Guild Wars 2

The third and final Beta Weekend Event is now live.

See ya in the game!

Mireles Lore.5942:

Are we going to need to unlock gliding to access or complete the raid beta?

You will not need gliding to complete the encounter. Gliding would be helpful to explore some of the other areas after you have defeated the boss – but it’s not entirely necessary.

Rage Cube.4573:

I just wanted to take the time to thank you guys for doing this. Please don’t pay attention to how toxic twitch chat can be. I really enjoyed all the silly moments and really appreciated everyone’s time and effort that was put into this.

Super glad you all enjoyed the TwitchCon stream. The Marketing Team and my team (which is part of Marketing) in particular did a lot of the content planning, logistics, organization, and execution of the event. It’s gratifying that people enjoyed it.

We definitely paid attention to Twitch chat. I, Stephane Lo Presti, and Anatoli Ingram were all personally moderating Twitch chat on the Guild Wars 2 channel during TwitchCon. We were there to ensure the environment is as constructive and welcoming as possible to everyone, and the only way we can do that is to keep an eye on chat and time out and ban people who are behaving badly. We’re happy to do this though.

Hi all,

Welcome to the Raids forum. The Raids team has been very busy over the past year putting together the first GW2 raids and we are now very excited to be able to share our creation with you. As part of Beta Weekend 3 you have the opportunity to experience the first boss, in the first wing of the first raid release.

A Pact expeditionary force has gone missing while exploring the furthest reaches of Verdant Brink. Shortly after entering the Forsaken Thicket all contact with the team was lost. Gather your comrades and brave this new area as you try to discover exactly what befell them. Note that the challenges ahead will be some of the hardest you have experienced in all your travels throughout Tyria.

It is important to remember the Raid content and the Enhanced squad UI are still in beta and while we feel the content is in a position to share with you, we do have enhancements and polish work scheduled. Below is a short list of those areas we know are outstanding.

Enhanced squad UI
• Open Squad control – a squad’s ability to self-organize vs. Commander controlled – is not yet enabled.
• As we change over to the new squad format there will be some disruption in the way existing squads work. Disbanding and forming a new squad should help iron out any lingering incompatibility.
• Squad member nameplates (the green rectangles representing each squad member in the UI) can become sized differently between subgroups. Resizing the overall UI should fix it.
• Calling a target (default CTRL+T) is currently squad-wide, but is planned to work per subgroup.
• Subgroup chat is not visible by default. It can be enabled in the chat window’s Tab Options if desired.
• Ability to hide other commander tags is not yet enabled. Currently your squad’s Commander tag will be highlighted when any tag is hovered over to make it easier to identify.
• The ability to see per subgroup and squad total supply count in WvW is not yet enabled.

Raids
• The ability to create a Commander less Raid squad with limited functionality is not yet enabled. During the Beta weekend players can pick up a Commander Compendium for your beta character from the NPC at the entrance to the raid.
• Squad leaders need to change the type of their squad to “Raid” in order to be able to enter the raid.
• Raiders will have access to ascended gear at a beta-only vendor inside the raid instance.
• Players will only have access to playing the first encounter of the raid wing.
• Achievements are not hooked up.
• Rewards are not hooked up.

To enter the Raid –

1. Complete the Silver Wastes tutorial mission
2. Enter the portal to Verdant Brink.
3. Complete the first story mission and enter the map.
4. If you don’t already have a commander tag, once you’re in Verdant Brink, speak to the NPC “Whispers Keeper” and ask him to make you a squad commander. (This commander tag will be available only for this beta weekend.)
5. Open your inventory bags and double click the Commander Compendium.
6. Check your ability to be a commander using the Party/Squad UI panel in the top left of your screen. There should be a “create” button with a commander tag dropdown menu.
7. After creating a squad, use the dropdown menu in the squad panel to select “Raid” as your squad type.
8. Invite your friends to the squad as you would with a party.
9. Once you are ready, enter the portal next to the Whispers Keeper.
10. You are now inside the BWE3 version of the raid. You will have access to the first boss encounter (Vale Guardian) and the area surrounding him.

We look forward to your feedback and we hope you enjoy your time in the Spirit Vale.

We have some of the recorded livestreams from TwitchCon on our YouTube channel:

Druid: https://youtu.be/7kNhCQxMtLY?list=PLDCvogxNKN3nyxCvzZLKShAQEzlSTOfmO

Intro to Guild Wars 2: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vYRkl5wRAnc&index=1&list=PLDCvogxNKN3nyxCvzZLKShAQEzlSTOfmO

Adventures: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9lx81ohdPco&index=1&list=PLDCvogxNKN3nyxCvzZLKShAQEzlSTOfmO

We’re working on getting the rest up as soon as we can. There are some issues with the raw files that have been slowing us down.

Subscribe to our YouTube channel to find out when new videos get uploaded: http://www.youtube.com/guildwars2

Fox.3469:

Hey all,

I would just like to thank the devs for this amazing 2 day livestream experience they set up for us at twitchcon. I toroughly enjoyed every minute of it, from the musical performances (can we have those more often for like 1 song on guildchat or smth?) to the information about heart of thornes, to the goofy segments to break up everything.
You guys made so much effort into entertaining us, and i appreciate it!

I also wanna say, i fully support the direction this game is taking, and i liked everything anounced at this conference (well maybe except the buffing staying at 5 for raids, but that’s minor), i can’t wait to play the expansion, or to get my kitten kicked next week when we try out the raids (plz make it kick my kitten plz :p).

I’ve supported you guys since GW1 and i’ve not been let down ever since, keep up the awesome work!

I’m really glad you enjoyed the TwitchCon content!

We tried a few creative/experimental things that we haven’t done before. I understand that some of the segments were not to everyone’s taste. I hope that people found at least one or two things they enjoyed from what we aired during TwitchCon.

I can’t make any promises as far as future content for Guild Chat, but thank you for sharing your feelings about what you saw during TwitchCon. Knowing what fans liked and disliked will help us plan content in the future for our livestreams.

The underlying system of combat is built around area attacks. This is why the majority of base weapon attacks strike multiple targets in the affected area, unlike other games which strike one target – the one you have selected. Our system makes things like positioning and facing far more important and engaging; this also means that the concept of ‘AoE’ is not as easy to distinguish and thus handle in different ways.

That said, we are currently looking at systemic ways to help with player pet and minion survivability.

What’s your name?

• I’ll never tell!

What do you do at ArenaNet? (Descriptions of the work you do are preferred over just a job title!)

• I work in Customer Support doing a bunch of back-end stuff. I’m the one that makes sure your tickets get to the GMs and their replies get to you. I also handle the support website and various other Support-related stuffs.

What has been your involvement with Raids?

• Cannon fodder! I’m on one of the 10-person test teams. We raid together for a few hours every day and wipe constantly. It’s great!

What feature of Raids are you most excited about? (Obviously just the bits you’re authorized to talk about!)

• Getting to raid again (I ran a casual raiding guild in WoW and miss the comraderie that comes with constant wiping and fleeting triumph). Other than that, I was really wowed by Tirzah’s beautiful environments. “Tongue boss” and the area leading up to him are my favorite.

What’s a funny story about something that’s happened to you or your party while play-testing Raids? (Obviously no spoilers!)
A few of my favorites:

• Watching Chris Cleary break things and send the devs into a flurry
• Learning fun little ways to die like “butt cleave,” “rock boss,” and glider fails
• Being dynamic (this is our raid leader’s term for recovering from horrible mistakes)

What was your favorite encounter from the existing dungeon/fotm content? Why?

• Probably the kitty golems, because they are highly amusing. MEOW!

Anything else you feel like sharing!

• I know that it’s impossible to please everyone with raids, but I hope the countless hours that literally hundreds of people have put in to this project will shine through and make it a great experience. Remember that what you see in the Beta isn’t finished, and what you see at launch will also be tweaked going forward. And above all else, embrace the wipe.

I have verified all players in this thread are now cleared. Please let me know if I’ve missed someone.

Thanks!

I have verified that all players in this thread are cleared. Please let me know if I’ve missed anyone.

Thanks!

Glad you enjoyed yourself at TwitchCon! Our team worked their butts off on this event.

Sorry I didn’t get to meet you. Me and several others were holed up in the production room for the entirety of the event to manage the livestream and unfortunately some of us didn’t get face time with fans.

AegisRunestone.8672:

What about fan stories?

It may be difficult to spotlight fan fiction stories on the Community Showcase Live livestream show, but I’ll defer to Gaile on that point.

Regarding fan fiction submissions to our Tumblr site in general:

• Yes, we accept fan fiction.
• All creations, including fan fiction, should be acceptable for general audiences.
• BUT, due to the volume of submissions coming in and the need to review all content, fan fiction may not be published on our Tumblr site as timely as visual art creations

Selana Firestone.6389:

I believe you have one of the best attitudes toward your community, and it makes me as a player very proud to have you and other considerate members on the dev’s team. That being said, I know not everyone has a Tumblr (myself included). Would it be possible to post artwork on Facebook or other social media, hashtagging the GW2 Fan Submission?

Thank you.

~Selana Firestone

Hello, I run the official Guild Wars 2 Tumblr site.

Unfortunately, due to legal reasons, we cannot accept submissions on other social media channels like Facebook or Twitter. You would need to submit through Tumblr or on the official forums.

In order for us to spotlight your work, you can submit your work on Tumblr in one of two ways:

1. Direct submission to our Tumblr site: http://guildwars2.tumblr.com/submit
2. Publish a post on your own Tumblr site, using the hashtag “#gw2 fan submission”

Important note: you do NOT need a Tumblr account yourself to submit content using method #1.

Does that help with your question?

What’s your name?
Steven

What do you do at ArenaNet? (Descriptions of the work you do are preferred over just a job title!)
I work with cross-discipline teams to help them make the best possible releases we can. I previously worked on the original Halloween and Wintersday in 2012, the Molten Weapons Facilities, Labyrinthine Cliffs, Tower of Nightmares, all of Season 2 Living World and the new Lion’s Arch.

What has been your involvement with Raids?
I’m the team’s Product Owner. It’s a combination of helping keep things moving forward and staying out of the way.

What feature of Raids are you most excited about? (Obviously just the bits you’re authorized to talk about!)
I’m looking forward to players having moments when they know something bad is about to happen if they don’t react in time and everyone’s voices raise a notch in anticipation. It’s at those times you can almost see our designers standing in the wings with their buckets ready to collect tears.

What’s a funny story about something that’s happened to you or your party while play-testing Raids? (Obviously no spoilers! )
Trying to make the glider getaway you see in the raids trailer and instead falling to my death and having to shamefully admit “Bad down!”

What was your favorite encounter from the existing dungeon/fotm content? Why?
The Molten Furnace. I’m obviously biased.

Anything else you feel like sharing!
The team has been working hard to make something that we really hope you enjoy. Thanks for all your passion for GW2!

Vennyhedgie.5369:

BobbyStein.2315:

Nebilim.5127:

BobbyStein.2315:

Khisanth.2948:

BobbyStein.2315:

• I can’t talk about the “huge awesome mega reveals” other than to say that since the wings are essentially a multi-part story you will learn things along the way. Anything vital to the raid story will happen naturally and unobtrusively, but we’ll also have some optional stuff scattered around to discover. You’ll see elements of this in the beta that are carried through the entire first wing.

Does that mean we won’t be forced to sit around twiddling our thumbs waiting for some NPCs to talk on every run through the raid?

This is something we’re very mindful of, so we’ve been working hard to find better ways of dispensing essential plot information and gameplay feedback without grinding things to a halt. You can get a feel for how we’re doing that in the raid beta that starts today. That stated, there is some optional stuff we’ve put in the raid so if you’re waiting around for your squad to get ready you can walk around, talk to NPCs (in the safe areas), and potentially find some cool things we’ve stashed in there.

We realize that there are a lot of players who want to get right into the action, so we’re doing what we can to allow for that. Play the beta and let us know what you think!

Can’t you do it like dungeons or fractals? Most of the stories were delivered completely in a non obtrusive way. Just add cutscenes whenever necessary and let us press a skip button.

We could except for the fact that we don’t build our cinematics like that anymore. We’ve instead opted for a more “in the moment” approach. Play the raid. You’ll see what I mean.

I’d like to point out, making us watch certain cutscenes, unskippable ones that is, every time should not be a thing. I am honestly fed up with molten duo introduction in fractals by now. I get that at the time this wasn’t intended to be a repeatable fractal, but for future cutscenes I hope this doesn’t happen again.

Yup! Which is why we’re taking a different approach in raids. Play the beta if you can. You’ll see what I mean.

I have cleared all matches that were stuck. If you are still getting a message that you are stuck, please log out for at least 10 minutes and then log back in. If you are still stuck post here and I will investigate.

Thanks!

Good morning all. I’m am starting to clear players who are stuck in matches. I will post here once I’m finished. Stay tuned!

Vyce.2014:

I could be wrong, but it seems like someone at Anet decided to encourage the raid team to post in this thread. [snip]

It’s pretty simple, you all wanted to know who we are, and we’re big on peer pressure here so we’ll see who else we can force ask to respond as well.

Bug Fixes:

• Fixed bugs in preparation for this weekend’s upcoming Beta Weekend Event.

Nebilim.5127:

BobbyStein.2315:

Khisanth.2948:

BobbyStein.2315:

• I can’t talk about the “huge awesome mega reveals” other than to say that since the wings are essentially a multi-part story you will learn things along the way. Anything vital to the raid story will happen naturally and unobtrusively, but we’ll also have some optional stuff scattered around to discover. You’ll see elements of this in the beta that are carried through the entire first wing.

Does that mean we won’t be forced to sit around twiddling our thumbs waiting for some NPCs to talk on every run through the raid?

This is something we’re very mindful of, so we’ve been working hard to find better ways of dispensing essential plot information and gameplay feedback without grinding things to a halt. You can get a feel for how we’re doing that in the raid beta that starts today. That stated, there is some optional stuff we’ve put in the raid so if you’re waiting around for your squad to get ready you can walk around, talk to NPCs (in the safe areas), and potentially find some cool things we’ve stashed in there.

We realize that there are a lot of players who want to get right into the action, so we’re doing what we can to allow for that. Play the beta and let us know what you think!

Can’t you do it like dungeons or fractals? Most of the stories were delivered completely in a non obtrusive way. Just add cutscenes whenever necessary and let us press a skip button.

We could except for the fact that we don’t build our cinematics like that anymore. We’ve instead opted for a more “in the moment” approach. Play the raid. You’ll see what I mean.

What’s your name?
Bobby Stein

What do you do at ArenaNet?
I’m the Lead Narrative Designer (formerly known as Lead Writer). I work with narrative folk, designers, artists, audio engineers, and programmers to bring out the story in our game. It’s a collaborative effort from concept to completion, and I’m honored to work with such awesome people on a daily basis. I mostly help or collaborate with others on polishing and presenting story ideas inside our game. The work is a mix of technical and creative, with management responsibilities thrown in for good measure.

I’ve been with ArenaNet for about a decade and have worked on just about every title and release. (My invisible beard is long.)

What has been your involvement with Raids?
Writing scripts, consulting on VO sessions, and working with the team to present the narrative bits in new ways that synchronize with gameplay, art, and audio. Basically, working with the awesome folks on this team to deliver a story that’s fitting for this kind of content, while trying to innovate in the process.

What feature of Raids are you most excited about?
We’re trying an evolved approach to how, when, and where the characters speak inside raids. Really interested to hear player feedback from the beta, because we’re doing some exciting new things with our narrative tech that deviate a bit from how we do things inside story instances. Also working with artists to tell visual stories.

What’s a funny story about something that’s happened to you or your party while play-testing Raids?
I have a few!

I sat in on one of the internal play sessions. Everyone in the raid squad was busy setting up their characters for the upcoming fight but one person started walking around inspecting stuff. Then, above the usual chatter, she said, “Hey! My character just said something cool when I [redacted]!”

When I later explained to the team that we were experimenting with ways to mix up the dialog, and that in one particular case there were something like 3 dozen possible combinations a player could hear when X happens, they smiled. Small things like that make me very happy. There are a lot of little details with how we’re presenting this stuff that hopefully add up to form an immersive, satisfying experience.

Lastly, there was this one time where I was running around the map inside an area that Tirzah had recently arted, and I noticed that she added some new props where we had placed an interactive gadget. At first I didn’t really think about what I was looking at, but when I realized that the objects and their placement told a mini story about how that stuff got there, I gave her a high five over Communicator. (I won’t spoil what it was. You’ll have to find it—and all the other cool things that are scattered around—when the first wing releases.)

What was your favorite encounter from the existing dungeon/fotm content? Why?
Running with an experienced party who didn’t mind showing a less-experienced player (a.k.a. me) how to beat Caudecus’s Manor. Disclosure: I’m not a hardcore dungeon runner or raider, so being on this team has been really educational!

Anything else you feel like sharing!
This is a great team and I’m honored to be a part of it. Special shout out to Charlie, our Content Programmer, on all his wonderful work and input in building a lot of these narrative bits.

What’s your name?

• Tirzah!

What do you do at ArenaNet?

• I’m an environment artist, I make the worlds that your characters run around in. So I was involved in creating the look and feel of this first wing of raids.

What feature of Raids are you most excited about?

• Watching people troubleshoot and figure out different ways of getting past epic content. Really looking forward to some livestreams.

What’s a funny story about something that’s happened to you or your party while play-testing Raids?

• Trying to figure out who was crippling a certain type of enemy after repeated wipes and Byron yelling at us all (in a good way).

Anything else you feel like sharing

• I had a lot of fun on this project. Working closely with designers as an artist to make something epic and fun is a real treat.

• Oh, and my aura-sharing Tempest healer is crazy fun >.>

Khisanth.2948:

BobbyStein.2315:

• I can’t talk about the “huge awesome mega reveals” other than to say that since the wings are essentially a multi-part story you will learn things along the way. Anything vital to the raid story will happen naturally and unobtrusively, but we’ll also have some optional stuff scattered around to discover. You’ll see elements of this in the beta that are carried through the entire first wing.

Does that mean we won’t be forced to sit around twiddling our thumbs waiting for some NPCs to talk on every run through the raid?

This is something we’re very mindful of, so we’ve been working hard to find better ways of dispensing essential plot information and gameplay feedback without grinding things to a halt. You can get a feel for how we’re doing that in the raid beta that starts today. That stated, there is some optional stuff we’ve put in the raid so if you’re waiting around for your squad to get ready you can walk around, talk to NPCs (in the safe areas), and potentially find some cool things we’ve stashed in there.

We realize that there are a lot of players who want to get right into the action, so we’re doing what we can to allow for that. Play the beta and let us know what you think!

Just want to make sure the “devs” part of this thread was complete.

S Tier
Josh “Grouch” Davis

D Tier
Hugh “Nightmare” Norfolk

Cameron Rich.3905:

One of the developers crippled everything during some of our early playtests, causing MASS mayhem. They are now dubbed “The Crippler.”

At least you never had to ask for “CC”!

We’ve resolved the root issue, but players will not be automatically freed from stuck matches. If you are stuck, log out for ~10 minutes and log back in to try again. If this doesn’t work, you will be unstuck when everyone gets back into the office in the morning.

Apologies for the inconvenience

What’s your name?
Jon Olson

What do you do at ArenaNet?
Like Trevor and Branden, I’m a cat — er, gameplay programmer. Before joining the Raids team I was involved in Play-For-Free, Streaming Client, Beta accounts, among other things.

What has been your involvement with Raids?
I help Crystal, Jason and the rest of the team fulfill their evil desires.

What feature of Raids are you most excited about?
The tears. Honestly, I’m excited about pretty much everything.

What’s a funny story about something that’s happened to you or your party while play-testing Raids?
Forgetting that I don’t have gliding unlocked until after I’ve jumped off a high ledge… every.. single.. time.

What was your favorite encounter from the existing dungeon/fotm content? Why?
I haven’t really gotten around to any of this content on my personal account. I avoid seeing as much of the story as possible when I’m working in these areas.

The behavior is a part of the Enhanced Squad UI we recently posted about.

Your commander will bling whenever you roll over any commander. Their tag will also have a subtle glow/bling.

What’s your name?
Paul Ella

What do you do at ArenaNet?
As a Producer for ArenaNet I work with the team to create development schedules, track deliverables, manage timelines, schedule reviews, etc. etc. Overall project management for the raids releases.

Previously I produced such classic projects as Heart of Thorns Prepurchase, SMS and Play For Free.

What has been your involvement with Raids?
As the Producer for raids I am the Senior cat wrangler, Primary time / space / work manipulator and Lead ’it’s bigger on the inside’ project planner.

What’s a funny story about something that’s happened to you or your party while play-testing Raids?
As an Englishman in Seattle my sense of humour is slightly different from the rest of the team. I enjoy it best when the play testers are running around like headless chickens as they are being wiped from one end of the instance to the other by the boss. Ahhh great days!

What was your favorite encounter from the existing dungeon/fotm content? Why?
The one that always sticks in my mind is the first time I finished the Cliffside Fractal and saw the Colossus. I still bow every time now and wonder where he went and will we see him again?

Nope, I recommend spending them now.

SlyDevil.3952:

Trevor Bennett.3691:

What’s a funny story about something that’s happened to you or your party while play-testing Raids?

• Me complaining that Crystal’s bosses are too hard, her telling me to shut-up and suck less (or something to that effect).

So are you the one paying all the chiropractor bills?

Hah! I’m not even allowed on the playtest team. I’m what is colloquially called a “bad” I believe? But that’s ok, they say the same things to dev playtest team too.

What’s your name?
I’m Branden!
Going to follow Jason’s lead here. @PlanningFallacy.
I’m also on Reddit as ArenaNetBG
No, I’m not above shamelessly plugging myself on social media.

What do you do at ArenaNet?
I am a Gameplay Programmer, Software Engineer when I’m trying to sound pretentious. I’ve been with ArenaNet for 2 years now. Most of that time has been working on the PvP team. (Which is why my forum tag still says this). As far as things I’ve worked on: PvP Reward Tracks, Standard Models, March 2015 Camera Changes, Stronghold, Mist Champions.
I am also responsible for that one time NPC’s had guild tags.

What has been your involvement with Raids?
I actually joined the team a few months ago to help ensure Raids hit the level of polish that we always strive for. Most of my work has been helping develop the Enhanced Squad UI. You’ll see some of it during the BWE, trust me it’s going to look much nicer for ship. Our UI Artists are amazing.

What feature of Raids are you most excited about?
Raids offer a type of theory crafting that I haven’t been able to do with my guild mates (friends). I’m very excited for some late nights throwing ourselves at these encounters, getting the snot kicked out of us and going back to the drawing board to work out how we change our strategies to overcome the challenges.

Anything else you feel like sharing!
Fun fact, during the WvW Adopt a Dev program both guilds that I joined ended up disbanding during the event.

What’s your name?

• /wave I’m Trevor Bennett. So that’s a thing.

What do you do at ArenaNet?

• I write code for player facing systems and try to support designers with their crazy ideas. To date I’ve worked on the “Royal Club” program for China, outpost and other random tech in the upcoming Jungle maps, and a bunch of improvements to our scripting system to allow designers to make their content a bit faster. Oh, I did all the those party changes several months ago where it logs the votes to kick when we increased the kick requirement to 3/5, so that was cool.

What has been your involvement with Raids?

• I did all the initial set-up to make the raid instances work the way we want (entrance for 10 man squads, checkpoints, etc.) and be a tightly controlled environment (keeping players in combat for the encounter, no rezzing mid-encounter, etc.). I’ve also been working on implementing the enhanced squad UI and the new commander functionality that comes with that.

What feature of Raids are you most excited about?

• Legendary Armor, though I despair ever managing to acquire it.

What’s a funny story about something that’s happened to you or your party while play-testing Raids?

• Me complaining that Crystal’s bosses are too hard, her telling me to shut-up and suck less (or something to that effect).

What was your favorite encounter from the existing dungeon/fotm content? Why?

• Swamp wisp running. I remember early fractals being so frustrated and never being able to pull it off (wanting to re-roll if we started with swamp), now it’s like, let’s just re-roll until we get swamp. Too easy now that I’ve figured it out.

And don’t worry about me making the raids too easy. :P The designers just ignore all my whinging. Though maybe I should add in some code for… if Trevor… then ezKill…

What’s your name?

<— but the team calls me Cam

What do you do at ArenaNet? (Descriptions of the work you do are preferred over just a job title!)

I’m the Embedded QA for the Raids and Fractals teams. I’m in charge of our content from an overall quality perspective, so that means I write test passes, do reviews, set up internal playtests, and generally make the team mad by breaking things.

What has been your involvement with Raids?

I was brought onto the team a while back to oversee the content for QA and drive our testing plan forward. I’ve set up internal testing plans and spearheaded a few changes in how the QA process works, so that it fits better with how raids are developed.

What feature of Raids are you most excited about? (Obviously just the bits you’re authorized to talk about!)

So, so much. The team has done an amazing job taking Raids and turning them into something unique to Guild Wars 2, even in the small subtleties. I’m personally excited to see the strategies people come up with to take down our encounters. We have our own, but who knows what will become the “meta”!

What’s a funny story about something that’s happened to you or your party while play-testing Raids? (Obviously no spoilers! )

One of the developers crippled everything during some of our early playtests, causing MASS mayhem. They are now dubbed “The Crippler.”

What was your favorite encounter from the existing dungeon/fotm content? Why?

I absolutely adore the Molten Duo boss fight in fractals. It’s always a blast for me. For dungeons, I really enjoy the Subject Alpha encounters! And who can forget Lupi!

What’s your name?

• Check it to the left. Is this where I namedrop myself for social media? Rad. @JasonArrr

What do you do at ArenaNet?

• I was hired on about 10 months ago, so my whole time at ArenaNet has been working on the foundation for Raids with Crystal, as well as designing and creating the content. When I’m not making things, I’m usually telling Crystal how awesome I think I am. She generally ignores me.

What has been your involvement with Raids?

• As mentioned, I was brought on explicitly for raid content. Crystal and I have been blazing the trail for what we think raids could and should be in Guild Wars 2. Now we get to see what you beautiful peeps think.

What feature of Raids are you most excited about?

• Definitely excited to get players in to have fun with the content we have generated. That’s the whole reason I wanted to make video games, even as a kid. I love seeing people have fun while playing something I worked so diligently on.

What’s a funny story about something that’s happened to you or your party while play-testing Raids?

• The big laughs always come from unforeseen bugs, like when a creature model blows out, or the AI decides it doesn’t want to be on this planet any more. I’m having trouble nailing a single memory down, atm.

What was your favorite encounter from the existing dungeon/fotm content? Why?

• I love the kitty golems. Also the Jade Maw. And the snow one! Ooooh, oh, and the volcano.

Palador.2170:

However, it’s likely that, even with this, you’ll wind up with some small amount that you can’t spend in any way. If the cheapest thing takes 200 Inf, and you only have 150, then that 150 is wasted.

The Resonance trader will allow you to convert that last little bit.

Talindra.4958:

Dear admin,

Can we still build guild catapult with guild influence after HOT expansion roll in?

Cheers
Talindra

I think it will technically be possible (via converting the influence to favor) but the exchange rate will not be as favorable. I recommend you build as many as you can now.

Bug Fixes:

• Fixed an issue that prevented the descriptions for Plague and Lich Form from appearing properly.
• Fixed a bug that prevented some text in the crafting window from displaying correctly.

Hey everybody, as many of you may already be aware, this week has been Guild Week. We have peppered this week with several livestreams relating to upcoming changes to Guilds and the upcoming Guild Halls and will be wrapping up with a final stream tomorrow.

For tomorrow’s stream, we would like to take the opportunity to answer questions you may have that haven’t yet been addressed in the past three streams. Please take this opportunity to post your questions here, and we will get to as many of them as we can on tomorrow’s stream.

Hey!
We’re going to be monitoring this thread for Squad UI Feedback. We’ll look at the other threads about squad ui as well, but this one is our favorite (tell your friends). I can’t say what feedback will and will not make it to the actual release of the Enhanced Squad UI, but it’s all appreciated!

It’s on the backlog.

Malediktus.9250:

I mean the total gold earned (generated, not trading post earnings) in the lifetime of an account. I am 100% sure Anet is tracking this.

Everything is tracked via logs, at least, but exposing a queryable API interface to them isn’t very feasible. Filtering, collating and aggregating them is a very non-trivial operation.

das Keks.5403:

Well one could use some technique like CAPTCHA for every action you want to make but then there’s still a chance that this gets exploited.

Given it typically costs <$0.01/CAPTCHA, that’s not really a good solution.

To echo the previous response, there are no plans to ever expose buying/selling items on the trading post. Endpoints that modify the account/character blobs aren’t technically feasible without significant architectural changes.

This sounds like classic overheating.

Could be:

• Lack of thermal paste
• Lack of cpu cooler
• Lack of power to cpu cooler
• Lack of adequate quality cpu cooler
• Improper ventilation in your computer case.

Just to name a few!

I would probably use your preferred search engine and look for “computer overheating”.

Again this is guesswork as I can’t say anything definitive with the information provided.

Whoops! That’s me! Looks like some of the new Commander UI changes are causing some unintended behaviour.

Thanks for reporting this!

Hey fellow Engis,

I am reading here and the ranger forums heavily. As others have called out (accurately), working on the last two elite specializations to be revealed is taking up the vast, vast majority of my time, even with assistance from the rest of the team.

This weekend you’ll be able to test out a lot of the theorycrafting (some of which had my eyes widening – in a good way) that you’ve been doing and offer even more awesome feedback.

Things you’ve brought up, like the Scrapper’s lack of a stunbreak on either their utilities or traits is getting acted on, as well as a few more changes to core Engineer and bugfixes.

We’re here, and while we can’t respond to every post, we are listening.

The proof is in the pudding, and the pudding will be available for sampling very soon.

As you play the Raid content this weekend, please post your feedback. Talk to your friends, and communicate your concerns to us. Our goal is to provide you the highest quality challenging group content we’ve ever created, and your input is invaluable in ensuring we achieve that.

We are, indeed, reading.

We particularly take time to read the constructive and well-crafted feedback posts.

I don’t want to make promises, which as many of you have pointed out can go horribly awry for a variety of reasons, but we are hoping to make some changes to the old ranger shouts (pre-WHAO & SotP).

Hey all,

Thanks for your constructive feedback on this subject. A few things I wanted to share:

• I know of at least one designer who was awake and reading your thoughts until 2:00 AM this morning. As promised, you are being heard…err… read.
• We need to do a moderator pass (not me, but a moderator or two) on this thread to take off a few of the nastier comments. There’s “salt” and there’s “really nasty” and I think all of us know the diff. We do not censor negative commentary. You’re welcome to say what you feel as long as it’s presented in a helpful and non-aggressive, non-insulting manner. But there seem to be a few comments that need to be removed, as they appear to cross the line. (Their removal will not change the content or the value of this thread in any way whatsoever.) Please know that the mods have been given strict instructions to only remove things that are truly a breach of the Forum CoC.
• One of our Forum Specialists, Wolfey, kindly put together a report last night, and we thank him for taking the time to do that. The devs are reading directly, but the report can help, too, so we’re glad to have that in hand.

You are welcome to continue to share your input and thank you for doing so in a helpful way.