Guild Wars 2

I am going to write my list assuming that a native (non-cider) client is a pony that is unlikely to happen in the near/medium future; so these all wishes for the existing cider client:

1. Resolution of the existing crasher bugs that have been in the cider client since launch…. or at least for a very long time. — Hopefully the mac support people have a better feel for these since they crop up in the forums week after week, but in my particular case it would be the “dstBits” or “lockedRect” crashes that seem to occur when you have graphics settings cranked up and are in a place with a whole lot of models and spell effects, such as WvW zergs or living story content. This would be the single biggest QoL change for me because it would mean I would stop crashing in the middle of events and boss kills and losing credit for them.

2. Fix the trading post / gem store loading issues. — I feel like I am playing the lottery every time I try to load up the trading post or gem store… sometimes it works… sometimes the spinner just spins forever… sometimes it loads the gem store tabs but not the rest of the content, etc.

3. Investigation into major performance bottlenecks. — I have a 3.2Ghz quad-core xeon (Nehalem), 16GB of ram, and a GTX 680 with 2MB of vram. It is no pro gaming rig, but it should be pretty reasonable. Instead, if I sit still in front of the mystic forge, set the graphics preset to “Best Performance” and change the resolution to 1024×768 it is just barely able to get over 50fps… this is pretty miserable. I understand that cider is having to translate DirectX -> OpenGL so some performance is always going to be lost… but 50fps while subsampling 1024×768 on a GTX 680 with the lowest possible settings is just crazy. It has to be getting tangled up in something else. (Attached a screenshot)

4. It is 2014… surely TransGaming has made a 64-bit version of cider by now so that we can use more than 4GB of memory and have High textures and stuff… right? If not, please post their customer service phone number and all of us will be glad to call and complain directly to them.

5. Not a complaint/issue but since you said these could be anything, thank you for continuing to support the mac client even if it isn’t a high priority! I would be very sad if mac support was dropped.

Yeah, I’m assuming we’re stuck with cider here too (so I’m not going to ask for high textures and whatnot since cider pretends to be 32 bit windows).

1. The level of communication. Essentially, I’d like the stickies in this forum to be updated to be current. This includes updates for frequent issues to address how we pretty much get the same handful of threads in this forum over and over and over again. And some sort of patch notes for us. I’m completely 100% okay if they’re kind of gibberish. Having a general idea of what is going on is good and can potentially help us talk to you if we have an inkling of what got changed. At the moment we have no idea what is going on so we do blind guessing at best (raging rants at worse). Oh and maybe remove/condense some of the stickies since there are a lot of them right now.

2. On a somewhat related note, clean up this sub forum. Related crashes should be lumped together in the same thread/bug report. It will hopefully help people find answers more quickly (due to the your thread was merged/moved feature the forums has).

3. Fix all the random WvW crashing. I’m betting this is an issue that will never go away just due to how cider is kind of buggy. To avoid the crashing I’ve just been throwing all my settings down to minimum (I’m on a new top of the line iMac with the latest OS) because I can’t bother myself to figure out how to avoid the crashing. Maybe a “don’t crash in WvW” preset would be a nice solution here so we can quickly swap to that graphics setting instead of meticulously playing with the settings every time we go to WvW.

4. Have some sort of way to reset the BLTC beyond rebooting the game. Give us a button to flush the cache or whatever it is that fixes the problem by rebooting. I’m completely making stuff up here because I don’t know the cause of the BLTC randomly not working (it has gotten better recently, though so you’re on the right track).

5. You’re getting better at communicating with us. I really do appreciate how you guys are talking to us again. You have a ways to go to restore my trust (I won’t speak for others). But you’re on the right track and I will be happy to spend money to buy gems when I feel that my trust has been sufficiently restored. I obviously like GW2 over all other fantasy MMOs right now otherwise I wouldn’t be here so I do want to make sure you guys can eat. Basically, the trust gap still exists but I have hope it can be fixed.

Nageth.5648:

Yeah, I’m assuming we’re stuck with cider here too (so I’m not going to ask for high textures and whatnot since cider pretends to be 32 bit windows).

Argh, I had blocked the fact it only knows how to do 32-bit out of my memory… guess I need to update that item on my wish list!

I post my wishes with an descending priority ordner

1.) An in depth testing before launching updates. This should be no offense but in the past some updates crashes the game for the mac community, which could have been avoided.

2.) Fix the TP issues. This is a constant issue, every little update could change everything. I don’t know why the TP is that sensitive but it would be nice to have it more stable. (and maybe quicker…if it loads?)

3.) Graphics. I have definetely no gaming computer but i think 12Gb and an i5 quad could do more than that. This is up to the cider port for sure.

I have 3 wishes (beside the one big wish: A native Client). I want to say you, that i appreciate your work here. The communication definetly got better. Nevertheless if nothing changes this month i will run bootcamp. Especially if the great update brings us bugs/issues/crashes. You’re missing a great chance by underestimating the mac gaming potential.

More than one year ago a friend of mine from GW1 told me GW2 is for Mac too and I was really enthusiastic and bought it instantly. And the list of improvements is inexistant (please correct me if I’m wrong! Hotfixes doesn’t count.). It got worse. I really look forward to the upcoming changes and really hope for improvements.

I don’t really have 5 points but there are some fixes needed (and i too think that a native client is probably out of the option, but one can hope i suppose?)

( 0. This suggestion should actually go without saying but i’m saying it: More communication towards the mac users. You don’t have to give updates, just to give an update. But a response every now and then, most certainly with bugs reported, is nice. just to see that we are being heard and people care.
Now with this said it’s only fair i give a big thumbs up to the improvements recently made when it comes to communication. TY for the hard work, Danicia & team.)

THE LIST
1. Random Crashes: i get kicked out, without a warning. i get crash-warnings and don’t crash, WvW crashing on me when things get good, etc. Please look into what is causing these crashes.
2. Performance update: the bottlenecks and the whole picture. like the poster above i have a decent mac (Processor 2,7 GHz Intel Core i5; Memory 16 GB 1600 MHz DDR3; Videocard NVIDIA GeForce GT 640M 512 MB), not pro but decent. i would like to utilize the utilities i have and get a boost in the game. (especially the fsp, which sometimes drops to like 10 in pve events & 4-5 in wvw. Really that’s not even playable)
3. By the gods, FIX THE TP!!! the amount of time i spent restarting my client because of the tp not loading is ridiculous.

EDIT
In hindsight, let’s not lie about things: The absolute number 1 thing on everyone’s wish list is a native client. But I am realistic and i know it takes time & resources that are probably not there or the team feels that these could be used in different situations. Though in reality it’s probably the only way to fix the more serious errors & grievances.

Short wishes:

1. Better communication: well, you’re getting better (announcements and responses, at least) but there’s still a gap of mistrust (last few updates were very horrible – did you test them first?).

2. A dedicated Mac OS dev team – clear enough.

3. A native Mac OS client: no matter how good a ported client is, a native will always give better performance and stability. I think those problems are caused by Cider limitations (32-bit, DX > OGL, blah blah):

3.1. Fix TP = my new ‘skill’ rotation: restart, O, restart, O, restart, O, … .
3.2. Fix crashes = not as frequent as before the last patch, but yeah… annoying.
3.3. Performance = I played with graphic settings and sometimes I noticed that lags happened for the first ~5 sec when I moved to another map on every settings from best perf to best graph (memory issue?) (quad-i7, 8GB RAM, SSD).

1. Communication. Basically I completely agree with Nageth’s first point. Even if you give us some complicated patch notes, some of us could test it a bit and give you some feedback on your changes.
2. Trading post loading issue. (I would look into the “cookied” process since shutting down GW2 and then force quiting cookied always fixes the loading issue for me at least).
3. Some refining of the port, it seems like a whiny complaint and i know it is difficult to optimise but I’m sure something can be done I have complete faith.
4. Mac test team (put a few random dev testers on a mac :P, they too can give excellent feedback to the mac team then). To prevent things like the massive FPS issue introduced a few patches back (fixed 2 weeks later).

Also a statement about the future of the mac client would be appreciated (ever any chance on OpenGL version?). Though I totally understand that a statement like this can be very risky. Still I would be happy with “We are not planning a native client but are putting a lot of effort in optimising the port tot the max!” But still I can get why you would never say this to avoid complaints.
But to support wish 1, this does not count for bug fix progress etc.

5. I still am very grateful for the Mac client (even though it is a port) since it totally beats booting windows every time I want to play! And the game is getting beter and better with every patch so I’ll stick around for a long time.

Hi Danicia,
this is my first post and unfortunately I realized that all the problems of the client GW2 Mac, come from the limitations of Cider.
I’m playing right now on my old laptop pc because it became impossible on my iMac (OS X 10.7.5 Intel Core i7 3.4 GHz, AMD Radeon HD 6970M 1024 MB).
The quality of games on the Mac screen is much better but crashes as “dstBits” or “lockedRect” make any event impossible.
This morning (in Europe), I tested again on the Mac, and just as I walked in “Keep Vigil” had a “dstBits”. Just before the crash, I found a lot of latency and no fluidity, as if the Mac client is slow to translate information.
Why try to make something new with the old? If Cider has no effective solutions, it is better to leave on a native client on Mac.
I think the Mac community deserves it, because it is large and always faithful to GW.

Thank you and sorry for my English.

Hi Danicia,

updated

As you have noticed, there is concern in the mac community about arenanet’s policy to not say anything but what seems to be appeasement along the lines of “We will keep you updated (with statements of keeping you updated)”.

1. Don’t call it a beta if it isn’t. It’s a lie, as in not the truth. It’s a finished product somewhat poorly wrapped.

2. Tell us if you are working on a native client

3. Please remember that no matter how good your intentions might be, the only thing that players are able to see is what is in the game and your posts here. This leads to the impression that Arenanet doesn’t care at all for the mac community and has over and over again tried to push our complaints away in a “we will update you soon (on nothing)” manner.

4. again, _TELL_us if at least one person is working on a NATIVE client. And with working I mean at least one person at Arenanet is getting paid to work_full time_on a mac native adaptation.

5. Last but not least the performance related things…
Fix anything, really. Bad framerate, low textures supported, trading post not working most of the time, lots of crashes & all that beautiful jazz.
I have no idea how and to what extend it can be improved but you always have the option to change something in the mac “beta” client and then ask for our opinion on whether or not it brought an improvement.

5.1 What bothers me most is having to play with really low settings.
5.2 I don’t have a lot of crashes, virtually none actually so I can’t complain about this but as it seems other people go through lots of trouble to get rid of those crashes
5.3 The main thing is that we only get 1/2 of quality/fidelity of what the windows version has to offer…

Michael

Phoebe Ascension.8437:

…

This is a wishlist for mac users. As you can see we struggle with more serious problems than content based stuff. But your points were nice to have

Hey Danica,

I don’t have much to add to Michael Walkers post. One year after launch, the Beta tag on the client is just misleading. Lose it, decide on a communication on the state of the Mac client that is decisive.

If’ we’re stuck with the Cider port, tell us. If you have concrete plans to move to OpenGL (for Linux, SteamOS, or just to finally get a better performance option than Dx9 that also works in the Chinese market), that’d of course be the prefered solution.

Hi.

1. Loading up the trading post indeed does feel like playing the lottery.
2. Getting stuck under the map while trying to load into it
3. Camera spinning issue still happens every once in a while, but I use a temporary fix that a moderator gave me
4. I love this game.
5. Thank you for this game.

Hi,

I’m glad to see this thread. Here are my suggestions/compliments. Most everything I discuss has to do with just keeping the Mac customer base informed. We know there are and will be bugs but knowing that they are getting attention from Anet goes a long way.

1. Continue to improve communication with Mac customers. There are a lot of cases were there have been / are bugs and Mac customers are left talking to each other. We are left wondering if Anet even knows about the problem or is interested at all. We are not expecting a bunch of promises of when things will be fixed but knowing that Anet knows about the issue would be helpful. Your other post was the first time I can recall reading that a Mac team has been working on problems during patches. Including Mac related fixes in patch notes would be helpful as well. Also please keep the known issues sticky thread up to date. This will help us know that you are aware of the problems.
2. Thorough testing using both Macbooks and iMacs before a patch goes live. The last several patches there have been some very significant bugs specific to the Mac client. I would like to think this could have been avoided if the patch had been tested properly and does leave me to wonder how much testing went on. I mention using both Macbook and iMac because some problems seem affect each differently. Most problems seem to affect Macbooks. Also I hope testing is done using the latest OSX Maveriks.
3. As others have said, trading post loading problems is the most common problem I experience and it is annoying. Not game breaking but it is a pain in the rear at times.
4. I very much enjoy the game despite some of the Mac specific bugs. Help me to continue enjoying it by not giving up on the Mac client.
5. Anet staff presence in this forum is appreciated and very much welcomed. I don’t think any of us expect forum support to be a full time job. However, please don’t let this be like the last several times we have had someone drop in to say they were here for us then disappear a few weeks later. CC Danicia even if you are not ultimately going to be responsible for posting in this forum some continuity of Anet staff presence without long gaps of time in between will go a long way into earning our trust again.

Also, I will admit I have been rather harsh and somewhat rude in some threads here. I apologize for that and for letting my frustration get the best of me. I will try to avoid such behavior in the future.

1. Fix the TP
2. Fix the TP
3. Fix the TP
4. Fix the TP
5. Fix the TP

In other words, I’d like them to fix the TP.

I want better performance, but I’m gong to buck the trend and say I don’t want a native client. It’ll take years, massive quantities of cash that’d be better spent on more content, and then we’d have a shiny new client that as with all large software projects will be full of bugs. I don’t want to have to live through ages of a buggy client while it all gets straightened out.

That said, reimplementing the renderer in OpenGL would probably help us a lot, no idea if your architecture makes that easy or hard.

I have to turn everything down low in WvW, but if I just select best performance then it turns down the number of models, which while funny is kinda sucky. Then after WvW I want to switch it back up, but not all the way. So I end up having to hit a lot of buttons by hand. (Auto detect sucks). Letting us save our own presets would be nice. Even better would be for it to be adaptive, so it’ll change based on frame rate and what I’m doing. (There’s an option to not draw other players, why not an option to not draw their kitten particle effects?)

My other big wish is for the TP to work. It’s better than it was, so it’s hardly top priority.

Fix those kernel panics all the new content is not much fun when it is almost unplayable due to all those kernel panics, wvw crashes, personal story crashes even when there is not much happening the game crashes the whole system without any error report.

Best would be a native mac client.

I appreciate the continued support for Mac no matter how many people are playing on Mac compared to PC. I have always liked Guild Wars and will continue enjoying it, whether its being played on a Mac or Pc. Thank you for making a truely awesome game!
Now my top 5:

1. Native Mac client. Remove the “Beta” from the name because its being updated just as much as the PC client is.

2. Fix the crashing in WvW when running on full performance. Having to set graphics on low in massive fights over and over and still crashing.

3. Fix the BLTP. I am going agree with Blind Jimmy I feel like I am playing the lottery every time I open the trading post. The TP not loading has gotten so much better than when i started playing in October keep updating it. I know this has been on everyones wish list but I had to say it again.

4. Keep giving us updates on problems/bugs/etc whether they are big or small, so we know that you guys are looking into the problem.

5. Thank you for making an incredible game! Keep making this game awesome! Its only going to get better and better and we are all looking forward to the April 15th patch!

1. Random Crashes.
2. BLTP Never working.
3. More communication from Anet.
4. An actual Mac client would be nice.
5. BLTP again. Because, no one on a Mac can ever use it.

I have to chime in and say “ALL of the above.”

I really enjoy playing GW2, and would enjoy it even more if some of the issues that make this game so much fun were fixed/updated/improved.

Bonus: If you did, you’d get more Mac players!

And if you want to get MORE of our money … well, fix Black Lion. But that’s been said. I’m itching to spend gems, so help me out here!

Thanks and happy Wednesday!

1. Trade Post Fix
2. Improve game performance
3. Dynamic Screen resize (Can resize window as u drag the mouse)
4. Full screen support
5. Keep App in one desktop (Instead of popping up on every desktop)

IMO, only point 1 is important. Temp fix point 1, then p2 to 5 will happen naturally if its native app.

1. Patch notes on Mac Beta Client. It would be great to know whats happening, whats going to happen and I’m sure it would create some sort of relief knowing that work is actually being done (not saying there isn’t).

2. Trade Post Fix

3. Eventually a full release of the game client would be awesome.

4. Basic bugs that make playing the game nearly impossible or just not worth it to be fixed. E.g. Crashing, loading issues, that awkward camera bug where it bugs highly sensitive for no apparently reason etc.

and thats really it very generalised but yeah

1 through 5 – Trading Post, I hate having to restart the client several times clearing cooked, wine server, CVMcompiler in Activity Monitor and then deleting Guild Wars 2 in Application Support only to hope that I can load the trading post. What makes it even worse is the abysmal loading times that sometimes takes me 10-15 minutes of restarting and loading to get the TP to work.

1) Mac native client
2)Mac native client
3) Mac native client
4) Test patches before launching because they crash or have errors on Macs and I can’t experience some content till Thursday or Friday after they’ve been fixed
5) An authenticator like what Blizzard has to prevent hacking. It’s becoming more of an issue and I’ve had 3 guild mates and 2 friends in the last 2 months get hacked. I don’t mind spending $5 for a physical one, but I’d like something more secure than what’s in place now.

1. Fix the Trading Post please!
2. Native client!
3, 4,5 … Not been around long enough to have experienced WvW etc, yet so I’ll stick with two wishes!

I’m new here but I also agree that it’s obvious the lack of communication from ANet staff in this forum is not up to standard. Especially when things go wrong like they have with the trading post since yesterday. Almost 24 hours and still no confirmation that the problems is at least recognised!

1. TP
2. TP
3. TP
4. TP
5. I want to see my back while I’m running for check enemy.

1) Make Mac Native
2) Native Mac Client
3) Look at that! Mac is NATIVE now!
4) A client that is native to our beloved Mac!
5) All other problems fixed when we get attention due to a NATIVE MAC CLIENT!

No matter how you shape it all the requests you could possibly get can be fit into the one heading. Having a Mac means reliable. high performance.Gimping us with Cider or pushing us into Bootcamp or Wine is like tying cinder block en masse to the back of Ferrari and calling it fair.

Let’s get real and stop relying on rubber crutches.

I’m in the same boat as the rest of these people.

1. Native client. And if not, please look into the one you have since performance on even the best of Macs out there is atrocious. I have to run on best performance looking at brown and grey people all day, and even then I get sad-panda fps and random slowdowns like I’m running through jelly all of a sudden (slow-normal-slow-normal-slow – I can fraps something for you if you need to see it, just have to go to Frostgorge, or Mists, or WvW). MBP i7 2.2GHz 8GB 1333MHz DDR3 1GB Radeon HD 6750M.

2. All the TP bugs we have, but especially the one making it just not work randomly leaving you with no choice but to quit the game and start it up again (which is pretty annoying if, for example, you’ve been in queue for WvW for an hour only to have to quit and lose your spot). This latest variant today isn’t even solved by quitting so that’s something even worse.

3. Communication. A presence here is highly valued.

That’s it.

Hello, and thanks in advance for reading this list.

1) Please fix the Trading Post to work consistently.

2)Please update the client to 64 bit graphics.

3)Please reintegrate the Effect LOD. Right now I can’t really see that it does anything or if it reduces graphical overhead.

4) Please reduce the bit depth and frequency of environmental effects in places like Fractals of the Mists Will o’ the Wisps run. I’d rather play this game with Nintendo 64 level graphics if I could have a consistent and high frame rate at all times. Fog, fire and explosion effects within the camera’s field of view slow this game down to virtually a halt.

5) Please post threads of improvements specific to the mac client here in the forums, not just in response to mac client issues, but as an ongoing thing that we can track. I see some notes in the patch notes, but it would be nice to come to this subforum and check on progress specific to the Mac Client.

Jadjuka.6521:

5) An authenticator like what Blizzard has to prevent hacking. It’s becoming more of an issue and I’ve had 3 guild mates and 2 friends in the last 2 months get hacked. I don’t mind spending $5 for a physical one, but I’d like something more secure than what’s in place now.

There’s already Google Authenticator, which AFAICT is the same as the blizzard one. What are you wanting different?

A non beta client would be nice
Trading post working
Less crashing

I moved from a PC to Mac when my PC crashed the game is amazing on Mac but makes me sad to see such extreme differences in the basic game play.

I’ve been fairly happy with the Mac client thus far and seem to be experiencing far fewer issues than other players. The only thing that seriously causes me problems is the BLTP. A day down and I’ll live, two days and it starts getting annoying, I’m now on day three and have so much stuff saved up to sell it’s not even funny. I also can’t craft like I’d like to because I can’t get on to buy extra supplies. I’m trying to get a couple of characters levelled up before next week but can’t even craft my own armour for that.

Which brings me to communication: There are always tweets for general problems, but I haven’t seen a single mention of this problem on Twitter. Do you think Mac users don’t use social media? Or do you just consider us a minority that’s a nice to have income, but really you could do without us? Speaking as someone who spends money on this game, I kind of resent the lack of communication and care on a daily basis.
Having said that, I will add that I got fabulous support from you when I had an issue with my client transfer to my new Mac. However, that was a one on one thing and not a heads up that you actually know about the issues and are addressing them. It would be nice if I didn’t actually have to go to the forums and check to see whether or not you give a kitten and if you’re on it. It would only cost you a tweet.

So my list:

1. BLTP
2. Communication
Repeat ad nauseam

I’d like to add that if you need real life testers, I’d volunteer. I’m a second and third level software supporter during the day, so testing isn’t new to me. If it would help you to help me, it would be worth the pain that testing so often is.

1) TP not working. There are several temporary fixes out there: force quit cookied, set language to french then back, re-open GW2, trash the Library/Application support/Guild Wars 2 folder, … I want to see you try all of those every time you open the TP, then flip a coin: tails you get to use the TP, heads you have to wait an hour and try again.

2) Crashing when using high graphics settings.

3) Quicker response time on serious bugs. It seems if there is a tiny clipping bug on a newly released shoulder skin, it gets fixed within half an hour. mac client is reduced to 3 fps: takes 14 days.

4) Remove the word ‘Beta’. ‘Beta’ = The version of a software product that is used in the final stage of testing before it is commercially released. ‘Beta’ means there will be a final product. If this is the final product, it’s not a ‘beta’. Too many arguments about how poorly the mac client behaves go along the lines of, “you paid for an account to play GW2, if you choose to test their beta version on a mac, that’s up to you.” (not from developers – from other players)

Michael Walker.8150:

Hi Danicia,

updated

As you have noticed, there is concern in the mac community about arenanet’s policy to not say anything but what seems to be appeasement along the lines of “We will keep you updated (with statements of keeping you updated)”.

1. Don’t call it a beta if it isn’t. It’s a lie, as in not the truth. It’s a finished product somewhat poorly wrapped.

2. Tell us if you are working on a native client

3. Please remember that no matter how good your intentions might be, the only thing that players are able to see is what is in the game and your posts here. This leads to the impression that Arenanet doesn’t care at all for the mac community and has over and over again tried to push our complaints away in a “we will update you soon (on nothing)” manner.

4. again, _TELL_us if at least one person is working on a NATIVE client. And with working I mean at least one person at Arenanet is getting paid to work_full time_on a mac native adaptation.

5. Last but not least the performance related things…
Fix anything, really. Bad framerate, low textures supported, trading post not working most of the time, lots of crashes & all that beautiful jazz.
I have no idea how and to what extend it can be improved but you always have the option to change something in the mac “beta” client and then ask for our opinion on whether or not it brought an improvement.

5.1 What bothers me most is having to play with really low settings.
5.2 I don’t have a lot of crashes, virtually none actually so I can’t complain about this but as it seems other people go through lots of trouble to get rid of those crashes
5.3 The main thing is that we only get 1/2 of quality/fidelity of what the windows version has to offer…

Michael

Praise the Lord! Thanks for writing this. Really appreciate your candor. You crushed it.

1. Create a native client [echo effect]. I know everyone is trying to tell you this, so that should tell you the level of importance it has to us. The thing is that you could use OpenCL and make the client work without using something like cider. Isn’t that what WoW does? I mean, that would solve so many of the compatibility issues. The only thing I see going wrong here is that you would likely have to build the game engine from scratch which would take away from years of work, but you should really do the cost/profit analysis to see if that’s a doable thing! With this, there would be hardly any bugs because you wouldn’t have to try to make it work for both platforms in such a way that it only feels like the gaming community only cares about the PC side of the tracks.

2. Rather than only releasing an API for making mobile and web apps, follow through with creating the “Extended Experience App” we heard so much about and made so many of us so friggin’ excited! Following through on this not only makes the company look better for keeping their word but it also would help when there are crashes with the Black Lion Trading Company. Also, it has the potential to release to the public some designs (like character creation) that we couldn’t otherwise get our hands on which would have a similar effect to what many of us will be doing with the wardrobe system.

3. Have more/better discounts within the BLTC or allow retail stores to sell the Gem Cards at a discount. I know that ANet needs money to keep things going, and I know that after people buy the game they want to buy some in game content. So let us both win! I mean, I have a GameStop card sitting in my wallet waiting on them to either sell the Gem Cards or come out with something brilliant (which let’s be honest… who knows when that will be). I appreciate what you’re doing with the occasional free buffs, but you asked for feedback so here you go.

4. Allow some of the common gestures or features to be allowed like using two fingers to scroll within your inventory or when you press F12 to log out being able to press “C” and change characters. I know that’s such a tiny thing to improve, but what is really the harm in updating something so small/insignificant? We were able to do it in the original Guild Wars.

5. Don’t get bogged down or stressed out because “haters gonna hate” and “trolls gonna troll”. You guys have made a fantastic game that looks and feels absolutely beautiful. You know that and we know that. That’s why we bought the game! We wouldn’t have done so if we knew it would be like WoW. Not saying that WoW is a bad game because I’ve never actually played it, but GW2’s graphics far surpass what I’ve seen of WoW. The only thing is that the Mac “Beta” community feels like it has been put on the back burner because everything has to be filtered by cider and doesn’t fully take advantage of the hardware (and OS X Mavericks’ ability to App Nap) that our machines have.

1. Create a way to buy and sell things on the trading post from this website. Someone already came up with a way to buy and check prices of things without being in game, it’s called a crossover or something. The facts are that the tp in game works 50% of the time at best for everyone on Mac (and also breaks sometimes for PC players I’ve been told), and breaks after each patch and at random times. It is apparently difficult to fix in game, since every time it permanently breaks it takes 2-3 weeks to fix. Since it’s broken much more often than it works for the richest 10% of your customers, please make it possible to buy and sell items and buy gem store items from this website instead of just in game =). That way you wouldn’t need to rush to fix it in game every time it breaks because people would have the option to buy and sell outside of game when it breaks in game.

1) Native client… please. Elder Scrolls Online has a native client. They thought Mac users were worth the effort.

2) No more completely broken clients on patch days. You know what I’m talking about: the kind of bugs that scream “nobody actually even loaded and played the mac client before releasing this patch”.

3) Trading Post and Gem Store not loading. The number of times I have to restart the client to fix this is just excruciating.

4) The crashes. You must have received hundreds of crash reports from my client by now. Lockedprect.bits is my nemesis. It is the most frequent error message in large-scale WvW battles.

1) Native Client. Loads of events in GW2 (Living Story, WvW etc.) involve huge numbers of players congregating together, and Mac users really get the short end of the stick trying to participate in these. If a native client is impossible to make for whatever reason, alternative ways of providing a HUGE performance boost for Mac users should be looked into.

2) Somewhat related to the first point, new content should be extensively tested on iMacs/Macbooks prior to release. Some of the past patches created significant Mac issues when released, a particularly bad one being the (relatively) recent performance bug that made World vs. World (4 fps!) and Living Story unplayable for most Mac users. That would not have been so bad if not for the fact that it took days to rectify – which might have been avoided were it actually tested prior to release.

3) Trading Post and Gem Store issues should really have been fixed after all these months, but they haven’t been.

4) Improved game performance for Mac users.

5) Thank you to those who have been stopping by the forum to respond to some of the issues raised.

Stability is the main issue for me. If there are a lot of players on screen, such as a large battle in WvW, the game crashes. Usually it’s the game closing without warning but sometimes textures become garbled shortly before it freezes. However my biggest complaint about stability is that often the game will crash when my elementalist switches to earth attunement. The majority of crashes I’ve experienced happen this way.

General improvements in performance and reliable access to the the trading post would also be nice.

Hello all. Sorry for disappearing. My account was compromised. HUGE thank you to Danicia for starting this!

1.) Native Client (or at the very least PLEASE stop calling this cider client a “beta”)
2.) An active engagement from ANet in our community
3.) Better communication
4.) Better customer support (meaning genuine knowledge of our client, no directing back to forums, etc.)
5.) Fixing existing, persistent client bugs (trading post issues, login issues, generally performance issues, etc.)

Lankybrit.4598:

1. Fix the TP
2. Fix the TP
3. Fix the TP
4. Fix the TP
5. Fix the TP

In other words, I’d like them to fix the TP.

1) Native client. I know this will be very hard so I appreciate at least better perfomance. Somenthing like 10/15 FPS will be very cool.

2) More presence on the Mac forum by A-net. Of course, we are a little community, but we have payed this game like every player on this MMO, so we need YOUR ATTENTION too.

3) TP fix. I can’t add more things…this is the most know problem on this mac client.

4) and 5)? Don’t need it…the first 3 sentences are enough.

WE BOUGHT THIS GAME. WE PAYED THIS GAME.
IT’S OUR RIGHT TO HAVE A FULLY FUNCTIONAL PRODUCT IN OUR HANDS.

Before I begin… There’s a mac team?

Anyway, my top 5:
1) NO MORE Black Lion bugs. Ever. Even before this giant (what, two-week, now?) fiasco, I’d been having temporary (several hours long) blackouts on the tp. It’s frustrating and a real hinderance.

2) No more beta! Give mac users a working client that is confirmed to work perfectly- we paid just as much as the pc users did, and they have 100x the support we do.

3) Don’t let us feel insignificant/ignored. I’m tired of feeling like an issue isn’t an issue until it affects PC users. If PC tp crashed, it would have been fixed within a few hours. I feel mac-exclusive issues are merely ignored far too often.

4) more great updates like this one! Time for a positive note, forums are far too often completely negative comments because the people who really appreciate the game are actually playing it. This update is great. I love the new pvp build screen, new runes are pretty cool, and two sigils for each weapon? Rock on, man!

5) a fully working, reliable client! I know this is kind of my first 3 points mashed together, but, I just want to be able to play the same game the pc users do without running into roadblocks at every turn. No, it’s not a gaming computer. But GW2 is a very aesthetic-based game, and one thing my macbook does darn well is graphics. Have you seen this game on a retina display? Hoo, buddy. Looks phenomenal. Anyway, I digress.

Basically, I just want to be able to reliably play the game. Take care of the crashing, take care of the mac-exclusive bugs, and get rid of that annoying beta tag!

Glad to see this thread and the awesome new update

1. A complete and polished Mac client.. soon… please…
2. Fix the TP because I literally stopped playing for months because of the TP not working (huge part of how I like to play the game)
3. I know this is in-game but don’t charge for transmutions. After leaving GW2 I went back to WoW literally because of the TP not working and transmutes costing money. If I went through the hard work to get the gear I want why do I have to then pay to make it look how I want it??
4 & 5 – reliable client…

Thank you for the opportunity for us all to at least have a bit of say in what happens to those of us who are Mac players.

1. Graphics performance – The Mac client only works for many of us when running on the very lowest setting. Anything higher leads to crashes:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/support/mac/Game-crashes-every-5-min-am-I-the-only-one/page/2#post2925250
There are several different graphics related errors that are common. dtsbits, LockedRcts, etc.
The artistry in this game is meant to be appreciated, but we really cannot see it because we have to turn so much off just to play the game.
2. Communication – ANET in many ways has been great with communication . . . except the Mac client. Communication for & with this group of players has been seemingly random and intermittent, which as you can see from other comments gives the impression that we are almost completely neglected.
3. Full Screen Support – Lion & Mavericks have very specific functionality for how apps are supposed to work in a full screen mode. It would be really nice if GW2 would adhere to that functionality so those gamers with multi-monitor setups can take advantage of their multiple screens the way they are designed to on a Mac.
4. BLTC – Can I get into the TC today? Does exiting and re-entering help? Not today. Maybe tomorrow, but that means missing out on the sale ending tonight. I guess I won’t spend my money on that after all.
5. Mac client patch testing – I cannot really comment on what you are actually doing since I am not in the office with you all, but it does truly seem as if each patch breaks something on the Mac client. This makes new patches/content something more feared than anticipated. This also works synergistically with #2 to create a less than inviting environment for playing.

I don’t know if a native game client would resolve these issues or not. I personally think that ACTUALLY resolving these problems is more important than HOW you resolve them, but I like to think that a well developed native client would make GW2 the beautiful, smoothly functioning game on a Mac that it usually is on Windows. I know that the Mac population is significantly smaller than the windows population, but perhaps it would help if you all consider this an investment in ANET’s future since APPLE has a significantly growing market share in the personal computing market.

1- Native mac client and all that entails.

2- Barring a native mac client, then an optimised mac client that utilises more of the options to improve performance and get rid of bugs.
—I cannot even play wvw on my new iMac since the EOTM patch fiasco and subsequent ‘fix’. The performance issues prevent me from enjoying it. The fps is really low, there are sound problems in large groups, et cetera.
—My fans often go crazy on my system while playing this game, even while just standing around in town.
—FPS is poor in general compared to the computer hardware I have.
—I feel like i struggle against this client every time I login. It erodes my game experience till I just don’t even want to login anymore despite loving the game.
—Trading post is bugged so often.
—Et cetera

3- A mac specialist on the dev team who spends at least most of her or his time on the mac client.

4- A dedicated QA pass on the Mac client before every patch.

5- Waaaaaaaaaay better communication. Not just these firefighting bits of communication, but ongoing interaction.

I should note that both my husband and I have stopped playing because of the poor state of the Mac client. I login once in a while, but he’s given up till something happens to make it better.

I shall make it simple.

I am running a customised mid 2011 27" IMac with 16GB RAM and a 4GB graphics card and an i7 CPU.

1 – A native client would be awesome!

2 – Sort out the graphics!!!! I load in on OSX and it looks shocking using the current client, I log into windows via bootcamp on the SAME system and it looks how it should be, frikkin awesome!

3 – TP…need I say more? le sigh

4 – Scroll wheel on mouse for zooming! BAIN. OF. MY. LIFE!

5 – ummm, I am going to go with the native client again.

1
I randomly get disconnected and sometimes this happens at the worst time like when I’m in a dungeon or about to win a pvp match
This is very annoying please fix

I wonder if my 13 inch december 2011 macbook pro will ever be able to efficiently play Guild Wars 2. I tend to have a fairly low FPS average.

With the above said, I have a PC at home where I can play the game fairly well, but when on the move, it would be fun to have an interesting alternative.

I tend to mostly explore with my mac, but I have run out of easy places to visit, and it gets bothersome not to be able to manipulate my movements as efficiently as on my PC.

I have noticed that many people say that the bridge you use works like a 32 bit machine. Maybe upgrade that, or see if something can be done to have your work around play smoother.

If ever one day you manage to make the client native, I’d be curious to see the performance upgrade (and thus return to my first point to see if my laptop will ever be able to run somewhat smoothly Guild Wars 2).

1. More fluid updates. Every time there is a major update, some major bug goes unchecked. It would be nice if you guys did the proper testing on the mac client before releasing the update. I understand that it has to be pushed out at the same time as the pc update. I dread even minor game changes because of the unforeseen consequences to us Macsters.

2. Performance issues. I feel like if I ran windows on my mac, the graphics would be able to go a lot higher. I don’t have a cheap system.

3. Client crashing. The game crashes a lot. Especially during world boss events and WvWvW where there are a lot of people in my vicinity, or when I am staring at really detailed scenery. Seems like a graphics issue

4. There is another graphics bug. Sometimes after a loading screen, the images and windows on the screen don’t display properly. I can’t see my toon’s skills, nor can I see the window to swap between fullscreen and window mode (this fixes this bug, but it’s hard to see sometimes)

5. Hire more people to help us out