Guild Wars 2

Bug Fixes:

• Fixed an issue in “Meeting the Asura” where the player could be forced into stealth after being discovered.
• Fixed an issue in which players became locked out of their guild banks.
• Fixed a server crash that occurred when players switched teams in ranked and unranked arenas.
• Fixed a bug in which PvP profession records were getting cleared. This fix will cause Unranked Arena wins and losses to be reset. Each player’s Ranked Arena wins and losses will be recalculated from their Team Arena and Solo Arena stats when they log in. Players’ achievements will be unaffected by this change.
• Fixed a bug in which water splashes appeared on terrain in the Silverwastes.

skarpak — our EU team is out for the night, but they’ll definitely update the announcement tomorrow.

Thanks… I mean Danke!

We’re listening!

See this

Or for those of you who are link impared:

Edited:

• Adding Fractals & Dungeons
• Moving Players Helping Players to Game Discussion

;)

We’re listening!

See this

Or for those of you who are link impared:

Edited:

• Adding Fractals & Dungeons
• Moving Players Helping Players to Game Discussion

;)

Edited:

• Adding Fractals & Dungeons
• Moving Players Helping Players to Game Discussion

Louveepine.7630:

Will we have a scene or even talk about the lore, and the evolution of the game environment? with real discution with developers?

There will be a Lore Sub-Forum, yes, and developers have posted there from time to time.

Rising Dusk.2408:

This won’t be a project where a person gets power, though. This is a project where a person gets a red border, and can consolidate information to more easily distill it to give to the forum communication team. The challenge is that the forum communication team can’t keep track of everything related to a given topic, so they’re asking for community involvement. It’s not even close to being a moderator because you don’t moderate anything, you just say “Hey guys, people are talking about X, Y, and Z. They like V part of X, etc.” It shouldn’t even be that much of a time sink.

The challenge becomes what to do when a forum for communication regarding a topic is dissolved. Sifting through hundreds of topics in “Guild Wars 2 Discussion” looking for discussion on the Black Lion Trading Post for communication relevant to John Smith is going to be really tough!

I think it’s a neat opportunity and a good project so long as the expectations of both the forum communication team and the specialists are clear to both parties. I look forward to working with these guys on ways we can communicate what we really want to the devs.

Linken.6345:

But they arent moderating anything they are gathering info and passing it on.

I’m quoting these because I think they express things very clearly. Information gathering is very valuable to us, and we’ll be looking for people who can do that in a helpful and as unbiased a manner as possible. Remember, the Forum Communications Team remains at the core of the entire forum system, and FCT members are the only people empowered to moderate a thread: to edit, delete, merge, split, move, or infract.

As far as concerns about bias, in a casual situation like this, if someone were to show bias — if we saw a lot of feedback that didn’t represent the true tone and tenor of the community — we’d point that out or even select another specialist. I believe that the people who apply will take on board that they’re speaking for the greater community and not themselves or their guild alone.

Spawne.3128:

Lol absolutely stunning, the one thing this forum needs is MORE dev input to show that they actually give a kitten about this game, and what do we get? Dev’s are retiring from the forums and letting regular users take the reigns and submit progress reports.

No, that’s not how we see this at all. If there are 100 threads about a topic you’re working on, but a trusted forum specialist, backed by the FCT, suggests you review a few of the topmost threads on the subject, you’re more likely to engage. And if all goes as planned, forum specialists won’t be submitting progress reports on the forums, the devs themslves will be doing that, when there’s something to say and when they have the opportunity to post.

Ok, I have escalated feedback to The Powers That Be™. I’ve shared general reactions as well as specific requests. I cannot predict the outcome, but the input is great. We recognize that the changes represent a pretty significant shift, and we’re grateful that the vast majority of your comments have been expressed in a constructive and contributing way — I love that you’re working with us on this, and thanks for that.

Hello, everyone. This is my first forum post, so I hope I don’t mess it up.

As of this week’s release, your question is answered by journal pages left behind by Explorer Kitabu at the Prosperity, Restoration Refuge, and Repair Station Waypoints. These lore scraps were intended to have been added as of Echoes of the Past to explain where the explorers went next, but I ran out of time to hook them up before that release.

Long story short: the team of Priory explorers have continued on, past the western boundaries of Dry Top to…parts unknown (or at least unknown to modern Tyrians). Susie came along with them in their bellies, slowly digesting.

Thanks for playing!

If you can queue from anywhere, what happens when the match is ready while someone is loading, in a cutscene, or talking to a scout? I doubt people want the match-ready UI to stay up for 90+ seconds while the slowest player loads and maybe decides to accept. We also can’t just give dishonor to people who miss the queue because they are loading, or watching a personal story cut scene as that seems unfair. These problems led us to the compromise we have now, but we are open to other options!

A lot of good suggestions and feedback were provided in the forum thread. You can be assured that Regina has forwarded the feedback from the forum thread, and that we appreciate your input very much. Aside from that, there’s nothing new to report right now.

Nevets Crimsonwing.5271:

What is long to you? Never more than a second for me. Even on the 99 page dungeon forum that was recently locked is only took about 1 second if that.

Going from a post back to the index for this subforum, 20 seconds each time. When you’re trying to read dozens if not hundreds of posts in a day, that’s a long, long time.

Edit: After clicking “submit” for this post, a 5 second wait.

Edit: After clicking “edit” for this post, a 12 second wait.

Edit: Going to the main “Forum” in the breadcrumbs above, instant. Then getting onto the index page for this sub-forum, 20 seconds again.

Edit: Click the edit icon and the window opens instantly. But edit, and then click “edit” and it took 19 seconds to post.

We didn’t go out of our way to remove them, we literally threw out all of that code and started from scratch. The entire Trading Post frontend was rewritten w/ no code brought forward from the old TP because it frankly wasn’t all that good. I say that as the person that wrote most of that code, so I’m not throwing anyone under the bus in case anyone was wondering.

And for the record I’m absolutely the person responsible for that decision. Vent away if you have to.

Dalanor.5387:

You (ANet) shouldn’t punish your playerbase when you (Gaile) had to work on a potato with a bad internet connection. Long loading times in a forum holy kittens … I didn’t knew such things exist.

Am I the only one, then? I experience long load times at work (strong ‘Net service as you can imagine), at home (fast cable), on the road — everywhere. Maybe I’m impatient, but posting and loading to read take me quite a little bit of time.

Kaz.5430:

I personally think that `Players Helping Players` should be listed under support. Helping players `is` a form of support and I don’t think that people would be confused that it’s not ‘official’ support based on the forum title. Doing that would also place the forum nice and high.

Interesting, Kaz, I was actually thinking the same.

Does anyone else have thoughts about the best place to house “Player Helping Players?”

• Community Corner, since it involves community members
• Game Discussion
• Support

Since this sub-forum was on the approved list I was provided (this project had its inception before I became Forum Communications Team Lead), I believe that the question of where we place the sub-forum is not a major issue. On the other hand, some of the other questions or comments in this thread involve forums that were not on the list, and therefore I’d need to get review and approval for changes.

Thanks for your feedback on the subject of Players Helping Players.

I appreciate the many well thought questions you guys have posed.

Let me see what I can find out about some of the things you’ve asked about!

You make a good point, Khisanth. Let me noodle on this some more.

Please try queuing again. It should be fixed now.

Try queuing again. It should be fixed for now, if only temporarily.

The Champion achievements are progressed by participating in rated matches. Ranked and Unranked are both rated matches, just like solo and team arenas were. This is by design.

Thanks for the reports, everyone.

We’re aware of the issue and are currently working on a solution. Your patience is appreciated, and we’ll hopefully have another update for you soon.

Your ticket number is #1052415. If you don’t get the email create a new support ticket and reference this number so my team brings it to me. =)

You should be getting a Support Ticket from me shortly.

The replacement golems were sent out a few minutes ago via in-game mail. Thanks for your patience, everyone!

guardian.6489:

Is the new CDI forum and rules part of these changes?

Thank you! The list was incomplete. CDI falls into the Game Discussion group and I’ve edited the announcement to include it now. (It is available in English only, so I won’t add it to the other listings at this time.)

Our help and knowledge base:
https://help.guildwars2.com

[Account Issues]

• How to Submit a Support Ticket
• Delayed or No Ticket Reply? Read This!
• Common Phishing Attempts: E-mails & In-Game Mails
• Not Getting Our E-mails? Hotmail, Yahoo, Gmail, Comcast
• Account Security and You
• Authenticator Questions/Concerns [merged]
• Policy: 3rd-Party Programs; Multi-Boxing; Macros
• Please do not PM Staff Members, and here’s why
• Alert: In-Game Mails Scams

[PC]

• Missing Posts? Probably Moved or Merged!
• Install Issue: No Connect\Download Fail
• Configuring AVG
• FPS and Performance based issues
• Black Lion Trading Post
• Black Screen Issues
• Crashing Issues

[MAC]

• Basic Beta Client Troubleshooting
• Known Issues and Tips on Reporting
• Update Notes: Guild Wars 2 Beta Client

*Edit – One of many.

Michael Henninger.7451:

You’ve probably read today that the PC and Mac Tech subs are being merged with this sub.

Given the amount of info in the stickies for these three subs I’ll be making some sort of FAQ for those topics to reduce the number of stickies that would be required on the 9th when the merge happens.

Just wanted to let you all know that I’ll be messing things up for a little bit.

Michael Henninger.7451:

You’ve probably read today that the PC and Mac Tech subs are being merged with this sub.

Given the amount of info in the stickies for these three subs I’ll be making some sort of FAQ for those topics to reduce the number of stickies that would be required on the 9th when the merge happens.

Just wanted to let you all know that I’ll be messing things up for a little bit.

Are you playing in Ranked or Unranked? Unranked has a new MMR, so the matches could be unfair until your rating adjusts. We’re looking into copying previous Team Arena MMR into Unranked as well which should aleviate this.

Linken.6345:

Still reporting without having the right to say you forwarded it to devs will make alot of people keep posting the same things over and over and over and over and over……
did i forget to say and over again?

It’s a valid position and I really appreciate the feedback from you and everyone else.

Forum specialists won’t be forwarding directly to specific developers. Perhaps they can post something along the lines of “This topic has been included in this week’s report to the Forum Communications Team.” And then when that same topic appears over and over and… the forum specialist can point to the comment and say “This was included in the report of [date],” With time, I think forum members would gain the understanding that if a topic was forwarded to the FCT, it was then included in the team report and when/if a dev is able to post, s/he will do so.

Does that make sense?

We’re actively looking into this. Apologies for the interruption

You’ve probably read today that the PC and Mac Tech subs are being merged with this sub.

Given the amount of info in the stickies for these three subs I’ll be making some sort of FAQ for those topics to reduce the number of stickies that would be required on the 9th when the merge happens.

Just wanted to let you all know that I’ll be messing things up for a little bit.

You make a good point, munkiman. Let me ponder on this, ok? The last thing we want is to fail to attract perfect people because they have a broad range of interests rather than a singular view. I guess one area of specialization that might work is PvE, would that help?

Malchior.5042:

Gaile, I’m afraid that putting “Players Helping Players” that low on the list will cause it to never be seen. This is disheartening, given it’s one of the most key areas newcomers can get detailed answers to their questions and the people who frequent that sub-forum are often those who enjoy tutoring or mentoring newcomers anyway.

I would put “Players Helping Players” in the Game Discussion category, or even create a new main forum category of “Getting Started” “Newcomers Welcome” or something similar to appear above the Professions area.

That’s solid feedback, thank you. I will look into this for sure.

The thought, I believe, was that Community Corner would make sense because it’s something in which community members are directly involved, another component similar to the “Looking for…” section. But we definitely want to highlight this very helpful sub-forum, so we’ll discuss possible placement before the change is made.

eithinan.9841:

“A Forum Specialist’s term will end after 6 months, at which time applications will open for a new round of specialists.
Forum Specialists may not serve consecutive 6-month terms, but are welcome to re-apply at a later date.”

Can I suggest that the process of picking new Specialists start at the 5 month mark so there is no gap.

Yes absolutely—that’s in the plans. We don’t want a gap, as you point out.

Maybe you guys missed the memo? We are considering new software. It’s not on the shortest list for a decision, much less are we able to make a quick change, but it is something we’re examining.

I assume you guys are now able to buy it, but to help clarify anything in the game that is purchased (gold, gems, items from the store) are not available at the same time as the patch – it’s a separate push so there is a delay.

If you’re still unable to buy post your ticket numbers here so I can take a look for a problem.

Inculpatus cedo.9234:

munkiman.3068:

Gaile Gray.6029:

munkiman.3068:

Could you please break down the roles you are looking for? While the 2 examples are fine, I think some of us interested would like to know the breakdown of section you’re interested in. For example is a “Forum Specialist – Guild Wars 2 Discussion” a specialist group?

We’re looking for someone with a less general view, someone who has a particular area in which s/he has developed expertise. It might be a specific profession, dungeons, PvP, crafting… we would not be looking for someone to serve as a generalist.

That leaves me out then. This is kind of sad, especially since general discussions is one of the more communication areas that gets a lot of feedback. Oh well, good luck!

I felt I would not be appropriate, either, as my ‘field of expertise’ is being merged with other fields I have no real working knowledge of, whatsoever. Sigh.

Best of luck, though, to those that qualify! =)

The fact that we’re merging forums does not in any way eliminate options for specialization. For instance, we will not have a specific forum for dungeons, but being an expert in dungeons makes involvement in the GW2 Discussion Sub-Forum even more valuable, because that specialist will be able to cull dungeon-related threads and produce a brief report on topics of note.

And when I say brief report, this should not be a huge deal. This is not “produce a 100 page report each week with 4,000 links to relevant post.” I’ll see if I can produce a sample a bit later.

I’ll have someone make sure our ticketing system is behaving. Thanks for the reports!

Raguletto,

I’ve got someone looking at the ticket and making sure our mail system doesn’t have you blocked (if you ever opted out it may put you on there, but we can clear that). We’ll be in touch soon. =)

I can see there are quite a few questions. I think the best thing to do is for me to craft an FAQ. I’ll start working on that now, so please continue to send your questions.

Thanks!

1041374 Ticket solved, will not discuss further here due to privacy laws.
933607 Waiting a month to reply to us caused the ticket to close so I can’t reply in ticket – there was a mistake made by the agent where the reply meant for you was instead added as a note. We are not able to move players to full servers but you should be able to keep checking as server volumes fluctuate VERY often. Odds are you’ve already noticed this and gotten into your desired server. Apologies for the mistake!

Zaklex.6308:

The most organized forums I’ve ever seen that had has many Titled topics as this one, did the organization a little differently without eliminating any of the many sub-topics by using the follow format, as an example:

Main Title: Support
Sub Forums: Technical Support
Sub Sub Forum: PC Issues
MAC Issues
Sub Forum: Bugs
Sub Sub Forum: Game Bugs
Forum Bugs
Website Bugs
BLTC Bugs

etc., etc., the above is only an example, and though it doesn’t decrease the number of sub forums, what it does do is centralize the sub forums in major categories without jumbling everything into one giant forum that is really impossible to keep track of without a working search feature. Your devs are still going to find it almost impossible to follow threads if everything game related is dumped into a general forum such as Guild Wars 2 Discussion. If however you break up the sub forums into smaller subforums under much larger categories, then they don’t have to wade through 44 different forums to find the one they want, but can specifically go into the sub-sub forum of their choice or need…of course, this is just my opinion, but then again I like information to be clearly segregated.

This forum software does not support what you term as sub sub forums. We are able to create categories and nest subforums within those.

munkiman.3068:

Could you please break down the roles you are looking for? While the 2 examples are fine, I think some of us interested would like to know the breakdown of section you’re interested in. For example is a “Forum Specialist – Guild Wars 2 Discussion” a specialist group?

We’re looking for someone with a less general view, someone who has a particular area in which s/he has developed expertise. It might be a specific profession, dungeons, PvP, crafting… we would not be looking for someone to serve as a generalist.

First let me address the “US resident” thing. It breaks my heart when we have to do this — for contests, for this program, for other things — but we really must do it for legal reasons. Different countries have different definitions of volunteer work and we simply do not have the means to have the program reviewed and adjusted to conform to multiple legal requirements that may apply to any given volunteer opportunity.

spoj.9672:

I think a lot of potential good candidates wont be eligible simply because of the USA requirement.

Yes, that is very true and I regret it more than I can say. This is a pilot program and we may be able to extend it in the future, though.

munkiman.3068:

Gaile Gray.6029:

Healix.5819:

Merging tech support (PC and Mac) is going to create a mess. A lot of the problems that show up have generic fixes across Windows and although the same concept works for Mac, the process is different. Most people don’t identify their OS at the start. Windows will still be assumed but by merging them, even the most simple of fixes will begin with “PC or Mac?”

Then I go back to the suggestion just above: Start the thread with “MAC: [subject line]” or “PC: [subject line]” and our technical support people can answer appropriately.

I agree with you, not specifying OS is going to be an issue, so doing so in the subject line seems a quick and easy solution.

I would imagine, this would be part of the role of a forum specialist, to ensure this stuff gets formatted correctly?

I’m not sure I understand. Forum specialists won’t be editing posts and therefore would not be impacting formatting of previously-posted materials. I would hope they would “spread the word” about using topical identifiers in the subject line, but they would not be able to ensure that happened.

mahri.8410:

The Forums should also have some sort of What’s New button/ Active topics. In these forums, some sections have bigger audience, others smaller. For example, the most viewed forum section is General Discussion, and the most ignored sectios are Fan Generated Content/Audio. That’s one of the reasons why some people prefer posting in General Discussion, altough their thread might be more apropriate for other forum. Another reason why General Discussion is more viewed is because devs generally post in there. By posting in General Discussion, your thread has bigger chance to be seen by a developper.
A What’s new button would be really useful.

I think that the Forum Specialists will have the huge task to move threads from place to place, mainly because of General Discussion issue.
If Forum Specialists take their role seriously, will Arena.Net staff continue posting on forums as much as before ? People want to communicate dirrectly with devs.

A “what’s new” is something I’d like to see, but it’s not possible with this software.

As to Forum Specialists, they will not be moderators in any sense of the word. They certainly may flag threads for moving, and we hope that they will also flag possible infractions, as we ask any forum member to do. But FSP members won’t be asked to handle any of the “heavy lifting” of moderation, such as moving, deleting, merging, editing, sticky-ing, or issuing infraction points. That will be done, as always, only by members of the Forum Communications Team.

The Forum Specialists will mostly focus on information gathering, and that will not in any way replace active participation by the developers. I don’t think that a forum specialist would be posting so much as amassing information that my team will route to individual developers or teams for their information and possible response, when appropriate and possible.

Healix.5819:

Merging tech support (PC and Mac) is going to create a mess. A lot of the problems that show up have generic fixes across Windows and although the same concept works for Mac, the process is different. Most people don’t identify their OS at the start. Windows will still be assumed but by merging them, even the most simple of fixes will begin with “PC or Mac?”

Then I go back to the suggestion just above: Start the thread with “MAC: [subject line]” or “PC: [subject line]” and our technical support people can answer appropriately.

I agree with you, not specifying OS is going to be an issue, so doing so in the subject line seems a quick and easy solution.

Lynne.8416:

I wouldn’t have any issue with the “reorgansation” if the Search feature actually worked. Are you going to fix the Search feature? It’s one of the reasons why there are multiple threads created about the same exact topic over and over again.
If I only want to search about Dungeons, I’m certainly not going to want to look through page after page of data.

Lynne, I would give just about anything to get that Search feature working. Unfortunately, it’s not possible for us to do. Believe me, I dislike that we’re missing “search” as much as you do!

I am going to make a bold suggestion here, and it just occurred to me this second: Maybe each of us making a thread needs to consider the topic and include that topic in the subject line. Say, “Dungeons: Input on Fractals” or “BLTC: Nnew Gem Store Items” or something of that sort.

Since we don’t have tagging, and the search engine isn’t functioning, that seems a likely way to direct eyes to the forum threads of not.

What do y’all think of that idea?

Lishtenbird.2814:

Gaile Gray.6029:

spoj.9672:

Where are we supposed to post regarding dungeons, fractals and other non living story related PvE? General discussion already fills with threads at an alarming rate.

General Discussion is correct. With many developers involved in multiple projects, it’s helpful for them to have a main forum to check for input, suggestions, and questions.

Since many more threads will now coexist with others, especially in the General Discussion section, I suggest increasing the amount of threads per page from 30 (to 40? 50?). The threads which go onto the 2nd page are very likely to sink away into the abyss, and the 1st page already has 5 stickies which decreases the amount of visible threads to 25.

This is a very valid suggestion. I had believed that we, as users, could set the number of posts visible on each page, but apparently that’s not the case, at least as I see it in my quick poke on the user’s set-up pages.

The upside: More visibility into threads, especially in busy forums like GW2 Discussion.
The downside: Will it impact load times? I find myself twiddling my fingers waiting for the forums to load at the present time (another argument for new software, perhaps) and I’d hate to wait even longer for loading.

Let me discuss with my team and we’ll see what we can do.

Thanks for the suggestion.

Thaddeus.4891:

Does that mean that the following will be deleted or merge?

- Profession Balance
- Crafting
- Black Lion Trading Co
- Dungeons
- etc

I listed subforum that I use. I understand that some subforum are not really active or too specific. But you get from 44 subforums to 24?

I like the addition of an API subforum, but that’s pretty hardcore consolidation.

Yes, those will be part of the Guild Wars 2 Discussion Sub-forum, with the possible exception of BLTC, which may fall in the Bugs Sub-Forum if a forum member is reporting an issue with the Gem Store, a purchased, etc.

Randulf.7614:

This is great news! The number of subforums is excessive imo and this will be more valuable to us and yourselves long term

Thank you! I think over time we’ve developed “forum creep” where we just kept making new forums without thinking of the consequences of that, and of the value in having people involved in fewer forums with a greater cross-section of players.

Ok I Did It.2854:

So what not make it that there are Icons that people select when posting a bug, so when its gets posted it will show via icon for instant notification, so you select Website bug, Forum bug, Game bug, I think this was suggested awhile ago also but it never got any reply, now would be a perfect time to do this, that way you don’t log into that part of the forums and see titles only you will see if its a game/website/forum bugs before even clicking on it.

I think you’re talking about “tagging” a post? If so, with new software, we could do that sort of thing but with the current software we don’t have that sort of technology available.

Dasenthal.6520:

What about the John Smith sticky? “Questions about the economy” will that end up in general or will it just cease to exist? (Or is it possible for it to lose sticky status?)

Yes, that would be in the Guild Wars 2 Discussion Sub-Forum. I understand your question about making it sticky, but I know we will need to be very particular about how we set up sticky posts, because if we simply left everything stickied and merged, we’d have a full front page of stickies and no new content at all!

John is a great forum contributor. I’ll talk to him about how we can continue his lively and valuable discussion on the economy. Certainly we want that to continue!

ZudetGambeous.9573:

So I get removing Dungeons, and Crafting forums since those features have been officially abandoned by the devs, but why remove the BLTC forum? That is one of the most active forums with one of the most active devs.

First, the Dungeons and Crafting Sub-forums haven’t been abandoned, but it is true that they haven’t seen a lot of dev activity lately. Our hope is that when we’re asking the developers to look at fewer forums — to not have to scroll down 11 times to get to the bottom group, to not have to play a guessing game of “Where would players look for this info?” — there will be increased developer participation.

As far as the BLTC — that’s a good point, but I think we need to stay on this path for now. I will talk to the team member who have been active in BLTC and Gem Store discussions and ask them to look for posts on “their” topics in GW2 Discussion. Their feedback will help us make any adjustments that are truly required to increase our responsiveness all around.