game. GW2 is literally infamous for having bad, unfun boss fights. I wouldn’t be sad if you didn’t include tiny bosses every patch in the story, ArenaNet. I’m totally fine with you designing bosses for the open-world content, not instanced ones. I’m fine with boss battles being saved for huge enemies like Joko, or Mordremoth, or other really big bads, so that you have the time and ability to do it right.

[livedonkeys-blog]

30+ Absolutely Free List of Photo Resources For Your Blog Posts, Website, or Social Media

Free is perhaps the only word in the dictionary that evokes a sense of elation no matter how gloomy the day. And if this free comes in good quality it is like an icing on the cake. In the digital world as well, folks such as web designers or webmasters are looking for free photo resources that they can use on their web project.

We do have a lot of stock photography website that offers royalty free images but you need to buy them. Today we will look at more than 33 sites which can give you images without having to purchase them. I am sure you will be surprised to know some of these sites. We have painstakingly curated all these sites, that too after using their services. So yes, you need not worry all these sites are tried and tested by the donkeys.

Oh, and yeah let’s look at a few licensing things before we proceed so that everyone is on the same page.

What are stock photo resources?

Stock photography is the supply of photos, which are regularly authorized for particular employments. It is utilized to satisfy the requirements of innovative assignments as opposed to contracting a picture taker, frequently for a lower cost. Today, stock pictures can be introduced in searchable online databases. They can be obtained or purchased from the stock photo resources websites.

What is Creative Commons Easy to Use Copyright Licenses?

Creative Commons (CC) is an American non-profit association committed to extending the scope of innovative works accessible for others to expand upon legitimately and to share. The association has licensed a few copyright-licenses known as Creative Commons licenses for nothing out of pocket to people in general. These licenses permit makers to convey which rights they hold, and which rights they defer for the advantage of beneficiaries or different makers. A straightforward one-page clarification of rights, with related visual images, clarifies the specifics of each Creative Commons permit.

Creative Commons licenses don’t supplant copyright, however, are based upon it. They substitute individual transactions for particular rights between copyright proprietor (licensor) and licensee, which are vital under an “all rights saved” copyright administration, with an “a few rights held” administration utilizing institutionalized licenses for re-utilize situations where no business pay is looked for by the copyright proprietor. The outcome is a dexterous, low-overhead and minimal effort copyright administration, benefitting both copyright proprietors and licensees. Wikipedia utilizes one of these licenses.

Do note that this is not a ranking and hence, the sites are in no particular order.

1) Pixabay

Pixabay is one of our favorite sites for image search. They have tons of useful images. Useful being the catch word here. All these images are released free of copyright under Creative Commons CC0 license. You can basically download them, modify and use them free of attribution or charge. Oh yes!, you need not sign up to download the images. A quick search of the word “Digital Marketing” gave us the below first image.

2) Free Digital Photos Image Sources

If you are looking to use the photographs in smaller size such as for social post or blog post featured images, then Free Digital Photos is the very good resource. Though the max free size download is pretty small you can still purchase the higher resolution for a nominal cost. The search term “Customer” returned the below first image. Oh and we had to attribute it as required by their license.

3) Dreamstime

Dreamstime has almost 1800 free images when we checked last time. All their free images are under the CC0 license so you are basically free to download for commercial use. No signup required and some of the images are of very high resolution touching almost 70 Megapixel. For our search keyword we did find 9 images.

4) Free Images

Free Images has a ton of stock images in the range of close to 400 thousand. However, to use them the signup process is there plus the images are of limited size not like what Pixabay offers. The resolution of some images will disappoint. One more point that needs to be remembered is the keywords that are associated with some images are not accurate. Our search word “Digital Marketing” gave some weird barcode photo results.

5) IM Free

IM free or rather I am Free website gives you certain really high resolution images. But how to download those images is a very lengthy process. The search is pretty lame as most of the keywords you will type will not give any results. The only way is to browse through categories. Our search word “digital marketing” did not yield any results. But simple searches like cars will give good images.

6) Morguefile

Though morguefile has free image search facility, its specialty lies with searching stock photography. The images are easy to download with no signup required. Our search word “digital marketing” did gave results and pretty high resolution.

7) RGB Stock

RGB Stock is another good resource for free photographs. Especially if you are looking for background photos for presentations. We did try our search keyword here and it returned couple of images. Signing is easy as it offers using our Google username.

8) Ancestry Images

If you are looking for free images of historical prints or importance then this is the place to look at. It’s also got a lovely map section where you can download old maps like the one you see here below. No signup required to download images.

9) Bigfoto

Bigfoto gives you an interesting collection of pictures. Most photos are arranged as cities and countries and taken by normal people like you and me are may not be pros at photography. But the images are clear and sharp like the one you can see below of a lake in Switzerland. There is not search feature here.

10) Little Visuals

Little Visuals was a good initiate by a young man named Nick. Wherein you get 7 hi-res images in your inbox for free. But sadly Nick is no more since 2013 and hence the photo’s are not updated though the website is still up and running and will be until July 2017. You can still download pretty good images that are present on the site such as the one below.

11) Super Famous

Superfamous is actually based on the works of designer Folkert Gorter and all images are his photography. You can download the images and use them as long as the author is credited. All need to do this right click and save the image.

12) Wikimedia Commons

Wikimedia Commons is a collaborative site wherein users contribute to the kitty. Currently, it has around 36 million images that can be downloaded.

13) Compfight

Compfight uses Flickr to search from tons of images based on the license you are looking for. So you can get stock photos for less price or free ones that are pretty good quality. However, you need to be careful as most of the free ones need to be attributed when using.

14) Google Advance Image Search

Yes, Google image search is also pretty good to search for free license photo. You need to go to the Tools option once you are on the image tab and then under usage rights just select labeled for reuse. Look we found this lovely image for digital marketing keyword.

15) Every Stock Photo

This website is an aggregator of sorts as it tries to get you pictures from all sorts of sources. So please do read the license before using it. Most of the images are from Flickr so attribution is required but you can find pretty good photos.

16) Image Finder

Image finder is another aggregator of images and helps you find a photo from Flickr. Though you get good photos but attribution is required. If you are running a blog then you can use the pictures with attribution.

17) Photopin

Photopin searches in Flickr for Creative Common based license photos. If you are a blogger this is a good resource for you as you can use the pictures with attribution in your blog.

18) Stockphotos

This site has curated creative common license based photo, so you can get good pictures. However, attribution will be required for the pictures that you download. The interface tries to copy Pinterest.

19) Canva

Canva is more a designer application wherein you can design brochures, flyers etc. But it does have a good stock of images that you can use for this purpose. You can also design social media photos that you can directly use without alterations.

20) Wylio

Wylio lets you use images with attribution but the best thing is you can resize the images as well as create attributions and use them directly for your blogs.

21) Pickup Image

If you are looking for nature and outdoor pictures then this is a very good site. You need to signup to download the pictures but you get hi-res nature pictures which are also under Public license domain which means free to use.

22) Picjumbo

Picjumbo has all kinds of hi-res pictures that you can use for your purpose. You can also signup to know if there are new pictures in stock. Just like Pixabay they have pretty good images in stock which can be downloaded without signing up.

23) Graphicstock

Though Graphic stock mainly has paid stock photographs but from time to time they have free trials that are offered for 7 days. In that time you can download really good very hi-res images.

24) New Old Stock

This website is somewhat like Ancestry website wherein you will find old stock photos mainly in grayscale but free from any license restrictions.

25) Free Media Goo

If you are looking for backgrounds then this is the site to search. You get pretty good backgrounds that can be used for your website or presentations. They also have royalty free non-professional photographs.

26) Death of Stock Photo

Want free lifestyle photographs then this website gives you just that every month to your inbox. Signing up is pretty easy and straight away you get one pack of download.

27) Gratisography

Another good website to find free for commercial usage photographs. All pictures are of high resolution. They have been captured by Ryan McGuire.

28) Stockvault

Stockvault is a photo sharing website for free and also use those photographs for non-commercial use.

29) Public Domain Pictures

This site gives you good pictures from stock photos but with the option of downloading free low-res images. Some of pictures are not so low resolution so can be used for any purpose but do read the license.

30) Free Photos Bank

Free Photos Bank has a nice collection to offer. They have both free and stock photos so pick and choose what you want.

31) Freerange Photo

They have a good collection of the photo including stock and are offered in various sizes. Just a free signup is required for the same.

32) Unsplash

Unsplash gives you pretty good abstract photographs. You can also subscribe to get images in your inbox. Check the picture below.

Wow! I am sure you loved this list as much as we did to produce it for you. I am sure this will get you through most of your image needs to your blogs or social media posts. In case, you ever need something unique you did not find in any of the above links then you can always go for the big guns. Shutterstock or Getty Images are a great source of stock pictures.

So what do you think of the list above? Let us know if you have some more sites you want to share with us.