Guild Wars 2

Seems like the refugees drove away Lionguard Lyns. Miyani also stopped selling Donation Packagings.

Whelp…wanted to get that mystic forgesmith daily today…

EDIT: My fault for not reading the Jan 28 patch notes more carefully. Seems like they did mention the removal of Lyns in those notes.

However I want to discuss if this was sufficient communication on ANet’s part for removing a currency from the game.

just get/buy some blue weapons, put it in the mystic forge 5 times and you get it.

But why? Can anybody explain why ANet did this? It was such an easy way to get top exotic weapons, gathering and salvage items. And what should i do with 1000 Captain’s Council Commendations?

Pretty sure I rather get commendations than wasting gold at the mystic toilet though :p

Max Durak.1358:

But why? Can anybody explain why ANet did this? It was such an easy way to get top exotic weapons, gathering and salvage items. And what should i do with 1000 Captain’s Council Commendations?

My guess is whoever made this version of Lions Arch (with all the refugees) just didn’t put Lyns in? It’s like Wintersday…but she was at least present during that period, just dysfunctional.

Weird, because I’m pretty sure they’ve told us for about 2 months that Lyns would be removed, so why are you guys confused?

blakeryan.2018:

Weird, because I’m pretty sure they’ve told us for about 2 months that Lyns would be removed, so why are you guys confused?

Indeed!
It was said loud and clear that Lyns would been fired from merchant duties as soon as this update hit the live client.

Don’t see the confusion here!

It was not adequately communicated, far from loud and clear. Nor was her removal mentioned in the patch notes, so it is not clear to me that this isn’t a bug. Three people posting above have already indicated that they are unaware of why Lyns has been removed and I’m a 4th. I can’t see why they didn’t broadcast an in game email about removal of Lyns that would have reached everyone who actively plays the game.

tmorrow.5189:

It was not adequately communicated, far from loud and clear. Nor was her removal mentioned in the patch notes, so it is not clear to me that this isn’t a bug. Three people posting above have already indicated that they are unaware of why Lyns has been removed and I’m a 4th. I can’t see why they didn’t broadcast an in game email about removal of Lyns that would have reached everyone who actively plays the game.

Are you kidding? It was all over the place. I got tired of hearing it over and over again, but I said to myself “well, at least no one will miss it”. Guess there’s always someone…

I just searched the “News and Announcements” forum and found 2 hits (searching on “Lyns”). The relevant one is https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/info/news/Game-Update-Notes-January-28-2013. There are 200+ bullet points in that post. Only one bulleted item speaks about Lyns. Pathetic. Once again no reason for not providing in game emails that would reach 100% of the player base.

@tmorrow:
It’s in the patch notes from the January update. Enough said.

Unless you believe all Elementalists should receive separate in-game mails for every single skill or trait change, owners of Legendary X should receive in-game mail that the particle effect of their Legendary is no longer bugged, people entering AC dungeon should receive in-game mail that the bosses have been revamped, etc.

Donations toward the rebuilding of Lion’s Arch will continue to be accepted until late February, at which time Lionguard Lyns must return to her normal Lionguard duties. Liquidate those Captain’s Commendations while you can.

OK shame on me for not reading that one paragraph in the January patch notes. So does this mean she’s never coming back? If the commendations are useless then they should’ve given a better notice in game or at least compensated us for it.

Dear ArenaNet!

“Donations toward the rebuilding of Lion’s Arch will continue to be accepted until late February, at which time Lionguard Lyns must return to her normal Lionguard duties.”

Source: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/info/news/Game-Update-Notes-January-28-2013

My apologize but you didn’t give a proper date about removing this npc. Late Februar is not what we can count with. It doesn’t mean I have to spend my more than 14k commendations before the patch date (26 of febr). I don’t feel it was fair step from you. If these commendations became absolutely useless after this patch (and I repeat myself, you didn’t say late februar means the patch date, you didn’t say it anywhere), you should inform us in a much better way, and more importantly with a much exact date. We can’t count with this information (Late Februar) you’ve provided. And in the future I would like you to give a much better information if you make such a serious changing like this.

I would really like to read a reply with a solution of this problem from ANet employer. (not the best but still a solution can be the fact she will come return soon or something like that)

Yours sincerely,
Reward
(ItsMyrr.2379)

They had given notice that she was being removed late February in the last patch.

Content is usually removed or added with a patch. They give a patch date of February 26th (late February).

I’m not sure what the misunderstanding here would be.

I agree with OP, but of course I’m biased by the fact that I thought the original patch notes send end of February, which would indicate I have all of February. My mental checklist had me turning in commendations once I finished the monthly. Boy did I get burned, left holding just south of 750 commendations which would have made a nice bundle of salvage kits. My bad.

Max Durak.1358:

But why? Can anybody explain why ANet did this? It was such an easy way to get top exotic weapons, gathering and salvage items. And what should i do with 1000 Captain’s Council Commendations?

" It was such an easy way to get top exotic weapons, gathering and salvage items."

That’s why, gotta keep the grind levels up.

It was in the patch notes. Twice, I might add, if you take into consideration the FIRST time Lyns was removed.

It was poorly executed. The amount of notice given for wiping a currency should be a lot more than inserting a paragraph into the patch notes.

What if the February 26 patch notes said “All dungeon token vendors will be removed late March, liquidate your tokens now”.

No further announcements are given, then March 26 patch comes and you find all your tokens useless.

I’m not saying this is all ANet’s fault. It’s the players fault for not reading carefully. But ANet could’ve done a lot better job at communication. I follow them on Twitter and Facebook and Dev Tracker and no hint of removing Lyns.

There are people who might have took a break from the game and came back recently, or there are people who just forgot, or simply didn’t read that huge wall o’ text that is the patch notes (why would this warning be in patch notes anyways, should be a separate announcement by itself).

It was not poorly executed. They even brought back Lyns on purpose so active people can dump off their commendations, with fair warning that she will be removed again.

Be grateful you got Lyns back for a second chance as it is. We didn’t get the Wintersday Vendor back.

Darxio.5672:

It was not poorly executed. They even brought back Lyns on purpose so active people can dump off their commendations, with fair warning that she will be removed again.

Be grateful you got Lyns back for a second chance as it is. We didn’t get the Wintersday Vendor back.

The purpose of reactivating her was so people can dump off their commendations?

The Wiki says:

Her trading functionality was disabled between Wintersday 2012 and January 28, 2013. When she returned, she no longer offered Black Lion Keys for 285 Captain’s Council Commendations.

Was it stated why she was disabled? Why didn’t they just remove her fully instead of disabling her?

Leuddian.3057:

It was poorly executed. The amount of notice given for wiping a currency should be a lot more than inserting a paragraph into the patch notes.

What if the February 26 patch notes said “All dungeon token vendors will be removed late March, liquidate your tokens now”.

No further announcements are given, then March 26 patch comes and you find all your tokens useless.
.

Then there would be a post not unlike this one, full of people who didn’t read the patch notes.

They said it last month when they brought her back with out a key. How much warning do you need?

Jski.6180:

They said it last month when they brought her back with out a key. How much warning do you need?

Key words: last month.

They had no announcements whatsoever on any of their main communication sites. All they had was a paragraph under “World Polish – General” in the patch notes. I for one, don’t read every single word of the patch notes since it’s so long.

I admitted its the players own fault for not reading the patch notes. But they could’ve done a lot better at communicating this. It wasn’t a bug fix or something minor to be put into fine print and say “I told you so”.

I never saw this guard Lynn or even know what items / currency she used/gave/guarded…
Even not having the least amount of interest in her or her whereabouts I knew she was leaving.

Read the patch notes / read the forums! You find all sorts of interesting stuff!

I expect she was disabled because they were desperate to remove keys from her supply but knew that no one would want her for more than a week if she didn’t stock them, so they deliberated for a month while she wasn’t allowed to talk to people, yet still be shouting to donate.
I think their notice-giving skills need work. sure, I read it – but only because I was invested in Lynns coming back. A better way would of been to disable the recipe, then send in-game mail to all accounts that currently own commendations. Also have her shouting that she will be leaving on Feb 26th instead of “Donate to rebuild the city!”. probably 9/10 of the community doesn’t read these forums. is there /any/ way for them to know she was leaving?

The mind reads what it wants to read, I suppose. I read the patch notes and filed it away as “end of February” rather than “late February” (which is a bit vague for something like this in my opinion). It’s my fault for not reading quite carefully enough. Having said that, I think we can agree that patch notes are not quite the most ideal way of communicating something like this. I don’t think it’s too much to ask for an in-game email, preferably a week before the change was to take place. Most players don’t read the patch notes, and many that do just do a quick scan of them. Many don’t even make use of the forums or the wiki (too busy playing the game instead I would surmise). This is not an unknown phenomena, and it would have been nice if ANet had made use of a form of communication that would have reached everyone.

The bottom line is that there are lot of people that were caught out without having spent their commendations who would have spent those commendations if the message had got through to them about precisely when Lyns was disappearing. The message didn’t get through for these people. I’m assuming Arenanet didn’t want to upset players who missed out so perhaps they could consider better communication in the future. As a suggestion, deletions and removals of this nature should be in their own section with emphasis in future patch notes an not buried down 300 bullets deep in a sea of bulleted text.

I like many other people was stuck with quite a few commendations (4k) after they disabled Lyns during the Christmas patch integration. It was no mystery that this was done so that people couldn’t continually abuse her for keys throughout the event. I guess I don’t really understand why people are so upset now, weeks after the fact she was enabled again? I like many other players when she was first disabled came to the forums and demanded answers, read a few threads and added to a conversation about what would happen when she came back. As speculated keys were gone when she returned (shrug), but the fact is she did return and this was announced both here and in the patch notes that followed (as well as mentioned on others sites/sources). I read that she would be there until late February and not the end of February and for me this read loud and clear to dump my commendations before the patch. Honestly we can’t continue to blame others for our own misunderstanding or lack of reading comprehension, because honestly it makes us (the players) look very ignorant. We will certainly stir the pot from time to time and demand answers, but at the end of the day it comes down to the fact that a solution was present, unfortunately some people just didn’t find it in time.

Leuddian.3057

I for one, don’t read every single word of the patch notes since it’s so long.

If you don’t read patch notes, you can’t complain that you don’t know what is changing in the game.

(I must say, though, that the disabling of Lionguard Lyns at the start of Wintersday was a communication error, especially since her shop did not include Black Lion Keys upon her return. Because this was NOT announced in advance.)

They gave you significant time. They announced it in the patch notes. It’s not their fault that you didn’t want to read it.

And removing Lyns isn’t important enough to notify you in-game.

Don’t care about commendations. Just bring her back. Lion’s Arch is missing something without her calling out for donations.

Yeah, I also did not hear or see anything regarding her removal in the patch notes or elsewhere. F.me for skimming, eh?

Yeah, don’t you read those patch notes before the patch? You know, the ones they release after they’ve already taken the server down to update?

I made sure to take advantage of Lionguard Lyns before she disappeared:

Please respawn Lionguard Lyns for few days to allow use last Captain’s Council Commendation.
Many player have more token becouse it was not adequately communicated in game.
Many people have some problem with english language and isn’t simple read pages and pages of patch news.

A little consideration and patience please.

Regard

Just wanted to add my voice to this. Please respawn Lyns or give us another means to dump our commendations.

Thank you

Leuddian.3057:

Was it stated why she was disabled? Why didn’t they just remove her fully instead of disabling her?

Idk if it stated specifically why, but some people stockpiled comms due to an exploit with a piece of jewelry. The developers made a mistake and put out a recipe that only required one ecto glob to craft an exotic amulet, if I remember right. So exploiters made the amulets very cheap, dumped them in to the forge for booku comms and turned them in for keys.

You know what your mom said about a few people ruining it for everyone.

Since the issue here is that some people didn’t read the announcements that were made I don’t really see a way around it.

Yes Anet could send the patch notes to everyone as an email or an in-game message (or several messages). But they’re not psychic, they can’t send each person only the parts they care about. And if they send the whole thing you’ll just not read that either.

As for not remembering that it was said last month there’s an easy solution to that too. I read that she was going to be removed, so I spent the commendations I had at the first oppertunity and didn’t get any more. I’d completely forgotten she was going to be removed by the time it actually happened, but I sitll had plenty of warning.

Assuming that the note in the patch notes of 28 January were the only notice, 28 days notice seems like it ought to have been enough.

tbh, I didn’t even see it in the patch notes. That’s the problem. They’re patch notes, where I expect to see corrections to the game, not announcements.

I forget for sure, but I remember seeing announcements about the Wintersday vendor going away in several places. There was even this post:
https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/festive-lionguard-leaving-tyria/

Was there a similar post for Lyns? I didn’t see one. So there might be an issue with consistency, as well. The front page of the web site is where they posted that reminder about the festive lionguard, why didn’t they do the same for Lyns?

Oh, and those news items show up on your game launcher, so there’s no excuse for missing those. So please put Lyns back for a few days, make an announcement in the news about it, as was done for the festive vendor, and all is good.

Rachiia.6045:

So please put Lyns back for a few days, make an announcement in the news about it, as was done for the festive vendor, and all is good.

lol – you think you’ll see that announcement if you didn’t see the first one?

If they want to take out a currency, they really should send a mail to everyone that owns any of that currency with a brief statement of “Lyns will be closing shop for good at the late Feb patch, please use all of your Captains Commendations as they will not be usable after that time”

blakeryan.2018:

Weird, because I’m pretty sure they’ve told us for about 2 months that Lyns would be removed, so why are you guys confused?

Seems funny to me I never saw the message either.. Just the one about the festive npc was leaving. All those commendations I have saved all a kittening waste of my time. They should have kept it in the game.

I hate to dredge up an old thread with some bad news but the announcement about Lionguard Lyns leaving was posted back in the January 28th Game Update Notes, under the World Polish – Other section:

• Lionguard Lyns has returned to Lion’s Arch but no longer has Black Lion Keys available. Donations toward the rebuilding of Lion’s Arch will continue to be accepted until late February, at which time Lionguard Lyns must return to her normal Lionguard duties. Liquidate those Captain’s Commendations while you can.

In addition, Linsey Murdock posted a reply in this thread ’about a month ago’:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Lionguard-Lyns-not-back-yet-merged-threads/page/2

Stating:

“Lionguard Lyns will be returning in the end of January build without the Black Lion Keys in her inventory. She will then remain up for everyone to liquidate their Commendations and will likely be leaving entirely after about a month.”

So I hate to break it to all of you but the information has been available for quite some time. Gotta keep up with current events on the forums if you want stay ahead.

Siliconhobbit.4361:

So I hate to break it to all of you but the information has been available for quite some time. Gotta keep up with current events on the forums if you want stay ahead.

But that’s the problem. Not many come to the forums compared to those that play. I browse now and again, but that’s about it. Game forums usually = I quit posts, whining and general negativity so, honestly, it’s not a surprise people will enjoy the game and avoid the crap. Even at the expense of missing something, somewhere about something.

crimsonbro.3126:

Siliconhobbit.4361:

So I hate to break it to all of you but the information has been available for quite some time. Gotta keep up with current events on the forums if you want stay ahead.

But that’s the problem. Not many come to the forums compared to those that play. I browse now and again, but that’s about it. Game forums usually = I quit posts, whining and general negativity so, honestly, it’s not a surprise people will enjoy the game and avoid the crap. Even at the expense of missing something, somewhere about something.

You obviously missed the proof that the January 28 patch notes announced Lionguard Lyns’ temporary return. If you want to keep up with a game, read at least the patch notes.

The fact of the matter is, patch notes are for changes already taken place, NOT announcements!

This is a gigantic failure by the developers. Absolutely poor communication skills on their part. If I pulled something like this on my patch notes I would be out of a job.

They should learn from Blizzard’s change control process. And no, I don’t work for Blizzard.

Patch notes are to convey changes being made to the game. Why wouldn’t you expect this sort of thing to be in patch notes? This is completely sufficient.

There are two problems here — one is in communication and the other is in execution.

The communication problem is obvious and the most severe. Not all players and probably not even many players read patch notes or these forums (I only do when something does not work or seems broken). A smart way to communicate with players would have been to send a in-game mail message to all accounts or all accounts that had commendations.

Others have given ideas on how the currency could have been removed in a more player-friendly way: leave the ability to use commendations without the ability to acquire them or have some ability to convert commendations into something else.

I would definitely like to add my voice to the “this sucks” party.

I do read most patch notes, and clearly I missed this, but even so, patch notes may not be the best way to deliver info about an on-again off-again NPC vendor.

It’s not a huge deal since the cost of my unspent commendations is only about 6G, but still, this sucks.

I’d like to add my vote as well.
I agree the best practice would be, to remove mystic forge possibility of creating commendations and leave Lyns for a longer while. It would strike you right away “oh I can’t make more commendations… They are probably going to remove Lyns soon.”

They did the same with wintersday vendor… why not with Lyns? I suppose she was long overdue due to disabling her during wintersday.

Another option would be to actually change Lyns lines into sort of: “Thank you all for your donations, LA is rebuilt now, thanks to your generosity.”

Please don’t do this again.

Also, dev or mod note that “you can throw those commendations away” would be very nice.

I realize she couldn’t stand there forever. However, I hope for three things:
- Captains council tokens to be used as a currency in some future event, so we could spend our leftovers.
- Sturdy gathering tools to be back as a reward anytime soon. They are very convenient, more so than those rewarded by laurel vendor.
- The concept of donating surplus gear to be used again in some future event. It caused our crafted items to be actually worth something, which is pretty much awesome.