Guild Wars 2

I submitted this as a support ticket a while back before I found a workaround; I still haven’t heard of any progress from either Anet or MS on the underlying issue.

In Windows 10 Builds 15002 and newer, the game client must be set in Windows 8 Compatability Mode to play. Leaving it as stock settings causes Windows to mistake the game for a windowed session and results in clicking anywhere on screen returning the user to the desktop.

This has been tested with clean installs of Windows 10 150xx, GW2, and NVIDIA drivers. The issue is consistent and should be reproducible.

Set GW2.exe to Windows 8 compatibility mode until Microsoft gets their shtuff sorted out.

It’s a Windows 10 Update issue.

Right click GW2.exe, Properties, Compatibility → Windows 8

I spent too much time figuring this out for myself. Hope this helps.

This post is about lore and active world perspective, not the Group Event. Please keep remarks germane.

Southsun Island presents a host of problems to the day-to-day operation of Lion’s Arch, specifically involving water-based trade. This could be easily exploited by the storyline writers for use in future content. Here are a few thoughts on the situation presented by a rising island as well as some potential hooks for future usage of said island.

The major straight-shot sea lane to and from Lion’s Arch is now closed, or at least greatly limited. Given the implied boundaries of the Tengu nation to the north and northwest of Southsun Island, there are now only two “clear” shipping lanes:

1) Straight down Bloodtide Coast, through the narrow rocky juts between Mournful Depths and Ocean’s Gullet, through some extremely narrow (possibly too narrow to navigate) stretches and out by the Splintered Coast;

2) Southwest past the Bloodtide Coast, shooting a very narrow gap between Pearl Islet and the currently unmapped peninsula coming off the west side of Sparkfly Fen.

This can be used to the writers’ advantage through the following options:

A) Orr’s major undersea infiltration vector for south Kryta is now blocked. The remaining Orrian forces, still controlled by a few very powerful liches, want to wrest control of the island away from the Consortium and Lionguard and use it as a new base of operations for continued attacks on Lion’s Arch and the surrounding area. Worst of all, they’ve discovered a clutch of Karka eggs and are working on a new, more powerful Risen version…

B) With the rock juts making shipping a dangerous proposition from Bloodtide Coast to Sparkfly Fen, most cargo ships have decided to give the Pearl Islet run a try. Unfortunately, the Covington Pirates were one step ahead and have taken over the Sparkfly Peninsula and lie in wait for a ship to try and shoot the gap unguarded. The Consortium is economically vested in making sure every ship gets through safely – well, most of them are. Is one on the take with the Covington Pirates and feeding them shipping schedules? (Would require opening the passage west from Orvanic Shores in Sparkfly Fen and making the western peninsula a part of the Southsun Island instance).

C) The island rose from Bubbles’ stirring; his full awakening takes out the islets on the eastern portion of the island and opens the gap for easier shipping. Unfortunately, that nice big nest that was halfway blown up in killing the Ancient Karka looks like a great place for his lieutenants to occasionally roost when they’re not swooping down and plucking men, women, and plants from passing ships…

Three hours isn’t six, Killacam. And does Anet providing reparations to everyone who suffered DCs at the hands of their server cheapen your experience?

There seems to be a huge rift on this forum between those lucky enough to finish the event (Generally in the “get over it” category) and those who found themselves victim of the server hardware. I can see both sides of the issue, and there are merits to both.

The point that bears repeating is that a large contingent of players failed to complete the event through no fault of their own, and their investment of time warrants recompense. A “Sorry you DCed, better luck next time” just doesn’t cut it.

I don’t care if I get a Precursor or a few rare/exotic items as I knew those were a roll of the dice on the loot table, but sacrificing a significant portion of my Sunday for the sake of running it three times in hopes of just finishing it once did not sit well with my stomach. Four of those hours, all I have to show for it was a repair bill and a screenshot of where I fell through the floor and died in an inaccessible part of the zone during Run 2’s final fight.

Since the Karka dropped nothing but shells and crab meat, and rarely at that, I feel like I really came out on bottom in the event. A nod by Anet that this was poorly designed & executed and some non-sellable account-bound reparations (i.e. the box and earring) would go a long way towards making many bug victims less hostile.

I just finished my third attempt at making it through the event (only successful attempt, thanks to a sick daughter nuking Try 1 and getting trapped under the floor at the last fight in Try 2). During the roughly 5 hours I spent killing Karka for my 20-slot bag, something hit me – there’s no reason to come back.

One of the things that makes working my alts so fun is that getting them into a new zone means multiple fun things to do (completing hearts, finding waypoints, etc). Unless Anet has a couple cards hidden up their sleeves that we don’t know about, I can’t think of any reason to take any of my alternate characters to Southsun outside of material farming. There’s no emotional connection, no story-driven need to visit; just a quick run to grab the POIs and see if there’s an Oricalchum vein somewhere then it’s off to the next zone.

I hope the Karka were actually a bodyguard race for Bubbles, and that Southsun ends up having something to do with the water dragon. Otherwise, it’s just another bit of map to notch for the Explorer title.

Try changing your UI Size settings. I set my UI to small, and the font aliasing made the Trading Post absolutely unreadable. I had to bump it back up to Normal just to be able to accurately read the prices and descriptions.

The rest of the text scales well, so I am not sure why the BLTP is such a visual mess.

I’m feeling a little vulnerable right now, and the only bit of ease I have is with the two sloppy things whoever got in my account this morning failed to cover up. Fingers are crossed that the support ticket I filed is resolved in my favor.

Long story short, I went to bed early this morning with around ~50s on my main. I logged in to craft this morning and found ~4s. My character was right where I left it when I logged out, and my personal & crafting storage are still intact. I had to offload several items to BLTP just to have the cash to map travel for harvesting tasks.

Here’s where they messed up:

Upon logging in, the Friend screen was open on my Character Select page. My two guildmates were removed and replaced with a name I did not recognize (name withheld here, submitted to Support). My game mail tab had an email received and opened around 7:00 am, two hours before I woke up and logged in. That name has also been submitted to support.

I use a password for my account that is unique to all other logins, regularly scan my hard drive for viruses, malware, rootkits, etc, practice safe browsing, and have my home network tightly locked down. In a decade of gaming, nothing like this has ever happened to me and it’s left me scratching my head.

Yes, I changed my password again upon discovering the incursion. It’s unique as well.

Money comes and goes and it will be made back up whether Anet restores my lost balance or not. Having to be so judicious with map travel in the meantime will be annoying, but such is the nature with this game. I’m most upset about the fact that I’ve been compromised despite taking a high level of care to maintain a secure environment. Argh.

Fingers are crossed for a quick resolution and reply from Support. Check your balances when you log in, folks; don’t let this happen to you.