Guild Wars 2

It’d be great if we could get the daily chest as a reward for each map completion. Even better, if the rewards we receive at the end of each event was based on overall map participation rather than individual participation. It’d encourage the community spirit that GW2 has been known for~

I’m glad Anet is looking at feedback about the event and wanting to improve it! A lot of other companies wouldn’t even acknowledge that it wasn’t going too well with the player base.

Just had this happen to me about an hour ago, a bit after Jormag. The “transfer to more populated server” request appeared, I clicked yes and the game gave me the 5:11:3:159:101 error and kicked me out. I can log onto other characters in other maps no problem, just not with my mesmer in Frostgorge Sound.

HawkEye’s summary is really spot on!

I would recommend the same as other people though; just use whatever you have on you, test out all weapons and just have fun while you work on your way to 80. Become familiar with all of the abilities you have at your disposal while you’re leveling up. That way, you’ll know better what you would like to play with at 80. You can read about it, but nothing is quite as good as first-hand experience.

I love dual axes and played with them for a long time until I started running dungeons, mostly because it was so much fun to use them. I think it’s important to do what makes you enjoy your class the most… and if that means using dual weapons, go for it! Nothing says you HAVE to use specific weapon sets if you’re just running around and having fun.

That being said, dual axe/greatsword is a meta farming build; Whirlwind Attack, Hundred Blades and Whirling Axe are all awesome aoe abilities that let you tag many mobs at once. It comes in fairly useful in a lot of dynamic events.

As for talents, I’d go 6-0-0-6-2. Take Dual Wield, Axe Mastery and Berseker’s Power for Strength; Lung Capacity, Shrug It Off and Vigorous Shouts for Tactics; Inspiring Shouts for Discipline. If you’re going to use a lot of shouts and want to do more DPS, Berserker’s Power and Inspiring Shouts should place nicely with each other. Shrug It Off and Vigorous Shouts would give some good utility for a lot of events where conditions and heals would be welcome.

Gavian Whishaw.2930:

Hi, my name is Gavian and I am the head of production for ArenaNet and I am also a Mac user. I am enjoying the discussion of various development methedologies, and that is something I could talk about endlessly, but I wanted to drop in and let you know what we are doing on the Mac.

Our current focus, like what we are doing right now, is reproducing Mac specific bugs and issues we see reported on the forums and working towards fixes. I will say that it is heartening to see everyone here helping each other out and it helps us out as well.

As has been pointed out, we do have a Mac specific client, it just happens to be using Cider.

We will try and post more to keep you in the loop about issues we had addressed that are Mac specific.

As a side note, for development methedology we use a number of different approaches, depends what the team make up is and what we are trying to accomplish.

Thanks!

Thanks for taking the time to get in touch with us! It’s heartening to know that Anet is trying to fix bugs and that someone as high up as head of production is aware of these problems and concerns.

Taking a bit of time out to let us know we’re not forgotten goes a long, long way. I definitely feel a bit more hopeful to seeing a more stable Mac version in the future and I hope you’ll come back time from time to let us know what the current development status and latest Mac-specific bug fixes are. Cheers!

Ooooh, I’m going to update my client and check it out. I hope I’ll see some improvements. Thanks for the heads up.

EDIT: Just wanted to confirm that I’m getting far better frame rates now. Mine still run a bit low because I’m on a really old laptop, but it’s actually playable now. I hope anet continues to make improvements like this! <3

selno.5320:

In the software development world there are concepts that determine the stages in development, the two main ones are the waterfall model and the agile development model. Google these, as explaining them would take up a lot of this post, but they are using an agile development process which requires customer feedback and that relies on bugs being submitted so they can “iron them out” and this is the process they are in, testing and getting customer feedback and it goes in a loop until a final version is met.

This is not what agile software development is. We used agile in the studio I worked at for a few years and I can tell you that it does not rely on customer feedback regarding bugs. The focus of agile development is creating specific goals and milestones, and collaborating between various departmental teams to get stuff done in the most efficient means necessary. This includes their QA department, which should be actively working throughout the development process to break the game and discover bugs.

Anet does not have a Mac development team, nor do they have an actual Mac client. The game has been out for 2 years now and there is absolutely no way that an agile management system would allow for a beta client to be this broken for such a long time, as evident by how smooth their Windows client is working.

As everyone already said, people are getting incredibly frustrated with Anet over this. I’m usually a very patient and understanding person when it comes to these kind of issues, but even I’m just getting really miffed about the runaround they keep giving us.

JustTrogdor.7892:

I’m not surprised or disappointed. I expected as much. We have been through a few “mac specialists” that didn’t hang around for more than a few weeks.

You and me both. I pretty much expect any Mac specialist to disappear within 1-2 weeks after they show up. It’s been pretty consistent so far. :/

No one here is confused about what beta means; it’s been two years, we want an answer if ArenaNet is going to work on creating a native client or not. It has nothing to do with commitment and everything to do with just wanting an honest answer about what the future holds for those of us using Macs to play GW2. :P

Lacey Hiteshue.4082:

I just wanted to pop in here and let y’all know I haven’t forgotten about you or these forums.

As I mentioned in my original post I am handling the forums on top of my regular job duties. Because of this, things have been a bit slow to get moving, but I am going to try to stop in here more frequently from here on out.

Lastly, I wanted to thank y’all for being such an awesome community! Even though I just started working with y’all, I have spent a lot of time reading through the Mac forums over the last couple of years and it’s nice to see that you guys are just as willing to help each other now, as you were when the forums first opened.

Thank you for the clarification and for the effort and consideration. Knowing there’s at least one person who does think about us Mac users does mean a lot (and definitely helps to kill my cynicism… lol!).

If you’re only supposed to download, install and use beta versions with the intent of testing, what’s that say about the GW2 Mac “client”? ¬_¬ lol

Aries Feathermore.5761:

I wasn’t really expecting much – if you take a look at the forums, you’ll notice that a lot of experienced users are helping others. I think that’s just the way things are going to be. We don’t need a dedicated technical support person, we need someone who will advocate for Mac users, who will encourage the ANET team to start building a client that is actually sufficient.

I appreciate the gesture of having someone browse the Mac forums a little more and provide some inside perspective on the issues users are facing, but I won’t be satisfied until I know, with absolute certainty, that a client is being made for us. Until then, I’m just going to do my best to help people here even though I barely play.

That’s more or less what I meant; someone who advocates for the Mac users; that would show us that ArenaNet actually cares about us and is working towards the creation of a native client.

I think it’s amazing people like you, Aries Feathermore, take the time to help users figure out problems! The community here is fantastic. <3

Only three messages in just over 2 weeks isn’t very inspiring. I was worried that this would end up being another case of pandering to us mac users, sad to see I was right. It’d be nice to see an actual dedicated person for this part of the forums, rather than someone who comes along every other month and sticks around for a couple days. :/

Hi Lacey! Welcome!

I’m happy to see a Mac specialist giving some attention to the forums; seems like there’s a habit of us Mac-users getting some attention for a couple weeks, then nothing. T-T Crai~ Seeing you on here gives me a bit more hope though! I look forward to seeing your future posts!

As far as I’m concerned, Arenanet’s lack of concern for their Mac users stems entirely from their lack of communication with us. They come back when there’s a problem with the Trading Post or Gem Store loading for us, act like they’re going to stick around, and then they vanish after a week or so. When’s the last time this forum has heard from CC Dancia? It doesn’t take this long to clean up a few forum posts. Why bother asking us what our “top 5 wish list” is going to be, and then not even follow up on any of it (major request is more communication from them)?

I know it can take a while to port an entire game into another format, but 2 years without any real major update to the “client” itself, or even so much as any intent on where Anet is going with the Mac client is ridiculous.

The fact it’s been a month and they can’t even clean up some forum posts or at least update the known issues list is just absolutely disappointing. Seems like all communication has pretty much ceased on this part of the forums too. I usually defend Anet and their practices but this is just pathetic. And people wonder why we feel like they don’t care about Mac users? :P

Thankfully we have the above posters who are diligent enough to come up with useful posts for those of us who are willing to look a bit more for it. Thanks guys, it’s appreciated.

Jadjuka.6521:

As seen, with SWTOR, Rift, LOTRO, to name a few, haven’t done well because they cater only to a small number of PC gamers. The games that are Mac compatible however are doing decent if not well, ESO, WoW, GW2, and while Steam isn’t an MMO, they have a decent library of Mac games that are helping them stay afloat.

I just had to chime in here; LotRO actually does have a Mac client and has been doing incredibly well since it went free to play (which was a number of years ago).

Whether or not an MMO does well has little to do with how many platforms it’s released on and more to do with actual gameplay, but I do agree that having a game available on as many platforms as possible does certainly help.

Personally, I do feel that ArenaNet doesn’t care about their Mac users, at least not nearly as much as they do with their PC users. The “beta” cider wrapper was released about 2 years ago and is riddled with errors and bugs. They should have released a native client or a “full” version by now and the lack of updates just feels like they don’t really care much at all. It’d be nice to know if they had plans for a native client or not, at the very least.

Phantom.8130:

Stephen McBeaven.5640:

Phantom.8130:

Will.6210:

Players who are satisfied rarely post about how satisfied they are. Forums generally represent a vocal minority.

Actually…. that’s a myth.

The people who post on the forums are the most passionate about the game. Good companies understand how customer feedback works and pay attention. Bad companies believe the myth and wonder why their customer base is shrinking.

Can you explain this? It sounds like a myth. Also, “the most passionate about the game” is by definition not representative of the majority.

It’s actually basic sociology. If someone was neutral about something, they wouldn’t give any feedback about it either way. They wouldn’t care, so they wouldn’t be bothered. People have to go out of their way to post on the forums. That requires conscious effort. People only put conscious effort into something they care about. Those who post on the forums have made the conscious effort and have gone out of their way to post here about something they feel passionately about, instead of just quietly playing the game.

The most valuable thing any company can get is feedback from their customers. Negative feedback is also far more important than positive feedback, because it shows the company the areas in which they need to improve. Better product, more customers, more money. If they ignore that negative feedback, or actively steer into the skid, the result is a bad product, with fewer and fewer customers wanting to buy it, less and less money every day, possibly ending in bankruptcy.

I just want to chime in here; I am quite passionate about the game but I often don’t really post on the forums. Does that mean I’m not as passionate as someone who does post? I know people who love the game who never even look at the forums because they don’t really like forums. I’m sure not all people who post here are as passionate as you give them credit for… some people just like to kitten. XD

Also, I don’t think Arenanet is ignoring all complaints or negative feedback. I think some issues just take longer than others to fix with their given development timelines.

I logged in just to comment on this… I come on the forums quite frequently but I rarely post; I’m also a lurker, just like the OP.

I completely agree with the sentiment that these forums are a fairly toxic place. I understand how it can be frustrating to voice an opinion and feel that it hasn’t been heard, but that’s no excuse for rudeness. The customer support people that we deal with directly here on these forums are typically people who are not involved in the development process; they are here to help with problems and they likely forward concerns and complaints to the appropriate departments but there’s little else that they can do. If there’s a thousand posts about a specific issue or one, it doesn’t matter; it’s still going to take the same amount of time for Arenanet to fix the issue.

The development cycle for a game of this magnitude is a long one. GW2 has only been out for a little under two years; personally I think that they’ve accomplished quite a lot in that amount of time. The Living Story shouldn’t be written off as a minor update; it’s a massive task on the development side to release content every two weeks, let alone one that gives permanent changes to the world. As a player who got a little bit bored, I was stoked to see something new to do that frequently.

TL;DR version: There’s a difference between legitimate complaint and unnecessary whinging. And there’s a lot of unnecessary whinging on these forums (which isn’t that unique as far as MMO or game forums go in general). :p